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Mat_11:5-6. In words that seem an echo of Isa_35:5 f., 8, Isa_61:1 ff., though, in accordance with existing circumstances, embracing some additional matters, Jesus draws His answer clearly and decidedly from the well-known facts of His ministry, which prove Him to be the ἐρχόμενος foretold in prophecy. Comp. Luk_4:18. The words of the answer form a resumé of cases such as those in Mat_8:2, Mat_9:1; Mat_9:23; Mat_9:27; Mat_9:32; therefore they cannot have been intended to be taken in the sense of spiritual redemption, which Jesus might lay claim to as regards His works (in answer to de Wette, Keim, Wittichen); comp. Schweizer in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 106 ff.; Weiss, bibl. Theol., ed. 2, p. 48; Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 181.
πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελ .] well-known passive construction, as in Heb_4:2; Heb_4:6; Gal_2:7; Rom_3:2; Heb_11:2; Bernhardy, p. 341 f.
πτωχοί ] are the poor, the miserable, the friendless, the oppressed and helpless multitude (comp. on Mat_5:3), elsewhere compared to sheep without a shepherd (Mat_9:36), and likened a little further on to a bruised reed and smoking flax (Mat_12:20). Such people crowded about our Lord, who proclaimed to them the Messianic deliverance. And this deliverance they actually obtained when, as πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι , Mat_5:3, they surrendered themselves to His word under a deep heartfelt consciousness of their need of help.
σκανδαλ . ἐν ἐμοί ] will have been offended in me, so as to have come to entertain false views concerning me, so as to have ceased to believe in me, to have come to distrust me; Mat_13:57, Mat_26:31; Mat_26:33; comp. on Mat_5:29.
REMARK.
Judging from John’s question, Mat_11:2, and Jesus’ reply, Mat_11:6, it is neither unwarrantable nor, as far as can be seen, incompatible with the evangelic narrative, to assume that nothing else is meant than that John was really in doubt as to the personal Messiahship of Jesus and the nature of that Messiahship altogether,—a doubt, however, which, after the honourable testimony of Jesus, Mat_11:7 ff., cannot be regarded as showing a want of spirituality, nor as inconsistent with the standpoint and character of one whom God had sent as the forerunner, and who had been favoured with a divine revelation, but only as a temporary eclipse of his settled conviction, which, owing to human infirmity, had yielded to the influence of despondency. This condition is so explicable psychologically from the popular nature of the form which he expected the Messianic kingdom to assume on the one hand, as well as from his imprisonment on the other, coupled with the absence of any interposition in his favour on the part of Him who, as Messiah in the Baptist’s sense, should have given things a totally different turn by manifesting Himself in some sudden, overwhelming, and glorious crisis, and so analogous to undoubted examples of the same thing in other holy men (Moses, Elias), that there is no foundation for the view that, because of this question of the Baptist (which Strauss even regards as an expression of the first beginnings of his faith), the evangelic accounts of his earlier relation to Jesus are to be regarded as overdrawn (on the other hand, Wieseler, l.c. p. 203 ff.),—a view which seems to be shared by Weizsäcker, p. 320, and Schenkel. Actual doubt was the cause of the question, and furnished the occasion for informing him about the works of Jesus, which, as characteristic marks of the Messiah, formed again a counterpoise to his doubts, and so awoke an internal conflict in which the desire to call upon Jesus finally to declare Himself was extremely natural; and, accordingly, there is no reason for Strauss’ wonder that, ere this, οὐκ ἀκούσας has not been substituted in Mat_11:2 as a likely reading instead of ἀκούσας . From all this, and without importing any subjective element into the accounts, it is to be considered as settled that the Baptist’s question proceeded from real doubt as to whether Jesus was the ἐρχόμενος , yea or nay; nor is it for a moment to be limited (Paulus, Olshausen, Neander, Fleck, Kuhn, Ebrard, de Wette, Wieseler, Döllinger, and several others; comp. also Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. II. p. 75; Lichtenstein, L. J. p. 256; Hausrath, Zeitgesch. I. p. 338; Gess, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. p. 352) to doubts regarding the true nature of the Messiah’s manifestation and works; but still less is the whole narrative to be explained by supposing, in accordance with the time-honoured exegetical tradition, that John sent the message for the benefit of his own disciples, to confirm in them a belief in Jesus as the Messiah (Origen in Cramer’s Catena, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Hilary, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Münster, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Melanchthon, Clarius, Zeger, Jansen, Maldonatus, Grotius, Calovius, Bengel), or by seeing in it an expression of impatience, and an indirect challenge to the Messiah to establish His kingdom without delay (Lightfoot, Michaelis, Schuster in Eichhorn’s Bibl. XI. p. 1001 ff.; Leopold, Joh. d. Täuf. 1825, p. 96; Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Hase). The correct view was substantially given by so early a writer as Tertullian, and subsequently by Wetstein, Thies, J. E. Ch. Schmidt, Ammon, Löffler, kl. Schriften, II. p. 150 ff.; Neander, Krabbe, Bleek, Riggenbach, and several others; comp. also Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 420, who, however, supposes at the same time that the disciples of John may have been urging him to tell them plainly whether they ought to transfer their allegiance to Jesus or not; similarly Keim, who thinks that John, though hesitating between the alternative: He is the Messiah and He is not so, was nevertheless more disposed in favour of the affirmative view; so also Schmidt in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1869, p. 638 ff., who notices the way in which, as he supposes, the Baptist belies his former testimony regarding Christ.