Matthew 11:7-26

7 Compare Luk_7:24-30.

7 The Lord might well have spoken disparagingly of John at this juncture. Instead, He gives him a eulogy which places him on the highest pinnacle of human fame. He gives him a name greater even than Moses and Elijah. The Jews have never accorded him this place, partly because he was the forerunner of the Messiah they have rejected, and partly because his career is eclipsed by the coming and presence of his Lord.

10 Compare Mal_3:1.

12-15 Compare Luk_16:16-17.

12 John's methods were drastic and violent. He would have forced the kingdom on the nation, just as our Lord will do when the two witnesses will withhold rain, and turn waters into blood, and smite the earth with calamities (Rev_11:3-6). John came in the spirit and power of Elijah. For the time, our Lord was of an entirely different spirit.

14 See Mat_17:10-13; Luk_1:17; Mal_4:5.

16-19 Compare Luk_7:31-35.

16 The difference between John's ministry and that of our Lord is further evident by the different charges against them. The people were sulky, like little children who will not play at any game, grave or gay. John wailed, yet they would not grieve. The Lord fluted, yet they refused to dance. John was an ascetic, and they charged him with having a demon. Our Lord was the opposite, yet they called Him a glutton and a tippler. They would not be suited. Yet it was the wisdom of God to play these opposites against one another, thus to manifest the incurable stubbornness of the people.

20 The emphatic statement that Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had been favored like the cities of Galilee makes it quite impossible to doom them to endless destruction without compromising the justice of God, quite apart from His mercy. The unqualified assertion that Sodom would not have been destroyed had it been privileged as Capernaum brings into question God's wisdom and love. Did He stint His favors so that these cities should not repent? The answer is that all is according to that deeper expression of His love which wisely provides for its ultimate display. God's justice will be vindicated in adjusting judgment to accord with privilege. In the consummation His love will be revealed in their salvation.

20-24 Compare Luk_10:13-16.

23 This is a most instructive illustration of the meaning of the word unseen, usually rendered hell or hades. Sodom had subsided to the unseen even in our Lord's day. And today the very site of Capernaum is uncertain. As a city it has passed beyond the sphere of human perception. The unseen is not confined to the death state, but is applied to invisible spirit powers and vanished cities. It is used here in the same sense as heaven in the preceding sentence.

25-27 Compare Luk_10:21-24. See Psa_8:2; 1Co_1:19-27.

25-26 Though His ministry seems to be a failure, the Lord recognizes the fact that this is in accord with God's unrevealed purpose. He acquiesces in God's evident delight in hiding the truth from those who were wise and intelligent in the things of this life. He does not fret because He cannot reach them, because God's work is apparently without the anticipated results, for He has the consciousness that, in the final analysis, it is God Himself Who is operating all for His own purpose and glory. It is not that those who rejected Him were blinded by some act of their own for which God disclaims responsibility. They do not see because God positively hides it from them.