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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 11:3 - 11:3
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3. ὁ ἐρχόμενος. Hebr. Habba, one of the designations of the Messiah; in every age the prophet said ‘He cometh.’ See note ch. Mat 1:18.
ἕτερον, another—a different Messiah, whose ‘works’ shall not be those of love and healing. προσδοκῶμεν, probably conjunctive, ‘are we to expect.’
It is often disputed whether John sent this message (1) from a sense of hope deferred and despondency in his own soul; he would ask himself: (a) Is this the Christ whom I knew and whom I baptized? (b) Are these works of which I hear, the works of the promised Messiah? or (2) to confirm the faith of his disciples, or (3) to induce Jesus to make a public confession of His Messiahship. (1) The first motive is the most natural and the most instructive. In the weary constraint and misery of the prison the faith of the strongest fails for a moment. It is not doubt, but faith wavering: ‘Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.’ (2) The second has been suggested, and found support rather from the wish to uphold the consistency of the Baptist’s character than because it is the clearest inference from the text; note especially the words ἀπαγγείλατε, Ἰωάννῃ. (3) The third motive would have been hardly less derogatory to John’s faith than the first. And would not our Lord’s rebuke, Mat 11:6, have taken a different form, as when he said to Mary, ‘Mine hour is not yet come?’