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Mat_19:30. However, the measure of rewards in the Messianic kingdom is not to be determined by the time, sooner or later, at which any one may have entered into fellowship with me. No, it is not seniority of discipleship that is to be the standard of reward at the setting up of the approaching kingdom: Many who were the first to enter will receive just the same treatment as those who were the last to become my followers, and vice versâ. The correct construction and translation are not those of Fritzsche, who interprets: Many will be first though last ( ἔσχατοι ὄντες , namely, before the second coming), and last though first ( πρῶτοι ὄντες ), but those usually adopted, according to which πρῶτοι is the subject of the first, and ἔσχατοι that of the second part of the sentence. This is not forbidden by Mat_20:16, where, on the other hand, the order seems to have been inverted to suit the context. Observe, further, that the arrangement by which πολλοὶ … πρῶτοι stand so far apart serves to render πολλοί very emphatic: In multitudes, however, will the first be last, and vice versâ. The second clause is to be supplemented thus: καὶ πολλοὶ ἔσονται ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι . But to understand πρῶτοι and ἔσχατοι as referring, not to time, but to rank, regarded from the divine and human point of view, as though the idea were that “when the rewards come to be dispensed, many a one who considers himself among the highest will be reckoned among the lowest” (Hilgenfeld, following Euthymius Zigabenus, Erasmus, Jansen, Wetstein, de Wette, Bleek),—is forbidden by the subsequent parable, the connection of which with the present passage is indicated by γάρ . However, there is a little warrant in the text for taking the words as referring specially to the Jews on the one hand, and the Gentiles (who were later in being called) on the other (Theophylact, Grotius).