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Mat_3:5. Ἡ περίχωρος τοῦ Ἰορδάνου ] ëÌÄëÌÇø äÇåÌÇøÀãÅï , Gen_13:10-11; 1Ki_7:47; 2Ch_4:17. The country on both sides of the Jordan, now Elgor, see Robinson, Pal. II. p. 498 ff. Comp. Lightfoot, Hor. p. 216. The whole passage conveys an impression of solemnity, with which also the naming of the town and district, instead of the inhabitants (Nägelsbach on the Iliad, p. 103 ff. ed. 3), is connected. The baptism of John has been erroneously regarded as a modified application of the Jewish baptism of proselytes. So Selden (Jus. nat. Mat_2:2), Lightfoot (Hor. p. 220 ff.), Danz (in Meuschen, N. T. ex Talm. ill. pp. 233 ff., 287 ff.), Ziegler (theol. Abh. II. p. 132 ff.), Eisenlohr (hist. Bemerk. üb. d. Taufe, 1804), Kaiser (bibl. Theol. II. p. 160), Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Bengel, üb. d. Alter d. Jüd. Proselytent. 1814. For the baptism of proselytes, the oldest testimony to which occurs in the Gemara Babyl. Jebamoth xlvi. 2, and regarding which Philo, Josephus, and the more ancient Targumists are altogether silent, did not arise till after the destruction of Jerusalem. Schneckenburger, üb. d. Alter der Jüd. Proselytent. u. deren Zusammenst. m. d. joh. u. chr. Ritus, 1828; Paulus, exeg. Handb. I. p. 307 ff. The reception of proselytes was accomplished, so long as the temple stood, by means of circumcision and the presentation of a sacrifice, which was preceded, like every sacrifice, by a lustration, which the proselyte performed on himself. It is not, however, with this lustration merely, but chiefly with the religious usages of the Jews as regards washings, and their symbolical meaning (Gen_35:2; Exo_19:10; Num_19:7; Num_19:19; 1Sa_16:5; Jdt_12:7), that the baptism of John has its general point of connection in the history of the people, although it is precisely as baptism, and accompanied by the confession of sin, that it appears only as something new given to this dawn of the Messiah’s kingdom, under the excitement of the divine revelation, of which John was the bearer. Venerable prophetic pictures and allusions, like Isa_1:16; Isa_4:4; Isa_44:24, Eze_36:25, Zec_13:1, Psa_51:4, might thus serve to develope it still further in the soul of this last of the prophets. What was symbolized in the baptism of John was the μετάνοια . Comp. Josephus, Antt. xviii. 5. 2.[380] To this, however, the immersion of the whole of the baptized person, as the μετάνοια , was to purify the whole man, corresponded with profound significance, and to this the specifically Christian view of the symbolic immersion and emersion afterwards connected itself (Rom_6:3 ff.; Tit_3:5) by an ethical necessity.
ἘΞΟΜΟΛΟΓ .] In the same way as in the case of the sin-offering (Lev_16:21 ff.; Num_5:7), and in general to be taken as a venerable pre-condition of divine grace and blessing, Psa_32:5; Psa_51:1 ff.; Ezr_9:6; Dan_9:5.
The participle is not to be taken as if it were conditional (Fritzsche: “si … confiterentur”), as the subjection to this condition, in the case of every one who came to be baptized, is necessarily required as a matter of course; but: they were baptized whilst they confessed, during the confession, which is conceived as connected with the act of baptism itself. Whether is it a summary or a specific confession which is intended? Both may have taken place, varying always according to the individuals and their relations. The compound, however (Josephus, Antt. viii. 4. 6; passages in Philo; see in Loesner), expresses, as also in Act_19:18, Jam_5:16, an open confession.
[380] See this passage of Josephus above on ver. 2. Without any reason has this meaning been discovered in it, that John viewed his baptism as a means of covenant, by explaining βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι to mean: to unite through or for baptism (Strauss, Keim, Hausrath). The meaning of the passage is rather: John commanded the Jews to be wise in the exercise of virtue, and so on (sapere, comp. Rom_3:11; 2Co_10:12), by means of baptism.