Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 8:20 - 8:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
20. φωλεούς. A word used by Piutarch and other late authors. Theocritus has φωλάδες ἄρκτοι, I. 115, and κνώδαλα φωλεύοντα, XXIV. 83, a heteroclite plural φωλεὰ is found.
κατασκηνώσεις. Cp.
‘In which all trees of honour stately stood,
And did all winter as in summer bud,
Spreading pavilions for the birds to bower.’
E. SPENSER.
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. The origin of this expression as a Messianic title is found in Dan 7:13 : ‘I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with (in) the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.’ Hence to the Jews it would be a familiar designation of the Messiah—the King whose ‘everlasting dominion’ is described in the next verse (Dan 7:14). (See Dr Pusey, On Daniel, Lecture II.)
The Hebraism may be considered in the light of similar expressions, ‘sons of light,’ ‘son of perdition,’ ‘son of peace,’ &c., in all of which the genitive denotes a quality inherent in the subject. Sons of light = the spiritually enlightened, sons of wisdom = the wise. By the Son of man then is meant He who is essentially man, who took man’s nature upon Him, who is man’s representative before God, shewing the possibilities of purified human nature, and so making atonement practicable.
The title ‘Son of man,’ so frequently used by our Lord of Himself, is not applied to Him except by Stephen (Act 7:56), ‘I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.’ In Rev 1:13; Rev 14:14, where the expression occurs without the definite article the reference to the Messianic title is not certain.
οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ. A saying attributed to Tib. Gracchus is sometimes quoted as parallel: τὰ μὲν θηρία τὰ τὴν Ἰταλίαν νεμόμενα καὶ φωλεὸν ἔχει καὶ κοιταῖον ἐστὶν αὐτῶν ἑκάστῳ καὶ καταδύσεις· τοῖς δὲ ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἰταλίας μαχομένοις καὶ ἀποθνήσκουσιν ἀέρος καὶ φωτὸς ἄλλου δὲ οὐδένος μέτεστιν, Plut. p. 828, c.