{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"MAT","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Matthew","commonName":"Matthew","introduction":"THE author of this Gospel was a publican or tax gatherer, residing at Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. As to his identity with the \"Levi\" of the second and third Gospels, and other particulars, see on Mat 9:9. Hardly anything is known of his apostolic labors. That, after preaching to his countrymen in Palestine, he went to the East, is the general testimony of antiquity; but the precise scene or scenes of his ministry cannot be determined. That he died a natural death may be concluded from the belief of the best-informed of the Fathers--that of the apostles only three, James the Greater, Peter, and Paul, suffered martyrdom. That the first Gospel was written by this apostle is the testimony of all antiquity.\n\nFor the date of this Gospel we have only internal evidence, and that far from decisive. Accordingly, opinion is much divided. That it was the first issued of all the Gospels was universally believed. Hence, although in the order of the Gospels, those by the two apostles were placed first in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Latin version, while in all the Greek manuscripts, with scarcely an exception, the order is the same as in our Bibles, the Gospel according to Matthew is \"in every case\" placed first. And as this Gospel is of all the four the one which bears the most evident marks of having been prepared and constructed with a special view to the Jews--who certainly first required a written Gospel, and would be the first to make use of it--there can be no doubt that it was issued before any of the others. That it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem is equally certain; for as HUG observes [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316, FOSDICK'S translation], when he reports our Lord's prophecy of that awful event, on coming to the warning about \"the abomination of desolation\" which they should \"see standing in the holy place,\" he interposes (contrary to his invariable practice, which is to relate without remark) a call to his readers to read intelligently--\"Whoso readeth, let him understand\" (Mat 24:15) --a call to attend to the divine signal for flight which could be intended only for those who lived before the event. But how long before that event this Gospel was written is not so clear. Some internal evidences seem to imply a very early date. Since the Jewish Christians were, for five or six years, exposed to persecution from their own countrymen--until the Jews, being persecuted by the Romans, had to look to themselves--it is not likely (it is argued) that they should be left so long without some written Gospel to reassure and sustain them, and Matthew's Gospel was eminently fitted for that purpose. But the digests to which Luke refers in his Introduction (see on Luk 1:1) would be sufficient for a time, especially as the living voice of the \"eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word\" was yet sounding abroad. Other considerations in favor of a very early date--such as the tender way in which the author seems studiously to speak of Herod Antipas, as if still reigning, and his writing of Pilate apparently as if still in power--seem to have no foundation in fact, and cannot therefore be made the ground of reasoning as to the date of this Gospel. Its Hebraic structure and hue, though they prove, as we think, that this Gospel must have been published at a period considerably anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem, are no evidence in favor of so early a date as A.D. 37 or 38--according to some of the Fathers, and, of the moderns, TILLEMONT, TOWNSON, OWEN, BIRKS, TREGELLES. On the other hand, the date suggested by the statement of IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.1], that Matthew put forth his Gospel while Peter and Paul were at Rome preaching and founding the Church--or after A.D. 60--though probably the majority of critics are in favor of it, would seem rather too late, especially as the second and third Gospels, which were doubtless published, as well as this one, before the destruction of Jerusalem, had still to be issued. Certainly, such statements as the following, \"Wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this day\" (Mat 27:8); \"And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day\" (Mat 28:15), bespeak a date considerably later than the events recorded. We incline, therefore, to a date intermediate between the earlier and the later dates assigned to this Gospel, without pretending to greater precision.\n\nWe have adverted to the strikingly Jewish character and coloring of this Gospel. The facts which it selects, the points to which it gives prominence, the cast of thought and phraseology, all bespeak the Jewish point of view from which it was written and to which it was directed. This has been noticed from the beginning, and is universally acknowledged. It is of the greatest consequence to the right interpretation of it; but the tendency among some even of the best of the Germans to infer, from this special design of the first Gospel, a certain laxity on the part of the Evangelist in the treatment of his facts, must be guarded against.\n\nBut by far the most interesting and important point connected with this Gospel is the language in which it was written. It is believed by a formidable number of critics that this Gospel was originally written in what is loosely called Hebrew, but more correctly Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, the native tongue of the country at the time of our Lord; and that the Greek Matthew which we now possess is a translation of that work, either by the Evangelist himself or some unknown hand. The evidence on which this opinion is grounded is wholly external, but it has been deemed conclusive by GROTIUS, MICHAELIS (and his translator), MARSH, TOWNSON, CAMPBELL, OLSHAUSEN, CRESWELL, MEYER, EBRARD, LANGE, DAVIDSON, CURETON, TREGELLES, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, &c. The evidence referred to cannot be given here, but will be found, with remarks on its unsatisfactory character, in the Introduction to the Gospels prefixed to our larger Commentary, pp. 28-31.\n\nBut how stand the facts as to our Greek Gospel? We have not a title of historical evidence that it is a translation, either by Matthew himself or anyone else. All antiquity refers to it as the work of Matthew the publican and apostle, just as the other Gospels are ascribed to their respective authors. This Greek Gospel was from the first received by the Church as an integral part of the one quadriform Gospel. And while the Fathers often advert to the two Gospels which we have from apostles, and the two which we have from men not apostles--in order to show that as that of Mark leans so entirely on Peter, and that of Luke on Paul, these are really no less apostolical than the other two--though we attach less weight to this circumstance than they did, we cannot but think it striking that, in thus speaking, they never drop a hint that the full apostolic authority of the Greek Matthew had ever been questioned on the ground of its not being the original. Further, not a trace can be discovered in this Gospel itself of its being a translation. MICHAELIS tried to detect, and fancied that he had succeeded in detecting, one or two such. Other Germans since, and DAVIDSON and CURETON among ourselves, have made the same attempt. But the entire failure of all such attempts is now generally admitted, and candid advocates of a Hebrew original are quite ready to own that none such are to be found, and that but for external testimony no one would have imagined that the Greek was not the original. This they regard as showing how perfectly the translation has been executed; but those who know best what translating from one language into another is will be the readiest to own that this is tantamount to giving up the question. This Gospel proclaims its own originality in a number of striking points; such as its manner of quoting from the Old Testament, and its phraseology in some peculiar cases. But the close verbal coincidences of our Greek Matthew with the next two Gospels must not be quite passed over. There are but two possible ways of explaining this. Either the translator, sacrificing verbal fidelity in his version, intentionally conformed certain parts of his author's work to the second and third Gospels--in which case it can hardly be called Matthew's Gospel at all--or our Greek Matthew is itself the original.\n\nMoved by these considerations, some advocates of a Hebrew original have adopted the theory of a double original; the external testimony, they think, requiring us to believe in a Hebrew original, while internal evidence is decisive in favor of the originality of the Greek. This theory is espoused by GUERICKS, OLSHAUSEN, THIERSCH, TOWNSON, TREGELLES, &c. But, besides that this looks too like an artificial theory, invented to solve a difficulty, it is utterly void of historical support. There is not a vestige of testimony to support it in Christian antiquity. This ought to be decisive against it.\n\nIt remains, then, that our Greek Matthew is the original of that Gospel, and that no other original ever existed. It is greatly to the credit of DEAN ALFORD, that after maintaining, in the first edition of his Greek Testament the theory of a Hebrew original, he thus expresses himself in the second and subsequent editions: \"On the whole, then, I find myself constrained to abandon the view maintained in my first edition, and to adopt that of a Greek original.\"\n\nOne argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reliance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Greek language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine when Matthew published his Gospel to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, for their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settlement of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential element. There are extremes on both sides of it. The old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but Syro-Chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of HUG (in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 326, &c.) and ROBERTS (\"Discussions of the Gospels,\" &c., pp. 25, &c.). For ourselves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is that there is no ground to believe that Greek was so little understood in Palestine as to make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that language--so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we think of the number of digests or short narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history which we know from Luke (Luk 1:1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully, and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement until the publican-apostle should leisurely draw up the first of the four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was the language in which the entire quadriform Gospel was to be for all time enshrined. The following among others hold to this view of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew: ERASMUS, CALVIN, BEZA, LIGHTFOOT, WETSTEIN, LARDNER, HUG, FRITZSCHE, CREDNER, DE WETTE, STUART, DA COSTA, FAIRBAIRN, ROBERTS.\n\nOn two other questions regarding this Gospel it would have been desirable to say something, had not our available space been already exhausted: The characteristics, both in language and matter, by which it is distinguished from the other three, and its relation to the second and third Gospels. On the latter of these topics--whether one or more of the Evangelists made use of the materials of the other Gospels, and, if so, which of the Evangelists drew from which--the opinions are just as numerous as the possibilities of the case, every conceivable way of it having one or more who plead for it. The most popular opinion until recently--and perhaps the most popular still--is that the second Evangelist availed himself more or less of the materials of the first Gospel, and the third of the materials of both the first and second Gospels. Here we can but state our own belief, that each of the first three Evangelists wrote independently of both the others; while the fourth, familiar with the first three, wrote to supplement them, and, even where he travels along the same line, wrote quite independently of them. This judgment we express, with all deference for those who think otherwise, as the result of a close study of each of the Gospels in immediate juxtaposition and comparison with the others. On the former of the two topics noticed, the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Gospels have been handled most closely and ably by CREDNER [Einleitung (Introduction to the New Testament)], of whose results a good summary will be found in DAVIDSON'S Introduction to the New Testament. The other peculiarities of the Gospels have been most felicitously and beautifully brought out by DA COSTA in his Four Witnesses, to which we must simply refer the reader, though it contains a few things in which we cannot concur. \n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 1\n\n","order":40,"numberOfChapters":28,"sha256":"85230502f7845520bbf6f2983f2d40076dbb901c7feac0d1cfa0d62c8b7d54f8","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":28,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/28.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":28},"totalNumberOfVerses":525},"chapter":{"number":12,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day--The act itself was expressly permitted (Deu 23:25). But as being \"servile work,\" which was prohibited on the sabbath day, it was regarded as sinful.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["But he said unto them, Have ye not read--or, as Mark (Mar 2:25) has it, \"Have ye never read.\" \n\nwhat David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him-- (Sa1 21:1-6)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?--No example could be more apposite than this. The man after God's own heart, of whom the Jews ever boasted, when suffering in God's cause and straitened for provisions, asked and obtained from the high priest what, according to the law, it was illegal for anyone save the priests to touch. Mark (Mar 2:26) says this occurred \"in the days of Abiathar the high priest.\" But this means not during his high priesthood--for it was under that of his father Ahimelech--but simply, in his time. Ahimelech was soon succeeded by Abiathar, whose connection with David, and prominence during his reign, may account for his name, rather than his father's, being here introduced. Yet there is not a little confusion in what is said of these priests in different parts of the Old Testament. Thus he is called both the son of the father of Ahimelech (Sa1 22:20; Sa2 8:17); and Ahimelech is called Ahiah (Sa1 14:3), and Abimelech (Ch1 18:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath--by doing \"servile work.\" \n\nand are blameless?--The double offerings required on the sabbath day (Num 28:9) could not be presented, and the new-baked showbread (Lev 24:5; Ch1 9:32) could not be prepared and presented every sabbath morning, without a good deal of servile work on the part of the priests; not to speak of circumcision, which, when the child's eighth day happened to fall on a sabbath, had to be performed by the priests on that day. (See on Joh 7:22-23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple--or rather, according to the reading which is best supported, \"something greater.\" The argument stands thus: \"The ordinary rules for the observance of the sabbath give way before the requirements of the temple; but there are rights here before which the temple itself must give way.\" Thus indirectly, but not the less decidedly, does our Lord put in His own claims to consideration in this question--claims to be presently put in even more nakedly.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice-- (Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8, &c.). See on Mat 9:13. \n\nye would not have condemned the guiltless--that is, Had ye understood the great principle of all religion, which the Scripture everywhere recognizes--that ceremonial observances must give way before moral duties, and particularly the necessities of nature--ye would have refrained from these captious complaints against men who in this matter are blameless. But our Lord added a specific application of this great principle to the law of the sabbath, preserved only in Mark: \"And he said unto them, the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath\" (Mar 2:27). A glorious and far-reaching maxim, alike for the permanent establishment of the sabbath and the true freedom of its observance.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day--In what sense now is the Son of man Lord of the sabbath day? Not surely to abolish it--that surely were a strange lordship, especially just after saying that it was made or instituted for MAN--but to own it, to interpret it, to preside over it, and to ennoble it, by merging it in the \"Lord's Day\" (Rev 1:10), breathing into it an air of liberty and love necessarily unknown before, and thus making it the nearest resemblance to the eternal sabbatism.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["THE HEALING OF A WITHERED HAND ON THE SABBATH DAY AND RETIREMENT OF JESUS TO AVOID DANGER. ( = Mar 3:1-12; Luk 6:6-11). (Mat 12:9-21)\n\nAnd when he was departed thence--but \"on another sabbath\" (Luk 6:6). \n\nhe went into their synagogue--and taught,\" He had now, no doubt, arrived in Galilee; but this, it would appear, did not occur at Capernaum, for after it was over, He \"withdrew Himelf,\" it is said \"to the sea\" (Mar 3:7), whereas Capernaum was at the sea. \n\nAnd, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered--disabled by paralysis (as in Kg1 13:4). It was his right hand, as Luke (Luk 6:6) graphically notes. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him--Mark and Luke (Mar 3:2; Luk 6:7) say they \"watched Him whether He would heal on the sabbath day.\" They were now come to the length of dogging His steps, to collect materials for a charge of impiety against Him. It is probable that it was to their thoughts rather than their words that Jesus addressed Himself in what follows.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["How much then is a man better than a sheep?--Resistless appeal! \"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast\" (Pro 12:10), and would instinctively rescue it from death or suffering on the sabbath day; how much more his nobler fellow man! But the reasoning, as given in the other two Gospels, is singularly striking: \"But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life or to destroy it?\" (Luk 6:8-9), or as in Mark (Mar 3:4), \"to kill?\" He thus shuts them up to this startling alternative: \"Not to do good, when it is in the power of our hand to do it, is to do evil; not to save life, when we can, is to kill\"--and must the letter of the sabbath rest be kept at this expense? This unexpected thrust shut their mouths. By this great ethical principle our Lord, we see, held Himself bound, as man. But here we must turn to Mark, whose graphic details make the second Gospel so exceedingly precious. \"When He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He saith unto the man\" (Mar 3:5). This is one of the very few passages in the Gospel history which reveal our Lord's feelings. How holy this anger was appears from the \"grief\" which mingled with it at \"the hardness of their hearts.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth--the power to obey going forth with the word of command. \n\nand it was restored whole, like as the other--The poor man, having faith in this wonderful Healer--which no doubt the whole scene would singularly help to strengthen--disregarded the proud and venomous Pharisees, and thus gloriously put them to shame.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him--This is the first explicit mention of their murderous designs against our Lord. Luke (Luk 6:11) says, they were filled with madness, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.\" But their doubt was not, whether to get rid of Him, but how to compass it. Mark (Mar 3:6), as usual, is more definite: \"The Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.\" These Herodians were supporters of Herod's dynasty, created by CÃ&brvbrsar--a political rather than religious party. The Pharisees regarded them as untrue to their religion and country. But here we see them combining together against Christ as a common enemy. So on a subsequent occasion (Mat 22:15-16).\n\nJesus Retires to Avoid Danger (Mat 12:15-21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence--whither, our Evangelist says not; but Mark (Mar 3:7) says \"it was to the sea\"--to some distance, no doubt, from the scene of the miracle, the madness, and the plotting just recorded. \n\nand great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all--Mark gives the following interesting details: \"A great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things He did, came unto Him. And He spake to His disciples, that a small ship should wait on Him because of the multitude, lest they should throng Him. For He had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon Him for to touch Him, as many as had plagues. And unclean spirits, when they saw Him, fell down before Him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And He straitly charged them that they should not make Him known\" (Mar 3:7-12). How glorious this extorted homage to the Son of God! But as this was not the time, so neither were they the fitting preachers, as BENGEL says. (See on Mar 1:25, and compare Jam 2:19). Coming back now to our Evangelist: after saying, \"He healed them all,\" he continues:\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["And charged them--the healed. \n\nthat they should not make him known--(See on Mat 8:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying-- (Isa 42:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["He shall not strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory--\"unto truth,\" says the Hebrew original, and the Septuagint also. But our Evangelist merely seizes the spirit, instead of the letter of the prediction in this point. The grandeur and completeness of Messiah's victories would prove, it seems, not more wonderful than the unobtrusive noiselessness with which they were to be achieved. And whereas one rough touch will break a bruised reed, and quench the flickering, smoking flax, His it should be, with matchless tenderness, love, and skill, to lift up the meek, to strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees, to comfort all that mourn, to say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["And in his name shall the Gentiles trust--Part of His present audience were Gentiles--from Tyre and Sidon--first-fruits of the great Gentile harvest contemplated in the prophecy.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["A BLIND AND DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED AND REPLY TO THE MALIGNANT EXPLANATION PUT UPON IT. ( = Mar 3:20-30; Luk 11:14-23). (Mat. 12:22-37)\n\nThen was brought unto him one possessed with a devil--\"a demonized person.\" \n\nblind and dumb, and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and the dumb both spake and saw.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?--The form of the interrogative requires this to be rendered, \"Is this the Son of David?\" And as questions put in this form (in Greek) suppose doubt, and expect rather a negative answer, the meaning is, \"Can it possibly be?\"--the people thus indicating their secret impression that this must be He; yet saving themselves from the wrath of the ecclesiastics, which a direct assertion of it would have brought upon them. (On a similar question, see on Joh 4:29; and on the phrase, \"Son of David,\" see on Mat 9:27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["But when the Pharisees heard it--Mark (Mar 3:22) says, \"the scribes which came down from Jerusalem\"; so that this had been a hostile party of the ecclesiastics, who had come all the way from Jerusalem to collect materials for a charge against Him. (See on Mat 12:14). \n\nthey said, This fellow--an expression of contempt. \n\ndoth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub--rather, \"Beelzebul\" (see on Mat 10:25). \n\nthe prince of the devils--Two things are here implied--first, that the bitterest enemies of our Lord were unable to deny the reality of His miracles; and next, that they believed in an organized internal kingdom of evil, under one chief. This belief would be of small consequence, had not our Lord set His seal to it; but this He immediately does. Stung by the unsophisticated testimony of \"all the people,\" they had no way of holding out against His claims but the desperate shift of ascribing His miracles to Satan.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["And Jesus knew their thoughts--\"called them\" (Mar 3:23). \n\nand said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand--\"house,\" that is, \"household\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?--The argument here is irresistible. \"No organized society can stand--whether kingdom, city, or household--when turned against itself; such intestine war is suicidal: But the works I do are destructive of Satan's kingdom: That I should be in league with Satan, therefore, is incredible and absurd.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children--\"your sons,\" meaning here the \"disciples\" or pupils of the Pharisees, who were so termed after the familiar language of the Old Testament in speaking of the sons of the prophets (Kg1 20:35; Kg2 2:3, &c.). Our Lord here seems to admit that such works were wrought by them; in which case the Pharisees stood self-condemned, as expressed in Luke (Luk 11:19), \"Therefore shall they be your judges.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God--In Luke (Luk 11:20) it is, \"with (or 'by') the finger of God.\" This latter expression is just a figurative way of representing the power of God, while the former tells us the living Personal Agent was made use of by the Lord Jesus in every exercise of that power. \n\nthen--\"no doubt\" (Luk 11:20). \n\nthe kingdom of God is come unto you--rather \"upon you,\" as the same expression is rendered in Luke (Luk 11:20): --that is, \"If this expulsion of Satan is, and can be, by no other than the Spirit of God, then is his Destroyer already in the midst of you, and that kingdom which is destined to supplant his is already rising on its ruins.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house--or rather, \"the strong man's house.\" \n\nand spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad--On this important parable, in connection with the corresponding one (Mat 12:43-45), see on Luk 11:21-26.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men--The word \"blasphemy\" properly signifies \"detraction,\" or \"slander.\" In the New Testament it is applied, as it is here, to vituperation directed against God as well as against men; and in this sense it is to be understood as an aggravated form of sin. Well, says our Lord, all sin--whether in its ordinary or its more aggravated forms--shall find forgiveness with God. Accordingly, in Mark (Mar 3:28) the language is still stronger: \"All sin shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme.\" There is no sin whatever, it seems, of which it may be said. \"That is not a pardonable sin.\" This glorious assurance is not to be limited by what follows; but, on the contrary, what follows is to be explained by this. \n\nbut the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come--In Mark the language is awfully strong, \"hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation\"--or rather, according to what appears to be the preferable though very unusual reading, \"in danger of eternal guilt\"--a guilt which he will underlie for ever. Mark has the important addition (Mar 3:30), \"Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.\" (See on Mat 10:25). What, then, is this sin against the Holy Ghost--the unpardonable sin? One thing is clear: Its unpardonableness cannot arise from anything in the nature of sin itself; for that would be a naked contradiction to the emphatic declaration of Mat 12:31, that all manner of sin is pardonable. And what is this but the fundamental truth of the Gospel? (See Act 13:38-39; Rom 3:22, Rom 3:24; Jo1 1:7, &c.). Then, again when it is said (Mat 12:32), that to speak against or blaspheme the Son of man is pardonable, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not pardonable, it is not to be conceived that this arises from any greater sanctity in the one blessed Person than the other. These remarks so narrow the question that the true sense of our Lord's words seem to disclose themselves at once. It is a contrast between slandering \"the Son of man\" in His veiled condition and unfinished work--which might be done \"ignorantly, in unbelief\" (Ti1 1:13), and slandering the same blessed Person after the blaze of glory which the Holy Ghost was soon to throw around His claims, and in the full knowledge of all that. This would be to slander Him with eyes open, or to do it \"presumptuously.\" To blaspheme Christ in the former condition--when even the apostles stumbled at many things--left them still open to conviction on fuller light: but to blaspheme Him in the latter condition would be to hate the light the clearer it became, and resolutely to shut it out; which, of course, precludes salvation. (See on Heb 10:26-29). The Pharisees had not as yet done this; but in charging Jesus with being in league with hell they were displaying beforehand a malignant determination to shut their eyes to all evidence, and so, bordering upon, and in spirit committing, the unpardonable sin.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["Either make the tree good, &c.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["O generation of vipers--(See on Mat 3:7). \n\nhow can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh--a principle obvious enough, yet of deepest significance and vast application. In Luk 6:45 we find it uttered as part of the discourse delivered after the choice of the apostles.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things--or, \"putteth forth good things\": \n\nand an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things--or \"putteth forth evil things.\" The word \"putteth \" indicates the spontaneity of what comes from the heart; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh. We have here a new application of a former saying (see on Mat 7:16-20). Here, the sentiment is, \"There are but two kingdoms, interests, parties--with the proper workings of each: If I promote the one, I cannot belong to the other; but they that set themselves in wilful opposition to the kingdom of light openly proclaim to what other kingdom they belong. As for you, in what ye have now uttered, ye have but revealed the venomous malignity of your hearts.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment--They might say, \"It was nothing: we meant no evil; we merely threw out a supposition, as one way of accounting for the miracle we witnessed; if it will not stand, let it go; why make so much of it, and bear down with such severity for it?\" Jesus replies, \"It was not nothing, and at the great day will not be treated as nothing: Words, as the index of the heart, however idle they may seem, will be taken account of, whether good or bad, in estimating character in the day of judgment.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["A SIGN DEMANDED AND THE REPLY--HIS MOTHER AND BRETHREN SEEK TO SPEAK WITH HIM, AND THE ANSWER. ( = Luk 11:16, Luk 11:24-36; Mar 3:31-35; Luk 8:19-21). (Mat 12:38-50)\n\nThen certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master--\"Teacher,\" equivalent to \"Rabbi.\" \n\nwe would see a sign from thee--\"a sign from heaven\" (Luk 11:16); something of an immediate and decisive nature, to show, not that His miracles were real--that they seemed willing to concede--but that they were from above, not from beneath. These were not the same class with those who charged Him with being in league with Satan (as we see from Luk 11:15-16); but as the spirit of both was similar, the tone of severe rebuke is continued.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["But he answered and said unto them--\"when the people were gathered thick together\" (Luk 11:29). \n\nAn evil and adulterous generation--This latter expression is best explained by Jer 3:20, \"Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord.\" For this was the relationship in which He stood to the covenant-people--\"I am married unto you\" (Jer 3:14). \n\nseeketh after a sign--In the eye of Jesus this class were but the spokesmen of their generation, the exponents of the reigning spirit of unbelief. \n\nand there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["For as Jonas was--\"a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation\" (Luk 11:30). For as Jonas was \n\nthree days and three nights in the whale's belly-- (Jon 1:17). \n\nso shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth--This was the second public announcement of His resurrection three days after His death. (For the first, see Joh 2:19). Jonah's case was analogous to this, as being a signal judgment of God; reversed in three days; and followed by a glorious mission to the Gentiles. The expression \"in the heart of the earth,\" suggested by the expression of Jonah with respect to the sea (Jon 2:3, in the Septuagint), means simply the grave, but this considered as the most emphatic expression of real and total entombment. The period during which He was to lie in the grave is here expressed in round numbers, according to the Jewish way of speaking, which was to regard any part of a day, however small, included within a period of days, as a full day. (See Sa1 30:12-13; Est 4:16; Est 5:1; Mat 27:63-64, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, &c.--The Ninevites, though heathens, repented at a man's preaching; while they, God's covenant-people, repented not at the preaching of the Son of God--whose supreme dignity is rather implied here than expressed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":42,"content":["The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, &c.--The queen of Sheba (a tract in Arabia, near the shores of the Red Sea) came from a remote country, \"south\" of Judea, to hear the wisdom of a mere man, though a gifted one, and was transported with wonder at what she saw and heard (Kg1 10:1-9). They, when a Greater than Solomon had come to them, despised and rejected, slighted and slandered Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":43,"content":["When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, &c.--On this important parable, in connection with the corresponding one (Mat 12:29) see on Luk 11:21-26.\n\nA charming little incident, given only in Luk 11:27-28, seems to have its proper place here.\n\n\nLuk 11:27 : \n\nAnd it came to pass, as He spake these things, a certain woman of the company--out of the crowd. \n\nlifted up her voice and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked--With true womanly feeling she envies the mother of such a wonderful Teacher. And a higher and better than she had said as much before her (see on Luk 1:28). How does our Lord, then, treat it? He is far from condemning it. He only holds up as \"blessed rather\" another class: Luk 11:28 : \n\nBut he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it--in other words, the humblest real saint of God. How utterly alien is this sentiment from the teaching of the Church of Rome, which would doubtless excommunicate any one of its members that dared to talk in such a strain!\n\nHis Mother and Brethren Seek to Speak with Hint and the Answer (Mat 12:46-50).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":46,"content":["While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren--(See on Mat 13:55-56). \n\nstood without, desiring to speak with him--\"and could not come at Him for the press\" (Luk 8:19). For what purpose these came, we learn from Mar 3:20-21. In His zeal and ardor He seemed indifferent both to food and repose, and \"they went to lay hold of Him\" as one \"beside Himself.\" Mark (Mar 3:32) says graphically, \"And the multitude sat about Him\"--or \"around Him.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":47,"content":["Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee, &c.--Absorbed in the awful warnings He was pouring forth. He felt this to be an unseasonable interruption, fitted to dissipate the impression made upon the large audience--such an interruption as duty to the nearest relatives did not require Him to give way to. But instead of a direct rebuke, He seizes on the incident to convey a sublime lesson, expressed in a style of inimitable condescension.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":49,"content":["And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples--How graphic is this! It is the language evidently of an eye-witness. \n\nand said, Behold my mother and my brethren!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":50,"content":["For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother--that is, \"There stand here the members of a family transcending and surviving this of earth: Filial subjection to the will of My Father in heaven is the indissoluble bond of union between Me and all its members; and whosoever enters this hallowed circle becomes to Me brother, and sister, and mother!\"\n\n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 13\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PLUCKING CORN EARS ON THE SABBATH DAY. ( = Mar 2:23-28; Luk 6:1-5). (Mat 12:1-8)\n\nAt that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn--\"the cornfields\" (Mar 2:23; Luk 6:1). \n\nand his disciples were an hungered--not as one may be before his regular meals; but evidently from shortness of provisions: for Jesus defends their plucking the corn-ears and eating them on the plea of necessity. \n\nand began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat--\"rubbing them in their hands\" (Luk 6:1).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/12.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":12},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/13.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":13},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/11.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":11},"numberOfVerses":44}