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Matthew 3:4. Αὐτός] ipse autem Johannes, the historical person himself, who is intended (Matthew 3:3) by that φωνή of Isaiah.

εἶχε … καμήλου] He had his (distinctive, constantly worn) robe of camels’ hair. The reading is αὐτοῦ, which is neither to be written αὑτοῦ (it is used from the standpoint of the narrator, and without any reflective emphasis), nor is it superfluous. Whether are we to think of a garment of camels’ skin, or a coarse cloth of camels’ hair? Er. Schmid and Fritzsche are of the former opinion. But as hair alone is expressly mentioned as the material[378] (comp. also Mark 1:6), the latter is to be preferred. Even at the present day coarse cloth is prepared from camels’ hair for clothing and for covering tents. See Harmar, III. p. 356. Of clothes made from the hides of camels (probably, however, from sheep and goatskins, compare Hebrews 11:37) there is not a trace to be found among either ancient or modern Oriental saints (Harmar, III. p. 374 ff.).

ΔΕΡΜΑΤΊΝΗΝ] not of a luxurious material, but like Elijah, 2 Kings 1:8, whose copy he was (comp. Ewald, Gesch. d. Volks Isr. III. p. 529). Dress and food are in keeping with the asceticism of the Baptist, and thereby with the profound earnestness of his call to μετάνοια. “Habitus quoque et victus Johannis praedicabat,” Bengel.

ἀκρίδες] Several kinds of locusts were eaten, Leviticus 11:22. Comp. Plin. N. H. vi. 35, xi. 32, 35. This is still the custom in the East, especially amongst the poorer classes and the Bedouins. The wings and legs are torn off, and the remainder is sprinkled with salt, and either boiled or eaten roasted. Niebuhr, Reise, I. p. 402; Harmar, I. p. 274 f.; Rosenmüller, altes und neues Morgenl. in loco. The conjectures of the older writers, who, deeming this food unworthy of John, have substituted sometimes cakes (ἐγκριδες),[379] sometimes crabs (καρίδες), or fruits of the nut kind (ἀκρόδρυα) and other articles, deserve no consideration.

μέλι ἄγριον] Commonly: honey prepared by wild bees, which in the East flows out of the clefts of the rocks. Euth. Zigabenus: τὸ ἐν ταῖς τῶν πετρῶν σχισμαῖς ὑπὸ τῶν μελισσῶν γεωργούμενον. Bochart, Hieroz. II. 4. 12; Suicer, Thes. II. p. 330; Ewald, Gesch. Isr. III. p. 50. It is still frequently found in abundance at the present day in the Jewish wilderness. Schulz, Leitungen d. Höchsten auf den Reisen durch Eur. As. Afr. V. p. 133; Rosenmüller, I. 1, p. 7; Oedmann, Sammlungen aus d. Naturk. zur Erkl. d. heil. Schr. VI. p. 136 f. Others (Suidas, Salmasius, Reland, Michaelis, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Schegg, Bleek, Volkmar) understand tree honey, a substance of the nature of honey which issues from palms, figs, and other trees. Diod. Sic. xix. 94; Wesseling in loc.; Plin. N. H. xv. 7; Suidas, s.v. ἀκρίς. Comp. Heyne, ad Virg. Ecl. iv. 30. Similarly, Polyaenus, iv. 3. 32: τὸ ὕον μέλι, the Persian manna. This explanation of tree honey is to be preferred, as, according to Diod. Sic. l.c. and Suidas, the predicate ἄγριον, as terminus technicus, actually designates this honey, whilst the expression μέλι ἄγριον cannot be proved to be employed of the honey of wild bees (which, moreover, is the common honey).

[378] Comp. Josephus, Bell. Jud. xvii. 24. 3 : ὡς ἀντὶ τῶν βασιλικῶν ἐν τάχει περιθήσουσιν ἑαυταῖς ἐκ τριχῶν πεποιημένας.

[379] Epiph. Haer. xxx. 13 quotes from the Gospel according to the Hebrews: καὶ τὸ βρῶμα αὐτοῦ, φήσι, μέλι ἄγριον, οὗ ἡ γεῦσις ἦν τοῦ μάννα ὡς ἐγκρὶς ἐν ἐλαίῳ (conjecture: ἐν μέλιτι). A confusion has here been supposed between ἀκρίδες and ἐγκρίδες, and it has been inferred that that Gospel was derived from Greek sources, especially from the Greek Matthew. So also Credner, Beitr. I. p. 344 f.; Bleek, Beitr. p. 61; Harless, Erl. Weihnachtsprogr. 1841, p. 21. Comp. Delitzsch, Entsteh. u. Anl. d. kanon. Ev. I. p. 20. But that passage from the Gospel to the Hebrews contains only one kind of sustenance employed by John, the μέλι ἄγριον, the taste of which is described according to Exodus 16:31, Numbers 11:8. The Ebionites altogether omitted the locusts, as being animal food, but did not substitute, as Epiphanius erroneously supposes, ἐγκρίδες for ἀκρίδες. The resemblance of the tree honey to the manna could not but be welcome to their Jewish point of view; but because the word ἐγκρίς occurs in the books of Moses in the description of its taste, they adopted it; this has no relation whatever to our ἀκρίδες.

Matthew 3:5. Ἡ περίχωρος τοῦ Ἰορδάνου] כִּכַּר הַוַּרְדֵן, Genesis 13:10-11; 1 Kings 7:47; 2 Chronicles 4:17. The country on both sides of the Jordan, now Elgor, see Robinson, Pal. II. p. 498 ff. Comp. Lightfoot, Hor. p. 216. The whole passage conveys an impression of solemnity, with which also the naming of the town and district, instead of the inhabitants (Nägelsbach on the Iliad, p. 103 ff. ed. 3), is connected. The baptism of John has been erroneously regarded as a modified application of the Jewish baptism of proselytes. So Selden (Jus. nat. Matthew 2:2), Lightfoot (Hor. p. 220 ff.), Danz (in Meuschen, N. T. ex Talm. ill. pp. 233 ff., 287 ff.), Ziegler (theol. Abh. II. p. 132 ff.), Eisenlohr (hist. Bemerk. üb. d. Taufe, 1804), Kaiser (bibl. Theol. II. p. 160), Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Bengel, üb. d. Alter d. Jüd. Proselytent. 1814. For the baptism of proselytes, the oldest testimony to which occurs in the Gemara Babyl. Jebamoth xlvi. 2, and regarding which Philo, Josephus, and the more ancient Targumists are altogether silent, did not arise till after the destruction of Jerusalem. Schneckenburger, üb. d. Alter der Jüd. Proselytent. u. deren Zusammenst. m. d. joh. u. chr. Ritus, 1828; Paulus, exeg. Handb. I. p. 307 ff. The reception of proselytes was accomplished, so long as the temple stood, by means of circumcision and the presentation of a sacrifice, which was preceded, like every sacrifice, by a lustration, which the proselyte performed on himself. It is not, however, with this lustration merely, but chiefly with the religious usages of the Jews as regards washings, and their symbolical meaning (Genesis 35:2; Exodus 19:10; Numbers 19:7; Numbers 19:19; 1 Samuel 16:5; Jdt 12:7), that the baptism of John has its general point of connection in the history of the people, although it is precisely as baptism, and accompanied by the confession of sin, that it appears only as something new given to this dawn of the Messiah’s kingdom, under the excitement of the divine revelation, of which John was the bearer. Venerable prophetic pictures and allusions, like Isaiah 1:16; Isaiah 4:4; Isaiah 44:24, Ezekiel 36:25, Zechariah 13:1, Psalm 51:4, might thus serve to develope it still further in the soul of this last of the prophets. What was symbolized in the baptism of John was the μετάνοια. Comp. Josephus, Antt. xviii. 5. 2.[380] To this, however, the immersion of the whole of the baptized person, as the μετάνοια, was to purify the whole man, corresponded with profound significance, and to this the specifically Christian view of the symbolic immersion and emersion afterwards connected itself (Romans 6:3 ff.; Titus 3:5) by an ethical necessity.

ἘΞΟΜΟΛΟΓ.] In the same way as in the case of the sin-offering (Leviticus 16:21 ff.; Numbers 5:7), and in general to be taken as a venerable pre-condition of divine grace and blessing, Psalm 32:5; Psalm 51:1 ff.; Ezra 9:6; Daniel 9:5.

The participle is not to be taken as if it were conditional (Fritzsche: “si … confiterentur”), as the subjection to this condition, in the case of every one who came to be baptized, is necessarily required as a matter of course; but: they were baptized whilst they confessed, during the confession, which is conceived as connected with the act of baptism itself. Whether is it a summary or a specific confession which is intended? Both may have taken place, varying always according to the individuals and their relations. The compound, however (Josephus, Antt. viii. 4. 6; passages in Philo; see in Loesner), expresses, as also in Acts 19:18, Jam 5:16, an open confession.

[380] See this passage of Josephus above on ver. 2. Without any reason has this meaning been discovered in it, that John viewed his baptism as a means of covenant, by explaining βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι to mean: to unite through or for baptism (Strauss, Keim, Hausrath). The meaning of the passage is rather: John commanded the Jews to be wise in the exercise of virtue, and so on (sapere, comp. Romans 3:11; 2 Corinthians 10:12), by means of baptism.

Matthew 3:7. The Pharisees (from פָּרַשׁ, separavit, the separated ones, διὰ τὴν ἐθελοπερισσοθρησκείαν, Epiphanius, Haer. i. 16) received, besides the law, also tradition; taught the doctrine of fate, without, however, denying the freedom of the will; of immortality, and that in the case of pious persons, in pure bodies; of good and evil angels, and were, in all the strictness of external righteousness, according to law and statute, the crafty, learned, patriotic, and powerful supporters of the degenerate orthodoxy. The Sadducees[381] recognised merely the written law, and that not only of the Pentateuch, but of the whole of the O. T., although according to the strict exposition of the letter, and to the exclusion of tradition; they denied the existence of higher spirits, of fate and personal immortality, and adhered to a strict code of morals; they had less authority with the people than the exclusive orthodox Pharisees, against whom they formed a decided party of opposition, but had much influence over men of rank and wealth. The strictly closed order of Essenes, in its separation from the world and the temple, as well as in its ascetic self-satisfaction and self-sanctification, the quiet separatistic holy ones of the land, connected together by community of goods, and under obligation, besides, daily to perform holy lustrations, kept themselves far away from the movement evoked by John.

Observe that the article is not repeated before Σαδδουκ., because they are conceived as forming, along with the Pharisees, one unworthy category. “Nempe repetitur articulus, ubi distinctio logica aut emphatica ita postulat,” Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 574.

ἐπί] not contra (Olearius), which would be quite opposed to the context, but telic, in order to be baptized; comp. Luke 23:48. Why should the Pharisees and Sadducees not also have come to baptism, since they shared with the people the hope of the Messiah, and must have felt also on their part the extraordinary impression made by the appearance of John, and the excitement awakened by it, and, in keeping with their moral conceit, would easily enough have compounded with the confession of sins? It is, however, already probable à priori, and certain, by means of Luke 7:30, that they, at least so far as the majority were concerned, did not allow themselves to be baptized, although they had come with this intention, but were repelled in terror by the preaching of repentance and punishment, Matthew 3:8 ff.

There exists, therefore, no variation between this and Luke 7:30; the Pharisees and Sadducees are no addition by Matthew (Ewald, Holtzmann), and neither is Matthew to be blamed for committing a historical mistake, occasioned by John 1:24 (Schneckenburger, Bleek), nor is Luke to be charged with want of originality in this section (de Wette). But the former relates with more minuteness than Luke (Matthew 3:7 : τοῖς … ὄχλοις) in separating the persons in question from the mass along with whom they came.

γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν] cunning, malignant men! Matthew 12:34, Matthew 23:33; Isaiah 14:29; Isaiah 59:5; Psalm 58:5; Wetstein on the passage. Comp. Dem. 799. 4 : πικρὸν καὶ ἔχιν τὴν φύσιν ἄνδρωπον.

τῆς μελλούσης ὀργῆς] is to be understood of the divine wrath which is revealed at the Messianic judgment (Romans 2:5; 1 Thessalonians 1:10). The common belief of the Jews referred this to the heathen (Bertholdt, Christol. pp. 203 ff., 223 ff.). John, however, to the godless generally, who would not repent. The wrath of God, however, established as a unity in the holy nature of the divine love as its inseparable correlate, is not the punishment itself, but the holy emotion of absolute displeasure with him who opposes His gracious will, and from this the punishment proceeds as a necessary manifestation of righteousness. The revelation of the divine wrath is not limited to the last judgment (Romans 1:18; 1 Thessalonians 2:16; Luke 21:23), but in it attains its consummation. Comp. Romans 1:18 and Ephesians 2:3, and so on, especially Ritschl, de ira Dei,[382] 1859; Bartholomaei in the Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1861, II. p. 256 ff.; Weber, vom Zorne Gottes, 1862.

φυγεῖν ἀπό] is, like בָּרַה מִן (Isaiah 48:20; Isaiah 24:18), constructio praegnans: to flee away from, Matthew 23:33; Mark 16:8; John 10:11; Hom. Od. xii. 120: φυγέειν κάρτιστον ἀπʼ αὐτῆς, Xen. Mem. ii. 6. 31; Plat. Phaed. p. 62 D. The infinitive aorist designates the activity as momentary, setting forth the point of time when the wrath breaks forth, in which the flight also is realized. Meaning of the question: Nobody can have instructed you, that you should escape. Comp. Matthew 23:33 : πῶς φύγητε.

[381] Epiphanius, Haer. i. 14 : ἐπονομάζουσι ἑαυτοὺς Σαδδουκαίους δῆθεν ἀπὸ δικαιοσύνης τῆς ἐπικλήσεως ὁρμωμένης. The Jewish tradition derives it from the proper name Zadok. R. Nathan, ad Pirke Aboth, i. 3. The latter is to be preferred, with Ewald, Geiger, Hitzig, and others; see Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 275. Hausrath, Zeitgesch. I. p. 118. That name, however, is to be understood as that of an old and distinguished priestly family; 2 Samuel 7:17; 2 Samuel 15:24; Ezekiel 48:11; 1Ma 7:14.

[382] Who determines the conception, p. 24, thus: “Certum argumentum justitiae divinae ab humana diversae, quatenus valet ad defendendum adversus homines contumaciter Deo fidem denegantes finem ejus summum et absolutum, per Christum cum genere humano communicatum.”

Matthew 3:8. Οὖν] Deduction from what precedes. In your impenitent condition you cannot escape from the wrath; proceed then to exhibit that morality of conduct which is appropriate to the change of mind as its result. Instead of your unrepentant condition, I require of you a practical repentance, the hindrance and opposition to which arises from your overweening conceit as children of Abraham (Matthew 3:9). What John here requires applied, indeed, to the people in general, but was especially appropriate to their scholastic leaders.

τῆς μετανοίας is governed by ἄξιον (Acts 26:20); on καρπὸν ποιεῖν, like עֲשׂוֹת פְרִי (occurring likewise in Greek writers), borrowed from fruit-trees, comp. Matthew 7:17 f. al.; καρποποιός, Eur. Rhes. 964; καρπ. is collective, Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:9; Php 1:11.

Matthew 3:9. Δόξητε] Do not allow yourselves to suppose, do not say to yourselves, 1 Corinthians 11:16; Php 3:4.

λέγειν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς] אָמַר בְּלִבּוֹ, cogitare secum. It objectively represents reflection as the language of the mind. Psalm 4:5, Psalm 10:6. Psalm 14:1; Matthew 9:21; Luke 3:8; Luke 7:49. Delitzsch, Psych, p. 180 [E. T. 213]. Comp. λέγειν πρὸς ἑαυτόν in Plat. Phaed. p. 88 C.

πατέρα … Ἀβραάμ] The Jews of the common sort and their party leaders believed that the descendants of Abraham would, as such, become participators of salvation in the Messiah’s kingdom, because Abraham’s righteousness would be reckoned as theirs. Sanhedrin, f. 901: לכל ישראל יש להם חלק לעולם הבא. Bereschith, R. xviii. 7. Wetstein on the passage. Bertholdt, Christol. p. 206 ff. Comp. in the N. T., especially John 8:33 ff.

ὅτι δύναται, κ.τ.λ.] God is able, notwithstanding your descent from Abraham, to exclude you from the Messiah’s salvation; and, on the other hand, to create and bring forth out of these stones, which lie here around on the bank of the Jordan, such persons as are GENUINE children of Abraham,—that is, as Euth. Zigabenus strikingly expresses it: οἱ τὰς ἀρετὰς αὐτοῦ μιμούμενοι καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς αὐτῷ καταξιούμενοι μερίδος ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν. Comp. Romans 4; Romans 9:6 ff.; Galatians 4; John 8:39 f. It is an anticipation, however, to find the calling of the heathen here indicated. It follows first from this axiom.

Matthew 3:10. Already, however (it is then high time), is the decision near at hand, according to which the unworthy are excluded from Messiah’s kingdom, and are consigned to Gehenna.

In ἤδη is contained the thought that the hearers did not yet expect this state of things; see Baeumlein, Partik. p. 139; the presents ἐκκόπτεται and βάλλεται denote what is to happen at once and certainly, with demonstrative definiteness, not the general idea: is accustomed to be hewn down, against which οὖν is decisive (in answer to Fritzsche), the meaning of which is: “that, as a consequence of this, the axe, etc., every tree will be, and so on.” See upon the present, Dissen, ad Pind. Nem. iv. 39 f., p. 401.

Matthew 3:11. Yet it is not I who will determine the admission or the exclusion, but He who is greater than I. In Luke 3:16 there is a special reason assigned for this discourse, in keeping with the use of a more developed tradition on the part of the later redactor.

εἰς μετάνοιαν] denotes the telic reference of the baptism (comp. Matthew 28:19), which imposes an obligation to μετάνοια. To the characteristic ἐν ὕδατι εἰς μετάνοιαν stands opposed the higher characteristic ἐν πνευματι ἁγίῳ κ. πυρί, the two elements of which together antithetically correspond to that “baptism by water unto repentance;” see subsequently.

ἐν is, agreeably to the conception of βαπτίζω (immersion), not to be taken as instrumental, but as in, in the meaning of the element, in which immersion takes place. Mark 1:5; 1 Corinthians 10:2; 2 Kings 5:14; Polyb. v. 47. 2 : βαπτιζόμενοι ἐν τοῖς τέλμασι; Hom. Od. ix. 392.

ὁ δὲ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος] that is, the Messiah. His coming as such is always brought forward with great emphasis in Mark and Luke. The present here also denotes the near and definite beginning of the future.

ἰσχυρότ. μου ἐστίν] In what special relation he is more powerful is stated afterwards by αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει, κ.τ.λ.

οὗ οὐκ εἰμί, κ.τ.λ.] In comparison with Him, I am too humble to be fitted to be one of His lowest slaves. To bear the sandals of their masters (βαστάσαι), that is, to bring and take them away, as well as to fasten them on or take them off (the latter in Mark and Luke), was amongst the Jews, Greeks, and Romans the business of slaves of the lowest rank. See Wetstein, Rosenmüller, Morgenl. in loc.; comp. Talmud, Kiddusch. xxii. 2.

αὐτός] He and no other, Matthew 1:21.

ὑμᾶς] was spoken indeed to the Pharisees and Sadducees; but it is not these only who are meant, but the people of Israel in general, who were represented to the eye of the prophet in them, and in the multitude who were present.

ἐν πν. ἁγ. κ. πυρί] in the Holy Spirit, those who have repented; in fire (by which that of Gehenna is meant), the unrepentant. Both are figuratively designated as βαπτίζειν, in so far as both are the two opposite sides of the Messianic lustration, by which the one are sprinkled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 1:5), the others with hell-fire, as persons baptized are with water. It is explained as referring to the fire of everlasting punishment, after Origen and several Fathers, by Kuinoel, Schott (Opusc. II. p. 198), Fritzsche, Neander, de Wette, Paulus, Ammon, B. Crusius, Arnoldi, Hofmann, Bleek, Keim, Volkmar, Hengstenberg, Weber, vom Zorne Gottes, p. 219 f.; Gess, Christi Vers. u. Werk, I. p. 310. But, after Chrysostom and most Catholic expositors, others (Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Clericus, Wetstein, Storr, Eichhorn, Kauffer, Olshausen, Glöckler, Kuhn, Ewald) understand it of the fire of the Holy Spirit, which inflames and purifies the spirits of men. Comp. Isaiah 4:4. These and other explanations, which take πυρί as not referring to the punishments of Gehenna, are refuted by John’s own decisive explanation in Matthew 3:12 : τὸ δὲ ἄχυρον κατακαύσει πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ. It is wrong, accordingly, to refer the πυρί to the fiery tongues in Acts 2. (Euth. Zigabenus, Maldonatus, Elsner, Er. Schmid, Bengel, Ebrard). The omission of καὶ πυρί is much too weakly attested to delete it, with Matthaei and Rinck, Lucubr. crit. p. 248. See Griesbach, Comm. crit. p. 25 f.

Matthew 3:12. And fire, I say; for what a separation will it make!

οὗ] assigns a reason, like our: He whose [German, Er, dessen]. See Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 371; Kühner, II. p. 939. It is not, however, as Grotius, Bengel, Storr, Kuinoel think, pleonastic, but the literal translation is to be closely adhered to: whose fan is in his hand; that is, he who has his (to him peculiar, comp. Matthew 3:4) fan in his hand ready for use. Comp LXX. Isaiah 9:5. According to Fritzsche, ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ is epexegetical: “cujus erit ventilabrum, sc. in manu ejus.” But such epexegetical remarks, which fall under the point of view of Appositio partitiva, stand, as they actually occur, in the same case with the general word, which they define more minutely (οὗ τὸ πτύον, τῆς χειρὸς αὐτοῦ). See Ephesians 3:5, and remarks in loc.

ἅλωνα] ἅλως (Xen. Oec. xviii. 6; Dem. 1040. 23), in Greek writers commonly after the Attic declension, is the same as נֹּרֶן, a circular firmly-trodden place upon the field itself, where the grain is either trodden out by oxen, or thrashed out by thrashing machines drawn by oxen. Keil, Arch. II. p. 114; Robinson, III. p. 370. Similarly in Greek writers; see Hermann, Privatalterth. xv. 6, xxiv. 3. The floor is cleansed in this way, that the seed grains and the pounded straw and similar refuse are not allowed to lie upon it indiscriminately mingled together, in the state in which the threshing has left this unclean condition of the floor, but the grain and refuse are separated from each other in order to be brought to the place destined for them. In the figure, the floor, which belongs to the Messiah, is not the church (Fathers and many others), nor mankind (de Wette), nor the Jewish nation (B. Crusius), but, because the place of the Messiah’s activity must be intended (Ewald), and that, according to the national determination of the idea of the Baptist, the holy land, as the proper sphere of the work of the Messiah, not the world in general (Bleek), as would have to be assumed according to the Christian fulfilment of the idea. In accordance with this view, we must neither, with Zeger, Fischer, Kuinoel, de Wette, explain τ. ἅλωνα, according to the alleged Hebrew usage (Job 39:12; Ruth 3:2), as the grain upon the floor; nor, with Fritzsche, regard the cleansing as effected, removendo inde frumentum, which is an act that does not follow until the floor has been cleansed. The διακαθαρίζειν, to purify thoroughly, which is not preserved anywhere except in Luke 2:17, designates the cleansing from one end to the other; in classical writers διακαθαίρειν, Plat. Pol. iii. pp. 399 E, 411 D; Alciphr. iii. 26.

ἀποθήκην] place for storing up, magazine. The grain stores (σιτόβολιον, Polyb. iii. 100. 4; θησαυροὶ σίτου, Strabo, xii. p. 862; σιτοδόκη, Pollux) were chiefly dry subterranean vaults. Jahn, Archäol. I. 1, p. 376.

ἄχυρον] not merely chaff in the narrower sense of the word (מֹץ), but all those portions of the stalk and ear which contain no grain, which are torn in pieces by the threshing, and remain over (חֶּכֶן), Herod. iv. 72; Xen. Oec. xvii. 1, 6. f.; Genesis 24:25; Exodus 5:7. These were used as fuel. Mishna tract, Schabbath ii. 1; Parah. iv. 3. Paulsen, vom Ackerbau der Morgenl. p. 150.

The sense, apart from figurative language, is: The Messiah will receive into His kingdom those who are found worthy (comp. Matthew 13:30); but upon the unworthy He will inflict in full the everlasting punishments of Gehenna. Comp. Mal. 3:19.

ἀσβέστῳ] which is not quenched (Hom. Il. xvii. 89; Pind. Isthm. iii. 72; Dion. Hal. Antt. i. 76, corresponding to the thing portrayed; comp. Isaiah 66:24). Not, therefore: which is not extinguished till all is consumed (Paulus, Bleek).

REMARK.

John 1:26 is not to be regarded as parallel with Matthew 3:12, for, according to John, the Baptist speaks after the baptism of Jesus, and to the members of the Sanhedrim. And doubtless he had often given expression to his testimony regarding Christ, who was the point which the prophet had in view in his preaching of repentance and baptism.

That he is not yet definitely designated in Matthew as Elijah (Luke 1:17; Matthew 11:10; Matthew 11:14), is rightly regarded as an evidence of the truth of the gospel narrative, which has not anticipated the subsequently developed representation of John. To relegate, however, the announcement of the Messiah from the preaching of the Baptist into the realm of legend (Strauss) is a mockery of the entire evangelical testimony, and places it below the narrative of Josephus, which was squared according to the ideas of political prudence (Antt. xviii. 5. 2).