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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 1:52 - 1:52
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52. καθεῖλεν δυνάστας ἀπὸ θρόνων. ‘He puts down potentates from thrones.’ The aorists throughout are gnomic, i.e. they do not express single but normal acts. Winer, indeed, denies this gnomic use of the aorist—to express what is wont to be done—in the N. T. (Gram., p. 346); but his explanation that the aorists represent the rapid succession of (normal) facts, comes to the same thing. See a marked instance in Jam 1:11 ἀνέτειλεν ὁ ἥλιος … καὶ ἐξήρανε τὸν χόρτον. Hence Bleek renders these aorists by presents which is also the English way of expressing the gnomic aorist. Thus πολλὰ παρὰ γνώμην ἔπεσε means ‘many things happen unexpectedly.’ The thought is common throughout the Bible, e.g. Luk 18:14; Dan 4:30; 1Sa 2:6-10; Psa 113:6-8; 1Co 1:26-29. The ancients noticed the fact (κύκλος τῶν ἀνθρωπηΐων ἐστὶ πρηγμάτων, Hdt. I. 207; “Irus et est subito qui modo Croesus erat,” Ov. Trist. III. vii. 41), but did not draw the true lessons from it. With the general thought compare Wis 5:23, “Ill dealings shall overthrow the thrones of the mighty.” The rare word δυνάστας is rendered potentates in 1Ti 6:15.