Third section the judgment upon the church itself second picture of judgment

Footnotes:

FN#1 - Matthew 25:1.—[The best ancient authorities and the critical editions read: ἑαυτῶν, for the lect. rec: αὐτῶν, in Matthew 25:1; Matthew 25:7. Dr. Lange also adopts it in his German Version; while Dr. Conant overlooks this difference of reading.—P. S.]

FN#2 - Matthew 25:1 —The addition: καὶ τῆς νύμφης(et sponsœ), is poorly attested and disturbs the sense. [Trenoii, Notes on the Parables, p287, thinks otherwise, and approves, as to sense, the reading: and went forth to meet the bridegroom and the bride. Maldonatus likewise favors it propter veteres interpretes. It was the custom among the Jews and Greeks that the bridegroom, accompanied by his friends, went to the house of the bride, to lend her to his own home, and was joined by the virgins, the friends of the bride, not on his going to fetch the bride, but on his returning, with her, to his own house. A similar custom seems to prevai in Sicily even to this day. Comp. Hughes, Travels in Sicily, vol. ii. p20 (quoted by Trench): “We went to view the nocturnal procession which always accompanies the bridegroom in escorling his betrothed spouse from the paternal roof to that of her future husband. This consisted of nearly one hundred of the first persons in Joannina, with a great crowd of torch-bearers, and a band of music. After having received the lady they returned, but were joined by an equal number of ladies, who paid this compliment to the bride.” These ladles, Trench think, correspond to the virgins here, and join the procession on the return of the bridegroom, with the bride, to his own and her new home. Other commentators, however, among them Lange, assume here a modification of the usual custom, and a procession of the virgins to meet the bridegroom on his way to the house of the bride. See the Exeg. Notes.—P.S.]

FN#3 - Matthew 25:2.—Codd. B, C, D, L, Z, Lachmann. Tischendorf, put μωραί first [So does Cod. Sinait, and Alford Conant ignores this difference in the position of μωραί and φρονιμοι.—P.S.]

FN#4 - Matthew 25:3.—The readings: αἱ γάμ [text. rec: αἵτινες,]—αἱ δέ, αἱ οδν appear to be interpretations. [Tischendorf, de Wette, and Meyer regard αἱ γάρ as an emendation of αἵτινες. But Codd. B, C, L, and Sinait. sustain αἱ γάν, and it is more natural to suppose, with Alford, that δἐ, οὖν, και, αἵτινες, were substituted because γάρ was not understood.—P. S.]

FN#5 - Matthew 25:4.—[The text. rec. inserts αύτῶν, or αὑτῶν, ἀγγείοις after, but it is wanting in Codd. Sinait, B, D, L, and omitted by Lachmann and Alford, while Tischendorf reads αυτων. Lange retains it, but in parenthesis and in small type.—P. S.]

FN#6 - Matthew 25:6.—The word: ἔρχεται (cometh). is omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf, according to decisive authorities. [See also Tregelles and Alford. Conant, simply: Behold, the bridegroom!—P. S.]

FN#7 - Matthew 25:7.—[Alford emphasizes the present tense, and finds in it the important truth, that the lamps of the foolish virgins were not extinguished altogether.—P. S.]

FN#8 - Matthew 25:9.—[Not no is italicised in the English Version as an interpolation, because, it follows the text. rec: μήποτε οὐκ ἀρκέσῃ, and makes αρκεσῃ depend upon υήποτε But the correct reading, according to the best critical authorities is: υήποτε οὐ υὴ ἀρκεσῃ, and μήποτε is to be taken as an independent exclamation: By no means! Not so! There will not be enough, etc. Meyer: Nimmermehr; wird gewisslich nicht hinreichen! Lange: Misnichten! Es würde sicher nicht ausreichen.—P. S.]

FN#9 - Matthew 25:9.—Read ου μή [for αὐκ without μτ] according to B, C, D, Lachmann, Tischendorf, [Tregelles, Alford].

FN#10 - Matthew 25:18.—The words. wherein the Son of Man cometh, are wanting in Codd. A, B, C, D, [Cod. Sinait], in Lachmann und Tischendorf: [also in the text of Tregelles and Alford, and the revised translation of Matthew by Conant and the N. T. of the Am. Bible Union.—P. S.]

FN#11 - Millennarian interpreters refer the then, and the whole section from Matthew 24:1 to Matthew 25:30 to Christ’s coming before the millennium, or the judgment which precedes His personal reign on earth, as distinct from His final coming.— P.S.]

FN#12 - The Edinb. trsl. not knowing the difference between Saiten (string) and Seiten (side, page), renders Lange’s “Psalter [i.e, ψαλτήριον, the stringed instrument, or ψαλτήρ, which also means sometimes the instrument, though more freque tly the performer, the harper] mit 10 Saiten:” “the Psalter with, its ten leaves!” According to Joseph. Antiq. vii12, 3, the Jewish harp, כִּנּיֹר, like the Greek κινύρα, the Latin cithara (hence guitar), had ten strings. To this the original no doubt refers.—P. S.]

FN#13 - Ten formed a company with the Jews, also a family to oat the passover; ten Jews living in one place formed a congregation and should be provided with a synagogue; ten lamps or torches were the usual number in marriage processions. See Wetstein in loc.. Vitringa: de Synagoga, p 232 sq . and on the biblical symbolism of numbers the remarks in this volume, p 183 sq.—Tertullian (De anima, c18) ascribe to some of the Gnostics a curious mystic interpretation of the ten virgins: the five foolish virgins signify the five senses which are easily deceived and often misled. the five wise virgins are the reasonable powers which are able to comprehend ideas. Jerome. Augustine, Gregory, and Beda. on the contrary, refer the number ten to the five senses under two aspects, viz.: in their right use and in their abuse. On this Maldonatus makes the remark: “Probabilia hœc sunt [?]; sed potius credo, propterea denario numero parabolam fuisse propopitam, ut omnium hominum multitiudo atque universitas significetur, quœ per hunt numerum declarari solet”—P. S.]

FN#14 - According to the millennarian theory the bride is the restored Jewish Church and the ten virgins represent the Gentile congregations accompanying her. Alford is inclined to take a similar view: “In both the wedding parables (see Matthew 22) the bride does not appear, for she, being the church, is in fact the aggregate of the guests in the one case, and of the companions in the other [so Lange, see above]. We may perhaps say. that she is here, in the strict interpretation, the Jewish Church and these ten virgins Gentile congregations accompanying her.’—P.S.]

FN#15 - Clirysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zig, and Gregory, also Augustine in one place (but differently in another), are certainly wrong in taking rirgins in the literal sense, and every other trart of the parable in a figurative sense. This contracted view (as even Maldonatus admits it to be) is closely connected with the ascetic overestimate of celibacy. Hilary, on the other hand, expands the meaning of virgins so as to comprehend omnes homines, fideles et infideles. Origen, Jerome, and Maldonatus justly limit the title to all belivers.—P. S.]

FN#16 - Lange: Andeutung der Schwachheit freilich, sonst aber mehr die gross Verspätung des Bräutigams uls sinen bestimmteren Tadel aussprechend. The Edinb. edition misunderstands this passage entirely in translating: “but also declaring their more express fault to have been the retarding of the bridegroom.”—P. S.]

FN#17 - Not: “the personal festal array,” as the Edinb. trsl. renders: Das Aufputzen. Dr. Lange no doubt refers to the preparation of the lamps by pouring on fresh oil, and removing the fungi about the wick, which was done by a sharp-pointed wire attached to the lamp (as still seen in ancient bronze lamps in sepulchres). He translates ἐκόσμησαν (which the English Version renders trimmed) literally: sie schmückten.—P. S.]

FN#18 - Alford emphasizes the present tense: they are going out. See the Crit. Note above. The English Version certainly conveys a false sense, and it is surprising that such a scholar as Dr. Wordsworth should base an interpretation on a false translation, when he remarks to σβεννυνται: “i.e, they had died in a careless unprofitable condition, and these lamps were gone out, and now It was too late to ask for oil.”—The foolish virgins still had the outward appearance and profession of Christianity, but in its last stage of consumption.—P. S.]

FN#19 - Calvin and Alford put the lesson of the parable in the blessedness of endurance unto the end. But Lange in right, as appears from Matthew 25:13 which contains the lesson of the parable, as Maldionatus correctly observe.—P. S.]

FN#20 - Here lies the principal difference between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Evangelic ] interpretation of the parable of the Ten Virgins.—a difference which is similar to that concerning the Wedding Garment Matthew 22:11. Origen, Hilary, Jerome, Maldonatus, and many Catholic interpreters (including Quesnel, the Jansenist), make the oil the symbol of good works or charity, without which faith is dead and hence cannot burn ( James 2:26), and the lamps the symbol of faith, which was common to all virgins. It is only a modification of this exposition if Chrysostom. Ambrose, and other fathers refer the oil more particularly to eleomosyna et misericordia. The reformers and most of the Protestant commentators, on the contrary, more naturally understand the oil to signify the principle of a living faith, or the unaction of the Holy Spirit, or more generally: inward spiritual life the grace of God in the heart, and the lamps, the outward Christian appearance and profession (Luther, less aptly: good works). The fathers, however, can hardly be quoted as a whole in favor of the Roman interpretation, since they differ very widely in their exposition and explication. Tous the lamps mean, according to Hilary, the human bodies, in which the divine light burns; according to Jerome, the senses of the body. Augustine, who varies in his interpretation of this parable, in one place approaches the Protestant view, when he makes the oil to mean bonam intentionem mentis, and the lamps bona opera (Ep. cxl33; Serm. cxlix11). If we are authorized to press every feature in this parable, and to make it, as it wore, (sil venia verbo!) walk on all fours, the exposition of Dr. Lange is the most ingenious and plausible—P. S.]

FN#21 - So also Quesnel and Alford.—P. S.]

FN#22 - So Olshansen. Somewhat differently Alford: οἱ πωλοῖντες are the ordinary dispensers of the means of grace (which he thinks supplies no mean argument for a set and appointed, and moreover a paid ministry; for if they sell, they receive for the thing sold). Better with Lange the means of grace themselves (including the Scriptures and the ministry). This is certainly a far more sensible interpretation than that of Chrysostom, Hilary, and other fathers, who take the sellers of oil to signify the poor, who receive the alms the oil) of the faithful, and sell the oil in return for the relief afforded to their wants!—P.S.]

FN#23 - So also Basil, Hilary, and Augustine, as well as Wordsworth and other modern commentators. This exposition would imply that at the time of the Lord’s coming none of the faithful would be living on earth. Trench, on the other hand, regards the falling asleep merely as a circumstance required by the convenience of the parabolic narration, and Nast is inclined to the same view. But the exposition of Lange (see above, comp. also Stier and Heubner) is the most plausible—P.S.]

FN#24 - In German Sicherheit, security, not severity, as the Edinb. transl. reads.]

FN#25 - In German: Das Schläfrigwerden ist, nicht Erschlaffen (relaxation, abatement) des Christenthums; in the Edinb. trsl.: the profound sleep of Christendom (which would require in German: der tiefe Schlaf der Christenheit.—P. S.]

FN#26 - In German: die Festlichkeit a favorite term with Dr. Lange), which the Edinb. trsl. mistook for Festigkeit and rendered: stability!—P. S.]

FN#27 - Similarly Alford: “We are not told that they could not buy—that the shops were shut—but simply that it was too late—for that time. For it is not the final coming of the Lord to judgment, when the day of grace will be past, that is spoken of—except in so far as it is hinted at in the background.”—Poiret (as quoted by Trench. p237 Fr. von Meyer, and millennarian commentators, take the same view and generally assume that the five foolish virgins will be excluded only from the blessedness of the first resurrection and the thousand years’ reign of Christ on earth, but not from final salvation and the glory of leaven. It may be urged in favor of this view that the virgins are not divided into good and bad, but into wise and foolish virgins, and that the later are not represented as unbelievers. But compair against this interpretation the remarks of Dr. Lange above, and also Dr. Nast on Matthew 25:12, and the passage from Bengel quoted there.—P. S.]

FN#28 - Comp. the remark of Jerome on Matthew 25:9 : “Unus quisque pro operibus suis mercedem recipiet, neque possuns in die judicii aliorum virtutes aliorum vitia sublevare.—P. S.]

FN#29 - In German: zu keiner Klasse: in the Edirb. trsl to one class, which must be a mere printing error.—P. S.]

Verses 14-30

FOURTH SECTION

THE FINAL JUDGMENT AS RETRIBUTION ON INDIVIDUALS. THIRD PICTURE OF THE JUDGMENT. [THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS]

Matthew 25:14-30

14For the kingdom of heaven is [he is] ^[FN30] as a man travelling into a far country [going abroad, ἀνθρ. ἀποδημῶν], who [. He] called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods 15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability [his own ability, κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν δύναμιν]; and straightway took his journey [he went abroad, ἀπεδήμησεν]. 16Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same [with them, ἐν αὐτοῖς], and made them17[gained]^[FN31] other five talents. And likewise [Likewise also, Ὡσαύτως καί] he that had received two [the two, ὁ τὰ δύο],^[FN32] he also gained other two 18 But he that had received 19 one [talent]^[FN33] went and digged [dug] in the earth, and hid^[FN34] his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them 20 And so he that had received [the] five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them^[FN35] five talents more21[other five talents beside them, ἄλλα πέντε τάλ. ἐκέρδησα ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς]. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou^[FN36] good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things:^[FN37] enter thou into the joy of thy 22 lord. [And] He also that had received [the] two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them 23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things:^[FN38] enter thou into the joy of thy lord 24 Then he which [who] had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard Prayer of Manasseh, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed:^[FN39] 25And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the 26 earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine [thou hast thine own, ἔχεις τὸ σόν]. [And] His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed: [?]^[FN40] 27Thou oughtest therefore to have put [thrown, βαλεῖν]^[FN41] my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury [interest].^[FN42] 28Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which [that] hath [the] ten talents 29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath 30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into [the, τὸ] outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The Signification of the Parable of the Talents.—In this parable the idea of retribution, as affecting individual Christians, comes prominently forward; as the first referred that retribution to office-bearers in the Church, and the second to the Church itself as a whole. As there the former parable laid the stress upon the watchfulness, internal religion, here we have the requirement of watchfulness in persevering, unwearied fidelity and activity through the Spirit. [Compare the remarks of Trench: While the virgins were represented as waiting for the Lord, we have here the servants working for Him. There the inward spiritual rest of the Christian was described—here his external activity. There, by the end of the foolish virgins, we are warned against declensions and decays in the inward spiritual life—here against sluggishness and sloth in our outward vocation and work. That parable enforced the need of keeping the heart with all diligence—this the need of giving all diligence also to the outward work, if we would be found of Christ in peace at the day of His appearing. Alford likewise refers this parable to the active side of the Christian life, while the preceding parable sets forth the contemplative side. “There, the foolish virgins failed from thinking their part too easy—here the wicked servant fails from thinking his too hard. The parable is still concerned with Christians (τοὺς ἰδίους δούλους), and not the world at large. We must remember the relation of master and slave, in order to understand his delivering to them his property, and punishing them for not fructifying with it.” But this may be understood as well from the stand-point of free labor.—P. S.]

As it respects the relation of the parable of the Talents, to the parable of the Pounds (Minœ) in Luke 19:2-27, it is somewhat analogous to the relation of the parable of the marriage of the King’s Song of Solomon, Matthew 22:2, to the parable of the Supper, Luke 14:16. We must not be misled by the appearance of likeness into a denial of the fact, that we have to do here with an altogether new and different parable. Meyer says: “The analogous parable in Luke 19 is to be regarded as a modification, which arose, in evangelical tradition, of our present original and simpler parable. In its form in Luke, probably an original and independent parable (concerning the rebellious subjects) had become blended with that of the talents (comp. Strauss, i:636 sq.; Ewald, p339 sq.).” Such perfect confusion of parable with fiction would be discarded at once by a careful estimate of the practical doctrinal scope of the former. That would altogether set aside the following alternative (of Meyer): “If we entertain the thought that the parables in Luke and those in Matthew were delivered by Christ at different times, we must either admit the unnatural supposition that the simpler form in Matthew was the later (as Kern maintains), or contradict the narrative by assuming that Jesus delivered the parables in Matthew earlier than those in Luke (Schleiermacher, Neander).” The idea of “simpler” has nothing to do here, where, as even de Wette acknowledges, the parables are internally different in their scope. The differences are plain: 1. As to their respective motives. In Luke, Jesus designs to repel the supposition that the advent would soon, or immediately, in a chronological sense, make its appearance; in Matthew, He intends to quicken the expectation that, in a religious sense, it would soon come. 2. In the former, the Lord is a high-born noble, who was to receive a kingdom; here, He is simply a landowner. There, the Lord’s absence is distance in space; here, it is length of time (there: ἐπορεύθη εἰς χώρας μακράν; here: μετὰ χρόνον πολὺν ἔρχεται). There, the servants are ten, the number of the world’s age (see the ten virgins); here, they are three, the number of the Spirit. In the former, all the servants receive one pound—doubtless the one equal office of testimony; here, the first servant receives five talents, the second two, the third one—thus noting individually different endowment, diverse degrees of the gift of the Spirit and grace. There, the gain is not in relation to the pounds—there are ten pounds from the the one, five pounds from the one—because the result of official blessing may be past all reckoning; here, the gain is proportioned to the gift—five pounds from five, two from two—because the gift of the Spirit as such can have an objective blessing only according to its subjective degree. There, the last servant lays up the one pound, which mikes him equal to the rest, in a napkin, unused, signifying his idleness; here, he buries it in the earth, signifying the prostitution of spiritual gifts to the service of the world and the flesh. There, the recompense of fidelity is the extension of the charge and vocation, the being placed over ten and over five cities; here, it is an entrance into the joy of their Lord:—the former in harmony with official relation, and the latter in harmony with the personal spiritual life. There, the die servant was punished by the pound being taken from him (removal from office); here, he is cast into the outer darkness, condemned to eternal woe. In Luke, the parable closes with the nobleman being changed into a king, who punishes his rebellious servants; in Matthew, it closes with the just administration of the landowner—although the king comes into all the more glorious prominence in the last parable, Matthew 25:31 seq. The resemblance in the tone of the wicked servant’s words, and the Lord’s rejoinder, can have no effect in disturbing our conviction of the distinctness of the two parables. And upon this point, it is to be carefully noted that the servant in Luke, in accordance with the official relation, wraps his pound in a napkin; while the servant in Matthew, in accordance with the spiritual relation, hides it in the earth; further, that the former ought to have put his gold into the bank (the office is given back to the Church); while the latter should have taken it to the exchangers (spiritual gifts are quickened by contact with earnest leaders and members of the Church). Thus the former parable sets before us simply the external, social, official side of the Christian calling; the latter, the internal and the individual. This explains the difference between the gain of fidelity in the one case and in the other: and, further, that the slothful servant in office and the slothful servant in the service of the Spirit for the most part coincide, although in individual traits they differ. Official vocation produces its outward results broadly through the world; and an apostle might gain half the population of the earth, or bring the whole generation under his own influence. On the other hand, the spiritual gift works inwardly in the spiritual domain. In this it gains just so much life as corresponds with its related capacity of the Spirit. Externally, this gain may seem less; but in the estimate of the kingdom of grace it is otherwise. It is a higher reward to enter into the joy of our Lord, than to be set over the cities in the other world. In harmony with this distinction, the one slothful servant did not work at all; the other hid his spiritual gift in the earth. This πονηρός, too, has a specific predicate attached to him, ὀκνηρός; and his requital is not merely discharge from office, but spiritual woe.

Matthew 25:14. For he is as a man.—Here it is customary to explain the construction as an abrupt transition and an incomplete clause (an anantapodoton), as in Romans 5:12. But the previous verse is latently carried on in the sense: you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh; for He is, etc.