Matthew 3:2

Repent [μ ε τ α ν ο ε ι τ ε]. A word compounded of the preposition meta, after, with; and the verb noew, to perceive, and to think, as the result of perceiving or observing. In this compound the preposition combines the two meanings of time and change, which may be denoted by after and different; so that the whole compound means to think differently after. Metanoia (repentance) is therefore, primarily, an after - thought, different from the former thought; then, a change of mind which issues in regret and in change of conduct. These latter ideas, however, have been imported into the word by scriptural usage, and do not lie in it etymologically nor by primary usage. Repentance, then, has been rightly defined as "Such a virtuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like virtuous change in the life and practice." Sorrow is not, as is popularly conceived, the primary nor the prominent notion of the word. Paul distinguishes between sorrow [λ υ π η] and repentance [μ ε τ α ν ο ι α], and puts the one as the outcome of the other. "Godly sorrow worketh repentance" (2 Corinthians 7:10).

The kingdom of heaven. Lit., the kingdom of the heavens [η β α σ ι λ ε ι α τ ω ν ο υ ρ α ν ω ν]. An expression peculiar to Matthew. The more usual one is the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom of heaven because its origin, its end, its king, the character and destiny of its subjects, its laws, institutions, and privileges - all are heavenly. In the teaching of Christ and in the apostolic writings the kingdom of the Messiah is the actual consummation of the prophetic idea of the rule of God, without any national limitation, so that participation therein rests only on faith in Jesus Christ, and on the moral renewal which is conditioned by the same. It is the combination of all rights of Christian citizenship in this world, and eternal blessedness in the next. All its senses are only different sides of the same great idea - the subjection of all things to God in Christ.

Voice. John's personality is thrown into shadow behind Christ. "What would be the duty of a merely human teacher of the highest moral aim, entrusted with a great spiritual mission and lesson for the benefit of mankind ? The example of St. John Baptist is an answer to this inquiry. Such a teacher would represent himself as a mere 'voice, ' crying aloud in the moral wilderness around him, and anxious, beyond aught else, to shroud his own significant person beneath the majesty of his message" (Liddon, " Our Lord's Divinity ").