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Mar_12:35-37. See on Mat_22:41-46. Comp. Luk_20:41-44.
Mark is distinguished from Matthew in this respect, that the latter represents Jesus as laying the theological problem before the assembled Pharisees, and then relates that they were thereby brought to silence, so that they put no further questions to Him; whereas Mark relates that the conversation as to the most important commandment had had this result, and thereafter Jesus had thrown out before the people, while He was teaching (Mar_12:37; Mar_12:35), the question respecting the Son of David.
ἀποκριθείς ] The following question to the people is a reply—publicly exposing the theological helplessness of the scribes—to the silence, to which they had just seen themselves reduced by the very fact that one of their number had even given his entire approval to Jesus. The scribes are still present. But it is not to themselves that Jesus puts His question; He utters it before the people, but in express reference to the γραμματεῖς . They may therefore give information also before the people, if they can. If they cannot, they stand there the more completely vanquished and put to shame. And they cannot, because to them the divine lineage of the Messiah, in virtue of which as David’s descendant He is yet David’s Lord, remained veiled and unperceived;—we may conceive after πόθεν υἱὸς αὐτοῦ ἐστιν the pause of this silence and this confusion. So peculiar is this whole position of the matter in Mark, that it appears to be (in opposition to Hilgenfeld and Baur) original.
πῶς ] how then? “Quomodo consistere potest, quod dicunt,” Grotius.
The twofold emphatic αὐτὸς Δαυ . places the declaration of David himself in contrast to the point held by the scribes.
καὶ πόθεν ] breaking in with surprise. Comp. Luk_1:43. πόθεν is the causal unde: whence comes it that.[152] Comp. Plat. Phaedr. p. 269 D.; Dem. 241, 17; Wolf, ad Lept. p. 238.
ὁ πολὺς ὄχλ .] the multitude of people, which was present.
ἢκουεν αὐτοῦ ἡδέως ] a triumph over those put to silence.
[152] In opposition to the whole N. T., the question is, according to Schenkel (comp. Strauss), intended to exhibit the Davidic descent of the Messiah as a phantom. This descent in fact forms of necessity the presupposition of the words καὶ πόθεν κ . τ . λ ., the concessum on the part of Jesus Himself. And it is the postulate of the whole of the N. T. Christology, from Mat_1:1 to Rev_22:16. Comp., moreover, the appropriate remarks of Beyschlag, Christol. d. N. T. p. 61 f. But the pre-existence of Jesus, which certainly must have been in His consciousness when He asked the question, is not expressed (in some such way as in Joh_8:58), nor is the recognition of it claimed for the Psalmist by ἐν πνεύματι . The latter merely asserts that David, as a prophet, designated his Son as his Lord.