Matthew 3:16 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The heavens were opened unto him— That is to say, to John; to whose view, as well as to that of the Saviour, this wonderful vision was presented. St. Mark has so expressed it, as plainly to refer the seeing it to Christ; and John the Baptist has in another place assured us, that he saw it, and took particular notice of it, as the sign he was directed to observe, as the distinguishing characteristic of the Messiah. See John 1:32; John 1:34. The Greek word ευθυς, rendered straightway in our version, denotes the immediate opening of the heavens after our Lord's baptism. See Blackwall's Sacred Classics, vol. 1: p. 89. The Spirit of God is said here to have descended like a dove: in St. Luke it is added, σωματικω ειδει, in a corporeal form; a phrase which might have been used with propriety, though there had not been, as is generally supposed, any appearance of the shape of the animal here mentioned, but only a lambent flame falling from heaven, with a hovering, dove-like motion, which Dr. Scott and others suppose to have been all. But Justin Martyr says expressly, that it was in the form of a dove; adding that all Jordan shone with the reflection of the light; and Jerome calls it, the appearance of a dove. It resembled a dove, says Wetstein, both in appearance and flight. See Hammond, and Whit