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Mar_12:38-40. Comp. on Mat_23:1; Mat_23:6-7 (14). Mark gives only a short fragment (and Luk_20:45-47 follows him) of the great and vehement original speech of severe rebuke, which Matthew has adopted in full from the collection of Logia.
βλέπετε ἀπό ] as Mar_8:15.
τῶν θελόντων ] quippe qui volunt, desire, i.e. lay claim to as a privilege. “Velle saepe rem per se indifferentem malam facit,” Bengel.
ἐν στολαῖς ] i.e. in long stately robes, as στολή , even without more precise definition, is frequently used (1Ma_6:16; Luk_15:22; Marc. Anton. i. 7). Grotius well remarks that the στολή is “gravitatis index.”
καὶ ἀσπασμούς ] governed by θελόντων . See Winer, p. 509 [E. T. 722].
Mar_12:40. οἱ κατεσθίοντες κ . τ . λ .] is usually not separated from what precedes, so that the nominative would come in instead of the genitive, bringing into more independent and emphatic prominence the description of their character. See Bernhardy, p. 68 f.; Buttmann, neut. Gram. p. 69 [E. T. 79]. But it is more suited to the vehement emotion of the discourse (with which also the asyndetic form of Mar_12:40 is in keeping), along with Grotius, Bengel, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Ewald (doubtfully also Winer, p. 165 [E. T. 228]), to begin with οἱ κατεσθίοντες a new sentence, which runs on to κρῖμα : the devourers of widows’ houses … these shall (in the Messianic judgment) receive a greater condemnation!
καί ] is the simple copula: those devouring widows’ houses and (and withal) by way of pretence uttering long prayers (in order to conceal under them their pitiless greed).
τῶν χηρῶν ] ὑπεισήρχοντο γὰρ τὰς ἀπροστατεύτους γυναῖκας ὡς δῆθεν προστάται αὐτῶν ἐσόμενοι , Theophylact.
καὶ προφάσει μακρὰ προσευχ .] προσχήματι εὐλαβείας καὶ ὑποκρίσει ἀπατῶντες τοὺς ἀφελεστέρους , Theophylact.
περισσότερον κρῖμα ] ὅσῳ δὲ μᾶλλον τετίμηνται παρὰ τῷ λαῷ καὶ τὴν τιμὴν εἰς βλάβην ἕλκουσι , τοσούτῳ μᾶλλον καταδικασθήσονται · δυνατοὶ γὰρ δυνατῶς ἑτασθήσονται , Victor Antiochenus.