11th December  2022, Third Sunday of Advent

Matthew 11: 2-11

2 Ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης ἀκούσας ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, πέμψας δύο τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ

3 εἶπεν αὐτῷ· σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν;

4 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· πορευθέντες ἀπαγγείλατε ᾿Ιωάννῃ ἃ ἀκούετε καὶ βλέπετε·

5 τυφλοὶ ἀναβλέπουσι καὶ χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσι, λεπροὶ καθαρίζονται καὶ κωφοὶ ἀκούουσι, νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται καὶ πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται·

6 καὶ μακάριός ἐστιν ὃς ἐὰν μὴ σκανδαλισθῇ ἐν ἐμοί.

7 Τούτων δὲ πορευομένων ἤρξατο ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς λέγειν τοῖς ὄχλοις περὶ Ἰωάννου· τί ἐξήλθετε εἰς τὴν ἔρημον θεάσασθαι; Κάλαμον ὑπὸ ἀνέμου σαλευόμενον;

8 Ἀλλὰ τί ἐξήλθετε ἰδεῖν; Ἄνθρωπον ἐν μαλακοῖς ἱματίοις  ἠμφιεσμένον; Ἰδοὺ οἱ τὰ μαλακὰ φοροῦντες ἐν τοῖς οἴκοις τῶν βασιλέων εἰσίν.

9 Ἀλλὰ τί ἐξήλθετε ἰδεῖν; Προφήτην; Ναὶ λέγω ὑμῖν, καὶ περισσότερον προφήτου.

10 Οὗτος γάρ ἐστι περὶ οὗ γέγραπται· ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου ἔμπροσθέν σου.

11 ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐκ ἐγήγερται ἐν γεννητοῖς γυναικῶν μείζων Ἰωάννου τοῦ βαπτιστοῦ· ὁ δὲ μικρότερος ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν μείζων αὐτοῦ ἐστιν.

COMMENTS

[2] ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ : δεσμωτήριον (< δεσμεύω,  ‘I fetter, put in chains’, LSJ) is classical Greek for ‘prison’. One can image the Baptist bound and fettered (like Socrates on death row four centuries earlier).

[3] σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; : John’s two-pronged direct question, delivered to Christ by his (John’s) two courier disciples. First question, σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος:  σὺ is not strictly necessary, but because it is included, is emphatic: ‘Are YOU…?’

ὁ ἐρχόμενος:  present participle, ἔρχομαι, ‘I come’, so lit. ὁ ἐρχόμενος = ‘he who comes, is coming’. But in NT (as in modern) Greek the present tense can refer to a future event; so the meaning is  ‘he who will come, is to come’. If Christ is ‘he who is to come’, then messianic eschatology is being realised in the here-and-now of John’s life. See on v. 5 below.

ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν;: the disjunctive conjunction ἢ introduces the second, and weightier, possibility expressed as another question, ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; The latter verb is a deliberative subjunctive (< προσδοκάω, ῶ), ‘ or are we to wait for…’

ἕτερον:  acc. masc., the direct object of προσδοκῶμεν. The indefinite pronoun ἕτερος, ἑτέρα, ἕτερον is used to refer to the other of two persons or objects.

 [5] τυφλοὶ ἀναβλέπουσι καὶ χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσι, λεπροὶ καθαρίζονται καὶ κωφοὶ ἀκούουσι, νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται καὶ πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται·: Christ’s main answer to John’s questions is a string of six general assertions made up of three pairs of independent sentences in the present tense; each pair is interconnected by καί, e.g., τυφλοὶ ἀναβλέπουσι καὶ χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσι.  As EDNTGr notes (s.v. ἔρχομαι, p. 57), the double-barrelled question is ‘answered positively with a reference to the prophetic promises being fulfilled in Jesus (cf. Isa 29:18f.; 35:5f; 61:1)’.

ἀναβλέπουσι: ἀναβλέπω (<  ἀνά + βλέπω), lit., ‘look up’. In some cases, as here, the verb means ‘look up and see again’. The recovery of sight fulfils an OT eschatological promise (Isa 61: 5-7, etc.) according to EDNTG, s.v.  ἀναβλέπω, p. 76.

πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται: εὐαγγελίζονται is in the passive voice and means  ‘receive good news’ (cf. EDNTGr, s.v. εὐαγγελίζω, p. 69).  εὐαγγέλιον is first attested in Homer, Odyssey  14.152, etc. where it means ‘a reward for announcing good news that is proven true’.  In the Odyssey passage Odysseus, disguised as a beggar in Ithaka, tells a local swineherd that King Odysseus (taken for long dead) will soon return and that he (the supposed beggar) will therefore expect an εὐαγγέλιον for the news.

[7] ὃς ἐὰν μὴ  σκανδαλισθῇ ἐν ἐμοί: σκανδαλίζομαι, pass., means ‘ be offended’, ‘be outraged’ (M.). This is a relative conditional clause with an indefinite antecedent. It expresses a present general supposition (ἐὰν + subj.); the apodosis, or conclusion, is expressed in the present indicative, μακάριός ἐστιν. 

[9] καὶ περισσότερον προφήτου: ‘ one greater (masc.) than even (καὶ) a prophet’; προφήτου is a gen. of comparison.

[11] βαπτιστοῦ: βαπτιστής was specially coined from the verb βάπτω (‘I dip’, ‘I immerse’) to refer exclusively to St John (EDNTGr, s.v., p. 196). Βάπτω is first attested in Odyssey  9. 392 in the Cyclops episode, where it refers to dipping a red-hot iron axe in cold water.