Vi. Jesus’ Ministry In Jerusalem, 21:1–25:46

Vi. Jesus’ Ministry In Jerusalem, 21:1–25:46

VI. JESUS’ MINISTRY IN JERUSALEM, 21:1–25:46

Matthew has finished his accounts of Jesus in Galilee and Jesus on the way to Jerusalem. He moves on now to how the Lord came to the capital city and what happened thereafter. There are a few accounts of happenings, but mostly this section of the Gospel is concerned with the teaching Jesus gave in Jerusalem.

A. Beginnings, 21:1–27

Matthew begins this section of his narrative with an account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in triumph, together with what happened immediately after that.

1. The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, 21:1–11

¹And when he drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and straightaway you will find an ass tied up and a colt with her; loose them and bring them to me. ³And if anyone says anything to you, you will say, ‘The Lord has need of them.’ And immediately he will send them.” ⁴Now this happened so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying,

⁵“Say to the daughter of Zion,

‘Look, your King is coming to you,

Meek and mounted on an ass,

and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”

⁶And the disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them; ⁷they brought the ass and the colt, and they put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. ⁸And the great crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹And the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest!” ¹⁰And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up and said, “Who is this?” ¹¹And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, who is from Nazareth of Galilee.”

All four Gospels tell us that when Jesus came up to Jerusalem for the last time during his public ministry he was greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd. This is somewhat surprising, for during the immediately preceding days there has been quite an emphasis on the fact that at this time Jesus concentrated largely on teaching his disciples (there has also been a marked growth of opposition to him on the part of people like the Pharisees). Nothing prepares us for this outburst of enthusiastic support from the general public. We should probably understand that among the crowd who came up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover‍¹‍ there were many who had been impressed by his teaching and his miracles. The Roman occupation cannot have been popular, and some patriotic souls must have thought it possible that Jesus would form the spearhead of a movement in opposition. So people cheered him with enthusiasm.

In John’s Gospel the story begins, not with Jesus sending for the donkey, but with crowds of people taking palm branches and going out to meet Jesus,‍²‍ shouting “Hosanna.” John appears to be saying that the excitement was begun by enthusiastic pilgrim crowds already in Jerusalem and by those from the neighborhood of Jerusalem who had been impressed by the raising of Lazarus. In passing we should notice that the Synoptists have made it clear that Jesus could expect only opposition and death when he went up to Jerusalem, but they have not given attention to the question, Why then did he go up? In the deepest sense they have made it clear that this was to fulfil the purpose of God, but they have not brought out the human circumstances that led him to go up at just this time. John supplies that reason—Jesus went up to help his friends at Bethany when Lazarus was ill. The fact that he brought Lazarus back to life after he died explains why so many of the Jerusalemites were ready to welcome Jesus when he came to the city. Miracles done in the backwoods of Galilee would not impress them, but a raising from the dead in their own backyard at Bethany was quite another matter. What he had done in Bethany had clearly become known, at least in some quarters in Jerusalem.

Some commentators suggest that these two accounts are in contradiction, but this does not appear to be the case. If we accept what John is saying, it would seem that when Jesus saw that these people were trying to make a political messiah out of him he sent for the donkey, as the Synoptists tell us he did, in order to show by his symbolic action that he was not the potential overthrower of the Romans that the crowds would dearly have loved to see. No, he was the Prince of peace.‍³‍ However we relate the Synoptic accounts to the Johannine record, the important thing is that the crowds were engaging in unwise political enthusiasm, but Jesus came to Jerusalem, not as the leader of a revolt against Rome but as the King of peace.

1. Matthew has recorded Jesus’ departure from Jericho, and now we find that he was getting near to Jerusalem. Bethphage (the name apparently means “House of Unripe Figs”) was a village whose precise site is not now known. Both Mark and Luke link it in this narrative with Bethany and mention it first, so it was probably to the east of that village. The Jews regarded it as the outer limit of the area of Jerusalem (the loaves of Lev. 23:17; 24:5 “were valid whether made in the Temple Court or Bethphage,” ‍Menaḥ.‍ 11:2; Bethphage is seen as the outer limit of Jerusalem also in ‍Pes.‍ 63b; 91a;  ‍Menaḥ.‍ 78b, etc.). The location is further described as the Mount of Olives, just to the east of the city. At this point Jesus sent two disciples on an errand. None of the Evangelists tells us which two were sent.

2. They were to go to the village opposite, which is not named in any of our sources. It may have been Bethany, but we cannot be sure. There, Jesus says, they will find an ass tied up and a colt‍⁴‍ with her. That they will find the animals straightaway seems to mean that they would be near the entrance to the village (Luke in fact says that they will find them as they enter). Jesus anticipates no trouble in their identifying the animals. Matthew is the only one who tells us that there were two animals; both Mark and Luke refer only to “a colt.” He tells them to loose them and to bring them to him.

3. It is unlikely that a stranger might walk into a village, untie an animal, and walk off with it without being challenged. So Jesus tells them what to do should anyone question them. You will say is a future with imperative force (Mark in fact has an imperative). The password is “The Lord has need of them.” “Lord” is patient of more than one meaning. It could mean the owner of the animals, but against this is the fact that, though Luke has the same expression at this point, a little later he says that the owners (“lords”) questioned the disciples when they came for the animal; there was more than one owner, and the owners were with the donkey, not where the donkey was to go. It could mean God, for the animal was to be used in God’s service, but it is not easy to see how those standing near the donkey could have understood this. Another possibility is that “Lord” means Jesus himself (cf. ‍GNB‍, “the Master”); if this is the way of it, we should notice that he says “the” Lord, not simply “our” Lord; it is the Lord of all that is in mind. This cannot be ruled out, but Jesus did not usually apply this word to himself. All in all it seems better to understand the words as a prearranged password. This means that Jesus had somehow made an arrangement with the owners of the animals. None of the Evangelists gives any indication who the owners were or how the arrangement was made. But that it was made shows clearly that Jesus had had more dealings in and around Jerusalem than Matthew has so far indicated. He has written of Jesus only in his Galilean ministry (apart from his visit to John the Baptist and the temptation narrative, and neither of those took him to the capital city). From John’s Gospel we learn that Jesus had been to Jerusalem on a number of occasions and had had an important ministry there, and it would seem that it was on such occasions that he made the acquaintance of people like the owners of the animals he was now borrowing. There still remains the mystery of how on the journey from Galilee Jesus was able to make the arrangements about the animal, but if he had been in Bethany for some days that is not an insuperable problem. He tells the disciples that when they say the words he has given them, anyone who questions them will not only permit them to take them but will send them. Evidently the owners were cooperating fully in Jesus’ plan. Of course the words about sending back may be part of the message delivered by the two disciples, in which case it means that Jesus will send the animals back when he has finished with them.‍⁵‍

4–5. Characteristically Matthew sees a fulfilment of prophecy in all this (as does John; see John 12:15), and only in this Gospel do we find it said that Jesus did what he did in fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 (Buttrick speaks of this as “sheer insight”). He has his characteristic formula for introducing fulfilment of Scripture (see on 1:22), and though he speaks of what was spoken through the prophet he actually combines words from two prophets, Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9. The Isaiah passage is addressed to the daughter of Zion,‍⁶‍ an expression that means the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and it goes on to refer to “your salvation” as coming, which enables Matthew to move over smoothly into the Zechariah passage, where we read of your King as coming. Obviously there is no great difference; the King brings salvation, and it matters little which the prophet chooses to say is coming.

But the important point in the prophecy is that this King is meek. When the prophet says that he comes riding on an ass,‍⁷‍ he is contrasting him with “the chariot,” “the war horse,” and “the battle bow” (Zech. 9:10). It is the fact that the King is a man of peace that is distinctive. In antiquity a king would not normally enter his capital riding on a donkey. He would ride in proudly, on a war-horse, or perhaps he would march in at the head of his troops. An ass was the animal of a man of peace; it would be used by a priest or a merchant or an eminent citizen. But the ass Jesus rode was no well-bred animal meant for the convenience of the wealthy (cf. Judg. 5:10). It is specifically called a beast of burden; it was a lowly animal. A king on an ass was almost a contradiction in terms, though, of course, sometimes in times of peace a king would use an ass (cf. 1 Kings 1:33). That Jesus rode into the city in the way he did was a significant affirmation of his character and his purpose. The pilgrims might shout their acclaims and think of a king who would fight against the Romans and throw them out of the country, but Jesus viewed himself as the King of peace. He had accepted the salutation “Son of David,” and there is no doubt that he agreed that he was the messianic King. But he did not interpret messianic kingship as most of his contemporaries did. He did not view it in terms of armies and battles and conquests. He saw it in terms of peace and love and compassion. Riding on an ass was important. The mention of the prophecy that was fulfilled right at the beginning of this incident (and not after Matthew has related what happened) may be meant to indicate that Jesus consciously fulfilled the words of the prophet. This does not mean that the disciples understood what Jesus was doing; John explicitly tells us that they did not until Jesus was “glorified” (John 12:16). But Jesus knew what he was about, and his action proclaimed boldly to all who had eyes to see that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, but a Messiah of a very different stamp from any that the deliriously happy crowds had imagined.

6–7. The disciples did as they had been instructed. They went off and got the donkey. Matthew sees a literal fulfilment of the prophecy, which speaks of an ass and also of a colt.‍⁸‍ It seems likely that the prophet was speaking of one animal but refers to it twice, varying his description the second time.‍⁹‍ Matthew can scarcely mean that Jesus sat on two animals; he is simply saying that Jesus fulfilled all that the prophet had foretold. Some scholars say that Matthew has misunderstood Zechariah and thus introduces two animals, but it borders on impertinence to suggest that Matthew, of all people, should not be able to discern the force of Hebrew parallelism. Moreover, the writer came from a culture that knew more about riding on asses than do modern New Testament scholars—people actually rode asses in those days. Mark tells us that the animal had never been ridden (Mark 11:2), and Matthew may be indicating that it was still with its mother; if so, it would explain the two animals, for the mother’s presence would help to calm the colt being ridden for the first time, and that in the middle of a noisy demonstration. Before that, though, the disciples put their cloaks‍¹⁰‍ on the ass to serve as a saddle; then Jesus sat on the animal. He sat on them means, of course, that he sat on the cloaks, not the animals; it is not easy to see why some commentators affirm so dogmatically that Matthew is speaking of the impossible situation of sitting on two animals; as ‍Plummer‍ puts it, “the Evangelist credits his readers with common sense. The sarcasm of Strauss is misplaced” (p. 286). ‍Tasker‍ similarly warns against “unintelligent exposition. The authors of Scripture did not write nonsense, and Jesus did not ride on two animals at once!” (p. 198). Matthew does not actually say that Jesus rode the animal into Jerusalem, but that is clearly what he meant.

8. Matthew often refers to the crowds that were found around Jesus, and frequently he has the plural. On this occasion he has an expression for the great crowd that he uses nowhere else.‍¹¹‍ The people then spread their cloaks on the road, clearly to make a kind of ceremonial carpet over which the King should ride (cf. 2 Kings 9:13). The thought will be the same when others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Both groups were concerned to do honor to Jesus and welcome him into the city.‍¹²‍

9. Matthew goes on to the acclamations that were a feature of the excitement. He speaks of two crowds, one ahead of Jesus and one behind. The one will doubtless be pilgrims going up to Jerusalem for the Passover (whose enthusiasm was perhaps generated because they had heard his teaching and seen his miracles in Galilee), and the other is probably mainly local, those who lived in the capital city and its environs (and who had been there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead or had heard of it). Characteristically Matthew has the plural form crowds for both. His verb were shouting is in the imperfect tense, which indicates that the shouting kept on for quite some time. The picture we get is one of great excitement. Evidently there were many Galileans who had thought of Jesus as the Messiah and were disappointed that in his own area he made no public declaration of who he was and of his determination to establish a kingdom that would throw the mighty Romans out of the land. But they had heard his teaching and they had seen him do miracles. As a result they had hoped that he would proclaim himself King, and they were prepared to follow him if he did. Now they thought he was going to fulfil their hopes, and they were ecstatic at the prospect. They took no notice of the significance of the lowly animal on which he was riding nor of the prophecy he was fulfilling.

The crowd shouted, “Hosanna‍¹³‍ to the Son of David”; this must be understood as an expression of exultation and honor. Matthew has just told his readers that two blind men used the title “Son of David,” and we must see the same messianic significance here. The crowds were exultant that Jesus was symbolically declaring his messiahship (and they took insufficient notice of the significance of his riding on a donkey).

They follow this with, “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (cf. Ps. 118:26).‍¹⁴‍ To come “in the name” of anyone was to come in some sense representing him and to come in order to set forward his purposes. The crowds proclaim Jesus as God’s representative, one who would set forward the divine purpose. Luke and John both include “the king” in this part of the crowd’s cry, and although Matthew does not use the expression, it is implied. It was because they foresaw a Galilean King that the crowd of pilgrims got so excited. They cried “Hosanna” once again, and this time added “in the highest.”‍¹⁵‍ It is an enthusiastic cry and probably means that Jesus is to be praised everywhere, right up to heaven itself.

10. The acclamation had evidently started some distance from Jerusalem as the procession wound its way to the city. The noisy group attracted so much attention that the whole city was stirred up (cf. 2:3).‍¹⁶‍ Though a large crowd was evidently involved, Matthew concentrates his attention on Jesus and says that he entered the city. And, of course, the Jerusalem mob was interested in the question, “Who is this?” Jesus had been in the capital city a number of times (as John in particular makes clear). But clearly Jesus was not as well known in that city as he was among the Galilean pilgrims. Those who made their homes in the metropolis would tend to take little notice of a “prophet” from the remote countryside even if he visited their city from time to time.

11. The crowds of pilgrims were ready to respond, and they spoke of their hero as “the prophet Jesus.” They may have meant the great prophet like Moses who was to arise in the last time (Deut. 18:15), and that this prophet was Jesus. The Twelve knew more than this, for Peter had saluted Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16); some of those outside the inner circle probably knew about this, but the crowds in general would not have known. For them prophet was the highest accolade they could give, and they gave it cheerfully. And probably with some local pride they added that he was “from Nazareth of Galilee.” Most of them did not come from Nazareth, but most did come from Galilee, and for them the Galilean prophet was a most important figure. It is interesting that they use this designation, for Jesus had left Nazareth before he began his public ministry and as far back as 4:13 Matthew has said that he left his native village and came and lived in Capernaum. But the place of one’s birth is always important, and clearly the crowd associated Jesus with Nazareth. That was the place that spontaneously came to their lips when they were asked who Jesus was. It is worth noting that it was the crowd’s view that Jesus was a prophet who would presently save him from being arrested (v. 46).

2. The Cleansing of the Temple, 21:12–17

¹²And Jesus entered the temple and threw out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold the doves. ¹³And he says to them, “It stands written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ cave.”

¹⁴And blind and lame people came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵But when the high priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the boys who were crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant, ¹⁶and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” But Jesus says to them, “Yes. Did you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and those giving suck you have brought perfect praise’?” ¹⁷And he left them and went outside the city to Bethany, and he lodged there.

All three Synoptists have this story of Jesus driving the traders from the temple precincts at this point, the end of his public ministry, whereas John has a similar story at the beginning (John 2:13–17). It is perhaps significant that in both traditions the temple cleansing comes at the beginning of Jesus’ first visit to Jerusalem. It is usually assumed that the action took place once only, and argument centers on whether John or the Synoptists have it in its correct place. But against this are the many differences. First, there is the fact that John has the story in a large block of non-Synoptic matter (in John 1–5 nothing occurs in the Synoptic Gospels except the ministry of John the Baptist, and this is so different that there is no question of dependence either way). Then there are the many differences in the narrative. John has a reference to oxen and sheep and to a whip made of cords, none of which is in the Synoptists. And where they are talking about the same thing, the words are mostly different: the word for money changers is different (though in a second reference John also has the Synoptic word), as is that for overturned.‍¹⁷‍ John speaks of the money as being poured out and says that Jesus commanded the traders to take their things away, while none of the Synoptists mentions this. The Synoptists all tell us that Jesus quoted Isaiah 56:7, but John does not say that he cited Scripture at this point. He does, however, say that the disciples remembered the words, “Zeal for your house will eat me up” (Ps. 69:9), which is not found in any of the Synoptic accounts. There are other differences from Mark in parts of the story that Matthew does not reproduce. So many differences in a very short narrative make it unlikely that the Synoptists and John are describing the same event. And we must bear in mind that the Synoptists omit the whole of Jesus’ early ministry in Jerusalem. There seems to be no good reason why they should take this one solitary incident from those days and include it in their accounts as far away from its rightful place as possible. We should also bear in mind that if Jesus did throw the traders out in the early part of his ministry, it is not at all unlikely that they would return in due course. Nor that Jesus should repeat his action.‍¹⁸‍

We often put all our emphasis on “cleansing” and do not make so much of the fact that it was the “temple” to which Jesus went. France says of our usual description “the cleansing of the temple” that it “misses much of the significance of this event. It is the sequel to and culmination of the deliberately symbolic entry to the city; we see now how the Messiah stakes his claim in the central shrine of his people.” It is important that Jesus came to the temple and acted there as one who had authority, even though this greatly displeased those who were responsible for the day-to-day administration of the place of worship.

12. It is usually assumed that Matthew is saying that the cleansing of the temple took place on the same day as the triumphal entry. But the fact is that this Evangelist simply omits any note of time. He does not indicate when this took place (which, of course, is the case also with the cursing of the barren fig tree, the next incident that he relates). He simply tells us that Jesus entered the temple, which, of course, means that he entered the temple precincts. The temple contained the court of the Gentiles (that area beyond which Gentiles could not go), the court of the women (beyond which women could not go), the court of Israel (beyond which laymen could not go), the sanctuary (beyond which priests could not go), and the holy of holies. The traders would have been at work in the outermost court. The money changers performed a useful, even a necessary function because worshipers came with a variety of coinage. Many commentators say that they had to change the money because so many coins bore the emperor’s image or a heathen symbol of some sort, but this overlooks the fact that offerings were required to be made in Tyrian coinage (‍Bek.‍ 8:7). No reason is given for this, but it is not hard to conjecture that it was because Tyrian coins were so reliable: the men of Tyre were traders, and they insisted that their coins should be of the correct weight and that they should have the right amount of silver or gold in them. Whether that was the reason or not, worshipers had to make their offerings in Tyrian currency, and the money changers performed a necessary function. So did the sellers of sacrificial animals and birds. It was not practicable for people coming from all over the Roman world to bring their beasts or birds with them. If they were to offer sacrifice, there had to be some place where they could purchase them. But the point is that that place did not have to be within the temple precincts, and it is to this that Jesus was objecting. So he threw out the traders,‍¹⁹‍ and overturned the tables so necessary to the money changers and the seats of the dove sellers. This effectively stopped the trading and brought about the fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy that a day would come when “there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 14:21), though Matthew does not draw attention to this particular fulfilment of prophecy. It is often suggested that Jesus was protesting against dishonest trading practices. That such practices did at times exist‍²⁰‍ and that Jesus would have opposed them is beyond doubt, but Matthew is describing a protest against the practice itself, against the buyers as well as the sellers. It was wrong for this to go on in the temple precincts. That he accomplished this single-handedly seems to imply that he had a mighty ally in the consciences of the traders. Deep down they knew that what they were doing was not right.

13. Jesus justified what he had done and gave his reason for doing it with a citation of Scripture (Isa. 56:7; the robber’s cave is a description from Jer. 7:11). The temple was meant as a place of worship;‍²¹‍ Matthew omits the words “for all the nations” (as does Luke; Mark includes them). The omission fastens attention on the importance of prayer (and since the Gentiles could go no further than the outermost part of the temple precincts, the court of the Gentiles was important). But using the outer court for trading meant that if a Gentile came to the temple to pray, the only place he could do it was in the middle of a busy bazaar. And while Israelites could go into the inner courts, they had to pass through the trading section there, and there is little doubt that the noise from the traders would penetrate the inner courts enough to interfere with quiet worship. The traders had put profit above worship (McNeile, “the Lord does not speak of noise and distraction, but wickedness”). And when Jesus speaks of a robbers’ cave,‍²²‍ he indicates not only that they were trading in the wrong place, but that they were trading dishonestly.‍²³‍ They were bringing their sharp practices into the holy precincts.

14. Mark and Luke end their treatment of Jesus in the temple with the expulsion of the traders, but Matthew goes on to speak of his further contact with some of the people there. At this point this Evangelist is apparently not greatly concerned with chronology but with giving a short account of some important facts. Mark says that Jesus looked around the temple and went out of the city. On the following morning as he came from Bethany he cursed the fruitless fig tree before going on to drive the traders from the temple. The next day he and the disciples saw the fig tree withered. Matthew telescopes much of this. He has the facts but is not interested in precisely how much time elapsed between one incident and another. Now he notes that blind and lame people came to Jesus in the temple. Matthew says nothing about their requests for healing or any conversation Jesus may have had with them. At this point his interest is in the reaction of the Jewish leaders to what Jesus was doing, and he simply says that Jesus healed them (Matthew’s last mention of Jesus healing). They were in need; he met that need. This stands in striking contrast to the attitude of the men of Qumran: the blind and the lame were explicitly excluded from their assembly (The Messianic Rule II, ‍Vermes‍, p. 120), and when they went out to war these people were not to enter their camp (The War Rule VII, ‍Vermes‍, p. 132).

15. The healings did not go unobserved, and Matthew proceeds to the reaction of the high priests and the scribes. Both terms indicate members of the group in question; Matthew is not talking here about a solemn session (as in 20:18) but about priestly and learned figures whom one might well expect to encounter in the temple. Until now Matthew has referred to the high priests only three times, but from this point they figure increasingly in his narrative, being mentioned 32 times from this point on. The high priests and the scribes, Matthew says, saw the wonderful things‍²⁴‍ that he did, evidently the healings just spoken of. Matthew adds that there were boys‍²⁵‍ acclaiming Jesus. Once again we notice Jesus’ attraction for little children; it is significant that on a day of such high drama Jesus should find time for children. They were using the acclamation “Hosanna” (see on v. 9) and speaking of Jesus as “the Son of David.” We have seen that this was a messianic term (see on 1:1); it is unlikely that the children understood all that the term signified for their elders. But the priestly and academic people knew what it meant, and it annoyed them that children, however innocently, were using such a term for Jesus. In any case, in the usages of the time such exalted personages would not have cared greatly for children. So it does not surprise us that they were indignant. It was bad enough to have the enthusiasm of the crowds at Jesus’ entry to the city, but it was worse to have him invade the temple precincts (their own special territory) and destroy a lucrative source of income, and it was intolerable that there, in the temple courts, he was doing his miracles and now being acclaimed by children (who knew no better!) in messianic terms.

16. They asked Jesus whether he heard what the boys were saying. Their implication is that if he did, he, being a religious teacher of sorts, ought to put a prompt stop to it. It is not without its interest that they picked on the easiest target they could find—little children. They had no criticism of the unholy traders who defiled the sacred place, but they objected to the praises of children. But has adversative force; Matthew sets Jesus over against them. He agrees that he has heard the boys, but then questions the leaders about their knowledge of Scripture. “Did you never read” means, of course, “read in Scripture,” and Jesus goes on to refer them to Psalm 8:2. The passage is cited from the Greek version, which indicates that the praise of God from little children is perfect praise.‍²⁶‍ God does not need the choirs of mighty temples or the gifts of outstanding musicians (though, of course, he accepts these when offered in the spirit of devotion and lowliness). The praise of little ones is perfect praise. The terms Jesus chooses points to the youngest children;‍²⁷‍ even these offer worthwhile praise.

17. That ended the incident. After this memorable day, Matthew says, Jesus left them and went off to Bethany. That was the village in which his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived. The probability is that he lodged with them, though, of course, we cannot be sure of this. Luke tells us that through these days Jesus taught in the temple by day but at night lodged on the Mount of Olives (Luke 21:37). This may mean that he bivouacked there, or, since Bethany was in that area, he may have stayed with his friends. With the Twelve all there, it may well be that they could not all find room in a house and some may have camped out.‍²⁸‍

3. The Fig Tree, 21:18–22

¹⁸In the morning, as he returned to the city, he became hungry. ¹⁹And when he saw a fig tree by the roadside, he went up to it and found nothing on it but leaves only; and he says to it, “No longer may there ever be fruit from you!” And at once the fig tree withered away. ²⁰And when the disciples saw this, they were astonished and said, “How did the fig tree wither away at once?” ²¹And Jesus answered them, saying, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and be thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. ²²And all things whatever that you ask in prayer, if you believe, you will receive.”

Matthew shares the story of the fig tree with Mark, and as is usually the case his account is shorter. Thus Mark says that this happened on the day after the triumphal entry, that they “passed by” (coming from Bethany?), that it was not yet the time for figs, and that it was Peter who drew attention to the withered tree, none of which is in Matthew. Mark makes it clear that this happened on the day after the triumphal entry, but as we have seen, Matthew omits a good deal of information about chronology in this part of his book: he concentrates on what happened, not on when it took place. We should understand this story as an acted parable: the fig tree in leaf gave promise of fruit but produced none. The result was that it was accursed. Those who profess to be God’s people but live unfruitful lives are warned.‍²⁹‍ This will have special relevance to the Jews of Jesus’ day, who viewed themselves as the chosen people, as those to whom God had committed his law and as the servants of God in a way people of no other nation were. But they were not bringing forth fruit worthy of such a position.

18. In the morning‍³⁰‍ Jesus and his followers went back again into the city. Matthew tells us nothing about the mealtime habits of the little band, so we do not know what breakfast arrangements they had or even whether they had any breakfast. If they did, it could not have been much, for on his short walk to Jerusalem (less than two miles) Jesus became hungry. Matthew does not say anything about the dietetic state of the apostles, but it is not unlikely that if Jesus was hungry they were too. Matthew concentrates on Jesus.

19. Still omitting anything having to do with the disciples, Matthew tells us that Jesus saw a fig tree by the roadside (Mark says that it was at a distance, but Matthew leaves out unnecessary details; that it was by the roadside indicates that it was not part of anyone’s property). When he came near the tree, he found no fruit but leaves only. This is unusual.‍³¹‍ If a fig tree is in leaf, it is to be expected that it will be bearing figs. Until they are ripe the taste may not delight the gourmet, but the fruit is edible (Mark tells us that it was not the time of fruit as yet, so this is all that could be expected). The point here is that the tree gave every outward sign of bearing fruit but in fact bore none.‍³²‍ The tree “stood out because it was in leaf. Its leaves advertised that it was bearing, but the advertisement was false” (‍Carson‍). Unusually Jesus addressed the tree and pronounced a sentence: the tree will no longer‍³³‍ bear fruit, not forever.‍³⁴‍ Matthew tells us that the fig tree at once withered away. There is a problem in that Mark tells us that Jesus and the little band went on their way and that it was the next morning when they found the fig tree withered away. But, as we have seen, in this part of his narrative Matthew is very concise and specifically ignores chronology. He gives no indication of the time when the cleansing of the temple took place,‍³⁵‍ nor of that when the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and were healed, nor when Jesus went to Bethany, nor when he came to the fig tree (other than that it was “early”). By narrating the withering of the tree immediately after Jesus spoke, Matthew avoids another note of time and keeps this section of his narrative short.‍³⁶‍

20. Not unnaturally the disciples were astonished‍³⁷‍ at this (Mark does not mention their astonishment; he simply says that Peter drew attention to the tree). They asked Jesus how it happened, unless we take the words as an exclamation, “How the fig tree withered at once!” Either way of taking the Greek is possible. Clearly the disciples were impressed by the miracle.

21. Matthew has been abbreviating, but he makes this part of his narrative longer than that in Mark (Mark has no more than, “He says to them, ‘Have faith in God,’ ” before going on to the words about the mountain). The words are important and are introduced with the emphatic, “Truly I tell you” (see on 5:18). Jesus is telling his followers about the importance of trust; he puts the truth positively, “if you have faith,” and then negatively, “and do not doubt.” Trust in God is stressed throughout the New Testament (“faith” is mentioned 243 times and the verb “to believe” 241 times); it is often used of a quality of life that brings salvation, serenity, and the like, but here it is related to what the disciple can accomplish. In human strength, very little can be done, but when the disciple trusts God wholeheartedly and without doubting, then great things are possible. Jesus says that in that case the disciples would do not only what was done to the fig tree, but they would also be able to move mountains. He puts it graphically, picturing the disciple as speaking to this mountain (apparently the Mount of Olives), commanding it to be raised up and be thrown into the sea, with the result that the command would be obeyed. Jesus had earlier said much the same thing in slightly different words (17:20; see the note there for Jewish use of the expression), and the meaning here, as there, will be metaphorical. There is no record of any disciple ever moving a literal, physical mountain; for that matter, Jesus himself is not said ever to have done such a pointless thing. But throughout the history of the Christian church mountainous difficulties have often been removed when people have prayed in faith. There can be no doubt that it is this to which Jesus is referring.

22. There is a very similar promise, and again it is related to faith. This time, however, Jesus is not referring to moving mountains but to making requests. Prayer is concerned with a good deal more than making requests of God, but that is certainly part of what it means. Jesus encourages his followers to make their requests in faith (“if you believe”), and his “all things whatever”‍³⁸‍ makes the promise limitless in the possibilities it opens up. The proviso “if you believe” excludes the bringing of purely selfish requests, for they are no part of the outworking of faith. But Jesus is saying that the believer who looks to God for anything at all in the path of Christian service can be confident of an answer to prayer: “you will receive.”

4. The Question of Authority, 21:23–27

²³And when he had come into the temple, the high priests and the elders of the people approached him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” ²⁴But Jesus answered them, saying, “I, too, will ask you one question, which if you tell me, I, too, will tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵The baptism of John: where did it come from? From heaven or from men?” But they reasoned among themselves: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for they all hold John to be a prophet.” ²⁷And they answered Jesus, saying, “We do not know.” He also said to them, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The question of proper authority was important for the Jews of the day. They held that they were the people of God, and they therefore detested their Roman overlords. Of necessity they submitted to them, but they did not believe that the Romans had the right to govern them. They were God’s own people, and their human lords were God’s high priest and those associated with him in the appointed assemblies, the great Sanhedrin and the lesser councils throughout the land. People like John the Baptist and Jesus presented problems because they did not fit into this picture. They were not like the Romans, who ruled unjustly but had the military backing that enforced their demands. And they were not like the high priests and other officials, who because of their official position were regarded as authoritative persons by official Judaism. What authority, then, did they have?

It was also a day when originality was not highly prized. In the rabbinic schools it was necessary to cite some previous rabbi if one wished to obtain a hearing. Authority was always clothed with some external justification. But Jesus simply appeared and taught. The Jewish authorities saw no justification for him to do this. He had no authority that they could discern, and they were the people who authorized teachers. So they asked him for his credentials.

23. Once more Matthew has dispensed with any indication of when the incident he is about to narrate took place. He simply locates it when Jesus had come into the temple. It is natural to hold that it followed on from the story of the fig tree, but we are left to deduce this; Matthew does not say so. But the temple courts were the natural place for teaching to take place, and Matthew is about to tell us something of the teaching Jesus gave in Jerusalem, so it was only to be expected that Jesus would make his way to the temple. There the high priests and the elders of the people encountered him.‍³⁹‍ For high priests see on 2:4; the term often included others than the reigning high priest, but it is not clear how many others and precisely who. In this context it is plain that people of the high-priestly family and party are meant, men who were committed to upholding the status quo in the temple and, as far as they could, elsewhere as well. The elders might denote any senior citizens, but in a context like this the meaning will be eminent laymen, probably those who held membership in the Sanhedrin. They would have been committed to much the same positions as those held by the high priests. The separate articles with the two groups may mean that the men came from two significant classes of Jews. Luke’s inclusion of “the scribes” makes it seem like an official delegation from the Sanhedrin, and that may be Matthew’s meaning (G. Bornkamm holds that Matthew prefers to refer to the Sanhedrin in this way, without mention of the scribes, ‍TDNT‍, VI, p. 659, n. 46). As they approached him, Jesus was teaching, but they apparently were not greatly concerned at interrupting him. For that matter, he was probably not greatly concerned at being interrupted; his teaching would have been very informal. Luke says that he was teaching “and evangelizing,” “preaching the gospel,” that is, bringing God’s good news to the people around him.

The men come with a twofold question about authority. They ask first, “By what authority are you doing these things?” and second, “who gave you this authority?” They do not explain what they mean by “these things.” The expression is very general and may cover the triumphal entry, the driving out of the traders, and the healings in the temple. Certainly these were significant happenings, and in the view of the questioners they should not be done without authority of some kind. What authority?‍⁴⁰‍ The groups associated with the questioners had not given Jesus any authority, so they are intrigued. Their second question implies that nobody could assume authority. There had to be some superior person or institution that gave anyone the authority to act in ways like those Jesus had just demonstrated.

24. The questioners doubtless thought of themselves as taking action from a position of strength. Jesus must, they would have reasoned, cite some source of authority, and since they represented temple authority, it could not be any authority that justified him in taking action in the way he did in the place he used. Any human authority he claimed must necessarily be inferior. And if he claimed to have God’s authority, they would be able to accuse him of blasphemy. But Jesus was not disposed to answer along the lines they expected. He doubtless could have cited his authority, but that would have led to endless argument since his opponents would not have conceded that he had the authority he claimed. So Jesus countered with just one question of his own, and promised to answer their two questions if they would first answer his.‍⁴¹‍ His use of “these things” shows that he understood what the questioners meant by this expression even though they have not defined it.

25. “The baptism of John,” he says, and leaves the expression without syntactical connections. It stands there in lonely isolation, thus marking it out as something he views as significant and important. He asks where it came from and suggests two possibilities: “From heaven” and “from men.” This was not a red herring to lead them away from their questions, for if they had answered it honestly they would have had the answer to their own since John had borne witness to Jesus. But they found the question a difficult one to answer. They do not seem to have been concerned with the truth or otherwise of either of Jesus’ alternatives. Their reasoning covers the consequences of each of the possible answers, and they give no attention whatever to the actual source of John’s baptism. They reasoned among themselves; this was not for public hearing. They saw straightaway that if they said, “From heaven,” they had lost their case. Jesus would immediately ask why they did not believe him; and, of course, had they believed him they would not have been engaging in the inquisition that was their present task. They would have become followers of Jesus. That was unthinkable for these men, so there was no trouble in rejecting that as a possible answer.

26. The alternative was to say, “From men,” but when they examined the consequences of such an answer they immediately realized that it was one that was impossible for them to give. John the Baptist had made a profound impression on a large segment of Judaism. There had been no prophet in the land for centuries, and John had come in the tradition of the ancient prophets, calling everyone back to repentance and the seeking of forgiveness of all their sins. Many had responded, and it is clear that even those who did not do this were impressed by the man. Almost everyone would have agreed that he was a prophet, and how could anyone speak of a martyred prophet as “from men”? To make such a statement would be to provoke a riot. They were afraid of the consequences of such a bold rejection of the common opinion.

27. The inevitable answer was: “We do not know.” It was not that they were ignorant of what was involved, nor that they did not have a strong opinion of their own about John. It was that neither answer was practical politics. Jesus had challenged them, and they had declined the challenge.‍⁴²‍ So Jesus declined to tell them anything about his authority. We ought not to think that he was evading the question, or that he was uncertain of the source of his authority. He knew very well, and in proper circumstances he would answer. But these were men who had been asked a question to which they knew the answer, but who refused to give it because they were afraid of the consequences. Why should a teacher like Jesus answer the loaded questions of men like these?

B. Teaching in Parables, 21:28–22:14

Matthew proceeds to narrate three parables that Jesus taught. He has given a number in the earlier part of his Gospel, and as he comes to the end of Jesus’ public ministry he puts before his readers further examples of Jesus’ skill in telling such stories.

1. The Parable of the Two Sons, 21:28–32

²⁸“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ ²⁹But he answered, saying, ‘I won’t,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went off. ³⁰And coming to the other, he said the same thing. But he said, ‘I will, sir,’ and yet he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They say, “The first.” Jesus says to them, “Truly I tell you that the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. ³²For John came to you in the path of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and the harlots did believe him; but you, when you had seen this, did not repent afterward so as to believe him.”

This homely parable (found in Matthew only) brings out the importance of doing what is right and not merely talking about it. It leads naturally enough into a castigation of those who had heard John but had not obeyed him. There are some confusing textual variants, with three main groups of MSS.‍⁴³‍ One has the first son saying “I won’t” but changing his mind and going, with the second saying “I will” and doing nothing (so א^* C^* K W etc.). A second reverses the order of the two, with the first agreeing to go but not going and the second refusing but then changing his mind and going (B Θ 700 etc.; this is supported by urging that if the first son went there was no need for the second to go, but this is not conclusive since we do not know how much work there was to do). The third group has the first son saying “I won’t” but in the end going, and the second saying “I will” but not going; but in this group the answer to the question “Which did the will of the father?” is “the second” (D some OL syr^s). We can surely dismiss the third group as making nonsense of the parable,‍⁴⁴‍ but it matters little which of the first two we accept. With either of them the general sense of the parable is clear: it is not enough to say “I will”; we must put our good intentions into effect.

28. Jesus begins this parable by inviting his listeners to put on their thinking caps. This follows very naturally on the preceding paragraph, but Matthew gives no indication as to whether the parable was told immediately after the incident of the question about Jesus’ authority or on some other occasion. Jesus goes on to speak of a man with two sons who came to the first (often understood as the elder) and said, “Son,‍⁴⁵‍ go work today in the vineyard.” “The” vineyard is, of course, the one belonging to the speaker. He does not specify what he wants done with the vines, but that would be plain enough to any son of the house, who would know what was required.

29. Most uncharacteristically for a son in first-century Palestine, this lad gave an unqualified refusal. “I do not will” is the thrust of his reply. But that is not the whole story, for he changed his mind (the word is sometimes used in the sense “repent,” a nuance that may not be out of mind in a parable of this kind). Jesus does not say that this son actually did the required work in the vineyard, but clearly the fact that he went off, following the reference to the change of mind, means that this is what he did.

30. Exactly the opposite is true of the other son. The father came to him and said the same thing. It cannot be argued that some difference in the instructions brought about different results. The command was the same both times. But if the command was the same, the response was very different. This son was quite agreeable with his “I will, sir.”‍⁴⁶‍ But his actions did not match his politeness. Despite his agreement‍⁴⁷‍ he stayed away from the vineyard. His words were good, but his actions did not match his words.

31. Jesus asked his hearers who did the will of the father (and incidentally we see him involving his audience in a very effective way of teaching). There could, of course, be only one answer (despite the scribes, who produced the variant reading “the second”!), and they gave it. Cf. ‍France‍, “what counts is not promise but performance.” Jesus proceeded to apply his little parable to the contemporary situation. He introduced it with the emphatic “Truly I tell you” that so often opens his very serious statements, and went on to refer to “the tax collectors and the harlots,” descriptions that were almost proverbial for wicked people outside the number of true servants of God (though it is unusual to find these two linked in this way). The whole manner of life of such people cut them off from the kind of religious observance that was the heart of religion for people like the Pharisees. Quite often, of course, these rejects from polite society lived up to the worst their detractors expected from them. But this was not inevitable, as the numbers of such people who accepted Jesus’ teaching showed. And now he says that these people “go into the kingdom of God before you.”‍⁴⁸‍ This does not mean that ethical considerations do not apply and that the worst of sinners keep on with the worst of their sins in the kingdom. It means that sinners like official Judaism’s outcasts could respond to the message of the kingdom much more readily than sinners whose sins were cast in the conventional mode that brought no rebuke from the religious establishment.‍⁴⁹‍ Go means progress; it means that they left their gross and obvious sins for the sake of the kingdom. They entered the kingdom before you, which refers to the representatives of the high priests and elders of the people (v. 23). The conventionally religious who cause no scandal and go through the outward motions of religious observances can fail to respond to the demand for wholehearted repentance and complete dedication to the service of God that Jesus demanded. Matthew usually has “the kingdom of heaven,” but here the kingdom of God (see the note on 12:28).

32. Jesus makes sure that there is no misunderstanding of his words by referring explicitly to the reactions of the people he has just mentioned to the preaching of John the Baptist. John “came to you,” he says; the Baptist’s message was not something hidden and known only to the select few. It had been widely and publicly proclaimed; if John’s locale had been in the wilderness it was not a hidden locale, and we are explicitly told that people from Jerusalem and all Judea as well as the region of the Jordan went out to him (3:5). Jesus’ interrogators had known what John demanded all right. But they did not respond. They did not believe. People whom they despised, the tax collectors and the harlots, were more open to John’s message. They did believe him, which means that they responded to his call for repentance and amended their whole way of living and of approach to God.‍⁵⁰‍ Clearly the change was evident, for Jesus says, “you had seen this.” But even the evidence of what a true response to John’s preaching could do in people’s lives did not produce a change in the conventionally religious. They did not repent afterward, that is, after they had seen what repentance effected in the lives of those who responded to John; they did not believe John. Repentance and believing John are closely connected; had they produced the one they would have produced the other, but they produced neither.‍⁵¹‍

2. The Parable of the Tenants, 21:33–46

³³“Listen to another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to vine growers, and went abroad. ³⁴When then the time of fruit bearing approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. ³⁵And the vine growers took his slaves; they beat one, and they killed another, and they stoned another. ³⁶He sent again other slaves, more than the first, and they did the same to them. ³⁷But last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the vine growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come on, let us kill him and take his inheritance.’ ³⁹And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers?” ⁴¹They say to him, “He will bring those bad men to a bad end, and he will let out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the fruits at the proper times.” ⁴²Jesus says to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘A stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; from the Lord this came about, and it is astonishing in our eyes’? ⁴³Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and it will be given to a nation that produces its fruits. ⁴⁴And he who falls on this stone will be crushed; and whomever it falls on it will pulverize.” ⁴⁵And when the high priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they recognized that he was speaking about them; ⁴⁶and when they sought to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds because they held him to be a prophet.

The second parable in the series underlines both the iniquity of the Jewish establishment and the peril in which they had placed themselves by their continuing refusal to walk in the ways of God. Jesus speaks of a man who let out a new vineyard to tenants and put up with an astonishing sequence of evil deeds until the culmination, when they killed his own son. This brought about a full and final punishment of the sinners. The warning to those who even as he spoke were plotting his death is clear.‍⁵²‍ The parable takes up a theme found in the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 80:8–16; Isa. 5:1–7), and it has a considerable allegorical content. Thus the owner of the vineyard stands for God, the vineyard for Israel, the fruit for righteousness, the tenants for the nation’s leaders, the slaves for the prophets, while the son, of course, is Jesus. ‍Tasker‍ remarks that in this parable “Jesus indirectly, but none the less certainly, teaches that He is the Messiah acting by divine authority and destined in obedience to the divine will to be slain outside the vineyard of Israel” (p. 204).‍⁵³‍

33. Jesus introduces this parable with an invitation to hear it, and proceeds to refer to a householder‍⁵⁴‍ who planted a vineyard.‍⁵⁵‍ From the subsequent description and happenings it is clear that this was an investment, not a project in which the man planned to take a personal part. Vineyards were an important feature of first-century Palestinian life; Jesus speaks of a process that would have been well known to his audience. This was a new vineyard, set up on new land. Being new, it involved some uncertainty as to how well it would work out, but the householder did all that he should have done to ensure a good vineyard. He fenced it off, which would protect it from wild animals and the like. He dug a winepress. This meant two basins cut out of rock, or if out of soil, lined with rocks and sealed with plaster; one would have been lower than the other, and they would have been connected by a channel. The grapes were thrown into the upper basin and trodden under foot, with the result that the juice flowed into the lower where it began the process of fermentation. He also built a tower, which would enable a watchman to survey the vineyard and the surrounding terrain so that he could take action against marauders, human or animal.‍⁵⁶‍ Then he let the vineyard out to vine growers.‍⁵⁷‍ That he went abroad does not necessarily mean that he went to another country (though that is not unlikely), but it certainly indicates that he was at quite a distance from his new investment.

34. We do not know the terms under which the vineyard was let out to the tenants, but it would have been natural for the terms to include a payment at the time that the grapes were ripe. In a new vineyard there would not be very much yield until the fourth year and no great profit until the fifth. Vines take time to establish themselves and must be supported with stakes, trained, and pruned (the Mishnah provides that the owner and the tenants must share in the expenditure for the stakes, ‍B. Meṣ.‍ 9:1). It was important that the owner make clear his position as owner by sending to receive the agreed amounts at the stated times.‍⁵⁸‍ People could establish title to a vineyard if they could show that they had had undisputed possession of it for three years (Mishnah, ‍B. Bat.‍ 3:1). The owner was establishing his position by collecting his rent, even if it was no more than a nominal amount, during the years that the vineyard was being established. Indeed, the tenants might even claim that on balance he owed them money for such items as the purchase of stakes. The amount to be collected by the owner would not have been much, but it was important that it be collected, for unless this was done the people who were occupying the land and working it would be establishing a claim of their own to the land. So at the time of fruit bearing‍⁵⁹‍ he sent slaves to receive his produce, the agreed share of what the vineyard had produced.

35. Evidently the tenants had already decided that they were going to make the vineyard their own. The man who had set it all up was at a distance, and they may well have thought that if they gave him enough trouble he might let the vineyard go. Whether that was the reason or not, they made a start by ill-treating the slaves sent to collect the rent, beating,‍⁶⁰‍ killing, and stoning‍⁶¹‍ them. There is no uniformity in what they did, but the various misdeeds combined to make it clear that they had paid no rent. They may well have been preparing for a claim in due course that they had forcibly repelled people who were trying to rob them. Mark and Luke differ in that they report that one slave was sent each time, but Mark adds after the third that the owner sent “many others.” What all are saying is that a succession of emissaries was sent to collect the rents that were due, and all were rejected with violence.

36. The householder repeated the process, perhaps (as Derrett thinks) at the time for payment in the second year. This time he took the precaution of sending more than the first, but to no avail. The tenants treated the larger delegation in the same way as they had treated the first slaves. Their rejection of the owner’s claim is definite and vigorous.

37. Whether this was in the same year or the following year is not clear. But finally the owner sent his son (in Mark and Luke he is said to be “beloved”; cf. 3:17). In real life, of course, this is unlikely. The owner would have had the law on his side, and he would have taken strong action to eject his defaulting tenants. But Jesus is telling a story that would illustrate the way a compassionate and loving God acts toward sinners, not the way a businessman would act to protect his investment.‍⁶²‍ So the owner sent his son, saying, “They will respect my son.” He knew that his slaves had been rejected with force and his rights totally disregarded. Apparently he was reasoning that slaves are one thing, the son of the house quite another.

38. But the tenants persisted in their violent opposition to the owner’s just claims. They may have thought that the appearance of the heir on the scene indicated that the owner was dead and now the son had come to take possession. Or perhaps that the father had transferred the title to the son. Or they may have reasoned that if they treated the son badly, the father, who was still at a great distance, would think that he had had enough problems with his troublesome vineyard and would desist from his claim. Whatever the reasoning behind it, they decided in the end to kill him and take his inheritance. It was unthinkable to them that the owner, who had been given so much trouble, would bother to press his claim.

39. So they took the son and threw him out of the vineyard. This was probably important, for they were going to kill him; if they had shed his blood in the vineyard, it would have become an unclean area and they would have problems in disposing of their produce. This would be so even if they killed him in the vineyard without actually shedding blood and then carried him out.‍⁶³‍ So they got him outside the vineyard first, and then killed him. From their point of view their title was now secure. They had never paid rent for the vineyard, they had been in it a number of years to secure their claim, and they were sure that the owner, who had never been back since he established the vineyard, would not care (and perhaps not dare) to prosecute his claim. The vineyard was theirs.‍⁶⁴‍ They would claim that the dead man had come to make an unjust claim to their vineyard and that all they had done had been to repel a robber.

40–41. But the vine growers in the story had reckoned without their host. He was not the man to let this final horror go unpunished, a fact that Jesus brings this out with an appeal to his audience. He speaks of the time when the owner of the vineyard comes, which makes it clear that he will come. He asks his listeners to tell him what the owner will then do, to which they reply, “He will bring those bad men to a bad end.”‍⁶⁵‍ He will also pursue his original plans for the vineyard. He will find other tenants who will “pay him the fruits at the proper times.”‍⁶⁶‍ There is no difficulty on the part of the hearers in bringing the story to its appropriate close. No one could countenance the wicked behavior of the people who tried to steal the vineyard and in the process did bodily harm to quite a few slaves and even killed some of them. ‍Bonnard‍ declines to press the imagery of the vine, finding the stress laid on the son and the vine growers (p. 317). It is this that is the culmination of the parable.

42. Jesus drives the point home with a quotation from Psalm 118:22 (there are other important “stone” passages in Isa. 8:14–15; 28:16). This quotation is found in all three Synoptists at this point (also in Acts 4:11 and 1 Pet. 2:7); clearly it was thought very important in the early church. He introduces it with “Did you never read in the Scriptures,” a question that underlines the importance of Scripture, assumes that his hearers ought to be familiar with their Bibles, and moves straight to the relevant passage. Building with stone was, of course, a common practice, and clearly the head of the corner was the most important stone in the building (cf. ‍GNB‍, “turned out to be the most important of all”). But we do not have enough knowledge of the way people built in that day to be quite sure which stone it was. It may have been a large stone laid in the foundation at the corner of two walls. In such a place it provided a foundation that could be built on and it also set the position for two walls and therefore for the whole building. The other suggestion is that it was at the top of the walls, binding two walls together and thus marking the consummation of the builders’ task. On the whole it seems more likely that the stone in the foundation is meant, but we cannot be sure. The Psalm speaks of an unexpected revolution: a stone‍⁶⁷‍ that the builders thought they could not use—it was unsuitable and they rejected it—in due course became the most important stone in the building. Luke stops his quotation at this point, but Matthew and Mark add the next verse, which tells us that it was from the Lord that this‍⁶⁸‍ came about. We have moved now from the astonishing reversal to the truth that God is working his purpose out through it all. That it is astonishing to human eyes emphasizes the truth that created beings cannot understand the way the Creator works.

43. Therefore draws the logical inference from all this. We have seen the way the Lord works, and we must now notice the way this works out in our day. Jesus goes on to say that “the kingdom of God” (for this expression see on 12:28) “will be taken away from you.” Jesus is addressing representatives of the Jewish hierarchy, and it is to them that he addresses this dreadful truth. The Old Testament Scriptures with all their wealth of promise had been addressed to the Jewish people. But they had not responded as they should—witness the way they treated most of the prophets. Isaiah was doubtless very popular when he prophesied of the deliverance God was about to give, but the rejection of Jeremiah was a much more typical reaction to the teaching of the prophets.‍⁶⁹‍ And now at last God had sent his beloved Son; they had rejected him throughout his ministry, and now they were about to hand him over to the Romans to be executed. The kingdom would be taken away from them and given to those who would respond to it more adequately, those who would produce its fruits. Jesus is telling his hearers that deeds speak louder than words and that their failure to respond to all that God has done for them will reap its inevitable reward. That did not mean that God would not establish his kingdom. He would do so, but with people who live fruitful lives. The words foreshadow the appearance of the Christian church.

44. It is not certain on textual grounds whether we should read this verse.‍⁷⁰‍ But if we do, we return to the stone imagery (in words reminiscent of Dan. 2:34, 44–45) and carry on with the thought of rejection. Those who do not appreciate the place of the stone face retribution in more ways than one. The stone is clearly a very large and solid one. Anyone who falls on it will be crushed, while the person on whom it falls will be pulverized.‍⁷¹‍ ‍Morgan‍ points out that there is a difference here: “Fall on it—and there is a touch of mercy even here—and you will be broken, but the broken man can be healed. But let it fall on you, and you will be ground to dust, and there is no healing then” (p. 262).

45. Earlier the high priests were linked with the scribes (v. 15) and with the elders of the people (v. 23). Now they are linked with the Pharisees (Luke has “the scribes” at this point, but since many of the scribes were Pharisees there is no conflict). This is a notable coalition, for the Pharisees and the Sadducees (to which party most of the high priests gave their allegiance) were for the most part bitterly opposed to one another. But they had both felt the lash of Jesus’ denunciation, though in different ways. The Pharisees had been meticulous in their observance of rites and ceremonies and had overlooked the more important matters to which the law of God pointed. The high priests were more concerned with politics, with preserving their places at the head of the nation in collaboration with the Romans, than with the niceties of religious observance. Both professed to be the servants of God, but neither was able to discern the Son of God for what he was when he came. Both became bitter opponents of Jesus, and within a few days of this piece of teaching they would succeed in having him put on a cross. Matthew tells us that they discerned the thrust of the parables (which mean primarily the two Matthew has just recorded) and saw accordingly that Jesus was opposing them and condemning their practice.

46. They would have liked to arrest him, but the crowds of people in Jerusalem for the feast presented them with a problem. Matthew has recorded Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem no farther back than the beginning of this chapter, and it is clear that at this time Jerusalem contained a large number of his enthusiastic followers. These were people who held him to be a prophet. How do you arrest a prophet in the middle of crowds who are enthusiastic about him? No immediate answer appeared to this question; therefore the enemies of Jesus did nothing for the time being. But this did not mean that their opposition was any the less. It meant only that they were biding their time. As soon as they had a convenient opportunity, they would strike.

Matthew 22

3. The Parable of the Wedding Feast, 22:1–14

¹And Jesus answering spoke again in parables, saying to them, ²“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who made a wedding feast for his son. ³And he sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding, and they would not come. ⁴Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Say to those who were invited, “Look, I have prepared my banquet, my oxen and fattened beasts have been slaughtered, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ ⁵But they did not care and went off, one to his farm, another to his business; ⁶and the rest laid hands on his slaves, ill-treated them, and killed them. ⁷But the king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. ⁸Then he says to his slaves, ‘The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy; ⁹go therefore to the road intersections, and as many as you find invite to the wedding.’ ¹⁰And those slaves went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both evil and good; and the wedding was filled with guests. ¹¹But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man not wearing a wedding garment. ¹²And he says to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here not having a wedding garment?’ But he was speechless. ¹³Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him feet and hands, and throw him out into the outer darkness; there there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴For many are called, but few chosen.”

The third in this trilogy of parables further hammers home the danger in which the members of the ecclesiastical establishment had placed themselves. It is not enough to have accepted the invitation to the marriage feast—one must also go to the marriage. The parable is not unlike that in Luke 14:15–24, and many commentators assume that it is a variant of the same parable. But there are some not insignificant differences. Matthew’s story is related after Jesus had reached Jerusalem, Luke’s while he was still on the journey. Matthew’s parable concerns a king making a wedding feast, it speaks of the kingdom of heaven, it lists oxen and fattened beasts as food items, it refers to many slaves as going with the invitations, has no equivalent of the excuses that form the central feature of Luke’s story, has slaves insulted and killed by the potential guests, has the king sending armies to deal with the rejectors of his invitation, and has an addendum about a man with no wedding garment. Luke’s story arises from a remark made by a fellow guest at a dinner Jesus attended, it refers to a man (not a king) who put on a big dinner, it says nothing about the food, has only one slave inviting the guests to turn up, makes a feature of the excuses the guests made for not coming, and has the slave going out twice to bring in the outcasts. Add to that the fact that there is very little agreement in wording. There are obvious resemblances between the two parables, but not enough to say that they are variants of the one story. Rather, they are variations on a theme that a teller of parables might well make on different occasions, before different audiences. Is anyone prepared to say that Jesus used each of his parables on only one occasion? Surely one of the advantages of the parabolic method is that the parables can be adapted to new situations. And if and when Jesus repeated a parable before a different audience, is there any reason why he should not have modified it to suit its new application? It fits the facts better to take this as another parable embodying features Jesus had used before than to take it as a second form of the same parable, modified in transmission.‍¹‍

1. There have been no previous words that Jesus was answering, but Matthew is fond of the verb (which he has 55 times) and he may have it in mind that Jesus was responding to the hostility of the high priests and Pharisees who wanted to arrest him. Again adds this to the previous parables and completes the trio.

2. For the kingdom of heaven see on 3:2. This time it is likened‍²‍ to a king‍³‍ giving a wedding feast‍⁴‍ for his son (sons feature in all three of the parables in this group). The use of the singular may point us to the son, the one who would in due course succeed him (it is unlikely that a king would have only one son). Any royal occasion would be notable, but the wedding of the son would be especially significant. Jesus says nothing about the preparations that went into the making of the feast, but it would be expected that the king would put on a magnificent banquet (and it would also be expected that people would be very glad to receive an invitation and would make a point of being there). Many see an eschatological significance in this parable and draw attention to the messianic banquet that was so much part of Jewish tradition. But no one seems to have found a wedding feast as part of the eschatological expectation, so the application to the end time must be seen as uncertain.

3. At the time when the banquet was about ready, the king sent his slaves to tell the guests that it was time to come. This presupposes a previous invitation that had been accepted.‍⁵‍ There would be many slaves (over against the singular “slave” in Luke’s parable), partly because of the number of guests and partly because this befitted royalty. It seems that a second invitation to a feast was usual (cf. Esth. 5:8; 6:14). In a day when people had nothing equivalent to watches and when banquets took a long time to prepare, it was obviously a very helpful thing to be notified in this manner. From the Midrash Rabbah we find that there was another reason: “None of them would attend a banquet unless he was invited twice” (Lamentations 4.2; to explain this the Midrash tells a story of a banquet to which an invitation was sent by mistake to an enemy whose name was very similar to that of a friend; there were disastrous consequences when the enemy, once invited, refused to leave the feast, while the host insisted that he go). So the customary second invitation went out. But on this occasion they would not come.‍⁶‍ This was something completely unnatural; in real life a royal invitation is not refused, and people are very glad to be present at a royal banquet. We should not miss the point that Jesus regards the actions of the high-priestly party as completely unnatural. When they were summoned by the King of heaven, they should surely have complied with his gracious invitation. But they did not. Their outward profession was a long way from the glad acceptance of the ways of God that was looked for from men in their position.

4. There had to be some mistake; the guests had been invited, and they would surely come. So the king sent other slaves. This time they had a specific message from the king that said, first, that the great feast‍⁷‍ had been prepared; second, that oxen and fattened beasts‍⁸‍ had been butchered for the occasion; and third, that all things are ready. Nothing could be more explicit.‍⁹‍ So, the assurance having been given that everything had been done to ensure that the guests would have a magnificent banquet, the king concludes with “Come to the wedding.”

5. But all to no avail. The guests did not care,‍¹⁰‍ an incredible attitude to take up in the face of a royal command and the almost sacred duty of complying with an accepted invitation. But this group of people were too concerned with their own affairs to respond to the king’s invitation. Jesus illustrates with two concerns, which we are expected to regard as typical. In the parable in Luke the invitees all make excuses (Luke 14:18), but these do not bother; they just go off to pursue their own concerns. One prospective guest went off to his farm. In the Lukan parable this was to look over his newly purchased field; Jesus does not say in this parable what it was that took the man to the farm, but it will be some concern of this sort. Whatever it was, it was surely something that might easily have been held over. So with the second and his business.‍¹¹‍ No urgency is suggested, and this, too, looks like an excuse. Jesus is citing typical shallow excuses to bring out the point that the impolite guests had no real reason for staying away from the banquet. They simply did not care.

6. The rest leads into an account of those who took hostile action and did not simply go about their own affairs; the expression indicates that there were quite a few of them. They treated the king’s messengers with scant respect. First, they laid hands on his slaves. In no society is it considered good manners to lay hands on people who come bearing a warm invitation, even if one does not intend to accept it. Then two things are said about what they did to the slaves sent to them with the message of goodwill. The first is that they ill-treated them, a term that covers a wide range of unpleasantness.‍¹²‍ The second is that they killed them. This does not necessarily mean that they did this to all of them, but it was a dreadful crime to do it to any. There was nothing more serious they could possibly have done than to take away these men’s lives. Their easy assumption apparently was that they themselves were in no danger: they could do to the king and his messengers anything they wished and do it with impunity. They had no respect for the king and no fear of him.‍¹³‍

7. But they had not thought hard enough about the king; they had not allowed for the fact that he was not the kind of man to take a snub lightly, nor did they reckon with the way their refusal would inevitably be regarded. “For a subject to scorn the summons to the royal feast implied disloyalty and rebellion” (‍Carr‍). The king was very displeased and sent his troops,‍¹⁴‍ which in this context will denote not an army but a detachment of soldiers, sufficient to deal with the offending guests. Jesus speaks of them as murderers and says that their city was set … on fire. This envisages the insulters as being concentrated in one city, and that not the place where the feast was to be held. It would, of course, take time for this to take place, and other events occurred before the destruction of the city. But Jesus takes to its conclusion his account of the fate of those who rejected the king’s invitation before returning to the subject of the feast. We should not miss the point that the language is very much like that of Old Testament passages dealing with judgment.‍¹⁵‍

8. The narrative becomes vivid with the use of the present tense, he says, as Jesus moves on to a further instruction the king gave to his slaves. A wedding is an important occasion, and the celebrations are not to be cancelled just because some ill-mannered guests refuse the invitations and must be dealt with. The king reminds some of his slaves that “the banquet is ready,” a fact that has emerged as early as verse 4. Normally the guests would even then be reclining at table and consuming the magnificent repast. But “those who were invited were not worthy,” which, considering what they had done to the messengers, is a considerable understatement.

9. “Go therefore,” says the king, “to the road intersections,”‍¹⁶‍ which seems to mean the places where the main highways go out from the city to the country, evidently places where poor people tended to congregate. Such people would not expect to find themselves as guests at a royal banquet, but the king is determined that the wedding feast go ahead, and that means that there must be guests to fill the places. Poor people at the road junctions are unlikely to refuse such an invitation. So the king instructs his slaves to invite “as many as you find” in these places to come to the wedding.

10. The slaves did as they were instructed. In the parable in Luke the slave had to go out into the country because he could not get enough guests in the city, but in this parable one trip secured all that were needed. The slaves went out into the highways‍¹⁷‍ and enlisted all whom they found, both evil and good. In the application this means that Jesus accepts people the Jewish establishment would regard as evil and therefore totally unacceptable. Of course, those who accept Jesus’ invitation do not stay evil, but the point is that Jesus welcomes people that the high priests did not want to include among God’s own. The wedding was filled with guests; in the end the king’s purpose was worked out, and Jesus leaves his hearers to see that God’s purposes will take effect; in the end those he calls will be present at his heavenly feast.

11. The parable could have ended at this point (as Luke’s parable in fact does). Indeed, many scholars hold that as Jesus taught it the parable does end here; they contend that Matthew has tacked on the bit at the end about the man without the wedding garment.‍¹⁸‍ Sometimes they hold that this is another of Jesus’ parables, sometimes that it emanates from Matthew or the early church. But the fact is that, as we read this Gospel, this section certainly belongs to the parable of the wedding feast. The story Matthew relates has a further point to make. Patte notes that tensions like that between verses 10 and 11 occur elsewhere in this Gospel, and “such tensions signal that at such places in the text Matthew conveys major points (convictions) that are surprising for the readers because they involve a view unknown to them—a view that Matthew strives to convey to them. In brief, the concluding verses, 22:11–14, should be considered an integral part of Matthew’s parable; they express its main point” (p. 301).‍¹⁹‍ Jesus says that the king came in to see the guests. We know little about customs at wedding banquets in first-century Judaism, but this seems eminently reasonable, all the more so since the king would not have known whom his slaves had brought in. So he came in to make his presence known and to see for himself who had come to the feast. He found a man not wearing‍²⁰‍ a wedding garment. The precise meaning of this is not known, but obviously a marriage is a time when most people would wear appropriate clothing (cf. Isa. 61:10; Ezek. 16:10). In this case, when a king took all sorts of poor people right from the streets into the banqueting hall, it is not impossible that he made available suitable clothing and that this man did not bother to make use of what the king provided (though evidence that this sort of thing was done in ancient times is lacking; ‍Lenski‍, however, draws attention to Gen. 45:22; Judg. 14:12, 19; 2 Kings 5:22; 10:22; Esth. 6:8; 8:15; Rev. 19:8, 9; p. 857). Whether that was the way it was or not, the words imply that suitable clothing was available and this man had not made use of the opportunity.

12. The king greeted him as “Friend,” a form of address found elsewhere in the New Testament only in 20:13; 26:50. In all three passages there is something ironical about the greeting, for the “friend” in each case is doing something short of a friendly action. But “Friend” is a kindly word, and there is something of an appeal about it. The king goes on to ask how the man came in without the right garment, but the offender has nothing to say.‍²¹‍ Quite plainly he knew that he could have had the right clothing but had declined to wear it.

13. It is puzzling that the man had come to the feast but had not made use of the appropriate clothing as the other guests had done. Commentators give a good deal of attention to the significance of the robe, some seeing in it meritorious works, others imputed righteousness or the righteousness that comes as a consequence of God’s saving work in the sinner, and so on. It is wiser to avoid speculation since the narrative gives no hint of a particular meaning we should attach to it. But in this parable the king is a strong personality, one who tolerates no nonsense. The man has no business being where he is, clothed as he is. So the king gives a command to his servants (“servants” this time, not “slaves”), directing them to tie the man up, both feet and hands being specified, after which he is to be thrown into the outer darkness, an expression often used to denote the uncomfortable lodging of those who are rejected.

14. Jesus rounds off the parable with a reason for the rejection of this man. Many are called classes him with the other guests; they had all heard the gracious invitation of the royal host, and they were all where they were because of his generosity. But Jesus sounds a warning. Those who hear God’s call and know of his grace must not think that a call is the same as a response. While many indeed hear the call, few are chosen.‍²²‍ In interpreting this we must bear in mind that Hebrew and Aramaic both lack comparative forms of the adjective. Comparisons are expressed by using expressions like “large” and “small,” sometimes “many” and “few.” It is possible to understand this passage to mean that the elect are fewer in number than those called; the actual number of the elect is then not in mind.‍²³‍ Jesus is not saying whether the elect will be a tiny remnant or not; he is saying that not all the called will be finally chosen.

This is an expression of the doctrine of election that we find in one form or another throughout the New Testament. The Jews could say, “All Israelites have a share in the world to come” (‍Sanh.‍ 10:1), but Jesus rejects such views. The gospel invitation goes far and wide, but not everyone who hears it is one of God’s elect. We know those who are elect by their obedient response. Perhaps it is worth noticing here that this doctrine is also found in Paul, but that he expresses it differently. For him the “call” is the effectual call, so that it is enough for him to speak of people as being called by God. “Call” in his writings means much the same as “chosen” here.‍²⁴‍

C. Pharisees and Sadducees, 22:15–23:17

Throughout his ministry Jesus often came into conflict with the religious establishment, especially the Pharisees, for they were deeply interested in religious matters and felt that Jesus was destroying the very basis of their divinely established religion. The Sadducees were also opposed to Jesus, but more from political motives (though, of course, they objected to his religious teaching as well). They apparently thought that Jesus might be aiming at revolution in due course, and even if he was not, his followers might take it into their heads to proclaim him as Messiah and try to oust the Romans, which would destabilize the political equilibrium and might well upset their privileged position. Matthew proceeds at this point to relate some incidents that bring out the nature of the opposition Jesus encountered from these groups and the way he met it.

1. Attempts to Trap Jesus, 22:15–46

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went off and took counsel so that they might trap him in what he said. ¹⁶And they send to him their disciples, together with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and that you teach the way of God in truth, and do not care about anyone because you do not have regard to anyone. ¹⁷Tell us therefore, what do you think? Is it proper to give poll tax to Caesar or not?” ¹⁸But Jesus perceived their malice and said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for the poll tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰And he says to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” ²¹They say to him, “Caesar’s.” Then he says to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²²And when they heard this, they were astonished; so they left him and went away.

²³On that day Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection, came to him and questioned him, ²⁴saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies not having children, his brother shall marry his widow and raise up seed to his brother.’ ²⁵Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died. And since he had no seed, he left his wife to his brother. ²⁶Likewise also the second and the third, and so on to the seventh. ²⁷Last of all the woman died. ²⁸In the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.” ²⁹But Jesus answered and said to them, “You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; ³⁰for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like angels in heaven. ³¹But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ³²‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” ³³And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

³⁴Now when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they were gathered together, ³⁵and one of them, a lawyer, asked a question, testing him: ³⁶“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” ³⁷And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

⁴¹Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ⁴²saying, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They say to him, “David’s.” ⁴³He says to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call him ‘Lord,’ saying, ⁴⁴’The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? ⁴⁵If therefore David calls him ‘Lord,’ how is he his son?” ⁴⁶And no one could answer him a word, neither did anyone dare any more to ask him a question from that day.

Matthew narrates a series of attempts to trap Jesus. Pharisees and Sadducees came up with trick questions, questions that they thought would compel answers that would put Jesus in trouble with his followers or with the Roman authorities.

15. The Pharisees led off the process. Then may mean that their first attempt followed immediately on Jesus’ telling the parable of the wedding feast, but Matthew’s Then (see on 2:7) is not always so precise; it may mean no more than sometime later. If it did follow on from the parable, it was no hasty question that they put to Jesus. They went off and took counsel (as they had done on another occasion, 12:14). Clearly they had learned enough about Jesus to respect him and did not want to make a half-baked attempt to refute him. So they went off and thought about it and took advice. They wanted to trap‍²⁵‍ him, and on this occasion the trap had nothing to do with the way Jesus practiced his religion but concerned what he said.

16. The leaders do not take part in the process themselves, but send (Matthew uses the present tense to give greater vividness) some of their disciples, people who were learning the Pharisaic way. Students would do very well for this task. They were joined by the Herodians, a party about which nothing is known except what can be deduced from the name.‍²⁶‍ The name assures us that they were people attached to the Herods, and we are probably right in assuming that when many opposed that dynasty these people supported it. There will always be time servers who do what they think will please those in authority, and it would seem that the Herods were not free from such followers. But Herodians as such are not mentioned outside the New Testament, and in it only here and in Mark 3:6; 12:13 (Luke has the incident but does not mention the Herodians). The delegation began with a little flattery. They address Jesus with the respectful “Teacher” and go on to say, “we know that you are true.” The adjective is that normally used for truthful statements, but we have a problem in putting it into English because we do not usually speak of people as being “true.” Translations accordingly have “You are truthful” (‍NASB‍) or the like, or paraphrase with “you are an honest man” (‍JB‍), “a man of integrity” (‍NIV‍). The statement means that Jesus has truth in his very being; he can be relied upon to say what is right, and he will not bend his statement to fit it in with what other people would like to hear. Not only is he “true” in himself, but, they say, “you teach the way of God in truth.” They recognize that Jesus is a reliable teacher when he speaks about the things of God: not only does he speak the truth as he knows it (and from the Pharisaic point of view that might be very imperfectly), but what he says about the way of God is true, an interesting concession from those who opposed him. They go on to say that he does not care about anyone. This does not mean that he is inconsiderate, but that he is no time server: he tells the truth regardless of what people think and regardless of whether what he says pleases them or not. He is no respecter of persons.‍²⁷‍ The tempters thus manage to say four things about Jesus in short compass: he was sincere, faithful to the truth, fearless, and no respecter of persons.‍²⁸‍

17. Therefore is important; because Jesus is the kind of man they have just said he is, because he does not kowtow to anyone in high place (and they will have in mind more particularly the Romans), they look to him to give an honest answer. They proceed to ask, “Is it proper to give poll tax to Caesar or not?” This is often translated “Is it lawful…?” and if this is the way the Jews understood it, they were asking whether it was in accordance with the law of God to pay Roman taxes (‍GNB‍ renders, “Is it against our Law to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?”). Since some Jews held that the law of God forbade the payment of taxes to Gentiles (cf. Deut. 17:15), the questioners may have been sounding Jesus out on his attitude to that question. But this may give the wrong nuance, for the verb does not have in itself the significance of “lawful.”‍²⁹‍ The question may refer to what is proper rather than what is lawful. The questioners proceed to ask whether they should give poll tax‍³⁰‍ to Caesar. Their verb is not without its interest; they themselves are not allowing the possibility that the money was really due to Caesar. Anyone who paid this tax was in their view “giving” money away, not paying a legitimate impost. Nobody likes paying taxes, but in the first century poll tax was especially unpopular.‍³¹‍ Customs duties were disliked, but at least on paying them one got something, the right to take goods to their destination. But with the poll tax there was no such benefit. It was a tax that simply removed money from the citizen and transferred it to the emperor’s coffers with no benefit to the citizen. And if it were retorted that it paid the expenses of government, the answer would surely be that no Jew wanted Roman government and every Jew would be happy to dispense with it.

In this situation it would have seemed to the questioners that Jesus could not win. The question is framed in such a way that the answer is expected to be “Yes” or “No.” If Jesus said “Yes,” presumably the Herodians would agree, but he would alienate many religious Jews who saw support for the Romans as intolerable. If he said “No,” he would satisfy the Pharisees, but be in trouble with the Roman authorities. Either way the situation in which he was growing in popularity among the populace and was left unhindered by the Romans would be changed, to their way of thinking, for the better.

18. Jesus was not deceived for one moment by their flattery; he perceived that their question was actuated by malice‍³²‍ and that they were not seeking for information but testing him.‍³³‍ And in view of all this it is not surprising that he addressed them as hypocrites (see on 6:2). They are not genuinely seeking an opinion from Jesus; they speak flattering words to him and proceed to ask a question aimed at destroying him. That is not the action of honest men but of hypocrites.

19. Jesus asks them for the coin used in paying the poll tax, the Roman denarius (Knox, “Shew me the coinage in which the tribute is paid”). This was a silver coin and was the amount a laborer would be paid for a day’s work. The poll tax was paid with this coin, which for the Jews added insult to injury. They did not care to use a coin that carried a human likeness and would have avoided anything to do with it if they could. It is quite in keeping with this attitude that when Jesus asked them to produce the coin they evidently had to send away for it (they brought it). A Jew would not be likely to carry such a coin with him when he came to the temple.

20–21. With the coin before them, Jesus asked, “Whose likeness‍³⁴‍ and inscription is this?” They say (the continuing use of the present tense makes for a vivid narrative), “Caesar’s.”‍³⁵‍ With a Roman coin that was not a difficult question to answer. But Jesus’ comment on what they said is a classic.

First, let us notice that he said render, whereas they had said “give” (v. 17); we might translate it “pay.”‍³⁶‍ But however we translate, the important point is that it has a meaning like “pay what is owing”; the word acknowledges that there are some things that are due to Caesar‍³⁷‍ and what is rightfully due should be paid by all citizens. The coin before them belonged to Jesus’ questioners, and the fact that they used Caesar’s coins (however unwillingly) was in itself an admission that they owed certain duties to Caesar.‍³⁸‍ “No man should think he is giving less service to the one God when he obeys human laws, pays tax, or bows his head to accept any other burden” (‍Calvin‍, III, p. 26). Since Jesus said quite plainly that they should pay Caesar what they owed to Caesar, there was no possibility of an accusation before the Romans. Whatever is due to the emperor must be paid. But Jesus did not say only that. He reminded his hearers that in addition to their obligations to the state they had obligations to God, and those, too, must be rendered. We are at one and the same time citizens of some earthly state‍³⁹‍ and citizens of heaven; the obligations of neither may be neglected. And as we reflect on what Jesus said, we are made to realize that there are limitations to the things that are Caesar’s. People must never allow their obligations to the civil state to encroach on their payment of the things that are God’s. For serious-minded people this is an important limitation on the rights of the state. The most significant part of life is that which belongs to God; rendering to God what is God’s is accordingly the most important duty we have. We should be clear, too, that Jesus is not saying that we can divide life into separate compartments so that God has nothing to do with that section which belongs to Caesar. The obligation to God covers all of life; we must serve Caesar in a way that is honoring to God.

22. The hearers were astonished. They had evidently come to this interview with high hopes. They had a good question, and they saw no way that Jesus could answer it without alienating somebody. And if he refused to answer, that, too, would give them a satisfying victory, for they would be able to accuse him of avoiding difficult issues that they had to face. But Jesus had answered their question, and he had answered it in such a way that neither the palace nor the temple could say that he had short-changed them. It was an astonishing answer, and therefore they were amazed. There was nothing for them to do but to leave him and go away.

23. With the Pharisees discomfited, the way was open for somebody else to try. That same day (only Matthew tells us this) some Sadducees brought a problem to Jesus. The Sadducees (see on 3:7) were the aristocratic, high-priestly party, strongly opposed to the Pharisees and probably gratified that they were unable to trap Jesus. But they were also strongly opposed to Jesus and the growing group of enthusiasts associated with him. Their cooperation with the Romans meant that they were suspicious of any movement that might disturb the current political setup, so they would like to have Jesus discredited. They rejected all teaching of a life after this one (Josephus, “The Sadducees hold that the soul perishes along with the body,” Ant. 18.16; cf. War 2.165) and evidently felt that in this area they had a strong position; as far as they could see, there was nothing about a resurrection from the dead in the Old Testament Scriptures, and specifically in the law.‍⁴⁰‍ They perhaps regarded this as some new-fangled teaching brought in from Persia after the Old Testament Scriptures were written.‍⁴¹‍ So they now came to Jesus with a question about life after death that they evidently were sure he would not be able to answer. Daube regards this as an example of questions of “vulgarity,” a name given to questions designed to ridicule a rabbi rather than to obtain information (and among the rabbis, as here, directed against belief in resurrection; ‍Daube‍, pp. 159, 160).

24. As the Pharisees had done, they address Jesus as “Teacher”; their approach is a polite one. They appeal to Scripture, and specifically to a passage spoken by Moses. There could be no doubt about the authenticity of such a passage, and they would have felt that they were on very safe ground. They point to a passage providing that when brothers live together and one of them dies childless, his brother should marry the widow‍⁴²‍ and the child of this new union would be regarded as the son of the deceased; thus his name would be carried on (see Deut. 25:5–6; the quotation is not exact). This was a very old custom, as we see from its being practiced in patriarchal times (Gen. 38:8), but most interpreters agree that it was not widely observed in the first century. The Sadducees are not objecting to the custom; they simply point out that Moses authorized it and thus they find sound justification for its continuance.

25–27. They point to an unfortunate family of which they have knowledge (or perhaps to a hypothetical situation) in which there were seven brothers. They speak of them as with us (only Matthew has this detail; ‍Gundry‍ holds that it “makes an actual case out of one that might be only theoretical,” p. 445), so they are claiming knowledge of the facts. In the normal fashion the first married, but unfortunately he died before begetting a child. Mark and Luke tell us this, but only Matthew puts it in the form he left his wife to his brother. The process was repeated with brother after brother, no son being born to any of them, and each marrying the lady as the law provided.‍⁴³‍ The Sadducees make it clear that all seven married her, and they round off the story with the death of the woman.

28. Now comes what they saw as the unanswerable question: “when the dead all rise, whose wife … will she be?” They point out that “they all had her.” The legal requirements had been scrupulously fulfilled. There was no way of saying that any one of the seven had no claim to her. For the Sadducees it doubtless reduced the doctrine of resurrection to an absurdity. No brother could claim an exclusive right to her, and it was evidently preposterous to think that she could have seven husbands in heaven (while the Jews permitted polygamy, they did not allow polyandry). There was no answer to their question.

29. Jesus begins his reply with the firm affirmation “You go astray.” His verb‍⁴⁴‍ may be used of literal straying from the right path (18:12), but it is also used metaphorically of those who have strayed from the truth. ‍Lenski‍ takes the verb here to be middle, which would give the sense “you are deceiving yourselves” (p. 871). He may well be right, for they were drawing from the Scripture a conclusion that was not there (levirate marriage does not teach us about the truth or otherwise of resurrection). The Sadducees are basing their line of reasoning on Scripture, but they have not taken up a genuinely scriptural position; therefore‍⁴⁵‍ they are in error. They did not really know the Scriptures. It is one thing to be able to quote passages that one thinks support one’s preconceived position and quite another to understand and follow the teaching of Scripture. To understand and to yield oneself to what Scripture says is quite different from quoting passages in the way the Sadducees were doing. And just as they do not really understand Scripture, so they do not know the power of God. The question of the resurrection from the dead is not one to be solved by citing a convenient passage from somewhere in the Bible; it demands that we recognize God’s power to do what he wills. There is a play on words here that is important. The verb the Sadducees have used for “raise up” (v. 24) is connected with the noun “resurrection,” the “raising up” of the dead.‍⁴⁶‍ The Sadducees were interested in marriage as the way of “raising up” descendants for a man who had died without issue so as to perpetuate his name (Deut. 25:6); Jesus points to the fact that this limits the power of God. God can “raise up” people by way of resurrection; the man’s name does not need to be perpetuated, for he himself will be “raised up.” The Sadducees are limiting the power of God by the way they understand “raising up.” We must not so interpret Scripture as to put a limit to the power of God. That is what the Sadducees were doing.

30. For introduces the reason; the resurrection, of course, refers to the general resurrection at the last day (and not to risings from the dead like that of the daughter of Jairus). Jesus does not demonstrate that the resurrection will take place, but this form of expression simply takes it for granted. It is basic that there will be the raising from the dead of those who have died through the centuries. The Sadducees were assuming that if there is life in heaven it will, of course, be much like life here, doubtless with the ills taken away and the good things multiplied. They thought that marriages would continue there as here. But here marriages are necessary; the race must be propagated, and the family is the environment in which this is brought about. But we must not assume that what is needed here on earth will also be needed there in heaven. Jesus informs the Sadducees that there will be no marriages‍⁴⁷‍ in heaven. Life there will be of a different order, with angels giving us the pattern. It is the life of the angels rather than the life of people here and now that shows us what heaven will be like. We know little about angels, but this saying of Jesus makes it clear that they do not live in families as we do. He does not say that we will be angels but that we will be like angels.

31. Jesus moves from an explanation that may have been beyond the Sadducees to work out for themselves to an understanding of the text of Scripture that they ought to have been able to manage because in rejecting other authorities they made Scripture central; it was Scripture only to which the Sadducees appealed. The Pharisees thought of Scripture as the words of God himself, but for the understanding of Scripture they had an extensive oral tradition. The Sadducees rejected all of this tradition. For them the Bible, the Bible only, was the word of God. Very well then. Let them consider what the Bible says. Notice that Jesus speaks of what Scripture says to you. Scripture, of course, says the words to everyone, but it is important for these Sadducees to notice that the following passage speaks to them directly on the subject they had chosen to debate with Jesus, the resurrection of the dead.‍⁴⁸‍

32. And Jesus does not cite some obscure passage that might well be overlooked by ordinary people (even by high priests and their associates as they went about the complex business of running the temple!). He draws their attention to words spoken by God himself and very much quoted by religious and patriotic Jews: “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Exod. 3:6). The threefold repetition is most impressive, and presumably the Sadducees, like many others, had been so attracted by the majesty of the words and what they told them of the experiences of the patriarchs that they had never stopped to think of the implications of the saying. So Jesus points out that the present tense is important. Neither the Sadducees nor anybody else said that “God was the God of Abraham, etc.” If there is no afterlife, they should have said that when they referred to the patriarchs and their God. The fact that they all took it for granted that God is the God of the patriarchs tells us something about the patriarchs as well as about God. He is the God … of the living, and in this context the living must be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

33. Matthew does not tell us what the Sadducees said in response to this; perhaps they said nothing at all. What could they say? Jesus’ citation of the well-known passage was so unexpected and his short interpretation of it so convincing that they must have found themselves without a retort (in the next verse we find that they had been “muzzled” by Jesus’ words). But if Matthew says nothing about the Sadducees, he does say something about the crowds who watched and listened throughout the exchange. They were astonished; they had doubtless heard the Sadducees before, and possibly they had heard them bring forth the same little story (it has all the hallmarks of a favorite controversial sally). Now to hear the Sadducaic position demolished in such short order was nothing less than astonishing. The astonishment was directed at his teaching, but in the context this will mean mostly at the riposte he had directed at the Sadducees.

34. The Pharisees had tried to trap Jesus in his speech (v. 15) without success. But now that they heard that the Sadducees had been silenced (the word means “muzzled”; it indicates clearly that they did not know what to say),‍⁴⁹‍ the Pharisees reviewed the situation. They were gathered together,‍⁵⁰‍ which looks like a more or less formal assembly. The impression Matthew gives is that the discomfiture of the Sadducees signaled to the Pharisees that there was a new situation, and it seemed well to them that they should get together and consider what they ought to do. But if that is what is meant, Matthew is not very interested in the Pharisaic discussions. He goes on immediately to a question asked by one of them. It was not the discussion but the sequel that was important.

35. Matthew says that one of them now put another question to Jesus (so the Pharisaic inquisition was still on the job), this one described as a lawyer.‍⁵¹‍ From the form of the question we might be ready to think it was a genuine quest for information, but since Matthew expressly says that the lawyer was testing him we must view this as another attempt to entrap Jesus. The restless attempts to trick Jesus into an answer that would discredit him either with the authorities or with the general public continued. His opponents never learned that they were on a futile quest.

36. Once again we have the polite address, “Teacher”; throughout this series of attempts to entrap and discredit Jesus there is the outward form of politeness. The lawyer proceeds to ask, “which is the great commandment in the law?” (Mark has “the first commandment,” but this will mean much the same, “the first in importance”).‍⁵²‍ The rabbis divided the commandments in the law into the light and the weighty. They did not mean that some commandments were so slight that they could be neglected. All the commandments were God’s, and therefore all were to be treated with full seriousness. But obviously some commandments were more important than others; the command to do no murder is more important than that which prohibits boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Deut. 14:21). That opened up the way for speculation as to which of all the 613 commandments that the rabbis found in the law was to be regarded as the greatest of them all. This is another question that must have looked to the questioner as though it should give matter for argument and controversy no matter what answer Jesus gave. There is no objective yardstick for measuring one commandment against another, so that whatever commandment Jesus selected for the first place would certainly have been placed lower by others.‍⁵³‍ The lawyer was initiating a discussion that might lead anywhere and that in his view would certainly provide a strong possibility of damaging Jesus’ reputation.

37–38. It is not unlikely that Jesus’ hearers were expecting one or other of the Ten Commandments, those that had been written by the finger of God and that, as a group, stood out over all the other commandments. But Jesus did not select one of those. Instead he chose the commandment to love God, the commandment that must have been most familiar of all to his hearers, for it was recited every day by the pious Jew: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” Thus far the words are identical with those in Deuteronomy 6:5 (cf. Deut. 11:13), but whereas that passage goes on “and with all your might” Jesus proceeds, “and with all your mind.” We should not make too much of this difference, for both ways of expressing it make the point that love for God should be wholehearted, involving all that we have and all that we are (the threefold all is important). Mark interestingly has the three expressions in Deuteronomy, but he inserts “with all your mind” before the third. “This is the first and great commandment,” Jesus says (in Mark’s version the questioner asked, “Which is the first commandment of all,” so that Jesus’ summary includes the expressions used in the two Gospels).

39. Jesus was asked for but one commandment, but he goes further and adds “a second” that, he says, “is like it.” Wholehearted love for God means coming in some measure to see other people as God sees them, and all people as the objects of God’s love. Therefore anyone who truly loves God with all his being must and will love others, and this is expressed in the commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” a commandment that is repeated in the Pentateuch (Lev. 19:18, 34).‍⁵⁴‍ The term neighbor is somewhat elastic, but Jesus certainly meant more than loving the person next door (though people sometimes find it easier to love the neighbor understood as an abstract subject than the objectionable person next door who is all too concrete a reality!). It seems that the Jews tended to understand by the neighbor one’s fellow Jew and to leave open the possibility of extending a thoroughgoing hatred to “lesser breeds without the law.” But there cannot be the slightest doubt that Jesus is extending the term as widely as it can be extended; he is saying that one must love one’s fellow human being. The two great commandments go together (if anyone says he loves God and hates his brother he is a liar, 1 John 4:20).

40. Jesus rounds this discussion off with the point that, rightly observed, these two commandments involve the whole law.‍⁵⁵‍ Not only the law, but the prophets as well hang on these two commandments.‍⁵⁶‍ Anyone who loves God and people wholeheartedly is not going to come short in religious observances, nor in doing what is proper to other people. In short, when anyone loves in the way Jesus says, there is no need for a host of hair-splitting definitions of when an obligation has been discharged and when it has not. As I have written elsewhere, “Jesus swept aside all such pettifogging nonsense with his revolutionary insistence on the centrality of love and for good measure he added that the teaching of the prophets is included in this command. At one stroke he did away with any understanding of the service of God that sees it as concerned with the acquiring of merit or with an emphasis on liturgical concerns. What matters can be summed up in one word: love.”‍⁵⁷‍ This does not, of course, mean that all other commandments may be ignored and that all that one must do is love. The commandments of God are serious and must be observed. But Jesus is saying that it is only when we love that we can truly obey them and that without love we do not really understand what the commandments mean. In one way or another all the commandments are expressions of God’s love. Love is the thrust of them all, and it is only as we love that we fulfil them.

41. It would appear that Jesus’ summary of the law and the prophets was such that it cut short any attempt the Pharisees might have contemplated to start a discussion on the relative merits of this or that commandment. What Jesus said was so unexpected and yet so convincing that nitpicking criticism was for the time out of the question. Jesus used the occasion to ask a question of his own. Matthew links it with the foregoing by saying that it was while the Pharisees were gathered together.‍⁵⁸‍

42. “What do you think‍⁵⁹‍ about the Messiah?” is a question that might cover a very wide field, but Jesus narrows it immediately with “Whose son is he?” He is asking a question about ancestry; a query about the Messiah’s sonship might be understood in the sense that Jesus is looking for information about his father. But among the Jews son was used more widely than in many modern communities, and this question was meant in the sense, “Who is the great man from whom the Messiah is descended?” For the Pharisees this was an easy question, and they gave the expected answer, “David’s”; in a community with vivid messianic expectations there was no doubting that the Messiah would be “Great David’s greater Son.”

43. Matthew keeps the narrative vivid with another present tense (says) as he informs his readers how Jesus proceeds to the telling question. He does this by citing the opening words of Psalm 110 (the verse from the Old Testament most frequently quoted in the New Testament) and asking how this fits into generally accepted ideas of sonship. He accepts the Davidic authorship of the psalm, which, of course, would not have been doubted anywhere in first-century Judaism (the psalm is headed “A Psalm of David”).‍⁶⁰‍ And he accepts that David wrote the psalm under the leadership of the Spirit of God; the psalm is inspired Scripture. Further he regards the psalm as messianic; it teaches something about the Messiah who would come in due course and is not to be confined to statements about David. All this would have been common ground between Jesus and the Pharisees, and so far there would have been no problem. But Jesus draws attention to the fact that David calls the Messiah “Lord” (thus conceding his own inferiority to the Messiah).‍⁶¹‍

44. Jesus proceeds to quote the relevant words in the psalm (the quotation is almost exactly as ‍LXX‍). “The Lord” refers to God himself (the Hebrew is יהוה); the psalm is proceeding to give a divine utterance. When David says that God spoke “to my Lord,” he is clearly referring to someone greater than himself (Knox translates, “the Lord said to my Master”), and this is surely the Messiah. David is recording a prophecy of the greatness of his descendant, whom he recognizes as greater than he. The prophecy refers to the Messiah as sitting on the right hand of God, that is, in the highest place of all, in the place where it counts above all. And while he sits there, God himself will defeat all his enemies; that they are to be put under his feet indicates that they are to be thoroughly subjugated to him.‍⁶²‍

Jesus’ contemporaries seem to have thought of “the Son of David” as a Messiah like David, one who would sit on David’s throne, make warlike conquests as David did, and in general be David all over again. Jesus rejected that idea. “At the very least Jesus declares the freedom of the Messiah to establish the Kingdom by another path than the political and military methods of David. The Messiah can be and will be the Suffering Servant rather than the military conqueror and earthly king” (‍Filson‍, p. 240; Filson thinks that Jesus rejected the “Son of David” idea, but it is more correct to say that he reinterpreted it).‍⁶³‍

45. Therefore links what follows with the quotation: because this is what Scripture says (and Scripture must be accepted, is the reasoning), then certain things follow. The important one is that David recognizes the Messiah as his “Lord.” Now comes the unanswerable question, unanswerable on the Pharisees’ premises, “how is he his son?” It was widely accepted that the greatest times had been in antiquity and that history had been all downhill since the early golden age. In a family the father was the great person, and it was axiomatic that his sons were less significant than he. In a society that held views like this the great king David was held to be certainly greater than his descendants. If the Messiah was to be among those descendants, then, of course, on Pharisaic premises, he must be inferior to David. But David speaks of him as “Lord,” which means that he must be greater. This presented the Pharisees with a difficult conundrum to which they found no answer.

We should not think of this as no more than an exercise in debating skills. There was a widespread idea that the Messiah was “the Son of David,” and that meant for first-century Jews that he would be someone in David’s mold. They recalled that David had been a mighty warrior and that in his day Israel’s conquests had been extensive. But Jesus was not that sort of Messiah. For him being Messiah meant being a teacher, and being a redeemer, one who would die for others, not one who would head up great armies and slaughter people. By drawing attention to a defect in the way the Pharisees understood the relationship of David to David’s Son, Jesus was encouraging his hearers to think again about what Messiah meant. There were many things the Pharisees did not understand about messiahship.‍⁶⁴‍ Let his hearers then not trust those blind guides.

46. That finished the questioning session. The Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Sadducees had all tried to put questions to Jesus that would embarrass him and put him into disfavor with the people or the governing bodies or both, and while it could not be said that he had failed to answer, it could be said that he had produced answers that left him unscathed and caused the people to marvel at him. He was more admired when they finished than when they started on this exercise. So it is no surprise that, finding they could not answer the question he had put to them, none of them dared any more to question him. This was a game in which they thought they held all the advantages (how could a layman from rural Galilee compete with the professionals who had been through the schools in Jerusalem?). But in the end they had been defeated.

Matthew 23

2. Jesus’ Denunciation of the Pharisees, 23:1–39

¹Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, ²saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. ³Therefore do and observe the entirety of the things they tell you, but do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. ⁴And they tie up loads that are heavy and hard to carry and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with as much as their finger. ⁵But all their works they do in order to be seen by people; for they make their phylacteries broad and their tassels long; ⁶and they love the chief couch in the banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, ⁷and the greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by men. ⁸But don’t you be called ‘Rabbi,’ for one is your teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹And do not call anyone your father on the earth, for one is your Father, the heavenly One. ¹⁰And do not be called instructors, for one is your instructor, namely Christ. ¹¹But he who is greatest among you will be your servant; ¹²and he who will exalt himself will be humbled, and he who will humble himself will be exalted.

¹³“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut up the kingdom of heaven before men, for you do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to enter. ¹⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel over sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. ¹⁶Woe to you, blind guides who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound.’ ¹⁷You fools and blind! For what is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? ¹⁸And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it is bound.’ ¹⁹Blind men! For what is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? ²⁰Therefore he who swears by the altar swears by it and by all that is on it. ²¹And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. ²²And he who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits on it.

²³“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. ²⁴Blind guides! You strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel. ²⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. ²⁶Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that its outside may become clean too.

²⁷“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear outwardly beautiful but inwardly they are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸So you also appear outwardly to men as righteous, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. ²⁹Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have been their partners in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹So then you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³²And you—fill up the measure of your fathers. ³³You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴Therefore I am sending to you prophets and sages and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. ³⁵So that there will come upon you all the righteous blood that has been shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all these things will come on this generation.

³⁷“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, in the way a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not. ³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you will not see me any more until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

There is nothing comparable to this sustained denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees in any of the other Gospels. Both Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus made some criticisms of these religious leaders after the question-and-answer session narrated in chapter 22 (Mark 12:38–40; Luke 20:45–47), but in Matthew the denunciation is much more sustained. From it we learn something of the superficiality that characterized all too many of the Pharisees. We know from the rabbinic writings that not all Pharisees were like this, but we must bear in mind that the rabbinic writings let us see the Pharisees as they saw themselves; they do not give us any picture of the Pharisees as the people they despised saw them. We must remember, too, that Jesus was on the spot and we are not. We should also bear in mind that Jesus is not saying that all Pharisees at all times came under his condemnation; he is referring specifically to certain Pharisees of his own day. It is, moreover, not at all impossible that the people Jesus encountered as he went about his mission, largely in rural areas, did not feel the same way about the Pharisees as those later representatives of the party whose teachings are recorded in the Mishnah and the Talmud.‍¹‍ Jesus knew what the people that he encountered were like, the Pharisees as well as others.

This chapter brings us to understand that the Pharisaic system, like any system that puts its emphasis on rules and regulations, all too easily degenerated into the observance of requirements that were doubtless intended to help people along the road to godliness but that could become ends in themselves. When this happened, there was the appearance of godliness, but not the reality; the correct performance of outward rites and the firm hold on orthodox teaching became ends in themselves, and genuine piety suffered. There is a danger in the whole Pharisaic method.‍²‍ Stendahl remarks that Jesus “taught with prophetic consciousness in a nation where he found the strongest resistance among those who were its spiritual leaders.”

According to many modern scholars, this chapter tells us more about the church in Matthew’s day than it does about Jesus. They assume that the Evangelist has put on to Jesus’ lips words that apply to conditions late in the first century when the church and the synagogue were often at odds. But, as Carson says, “Even if we assume that Matthew’s choice of what he includes largely reflects the situation at the time he wrote, it is naive to think twentieth-century scholars can reconstruct the situation in detail.” We should also bear in mind that there are vigorous denunciations of the Pharisees in Luke’s Gospel, and it is not easy to argue that Luke was reflecting the same situation over against the synagogue as was Matthew.‍³‍ It may also be observed that in the later writings like the Mishnah and the Talmud there is undeniably a concern for the minutiae. While there are some great passages in these writings, far too much is taken up with things of no great consequence.‍⁴‍

1–2. Then (see on 2:7) does not always denote strict sequence in this Gospel, but the probability is that this denunciation of a piety that was nothing more than a firm performance of the externals took place soon after the events narrated in the previous chapter (and this would be supported by the abbreviated accounts in Mark and Luke). Jesus addressed his remarks to the crowds and to his disciples. He has some strong denunciations of the Pharisees, but he is not so much criticizing them as drawing his hearers’ attention to the kind of lives they should be living. He is warning them not to adopt the superficial and hypocritical approach that was unfortunately so characteristic of the Pharisees. As often in Matthew, crowds is in the plural and refers to potential disciples. The people as a whole were not yet ready to follow him, but they were much more open than the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Throughout his ministry the crowds did not give him wholehearted support, but they listened to him and were glad to see him do miracles of healing; there is no reason for doubting that many from among them in time came to follow Jesus. In this context the crowds will refer to the large numbers who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover; many of these would have been Galileans who had some knowledge of what Jesus had taught and done in their area. But we must not think of the entire group as sympathetic to Jesus, for he goes on to denounce the scribes and Pharisees, where his use of the second person seems to mean that they were there in the audience. For disciples see on 5:1; 8:21; they were people who had cast in their lot with Jesus and looked to him for teaching. In other words, Jesus was now talking to a sympathetic audience, not to people trying to trap him as in the previous chapter. He began by speaking of the scribes (for which see on 2:4; 5:20) and the Pharisees (see on 3:7).‍⁵‍ Not all the scribes were Pharisees, but we should understand most of those mentioned here as belonging to that party, for throughout the chapter they are included in the same denunciations. In speaking of scribes Jesus is referring to learned men (i.e., men learned in the Scriptures) who taught the law, and in speaking of Pharisees of those who were not necessarily teachers but who took their religion very seriously and made strenuous endeavors to perform their obligations before God. The fact that they were all too often superficial should not blind us to the other fact that often they tried hard to do what they conceived of as their duty as servants of God.

The first thing Jesus says about these religious people is that they have taken their seat‍⁶‍ on the chair of Moses. This does not refer to any particular piece of furniture, but to the teaching office. Chair‍⁷‍ here refers to the teaching office as something that carried on from generation to generation. Moses was the great teacher of Israel, and his legacy, the law, was the object of continuing study. That they have taken their seat on Moses’ chair means that they have taken it on themselves to teach authoritatively in the tradition of Moses (as they saw it).‍⁸‍ There is some emphasis on Moses; he was the great lawgiver, and his teaching had to be respected throughout the generations. The scribes and the Pharisees were not evolving new schools of interpretation but trying hard to make clear what Moses had said, and, where there were problems, in helping people understand what actions were called for on their part as they tried to put into practice the things that Moses commanded. They were held to be authoritative in their teaching, and the Mishnah can even say, “Greater stringency applies to [the observance of] the words of the Scribes than to [the observance of] the words of the [written] Law” (‍Sanh.‍ 11:3).

3. Therefore draws a conclusion; because these people were expounding what Moses had said, they must be heard with interest and attention. But, as Bengel points out, only when expounding Moses; “This particle limits the expression” so that it does not cover Pharisaic traditions.‍⁹‍ “Do and observe” puts some emphasis on the importance of putting into practice the things the Pharisees were teaching. ‍Carson‍, supported by Jeremias, holds that the words are “biting irony, bordering on sarcasm” (p. 473). This is possible, but it seems more likely that Jesus is differentiating between the words of the Pharisees and their deeds. His complaint is not that these men were false teachers; they were orthodox and they were rightly drawing people’s attention to the things that Moses had taught and that were of permanent importance for the people of God. “The entirety of the things they tell you” is more literally “all things whatsoever they say to you”; it amounts to a wholehearted endorsement of the teaching of the Pharisees over against their practice. They studied the law of Moses closely and expounded it in great detail. There was nothing wrong with this part of what they were doing, and Jesus commends it. Of course, when they went beyond the law of Moses they could and did go wrong, and Jesus criticizes them for it (e.g., 15:12–14). Here, however, he is commending their upholding of what Moses taught.

But it was otherwise with the way they lived. Jesus’ followers are not to do‍¹⁰‍ according to their works. Their condemnation is summed up in the words “they say and do not do.” It has always been the temptation of the religious to put emphasis on their teaching and to take more lightly the obligations to live out the precepts they inculcate. It so easily becomes a habit to live in such a way as to sustain or acquire a reputation for piety, without giving heed to what we are deep down. So Jesus warns his hearers that they should not live in the way the Pharisees lived, though they should take careful note of what the Pharisees taught. When the Pharisees brought out the significance of the teaching of Moses, they were doing something of great importance for the people of God. What they were teaching was both meaningful and creditable: they should be heard. But when they acted hypocritically, that was another matter: they should not be imitated or followed.‍¹¹‍

4. Jesus begins his catalogue of the wrong things they do with the way they burden those who listen to them. Tying up loads points to the preparation of loads that animals or slaves might be involved in carrying; the loads had to be tied into secure packages before they were taken away. But this could be done carelessly, in which case the loads might be both heavy and unwieldy—awkward to carry as well as weighty. Jesus speaks of the burdens the Pharisees and their aides prepared for people as both heavy and hard to carry.‍¹²‍ That is to say, they so interpreted the law of Moses that the people who heeded them found themselves required to perform some very burdensome duties in the service of God (by contrast Jesus could say to his followers, “my burden is a light one,” 11:30). But the Pharisees themselves had no will to engage in such arduous activities. The regulations they evolved for ritual purity were much harder for people in trades and similar walks of life than for the more leisured and scholarly Pharisees.‍¹³‍ Jesus says that they would not use as much as their finger, which is about as small an effort as one can readily make. The way the law was interpreted meant that there was a multitude of ways of mitigating hard requirements that were not known to ordinary people, but that men like the Pharisees practiced assiduously.

5. The condemnation is that they do all their works (not for what they avail in the service of God, but) in order to be seen by people. This is, of course, the perennial temptation of the religious person, and Jesus has earlier warned against it (6:1–6); it is so easy to do the things that one thinks will bring one a reputation for piety, and the Pharisees succumbed to that temptation. By contrast Jesus expects his followers so to live that they bring glory, not to themselves, but to God (5:16). Many of the things the Pharisees did were undoubtedly worthy, but they did them with their attention fixed on what people would think of them. They did them for show, and such deeds are not meritorious in the sight of God. Jesus gives examples with their phylacteries and their tassels. The phylactery‍¹⁴‍ was a little box containing verses from Scripture (Exod. 13:1–10, 11–16; Deut. 6:4–9; 11:13–21; phylacteries discovered at Qumran show that there was some variation in the texts used). It is generally identified with the tefillah and was worn by adult males at daily morning prayers (at home or in the synagogue) in literal fulfilment of passages in the law (Exod. 13:9, 16; Deut. 6:8; 11:18); it seems that some Jews wore them also outside the hours of prayer. Discoveries of tefillin at Qumran and Murabba'at indicate that the one on the forehead tended to be rectangular, and that there was considerable variation in size. The making of the phylactery broad will thus refer to using a phylactery that spread further across the forehead and accordingly was more prominent than those normally used, rather than one with a bigger box. The tassel (see on 9:20, where we find that Jesus himself wore this) was sometimes used of the edge of something, but it was also used of tassels attached to the outer garment to remind people to follow God’s commandments (Num. 15:37–38). The tassel was not necessarily ostentatious, but to make the tassel big was to make sure that everyone one met would know that one took God’s commandments with full seriousness. Jesus mentions two outward actions that the Pharisees could and did perform to give their piety public display.

6. In keeping with this general attitude they love the things that get them in the public eye. Jesus speaks of the chief couch in the banquets. At such significant meals the tables were apparently arranged in a U shape, with the most important places at the junction of the two arms. People reclined on couches, leaning on the left elbow and with the head toward the table; food would be taken with the right hand. The chief place was that at the center of the triclinium (couch for three) at the head of the table, and this would be taken by the host. The most honored guests would share his triclinium, and the others would take their places in descending order of importance. The Pharisees, Jesus says, loved to secure the place they considered most important at such banquets. To be in the place of honor meant that one was seen to be an important person.

Not a great deal is known of synagogues in first-century Palestine. Indeed, H. C. Kee says: “there is simply no evidence to speak of synagogues in Palestine as architecturally distinguishable edifices prior to 200 C.E.” Prior to that people met for worship indeed, but in buildings indistinguishable from private houses or “as space set aside in public buildings.”‍¹⁵‍ Not surprisingly our information about the interior setup of such synagogues is limited, but it seems that there was a platform from which services were conducted, Scripture was read, and preachers delivered their sermons. There appear to have been some seats behind the officiants, facing the congregation, for people not leading the service, and, if so, they would have been regarded as important places. Whether these seats were there or elsewhere, Jesus’ words make it clear that some prominent seats were regarded as the chief seats and that the Pharisees liked to be seen occupying such seats.

7. The Pharisees also liked greetings in the marketplaces, which evidently points to something more than the normal method of greeting people encountered in the everyday course of business. The marketplace was, of course, the place where people gathered together, the public place in any town or village. Jesus was referring to some elaborate form of greeting that conveyed the idea that the greeted person was someone of importance.‍¹⁶‍ To be in the public eye in such a capacity was highly desirable from the Pharisaic point of view. So with the title “Rabbi.”‍¹⁷‍ Dalman points out that the word was used in other ways than for a teacher. It could denote a master over against a slave, it could mean a prince, indeed he finds it used of the king of Israel, where it “is considered the equivalent of the royal title.” He says that anyone so addressed “is thereby acknowledged to be the superior of the speaker.”‍¹⁸‍ We are so accustomed to using it as the title of a teacher that we tend to miss the greatness implied by the word. To be called “Rabbi” in public meant that there was open recognition of the status of the man so honored; he was regarded as an outstanding teacher of the law.

8. But has adversative force: Jesus sets his followers over against people like the Pharisees of whom he has been complaining. He has shown them the kind of conduct he deplores in people accepted as religious leaders but who do not live up to the things they teach; his followers are not to be like that.‍¹⁹‍ Specifically he says that they should not be called “Rabbi,” a title that sets the holder off from lesser mortals. Jesus’ followers did not have teachers that ranked with the Jewish rabbis, and they must not act as though there were outstanding people among them to whom they must give heed. “One is your teacher,” Jesus says, and that has its implications for all his followers. It does not mean, of course, that none of them can ever learn from any of the others. The very fact that the books of the New Testament were ever written is testimony to the fact that some Christians were able to teach others. And, of course, in every age there have been some Christians who have been able to give instruction to others. It must always be the case that some will know more than others and that they will have the duty of passing their knowledge on to others. Jesus is saying that among his followers there is to be no such system as that among the Jews, with the “great ones” expounding the law authoritatively and the rank and file permanently occupying an inferior place. Christians have but one teacher, and they must not expect that in due course others will emerge who will eclipse him and establish their own ways of understanding what God wills for his people. There is and can be only one Jesus. The corollary of this is that “you are all brothers.” Brothers are equal, and they cannot be arranged in a hierarchy. Over against Jesus they all hold inferior rank, and none of them is in a position to lord it over the others.

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