Bible Commentaries
Matthew 11

Introduction

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

2 John sendeth his disciples to Christ.

7 Christ’s testimony concerning John.

8 The opinion of the people, both concerning John and Christ.

20 Christ upbraideth the unthankfulness and unrepentance of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum:

25 and praising his Father’s wisdom in revealing the Gospel to the simple,

28 he calleth to him all such as feel the burden of their sins.

Verse 3

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Art thou he that should come? &c. — That John sent these disciples to obtain such information from Christ as might remove doubts which he himself through infirmity had begun to entertain, as to the character of our Lord, is the view of many expositors. And they have devised and indulged conjectures to account for this failure in the strength of John’s previous faith; all of which, like the assumption that the prophet fell into any doubt on the subject, are perfectly gratuitous. The evidences which John had received as to Jesus being the Christ, were too strong to be easily shaken, and he had views too spiritual as to his kingdom to be “offended” at his lowly course of life. The expression of St. Matthew “Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ,” also intimates this; for Christ is not here used as a proper name, but with the article, and would more properly have been rendered, the works of the CHRIST, or the Messiah. He knew that these were the works by which the CHRIST was to demonstrate himself; and he sends his disciples to hear, or to be witnesses of them, in order to their believing in him. This question is fully set at rest by the remark of our Lord respecting John in a subsequent verse, where he declares that “he was not a reed shaken with the wind,” and, therefore, a firm and immovable character; a eulogy which he would scarcely have merited had he, after such testimonies from heaven, doubted of the Messiahship of him whom he had baptized in Jordan, and on whom he had seen the Holy Spirit visibly descend. The disciples sent by him, therefore, were obviously sent to converse with our Lord for their own conviction. Some of John’s followers had already joined Christ, and their number had been greatly on the decline before he was cast into prison.

This he knew was according to the Divine order; for his own words were, “I must decrease, but he must increase.” He had now probably very few disciples remaining; but as he would still continue his work of calling men to repentance as Christ’s forerunner, even in the prison, to which it does not appear that any were denied access to him, the men now sent were probably among his most recent converts. His office was to lead his disciples to believe in Jesus as the Christ, whose way he was to “prepare;” but he too would have to combat with their prejudices. They might, in several cases, be willing to admit John’s claim to be a prophet; but would stumble at his doctrine that Jesus was the Messiah whose approaching manifestation he was commissioned to announce, because of his not assuming the external splendour they expected. In such cases they would be most effectually put in the way of receiving full conviction by a personal conversation with our Lord. There is also another view. The life of John was precarious, and dependent upon the caprice of Herod, and he would naturally be anxious to provide for the religious welfare of his remaining followers, by attaching them to Christ; and the two here mentioned were probably sent with the question proposed, that they might report the answer of our Lord to the rest, an answer to which John knew well how to give weight. It is clear from the question, “Art thou he that should come or do we,” must we, “look for another?” and from one part of our Lord’s reply, “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me,” that a difficulty existed in their minds whether Jesus was the Messiah for whom John had taught them to “look,” arising out of circumstances as to which they were in danger of “being offended;” and this can only be resolved into the lowly condition of our Lord, and his keeping himself chiefly in the remote province of Galilee. They came, therefore, sent by John, and to him they were to report the answer, not for the resolution of any doubt of his, but that he might communicate it to his disciples, as an answer to their difficulties from Jesus himself.

Verse 5

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The blind receive their sight, &c. — These were the proofs on which our Saviour rested his claim to be the Messiah for the conviction of John’s disciples; but why did he refer to such works when the disciples of John could scarcely have been ignorant of his miracles, the “fame” of which, it is so often said, spread throughout “all that region?” The reason was, that the message being sent to John their master, manifestly as the proper person to point out its force to his disciples, he could not but perceive that the cogency of Christ’s answer lay in the reference which it makes to the fulfilment of two illustrious passages in Isaiah, which speak so clearly of the Messiah, that the Jewish writers themselves have never hesitated in applying them to him. The first is Isaiah 35:5-6: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.” The other passage was indicated by the last clause of the reply, And the poor have the GOSPEL preached to them. It is Isaiah 61:1, &c: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the MEEK; he hath sent me to bind up the broken- hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,” &c. The Messiah of the prophet was to perform miracles of healing; and he was to be a preacher of GOOD TIDINGS, of the Gospel, to poor, humble, afflicted persons, the captives of sin and misery; and this, as though our Lord had said, is the work in which I am engaged. He even adds to the miracles mentioned by Isaiah as to be performed by Messiah; and the dead are raised; the force of which would be felt, if the sentiment of the modern rabbins was then held, that “in the land where the dead should arise, the kingdom of the Messiah should commence.” That the Jews expected the Messiah to perform great miracles, is clear from John 7:31: “When the Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?”

Verse 6

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Offended in me. — Σκανδαλιζω is from σκανδαλον , which in Scripture signifies a trap, or snare, a sharp stake driven into the ground to impede the march of an enemy by wounding the feet; a stone or block laid in a path to cause a person to stumble or fall; and metaphors from each are in the New Testament couched under the common term. Generally it refers either to that which gives occasion to sin and unbelief, or is made so by perversion, or that which acts as an impediment in the Christian cause, by producing discouragement and impatience.

Verse 7

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Concerning John. — The visit of John’s disciples gave our Lord an opportunity to bear a most honourable testimony to his faithful, but now imprisoned, herald and forerunner, and to declare him to be the Elias of prophecy. What went ye out into the wilderness to see? — That is, what kind of man did you find in the wilderness of Jordan, when you went out in multitudes to see and to hear John? Was he a reed shaken by the wind? Yielding to every gust like the reeds on the banks of Jordan where he baptized? The question implies a strong negative, which Whitby has well expressed. “You did not go to see a man wavering in his testimony, but firm and constant.” A man clothed in soft raiment? Dressed in luxurious garb, as they who are in kings’ houses. Here our Lord refers to his plain fidelity rather than to dress merely, to his truth-speaking and earnest appeals to them, so far removed from the phrase and flattery, and double- tongued hypocrisy, and delicate avoidance of offence, found among courtiers in the palaces of kings, who were distinguished for the softness of their raiment. A prophet? He was truly a prophet, as being a commissioned servant of God, favoured with direct revelations, acting under the impulse of inspiration; and appointed, like the ancient prophets, both to warn a guilty people, and to describe the character and glories of Messiah. In all these respects John was truly a prophet; but our Lord adds with emphasis, yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet, more than the greatest of the ancient prophets, not one of them being excepted; and he was so in this distinguished particular, that he was the precursor of the Messiah, and not only predicted his future coming, but actually introduced him to the people, and bade a sinful race “behold” not the typical sacrifice for sin, but “THE LAMB OF GOD,” the true, the divinely appointed sacrifice and oblation for “the sin of the world.”

Verse 10

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For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, &c. — That John was the person intended by Malachi 3:1, so that here is no pretence for an accommodated sense, we learn from the passage being here applied by Christ himself to his forerunner, in its direct and primary sense. As is usual with the Jews, a part of this prophecy only is quoted, as introductory to the whole; but from the entire passage we learn that John was God’s αγγελος or messenger; that his office was to prepare the way of Messiah before his face immediately, the Master following the servant without any delay; that THE LORD, the Divine Messiah, whom, says the prophet, ye seek, whom all the Jewish people were looking for, should suddenly come to his temple, and that he should appear as the messenger of the covenant, bringing with him God’s covenant of grace and peace with man, to open its great provisions and promises, and to ratify it with his own blood, and then to publish it by his apostles to all nations. Thus emphatically does this illustrious prophecy mark the characters both of John and of our Lord, In both it was illustriously fulfilled; but no other two persons since the date when it was uttered can be adduced to whose characters and actions it in the least degree corresponds. In the prophecy of Malachi above cited, there is a considerable difference between the evangelist and the Hebrew and Septuagint. The words προ προσωπου σου , before thy face, are added; and for לפני , before me, we have εμπροσθεν σου , before thee. The exact agreement of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who all quote the same prophecy, sufficiently shows that their copies of the Hebrew or Septuagint differed in these particulars from the present; but, nevertheless, the sense is scarcely at all affected. The divinity of the Messiah, as JEHOVAH, THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE, as well as the messenger of the covenant, are the lofty characters under which it is presented.

Verse 11

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The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater, &c. — Great is the testimony of Christ to the official character of John, who is also emphatically styled “the prophet of the Highest,” Luke 1:76; nevertheless it is added, the least in the kingdom of heaven, the least prophet or teacher of the full and perfected dispensation of Christ, instructed in its system of glorious truth, endowed with miraculous powers, which John was not; able to attest the actual death, resurrection, ascension, and glorious instalment of Messiah in his universal kingdom of grace and power, and, whether endowed with miraculous gifts or not, instructed in the method of salvation through faith in him, and commissioned to teach this simple and ever open way to God through him, empowered to offer pardon and remission of sins “in his name,” and to unfold all the holy attainments made possible to man by the promised influence of the Holy Spirit, is greater, greater as it respects his office, than John. These words are also applicable to subsequent Christian teachers, and even to private Christians with respect to their illumination on all the subjects connected with the kingdom of grace.

Verse 12

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Suffereth violence. — The allusion here is to a siege, and the figure is taken from the rush of a multitude to take a city by assault; in which sense the passage is usually understood. One sense given to the passage is, that the hearers of Christ were taught by it that those only who were prepared to encounter the most violent opposition, and to put forth the strongest efforts to surmount it, could enter the kingdom of heaven; such was the strength of their own prejudices and errors, and such also the hostility of the scribes and Pharisees, and other influential persons among the Jews. — This was indeed a great truth, and it remains applicable to this day, since not only strong exertions must be made against our own interests and sinful passions, but, in many cases, against the example and persecuting hostility of others, if we would enter the kingdom of heaven in truth as well as in profession. But the words seem rather to refer to the eagerness with which the multitude received the testimony both of John and Christ, in spite of the calumnies heaped by their teachers and rulers upon both, and the rage which they often manifested. This sense of the words is greatly confirmed by the parallel place in Luke 16:16: “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” And it will serve to illustrate the passage, if we recollect that the Jewish teachers, like the Gentile philosophers, confined what they esteemed their superior knowledge to persons of a certain class; and they neglected and even despised the body of the populace.

“The people know not the law, and are accursed,” was their contemptuous language; and hence they were left “as sheep having no shepherd.” John’s preaching was popular, as all true preaching must be; it was adapted to instruct and save the mass of society; and the impression of it was so great, that multitudes from every part of Palestine came to his baptism, and gladly heard from him that “the kingdom of heaven was at hand.” Of this popular and condesending character, also, was the preaching of Christ. He held forth the same hope, that the same kingdom was “at hand;” and the multitudes hung upon his lips, and followed him on his journeys. The excitement, indeed, appears to have been as ardent as it was general; and thus did these neglected people “press into the kingdom of God,” as far as it was then revealed; and, like a tumultuous rush of soldiers sealing the walls of a city, they appeared determined to seize the glorious and heart-touching truths which had so long been withheld from them. There came, indeed, a time of trial afterward: many of these eager spirits were “offended” in Christ, turned back, and “walked no more with him;” and the subtle activity of the envious and exasperated scribes and Pharisees blasted much of this hopeful show in fields “white unto harvest:” but still great numbers, no doubt, were saved, and the people were prepared for the labourers sent forth among them after the resurrection; for we read in several places of the Acts, that in different parts “multitudes believed.” The body of the nation, however, remained impenitent; and Jerusalem especially maintained its ancient character for the obduracy with which its inhabitants rejected the testimony of God; and most of the higher orders everywhere, the persons who formed what was properly THE JEWISH STATE, put away from them the proffered grace, and succeeded at length in inspiring others with the same hatred of Christ and his servants, “until wrath came upon them to the uttermost.”

Verse 13

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Prophesied until John. — The casual particle, γαρ , shows that a reason is here given for the pressing of the people into the kingdom of God, just mentioned. — The word prophesied, in order to make this reason apparent, must be taken in its proper sense of predicted, otherwise the connection is not discernible. Until John, the law and the prophets PREDICTED the kingdom of heaven, the spiritual reign and institutions of Messiah, as being still afar off in the distant future; but John did not so properly PREDICT that kingdom as ANNOUNCE it to be “at hand,” as even now introducing, and already incipiently present. This news was eagerly seized by the multitudes whom his preaching had brought to repentance, and they flocked in crowds to Christ its author, from whom they had been taught by John to expect the remission of their sins, and the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Verse 14

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This is Elias, which was for to come. — Elias is the same as Elijah, under which name the Prophet Malachi 4:5, predicted the coming of John the Baptist. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord;” that is, before the destruction of the Jewish state by the terrible judgments of God. That Elijah himself was not intended, as some of the Jews dreamed, and indeed still expect, but one called prophetically and figuratively by his name, on account of a similarity of character, we have confirmed to us by the same authority which dictated the original prophecy; for the angel sent from God to announce John’s birth, declares, “He shall go before in the spirit and power of Elias,” Luke 1:17. Thus the prophecy is also interpreted by our Lord, not of Elijah, but of John. Some of the fathers, and others since, have, however, held that Elijah should really appear before the second advent of Christ; but if in the original prophecy, John the Baptist, not Elijah, was intended, then John the Baptist must come again; but for what end, no one surely can devise, since the least preacher in the kingdom of heaven is “greater” in his office “than he.” The notion seems to have arisen from a misapprehension of Malachi’s prophecy, which speaks of Elijah coming before “the great and dreadful day of the Lord;” which they erroneously apply to the day of Christ’s second coming to judge the world. That, indeed, will be a great and dreadful day of the Lord; but it is not the day meant by the prophet; and, as we have seen, the whole prediction is restricted, by the angel who announced to Zacharias the birth, character, and office of his honoured son, to him alone. The resemblance of John to Elijah the Tishbite was very striking; and one can scarcely think of the inflexible and awakening preacher in the wilderness of Jordan, without being reminded of him who was “exceeding jealous for the Lord of hosts;” while Elijah’s boldness before Ahab and Jezebel has a striking parallel in the bold manner in which John reproved the incestuous intercourse of Herod and Herodias.

Verse 15

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He that hath ears to hear, &c. — This is a solemn form of calling the attention to some point of great consequence, to be considered and well understood. Such was this whole discourse concerning John, and especially the prophecies respecting him which Christ had pointed out, because their accomplishment gave the strongest testimony to the claims of Christ, whose forerunner he was.

Verses 16-17

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But whereunto shall I liken, &c. — This was one of the usual forms of introducing a comparison or parable, both of which were favourite modes of speaking among the orientals; and especially, says St. Jerome, were familiar to the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine: Familiare est Syris, et maxime Palestinis, ad omnem sermonem suum parabolas jungere. Την γενεαν ταυτην , this race, meaning the perverse scribes and Pharisees, and their followers, a generation or race descended from others of like spirit, and likely to transmit the same pride, prejudice, and captiousness to those who should succeed them; men who united the malignity of persecutors with the perverse pettishness of children, refusing to be pleased with the sports proposed by their fellows. To such children, therefore, in the markets, εν αγοραις , market places, squares, or any open spaces of a city, imitating in their plays the dances at a feast, or the lamentations at funerals, our Lord compares them. The Jews used pipes, tibiæ, to lead up the dance on festive occasions; and, as noted above, they employed them also at funerals, to lead the funeral dirge, in which all the mourners joined. We have piped in cheerful strains unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, played the sorrowful funeral dirge, and ye have not lamented, ye have not joined us in the sad strain, singing and beating your breasts. The meaning is, as appears from the next verse, that neither the affable familiarity with which Christ had mingled in their society, nor the secluded austerity of John, had succeeded to win their attention, or to soften their moroseness.

Verse 18

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For John came neither eating nor drinking, &c. — That is, he did not live a social life, nor attended any of their domestic feasts; and they, the scribes and Pharisees, say, He hath a devil, he is possessed by a demon, which drives him into solitude, and overwhelms him with melancholy. The Son of man came eating and drinking; he lived with men in cities, and only retired occasionally into the wilderness; when invited, he attended marriages and other feasts, to sanctify the cheerfulness of family meetings, to engage the attention of the guests to his heavenly doctrine, to overcome their prejudices by his mild condescensions, to make the customs of social life the means of conveying instruction by founding parables upon them, and in these respects, as well as once literally, to turn THE WATER INTO WINE. But for all this he was slandered as gluttonous and a wine- bibber, and a friend, not of the souls, but of the vices, of publicans and sinners. With such virulence were both the master and the servant treated! and so easy is it for envy and malice to give an odious colouring to the most wise and holy conduct! The comparison of the stately and affected Pharisees, and Jewish doctors, to peevish, ill tempered children in the market places, was sufficiently humbling to their pride.

Verse 19

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But wisdom is justified of her children. — The και here is properly taken by our translators in the sense of αλλα , but; for these words are not, as some understand them, a continuation of the censorious remarks attributed to the Pharisees, which would force a sense upon the verb which it never bears in the New Testament, or in the Septuagint; but they contain the meek but pointed answer which our Lord gives to all the slanders of his enemies. Wisdom is personified; and by the children of Wisdom he evidently intends John the Baptist and himself; while the term justified is to, be taken in its usual sense of “acquitted from blame.” The sense therefore is, that the heavenly wisdom or doctrine which both John and Christ had been commissioned to teach, so far from having been criminated by their conduct, as though it led on the one hand to a morose contempt of mankind, or on the other to any sanction of their vices, had been illustrated, honoured, and raised above all censure. The spirit and the conduct of each had declared that the doctrine they taught was the wisdom from above. This remark of our Lord is, however, a general truth of large application. The true “children of wisdom,” in every age, are all those who receive and hold the truth of Christ’s doctrine; and they will “justify” it, clear it of all the charges which ignorant and unbelieving men may direct against it, by their prudent and holy life and conversation. By this “the mouth of gainsayers” is most effectually “stopped,” and the truth of Christianity most effectually demonstrated before the world. Let the professed “children of wisdom,” therefore, always recollect this as a motive to maintain a conduct in all respects consonant with the truth which they have received, that they are charged with the very character and credit of Christianity, and that it depends upon them to extend or to diminish its influence upon all with whom they are surrounded. They are thus to justify it as the wisdom of God before the world.

Verse 21

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Wo unto thee, Chorazin, &c. — Ουαι is sometimes an interjection of pity and grief, but of malediction also; for it was in this spirit that our Saviour pronounced his woes against these favoured cities, and against Jerusalem itself, but it was pity reluctantly giving place to righteous wrath. — Chorazin is placed by Jerome within two miles of Capernaum. Out of Chorazin as well as Bethsaida many disciples had doubtless been raised up; but the body of the people remained impenitent; and their guilt was aggravated by the mighty works which Christ had done among them in attestation of his mission, and in the neighbouring country; for our Lord spent most of his public life on the shores of the sea of Galilee, in Capernaum, and Bethsaida, frequently itinerating through the other cities and towns of the adjoining districts. Tyre and Sidon, on the Mediterranean coast of Syria or Palestine, were the most celebrated maritime cities of antiquity, and as remarkable for their power and opulence, as for the greatness of their fall; their pride, luxury, and idolatry having brought upon them those tremendous judgments which left them signal monuments of desolation to future ages. What previous warnings they might have had from God we know not; but certainly they had none enforced by such “mighty works” as our Lord had wrought in the cities of Galilee. The peculiar hardness of the hearts of the inhabitants of the latter was therefore rendered the more conspicuous and inexcusable; and for them a sorer punishment was reserved. As to this life, indeed, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum had a similar fate to theirs: they were utterly destroyed by the Romans; and they lie, even to this day, in a state of as utter ruin. Yet a future judgment awaits both the inhabitants of the Syrian and Galilean cities; and in that day it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, and Sodom, than for them, because their sin will be punished according to its exact desert, as aggravated by the superior religious advantages which they enjoyed and slighted.

Repented long ago, παλαι , “in old time,” in sackcloth and ashes. — To put on a garment of hair cloth, and sprinkle ashes upon the head, was the custom of mourners and deep penitents. They would have repented as the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonas, and with much feebler evidences of his having a Divine commission. Whether this repentance would have been one produced by concern for their spiritual interests, or by terror at approaching temporal judgments, our Lord does not say. That of the Ninevites was obviously the latter; and God had respect to it as an acknowledgment of him, in the same manner as he had respect to the public and deep humiliation of Ahab, which also was excited by a threatened external punishment. Our Lord seems to have intended chiefly to say that, with all their wickedness, those ancient cities were not so obstinately set to resist supernatural evidences of truth as the cities he reproves. — Determined infidelity, the result of false reasoning, and pride, and self-righteousness, was not their sin; and in such cases his preaching to them, enforced by such mighty works, would have produced an impression which it did not upon the inhabitants of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida. Still let it be remembered that they had SUFFICIENT warnings, instructions, and mercies to render them GUILTLESS; and they could have no ground to complain of severity, much less of injustice. All have not equal favours, but all are dealt with in perfect equity.

Verse 23

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Capernaum. — Capernaum, as having been the residence of our Lord, is reproved distinctly; and the impenitence and obduracy of its people are more strongly marked by being contrasted, not with Tyre and Sidon, but with the infamous Sodom; — even Sodom would have repented, and remained to this day, had the mighty works been done in that devoted city as in thee, Capernaum!

Brought down to hell. — The word here used is αδης , not γεεννα , the place of future punishment, and is to be taken figuratively. Exalted to heaven, may express the flourishing condition of the city, or its pride Isaiah 14:11; and to be brought down to hell means, therefore, its utter destruction; to express which αδης is used, a word which generally signifies the invisible world of disembodied spirits, but also answering to the שׁ?אל of the Hebrews, which has often the sense of destruction. In the phrase, exalted to heaven, some think there might be a figurative reference to the lofty and commanding situation of Capernaum, on one of the hills of that mountainous region. But the exact site of this devoted city does not seem to have been certainly discovered by the most recent travellers, who conjecture only that certain ruins may be the remains of what was once Capernaum, but without any sufficient evidence of the identity. So completely have the words of our Lord been fulfilled as to the temporal punishment of this once favoured place! As the grave covers her inhabitants, so her very ruins are brought down to that region, and lie covered up in silence and darkness as the bodies of her slain. The punishment of the inhabitants, in the future life, is threatened in the next verse: “In the day of judgment it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom,” that is, the inhabitants of the land of Sodom, “than for thee.” Our Lord also intended to teach the righteous apportionment of punishment to the degree of guilt. By how much more terrible was the destruction of the land of Sodom by a tempest of fire than the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, by so much shall the punishment of the inhabitants of Capernaum at the day of judgment be than that of the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida, as more guilty even than they: the penalty, terrible as to all, shall be righteously distributed in its more intense degree. Let all deeply meditate upon these alarming passages who abuse the superior privileges and opportunities of instruction which they enjoy, and be awakened to this conviction, that the greatest guilt of man is to slight and reject the offered salvation of the Gospel.

Verses 25-26

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At that time Jesus answered, &c. — To answer is not in the gospels always used in the sense of to reply to some previous question, opinion, or objection, but often expresses the commencement of a discourse, or of some new branch of discourse. One reason of this mode of speaking, in some cases, seems to be, that our Lord being surrounded with hearers still hanging on his lips, and anxious to hear his farther observations, they were tacitly regarded under the view of inquirers; and he is said to answer when he adapts his discourse to the various doubts, or to the questions which might be rising up, though indistinctly, in their minds. This is a striking character of the perfection of his teaching, that, knowing as he did the very thoughts and secret difficulties and prejudices of his hearers, he could adapt his discourses to them, as though they had been formally propounded as questions.

That thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, &c. — The things referred to are “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” in which he was training up his disciples. It has been thought that the time when our Lord spoke these words was not that in which he uttered the predictions respecting the cities of Galilee, in the preceding verses, because in St. Luke we find them in connection with the return of the seventy; to which circumstance, it is therefore said, they properly belong: but they were probably spoken on two occasions; on which supposition we may establish the connection thus. The scribes and Pharisees, the professed wise and prudent, or learned of the Jewish nation, had been the main cause of fostering the unbelief of the devoted cities our Lord had been just reproving; and with reference to them he utters this solemn thanksgiving to his Father: not that he thanks God for their blindness and unbelief; but that, as these mysteries were hidden from them, through their own guilty pride and folly, God had not left himself without instruments to teach them to the world, and those more suitable for the work, as having themselves received the truth in simplicity and humbleness of mind. In other words, the subject of our Lord’s thanksgiving is, that since the scribes and Pharisees had been justly left without the special revelations of his doctrine, because of their hatred of the truth in the general form in which it was first proposed to them, he had chosen men esteemed neither “wise nor learned,” men not skilled in the traditions and literature of their country, to be the depositaries of his revelations, and to render them by his teaching “wise and learned” above all the most celebrated rabbins of the Jews, and philosophers of the Gentiles. Thus “the excellency of the power” was “seen to be of God, not of man,” because the administration of truths infinitely transcending the power of the highest and most cultivated human intellects to discover, was itself a proof that they were all “taught of God.” The disciples are called babes both because of their unacquaintance with human learning, and more especially because of their docility and humility. Modestly distrustful of themselves, they awaited their Master’s instructions with submissive, though often with perplexed minds.

Verse 26

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Good in thy sight. — The word ευδοκια corresponds with the Hebrew רצה , and denotes the decision of the Divine will; but we are not to conceive of the will of God as arbitrary, but as founded upon REASONS of the highest wisdom and goodness. The WISDOM of the appointment, in this case, appears from the character of the agents chosen, whose want of human learning made the Divine teaching in them the more conspicuous, and more visibly stamped their doctrine as a revelation from God; as well as better provided for its pure communication to others. These were men less likely to AFFECT either reasoning or eloquence, and were therefore better fitted channels to convey truth in its simple majesty. And the GOODNESS was as conspicuous as the wisdom, because whatever most accredits Christianity as of Divine origin and authority heightens its influence and extends its blessings. To which may be added, that it is another affecting proof of the Divine benevolence, that he has made simplicity and prayer, which all may attain and use, the gates to the knowledge of the deepest truths of religion; and not human learning and genius, which fall to the lot of few. Into what rich, hallowing, and consolatory views of the truth of the Holy Scripture are those led, who, though neither “wise nor learned,” according to the world’s estimate, look up with simplicity to the fountain of inspiration himself, and read the sacred page with the sincere desire to DO as well as to KNOW “the good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God!” To all such, “the entrance of the word giveth light;” and “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” See note on Luke 10:21.

Verse 27

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

All things are delivered to me of my Father. — Those who interpret this delivering of all things to Christ, of the universal “power given to him” as Mediator, break the connection of the discourse, and bring in an entirely new subject without necessity. He had been speaking of the revelation of his doctrine by “THE FATHER,” but he here states that this revelation from the Father was not immediate or distinct from his own teaching, but made entirely through himself. Hence all things mean, all things contained in this revelation; and delivered is to be taken in the sense of being taught a doctrine; a meaning which παραδουναι frequently has. So Mark 7:13, “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered,” or taught. Christ, therefore, received his doctrine from the Father, and revealed it to his disciples; yet not as the prophets, not as a mere man might receive wisdom from God, by inspiration. This supposition he excludes by the important and deeply mysterious words which follow; words which indicate a relation between himself, THE SON, and THE FATHER, which places an infinite distance between him and the greatest of the prophets. No man knoweth the Son but the Father, which it would have been even absurd to say, had the Son been a merely human being, and therefore as comprehensible as any other human being. There is a mystery in the Son which the Father alone knoweth. “For no one,” says Origen upon this very text, “can know him who is uncreated, and begotten before every created nature as the Father who begat him, ως ο γεννησας αυτον πατηρ .” And no man knoweth the Father but the Son the persons in the Godhead alone being fully known to each other; and it is from this perfect and adequate knowledge of the Father which is possessed by the Son, that he is able to communicate with absolute clearness and certainty the will and counsels of the Father. Such is the basis of the infallibility of the teaching of Christ: as THE DIVINE SON, he fully knows the Divine Father; and of him and his designs he revealed all that was necessary to the salvation of men to his disciples, in order to its being taught to the world. It is therefore added, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. There is no true knowledge of God but through the Son; and he who is taught of Christ sees “light in his light.” Instead of no man and any man, in this verse, the rendering ought to have been rather, no one or any one; for every created being, and not man only, is excluded here from the perfect comprehension of the Father and the Son.

Verse 28

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Come unto me &c. — Thus qualified to be the infallible guide of souls, our Saviour utters this public and universal invitation to every weary and heavy laden spirit. The yoke is the instrument by which oxen are subjected to their labour; the burden is a weight laid upon beasts or men; and the allusion of each is to the tradition of the scribes and Pharisees, by which the people were subjected to a variety of onerous and superstitious observances, which oppressed and galled the sincere but ill instructed seeker of salvation. Nothing indeed could so move the compassion of Christ, as the spectacle of many awakened souls, earnestly desirous of knowing what they must do to be saved, being directed only to those Pharisaic observances which, instead of giving them peace of mind, only cheated and deceived, and led to all the weariness of repeated disappointment. For what had these blind teachers to offer to troubled consciences of men who had given up the typical intent of their own sacrifices, by which it had been intended that faith in the great promised propitiation should always be maintained; and who had converted them into unmeaning and profitless ceremonies, besides multiplying the number of ritual observances beyond the requirement of their written law?

They bound a harsh yoke upon the necks of their followers, and oppressed them with heavy burdens. Such are invited by Christ to come to him, and learn of him, to learn that which alone can meet their case, that he was the true sacrifice for sin, that an entire trust in him, by securing the remission of their sins, would give rest to their souls, and that thus being delivered from guilty fears, and assured of the Divine favour, and renewed in holiness, “his yoke,” the yoke of his commandments, moral, spiritual, and practical, would be found easy, χρηστος , “benign, mild, and gracious;” and his “burden,” whether of duties or restraints, founded in the nature and relations of man, and enjoining nothing but what is itself” good and profitable to men,” would be “light.” — Thus are we taught, that he only can find “rest to his soul,” who comes to Christ as the true propitiation for his sins, in entire trust in the infinite merits of his sacrifice and mediation: and whoever has found this rest, runs with delight and joy the way of his commandments; which are so consonant with the holy principles that Divine grace has planted within him, so commend themselves to enlightened reason, and so manifestly and powerfully promote the peace of families, and the happiness of society that though Christ also has his yoke, and requires subjection to his authority, and his burden too, since every man must toil and labour to his service, yet conviction, love, and the strength of grace render the yoke easy and the burden light; and all his true disciples unite in the testimony, that his “service is perfect freedom.”