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Mat_5:46. Argumentum e contrario in favour of the command to love one’s enemy; for the mere love of one’s friend belongs to no higher stage of moral life than that of the publicans and heathens.
In what follows neither is a μόνον to be supplied after τοὺς ἀγαπ . ὑμᾶς , nor is ἔχετε to be taken for ἕξετε (both in answer to Kuinoel and others). Jesus opposes the doctrine, “Love them who love you,” and views the reward, as in Mat_5:12; Mat_6:1, as a possession, preserved in heaven with God, to be realized in the kingdom of the future.
οἱ τελῶναι ] the tax-gatherers (partly natives, partly Romans), who were employed in the service of the Roman knights, who farmed the revenues. They were generally greatly hated amongst the Jews on account of their severity and avarice, especially, however, for being the servants of the Roman power. Wetstein on the passage; Keim, II. p. 217 f.