Robertson Word Pictures - Matthew 10:16 - 10:16

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Robertson Word Pictures - Matthew 10:16 - 10:16


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

As sheep in the midst of wolves (hōs probata en mesōi lukōn). The presence of wolves on every hand was a fact then and now. Some of these very sheep (Mat 10:6) at the end will turn out to be wolves and cry for Christ’s crucifixion. The situation called for consummate wisdom and courage. The serpent was the emblem of wisdom or shrewdness, intellectual keenness (Gen 3:1; Psa 58:5), the dove of simplicity (Hos 7:11). It was a proverb, this combination, but one difficult of realization. Either without the other is bad (rascality or gullibility). The first clause with arnas for probata is in Luk 10:3 and apparently is in a Fragment of a Lost Gospel edited by Grenfell and Hunt. The combination of wariness and innocence is necessary for the protection of the sheep and the discomfiture of the wolves. For “harmless” (akeraioi) Moffatt and Goodspeed have “guileless,” Weymouth “innocent.” The word means “unmixed” (a privative and kerannumi), “unadulterated,” “simple,” “unalloyed.”