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Luk 22:31. Σίμων, Σίμων, Simon, Simon) A most weighty Epizeuxis.[236] Peter also had joined in the strife, mentioned in Luk 22:24, which was inimical to faith, Joh 5:44 [“How can ye believe, who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only”].-ἰδοὺ, behold) That is to say, the fact is in this case manifest from its palpable effect; which effect, however, Peter did not suppose to have come from the Tempter, as it really had.-ὁ Σατανᾶς, Satan) not content with having entered into Judas. See Luk 22:3.-ἔξητήσατο, [“hath desired”] hath sought to get you out) viz. out from your safe-guard. Satan demanded, that Peter should be given up to him, as Job was: but the Saviour repulsed him. The antithesis is, ἐδεήθην, I have prayed.-ὑμᾶς· περὶ σοῦ, you [the apostles]; for thee) Satan had perceived that there was great faith in Peter, and yet also a great proneness to fall, and he supposed that, if Peter should be overcome, all of them would be overcome. But Jesus by preserving Peter, the ruin of whom would have carried with it the ruin of the rest, preserved them all. In fact this whole discourse of our Lord takes for granted, that Peter is the first of the apostles, by whose standing (maintenance of his ground as a believer), or else fall, the rest of them would either escape the risk, or else be the more endangered. But it was in respect of faith that he was the first, not in respect of authority and power. Whereas the pretended successor of Peter, after that he revolted from the pure simplicity of the faith, and yet claimed to himself alone the primacy in the faith and in authority, fell wholly and miserably into the ‘sieve’ [of Satan]. Those in the foremost van are generally followed by the rest of their fellow-soldiers: the foremost soldiers are imperilled more than the rest: the foremost need especially to be fortified with the care and prayers of themselves and of the ‘watchmen.’-σινιάσαι) σίνιον, a sieve. Hesychius explains σινιάσαι, i.e. σεῖσαι, κοσκινεῦσαι (to shake as in a sieve): corn is shaken and tossed about in a sieve: and men do so for the sake of cleansing it of chaff and refuse. But Satan’s sifting was for the sake of utterly destroying the faith of the apostles, whilst making them come into collision with one another, by means of raising agitations from without and from within, in things high and low alike.-ὡς, as) with as much ease [as one would, wheat].
[236] The forcible repetition of the same word in the same sentence. Append.-E. and T.