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Mat_3:12. And fire, I say; for what a separation will it make!
οὗ ] assigns a reason, like our: He whose [German, Er, dessen]. See Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 371; Kühner, II. p. 939. It is not, however, as Grotius, Bengel, Storr, Kuinoel think, pleonastic, but the literal translation is to be closely adhered to: whose fan is in his hand; that is, he who has his (to him peculiar, comp. Mat_3:4) fan in his hand ready for use. Comp LXX. Isa_9:5. According to Fritzsche, ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ is epexegetical: “cujus erit ventilabrum, sc. in manu ejus.” But such epexegetical remarks, which fall under the point of view of Appositio partitiva, stand, as they actually occur, in the same case with the general word, which they define more minutely ( οὗ τὸ πτύον , τῆς χειρὸς αὐτοῦ ). See Eph_3:5, and remarks in loc.
ἅλωνα ] ἅλως (Xen. Oec. xviii. 6; Dem. 1040. 23), in Greek writers commonly after the Attic declension, is the same as ðÌÉøÆï , a circular firmly-trodden place upon the field itself, where the grain is either trodden out by oxen, or thrashed out by thrashing machines drawn by oxen. Keil, Arch. II. p. 114; Robinson, III. p. 370. Similarly in Greek writers; see Hermann, Privatalterth. xv. 6, xxiv. 3. The floor is cleansed in this way, that the seed grains and the pounded straw and similar refuse are not allowed to lie upon it indiscriminately mingled together, in the state in which the threshing has left this unclean condition of the floor, but the grain and refuse are separated from each other in order to be brought to the place destined for them. In the figure, the floor, which belongs to the Messiah, is not the church (Fathers and many others), nor mankind (de Wette), nor the Jewish nation (B. Crusius), but, because the place of the Messiah’s activity must be intended (Ewald), and that, according to the national determination of the idea of the Baptist, the holy land, as the proper sphere of the work of the Messiah, not the world in general (Bleek), as would have to be assumed according to the Christian fulfilment of the idea. In accordance with this view, we must neither, with Zeger, Fischer, Kuinoel, de Wette, explain τ . ἅλωνα , according to the alleged Hebrew usage (Job_39:12; Rth_3:2), as the grain upon the floor; nor, with Fritzsche, regard the cleansing as effected, removendo inde frumentum, which is an act that does not follow until the floor has been cleansed. The διακαθαρίζειν , to purify thoroughly, which is not preserved anywhere except in Luk_2:17, designates the cleansing from one end to the other; in classical writers διακαθαίρειν , Plat. Pol. iii. pp. 399 E, 411 D; Alciphr. iii. 26.
ἀποθήκην ] place for storing up, magazine. The grain stores ( σιτόβολιον , Polyb. iii. 100. 4; θησαυροὶ σίτου , Strabo, xii. p. 862; σιτοδόκη , Pollux) were chiefly dry subterranean vaults. Jahn, Archäol. I. 1, p. 376.
ἄχυρον ] not merely chaff in the narrower sense of the word ( îÉõ ), but all those portions of the stalk and ear which contain no grain, which are torn in pieces by the threshing, and remain over ( çÌÆëÆï ), Herod. iv. 72; Xen. Oec. xvii. 1, 6. f.; Gen_24:25; Exo_5:7. These were used as fuel. Mishna tract, Schabbath ii. 1; Parah. iv. 3. Paulsen, vom Ackerbau der Morgenl. p. 150.
The sense, apart from figurative language, is: The Messiah will receive into His kingdom those who are found worthy (comp. Mat_13:30); but upon the unworthy He will inflict in full the everlasting punishments of Gehenna. Comp. Mal. 3:19.
ἀσβέστῳ ] which is not quenched (Hom. Il. xvii. 89; Pind. Isthm. iii. 72; Dion. Hal. Antt. i. 76, corresponding to the thing portrayed; comp. Isa_66:24). Not, therefore: which is not extinguished till all is consumed (Paulus, Bleek).
REMARK.
Joh_1:26 is not to be regarded as parallel with Mat_3:12, for, according to John, the Baptist speaks after the baptism of Jesus, and to the members of the Sanhedrim. And doubtless he had often given expression to his testimony regarding Christ, who was the point which the prophet had in view in his preaching of repentance and baptism.
That he is not yet definitely designated in Matthew as Elijah (Luk_1:17; Mat_11:10; Mat_11:14), is rightly regarded as an evidence of the truth of the gospel narrative, which has not anticipated the subsequently developed representation of John. To relegate, however, the announcement of the Messiah from the preaching of the Baptist into the realm of legend (Strauss) is a mockery of the entire evangelical testimony, and places it below the narrative of Josephus, which was squared according to the ideas of political prudence (Antt. xviii. 5. 2).