Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 21:46
But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
46. when they sought to lay hands on him ] The Sanhedrin aimed at two things: (1) to seize Jesus quickly, for the Passover (during which no hostile measures could be taken) was close at hand; and because Jesus might be expected to quit Jerusalem after the feast. (2) To seize Him apart from the people; for the Galilans would suffer no one to lay hands on their King and Prophet. Treachery alone enabled the Jews to secure their end.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 46. They sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude] Restraining and preventing grace is an excellent blessing, particularly where it leads to repentance and salvation; but he who abstains from certain evils, only through fear of scandal or punishment, has already committed them in his heart, and is guilty before God. The intrepidity of our Lord is worthy of admiration and imitation; in the very face of his most inveterate enemies, he bears a noble testimony to the truth, reproves their iniquities, denounces the Divine judgments, and, in the very teeth of destruction, braves danger and death! A true minister of Christ fears nothing but God, when his glory is concerned: a hireling fears every thing, except Him whom he ought to fear.
This last journey of our Lord to Jerusalem is a subject of great importance; it is mentioned by all the four evangelists, and has been a subject of criticism and cavil to some unsanctified minds. He has been accused of “attempting, by this method, to feel how far the populace were disposed to favour his pretensions in establishing himself as a king in the land; or, at least, by his conduct in this business, he gave much cause for popular seditions.” Every circumstance in the case refutes this calumny.
1. His whole conduct had proved that his kingdom was not of this world, and that he sought not the honour that cometh from man.
2. He had in a very explicit manner foretold his own premature death, and particularly at this time.
3. It is evident, from what he had said to his disciples, that he went up to Jerusalem at this time for the express purpose of being sacrificed, and not of erecting a secular kingdom.
4. What he did at this time was to fulfil a declaration of God delivered by two prophets, upwards of 700 years before, relative to his lowliness, poverty, and total deadness to all secular rule and pomp. See Isa 62:11; Zec 9:9.
5. All the time he spent now in Jerusalem, which was about five days, he spent in teaching, precisely in the same way he had done for three years past; nor do we find that he uttered one maxim dissimilar to what he formerly taught, or said a word calculated to produce any sensation on the hearts of the populace, but that of piety towards God; and in the parable of the man and his two sons, the husbandmen and the vineyard, he spoke in such a way to the rulers of the people as to show that he knew they were plotting his destruction; and that, far from fleeing from the face of danger, or strengthening his party against his enemies, he was come to wait at the foot of the altar till his blood should be poured out for the sin of the world!
6. Had he affected any thing of a secular kind, he had now the fairest opportunity to accomplish his designs. The people had already received him as Jesus the prophet; now they acknowledge him as the Christ or MESSIAH, and sing the hosannah to him, as immediately appointed by Heaven to be their deliverer.
7. Though, with the character of the Messiah, the Jews had connected that of secular royalty, and they now, by spreading their clothes in the way, strewing branches, c., treat him as a royal person, and one appointed to govern the kingdom yet of this he appears to take no notice, farther than to show that an important prophecy was thus fulfilled: he went as usual into the temple, taught the people pure and spiritual truths, withdrew at night from the city, lodged in private at Mount Olivet; and thus most studiously and unequivocally showed that his sole aim was to call the people back to purity and holiness, and prepare them for that kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which he was about, by his passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and the mission of the Holy Spirit, to set up in the earth.
8. Could a person who worked such miracles as he was in the daily habit of working-miracles which proved he possessed unlimited power and unerring wisdom, need subterfuges, or a colouring for any design he wished to accomplish? He had only to put forth that power essentially resident in himself, and all resistance to his will must be annihilated. In short, every circumstance of the case shows at once the calumny and absurdity of the charge. But, instead of lessening, or tendering suspicious this or any other part of our Lord’s conduct, it shows the whole in a more luminous and glorious point of view; and thus the wrath of man praises him.
9. That he was a king, that he was born of a woman and came into the world for this very purpose, he took every occasion to declare; but all these declarations showed that his kingdom was spiritual: he would not even interfere with the duty of the civil magistrate to induce an avaricious brother to do justice to the rest of the family, Lu 12:13, when probably a few words from such an authority would have been sufficient to have settled the business; yet to prevent all suspicion, and to remove every cause for offence, he absolutely refused to interfere, and took occasion from the very circumstance to declaim against secular views, covetousness, and worldly ambition! O how groundless does every part of his conduct prove this charge of secular ambition to be!
Such was the spirit of the Master: such must be the spirit of the disciple. He that will reign with Christ, must be humbled and suffer with him. This is the royal road. The love of the world, in its power and honours, is as inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel as the love of the grossest vice. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Reader, take occasion from this refuted calumny, to imitate thy Lord in the spirituality of his life, to pass through things temporal so as not to lose those that are eternal, that thou mayest reign with him in the glory of his kingdom. Amen.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
46. But when they sought to layhands on himwhich Luke (Lu20:19) says they did “the same hour,” hardly able torestrain their rage.
they feared themultituderather, “the multitudes.”
because they took him for aprophetjust as they feared to say John’s baptism was of men,because the masses took him for a prophet (Mt21:26). Miserable creatures! So, for this time, “they leftHim and went their way” (Mr12:12).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But when they sought to lay hands on him,…. Not that they attempted by any outward action to apprehend him, and carry him off, or by any immediate act of violence to take away his life; but they secretly wished, and earnestly desired to do it: they were so irritated and provoked, that they could scarcely keep their hands off of him, and could have been glad of an opportunity of satiating their revenge upon him: and whereby they would but have fulfilled what he in this parable had prophetically said of them: and yet so hardened were they, though they understood his meaning, they were not deterred thereby, but on another account:
they feared the multitude; which were now about Christ, lest there should be a tumult, and they should take the part of Christ against them, to which they seemed inclined; when their lives, had they attempted anything of this nature, would have been in a great deal of danger:
because they took him for a prophet; by the doctrines which he taught, by the boldness and freedom of speech he used, and by the miracles he wrought: wherefore, though they might not all of them believe that he was the Messiah, or that prophet Moses spoke of; yet, since it was exceeding manifest, that he was a teacher sent of God, and endowed with very wonderful gifts; and from whom many of them had received singular benefits, if not for their souls, yet for their bodies; being healed by him of their lameness, or blindness, or other diseases; therefore would not suffer him to be abused, and ill treated by them: so that, as Mark says, “they left him, and went their way”; to consult together what was proper to be done, and wait for a better opportunity to seize him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Took him (). Descriptive imperfect of , to hold. This fear of the people was all that stayed the hands of the rabbis on this occasion. Murderous rage was in their hearts towards Jesus. People do not always grasp the application of sermons to themselves.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
(46) When they sought to lay hands.We must remember that they had once before made a like attempt, and had been baffled (Joh. 7:44-46). Now circumstances were even more against them. The Prophet was surrounded by His own disciples, and by an admiring crowd. Open violence they did not dare to venture on, and they had to fall back upon the more crooked paths of stratagem and treachery.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
46. They feared the multitude During all his quiet teachings in the temple during the Passion Week, and under his most terrible rebukes, they are, as it were, spell-bound, and unable to lift a hand against him until his work is done. They took him for a prophet As the conscience of the common people was in favour of John the Baptist, so now was it so far on the side of Christ as to receive him, not indeed as the Son, but as a messenger to the vineyard.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And when they sought to lay hold on him, they feared the crowds, because they took him for a prophet.’
But their plans to arrest Him were shelved because they recognised that the people saw Jesus as a prophet, and that if they moved against Him they could cause a riot.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
REFLECTIONS
Pause, my soul, over this view of thy Redeemer! Did the Prophet, ages before Christ was born, call upon Zion to rejoice greatly, and Jerusalem to shout aloud, because her king was coming to her, meek and lowly, and having salvation; and did the Son of God, in his character as King of Zion, actually make his entry in the very manner the Prophet described; and did all those effects follow in confirmation of the glorious truth? And wilt not thou, my soul, join the heavenly Hosannas, and sing aloud, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest!
And is it one and the same person who is here described as hungry, and needing the common sustenance to support nature, yea looking to a fig-tree to supply a pressing occasion? Oh! precious Jesus! how sweetly accommodating is thy lovely example, to the wants and indeed behoove exercises of thy people? Yes! thou dear Lord, it, did thee to be made like unto thy brethren, that thou mightest be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God. And having suffered being tempted, thou, knowest how to succor them that are tempted.
Lord! give thy people grace to see, that, while unawakened, unregenerate sinners, like those husbandmen in the parable, though living in thy Church, and outwardly feasting upon the good things of thy vineyard, have no inward joy or communion with the Lord of his vineyard, there are those redeemed of the Lord whose right it is in Christ, and who will finally be brought home to the joy of their Lord; while those miserable men will ultimately be destroyed, and have their portion with hypocrites in outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
Ver. 46. But when they sought to lay hands on him ] And so showed themselves to be the same our Saviour spake of, Mat 21:39 ; Mat 21:42 . As the pope and his emissaries do well approve themselves to be that false prophet, and his locusts, set forth in the Revelation. Their daily practice is a dear commentary upon that obscure prophecy, which the ancient Fathers, that lived not to see it fulfilled, could not tell what to say to. Future things are best understood by their events.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
multitude = crowds.
took Him, &c. = were holding Him as a prophet.
for. Greek = as; but all the texts read “eis” = for.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
they sought: 2Sa 12:7-13, Pro 9:7-9, Pro 15:12, Isa 29:1, Joh 7:7
because: Mat 21:11, Luk 7:16, Luk 7:39, Joh 7:40, Joh 7:41, Act 2:22
Reciprocal: Psa 21:11 – imagined Mat 21:26 – we fear Mat 26:3 – assembled Mar 11:18 – and Mar 11:32 – they Mar 12:12 – feared Mar 12:37 – And the Luk 20:6 – all Luk 20:19 – the same Luk 22:2 – General Luk 22:53 – I was Joh 7:12 – some Act 4:21 – how Act 16:38 – and they Heb 12:3 – contradiction
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1:46
Sought to lay hands means they tried to think of some way they could use to overpower Jesus. Feared the multitude is to be understood in the same light as was their fear over John the Baptist in the 26th verse.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
21:46 {9} But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
(9) The wicked can do nothing but what God wills.