{"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":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights--Luke says \"When they were quite ended\" (Luk 4:2). \n\nhe was afterward an hungered--evidently implying that the sensation of hunger was unfelt during all the forty days; coming on only at their close. So it was apparently with Moses (Exo 34:28) and Elijah (Kg1 19:8) for the same period. A supernatural power of endurance was of course imparted to the body, but this probably operated through a natural law--the absorption of the Redeemer's Spirit in the dread conflict with the tempter. (See on Act 9:9). Had we only this Gospel, we should suppose the temptation did not begin till after this. But it is clear, from Mark's statement, that \"He was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan\" (Mar 1:13), and Luke's, \"being forty days tempted of the devil\" (Luk 4:2), that there was a forty days' temptation before the three specific temptations afterwards recorded. And this is what we have called the First Stage. What the precise nature and object of the forty days' temptation were is not recorded. But two things seem plain enough. First, the tempter had utterly failed of his object, else it had not been renewed; and the terms in which he opens his second attack imply as much. But further, the tempter's whole object during the forty days evidently was to get Him to distrust the heavenly testimony borne to Him at His baptism as THE SON OF GOD--to persuade Him to regard it as but a splendid illusion--and, generally, to dislodge from His breast the consciousness of His Sonship. With what plausibility the events of His previous history from the beginning would be urged upon Him in support of this temptation it is easy to imagine. And it makes much in support of this view of the forty days' temptation that the particulars of it are not recorded; for how the details of such a purely internal struggle could be recorded it is hard to see. If this be correct, how naturally does the SECOND STAGE of the temptation open! In Mark's brief notice of the temptation there is one expressive particular not given either by Matthew or by Luke--that \"He was with the wild beasts\" (Mar 1:12), no doubt to add terror to solitude, and aggravate the horrors of the whole scene.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["And when the tempter came to him--Evidently we have here a new scene. \n\nhe said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread--rather, \"loaves,\" answering to \"stones\" in the plural; whereas Luke, having said, \"Command this stone,\" in the singular, adds, \"that it be made bread,\" in the singular (Luk 4:3). The sensation of hunger, unfelt during all the forty days, seems now to have come on in all its keenness--no doubt to open a door to the tempter, of which he is not slow to avail himself; \"Thou still clingest to that vainglorious confidence that Thou art the Son of God, carried away by those illusory scenes at the Jordan. Thou wast born in a stable; but Thou art the Son of God! hurried off to Egypt for fear of Herod's wrath; but Thou art the Son of God! a carpenter's roof supplied Thee with a home, and in the obscurity of a despicable town of Galilee Thou hast spent thirty years, yet still Thou art the Son of God! and a voice from heaven, it seems, proclaimed it in Thine ears at the Jordan! Be it so; but after that, surely Thy days of obscurity and trial should have an end. Why linger for weeks in this desert, wandering among the wild beasts and craggy rocks, unhonored, unattended, unpitied, ready to starve for want of the necessaries of life? Is this befitting \"the Son of God?\" At the bidding of \"the Son of God\" surely those stones shall all be turned into loaves, and in a moment present an abundant repast.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["But he answered and said, It is written-- (Deu 8:3). \n\nMan shall not live by bread alone--more emphatically, as in the Greek, \"Not by bread alone shall man live.\" \n\nbut by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God--Of all passages in Old Testament Scripture, none could have been pitched upon more apposite, perhaps not one so apposite, to our Lord's purpose. \"The Lord . . . led thee (said Moses to Israel, at the close of their journeyings) these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only,\" &c., \"Now, if Israel spent, not forty days, but forty years in a waste, howling wilderness, where there were no means of human subsistence, not starving, but divinely provided for, on purpose to prove to every age that human support depends not upon bread, but upon God's unfailing word of promise and pledge of all needful providential care, am I, distrusting this word of God, and despairing of relief, to take the law into My own hand? True, the Son of God is able enough to turn stones into bread: but what the Son of God is able to do is not the present question, but what is man's duty under want of the necessaries of life. And as Israel's condition in the wilderness did not justify their unbelieving murmurings and frequent desperation, so neither would Mine warrant the exercise of the power of the Son of God in snatching despairingly at unwarranted relief. As man, therefore, I will await divine supply, nothing doubting that at the fitting time it will arrive.\" The second temptation in this Gospel is in Luke's the third. That Matthew's order is the right one will appear, we think, quite clearly in the sequel.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Then the devil taketh him up--rather, \"conducteth Him.\" \n\ninto the holy city--so called (as in Isa 48:2; Neh 11:1) from its being \"the city of the Great King,\" the seat of the temple, the metropolis of all Jewish worship. \n\nand setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple--rather, \"the pinnacle\"--a certain well-known projection. Whether this refers to the highest summit of the temple, which bristled with golden spikes [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 5.5,6]; or whether it refers to another peak, on Herod's royal portico, overhanging the ravine of Kedron, at the valley of Hinnom--an immense tower built on the very edge of this precipice, from the top of which dizzy height JOSEPHUS says one could not look to the bottom [Antiquities, 15.11,5]--is not certain; but the latter is probably meant.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God--As this temptation starts with the same point as the first--our Lord's determination not to be disputed out of His Sonship--it seems to us clear that the one came directly after the other; and as the remaining temptation shows that the hope of carrying that point was abandoned, and all was staked upon a desperate venture, we think that remaining temptation is thus shown to be the last; as will appear still more when we come to it. \n\ncast thyself down--\"from hence\" (Luk 4:9). \n\nfor it is written-- (Psa 91:11-12). \"But what is this I see?\" exclaims stately BISHOP HALL. \"Satan himself with a Bible under his arm and a text in his mouth!\" Doubtless the tempter, having felt the power of God's Word in the former temptation, was eager to try the effect of it from his own mouth (Co2 11:14). \n\nHe shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands--rather, \"on their hands.\" \n\nthey shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone--The quotation is, precisely as it stands in the Hebrew and the Septuagint, save that after the first clause the words, \"to keep thee in all thy ways,\" are here omitted. Not a few good expositors have thought that this omission was intentional, to conceal the fact that this would not have been one of \"His ways,\" that is, of duty. But as our Lord's reply makes no allusion to this, but seizes on the great principle involved in the promise quoted, so when we look at the promise itself, it is plain that the sense of it is precisely the same whether the clause in question be inserted or not.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Jesus said unto him, It is written again-- (Deu 6:16), as if he should say, \"True, it is so written, and on that promise I implicitly rely; but in using it there is another Scripture which must not be forgotten.\" \n\nThou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God--\"Preservation in danger is divinely pledged: shall I then create danger, either to put the promised security skeptically to the proof, or wantonly to demand a display of it? That were 'to tempt the Lord my God,' which, being expressly forbidden, would forfeit the right to expect preservation.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Again, the devil taketh him up--\"conducteth him,\" as before. \n\ninto--or \"unto\" \n\nan exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them--Luke (Luk 4:5) adds the important clause, \"in a moment of time\"; a clause which seems to furnish a key to the true meaning. That a scene was presented to our Lord's natural eye seems plainly expressed. But to limit this to the most extensive scene which the natural eye could take in, is to give a sense to the expression, \"all the kingdoms of the world,\" quite violent. It remains, then, to gather from the expression, \"in a moment of time\"-- which manifestly is intended to intimate some supernatural operation--that it was permitted to the tempter to extend preternaturally for a moment our Lord's range of vision, and throw a \"glory\" or glitter over the scene of vision: a thing not inconsistent with the analogy of other scriptural statements regarding the permitted operations of the wicked one. In this case, the \"exceeding height\" of the \"mountain\" from which this sight was beheld would favor the effect to be produced.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee--\"and the glory of them,\" adds Luke (Luk 4:6). But Matthew having already said that this was \"showed Him,\" did not need to repeat it here. Luke (Luk 4:6) adds these other very important clauses, here omitted--\"for that is,\" or \"has been,\" \"delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it.\" Was this wholly false? That were not like Satan's unusual policy, which is to insinuate his lies under cover of some truth. What truth, then, is there here? We answer, Is not Satan thrice called by our Lord Himself, \"the prince of this world\" (Joh 12:31; Joh 14:30; Joh 16:11)? Does not the apostle call him \"the god of this world\" (Co2 4:4)? And still further, is it not said that Christ came to destroy by His death \"him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil\" (Heb 2:14)? No doubt these passages only express men's voluntary subjection to the rule of the wicked one while they live, and his power to surround death to them, when it comes, with all the terrors of the wages of sin. But as this is a real and terrible sway, so all Scripture represents men as righteously sold under it. In this sense he speaks what is not devoid of truth, when he says, \"All this is delivered unto me.\" But how does he deliver this \"to whomsoever he will?\" As employing whomsoever he pleases of his willing subjects in keeping men under his power. In this case his offer to our Lord was that of a deputed supremacy commensurate with his own, though as his gift and for his ends. \n\nif thou wilt fall down and worship me--This was the sole but monstrous condition. No Scripture, it will be observed, is quoted now, because none could be found to support so blasphemous a claim. In fact, he has ceased now to present his temptations under the mask of piety, and he stands out unblushingly as the rival of God Himself in his claims on the homage of men. Despairing of success as an angel of light, he throws off all disguise, and with a splendid bribe solicits divine honor. This again shows that we are now at the last of the temptations, and that Matthew's order is the true one.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan--Since the tempter has now thrown off the mask, and stands forth in his true character, our Lord no longer deals with him as a pretended friend and pious counsellor, but calls him by his right name--His knowledge of which from the outset He had carefully concealed till now--and orders him off. This is the final and conclusive evidence, as we think, that Matthew's must be the right order of the temptations. For who can well conceive of the tempter's returning to the assault after this, in the pious character again, and hoping still to dislodge the consciousness of His Sonship, while our Lord must in that case be supposed to quote Scripture to one He had called the devil to his face--thus throwing His pearls before worse than swine? \n\nfor it is written-- (Deu 6:13). Thus does our Lord part with Satan on the rock of Scripture. \n\nThou shalt worship--In the Hebrew and the Septuagint it is, \"Thou shalt fear\"; but as the sense is the same, so \"worship\" is here used to show emphatically that what the tempter claimed was precisely what God had forbidden. \n\nthe Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve--The word \"serve\" in the second clause, is one never used by the Septuagint of any but religious service; and in this sense exclusively is it used in the New Testament, as we find it here. Once more the word \"only,\" in the second clause--not expressed in the Hebrew and the Septuagint--is here added to bring out emphatically the negative and prohibitory feature of the command. (See Gal 3:10 for a similar supplement of the word \"all\" in a quotation from Deu 27:26).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Then the devil leaveth him--Luke says, \"And when the devil had exhausted\"--or \"quite ended,\" as in Luk 4:2 --\"every (mode of) temptation, he departed from him till a season.\" The definite \"season\" here indicated is expressly referred to by our Lord in Joh 14:30; Luk 22:52-53. \n\nand, behold, angels came and ministered unto him--or supplied Him with food, as the same expression means in Mar 1:31; Luk 8:3. Thus did angels to Elijah (Kg1 19:5-8). Excellent critics think that they ministered, not food only, but supernatural support and cheer also. But this would be the natural effect rather than the direct object of the visit, which was plainly what we have expressed. And after having refused to claim the illegitimate ministration of angels in His behalf, oh, with what deep joy would He accept their services when sent, unasked, at the close of all this temptation, direct from Him whom He had so gloriously honored! What \"angels' food\" would this repast be to Him! and as He partook of it, might not a Voice from heaven be heard again, by any who could read the Father's mind, \"Said I not well, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["CHRIST BEGINS HIS GALILEAN MINISTRY--CALLING OF PETER AND ANDREW, JAMES AND JOHN--HIS FIRST GALILEAN CIRCUIT. ( = Mar 1:14-20, Mar 1:35-39; Luk 4:14-15). (Mat 4:12-25)\n\nNow when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison--more simply, \"was delivered up,\" as recorded in Mat 14:3-5; Mar 6:17-20; Luk 3:19-20. \n\nhe departed--rather, \"withdrew.\" \n\ninto Galilee--as recorded, in its proper place, in Joh 4:1-3.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["And leaving Nazareth--The prevalent opinion is that this refers to a first visit to Nazareth after His baptism, whose details are given by Luke (Luk 4:16, &c.); a second visit being that detailed by our Evangelist (Mat 13:54-58), and by Mark (Mar 6:1-6). But to us there seem all but insuperable difficulties in the supposition of two visits to Nazareth after His baptism; and on the grounds stated in Luk 4:16, &c., we think that the one only visit to Nazareth is that recorded by Matthew (Mat 13:53-58), Mark (Mar 6:1-6), and Luke (Luke 4:14-30). But how, in that case, are we to take the word \"leaving Nazareth\" here? We answer, just as the same word is used in Act 21:3, \"Now when we had sighted Cyprus, and left it on the left, we sailed into Syria,\"--that is, without entering Cyprus at all, but merely \"sighting\" it, as the nautical phrase is, they steered southeast of it, leaving it on the northwest. So here, what we understand the Evangelist to say is, that Jesus, on His return to Galilee, did not, as might have been expected, make Nazareth the place of His stated residence, but, \"leaving for passing by Nazareth,\" \n\nhe came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast--maritime Capernaum, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee; but the precise spot is unknown. (See on Mat 11:23). Our Lord seems to have chosen it for several reasons. Four or five of the Twelve lived there; it had a considerable and mixed population, securing some freedom from that intense bigotry which even to this day characterizes all places where Jews in large numbers dwell nearly alone; it was centrical, so that not only on the approach of the annual festivals did large numbers pass through it or near it, but on any occasion multitudes could easily be collected about it; and for crossing and recrossing the lake, which our Lord had so often occasion to do, no place could be more convenient. But one other high reason for the choice of Capernaum remains to be mentioned, the only one specified by our Evangelist. \n\nin the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim--the one lying to the west of the Sea of Galilee, the other to the north of it; but the precise boundaries cannot now be traced out.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet-- (Isa 9:1-2 or, as in Hebrew, Isa 8:23, and Isa 9:1). \n\nsaying--as follows:\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea--the coast skirting the Sea of Galilee westward--beyond Jordan--a phrase commonly meaning eastward of Jordan; but here and in several places it means westward of the Jordan. The word seems to have got the general meaning of \"the other side\"; the nature of the case determining which side that was. \n\nGalilee of the Gentiles--so called from its position, which made it the frontier between the Holy Land and the external world. While Ephraim and Judah, as STANLEY says, were separated from the world by the Jordan valley on one side and the hostile Philistines on another, the northern tribes were in the direct highway of all the invaders from the north, in unbroken communication with the promiscuous races who have always occupied the heights of Lebanon, and in close and peaceful alliance with the most commercial nation of the ancient world, the PhÅ“nicians. Twenty of the cities of Galilee were actually annexed by Solomon to the adjacent kingdom of Tyre, and formed, with their territory, the \"boundary\" or \"offscouring\" (Gebul or Cabul) of the two dominions--at a later time still known by the general name of \"the boundaries (coasts or borders) of Tyre and Sidon.\" In the first great transportation of the Jewish population, Naphtali and Galilee suffered the same fate as the trans-jordanic tribes before Ephraim or Judah had been molested (Kg2 15:29). In the time of the Christian era this original disadvantage of their position was still felt; the speech of the Galileans \"bewrayed them\" by its uncouth pronunciation (Mat 26:73); and their distance from the seats of government and civilization at Jerusalem and CÃ&brvbrsarea gave them their character for turbulence or independence, according as it was viewed by their friends or their enemies.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up--The prophetic strain to which these words belong commences with the seventh chapter of Isaiah, to which the sixth chapter is introductory, and goes down to the end of the twelfth chapter, which hymns the spirit of that whole strain of prophecy. It belongs to the reign of Ahaz and turns upon the combined efforts of the two neighboring kingdoms of Syria and Israel to crush Judah. In these critical circumstances Judah and her king were, by their ungodliness, provoking the Lord to sell them into the hands of their enemies. What, then, is the burden of this prophetic strain, on to the passage here quoted? First, Judah shall not, cannot perish, because IMMANUEL, the Virgin's Son, is to come forth from his loins. Next, one of the invaders shall soon perish, and the kingdoms of neither be enlarged. Further, while the Lord will be the Sanctuary of such as confide in these promises and await their fulfilment, He will drive to confusion, darkness, and despair the vast multitude of the nation who despised His oracles, and, in their anxiety and distress, betook themselves to the lying oracles of the heathen. This carries us down to the end of the eighth chapter. At the opening of the ninth chapter a sudden light is seen breaking in upon one particular part of the country, the part which was to suffer most in these wars and devastations--\"the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee and the Gentiles.\" The rest of the prophecy stretches over both the Assyrian and the Chaldean captivities and terminates in the glorious Messianic prophecy of the eleventh chapter and the choral hymn of the twelfth chapter. Well, this is the point seized on by our Evangelist. By Messiah's taking up His abode in those very regions of Galilee, and shedding His glorious light upon them, this prediction, He says, of the Evangelical prophet was now fulfilled; and if it was not thus fulfilled, we may confidently affirm it was not fulfilled in any age of the Jewish ceremony, and has received no fulfilment at all. Even the most rationalistic critics have difficulty in explaining it in any other way.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand--Thus did our Lord not only take up the strain, but give forth the identical summons of His honored forerunner. Our Lord sometimes speaks of the new kingdom as already come--in His own Person and ministry; but the economy of it was only \"at hand\" until the blood of the cross was shed, and the Spirit on the day of Pentecost opened the fountain for sin and for uncleanness to the world at large.\n\nCalling of Peter and Andrew James and John (Mat 4:18-22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["And Jesus, walking--The word \"Jesus\" here appears not to belong to the text, but to have been introduced from those portions of it which were transcribed to be used as church lessons; where it was naturally introduced as a connecting word at the commencement of a lesson. \n\nby the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers--\"called Peter\" for the reason mentioned in Mat 16:18.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["And he saith unto them, Follow me--rather, as the same expression is rendered in Mark, \"Come ye after Me\" (Mar 1:17). \n\nand I will make you fishers of men--raising them from a lower to a higher fishing, as David was from a lower to a higher feeding (Psa 78:70-72).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship--rather, \"in the ship,\" their fishing boat. \n\nwith Zebedee their father, mending their nets: and he called them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["And they immediately left the ship and their father--Mark adds an important clause: \"They left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants\" (Mar 1:20); showing that the family were in easy circumstances. \n\nand followed him--Two harmonistic questions here arise: First, Was this the same calling as that recorded in Joh 1:35-42? Clearly not. For, (1) That call was given while Jesus was yet in Judea: this, after His return to Galilee. (2) Here, Christ calls Andrew: there, Andrew solicits an interview with Christ. (3) Here, Andrew and Peter are called together: there, Andrew having been called, with an unnamed disciple, who was clearly the beloved disciple (see on Joh 1:40), goes and fetches Peter his brother to Christ, who then calls him. (4) Here, John is called along with James his brother: there, John is called along with Andrew, after having at their own request had an interview with Jesus; no mention being made of James, whose call, if it then took place, would not likely have been passed over by his own brother. Thus far nearly all are agreed. But on the next question opinion is divided: Was this the same calling as that recorded in Luk 5:1-11? Many able critics think so. But the following considerations are to us decisive against it. First here, the four are called separately, in pairs: in Luke, all together. Next, in Luke, after a glorious miracle: here, the one pair are casting their net, the other are mending theirs. Further, here, our Lord had made no public appearance in Galilee, and so had gathered none around Him; He is walking solitary by the shores of the lake when He accosts the two pairs of fishermen: in Luke, the multitude are pressing upon Him, and hearing the word of God, as He stands by the Lake of Gennesaret--a state of things implying a somewhat advanced stage of His early ministry, and some popular enthusiasm. Regarding these successive callings, see on Luk 5:1.\n\nFirst Galilean Circuit (Mat 4:23-25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues--These were houses of local worship. It cannot be proved that they existed before the Babylonish captivity; but as they began to be erected soon after it, probably the idea was suggested by the religious inconveniences to which the captives had been subjected. In our Lord's time, the rule was to have one wherever ten learned men or professed students of the law resided; and they extended to Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and most places of the dispersion. The larger towns had several, and in Jerusalem the number approached five hundred. In point of officers and mode of worship, the Christian congregations are modelled after the synagogue. \n\nand preaching the gospel of the kingdom--proclaiming the glad tidings of the kingdom, \n\nand healing all manner of sickness--every disease. \n\nand all manner of disease among the people--every complaint. The word means any incipient malady causing \"softness.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["And his fame went throughout all Syria--reaching first to the part of it adjacent to Galilee, called Syro-PhÅ“nicia (Mar 7:26), and thence extending far and wide. \n\nand they brought unto him all sick people--all that were ailing or unwell. Those \n\nthat were taken--for this is a distinct class, not an explanation of the \"unwell\" class, as our translators understood it. \n\nwith divers diseases and torments--that is, acute disorders. \n\nand those which were possessed with devils--that were demonized or possessed with demons. \n\nand those which were lunatic--moon-struck. \n\nand those that had the palsy--paralytics, a word not naturalized when our version was made. \n\nand he healed them--These healings were at once His credentials and illustrations of \"the glad tidings\" which He proclaimed. After reading this account of our Lord's first preaching tour, can we wonder at what follows?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis--a region lying to the east of the Jordan, so called as containing ten cities, founded and chiefly inhabited by Greek settlers. \n\nand from Jerusalem, and from beyond Jordan--meaning from Perea. Thus not only was all Palestine upheaved, but all the adjacent regions. But the more immediate object for which this is here mentioned is, to give the reader some idea both of the vast concourse and of the varied complexion of eager attendants upon the great Preacher, to whom the astonishing discourse of the next three chapters was addressed. On the importance which our Lord Himself attached to this first preaching circuit, and the preparation which He made for it, see on Mar 1:35-39.\n\nSERMON ON THE MOUNT.\n\nThat this is the same Discourse as that in Luke 6:17-49--only reported more fully by Matthew, and less fully, as well as with considerable variation, by Luke--is the opinion of many very able critics (of the Greek commentators; of CALVIN, GROTIUS, MALDONATUS--Who stands almost alone among Romish commentators; and of most moderns, as THOLUCK, MEYER, DE WETTE, TISCHENDORF, STIER, WIESELER, ROBINSON). The prevailing opinion of these critics is that Luke's is the original form of the discourse, to which Matthew has added a number of sayings, uttered on other occasions, in order to give at one view the great outlines of our Lord's ethical teaching. But that they are two distinct discourses--the one delivered about the close of His first missionary tour, and the other after a second such tour and the solemn choice of the Twelve--is the judgment of others who have given much attention to such matters (of most Romish commentators, including ERASMUS; and among the moderns, of LANGE, GRESWELL, BIRKS, WEBSTER and WILKINSON. The question is left undecided by ALFORD). AUGUSTINE'S opinion--that they were both delivered on one occasion, Matthew's on the mountain, and to the disciples; Luke's in the plain, and to the promiscuous multitude--is so clumsy and artificial as hardly to deserve notice. To us the weight of argument appears to lie with those who think them two separate discourses. It seems hard to conceive that Matthew should have put this discourse before his own calling, if it was not uttered till long after, and was spoken in his own hearing as one of the newly chosen Twelve. Add to this, that Matthew introduces his discourse amidst very definite markings of time, which fix it to our Lord's first preaching tour; while that of Luke, which is expressly said to have been delivered immediately after the choice of the Twelve, could not have been spoken till long after the time noted by Matthew. It is hard, too, to see how either discourse can well be regarded as the expansion or contraction of the other. And as it is beyond dispute that our Lord repeated some of His weightier sayings in different forms, and with varied applications, it ought not to surprise us that, after the lapse of perhaps a year--when, having spent a whole night on the hill in prayer to God, and set the Twelve apart, He found Himself surrounded by crowds of people, few of whom probably had heard the Sermon on the Mount, and fewer still remembered much of it--He should go over its principal points again, with just as much sameness as to show their enduring gravity, but at the same time with that difference which shows His exhaustless fertility as the great Prophet of the Church.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 5\n\n"]}],"introduction":"TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. ( = Mar 1:12-13; Luk 4:1-13). (Mat 4:1-11)\n\nThen--an indefinite note of sequence. But Mark's word (Mar 1:12) fixes what we should have presumed was meant, that it was \"immediately\" after His baptism; and with this agrees the statement of Luke (Luk 4:1). \n\nwas Jesus led up--that is, from the low Jordan valley to some more elevated spot. \n\nof the Spirit--that blessed Spirit immediately before spoken of as descending upon Him at His baptism, and abiding upon Him. Luke, connecting these two scenes, as if the one were but the sequel of the other, says, \"Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led,\" &c. Mark's expression has a startling sharpness about it--\"Immediately the Spirit driveth Him\" (Mar 1:12), \"putteth,\" or \"hurrieth Him forth,\" or \"impelleth Him.\" (See the same word in Mar 1:43; Mar 5:40; Mat 9:25; Mat 13:52; Joh 10:4). The thought thus strongly expressed is the mighty constraining impulse of the Spirit under which He went; while Matthew's more gentle expression, \"was led up,\" intimates how purely voluntary on His own part this action was. \n\ninto the wilderness--probably the wild Judean desert. The particular spot which tradition has fixed upon has hence got the name of Quarantana or Quarantaria, from the forty days--\"an almost perpendicular wall of rock twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the plain\" [ROBINSON, Palestine]. The supposition of those who incline to place the temptation amongst the mountains of Moab is, we think, very improbable. \n\nto be tempted--The Greek word (peirazein) means simply to try or make proof of; and when ascribed to God in His dealings with men, it means, and can mean no more than this. Thus, Gen 22:1, \"It came to pass that God did tempt Abraham,\" or put his faith to a severe proof. (See Deu 8:2). But for the most part in Scripture the word is used in a bad sense, and means to entice, solicit, or provoke to sin. Hence the name here given to the wicked one--\"the tempter\" (Mat 4:3). Accordingly \"to be tempted\" here is to be understood both ways. The Spirit conducted Him into the wilderness simply to have His faith tried; but as the agent in this trial was to be the wicked one, whose whole object would be to seduce Him from His allegiance to God, it was a temptation in the bad sense of the term. The unworthy inference which some would draw from this is energetically repelled by an apostle (Jam 1:13-17). \n\nof the devil. The word signifies a slanderer--one who casts imputations upon another. Hence that other name given him (Rev 12:10), \"The accuser of the brethren, who accuseth them before our God day and night.\" Mark (Mar 1:13) says, \"He was forty days tempted of Satan,\" a word signifying an adversary, one who lies in wait for, or sets himself in opposition to another. These and other names of the same fallen spirit point to different features in his character or operations. What was the high design of this? First, as we judge, to give our Lord a taste of what lay before Him in the work He had undertaken; next, to make trial of the glorious equipment for it which He had just received; further, to give Him encouragement, by the victory now to be won, to go forward spoiling principalities and powers, until at length He should make a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His cross: that the tempter, too, might get a taste, at the very outset, of the new kind of material in man which he would find he had here to deal with; finally, that He might acquire experimental ability \"to succor them that are tempted\" (Heb 2:18). The temptation evidently embraced two stages: the one continuing throughout the forty days' fast; the other, at the conclusion of that period.\n\nFIRST STAGE: \n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":24}