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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 7:22 - 7:22
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22. ἃ εἴδετε. Our Lord wished His answer to be the announcement of facts, not the explanation of difficulties. His enumeration of the miracles involves an obvious reference to Isa 29:18; Isa 35:4-6; Isa 60:1-3 (see Luk 4:17-19), which would be instantly caught by one so familiar with the language of “the Evangelical Prophet” as the Baptist had shewn himself to be.
πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται. With this construction compare πεπίστευμαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, Gal 2:7. When a verb governing the dative is used in the passive, the noun denoting the person becomes the nominative. See Winer, p. 326. Thus the spiritual miracle is placed as the most convincing climax. The arrogant ignorance and hard theology of the Rabbis treated all the poor as mere peasants and nobodies. The Talmud is full of the two contemptuous names applied to them—‘people of the earth’ and ‘laics.’ One of the charges brought against the Pharisees by our Lord was their attempt to secure the monopoly of knowledge, Luk 11:52.
ὃς ἐὰν for ὅστις ἄν. In late writers and in Hellenistic Greek ἐὰν is used in exactly the same sense as ἂν after relative pronouns and conjunctions. The peculiarity may have been derived from popular usage.