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It is like unto children.—The common interpretation of this passage (first proposed by Chrysostom, and recently defended by Stier) is, that the expression, piping and mourning, refers to John and Jesus, and that the Jews were the other children who refused to give heed. But this is entirely untenable. For, 1. “this generation” is likened to children playing in the market-place. 2. These same children are represented as urging the objections which Christ subsequently puts into the mouth of the people. Both in the simile and in the explanation of it, the Jews are introduced as speaking. 3. If these terms had referred to Christ and John, the order of the figures would have been reversed; ἐèñçíÞóáìåí — çõëÞóáìåí . 4. There is a manifest antithesis between the idea of children playing, and the former figure of taking the kingdom of heaven by violence. 5. The conduct of the children is represented as inconsistent and contradictory. 6. We have the fact, that this generation really expected that its prophets should be influenced by the passing whims of their carnal views and inclinations. Hence we conclude that the piping and mourning children represent the Jews, and the ἕôåñïé , “the others,” John and Jesus. These ἕôåñïé form no part of the company represented as playing in the market.
[So also de Wette, and Meyer, p. Matt 251: “The ðáéäßá are the Jews; the ἕôåñïé are John and Jesus.” But I object to this interpretation, the reverse of the other, for the following reasons: 1. Because it is contrary to the parallel passage in Luk_7:32, where we have ἀëëÞëïéò , to one another, instead of ἐôÝñïéò , so that the playing children and the silent children form but one company, although disagreed among themselves (as the Jews were in fact with their many sects and their contradictory carnal notions about the Messiah). The same is true, if we read with Lachmann: ἑôáßñïéò . 2. Because it would represent Christ and John as the dissatisfied and disobedient party. 3. Finally, I reject both interpretations, that refuted, and that defended by Dr. Lange; because John and Christ could with no degree of propriety and good taste be represented as playmates and comrades of their wayward contemporaries. We conclude, therefore, that both classes of children refer to the wayward, capricious, and discontented Jews; the children who play the mock wedding and the mock funeral representing the active, the silent children who refuse to fall in with their playmates, the passive discontent, both with the austerity of John and with the more cheerful and genial conduct of Christ. So Olshausen: “The sense is this: the generation resembles a host of ill-humored children, whom it is impossible to please in any way; one part desires this, and the other that, so that they cannot agree upon any desirable or useful occupation.” Compare also the illustrative remarks of Wordsworth, who in this case dissents from his favorite Chrysostom: “By the children [or rather one class of the children] many interpreters understand the Baptist and our Lord. But this seems harsh. The ãåíåÜ itself is said to be ὁìïßá ðáéäßïéò , and the querulous murmur of the children, complaining that others would not humor them in their fickle caprices, is compared to the discontented censoriousness of that generation of the Jews, particularly of the Pharisees, who could not be pleased with any of God’s dispensations, and rejected John and Christ, as they had done the prophets before them. The sense, therefore, is, Ye are like a band of wayward children, who go on with their own game, at one time gay, at another grave, and give no heed to any one else, and expect that every one should conform to them. You were angry with John, because he would not dance to your piping, and with Me, because I will not weep to your dirge. John censured your licentiousness, I your hypocrisy; you, therefore, vilify both, and ‘reject the good counsel of God,’ who has devised a variety of means for your salvation (Luk_7:30).”—P. S.]
Mat_11:17. We have piped unto you, etc.—Among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, it was customary to play the flute especially at marriage dances: Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. Similarly, solemn wailing was customary at burials. The expression, danced, corresponds with piping, just as the funeral dirge was expected to evoke lamentation among the mourners, especially by beating the breast (hence the expression, Eze_24:16; Mat_24:30, etc). The figure is that of children imitating the festivities or solemnities of their seniors, and expecting other children who take no part in their play to share their amusement.
Mat_11:18. For John came neither eating not drinking.—A hyperbolical expression, referring to his abstinence and asceticism, as contradistinguished from Christ’s freer conduct. And they say, He has a demon [ äáéìüíéïí ].—A demon of melancholy (Joh_10:20). The figure of piping, to which John responded not, is all the more striking, that the spurious marriage at the court of Herod was the occasion of John’s imprisonment; and again, the dance of the daughter of Herodias, that of his execution. In another place also, Jesus says that the Jews would have liked to use John, as it were, by way of religious diversion (Joh_5:35).
Mat_11:19. The Son of Man came eating and drinking.—Referring to His more free mode of conduct, and with special allusion to the feast in the house of Matthew, in the company of publicans and sinners [and the wedding feast at Cana]. This induced the Pharisees to pronounce an unfavorable judgment of Christ. Accordingly, His contemporaries already commenced to condemn Him as a destroyer of the law. It has been suggested, that our Lord here hints at the occurrence formerly related, when He had admonished one of His disciples to “let the dead bury their dead.” But it seems more likely, that if the figure contains any allusion to a definite event, it referred to the imputation of John’s disciples, that during the captivity of their master, and until after his death, Jesus should abstain from taking part in any festivities. But we are inclined to take a broader view of the subject, and to regard the statement of the Lord as referring to the anger and sorrow of the people about their national position with which our Lord could not sympathize in that particular form. Their carnal mourning for the outward depression of Israel could meet with no response from Him.
Mat_11:19. But Wisdom, etc.—Final judgment of the Lord as to the difference obtaining between the people, John, and Himself. The óïößá . Jerome: Ego, qui sum dei virtus et sapientia dei juste fecisse b apostolis meis filiis comprobatus sum. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Castellio: Wisdom, which has become manifest in Jesus. De Wette: A personification of the wisdom of Jesus.—The term undoubtedly refers to the spirit of the theocracy as manifested in John and in Christ, and which bears the name of Wisdom (Proverbs 8, 9; Sirach 24), because the conduct of John and of Jesus was guided by a definite object, and derived from the spirit of Wisdom in revelation.
Is justified on the part (or, at the hands) of her children.—Elsner, Schneckenburger: Judged, reproved, i. e., by the Jews, who should have been its disciples. Ewald: Really justified by that foolish generation, since their contradictory judgments confuted each other, and so confirmed Wisdom. De Wette takes the aor.: in the sense of habit, and gives the statement a more general sense: The children of Wisdom (i. e., those who receive it, or My disciples) give, by their conduct, cause for approving Wisdom. Meyer, opposing de Wette’s view of the aor.: Wisdom has been justified on the part of her children, viz., by their having adopted it. The passage must be read in the light of Mat_11:25 sqq. In both cases, a joyous prospect is being opened up to their view. Truth and Wisdom have been justified and owned, though neither by the men of this generation nor by the wise and the prudent. But in this passage sorrow seems still to predominate: 1. Wisdom has been traduced by this generation, and obliged to justify herself; 2. for this purpose, new children had to be born and trained. The word ἀðü might almost lead us to adopt another interpretation. Wisdom was obliged to justify herself by a judicial verdict from the accusation of her children (or rather, ironically, of those who should be her children). But then, this proposition only refers to the occasion or cause of a thing. It is not the children who justify Wisdom, but the means of proving her justification are derived from the testimony which appears in her children.
2. The spirit of the world is also accurately delineated in the figure of successive piping and mourning: first, festive enjoyments, and then mourning for the dead. The Wisdom of the kingdom of heaven sanctions the opposite order: first the law, and then the gospel; first death, and then life; first penitence and sorrow, and then joy; first the Baptist, and then Christ.
3. Lastly, this passage serves to show the close connection between the Christology of the synoptical Gospels and the Logos of John, and the Óïößá of the Old Testament and the Jewish Apocrypha.
4. This is the second instance that Christ borrowed a similitude from the market.
Starke:—From Hedinger:—When people dislike a doctrine, they abuse the teachers of it.—Majus:—Nobody is more exposed to sinful and rash judgments than ministers.—Cramer:—The children of God cannot escape the judgment of the world, whatever they may do.—If the conduct of Christ called down the rebuke of the world, how much more shall that of upright ministers be censured!—We are not to find fault with, but humbly to submit to, the teaching of heavenly wisdom.
Heubner:—John decried as a fanatic; Christ, as a man of the world: see how the world reads characters!
Footnotes:
Mat_11:16.—Lachmann: ôïῖò ἐôáßñïéò [Vulg.: coœqualibus, companions, playmates], after G., S., U., V., etc. [Lachmann quotes as his authorities B. and C., as previously compared by others; but the printed edition of Cod. Ephræmi Syri (C.) by Tischendorf, and Angelo Mai’s ed. of the Cod. Vaticanus (B.) both read ἑôÝñïéò . Buttmann’s edition of the latter, however, sustains Lachmann, and the ἀëëÞëïéò in Luk_7:32 favors ἐôáßñïéò .—P. S.] Griesbach: ôïῖò ἐôÝñïéò aliis], after most Codd. [including Cod. Sinait.]. So also Tischendorf [and Tregelles. Alford does not read ἑôÝñïéò , as stated by Conant, but ἑôáßñïéò . So also Wordsworth. Lange’s interpretation requires ἑôÝñïéò .—P. S.]
Mat_11:17.—Lachmann and Tischendorf omit the second ὑìῖí , following B., C., [Cod. Sinait.], etc.
Mat_11:17.—[Lange more literally: Wir haben (euch) die Todtenkluge gemacht, und ihr habt nicht (im Chor) gejammert; Scrivener: We have sung dirges unto you, and ye have not smote the breast; Andrew Norton: We have sung a dirge to you, and you have not beat your breasts; Conant and the revised version of the Am. Bible Union: We sang the lament, and ye beat not the breast. Èñçíåῖí refers to the funeral dirge, and êüðôåóèáé (middle verb) to the oriental expression of sorrow by beating the breast, comp. Eze_20:34 (Sept.: êüøåóèå ôὰ ðñüóùðá ); Mat_24:30; Luk_18:13; Luk_23:48, and the dictionaries. The authorized version is very vague.—P. S.]
Mat_11:19.—[Wine-bibber is a felicitous translation of the Anacreontic ïἰíïðüôçò . Dr. Conant and the N. T. of the Am. Bible Union: a glutton and a winedrinker. Luther and Lange stronger: ein Fresser und Weinsäufer.—P. S.]
Mat_11:19.—[We prefer capitalizing Wisdom as in older editions of the Bible. See Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
Mat_11:19.—[Lange: von Seiten ihrer Kinder. So also Meyer, and Conant, who quotes Meyer and refers to Act_2:22 for the same use of ἀðü , instead of ὑðü ( ἅíäñá ἀðὸ èåïῦ ἀðïäåäåéãìÝíïí åἰò ὑìᾶò äõíÜìåóé , ê . ô . ë .)—P. S.]
[Hence Wisdom should be capitalized, as in some editions of the English Version.—P. S.]
[In this case the sentence would be a solemn irony, or an indignant rebuke of the bad treatment of God’s wise and gracious Providence on the part of those who claimed to be its orthodox admirers and authorized expounders. Dr. J. A. Alexander leans to this interpretation. But no clear case of irony (nor of wit, nor of humor) occurs in the discourses of our Saviour. The childlike children of Wisdom in Mat_11:19 seem to be opposed to the childish and wayward children of this generation in Mat_11:16. Comp. Bengel, in Luk_7:35 : Huius Sapientiœ liberi non sunt Pharisœi horumque similes, sed apostoli, publicani et peccatores omnes ex toto populo ad Jesum conrersi: quos sic appellat, ad ostendendam suam cum illis necessitudinem et jus conversanti calumniatorum que perversitatem.—P. S.]