Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Matthew 10:23 - 10:23
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat 10:23. Τὴν ἄλλην-κἂν ἐκ ταύτης διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς φεύγετε εἰς ἑτέραν, the other[469]-and if they persecute you from this city, flee ye into another) This is the most ancient Latin reading,[470] and also that of Orige[471][472] contra Celsum (p. 51, Ed. Hoesch.[473]), where, instead of φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην” [as in E.M.], we find φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἑτέραν· κἂν ἐν τῇ ἑτέρᾳ δίωκωσι, πάλιν φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην.” Flee ye into the other;[474] and if they persecute you in that other, flee ye again into the other.[475] Francis Lucas[476] of Bruges quotes old Latin Codices in favour of that reading. Thence, too, the Anglo-Saxon version has-“and thonne hi on thœre eovv ehtath, fleoth on tha thryddan;” i.e. “and when they persecute you in that [city], flee to the third.” Ambrose[477] also, in his treatise, De Fugâ Seculi (ch. 4), says, “But if they shall persecute you in one, flee ye into another.” And Juvencus[478] renders the passage thus:-
[469] E. V. another.-(I. B.)
[470] The words κἄν-ἑτέραν are not found in E. M.-(I. B.)
[471] rigen (born about 186 A.D., died 253 A.D., a Greek father: two-thirds of the N. Test. are quoted in his writings). Ed. Vinc. Delarue, Paris. 1733, 1740, 1759.
[472] ORIGEN was born at Alexandria, in Egypt, about A.D. 185; and died at Tyre, about A.D. 254.-(I. B.)
[473] DAVID HOESCHELIUS, born at Augsburgh 1556. He was a laborious and successful Editor. Among the authors he edited were Origen, Philo Judæus, Basil, and Photius. He died 1617.-(I. B.)
[474] τὴν ἑτέρκν.-ἕτερος signifies originally, other in opposition to one, though it has also the force of other in opposition to many.-(I. B.)
[475] τὴν ἁλλην.-ἄλλος signifies originally, other in opposition to many, though it is used also to represent other in opposition to one. Here τὴν ἄλλην appears to have the force of the former.-(I. B.)
[476] FRANCIS LUCAS was born at Bruges in the sixteenth century. He studied under Arius Montanus, and became a Doctor of Louvain, and Dean of the Church of St Omer. He was profoundly skilled in the Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee languages, and is considered a judicious critic. he died in 1619.-(I. B.)
[477] Born at Treves A.D. 340; consecrated, in 374, Bishop of Milan, where he died in 397. he was an eloquent preacher, and an able and voluminous writer.-(I. B.)
[478] C. AQUILINUS VETTIUS (al. VECTIUS, or VESTIUS) JUVENCUS, a Spanish priest of good family, who flourished in the fourth century. He wrote, besides other works, a history of our Lord in good hexameter verse, considered both poetical and faithful, and published it about 330.-(I. B.)
“Profugite e tectis quæ vos sectabitur urbis
Inde aliam, mox INDE ALIAM, conquirite sedem.”
“Flee from the roofs of the city which persecutes you; thence seek another and THEN AGAIN ANOTHER abode.” Thus Augustine; thus the Armenian Version. The Codex Cantabrigiensis, the Codices Colbertini 2467 and 3947, Parisiensis 6, and the Codex Stephani η (to which some add the Codex Gonvillianus), contain this passage in various forms of words. The variety of the Greek words[479] suggests the suspicion that this verse has been rendered from Latin into Greek: on the other hand, the antiquity and celebrity of the Latin text is proved by the very multitude and discrepancy of these Greek codices. The omission appears to have arisen from the carelessness so frequently manifested by transcribers, where similar words recur: the facility with which the mistake may occur, appears from the fact that Gelenius, in his Latin version of Orige[480], omits this very clause [which undoubtedly exists in the original]. Athanasius more than once substitutes ἑτέραν for ἄλλην, as is at present the case with the Codex Colbertinus, and from which you may conjecture, that another omission[481] might soon be made by other transcribers.
[479] Lachm. reads ἐτέραν, with Bd Orig. 1,295; 380; 3,473c; 709; cod. 4,398. But Tischend. ἄλλην, with Dabc Vulg. Origen 3,709, and Rec. Text. Lachm. adds in brackets, κἄν ἐν τῇ ἑτέρᾳ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς, φεύγετε δεἰς τὴν ἄλλην, with DL (ἐκ τάυτης ἐκδιώξωσιν-τ. ἑτέραν) ab Orig. 1,295b; 380a; Hil. 656. But Bc Vulg. and Rec. Text omit these words. Probably they come from a transcriber who fancied that φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἑτέραν, sc. “a second city,” was incomplete without a clause, “And when they persecute you in that second city, flee into another, i.e. a third city.” To avoid the need for this, I believe the reading ἄλλην for ἐτέραν arose. The shorter is generally preferable to the longer reading, as it was the tendency of transcribers to insert all added matter, lest their copy should be incomplete.-ED.
[480] rigen (born about 186 A.D., died 253 A.D., a Greek father: two-thirds of the N. Test. are quoted in his writings). Ed. Vinc. Delarue, Paris. 1733, 1740, 1759.
[481] “hiatus,” hiatus, gap. See Author’s Preface viii. 14, and App. Crit. Part I. § xxii., obs. xxvii., etc.-(I. B.)
Οὐ μὴ τελέσητε, ye shall not finish[482]) cf. כלה,[483] in 2Ch 31:1.-τὰς πόλεις, the cities) not to say, villages, of Israel.-See Mat 10:6. Our Lord tells them that there was no fear of their not having where to preach, and that they were not to remain long in one place, as they would have the opportunity of remaining longer in other places.-ἕως ἄν ἔλθη ὁ Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, until the Son of Man be come) Concerning this coming, see Mat 10:7; Mat 11:1.[484]
[482] E. V. Ye shall not have gone over.-(I. B.)
[483] כָּלָה-(1) To be completed, finished.-GESENIUS.-(I. B.)
[484] To wit, there is here meant that very advent, whereby. through His full presence, beneficence, and preaching, the preparatory announcement of His ambassadors in those days was, as it were, completed and fulfilled by Him, whom it behoved to come, to proclaim the Gospel, and to see that it was proclaimed by others, Mat 11:3; Mat 11:5. In a similar manner, He commanded the Seventy disciples also to announce the approach of the divine kingdom, and followed up that announcement by His own very presence in those same places, Luk 10:1; Luk 10:9.-Harm., p. 293.