25. Agree with (09 edvodv). Lit., be well-minded towards ; inclined to satisfy by paying or compromising. Wye., Be thou consenting to.
Cu. V.] MATTHEW. 41
Officer (imnpérn). Denoting a subordinate official, as a herald or an orderly, and in this sense applied to Mark as the “minister” or attendant of Paul and Barnabas (Acts xiii. 5). It furnishes an interesting instance of the expansion of a word from a limited and special meaning into a more general one; and also of the influence of the Gospel in lifting words into higher and purer associations. Formed with the verb épéoow, to 70w, it originally signified @ rower, as distinguished from a soldier, in a war-galley. This word for a gadley-slave comes at last, in the hands of Luke and Paul, to stand for the noblest of all offices, that of a minister of the Lord Jesus (Luke i. 2; Acts xxvi. 16; 1 Cor. iv. 1).
99. Offend (cxavdarifer). The word offend carries to the English reader the sense of giving offence, provoking. Hence the Rey., by restoring the picture in the word, restores its true meaning, causeth to stumble. The kindred noun is oxavdanor, a later form of cxavdddn9por, the stick in a trap on which the bait is placed, and which springs up and shuts the trap at the touch of ananimal. Hence, generally, a snare, a stumbling-block. Christ?s meaning here is: “If your eye or your hand serve as an obstacle or trap to ensnare or make you fall in your moral walk.” How the eye might do this may be seen in the pre- vious verse. Bengel observes: “ He who, when his eye proves a stumbling-block, takes care not to see, does in reality blind himself.” The words scandal and slander are both derived from oxdvdarov; and Wye. renders, “If thy right eye slander thee.”
40, Coat, cloke (yitava, (watvor). The former, the shirt- like under-garment or tunic; the latter, the mantle, or ampler over-garment, which served as a covering for the night, and therefore was forbidden by the Levitical law to be retained in pledge over night (Exod. xxii. 26, 27). To yield up this with- out resistance therefore implies a higher degree of concession.
41. Shall compel thee to go (ayyapevoe), This word throws the whole injunction into a picture which is entirely lost
49 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. (Cu. VI.
to the English reader. A man is travelling, and about to pass a post-station, where horses and messengers are kept in order to forward royal missives as quickly as possible. An official rushes out, seizes him, and forces him to go back and carry a letter to the next station, perhaps to the great detriment of his business. The word is of Persian origin, and denotes the impressment into service, which officials were empowered to make of any available persons or beasts on the great lines of road where the royal mails were carried by relays of riders.
42. Borrow (Savicac9at). Properly, to borrow at interest.
43. Neighbor (rov wAnociov). Another word to which the Gospel has imparted a broader and deeper sense. Literally it means the one near (so the Eng., neighbor = nigh-bor), indicat- ing a mere outward nearness, prowimity. Thus a neighbor might be anenemy. Socrates (Plato, “ Republic,” ii., 37 3) shows how two adjoining states might come to want each a piece of its neighbor’s (r@v wAnciov) land, so that there would arise war between them; and again (Plato, “Theaetetus,” 174) he says that a philosopher is wholly unacquainted with his next-door neighbor, and does not know whether he is a man or an animal. The Old Testament expands the meaning to cover national or trebal fellowship, and that is the sense in our Lord’s quotation here. The Christian sense is expounded by Jesus in the para- ble of the Good Samaritan (Luke x. 29 sqq.), as including the whole brotherhood of man, and as founded in love for man, as man, everywhere.