Lange Commentary - Luke 6:17 - 6:49

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Lange Commentary - Luke 6:17 - 6:49


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

.The Sermon on the Mount (Luk_6:17-49)

17And he came down with them, and stood in the plain [having come down with them, he stood upon a level place, ἐðὶ ôüðïõ ðåäéíïῦ ], and the [a] company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; 18And they that were vexed [harassed] with unclean spirits: and they were healed. 19And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and20[he, V. O.] healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed 21be [are] ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. 23Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. 24But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. 26Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you [om., unto you], when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. 27But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, dogood to them which hate you, 28Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully 29use you. And [om., And] unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. 30Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. 31And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them like wise. 32For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. 33And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. 34And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children [lit.: sons] of the Highest:for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. 36Be ye therefore merciful [or, compassionate], as your Father also is merciful. 37Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: 38Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over [or, heaped up], shall men [they] give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal [measure with] it shall be measured toyou again. 39And he spake a parable unto them; Can the blind lead the blind [a blindman lead a blind man]? shall [will] they not both fall into the ditch? 40The disciple is not above his [the, V. O.] master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master 41[when completely trained, every one will be like his master]. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine 42own eye [but the beam in thine own eye dost not perceive]? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye. 43For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither 44[yet again] doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. 45A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart [om., treasure of his heart, V. O.] bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the [his] heart his mouth speaketh. 46And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 47Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom 48he is like: He is like a man which built a house, and digged deep [building a house, who dug deep], and laid the foundation on a [the] rock: and when the [a] flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; for it was founded upon a rock [because that it was well built]. 49But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell [in a heap, óõíÝðåóåí ]; and the ruin of that house was great.

GENERAL SURVEY

1. As to the question whether the Sermon on the Mount was twice delivered by the Lord, or whether we meet in Matthew, chapters 5–7; Luk_6:20-49, with the same discourse, the views have always been different. We feel obliged to concur with the interpreters who maintain the identity of the discourse. Its commencement, contents, course of thought, and conclusion, certainly agree remarkably, in Matthew and Luke. Each is followed immediately by the healing of the centurion at Capernaum, and although the one mentions a mountain and the other a ôüðïò ðåäéíüò , yet even this discrepancy can be reconciled. [Robinson and Stanley both describe the Tell Hattûn, which the Latin, though not the Greek tradition, connects with the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount, as consisting of a ridge, from which rise two horns or peaks, known as the Horns of Hattûn. If the tradition is correct, as Stanley is disposed to regard it (and even Robinson finds nothing contradictory to it in the situation of the hill), our Lord ascending the ridge into one of the peaks, would have gone up “into the mountain,” and coming down afterwards, for greater convenience, upon the ridge, would have been upon a ôüðïò ðåäéíüò , without having left the mountain.—C. C. S.] If Jesus appears, according to Matthew (Luk_5:1) to have sat, according to Luke (Luk_6:17), to have stood, yet this latter may be regarded as having been the case, some moments before the beginning of the discourse, while as yet the sick were coming to Him, and the people were sitting down to hear. The Jewish teachers were certainly accustomed to impart their instruction sitting, and even if Matthew’s report were unknown to us we should have to supplement that of Luke in this way: that Jesus, first standing, soon sat down. In this way the two accounts can be brought into unison. Many single proverbial expressions of this discourse the Saviour may often without doubt have repeated, but that He, at different periods in His life, should have made use of the same commencement and the same conclusion of His discourse we consider as on internal grounds improbable. It would only be conceivable if we assume with Lange that the Sermon on the Mount, as given in Luke, immediately followed that of Matthew, and that the former was an esoteric one, delivered on the summit of the mountain before the disciples—the second an exoteric one, delivered on the same day on a less elevated part of the mountain. See the more detailed developments of this view in his Leben Jesu, ii. pp. 568–570. Nevertheless even in this view it is conceded that “the two discourses in their fundamental ideas and essential substance are one discourse and two different redactions.”

2. As to the questions, when, where, before whom, and for what purpose, this discourse was held, we believe that we find the most exact account in Luke (contra Meyer). Altogether unfounded is the assumption that it was uttered even before the calling of Matthew; on the contrary, it was, as far as we know, the first extended discourse which Matthew, after his own calling and after the setting apart of all twelve apostles, heard. From this very fact it is explicable that he assigns it a place so early in his gospel, although it at once strikes the eye that Matthew here binds himself to no strict chronological sequence; as indeed even his statement, Luk_4:23-25, refers not obscurely to a point of time not in the beginning, but about in the middle of the public life of our Lord. Even the open opposition to Phariseeism and the not obscure declaration of the Saviour’s Messianic dignity in this discourse appear to intimate a later point of time. As to the place, see Lange, Matthew, p. 100. Comp. Josephus, De Bell. Jud. iii. 108. Among the hearers we have to distinguish the nearer circle of his ìáèçôáß , including the just-called apostles and the wider circle of the people, who also listened to it, and left the Mount in holy rapture. Mat_7:28; Luk_7:1. From the substance of every utterance in it, it is perfectly easy to conclude to which part of this numerous audience it was especially directed, and as respects the purpose of the whole discourse: “Jesus must undoubtedly, after He had gradually gained so great a following and attracted so much attention, and after He had by parables intensely excited the expectation of His hearers, have certainly at last been obliged for once frankly to declare what He meant. All His working hitherto took the form of means,—the end had not yet been manifested. The sick He had healed, the dead He had raised, of a âáóéëåßá ôïῦ Èåïῦ , which, He had come to found, He had spoken in enigmatical images. The people had opened their ears; all, more clearly or more obscurely, more purely or more impurely, had surrendered themselves to the hope that Jesus was the promised Messiah. They followed after Him; they were willing to take part in His kingdom: should He therefore now any longer keep silence? must He not give to this wavering, perplexed mass definite form: Such and such is the nature of my kingdom; this is its form, this the true disposition for it; these are my requirements?” (Ebrard.)

3. The praise of the greatest originality and exactness in the report of the Sermon on the Mount we do not give to Luke (Schneckenburger, Olshausen, B. Bauer, and others), but to Matthew. We believe that the more systematic arrangement of the thoughts in Matthew does not proceed from him, but from the Saviour Himself. The view of Sepp (II. p. 261), that Matthew as well as Luke does not properly communicate anything here but “the complex whole and sententious summary of all the didactic deliverances, as it were the themes of the sermons which our Lord, during His whole Messianic activity, delivered,” is too arbitrary to receive any particular critical notice. He has no other ground than “the explications which the godly Catharine Emerich von Dülmen gave” in her visions, an authority which the Protestant can hardly acknowledge.

4. The question why Luke communicates the Sermon on the Mount in a much less regular and perfect manner than Matthew, may be differently answered. It may be that Luke only found this short extract in his written authorities (Ebrard), or that oral tradition preserved this instruction of the Saviour in more than one form (Meyer a. o.) In no case must we overlook the fact that Luke has indeed proposed as his end exactness in his accounts, but not completeness, and might pass over much, e.g., of the controversy against Phariseeism, Mat_5:20-48, which for his friend Theophilus was unnecessary and perhaps not even intelligible. Other portions of the Sermon on the Mount he communicates in another connection, and it is therefore very possible that the Saviour delivered them more than once. On the other hand, he has even in his shorter redaction some additional sayings of the Saviour, which perhaps Matthew communicates in a more correct connection. (Accordingly Stier himself, in reference to Luk_6:45 compared with Mat_13:52, is obliged to acknowledge “that Luke has made a mistake.” Reden Jesu, i. p. 302.) By no means is the opinion well grounded (Bauer, Schwegler) that the redaction of the Sermon on the Mount in Luke bears a thoroughly Ebionitic character. See below in the exegetical remarks.

5. The peculiar character of the Sermon on the Mount comes in Luke also into sufficiently clear relief. Even 1. considered in and of itself, the substance as well as the form is incomparably beautiful. It is perhaps possible, in respect to some particular sayings which are here found, to adduce parallels from Rabbinical, nay, from heathen authors, but the whole is inimitable, and the spirit which streams through all its parts and joins them all together is completely unattainable. 2. In its historic connection, without being an actual consecratory or inaugural discourse of the Twelve, it is nevertheless in the highest degree adapted for the frame of mind and need of the moment. It was intended, more than had hitherto been the case, to draw the attention of a numerous throng to His person and His work, and by the very reason of its great difference from the mode of teaching of the Pharisees and Scribes, it called forth of itself an impression all the deeper. If we consider it 3. finally as well in relation to the Old Testament as to the chief substance of the Gospel in its strict sense, it soon becomes clear to us that the requirements here uttered are at the same time the expression of the eternal spirit of the Mosaic law, from which even the Saviour could not absolve. And lastly, if we give ear to the Beatitudes, the distinction in principle between Law and Gospel comes at once unmistakably to light. The doctrine of faith and grace is here, it is true, not announced in many words, and so far there is truth in the pregnant expression of Hase: “The Sermon on the Mount is not the completion but the one side of Christianity.” On the other side, it must however be remarked, that silence as to that which the people from their position could not yet bear, is by no means a contradiction of it; that the doctrine of sin and its wretchedness is here manifestly presupposed; that even in Luke there is no want of intimation as to the Saviour’s person (Luk_6:22; Luk_6:40-46), and that therefore R. Stier is not without reason in saying (Reden Jesu, i. p. 312): “Oh, ye rationalists, who are so willing to hear the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, hear, hear, I pray you, also its dogmatics!”—The Sermon on the Mount is the Magna Charta of the kingdom of God, and at the same time places before the eyes of all the disciples of the Lord the unchangeable principles by which the new life of faith must be guided. It is a practical commentary on the word of the Baptist, Mat_3:8. Whoever finds difficulty in the ethical requirements of the Sermon on the Mount has an unhealthy, and whoever will hear of no truth of salvation which is not contained in the words of the Sermon on the Mount has a superficial, a one-sided Christianity.

6. Since the Sermon on the Mount in Luke is, in respect to form, inferior to that of Matthew, it is not possible to give so organic a disposition of its contents as was the case in the notes on Matthew; but if any one is disposed, in order to make the general survey, at least to attempt a division, we may distinguish

I. The Salutation of Love (Luk_6:17-26).

II. The Requirement of Love (Luk_6:27-38).

III. The Importunity of Love (Luk_6:39-49).

Footnotes:

Luk_6:18.—The Rec.: êáß before ἐèåñáðåýïíôï has A., B., [Sin.,] D., L., Q., and 33 other Codd. against it. The independent sense which this omission gives to Luk_6:18 directs the attention still more definitely to these possessed, as a special class of sick. [This omission of êáß is accepted by Lachmann, Meyer, Tregelles, and Alford, but disapproved by Tischendorf.—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:19.—This insertion of “He” before healed, appears unnatural, and seems to proceed from an unnecessary anxiety to emphasize the voluntariness of the Saviour’s healings.—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:26.— Ὑìῖí is here, as before ãåëῶíôåò , Luk_6:25, spurious. [Om., ὑìῖí , Luk_6:25, B., Sin., K., L., S.; ins., A., D., E., 10 other uncials. Om., ὑìῖí , Luk_6:26, A., B., Sin., E., 15 other uncials; ins., C., D., Ä .—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:28.—The [E. V.] has “and pray, &c.:” the êáß is critically untenable.

Luk_6:34.—The reading of Tischendorf, ëáâåῖí , appears preferable to that of Lachmann, ἀðïëáâåῖí . [Sin. has ëáâåῖí .—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:34.—The Rec.: êáὶ ãὰñ ïἱ ἁì ., ê . ô . ë ., appears to be taken from the preceding verse. [Cod. Sin. omits ãÜñ .—C. O. S.]

Luk_6:35.— Ἐðὶ ôïὺò ἀ÷áñßóôïõò êáὶ ðïíçñïýò , “the unthankful and evil.” One class designated by two qualities; not “the unthankful and the evil,” two classes.—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:36—Rec.: ãßíåóèå ïὖí ïἰêôßñìïíåò . Ïὖí appears to have crept in quite early on account of its connecting the sentences more exactly. [Lachmann, Tregelles, and Alford omit the ïὖí , supported by B., D., L., Î ., [Sin.]; Tischendorf and Meyer retain it, supported by A., R., X. Meyer remarks: “How easy to overlook it before the syllable OI! An internal ground of omission, considering the congruousness of ïὖí to the sentence, is hardly to be assumed.”—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:37.—At the beginning of Luk_6:37 êáß is to be retained, in the second clause, on the contrary, to be expunged (against Rec.). [All the critics agree in retaining the first êáß , opposed only by D. But Tischendorf and Alford retain the second êáß also, supported by B., L., S., X., Sin.—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:38.—The repeated êáὶ — êáß before the last two adjectives, can without danger to the purity of the text very well be dispensed with. [Om., Sin.]

Luk_6:40.—Rec.: äéäÜóêáëïí áὐôïῦ . [ Áὐôïῦ approved by Tischendorf, om. by Lachmann, Tregelles, Alford, Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:42.— Ἢ ðῶò , ê . ô . ë . Rec. approved by Lachmann, bracketed by Tregelles. Cod. Sin. gives ðῶò äὲ äýí ., ê . ô . ë .—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:43.—Tischendorf has rightly received into the Greek text the word ðÜëéí , which was bracketed by Lachmann. Weighty authorities support it, and many appear to have omitted it only because it is not also found in the similar passage, Mat_7:18. [Ins., Cod. Sin.]

Luk_6:45.—We read with Tischendorf: ὁ ðïíçñὸò ἐê ôïῦ ðïíçñïῦ ðñïöÝñåé ôὸ ðïíçñüí . What more the Rec. has are plconastic supplements, whose genuineness is doubtful. [Tischendorf’s reading is confirmed by Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]

Luk_6:48.—Rec.: ôåèåìåëßùôï ãὰñ ἐðὶ ôὴí ðÝôñáí . Comp. Mat_7:25. One cannot help supposing that the reading defended by Tischendorf: äéὰ ôὸ êáëῶò ïἰêïäïìåῖóèáé áὐôÞí , although only supported by a few manuscripts (D., L., and cursives), was the original one, which, however, quite early was supplanted by the Rec., from a harmonistic striving. [Tischendorf’s reading is not supported by D., but by B., L., Î ., and Cod. Sin., the latter, however, having ïἰêïäïìῆóèáé .—C. C. S.]