John Bengel Commentary - Matthew 8:5 - 8:5

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John Bengel Commentary - Matthew 8:5 - 8:5


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Mat 8:5. Προσῆλθεν Ἀυτῷ ἑκατόνταρχος, There came unto Him a centurion) The centurion did not actually come to Him in person; nor would our Lord have praised him, as He did just afterwards, in his presence.-Sec Mat 8:10, and cf. ch. Mat 11:7. Others, indeed, were praised by our Lord in their presence, but not until after previous humiliation, and not so singularly and in comparison with others as the centurion is here praised in contradistinction to all Israel. And the same reverence, which induced the centurion to declare himself unworthy that our Lord should come under his roof, prevented him from going to Him in person.-See Mat 8:8, and Luk 7:7; Luk 7:10.[357] He appears to have come out of his house in the first instance, but to have gone back before he had reached our Lord. The will, therefore, on his part was held in Divine estimation as equivalent and even preferable to the deed: and this estimation is nobly expressed by St Matthew in the sublime style of a divine rather than a human historian. Jesus and the centurion conversed truly in spirit.

[357] D. Hauber has fully proved, in den harmon. Anmerk. p. 72, that the history here given in Matthew is one and the same as that in Luke.-Harm. p. 255.