Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Matthew 7:14 - 7:14
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat 7:14. Ὅτι στενὴ, κ.τ.λ., because straight, etc.) Many read τί στενὴ, κ.τ.λ.,[319] HOW straight, etc., as in the S. V. of 2Sa 6:20. where מה[320] is rendered by τί-sc. τί δεδόξασται σήμερον ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραὴλ-HOW glorious was the king of Israel to-day! But there the expression is ironical.-The true reading is undoubtedly,[321] ὅτι πλατεῖα-ὅτι στενή, κ.τ.λ.,-BECAUSE broad-BECAUSE straight. Thus in 1Ki 21:15, כי[322] (rendered ὅτι by the LXX.) occurs twice.-ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι Ναβουθὰι ζῶν, ὅτι τέθνηκε: For, Naboth is not alive, but dead.[323] The last כי has the force of but; and is thus rendered by the LXX. in Dan 9:18, and 2Ch 20:15. See also Heb 8:10-11.[324]-αὐτὴν, it) sc. the gate. Cf. the commencement and conclusion of Mat 7:13.
[319] Lachm. reads τί στενὴ, with B corrected by a second hand, CLΔbc Vulg. Syr. Cypr. But Tischend. ὅτι, with B corrected by the first hand, X. Orig. 3, 527b, and Memph. Τί for ὡς is a Hellenistic idiom, Psa 8:1. where for the LXX. ὡς θαυμαστόν other versions have τί μωγα. The τί may be a gloss on ὅτι taken with the positive, as it is often with superlatives, intensively (ὅτι πλειστος, etc.): so in Plato ὅτι τάχυς, valde celeriter. However Bengel makes ὅτι, as before πλατεὶα, so to be repeated before στενή in the sense sed, ‘but.’-ED.
[320] What, or how.-(I. B.)
[321] Thus also E. M.-(I. B.)
[322] For a full account of this word and its meanings, see Gesenius’s Lexicon in voce.-(I. B.)
[323] Literally-“Because Naboth is not living, because he has died.-(I. B.)
[324] Εἰς τὴν ζωὴν is the expression used of the future life of blessedness: for the present life is not life at all.-V. g.