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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 7:35 - 7:35
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
35. καί. ‘And yet.’ καὶ is often thus emphatic.
ἡ σοφία. The personification of God’s wisdom was common in the later Jewish literature, as in the Book of Wisdom. It is also found in the Old Testament (Pro 1:20; Pro 1:9, &c.).
ἐδικαιώθη ἀπό. ‘Is justified’ (the aorist being gnomic), or ‘was justified by,’ or ‘on the part of,’ i.e. has from the first been acquitted of all wrong and error, receives the witness of being just, at the hands of all her children. The “children of wisdom” generally (Pro 2:1; Pro 3:1, &c.) are those who obey God, and here are those of that generation who accepted the baptism of John and the ministry of Jesus, without making a stumbling-block of their different methods. The Jews, like the petulant children, refuse to sympathize either with John or Jesus—the one they condemned for exaggerated strictness, the other for dangerous laxity: yet the Wise,—Wisdom’s true children—once for all declare that she is righteous, and free from blame: for they know that wisdom is πολυποίκιλος, ‘richly-variegated,’ ‘of many colours,’ Eph 3:10. The world’s wisdom was foolishness; those whom the world called fools were divinely wise, Joh 3:33. Wisdom is thus justified by her children both actively and passively; they declare her to be just and holy, and the world ultimately sees that her guidance as exemplified by their lives is the best guidance (Wis 5:4-5; Psa 51:4; Rom 3:4). The reading ἔργων ‘works’ for τέκνων “children” in א may be derived from the variant reading in Mat 11:19.
πάντων. The position adds emphasis to the word—‘by her children—all of them,’ even publicans and sinners, who embraced truth when it reached them, whether from John or from the Lord, and “justified (ἐδικαίωσαν) God.” Hence the following narrative is, as Godet points out, a special illustration of the general principle.