Matthew 12:25,26 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And Jesus knew their thoughts, &c.— It frequently happens that, through ignorance or weakness, men form wrong judgments of things; a misfortune which, because it necessarily springs from the imperfection of human nature, does not deserve the very harshest censure; but when wrong judgments proceed from evil dispositions, they become highly culpable: therefore, to shew that the judgment which the Pharisees passed at this time upon our Lord's miracles was of the latter kind, the Evangelist observes, that Jesus knew their thoughts; knew that the wickedness of their hearts, and not the weakness of their understandings, had led them to form the opinion they had uttered, if it was their real opinion; or rather to affirm it contrary to their conviction; which was the reason that at the conclusion of his defence he reprimanded them in the sharpest manner. Accordingly, addressing himself both to them and the people, he demonstrated the absurdity of their calumny, by an argument drawn from the common affairs of life:Every kingdom, &c. as much as to say,"If evil spirits assist me in working miracles for the confirmation of mydoctrine, they do what they can to promote the spiritual worship and ardent love of the true God, and as effectually as possible excite men to the practice of universal justice, benevolence, temperance,andself-government;allthesevirtuesbeingpowerfullyrecommendedby my doctrine. But thus to make the evil spirits fight against themselves, is evidently to make them ruin their own interest; unless it can be thought that the strength and welfare of a society is advanced by jarring discord, and destructive civil wars: your judgment, therefore, of my conduct,is palpably malicious and absurd. This answer of our Lord's demonstratively proves, that Beelzebub and Satan are names of the same person; and consequently that Satan was considered as the prince of those demons who were cast out by Christ, and who are elsewhere represented as his angels, It may not be improper to add here, that the Jewish rabbis call every demon by the name of Satan, and often use the name in the plural number. So they call Sammael (which is but another name for Beelzebub) the head or prince of all the Satans." See Casaubon on the place, and Archbishop Tillotson's Sermons, vol. 3: p. 545.