9. Marda/bK, Matthew) A Hebrew by nation, and yet a publican. In St Mark and St Luke, he is called Levi.1 It is possible that Matthew did not like the name which he had borne as a publican. — xadr^vov, sitting) actually employed in the business of his calling. And yet Matthew followed. A great miracle and example of the power of Jesus. A noble instance of obedi ence2 [productive of eternal joy. — V. g.]
stowed such power (in the person of the man Christ Jesus) for the benefit of men, so long afflicted as they had been with sin. Thus the meaning of Bengel's " lata oratio, uti v. 6" is, that the words " on earth," in ver. 6, im ply the same wide range of the Saviour's power for the good of men as oivSpaTrot; here. — ED.
1 J. D. Michaelis, Einleitung T. ii. p. m. 932, etc., conjectures that Levi was the chief of the publicans, and Matthew his subordinate assistant. But it is not likely that either Matthew, consistently with his modesty, would have omitted to record the obedience of Levi to the Lord's call — Levi being, by the hypothesis, Matthew's principal and also host at the large entertainment given on the occasion — or that Mark and Luke should have omitted the call of Matthew, who was more distinguished than Levi on account of his apostleship. It is no objection, that Matthew is not mentioned by the men of Nazareth, Matt. xiii. 55, among the four sons, i.e. sister's sons of Mary : for not even Levi (who in Mark ii. 14 is explicitly made the son of Alpheus) is reckoned among those four. What suppose we say that Levi, or Matthew, was the son of Alpheus, though not by Mary, but by a different wife, and so connected with the Saviour by no tie of blood. At all events, the very ety mological root of the names seems to establish the identity of the persons. For "*b (Levi) is from STD adhered, attached to, and "M or "W?? (Matthew) is from the Arab, word PPS, he formed a tie of connection or propinquity. Moreover : in the same way as Saul, from that period of time in which, after being solemnly set apart to the work of preaching, he gained over Sergius Paulus as the first-fruits of his mission, and so became superior to Barnabas, was distinguished by the name of Paul, even by Luke himself (Acts xiii. 2, 9): so also Levi (Luke v. 27), from the moment in which by solemn election he was enrolled among the Apostles, obtained the name of Matthew even in Luke (c. vi. 15). These considerations will enable the reader to decide the question. — E. B.
2 This may be supposed to have been the series of the events: Matthew a short while before went to Jesus as a publican, and even then, at that early time, beyond all that he could have conceived, was called to the apostolic office, Matt. v. 1, Luke vi. 15 (comp. Num. xi. 26) : whereby is evinced the extraordinary clemency of the Saviour towards this publican, thus selected out from the rest of his fellows. He was present, as an apostle freshly- appointed, at the Sermon on the Mount : where there is no doubt but that the words, Do not even the publicans the same ? recorded by Matthew him-