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Mat_24:48-51. Ἐὰν δὲ , κ . τ . λ .] the emphasis is on ὁ κακός as contrasting with ὁ πιστὸς κ . φρόνιμος , Mat_24:45, therefore ὁ ἄπιστος κ . ἄφρων .
ἐκεῖνος ] refers back to ὃν κατέστησεν , κ . τ . λ ., Mat_24:45, and represents the sum of its contents. Hence: but suppose the worthless servant who has been put in that position shall have said, etc. To assume that we have here a blending of two cases (the servant is either faithful or wicked), the second of which we are to regard as presupposed and pointed to by ἐκεῖνος (de Wette, Kaeuffer), is to burden the passage with unnecessary confusion.
ἄρξηται ] will have begun, does not refer to the circumstance that the lord surprises him in the midst of his misdemeanours (Fritzsche), because in that case what follows would also have to be regarded as depending on ἄρξηται , but on the contrary it brings out the fearless wickedness of the man abandoning himself to tyrannical behaviour and sensual gratifications.
ἐσθίῃ δὲ κ . π .] Before, we were told what his conduct was toward his fellow-slaves over whom he had been set; now, on the other hand, we are shown how he behaved himself apart from his relation to the οἰκετεία .
διχοτομήσει αὐτόν ] he will cut him in two (Plat. Polit. p. 302 F; Polyb. vi. 28. 2; x. 15. 5; Exo_29:17), a form of punishment according to which the criminal was sawn asunder, 2Sa_12:31; 1Ch_20:3; Heb_11:37. Comp. Sueton. Calig. xvii.: “medios serra dissecuit.” Herod, vii. 37. See, in general, Wetstein and Rosenmüller, Morgenl., on our passage. There is no force in the usual objection that, in what follows, the slave is assumed to be still living; for, in the words καὶ τὸ μέρος αὐτοῦ , κ . τ . λ ., which are immediately added, we have a statement of the thing itself, which the similitude of that terrible punishment was intended to illustrate. All other explanations are inconsistent with the text, such as: he will tear him with the scourge (Heumann, Paulus, Kuinoel, Schott, de Wette, Olshausen), or: he will cut him off from his service (Beza, Grotius, Jansen, Maldonatus; comp. Jerome, Euthymius Zigabenus), or: he will withdraw his spiritual gifts from him (Basil, Theophylact), or generally: he will punish him with the utmost severity (Chrysostom).
καὶ τὸ μέρος αὐτοῦ , κ . τ . λ .] and will assign him his proper place among the hypocrites, i.e. he will condemn him to have his fitting portion in common with the hypocrites, that thenceforth he may share their fate. Comp. on Joh_13:8, and the classical phrase ἐν μέρει τινὸς τίθεσθαι . Rabbinical writers likewise regard Gehenna as the portion of hypocrites; see Schoettgen. But the expression τῶν ὑποκριτ . is made use of here because the κακὸς δοῦλος is a hypocrite in the inmost depths of his moral nature, inasmuch as he acts under the impression χρονίζει μου ὁ κύριος , though he hopes that when his lord arrives he will be able to assume the appearance of one who is still faithfully discharging his duty, just as he must have pretended to be good at the time when he received the trust which had been committed to him; but now he is suddenly unmasked.
ἐκεῖ ] namely, in hell, Mat_8:12, Mat_13:42; Mat_13:50, Mat_22:13, Mat_25:30.
REMARK 1.
It is exegetically certain that from Mat_24:29 onward Jesus announces His second advent, after having spoken, in what precedes that verse, of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of that, too, as an event that was to take place immediately before His second coming. All attempts to obtain, for the εὐθέως of Mat_24:29, a different terminus a quo (see on Mat_24:29), and therefore to find room enough before this εὐθέως for an interval, the limits of which cannot as yet be assigned, or to fix upon some different point in the discourse as that at which the subject of the second advent is introduced (Chrysostom: Mat_24:23; E. J. Meyer: Mat_24:35; Süsskind: Mat_24:36; Kuinoel: Mat_24:43; Lightfoot, Wetstein, Flatt: not till Mat_25:31; Hoelemann: as early as Mat_24:19), are not the fruits of an objective interpretation of the text, but are based on the assumption that every trifling detail must find its fulfilment, and lead to interpretations in which the meaning is explained away and twisted in the most violent way possible. The attempts of Ebrard, Dorner, Cremer, Hoelemann, Gess, to show that the prediction of Jesus is in absolute harmony with the course of history, are refuted by the text itself, especially by Mat_24:29; above all is it impossible to explain Mat_24:15-28 of some event which is still in the womb of the future (in opposition to Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. p. 630 ff.); nor again, in Mat_24:34, can we narrow the scope of the πάντα ταῦτα , or extend that of the γενεὰ αὕτη , or make γένηται denote merely the dawning of the events in question.
REMARK 2.
It is true that the predictions, Mat_24:5 ff., regarding the events that were to precede the destruction of Jerusalem were not fulfilled in so special and ample a way as to harmonize with the synoptical representations of them; still, that they were so in all essential respects, is proved by what we learn from history respecting the impostors and magicians that appeared, the wars that raged far and near, the numerous cases of famine and earthquake that occurred, the persecutions of the Christians that took place, the moral degeneracy that prevailed, and the way in which the gospel had been proclaimed throughout the world, and all shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem (after the Jews had begun to rise in rebellion against the Roman authority in the time of Gessius Florus, who became procurator of Judea in 64). This prophecy, though in every respect a genuine prediction, is not without its imaginative element, as may be seen from the poetical and pictorial form in which it is embodied. Compare on Mat_24:7, Remark. But it is just this mode of representation which shows that a vaticinium post eventum (see on Mat_24:1) is not to be thought of. Comp. Holtzmann, Weizsäcker, Pfleiderer.
REMARK 3.
With regard to the difficulty arising out of the fact that the second advent did not take place, as Jesus had predicted it would, immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem,—and as an explanation of which the assumption of a blending of type and antitype (Luther) is arbitrary in itself, and only leads to confusion,—let the following be remarked: (1) Jesus has spoken of His advent in a threefold sense; for He described as His second coming (a) that outpouring of the Holy Spirit which was shortly to take place, and which was actually fulfilled; see on Joh_14:18 f., Mat_16:16; Mat_16:20 ff., also on Eph_2:17; (b) that historical manifestation of His majesty and power which would be seen, immediately after His ascension to the Father, in the triumph of His cause upon the earth, of which Mat_26:64 furnishes an undoubted example; (c) His coming, in the strict eschatological sense, to raise the dead, to hold the last judgment, and to set up His kingdom, which is also distinctly intimated in such passages of John as Joh_4:40; Joh_4:54, Mat_5:28, Mat_14:3 (Weizel in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 626 ff.), and in connection with which it is to be observed that in John the ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐγὼ τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ (Joh_6:39 f., Joh_6:44; Joh_6:54) does not imply any such nearness of the thing as is implied when the spiritual advent is in question; but, on the contrary, presupposes generally that believers will have to undergo death. Again, in the parable contained in Mat_22:1-14, the calling of the Gentiles is represented as coming after the destruction of Jerusalem; so that (comp. on Mat_21:40 f.) in any case a longer interval is supposed to intervene between this latter event and the second coming than would seem to correspond with the εὐθέως of Mat_24:29. (2) But though Jesus Himself predicted His second coming as an event close at hand, without understanding it, however, in the literal sense of the words (see above, under a and b); though, in doing so, He availed Himself to some extent of such prophetical phraseology as had come to be the stereotyped language for describing the future establishment of the literal kingdom of the Messiah (Mat_26:64), and in this way made use of the notions connected with this literal kingdom for the purpose of embodying his conceptions of the ideal advent,—it is nevertheless highly conceivable that, in the minds of the disciples, the sign of Christ’s speedy entrance into the world again came to be associated and ultimately identified with the expectation of a literal kingdom. This is all the more conceivable when we consider how difficult it was for them to realize anything so ideal as an invisible return, and how natural it was for them to apprehend literally the figurative language in which Jesus predicted this return, and how apt they were, in consequence, to take everything He said about His second coming, in the threefold sense above mentioned, as having reference to the one great object of eager expectation, viz. the glorious establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom. The separating and sifting of the heterogeneous elements that were thus blended together in their imagination, Jesus appears to have left to the influence of future development, instead of undertaking this task Himself, by directly confuting and correcting the errors to which this confusion gave rise (Act_1:7-8), although we must not overlook the fact that any utterances of Jesus in this direction would be apt to be lost sight of—all the more, that they would not be likely to prove generally acceptable. It may likewise be observed, as bearing upon this matter, that the spiritual character of the Gospel of John—in which the idea of the advent, though not altogether absent, occupies a very secondary place as compared with the decided prominence given to that of the coming again in a spiritual sense—is a phenomenon which presupposes further teaching on the part of Jesus, differing materially from that recorded in the synoptic traditions. (3) After the idea of imminence had once got associated in the minds of the disciples with the expectation of the second advent and the establishment of the literal kingdom, the next step, now that the resurrection of Jesus had taken place, was to connect the hope of fulfilment with the promised baptism with the spirit which was understood to be near at hand (Act_1:6); and they further expected that the fulfilment would take place, and that they would be witnesses of it before they left Judea,—an idea which is most distinctly reflected in Mat_10:23. Ex eventu the horizon of this hope came to be gradually enlarged, without its extending, however, beyond the lifetime of the existing generation. It was during this interval that, according to Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem was to take place. But if He at the same time saw, and in prophetic symbolism announced, what He could not fail to be aware of, viz. the connection that there would be between this catastrophe and the triumph of His ideal kingdom, then nothing was more natural than to expect that, with Jerusalem still standing (differently in Luk_21:24), and the duration of the existing generation drawing to a close, the second advent would take place immediately after the destruction of the capital,—an expectation which would be strengthened by the well-known descriptions furnished by the prophets of the triumphal entry of Jehovah and the disasters that were to precede it (Strauss, II. p. 348), as well as by that form of the doctrine of the dolores Messiae to which the Rabbis had given currency (Langen, Judenth. in Paläst. p. 494 f.). The form of the expectation involuntarily modified the form of the promise; the ideal advent and establishment of the kingdom came to be identified with the eschatological, so that in men’s minds and in the traditions alike the former gradually disappeared, while the latter alone remained as the object of earnest longing and expectation, surrounded not merely with the gorgeous colouring of prophetic delineation, but also placed in the same relation to the destruction of Jerusalem as that in which the ideal advent, announced in the language of prophetic imagery, had originally stood. Comp. Scherer in the Strassb. Beitr. II. 1851, p. 83 ff.; Holtzmann, p. 409 f.; Keim, III. p. 219 f.
Certain expositors have referred, in this connection, to the sentiment of the modern poet, who says: “the world’s history is the world’s judgment,” and have represented the destruction of Jerusalem as the first act in this judgment, which is supposed to be immediately followed (Mat_24:29) by a renovation of the world through the medium of Christianity,—a renovation which is to go on until the last revelation from heaven takes place (Kern, Dorner, Olshausen). But this is only to commit the absurdity of importing into the passage a poetical judgment, such as is quite foreign to the real judgment of the New Testament. No less objectionable is Bengel’s idea, revived by Hengstenberg and Olshausen (comp. also Kern, p. 56; Lange, II. p. 1258; Schmid, Bibl. Theol. I. p. 354), about the perspective nature of the prophetic vision,—an idea which could only have been vindicated from the reproach of imputing a false vision, i.e. an optical delusion, to Jesus if the latter had failed to specify a definite time by means of a statement so very precise as that contained in the εὐθέως of Mat_24:29, or had not added the solemn declaration of Mat_24:34. Dorner, Wittichen, rightly decide against this view. As a last shift, Olshausen has recourse to the idea that some condition or other is to be understood: “All those things will happen, unless men avert the anger of God by sincere repentance,”—a reservation which, in a prediction of so extremely definite a character, would most certainly have been expressly mentioned, even although no doubt can be said to exist as to the conditional nature of the Old Testament prophecies (Bertheau in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1859, p. 335 ff.). If, as Olshausen thinks, it was the wish of the Lord that His second advent should always be looked upon as a possible, nay, as a probable thing,—and if it was for this reason that He spoke as Matthew represents Him to have done, then it would follow that He made use of false means for the purpose of attaining a moral end,—a thing even more inconceivable in His case than theoretical error, which latter Strauss does not hesitate to impute. According to this view, to which Wittichen also adheres, it is to the ethical side of the ministry of Jesus that the chief importance is to be attached. But it is precisely this ethical side that, in the case of Him who was the very depository of the intuitive truth of God, would necessarily be compromised by such an error as is here in view,—an error affecting a prediction so intimately connected with His whole work, and of so much importance in its moral consequences. Comp. Joh_8:46.
REMARK 4.
The statement of Mat_24:29, to the effect that the second advent would take place immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, and that of Mat_24:34, to the effect that it would occur during the lifetime of the generation then living, go to decide the date of the composition of our Greek Matthew, which must accordingly have been written at some time previous to the destruction of the capital. Baur, indeed (Evangelien, p. 605; Neut. Theol. p. 109), supposes the judgment that was immediately to precede the second advent to be represented by the Jewish war in the time of Hadrian, and detects the date of the composition of our Gospel (namely, 130–134) in the βδελ . τῆς ἐρημώς . of Mat_24:15, which he explains of the statue of Jupiter which Hadrian had erected in the temple area (Dio Cass. lxix. 12). Such a view should have been felt to be already precluded by Mat_24:1-3, where, even according to Baur himself, it is only the first devastation under Titus that can be meant, as well as by the parallel passages of the other Synoptists; to say nothing, moreover, of the fact that a literal destruction of Jerusalem in the time of Hadrian, which is mentioned for the first time by Jerome in his comment on Eze_5:1, is, according to the older testimony of Justin, Ap. i. 47, and of Eusebius, iv. 6, highly questionable (Holtzmann, p. 405). But as regards the γενεά , in whose lifetime the destruction of the capital and the second advent were (Mat_24:34) to take place, Zeller (in the Theol. Jahrb. 1852, p. 299 f.), following Baur and Hilgenfeld, üb. d. Ev. Justin’s, p. 367, has sought to make the duration of the period in question extend over a century and more, therefore to somewhere about the year 130 and even later, although the common notion of a γενεά was such that a century was understood to be equal to something like three of them (Herod, ii. 142; Thuc. i. 14. 1; Wesseling, ad Diod. i. 24). The above, however, is an erroneous view, which its authors have been constrained to adopt simply to meet the exigencies of the case. For, with such passages before them as Mat_10:23, Mat_16:28, neither their critical nor their dogmatical preconceptions should have allowed them to doubt that anything else was meant than the ordinary lifetime of the existing generation, the generation living at the time the discourse was being delivered (the γενεὰ ἡ κατὰ τὸν παρόντα χρόνον , Dem. 1390, 25), and that, too, only the portion of their lifetime that was still to run. Comp. Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 494; Holtzmann, p. 408; Keim, p. 206; also Köstlin, p; 114 ff.