V. Jesus’ Journey To Jerusalem, 19:1–20:34
V. JESUS’ JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM, 19:1–20:34
Matthew has completed his account of what Jesus did and taught in Galilee, and his narrative moves on to the climax at Jerusalem. Apparently Jesus continued to teach as he went. Matthew has recorded Jesus’ teaching about divorce, the danger of riches, and other topics, and he finishes this section with the giving of sight to two blind men near Jericho. Luke has a much longer account of this journey (Luke 9:51–19:44), and it is not easy to relate what he says to what the other Evangelists say. What is clear is that on his way to Jerusalem Jesus gave his disciples significant teaching as he prepared them for the path they would tread when his time on earth was completed.
A. Teaching about Divorce, 19:1–12
1And it came to pass when Jesus finished these words, he went away from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2And great crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3And Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on every ground?” 4But he answered, saying, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning ‘made them male and female?’ ” 5And he said, “ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 6So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not put apart.” 7They say to him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8He says to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it was not so. 9But I say to you, that whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery.” 10His disciples say to him, “If this is the case of a man with his wife, it is not advisable to marry.” 11But he said to them, “Not all people have the capacity for this saying, but only those to whom it is given. 12For there are eunuchs who have been so from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. Let him who can accept this accept it.”
Once more Jesus confronts a wrong understanding of the meaning of God’s law. Just as in the Sermon on the Mount, he shows that it is not enough to keep the letter of the law. The law allowed divorce, and some pious Jews availed themselves wholeheartedly of this provision. Jesus invites his hearers to reflect on what the law actually means and to recognize the sanctity of marriage. The fact that divorce was possible did not mean that it was to be sought. Rather, it was to be seen as a desperate last resort; every effort must be made to save a marriage.
1. Once again Matthew employs his unusual And it came to pass (see on 7:28). Here as elsewhere it marks the end of one of his discourses and the transition to the following narrative. On this occasion he tells us that Jesus went away (the same unusual verb as in 13:53, where see note) from Galilee. He does not draw attention to it, but this is Jesus’ final withdrawal from the place where he has had the major part of his ministry. He now goes to Judea; there is no return to Galilee until after the resurrection (28:16). Mark and Luke both speak of Jesus as going into Judea, but neither says anything about leaving Galilee. This, however, is important for Matthew, and he includes it. He also tells us that Jesus came into Judea beyond the Jordan. Since Judea lay to the west of the Jordan, this raises a problem. It may mean that he traveled to Judea by way of the region to the east of the Jordan (as Jews commonly did; it enabled them to avoid going through Samaritan territory). In favor of this is the fact that Jesus passed through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem (20:29). Or, as Argyle thinks, Matthew may be using Judea loosely, to include Perea as well as the territory to the west of the Jordan; this would be supported by the fact that many Jews in fact lived in Perea. But it is more likely that Matthew is saying that Jesus’ first entrance into the province of Judea was by way of the area beyond the Jordan.
2. The entrance into Judea was in no sense a withdrawal from public ministry, for Jesus was accompanied by great crowds (Matthew’s usual plural). There are two points to be noticed. One is that whereas Mark says no more than that crowds went with Jesus, Matthew has a characteristic followed him; this Evangelist delights to use an expression that is also used of those who followed him in the sense that they became disciples in doing so. The other is that Jesus healed them. He has said nothing about there being sick people in the crowds, but that may be assumed; therefore Matthew goes on to record Jesus’ healing activity (Mark says no more than that he taught the people as he usually did).
3. Now some Pharisees (see on 3:7; here the word lacks the article, so it is “some Pharisees” rather than “the Pharisees”) came to Jesus (the verb may indicate something of a formal approach; see on 4:3). They came with a question, but they were not genuinely looking for information; they were testing Jesus, posing a question that they hoped he would not be able to answer satisfactorily. It was a question about divorce to which widely different answers were given, and at the very least the Pharisees might expect that whatever position Jesus took up he would antagonize those who held strongly to other positions. It was accepted throughout Judaism that a man had the right to divorce his wife, though a woman had no such right to divorce her husband. In some circumstances she could petition the court, and the court might direct her husband to divorce her, but even then the actual divorcing was done by the husband. The husband was given the right by an express provision of the law (Deut. 24:1–4); the Pharisees’ question was not whether a man had the right to divorce his wife, but rather what grounds justified him in proceeding to divorce her. They ask whether it is lawful for him to divorce her on every ground (NEB translates, “on any and every ground”; JB, “on any pretext whatever”; and Moule says that the meaning is “on the ground of any cause,” IBNTG, p. 59).1 The question in the rabbinic schools revolved around the meaning of “because he has found some indecency in her” (Deut. 24:1). The term “indecency” is not defined in this passage, but it is unlikely that adultery was in mind since the penalty for adultery was death (Deut. 22:22). However, the strict school of Shammai understood the passage to refer to adultery; they saw that as the only ground that justified divorce. But the more lenient school of Hillel interpreted the words more widely; they held that the words about indecency were fulfilled, for example, if a wife did no more than spoil her husband’s dinner. A little later Akiba interpreted the words “if she finds no favor in his eyes” to mean that if he found someone prettier he could proceed to divorce her (Mishnah, Giṭ. 9:10; for an account of a discussion in the schools see Talmud, Giṭ. 90a). With such a variety of opinions the subject of divorce was a veritable minefield; thus the Pharisees may well have thought that it did not matter greatly which way Jesus answered; he would offend many people whatever he said. Even Jewish men who had no intention of divorcing their wives might be expected to defend strongly their right to do so.2
4. Jesus declined to go along with the accepted rabbinic methods of understanding the question; he did not side with any of the disputants. But by appealing to the creation he was making use of a rabbinic method of disputation, namely, “the more original, the weightier.” This meant that what happened as early as the creation narrative was weightier than what Moses said considerably later (though, of course, it did not do away with the Mosaic regulation; that regulation was still part of the law and was to be respected, but it must be interpreted in the light of the more original statement). Jesus then referred his questioners to the creation, in which presumably God could have created the race in any one of a great variety of ways. But from the beginning God chose to make them male and female (Gen. 1:27). Chrysostom comments: “if it had been His will that he should put this one away, and bring in another, when He had made one man, He would have formed many women” (p. 382). Our sexuality is of divine ordinance; it is intended to be exercised in monogamous relationships.
5. To this passage Jesus joins another (And he said refers to Jesus, not the Father, who is not said to have uttered the first words quoted), that which speaks of a man leaving his parents and “cleaving” to his wife (Gen. 2:24). The verbs point to strong and decisive action.3 When a man marries, he is entering into a new and very intimate relationship that takes precedence over all previous ties. To leave one’s parents in antiquity was thought of as a most unnatural thing to do; family ties were of the greatest importance. But the creation ordinance put the marriage tie above all other relationships, even family relationships. One must abandon one’s home and family as a new home is set up. Man and wife belong together, bound more closely together than any other two persons.
The Scripture says further, “the two will become one flesh.” This refers to the sexual act, which unites husband and wife in the most intimate fashion. Paul can object to consorting with harlots because it involves becoming “one flesh” (1 Cor. 6:16), a relationship that befits a husband and his wife only. Jesus cites Scripture, then, to bring out the truth that marriage is more than a casual arrangement for the convenience of the two parties. It is the closest of earthly unities, and must be understood so.
6. Jesus underlines the closeness of the unity. So then4 the married couple are no longer what they were, two isolated and separate individuals; they are now bound in the closest and most intimate of human relationships and are in fact one flesh.5 The followers of Hillel and Shammai and of other disputants in this subject were all losing sight of this central truth. Marriage is not to be understood as a casual union, subject to the whims and desires of the lordly male. It is a close and binding union, the closest of unions known on this earth. It must accordingly be treated with respect and even reverence. Jesus draws an inference from this. Because marriage is what it is, because God has created the union, let man not put apart those whom God has joined. Jesus is not siding with any of the disputants, an act that would have meant antagonizing the adherents of other positions (as the Pharisees had hoped he would do). Rather, he was rejecting them all and calling on his hearers to take seriously the Scripture that they professed to respect. If they did this they would realize that marriage was a much more binding relationship than they were making it. The typical attitude of the people of his day had reduced a God-given unity to a casual union, dissolvable at the whim of the male. This was not what Scripture meant when it spoke of what God did at the creation.6
7. This was not quite what his interrogators were looking for; therefore they came up with a further question. What Jesus had said looked suspiciously like a prohibition of all divorce, and that suited none of them. So they pose a question reminding Jesus that divorce was due to what Moses, the great lawgiver, said: “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?” They go beyond Scripture, for Moses did not command divorce. He pointed to current custom and did something to regulate it (he said, “When a man … writes her a bill of divorce …”). But this is a long way from commanding. The Pharisees assume that the dissolution of marriage was part of the will of God in instituting the married state. This Jesus denies. The certificate of divorce was the document the Jews currently used; its content was regarded as important. It must include the provision that the woman is now free to marry (“The essential formula in the bill of divorce is, ‘Lo, thou art free to marry any man,’ ” Giṭ. 9:3). Provided it was properly drawn up, witnessed, and served in the due legal manner, that was all that was required. Jesus’ questioners, who understood the legal position perfectly, did not understand why divorce should not take place, if not according to the teaching of one rabbi, then certainly in accordance with the teaching of another.
8. Jesus corrects them. Moses did no more than allow divorce (he did not command it). And he allowed it “Because of 7 your hardness of heart.”8 In Moses’ day divorce evidently did need regulation. It would seem that prior to the regulation in Deuteronomy women were in a more than difficult position. It was possible for a husband to reject his wife and put her out of his house. But if she tried to contract marriage with another man (and there was little future in a patriarchal society for a woman not attached to some man), then a mischievous husband could claim that she was still his wife. Legally there was nothing she could do about it. When Moses took note of the ills that could be done toward women and provided for divorce, he was giving the repudiated wives a little measure of protection. Until the husband gave the wife a “certificate of divorce” she was still his wife, and he still owed her the duty that any husband owed his wife. When he had given the certificate, she was no longer his wife and he had no claim on her. Her position might still be difficult, but at least she was freed from any arbitrary reclaiming of her by her former husband.
Permission for divorce, then, was a concession made because of men’s hard hearts. It was not part of the original provision of marriage. This was no concession to any human weakness, but God’s provision whereby a man and a woman should live together and produce a family. From the beginning marriage was a holy estate into which a man and a woman would normally be called. Nobody should enter this holy estate with the reservation that if difficulties arose there was abundant provision for divorce. That was simply a desperate provision where hearts were hard, not a regular part of the matrimonial scene.
9. But has adversative force; over against the Mosaic provision for divorce because of hard hearts Jesus sets his own verdict. For a husband to divorce his wife and marry another woman means that he commits adultery; his second marriage violates the creation ordinance and thus is no marriage. Jesus leaves his hearers in no doubt but that marriage is meant to be for life and that contemporary Jewish discussions about when a divorce is properly carried out and when it is invalid are wide of the mark. Such discussions proceed from a view that marriage is a human device that may easily be set aside. But when we realize that it is God’s will for people, marriage must be seen in another light.
Jesus does allow for an exception, except for fornication.9 This repeats the position he took up in the Sermon on the Mount (see the discussion on 5:31–32). As we saw in the earlier passage, fornication strictly means sexual relations between unmarried people. But the term was used more widely than that and came to signify irregular sexual unions of all kinds (NIV reads, “except for marital unfaithfulness”; GNB has, “even though she has not been unfaithful”). In this passage it will signify adultery because it refers to the actions of married people. We have seen that sexual relations mark a close and peculiar intimacy. When a married person engages in this action, Jesus says, then “hardness of heart” has come into the picture again and, the marriage having been irreparably destroyed, divorce is permissible. There is a problem with this in that the exception is not found in Mark or Luke. Precisely opposite conclusions have been drawn from this. Some students hold that Jesus did not use the words and that Matthew has inserted them because this was the custom in his church (or for some similar reason). But it is also possible to reason that it was so widely accepted that adultery was a sufficient cause for divorce that it did not need stating; it could simply be assumed, and Mark and Luke are doing just that. In fact, among the Jews of the time divorce on the grounds of adultery was not simply permitted—it was required (see the note on 5:32, n. 122†). Thus there are good reasons for accepting the exceptive clause as part of Jesus’ teaching. But we should be clear that he is not setting up a new set of regulations and providing for all the exceptions that a law must take note of. He is laying down in strong terms the permanent nature of the marriage tie in the face of a society where a marriage could be dissolved at any time a husband chose to write out a few lines containing the necessary formula, sign it before witnesses, and hand it to his wife. Jesus is saying that this is no way to treat a divine ordinance. He is not defining under what circumstances a divorce may or may not take place.10
10. Matthew adds a section (vv. 10–12) to which the other Gospels have no parallel. Evidently Matthew felt that Jesus’ teaching on this subject was so far-reaching and so different from that of his contemporaries that it was important for him to add something about the Master’s further teaching when the disciples expressed a problem. Not only Jesus’ antagonists but his disciples are staggered by this teaching. The disciples are impressed by the problems they see when a marriage is under strain if this teaching is carried through. If there is no relief from the strain and no possibility of divorce, then life is going to be very difficult indeed. The case11 of a man with his wife strikes the disciples as difficult. It would mean that no matter what the wife did, no matter how badly the marriage was going, there could be no divorce. So they suggest to Jesus that if this is the way of it, it is not advisable12 to marry. The disciples envision problems in maintaining the marriage relationship with this hanging over their heads. They probably had no intention of making use of the provision for divorce, but they found it comforting that the provision was there in case of need.
11. Jesus’ reply may mean that the teaching he has just given is indeed beyond some people’s capacity.13 There are people who simply cannot live up to all that this teaching involves. If we take the words this way we must be on our guard, for Jesus never gives countenance to the idea that among his followers there will be a spiritual elite, people who will live constantly on a high spiritual plane and will be of a different grade in the kingdom of heaven from that occupied by ordinary people. All his followers are sinners, and all have need of forgiveness. But here he is recognizing that not all in fact manage to reach the same standard. Without watering down the truth that all are equal in the kingdom, Jesus recognizes that there will be different levels of achievement. So some will have more fulfilling marriages than others; some will profit more from the grace freely proffered to all than others will. Alternatively, this saying may refer to the words of the disciples, that it is better not to marry. In that case Jesus is saying that this is true for some people, though it is a way of life that not all can follow. But some do, and in the next verse he goes on to look at them.
12. Jesus illustrates by referring to eunuchs. To belong to this group of people is not normally regarded as highly desirable (among the Jews eunuchs could not become priests, Lev. 21:20; they could not even enter the congregation, Deut. 23:1), but Jesus points out that there are some who from their mother’s womb have been in this state; they have never had sexual capacity. This does not refer necessarily to literal eunuchs, men who have been physically castrated, but to those with a genetic defect. The second category does refer to castration. In the world of the first century quite a few men had been emasculated by people in high places. This might be done as a punishment, or to provide safe people to work in harems and the like. It was a fact of first-century life. Jesus goes on to point out that there are some who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. Through the centuries there have always been some who have foregone the delights of marriage in order that they may discharge specific tasks for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus himself was not married, nor was John the Baptist.14 Not many have taken these words literally, as Origen did when he castrated himself. But through the centuries many have turned their backs on all that marriage means because only so could they pursue their particular vocation in the service of God. Jesus is not saying that this is a higher calling than others or that all his followers should seek to serve in this way; that would be a contradiction of his appeal to Genesis 1–2. He is simply saying that the claims of the kingdom override all other claims and that some are called to serve in the path of celibacy (just as others are called to serve in marriage). There is no one path of service, but whatever a person’s calling is, grace will be given so that that calling may be fulfilled. And in this context it means that grace will be given to those called to serve God in the married state so that they will be able to fulfil their calling. He invites his hearers to accept the teaching as they have the ability (his word for accept is the same as that translated “have the capacity” in v. 11).15
B. Jesus and the Children, 19:13–15
13Then little children were brought to him so that he might lay his hands on them and pray; but the disciples rebuked them. 14But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and don’t forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” 15And when he had laid his hands on them, he went away from there.
Jesus had a great interest in children. We have already noticed that he used one small child as a model to drive home some important spiritual truths (18:2–6, 10), and now we see the same interest and concern. We should not take this too calmly, as though it might be expected in a religious teacher. It is not easy to think of Muhammad as concerned for little children, or Gautama the Buddha. But the Gospels make it clear that there were often children around Jesus. He observed their games (11:16–17), spoke of them in his teaching, and clearly was genuinely interested in them.
13. Then should link this on to the preceding section as the next happening in time, and this indeed may be the way to take it. But Matthew uses the word so often that we cannot insist on this (see the note on 2:7). The word Matthew uses for the children is a diminutive and strictly means little children, but it is often used of children in general, so that we cannot insist that they were very small. All three Synoptists tell us that children were brought to Jesus, Mark and Luke say that this was in order that he might touch them, but only Matthew tells us that this meant laying his hands on them16 and only he tells us that those who brought them wanted Jesus to pray. This tells us a lot about Jesus and about the parents of the children; they were all ready to give time for the spiritual welfare of the little ones. We also learn something about the disciples; they wanted none of it.17 Clearly they did not share Jesus’ attitude to children, and they could not understand why the Master should be bothered by these small people. So they rebuked those who brought the children (grammatically the words could mean that they rebuked the children, but this seems very unlikely).18
14. But is adversative; it sets Jesus over against the disciples, and his attitude in contrast to theirs, as he instructed the disciples to allow the children to come to him (Mark tells us that Jesus was indignant with them, but Matthew omits this). “Don’t forbid them,” he said, making it clear that the attitude of the disciples was the wrong one. He goes on to say, “of such is the kingdom of heaven.” He had earlier said that one must be like little children if one is even to enter the kingdom of heaven (18:3), but this expression goes beyond that. It means that the kingdom is made up of people like these little ones, or perhaps that the kingdom belongs to people like them. Either way Jesus is asserting that children are important. The attitude of the disciples toward them was all wrong.
15. Jesus did as he was asked and laid his hands on them.19 Matthew does not specifically say that he prayed, but we must surely understand that he did this. He had been asked to do so, and he had rebuked those who tried to keep the children away from him. So, of course, he would have prayed for them. Then, Matthew tells us, he went away from that place. Since he has not told us where they were, we cannot say anything about his destination.
C. Teaching and Traveling, 19:16–20:34
Matthew carries on with his story of Jesus’ journey, a narrative that is mostly concerned with teaching Jesus gave as he went. There are some happenings, like the coming of the rich young man to him and the healing of a couple of blind men, but mostly Matthew is concerned at this point with the teachings that Jesus gave as he journeyed on to Jerusalem.
1. The Peril of Riches, 19:16–30
16And look, one came to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do so that I may have life eternal?” 17But he said to him, “Why do you ask me about the good thing? One there is who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 18He says to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19Honor your father and mother, and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20The young man says to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” 21Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22But when the young man heard this saying, he went away grieved, for he had many possessions.
23But Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you that only with difficulty will a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 25But when the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” 26And Jesus fixed his gaze on them and said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
27Then Peter answered, saying, “Look, we left everything and followed you; what then will there be for us?” 28And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that in the renewal, when the Son of man will sit on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit life eternal. 30But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Following the failure of the rich young man, Matthew now has a little section on wealth and its hazards in which he brings us some of Jesus’ teaching both on riches and on the unimportance of worldly affluence in the kingdom of heaven.
16. Matthew cannot be said to have exerted himself to give us information about the man who came to him, confining himself to the single word one. Since the Greek word is masculine, we can say that the person who came was male, but that is all. Mark tells us that he came running and that he knelt before Jesus, from which we may perhaps deduce that he was both eager and devout, while Luke has the information that he was a ruler. Matthew tells us that he came up to Jesus and addressed him as “Teacher.” Sometimes a good deal is made of the fact that Mark and Luke both have “Good teacher” while Matthew omits the adjective. But we should bear in mind that the man goes on to ask the “teacher” what good thing he should do to gain eternal life. It is no ordinary teacher who could answer that question, so perhaps Matthew’s omission is not as significant as some suggest. The man then inquired how he could have life eternal. His “what good thing shall I do?” shows that he was firmly of the opinion that the way into life with God is the path of doing good in some form.20 His problem apparently was that, although he had paid strict attention to the commands of God, he still felt that he was coming short in some way. He apparently thought that there must be something he could do to make good the deficiency of which he was so conscious. He may have been unsure of what good is essentially, what the nature of the good that God demands is.21 Or he may have been convinced that the way into the eternal life he sought was through some outstandingly meritorious action, and he was not conscious of having performed any such action, or at least any that would merit the reward of life eternal. By this he clearly meant life in the age to come, life in the final kingdom that God would set up. He was clearly very different from the childlike people that Jesus has been commending. He was sure that entrance to eternal life was within his grasp if he only knew how to go about it. “This young man stands in stunning contrast to those to whom, according to Jesus, the kingdom belongs” (Carson; he adds, “This may help explain Matthew’s wording”).
17. The man was on the wrong track, and Matthew’s introductory But may be meant to set Jesus’ answer in opposition to the question. Jesus countered with a question inquiring why the man asked him about the good thing,22 and he went on to say, “One there is who is good.” The man has inquired about the good thing he should do in order to obtain eternal life, so Jesus takes up his term and asks why he speaks of the good thing. This does not mean that Jesus agrees that people are saved by meritorious deeds. At this point he is simply concerned with the man’s terminology and what it meant.
Matthew has omitted to say that the man addressed Jesus as “Good teacher” (as both Mark and Luke assure us), which perhaps makes it a little harder to see the relevance of these words. But clearly Jesus was bringing home to the inquirer the fact that he was not using his words carefully enough; the Master was now making him think about what he was saying. There are practically no examples in Jewish writings of a teacher being addressed as “Good”; the man was engaging in thoughtless flattery, and he had not considered the implications of the term he was using. Now Jesus reminds him that there is only one who is really good and invites him to reflect on what he has just said. This does not mean that Jesus was denying that he was divine; he was not discussing that question, and if he had meant that he was not “good” he would surely have said that he was a sinner. He did not. He simply asked the man to reflect on the implications of “good.” Then he moved on to the man’s spiritual need and began with the commandments. God has made himself known, and the commandments he has given show people the way to life.
18–19. The man asks,23 “Which?”24 Jesus specifies, referring to the commandments to abstain from murder, adultery, theft, and false witness, to which he adds that for honoring parents (placing this commandment outside its proper order fastens attention on it and gives it emphasis), and one from outside the Ten Commandments, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Those from the Ten are reported in Mark and Luke, but only Matthew has that to love one’s neighbor. He has cited it before (5:43), and he will do it again when he reports Jesus’ summation of the commandments (22:39); clearly it means a good deal to him. It is noteworthy that all the commandments Jesus cites have to do with the way we treat other people; he stresses the importance of the ethical (“the most suitable specimens for shewing, in a practical form, what it meant to live the life of God,” McNeile).25 The young man was probably thinking in terms of some highly “spiritual” process and would have been disappointed in such prosaic expressions of the religious duty.
20. For the first time Matthew refers to the questioner as the young man (neither Mark nor Luke tells us that he was young). Since the term covers a range of ages, we can say no more than that he had not reached mature years. We discover something of his spiritual lack when he says that he has kept26 all these commandments (in the Greek the word for all comes first, which gives it emphasis). He follows this facile assumption with the further question, “What do I still lack?” (“What more do I need to do?” JB). Despite his misconception about his standing as a keeper of commandments, he was clearly conscious that something was missing. Without being able to put it all into words, he knew that his spiritual makeup was defective, and he was looking to Jesus to show him how to put it right.
21. It would seem that the young man was somewhat disappointed. He had come to Jesus looking for a brilliant new insight into the ways of God, a challenge that would stir the blood, some great deed to be done, after which his claim on eternal life would be certain. Instead all that had happened was that he had been referred to the commandments, old stuff that he had been keeping for years (“from my youth” is added in the other two accounts).
But now Jesus makes him face up to his real situation. First he puts the supposition, “If you want to be perfect” (“If you wish to be complete,” NASB),27 where the thought is that of wholeheartedness in God’s service. The young man had a felt need (v. 20); Jesus points him to wholeness, completeness. Some interpreters have seen a reference to a double standard in which Jesus asks for much from some disciples and rather less from more ordinary followers (e.g., Gutzwiller, p. 227), but there is no justification for this. The outworking may differ from one disciple to another, but wholeheartedness is required of all. The young man has shown that he is not content with a conventional goodness, so common in nominally religious people. He wanted something more than that. So Jesus says, “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Glover remarks, “He who chose Calvary for Himself is apt to prescribe sacrifice to others”). This is a demanding enough challenge for anyone seeking to do more than what is conventional (though it is one that has sometimes been met!). The poor in a first-century city were poor indeed, and often lacked what we would call the necessities of life. For a wealthy person to sell everything and give to the poor was to do something about meeting a very real need.28
Bonnard points out that there are several ways of understanding the connection between the two commands. The meaning might be “Sell in order to follow me” (with the emphasis on following), or “Sell and in addition follow me” (where the two are set side by side), or “Sell first, choose poverty; then quite naturally you will follow me” (where the emphasis is on choosing poverty). He prefers the first, probably correctly.
The result of this, Jesus says, would be that the young man would have treasure where it really counts, in heaven. This does not mean that getting into heaven is a matter of rewards for meritorious acts. It means rather that the young man of this story was quite unaware of his failure to keep the commandment to have no other God but the one true God. He had made a god of his wealth, and when faced with the challenge he could not forsake that god. If his attitude to the true God had been such that he could have dispensed with his riches, then he would have had treasure in heaven, whether he gave them all away or not. But the challenge to get rid of them all showed that he did not have the right attitude to God. God demands undivided loyalty from those who would be his.29 “Come, follow me,” Jesus went on. This is the challenge he had previously made to the fishermen as they were at their nets (4:19) and to Matthew as he sat at his place of work (9:9). They did not have the riches of this young man, it would seem, but they left what they had and followed Jesus. They were prepared to sacrifice everything; that is the path of the service of God.
22. But this young man could not rise to such a challenge. He had looked for something demanding, prepared to do some great deed. But when he was faced with a really great deed, getting rid of all his wealth, the only thing he could do was go away grieving (contrast the man in the parable who in his joy sold everything, 13:44).30 Matthew explains that the reason for his sorrow was that he had many possessions. His wealth stood between him and the service of God. Ryle comments on the dangers of wealth and says, “Well may the Litany of the Church of England contain the words, ‘In all time of our wealth, good Lord, deliver us’ ” (p. 242).
23. But will have some adversative force, indicating that Jesus stands over against the man who has gone away. Doubtless the conversation had left them wondering about wealth. What did it all mean? It was widely accepted that wealth was a wonderful blessing; it was a sign that God approved of a person and prospered that person’s business affairs. But now Jesus had told this man to get rid of his wealth. Were their ideas all wrong? Jesus proceeds to tell them that a wealthy person will enter the kingdom only with difficulty.31 This does not mean that he will not enter at all. But it certainly means that wealth, so far from being an unmixed blessing, poses a problem for all but the flippant.32 It is all too easy for most of us to be so wrapped up in what we own that we find it difficult to face the prospect of doing without it. In the abstract we approve of the challenge; we recognize that people we regard as rich all too easily come to rely on their wealth. But seeing that that applies to us, too, is another matter, and that is the difficulty the young man encountered. Whatever our wealth, great or small, it can tempt us to self-sufficiency, and Jesus is saying that this is a special temptation to the wealthy. He does not say that wealth excludes people from the kingdom (e.g., he welcomed Zacchaeus, Luke 19:1–10), but he does say that it makes it hard for them.
24. Matthew uses “again” reasonably often (17 times), but this is one of only two places where he has it with “I say to you”; it has a meaning like “furthermore” and builds on the preceding statement, while giving the new words a certain emphasis. That it would be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom was a devastating thought, and Jesus now underlines it with a humorous reference to a camel33 going through the eye of a needle.34 There have been attempts to understand this of a small gate called “the eye of the needle” that was not meant for the passage of large animals but through which a camel might be coaxed to go; but this is surely wrong-headed. Apart from the fact that no real evidence appears to be cited for such a gate, this supposition misses the point that Jesus is simply using humor to drive home his point. Where the people of his day saw riches as a manifest sign of the blessing of God, he saw wealth as a hindrance to spiritual progress. The rich man has strong temptations to concentrate on his riches, to the detriment of his spiritual welfare.35 In this Gospel the kingdom of God occurs rarely (see on 12:28); we should understand it as equivalent to “the kingdom of heaven,” which is Matthew’s preferred expression.
25. But has adversative force: the disciples stand over against the Master in this matter. They shared the common attitude and found Jesus’ words difficult to accept. Matthew uses a very strong expression to bring out the extent of their astonishment.36 They were not merely mildly surprised: this view of riches cut clean across the ideas that the disciples had accepted without question all their lives. Was it not obvious from the very fact of their wealth that the rich were the objects of God’s approval? Their riches were surely the sign of his blessing? While there were occasional holy men who were accepted as holy despite their poverty (like John the Baptist), this was not carried over into life as a whole. The occasional exception did not invalidate the rule, and that the blessing of God meant earthly prosperity was the accepted rule. So the disciples burst out in an incredulous question, “Who then can be saved?” If those on whom the blessing of God so manifestly rested were to have such difficulty in entering the kingdom, what would be the plight of lesser mortals? It was all very puzzling; despair appeared to be in order.
26. Jesus fixed his gaze on them, which means more than a casual glance.37 He looked hard at them all as they were experiencing such difficulty in coming to grips with his meaning. He recognized their problem and assured them of two things: the first was the sheer impossibility of any human activity bringing about the salvation of a rich man (or, for that matter, any man); the second, the truth that God is not limited as people are.38 It is, of course, true that a poor man is just as unable to bring about his salvation as a rich man,39 but that is not in question at this point. Jesus is dealing with the fact that in the opinion of most people of his day, the disciples included, the rich were so obviously blessed by God that they must have his approval and therefore were obviously the ones who would be signally blessed in the kingdom. It is this truism that had to be demolished. When salvation is viewed as Jesus saw it (and as he has outlined it in his teaching in ch. 18), then it is clear that it depends on the action of God, not the achievement of the creature. And, of course, it is harder for a rich man to become like a little child (18:3–4) than for a poor man, who has so much less evidence of his ability to cope. But what is of overwhelming importance is that the power of God is not limited; he can bring about the salvation of anybody.
27. Typically it is Peter who responds to what Jesus has said. It may be that the apostle was looking for a reward for himself and his companions,40 but it is perhaps more likely that he was uncertain. “If it is true that a person can gain salvation and enter the kingdom only by God’s power, then could the disciples be completely sure that they were saved? They had indeed given up everything, but had they really done all that was necessary? What was in store for them?” (Ridderbos, p. 360).41 “Look” makes for a vivid opening, drawing attention to what the apostle has to say, and Peter’s “we” is emphatic; he differentiates the little group that was close to Jesus from all others. He draws attention to the sacrifices that they had made. They had left everything, which makes it clear that they were not people who spent a few days with Jesus and then went back to their homes. And it forms a contrast with the rich young man a few verses back who went away grieved (v. 22). They had cast in their lot with their Lord, and that meant leaving behind them all that they had. They had followed Jesus, had become disciples in the fullest sense of the word. Matthew alone records that Peter finished with the question, “what then42 will there be for us?” Peter expects that there will be a reward of some sort, but he does not know what it will be.
28. More commonly Jesus speaks of the cost of discipleship and refers to taking up one’s cross and the like. But while that is an important part of what being his follower means, it is also true that those who follow him will receive the fullness of the divine blessing. And now it is this idea of the glorious state into which the followers of Jesus are called that receives the emphasis. “Truly I say to you” is the emphatic introduction we have seen so often that marks what follows as important and worthy of being pondered very carefully. Jesus goes on to refer to “the renewal,”43 which here denotes the renewal of all things that was looked for in the messianic age at the end of this world. Jesus makes this clear by referring to his own function at the time of which he speaks. He uses his favorite self-designation, “the Son of man” (see on 8:20), and says that he will be sitting on the throne of his glory. This expression may be understood as “his glorious throne,” but it seems probable that we should discern a reference to the glory that will be his at that time and of which the throne will be a symbol rather than solely to the throne.
At that time the Twelve will have a significant part to play. Jesus takes up Peter’s words and speaks of them as “you who have followed me”: it is their attachment to Jesus that is the important thing. And they will also sit on thrones, symbols of high station, and they will be judging the twelve tribes of Israel. It is impossible to be certain of what this means in detail. That there will be judgment at the end of this world is frequently taught in the New Testament, but mostly it is the Father or the Son who is thought of as the Judge. But the Twelve fit into that picture somewhere. At the Last Supper Jesus said that he would appoint a kingdom for the apostles and that they would sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes (Luke 22:28–30). So the thought is not an isolated one in this passage. But it is not easy to work out from these references precisely what the Twelve would be doing. Judging is sometimes used in the sense of ruling, and we cannot rule out such an understanding of the present passage. We can scarcely say more than that the Twelve would share in the activities of that glorious time, that they would enjoy kingly state, and that they would engage in some way in the ordering of the affairs of the twelve tribes.
29. From the Twelve Jesus moves on to consider all who have made sacrifices for him. He speaks of those who leave possessions (houses, lands), or family members (brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, all one’s immediate family).44 He is not speaking of people who have left these things or these people because of some preference of their own for the wilderness or the solitary life, but who have left them for my name’s sake. As we have seen, the name stands for the whole person (see on 6:9); Jesus is speaking of those who recognize him for what he is, God’s Messiah, and who accordingly are quite prepared to give up whatever is necessary in order to fulfil their vocation as his followers. These people, he says, will not in the end find that they have entered an impoverished existence. Jesus is not calling people away from everything that makes life enjoyable. He is calling them to make sacrifices indeed, but to make sacrifices in a worthwhile cause, and one that in the end will bring a rich reward. He is not suggesting that they serve him simply in order to obtain a reward; if they do, they have not escaped the worldliness he calls them to abandon. But the reality is that when they respond to his call they enter an abundant life in which they will receive a hundredfold. This, of course, is not to be taken literally (one cannot have a hundred fathers!); it points to uncountable blessings. He does not say what it is that they will receive so abundantly, but clearly it points to a rich reward (Was it Hudson Taylor who said that he had never succeeded in making a sacrifice for God? Every time he gave up anything for God he found so much blessing that he felt himself better off rather than worse off for having given up whatever it was). And especially wonderful will be the inheriting of life eternal. This means, of course, life that never ceases, but more than that it means life of a particular quality, life that is appropriate to the age to come. The most wonderful gift that comes to those who obey the call of Christ is that they share in life of the highest quality.45
30. All this points to a reversal of the generally accepted order of things (cf. 20:16). Those who are highly esteemed and held to be first in this world’s order of things will end up last, in the worst possible position. The point is that they have put their whole effort into earthly success without reference to the more worthwhile life of service to which Christ is calling them. Inevitably when the time comes that earthly success is seen for the tawdry and temporal thing it is, they will rank with the last.46 That is what they have qualified for, and that is where they will be. The corollary of that is that those who are last here and now will often be found to be among the first in the life to come. They have not accepted the false values of the world but have set their sights on the service of God and of their fellows no matter what the cost to themselves, and they reap the consequences accordingly. The words are a strong warning against being deluded by earthly ideas and standards and shutting one’s ears to the call of God.
Matthew 20
2. The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, 20:1–16
1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire workmen for his vineyard. 2And having agreed with the workmen for a denarius per day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing in the marketplace idle; 4and to them he said, ‘You, too, go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.’ 5And they went off. And he went out again at about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he says to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day long?’ 7They say to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He says to them, ‘You go into the vineyard, too.’ 8Now when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard says to his manager, ‘Call the workmen and pay them the wage, beginning with the last and (proceeding) to the first.’ 9And those hired at about the eleventh hour came and received a denarius each. 10And when those who were first came, they thought that they would receive more; and they also received a denarius each. 11And when they had received it, they grumbled at the householder, 12saying, ‘These last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the burning heat.’ 13But he answered one of them, saying, ‘Friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and be off. I want to give to this last man as I gave to you. 15Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ 16Even so, the last will be first, and the first last.”
Matthew adds a parable that underlines the lessons taught in the preceding passage. Jesus has been speaking of the dangers of riches and warning his followers against giving themselves over to the pursuit of personal gain. He has spoken of first who will be last and last who will be first, and he does so again in verse 16. This shows plainly that Matthew intends this parable to underline the point he has just made. With the new parable, then, we should probably see a continuing reference to the problems associated with Peter’s question (19:27). Peter and the rest of the Twelve have indeed left all for Christ, but they must not think that their priority in time gives them an overwhelming advantage.1 The new parable impresses these lessons, but adds an even more important one—God acts toward us in sheer grace. There is no question of salvation being an arithmetical process, adding up the good deeds and the bad ones and coming out with salvation or loss according to whether the balance is on the credit or debit side. That is not the way to understand the dealings of a gracious God.
1. For2 links what follows to the preceding. It is because of what Jesus has just said about those who would follow him giving up everything for the kingdom of heaven’s sake and because of the reversals implied in the first being last and the last first that Jesus proceeds to this parable. He speaks about a householder,3 which many translate as “landowner” (e.g., JB) or “farmer” (Phillips). In our compartmentalized society these words refer to different functions, but in first-century Palestine it would not be at all strange for a man who owned his house to own land as well and use it, if only on a small scale, for farming activities (though this man was not farming on a small scale, as we observe from the number of laborers he hired). The man in this parable owned a vineyard. Jesus speaks of a time when the grapes were ripe and the time had come to pick them. The man went out early,4 which would be usual in order to be sure of getting the workmen and also of getting a whole day’s work out of them.5 Jesus does not say where he went to, but the normal place for hiring workers appears to have been the marketplace, and that is where he would have gone (cf. v. 3). We should probably understand the day laborers as being somewhat indigent. Those who belonged to a household, such as slaves and hired servants, had the security of membership in a household unit, but agricultural laborers working for a daily wage had nothing of the sort.6 They depended for their livelihood on being hired each day.
2. The householder apparently had little difficulty in getting workmen, and he came to an agreement with them that they should work for a denarius per day (this appears to have been the normal pay for a day’s work [Tob. 5:14; a drachma was equivalent to a denarius]). There would probably have been no difficulty in negotiating such a deal, for it meant normal pay for normal work. With agreement reached he sent them off to his vineyard.
3–4. Either he could not at first get all the workmen he needed or else he decided later to hire some more so that the work would be done more quickly. So he went out about the third hour, that is, the third hour after sunrise. The day was divided into twelve parts, each called an hour, with the day beginning at sunrise and the night at sunset (the night seems to have been divided, not into hours, but into three or four watches). The length of an hour varied throughout the year as the days grew longer or shorter, but people evidently saw that as no handicap. In any case, measurements of time were always approximate in the absence of anything equivalent to our watches and clocks to measure time accurately. So with about a quarter of the daylight hours gone the householder went out again. He found potential workmen standing in the marketplace idle. Evidently they were looking for work but had somehow escaped his notice when he made his first foray. Perhaps they came to the marketplace later.
So he approached them to secure them as laborers. There is no specific offer of a job, nor is there any indication of haggling over terms or even of coming to an acceptable agreement (as in the case of the first workers). The householder simply addressed them7 and directed them to go into his vineyard. He named no specific figure as the wage, but said that he would give whatever is right (“pay you a fair wage,” REB, GNB). The workmen apparently were ready to leave it to the owner (they were too late to claim a full day’s wage). They probably understood him to mean that he would pay the right proportion of a denarius.8
5. Evidently this was enough, for the workmen went off. The householder repeated the process at three-hour intervals. We get a picture of a man who wanted a good deal of labor for his vineyard, but who could not get it all on any one occasion; therefore he made repeated visits to the marketplace, and as he found them he directed workers to his vineyard.
6. That the man kept coming and looking for workmen even toward the end of the day perhaps indicates that he wanted to complete his grape harvest that day; grapes will not keep indefinitely, but must be harvested soon after they ripen. There is a slightly longer conversation with those hired at about the eleventh hour.9 By this time the working day was almost over, and it is somewhat surprising that there should still be potential laborers standing and evidently seeking employment. The fact that they were still there perhaps indicates that they desperately needed work. This time there is no immediate offer of employment, but an inquiry as to why these men had been standing idle all day long. There might have been something detrimental to good workmanship in people who were idle throughout the day. At any rate the man thought it well to inquire before proceeding further.
7. But the reason is simple: no one had hired them. Jesus does not explain how they had come to miss the householder with his continuing offers of work, but the point of the story is not that. It is rather that right up to the eleventh hour the man was ready to take on workmen and that at that very time he sent his final batch to the vineyard. Once more there is no discussion about their pay. There is the simple instruction, “You go into the vineyard, too.”10 Nothing is said about remuneration. There is no agreement as for the first workmen, nor assurance that the man would pay what is right for the second (and presumably also for those at the sixth and ninth hours, for the owner dealt “likewise” with them, v. 5). Obviously there was an understanding that these last workmen would be paid, but there is nothing to show how much they would get.
8. When the working day came to its end, the workers had to be paid (Lev. 19:13; Deut. 24:15). So the owner summoned his manager.11 He instructed him to “Call the workmen and pay them the wage.” This seems to be standard procedure, but that may not be the case with the direction to begin with the last and go on to the first. However, that is the order in which these workmen were to be paid.
9. The men who had worked for only one hour were doubtless pleasantly surprised at getting a full day’s wage. They could not have known what they would get. They had not made a bargain with their employer, but had been content to trust him to do what was right. So their one hour’s work resulted in the wage appropriate to a full day of work. That he had paid the full day’s wage probably indicates a genuine concern for the needs of others. It can scarcely be due to a desire to be rid of money! We must assume that that householder knew that a poor man and his dependents needed the money if they were to have even the necessities of life. There is compassion behind the payment.
10. Nothing is said about those who came at the intermediate times, but we are left to presume that they also got the full day’s wage. The story moves to the men who had worked all day. They were the spectators of this generosity and, forgetting that they had made a formal agreement with the employer, expected that they would receive more.12 It is an obvious piece of reasoning: they had worked longer hours and done more work, so they deserved more pay. But it did not work out like that. They received the denarius they had agreed on, that and no more.13
11. Receiving their pay under those circumstances was not a matter of rejoicing. They felt that they had not been treated fairly (had they not done twelve times as much as the latecomers?), and so they grumbled.14 The verb is in the imperfect tense, which indicates a continuing process; the grumbling went on.15
12. Their complaint amounted to this: they had not been treated fairly. The latecomers worked one hour,16 so their contribution to the work in the vineyard was miniscule. But when it came to pay, they were made equal to those who had done most of the work. Is it significant that they complain, “you made them equal to us,” not “You made us equal to them”? They were jealous of what had been given to these others; they envied the generosity of the owner to people who had no merit. And it was not only a matter of time spent working; the conditions in which the work was done were also a consideration. The grumblers bring this out by saying that they had borne the burden17 of the day and the burning heat.18 The thrust of the complaint is thus twofold: the latecomers did very little work, and what they did they did under the best conditions in the cool of the day (NIV says that their complaint was that they had endured “the burden of the work and the heat of the day,” while REB prefers “sweated the whole day long in the blazing sun”). Surely those who had done a full day’s solid work under the worst conditions of the day as well as during the more comfortable hours should be paid more than those who had done very little and had done that little in comparative comfort? It wasn’t fair.19
13. But this argument did not impress the owner. He is not pictured as addressing the group, but he spoke to one of the grumblers, and in what he said we understand why he had acted as he did. He addressed him as “Friend,” a form of address used in this Gospel only in friendly remonstrance (22:12; 26:50). On his side there was no malice or hard feeling; the man who had worked for him all day was his friend. Then he pointed out that there was no injustice: “I do you no wrong.” When a man makes a solemn agreement and keeps to his side of the bargain, there should be no thought of injustice. This man had made a legal agreement with his workmen; they would work for a day, and he would pay them a denarius.20 That was what they did and what he did. Where is the injustice? The fact that he chose to be generous to other people gave these men no new rights. Their discontent was due to envy, not to the overlooking of any of their rights.
14. So he told him to take what he had earned and what accordingly belonged to him, and be off (like the hypocrites in 6:2, 5 he had received what was due!). He had made a legal agreement, and both sides had kept to the bargain. There was nothing more to be said along those lines. The householder further explains that he wants to give to the latecomers just what he had given to those who were there earlier. This is not a question of a legal undertaking or of striking a bargain; the man says simply, “I want to give.”21 He chose to be generous to those who came late on the scene. This did not mean that he was compelled to be generous to those who had worked all day.
15. Two more questions finish off the owner’s little speech. He asks whether it is not lawful for him to use his own money as he chooses.22 If people are going to stick by the requirements of the law, he will fulfil his obligations, and indeed he had done so. He had not skimped in paying any of those with whom he had had an agreement for a denarius. It could not be denied that he had acted within the law. And as for the others? “God is not answerable to man for what he does with his rewards” (Fenton). All that we have we receive from his mercy. With that the householder joins the question whether those who objected to what he had done had an evil eye. We saw in an earlier passage that in first-century Palestine the word eye was used in ways quite different from our usages, and specifically that people talked about an “evil eye” (6:22–23). The evil eye was sometimes thought of in terms of miserliness, and that may well be in mind here. The grumblers were not complaining of some evil action that the householder had done; they were not saying that they had been cheated out of the wages they had agreed on. They were objecting to an act of sheer generosity that he had displayed toward other people (Phillips translates, “Must you be jealous because I am generous?”).
This is a very important parable. It is possible to interpret it in terms of Israel and the Gentiles (as Gundry, e.g., holds). The vineyard is often used as a symbol for Israel (e.g., Isa. 5:1–7); those who take the parable this way argue that Israel is like the men who worked all day, while the Gentiles are symbolized in those who came later and were admitted by God’s grace. Others point out that there is always a tendency for those who have been followers of Christ for a long time to be suspicious of those who come later. This applies to Jews and Gentiles, but it also applies to the Twelve and to later believers, and it is not difficult to see this tendency at work in the church of all ages. The parable warns us that priority in time means little.23 But it seems better to interpret the parable as putting emphasis on the truth that God acts in grace toward us all. There is a tendency in the human race to think of salvation in legal terms. There is no heresy as widespread as the one we can put simply as “If I live a good life, I will go to heaven when I die.” It is natural for us to think that we can earn our salvation. But the consistent teaching of Scripture is that we are sinners; we all fall short of the standard we ought to have attained, and thus we have no claim on salvation. But as in this parable the workers who came late had no claim on a full day’s wage though they got it, so sinners have no claim on salvation. Salvation is always a work of grace. That God does not treat us on the basis of justice is a fact for which sinners must be truly grateful. The parable emphasizes the place of grace (eleven twelfths of what the last comers received was unearned!).
I do not know of any way of bringing out the point of this parable better than referring to a parable uttered by the rabbis (as far as our information goes, it was later than New Testament times, but, of course, we have no way of knowing how long it was passed on by word of mouth before it was recorded). It concerns a king who hired workmen to work in his vineyard. One of them worked skillfully, and the king took him by the hand and spent most of the day talking with him. When the laborers were paid, this man received the same as the others. They grumbled and said, “We toiled all the day, whereas this man toiled for two hours, and yet the king has given him his full wage!” The king said to them, “What cause have you for grumbling? This man in two hours did more good work than you in a whole day” (Eccl. Rab. 5.11.5; McNeile cites it from Jer. Ber. 2:5c, and it is found also in Cant. Rab. 6.2.6). Clearly the story made quite an appeal to the rabbis, and we can understand that. The natural man assumes that reward is geared to merit. Jesus is pointing out that God does not deal with us on the basis of merit but of grace.24 The love of God in all its fulness is poured out on sinners, and they receive infinitely more than they deserve. The parable underlines the truth that God’s way is always the way of grace.
16. Even so aligns the next piece of teaching with the parable, as Jesus repeats essentially what he had said in 19:30. Because God acts in grace and we so easily think in terms of merit, there will be many surprises for us all in the end when God’s will is seen in its final working out. Human rankings will avail nothing at that time, and there will be those we have made last25 who will be first, and, of course, the reverse phenomenon will also take place.26
3. A Prediction of the Passion, 20:17–19
17And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples apart privately and said to them on the way, 18“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered up to the high priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, 19and they will deliver him up to the Gentiles to mock and to flog and to crucify, and on the third day he will be raised.”
Commentators routinely copy from one another the statement that this is Jesus’ third prediction of his passion, but Matthew has already recorded three such predictions (16:21; 17:12, 22–23; cf. 10:38); this is his fourth. An exception is Plummer, who notes that this is the fourth and thinks that there may have been others (p. 275). The repeated predictions show that Jesus had no doubts about what awaited him in Jerusalem as the culmination of his mission and the climax of the opposition of those who rejected him. And his inclusion of the resurrection in this prediction shows his firm conviction that the Father would ensure his ultimate triumph. On this occasion there is greater detail regarding what will happen to Jesus: he will be condemned by the Jewish leaders, he will be handed over to the Gentiles, he will be mocked and flogged and crucified (only Matthew records Jesus’ explicit prediction that his death will be by crucifixion).
17. Matthew locates this prediction on the journey to Jerusalem, but he gives no indication as to just where it took place, nor of any happening that may have called it forth. He simply says it took place as Jesus was going up27 to Jerusalem. The whole band of disciples were, of course, going up to the city, as were multitudes of pilgrims; but when Matthew says simply that Jesus was going up, he puts emphasis on the leader. Mark has a striking picture of Jesus striding ahead and of the disciples following amazed and afraid. Matthew says nothing of this, but clearly he envisaged unusual circumstances such that taking the disciples apart was a significant action. Evidently others were traveling along the way (there would be pilgrims going up to observe the Passover in the capital city), but Jesus did not want his prediction to become public property. He took the twelve disciples apart privately.28 Matthew says explicitly that this happened on the way (the others do not mention this). It was as they were going to Jerusalem that this prediction was made.
18. “Look” (see on 1:20) is Matthew’s way of drawing attention to what follows. Jesus reminds his followers that their destination was Jerusalem. They were going up at the time of one of the great festivals of the Jewish liturgical year, and the expectation would be that they were facing a time of celebration and rejoicing. But Jesus says that “the Son of man” (his name for himself in the fulfilment of his messianic vocation) “will be delivered up29 to the high priests and scribes.” Both terms have particular meanings (see on 2:4), but the combination (with no article before scribes so that the two are something of a unity), together with the reference to a judicial condemnation, shows that the Sanhedrin, the highest court of the Jews, is in mind. Not only will Jesus appear before them, but these people, the religious leaders of the nation, will condemn him to death, where the verb points to the exercise of judicial power, not to a lynching. Under Roman domination the Sanhedrin had no power to put anyone to death, but that did not stop them sentencing people to this punishment. They would then hand over to the Romans those they held to be guilty, and these rulers of the nation would decide whether the sentence would be carried out or not. Jesus is speaking here of the part the Jewish authorities would play in bringing about his death.
19. He moves to the next stage in the drama. The Jewish leaders will deliver him up (the same verb as in v. 18) to the Gentiles. Jesus does not specify which Gentiles, but in the circumstances of the time there could be no doubt but that he meant the Romans. He goes on to specify three things these people will do. They will mock,30 which fits the practices of the day (there was no tradition that a prisoner should be treated kindly), but it was not an invariable accompaniment of condemnation and it speaks of another piece of bitterness in the sufferings Jesus would undergo. Flogging was the normal prelude to crucifixion, though it could, of course, be used as the proper and adequate punishment for some offenses. Since it was a very brutal practice, it was no light punishment in itself. But here it is the prelude to execution, as the addition to crucify him31 shows. Jesus leaves no doubt that he was facing the ultimate in rejection by his people and in suffering at the hands of the Gentiles who ruled them. Matthew is the only one of the Evangelists who tells us that Jesus specifically prophesied that he would be crucified. This was a form of death normally reserved for slaves, criminals, and other despised people (a Roman citizen could not be crucified).
But that is not the whole story. As he has done before, Jesus goes on to predict his resurrection. This will take place on the third day (for this expression see on 12:40; it was the third day according to the Jewish method of counting, even if some modern people have difficulty with the expression). Jesus does not say that he will rise, but that he will be raised. As is the normal (though not invariable) way of putting it, the resurrection is attributed to the activity of the Father. He will set his seal on the saving death of the Son of man by raising him from the dead.
4. Places for the Sons of Zebedee, 20:20–28
20Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons approached him together with her sons, and she knelt and made a request. 21And he said to her, “What do you want?” She says to him, “Say that these two sons of mine will sit on your right hand and on your left in your kingdom.” 22But Jesus answered, saying, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They say to him, “We can.” 23He says to them, “My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right hand and at the left is not mine to give, but is for them for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” 24And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. 25But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the nations exercise lordship over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26It will not be so among you, but whoever wills to be great among you will be your servant, 27and whoever wills to be first among you will be your slave; 28even as the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Consistently Jesus had taught his followers that there was no place for pride and self-seeking of any sort in the life to which he called them (equally consistently they failed to learn the lesson!). Matthew brings this out by following the prediction of the Messiah’s sufferings and death with the story of the Zebedee family’s petition for the highest places in the kingdom of which Jesus had taught so much. We need not think that the request was made immediately after Jesus’ prediction of his passion, but it must have been at about that time, for it took place during the journey to Jerusalem. It shows a complete failure to understand the essential thrust of Jesus’ teaching. It was not a minor misunderstanding, but an error at the heart of what service in the kingdom means.
20. Then (see on 2:7) can signify next in sequence, but it is also used more loosely for sometime later, and that will be the meaning here. Mark tells us that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with the request, but Matthew assures us that their mother was with them, and the way Matthew puts it, that she took the leading role in the petition they offered.32 She may have been the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus,33 in which case she would probably have been urging the claims of the family. The verbs translated knelt and made a request are both feminine participles, so that it was the lady who was foremost in bringing the request. She took up a respectful, even reverent, posture34 and indicated that she had a request to make. At this point she did not say what she wanted, but made a request.35 This action appears to mean that, in deference to the position of a great person, she was seeking Jesus’ permission before presenting her petition.
21. Jesus accordingly asked what she wanted; his verb is singular, so at this point he is confining the request to the lady and not associating her sons with her. She asks for an assurance36 that her two sons would sit at Jesus’ right hand and at his left37 in the kingdom. Next to the ruler, these were the two places of highest honor. Luke tells us that at about this time the members of the little band were expecting that the kingdom was about to be set up (Luke 19:11); perhaps they thought that that was why Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. It would seem that the Zebedees wanted to be ready when that kingdom came into being. There is faith in their request. The kingdom had not yet been established in the way the Zebedees looked for it, and there was no sign of such a kingdom. But despite the lowliness of Jesus and of the entire little band the Zebedee family were so sure that the kingdom would eventuate that they were already putting in their claims for the best places when it came. We must deplore the self-seeking implicit in their desire to get the chief places for themselves, but at the same time we should appreciate their deep conviction that in the end Jesus would certainly establish the kingdom.
22. But for all their confidence in Jesus they were on the wrong track. But has adversative force and sets Jesus over against the suggestion just made. The mother had asked the question, but the sons were more nearly concerned, and it is to them that he addresses his answer. He goes on to say, “You do not know what you are asking.”38 They were clearly viewing the kingdom in terms of the contemporary understanding of splendor; Jesus would reign, they thought, over a realm much like that of the Romans, only more glorious. Despite all the teaching Jesus had given, they had still not realized that the kingdom meant lowliness, sacrifice, and rejection in this world. Who would ask for places of honor in such a kingdom? Who could ask for places of honor in it? To ask the question is to show that one has not understood what the kingdom is; it is impossible to seek greatness for oneself in it.
Jesus goes on to ask, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?”39 He does not explain what this means, but the cup is used in the Old Testament with associations of suffering and sometimes of the wrath of God (e.g., Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15–16). All four Gospels use the term when they are recording what Jesus said of his sufferings in Gethsemane and at the time of his arrest (26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 18:11). It is clear that the term was often used for suffering and the like, but it is not so clear why the sons of Zebedee were so ready to express their willingness and their capacity to endure it. “We can,” they said, without hesitation, without understanding, and without seeking clarification of exactly what the cup involved. That they claimed too much was made plain when they ran away in Gethsemane (26:56). And yet—in due course they did drink the cup, James by martyrdom (Acts 12:1–2) and John by exile to Patmos (if, as seems probable, he was the John who wrote Rev. 1:9).
23. Jesus agrees that they will drink his cup, even though they do not understand what it implies. Their knowledge of the kingdom and of what following Jesus meant would be considerably enlarged, and that in the not-too-distant future. In the end they would be ready to eschew self-seeking and be ready to endure whatever suffering was required of them as humble members of the kingdom. That would happen, although at this time they did not understand it. But the chief places in the kingdom are another matter. Jesus says that gift “is not mine to give.” That is the prerogative of the Father, and Jesus says that it has already been prepared for them. If it has already been prepared for certain people, then obviously Jesus could not now give it to others, no matter how worthy. We should notice again “my Father.” Jesus has just announced that he will be crucified and, in the context of a request for the highest places in the kingdom from people who ought to have known better, he still speaks of God in terms of the closest intimacy. He knew that he would undergo agonizing sufferings, but he faced them with trust in his loving Father.
24. Not unnaturally the action of the Zebedee brothers did not please the rest of the apostolic band. They were indignant.40 The two were stealing a march on the others, some of whom doubtless had their eye on the same positions. It was a source of indignation that the Zebedees had tried to get in first.
25. Jesus approved of neither the actions of the two nor those of the ten; thus he called them all to him to teach them yet once more that it is lowliness, not self-assertion, that is important in the kingdom. The two were wrong, but then so were the ten. “You know,” he says, appealing to what is common knowledge and something that does not require demonstration. He refers to rulers of the nations, where his word is that commonly used for “the Gentiles” (as indeed a number of translations render it here). But it seems that Jesus is speaking about what happens in nations generally (NEB has “in the world”); he is not contrasting Jews with Gentiles. And in the nations rulers commonly exercise lordship over them. The world is apt to reason: “What is the point of being a ruler if you can’t act like one?” So rulers all too easily come to tyrannize over their subjects. And great men who are not quite in the positions of being rulers are still quite ready to make use of whatever authority they can exercise.41 It is the way of the world to look for the highest possible place and to take delight in making full use of the authority that that place gives. In political life the world over and the centuries through humility is seen as a handicap, not a virtue. Jesus draws attention to a well-known fact of life. It scarcely needs adding that he is not objecting to constituted authority as such; there must be people in authority if there is to be ordered government. He is objecting to the misuse of power that so easily comes about.
26–27. There is no connective, and the abrupt transition from the world to the group of Jesus’ followers helps to show that the two are quite different. Disciples are not meant to be the world in all its self-assertion all over again. So Jesus says quite definitely, “It will not be so among you.” The future tense lays down what is to happen; it is to be understood as having the force of a command (cf. M, III, p. 86). But is the strong adversative; the followers of Jesus will be far from adopting the worldly approach. Anyone among them who wills to be great may recognize that there will be those among the followers who, like the sons of Zebedee, have visions of doing more than the humdrum things in which so many find contentment. They may want more than what someone has called “the flim-flam of respectable Christianity.” But those who are moved by such feelings are not to think that their place is to be like that of some earthly lord, sitting at the top of the heap and directing other people. Rather, the person who wants eminence in the kingdom is to take the path of lowliness and humility.42 Jesus takes that to the limit by saying that the one who wills to be first in the brotherhood will be your slave.43 In the ancient world there was no one lower than a slave; the slave’s “whole life is lived in service for which he can claim neither credit nor reward” (Robinson). Jesus could scarcely use a more graphic term to bring out the lowliness his people must seek. It is in lowly service that Christians find their true fulfilment. They follow a Master who took the form of a servant and lived all his earthly days in humble obscurity. The way forward for them is in humility and lowliness. To set one’s heart on eminence is to lose the heart of the Christian way. This does not, of course, mean that among the followers of Christ there are to be no leaders, none in high places. It means that those who take the lead among them are to be humble, people seeking not personal success but the opportunity of doing lowly service.
28. This line of reasoning is clinched by an appeal to what Jesus himself was doing. He uses his title “Son of man”; his messianic function is involved; this is the climax of what he came to do. He did not come (the words do not prove that Jesus was conscious of existing before he appeared in this world, but that is the natural way to understand them; cf. 5:17, etc.) to be served but to serve. This is the very antithesis of what the sons of Zebedee wanted. They viewed themselves as the kind of people who would be right at the top in the kingdom. Jesus is saying that he sought no such place for himself. He sought the path of lowly service.44 He underlines this by saying, “and to give his45 life a ransom46 for many.”47 The word ransom took its origin from the practices of warfare, where it was the price paid to bring a prisoner of war out of his captivity. It was used of sacral manumission of slaves, a process wherein the slave went through the solemn rigmarole of being sold to a god “for freedom.”48 In effect this meant that, while the slave technically belonged to the god, as far as people were concerned he or she was free. This forms a vivid illustration of one aspect of Christ’s saving work. Sinners have become the slaves of sin (John 8:34), and they cannot break free. But Christ has paid their ransom price, and now they are free indeed. “The ransom saying undoubtedly implies substitution. For, even if the ἀντί be translated ‘to the advantage of,’ the death of Jesus means that there happens to Him what would have had to happen to the many. Hence He takes their place” (Büchsel, TDNT, IV, p. 343).49 There may well be a reference to Isaiah 53, though there is no exact quotation (Gundry brings out this point; he also says that the words rendered a ransom for “establish the substitutionary value of the sacrifice given in service”).
5. Two Blind Men of Jericho, 20:29–34
29And as they were going out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30And look, two blind men sitting by the wayside heard that Jesus was passing by, and cried out, saying, “Take pity on us, Lord, Son of David.” 31But the crowd admonished them so that they should be silent; but they cried out all the more, saying, “Take pity on us, Lord, Son of David.” 32And Jesus stood still and called them, and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33They say to him, “Lord, that our eyes may be opened.” 34And Jesus, moved with compassion, touched their eyes, and immediately they received sight and they followed him.
Matthew moves on in his account of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and tells the story of two blind men who received their sight as the Master was leaving Jericho. There are problems in relating this to what we read in the other Gospels. Matthew has two blind men, whereas Mark and Luke have but one, whom Mark names as Bartimaeus. Our first two Gospels have the miracle as Jesus was leaving Jericho, but Luke has it as he was arriving. We may or may not be able to reconcile the accounts, but some things should be said. If there were two men, one of them may well have been more prominent than the other and attracted more attention, so that it was possible to write the story concentrating on him.50 It does not seem to make a great deal of difference whether it took place as Jesus was arriving at Jericho or leaving, and in any case there is a complication in that there were two Jerichos (Josephus, War 4.459), the site of Old Testament Jericho, which had been overthrown, and the site nearby of the rebuilt Herodian Jericho. It is not impossible that the miracle was performed as Jesus was leaving one Jericho and approaching the other. We should not miss the point that this story follows immediately on the sayings about Jesus’ saving death. He used his great powers, not to save himself, but to heal a couple of apparently quite unimportant blind men.
29. Since Matthew has given us few details of Jesus’ journey, we are left wondering about his precise route. But at this point he is certainly within the borders of Judea, with Jerusalem no more than about fifteen miles away. Matthew locates the happening as they were leaving Jericho. He says that a great crowd was following Jesus (usually he uses the plural “crowds,” but here the word is singular). There would have been many pilgrims going up to Jerusalem for the Passover, and, since Jesus was known to many from Galilee, there is nothing surprising in their attaching themselves to him as they all journeyed on to the same destination.
30. Matthew’s vivid “And look” (see on 1:20) invites the reader to contemplate two blind men sitting by the wayside. It is not said that they were begging, but that is not improbable (and Luke says that was what his blind man was doing). The blind had no other way of earning a living, and with crowds of people going up to Jerusalem for the feast there was always the possibility of help coming from well-disposed worshipers. They heard from some of the crowd that Jesus was passing by. Evidently they knew something of Jesus, and specifically they knew that he had brought healing to many. So they did not waste their opportunity—they would probably never get another. They cried out; there is no indication of how far they were from Jesus, and they probably did not know. But shouting was the way to get his attention, so that was what they did. They did not specify that they wanted him to give them their sight, but asked him to take pity on them, as did the two blind men in 9:27 (which some think is a doublet of the present story), the Canaanite woman (15:22), and the man Jesus encountered at the foot of the mountain of the transfiguration (17:15). It is not certain whether we should include “Lord” as part of the true text here (as it is in v. 31), but this seems likely.51 They further greeted him as “Son of David,” a messianic title (see on 1:1),52 which Matthew records a number of times. It is of interest that Jesus does not reject it, though it was uttered loudly in the presence of a large crowd (earlier he had discouraged talk of his messiahship; cf. 9:30). He was going to Jerusalem to die, and he would die as the Messiah. The title indicates that the blind men thought highly of Jesus and saw in him someone who could deliver them from their blindness if he only would. But they realized, too, their lowly place, so they asked for his pity.
31. But has adversative force; it sets the unsympathetic crowd over against the noisy blind men. The people wanted to see and hear Jesus, not to be disturbed by these men shouting out for pity. They admonished53 the blind men with a view to54 their being quiet. But they were totally unsuccessful. The blind men were highly motivated and they were persistent. When they were rebuked, they reacted by crying out all the more.55 They said the same words as before (this time there is no textual doubt about “Lord”; REB has “Sir,” but where the men are addressing the Son of David “Lord” is more likely than “Sir”); they wanted the Lord, the Son of David, to take pity on them, so they kept repeating their plea.
32–34. In the end they were successful; Jesus halted his progress56 and called them. He asked them what they wanted and received the answer, “Lord, that our eyes may be opened.”57 The greatest thing that could be done for them was that they be given sight. And Jesus responded. He was moved with compassion (see on 9:36 for this illuminating expression); the crowd had been ready to silence these men and keep them out of the way, but Jesus was too compassionate for such harsh treatment of people in need. He has just been teaching his followers the importance of lowly service, and he now gives an example of it. For a moment he ignores the great crowds of people thronging around him and concentrates on two insignificant men in need. He touched their eyes,58 as he had touched people in his healings a number of times. Thus Matthew reports him as touching a leper (8:3), Peter’s mother-in-law (8:15), and the eyes of blind men (9:29), in each case with healing following. Sometimes people touched his clothes and received healing (9:20–21; 14:36). On this occasion the immediate sequel to the touch was that the men received sight.59 Matthew also records that they followed him. This may mean no more than that they joined the crowd behind Jesus as he journeyed on, but it is more likely that Matthew uses the term here of a more meaningful following; he sees the two as becoming disciples. Schweizer considers this so important that he heads his discussion of the whole story, not “Two Blind Men Receive Sight” but “Two Blind Men Follow Jesus.” He expressly understands they followed him to mean “the men joined Jesus as disciples” (p. 399).60
Matthew 21