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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 18:4 - 18:4
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Mat_18:4. Inference from the general principle of Mat_18:3 to the special child-like quality in which the disciples were deficient, as well as to the special subject of their question. If your entering the future Messianic kingdom at all is determined by your returning again to a child-like frame of mind, then above all must you acquire, through humble self-abasement, the unassuming character of this child, in order to be greater than others in the Messiah’s kingdom.
ὅστις ] quicunque; “de individuo, de quo quaerebant, non respondet,” Bengel. In what follows ταπεινώσει is emphatic, and accordingly stands near the beginning of the sentence. Had the subjunctive been critically certain, we should not have had to borrow ἐάν from the second part of the statement (Fritzsche), but rather to observe the distinction in the manner of presenting the idea, according to which the insertion of ἄν marks the presupposition as conditioned. The future assumes the action as actually occurring in the future; while the subjunctive after the relative without ἄν keeps the future realization still within the domain of thought, without, however, conceiving of the realization as conditioned ( ἄν ). For this usage among Attic prose writers, see Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 13.
Moreover, the words of Mat_18:3-4, inasmuch as they are essentially connected with the question of the disciples, are certainly original, not an anticipation of Mat_19:13 ff. (Holtzmann), and dispose us to prefer the account of Matthew to that of Mark or Luke.