{"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":21,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, &c.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["The baptism of John--meaning his whole mission and ministry, of which baptism was the proper character. \n\nwhence was it? from heaven, or of men?--What wisdom there was in this way of meeting their question will best appear by their reply. \n\nIf we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?--\"Why did ye not believe the testimony which he bore to Me, as the promised and expected Messiah?\" for that was the burden of John's whole testimony.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people--rather, \"the multitude.\" In Luke (Luk 20:6) it is, \"all the people will stone us.\" \n\nfor all hold John as a prophet--Crooked, cringing hypocrites! No wonder Jesus gave you no answer.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell--Evidently their difficulty was, how to answer, so as neither to shake their determination to reject the claims of Christ nor damage their reputation with the people. For the truth itself they cared nothing whatever. \n\nNeither tell I you by what authority I do these things--What composure and dignity of wisdom does our Lord here display, as He turns their question upon themselves, and, while revealing His knowledge of their hypocrisy, closes their mouths! Taking advantage of the surprise, silence, and awe produced by this reply, our Lord followed it up immediately by the two following parables.\n\nParable of the Two Sons (Mat 21:28-32).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard--for true religion is a practical thing, a \"bringing forth fruit unto God.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["He answered and said, I will not--TRENCH notices the rudeness of this answer, and the total absence of any attempt to excuse such disobedience, both characteristic; representing careless, reckless sinners resisting God to His face.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir--\"I, sir.\" The emphatic \"I,\" here, denotes the self-righteous complacency which says, \"God, I thank thee that I am not as other men\" (Luk 18:11). \n\nand went not--He did not \"afterward repent\" and refuse to go; for there was here no intention to go. It is the class that \"say and do not\" (Mat 23:3) --a falseness more abominable to God, says STIER, than any \"I will not.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["Whether of them twain did the will of his Father? They say unto him, The first--Now comes the application. \n\nJesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go--or, \"are going\"; even now entering, while ye hold back. \n\ninto the kingdom of God before you--The publicans and the harlots were the first son, who, when told to work in the Lord's vineyard, said, I will not; but afterwards repented and went. Their early life was a flat and flagrant refusal to do what they were commanded; it was one continued rebellion against the authority of God. The chief priests and the elders of the people, with whom our Lord was now speaking, were the second son, who said, I go, sir, but went not. They were early called, and all their life long professed obedience to God, but never rendered it; their life was one of continued disobedience.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["For John came unto you in the way of righteousness--that is, calling you to repentance; as Noah is styled \"a preacher of righteousness\" (Pe2 2:5), when like the Baptist he warned the old world to \"flee from the wrath to come.\" \n\nand ye believed him not--They did not reject him; nay, they \"were willing for a season to rejoice in his light\" (Joh 5:35); but they would not receive his testimony to Jesus. \n\nbut the publicans and the harlots believed him--Of the publicans this is twice expressly recorded, Luk 3:12; Luk 7:29. Of the harlots, then, the same may be taken for granted, though the fact is not expressly recorded. These outcasts gladly believed the testimony of John to the coming Saviour, and so hastened to Jesus when He came. See Luk 7:37; Luk 15:1, &c. \n\nand ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him--Instead of being \"provoked to jealousy\" by their example, ye have seen them flocking to the Saviour and getting to heaven, unmoved.\n\nParable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mat 21:33-46).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard--(See on Luk 13:6). \n\nand hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower--These details are taken, as is the basis of the parable itself, from that beautiful parable of Isa 5:1-7, in order to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority. \n\nand let it out to husbandmen--These are just the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness are expected to spring up. \n\nand went into a far country--\"for a long time\" (Luk 20:9), leaving the vineyard to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole time of the Jewish economy. On this phraseology, see on Mar 4:26.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen--By these \"servants\" are meant the prophets and other extraordinary messengers, raised up from time to time. See on Mat 23:37. \n\nthat they might receive the fruits of it--Again see on Luk 13:6.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one--see Jer 37:15; Jer 38:6. \n\nand killed another--see Jer 26:20-23. \n\nand stoned another--see Ch2 24:21. Compare with this whole verse Mat 23:37, where our Lord reiterates these charges in the most melting strain.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they did unto them likewise--see Kg2 17:13; Ch2 36:16, Ch2 36:18; Neh 9:26.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son--In Mark (Mar 12:6) this is most touchingly expressed: \"Having yet therefore one son, His well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence My Son.\" Luke's version of it too (Luk 20:13) is striking: \"Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son: it may be they will reverence Him when they see Him.\" Who does not see that our Lord here severs Himself, by the sharpest line of demarcation, from all merely human messengers, and claims for Himself Sonship in its loftiest sense? (Compare Heb 3:3-6). The expression, \"It may be they will reverence My Son,\" is designed to teach the almost unimaginable guilt of not reverentially welcoming God's Son.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves--Compare Gen 37:18-20; Joh 11:47-53. \n\nThis is the heir--Sublime expression this of the great truth, that God's inheritance was destined for, and in due time is to come into the possession of, His own Son in our nature (Heb 1:2). \n\ncome, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance--that so, from mere servants, we may become lords. This is the deep aim of the depraved heart; this is emphatically \"the root of all evil.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard--compare Heb 13:11-13 (\"without the gate--without the camp\"); Kg1 21:13; Joh 19:17. \n\nand slew him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh--This represents \"the settling time,\" which, in the case of the Jewish ecclesiastics, was that judicial trial of the nation and its leaders which issued in the destruction of their whole state. \n\nwhat will he do unto those husbandmen?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men--an emphatic alliteration not easily conveyed in English: \"He will badly destroy those bad men,\" or \"miserably destroy those miserable men,\" is something like it. \n\nand will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons--If this answer was given by the Pharisees, to whom our Lord addressed the parable, they thus unwittingly pronounced their own condemnation: as did David to Nathan the prophet (Sa2 12:5-7), and Simon the Pharisee to our Lord (Luk 7:43, &c.). But if it was given, as the two other Evangelists agree in representing it, by our Lord Himself, and the explicitness of the answer would seem to favor that supposition, then we can better explain the exclamation of the Pharisees which followed it, in Luke's report (Luk 20:16) --\"And when they heard it, they said, God forbid\"--His whole meaning now bursting upon them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":42,"content":["Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in the scriptures-- (Psa 118:22-23). \n\nThe stone which the builders rejected, &c.--A bright Messianic prophecy, which reappears in various forms (Isa 28:16, &c.), and was made glorious use of by Peter before the Sanhedrim (Act 4:11). He recurs to it in his first epistle (Pe1 2:4-6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":43,"content":["Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God--God's visible Kingdom, or Church, upon earth, which up to this time stood in the seed of Abraham. \n\nshall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof--that is, the great evangelical community of the faithful, which, after the extrusion of the Jewish nation, would consist chiefly of Gentiles, until \"all Israel should be saved\" (Rom 11:25-26). This vastly important statement is given by Matthew only.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":44,"content":["And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder--The Kingdom of God is here a Temple, in the erection of which a certain stone, rejected as unsuitable by the spiritual builders, is, by the great Lord of the House, made the keystone of the whole. On that Stone the builders were now \"falling\" and being \"broken\" (Isa 8:15). They were sustaining great spiritual hurt; but soon that Stone should \"fall upon them\" and \"grind them to powder\" (Dan 2:34-35; Zac 12:2) --in their corporate capacity, in the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, but personally, as unbelievers, in a more awful sense still.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":45,"content":["And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables--referring to that of the Two Sons and this one of the Wicked Husbandmen. \n\nthey perceived that he spake of them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":46,"content":["But when they sought to lay hands on him--which Luke (Luk 20:19) says they did \"the same hour,\" hardly able to restrain their rage. \n\nthey feared the multitude--rather, \"the multitudes.\" \n\nbecause they took him for a prophet--just as they feared to say John's baptism was of men, because the masses took him for a prophet (Mat 21:26). Miserable creatures! So, for this time, \"they left Him and went their way\" (Mar 12:12).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 22\n\n"]}],"introduction":"THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS QUESTIONED AND THE REPLY--THE PARABLES OF THE TWO SONS, AND OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN. ( = Mark 11:27-12:12; Luke 20:1-19). (Mat. 21:23-46)\n\nBy what authority doest thou these things!--referring particularly to the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple, and who gave thee this authority?\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/21.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":21},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/22.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":22},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/20.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":20},"numberOfVerses":23}