Before passing from these verses “ay
7—12.
Sow ἐπιδώσει αὐτῷ; II. εἰ οὖν pets, πονηροὶ ὄντες, “Suara ἀγαθὰ διδόναι τοῖς τέκνοις ὑμῶν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον ὁ πατὴρ
ὑμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς δώσει ἀγαθὰ τοῖς αἰτοῦσιν αὐτόν; 12. Πάντα
οὖν ὅσα ἂν 1 θέλητε ἵνα !
1ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς : οὗτος γάρ ἐστιν 6 νόμος καὶ ot προφῆται.
- a a 65). ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν ot ἄνθρωποι, οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς k Lk. xi. 13. ph. iv. 8.
141
} οἴδατε j Lk. xii. 56. 2 Pet. ii.9. (vide be- low, also Mt. xxvii.
. iv. Phil. v.
17. 1Ch. xviii. 35; xx. 32; xxi. 40; xxv. 40,45. Mk. ν. 19,20. Lk. i. 49 αἱ. (with dat. of person in all
cases cited. Not usual in classics).
1 For av NC have εαν, which has been adopted by Tisch. and W.H.
of a general proposition: was yap, for every one, etc.—Ver. 9. ἢ answers to a state of mind which doubts whether God gives in answer to prayer at all, or at least gives what we desire.—rtls ἐξ ὑμῶν av.: argument from analogy, from the human to the divine. The construction is broken. Instead of going on to say what the man of the parable will do, the sentence changes into a statement of what he will not do. Well indicated in W.H.’s text by a — after ἄρτον. The anacolouthon could be avoided by omitting the ἐστι of T. R. after τίς and μὴ before λίθον, when the sentence would stand: τίς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἀν., ov αἰτῄσει 6 vids αὐτοῦ ἄρτον, λίθον ἐπιδώσει αὐτῷ. But the broken sentence, if worse grammar, is better rhetoric.—py A. ἐπιδώσει, he will not give him a stone, will he? Bread, stone; fish, serpent. Resemblance is implied, and the idea is that a father may refuse his child’s request but certainly will not mock him. Grotius quotes from Plautus: ‘ Altera manu fert lapidem, panem ostentat al- tera”. Furrer suggests that by dow is meant not a literal serpent, but a scale- less fish, therefore prohibited to be eaten (Lev. xi. 12); serpent-like, found in the
ea of Galilee, three feet long, often caught in the nets, and of course thrown away like the dogfish of our waters.— Ver. 11, πονηροὶ, morally evil, a strong word, the worst fathers being taken to represent the class, the point being that hardly the worst will treat their children as described. There is no intention to teach a doctrine of depravity, or, as Chrysostom says, to calumniate human nature (ov διαβάλλων τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν). The evil specially in view, as required by the connection, is selfish- ness, a grudging spirit: “If ye then, whose own nature is rather to keep what you have than to bestow it on others, etc.” (Hatch, Essays in B. Gr., p. 81).---- οἴδατε διδόναι soletis dare, Maldon. Wetstein; rather, have the sense to give; with the infinitive as in Phil. v.
12, 1 Tim. iii. 5. Perhaps we should take the phrase as an elegant expression for the simple δίδοτε. So Palairet.— δόµατα, four times in N. T. for the attic δῶρον, δώρηµα ; Sop. ayaa, gifts good not only in quality μοι] not stone, etc.) but even in measure, generous, giving the children more than they αδἰς---πόσῳ μᾶλλον, a fortiori argument.—é6 πατὴρ, etc., the Father whose benignant nature has already been declared, v. 45.—aya0a, good things emphatically, insignia dona, Rosenm., and only good (Jas. i. 17, an echo of this utterance). This text is classic for Christ’s doctrine of the Father- hood of God.
Ver. 12. The golden rule. οὖν here probably because in the source, cf. καὶ in quotation in Heb. i.6. The con- nection must be a matter of conjecture— with ver. 11, a, ‘‘ Extend your goodness from children to all,’ Fritzsche; with νετ. 11, b, “Imitate the divine good- ness,’ Bengel; with vii. 1-5, vv. 6-11 being an interpolation, Weiss and Holtz. (H.C.). Lk. vi. 31 places it after the precept contained in Matt. v. 42, and Wendt, in his reconstruction of the logia (L. J., i. 61), follows that clue. The thought is certainly in sympathy with the teaching of Matt. v. 38-48, and might very well be expounded in that connection. But the meaning is not dependent onconnection. The sentence is a worthy close to the discourse begin- ning at v. 17. ‘Respondent ultima primis,” Beng. Here as there “law and prophets’’.—tva with subjunctive after θέλητε, instead of infinitive.—mwdvra οὖν