Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 24:4 - 24:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_24:4-5. In the first place—and how appropriate and necessary, considering the eagerness of the disciples for the second coming!—a warning against false Messiahs, and then Mat_24:6 f. the first, far off, indirect prognostics of the second advent, like the roll of the distant thunder.
ἐπὶ τ . ὀνόμ . μου ] on the strength of my name, so that they rest their claim a upon the name of Messiah, which they arrogate to themselves. Comp. Mat_18:5. The following λέγοντες , κ . τ . λ . is epexegetical. We possess no historical record of any false Messiahs having appeared previous to the destruction of Jerusalem (Barcochba did not make his appearance till the time of Hadrian); for Simon Magus (Act_8:9), Theudas (Act_5:36), the Egyptian (Act_21:38), Menander, Dositheus, who have been referred to as cases in point (Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Grotius, Calovius, Bengel), did not pretend to be the Messiah. Comp. Joseph. Antt. xx. 5. 1; 8. 6; Bell. ii. 13. 5. Then as for the period subsequent to the destruction of the capital, it is not here in question (in answer to Luthardt, Cremer, Lange); for see on Mat_24:29 And consequently it cannot have been intended, as yet, to point to such personages as Manes, Montanus, and least of all Mohammed.