Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
The uttermost farthing - . The rabbins have this Greek word corrupted into kordiontes , and , kontrik , and say, that two prutoth make a kontarik , which is exactly the same with those words in Mark 12:42, , , two mites, which are one farthing. Hence it appears that the lepton was the same as the prutah . The weight of the prutah was half a barley-corn, and it was the smallest coin among the Jews, as the kodrantes , or farthing, was the smallest coin among the Romans. If the matter issue in law, strict justice will be done, and your creditor be allowed the fullness of his just claim; but if; while you are on the way, going to the magistrate, you come to a friendly agreement with him, he will relax in his claims, take a part for the whole, and the composition be, in the end, both to his and your profit.
This text has been considered a proper foundation on which to build not only the doctrine of a purgatory, but also that of universal restoration. But the most unwarrantable violence must be used before it can be pressed into the service of either of the above antiscriptural doctrines. At the most, the text can only be considered as a metaphorical representation of the procedure of the great Judge; and let it ever be remembered, that by the general consent of all (except the basely interested) no metaphor is ever to be produced in proof of any doctrine. In the things that concern our eternal salvation, we need the most pointed and express evidence on which to establish the faith of our souls.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Matthew 5:26:
Mark 12:41
Luke 12:58
John 21:25
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