Luke 7:28

προφήτης, omitted by אBL, La[154] W.H[155]

[154] La. Lachmann.
[155] W.H. Westcott and Hort.

28. μείζων. ‘He was the lamp, kindled and burning,’ John 5:35. “Major Prophetâ quia finis Prophetarum,” S. Ambr. He closed the former Aeon and announced the new, Matthew 11:11-12. Our Lord is alluding to his office not to his moral greatness.

ὁ δὲ μικρότερος. This cannot mean quite the same thing as if the superlative had been used. It may be qualitative, as in our R.V[160] “he that is but little.” Meyer supposes it to mean ‘he that is less than John.’ We find a similar comparative in Luke 9:48 and in Matthew 13:32; Matthew 18:1. The superlative of μικρός is not used in the N.T.

[160] R.V. Revised Version.

μείζων αὐτοῦ. See by way of comment Matthew 13:16-17; Colossians 1:25-27, and compare Hebrews 11:13. The simple meaning of these words seems to be that in blessings and privileges, in knowledge, in revealed hope, in conscious admission into fellowship with God, the humblest child of the new kingdom is superior to the greatest prophet of the old; seeing that, as the old legal maxim says, “the least of the greatest is greater than the greatest of the least.” The smallest diamond is made of more precious substance than the largest flint. In the old dispensation “the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified,” John 7:39. Of those “born of women” there was no greater prophet than John the Baptist, but the members of Christ’s Church are “born of water and of the Spirit.” This saying of our Lord respecting the privileges of the humblest children of His kingdom has seemed so strange that attempts have been made to give another tone to the meaning by interpreting “he that is least” to mean ‘the younger,’ and by explaining it to mean our Lord Himself as “coming after” the Baptist.