Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 21:44
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
44. whosoever shall fall on this stone, &c.] Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr., sees here a reference to the custom of stoning: “the place of stoning was twice as high as a man. From the top of this, one of the witnesses striking him on his loins, fells him to the ground: if he died of this, well; if not, another witness threw a stone upon his heart.”
But it is better to refer the image to an earthenware vessel (1) falling to the ground when it would be shattered, or (2) crushed by a stone when it would be bruised into atoms.
will grind him to powder ] The Greek word lit. = “to winnow.” So “cause to disappear,” “destroy.” Those to whom Jesus is a “rock of offence” (1Pe 2:8; Isa 8:14) in the days of His humiliation shall have great sorrow: but to incur His wrath when He comes to judge the earth will be utter destruction.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 44. The 44th verse should certainly come before ver. 43, otherwise the narration is not consecutive.
-Verse 42. The stone which the builders rejected, is become the head of the corner, c.
-Verse 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, c. This is an allusion to the punishment of stoning among the Jews. The place of stoning was twice as high as a man while standing on this, one of the witnesses struck the culprit on the loins, so that he fell over this scaffold if he died by the stroke and fall, well; if not, the other witness threw a stone upon his heart, and despatched him. That stone thrown on the culprit was, in some cases, as much as two men could lift up. Tract Sanhed. and Bab. Gemara, and Lightfoot. See also the note on Joh 8:7.
He, whether Jew or Gentile, who shall not believe in the Son of God, shall suffer grievously in consequence; but on whomsoever the stone (Jesus Christ) falls in the way of judgment, he shall be ground to powder, – it shall make him so small as to render him capable of being dispersed as chaff by the wind. This seems to allude, not only to the dreadful crushing of the Jewish state by the Romans, but also to that general dispersion of the Jews through all the nations of the world, which continues to the present day. This whole verse is wanting in the Codex Bezae, one other, five copies of the Itala, and Origen; but it is found in the parallel place, Lu 20:18, and seems to have been quoted from Isa 8:14-15. He shall be for a STONE of STUMBLING, and for a ROCK OF OFFENCE to both the houses of Israel – and many among them shall STUMBLE and FALL, and be BROKEN.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
44. And whosoever shall fall on thisstone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grindhim to powderThe Kingdom of God is here a Temple, in theerection of which a certain stone, rejected as unsuitable bythe spiritual builders, is, by the great Lord of the House, made thekeystone of the whole. On that Stone the builders were now “falling”and being “broken” (Isa8:15). They were sustaining great spiritual hurt; but soon thatStone should “fall upon them” and “grind themto powder” (Dan 2:34;Dan 2:35; Zec 12:2)in their corporate capacity, in the tremendous destructionof Jerusalem, but personally, as unbelievers, in a more awfulsense still.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And whosoever shall fall on this stone,…. This is not to be understood of believing in Christ, or of a soul’s casting itself on Christ, the foundation stone; relying on him, and building all its hopes of happiness and salvation on him; which is attended with contrition and brokenness of heart, or repentance unto life, which needed not to be repented of nor of a believer’s offending Christ by evil works, whereby his conscience is wounded, his soul is grieved, and his faith shaken; and though he is hereby in great danger, he shall not be utterly destroyed, but being recovered by repentance, shall be preserved unto salvation; but of such to whom Christ is a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence: for as he is the foundation and corner stone to some, and is set for the rising of them, and to whom he is precious; so he is a stone set for the fall of others, and at which they stumble and fall, and fall upon it: and such are they who are offended at Christ’s state of humiliation on earth; at the manner of his birth, the meanness of his parentage, and education; the despicable figure he made in his person, disciples, and audience; and at his sufferings and death: and these “shall be broken”: as a man that stumbles at a stone, and falls upon it, breaks his head or his bones, at least bruises himself, does not hurt the stone, but the stone hurts him; so all such as are offended at Christ, injure their own souls, being filled with prejudices against him, and contempt and disbelief of him, which if grace prevents not will issue in their everlasting destruction: but whilst there is life, the means of grace continue, the kingdom of God is not taken away; there is hope that such may be recovered from their impenitence and unbelief: “but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder”. Just as if a millstone, or any stone of such like weight and bulk, was to fall upon an earthen vessel; or, as the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, by which the Messiah and his kingdom, are designed, brake in pieces the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, so that it became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor. As the former part of this verse expresses the sin of unbelievers, and the danger they are exposed unto by it, this sets forth their punishment; and has respect both to the vengeance of Christ, on the Jewish nation, at their destruction, which would fall heavy from him in his state of exaltation, for their evil treatment of him in his state of humiliation; and to his severe wrath, which will be executed at the day of judgment on all unbelievers, impenitent Christless sinners, who have both offended him, and been offended at him; when their destruction will be inevitable, their salvation irretrievable, and their souls irrecoverably lost, and ruined. Some have thought, that there is an allusion in these words to the manner of stoning among the Jews, which was this e:
“the place of stoning was two men’s heights; one of the witnesses struck him on his loins, to throw him down from thence, to the ground: if he died, it was well; if not, they took a stone, which lay there, and was as much as two men could carry, and cast it, with all their might, upon his breast: if he died, it was well; if not, he was stoned by all Israel.”
Maimonides observes f, that
“stoning, or throwing down from the high place, was that he might fall upon the stone, or that the stone might fall upon him; and which of them either it was, the pain was the same.”
e Misu. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 4. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 45. 1, 2. Maimon. Hilch. Sanhedrin, c. 15. sect 1. Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora pr. Affirm. 99. f In Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Shall be broken to pieces (). Some ancient manuscripts do not have this verse. But it graphically pictures the fate of the man who rejects Christ. The verb means to shatter. We are familiar with an automobile that dashes against a stone wall, a tree, or a train and the ruin that follows.
Will scatter him as dust (). The verb was used of winnowing out the chaff and then of grinding to powder. This is the fate of him on whom this Rejected Stone falls.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Shall be broken [] . The verb is stronger : broken to pieces; so Rev.
Grind him to powder [ ] . But the A. V. misses the picture in the word, which is that of the winnowing – fan that separates the grain from the chaff. Literally it is, will winnow him. Rev., scatter him as dust.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
44. And he who shall fall on this stone. Christ confirms more fully the former statement, that he suffers no loss or diminution when he is rejected by the wicked, because, though their obstinacy were like a stone or like iron, yet by his own hardness he will break them, and therefore he will be the more highly glorified in their destruction. He perceived in the Jews an astonishing obstinacy, and therefore it was necessary that this kind of punishment should be described to them in an alarming manner, that they might not flatter themselves, while they thus dashed against him. This doctrine partly instructs us to give ourselves up gently, with a mild and tractable heart, to the dominion of Christ, and partly fortifies us against the obstinacy and furious attacks of the wicked, for whom there awaits a dreadful end.
Those persons are said to fall upon Christ, who rush forward to destroy him; not that they occupy a more elevated position than he does, but because their madness carries them so far, that they endeavor to attack Christ as if he were below them. But Christ tells them that all that they will gain by it is, that by the very conflict they will be broken. But when they have thus proudly exalted themselves, he tells them that another thing will happen, which is, that they will be bruised under the stone, against which they so insolently dashed themselves.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(44) Whosoever shall fall on this stone.There is a manifest reference to the stumbling and falling and being broken of Isa. 8:14-15. In the immediate application of the words, those who fell were those who were offended at the outward lowliness of Him who came as the carpenters son, and died a malefactors death. That fall brought with it pain and humiliation. High hopes had to be given up, the proud heart to be bruised and broken. But there the fall was not irretrievable. The bruise might be healed; it was the work of the Christ to heal it. But when it fell on him who was thus offended (here there is a rapid transition to the imagery and the thoughts, even to the very words, of Dan. 2:35; Dan. 2:44), when Christ, or that Church which He identifies with Himself, shall come into collision with the powers that oppose Him, then it shall grind them to powder. The primary meaning of the word so rendered is that of winnowing by threshing the grain, and so separating it from the chaff, and its use was probably suggested by the imagery of Dan. 2:35, where the gold and silver and baser materials that made up the image of Nebuchadnezzars vision were broken in pieces together, and became as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. In its wider meaning it includes the destruction of all that resists Christs kingdom, and so represents the positive side of the truth which has its negative expression in the promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church (Mat. 16:18).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
44. Fall on this stone He is now a stumbling-stone; such stones as are found abundantly in the stony region around Jerusalem. A man falls over such a stone and gets bruised, or has a limb broken, perhaps; but he may recover himself, and place himself upon the corner-stone. It shall fall In the siege of Jerusalem the stones hurled from the military engines, falling upon the Jews, did terrible execution. Mr. Milman says that the Roman army “threw stones, the weight of a talent, a distance of two furlongs upon the walls. The Jews set men to watch the huge rocks which came thundering down upon their heads. They were easily visible from their extreme whiteness, (this it seems must have been by night;) the watchmen shouted aloud in their native tongue, “The bolt is coming!” on which they all bowed their heads and avoided the blow. The Romans found out this, and blackened the stones, which now taking them unawares, struck down and crushed not merely single men, but whole ranks.”
If our Lord’s words are not sufficiently precise to limit the allusion to the balista, still they receive a forcible illustration from the engine.
Grind him to powder A very unsuitable translation, as there is nothing in the original Greek that signifies either grind or powder. The precise phrase is, shall winnow him. That is, shall scatter him as a winnowing fan scatters the chaff. There is probably an allusion to Dan 2:34-35, where the great stone scatters the other kingdoms “like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.”
Thus has our Lord answered the demands of these men for his authority. He is God’s Son, who has come for the fruits of the kingdom. If they reject him, they will yet find that he is Lord of all.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whoever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.”
The idea of the Stone then leads on to other aspects of the Stone in Scripture, and following on the parable with its emphasis on both judgment and restoration we have a similar contrast here. In Mat 21:42 the Stone is restored, here He brings judgment.
The ideas are taken from Isa 8:14-15 and Dan 2:34; Dan 2:44-45, In the first case people stumble over the stone and fall heavily on it so that they are ‘broken to pieces’, in the second the stone come crashing down on them ‘scattering them to dust’. Both are equally devastating in their effects. There is no escape. Jesus may well have been involved with buildings in His work as a carpenter and have seen such effects.
This verse parallels Luk 20:18, and is in fact missing in certain manuscripts (D, 33 and versions), but its attestation is extremely strong. If an early copyist wrote ‘autes’ to end Mat 21:43 and then carelessly picked up the text from ‘auton’ at the end of Mat 21:44 (easily done by a tired scribe working in the artificial light of a lamp) that may explain the omission in that family of texts. That is far more likely than that the same interpolation was introduced into such a wide range of texts. Furthermore the verse is required in the chiasmus.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 21:44 . After having indicated the future punishment in the merely negative form of . . ., Jesus now proceeds to announce it in positive terms, by means of parallelism in which, without dropping the metaphor of the stone, the person in question is first the subject and then the object. A solemn exhausting of the whole subject of the coming doom. And whosoever will have fallen upon this stone (whosoever by rejecting the Messiah shall have incurred the judgment consequent thereon) shall he broken (by his fall); but on whomsoever it shall fall (whomsoever the Messiah, as an avenger, shall have overtaken), it shall winnow him, i.e . throw him off like the chaff from the winnowing-fan. ( to be crushed ) and , which form a climax, are intended to portray the execution of the Messianic judgments. is not equivalent to conterere, comminucre , the meaning usually assigned to it in accordance with the Vulgate, but is rather to be rendered by to winnow, ventilare ( Il . v. 500; Xen. Oec . xviii. 2. 6; Plut. Mot . p. 701 C; Lucian, Gymnas . xxv.; Rth 3:2 ; Sir 5:10 ). See likewise Job 27:21 , where the Sept. employs this figurative term for the purpose of rendering the idea of driving away as before a storm ( ). Comp. Dan 2:44 ; Wis 11:20 .
Observe the change which the figure undergoes in the second division of the verse. The stone that previously appeared in the character of the corner-stone, lying at rest, and on which, as on a stone of stumbling (Isa 8:14 f.), some one falls, is now conceived of as rolling down with crushing force upon the man; the latter having reference to the whole of such coming (Mat 21:40 ) in judgment down to the second advent; the former expressing the same thought in a passive form, (Luk 2:34 ).
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Ver. 44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone ] Christ is a stone of stumbling to his enemies, who stumble at his meanness, and a rock of offence,1Pe 2:81Pe 2:8 ; but like that rock, Jdg 6:21 , out of which fire went and consumed them, Nemo me impune lacessit, No one provokes me with impunity, saith he. The Corinthians abused certain Roman ambassadors, and were therefore burned to the ground by Lucius Mummius. For irasci populo Rom. nemo sapienter possit, saith Livy thereupon. Christ is wise in heart and mighty in strength. “Who ever hardened himself against him and prospered?” Job 9:4 . Who ever bragged of the last blow? If his wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, woe be to his opposites; but if he fall upon them with his whole weight, he will crush them to pieces, yea, grind them to powder. They can no more stand before him than can a glass bottle before a cannon shot.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
44. ] A reference to Isa 8:14-15 , and Dan 2:44 , and a plain identification of the stone there mentioned with that in Psa 118:1-29 . The stone is the whole kingdom and power of the Messiah summed up in Himself .
. he that takes offence , that makes it a stone of stumbling , shall be broken: see Luk 2:34 ; but on whomsoever, as its enemy, it shall come in vengeance , as prophesied in Daniel, , it shall dash him in pieces. Meyer maintains that the meaning of . is not this, but literally ‘ shall winnow him ,’ throw him off as chaff (see ref. Job). But the confusion in the parable thus occasioned is quite unnecessary. The result of winnowing is complete separation and dashing away of the worthless part: and it is surely far better to understand this result as the work of the falling of the stone, than to apply the words to a part of the operation for which the falling of a stone is so singularly unsuited.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 21:44 . his verse, bracketed by W. H [120] , found in the same connection in Lk. (Luk 20:18 ), looks rather like an interpolation, yet it suits the situation, serving as a solemn warning to men meditating evil intentions against the Speaker. : he who falls on the stone, as if stumbling against it (Isa 8:14 ). , shall be broken in pieces, like an earthen vessel falling on a rock. This compound is found only in late Greek authors. , on whom it shall fall, in judgment. The distinction is between men who believe not in the Christ through misunderstanding and those who reject Him through an evil heart of unbelief. Both suffer in consequence, but not in the same way, or to the same extent. The one is broken, hurt in limb; the other crushed to powder, which the winds blow away. , from , a winnowing fork, to winnow, to scatter to the winds, implying reduction to dust capable of being so scattered = grinding to powder ( conteret , Vulg [121] ). For the distinction taken in this verse, cf. chaps. Mat 11:6 ; Mat 12:31-32 .
[120] Westcott and Hort.
[121] Vulgate (Jerome’s revision of old Latin version).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Matthew
THE VINEYARD AND ITS KEEPERS
THE STONE OF STUMBLING
Mat 21:44
As Christ’s ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased; its severity to the class to whom it was always severe, and its gentleness to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side, through all His manifestation of Himself, there were the two aspects: ‘He showed Himself froward’ if I may quote the word to the self-righteous and the Pharisee; and He bent with more than a woman’s tenderness of yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a divine deliverer. Here, in my text, there are only words of severity and awful foreboding. Christ has been telling those Pharisees and priests that the kingdom is to be taken from them, and given to a nation that brings forth the fruits thereof. He interprets for them an Old Testament figure, often recurring, which we read in the Psa 118:1 – Psa 118:29 and I may just say, in passing, that we get here His interpretation of that psalm, and the vindication of our application of it, and other similar ones, to Him and His office; ‘The stone which the builders rejected,’ said He, ‘is become the head of the corner’; and then, falling back on other Old Testament uses of the same figure, He weaves into one the whole of them-that in Isaiah about the ‘sure foundation,’ and that in Daniel about ‘the stone cut out without hands, which became a great mountain,’ crushing down all opposition,-and centres them all in Himself; as fulfilled in Himself, in His person and His work.
The two clauses of my text figuratively point to two different classes of operation on the rejecters of the Gospel. What are these two classes? ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.’ In the one case, the stone is represented as passive, lying quiet; in the other, it has acquired motion. In the one case, the man stumbles and hurts himself; a remediable injury, a self-inflicted injury, a natural injury, without the active operation of Christ to produce it at all; in the other case the injury is worse than remediable, it is utter, absolute, grinding destruction, and it comes from the active operation of the ‘stone of stumbling.’ That is to say, the one class represents the present hurts and harms which, by the natural operation of things, without the action of Christ judicially at all, every man receives in the very act of rejecting the Gospel; and the other represents the ultimate issue of that rejection, which rejection is darkened into opposition and fixed hostility, when the stone that was laid ‘for a foundation’ has got wings if I may so say, and comes down in judgment, crushing and destroying the antagonist utterly. ‘Whosoever falls on this stone is broken,’ here and now; and ‘on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder,’ hereafter and yonder.
Taking, then, into account the weaving together in this passage of the three figures from the Old Testament to which I have already referred,-the rejected stone, the foundation, and the mountain-stone of Daniel, and looking in the light of these, at the twofold issues, one present and one future, which the text distinctly brings before us,-we have just three points to which I ask your attention now. First, Every man has some kind of contact with Christ. Secondly, Rejection of Him, here and now, is harm and maiming. And, lastly, Rejection of Him, hereafter and yonder, is hopeless, endless, utter destruction.
I. In the first place, every man has some kind of connection with Christ.
Christ comes, I say, offered to us all in good faith on the part of God, as a foundation upon which we may build. And then comes in that strange mystery, that a man, consciously free, turns away from the offered mercy, and makes Him that was intended to be the basis of his life, the foundation of his hope, the rock on which, steadfast and serene, he should build up a temple-home for his soul to dwell in,-makes Him a stumbling-stone against which, by rejection and unbelief, he breaks himself!
My friend, will you let me lay this one thing upon your heart,-you cannot hinder the Gospel from influencing you somehow. Taking it in its lowest aspects, it is one of the forces of modern society, an element in our present civilisation. It is everywhere, it obtrudes itself on you at every turn, the air is saturated with its influence. To be unaffected by such an all-pervading phenomenon is impossible. To no individual member of the great whole of a nation is it given to isolate himself utterly from the community. Whether he oppose or whether he acquiesce in current opinions, to denude himself of the possessions which belong in common to his age and state of society is in either case impracticable. ‘That which cometh into your mind,’ said one of the prophets to the Jews who were trying to cut themselves loose from their national faith and their ancestral prerogatives, ‘That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries to serve wood and stone.’ Vain dream! You can no more say, I will pass the Gospel by, and it shall be nothing to me, I will simply let it alone, than you can say, I will shut myself up from other influences proper to my time and nation. You cannot go back to the old naked barbarism, and you cannot reduce the influence of Christianity, even considered merely as one of the characteristics of the times, to zero. You may fancy you are letting it alone, but it does not let you alone; it is here, and you cannot shut yourself off from it.
But it is not merely as a subtle and diffused influence that the Gospel exercises a permanent effect upon us. It is presented to each of us here individually, in the definite form of an actual offer of salvation for each, and of an actual demand of trust from each. The words pass into our souls, and thenceforward we can never be the same as if they had not been there. The smallest ray of light falling on a sensitive plate produces a chemical change that can never be undone again, and the light of Christ’s love, once brought to the knowledge and presented for the acceptance of a soul, stamps on it an ineffaceable sign of its having been there. The Gospel once heard, is always the Gospel which has been heard. Nothing can alter that. Once heard, it is henceforward a perpetual element in the whole condition, character, and destiny of the hearer.
Christ does something to every one of us. His Gospel will tell upon you, it is telling upon you. If you disbelieve it, you are not the same as if you had never heard it. Never is the box of ointment opened without some savour from it abiding in every nostril to which its odour is wafted. Only the alternative, the awful ‘either, or,’ is open for each-the ‘savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death.’ To come back to the illustration of the text, Christ is something, and does something to every one of us. He is either the rock on which I build, poor, weak, sinful creature as I am, getting security, and sanctity, and strength from Him, I being a living stone’ built upon ‘the living stone,’ and partaking of the vitality of the foundation; or else He is the other thing, ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to them which stumble at the word.’ Christ stands for ever in some kind of relation to, and exercises for ever some kind of influence on, every man who has heard the Gospel.
II. The immediate issue of rejection of Him is loss and maiming.
Note the positive harm. Am I uncharitable when I say that no man ever yet passively neglected the message of love in God’s Son; but that always this is the rude outline of the experience of people who know what it is to have a Saviour offered to them, and know what it is to put Him away,-that there is a feeble and transitory movement of heart and will; that Conscience says, ‘Thou oughtest’; that Will says, ‘I would’; that the heart is touched by some sense of that great and gentle vision of light and love which passes before the eye; that the man, as it were, like some fever-ridden patient, lifts himself up for an instant from the bed on which he is lying, and puts out a hand, and then falls back again, the vacillating, fevered, paralysed will recoiling from the resolution, and the conscience having power to say, ‘Thou oughtest,’ but no power to enforce the execution of its decrees, and the heart turning away from the salvation that it would have found in the love of love, to the loss that it finds in the love of self and earth? Or in other words, is it not true that every man who rejects Christ does in simple verity reject Him, and not merely neglect Him; that there is always an effort, that there is a struggle, feeble, perhaps, but real, which ends in the turning away? It is not that you stand there, and simply let Him go past. That were bad enough; but the fact is worse than that. It is that you turn your back upon Him. It is not that His hand is laid on yours, and yours remains dead and cold, and does not open to clasp it; but it is that His hand being laid on yours, you clench yours the tighter, and will not have it. And so every man I believe who rejects Christ does these things thereby-wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man, just because he has had a glimpse, and has willingly, and almost consciously, ‘loved darkness rather than light.’ Oh, brethren, the message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection. I have nothing to do now with pursuing that process to its end; but the natural result-if there were no future Judgment at all, if there were no movement ever given to the stone that you ought to build on-the natural result of the simple rejection of the Gospel is that, bit by bit, all the lingering remains of nobleness that hover about the man, like scent about a broken vase, pass away; and that, step by step, through the simple process of saying, ‘I will not have Christ to rule over me,’ the whole being degenerates, until manhood becomes devil-hood, and the soul is lost by its own want of faith. Unbelief is its own judgment; unbelief is its own condemnation; unbelief, as sin, is punished, like all other sins, by the perpetuation of deeper and darker forms of itself. Every time that you stifle a conviction, fight down a conviction, or drive away a conviction; and every time that you feebly move towards the decision, ‘I will trust Him, and love Him, and be His,’ yet fail to realise it, you have harmed your soul, you have made yourself a worse man, you have lowered the tone of your conscience, you have enfeebled your will, you have made your heart harder against love, you have drawn another horny scale over the eye, that will prevent you from seeing the light that is yonder; you have, as much as in you is, withdrawn from God, and approximated to the other pole of the universe if I may say that, to the dark and deadly antagonist of mercy, and goodness, and truth, and grace. ‘Whosoever falls on this stone,’ by the natural result of his unbelief, ‘shall be broken’ and maimed, and shall mar his own nature.
I need not dwell on the negative evil results of unbelief; the loss of that which is the only guide for a man, the taking away, or rather the failing to possess, that great love above us, that divine Spirit in us, by which only we are ever made what we ought to be. This only I would leave with you, in this part of my subject, Whoever is not in Christ is maimed. Only he that is ‘a man in Christ’ has come ‘to the measure of the stature of a perfect man.’ There, and there alone, do we get the power which will make us full-grown. There alone is the soul planted in that good soil in which, growing, it becomes as a rounded, perfect tree, with leaves and fruits in their season. All other men are half-men, quarter-men, fragments of men, parts of humanity exaggerated and contorted and distorted from the reconciling whole which the Christian ought to be, and in proportion to his Christianity is on the road to be, and one day will assuredly and actually be, a ‘complete and entire man, wanting nothing’; nothing maimed, nothing broken, the realisation of the ideal of humanity, the renewed copy ‘of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.’
There is another consideration closely connected with this second part of my subject, that I just mention and pass on. Not only by the act of rejection of Christ do we harm and maim ourselves, but also all attempts at opposition-formal opposition-to the Gospel as a system, stand self-convicted and self-condemned to speedy decay. What a commentary upon that word, ‘Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken,’ is the whole history of the heresies of the Church and the assaults of unbelief! Man after man, rich in gifts, endowed often with far larger and nobler faculties than the people who oppose him, with indomitable perseverance, a martyr to his error, sets himself up against the truth that is sphered in Jesus Christ; and the great divine message simply goes on its way, and all the babblement and noise are like so many bats flying against a light, or like the sea-birds that come sweeping up in the tempest and the night, to the hospitable Pharos that is upon the rock, and smite themselves dead against it. Sceptics well known in their generation, who made people’s hearts tremble for the ark of God, what has become of them? Their books lie dusty and undisturbed on the top shelf of libraries; whilst there the Bible stands, with all the scribblings wiped off the page, as though they had never been! Opponents fire their small shot against the great Rock of Ages, and the little pellets fall flattened, and only scale off a bit of the moss that has gathered there! My brother, let the history of the past teach you and me, with other deeper thoughts, a very calm and triumphant confidence about all that opponents say nowadays; for all the modern opposition to this Gospel will go as all the past has done, and the newest systems which cut and carve at Christianity, will go to the tomb where all the rest have gone; and dead old infidelities will rise up from their thrones, and say to the bran-new ones of this generation, when their day is worked out, ‘Are ye also become weak as we? art thou also become like one of us?’ ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken’: personally, he will be harmed; and his opinions, and his books, and his talk, and all his argumentation, will come to nothing, like the waves that break into impotent foam against the rocky cliffs.
III. Last of all, the issue, the ultimate issue, of unbelief is irremediable destruction when Christ begins to move.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
on = upon. Greek. epi. App-104.
grind him to powder. Supposed to mean winnow or scatter as dust. But in a Papyrus (Fayyum, second or third cent, A.D.) it is used for ruining a thing in some way. This supplies the contrast here. Occurs else where only in Luk 20:18; Septuagint (Theodotion) for utter destruction, in Dan 2:44. Compare Job 27:21.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
44.] A reference to Isa 8:14-15, and Dan 2:44, and a plain identification of the stone there mentioned with that in Psa 118:1-29. The stone is the whole kingdom and power of the Messiah summed up in Himself.
. he that takes offence, that makes it a stone of stumbling, shall be broken: see Luk 2:34; but on whomsoever, as its enemy, it shall come in vengeance, as prophesied in Daniel, , it shall dash him in pieces. Meyer maintains that the meaning of . is not this, but literally shall winnow him, throw him off as chaff (see ref. Job). But the confusion in the parable thus occasioned is quite unnecessary. The result of winnowing is complete separation and dashing away of the worthless part: and it is surely far better to understand this result as the work of the falling of the stone, than to apply the words to a part of the operation for which the falling of a stone is so singularly unsuited.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 21:44. , …, whosoever shall fall on, etc.) He falleth on this Stone (sc. Christ in His humiliation) who stumbles (offendit) by not believing, whilst the Gospel is being preached; but this Stone (sc. Christ in His glory) falleth on him, who is crushed by His sudden coming to judgment. Both happen especially to the Jews, and also to the Gentiles. See 2Th 1:8, and Dan 2:34; Dan 2:45.-, shall scatter, dissolve, dissipate, reduce to dust) The verb signifies to scatter, as when chaff is given to the winds. See the LXX., who employ this verb in Job 27:21 for the Hebrew , to sweep away in a storm; in Dan 2:44, for , to destroy; and repeatedly elsewhere for , to scatter or disperse.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
stone shall be broken
Christ as the “Stone” is revealed in a threefold way:
(1) To Israel Christ, coming not as a splendid monarch but in the form of a servant, is a stumbling stone and rock of offence. Isa 8:14; Isa 8:15; Rom 9:32; Rom 9:33; 1Co 1:23; 1Pe 2:8
(2) to the church, Christ is the foundation stone and the head of the corner 1Co 3:11; Eph 2:20-22; 1Pe 2:4; 1Pe 2:5
(3) to the Gentile world-powers (see “Gentiles,” Luk 21:24; Rev 16:19 He is to be the smiting-stone of destruction Dan 2:34. Israel stumbled over Christ; the church is built upon Christ; Gentile world- dominion will be broken by Christ.
See “Armageddon” Rev 16:14; Rev 19:19.
And whosoever
Or, Whosoever falls on this stone shall be crushed together i.e. the Jews Isa 8:14; Rom 9:32; Rom 9:33; 1Co 1:23] but on whomsoever it may fall, he will be scattered as dust (Greek – ,” i).e. the Gentile nations, Dan 2:34; Dan 2:35; Dan 2:45 (See Scofield “Dan 2:35”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
whosoever: Psa 2:12, Isa 8:14, Isa 8:15, Isa 60:12, Zec 12:3, Luk 20:18, Rom 9:33, 2Co 4:3, 2Co 4:4, 1Pe 2:8
but: Mat 26:24, Mat 27:25, Psa 2:9, Psa 21:8, Psa 21:9, Psa 110:5, Psa 110:6, Dan 2:34, Dan 2:35, Dan 2:44, Dan 2:45, Joh 19:11, 1Th 2:16, Heb 2:2, Heb 2:3
Reciprocal: Est 9:25 – return Job 16:12 – broken me Isa 28:13 – that Zec 13:8 – two Mar 11:14 – No Luk 2:34 – set Luk 21:23 – great Act 5:28 – blood
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1:44
This stone means Christ who is the stone of verse 42 that had been rejected by the builders, meaning the leaders in the Jewish nation. There are two applications of the illustrations about the falling upon the stone and its falling upon the victim. It would be bad enough to fall down on a stone for one would be hurt thereby, but it would be far worse for that stone to be elevated and then fall upon that same one. So the Jewish nation had stumbled over this stone and it was complaining about it. The leaders had even tossed it aside as unfit even to be used at all in the building. But it was to be elevated to be the head stone in the building and from that position was to fall (figuratively speaking) upon the nation and demolish it. That event took place in A. D. 70 when the Romans overthrew Jerusalem and disorganized the Jewish commonwealth. The illustration applies also to individuals in general. Those who “stumble at the word” (1Pe 2:8) will be offended in this world, and at the judgment they will be crushed by the weight of Christ’s authority and sent into eternal ruin in the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mat 25:46).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
[And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, etc.] here is a plain allusion to the manner of stoning, concerning which thus Sanhedrim; “The place of stoning was twice as high as a man. From the top of this, one of the witnesses striking him on his loins felled him to the ground: if he died of this, well; if not, the other witness threw a stone upon his heart,” etc. “R. Simeon Ben Eleazar saith, There was a stone there as much as two could carry: this they threw upon his heart.”
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 21:44. And he that falleth on this stone, i.e., the corner-stone, Christ (Mat 21:42). This verse expands the clause: He will miserably destroy these miserable men, adding the thought that Christ Himself is the Judge, whose coming will result in a twofold punishment.
Will be broken. Probably a reference to Isa 8:14-15. He who runs against or falls over the cornerstone, making Christ a spiritual offence or stumbling-block (comp. 1Pe 2:8), will be bruised. This is the punishment of the active enemy of the passive Christ.
And whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as chaff. When Christ is the active Judge this utter destruction will be the full punishment of His enemies. Repentance may intervene and avert this final result. There is a reference hire to Dan 2:34-35; Dan 2:44, the stone in that prophecy being identified with that mentioned in Psalms 118, Isaiah 8, and with Christ Himself. In addition to the striking fulfilment in the case of the Jewish rulers, there is an obvious application to all who oppose Christ, who take offence at Him as the corner-stone.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
These words are taken out of Psa 118:22, which the Jews understood to be a prophecy of the Messiah, and accordingly Christ appliest them to himself. The church is the building intended, Christ himself the stone rejected; the rejecters, or the builders rejecting, were the heads of the Jewish church; that is, the chief priests and Pharisees.
God, the great master-builder of his church, takes this precious foundation-stone out of the rubbish, and sets it in the head of the corner. Nevertheless there are those who stumble at this stone. Some through ignorance, others through malice, stumble at his person, at his doctrine, at his institutions: these shall be broken in pieces: but on whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
That is, Christ himself will fall as a burdensome stone upon all those that knowingly and maliciously oppose him; and particularly upon the Jews, who not only rejected him, but persecuted and destroyed him. Thus Christ tells the chief priests and Pharisees their own particular doom, and also declares what will be the fatal issue of all that opposition which is made against himself and his church. It will terminate in their inevitable and irreparable destruction.
Whosever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken; and on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
That is, “He that stumbles on this stone, while Christ is here on earth, being offended at his doctrine, life, and miracles, shall be broken by his fall upon it; as the person stoned is by the sharp stone which he falls upon. But he on whom this stone shall fall, when Christ is elevated to his throne of glory, shall be more violently shattered by it, as is the person stoned, by the great stone as big as two men can lift, thrown down violently upon his breast.”
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Mat 21:44-46. Whosoever shall fall on this stone Which the builders have rejected, but which God will make the head of the corner; that is, whosoever shall stumble at me and my doctrine, while I am here on earth in this humble form; shall be broken Shall receive much damage. This is spoken in allusion to a person stumbling on a stone, thrown aside as useless; but on whomsoever it shall fall When raised up to the head of the corner; it will grind him to powder Like a brittle potsherd, crushed by the weight of some huge stone falling upon it from on high. So whosoever shall oppose me, after my exaltation to glory, and the outpouring of my Spirit, for the full revelation of my gospel, and proof of my mission, he will bring upon himself aggravated guilt, and dreadful, unavoidable destruction. Dr. Whitby thinks, that there is an allusion in these words to the two different ways of stoning among the Jews; the former by throwing a person down upon a great stone, and the other by letting a stone fall upon him. But it seems more probable that the allusion is to Dan 2:34; where the destruction of all the opposers of the Messiahs kingdom is described in terms partly similar. See the notes there. The chief priests, perceiving the drift of our Lords parables, were highly incensed, and would gladly have apprehended him to punish him that moment, but they durst not. It is true, they were not afraid of God, who is the avenger of such crimes, but they were afraid of the people, who constantly crowded around Jesus in the temple, and had openly acknowledged him as their Messiah. Macknight.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 44
The two clauses of this verse constitute a sort of parallelism; and we are not to look for a distinction in the meaning of them. Both clauses express the idea that whoever sets himself in opposition to the cause of Christ only insures his own utter and remediless destruction.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
21:44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will {b} grind him to powder.
(b) As chaff used to be scattered with the wind, for he uses a word which properly signifies separating the chaff from the corn with winnowing, and to scatter it abroad.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The capstone, the top stone on a wall or parapet around a flat-roofed building, could and did become a stumbling block to some. Many Jews similarly tripped over Jesus’ identity and plunged to their destruction. Likewise a capstone could fall on someone below and crush him or her. These are allusions to Isa 8:14-15 and Dan 2:35; Dan 2:44-45. Jesus was a dangerous person as well as God’s chosen representative and the occupier of God’s choice position in His building, Israel. Jesus was claiming to be the Judge; He would crush those on whom He fell.