Teks -- Matthew 16:3 (NET)

16:3 and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and darkening.’ You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky, but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

Robertson: Mat 16:3 - Lowring

Lowring ( stugnazōn ).

A sky covered with clouds. Used also of a gloomy countenance as of the rich young ruler in Mar 10:22. Nowhere else in the New Testament. This very sign of a rainy day we use today. The word for "foul weather"(cheimōn ) is the common one for winter and a storm.

Robertson: Mat 16:3 - The signs of the times

The signs of the times ( ta sēmeia tōn kairōn ).

How little the Pharisees and Sadducees understood the situation. Soon Jerusalem would be destroyed and the Jewish state overturned. It is not always easy to discern (diakrinein , discriminate) the signs of our own time. Men are numerous with patent keys to it all. But we ought not to be blind when others are gullible.

Vincent: Mat 16:3 - Lowering

Lowering ( στυγνάζων )

The verb means to have a gloomy look. Dr. Morison compares the Scotch gloaming or glooming. Cranmer, the sky is glooming red. The word is used only here and at Mar 10:22, of the young ruler, turning from Christ with his face overshadowed with gloom. A.V., he was sad. Rev., his countenance fell.

Wesley: Mat 16:3 - The signs of the times

The signs which evidently show, that this is the time of the Messiah.

Clarke: Mat 16:3 - The sky is red and lowering

The sky is red and lowering - The signs of fair and foul weather were observed in a similar manner among the Romans, and indeed among most other people. Many treatises have been written on the subject: thus a poet: -

Caeruleus pluviam denunciant, Igneus euro

Sin Maculae incipient Rutilo immiscerier Igni

Omnia tunc pariter Vento Nimbisque videbis

Fervere Virg. Geor. i. l. 45

"If fiery red his glowing globe descends

High winds and furious tempests he portends

But if his cheeks are swoll’ n with livid blue

He bodes wet weather, by his watery hu

If dusky spots are varied on his brow

And streak’ d with red a troubled color show

That sullen mixture shall at once declare

Wind, rain, and storms, and elemental wa

Dryden.

||&&$

Calvin: Mat 16:3 - Hypocrites, you can judge

3.Hypocrites, you can judge He calls them hypocrites, because they pretend to ask that which, if it were exhibited to them, they are resolved not to observe. The same reproof applies nearly to the whole world; for men direct their ingenuity, and apply their senses, to immediate advantage; and therefore there is scarcely any man who is not sufficiently well qualified in this respect, or at least who is not tolerably acquainted with the means of gaining his object. How comes it then that we feel no concern about the signs by which God invites us to himself? Is it not because every man gives himself up to willing indifference, and extinguishes the light which is offered to him? The calling of Christ, and the immediate exhibition of eternal salvation, were exhibited to the scribes both by the Law and the Prophets, and by his own doctrine, to which miracles were added.

There are many persons of the same description in the present day, who plead that on intricate subjects they have a good right to suspend their judgment, because they must wait till the matter is fully ascertained. They go farther, and believe that it is a mark of prudence purposely to avoid all inquiry into the truth; as if it were not an instance of shameful sloth that, while they are so eagerly solicitous about the objects of the flesh and of the earth, they neglect the eternal salvation of their souls, and at the same time contrive vain excuses for gross and stupid ignorance.

A very absurd inference is drawn by some ignorant persons from this passage, that we are not at liberty to predict from the aspect of the sky whether we shall have fair or stormy weather. It is rather an argument which Christ founds on the regular course of nature, that those men deserve to perish for their ingratitude, who, while they are sufficiently acute in matters of the present life, yet knowingly and willfully quench the heavenly light by their stupidity.

TSK: Mat 16:3 - O ye // the signs

O ye : Mat 7:5, Mat 15:7, Mat 22:18, Mat 23:13; Luk 11:44, Luk 13:15

the signs : Mat 4:23, Mat 11:5; 1Ch 12:32

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Mat 16:2-3 - discern the signs of the times

Ver. 2,3. You can, saith our Saviour, make observations upon the works of God in nature and common providence, and from such observations you can make conclusions; if you see the sky red in the evening, you can conclude from thence that the morrow will be fair, because you think that the redness of the sky at night speaks the clouds thin and the air pure; and on the other side, the redness of it in the morning speaks the clouds thick, so as the sun cannot disperse them; or because you observe that generally it so proveth, though nothing be more mutable than the air. But you cannot

discern the signs of the times: you are only dull at making observations upon the Scriptures, and the will of God revealed in them concerning me. You might observe that all the signs of the Messias are fulfilled in me: I was born of a virgin, as was prophesied by Isaiah, Isa 7:14 ; in Bethlehem Judah, as was prophesied by Micah, Mic 5:2 ; at a time when the sceptre was departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from his feet, as was prophesied by Jacob, Gen 49:10 : that John the Baptist is come in the power and spirit of Elias, to prepare my way before me, as was prophesied by Malachi, Mal 4:5 ; that there is one come, who openeth the eyes of the blind, and unstops the ears of the deaf, and maketh the lame to leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing, according to the prophecy, Isa 35:5,6 . All these are the signs of the time when the Messiah was to come; but these things you cannot discern, but, like a company of hypocrites, who pretend one thing and do another, you come and ask a sign, that you might believe in me, when you have so many, and yet will not believe.

Lightfoot: Mat 16:3 - Can ye not discern the signs of the times

And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?   

[Can ye not discern the signs of the times?] the Jews were very curious in observing the seasons of the heavens, and the temper of the air.   

"In the going out of the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, all observed the rising of the smoke. If the smoke bended northward, the poor rejoiced, but the rich were troubled; because there would be much rain the following year, and the fruits would be corrupted: if it bended southward, the poor grieved, and the rich rejoiced; for then there would be fewer rains that year, and the fruit would be sound: if eastward, all rejoiced: if westward, all were troubled." The Gloss is, "They observed this the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, because the day before, the decree of their judgment concerning the rains of that year was signed, as the tradition is, In the feast of Tabernacles they judged concerning the rains."   

"R. Acha said, If any wise man had been at Zippor when the first rain fell, he might foretell the moistness of the year by the very smell of the dust," etc.   

But they were dim-sighted at the signs of times; that is, at those eminent signs, which plainly pointed, as with the finger and by a visible mark, that now those times that were so much foretold and expected, even the days of the Messias, were at hand. As if he had said, "Can ye not distinguish that the times of the Messias are come, by those signs which plainly declare it? Do ye not observe Daniel's weeks now expiring? Are ye not under a yoke, the shaking off of which ye have neither any hope at all nor expectation to do? Do ye not see how the nation is sunk into all manner of wickedness? Are not miracles done by me, such as were neither seen nor heard before? Do ye not consider an infinite multitude flowing in, even to a miracle, to the profession of the gospel? and that the minds of all men are raised into a present expectation of the Messias? Strange blindness, voluntary, and yet sent upon you from heaven: your sin and your punishment too! They see all things which may demonstrate and declare a Messias, but they will not see."

Gill: Mat 16:3 - And in the morning, it will be foul weather today // for the sky is red and lowring // O ye hypocrites // Ye can discern the face of the sky // but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

And in the morning, it will be foul weather today,.... When you rise in the morning, and take a survey of the heavens, it is a very usual thing with you to say, it is like to be windy or rainy weather today,

for the sky is red and lowring; which shows, that the clouds are so thick that the sun cannot pierce through them, and its face is not seen; so that it may be reasonably concluded they will issue in rain, or wind, or both.

O ye hypocrites. The Vulgate Latin, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel, leave out this appellation; but all other versions, as well as copies, have it: and it is an usual epithet, bestowed very justly by Christ, on these men; who pretended to be the guides of the people, took upon them to teach and instruct them in divine things, and set up themselves as men of great holiness, piety and knowledge; and yet, instead of searching the Scriptures, and comparing the characters of the times of the Messiah therein fixed, with the present ones, spent their time in making such low and useless observations, and which fall within the compass of everyone's knowledge and reach.

Ye can discern the face of the sky; very distinctly, and make some very probable guesses, if not certain conclusions, what will follow, good weather or bad:

but can ye not discern the signs of the times? or, as the Syriac reads it, "the time", the present time: if they had not been blind, they might easily have discerned, that the signs of the time of the Messiah's coming were upon them, and that Jesus was the Messiah; as the departure of the sceptre from Judah, the ending of Daniel's weeks, the various miracles wrought by Christ, the wickedness of the age in which they lived, the ministry of John the Baptist, and of Christ, the great flockings of the people, both to one and to the other, with divers other things which were easy to be observed by them: but they pretend this to be a very great secret.

"The secret of the day of death, they say ^y, and the secret of the day when the king Messiah comes, who by his wisdom can find out?''