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Mat_11:13-14 are by way of showing how it happens that, since the commencement of the Baptist’s ministry, the Messiah’s kingdom has been the object toward which such a violent movement has been directed. All the prophets, and even the law, have prophesied up till John’s time; John was the terminus ad quem of the period of prophecy which he brought to a close, and he who forms the termination of this epoch then steps upon the scene as the immediate forerunner of the Messiah—as the Elias who was to come. Accordingly, that new violent stirring of life among the people must be connected with this manifestation of Elias. Others interpret differently, while Bleek and Holtzmann are even inclined to suppose that originally Mat_11:13 was uttered before Mat_11:12.
καὶ ὁ νόμος ] for even with this the era of prophecy began, Joh_5:46; Act_7:37; Rom_10:6; Rom_11:19; although prophecy was not the principal function of the law, for which reason the prophets are here mentioned first. Different in Mat_5:17.
εἰ θέλετε δέξασθαι ] if you—and on this it depends whether by you also he is taken for what he is—will not reject this assurance (see on 1Co_2:14), but are disposed to receive it with a view to fuller consideration. The reason for interposing this remark is to be found in the fact that the unhappy circumstances in which John was then placed appeared to be inconsistent with such a view of his mission.
αὐτός ] no other than He.
Ἠλίας ] in accordance with Mal. 3:23 (Mal_4:5), on which the Jews founded the expectation that Elias, who had been taken up into heaven, would appear again in bodily form and introduce the Messiah (Wetstein on this passage; Lightfoot on Mat_17:10; Schoettgen, p. 148),—an expectation which Jesus regarded as veritably fulfilled in the person and work of the Baptist; in him, according to the ideal meaning of the prophecy, he saw the promised Elias; comp. Luk_1:17.
ὁ μέλλων ἔρχεσθαι ] the usual predicate. Bengel: “sermo est tanquam e prospectu testamenti veteris in novum.”