(40) All the law and the prophets.--The words are coupled, as in Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12, to indicate the whole of the revelation of the divine will in the Old Testament. The two great commandments lay at the root of all. The rest did but expand and apply them; or, as in the ceremonial, set them forth symbolically; or, as in the law of slavery and divorce, confined their application within limits, which the hardness of men's hearts made necessary. For the glowing assent of the scribe to our Lord's teaching, and our Lord's approval of him, see Notes on Mark 12:32-34.

Verse 40. - Hang all the Law and the prophets; i.e. all Scripture, which is comprised in these terms (comp. Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12); in other words, all the revelations which God has made to man in every age. The clause is peculiar to St. Matthew. It signifies that on love of God and love of man depend all the moral and religious, ceremonial and judicial precepts contained in the Law, all the utterances of the prophets, all the voices of history. Scripture enunciates the duty to God and our neighbour, shows the right method of fulfilling it, warns against the breach of it, gives examples of punishment and reward consequent upon the way in which the obligation has been treated. Thus the unity and integrity of revelation is demonstrated. Its Author is one; its design is uniform; it teaches one path, leading to one great end.

22:34-40 An interpreter of the law asked our Lord a question, to try, not so much his knowledge, as his judgment. The love of God is the first and great commandment, and the sum of all the commands of the first table. Our love of God must be sincere, not in word and tongue only. All our love is too little to bestow upon him, therefore all the powers of the soul must be engaged for him, and carried out toward him. To love our neighbour as ourselves, is the second great commandment. There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the root of the greatest sins, and it must be put off and mortified; but there is a self-love which is the rule of the greatest duty: we must have a due concern for the welfare of our own souls and bodies. And we must love our neighbour as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves; in many cases we must deny ourselves for the good of others. By these two commandments let our hearts be formed as by a mould.On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Not that all that is contained in the five books of Moses, and in the books of the prophets, and other writings of the Old Testament, is comprehended in, and is reducible to these two precepts; for there are many things delivered by way of promise, written by way of history, &c. which cannot, by any means, be brought into these two general heads: but that everything respecting duty that is suggested in the law, or is more largely explained and pressed in any of the writings of the prophets, is summarily comprehended in these two sayings: hence love is the fulfilling of the law; see Romans 13:8. The substance of the law is love; and the writings of the prophets, as to the preceptive part of them, are an explanation of the law, and an enlargement upon it: hence the Jews have a saying (c), that "all the prophets stood on Mount Sinai", and received their prophecies there, because the sum of them, as to the duty part, was then delivered. Beza thinks, that here is an allusion to the "phylacteries", or frontlets, which hung upon their foreheads and hands, as a memorial of the law. And certain it is, that the first of these commands, and which is said to be the greatest, was written in these phylacteries. Some take the phrase, "on these hang all the law and the prophets", to be a mere Latinism, but it is really an Hebraism, and often to be met with in the Jewish writings: so Maimonides says (d),

"the knowledge of this matter is an affirmative precept, as it is said, "I am the Lord thy God"; and he that imagines there is another God besides this, transgresses a negative, as it is said, "thou shalt have no other Gods before me"; and he denies the fundamental point, for this is the great foundation, , "on which all hang":

and so the word is used in many other places (e). The sense is plainly this, that all that are in the law and prophets are consistent with, and dependent on these things; and are, as the Persic version renders the word, "comprehended" in them, and cannot be separated from them,

(c) Jarchi in Isaiah 48.16. & in Mal. i. 1.((d) Hilch. Yesode Hatorah, c. 1. sect. 6. (e) Vid. Abkath Rokel. l. 1. p. 3.