Lange Commentary - Matthew 20:29 - 20:34

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Lange Commentary - Matthew 20:29 - 20:34


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THIRD SECTION

THE WRETCHED KEPT BACK FROM THE LORD, THE KING OF MERCY

Mat_20:29-34.

(Mar_10:46-52; Luk_18:35-43; Luk_19:1-10.)

29And as they departed from [were going out of] Jericho, a great multitude followed him. 30And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by [was passing by, ðáñÜãåé ], cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David [Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David]. 31And the multitude rebuked them, because [that, ἵíá ] they should hold their peace: but they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David [Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David].2 32And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do 33, unto [for] you? They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. 34So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched [Then Jesus, moved with compassion, touched, [ óðëáã÷íéóèåὶò äὲ ὁ Ἰó . ἥøáôï ] their eyes: and immediately their eyes [they] received sight, and they followed him.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Chronology.—According to Joh_12:1, Jesus came to Bethany six days before the Passover. As the feast fell upon the 15th of Nisan, or began on the evening of the 14th, this note of time takes us back to the 9th of Nisan. The day of the crucifixion was the 15th; and therefore the 9th was the Sabbath previous. The Jewish customs at the feast throw much light upon all these events. On Friday, the 8th of Nisan, in the year 783 from the foundation of Rome, or in the year 30 of our common reckoning (Wieseler, in his Chronol. Synopse, p. 176, shows that the first day of the Passover fell on a Friday in that year), Jesus went, with His disciples and some friends, from Ephraim to Jericho. Here He remained in the house of Zacchæus. Thus the procession set out too late to reach Jerusalem before sunset, that is, before the Sabbath. He therefore tarried, for the quiet observance of the festive day, in the customary tents near the Mount of Olives. Whether He spent the night in these tents, or in Bethany, cannot be decided,—at any rate, John dates from the next day; for on the evening of the next day, probably when the Sabbath was ended, that feast was prepared for Him in the house of Simon the leper, at which Martha served and Mary anointed Him, and to which many friends from Jerusalem had come to salute Him. On the following Sunday, early in the morning, the festal company set out from Bethany and from the tents, and assumed the form of a triumphant procession. After considering all these points, it will appear only an inexactness, and by no means a discrepancy, in the first three Evangelists to conduct the procession without any break from Jericho to Jerusalem, and to insert the anointing afterward: Mat_26:6; Mar_14:3. They had a definite motive for the transposition of this supplementary narrative of the anointing. It was their purpose to show how the idea of the betrayal ripened in the soul of Judas through the effect produced by the anointing; and also to connect the history of the anointing with the indication of the traitor at the Paschal feast. At the same time, they would bring the anointing as near as possible to the Supper, on account of its internal prophetical relation to that holy ordinance.

Mat_20:29. And as they were going out of Jericho.—Luke records the delay in Jericho, and the Lord’s stay in the house of Zacchæus, Mat_19:1; as also, the parable of the ten servants and the ten pounds, which was connected therewith. Jericho, éְøִéçֹç , éְøֵäåֹ , éְøִéçåֹ ; variously written in the Greek also. According to the first form, it signified “the fragrant city;” according to the second, “the city of the moon.” The former, however, is the more probable derivation. It lay not far from the Jordan (60 stadia, or two hours), and was separated from Jerusalem by a waste and wretched wilderness. It was in the tribe of Benjamin, on the borders of Ephraim. The district was a blooming oasis in the midst of an extended sandy plain, watered and fruitful, rich in palms, roses, and balsam: hence probably the name (from øֵéç , scent, odor). It is true that the poisonous serpent was not wanting in this paradise also. The city was built by the Canaanites, and taken and destroyed by Joshua (Jos_6:26). At a later date it was built again and fortified, and became the seat of a school of the prophets. Herod the Great beautified it, and at this time it was one of the most pleasant places in the land. The balsam trade required that a chief publican should be there; and it was also inhabited by priests and Levites. In the twelfth century scarcely a vestige of the place remained; there is now a wretched village, Richa or Ericha, with about 200 inhabitants. Robinson, however, locates the old Jericho in the neighborhood of the fountain of Elisha [two miles north-west of Richa]. The palms have all vanished, and the climate is hot and unhealthy. [Robinson: “Only a single palm-tree now remains of the ‘City of Palms.’ ”—P. S.]

Mat_20:30. Two blind men sitting by the way side.—Here occurs one of the most marked of the apparent discrepancies of the Gospels. According to Matthew, Jesus healed two blind men on departing; according to Mark, one blind man on departing; according to Luke, one blind man on entering the city. The older Harmonists assumed that there were two miracles: that one blind man was healed at the entrance, and two at the departure, of Christ; and that Mark gave prominence to Bartimæus as the better known of the two persons. Ebrard thinks that Matthew combined the two accounts of Mark and Luke, and placed them in the departure from the city. (So also Wieseler.) It may simplify the matter, if we consider that Jesus did not enter Jericho by the Jordan gate from Peræa, but came from Ephraim; and therefore, probably, made His exit by the same gate through which He entered. The blind man cried out upon Jesus, was threatened and restrained; he cried louder, and Jesus then regarded and healed him. But the Lord might have kept the blind man waiting till His return, to test him; and thus the Evangelists record the same event,—the one, however, connecting it with the entrance, the other with the exit. Further, it is not difficult to suppose that in the interval another blind man joined company with the first, Bartimæus; and that both encouraged each other in the louder cry.

Mat_20:31. That [not: because] they should hold their peace.—This is a feature of the narrative that could not have been invented. It marks the feeling of the great festal procession, which was disposed to regard the cry of these wretched blind men, at such an hour, as an impertinent interruption. It was as if a multitude of courtiers should strive to keep the interruption of misery from throwing a discordant element into a royal feast. Hence the tone is characteristically changed, when Jesus stood still, and commanded the blind to be brought to Him; it is now:—Be of good courage, rise; He calleth thee: Mar_10:49.

Mat_20:32. And Jesus stood still.—At the cry, Lord, Son of David; which was, according to Luke, on His festal departure from Jericho at the head of the people. This also shows evidently that that great crisis of the Lord’s life was come to which we have already made allusion. He suffers Himself now to be publicly appealed to as the Messiah, in the presence of all the people, which He had never done before: compare Mat_9:27. The time for His acceptance of, and sympathy with, the Messianic hope of His people had now arrived.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Joshua proceeded from Jericho to the conquest of the promised land—without, however, entirely effecting it. From Jericho, the city of palms, the Messianic procession set out; and it ended with His being delivered over to the Gentiles. But in a higher sense, the conquest of the promised inheritance with the sword of the Spirit was now decided.

2. The history of the blind man at Jericho symbolical of the endeavors of the great in God’s kingdom to interpose between Christ’s throne and the wretched.

[3. John J. Owen: “This miracle of healing the blind men has often been employed to illustrate the spiritual blindness of men, the earnestness with which they must apply to Christ (who, by His Spirit, is always passing by) for His healing mercies, and the readiness of the Saviour, on any such application made in penitence and faith, to put forth His healing power. Thousands have read this simple and touching story as a truthful history of their own spiritual blindness, and its removal through the abounding grace of Jesus Christ.”—P. S.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The procession of the Lord from Jericho to Jerusalem the great turning-point in His life. 1. What it signified—the Lord’s acceptance of His people’s Messianic hopes; He suffered Himself to be publicly heralded as the Messiah. 2. How the Lord’s friends regarded it—as a coronation procession, which no cry of misery should disturb. 3. How Christ Himself treated it—as a journey of redemption for believers.—The difference between a legal procession, and the journey of Christ led by the Spirit: the one would fanatically prevent disturbance by anything in the way; the other makes every seeming interruption augment its festal character, Act_2:13.—The difference between a worship which repels the wretched, and that which attracts them.—The coronation journey of Christ is glorified by every seeming interruption.—The Holy King and His unholy courtiers.—Christ, even through the multitude of noises, detects the individual cry of the petitioner.—What will ye that I should do unto you? Christ’s kingly word to the mendicant blind.—He whose eyes are opened by Christ, lifts them first upon His regal procession.—They who receive their sight from Christ follow Him in the way.—The fellowship of misery: two blind men, ten lepers; and so throughout the evangelical narrative.—The Church is a fellowship both of the needy and the saved.—The gift of the eve: 1. It is the revelation of the soul to the world; 2. the revelation of the world to the soul; 3. the symbol of the inner light of knowledge; 4. of the illumination from above.—The true procession of Christ a swelling stream of the grateful saved.—The wilderness of Jericho changed into a figure of Christ’s work in the world: 1. Once a corner of robbers and murderers, now enlivened by the cry of salvation; 2. once the scene of Christ’s temptation, now the scene of His glorification.—How and wherefore the Lord permitted the joyful acclamation of His people before His sufferings.—The self-renunciation in which the Lord, with the presentiment of His cross upon Him, surrenders Himself to the joy of His disciples: they did not understand the whole issue, which He clearly foresaw; they erred concerning the nearest issue; but in a higher sense they were right, inasmuch as the final issue could be no other than His glorious reign.

Starke:—They who are one in misery should unite their prayer.—The loss of physical sight is to man a great distress; but he is not so much troubled about his soul’s blindness.—Zeisius: We must not be hindered in our prayers by the devil or the world, by flesh and blood.—Cramer: Turn not away your eyes and ears from the cry of the wretched.—Christ is much more willing to help than we to ask Him.—The following of Christ is the best gratitude.

Rieger:—He who easily yields his point to threats, is for the most part without the strong urgency of a true heart.—Happy he whom nothing restrains in his faith and believing cry.

Footnotes:

[With this chapter closes Mr. Edersheim’s translation in the Edinb. edition. The remaining chapters of the Commentary on St. Matthew were translated by the Rev. W. B. Pope (or some inferior assistants), as we learn from a note on the back of the title-page to vol. 2—P. S.]

Mat_20:29.—[The strict rendering of ἐêðïñåõïìÝíùí áὐôῶí . In Mar_10:46 the E. V. has: As he went out of Jericho. Luke says (Mat_18:35): As he was come nigh unto Jericho On this chronological discrepancy between Matthew and Luke, see the Exeg. Notes on Mat_20:30.—P. S.]

Mat_20:30.—[Text. rec: ἘëÝçóïí ἡìᾶò , êýñéå , õἱὸò Äáâßä . But the best authorities read: Êýñéå , ἐëÝçóïí ἡìᾶò , õἱὸò Äáõåßä , Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David. Cod. Sinait. reads in Mat_20:30 : åëåçóïí çìáò éçóïõ õéå Ä ., and in Mat_20:31 : êõñéå åëåçóïí çìáò õéå Ä .—P. S.]

Mat_20:34.—The words: áὐôῶí ïἱ ὀöèáëìïß (their eyes) after ἀíÝâëåøáí are wanting in Codd. B., D., L., Z., [and Cod. Sinait. which generally agrees with the Codd. just named], and in the Latin Vulgate. They are omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf [not in the large ed. of 1859, where the words are retained. Alford omits them, but in his apparatus he neglects to notice the difference of reading.—P. S.]

[According to others, the 14th of Nisan. See Introduction to Matthew 26 below.—P. S.]

[We have here corrected the original, which makes evidently a mistake (faithfully copied, as usual, in the Edinb. trsl.), by stating the distance of Jericho from Jerusulem (instead of from Jordan) to be two hours. According to Winer, Bibl. Realwörterbuch. i. p. 543 (3d ed.), and Robinson Palestine, vol. i. p. 565, Jericho was 60 stadia west from the river Jordan, and 150 stadia east from Jerusalem; according to other statements, 5 English miles from the Jordan, and 18 or 20 miles east-north-east of Jerusalem. The difference arises in part from the uncertainty of the site of ancient Jericho. The road from Jericho to Jerusalem is exceedingly difficult and dangerous, ascending through narrow and rocky passes amid ravines and precipices, and infested by robbers, as in the time of the good Samaritan (Luk_10:30-34).—P. S.]

[Similarly Wordsworth, who assumes that the blind man was not healed till the next day, and that Luke in his account anticipated the result by a prolepsis not uncommon in Scripture. He adds the remark that the frequent practice of anticipation and recapitulation agrees with the divine author of the Bible, to whom all time is present at once. Rabbi Jarchi, in Genesis 6, applies to the Bible what is said of God: “Non est prius, aut posterius, in Scriptura.”—P. S.]