Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 6:10 - 6:10
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_6:10.[420] Ἐλθέτω , κ . τ . λ .] Let the kingdom of the Messiah appear. This was likewise a leading point in the prayers of the Jews, especially in the Kaddisch, which had been in regular use since the captivity, and which contained the words, Regnet tuum regnum; redemptio mox veniat. Hence the canon, ëì áøëä ùàéï áä îìëåç àéðä áøëä . Bab. Berac. f. 40. 2. Here, likewise, the kingdom of God is no other than the kingdom of the Messiah, the advent of which was the supreme object of pious longing (Luk_2:25; Luk_17:20; Mar_15:43; Luk_22:18; Luk_23:51; 2Ti_4:8). This view of the kingdom and its coming, as the winding up of the world’s history, a view which was also shared by the principal Fathers (Tertullian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Euth. Zigabenus), is the only one which corresponds with the historical conception of the βασιλεία τ . θεοῦ throughout the whole of the N. T.; comp. on Mat_3:2, the kingdom comes with the Messiah who comes to establish it; Mar_11:9-10; Luk_23:42. The ethical development (Mat_13:31 ff., Mat_24:14; comp. on Mat_3:2, Mat_5:3 ff., Mat_5:48; also on Act_3:21), which necessarily precedes the advent of the kingdom (Luk_19:11) and prepares the way for it, and with which the diffusion of Christianity is bound up, Mat_28:19 (Grotius, Kuinoel), forms the essential condition of that advent, and through ἘΛΘΈΤΩ , Κ . Τ . Λ ., is thus far indirectly (as the means toward the wished-for end) included in the petition, though not expressly mentioned in so many words, so that we are not called upon either to substitute for the concrete conception of the future kingdom (Luk_22:18) one of an ethical, of a more or less rationalistic character (Jerome, Origen, Wetstein: of the moral sway of Christianity; Baumgarten-Crusius: the development of the cause of God among men), or immediately to associate them together. This in answer also to Luther (“God’s kingdom comes first of all in time and here below through God’s word and faith, and then hereafter in eternity through the revelation of Christ”), Melanchthon, Calvin, de Wette, Tholuck, “the kingdom of God typified in Israel, coming in its reality in Christ, and ever more and more perfected by Him as time goes on;” comp. Bleek.
ΓΕΝΗΘΉΤΩ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] May Thy will (Mat_7:21; 1Th_4:3) be done, as by the angels (Psa_103:21), so also by men. This is the practical moral necessity in the life of believers, which, with its ideal requirements, is to determine and regulate that life until the fulfilment of the second petition shall have been accomplished. “Thus it is that the third petition, descending into the depths of man’s present condition and circumstances, damps the glow of the second,” Ewald. “Coelum norma est terrae, in qua aliter alia fiunt omnia,” Bengel. Accordingly the will of God here meant is not necessarily the voluntas decernens (Beza), but praecipiens, which is fulfilled by the good angels of heaven. This petition, which is omitted in Luke, is not to be taken merely as an explanation (Kamphausen) of the one which precedes it, nor as tautological (Hanne), but as exhibiting to the petitioner for the kingdom the full extent of moral requirement, without complying with which it is impossible to be admitted into the kingdom when it actually comes. As, according to Mat_6:33, the Christian is called upon to strive after the kingdom and the righteousness of God; so here, after the petition for the coming of the kingdom, it is asked that righteousness, which is the thing that God wills, may be realized upon the earth.
[420] On the inverted order of the second and third petition in Tertullian, see Nitzsch in the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 846 ff. This transposition appeared more logical and more historical.