Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

Matthew XI. 17-19. 427
children, whom it is impossible to please in any way ; one part desires
this, and the other that, so that they cannot agree upon any
desirable or useful occupation.*
Ver. 18, 19.—This figurative discourse is immediately followed
by the literal declaration ; John was too severe for them, and Jesus
too mild. (Concerning the phrase Samoviov txet, comp. the rem. on
Matth. xii. 24.) The diiFercnce between the Old and New dispensations
appears here in a striking manner, in the description, though
frequently misunderstood, of their respective representatives. In
John, we see the strict observer of the law, who exhibits in his demeanour
an austere and rigid morality, and abstains from all con-
tact with the sinner ; in our Redeemer, on the other hand, we see
the impossibility of sinning, joined with compassionate love, which
urges him not to withdraw even from the most wretched, since their
impurity cannot tarnish his heavenly purity, whilst his divine light
is able to illuminate their darkness. John is a noble human phenomenon,
a flower of earth ; Jesus appears as a heavenly form, the
offspring of a higher world. Blessed at that time, and blessed now
are those who are not offended at him, but receive him as he is !
The words, " and wisdom is justified of her children" (Luke adds all),
form the close of this thought. These, like so many other words
of the Lord, resemble many-sided polished jewels, which send forth
a peculiarity found in
their splendour in more than one direction ;
many pregnant maxims, even of human sages. Considered by themselves,
they possess a manifold significancy ; but in the connexion
of discourse, one meaning, of course, becomes prominent. The ex-
pression, " children of wisdom," evidently points to a contrast with
what precedes, where the children of folly are described fi'om the
folly of their judgments, (The /cat must therefore be taken = ^ in
an adversative sense, and diKaiovadai. as above in Luke vii, 29, in the
sense, " to declare just," hence " to acknowledge as such," " to
praise," " to laud.") The thought would then be : " wisdom (which
is found fault with by foolish men) is justified, and defended, and
represented as wisdom by her children, viz., by their treatment of
her requisitions," With this agrees Matth, xi. 25, seq. in which the
v/jTTioi, hahcSj are described as the truly wise.' (Neither the aorist,
nor the signification of the diKaiovoOai, favours the translation, " wisdom
is hlamed by her children.") But this thought acquires a pe-
* The sentiment, I think, stated in more precise language is: This generation is liko
those children sitting in the market place to whom their fellows call, saying, "We have piped,
etc. The simple point of the comparison is that, as these children would neither join their
fellows in strains of merriment or grief, so the men of this generation find fault equally with
the austerity of John, and the more genial character of the Saviour. Olshausen's expla-
nation does not, I think, make allowance for the want of strict exactness in the Saviour's
mode of expression. He says, " it is liko children sitting and calling," etc., when the pre«
cise meaning uj, " it resembles what occurs whea children sit," etc.— [K.