Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 11:12 - 11:12
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_11:12. After the remark in passing that ὁ δὲ μικρότερος , etc., Jesus now continues His testimony regarding John, and, in order to prove what He had just said of him in Mat_11:10-11, He calls attention to the powerful movement in favour of the Messiah’s kingdom which had taken place since the commencement of the Baptist’s ministry.
ἀπὸ τῶν ἡμερ . Ἰωάνν .] This is not the language of one belonging to a later period, but only such as Jesus could have used at this juncture; for the days when John laboured and flourished were gone by! This in answer to Gfrörer, heil. Sage, II. p. 92, and Hilgenfeld.
βιάζεται ] Hesychius: βιαίως κρατεῖται —it is taken possession of by force, is conquered (not magna vi praedicatur, according to the idea imported into the words by Loesner and Fritzsche); Xen. H. G. v. 2. 15 : πόλεις … τὰς βεβιασμένας ; Thuc. iv. 10. 5 : βιάζοιτο , it would be forced; Dem. 84. 24; Zosimus, v. 29; 2Ma_14:41; Elwert, Quaestion. ad philol. sacr. N. T., 1860, p. 19, who, however, would take the present indicative as meaning vult expugnari, which is not required by the context. In this way is described that eager, irresistible striving and struggling after the approaching Messianic kingdom (Chrysostom: πάντες οἱ μετὰ σπουδῆς προσιόντες ) which has prevailed since the Baptist began to preach; it is as though it were being taken by storm. Comp. the neuter usage in Luk_16:16 : πᾶς εἰς αὐτὴν βιάζεται ; and further, Xen. Cyr. iii. 3. 69: βιάσαιντο εἴσω ; likewise Thuc. i. 63, vii. 69; Ael. V. H. xiii. 32; Herodian, vii. 10. 13; Polyb. i. 74. 5, ii. 67. 2, iv. 71. 5. If others have adopted the idea of a hostile violence with which the Messianic kingdom is persecuted (Lightfoot, Schneckenburger, Beitr. p. 49), or violently (Hilgenfeld) crushed and arrested (by the Pharisees and scribes), their view is partly an anachronism, and partly forbidden by the connection with Mat_11:13 and with what goes before. Finally, to take the verb in a middle sense, and as describing the breaking in of the kingdom which makes its way in spite of all resistance (Melanchthon, Bengel, Baur, Zyro in the Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 401), is certainly not contrary to usage (Dem. 779. 2; Lucian, Herm. 70), but inconsistent with the context in which βιασταί follows.
καὶ βιασταὶ ἁρπάζουσιν αὐτήν ] and those who use violent efforts drag it to themselves. The anarthrous βιασταί is not intended to be emphatic; such is now the character of the times, that those of whom the βιάζεται holds true achieve a speedy success, in that, while they press forward to join the ranks of my followers, they clutch at the approaching kingdom as though they were seizing spoils, and make it their own. So eager and energetic (no longer calm and expectant) is the interest in regard to the kingdom. The βιασταί are, accordingly, believers struggling hard for its possession. Jesus Himself (this in answer to Zyro) cannot be included among those who are here in view. Those who interpret βιάζεται in a hostile sense, render ἁρπάζουσιν : they snatch it away from men (according to Schneckenburger, they bar the way to it), in allusion to the conduct of the scribes and Pharisees. For βιαστής , comp. Pind. Ol. ix. 114; Pyth. i. 18. 82, iv. 420, vi. 28; Nem. ix. 122; Duncan, Lex., ed. Rost, p. 209. In Pindar also it is always used in a good sense. For ἁρπάζ ., comp. Xen. Anab. iv. 6. 11, vi. 5. 18; Herodian, ii. 6. 10, ii. 3. 23.