Matthew 11:19

19 . But wisdom is justified of her children ] Wisdom = “divine wisdom”—God regarded as the All Wise. Justified = “is accounted righteous”—“is acquitted of folly.” Of her children = “by the divinely wise.” The spiritual recognise the wisdom of God, both in the austerity of John and in the loving mercy of Jesus who condescends to eat with publicans and sinners. The word translated but should be and . Either the adversative force lies rather in the whole sentence than in the particle, or the Greek καί is put for the Hebrew connecting particle vau , which is sometimes adversative.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. {4} But {f} wisdom is justified of her children. (4) That which the many refuse, the elect and chosen embrace. (f) Wise men acknowledge the wisdom of the gospel when they receive it.

Matthew 11:19 . ὁ υἱὸς τ . ἀ .: obviously Jesus here refers to Himself in third person where we might have expected the first. Again the now familiar title, defining itself as we go along by varied use, pointing Jesus out as an exceptional person, while avoiding all conventional terms to define the exceptional element.— ἐσθίων καὶ πίνων : the “Son of Man” is one who eats and drinks, i.e. , non-ascetic and social, one of the marks interpretative of the title = human, fraternal .— καὶ λέγουσι , and they say: what? One is curious to know. Surely this genial, friendly type of manhood will please!— ἰδοὺ , lo! scandalised sanctimoniousness points its finger at Him and utters gross, outrageous calumnies.— φάγος , οἰνοπότης , φίλος , an eater with emphasis = a glutton (a word of late Greek, Lob., Phryn., 434), a wine-bibber ; and, worse than either, for φίλος is used in a sinister sense and implies that Jesus was the comrade of the worst characters, and like them in conduct. A malicious nick-name at first, it is now a name of honour: the sinner’s lover. The Son of Man takes these calumnies as a thing of course and goes on His gracious way. It is not necessary to reflect these characteristics of Jesus and John back into the parable, and to identify them with the piping and wailing children.

Yet the parable is so constructed as to exhibit them very clearly in their distinctive peculiarities by representing the children not merely employed in play and quarrelling over their games, which would have sufficed as a picture of the religious Jews, but as playing at marriages and funerals, the former symbolising the joy of the Jesus-circle, the latter the sadness of the Baptist-circle ( vide my Parabolic Teaching of Christ , p. 420).— καὶ ἐδικαιώθη , etc. This sentence wears a gnomic or proverbial aspect (“verba proverbium redolere videntur,” Kuinoel, similarly, Rosenmüller), and the aorist of ἐδικ . may be taken as an instance of the gnomic aorist, expressive of what is usual; a law in the moral sphere, as elsewhere the aorist is employed to express the usual course in the natural sphere, e.g. , in Jam 1:11 . Weiss-Meyer strongly denies that there are any instances of such use of the aorist in the N. T. (On this aorist vide Goodwin, Syntax , p. 53, and Bäumlein, § 523, where it is called the aorist of experience, “der Erfahrungswahrheit”.)— ἀπὸ , in, in view of ( vide Buttmann’s Gram. , p. 232, on ἀπὸ in N. T.).— ἔργων : the reading of [68] [69], and likely to be the true one just because τέκνων is the reading in Luke. It is an appeal to results, to fruit ( Matthew 7:20 ), to the future. Historical in form, the statement is in reality a prophecy.

(19) Eating and drinking —i.e., as in the feast in Matthew’s house, or at the marriage-feast of Cana, sharing in the common life of man. The words point almost specifically to the two instances just named, and the very form and phrase recall the question which the Pharisees had asked of the disciples, “Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?” ( Luke 5:30 ). Wisdom is justified of her children.—Literally, was justified. This is our Lord’s answer for Himself and the Baptist to the contradictory calumnies of the Jews. Men might accuse wisdom, true heavenly wisdom, on this ground or that, but she would be, or rather (the tense implying a generalised fact) is evermore acquitted, justified, acknowledged as righteous, alike in her severer or more joyous forms, by all who are indeed her children, i.e., by all who seek and love her as the mother of their peace and joy. Like so many of our Lord’s other sayings, the parable stretches far and wide through the ages. The evil world rejects all who seek to overcome its evil, some on one pretext, some on another; but true seekers after wisdom will welcome holiness in whatever form it may appear, cheerful or ascetic, Protestant or Romish, Puritan or liberal, so long as it is real and true.

Matthew 11:19 . Ἄνθρωπος φάγος , κ . τ . λ ., a gluttonous man , etc.) They distinguish Him, as one out of many, by a distinction opposed to that mentioned in the preceding verse.— τῶν τέκνων , children ) we have shown, in the Apparatus,[532] that τῶν ἔργων — works —was anciently a widely received reading. Ambrose, on Luke 7:35 , says:—“Therefore wisdom is justified of all her children.[533] It is well said ‘ of all ,’ because justice is observed towards all [ i.e. in God’s dealings with all], so that the faithful may be accepted, the unfaithful rejected. Very many of the Greeks adopt the reading, ‘ Wisdom is justified of all her works ,’ because it is the work of justice to observe the due measure towards the merit of every single individual.” He, however, appears to mean the codices of St Matthew, not those of St Luke, for he is in the habit of recurring to them from time to time, although he is commenting on St Luke.[534]— ΑὐΤῆς [535]) Valla[536] thinks that this refers to γενεᾶς ; but see Luke 7:35 , where there are more remarks on the present passage. Cf. Luke 11:31 . [No doubt Christ is the Wisdom meant. The children of Wisdom are those who suffer themselves to be gathered by her into her company. It is for this reason that Wisdom is blamed on the ground of too simple and ready indulgence towards such persons, and she is therefore thus compelled at last to justify herself.

Luke 15:1-2 , etc.—V. g.] [532] In the Apparatus, p. 117, he says— [533] The first sentence is not quoted by Bengel, but, on referring to the original. I considered the meaning so much plainer with it than without it, that I took the liberty of inserting it. The passage in Ambrose stands thus:— [534] Luke, Luke 7:35 , adds πάντων . B corrected later, reads, as the MSS. alluded to by Ambrose, τῶν ἔργων : so MSS. in Jerome, both Syriac and Memph. Versions. But D ac Vulg., Orig., Hil. and Rec. Text, read τέκνων .—ED. [535] Gen. fem. sing, of αὐτὸς . E. V. renders it her , sc. Wisdom’s . Valla would render it of it , sc. of this generation .—(I. B.) [536] LAURENTIUS VALLA, one of the most distinguished Latin scholars of the fifteenth century. Born in Rome about 1406; became Professor of Eloquence, first at Pavia, and afterwards at Milan; went to Rome in 1443, and became canon of St John the Lateran. Died 1457. He published, besides many other works, annotations on the N. T.—(I. B.) “ Justificata est ergo Sapientia ab omnibus filiis suis . Bene ab omnibus, quia circa omnes justitia servatur; ut susceptio fiat fidelium rejectio perfidorum. Undeplerique Græci sic habent: Justificata est Sapientia ab omnibus operibus suis ; quod opus justitiæ sit, circa unius cujuscunque meritum servare mensuram.”—(I. B.) “19) τέκνων ) operibus notat Hieronymus in Evangeliis quibusdam legi, in Comm. ad h. l. sic vero etiam Æth. Copt. Pers. Syr .

Ver. 18,19. Luke hath the same words, Luke 7:33-35 . The sense of the words is this: God hath by his providence used all means to win this people to the gospel. The doctrine of John the Baptist and Christ was the same, but their temper and converse was very different: John was an austere and morose man, Christ was of a more free and familiar conversation; but these men would neither give the one nor the other a good word; they reviled both of them, and rejected them both, and the doctrine which they brought. John came neither eating nor drinking, that is, not as other men ordinarily do; he was a man that lived most in the wilderness, and fed upon very ordinary diet, not eating with publicans and sinners, not coming at any feasts, &c.; and they said of him, He hath a devil; he is a melancholic, hypochondriac fellow, a kind of a madman. The Son of man came eating and drinking, he was of a more affable, pleasant temper, of a more free and less reserved converse, eating and drinking as other men (though keeping to the law of temperance) such things as the country afforded, not refusing to be present at feasts, though publicans and sinners were there.

They said of him, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners: he displeased them with the two great freedom of his conversation; from whence, by the way, they may be better instructed, who place some perfection, or merit, in living like monks and hermits; by that rule John the Baptist was to be preferred before Christ. But Christ could please the Pharisees and lawyers, and their followers, no more than John did. They could not say he was melancholic or morose; but they blasphemed him to a higher degree, calling him a glutton and drunkard, and a friend of publicans and sinners. A godly man, let his temper and converse be what it will, pleaseth none who hateth the truth of the gospel, and the power of godliness. If he be reserved, then he is a morose, melancholic man; if he be of a more free and open converse, then he is a drunkard, or a glutton; something or other they must have to say against a man that will not run with them to the same excess of riot, though they lay to their charge things that they know not. The business is, they hate the power of godliness in them. This instance of these men’s thus treating John the Baptist and Christ, is of mighty use to strengthen those who meet with the very same things. But wisdom is justified of her children. There is a great variety amongst interpreters in giving the sense of these words. Some think them spoken ironically, for the Pharisees went for the children of wisdom.