Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 21:35
And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
35. beat one, and killed another, and stoned another ] See ch. Mat 23:35.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 35. Beat one] , took his skin off, flayed him: probably alluding to some who had been excessively scourged.
Killed another, &c.] Rid themselves of the true witnesses of God by a variety of persecutions.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
35. And the husbandmen took hisservants, and beat onesee Jer 37:15;Jer 38:6.
and killed anotherseeJer 26:20-23.
and stoned anothersee2Ch 24:21. Compare with thiswhole verse Mat 21:35; Mat 23:37,where our Lord reiterates these charges in the most melting strain.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the husbandmen took his servants,…. They seized and laid hold of them in a rude and violent manner: so far were they from treating these servants with respect, as they ought to have done; considering whose they were, from whom they came, and upon what account; and also so far from delivering to them the fruit due to their master, or excusing their inability to make a suitable return, as might be expected, they use them very roughly:
and beat one; either with the fist, as Jeremiah was struck by Pashur, the son of Immer, the priest, one of these husbandmen,
Jer 20:1 and as Micaiah was smitten on the cheek by Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, the false prophet, 2Ch 18:23 or with a scourge, and may refer to the punishment of beating with forty stripes, save one, by which the skin was flayed off; as the word here signifies; for some of these servants had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings,
Heb 11:36. And killed another; that is, with the sword. There were four kinds of death in the power of the sanhedrim, of which this is one, and what follows is another; and were these, stoning, burning, killing (i.e. beheading with the sword), and strangling: the manner of executing this punishment here expressed, was this:
“They cut off the person’s head , “with a sword”, in the manner the government orders it. R. Judah says, this is indecent (i.e. to cut off his head standing, they do not do so), but they put his head upon a block, and cut it off with an axe; they reply to him, there is no death more abominable than this x.”
So the prophets, in the time of Elijah, were killed with the sword,
1Ki 19:14 see also Da 11:33.
And stoned another; as they did Zechariah, 2Ch 24:21 and doubtless many others; since Jerusalem had the character of killing the prophets, and stoning them that were sent unto her, Mt 23:37 these seemed such that were stoned, but not killed; but as Mark says, were wounded in the head with the stones thrown at them, and shamefully handled, and sadly abused.
x Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 1, 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
They will reverence my son ( ). Second future passive from , to turn at, but used transitively here as though active or middle. It is the picture of turning with respect when one worthy of it appears.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
35. And wounded one, and killed another. Here Mark andLuke differ a little from Matthew ; for while Matthew mentions many servants, all of whom were ill-treated and insulted, and says that afterwards other servants were sent more numerous than the first, Mark and Luke mention but one at a time, as if the servants had been sent, not two or three together, but one after another. But though all the three Evangelists have the same object in view, namely, to show that the Jews will dare to act towards the Son in the same manner as they have repeatedly done towards the prophets, Matthew explains the matter more at large, namely, that God, by sending a multitude of prophets, contended with the malice of the priests. (45) Hence it appears how obstinate their malice was, for the correction of which no remedies were of any avail. (46)
(45) “ Que Dieu ne s’est point lassé pour la cruauté des sacrificateurs, d’envoyer des prophetes; mais les suscitant comme par troupes, a combatu contre leur malice;” — “That God did not, on account of the cruelty of the priests, fail to send prophets; but raising them up — as it were — in troops, fought against their malice.”
(46) “ Veu que tous les mayens et remedes que Dieu y a employez n’ont rien servi;” — “since all the means and remedies which God employed for it were of no avail.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(35) Beat one, and killed another.The language paints the general treatment of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, being the most conspicuous instances. The language of our Lord in Mat. 23:30; Mat. 23:34, not less than that of Heb. 11:37, implies that the prophets, as a class, had no light or easy task, and were called upon, one by one, to suffer persecution for the faithful exercise of their office.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
35. Beat killed stoned The word beat signifies literally, in the Greek, to flay or skin, which in this case is supposed to be done by beating. To stone signifies to stone to death, the Jewish mode of death for idolatry and blasphemy. Lev 22:22; Lev 24:16. We have then this climax: that the Jews abused, slew, and executed as enemies of God, the prophets whom God had sent.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
Ver. 35. Beat one, and killed another ] This is the world’s wages; this is the measure God’s ministers meet with from the sons of men; never have any, out of hell, suffered more than such. Persecution is, Evangelii genius, saith Calvin, the evil angel that dogs the Gospel at the heels. And, Praedicare nihil aliud est, quam devivare in se furorem, &c., saith Luther. To preach faithfully is to get the ill will of all the world, and to subject a man’s self to all kind of deaths and dangers.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 21:35 . ., etc. The husbandmen treat the messengers in the most barbarous and truculent manner: beating, killing, stoning to death; highly improbable in the natural sphere, but another instance in which parables have to violate natural probability in order to describe truly men’s conduct in the spiritual sphere. On Kypke re-remarks: the verb for verberare is so rare in profane writers that some have thought that for should be read , from .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
beat one, &c. = one they beat, and one they killed, and one they stoned.
and. Note the Figure of speech Polysyndeton, App-6.
another = one.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 21:35. , they beat) The LXX. generally put , to skin off, only once , to skin, for the Hebrew in the sense of to flay. They never use the verb otherwise. The Old Vocabulary renders the Latin excorio (to skin) by the Greek, . But signifies to beat in Arrian, B. iii., and Epictetus, ch. xix. and xxii. Whence Suidas and Favorinus draw a clear distinction between the two verbs, and . Hesychius also renders by , and by , which he further explains by , they flayed. Old glosses, however, render by , to beat: and Aristophanes, in the Wasps (ed. Dindorf, 485), says, , I have indeed determined to be beaten, and to beat all the day long,-where the Scholiast says, and are for (to be beaten). In fact, the verbs, (to capitate), (to jugulate), (to stomachize), and thus also (to skin or hide), have a wide signification, implying the infliction of injury on the head, throat, stomach, or skin respectively, either by removing them altogether, or else by striking them. The desire to avoid ambiguity induced the later Greeks to write either or , and thence, in this passage, .[937]
[937] So the uncial Cod. U, etc.-ED.
–, beat-slew-stoned) An ascending climax, in which the third degree is an atrocious species of the second; cf. Mar 12:3-4, and Luk 20:10-12, where a greater number of intermediate degrees occurs.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Mat 5:12, Mat 23:31-37, 1Ki 18:4, 1Ki 18:13, 1Ki 19:2, 1Ki 19:10, 1Ki 22:24, 2Ch 16:10, 2Ch 24:21, 2Ch 24:22, 2Ch 36:15, 2Ch 36:16, Neh 9:26, Jer 2:30, Jer 25:3-7, Jer 26:21-24, Luk 13:33, Luk 13:34, Act 7:52, 1Th 2:15, 1Th 2:16, Heb 11:36, Heb 11:37, Rev 6:9
Reciprocal: Jer 11:21 – thou Jer 20:2 – smote Jer 26:8 – the priests Jer 37:15 – the princes Eze 34:4 – but with Mat 14:10 – and beheaded Mat 22:6 – the remnant Mat 23:30 – the blood Mat 23:33 – serpents Mat 23:37 – thou Mar 12:5 – and him Luk 3:20 – General Luk 6:23 – for in Luk 11:48 – for Joh 10:31 – General 2Co 11:25 – once Rev 16:6 – they have
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
5-36
This refers to the mistreatment that the Jews showed to the prophets and other righteous teachers who were sent among them by the Lord.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
[Beat; killed; stoned.] There seems to be an allusion to the punishments and manners of death in the council: 1. Beat, which properly signifies the flaying off of the skin; is not amiss rendered by interpreters beat; and the word seems to related to whipping where forty stripes save one did miserably flay off the skin of the poor man…2. Killed; signifies a death by the sword…Four kinds of death are delivered to the Sanhedrim, stoning, burning, killing, and strangling.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 21:35. Took his servants, and heat one, etc. The maltreatment of the servants appears in the history of the prophets (Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah); comp. Neh 9:26; Mat 23:29-31; Mat 23:34; Mat 23:37; 1Th 2:15; Heb 11:36-38; Rev 16:6; Rev 18:24. Gods messengers have often suffered since at the hands of the official personages in the external Church.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Israel’s leaders had beaten and killed various prophets (cf. 1Ki 18:4; 1Ki 18:13; 1Ki 22:24; 2Ch 24:21-22; Jer 20:1-2; Jer 26:20-23; Jer 37:15). Sending his son might seem foolhardy in view of the tenants’ former behavior. [Note: Lenski, p. 835.] However this act showed the landowner’s patience and his hope that the tenants would respond properly to the representative with the greatest authority.
"The contrast is between what men would do and what God had done." [Note: Walvoord, Matthew: . . ., p. 162.]