Matthew 13:14

Matthew 13:14-15 . he prophetic citation, given as such by Matthew only, may be due to him, though put into the mouth of Jesus. It is conceivable, however, that Jesus might use Isaiah’s words in Isaiah’s spirit, i.e. , ironically, expressing the bitter feeling of one conscious that his best efforts to teach his countrymen would often end in failure, and in his bitterness representing himself as sent to stop ears and blind eyes. Such utterances are not to be taken as deliberate dogmatic teaching. If, as some allege, the evangelists so took them, they failed to understand the mind of the Master. The quotation exactly follows the Sept[80] The verb καμμύω ( Matthew 13:15 , ἐκάμμυσαν ) is condemned by Phryn. as barbarous, the right word being καταμύειν . [80] Septuagint.

(14) In them is fulfilled. —The Greek verb expresses complete fulfilment, but the tense is that of a work still in progress. The prominence given to these words of Isaiah’s in the New Testament is very noticeable. Our Lord quotes them here, St. John in John 12:40 . St. Paul cites them in Acts 28:26 . The quotation is from the LXX. version. It is as though the words which sounded at the very opening of Isaiah’s prophecy as the knell of the nation’s life, dwelt on the minds of the Master and His disciples, and prepared them for the seeming fruitlessness and hopelessness of their work.

14. And in them is fulfilled—rather, "is fulfilling," or "is receiving its fulfilment." the prophecy of Esaias, which saith—(Isa 6:9, 10—here quoted according to the Septuagint). By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, &c.—They were thus judicially sealed up under the darkness and obduracy which they deliberately preferred to the light and healing which Jesus brought nigh to them.

Matthew 13:14 . Καὶ , and ) therefore.— ἀναπληροῦται , is now being refulfilled [606]) This word differs from the simple verb πληροῦται ( is now being fulfilled ), which is employed elsewhere in citing prophecies. The saying of Isaiah ( Matthew 6:9 ) was being fulfilled in his own days, and in the ages which followed, and also clearly and especially in the days of the Messiah.— ἀκοῇ , κ . τ . λ ., by hearing , etc.) i.e. by however little you come short, yet you shall come short [of understanding what ye hear to the salvation of your souls]. [606] E. V. “is fulfilled.”—(I. B.) “Is receiving its complete ( full measure of) fulfilment.”—ED.

Matthew 13:14-15 . Καί ] still depending on ὅτι ; but, in a manner suited to the simplicity of the language, and the conspicuous reference to the fulfilling of the prophecy, it begins a new sentence: and —indeed so utterly incapable are they of comprehending the pure, literal statement of divine truth— is being fulfilled with regard to them , and so on. ἀναπληρ ., as being more forcible than the simple verb (comp. on Galatians 6:2 , and ἐκπληρ ., Acts 13:33 ), is expressly chosen (occurring nowhere else in Matthew, and, as referring to the predictions and such like, not found again in the whole New Testament), and for sake of emphasis placed at the beginning of the sentence; αὐτοῖς is the dative of reference: the fulfilment of the prophet’s words is realized in them. The passage in question is Isaiah 6:9-10 , as found in the LXX. Comp. on John 12:40 ; Acts 28:25 ff. ἐπαχύνθη ] in a metaphorical sense, like pinguis . See Wetstein. The expression represents the indolent and inactive state into which the energies of the spiritual life have been allowed to sink. βαρέως ἤκουσαν ] they have become dull of hearing ( βαρυήκοοι ). ἐκάμμυσαν ] have they closed , Isaiah 6:10 ; Isaiah 29:10 ; Lamentations 3:44 . The genuine Greek form is καταμύειν . See Lobeck, Phryn . p. 339 f.; Becker, Anecd . I. p. 103. μήποτε ] ne; they are not willing to be instructed by me, and morally healed. This shows that, in regard to the weakness of their capacity, it is their own will that is to blame .

By adopting the reading ἰάσομαι (see the critical remarks) we do not introduce the meaning, which is out of place in the present instance: and I will heal them (Fritzsche), but rather effect a change in the construction of μήποτε (Heindorf, ad Plat. Crat . p. 36; Hermann, ad Soph. El . 992; Winer, p. 468 [E. T. 630]), that is, in accordance with the sense (because expressing the result ). Comp. note on Mark 14:2 . Notice in ἰάσομαι the consciousness of being a personal revelation of God. REMARK. According to Matthew, then, the principle on which Jesus proceeds is this: He speaks to the multitude in parables, because this mode of instruction is suited to their intellectual poverty and obtuseness. Plain literal teaching would fail to attract them, and so lead to their conversion, which latter their very obtuseness stubbornly resists. But what is spoken in a parabolic form captivates and lays hold of the man of limited comprehension, so that it does not repel him from his instructor, but rather becomes in him, even though not yet apprehended in its abstract meaning, the starting-point of a further gradual development of fuller understanding and ultimate conversion. There is no reason why de Wette should be stumbled to find that the disciples themselves likewise failed to understand the parable, and were therefore on the same level as the multitudes; therefore, he argues, one is at a loss to see why Jesus did not favour the latter also with an explanation.