Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Matthew 6:13 - 6:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat 6:13. Μὴ εἰσενέγκης ἡμᾶς, Lead us not into) Temptation is always in the way: wherefore we pray, not that it may not exist, but that it may not touch or overpower us.-See ch. Mat 26:41; 1Co 10:13.-ἀλλὰ, but) The sixth and seventh petitions are so closely connected that they are considered by many as forming only one.-ρῦσαι, deliver) See 2Ti 4:18.-ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ, from the evil one) i.e., from Satan.-See ch. Mat 13:19; Mat 13:38.
Ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καί ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας· Ἀμήν, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen) This is the scope of the Lord’s Prayer, that we may be taught to pray in few words (Mat 6:8), for the things which we require; and the prayer itself, even without the doxology, involves the praise of God in all its fulness (summam laudis Divinae imbibit). For our Heavenly Father is sanctified and glorified by us, when He is invoked as our Heavenly Father, when things of such magnitude are asked of Him alone, when to Him alone all things are referred. We celebrate Him, however, in such a manner as should content those who are fighting the fight of their salvation in a foreign land. When the whole number of the sons of God shall have reached their goal, a simple (mera) doxology will arise in Heaven, Hallowed be the name of our God. His kingdom has come: His will has been done. He has forgiven us our sins: He has brought temptation to an end: He has delivered us from the evil one. His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. A prayer was more suitable than a hymn, especially at the time in which our Lord prescribed this form to His disciples. Jesus was not yet glorified: the disciples as yet scarcely comprehended the full extent of these petitions, much less the amount of thanksgiving corresponding thereto. In fine, no one denies that the spirit of the whole clause is pious and holy, and conformable to the doxologies which frequently occur in Scripture: but the question is whether the Lord prescribed it in this place in these words. Faithful criticism regards little, in doubtful passages, what may happen to be the reading of the majority of Greek MSS. now extant, which are more modern and less numerous than is generally supposed: the question under consideration is rather, what was the reading of the Greek MSS. of the first ages, and therefore of the spring itself, i.e. the first hand.[264] The Latin Vulgate, which is certainly without this clause, stands, and will continue to stand, nearest in antiquity to the spring: but the force of its testimony is not appreciated till after long experience. In this passage, however, Greek witnesses, few indeed, but those of high authority, support the reading of the Vulgate. I wish what I have said on this subject in my Apparatus[265] to be carefully considered.[266] Nothing has occurred since I published that work to weaken the arguments which I there brought together on this point, whereas something has occurred to confirm them very greatly: I allude to a passage in Enthymius, who flourished at the beginning of the twelfth century. For when inveighing the against the Bogomili[267] for not using this clause, he does so only on the ground that it was an addition of the Fathers, calling it τὸ παρὰ τῶν θείων φωστήρων καὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας καθηγητῶν προστεθὲν ἀκροτελεύτιον ἐπιφώνημα, The choral conclusion added by those who were the divine illuminators and guides of the Church. La Croze,[268] relying on this testimony, clearly prefers in this passage the Latin to the Syriac version; see his Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, p. 313. One thing ought to be considered again and again: the more that any one diminishes the authority of the Vulgate on this passage, so much the more does he injure his own cause if he maintains the genuineness of that most important passage in 1Jn 5:7 : for it at present rests solely on the single testimony of the Latin Interpreter, and rests upon it firmly.
[264] BDZabc Vulg. Memph. Omen, Cypr. (who adds “Amen”) omit the doxology. Orig. Nyssen, Cyril, Maximus all omit it in giving expressly an explanation of the prayer. So all the Latin Fathers. It rather too widely separates Mat 6:12; Mat 6:14, which are connected together. Moreover Jesus was not yet glorified when He gave the prayer: it therefore was hardly then appropriate. It was probably added after the kingdom had been founded by the Holy Ghost on Pentecost. Ambrose de Sacram. Mat 6:5 implies that the doxology was recited by the priest alone, as a response (ἐπιφώνημα) after the people had repeated the Lord’s prayer. Alford, from 2Ti 4:18 where similarly ῥύσεται ἀπὸ πονηροῦ is followed by the doxology, argues that some such way of ending the prayer existed at that time.-ED.
[265] He has devoted more than eight pages to the subject: See App. Crit. pp. 101-109.-(I. B.)
[266] E. B. and those who have adopted his text, add here “especially § x. on this passage.” It runs thus:-
[267] The BOGOMILES were a sect of heretics which arose about the year 1079. Their founder was Basilius, a monk, who was burnt at Constantinople in the reign of Alexius Conmenus. He maintained that the world and all animal bodies were formed, not by the Deity, but by an evil demon who had been cast down from heaven by the Supreme Being. Hence that the body was only the prison of the soul, and was to be enervated by fasting, contemplation, etc., that the soul might be gradually restored to its primitive liberty. Marriage therefore was to be avoided. Basilius also denied the reality of Christ’s body, which he considered to be only a phantom, rejected the law of Moses, and maintained that the body on its separation by death returned to the malignant mass of matter, without possibility of a future resurrection to life and felicity.-See Mosheim.-(I. B.)
[268] MATHURIN VEYSSIERE DE LA CROZE, a distinguished Oriental scholar, born at Nantes in 1661. In the course of his life he abjured Romanism, and died at Berlin in 1739.-(I. B.)
De tota re, lector judicet.
Prætermisit clausulam Lutherus, in Agendis Baptismi, eisque renovatis; in Tract. de Decalogo, symbolo Apost. et oratione Dominica; in Catechismo utroque, et Hymno: ubi etiam Amen cum Hieronymo ad rogationes refert non ad clausulam, quanquam in Homil. ad. capp. v. vi. vii. Matth. eam tractat. Appendicem eam esse persuadent nobis rationes § ix. collectae; quanquam margo noster in suspenso rem reliquit, dum rationes fuissent expositæ: et plane pro appendice babet Brentius; Hunnius vel pro appendice vel pro epilogo, cujus moderationem recte sequentur, qui nil certi secum hic possunt constituere. Liberum saltem est privatim vel Matthæi receptam, vel Lucæ lectionem in orando sequi: quin etiam publice, in choro cænobiorum Wirtembergieorum, et alibi hodienum prætermitti solita est clausula. Cavendum vero, ne idiotæ intempestivis de hâc clausulâ sermonibus perturbentur. Hâc quoque in re et veritati et paci inserviendum est. “Sincera crisis,” etc., as in the Gnomon Ed. MDCCLIX, which is followed in this translation.-(I. B.)