Matthew Chapter 16 verse 23 Holy Bible

Matthew 16 : 23 Bible Verse Songs

• Song of Deliverance by Zach Williams

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 23. - He turned. Peter and the rest were following Christ, as he walked onward. Now Jesus stops, turns, and faces them. Get thee behind me, Satan. Jesus uses nearly the same words in rebuking Peter that he had used to the devil in his temptation (Matthew 4:10); and justly, because the apostle was acting the adversary's part, by opposing the Divine economy, and endeavouring to persuade Jesus that the way he proposed was wholly unnecessary. The lively stone has became a very Satan in opposing the Divine will; hence the sharpness of the rebuke administered to him. An offence unto me (σκάνδαλον ἐμοῦ); my stumbling block. Petros, the stone, to maintain the metaphor, is now "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence" (1 Peter 2:8). He stood in the Saviour's way, and impeded his onward progress in the course ordained. He who would turn him aside from Calvary is the enemy of man's salvation, which was to be won there. Thou savourest (φρονεῖς) not; mindest not (as Romans 8:5); thy taste is not for the Divine plans, but for human considerations; thou art not promoting the great purpose of God, but worldliness and self-pleasing. "Peter," says St. Chrysostom, "examining the matter by human and earthly reasoning, accounted it disgraceful to him [Christ] and an unmeet thing. Touching him therefore sharply, he saith, 'My Passion is not an unmeet thing, but thou givest this sentence with a carnal mind; whereas if thou hadst hearkened to my sayings in a godly manner, disengaging thyself from thy carnal understanding, thou wouldst know that this of all things most becometh me. For thou indeed supposest that to suffer is unworthy of me; but I say unto thee, that for me not to suffer is of the devil's mind;' by the contrary statements repressing his alarm" (Oxford transl.).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(23) He turned, and said to Peter.--St. Mark adds, significantly, "when He had turned about and looked on His disciples." They, we may believe, stood behind, watching the effect of the remonstrance which Peter had uttered as their spokesman, and therefore, the Lord reading their thoughts, the rebuke, though addressed to him, was spoken so that they too might hear.Get thee behind me, Satan.--The sharpness of the words indicates a strong and intense emotion. The chief of the Apostles was addressed in the self-same terms as those which had been spoken to the Tempter (see Note on Matthew 4:10). It was, indeed, nothing less than a renewal of the same temptation. In this suggestion, that He might gain the crown without the cross, and attain a kingdom of this world as the princes of the world obtain their kingdoms, the Christ saw the recurrence of the temptation which had offered Him the glory of those kingdoms on condition of His drawing back from the path which the Father had appointed for Him, with the associations that had gathered round its original.Thou art an offence unto me.--The Greek word is, of course, to be taken as meaning a stumbling block, an impediment. So taken, it presents a suggestive contrast to the previous promise. Peter is still a stone, but it is as "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" (Isaiah 8:14; 1Peter 2:8). He is hindering, not forwarding his Master's work. For one who loved his Lord as Peter did--his very love in this instance prompting the rash words--this was at once the sharpest and yet the tenderest, and therefore the most effective, rebuke that could have been uttered.Thou savourest not the things that be of God.--The verb, though found in all English versions from Wiclif downwards, and suggested by the sapis of the Vulgate, was never a very happy one, and is now so archaic as to be misleading. It may help us to understand it, to remember that our savour and the French savoir are both forms derived from the Latin sapere, and that the translators were so far justified in using it to describe a mental state, or rather act. Elsewhere the word is rendered "mind," or "set affection on," as, e.g., "mind the things of the flesh," or "of the spirit" (Romans 8:5), and "set your affection on things above" (Colossians 3:2); and this is obviously a more satisfactory rendering. Peter's sin lay in the fact that his mind was set on the things of earth, its outward pomp and pageantry, measuring the future by a human not a divine standard. . . .