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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 26:24 - 26:24
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24. καλὸν ἦν αὐτῷ κ.τ.λ. A familiar phrase in the Rabbinical Schools, used here with awful depth of certainty. The omission of ἂν makes the expression more emphatic. The condition is unfulfilled, but assuredly it would have been well if it had been fulfilled. In later Greek the tendency to this omission grows: cp. εἰ μὴ ἦν οὗτος παρὰ θεοῦ οὐκ ἠδύνατο ποιεῖν οὐδέν, Joh 9:33. In modern Greek ἂν is always omitted in such cases. The same construction occurs in Latin. ‘Antoni gladios potuit contemnere si sic │omnia dixisset,’ Juv. Sat. X. 123. ‘Me truncus illapsus cerebro │sustulerat nisi Faunus ictum │ dextra levasset,’ Hor. Od. II. 17. 27 (Winer, p. 382; Goodwin, pp. 96, 97).
εἰ οὐκ ἐγεννήθη. οὐ not μὴ after εἰ. Here οὐκ so entirely coalesces with ἐγεννήθη as to form with it a single verbal notion and to remain uninfluenced by εἰ. Cp. εἰ καὶ οὐ δώσει, Luk 11:8, where οὐ δώσει = ‘will refuse.’ Cp. also 1Co 11:6, εἰ γὰρ οὐ κατακαλύπτεται γυνή, καὶ κειράσθω. Soph. Aj. 1131, εἰ τοὺς θανόντας οὐκ ἐᾷς θάπτειν. Plat. Apol. Socr. 25 B, ἐάν τε σὺ καὶ Ἄνυτος οὐ φῆτε ἐάν τε φῆτε. (Winer, p. 599 foll.; Goodwin, p. 88.)