μέχρι Ἰωάννου. This is one of our Lord’s clearest intimations that the aeon of the Law and the Prophets was now merging into a new dispensation, since they were only “a shadow of things to come,” Colossians 2:17.

εἰς αὐτὴν βιάζεται. The phrase is classical. Thuc. I. 63, VII. 69. It implies ‘is making forcible entrance into it,’ Matthew 11:12-13. The allusion is to the eagerness with which the message of the kingdom was accepted by the publicans and the people generally, Luke 7:20; John 12:19. The other rendering, ‘every man useth violence against it,’ does not agree so well with the parallel passage in St Matthew.

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Old Testament