Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 5:46
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
46. publicans ] taxgatherers; not collectors of a regular tax fixed by government as with us, but men who farmed or contracted for the publicum (state revenue), hence called Publicani. At Rome the equestrian order enjoyed almost exclusively the lucrative privilege of farming the state revenues.
The publicans of the N. T. however are a lower class of taxgatherers, to whom the contractors sublet the collection of taxes. These men repaid themselves by cruel and oppressive exactions. Only the least patriotic and most degraded of the population undertook these functions which naturally rendered them odious to their fellow-citizens.
It is this system pursued in the Turkish Empire that produces much frightful misery and illegal oppression.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
What reward have ye? – The word reward seems to be used in the sense of deserving of praise. If you only love those that love you, you are selfish; it is not genuine love for the character, but love for the benefit, and you deserve no commendation. The very publicans would do the same.
The publicans – The publicans were tax-gatherers. Judea was a province of the Roman empire. The Jews bore this foreign yoke with great impatience, and paid their taxes with great reluctance. It happened, therefore, that those who were appointed to collect taxes were objects of great detestation. They were, besides, people who would be supposed to execute their office at all hazards; men who were willing to engage in an odious and hated employment; people often of abandoned character, oppressive in their exactions, and dissolute in their lives. By the Jews they were associated in character with thieves and adulterers; with the profane and the dissolute. Christ says that even these wretched people would love their benefactors.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 46. For if ye love them which love you] He who loves only his friends, does nothing for God’s sake. He who loves for the sake of pleasure or interest, pays himself. God has no enemy which he hates but sin; we should have no other.
The publicans] That is, tax-gatherers, , from a tax, and I buy or farm. A farmer or collector of the taxes or public revenues. Of these there were two classes; the superior, who were Romans of the equestrian order; and the inferior, those mentioned in the Gospels, who it appears were mostly Jews.
This class of men was detestable among the Romans, the Greeks, and the Jews, for their intolerable rapacity and avarice. They were abhorred in an especial manner by the Jews, to whom the Roman government was odious: these, assisting in collecting the Roman tribute, were considered as betrayers of the liberties of their country, and abettors of those who enslaved it. They were something like the tythe-farmers of certain college-livings in some counties of England, as Lancashire, c. – a principal cause of the public burthens and discontent. One quotation, of the many produced by Kypke, will amply show in what detestation they were held among the Greeks. Theocritus being asked, Which of the wild beasts were the most cruel? answered, , . Bears and lions, in the mountains and TAX-GATHERERS and calumniators, in cities.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Reason obliges you, who expect a reward from God for what you do, to do something more than those who know of no such reward, or at least live in no expectation of any such thing; and you who condemn others as great sinners, and men not worthy of your converse, ought to do something by which you may outdo those whom you so condemn, both in offices of piety towards God and charity towards men. But if you only show kindness to your relations and to your countrymen, you do no more than those whom you look upon as heathens and the worst of men, who act only from the light and law of nature, and know of no reward God hath to give, nor live in any such expectation of it. By loving here is meant doing good offices, either for the souls or bodies of others. By saluting is meant common offices of kindness, such as inquiring of our neighbours health, wishing them well, &c. The publicans were civil officers appointed by the Romans to gather up public taxes and revenues. The chief commissioners were knights and gentlemen of Rome, who either let out these revenues to others, or employed others under them in the collecting of them. These thus employed were some Jews, (such were Matthew and Zacchaeus), some Romans. These (as is ordinary) made their own markets, and exacted of the people, upon which accounts they were exceeding odious: and therefore ordinarily in Scripture we shall find publicans and sinners put together, Mat 9:11; 11:19; and they are joined with harlots, Mat 21:32; and the Pharisee in his justification gloried he was not as that publican, Luk 18:11. Those who condemn others ought to take care that they be better than others.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
46. For if ye love them which loveyou, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?Thepublicans, as collectors of taxes due to the Roman government, wereever on this account obnoxious to the Jews, who sat uneasy under aforeign yoke, and disliked whatever brought this unpleasantly beforethem. But the extortion practiced by this class made them hateful tothe community, who in their current speech ranked them with”harlots.” Nor does our Lord scruple to speak of them asothers did, which we may be sure He never would have done if it hadbeen calumnious. The meaning, then, is, “In loving those wholove you, there is no evidence of superior principle; the worst ofmen will do this: even a publican will go that length.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For if ye love them which love you,…. That is, if ye only love such that love you; for that such who love should be loved again, is both natural and just: our Lord’s meaning is not, that ye ought not to love them that love you, but that these should not be the only objects of your love; for should this be the case,
what reward have ye? or “shall ye have?” Do you deserve any thanks for your love now? none at all, it is what you are obliged to by your friend’s love to you. Do you expect any hereafter with God? if you do, you will be mistaken; you have your reward with men, who have loved you as much as you have done them, and therefore none can be due to you, either from God or men: besides,
do not even the publicans the same? men of the worst characters, and who were most hateful to the Jews, upon many accounts; partly because of their business, which was to collect the Roman tax, and carry it to the proper officers appointed to receive it, and of whom they sometimes farmed it. Now the Roman yoke was very grievous to the Jews, who boasted of their being a free people; nor did they willingly pay their tribute money; and some of them would refuse to do it, under a pretence of religion; wherefore those publicans, or tax gatherers, which were oftentimes men of their own nation, as appears from the instances of Levi and Zacchaeus, were very odious to them; because they looked upon them as joining with the Romans, in oppressing them, and abridging them in their liberty: and partly because of their character and conduct, being men of great improbity, rapine, and covetousness: hence, as in the New Testament, they are frequently joined with “sinners”, as being notorious ones themselves; so in the Talmudic writings, with thieves a, and are reckoned as thieves, with murderers, and robbers b; they were not allowed as witnesses c in any of their courts of judicature; nor were they to be kept company d with in private houses. Now our Lord instances in these men who were the most profligate part of the nation, and had in greatest contempt by the rest; and yet these, by the very dictates of nature, loved such as loved them: wherefore it must be shameful and scandalous in the Pharisees, and others, who pretended to great sanctity and religion, to do no more than these persons did.
a Maimon. Hilch. Gezela, c. 5. sect. 9. 11. b Misn. Nedarim, c. 3. sect. 4. c T. Bab. Sanhedrim, fol. 25. 2. Maimon. Hilch. Eduth, c. 10. sect. 4. Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora pr. neg. 214. d Maimon. Hilch. Mishcab, c. 10. sect. 8.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “For if ye love them which love you,” (ean gar agapesete tous agapontas humas) “Because if you all love (only) those who love you;” Publicans were morally classed with harlots or prostitutes in character in Jesus’ day. The principles of Divine love should extend farther than that self-interest love of Publicans and harlots who loved only for what they could get out of it, 2Co 5:14.
2) “What reward have ye?” (tina misthon echete) “What reward, pay, or wages do you have for that?” What merit is there in such self-interest? Deu 32:41. Is not this really selfish, self-love? Jesus desired that His followers excel the world in every moral virtue.
3) “Do not even the publicans the same?” (ouchi kai hoi telonai to auto poiousin) “Don’t you recognize, realize, or admit that the tax collectors do the same thing?” Show the same selfish partiality, self-interest? You thereby would act like or place yourself in the same class of character as the publicans, meaning sinners, Mat 8:12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
46. Do not even the publicans the same? In the same sense, Luke calls them sinners, that is, wicked and unprincipled men. Not that the office is condemned in itself; for the publicans were collectors of taxes, and as princes have a right to impose taxes, so it is lawful to levy them from the people. But they are so called, because men of this class are usually covetous and rapacious, nay, deceitful and cruel; and because among the Jews they were the agents of a wicked tyranny. If any one shall conclude from the words of Christ, that publicans are the basest of all men, he will argue ill, for our Lord employs the ordinary phraseology. His meaning is: those who are nearly devoid of humanity have some appearance of discharging mutual duties, when they see it to be for their own advantage.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(46) The publicans.An account of the publicans of our Lords time will find a more fitting place in the Notes on Mat. 9:9. Here, it may be remarked that our Lord puts Himself, as it were, on the level of those to whom He speaks. They despised the publicans as below them, almost as a Pariah caste, and He speaks, as if He were using their own familiar language, yet with a widely different application. Were they after all above the publicans, if they confined their love to a reciprocity of good offices?
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
46. What reward have ye How have you manifested at all the power of the Gospel? Ye have only done what the most depraved characters on earth are ready to do. How can you expect the Christian’s reward for a mere heathen’s virtue? Publicans The Roman government had conquered Judea, and obliged the Jews to pay taxes and tribute to support its tyranny. The publicans were the officers who collected the Roman taxes, and though they might be otherwise respectable men, they were hated by the Jews as tools of a foreign despotism.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the civil servants the same?
And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others?
Do not even the Gentiles the same?”
Jesus then draws attention to the difference between what He is describing and what is more common among men. He points to two types of people who would not be looked on with favour, and who would not be expected to have any love for most Jews. The first are the civil servants’ or ‘tax collectors’. They were out to screw what they could out of people, (or certainly that was the way in which they were seen), and yet they could still love their family and friends. They loved those who loved them. And the same was true even of the Gentiles. Even they greeted warmly those who were their friends or comrades. So both national outcasts and an outcast world were capable of love. And with the salutation went hospitality. Thus loving others was not in itself a sign of anything remarkable. But His disciples were to reveal how different they were from both by loving those who did not love them, and by greeting warmly and giving hospitality to those who did not greet them. Implicit within these references is that they were also to love the tax collectors and the Gentiles. Otherwise how would they be different from them? Thus none are to be excluded from their love. And they are to do it in order to be like God, in order to reveal that they are true sons of the Kingly Rule of Heaven.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
And there is also the moral distinction;
v. 46. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
v. 47. And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so?
That is the usual, the customary way of dealing in the world: Kind deeds are rewarded with kind deeds, friendly words are given in return for friendly words. That is the height of human morality. The word “salute” may be taken in its literal sense, as a mere greeting, for even so much the Jews denied the Gentiles. Or it may imply friendly relations and a readiness to serve, as became those that were united in the same confession. Outside of that they knew nothing, more they refused to do, Joh 4:9 b. Such a low moral level is not for the disciples of Christ. He expects them to distinguish themselves above the average morality, to carry out the ambition to excel, actually to be superior to a spirit characterized by smallness and meanness. The latter spirit might be expected in the publicans, the tax-collectors of Palestine, who were heartily disliked as being the representatives of the Roman power, and for their cheating and exactions. It is not a Pharisaic pride and arrogance that the Lord wishes to awaken, but the earnest desire to be elevated above a mere customary etiquette, which may become the most refined form of cruelty. A significant fact: Jesus finds something good even in the social outcasts!
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mat 5:46. The publicans These were the Roman tax-gatherers, some of whom were Jews: these were more extremely odious to their countrymen than those who were heathens. The other Jews would have no communication with them; Luk 3:12-13. Mar 2:16. Luk 7:35. They looked upon the profession as scandalous; and the professors were the more odious to them, on account of their great extortion. See chap. Mat 9:10. Beausobre and Lenfant, and Calmet.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 5:46 . Argumentum e contrario in favour of the command to love one’s enemy; for the mere love of one’s friend belongs to no higher stage of moral life than that of the publicans and heathens.
In what follows neither is a to be supplied after . , nor is to be taken for (both in answer to Kuinoel and others). Jesus opposes the doctrine, “ Love them who love you ,” and views the reward , as in Mat 5:12 ; Mat 6:1 , as a possession, preserved in heaven with God, to be realized in the kingdom of the future.
] the tax-gatherers (partly natives, partly Romans), who were employed in the service of the Roman knights, who farmed the revenues. They were generally greatly hated amongst the Jews on account of their severity and avarice, especially, however, for being the servants of the Roman power . Wetstein on the passage; Keim, II. p. 217 f.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Ver. 46. For if ye love them that love you, what reward have you? ] The Greek and Latin word (say the Rhemists) signifieth very wages or hire due for work; and so presupposeth a meritorious deed. But what will they say to St Luke, who calleth that , or grace, which St Matthew here called , a reward? It is a reward, but of mere grace, see Rom 4:4 that God will give to them that love their enemies. a “If thine enemy be hungry, feed him, &c. For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee,” saith Solomon, Pro 25:21-22 . A double encouragement, and all little enough. 1. Thou shalt heap coals on his head; those coals are (as Austin interprets it) urentes poenitentiae gemitus, the scorching sighs of true repentance: q.d. thou shalt melt these Beza in Matt. vi. hardest metals (as many of the martyrs did their persecutors), thou shalt meeken their rancour, overcome their malice, cause them to turn short again upon themselves and upon sight of their sin, shame themselves, and justify thee, as Saul did David. 2. “The Lord shall reward thee” (and all his retributions are more than bountiful), yet not of merit (for what proportion between the work and wages? but first of mercy; -reward and mercy are joined together in the second commandment and Psa 62:12 ; secondly, of promise, for our encouragement), since our labour is not in vain in the Lord. Briefly, it is called a reward, not properly, but by similitude, because it is given after the work done. Next, it is a reward, not legal, but evangelical; promised in mercy, and in like mercy performed. Whence it is also called the “reward of inheritance,” Col 3:24 . Now an inheritance is not merited, but freely descendeth on sons, because they are sons. Let no man say, with profane Esau, What is this birthright to me? or with the prodigal in the gospel, Give me here the portion that belongeth unto me (such are those that love their friends only, here they have love for love, and that is all they are to look for); but look up to the recompense of reward, with Moses: and answer as Naboth, God forbid that I should so far gratify the devil and mine own evil heart, as to part with my patrimony, my hope of reward, for a little revenge, or whatsoever coin bearing Satan’s superscription.
a Praemium, sed gratuitum.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
46. ] On and , see Tittmann, Syn [51] p. 54. He remarks, “Manifesta est ratio cur Dominus jusserit , non autem . Nam , amare, pessimum quemque vir honestus non potest: sed poterit eum tamen , i.e. bene ei cupere et facere, quippe homo homini, cui etiam Deus benefaciat. Amor imperari non potest, sed dilectio: dilectio humanitatis est, amor eorum tantum, quibus eadem mens est, idem animus.” See further in notes on Joh 11:5 .
[51] Synodical Epistle of Council held at Antioch against Paul of Samosata, 269
] This race of men, so frequently mentioned as the objects of hatred and contempt among the Jews, and coupled with sinners, were not properly the publicans , who were wealthy Romans, of the rank of knights, farming the revenues of the provinces; but their underlings, heathens or renegade Jews, who usually exacted with recklessness and cruelty. “The Talmud classes them with thieves and assassins, and regards their repentance as impossible.” Wordsw. In interpreting these verses we must carefully give the persons spoken of their correlative value and meaning: ye, Christians, sons of God, the true theocracy, the . . ., these or , men of this world, actuated by worldly motives, ‘what thank have ye in being like them? ’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 5:46 . : here, and three times in next chapter; one of several words used in this connection of thought (Mat 5:47 ), (Mat 5:48 ) having a legal sound, and capable of being misunderstood. The scribes and Rabbis had much to say about merit and reward vide Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud , c. xix. 59, on the idea of Sechth (merit). Totally opposed to Rabbinism, Jesus did not lose His balance, or allow Himself to be driven into extremes, after the usual manner of controversialists (Protestants and Catholics, e.g. ). He speaks of without scruple ( cf. on Luk 6:32 ). ( , tax, ), first mention of a class often referred to in the Gospels, unpopular beyond their deserts; therefore, like women unjustly treated by husbands, befriended by Jesus; the humble agents of the great farmers of taxes, disliked as representing a foreign yoke, and on account of too frequent acts of injustice, yet human and kindly within their own class, loving those that loved them. Jesus took advantage of this characteristic to win their love by friendly acts.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
what reward, &c. The Lord varies the wording of this when repeating it later in Luk 6:35.
not. Greek. ouchi. A strengthened form of ou. App-105.
Publicans = tax-gatherers. Hence, extortioners. Latin. = publicani.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
46.] On and , see Tittmann, Syn[51] p. 54. He remarks, Manifesta est ratio cur Dominus jusserit , non autem . Nam , amare, pessimum quemque vir honestus non potest: sed poterit eum tamen , i.e. bene ei cupere et facere, quippe homo homini, cui etiam Deus benefaciat. Amor imperari non potest, sed dilectio: dilectio humanitatis est, amor eorum tantum, quibus eadem mens est, idem animus. See further in notes on Joh 11:5.
[51] Synodical Epistle of Council held at Antioch against Paul of Samosata, 269
] This race of men, so frequently mentioned as the objects of hatred and contempt among the Jews, and coupled with sinners, were not properly the publicans, who were wealthy Romans, of the rank of knights, farming the revenues of the provinces; but their underlings, heathens or renegade Jews, who usually exacted with recklessness and cruelty. The Talmud classes them with thieves and assassins, and regards their repentance as impossible. Wordsw. In interpreting these verses we must carefully give the persons spoken of their correlative value and meaning: ye, Christians, sons of God, the true theocracy, the . . .,-these or , men of this world, actuated by worldly motives,-what thank have ye in being like them?
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 5:46. , what reward) God seeks in us an occasion for giving us a reward.-, publicans) who refer all things to gain; but have none in Heaven.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
if: Mat 6:1, Luk 6:32-35, 1Pe 2:20-23
publicans: Mat 9:10, Mat 9:11, Mat 11:19, Mat 18:17, Mat 21:31, Mat 21:32, Luk 15:1, Luk 18:13, Luk 19:2, Luk 19:7
Reciprocal: 2Ch 15:7 – your work Pro 12:26 – righteous Mat 6:32 – after Luk 14:12 – and a Col 3:24 – ye shall
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
5:46
Love here is from AGAPAO, and the word is defined in the long note at verse 43. From that it can be seen that Jesus disapproves of the selfishness that would lead us to benefit only those who are willing to benefit us. Even the publicans were willing to do that, although that class of citizens was not thought of very highly.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
[Do not even the publicans the same?] How odious the publicans were to the Jewish nation, especially those that were sprung of that nation, and how they reckoned them the very worst of all mankind, appears many ways in the evangelists; and the very same is their character in their own writers.
“It is not lawful to use the riches of such men, of whom it is presumed that they were thieves; and of whom it is presumed that all their wealth was gotten by rapine; and that all their business was the business of extortioners, such as publicans and robbers are; nor is their money to be mingled with thine, because it is presumed to have been gotten by rapine.”
Among those who were neither fit to judge, nor to give a testimony in judgment, are numbered the collectors of taxes, and the publicans.
Publicans are joined with cut-throats and robbers. “They swear to cut-throats, to robbers and to publicans [invading their goods], This is an offering, etc. He is known by his companion.”
They were marked with such reproach, and that not without good reason; partly by reason of their rapine, partly, that to the burden laid upon the nation they themselves added another burden.
“When are publicans to be reckoned for thieves? when he is a Gentile; or when of himself he takes that office upon him; or when, being deputed by the king, he doth not exact the set sum, but exacts according to his own will.” Therefore the father of R. Zeira is to be reputed for a rare person, who, being a publican for thirteen years, did not make the burdens of the taxes heavier, but rather eased them.
“When the king laid a tax, to be exacted of the Jews, of each according to his estate, these publicans, being deputed to proportion the thing, became respecters of persons, burdening some and indulging others, and so became plunderers.”
By how much the more grievous the heathen yoke was to the Jewish people, boasting themselves a free nation, so much the more hateful to them was this kind of men; who, though sprung of Jewish blood, yet rendered their yoke much more heavy by these rapines.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 5:46. For refers back to Mat 5:44 : if your action is simply in accordance with the precept of the Pharisees, what reward have ye? What merit is there in it?
The publicans, the taxgatherers who collected the revenue for the Romans. The term was odious, because these men were the agents of the hated Romans, and because the system of letting out the collection of taxes to the highest bidder led to great abuses. The obnoxious office would soon be filled by a disreputable class; hence the phrase, publicans and sinners. Even such could love those that loved them, practising in this respect a morality as high as that of the Pharisees, who despised them. It is a poor religion which does not beget a higher love than is natural to worldly men.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Yet farther to encourage us to this duty of loving our enemies, Christ assures his disciples, that he expects more from them than others; more than common humanity and civil courtesy towards friends; for even heathens by the light of nature were taught to love those that loved them: but he expected that Christianity should teach them better, and lead them farther, even to love their enemies, and to bless them that curse them.
Note, Love for love is justice; love for no love is favour and kindness; but love for hatred and enmity is divine goodness; a Christ-like temper, which will render us illustrious on earth, and glorious in heaven.
But Lord! how do men confine their love to little sects and parties? and from thence comes that bitterness of spirit of one party towards another; and oh! how hard it is to find a Christian of a true catholic love and temper.