Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 19:20
The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
20. All these things have I kept ] Like St Paul he was “touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” Php 3:6.
from my youth up ] These words which seem unsuitable to the “young man” are omitted here, but not in the parallel passages, by the oldest MSS. They might be translated “from childhood.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 20. All these have I kept] I have made these precepts the rule of my life. There is a difference worthy of notice between this and our Lord’s word. He says, Mt 19:17, , keep, earnestly, diligently, as with watch and ward; probably referring not only to the letter but to the spirit. The young man modestly says, all these () have I observed; I have paid attention to, and endeavoured to regulate my conduct by them. I have kept them in custody.
From my youth] Several MSS., versions, and fathers, leave out these words. Grotius and Mill approve of the omission, and Griesbach leaves them in the text with a note of suspicion. Perhaps the young man meant no more than that he had in general observed them, and considered them of continual obligation.
What lack I yet?] He felt a troubled conscience, and a mind unassured of the approbation of God; and he clearly perceived that something was wanting to make him truly happy.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Those words, what lack I yet? are not in Mark or Luke. The young man understood these commandments according to the Pharisees interpretation of them, who, as we heard, Mat 5:1-48, interpreted them only as prohibiting the overt acts, not the inward lusts and motions of the heart, together with the means or occasions leading to such acts. Paul saith, he had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, Rom 7:7. Men that deceive themselves with false glosses and interpretations may think they keep the commandments of God, and be very confident of a righteousness in themselves; but it is impossible others should be so. What lack I yet? He expected Christ should have set him some new task, and was not aware that he only wanted a better knowledge and understanding of the law to convince him of his mistake.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The young man saith unto him,…. For though he was so very rich and in such an exalted station in life, as to be a ruler, it seems he was but a young man; and to be so early serious and religious, amidst so much riches and grandeur, though it was but externally, was both remarkable and commendable: upon hearing the answer of Christ, with which he was highly pleased and greatly elated, he very pertly replies,
all these things have I kept from my youth up: as soon as he was capable of learning, his parents taught him these precepts; and ever since he had the use of his reason, and understood the letter, and outward meaning of them, he had been careful to observe them; nor could he charge himself with any open and flagrant transgression of them; not understanding the internal sense, extensive compass, and spirituality of them; and therefore asks,
what lack I yet? In what am I deficient hitherto? in what have I come short of doing these things? what remains at last to be performed? what other precepts are to be obeyed? if there are any other commands, I am ready to observe them, which may be thought necessary to obtain eternal life.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
What lack I yet? ( ?) Here is a psychological paradox. He claims to have kept all these commandments and yet he was not satisfied. He had an uneasy conscience and Jesus called him to something that he did not have. He thought of goodness as quantitative (a series of acts) and not qualitative (of the nature of God). Did his question reveal proud complacency or pathetic despair? A bit of both most likely.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
(20) All these things have I kept.There is obviously a tone of impatient surprise in the questioners reply. He had come seeking some great thing to satisfy his lofty aspirations after eternal life. He finds himself re-taught the lessons of childhood, sent back, as it were, to a lower form in the school of holiness. He had not learnt that to keep any one of those commandments in its completeness is the task of a life, that to keep one perfectly implies keeping all. In marked contrast with this half-contemptuous treatment of the simpler elements of religion we may recall our Lords use, in the Temptation, of the three passages connected, directly or indirectly, with those which were written on the phylacteries that men wore, and which would naturally be taught to children as their first lesson in the Law. (See Notes on Mat. 4:1-11.)
What lack I yet?Ignorant as the young ruler was of his own spiritual state, his condition was not that of the self-satisfied Pharisee. The question implied a dissatisfaction with himself, a sense of incompleteness, as hungering and thirsting after a higher righteousness. And this accounts for the way in which our Lord dealt with him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. What lack I yet? From this teacher the young man hopes to receive other instructions that will assure him of his safety, and so give him peace; or some instruction how he may supply his deficiency.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘The young man says to him, “All these things have I observed. What do I still lack?” ’
However, the young man is now disappointed. He had had such high hopes. But all that Jesus had told him was what he had heard before from others. And yet it had not been enough. He did not stop to consider whether he had genuinely kept all these commandments (and Matthew intends us to read them in terms of the sermon on the mount). With the presumption and limited experience of a young man he was convinced that he had. And yet he knew that what he had done was not enough. He was still aware of a great lack. There was still hope for him, for at least he recognised that he was not good enough. (Once a man begins to think that he is nearly good enough, and has but a little further to go, he has lost hope. For the first principle of salvation is that a man recognise his own total inability to be good enough. That indeed was why Jesus had begun by emphasising that true goodness was of God).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The test:
v. 20. The young man saith unto Him, All these things have I kept from my youth up; what lack I yet?
v. 21. Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me.
v. 22. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. Christ’s recital of the second table had not so much as stirred a ripple in the self-righteous equanimity of the young man. He was so steeped in his good opinion of himself that it would take a strong wrench to wake him up out of his selfishness. So far as he was concerned, he felt satisfied that he had kept all the commandments from his youth, according to the Pharisaic standard of keeping the letter, but not the spirit. So Christ takes him at his word. If he is really anxious to be perfect before the Law of God, above all, if he wants to present concrete evidence of his fulfillment of the summary of the second table, let him give the proceeds of the sale of all his goods to the poor, thus showing that he loved them as himself. This was Christ’s test of the young man. He knew his heart and realized that his chief fault was his love of his goods and his unwillingness to make sacrifices. For it is true at all times: our love of God must go above all things. If it should therefore be necessary, for the sake of the kingdom of God, to sacrifice all earthly possessions and life itself for His sake in order to make our discipleship perfect, there can be but one answer, if we are sincere in our profession of Christianity: unconditional assent. In this case, the young man, like so many thousands since his time, “went away sorrowful,” deeply saddened and grieved, Mar 10:22. That one cross, which would not even have included personal affliction, physical suffering, was too much for him. He proved himself unfit to be a follower of Jesus. He loved his goods more than his Lord. The thorns of the love of money infested the rich soil of his heart and stifled the seed of the Word which had gotten a hopeful start; a lovable, otherwise noble nature lost for the sake of a few paltry dollars.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mat 19:20 . In what respect do I still come short ? what further attainment have I yet to make? Comp. Psa 39:4 : ; 1Co 12:24 ; 2Co 11:5 ; 2Co 12:11 . This reply (Plat. Rep . p. 484 D: ) serves to show that his moral striving after the Messianic life is confined within the narrow limits of a decent outward behaviour, without his having felt and understood the spirit of the commandments, and especially the boundless nature of the duties implied in the commandment of love, though, at the same time, he has a secret consciousness that there must be some higher moral task for man, and feels impelled towards its fulfilment, only the legal tendencies of his character prevent him from seeing where it lies.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
Ver. 20. All these things have I kept ] Lie and all; as now the Popish Pharisees dream and brag that they can keep the law, and spare. a They can do more than any that ever went before them, Psa 143:2 ; Job 15:14 ; Jas 3:2 . Oecolampadius saith that none of the patriarchs lived out a full thousand years (which is a number of perfection), to teach us that here is no perfection of piety. David’s heart smote him for doing that which Saul highly commended him for.
What lack I yet? ] Gr. “Wherein am I yet behind with God?” ( ). He thought himself somewhat beforehand, and that God, likewise, was in his debt. Truly, many today grow crooked and aged with overly good opinions of themselves, and can hardly ever be set right again. They stand upon their comparisons-I am as good as thou; nay, upon their disparisons, “I am not as this publican.” No, for thou art worse; yea, for this, because thou thinkest thyserf better. This arrogant youth makes good that of Aristotle, who, differencing between age and youth, makes it a property of young men to think they know all things, and to affirm lustily their own placits. b He secretly insults over our Saviour as a trivial teacher, and calls for a lecture beyond the law, worthy, therefore, to have been sent to Anticyra; surely, as when Drusius in his defenee against a nimble Jesuit, that called him heretic, alleged that heresy must be in fundamentis fidei, in the foundation of the faith, the Jesuit replied that even that assertion was heresy. So when this young man affirmed that he had ever kept the commandments, and asked, “What lack I yet?” Christ might well have said, “Thou art therefore guilty of the breach of all the commandments, because thou takest thyself to be keeper of all, and thou therefore lackest everything, because thou thinkest thou lackest nothing.”
a Arrogantius mendaeium nemo hominum de se dixit. Pareus. Insignem hypocritam se gloriatur. Ib.
b . Ethic. 1.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
20. ] We may remark that this young man, though self-righteous, was no hypocrite , no Pharisee: he spoke earnestly, and really strove to keep, as he really believed he had kept, all God’s commandments. Accordingly Mark adds, that Jesus looking upon him loved him: in spite of his error there was a nobleness and openness about him, contrasted with the hypocritical bearing of the Pharisees and Scribes.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 19:20-22 . , the youth ; whence known? from a special tradition (Meyer); an inference from the expression in Mar 10:20 (Weiss). (- ). Kypke and Elsner take pains to show that the use of this verb (and of , Mat 19:17 ) in the sense of obeying commands is good Greek. More important is it to note the declaration the verb contains: all these I have kept from youth. To be taken as a simple fact, not stated in a self-righteous spirit (Weiss-Meyer), rather sadly as by one conscious that he has not thereby reached the desired goal, real rest in the highest good found. The exemplary life plus the dissatisfaction meant much: that he was not a morally commonplace man, but one with affinities for the noble and the heroic. No wonder Jesus felt interested in him, “loved him” (Mar 10:21 ), and tried to win him completely. It may be assumed that the man appreciated the supreme importance of the ethical , and was not in sympathy with the tendency of the scribes to subordinate the moral to the ritual, the commands of God to the traditions of the elders. : the question interesting first of all as revealing a felt want: a good symptom; next as betraying perplexity = I am on the right road, according to your teaching; why then do I not attain the rest of the true godly life? The question, not in Mk., is implied in the tone of the previous statement, whether uttered or not.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
All these. Yes, but not the tenth. Hence the Lord’s answer “go and sell”, which brought conviction.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
20.] We may remark that this young man, though self-righteous, was no hypocrite, no Pharisee: he spoke earnestly, and really strove to keep, as he really believed he had kept, all Gods commandments. Accordingly Mark adds, that Jesus looking upon him loved him: in spite of his error there was a nobleness and openness about him, contrasted with the hypocritical bearing of the Pharisees and Scribes.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
kept from my youth
See, Php 3:6; Php 3:7 contra vs. Php 3:7-9
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
All: Mar 10:20, Luk 15:7, Luk 15:29, Luk 18:11, Luk 18:12, Luk 18:21, Joh 8:7, Rom 3:19-23, Rom 7:9, Gal 3:24, Phi 3:6
what: Mar 10:21, Luk 18:22
Reciprocal: 1Sa 15:20 – Yea Jam 1:4 – wanting
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
9:20
Jesus did not question the statement of the young man that he had kept all of those laws, hence we may conclude that this claim was true. But Jesus was here to set up another kingdom with other laws, and perhaps something would need to be added to the life of this young man who had lived up to the letter of the law. He doubtless asked confidently what lack yet?
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 19:20. All these have I kept. Externally moral, perhaps self-righteous, he yet felt that he lacked something. Peace of conscience had not been attained by his keeping of all these. He had yet to learn how much he lacked of even comprehending the spirituality of the law.