Matthew 12:45

ἑπτὰ ἕτερα πνεύματα, etc. This feature is introduced to make the picture answer to the moral condition of the Pharisees as conceived by Jesus. The parable here passes out of the region of popular imagination and natural probability into a region of deeper psychological insight. Why should the demon want associates in occupancy of the house? Why not rather have it all to himself as before? οὕτως ἔσται, etc. Ethical application. The general truth implied is: moral and religious reform may be, has been, succeeded by deeper degeneracy. The question naturally suggests itself: what is the historical range of the application? It has been answered variously. From the lawgiving till the present time (Hil., Jer.); from the exile till now (Chrys., Grotius, etc.); from the Baptist till now (Weiss. etc.). Christ gives no hint of what period was in His thoughts, unless we find one in the epithet μοιχαλὶς (Matthew 12:39), which recalls prophetic charges of unfaithfulness to her Divine Husband against Israel, and points to the exile as the crisis at which she seriously repented of that sin. It is not at all likely that Christ's view was limited to the period dating from John's ministry. Moral laws need large spaces of time for adequate exemplification. The most instructive exemplification of the degeneracy described is supplied by the period from Ezra till Christ's time. With Ezra ended material idolatry. But from that period dates the reign of legalism, which issued in Rabbinism, a more subtle and pernicious idolatry of the letter, the more deadly that it wore the fair aspect of zeal for God and righteousness.