Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 17:17 - 17:17
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_17:17. O unbelieving and perverse generation! Comp. Php_2:15. By this Jesus does not mean the scribes (Calvin), but is aiming at His disciples, who are expected to apply the exclamation to themselves, in consequence of their not being able to cure the lad of his disease. In no sparing fashion, but filled with painful emotion, He ranks them, owing to their want of an energetic faith, in the category of the unbelieving generation, and hence it is that He addresses it. Bengel fitly observes: “severo elencho discipuli accensentur turbae.” That the disciples are intended (Fritzsche, Baumgarten-Crusius, Steinmeyer, Volkmar), is likewise evident from Mat_17:20. They wanted the requisite amount of confidence in the miraculous powers conferred upon them by Christ. The strong terms ἄπιστος κ . διεστραμμ . (Deu_32:5; Php_2:5; Php_2:15), are to be explained from the deep emotion of Jesus. Nor can the people be meant, who are not concerned at all, any more than the father of the sufferer, who, in fact, invoked the help of Jesus because he had faith in Him. The words are consequently to be referred neither to all who were present (Paulus, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Krabbe, Bleek, Ewald), nor to the father (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Grotius), nor to him and the people (Keim), in which latter case many go the length of holding that the disciples are exculpated, and the blame of the failure imputed to the father himself ( οὐ τῆς ἐκείνων ἀσθενείας τοσοῦτον τὸ πταῖσμα , ὅσον τῆς σῆς ἀπιστίας , Theophylact). In opposition to the context (Mat_17:16; Mat_17:20). Neander and de Wette explain the words in the sense of Joh_4:48, as though Jesus were reflecting upon those who as yet have not known what it is to come to Him under a sense of their deepest wants, and so on.
ἕως πότε κ . τ . λ .] a passing touch of impatience in the excitement of the moment: How long is the time going to last during which I must be amongst you and bear with your weakness of faith, want of receptivity, and so on?
φέρετε ] like what precedes, is addressed to the disciples; it was to them that the lunatic had been brought, Mat_17:16. This in answer to Fritzsche, who thinks that Jesus “generatim loquens” refers to the father.