Robertson Word Pictures - Matthew 5:22 - 5:22

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Robertson Word Pictures - Matthew 5:22 - 5:22


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

But I say unto you (egō de legō humin). Jesus thus assumes a tone of superiority over the Mosaic regulations and proves it in each of the six examples. He goes further than the Law into the very heart.

“Raca” (Raka) and “Thou fool” (Mōre). The first is probably an Aramaic word meaning “Empty,” a frequent word for contempt. The second word is Greek (dull, stupid) and is a fair equivalent of “raca.” It is urged by some that mōre is a Hebrew word, but Field (Otium Norvicense) objects to that idea. “Raca expresses contempt for a man’s head=you stupid! Mōre expresses contempt for his heart and character=you scoundrel” (Bruce).

“The hell of fire” (tēn geennan tou puros), “the Gehenna of fire,” the genitive case (tou puros) as the genus case describing Gehenna as marked by fire. Gehenna is the Valley of Hinnom where the fire burned continually. Here idolatrous Jews once offered their children to Molech (2Ki 23:10). Jesus finds one cause of murder to be abusive language. Gehenna “should be carefully distinguished from Hades (hāidēs) which is never used for the place of punishment, but for the place of departed spirits, without reference to their moral condition” (Vincent). The place of torment is in Hades (Luk 16:23), but so is heaven.