began--in the connection with the
preceding and following verses, we cannot but look upon it as being
symbolically significant and important. And how could it be otherwise,
since the burial of the Servant of God with a rich man implies that the
rich man himself has been gained for Him? It has, farther, been
objected that Christ was not buried _with_ Joseph, but in his grave
only, but in an ideal point of view _with_ has its full right. Comp.
chap. xiv. 19, where it is said to the king of Babylon: "But thou art
cast out of thy grave," although, bodily, he had not yet been in the
grave; but he had a right to come like his ancestors; he had, in an
ideal point of view, taken his place there.--_Beck_ says: "The orthodox
expositors are strongly embarrassed with these words." That is indeed a
remarkable interchange of positions. Embarrassment!--that is the sign
of everything which unscriptural exegesis advances on this verse. It is
concentrated in the [Hebrew: ewir]. The most varied conjectures and
freaks are here so many symptoms of helpless embarrassment. According
to the opinion of several interpreters, the rich man here stands in the
sense of the ungodly. In this, even _Luther_ (marginal note: "rich man,
one who in his doings founds himself on riches," _i.e._, an ungodly
man), and _Calvin_ had preceded them. The assertion that the rich, can
simply stand for the wicked, can neither be proved from Job xxvii. 19
(for there, according to the context, the rich is equivalent to "he who
is wicked, notwithstanding his riches"), nor from the word of the Lord
in Matt. xix. 23: [Greek: duskolos plousios eiseleusetai eis ten
basileian ton ouranon.] For that which, on a special occasion, the Lord
here says of the rich, applies to the poor also. Poverty, not less than
wealth, is encompassed with obstacles to conversion, which can be
removed only by the omnipotence of divine grace. According to Matt.
xiii. 22, the word is not only choked by the deceitfulness of riches,
but is as much so by care also, the dangers of which are particularly
set forth by our Lord in Matt. vi. 25 ff. In Prov. xxx. 8, 9 it is
said: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny
thee, and say: Where is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take
the name of my God in vain." The dangers of riches are more frequently
pointed out in Scripture than those of poverty; but this fact is
accounted for by the circumstance, that riches are surrounded [Pg