Matthew 22:34-46

D. The Attack of the Pharisees, and the Victory of the Lord. Matthew 22:34-46

(Mark 12:28-37; Luke 20:41-44.—The Gospel for the 18th Sunday after Trinity.)

34But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together [collected in the same place, συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό]. 35Then one of them, which [who] was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,29 36Master, which is the great commandment [what kind of commandment is great] in the 37law? 30 Jesus31 said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind (Deuteronomy 6:5). 38This is the first and great [the great and first]32 commandment. 39And the second [But a second, δευτέρα δέ] is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Leviticus 19:18). 40On these two commandments hang all the law [hangs the whole law, ὅλος ὁ νόμος κρέμαται and [also] the prophets.33 41, While the Pharisees were gathered [collected] together, Jesus asked them, 42Saying, What think ye of [concerning the, περὶ τοῦ] Christ? whose son is he [of whom is he the son? τίνος υἱός ἑστι]? They say unto him, The son34 of David. 43He saith unto 44them, How then doth David in spirit [by the Spirit]35 call him Lord, saying, The Lord [in Hebrew: Jehovah] said unto my Lord [Adonai], Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool [till I put thine enemies under thy feet]?36 (Psalms 10:5.) 45, If David then call37 him Lord, how is he his son? 46And no man [no one] was able to answer him a word, neither [nor] durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Matthew 22:34-40. The Question of the Great Commandment, General Remarks.—Mark gives it in an enlarged form; the narrative of Luke 10:28-37 has a kindred element. De Wette: “Probably the three accounts are different forms of the evangelical tradition, derived from the same historical materials; although there are traces in Luke of some dependence on Matthew.” Strauss: “Three free variations of the same primitive Christian tradition.” Meyer: “The difference of time and place in Luke’s account shows that the accounts of Matthew and Mark only may be considered As variations of the same tradition.” We may add, that the occasion and the whole transaction are different in Luke. There, Jesus puts the question: here, the scribe. The account of Mark refers to the same fact, but under a different point of view. Matthew has in his eye the tempting assault which the sect of the Pharisees made upon Christ by one of their agents, without regard to the person of this agent. Mark, on the contrary, has taken pains to describe this latter in full, showing that his spirit was better than that of his party. There is nothing improbable in this; and in Matthew’s account also, the rich young man separates himself from the mass of Christ’s enemies, as having a nobler disposition than they. Those overpowering influences which Christ exerted upon some individuals in the ranks of the enemy, detaching them from the midst of their party, are among His greatest triumphs, and are anticipations of the power which converted Saul on the way to Damascus.

Matthew 22:34. But when the Pharisees bad heard.—What was the motive of the new assault? Strauss: “In order to avenge the Sadducees”—against all probability. The Pharisees were rather rejoiced that Jews had reduced their enemies to silence; and this Matthew intimates in his ἐφἰμωσεν. (Luther: That He had stopped the mouths of the Sadducees.) Ebrard: “In order to make evident their superiority to the Sadducees;” which, although Meyer objects, seem very obvious. But they must have had, besides that, another and independent design. Meyer: “They would extort from Jesus an answer to a question of their own which would compromise Him.” But what answer? De Wette: “We cannot see the embarrassing nature of their question. The Rabbins distinguished between great and small, weighty and light, commandments (Wetstein on Matthew 5:19; Matthew 23:28); such a distinction is the basis of all casuistry in morals. Probably, it was very customary at that time; and even if Jesus had declared Himself very freely on the question, it would not have involved Him in any danger.” Meyer: “The temptation of the question lay in the Rabbins’ distinctions of weighty and light commandments. If Jesus had mentioned any particular ποιότης of a great commandment, His answer would have been measured by the standard of particular distinctions in schools of casuistry; and somehow He would have been compromised.” Olshausen understands the πειράζων of an honest desire to search out the views of Jesus.38—Thus exegesis leaves us in the dark here.

But the tempting element of the question is explained by the answer and the counter-question of Jesus. The Pharisees doubtless took it for granted that Jesus would answer them: “Thou shalt love God above all,” or: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me;” certainly He would mention the sanctity of monotheism. But their monotheism was altogether deistical in its bias, and had in it no christological principle. They argued from the unity of God, like Mohammed afterward (compare also the history of Ebionitism and Socinianism), that God could have no son. But they knew that Christ made Himself the Son of God; for this they had charged Him somewhat before (John 10:0) with blasphemy, asserting that He thereby made Himself equal with God. They intended, therefore, to found upon His expected answer, “to love God above all,” a charge of blasphemy, in making Himself equal to that supreme God by pretending to be His Son. But Jesus disturbed this tempting design by adding to the statement of the great and first commandment, “to love God supremely,” the declaration that the second was equal to it, “to love our neighbor as ourselves.” This elevated the human nature into a higher relation to the Divinity; and He said in effect: “As the second commandment is subordinate to the first, and yet like unto it, so the Son of Man is subordinate to the Father, and yet like unto Him.” The Pharisees felt at once the t His addition of the love to man had traversed their whole design. But that the argument referred to was really prepared by them, is plain from the question which the Redeemer based upon theirs; that is, the question how David could call the Messiah, his Son (therefore man), his Lord (therefore God, or God’s Son). The correctness of our exposition is shown also by the following consideration. The two charges under which the council placed Jesus before Pilate’s judgment-seat were these: 1. That He had made Himself the Son of God; 2. that He had made Himself king of the Jews in a political sense. This accusation was derived by them, in their embarrassment and affected daring, from that preliminary single but ambiguous charge, that He had made Himself the king of the Jews, that is, the Messiah (see the process in John 18:19). The same ambiguous word: “king of the Jews,” they first construed into a religious crime, and then, since that availed nothing, they construed it into a political crime. On this day of temptations, they strove to extract from Him a confession of both these charges. The temptation of making Him a political Messiah had come to nought. They then thought that at least they would involve Him in another, and more perilous condemnation, that of blasphemously impugning monotheism, or undermining the fundamental idea of the Jewish religion: this charge, though not quite so serviceable before Pilate, would serve them better before the people. We are warranted in this supposition by the questioning before Caiaphas, Matthew 26:63, and the condemnation to death winch ensued upon the answer of Jesus.

They were collected on the same spot.—We may ascribe to a wide diversity of motives the excitement which caused the Pharisees to flock to the spot in masses: delight at the humiliation of the Sadducees; the desire to do bettor than they had done; despair that all means had failed to extort from Jesus any ground of accusation; among some of them, a nobler complacency in the victory won for the doctrine of the resurrection; probably, also, the wish to induce Him to give up His extravagant pretensions to be the Messiah and the Son of God, and, as an orthodox teacher of the people (in an Ebionite sense), would make Himself useful to them against the Sadducees. Ἐπὶτὸαὐτό, as in Acts 1:15, referring to place, not sentiment.

Matthew 22:35. A lawyer, νομι κό ς.—A word often used by Luke; by Matthew only here. Paulus understands it, one who acknowledged only the Pentateuch and Scripture, rejecting tradition; that is, a Sadducee (or Scripturist, Karaite;—though these last did not yet exist, they were germinally present in the Sadducees). But this, as de Wette objects, is contradicted by the ἐξ αὐτῶν, which necessarily must be referred to the Pharisees. Meyer: “He was a Mosaic jurist: νομοδιδάσκαλος designates the same as teacher; γραμματεύς. is only an enlargement of the idea of νομικός—one versed in Scripture, a Biblical scholar, whose calling was the study and exposition of Holy Writ. Comp. Gfrörer in the Tühinger Zeitschrift for 1838, 1:146.”

Matthew 22:36. Which is the great commandment?—Meyer lays stress39 upon the ποία, and explains: How must a commandment be, or what character must it have, in order to be called great? But the answer of Jesus does not suit this. Yet certainly the ποία indicates the quality of the commandment. The great, μεγάλη, says more than the greatest. The greatest might be brought into comparison with the less great; but the great must, strictly viewed as a principle, include them all.

Matthew 22:37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.—The passage, Deuteronomy 6:5, freely after the Septuagint. Fritzsche: “God as thy Lord.” But it would be better to invert it—the Lord as thy God: in the original, Jehovah thy God. And this introduces a new significance in relation to Christ. Jehovah, God of the Revelation, the God of the incarnation, was to be Israel’s God, and not the God of a deistical perversion.

With all thy heart.—The ἐνὅλῃτῇ follows the original Hebrew בְּכָל, and not the Septuagint ἐξ. The heart is the entire inner nature of man; the soul is then rather the vitality of the heart animating the body; the mind, its spiritual and intellectus part (inlellectus, mens). Meyer, following Beck (Biblische Seelenlehre, p. 109), makes καρδια the whole energy of the reason and the intellect; ψυχή, the whole energy of sentiment and passion; and διάνοια, the whole energy of thought and will in its manifestation.40

Matthew 22:39. But a second is like unto it, ὁμιία.—This refers to the preceding declaration of Jesus, “The great and the first” (according to the true reading). Hence the article may be omitted. The commandment of the love of God is regarded in two lights: 1. As the great, which embraces in their unity all commandments, including that of love to our neighbor; 2. as the first, inasmuch as it is a special commandment, which precedes the commandment of love to man.—Is like unto it.—Compare 1 John 4:20-21 : Romans 13:9. Even the love of God itself is to manifest and actualize itself by love to man,—more generally by love to all men, more particularly by brotherly love.41 The commandment is according to the Septuagint of Leviticus 19:18. Meyer: “ἀγαπήσεις signifies a tender regard, and conduct in harmony with it; this, therefore, may be commanded, but not φιλεῖν, which is the love of affection or sentiment. Compare Tittmann’s Synonyms.” By this answer, Jesus not only penetrated and convicted the wicked design of the Pharisees, but also reproved the error which lurked in their question. He acknowledged a distinction between the great commandment and the rest, so far as the former is the principle, and all others derived from it. But in another sense, He acknowledged no distinction: the derived commandment of love to man is equal to the first in its absolute value, and as representing the first.

[As thyself.—“W. Burkitt: Every man may, yea, ought to love himself, not his sinful self, but his natural self, and especially his spiritual self, the new nature in him. This it ought to be his particular care to increase and strengthen. Indeed there is no express command in Scripture for a man to love himself, because the light of nature directs, and the law of nature binds and moves every man so to do. God has put a principle of self love and of self-preservation into all His creatures, but especially in man. Man ought to love his neighbor, 1. not as le docs love himself, but as he ought to love himself; 2. no; in the same degree, but after the same manner, i. e., freely and readily, sincerely and unfeignedly, tenderly and compassionately, constantly and perseveringly.”—There are cases, however, where man ought to love his neighbor more than himself, and sacrifice his life for his fellows, his country, and the church, in imitation of the example of Christ and the martyrs.—P. S.]

Matthew 22:40. Hangs, κρέμαται (according to the true reading).—The figure is taken from the door on its hinges, or from the nail on the wall; and aptly indicates dependence upon one common principle, and development from it; and hence it follows that the two great commandments have a higher unity in the one great commandment, that we love Jehovah, the incarnate God of revelation, as our God.—And also the prophets.—By the position of ἱπροφῆται after κρέμαται the prophets are made especially prominent. And the sense is this: Even the prophets who predicted the Messiah, the Son of God, do not contradict the great commandment of monotheism; they rather proceed from that law,—that is, from the word of the God of revelation flow the prophetical words concerning His revelation.

Matthew 22:41-46. The counter-question of Jesus. Its object.—Paulus; “Jesus aimed to lead His opponents to the point, that the Psalm was not of David, and not Messianic.” (!) De Wette: “He thereby intimated that He was not a political Messiah.” Weisse: “He wished to give a bint that He did not spring from David.” (?) Meyer: “He thus convicted them of their own ignorance and helplessness concerning the nature of the Messiah.” But, connecting the Lord’s question with the tempting question that preceded it, it appears plain that Jesus would prove by a Messianic utterance of the Psalm, that the Messiah might be at once the Son of David, i.e., a Son of Man, and at the same time the Lord of David, i.e., the Son of God.42

Matthew 22:41. While the Pharisees.—A significant circumstance. The whole body of Pharisaism is convicted and confuted by an Old Testament word, showing the consistency of the doctrine concerning the Son of God with Scripture.

Matthew 22:43. How then doth David by the Spirit call Him Lord?—Here πῶς is not: “With what propriety, how is it possible?” but: “In what sense?” or: “What can he mean by it?”—Doth call:—in the sense of formal designation, solemn title.

Matthew 22:44. The Lord said unto my Lord.—Quotation from Psalms 110:0. There are different views on its authorship and Messianic bearing. De Wette: “The poet (who is not David) calls the king, of whom the Psalm speaks, his Lord. The difficulty is thus taken away by the historical exposition. Jesus assumes the authorship of David, and its Messianic interpretation, simply as being prevalent in His time. But it is not necessary to suppose that Jesus agreed with the common notion. If stress is laid upon the words Δαβὶδἐ πνεύμα·ι, it must be remembered that we cannot rely upon the genuineness of these words sufficiently to build anything upon them. See Luke 20:42.” But here it is not Luke, but Matthew who speaks. Meyer agrees with de Wette, but while the latter assumes an accommodation of Jesus to the popular opinion, the former supposes that Jesus shared in the prevailing view as to the historical origin of the Psalm. But in our opinion, the correctness of the application of the word in the Psalm does not depend upon the question, whether David himself composed it or not. That Psalm is manifestly a poetical reproduction of the historical promise of Jehovah, which David received from the lips of the prophet Nathan, according to 2 Samuel 12:0, and of the last words of David referring to it, 2 Samuel 23:3 sqq. David is introduced as speaking on that basis of what Jehovah had promised the Messiah his offspring.43 That the Psalm is Messianic, and in the stricter sense prophetically Messianic, is evident from the tenor of its whole connection. Similarly, in the prophet Daniel we must first distinguish the historical basis and the composition, and then again identify them; since both are combined in the ἐν πνεύμστι of Scripture. Compare Matthew 24:15.

By the Spirit—Luke 2:27; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Romans 8:15. Not indeed impulsu Spiritus; but in the element of the Spirit, of the Spirit of God, which is the principle of unity in the Scripture.

Him.—The Son of David as the Messiah. The Rabbins saw in this Psalm one of the most clear and decisive Messianic prophecies. It was not till a later period that they retracted this interpretation. See Hengstenberg, Christologie, on this Psalm [vol. 1 p. 140 sqq.].

Matthew 22:45. How is He then his Son?—The answer is Romans 1:3-4; Acts 2:25. It was not the ignorance, but the unbelief, of the Pharisees which declined the answer.

Matthew 22:46. And no one could answer Him a word.—Decisive mandatum de supersedendo.—Nor durst any one from that day question Him any more.—The great point of severance between the rabbinical, deistic Judaism, and Christian and believing Judaism. Bengel: Nova dehinc quasi Scena Me pandit.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

See the preceding remarks. They will, we think, have shown that the question about the great commandment, and the Lord’s counter-question concerning David’s Son, the Greater than David, have a much higher significance than exegesis has hitherto discerned in them. It is the spiritual process of severance between the deistical apostasy of Judaism, and the true Messianic faith of Judaism—that is, Christianity itself. The silence of the Pharisees, after Christ’s question, marks the crisis of their hardening. Hence the decisive and final rebuke of Jesus, and the departure from the temple: symbol of their desolation and judgment.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The last assault of His enemies upon the Lord in the temple.—The last question of the Pharisees, and the last counter-question of the Lord.—The inquiry about the great commandment meant as a temptation of Christ: 1. He will either lay aside His own majesty in presence of the majesty of God; or, 2. asserting His own majesty, He will dishonor the majesty of , God.—How the Pharisees misunderstood the great commandment, to love God with all the heart: 1. In opposition to the love of man: 2. in opposition to the dignity of Christ.—The one great commandment in its all-comprehensive significance: 1. It unfolds itself into the gospel, as a prophecy of salvation in the doctrine that the Lord, the incarnate Jehovah, was to be loved as God (the supreme Personality must reveal Himself); 2. it unfolds itself into the law of the Spirit, in the two commandments, the ten, and all other subordinate ones.—To love God with all our life: 1. With all our heart; 2. with all our soul; 3. with all our mind.—The commandment of the love to God a strong testimony for His sacred and mysterious personality,—a witness also of His own glorious love.—Since God is love, love to Him must at once be kindled by the contemplation of Him.—How can the first commandment be the greatest, and yet the second be like unto it? 1. The first is the greatest, because it is the ground of the second, and embraces it; 2. the second is equal to it, because it is the copy of the first, and love to God is to be demonstrated by love to man.—The measure of the love of God: nothing is sufficient, neither our life nor all things.44 The measure of love to man: our love to ourselves.—In love to our neighbor we are to prove our love to God.—The two commandments are inseparable: 1. We cannot love God without loving our neighbor (against superstition); we cannot love our neighbor without the love of God (against unbelief).—Self-love has two conditions and guarantees: the love of God, and the love of man.—How far is self-love not commanded, and how far commanded? 1. It is not directly commanded, because it is a natural impulse of life; 2. it is indirectly commanded in the whole law and gospel; since this natural impulse is diseased, and has become selfishness,45—But a second is like unto it; or, how one word of our Lord cuts through the wicked motive and the wicked error of the Pharisees.—How far are the commandments different, and how far alike?—The empire of love is an empire of personal life.—Love is the fulfilling of the law, Romans 13:10—The counter-question of the Lord; or, the proof of the divinity of Christ from the Old Testament.—As the commandment of love to man is related to the commandment of love to God, so Christ is related to the Father: subordinate, yet equal.—The severance between Christianity and apostate Judaism in the temple.—They asked no more questions: no Jew dares ask a Christian any question, or commence an attack upon him; the missionary impulse, to work among the Gentiles, also gradually died away among the Jews since the time of Christ.

Starke:—Zeisius: However the wicked hate one another, they unite against Christ, His kingdom and members.—If you would ask, cultivate a sincere heart.—Hypocrites inquire about the greatest commandment, but they do not keep the least.—Osiander: As no man is able thus perfectly to love God, no man can be justified by the law.—The question concerning Christ the most important and the most necessary.—A correct knowledge of Christ necessary to salvation,—It is not enough to acknowledge Christ as the Son of Man.—Christ is God and Man in one undivided person.

Heubner:—The Rabbins were fond of discussing the relative greatness of commandments. The Jews counted 613 precepts: 365 prohibitions, and 248 commands.—It is dangerous to make a distinction between great and little commandments.—The nature of the love to God which Christianity requires.—Aristotle: There is no love to God (connection between this word and the heathen denial of the supreme Personality).—Consult the representations of Fenelon and the earlier mystics concerning the stages of the lore to God.—Piety toward God should be kind to man; and the love of men should be religious.—All commandments centre in love.—The whole ethical doctrine of Christianity very simple.—What think ye of Christ? always the question which finds out the genuine Christian.—Christ the Lord.—The dominion of Christ a dominion of love.—Faith and love closely connected in Christianity. Bachmann:—What think ye of Christ f 1. Manifold answers; 2. how important the right one!—Lisco: The supreme command, and the supreme article of faith.

[Quesnel:—On the great and first commandment, Matthew 22:38 : Love is the great and first commandment: 1. In antiquity, being as old as the world and engraven in our nature; 2. in dignity, as directly respecting God; 3. in excellence, being the commandment of the new covenant; 4. in justice, as preferring God above all things, and rendering to Him His due; 5. in sufficiency, in making of itself man holy in this life, and blessed in that which is to come; 6. in fruitfulness, in being the root of all other commandments; 7. in virtue and efficacy; 8. in extent; 9. in necessity; 10. in duration, as continuing for ever in heaven.—The same, on Matthew 22:46 :—Truth at length triumphs, but the defender of it will notwithstanding be oppressed by men. Hence we should not judge the truth by the sufferings of its defenders. The more triumphant it is, the more they must expect to suffer, that they may be made more conformable to Christ and capable of greater reward.—P. S.]

Footnotes:

[29] Matthew 22:35.—The words: καὶ λέγεν (and saying), are omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf [also by Tregelles, but not by Alford] on the authority of B., L., etc Meyer: An insertion from Mark 12:28, and contrary to the uniform style of Matthew ( Matthew 12:10; Matthew 17:10, etc.).

[30] Matthew 22:36.—[Πεία ἐντο λὴυγάλη ἐννόμῳ; literally: What kind of commandment, or: What commandment is great in the low? Meyer: Was für ein Gebot ist gross im Gesetze? (Wie muse ein Gebot beschaffen sein. um ein grosses Gebot su seint?). ΙΙ οία is qualitative, qualis, what kind (comp. Matthew 19:12), and the article before ἐντολή is omitted. But the Authorized Version agrees better with the answer, and Dr. Lange likewise translates: Welches ist das grosse Gebot im Gesetz? The Lat. Vulg.: Quid est mandatum magnum, in lege? See Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]

[31] Matthew 22:37.—B., L., al., Lachmann, Tischendorf: ὁ δὲ ἔφη.

[32] Matthew 22:38.—L., Z.: ἡ υεγάλη καὶ πρώτη [for πρώτη καὶ ηεφάλη]. Cod. D. likewise, yet without ἡ. So Cod. Z. with a second ἡ before πρώτη. The sense of the text is in favor of this reading. The transposition arose from the idea that πρώτη was the principal predicate. [Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Alford unanimously adopt ἡ μεγάλη καὶ πρώτη, which is now sustained also by Cod. Sinalt.—P. S.]

[33] Matthew 22:40.—[The true reading of the best ancient authorities, including Cod. Sinait, recommended by Griesbach, and adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Alford, is: ἐν ταύταις ταῖς δςσιν ἐντολαῖς ὅλος ὁ νόμος κρέμαται καιοἱ προφῆται, instead of the text, rec.:…ὅλος ὁ νόμος καὶ οί προφῆται κρέμανται. Dr. Lange follows the former in his German Version: In. diesen zweien Geboten hängt das gante Gesetz und auch die Propheten. It is also preferable on internal reasons. The lawyer had asked what commandment was great in the law; the Saviour answers to this question by naming the great law of love on which hangs the whole law, and the prophets besides.—P. S.]

[34] Matthew 22:42.—[The Interpolation: The son, must be omitted, if the question is translated: Of whom is he the son?—P. S]

[35] Matthew 22:43.—[̓Εν πνεύματι is here not opposed to Εν πνεύματι, but refers to the Holy Spirit as the inspirer of the Scriptures. See Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]

[36] Matthew 22:44.—The Recepta reads: ὑποπόδιον (footstool), from the Septnagint. But most MSS. and the critical editions: ὐποκάτω (τῶν ποδῶν σον), under. [So also Cod. Sinait As to the sense, Bengel remarks: The warlike kingdom will come to an end; but the peaceful kingdom will have no end, comp. 1 Corinthians 15:25.—P. S.]

[37] Matthew 22:45.—[Codd. D., K.„M., al., insert ἐνπνεύματι, by the Spirit, before καλεῖ, and Lange puts it in the text, but in small type. But Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford reject it as insufficiently supported, and superfluous.—P. S.]

[38][So also Alford in loc., referring to the more detailed account in Mark 12:28-44. Bui Nast regards Lange’s interpretation as the only Intelligible one. It is certainly very Ingenious.—P. S.]

[39][Not: Less stress, as the Edirib. trsl. has It, In direct opposition to the original: Meyer betont ποία und er kldrt, etc. Comp. my critical note above.—P. S.]

[40][Olshausen: “The Lord by culling the commandment to love God supremely the first and great commandment, does evidently not de sign to represent it as one out of many, though greater in decree than others. On the contrary, the love of God is the commandment, and the whole law, with all its injunctions and prohibitions, is only a development of this one commandment: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ By this love we have to understand the unqualified surrender of our whole being to God. Of such a love man Js capable, though not by his own strength, but by Divine grace, because he finds in God alone all his wants fully and everlastingly satisfied.”—P. S]

[41][The original reads: Christusliebe (Edinb. trsl.: lore of Christ; or, better: to Christ); but this is probably a printing error for Christensliebe; for we love Christ not as our neighbor, but as the God-Man.—P. S.]

[42][Quesnel: “Jesus here asks a question in His turn, not to tempt, but to instruct His disciples; to confound the obstinate; to point out the source of all their captious questions, namely, their ignorance of the prophecies which foretold the Messiah; to furnish His church with weapon against the Jews in all ages; and, by His last public instruction, to establish the truth of His divinity. Incarnation, power, and kingdom, as the foundation of all religion.—P. S.]

[43][This sentence, so necessary to give Lange’s view, is enthely omitted in the Edinb. trsl. For other expositions on the Messianic character of the Psalm, see especially Hengstenberg (Christology of the O. T., and his Com. on the Psalms), also Stier and Nast in loc. Alford and Wordsworth do not touch the difficulty at all.—P. S.]

[44][Burkitt in loc.: “The measure of loving God, is to love Him without measure.”—P. S.]

[45][Comp. the practical remarks of Burkitt inserted in the Exeg. Note on Matthew 22:39, p. 404.—P. S.]