40. ! 41 . napaXa/AfSavsTai, is taken2) sc. into safety, under pro tection ; see ver. 31. — aplsrai, is left) sc. in the midst of the dangers, whatever may occur.3 The present tense is used with reference to the time of the ron, then ; and the matter was al ready present to the Saviour's eyes.
41. ' AXJ}6ov<rai} grinding) Grinding was an occupation of women.
42. TpriyopsTre, watch*) This was the reason, no doubt, that the names Gregory and Viyilantius were so common in the ancient Church. You may ask why those who were so far distant from the last day were exhorted to watchfulness on that ground ? I answer — (1.) The remoteness of the event had not been indicated to them. (2.) Those who are alive at any particular time re present those who will be alive at the end of the world ; see Gnomon on 1 Thess. iv. 15. (3.) The principle of the Divine judgments, and of the uncertainty of the hour of death, re sembles in every age that of the last day ; and the hour of death is equivalent to the hour of resurrection and judgment, as though no time had been interposed. (4.) The feeling of the godly, which stretches forward to meet the Lord, is the same, whether with the longest or the shortest expectation. (5.) If every one had had to watch, from the time of the Apostles to the Lord's coming, it would have been well worth the trouble of so doing. — 6 xvptog V/JLUV, your Lord) called in ver. 44 the Son of Man.
43.5 rivuff-Asrz, ye knoiv.6 — si p8u, if he had knoivn) He would have watched ; and that care on his part would not have been much to be wondered at. — To/a puXaxjJ, in what (Lat. quali) watch)
1 T6«, then) at the actual time of the Advent, ver. 39. Comp. ch. xxv. 1.— V. g.
2 In the original, assumitur. — (I. B.)
3 As was the case with the men at the time of the Deluge. — V. g.
* Latin, " mgilate," from which verb (vigilo) the name Vigilantius is derived ; as Gregorius from the Greek verb employed in this passage. — (I. B.)
5 Three parables in Matthew refer to watchfulness, or else careless security ; a fourth refers to faithfulness, or else the want of it. — Harm., p. 484.
6 The word in the original of St Matthew may be either Indicative or Imperative. Bengel renders it as the former in the Gnomon, by " scitis" and in his German Version by " das ist euch aber bekannt." E. V. in the latter, by " know ye " in which it is supported by the Vulgate, which has " scitote." -{I. B.)
ST MATTHEW XXIV. 44, 4o. 435
It is supposed that the goodman of the house has been warned of the coming of the thief. In carnal concerns we are vigilant, even though we know not in what portion of the night our goods will be endangered, if we know only that the danger will occur either on this, or on one of the next few nights. — <puXax.fi, watch) although a watch is longer than an hour. — 6 xXiKrqg, the thief) The last temptation, arising from the concealment of that hour, accompanied by other circumstances of difficulty, is the most severe. For the nearer that the actual accomplishment of any thing approaches, so much the more keen become both hope and fear; and, generally speaking, so much the more impatient of any, even the least, delay. And thus will it be with those who live during the last small portion of time, when the other events which precede it in Rev. xx. shall have come to pass. — ovx &v liast) JC.T.X., he would not have allowed, etc.) by yielding to sleepi ness. — Biopvy^vai, to be dug through1) which would take some time to accomplish.
44. "Ep-tfTai, cometh) The present tense.