Parallel passage: Luke 10:21, Luke 10:22, where the verses are recorded immediately after the return of the seventy. We know no other occasion which would be so likely to evoke this utterance. Although it is just possible that the seventy returned when our Lord was addressing the people in the manner related in the preceding verses of this chapter, it seems much more likely that a sense of a moral and not of a temporal connexion guided St.
Matthew in his arrangement. What is true in a time of success (Luke 10:17, Luke 10:18) is equally true in a time of failure (verses 20-24). Observe the difference in the style of verse 27 (Luke 10:22) from that of verses 25, 26, suggesting the use of another, apparently Johannine, source.
But this must have been added before either St. Matthew or St. Luke incorporated the passage. Observe that the comparatively early date thus indicated for Johannine phraseology suggests that the language and form of the Fourth Gospel underwent a long process of development before St.
John completed his work.