Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 21:44 - 21:44
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_21:44. After having indicated the future punishment in the merely negative form of ἀρθήσεται κ . τ . λ ., Jesus now proceeds to announce it in positive terms, by means of parallelism in which, without dropping the metaphor of the stone, the person in question is first the subject and then the object. A solemn exhausting of the whole subject of the coming doom. And whosoever will have fallen upon this stone (whosoever by rejecting the Messiah shall have incurred the judgment consequent thereon) shall he broken (by his fall); but on whomsoever it shall fall (whomsoever the Messiah, as an avenger, shall have overtaken), it shall winnow him, i.e. throw him off like the chaff from the winnowing-fan. συνθλᾶσθαι (to be crushed) and λικμᾶσθαι , which form a climax, are intended to portray the execution of the Messianic judgments. λικμάω is not equivalent to conterere, comminucre, the meaning usually assigned to it in accordance with the Vulgate, but is rather to be rendered by to winnow, ventilare (Il. v. 500; Xen. Oec. xviii. 2. 6; Plut. Mot. p. 701 C; Lucian, Gymnas. xxv.; Rth_3:2; Sir_5:10). See likewise Job_27:21, where the Sept. employs this figurative term for the purpose of rendering the idea of driving away as before a storm ( ùÒòø ). Comp. Dan_2:44; Wis_11:20.
Observe the change which the figure undergoes in the second division of the verse. The stone that previously appeared in the character of the corner-stone, lying at rest, and on which, as on a stone of stumbling (Isa_8:14 f.), some one falls, is now conceived of as rolling down with crushing force upon the man; the latter having reference to the whole of such coming (Mat_21:40) in judgment down to the second advent; the former expressing the same thought in a passive form, κεῖται εἰς πτῶσιν (Luk_2:34).