Matthew 11

Matthew 11:3

[a] he that should come] The prophecies of Christ as the Messias of the Jews by them expected, (and also of the Gentiles, though by them not so discerned,) were so plain in the Old Testament under the title of Shilo coming, &c., and yet the person or name of him so unknown, that he was by them wont to be expressed by some circumlocutions, particularly by this of ὁ ἑρχόμενος, he that cometh, as it appears by the continuing that phrase both here and Heb. x. 37, Matt. xxi. 9. Luke vii. 20, xiii. 35. John xii. 13. and Luke xix. 38, by ἑρχόμενος βασιλεὺς, the coming King, (and so the state of Christianity is βασιλεία ἑρχομένη, the coming kingdom, Mark xi. 10; and in Isaiah ix. 6, μέλλων αἰών, the age to come, in the Septuagint’s rendering); by which is distinctly meant the Messias entering on those great offices to which he was designed and destined by God. So also οἰκουμένη μέλλονσα, Heb. ii. 5, the world to come; and δυνάμεις μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, Heb. vi. 5, the state and power of grace, or Christianity. And of this the Baptist here asks the question; by this means to help his disciples to a more explicit conviction and assurance of the truth of it, that whatsoever befalls him they may cleave fast to Christ.

Matthew 11:5

[b] the poor, &c.] It is an idiom ordinary in these books of the Old and New Testament, that passive verbs (by a metonymy of the effect) comprehend and import the reality of the effect of the passion, or a willing reception of the impression, that is, note the patient not only to receive influxes from the agent, but to be effectually changed by the passion. So Isaiah lxv. 1, I am sought of them that asked not for me; where it is clear, that seeking and asking for are all one. Ask and ye shall have, seek and ye shall find, saith our Saviour, directly in the same sense; and therefore it cannot be imagined how they that have not asked for God, he may yet be truly affirmed to be sought by them. It remains therefore that to be sought must here be understood cum effectu, so as to have the effect of finding attend it; and so it is distinctly interpreted by that which follows, I am found by them which sought me not; where, as sought me not is equivalent to asked not for me, so I am found is directly all one with I am sought in the beginning of the verse. And accordingly, Rom. x. 20, where these words of the prophet are cited, instead of I am sought of them, the apostle reads, I was made manifest unto them. So ἐξίστραπται, turned out of the way, Tit. iii. 11, signifies not only the being persuaded and turned and perverted by another, but the having really received the impression, being effectually wrought on and corrupted by seducers. So πειράζεσθαι, to be tempted, Gal. vi. 1, is to be wrought on by temptation, or else the possibility of it would not be used as an argument to enforce so much Christian care and meekness toward him who is overtaken in a fault. So σκανδαλίζεσθαι, to be scandalized, is to be wrought on (brought into sin, actually discouraged in the ways of godliness) by the scandal laid in his way, (as in this very verse); and so here εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, to be evangelized, is to be wrought on by the preaching of the gospel, (not only to have it preached to them,) which is peculiarly observed of the poor, humble-minded man, of whom it is therefore said, under the emblem of the little children, that of such is the kingdom of heaven: the Christian church is made up of such (see James ii. 5); whereas the proud resist and despise

Matthew 11:6

And for that which concerns their doubting of what before they had believed, and that founded on John’s present condition, Christ adds (over and above the words of the prophets). Blessed is he who doth not forsake or fall off from me in this time (or by occasion) of temptation or affliction, (such as now John is in, and) such as shall oft befall Christians in this world, Christ’s office being not to deliver all men in this world out of such, but to shew them the way to suffer patiently, and to conquer by suffering. Jesus thought fit, upon this occasion, to give the people a right notion of John the Baptist, which consequently would give them a more perfect knowledge of himself, John’s office being wholly subservient to the revealing of Christ. Thus therefore he began to them, What was it that so many of you went out into the wilderness to behold? Was it a reed, such as the wind plays with there in the wilderness, any trifle of so little moment, and so ordinary to be seen there? Sure your going out to him was not on so childish an errand.

[c] offended] The use of the word σκάνδαλον, scandal, in the sacred (being seldom or never found in the ancient profane) writers is once for all to be observed. It is either natural, (as generally in the Old Testament,) or metaphorical, (as chiefly in the New.) It naturally signifies three things: 1. a trap, a gin, or snare, to catch any thing. So in the Greek translation of psalm lxix. 22, the word is used, (being joined with two other words, which signify snare and gin*;) and therefore in the place of Rom. xi. 9, where the same words are cited out of the Septuagint’s translation, and not out of the Hebrew text of the psalm, it should be rendered by analogy, not stumblingblock, but gin, or some other word belonging to this signification. In this sense it is used 1 Mac. v. 4, where it is all one with snare; and it is further interpreted

• Παγὶς καὶ θῆρα. G

ᵇ Lud. de Dieu. ᶜ פנסות from נכה.

0 2

Matthew 11:8

Or was it any glorious gallant person in splendid array? Sure such an one you would not have looked for in a desert, but a court; and you know it was quite contrary of him. You found him in an austere habit and diet, and therefore you cannot now imagine that he is troubled with the confinement or danger he is in, so that he should presently be cast into doubts, or be changed so soon to so much weakness of faith from so much strength. Certainly he that lived in a wilderness, and observed that habit and diet there, is not now troubled at all that he is from Herod’s court cast into prison.

Matthew 11:9

No, it is certain you went out to him as to a prophet; and of him I must tell you, that he is a great prophet, nay, of a pitch beyond all the prophets that receive. scandalized at, or, about.

[d] more than a prophet] There were, saith Maimonides, among the Jews eleven degrees of prophecy, of which (saith he) only nine were of true, genuine prophecy, or properly so called; the other two being sublime, transcendent sorts, somewhat more excellent than ordinary prophecy. One of these he there defines to be that which comes on the man without dream or ecstasy, the speaking by the Holy Ghost. Of this sort was John the Baptist, who was clearly told by the Father, (Matt. iii 17, John i. 33, and by the descent of the Spirit of God,) and accordingly proclaimed as clearly to others, that Christ was the Lamb of God, &c., so far that he is said to speak only as a witness, not as a prophet, John i. 7. In this respect it is that he is called by so many other styles, the voice of one crying, Mark i. 3; a proclaimer, a herald, ver. 4; a messenger of God’s, ver. 2; μίγαι, a great, illustrious person, Luke i. 15, and one filled with the Holy Ghost; and by way of excellence, the prophet of the Most High, ver. 76; but never simply a prophet, unless it be Luke vii. 28, where yet the words may be best rendered thus, that no prophet born of a woman is greater than John the Baptist: where Baptist, not prophet, is his only title, (and therefore in the 11th verse of this chapter the word prophet is left out of the expression,) only a comparison made betwixt him and all the prophets; and so Luke xvi. 16, where it is said, that the prophets continued till John, not including him in that number, but referring him to the higher classis of a forerunner of Christ, or a preacher of the gospel; for so it follows, From that time the kingdom of God, that is, Christianity, is preached; and to the same sense it is, that here he is said to be one, or somewhat περισσοτέρον προφήτου, superior to a prophet, viz. in respect of the clearness of God’s shewing Christ to him, and his revealing him to others, pointing at him, ἰδοὺ, behold. But yet, because this office of forerunner was the office of disciples, (see Matt. xxvi. 18,) and consequently John was only a disciple and messenger employed by Christ, therefore being compared with the apostles, who were to be rulers of the church, it is here said, that the least of them is greater than he, designed to a more honourable employment.

Matthew 11:10

[e] before thy face] That which is here before thy face is in Malachi, ch. iii. 1, before my face, and so thereby it appears that Christ (here referred to in the thy) is there all one with God the Father; or yet further, that the face of God, signifying often his coming, or his presence, (and sending before his face, sending a harbinger or forerunner in a journey, Luke ix. 52); this coming of Christ into the world, is the coming of God himself, this presence of his on the earth, the

Matthew 11:12

[f] suffereth violence] Βιάζεσθαι notes a thing being taken by one that hath no legal acknowledged right to it, βιαίως κρατείται, saith Hesychius, “it is taken and violently possessed,” (βία signifying τὴν ἐκ τῆς δυναστείας ἀδικίαν, saith Phavorinus, injustice by overruling power.) Thus when the people of Israel were forbidden to go up to Sinai, their going up thither is in the Greek expressed by Βιάζεται, Exod. xix. 24. Thus in the 4 Talmud, “Two men had an inheritance equally divided betwixt them, and one of them carried his own part away and his fellow’s too,” therefore they called him בן חמצן, the son of violence, a violent dealer, the very βιαστῆς here. Thus the kingdom of heaven being as an inheritance provided for all Jews and Gentiles, and the Jews being in a manner the elder brother, the gospel being first by appointment preached to them, the chief cities thereof, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, nay, Jerusalem itself, have not been so careful to look after it, especially the principal persons among them, doctors and high priests, &c., but continue to contradict and oppose it; and then the multitudes and meaner sort of the Jews, the people, which, say the doctors, know not the law, and are accursed; and those that dwelt in Idumæa, Tyre and Sidon, (see chap. xii. 15, compared with Mark iii. 8,) and of Galilee, so despised by the Pharisees, that they said proverbially, No good thing comes out from thence, (and besides them, the publicans and sinners,) they carry all away, and proportionably are called here βιασθαι, violent persons; and the gospel, which primarily and (as it was by them conceived) legally belonged not to them, (and therefore it is one of the Pharisees’ arguments against Christ’s being the Messias, Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed on him? but these people, &c.; and another, that he eat with publicans and sinners,) is now wholly enclosed and engrossed by them. That this is the meaning of the verse will appear by what follows, where it is said over again in other expressions. Parallel to ver. 11 (where the office of John is extolled) is v. 13, 14, which discriminates him from the law and the prophets, that is, all that went before him, and points him out as the famous Ἡλίας ὁ μέλλων, Elias that was to come; and parallel to this twelfth verse, (which, I say, contains the doctors’ and rulers’ contempting, and the multitude’s and publicans’ and people’s receiving the gospel,) is v. 15—24. But that which will make this most manifest is, that, Luke vii, (where the story of the Baptist’s sending to Christ, and Christ’s testimony of him, and the parable here immediately following, of piping and mourning, is set down,) in the very place of the words of this verse (which are not there repeated by him) he sets down these, Καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς ἀκούσας καὶ οἱ τελῶναι ἰδικαίωσαν τὸν Θεόν, &c., And all the people (that is, the common sort) and the publicans justified God, having been (or, in that they were) baptized with the baptism of John: but the Pharisees and the lawyers, that is, the chief men, those of the sanhedrim or consistories, the rulers, or men in authority among them, rejected the counsel of God toward themselves, having not been (or, in that they were not) baptized of him. And if it be objected that many of the Pharisees

Matthew 11:13

For the law and prophets all of them, that is, the writers of the Old Testament, had a prophetic relation to the Messias, darkly and afar off described Christ in types and predictions, and so continued to do till John came, but he, beyond them all by way of indication, pointed at him as actually present, whom all others foretold as future and at a distance.

Matthew 11:14

And whether you will or will not receive him, take it how you will, this is that Ehas prophesied of in Malachi, to usher in a new state, and the Messias the prince of it.

Matthew 11:15

And the embracing of his doctrine or message is a matter of huge concernment, and they that do not embrace it will not excuse themselves from the crime and punishment of obstinate wilful blindness.

Matthew 11:16

[g] children] It was the custom of children among the Jews in their sports to imitate what they saw done by others upon greater occasions; and particularly the customs in festivities, wherein the musician beginning a tune on his instrument, the company danced to his pipe; and so likewise the customs in funerals, wherein some old women beginning the mournful song, (as the præficæ among the Latins,) the rest followed, lamenting and beating the breasts, Alas, my brother! Ah, his glory! &c.: (of this custom in funerals, see note [h] ch. ix.) These did the children act and personate in the streets in play; and when one had begun to act the musician’s part, or another the old woman’s part, and the rest did not follow him in theirs, then was the occasion of this speech which is here mentioned, We have piped &c.

Matthew 11:18

If John use a diet more austere than ordinary, then they that are the wise men among you, Pharisees, doctors of the law, look on him as a madman, a melancholy, hypochondriacal person. See John vii. 6. 19. And if Christ come using the ordinary diet of men, and eating promiscuously with all company, they censure him as a loose person, and a favourer of such. And so Christ and his forerunner the Baptist, and in

¹ receive him, this, Mparton, abt. HAMMOND, VOL. I.

Matthew 11:19

[h] justified] The scripture notion of the word ἐδικαίωθη (as of the Hebrew צדקה, and the Syriac אוררקת, ezdadkat, which are here used) is known and vulgar, justified, approved. And if that be here received, then the και and י, the ordinary copulatives, which are used both here and Luke vii. 35, must either be rendered but, as those copulatives, especially the Hebrew י, sometimes are, or else this other importance and connexion with the antecedents they may have. The men of this age, that is, the rulers and Pharisees and doctors, which reject the counsel of God toward them, that is, God’s wise and various methods of reducing them, Luke vii. 30, do quarrel and complain and except against all that is done either by John or Christ, vv. 16—18, and by doing so, bear a testimony that this is the true wisdom of the Father, which according to predictions was to be refused by all the great ones, and approved and entertained only by the meaner sort, the publicans and the people, which in this part of the history are by St. Luke said to have justified God, Luke vii. 29. Πᾶς ὁ λαὸς ἀκούσας καὶ οἱ τελῶναι ἐδικαίωσαν τὸν Θεόν, All the people that heard, and the publicans, justified God. And then the νίοι σοφίας, children of wisdom, here, are those that receive it, that pretending least to the wisdom of the world, have yet humility enough to receive this true wisdom which comes from above, when it is offered to them. And all these, as St. Luke reads, ver. 35, do approve or justify this wisdom, this counsel, these most gracious and wise proceedings of God toward them. This rendering of the place is sure most agreeable to the scripture style and acception of δικαίωθη and also with the ordinary rendering of και, (not but, but) and, and therefore is to be preferred as the clearest interpretation. Yet if the use of δικαίωθη among

Matthew 11:23

And thou, Capernaum, the place of my abode, which hast been so honoured and favoured by me beyond all other places, and hast received such spiritual advantages, shalt be brought to destruction and desolation suddenly, humbled as low as thou wert highly advanced; for if the miracles done in thee, on design to reform thee, had been done in Lot’s time for the reforming of Sodom and Gomorrah, Sodom would certainly have reformed, and so should not have been destroyed.

[i] hell] Ἄδης doth not signify here the place of hell, but a state of perishing or dissolution; and because this is the first place wherein the word is used in this book, it will not be amiss more largely to clear the notion of it. Among profane writers it is clear that the word signifies not the place of the damned, no, nor any kind of place, either common to both, or proper to either bliss or woe, but only the state of the dead. Thus in c Cornutus ἐν ᾧδῃ οἰκεῖν is interpreted by ἐν ἀσαφεῖ κεῖθαι, “to be nobody knows where,” according to the definition of

c Θεωρ. πτ. τῆς τῶν Θεῶν φυσ. p. 10.

Matthew 11:24

32, whereas all beside them, (as it is there said, ver. 25,) the multitudes, Luke iii. 10, the publicans,

32, whereas all beside them, (as it is there said, ver. 25,) the multitudes, Luke iii. 10, the publicans,

And therefore you in all reason are to expect a sadder destruction and vastation than that which befell Sodom and Gomorrah.

Matthew 11:25

About that time it was that Jesus upon some occasion taken, probably that of ver. 19, founded on the close of ver. 5, (his being received by the meaner, and refused by the higher sort,) brake out into an affectionate expression of thanks to God, that those mysteries of the gospel which the wise men of the world despised (and were thereupon given up by God to their own wilful blindness) were yet by him revealed to the meanest and most ignorant, that is, that God had so disposed the way to heaven, that the most ignorant and most humble, not the most illuminated and most proud, were most ready to receive and embrace it.

⁶ and, xxi. ⁷ Or, go down, for the Gr. and Lat. MS. reads καταβήρ, descends.

Matthew 11:27

[k] All things] The word πάντα, all things, here, though it may possibly signify either all power given to Christ, or all things belonging to his office, yet by the context it rather seems to belong to persons than things; for of those he peculiarly speaks under the title of babes, ver. 25, those single-hearted, plain persons that believed on him, (for whom he there thanks God, as here he saith they are given unto him.) And the neuter gender will be no hinderance to this, being ordinarily used in this manner for persons: see ch. xviii. 11, where that that is lost is these little ones, ver. 14; and whatsoever, ver. 18, is whomsoever; and so ch. xvi. 9. So 1 John v. 4. Apoc. xxi. 27. Heb. vii. 7. 19, and ch. xii. 13.

Matthew 11:30

[l] easy] The word χρηστός signifies ἀγαθός, good, and something more, good in the highest degree; and is rendered gracious, 1 Pet. ii. 3. Κύριος χρηστός, the Lord is gracious; the Septuagint renders it, psalm xxxiv. 8, O taste and see, ὅτι χρηστός ὁ Κύριος, that the Lord is gracious;