Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Matthew 7:12

The golden rule. οὖν here probably because in the source, cf. καὶ in quotation in Hebrews 1:6. The connection must be a matter of conjecture with Matthew 7:11, a, “Extend your goodness from children to all,” Fritzsche; with Matthew 7:11, b, “Imitate the divine goodness,” Bengel; with Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 7:6-11 being an interpolation, Weiss and Holtz. (H.C.). Luke 6:31 places it after the precept contained in Matthew 5:42, and Wendt, in his reconstruction of the logia (L. J., i. 61), follows that clue. The thought is certainly in sympathy with the teaching of Matthew 5:38-48, and might very well be expounded in that connection. But the meaning is not dependent on connection. The sentence is a worthy close to the discourse beginning at Matthew 5:17. “Respondent ultima primis,” Beng. Here as there “law and prophets”. ἵνα with subjunctive after θέλητε, instead of infinitive. πάντα οὖν … ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς. The law of nature, says Rosenmüller. Not quite. Wetstein, indeed, gives copious instances of something similar in Greek and Roman writers and Rabbinical sources, and the modern science of comparative religion enables us to multiply them. But recent commentators (including Holtz., H.C.) have remarked that, in these instances, the rule is stated in negative terms. So, e.g., in Tob 4:15, ὃ μισεῖς, μηδενὶ ποιήσῃς, quoted by Hillel in reply to one who asked him to teach the whole law while he stood on one leg. So also in the saying of Confucius: “Do not to others what you would not wish done to yourself,” Legge, Chinese Classics, i. 191 f. The negative confines us to the region of justice; the positive takes us into the region of generosity or grace, and so embraces both law and prophets. We wish much more than we can claim to be helped in need, encouraged in struggles, defended when misrepresented, and befriended when our back is at the wall. Christ would have us do all that in a magnanimous, benignant way; to be not merely δίκαιος but ἀγαθός. νόμος καὶ προφῆται : perhaps to a certain extent a current phrase = all that is necessary, but, no doubt, seriously meant; therefore, may help us to understand the statement in Matthew 5:17, “I came not to destroy, but to fulfil”. The golden rule was Law and Prophets only in an ideal sense, and in the same sense only was Christ a fulfiller. vide Wendt, L. J., ii. 341.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Matthew 7:12

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