Matthew Chapter 7 verse 14 Holy Bible
For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.
read chapter 7 in ASV
For narrow is the door and hard the road to life, and only a small number make discovery of it.
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For narrow the gate and straitened the way that leads to life, and they are few who find it.
read chapter 7 in DARBY
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
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read chapter 7 in WBT
How{TR reads "Because" instead of "How"} narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it.
read chapter 7 in WEB
how strait `is' the gate, and compressed the way that is leading to the life, and few are those finding it!
read chapter 7 in YLT
Matthew 7 : 14 Bible Verse Songs
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 14. - Because (ὅτι); for (Revised Version); "many ancient authorities read, How narrow is the gate, etc." (Revised Version margin). The reading, "how" (τί) is much easier, as avoiding the difficulty of the connexion of this verse with the preceding, but probably ὅτι is right. The connexion is either that it is parallel to the first ὅτι, and thus gives a second reason for decision in entering through the narrow gate; or, and better, that it gives the reason for the statement in ver. 13b - many pass along the wrong way because the right way requires at the very outset so much determination and afterwards so much self denial. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way; narrow is the gate, and straitened the way (Revised Version). Not only is the gate narrow, but the way itself seems compressed (τεθλιμμένη) by rocks, etc., on either side. That leadeth unto life (εἰς τὴν ζωήν). Observe, Christ does not say, "life eternal." He only cares to emphasize the thought of life in the fullest nature of life - life as "the fulfilment of the highest idea of being: perfect truth in perfect action" (Bishop Westcott, on 1 John 3:14). And few there be that; Revised Version, and few be they that (ver. 13, note). Our Lord here affirms more than the disciples ask in Luke 13:23; for there the question deals with those in a state of salvation (οἱ σωζόμενοι), here those finally saved. Find it; i.e. the gate and all it leads to. The narrow gate is here looked at as involving life. Find. It needs a search (contrast ver. 13). But there is the promise of ver. 7, "Seek, and ye shall find."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) Narrow is the way.--Literally, pressed, or hemmed in between walls or rocks, like the pathway in a mountain gorge.Which leadeth unto life.--Noteworthy as the first passage in our Lord's recorded teaching in which the word "life" appears as summing up all the blessedness of the kingdom. The idea is developed as we advance; the life becomes "eternal," and finally we are taught that the eternal life consists in the true and perfect knowledge of God and Christ (John 17:2-3).Few there be that find it.--The sad contrast between the many and the few runs through all our Lord's teaching. He comes to "save the world," and yet those whom He chooses out of the world are but as a "little flock." They are to preach the gospel, and yet the result will be but discord and division. The picture is a dark one, and yet it represents but too faithfully the impression made, I do not say on Calvinist or even Christian, but on any ethical teacher, by the actual state of mankind around us. They are, for the most part, unconscious of the greatness of their lives, and of the interests at stake in them. If there is any wider hope, it is found in hints and suggestions of the possibilities of the future (1Peter 3:19; 1Peter 4:6); in the fact that the words used are emphatically present; in the belief that the short span of this life is not necessarily the whole of the discipline of a soul made for eternity; and that the new life, nascent, and feeble, and stunted here, may be quickened by some new process of education into higher energies.
