Matthew 5:19-22 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

No doubt the Reader would wish to have a clear apprehension of the words Raca and Fool. The most acceptable service on these verses I can offer, will be to explain them. Raca, was a word used by the Jews to imply the utmost abhorrence, as if a man was spit upon, which was a mark of the greatest contempt among that people. For a man to call another Raca, was to call him a graceless wretch. But the word Fool, in the sense here intended, was, if possible, worse; for it implied one predestinated to everlasting misery; meaning a child of hell. Mt 23-28; Jude 1:25. Nothing can be. more proper than to have a just conception of those terms, and of the sense in which our Lord meant them. The word fool, when meaning a person dull or slow of understanding, totally differs from the word fool as here referred to by CHRIST. The LORD himself called his disciples fools in this sense, for their dullness of apprehension. Luke 24:25. And both Paul and James, his Apostles, did the same upon similar occasions. 1 Corinthians 15:36; Galatians 3:1; James 2:20. But the folly which implies a state of reprobation, is totally different from this weakness of the mind. Isaiah speaks of it, Isaiah 27:11. For it is a people of no understanding, meaning, to whom no grace is given. Not children of the kingdom, but the children of the wicked one; therefore he that made them, (saith the Prophet) will not have mercy upon them, and he that formed them will skew them no favour. In this sense, for any man to decide upon another, and say, thou fool! thou child of hell! is to endanger his Own state before God. The Lord Jesus, who knows the heart, and knows them that are his, might truly, as he did, tell some in his day, that they were of the generation of vipers, and who could not escape the damnation of hell. But none but the Great Searcher of Hearts can be qualified or authorized to do so. And it should seem that Moses incurred the displeasure of the Lord, for calling the Load's people Rebels, (which is a similar word to that of fool in this place), at the waters of Meribah. Numbers 20:10. beg 'to refer the Reader to my Poor-Man's Concordance, under the words Rebel and Rebels.