Matthew 12:34-37 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

O generation of vipers, &c.— Without attending to the context, and our Saviour's general argument, which he is here closely pursuing, interpreters have been strangely perplexed with the phrase every idle word, in Matthew 12:36., which many of them have considered as a distinct and separate injunction; whereas it is closely connected with that calumnious and blasphemous way of speaking, proceeding out of an evil heart, which our Saviour is so sharply condemning in the Pharisees. He declares that the atrociousness of the blasphemyagainst the Holy Spirit is not lessened by its being a sin committed in words; the reason whereof is obvious: words are only the dress of thought; they express the dispositions of men's hearts, and consequently partake of the nature of those dispositions; on which account we shall be rewarded or punished for our words as well as for our actions. The malicious and blasphemous heart discovers its malignity by malicious and blasphemous words, and those are the idle or wicked words whereof our Saviour here speaks, as the context indisputably proves. The editors of the Prussian testament have observed very well, that the LXX, whose style the apostles generally make use of, render the Hebrew word שׁקר sheker, which signifies falsehood, reviling, calumny,—by vain, or unprofitable. Compare the Hebrew with the LXX, Exodus 5:9. Hosea 12:1.Micah 1:14. Habakkuk 2:3 and see Ephesians 5:6. Now it is manifest from Matthew 12:31-32 that our Saviour is not speaking here of idle or impertinent, but of false, reviling, and blasphemous words. For this reason some manuscripts read πονηρον, wicked, and thus St. Chrysostom understood it. To what these editors observe, we may add, that the word idle was used formerly, and perhaps at the time when our translation was made, to convey the idea of wicked; for though we read now in the first verse of the first psalm of Sternhold's version, to wicked wight his ear, in some ancient copies it is, to idle wight. But God forbid, that any thing should drop from my pen, which might in the least measure contribute to injure the cause of holiness. I am perfectly conscious, from a thousand texts, as well as from the universal tenor of the word of God, that the whole of religion consists in living in the presence and to the glory of God in all well-pleasing, which includes the whole man, the whole life, and consequently the whole of our conversation; and that every thing we are, and speak and do, has a constant and immediate reference to our eternal state. But as an honest and faithful Commentator, Imust candidly and without reserve give the meaning of every passage in the word of God, agreeably to the context, and to the best of my judgment, united with the best light I can draw from other genuine Commentators. See James 1:26 and the whole of James, ch. 3: where the general subject of our words and conversation will be considered at large, to the full satisfaction, I trust, of every pious reader.