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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 3:23 - 3:23
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23. προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτούς. The hostile Scribes were so far off that He had to summon them in order to address them. This shows that they had made this monstrous charge behind His back, when He was too far off to hear. Therefore, as in Mar 2:8 and Mar 3:4, it was because “He knew their thoughts” that He surprised them with this unanswerable question. As in Mar 2:8; Mar 2:17; Mar 2:19; Mar 2:25, Mar 3:4, He meets their indirect and underhand methods directly and openly.
ἐν παραβολαῖς. The original meaning of “comparison” occurs Mar 4:30 and is not wholly absent here; Euthymius has ἐν παραδείγμασιν. His questions are parallels to their accusation. To say that by evil spiritual power He casts out evil spirits is to say that Satan casts out himself, which is like saying that a kingdom or a house is divided against itself. But here the O.T. meaning of παραβολή may be uppermost, a “trite and terse saying” or a “symbolical saying.”
Πῶς δύναται; This question elsewhere implies that the thing is morally impossible (Mat 12:34), or physically impossible (Mat 12:29; Joh 6:52), or that no one would have the face to do it (Luk 6:42). Here it means that such conduct would be not only morally impossible but unthinkable; it involves a contradiction. The Satanic corporation does not violate the conditions of its existence. Note the pres. infin.; cannot go on casting out. We have here one of the many occasions of which it is recorded that Christ spoke of the great power of evil as a personal agent; Mar 4:15; Luk 10:18; Luk 13:16; Luk 22:31; Mat 25:41; Joh 8:44. See on Mar 1:13. It is difficult to believe that Christ was ignorant on this momentous point, or that, if He knew it to be a superstition, He yet encouraged men to hold it.