Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 6].
Evangelist or by Q to express an Aramaic original. The word
occurs also in three late MSS. after 2Macc. 1:8, \tous
epiousious\ after \tous artous\. The meaning, in view of the
kindred participle (\epious•i\) in Ac 16:12, seems to be "for
the coming day," a daily prayer for the needs of the next day as
every housekeeper understands like the housekeeping book
discovered by Debrunner.
6:12 {Our debts} (\ta opheil•mata h•m•n\). Luke (Lu 11:4) has
"sins" (\hamartias\). In the ancient Greek \opheil•ma\ is common
for actual legal debts as in Ro 4:4, but here it is used of
moral and spiritual debts to God. "Trespasses" is a
mistranslation made common by the Church of England Prayer Book.
It is correct in verse 14 in Christ's argument about prayer,
but it is not in the Model Prayer itself. See Mt 18:28,30 for
sin pictured again by Christ "as debt and the sinner as a debtor"
(Vincent). We are thus described as having wronged God. The word
\opheil•\ for moral obligation was once supposed to be peculiar
to the New Testament. But it is common in that sense in the
papyri (Deismann, _Bible Studies_, p. 221; _Light from the
Ancient East,_ New ed., p. 331). We ask forgiveness "in
proportion as" (\h•s\) we _also_ have forgiven those in debt to
us, a most solemn reflection. \Aph•kamen\ is one of the three k
aorists (\eth•ka, ed•ka, h•ka\). It means to send away, to
dismiss, to wipe off.
6:13 {And bring us not into temptation} (\kai m• eisenegk•is eis
peirasmon\). "Bring" or "lead" bothers many people. It seems to
present God as an active agent in subjecting us to temptation, a
thing specifically denied in Jas 1:13. The word here translated
"temptation" (\peirasmon\) means originally "trial" or "test" as
in Jas 1:2 and Vincent so takes it here. _Braid Scots_ has it:
"And lat us no be siftit." But God does test or sift us, though
he does not tempt us to evil. No one understood temptation so
well as Jesus for the devil tempted him by every avenue of
approach to all kinds of sin, but without success. In the Garden
of Gethsemane Jesus will say to Peter, James, and John: "Pray
that ye enter not into temptation" (Lu 22:40). That is the idea
here. Here we have a "Permissive imperative" as grammarians term
it. The idea is then: "Do not allow us to be led into
temptation." There is a way out (1Co 10:13), but it is a
terrible risk.
{From the evil one} (\apo tou pon•rou\). The ablative case in the
http://www.ccel.org/r/robertson_at/wordpictures/htm/MT6.RWP.html (4 of 9) [28/08/2004 09:03:00 a.m.]