Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Mark 12:40

οἱ κατεσθίοντες : this verse is probably still to be regarded as a continuation of the description of the scribes commencing with τῶν θελόντων, only the writer has lost the sense of the original construction, and instead of the genitive puts the nominative, so giving to what follows the force of an independent sentence (so Weiss). Grotius, Meyer, and Schanz take Mark 12:40 as a really independent sentence. Lk. set the precedent for this; for, apparently having Mk.'s text before him, he turns f1οἱ κατεσθίοντες into οἱ κατεσθίουσι. Holtzmann, H. C., is undecided between the two views. As to the sense, two facts are stated about the scribes: they devoured the houses, the property of widows, and they made long (μακρὰ, vide on Luke 20:47) prayers in the homes of, and presumably for, these widows. προφάσει : the real aim to get money, the long seemingly fervent prayers a blind to hide this aim. It is not necessary to suppose that the money-getting and the praying were connected by regular contract (so apparently Fritzsche, and Weiss in Meyer). For πρόφασις cf. Philippians 1:18 and especially 1 Thessalonians 2:5. οὗτοι λήψονται, etc.: this remark applies specially to the conduct just described: catching widows' substance with the bait of prayer, which Jesus characteristically pronounces exceptionally damnable in view of its sleek hypocrisy and low greed. The appending of this reflection favours the view that Mark 12:40 is after all an independent sentence. In it and the two preceding we have a very slight yet vivid picture of Pharisaic piety in its vanity, avarice, and hypocrisy.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Mark 12:40

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