Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 16:21 - 16:21
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_16:21. Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ] Comp. Mat_4:17; a note of time marking an important epoch. “Antea non ostenderat,” Bengel. To announce His future sufferings[460] to His disciples, and that immediately after their decided confession, Mat_16:16, was highly opportune, both as regards their capability and their need—their capability to stand so trying an intimation, and their need of beginning to relinquish their false hopes, and of attaining to a true and exalted conception of what constitutes the work of the Messiah. Mar_8:31 likewise introduces the beginning of the announcement of the future sufferings somewhat prominently after Peter’s confession, whereas Luk_9:21 f. omits it altogether.
δεῖ ] Necessity in accordance with a divine purpose, Mat_26:54; Luk_24:26; Joh_3:14.
ἈΠΕΛΘΕῖΝ ΕἸς ἹΕΡΟς .] because connected with ΚΑῚ ΠΟΛΛᾺ ΠΑΘΕῖΝ Κ . Τ . Λ ., does not forbid the idea of previous visits to Jerusalem mentioned by John (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 89); comp. Mat_23:37.
ἀπό ] at the hands of; comp. note on Mat_11:19.
τῶν πρεσβ . κ . ἀρχ . κ . γραμμ .] This circumstantial way of designating the Sanhedrim (comp. note on Mat_2:4) has here something of a solemn character.
ἀποκτανθ .] further detail (though with Mat_16:24 already in view) reserved for Mat_20:19. What Jesus contemplates is not being stoned to death by the people (Hausrath), but judicial murder through the decision of a court of justice.
ΚΑῚ Τῇ ΤΡΊΤῌ ἩΜ . ἘΓΕΡΘῆΝΑΙ ] With so clear and distinct a prediction of the resurrection, it is impossible to reconcile the fact that, utterly disheartened by the death of their Lord, the disciples should have had no expectation whatever that He would come to life again, that they consequently embalmed the body, and that even on the Sunday morning the women wanted to anoint it; that they should have placed a heavy stone at the mouth of the grave, and afterwards are utterly at a loss to account for the empty sepulchre, and treat the statement that He has risen and appeared again as simply incredible, some of them even doubting His identity when they do see Him; and further, that the risen Jesus appeals, indeed, to an Old Testament prediction (Luk_24:25), but not to His own; just as John, in like manner, accounts for Peter and himself not believing in the resurrection till they had actually seen the empty grave, merely from their having hitherto failed to understand the scripture (Joh_20:9). All this is not to be disposed of by simply saying that the disciples had not understood the prediction of Jesus (Mar_9:22); for had it been so plainly and directly uttered, they could not have failed to understand it, especially as, in the course of His own ministry, cases had occurred of the dead being restored to life, and as the Messianic hopes of the disciples must have disposed them to give a ready reception to tidings of a resurrection. Then, again, the fulfilment would necessarily have had the effect of awakening both their memory and their understanding, and that all the more that precisely then light was being shed upon the mysterious saying regarding the temple of the body (Joh_2:21 f.). We must therefore suppose that Jesus had made certain dark, indefinite allusions to His resurrection, which as yet had not been apprehended in their true meaning, and that it was only ex eventu that they assumed, in the course of tradition, the clear and definite form of a prediction such as is now before us. It is only such faint, obscure hints that are as yet to be met with in Joh_2:19; Joh_10:17 f., and see observation on Mat_12:40. Comp. besides, Hasert, üb. d. Vorhersag. Jesu von s. Tode u. s. Auferst. 1839, Neander, de Wette, Ammon. Other expositors (Paulus, Hase, Scholten, Schenkel, Volkmar), arbitrarily ignoring those traces of a dim prophetic hint of the resurrection, have contended that, originally, nothing more was meant than a symbolical allusion,—an allusion, that is, to the new impetus that would be given to the cause of Jesus, while some of them have denied that any announcement of the death ever took place at all (Strauss; see, on the other hand, Ebrard). But the arguments of Süskind (in Flatt’s Magaz. VII. p. 181 ff.), Heydenreich (in Hüffel’s Zeitschr. II. p. 7 ff.), Kuinoel, Ebrard, and others in favour of the perfect authenticity of the definite and literal predictions of the resurrection, are not conclusive, and, to some extent, move in a circle.
[460] Whoever supposes that it was only somewhere about this time that the thought of His impending sufferings and death first began to dawn upon Jesus (Hase, Weizsäcker, Keim, Wittichen), can do so only by ignoring previous statements on the part of the Lord, which already point with sufficient clearness to His painful end (see especially Mat_9:15, Mat_10:38, Mat_12:40)—statements the testimony of which is to be set aside only by explaining away and rejecting them by the artifice of mixing up together dates of different times, and the like, and thus depriving them of validity, a course which is decidedly opposed to the Gospel of John (comp. Joh_1:29,Joh_2:19, Joh_3:14, Joh_6:51 ff.) so long as its authenticity is recognised!