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events. The figure itself was borrowed from the practice which compelled criminals to bear their own cross to the place of execution. His cross: his own. All are not alike. There are different crosses for different disciples. The English pro- verb runs: “ Every cross hath its inscription”—the name of him for whom it is shaped.
39. Findeth (etpwv). The word is really a past participle, found. Our Lord looked back in thought to each man’s past, and forward to its appropriate consummation in the future. Similarly, he who lost (aronécas).. Plato seems to have fore- shadowed this wonderful thought. ‘“O my friend! I want you to see that the noble and the good may possibly be something different from saying and being saved, and that he who is truly a man ought not to care about living a certain time: he knows, as women say, that we must all die, and therefore he is not fond of life ; he leaves all that with God, and considers in what way he can best spend his appointed term” (“ Gorgias,” 512). Still more to the point, Euripides :
‘Who knows if life be not death, and death life?”
1. Commanding (Siatdécowv). The preposition dua has a distributive force: giving to each his appropriate charge.
Their cities (attév). The towns of those to whom he came —the Galilaeans. Compare iv. 23.
2. Two of his disciples (8¥o). But the correct reading is Sud, by. He sent by his disciples. So Rey.
3. Thou. Emphatic. Art thou “the Coming One?”—a current phrase for the Messiah.
64 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. (Cu. XI.
5. The lame walk. Tynd., Zhe halt go.
6. Be offended (cxavdaric97). See on ch. v. 29. Rev., shall find none occasion of stumbling. Compare Wye., shall not be slandered.
7. As they departed (rovtwy dé ropevouévav). Rev., more literal and better, as these went their way ; or while they, John’s disciples, were departing: thus giving the simultaneousness of Jesus’ words with the act of departure.
To see (JedcacIa). Rev., tobehold. SedoIat, like Jewpeiv, expresses the calm, continuous contemplation of an object which remains before the spectator. Compare John i. 14. Another verb is used in Christ’s repetition of the question, vv. 8, 9; éde@v in the ordinary sense of seeing. The more earnest expression suits the first question.
12. Suffereth violence (@:aferar). Lit., zs forced, over- powered, taken by storm. Christ thus graphically portrays the intense excitement which followed John’s ministry ; the eager waiting, striving, and struggling of the multitude for the prom- ised king.
The violent take it by force (Qiacral dprdfovoew aidriy). This was proved by the multitudes who followed Christ and thronged the doors where he was, and would have taken him by Jorce (the same word) and made him aking (John vi. 15). The word take by force means literally to snatch away, carry off. It is often used in the classics of plundering. Meyer renders, Those who use violent efforts, drag it to themselves. So Tynd., Lhey that make violence pull it unto them. Christ speaks of believers. They seize upon the kingdom and make it their own. The Rev., men of violence, is too strong, since it de- scribes a class of habitually and characteristically violent men . whereas the violence in this case is the result of a special and exceptional impulse. The passage recalls the old Greek proverb quoted by Plato against the Sophists, who had corrupted the
Cu. XL] MATTHEW. 65
Athenian youth by promising the easy attainment of wisdom : Good things are hard. Dante has seized the idea:
“* Regnum coelorum (the kingdom of heaven) suffereth violence From fervent love, and from that living hope That overcometh the divine volition; Not in the guise that man o’ercometh man, But conquers it because it will be conquered, And conquered, conquers by benignity.” Parad., xx., 94-99.
14. If ye will (e¢ 3érere). More correctly, Rev., Jf ye are willing or disposed. Yor there would naturally be an unwill- ingness to receive the statement about John’s high place, in view of John’s imprisonment.