And he said unto them,.... To his disciples, as the Ethiopic version reads; though the Syriac and Persic versions read, "and Jesus said to him"; that is, to Peter; he particularly replied to him:
verily I say unto you, there is no man: not only you shall have peculiar honour done you, as to sit on thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel; but there is not a single person of a more private character,
that hath left house, or "houses", as read the Syriac and Persic versions;
or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake: that is, for Christ's sake, and for the sake of his Gospel, as the other evangelists have it; and which teaches us how to understand the kingdom of God here, and elsewhere.