Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures has served as a standard reference for more than a century. The subtitle “Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical” aptly describes the three-pronged approach to the biblical text. This translated version of the German text is often considered by many to be superior to the original.
“d an interest, that indifference is itself a kind of covert enmity.” (Page 185)
“In other words, God is praised in heaven, and peace is proclaimed on earth, because He has shown His good-will to men by sending the Messiah, who is the Prince of peace (Isa. 9:5) and has reconciled heaven and earth, God and man.” (Page 39)
“The man is here the image of God; the Son anthropomorphizes the Father in a very unique manner. The two sons denote not exactly the Jews and the Heathen, (Augustine, Bede, and the Tübingen school), nor yet angels and men (Herberger), but the mass of men, as divided at this moment before the Saviour, into Publicans and Pharisees. Strictly speaking, both the sons here sketched are lost,—the one through the unrighteousness that degrades him, the other through the self-righteousness which blinds him.” (Page 238)
“The true service of the Lord consists in this, that we allow ourselves to be served by Him.” (Page 178)
“And what, according to that, is the one thing that is needful in order rightly to receive the Saviour? The disposition which Mary was manifesting at this moment, the sitting at the feet of Jesus, the receptivity for hearing and laying up the words of eternal life. Where Jesus comes, He comes to give, and where, therefore, there is a receptivity of faith for the spiritual good which He bestows, there is He at the same time received according to His own will, in the best manner. The Saviour does not say that Martha was wholly lacking in this disposition; she also was a disciple and friend; but He gives her to feel that she might incur the danger, amid all the bustle and tumult of life, of losing this temper of mind.” (Page 177)