Matthew 18:6

περὶ (אBL and some of the Fathers) for ἐπὶ of receptus. εἰς is also strongly supported, and περὶ may have come from the parallel passages in Mark and Luke.

6. πιστευόντων εἰς ἐμέ. For the distinction between πιστεύειν εἰς ‘to believe in any one,’ i.e. to put entire faith in him, and πιστεύειν τινί, ‘to believe any one,’ i.e. to give credit to his words, see Prof. Westcott on John 8:30 (Speaker’s Commentary). The first construction is characteristic of St John’s gospel and in the Synoptics occurs only here, and in the parallel passage Mark 9:42.

συμφέρει ἵνα, expedit ut. See note ch. Matthew 1:22.

μύλος ὀνικός. A millstone turned by an ass, and so larger than the ordinary millstone. Cp. Ovid (Fasti VI. 318): ‘Et quæ pumiceas versat asella molas.’

The manner of death alluded to appears to have been unknown to the Jews. But Plutarch mentions this punishment as being common to Greece and Rome. Cp. Juv. Sat. VIII. 213, where, as in other places, it is named rather than the cross as a swift and terrible penalty for crime. The Scholiast on Aristoph. Equites, 1360, explains ὑπέρβολον, ὅταν γὰρ κατεπόντουν τινὰς βάρος�.

ἐν τῷ πελάγει τῆς θαλάσσης. πέλαγος does not in itself mean the ‘deep sea,’ but either ‘the expanse of open water’ (πλάξ, πλατύς, flat, &c.), or the ‘tossing,’ ‘beating’ sea (πλήσσω from root πλαγ). In this passage, therefore, the sense of depth is rather to be looked for in καταποντισθῇ, though the connection between πόντος and βένθος, βάθος, &c., is doubtful; Curtius prefers the etymology of πάτος, ‘path,’ and Lat. pons. (See Trench, N.T. Syn. 52, 53, and Curtius, Etym. 270 and 278.)