35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Lend, expecting nothing again. It is a mistake to confine this statement to usury, as if Christ only forbade his people to be usurers. The preceding part of the discourse shows clearly, that it has a wider reference. After having explained what wicked men are wont to do, -- to love their friends, -- to assist those from whom they expect some compensations, -- to lend to persons like themselves, that they may afterwards receive the like from them, -- Christ proceeds to show how much more he demands from his people, -- to love their enemies, to show disinterested kindness, to lend without expecting a return. We now see, that the word nothing is improperly explained as referring to usury, or to any interest that is added to the principal: [1] whereas Christ only exhorts us to perform our duties freely, and tells us that mercenary acts are of no account in the sight of God. [2] Not that he absolutely condemns all acts of kindness which are done in the hope of a reward; but he shows that they are of no weight as a testimony of charity; because he alone is truly beneficent to his neighbors, who is led to assist them without any regard to his own advantage, but looks only to the necessities of each. Whether it is ever lawful for Christians to derive profit from lending money, I shall not argue at greater length under this passage, lest I should seem to raise the question unseasonably out of a false meaning which I have now refuted. Christ's meaning, as I have already explained, is simply this: When believers lend, they ought to go beyond heathens; or, in other words, they ought to exercise pure liberality. Luke says, and you shall be the children of the Highest. Not that any man acquires this honor for himself, or begins to be a child of God, when he loves his enemies; but because, when it is intended to excite us to do what is right, Scripture frequently employs this manner of speaking, and represents as a reward the free gifts of God. The reason is, he looks at the design of our calling, which is, that, in consequence of the likeness of God having been formed anew in us, we may live a devout and holy life. He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. He quotes two instances of the divine kindness toward us, which are not only well known to us, but common to all: and this very participation excites us the more powerfully to act in a similar manner towards each other, though, by a synecdoche, he includes a vast number of other favors.
1 - "De l'usure et accroissement qui vient outre le principal;" -- "of usury and increase which comes beyond the principal." On the lawfulnesss of lending money at interest, the most enlightened men, at the time when our author wrote, were strangley divded in sentiment. His own views were unfolded in a small work, which has been admired by competent judges for the purity of French style, and for enlarged views of Political Economy. After suffering not a little obloquy for his manner of applying the law of God to commercial questions, he has been vindicated by the unanimous opinion of posterity; and his performance, having served its purpose, has been quietly laid on the shelf. We allude to it only to account for the rapid and cursory manner in which he disposes here of a question, on which all who wish to know his opinions may satisfy themselves by perusing his own complete and elaborate statement of the argument. -- Ed.
2 - "Que les plaisirs lesquels les hommes se font les uns aux autres, sous esperance de recompense, ne viennent point en conte devant Dieu." -- "That the gratifications which men give to each other, in expectation of reward, come not into reckoning before God."
Love ye your enemies - This is the most sublime precept ever delivered to man: a false religion durst not give a precept of this nature, because, with out supernatural influence, it must be for ever impracticable. In these words of our blessed Lord we see the tenderness, sincerity, extent, disinterestedness, pattern, and issue of the love of God dwelling in man: a religion which has for its foundation the union of God and man in the same person, and the death of this august being for his enemies; which consists on earth in a reconciliation of the Creator with his creatures, and which is to subsist in heaven only in the union of the members with the head: could such a religion as this ever tolerate hatred in the soul of man, even to his most inveterate foe?
Lend, hoping for nothing again - Μηδεν απελπιζοντες. The rabbins say, he who lends without usury, God shall consider him as having observed every precept. Bishop Pearce thinks that, instead of μηδεν we should read μηδενα with the Syriac, later Arabic, and later Persic; and as απελπιζειν signifies to despair, or cause to despair, the meaning is, not cutting off the hope (of longer life) of any man, neminis spem amputantes, by denying him those things which he requests now to preserve him from perishing.
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, (h) hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and [to] the evil.
(h) When you will lend, do it only to benefit and please with it, and not with the hope of receiving the principal again.
But love ye your enemies,.... As before urged in Luke 6:27
and do good and lend; not to your friends only, but to your enemies;
hoping for nothing again; either principal or interest, despairing of seeing either; lending to such persons, from whom, in all appearance, it is never to be expected again. The Persic version renders it, "that ye may not cause any to despair": and the Syriac version, "that ye may not cut off", or "cause to cease the hope of men"; and the Arabic version, "that ye do not deceive the hope of any" that is, by sending such away, without lending to them, who come big with expectations of succeeding:
and your reward shall be great: God will bless you in your worldly substance here, and will not forget your beneficence hereafter:
and ye shall be the children of the Highest: that is of God; one of whose names is "the Most High"; Psalm 82:6 the meaning is, that such who from principles of grace, and with right views do such acts of kindness and beneficence to their fellow creatures and Christians, shall be, made manifest, and declared to be the children of God; since they will appear to be born of him, and made partakers of the divine nature, and bear a resemblance to him, by their imitating him:
for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil; by causing his sun to rise, and his rain to fall on them, as on the righteous and the good; for as Jews (w) observe,
"there is no difference with him, whether on the right hand or the left; for he is gracious, and does good, even to the ungodly.''
And elsewhere they say (x), that
"he does good, and feeds the righteous and the ungodly.''
(w) R. Abraham ben Dior in Sepher Jetzira, p. 19. (x) Zohar in Exod. fol. 69. 2, 3.
*More commentary available at chapter level.