Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 8:37

Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

37. in exchange ] i. e. to purchase back. By soul here is meant “life” in the higher sense. The “price” which the earthly-minded man gives for the world is his soul. But after having laid that down as the price, what has he for a “ransom-price,” to purchase it again? The LXX. use the original word in Rth 4:7; Jer 15:13.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mar 8:37

Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

The folly of setting the heart on things below, and not on things above

No ransom can purchase life. You may remember, as I do, the dying hours of a monarch who emphatically lived to pamper the flesh, to serve lusts and pleasures, but not for God or his fellow men. When he knew the fatal hour was approaching, he said to the medical men about him, Oh, I would give any sum you name, if you would but give me another year of life. But it was of no use. They could not; they could but shake their heads and tell him that One only could give life, and when He saw fit He would take it away-God, even God. There is nothing in this world that a man can find, which will bribe death to stop away. Kings die, and their sceptre and crown roll in the dust, Philosophers succumb, and all their busy chambers of the brain, which have been occupied by deep researches, become occupied by the worms of the earth. The young man, glorying in his beauty and strength, succumbs to death, and his sun sets at noonday. And the pretty babe, which is just opening like a bud in all its infantine beauty-ah, how often does death lay its cold hand on that! There is no conceivable thing capable of saving a man, woman, or child, whom God has appointed to die. By the question in the text, our Lord means this; and He means more than this. He refers also to the life of the world to come. What ransom shall a man give for that life? There is such a ransom. There is One who has found a ransom. It is Jesus. He is the life of the world. He that hath the Son hath life. Have you found this ransom? (R. W. Dibdin, M. A.)

The souls ransom

What is the world, but the means of having food and raiment and ease, in greater variety and abundance than others have them-a distinction which, if viewed narrowly, is not worth half the pains and labour by which only it can be obtained. But what is the sold? It is the immortal and everlasting principle of all thought and feeling in mans nature-the subject in which abide all hope and fear, all joy and sorrow, all happiness and all misery. It is that part of our intellectual frame which cannot die, forget, cease to be conscious, or fly from itself; but which lives forever, either beloved and cherished by its Almighty Creator, or expelled from His presence in horror and despair. If threescore years and ten were to bring it to an end, and make all its thoughts perish; if, after death, there were no judgment; if the worm of remorse were to become extinct on the bed where the last breath goes forth, and to cease its gnawings with the mortal pains of the body,-then might we hesitate between the interests of the present and the future, and adopt the maxim of the atheist, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. But, as these things cannot be; as the soul, which sinneth and repenteth not, has to die a death which will never be completed, a death of horror and despair, of which the sighs and agony and groaning ascend up perpetually; the question which should now interest us the most is, What shall we give in exchange for our souls? We must, in the first place, present before God, on the altar of faith, the Atonement which He Himself has provided, the sole procuring cause of human salvation; we must offer up to Him a broken and contrite heart, weaned from the world, and devoted to His service; we must solicit His mercy with the tears of penitence and vows of reformation, entreating that His grace may be sufficient for us, and His strength made perfect in our weakness;-and these are the things which the Lord will accept in exchange for our souls. (Bp. Russell.)

Incomputable value of the soul

What would a man not give? If he had the whole world, would he not willingly give it, provided he really knew, believed, or felt, that otherwise he would be utterly lost? King Richard, in Shakespeare, says, My kingdom for a horse! How many kingdoms would be surrendered-if man were not utterly infatuated-for the safety of the soul? The Saviour has gone forward in thought, and takes His standpoint in eternity. It is from that standpoint that He puts His question. It is implied that the time will come, in the experience of the persistently infatuated, when kingdom upon kingdom-were they available-would be an insufficient exchange for the soul. (J. Morison, D. D.)

Nothing can compensate for loss of soul

I was called upon, says an American clergyman, some years ago, to visit an individual, a part of whose face had been eaten away by a most loathsome cancer. Fixing my eyes on this man in his agony, I said, Supposing that Almighty God were to give you your choice, which would you prefer, your cancer, your pain, and your sufferings, with a certainty of death before you, but of immortality hereafter; or health, prosperity, long life in this world, and the risk of losing your immortal soul? Ah, sir! said the man, give me the cancer and the pain, with the Bible and the hope of heaven, and others may take the world, long life, and prosperity.

Gain cannot satisfy the heart

Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, a pious minister, mentions the case of a rich man who, when he lay on his death bed, called for his bags of money; and, having laid a bag of gold to his heart, after a little he bade them take it away, saying, It will not do; it will not do.

Exchange for his soul-Cost of an estate

What is the value of this estate? said a gentleman to another with whom he was riding, as they passed a fine mansion surrounded by fair and fertile fields. I dont know what it is valued at; I know what it cost its late possessor. How much? His soul, Early in life, he professed faith in Christ, and obtained a subordinate position in a mercantile establishment. He continued to maintain a reputable religious profession, till he became a partner in the firm. Then he gave less attention to religion, and more and more to business; and the care of this world choked the Word. He became exceedingly rich in money, but so poor and miserly in soul, that none would have suspected he had ever been religious. At length he purchased this large estate, built a costly mansion, and then sickened and died. Just before he died, he remarked, My prosperity has been my ruin!

No satisfaction from the world at death

The dying tell us that earthly possessions cannot satisfy us in death. Philip II of Spain cried, O would God I had never reigned! O that I had lived alone with God! What doth all my glory profit, but that I have so much the more torment in death. Albert the Good said, I am surrounded with wealth and rank, but if I trusted only to them, I should be a miserable man. Salmasius declared, I have lost a world of time. Oh, sirs! mind the world less, and God more. Bunsen exclaimed, My riches and experience is having known Jesus Christ. All the rest is nothing.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?] To deliver it out of its miserable state and condition; all the riches of the world, and the whole world itself, are not an equivalent to it, or a sufficient ransom for it; riches will not profit in the day of wrath, or deliver a soul from damnation, and ruin: wherefore, if he had the whole world, he could not redeem his soul with it; and he has nothing else to give for it, and therefore it is past all recovery: [See comments on Mt 16:26].

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

1) “Or what shall a man give,” (ti gar doi anthropos) “For just what might a man give, or dole out,” that would be an acceptable exchange or ransom; for really “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” and men who pass through life, using the earth and all of its possessions for self alone, use them as a pirate or embezzler, giving not God his soul or life’s service, come to the end of life empty handed, a rebel against God and dies an enemy to God, Joh 8:24; Heb 9:27.

2) “In exchange for his soul?” (antallagma tes psuches autou) “As an exchange (for the value) of his soul-life?” The rich man in hell had nothing to give for his soul; Once one’s soul is lost in death, it is lost forever, eternally! If men respond not to the message they now have and hear, after death, it will be too late! Pro 1:20-28; Luk 16:30-31.

LOST IN SEEKING FOR GAIN

One summer afternoon, a steamer crowded with passengers, many of them miners from California, was speeding along the Mississippi. Striking suddenly and strongly against the wreck of another vessel which, unknown to the captain, lay near the surface of the water, her bow was stove in, and she began to fill rapidly. Her deck was a scene of wild confusion. Her boats were launched, but did not suffice to carry off one-fourth of the terrified passengers. The rest, divesting themselves of their garments, cast themselves into the river, some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship; and so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. Some minutes after the vessel, another man appeared on the deck. Seizing a spar, he also leaped into the river, but instead of floating as the others had done, he sank instantly as if he had been a stone. His body was afterwards recovered, and it was found that he had employed the quarter of an hour, in which his fellow passengers had been striving to save their lives, in rifling the trunks of the miners. All around his waist their bags of gold were fastened. In one short quarter of an hour he had gained more gold than most men earn in their lifetime; but was he advantaged thereby, seeing that he lost himself? Bib. Ill.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

‘Or what should a man give in exchange for his life?’

At what price, asks Jesus, will you value a man’s eternal future? If a man gains the whole world and loses true life he has made a bad bargain. So having the chance of life, how great is the price he should be willing to pay to obtain it? The Psalmist says, ‘the redemption of their soul is costly’ (Psa 49:8). What sacrifice then would be sufficient? The answer is that it is beyond price and therefore worth any sacrifice. And hearing Him they must determine whether they will pay that price by responding to the Kingly Rule of God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Ver. 37. Or, what shall a man give? ] See Trapp on “ Mat 16:26 “

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

37. ] If (see var. readd.) the words in brackets be omitted, the sense will be, For what can be an equivalent for his life?

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament