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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 17:11 - 17:11
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Mat_17:11. In His reply, Jesus admits the correctness of the teaching of the scribes in regard to this matter, and at the same time supplements the quotation made from it by the disciples (by adding κ . ἀποκατ . π .), in which supplement the use of the future-present ἔρχεται and the future ἀποκαταστ . are to be justified on the ground that they are the ipsissima verba of the teaching in question. “Unquestionably it is precisely as they say: Elias is coming and will restore everything again.” Inasmuch as what is here meant is the work of the coming Elias, and not the whole moral work of the Messiah in regenerating the world (as in Act_3:21), the ἀποκατάστασις πάντων , an expression taken from the rendering of Mal_4:6 by the LXX., refers, in the sense of the scribes, to the restitutio in integrum (for such is the meaning of the word, see note on Act_3:21) of the entire theocratic order of things by way of preparation for the Messiah, in which case we are not to think merely of a moral regeneration of the people, but also of the restoration of outward objects of a sacred character (such as the urna mannae, and so on). Jesus, on the other hand, knowing as He does that the promised coming of Elias has been fulfilled in the Baptist (Mat_11:14), refers to the preaching and preparatory labours of the latter, in which he believes the ἀποκαταστήσει πάντα to have been realized in the highest sense, and in the way most in keeping with the prophet’s own words in Mal_4:6 (Sir_48:10; Luk_1:17; Luk_3:1). The coming of the real Elias, who is expected to appear before the second advent (Hilary, Chrysostom, Augustine, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, the majority of the older Catholic expositors, likewise Arnoldi, Schegg), is taught by Jesus neither here nor elsewhere. See, on the contrary, Mat_17:12 f., Mat_11:14. This also in answer to Lechler in the Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 831.