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Mat_3:17. Φω νὴ … λέγουσα ] Here neither is ἐγένετο to be supplied, after Luk_3:22; nor does the participle stand for the finite tense. See on Mat_2:18. But literally: and lo, there, a voice from heaven which spoke. Comp. Mat_17:5; Luk_5:12; Luk_19:20; Act_8:27; Rev_4:1; Rev_6:2; Rev_7:9.
ὁ ἀγαπητός ] dilectus, not unicus (Loesner, Fischer, Michaelis, and others). The article, however, does not express the strengthened conception (dilectissimus), as Wetstein and Rosenmüller assert, but is required by grammar; for the emphasis lies on ὁ υἱός μου , to which the characteristic attribute is added by way of distinction. Comp. Kühner, II. 1, p. 529 f. Exactly so in the same voice from heaven, Mat_17:5.
ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα ] Hebraistic construction imitative of çÈôÅõ ëÀ . See Winer, p. 218 [E. T. 291]. Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 371 (Polybius ii. 12. 13 does not apply here); frequently in LXX. and Apocrypha.
The aorist denotes: in whom I have had good pleasure (Eph_1:4; Joh_17:24), who has become the object of my good pleasure. See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 746; Bernhardy, p. 381 f.; Kühner, II. 1, p. 134 f. The opposite is ἐμίσησα , Rom_9:13; ἤχθηρε κρονίων , Hom. Il. xx. 306.
The divine voice solemnly proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah, ὁ υἱός μου ; which designation, derived from Psa_2:7,[386] is in the divine and also in the Christian consciousness not merely the name of an office, but has at the same time a metaphysical meaning, having come forth from the Father’s being, κατὰ πνεῦμα , Rom_1:4, containing the Johannine idea, Ὁ ΛΌΓΟς ΣᾺΡΞ ἘΓΈΝΕΤΟ (according to Mat_1:20, Luk_1:35, also the origin of the corporeity). That the passage in Isa_62:1 (comp. Mat_12:18) lies at the basis of the expression of that voice, either alone (Hilgenfeld) or with others (Keim), has this against it, that Ὁ ΥἹΌς ΜΟΥ is the characteristic point, which is wanting in Isaiah l.c., and that, moreover, the other words in the passage do not specifically correspond with those in Isaiah.
[386] In the Gospel according to the Hebrews the words of the voice ran, according to Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13 : σύ μου εἶ ὁ υἱὸς ἀγαπητός , ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα · καὶ πάλιν · ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε . So also substantially in Justin, c. Tr. 88. Manifestly an addition from later tradition, which had become current from the well-known passage in Psalms 2. Nevertheless, Hilgenfeld regards that form of the heavenly voice as the more original. See on the opposite side, Weisse, Evangelienfrage, p. 190 ff.
REMARK.
The fact of itself that Jesus was baptized by John, although left doubtful by Fritzsche, admitted only as possible by Weisse, who makes it rather to be a baptism of the Spirit, while relegated by Bruno Bauer to the workshop of later religious reflection, stands so firmly established by the testimony of the Gospels that it has been recognised even by Strauss, although more on à priori grounds (L. J. I. p. 418). He rejects, however, the more minute points as unhistorical, while Keim sees in it powerful and speaking figures of spiritual occurrences which then took place on the Jordan; Schenkel again introduces thoughts which are very remote; and Weizsäcker recognises in it the representation of the installation of Jesus into His vocation as Ruler, and that by the transformation of a vision of Jesus into an external fact, and refers the narrative to later communications probably made by the Lord to His disciples. The historical reality of the more minute details is to be distinguished from the legendary embellishments of them. The first is to be derived from Joh_1:32-34, according to which the Baptist, after an address vouchsafed to him by God, in which was announced to him the descent of the Spirit as the Messianic σημεῖον of the person in question, saw the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descend upon Jesus, and abide upon Him, and, in accordance with this, delivered the testimony that Jesus was the Son of God. The seeing of the Baptist, and the testimony which he delivered regarding it, is accordingly to be considered as based on Joh_1:32-34, as the source of the tradition preserved in the Synoptics, in the simplest form in Mark. According to Ewald, it was in spirit that Jesus saw (namely, the Spirit, like a dove, consequently “in all its liveliness and fulness,” according to Isa_11:2) and heard what He Himself probably related at a later time, and that the Baptist himself also observed in Jesus, as He rose up out of the water, something quite different from what he noticed in other men, and distinguished Him at once by the utterance of some extraordinary words. But, considering the deviation of John’s narrative from that of the Synoptics, and the connection in which John stood to Jesus and the Baptist, there exists no reason why we should not find the original fact in John. Comp. Neander, L. J. p. 83 f.; Schleiermacher, p. 144 ff.; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 230 f. Moreover, that seeing of the Spirit in the form of a dove is a spiritual act, taking place in a vision (Act_7:55; Act_10:10 ff.), but which was transformed by the tradition of the apostolic age into an external manifestation, as the testimony of John (Joh_1:34), which was delivered on the basis of this seeing of his, was changed into a heavenly voice (which therefore is not to be taken as Bath Kol, least of all “as in the still reverberation of the thunder and in the gentle echo of the air,” as Ammon maintains, L. J. p. 273 f.). The more minute contents of the heavenly voice were suggested from Psa_2:7, to which also the old extension of the legend in Justin, c. Tryph. 88, and in the Ev. sec. Hebr. in Epiph. Haer. xxx. 13, points. Consequently the appearance of the dove remains as an actual occurrence, but as taking place in vision (Orig. c. Cels. i. 43–48. Theodore of Mopsuestia: ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς γενομένη ἡ τοῦ πνεύματος κάθοδος οὐ πᾶσιν ὤφθη τοῖς παροῦσιν , ἀλλὰ κατά τινα πνευματικὴν θεωρίαν ὤφθη μόνῳ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ , καθὼς ἔθος ἦν τοῖς προφήταις ἐν μέσῳ πολλῶν τὰ πᾶσιν ἀθεώρητα βλέπειν … ὀπτασία γὰρ ἦν , οὐ φύσις τὸ φαινόμενον ),—as also the opening of the heavens (Jerome: “Non reseratione elementorum, sed spiritualibus oculis”). Origen designates the thing as θεωρία νοητική . Comp. Grotius, Neander, Krabbe, de Wette, Bleek, Weizsäcker, Wittichen. Finally, the question[387] whether before the time of Christ the Jews already regarded the dove as a symbol of the Divine Spirit, is so far a matter of perfect indifference, as the Baptist could have no doubt, after the divine address vouchsafed to him, that the seeing the form of a dove descending from heaven was a symbolical manifestation of the Holy Spirit; yet it is probable, from the very circumstance that the ὀπτασία took place precisely in the form of a dove, that this form of representation had its point of connection in an already existing emblematic mode of regarding the Spirit, and that consequently the Rabbinical traditions relating thereto reach back in their origin to the pre-Christian age, without, however (in answer to Lücke on John), having to drag in the very remote figure of the dove descending down in order to brood, according to Gen_1:2. Here it remains undetermined in what properties of the dove (innocence, mildness, and the like; Theodore of Mopsuestia: φιλόστοργον κ . φιλάνθρωπον ζῶον ) the point of comparison was originally based. Moreover, according to Joh_1:32 ff., the purpose of what took place in vision does not appear to have been the communication of the Holy Spirit to Jesus (misinterpreted by the Gnostics as the reception of the λόγος ), but the making known of Jesus as the Messiah to the Baptist on the part of God, through a ΣΗΜΕῖΟΝ of the Holy Spirit. In this the difficulty disappears which is derived from the divine nature of Jesus, according to which He could not need the bestowal of the Spirit, whether we understand the Spirit in itself, or as the communicator of a nova virtus (Calvin), or as πνεῦμα προφητικόν (Thomasius), or as the Spirit of the divine ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ for the work of the Messiah (Hofmann), as the spirit of office (Kahnis), which definite views are not to be separated from the already existing possession of the Spirit. The later doubts of the Baptist, Mat_11:2 ff. (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Weizsäcker, Keim), as a momentary darkening of his higher consciousness in human weakness amid all his prophetic greatness, are to be regarded neither as a psychological riddle nor as evidence against his recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, which was brought about in a miraculous manner; and this is the more conceivable when we take into consideration the political element in the idea of the Messiah entertained by the imprisoned John (comp. Joh_1:29, Remark). If, however, after the baptism of Jesus, His Messianic appearance did not take place in the way in which the Baptist had conceived it, yet the continuous working of the latter, which was not given up after the baptism, can carry with it no well-founded objection to the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, which is related in the passage before us. Comp. on Joh_3:23.
[387] Talmudic and Rabbinical witnesses, but no pre-Christian ones, are in existence for the Jewish manner of regarding it (amongst the Syrians the dove was held sacred as the symbol of the brooding power of nature; see Creuzer, Symbol. II. p. 80). See Chagig. ii., according to which the Spirit of God, like a dove, brooded over the waters (comp. Bereshith rabba, f. iv. 4; Sohar, f. xix. 3, on Gen_1:2, according to which the Spirit brooding on the water is the Spirit of the Messiah). Targum on Son_2:12 : “Vox turturis, vox Spirituss.” Ir. Gibborim, ad Gen_1:2; Bemidb. rab. f. 250. 1. See also Sohar, Num. f. 68, 271 f., where the dove of Noah is placed in typical connection with the Messiah; in Schoettgen, II. p. 537 f. Comp. besides, Lutterbeck, neutest. Lehrbegr. I. p. 259 f.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 539. The dove was also regarded as a sacred bird in many forms of worship amongst the Greeks.