XVI. (1) THE PHARISEES ALSO WITH THE SADDUCEES. — The presence of members of the latter sect, who do not elsewhere appear in our Lord’s Galilean ministry, is noticeable. It is probably explained by St. Mark’s version of the warning in Matthew 16:6, where “the leaven of Herod” appears as equivalent... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEN IT IS EVENING, YE SAY, IT WILL BE FAIR WEATHER. — It is remarkable that some of the best MSS., including the Vatican and Sinaitic, omit the whole of these suggestive words. We can hardly think of them, however, looking to their singular originality of form, as interpolated by a later transcribe... [ Continue Reading ]
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAS. — See Note on Matthew 12:39. As given by St. Mark, the answer was a more absolute refusal, “No sign” (_i.e.,_ none of the kind that was demanded) “shall be given to this generation.”... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY HAD FORGOTTEN. — Better, _they forgot._ St. Mark, with his usual precision in detail, states that they had but “one loaf” with them. Either the suddenness of their Lord’s departure had deprived them of their customary forethought, or, it may be, they were beginning to depend wrongly on the wond... [ Continue Reading ]
BEWARE OF THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES. — The form of the warning was obviously determined by the fact just narrated. The Master saw the perplexed looks and heard the self reproaching or mutually accusing whispers of the disciples, and made them the text of a proverb which was a concentrated parable.... [ Continue Reading ]
IT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE TAKEN NO BREAD. — There is a childish _naïveté_ in their self-questioning which testifies to the absolute originality and truthfulness of the record, and so to the genuineness of the question which follows, and which assumes the reality of the two previous miracles. The train o... [ Continue Reading ]
O YE OF LITTLE FAITH. — Our Lord reproves not the want of discernment which made them slow to receive the meaning of the similitude, but their want of faith. The discernment depended (in part, at least) on imaginative power, or acquired culture, for the lack of which they were not responsible. But t... [ Continue Reading ]
HOW MANY BASKETS. — The distinction between the two kinds of baskets — the _cophini_ and the _spurides_ — is, as before noticed (Note on Matthew 15:37), strictly observed here.... [ Continue Reading ]
HOW IS IT THAT YE DO NOT UNDERSTAND? — True to His method of education our Lord does not Himself interpret the parable, but is, as it were, content to suggest the train of thought which led to the interpretation. And the disciples, slow of heart as they were, followed the clue thus given. “Then unde... [ Continue Reading ]
THE DOCTRINE OF THE PHARISEES AND OF THE SADDUCEES. — Better, _teaching;_ not so much the formulated dogmas of the sect as its general drift and tendency. The leaven was (as expressly stated in Luke 12:1) “hypocrisy,” the unreality of a life respectable, rigid, outwardly religious, even earnest in i... [ Continue Reading ]
CÆSAREA PHILIPPI. — The order of the journeyings of our Lord and His disciples would seem to have been as follows: — From the coasts of Tyre and Sidon they came, passing through Sidon, to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 7:31); thence by ship to Magdala and Dalmanutha, on the western sh... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY SAID, SOME SAY THAT THOU ART JOHN THE BAPTIST. — The passage is of the greatest possible interest as one of the very few that indicate the impressions shaped into beliefs that were floating among the people as to our Lord’s character and mission. They were based, it will be seen in each cas... [ Continue Reading ]
WHOM SAY YE? — The pronoun is doubly emphasised in the Greek, “But _ye_ — whom say _ye_...?” The question is, as has been said, parallel in tone, though not in form, to that of John 6:67. Had they still a distinct faith of their own? or were they, too, falling back into these popular surmises?... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU ART THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD. — The variations in the other Gospels — St. Mark giving simply, “Thou art the Christ,” and St. Luke, “The Christ of God” — are interesting in their bearing on the question of literal inspiration, but do not affect the meaning; and the fullest of the th... [ Continue Reading ]
BLESSED ART THOU, SIMON BAR-JONA. — Looking to the reality of our Lord’s human nature, its capacity for wonder (Mark 6:6; Luke 7:9), anger (Mark 3:5), sorrow (John 11:35; Luke 19:41), and other emotions, it is not over-bold to recognise in these words something like a tone of exalted joy. It is the... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU ART PETER, AND UPON THIS ROCK... — It is not easy, in dealing with a text which for many centuries has been the subject-matter of endless controversies, to clear our minds of those “afterthoughts of theology” which have gathered round it, and, in part at least, overlaid its meaning. It is clear... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL GIVE UNTO THEE THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. — Two distinct trains of figurative thought are blended in the words that follow. (1.) The palace of a great king implied the presence of a chief officer, as treasurer or chamberlain, or to use the old Hebrew phrase, as “over the household.” A... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN CHARGED HE HIS DISCIPLES THAT THEY SHOULD TELL NO MAN. — We may venture to analyse what we may reverently call the motives of this reticence. Had the disciples gone about, not only as proclaiming the kingdom and as preachers of repentance, but sounding the watchword that the Christ had come, it... [ Continue Reading ]
FROM THAT TIME FORTH BEGAN JESUS. — The prominence given to the prediction shows that it came upon the minds of the disciples as something altogether new. They had failed to understand the mysterious hints of the future which we find in, “Destroy this temple” (John 2:19), in the Son of Man being “li... [ Continue Reading ]
PETER TOOK HIM, AND BEGAN TO REBUKE HIM. — It is obvious that the mind of the disciple dwelt on the former, not the latter part of the prediction. The death was plain and terrible to him, for he failed to grasp the idea of the resurrection. The remonstrance would perhaps have been natural at any tim... [ Continue Reading ]
HE TURNED, AND SAID TO PETER. — St. Mark adds, significantly, “when He had turned about and looked on His disciples.” They, we may believe, stood behind, watching the effect of the remonstrance which Peter had uttered as their spokesman, and therefore, the Lord reading their thoughts, the rebuke, th... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN SAID JESUS UNTO HIS DISCIPLES. — St. Mark adds that He “called the multitude with the disciples,” and St. Luke’s “he said unto all “implies something of the same kind. The teaching as to the unworldliness of His kingdom which the disciples so much needed was to be generalised in its widest poss... [ Continue Reading ]
WHOSOEVER WILL SAVE HIS LIFE,... WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE.... — There is a subtle distinction between the two clauses in the Greek which the English fails to represent. “Whoso ever _willeth_ — _i.e.,_ wishes — to save his life” (the construction being the same as in Matthew 16:24) in the first c... [ Continue Reading ]
WHAT IS A MAN PROFITED...? — It is not without a purpose that what may be called the argument of expediency is here brought in. Even the self-denial of Matthew 16:24 does not exclude the thought, for those who are still within the range of its influence, of what, in the long-run, will profit us most... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE SON OF MAN SHALL COME. — The fact stands in a logical relation to the preceding verse. The fact that the Son of Man is about to come to execute judgment, clothes its abstract statement with an awful certainty. No bribe can be offered to the Eternal Judge to change the sentence of forfeiture... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE BE SOME STANDING HERE, WHICH SHALL NOT TASTE OF DEATH ... — The immediate sequence of the vision of the Son of Man transfigured from the low estate in which He then lived and moved, into the “excellent glory” which met the gaze of the three disciples, has led not a few interpreters to see in t... [ Continue Reading ]