Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Luke 11:39 - 11:39
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Luk 11:39. [Εἶπε δὲ ὁ Κύριος, but the Lord said) Jesus spake these things which here follow in Galilee first, subsequently at Jerusalem (Mat 23:1-39). In Galilee He said, in this passage [Luk 11:49], “I will send [Future] Prophets and Apostles among them.” Then also at Jerusalem [Mat 23:34], He said, “Behold, I send” [Present]: To wit, in the intervening time He was come nearer to the actual sending of them.-Harm., p. 398.]-νῦν, now) The particle has the force of demonstrating a thing present: on this account the LXX. employ it for הנה, Behold, 2Ki 7:6; and in this passage it at the same time involves an antithesis between external purity and impurity; in the same way as nunc among the Latins has often the force of atqui.-τὸ ἔξωθεν) that which is exterior (the outside): for instance, the exterior of a very clean cup.-τὸ ἔσωθεν ὑμῶν) your interior (inner man), viz. your manner of life.-γέμει, is full) like a cup or dish. First, ἔξωθεν and ἔσωθεν are adverbs; then in Matthew, ch. Luk 23:25-26, it is the cup and the dish that are said to be full, γέμειν: in Luke it is “the inward part” itself of the Pharisees. The exterior of vessels is not only convex, but also concave [what is commonly, though not correctly, called the inside]: the interior is both the heart and the manner of life.[111] It makes no difference whether ἁρπαγὴ, rapine, be taken, in the material sense, for the thing carried off, or, in the formal sense, for rapaciousness. However, it is taken in the formal sense, inasmuch as in Matthew ἀκρασία or ἀδικία, intemperance or injustice, and in Luke πονηρία, malignity, wickedness, are added. It may be thus paraphrased: Ye Pharisees keep clean the part in the vessel which is exterior; but your interior is full of rapaciousness and malignity. Ye fools, did not He, who made the exterior thing, to wit, the vessel, at the same time also make the interior thing, namely, the heart? But as concerns those things which are in the vessel [which is but the exterior thing], give alms, and behold all things, your whole manner of life, are clean to you, whatever be the case as regards the vessel, whether it be more or less clean.
[111] Not what is commonly called the inside of a cup: τὸ ἔσωθεν, according to Beng., applies here only to the heart, and not to the cup figuratively.-ED. and TRANSL.