CHAPTER 2. INCIPIENT CONFLICT. This chapter and the first six verses of the next report incidents which, though not represented as happening at the same time, have all one aim: to exhibit Jesus as becoming an object of disfavour to the religious classes, the scribes and Pharisees. Sooner or later,... [ Continue Reading ]
Thereading of [4] [5] [6] (W.H [7]) with εἰσελθὼν for εἰσῆλθεν in T. R., and omitting καὶ before ἠκούσθη, gives a ruggedly anacolouthistic construction (“and entering again into Capernaum after days it was heard that He was at home”), which the T. R. very neatly removes. The construction of the sent... [ Continue Reading ]
_The palsied man_ (Matthew 9:1-8; Luke 5:17-26).... [ Continue Reading ]
συνήχθησαν πολλοὶ : with the extraordinary incidents of some weeks or months ago fresh in their memory, a great gathering of the townspeople was inevitable. ὥστε, etc.: the gathering was phenomenal; not only the house filled, but the space round about the door crowded no room for more people even th... [ Continue Reading ]
ἔρχονται : historic present with lively effect. The arrival creates a stir. φέροντες : this may mean more than the four who actually carried the sick man (ὑπὸ τεσσάρων), friends accompanying. The bearers might be _servants_ (Schanz).... [ Continue Reading ]
The particulars in this verse not in Mt., who did not care how they found their way to Jesus; enough for him that they succeeded _somehow_. προσεγγίσαι (T. R.): here only in N. T. to approach; προσενέγκαι (W.H [8]), to bring near (the sick man understood) to Him, Jesus. ἀπεστέγασαν τ. σ., removed th... [ Continue Reading ]
τὴν πίστιν α., their faith, that of the bearers, shown by their energetic action, the sick man not included (οὐ τὴν πίστιν τοῦ παραλελυμένου ἀλλὰ τῶν κομισάντων, Victor Ant., Cramer, Cat.). τέκνον, child, without the cheering θάρσει of Mt.... [ Continue Reading ]
Thus far of the sick man, how he got to Jesus, and the sympathetic reception he met with. Now the scribes begin to play their part. They find their opportunity in the sympathetic word of Jesus: thy sins be forgiven thee; a word most suitable to the case, and which might have been spoken by any man.... [ Continue Reading ]
τί οὗτος οὕτω λάλει; βλασφημεῖ. This reading of [9] [10] [11] [12] is far more life-like than that of the T. R., which exemplifies the tendency of copyists to smooth down into commonplace whatever is striking and original = why does this person thus speak? He blasphemes. The words suggest a gradual... [ Continue Reading ]
εὐθὺς ἐπιγνοὺς : Jesus read their thoughts _at once_, and through and through (ἐπὶ). τῷ πνεύματι, by His _spirit_, as distinct from the ear, they having said nothing.... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 2:9-10, _vide_ notes on Mt.... [ Continue Reading ]
σοὶ λέγω, I say to thee, a part of Christ's speech to the man in Mk., not likely to have been so really; laconic speech, the fewest words possible, characteristic of Jesus. ἔγειρε, means something more than _age_ (Fritzsche) = come, take up thy bed. Jesus bids him do two things, each a conclusive pr... [ Continue Reading ]
tells how the man did as bidden, to the astonishment of all spectators. πάντας, all, without exception, scribes included? (Kloster.) It might have been so had the sentence stopped there. For no doubt the scribes were as much astonished as their neighbours at what took place. But they would not join... [ Continue Reading ]
interrupts the continuity of the history. It states that Jesus went out again (_cf._ Mark 1:16) alongside (παρὰ) the sea, that the multitude followed Him, and that He taught them. A very vague general notice, serving little other purpose than to place an interval between the foregoing and following... [ Continue Reading ]
_Call of Levi, feast following_ (Matthew 9:9-13; Luke 5:27-32). This incident is not to be conceived as following immediately after that narrated in the foregoing section.... [ Continue Reading ]
Λευῒν. Levi, the son of Alphaeus, the name here and in Lk. different from that given in first gospel, but the incident manifestly the same, and the man therefore also; Levi his original name, Matthew his apostle name. Mk. names Matthew in his apostle list (Mark 3:18), but he fails to identify the tw... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτου : whose house? Not perfectly clear, but all things point to that of Levi. There is no mention of a return to Capernaum, where Jesus dwelt. The custom house may have been outside the town, nearer the shore. Then if the house of Jesus (Peter's) had been meant, the name of Jesus shoul... [ Continue Reading ]
ἔλεγον : the scribes advance from _thinking_ (Mark 2:6) to _speaking_; not yet, however, _to_ Jesus but _about_ Him to His disciples. They note, with disapproval, His kindly relations with “sinners”. The publicans and other disreputables had also noted the fact. The story of the palsied man and the... [ Continue Reading ]
καλέσαι : to call, suggestive of invitations to a _feast_ (Fritzsche, Meyer, Holtz.), and making for the hypothesis that Jesus, not Matthew, was the real host at the social gathering: the whole plan His, and Matthew only His agent; _vide_ notes on Mt. He called to that particular feast as to the fea... [ Continue Reading ]
καὶ, _and_, connection purely topical, another case of conflict. ἦσαν νηστεύοντες, either: were wont to fast (Grotius, Fritzsche, Schanz, etc.), or, and this gives more point to the story: were fasting at that particular time (Meyer, Weiss, Holtz., H. C.). ἔρχονται καὶ λέγ., they come and say, quite... [ Continue Reading ]
_Fasting_ (Matthew 9:14-17; Luke 5:33-39).... [ Continue Reading ]
μὴ δύνανται etc.: the question answers itself, and is allowed to do so in Mt. and Lk. Mk. at the expense of style answers it formally in the negative. ὅσον χρόνον, etc. For all this the Syriac Vulgate has a simple _no_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Here also the style becomes burdened by the sense of the solemn character of the fact stated: there will come days when the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast in that day! This final expression, ἐν ἐκείνῃ ἡμέρᾳ, singular, for plural in first clause, is very impressive, alt... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐπιρράπτει, sews upon, for ἐπιβάλλει in Mt. and Lk.; not in Greek authors, here only in N. T.; in Sept [13], Job 16:15, the simple verb. εἰ δὲ μή : _vide_ on εἰ δὲ μήγε in Matthew 9:17. εἰ δὲ μήγε, etc.: that which filleth up taketh from it (ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ) the new, _viz._, from the old; the second claus... [ Continue Reading ]
ῥήξει. Pricaeus (_ad_ Matthew 9:17) quotes from Seneca (83 Epist.): “musto dolia ipsa rumpuntur” of course, _a fortiori_, old _skins_. καὶ ὁ οἶνος, etc.: and the wine is lost, also the skins. ἀλλὰ, etc.: this final clause, bracketed in W. and H [14], with the βλητέον, probably inserted from Lk., giv... [ Continue Reading ]
καὶ ἐγ.: connection with foregoing topical, not temporal; another case of conflict. αὐτὸν παραπορεύεσθαι : ἐγένετο is followed here by the infinitive in first clause, then with καὶ and a finite verb in second clause. It is sometimes followed by indicative with καὶ, and also without καὶ (_vide_ Burto... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Sabbath question_ (Matthew 12:1-8; Luke 6:1-5).... [ Continue Reading ]
ἔλεγον αὐτῷ. In this case they speak _to_ Christ against His disciples; indirectly against Him. ὁ οὐκ ἔξεστιν : the offence was not trampling the grain or straw, but plucking the ears reaping on a small scale; rubbing = threshing, in Lk. χρείαν ἔσχε καὶ ἐπείνασεν : another example of Mk.'s duality,... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ ἀρ.: under A., a note of time, also implying his sanction: the sanction of a distinguished sacerdotal character = of _Abiathar as priest_. But Ahimelech was the priest then (1 Samuel 21:2 f.). Either a natural error arising from the close connection of David with Abiathar, the well-known... [ Continue Reading ]
καὶ ἔλεγεν, etc., and He said to them; this phrase is employed to introduce a saying of Jesus containing a great principle. The principle is that the Sabbath is only a means towards an end man's highest good. Strange that Mk. should have been allowed to have a monopoly of this great word! For this s... [ Continue Reading ]
ὥστε : wherefore, so then, introducing a thesis of co-ordinate importance, while an inference from the previous statement. ὁ υἱὸς τ. α.: the Son of Man, as representing the _human_ interest, as opposed to the falsely conceived divine interest championed by the Pharisees. καὶ τ. σ., even of the Sabba... [ Continue Reading ]