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Matthew 5:33-37. Fourth illustration: concerning oaths. A new theme, therefore formally introduced as in Matthew 5:21. πάλιν points to a new series of illustrations (Weiss, Mt.-Evan., p. 165). The first series is based on the Decalogue. Thou shalt not swear falsely (Leviticus 19:12), and thou shalt perform unto the Lord thy vows (Numbers 30:3 : Deuteronomy 23:22)—what is wrong in these dicta? Nothing save what is left unsaid. The scribes misplaced the emphasis. They had a great deal to say, in sophistical style, of the oaths that were binding and not binding, nothing about the fundamental requirement of truth in the inward parts. Again, therefore, Jesus goes back on the previous question: Should there be any need for oaths?

Matthew 5:34. ὅλως: emphatic = παντελῶς, don’t swear at all. Again an unqualified statement, to be taken not in the letter as a new law, but in the spirit as inculcating such a love of truth that so far as we are concerned there shall be no need of oaths. In civil life the most truthful man has to take an oath because of the untruth and consequent distrust prevailing in the world, and in doing so he does not sin against Christ’s teaching. Christ Himself took an oath before the High Priest (Matthew 26:63). What follows (Matthew 5:34-36) is directed against the casuistry which laid stress on the words τῷ κυρίῳ, and evaded obligation by taking oaths in which the divine name was not mentioned: by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or by one’s own head. Jesus points out that all such oaths involved a reference to God. This is sufficiently obvious in the case of the first three, not so clear in case of the fourth.—λευκὴν ἢ μέλαιναν: white is the colour of old age, black of youth. We cannot alter the colour of our hair so as to make our head look young or old. A fortiori we cannot bring on our head any curse by perjury, of which hair suddenly whitened might be the symbol. Providence alone can blast our life. The oath by the head is a direct appeal to God. All these oaths are binding, therefore, says Jesus; but what I most wish to impress on you is: do not swear at all. Observe the use of μήτε (not μηδέ) to connect these different evasive oaths as forming a homogeneous group. Winer, sect. Leviticus 6, endorses the view of Herrmann in Viger that οὔτε and μήτε are adjunctival, οὐδέ and μηδέ disjunctival, and says that the latter add negation to negation, while the former divide a single negation into parts. Jesus first thinks of these evasive oaths as a bad class, then specifies them one after the other. Away with them one and all, and let your word be ναὶ ναί, οὒ οὔ. That is, if you want to give assurance, let it not be by an oath, but by simple repetition of your yes and no. Grotius interprets: let your yea or nay in word be a yea or nay in deed, be as good as your word even unsupported by an oath. This brings the version of Christ’s saying in Mt. into closer correspondence with Jam 5:12—ἤτω τὸ Ναί ναὶ, καὶ τὸ Οὔ οὔ. Beza, with whom Achelis (Bergpredigt) agrees, renders, “Let your affirmative discourse be a simple yea, and your negative, nay”.—τὸ δὲ περισσὸν, the surplus, what goes beyond these simple words.—ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ, hardly “from the evil one,” though many ancient and modern interpreters, including Meyer, have so understood it. Meyer says the neuter “of evil” gives a very insipid meaning. I think, however, that Christ expresses Himself mildly out of respect for the necessity of oaths in a world full of falsehood. I know, He means to say, that in certain circumstances something beyond yea and nay will be required of you. But it comes of evil, the evil of untruthfulness. See that the evil be not in you. Chrysostom (Hom. xvii.) asks: How evil, if it be God’s law? and answers: Because the law was good in its season. God acted like a nurse who gives the breast to an infant and afterwards laughs at it when it wants it after weaning.

Matthew 5:38-42. Fifth illustration, from the law of compensation.

Matthew 5:38 contains the theme, he following vv. Christ’s comment.—Ὀφθαλμὸν … ὀδόντος. An exact quotation from Exodus 21:24. Christ’s criticism here concerns a precept from the oldest code of Hebrew law. Fritzsche explains the accusatives, ὀφθαλμὸν, ὀδόντα, by supposing εἶναι to be understood: “Ye have heard that Moses wrote that an eye shall be for an eye”. The simplest explanation is that the two nouns in the original passage are under the government of δώσει, Exodus 21:23. (So Weiss and Meyer after Grotius.) Tersely expressed, a sound principle or civil law for the guidance of the judge, acted on by almost all peoples: Christ does not condemn it: if parties come before the judge, let him by all means give fair compensation for injuries received. He simply leaves it on one side. “Though the judge must give redress when demanded, you are not bound to ask it, and if you take My advice you will not.” In taking up this position Jesus was in harmony with the law itself, which contains dissuasives against vindictiveness, e.g., Leviticus 19:18 : “Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people”. The fault of the scribes did not lie in gainsaying this and introducing the justalionis into private life, but in giving greater prominence to the legal than to the ethical element in the O. T. teaching, and in occupying themselves mainly with discussing the casuistry of compensation, e.g., the items to be compensated for in a case of wounding—the pain, the cure, the loss of time, the shame, etc., and the money value of the whole. Jesus turned the minds of His disciples away from these trivialities to the great neglected ethical commonplace.

Matthew 5:39. μὴ ἀντιστῆναι: resist not, either by endeavouring to prevent injury or by seeking redress for it.—τῷ πονηρῷ, not the devil, as Chrys. and Theophy. thought; either the evil doer or the evil doing or done. Opinion is much divided between the last two meanings. The sense is the same in either case. The A. V[28] takes πονηρῷ as neuter, the R. V[29] as masculine. The former is on the whole to be preferred. Instances of injury in various forms are next specified to illustrate the general precept. These injuries have been variously distinguished—to body, and property, and freedom, Tholuck; exemplum citatur injuriae, privatae, forensis, curialis, Bengel; injuries connected with honour, material good, waste of time, Achelis, who points out that the relation of the three, Ex. in Matthew 5:39-41, is that of an anti-climax, injuries to honour being felt most, and those involving waste of time least.—ὅστις … ἄλλην. In the following instances there is a climax: injury proceeds from bad to worse. It is natural to expect the same in this one. But when the right cheek has been struck, is it an aggravation to strike the left? Tholuck, Bleek, and Meyer suggest that the right cheek is only named first according to common custom, not supposed to be struck first. Achelis conceives the right cheek to be struck first with the back of the hand, then the left with a return stroke with the palm, harder than the first, and expressing in a higher measure intention to insult.—ῥαπίζω in class. Greek = to beat with rods; later, and in N. T., to smite with the palm of the hand; vide Lobeck, Phryn., p. 175.

[28] Authorised Version.

[29] Revised Version.

Matthew 5:40, κριθῆναι = κρίνεσθαι in 1 Corinthians 6:1, to sue at law as in A. V[30] Grotius takes it as meaning extra-judicial strife, while admitting that the word is used in the judicial sense in the Sept[31], e.g., Job 9:3, Ecclesiastes 6:10. Beza had previously taken the same view.—χιτῶνα, ἱμάτιον. The contention is supposed to be about the under garment or the tunic, and the advice is, rather than go to law, let him have not only it but also, καὶ, the more costly upper robe, mantle, toga. The poor man might have several tunics or shirts for change, but only one upper garment, used for clothing by day, for bed-cover by night, therefore humanely forbidden to be retained over night as a pledge, Exodus 22:26.

[30] Authorised Version.

[31] Septuagint.

Matthew 5:41. ἀλλαρεύσει: compel thee to go one mile in A. V[32] and R. V[33] Hatch (Essays in Biblical Greek, p. 37) thinks it means compel thee to carry his baggage, a very probable rendering in view of the history of the word as he gives it. A Persian word, originally, introduced into the Greek, Latin, and Rabbinic languages, it denoted first to requisition men, beasts, or conveyances for the courier system described in Herod. viii. 98, Xen. Cyr. viii. 6, 17; next in post-classical use under the successors of the Persians in the East, and under the Roman Empire, it was applied to the forced transport of military baggage by the inhabitants of a country through which troops were passing. Hatch remarks: “The extent to which this system prevailed is seen in the elaborate provisions of the later Roman law: angariae came to be one of those modes of taxing property which, under the vicious system of the empire, ruined both individuals and communities”. An instance in N. T. of the use of the word in this later sense occurs in Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, in reference to Simon compelled to carry Christ’s cross. We may conceive the compulsion in the present case to proceed from a military man.—μίλιον, a Roman mile, about 1600 yards, a late word.—δύο, in point of time, the additional mile = two, there and back, with proportional fatigue, a decided climax of hardship. But it is not merely a question of time, as Achelis thinks. The sense of oppression is involved, subjection to arbitrary military power. Christ’s counsel is: do not submit to the inevitable in a slavish, sullen spirit, harbouring thoughts of revolt. Do the service cheerfully, and more than you are asked. The counsel is far-reaching, covering the case of the Jewish people subject to the Roman yoke, and of slaves serving hard masters. The three cases of non-resistance are not meant to foster an abject spirit. They point out the higher way to victory. He that magnanimously bears overcomes.

[32] Authorised Version.

[33] Revised Version.

Matthew 5:42. This counsel does not seem to belong to the same category as the preceding three. One does not think of begging or borrowing as an injury, but at most as a nuisance. Some have doubted the genuineness of the logion as a part of the Sermon. But it occurs in Luke’s redaction (Matthew 6:30), transformed indeed so as to make it a case of the sturdy beggar who helps himself to what he does not get for the asking. Were there idle, lawless tramps in Palestine in our Lord’s time, and would He counsel such treatment of them? If so, it is the extreme instance of not resisting evil.—μὴ ἀποστραφῇς with τὸν θέλοντα in accusative. One would expect the genitive with the middle, the active taking an accusative with genitive, e.g., 2 Timothy 4:4, τὴν ἀκοὴν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀληθείας. But the transitive sense is intelligible. In turning myself away from another, I turn him away from me. Vide Hebrews 12:25, 2 Timothy 1:15.

Matthew 5:43-48. Sixth and final illustration: from the Law of Love. To an old partial form of the law Jesus opposes a new universal one.

Matthew 5:43. ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη: said where, by whom, and about whom? The sentiment Jesus supposes His hearers to have heard is not found in so many words in the O. T. The first part, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour,” occurs in Leviticus 19:18. The contrary of the second part is found in Exodus 23:4, where humanity towards the straying or overburdened beast of an enemy is enjoined. It is to be hoped that even the scribes did not in cold blood sin against the spirit of this precept by teaching men to love their private friends and hate their private enemies. Does πλησίον then mean an Israelite, and ἐχθρόν a Gentile, and was the fault of the traditional law of love that it confined obligation within national limits? The context in Leviticus 19:18 gives πλ. that sense: “Thou shalt not bear any grudge against the children of thy people”. On the other hand, the tendency of Israel’s election, and of certain texts (vide Exodus 23, Deuteronomy 7), was to foster aversion to the outside nations, and from Ezra onwards the spirit of Judaism was one of increasing hostility towards the goyim—vide Esther. The saying quoted by Jesus, if not an exact report of Rabbinical teaching, did no injustice to its general attitude. And the average Jew in this respect followed the guidance of his teachers, loving his own countrymen, regarding with racial and religious aversion those beyond the pale.