What Does Matthew 8:12 Mean?

(12) **The children of the kingdom.**—The form of the phrase is a Hebraism, indicating, as in “the children of the bride-chamber,” those who belonged to the kingdom, *i.e.,* in this case, the Israelites, to whom the kingdom of heaven had, in the first instance, been promised, the natural heirs who had forfeited their inheritance. **Into outer darkness.**—Strictly, *the outer darkness.* The words continue the imagery of the previous clause, the darkness outside the king’s palace being contrasted with the interior, blazing with lamps and torches. **There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.**—Both words in the Greek have the emphasis of the article, “*the* weeping” *par excellence.* The two words are found in combination six times in St. Matthew, and once in St. Luke (Luke 13:28). In their literal meaning they express that intensest form of human anguish in which it ceases to be articulate. The latter word, or rather the cognate verb, is used also to express rage (Acts 7:54). Their spiritual meaning we naturally connect with the misery of those who are excluded from the joy and blessedness of the completed kingdom, and that is, doubtless, what they ultimately point to. We must remember, however, that the “kingdom of heaven” was a term of very varying significance, and that our Lord had proclaimed that that kingdom was at hand, and taught men, by parable and otherwise, that it included more than the life after death. We may accordingly rightly look for like “springing and germinant accomplishments” of the words now before us. Men came “from the east and west,” when the Gentiles were admitted into the Church of Christ. The children of the kingdom were left in the “outer darkness” when they were self-excluded from fellowship with that Church and its work among the nations. The outbursts of envy and rage recorded in the Acts (Acts 5:33; Acts 13:45) illustrate this aspect of “the weeping and gnashing of teeth.”