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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 7:7 - 7:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
7, 8. Here each verse contains a triplet with ascending climax, αἰτεῖτε—ζητεῖτε—κρούετε. Each line of the one answers to the corresponding line of the other, with which it might be read continuously. It is a simple instance of a special characteristic of Hebrew poetry, of which examples sometimes elaborated with the greatest skill may be seen in Jebb’s Sacred Lit. sec. IV. Comp. with this triple climax of rising earnestness in prayer, the triple climax of things desired in the Lord’s Prayer. A close relation between the two might be shewn.
αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται. The connection is again difficult. The verse may be the answer to the disciples’ unspoken questions: (1) ‘How shall we discriminate?’ or (2) ‘Who are fit to receive these divine truths?’ The words of Christ teach, (1) that discernment will be given, among other ‘good things,’ in answer to prayer; (2) that prayer in itself implies fitness, because it implies desire for such truths.
αἰτεῖτε, αἰτεῖν used of the petition to a superior. ἐρωτᾶν, in its unclassical sense of ‘requesting,’ is used of equals, a distinction which is strictly observed in the N.T. Trench (N.T. Syn. p. 169) remarks, ‘our Lord never uses αἰτεῖν or αἰτεῖσθαι of Himself in respect of that which He asks on behalf of His disciples from God.’