Matthew 24
9. There are problems related to this verse. The first we notice is that father linguistically might refer to the father in a family or to a teacher as the master of his students. But it is unlikely that the reference here is to the family. The context is concerned with teaching and the like. Elsewhere Jesus insists that honor be given to our earthly fathers (15:4; 19:19). It is perhaps worth noting at this point that even when we are thinking of family loyalties our heavenly Father is to be given our first loyalty. In every age there have been people who have put family ties above everything else. Jesus denies that this is legitimate in the case of his followers.
But it is more likely in a context dealing with teaching that we should understand the term as a singular that corresponds to “the fathers,” an expression the Jews often used for the great ones of the past (one of the tractates of the Mishnah is entitled’Abot, “Fathers,”), especially those who taught Israel the right way. No teacher seems ever to have been addressed as “Father” (Abba), and it is not easy to find a reference to a teacher simply as “father,” though Elisha used the term of the departing Elijah (2 Kings 2:12). It is sometimes prefixed to the name of a teacher, such as “Abba Chilkiyya” and others (Dalman, p. 339), while the epithet “the fathers of the world” is used of Shammai and Hillel (‘Eduy. 1:4). This would fit the context with its emphasis on teaching and on the right place for the teacher. There is, of course, a sense in which a Christian may be spoken of as “father” to other believers (or for them to be called his children, e.g., 1 Cor. 4:15; 1 Tim. 1:2), but in the New Testament the term is not used as a title, nor is it to be employed in any spirit of superiority. We are all brothers and sisters and belong to one family with one Father, the heavenly Father. The adjective enables us to grasp something of his surpassing excellence and to recognize that Jesus is not speaking of some light and unimportant person. There is some emphasis on your;20 whatever be the case with others, the followers of Jesus are such that they recognize that they have but one Father.
10. Jesus continues his instruction not to seek high places for ourselves with “do not be called instructors.”21 This is really another way of saying what he has already said in verse 8 (and some have suggested accordingly that the verse should be deleted; but the words are textually sound and should be retained). Apart from the fact that a new word is used for “teacher” the verse does no more than underline and emphasize the teaching given in the earlier verse. This time Jesus names Christ (“Messiah,” here used as a name rather than as a title) as the one teacher of the disciples, as he did not in the earlier expression. But all that that means is that what was implied there is made explicit here.
11–12. Throughout his teaching Jesus insists that his followers must be lowly. He set the example himself, for in his whole life he forsook the corridors of power and was content to be a lowly teacher, mostly in the remote rural areas of the province in which he lived. He has earlier taught plainly that his followers must tread the lowly path, and he has linked their service with his own, going on to say that he would give his life a ransom for many (20:26–28). The theme of lowliness is now resumed as part of the contrast with the Pharisees that must mark the lives of the servants of Jesus. If they are seeking to be great, they are not to look for the kind of prominence that Jesus has denounced in this discourse. For them to be great is to take the place of a servant (earlier he has taught that they must be like little children, 18:4). It is in giving service, not in receiving adulation, that true greatness consists.
Jesus explains that there will be some reversals of what people have thought they have achieved. The person who will exalt22 himself will be humbled. It is important to be clear on this because the disciples were accustomed to a society in which people like the Pharisees who exalted themselves were thought certain to be accepted by God as the truly exalted ones. But God does not see them as they see themselves, and in the end such people will be humbled. The other side of that coin is that the person who takes the lowly way here and now will in due course be exalted. This does not, of course, mean that the ambitious person must take care to serve his stint in a lowly place here and now in order to make sure of a good reward in the hereafter. There is no humility in such an attitude. Jesus is looking for genuine lowliness, the attitude of the person who is not seeking personal gain of any sort, but simply the opportunity of doing service. It is that that matters, and it is that that he could not find among the Pharisees of his day.
13. Jesus proceeds to a vigorous denunciation of his religious opponents in a series of seven woes, with which we should perhaps compare the six in Luke 11:42–52. They are far from being identical, but they show us plainly that the denunciation of the Pharisees was not a peculiarity of Matthew’s account. These are addressed specifically to the scribes and Pharisees, so some of them must have been in the crowd. Jesus pronounces a woe on these people, pronouncing them hypocrites in a refrain that runs through this chapter (vv. 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, and 29). For woe see the note on 18:7; as pointed out there, it is an expression of both compassion and regret. We are not to understand it as a way of exulting over the fate of evildoers in any of its occurrences in this Gospel. Jesus uses it by way of making it clear that the fate of the people in question is a terrible one. But he is not rejoicing over their final overthrow. He is stating the way things are, and at least in some places the word contains something of appeal. Surely they will turn from their evil way? With this expression which makes it so clear that an unpleasant fate awaits those who continue to live as the Pharisees do, there is something of an explanation. They are hypocrites (see on 6:2), people who act a part. It is a word that denies that those so described are sincere: they do what they do for its effect on those who observe them, not because deep down they think of it as right.
In the case of the Pharisees and their scribes there is the very serious accusation that they shut up the kingdom of heaven before men. They were in reality effectively shutting people out of God’s kingdom at the same time that they claimed they were helping them into it; in that lay their hypocrisy. The verb shut up indicates a firm closing.23 Jesus has been proclaiming the kingdom of heaven and has won disciples. It might have been thought that prominent among these would be people like the Pharisees because they had given so much time and energy to the study of Scripture. They should have been aware of the ways of God there made known to people and of the prophecies that were being fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus. But they shut their eyes to these things; they took no notice and thus declined to enter the kingdom.24 Worse, they did not allow others to go in. There were people in Galilee and Judea who heard Jesus gladly and were ready to respond to his teaching. But some of them had respect for the scribes and the Pharisees, the respected teachers of Israel, and when these revered leaders tried to discredit Jesus, they believed them. They had been in the process of entering,25 Jesus says, but the religious leaders stopped them.
15. Some MSS have the words that lie behind verse 14 in KJV, but there are good reasons for seeing them as an interpolation in this Gospel. They are not found in the best witnesses for the text, and where they are included, some MSS put them before verse 13 and some after. They seem to have been copied by scribes from Mark 12:40 or Luke 20:47.
Jesus repeats his proclamation of woe to the religious leaders, and this he time turns his attention to their activities in making converts. He says that they put in tremendous efforts to do this; they travel over sea and land, which, in a day when travel was not nearly as easy as it is today, meant going to a good deal of trouble. The expression was evidently proverbial for making a big effort to bring about a desired result. They speak of doing all this just to make one proselyte.26 The term, used only here in the Gospels, means a convert to their religion. Throughout history the Jews at some times have been very loathe to make converts while at other periods they have been active. There is general agreement that at this time they were very active, and Jesus is saying that in his day the Pharisees at any rate were keen to make converts. Even one convert was highly prized. But being a proselyte of the Pharisees meant that the person was instructed in Judaism according to Pharisaic understanding of that faith. And since the convert presumably knew little or nothing about Judaism other than the instruction he was given by those who converted him, he was a convert to Pharisaism. He knew nothing of any other way of understanding Scripture, so that any door that might have opened to him for a fuller knowledge of God was closed from the beginning. By indoctrinating with their own errors minds that knew nothing of the new religion other than what they taught them the Pharisees ensured that the proselytes were twice as sure of finishing up on the wrong track as they were themselves. It has often been demonstrated that a new convert may be fanatically zealous for his new faith, far more zealous than those who have accepted it all their lives. Jesus speaks of the convert as twice as much a son of hell as his mentors, a vivid way of saying that he had all the characteristics of a denizen of the place of torment (“a person belonging to, worthy of, and bound for hell,” Hendriksen). It was the saddest of fates for a person who had evidently felt some attraction to the revelation God had made in the Scriptures, and there is a consequent guilt in those who could and should have led him to a better understanding of what God had done for him.
16. A shortened woe (only this one lacks the address “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites”) leads to a denunciation of blind guides. Jesus has earlier used this expression to describe Pharisees who took offense at his teaching (15:14). On that occasion he warned that if the blind lead the blind, both will surely fall into a ditch. Now he turns his attention to specific examples of Pharisaic blindness, namely those concerned with the swearing of oaths.27 In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus discouraged this whole practice (5:34–37), teaching his disciples that they should always tell the truth, so that it would not be necessary for them to back up what they were saying with an oath. But if we can go by rabbinic literature, the swearing of oaths was commonplace among the Jews. A whole tractate of the Mishnah is given over to the subject (Shebu'ot), with, of course, the corresponding section of the Talmud. This tractate goes into a bewildering variety of forms of oaths, their validity and their invalidity,28 and this makes it clear that the topic was both difficult and of enormous interest for what went on in daily life. Jesus gives an example. To swear by the temple meant nothing; the oath was not binding. But to swear by the gold of the temple was binding. We lack specific information on this point in the Jewish writings, but there is nothing improbable about it. The distinction is the kind of distinction that was very common in the rabbinic writings.
17. Jesus adds to the description of the Pharisees in verse 16 as blind the new one that they are fools. Both descriptions are apposite in such a situation. It is preposterous to think that God is going to be concerned with the precise form of words a man uses in swearing an oath, so that he would take seriously an oath sworn by the gold of the temple, but would not regard an oath by the temple itself in the same way. To maintain such a distinction is both foolish and blind. Anyone who does so takes insufficient notice of the fact that God demands complete truthfulness in his people so that any pledge is to be discharged. We cannot escape any legitimate pledge by quibbling about the form of words in which the pledge is expressed, oath or not. Jesus further points out that the distinction is illogical. Gold is not a sacred object by itself; there is no reason for regarding an oath sworn by gold as having any particular validity. It could be argued that “the gold of the temple” is different; it has been put into the holy place for the service of God, but it is the temple that makes the difference, not the gold in itself.
18–20. Jesus attacks a similar quibble on the difference between swearing29 by the altar and by some gift that is offered on the altar. It is not easy to follow the reasoning by which the difference could be made, but we need be in no doubt but that casuists were capable of coming up with a difference.30 The result was that to swear by the altar meant nothing; the oath was not binding. But to swear by some gift that had been made holy by being placed on the altar was binding. Again Jesus points to a flaw in the reasoning by which the Pharisees overlooked the fact that the altar that sanctifies the gift is surely greater than the gift it has sanctified. Jesus sweeps away the whole argument by saying that to swear by the altar is to swear by everything on it.
21–22. Jesus carries on in the same strain. An oath by the temple was not regarded as binding.31 But Jesus sweeps away the quibble. To swear by the temple is to swear by it and by him who dwells in it. That which makes a temple a temple is that it is the abode of the deity worshipped therein. If there is no deity, there is no temple. Therefore a man may not claim that he is not bound by his oath because he swore by the temple and not specifically by God. If he swore by God’s temple, then he swore by God, because it would not be a temple at all apart from the fact that God chooses to dwell in it.
It is the same with an oath by heaven. For the Jews this was not a binding oath; the Mishnah specifically excludes it from having binding force. So Jesus points out that this is mere casuistry: an oath by heaven is an oath by the throne of God and by him who sits on it. People cannot escape the force of their oaths by wording them in such a way that, while they sound impressive, they lack the precise wording that makes them valid. This may serve in human courts, but it is quite invalid where God himself is concerned. Of course, for followers of Jesus it is not necessary to swear an oath at all, and he has already made it clear that they are expected to tell the truth at all times without the necessity of an oath to enforce truth (5:33–37).
23. Jesus reverts to the fuller formula, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” and proceeds to the way these people went about their tithing. Tithing was an old custom (Gen. 14:20) and the law laid it down that a tenth should be given to the Lord (Lev. 27:30–33; Num. 18:21, 24; Deut. 12:5–19; 14:22–29, etc.), which presumably means a tenth of all one’s income.32 Tithes were paid to the Levites (Num. 18:21), who in turn paid to the priests a tithe of the tithes they received (Num. 18:25–28). The Pharisees evidently took the practice very seriously and carried it through in minute detail. They paid to the Lord a tenth of small garden plants like mint and dill and cummin.33 This indicates a determination to fulfil the tithe regulations with minute accuracy—not the smallest plant was to be overlooked (Luke says that they tithed “every herb,” Luke 11:42); everything that belonged to the Lord was scrupulously to be paid to him. The tithing of small herbs was probably going farther than the tithing laws intended, but there was nothing wrong in doing it (as Jesus agrees). The trouble was that in their concern that these small matters be properly attended to, the Pharisees neglected weightier matters that were much more important. These more important duties were made much more plain in Scripture than the minutiae on which the Pharisees concentrated their attention. So Jesus selects the qualities of justice (Gen. 18:19; Prov. 21:3, etc.), mercy (which is said again and again to have been shown to his people by God and which God likewise requires of them, Mic. 6:8; LXX has the same word as that used here), and faithfulness (Prov. 28:20; Hab. 2:4). Calvin sums this up with “Briefly, then, the sum of the Law comes back to love. … Christ typically refers the real test of sanctity to brotherly love” (III, p. 57; Luke, of course, has “the love of God” in his equivalent of this statement, 11:42); Robinson explains this wording as “possibly due to an alternative rendering of the original Aramaic”). It is fatally easy to be preoccupied with minutiae and to overlook what is important. That was the error of the Pharisees. Jesus does not find fault with them for what they did, but for what they left undone.
24. Again these guides are castigated as blind (cf. v. 16); for all their zeal they cannot perceive the right ways of God. With a humorous illustration Jesus pictures them as straining out the gnat,34 the point being that this little organism was “unclean” (Lev. 11:41) and therefore should not be consumed. But these same people gulped down the camel, the largest of the beasts normally found in Palestine (and in addition also ceremonially unclean, Lev. 11:4).35 They were pernickety in complying with the regulations about the smallest matters, but were capable of quite neglecting much more important matters, things like those Jesus has just mentioned; “in their eagerness to avoid a tiny defilement the Pharisees are polluted by a huge one” (Johnson).
25. The fifth woe contrasts the inward and the outward. The Pharisees were meticulous with outward things, things that people could notice and that would impress on observers just how pious the Pharisees were.36 They were not so careful about things that people could not see and measure. So Jesus speaks of them as cleaning the outside of the cup and the dish. The cup was the ordinary utensil for drinking, and the dish was that on which food was served.37 The outside of these useful articles was carefully cleaned, but the inside was quite another matter. On the inside everything was the proceeds of robbery and self-indulgence (“full of what you have obtained by violence and selfishness,” GNB). In Luke’s form of the saying it is the Pharisees who are full of robbery and evil, but Matthew seems to be speaking rather of what they obtained by their wrong acts. “These people ate and drank luxuriously things which they secured by acts of violence and wrong. What they put in their cups was contaminated by the source from which it had come, and it was useless to polish the outside of the vessel, and so meet the demands of the traditional Law” (Robinson). That the containers are full points to good measure; Jesus is not complaining of an occasional lapse but of the habitual activity of these religious leaders. Robbery is a startling accusation;38 the practices in which they engaged meant that they took from others that to which they were not entitled. We do not know enough about the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time to be specific about this charge, but in all ages there have been people who were scrupulous about outward religious observances but who did not allow their profession of piety to hinder them from making unjust profits at the expense of other people. The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day were evidently not above this. With it Jesus joins self-indulgence.39 The Pharisees were outwardly religious, but this did not mean that they were in any degree given to self-discipline. They apparently did not allow their religious observances to interfere with their comfort. Jesus is saying that their attention to the outside of the cup and the plate is useless because all that is in these vessels has been contaminated by the way it was acquired. No amount of attention to ceremonial detail can compensate for dishonesty and self-indulgence.
26. For the fifth (and last) time in this chapter Jesus uses the adjective blind, this time in the singular as he addresses himself to one typical Pharisee. He returns to the metaphor of the cup and urges the Pharisee to clean its inside. But the application of the metaphor is uppermost rather than the metaphor itself, for Jesus goes on to say that the inside is to be cleaned so that the outside may become clean too. It is not the case that the cleaning of the inside of a cup makes the outside clean too, but when a person is made clean in his innermost being this is necessarily reflected in that person’s outward actions. The Pharisees are being taught that their method is all wrong. In the case of a person, to concentrate on the outward does nothing for the inward, whereas to make sure that the inward is clean means that the outward will also be clean. That follows inevitably.
27. The next woe likens the scribes and Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, which refers to the customs of burial. People were not necessarily buried together in cemeteries; isolated graves might be found in all sorts of places. A grave might not be well kept after a long lapse of time (the relatives of the buried person might all die themselves), and the grave could easily become inconspicuous. People not familiar with the locality but passing through on the way up to Jerusalem for a feast might well accidentally make contact with such a grave, and the contact would make them ceremonially unclean (see Num. 19:11–22; v. 16 explicitly says that anyone who touches a grave is unclean for seven days). As a help for such pilgrims (and others) tombs were whitewashed on the fifteenth of the month Adar, a month before Passover; the tombs would then be conspicuous and anyone passing through would be warned (see Mishnah, Ma‘aś. Sh. 5:1; Sheqal. 1:1; etc.), even though they had little local knowledge. The care with which such tombs were whitewashed made them beautiful,40 but it did nothing for the fact that inside such tombs there were dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. Nothing could be more “unclean” than the inside of a tomb. To the objection that the whitewashing of tombs was in order to make them plainly visible and that this is not a good illustration of hypocrisy it may be retorted that the point is the contrast between the exterior (white, cared for, and beautiful) and the interior (total uncleanness).
28. The application, like that in the previous “woe,” brings out the fact that the outward appearance of the Pharisees bears no resemblance to their inward state. There is nothing wrong with Pharisaic externals: the Pharisees appear to men as righteous. But their inward state is quite another matter. Jesus picks out hypocrisy and lawlessness as qualities that characterize them inwardly in full measure but that are not necessarily obvious to people who observe them. The charge of hypocrisy runs through this chapter, but lawlessness is an interesting and ironical addition. The Pharisees were punctilious in observing the law as they understood it. But their concentration on the externals to the neglect of demands like justice and mercy and faithfulness meant that in the last resort they followed their own inclinations, not the law of God. They rejected the divine demands in the place where those demands were most significant, in the region of the heart. Because in their innermost being they refused to submit to the law of God, in the fullest sense of the term they were lawless.
29. The final woe concerns the attitude of the Pharisees to the great prophets of the past. These outwardly godly people honored the memory of the prophets but continued in the sins that the prophets denounced. “You build the tombs of the prophets,” Jesus says, which indicates that the prophets had not been greatly honored in the manner of their burial. To make up for what their ancestors had failed to do for those great men of the past the Pharisees and their allies had done what they could to bring respectability and even honor to the burial places where the bodies of the prophets had been interred. In doing this the intention of the Pharisees was clearly to honor the prophets. And coupled with that, Jesus says, “you decorate the monuments of the righteous.” This will refer to upright and God-fearing citizens, people who are rightly honored for their wholehearted service of God but who were not the vehicles of the direct divine message to the people of their day as were the prophets. Just as with the prophets, the Pharisees took little notice of the righteous who lived in their own day (as witness their attitude to Jesus and the godly men in the apostolic band). But they gave outward evidence of honoring the great ones of the past in decorating their monuments.41 This last word often means a “tomb” (e.g., 8:28; 27:60), and that may be its meaning here; in that case it is no more than a stylistic variant of the term used earlier in the verse. But it seems better to regard the change as significant, in which case Jesus is pointing to different ways of honoring the righteous from those used with the prophets. But in both cases the important thing is that the scribes and Pharisees took up a stance with regard to the great ones of the past that indicated their applause for the work they had done.
30. And in thus doing honor to the memory of the prophets the Pharisees said the right words. They affirmed that had they lived in the days of their forefathers they would have had no share in shedding the blood of the prophets. With the advantage of hindsight they can see the slaying of the prophets for the evil thing it was. Their building of the tombs seems to be a way of proclaiming how much better they were than those who put the prophets to death. And there is no reason for doubting that they sincerely thought that had they been alive at the time when the prophets were killed they would have had no part in those evil deeds. The trouble was that they had not realized the radical nature of the obedience to God that the prophets had demanded, nor had they realized their own imperfect adherence to the ways of God. Now that the prophets were safely out of the way and they could no longer hear the thunderbolts those great men hurled at conventional religiosity, they could safely applaud all that the prophets had said, quite oblivious of the fact that their lives gave daily evidence that the kind of thing the prophets denounced lived on. Their hypocrisy consisted in the fact that while they gave outward evidence of devotion to the prophets, they took the strongest action against those who stood in the tradition of the prophets, Jesus and his followers.
31. What the Pharisees were saying was in fact a testimony against themselves, even though they did not realize it. In Luke’s similar saying (Luke 11:47–48) Jesus asserts that they give their consent to what the former generations did, for where their forefathers killed the prophets this generation completes the work by building their tombs. While it is not spelled out in quite the same way here, it is this kind of thing that Jesus is saying. The actions of the Pharisees at the tombs of the prophets does not show them to be better men than those who killed those great men of God. Rather, it aligns them with those who put those prophets into their tombs: the prophet killers and the prophet buriers belong together. Their very preoccupation with the tombs shows that their real interest is in the interment of those men who spoke from God, not in heeding the messages they gave. Their actions show that they are the true sons of the murderers of God’s messengers. There is a solidarity between the killers of the messengers and those who attended to their tombs.42
32. And you is an emphatic expression; it sheets home Jesus’ accusation. He is not referring to some hypothetical speakers about the prophets, leaving everyone to guess who they are. He is speaking about people he is addressing then and there. Their consistent opposition to what God has spoken through the prophets in earlier days and what he is now saying through his Son has hardened them, so that there is now no prospect of their repenting and turning away from the ways Jesus has been denouncing. So he says, “fill up the measure of your fathers” (“Go on, then, and finish what your ancestors started!” GNB). There is irony here: go on as you are going and take the inevitable consequences, is the thought. There have always been those who opposed the word of God spoken through his messengers, and these Pharisees are simply continuing it. Let them see that as they proceed along their chosen course they will be completing the task that their forefathers began when they refused the word of God through the prophets and put them to death.
33. Jesus addresses them as “You snakes” and then as “You brood of vipers.” We should probably not try too hard to distinguish between the two expressions. Snakes is a term that covers a wide variety of reptiles, and while viper apparently in strictness refers to “a constrictor snake” (LSJ), in this context there will not be much difference from snakes. Brood of vipers is repeated from the denunciation of John the Baptist (3:7; only Matthew tells us that Jesus repeats John’s words). The whole expression means “snakes and sons of snakes”; the words and works of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day show their genuine kinship with the vipers who had put the prophets to death in earlier days. These Pharisees who have no difficulty in understanding that those who ill-treated the prophets in earlier days were destined for hell are invited to reflect on their own position. If those who opposed the prophets were so clearly sentenced to hell, then how are contemporary followers of the persecutors and executioners of the prophets to escape the same sentence?43
34. Therefore seems to mean something like “because this is the way it has happened again and again,” “because God’s sending of his prophets and the like has never been welcomed.” That God has sent his messengers is a truth that is plain throughout the Old Testament (cf. 2 Sam. 12:1; for the repetition, Jer. 7:25–26; 25:4). The emphatic I here seems to mean God the Father; there is a sense in which Jesus sends out his messengers (the very word “apostle” means “messenger”), and grammatically he could be saying that he himself is sending people. But it fits the context better to understand Jesus as speaking in God’s name and identifying himself with God’s continuing activity: God has sent messenger after messenger and they have consistently been rejected, as the Pharisees well know. Jesus is saying that God will continue to do this, even though their rejection at the hands of the present generation is as certain as it was with their predecessors in earlier days. God’s messengers are not all alike. There will be prophets, men who can say authoritatively “Thus saith the LORD” and pass on to the people of their generation the authentic message of God. There will be sages, wise men who have studied the sacred writings and made that message their own. They, too, can pass on to their generation the authentic word of God, not because they have direct inspiration (for they do not have it), but because in a lowly and reverent spirit they have studied the revelation made through others until they are able to pass it on without distortion. There will be scribes, learned men, men who write, men who teach, and they, too, will speak the authoritative word they have learned from the prophets. Through them all the message that God sends to a given generation will be made plain.
But the sad thing is that, just as the prophets and their message were rejected in days of old, so these godly men will be rejected in the days to come. God’s messengers have never been warmly received by any generation, and Jesus is saying that it is not to be expected that this will happen in the days that lie ahead. He is sheeting home to the scribes and Pharisees he has been denouncing the behavior of which he is speaking; now he says to them explicitly: “some of them you will kill and crucify.” The Jews did not themselves crucify people at this period, but, as in the case of Jesus himself, they may have brought about crucifixions by getting the Romans to perform the deed (in Acts 2:36; 4:10 the Jews are said to have crucified Jesus, though it was the Romans who actually performed the execution). It is religious people like those he is confronting who will take the lead, and they will bring about the deaths of some of God’s messengers. Crucifixion was not the only way of executing them, but it was a particularly horrible way and it would happen. Some would get the lighter punishment of being flogged in your synagogues. We tend to think of the synagogue as being a place of worship, and so it was. But it was also the center of community organization; the ordered life of the community flowed around the synagogue. Community discipline was administered from it, and clearly it is this that is in mind at this point. The local council could order floggings of up to thirty-nine lashes (cf. 2 Cor. 11:24). They would also persecute some of the messengers from town to town. The verb persecute covers a wide variety of harassments, but whatever it may mean in detail it certainly denotes hostile action, while from town to town makes it clear that the messengers will be continually pursued as they carry out their mission. They will not be able to flee from one town and be assured of respite in the next one but will be harried from place to place. Jesus is speaking of a recurring and vigorous hostility. Paul’s account of his hardships (2 Cor. 11:21–27) shows us something of what Jesus is forecasting.
35. So that44 indicates that the divine purpose will be worked out in and through this human rejection of God’s messengers. When Jesus declares that all the righteous blood will come upon his hearers, he seems to be saying that the culmination of the whole process of God’s sending his messengers has arrived. Through the ages God has sent his prophets, sages, and the like, and he will continue this through the ministry of the apostles and other Spirit-led people in the church. But the high point of it all is in the sending of his Son. This means that those who reject him will be guilty of an especially serious sin; this is the climax of all the opposition to the messengers of God. So Jesus refers to the shedding of the blood of righteous men through all the generations. He specifies the blood of righteous Abel, the first righteous man to be recorded in Scripture as having been killed by a wicked man, and goes on to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barachiah. This appears to be the death recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20–21,45 which in the order of books in the Hebrew Bible (the Law, the Prophets, then the Writings of which 2 Chronicles is the last book) is the last martyrdom recorded in Scripture. In 2 Chronicles it is a particularly heinous crime, for the murder took place “in the court of the house of the LORD” (2 Chron. 24:21), which will mean much the same as Jesus’ words, between the sanctuary and the altar. Both are ways of saying that the slaying occurred in a very holy place. Whom you killed unites the people Jesus is addressing with the killers of an earlier age in a solidarity of guilt. Jesus is saying that the guilty generation he is addressing will be liable for all kinds of blood guiltiness, for they have taken no notice of holy things as they reject the messengers of God. We will see them presently using the Sanhedrin, the highest religious court in the land, to bring about their purpose in having Jesus crucified. People who could perpetrate such a blasphemous crime are the most guilty people of all time.
36. Jesus rounds off this denunciation with a solemn assurance. “Truly I tell you” (see on 5:18) introduces a weighty utterance and one that his hearers do well to take with the utmost seriousness. All these things sums up all the crimes of which Jesus has been speaking. They all involve blood guiltiness, and it is this that will be laid to the door of the people he is addressing. All this guilt will be laid on this generation. There is to be no doubt that Jesus’ hearers are guilty and that they will have to give account of themselves before God.46
37. This address closes with a lament over Jerusalem,47 the last words Jesus addresses to the crowds in this Gospel. The lament is almost word for word the same as that in Luke 13:34–35, but where Luke places it earlier Matthew makes it Jesus’ last words to Jerusalem. The city is the one that was chosen long ago as the place where the temple of God should be built and that should be the center of government for the people of God. There are many expressions of affection for this city above all others (for just one example, cf. Ps. 137:5–6). For Jesus, as for every other Jew, Jerusalem was special. It was tragic in the extreme that this city should bring down upon itself, in addition to its rejection of God’s messengers through the centuries, the guilt of rejecting God’s own Son. We are not to think that Jesus took this calmly. It grieved him deeply that this city above all cities should embrace the guilt that it would presently incur by its part in the execution of the Son of God, the last one God would send to her.
Jesus speaks first of what the inhabitants of the city have done in the past. Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers (the present participles point not to an occasional aberration, but to the continuing practice). This does not mean that Jesus rages against the city; rather, he regards it tenderly, and asks how often he would have gathered her children. Unless the words are spoken (from the divine perspective) of the whole history of Israel, this indicates that Jesus had more contacts with Jerusalem than Matthew has expressly noted (John makes this very clear). None of the Gospels, of course, is a full account of the life of Jesus, and it is not surprising that Matthew should omit Jesus’ earlier visits to the capital. The saying he now records goes beyond what any prophet could have said. In particular, we should not overlook the christological implications of the words: “Jesus’ longing can only belong to Israel’s Savior, not to one of her prophets” (Carson); Jesus implies a special place for himself. There is compassion in his words, and it is very moving to find him likening his desire for the city’s inhabitants to that of a hen48 gathering her chickens.49 There are the thoughts of the helplessness of the chickens, of the care of the mother hen for them, and for their safety under her wings. All this applies to Jerusalem. Jesus is saying that he had had a deep affection for the inhabitants of this holy city and that he had wanted them to commit themselves to his care. Under his wings they would have found safety. But the final condemnation is put in the simple words, “you would not.” The words mean “you were not willing”; the will of the inhabitants was directed elsewhere. They could join with the Galilean pilgrims in welcoming Jesus at the triumphal entry, but this was no more than a passing enthusiasm. When matters got serious they did not will to seek the shelter that he offered them. They preferred to send him to the cross.
38. Matthew’s characteristic “Look” (see on 1:20) highlights the words that follow. “Your house is left to you desolate” points to the city’s final destruction.50 When the Romans captured Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the city was reduced to a desolation; Jesus’ words were prophetic. Your house has a family ring about it. Jesus could have spoken of the nation, but he prefers the city as the place where the people of God live and are one family under the heavenly Father. Some commentators have seen a reference to the temple, but it is more likely that Jesus has the whole city in mind. That it is desolate means more than that there is widespread destruction; it means that God has forsaken it. He no longer dwells with a people that has persistently refused him.
39. For introduces the reason, and I tell you comes with solemn emphasis. “You will not see me any more”51 marks the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. He has come to the city for the last time and, though there was something of a welcome when he entered it, that was no more than a momentary enthusiasm. It was not a lasting reception of what he was and what he stood for. The inhabitants had had their last opportunity of welcoming Jesus, and they had refused to accept him. There would not be another chance. Jesus speaks of a time when they would utter the words of Psalm 118:26. Some students hold that this refers to the triumphal entry, when in fact these words were uttered by the crowds (21:9). But it is more than difficult to think that Matthew would use words that naturally refer to the future if he is referring to what he has described as having happened earlier. He is surely referring to some future happening. It is better to take the words as pointing to an eschatological reality. When the final kingdom is set up in all its glory, Jesus will be greeted as him who comes in the name of the Lord. Not until then will the inhabitants of Jerusalem recognize the reality of the divine visitation that took place when Jesus came to them.
Matthew 24
D. The Olivet Discourse, 24:1–25:46
The last of Jesus’ major discourses in this Gospel is largely concerned with judgment and the conduct expected of the follower of Jesus in view of the coming judgment. There is a problem for the student in that sometimes what Jesus says refers to the coming judgment on Jerusalem, a judgment that was consummated in the destruction of the city in A.D. 70,1 and sometimes what he is saying refers to the judgment at the end of the age.2 We may well argue that there is a theological unity between the two judgments, and that some of what Jesus says could apply equally well to both. The first of these is a judgment that followed the rejection of Jesus in his earthly ministry, and the second is the judgment that will follow the preaching of the gospel throughout the world.3 But we should not approach these chapters with the conviction that everything in them applies to only one of these judgments.4 The intermingling of prophecies referring to the events leading up to A.D. 70 with those applying to the end of all things makes this discourse particularly difficult to interpret. The exegete must always exercise proper caution. Matthew shares a good deal of his material with Mark or Luke or both, but he has significant variations in those passages and there is a not inconsiderable amount that he alone contributes (especially in ch. 25).
Some commentators take the whole discourse to refer to a single judgment. They hold that Jesus confidently expected his return within a comparatively few years and that there would be a judgment on Jerusalem as part of the judgment of the whole world. But the language used is against this. Far from promoting speculations that he would soon return in glory, Jesus seems to be discouraging this kind of thing (cf. vv. 6, 8, 14, and 23–28). And we should not overlook the important fact that he said quite plainly that he did not know the date of his coming back (v. 36). If he did not know it, how could he say confidently that it would occur within a few years?5
1. The Destruction of the Temple, 24:1–2
1And when Jesus had gone out of the temple he went on his way, and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. 2But he answered them, saying, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I tell you, there will certainly not be left here a stone upon a stone that will not be thrown down.”
All three Synoptists tell us that this important discourse was triggered by a comment made to Jesus about the stones with which the temple was built. The temple was an important and beautiful building, and plainly the Jews were very proud of it. But Jesus was more interested in the service of God than the beauty of the place of worship, and he immediately prophesied the destruction of the magnificent edifice.
1. Matthew makes a break between this narrative and the preceding by telling his readers that Jesus had gone out of the temple (where his previous teaching had been located). There appears to be symbolism in this: Jesus now leaves the temple for the last time; he abandons it. Matthew omits the story of the widow’s mite (Mark 12:41–44), an omission that has the effect of showing that what he now says is the sequel to the lament over Jerusalem at the end of chapter 23. It is not clear why his disciples drew attention to the great stones in the building (Mark says that one of them did this, and Luke has the indefinite “some”), for Jesus had been in the temple before and indeed had evidently been teaching there during the last few days. Perhaps it was not so much an attempt to show him something that they thought he had not seen before, as a companionable remark about the wonder of the temple’s construction, more especially, as Morgan holds (p. 281), in the light of Jesus’ lament over the city (how would such a solidly built city be destroyed?). There were some very large stones in the temple Herod built; Josephus says in one place that they measured twenty-five cubits in length, eight in height, and twelve in width (Ant. 15.392), and in another he gives the dimensions as forty-five by five by six (War 5.224). This historian is somewhat prone to exaggeration, but even allowing for that, the stones were evidently remarkable enough to merit a comment. In any case, the temple was a beautiful building with its white marble and its gold overlays.6 There is a rabbinic comment: “He who has not seen the Temple of Herod has never seen a beautiful building” (B. Bat. 4a).
2. The disciples were doubtless moved by admiration for the magnificent building, and they probably expected some expression of appreciation from Jesus. But (there is adversative force in the conjunction) they got nothing of the sort. Instead Jesus invited their attention to all these things7 and went on to prophesy solemnly the total destruction of the temple. He uses the emphatic “Truly I tell you,” goes on to employ the emphatic double negative, and supplies the detail that a stone will not be left upon a stone.8 Jesus is making clear that, while the temple was undoubtedly a wonderful building, the disciples should not be beguiled by its beauty. What matters is that God’s people should live godly lives. When they do not, disaster in some form is inevitable. For the Jews that was going to include the destruction of their beautiful place of worship.9
2. The Beginning of the Troubles, 24:3–14
3And when he was seated on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the consummation of the age?”
4And Jesus answered them, saying, “Take care that you be not led astray. 5For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many. 6And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not troubled, for it is necessary that these things happen, but the end is not yet. 7For nation will be raised up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in many places. 8But all these things will be the beginning of birth pangs. 9Then they will hand you over to trouble, and they will kill you, and you will be hated by all the nations on account of my name. 10And then many will be entrapped, and they will hand one another over and hate one another. 11And many false prophets will arise and will deceive many people; 12and because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13But he who endures to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
3. Evidently nothing more was said at the temple, and the little band went on their way to the Mount of Olives. Both Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus was seated on that mountain, the posture of a teacher, and Mark adds that they were opposite the temple. Doubtless the view helped them remember the strange words that Jesus had said, and the disciples pursued the matter (Mark particularizes with Peter, James, John, and Andrew; we are probably not being unfair to the other eight if we say that the subject was taken up by the leading disciples). Both Evangelists indicate that this was done privately; this was not a subject for public teaching. Had Jesus taught such things publicly there might well have been a furor, but for the disciples it was important in later years to remember that Jesus had prophesied the destruction of the temple forty years or so before it occurred. They asked specifically for two pieces of information: the time when all this would happen, and what the sign of your coming10 and of the consummation of the age11 would be. It would seem that the disciples thought that the two were to be closely connected.12 The form of their question indicates that Jesus had spoken more about eschatology than is recorded. There is nothing to be surprised at in this, for it was an age when all sorts of speculations about the Last Things were in vogue and throughout his ministry Jesus said things that indicated an interest in the topic. He knew that he would not be with the disciples much longer; therefore he told them plainly about some significant eschatological happenings.
4. All three Evangelists tell us that Jesus’ opening remark was to warn the disciples against being led astray. When we survey the history of the church, we are reminded that eschatology is certainly a subject on which it is easy to err. Throughout the centuries people have held with the utmost tenacity to a wide range of views on this subject. In our own day there are doughty exponents of pre-, post-, and a-millenarianism to remind us that all the mysteries have not yet been solved and that differing views are still strongly held. Perhaps we should notice Jesus’ care for the future conduct of his followers. We should not think of this passage as simply a demonstration of Jesus’ power to forecast the future; it was a series of prophecies designed to help believers.
5. Jesus’ next words make it clear that the main problem his first followers would confront would be people who would claim to be the Messiah. Ever since the incident related in 16:13–20 the disciples had known that Jesus was the promised Messiah, but their faith was going to be severely tested in the days that lay ahead. It would be difficult for them to cope with the loss of their leader when Jesus was crucified, and even after the resurrection confident eschatological speculations would be put forward. Jesus says that there will be many with whom the disciples will have to cope, and that they will come in my name. This expression is used a number of times with reference to genuine followers of Jesus, for they came in his name to set forward his purposes. But in this place the meaning is rather that they will claim for themselves the name Messiah, Jesus’ own title. Mark and Luke both mention that the false teachers will say, “I AM.” This probably means “I am he” and will be another way of claiming to be the Messiah, but we should not overlook the fact that there is a hint of the divine name about this form of speech and that Jesus may well be warning that some of these people will come close to claiming deity. This will surely be a reference to the last days, for there is little evidence that any of the turbulent men so active preceding the fall of Jerusalem ever claimed to be the Messiah. Some claimed to be prophets, but that is not the same thing.
And not only will they claim the title, but they will deceive many. The fact that God’s true Messiah has come will not prevent false teachers from arguing persuasively that they are the Messiah, and convincing many. This will be confusing for ordinary followers of Jesus, and it is important that his apostles be clear on the truth: there is but one Messiah, and Jesus is he. They must expect that there will be people who will claim to be the Messiah and that they will attract large followings. But in the face of this they must retain a firm hold on the truth. Jesus is preparing them for the difficult days that lie ahead.
6. Those difficult days will see happenings that will include wars and rumors of wars, but apparently Jesus’ followers will not be caught up in these conflicts, for he says only that they will hear13 of them. The rumors point to a very disturbed populace; even when there is no actual conflict people will still be talking as though hostilities were occurring (unless we take the meaning as GNB, “the noise of battles close by and the news of battles far away”). In those troubled times Jesus’ followers are to see to it that they are not troubled.14 In an atmosphere created by the horrors of war and abuzz with rumors of more wars it is easy to be worried and thrown off balance. Jesus is telling his followers that they must not let themselves be caught up in the general disquiet; they are to be sure that they are not gripped by the panic that will take a firm hold on other people.15 They have one thing going for them that the general public has not: they know that God is over all and that his purpose will in the end be worked out. This is the significance of it is necessary.16 Although in a time when people are caught up in war and when other wars are rumored it seems that evil is in control, this is illusory. God is in control, and all apparent triumphs of wrong will in the end be seen to fit into his perfect plan. The wars and the like of which Jesus speaks are events that must happen, but they do not mean the end of all things. That end will take place in the way and time that God wills, but the conflicts of which Jesus speaks are no more than part of the preliminaries. The end is not yet.
7. The strife will be on the grand scale, nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. It may be that this means no more than that there will be the normal conflicts of interest that through the centuries have led to war after war. But it is also possible that the passive, will be raised up, is significant and points to forces at work beyond the control of the nations. This is certainly the case when we move to famines and to earthquakes. Famines were beyond the control of kings, as, of course, were earthquakes. But these form part of the general unsettlement that will characterize the end time. In many places means that the disasters in question will be widespread.
8. Jesus places the happenings of which he has been speaking in their proper place in the scheme of the last things. All these things is comprehensive; the totality of the tumults and troubles does not mean simply an especially disastrous period in the history of the race. It means the beginning of the process that will usher in the final state of affairs; it is the beginning of birth pangs17 (REB brings out the meaning with a little addition, “first birth-pangs of the new age”). Among the Jews there was a widespread expectation that before the Messiah came to set up the kingdom of God in a form that would last forever there would be trouble on the largest possible scale. The powers of evil will not give up without a struggle, and thus there will be disaster after disaster. Jesus is pointing to this period which was so widely expected and speaking of it in traditional language.
9. Jesus moves from what the Jews in general expected to the way these happenings will affect his followers. In a little section largely peculiar to Matthew (though cf. Luke 21:12), they are introduced without explanation, but clearly he is speaking of people in places of authority, people in a position to take decisive action and who will take action against the disciples. They will hand you over (for the verb see on 4:12; it is used with special frequency in this Gospel, 31 times in all) to trouble.18 This signifies that people in authority will take the initiative against Jesus’ followers; they must expect special trouble in the last days and not simply the suffering they will share with all people, such as the famines and earthquakes of which Jesus has just spoken. They will suffer because of who they are—Christians, and their suffering will be no insignificant discomfort but the trouble that crushes. That they will kill you does not mean that all Christians will be killed but that some of them certainly will. And they will all be the objects of a hatred that will be universal. It is one of the things that puzzle Christians in every age that, although they are doing their best to love God and their neighbor and to put love into practice by ministering to whatever needs they discern in those they encounter on their way through life, they are so often the butt of ridicule and the objects of hatred. Jesus is saying that this will be especially the case in the last days. Perhaps the issues will be more clearly drawn then. Whether that is the reason or not, Jesus’ followers are clearly warned that the end time will mean serious trouble for them. They will be hated19 not because of anything that they will have done, but on account of my name; they will suffer persecution simply because they bear the name “Christian.” In an evil world they must expect to suffer for what they are, not for what they have done.
10. Matthew now has a little section not found in the other Gospels (vv. 10–12). In those difficult circumstances many will be entrapped.20 The meaning is that they will be caught in the situation in which their Christian profession will be the accusation against them (cf. Lenski, “be caught so as to have their faith killed, like an animal that springs a trap… ; not ‘shall stumble’ [our versions], for one may quickly recover after stumbling,” p. 933). These people will encounter disaster: they had professed to be Christians because of the peace and joy they sought in a difficult world, and instead they find persecution. In such a situation nominal Christians readily find the faith a trap and seek to get out of it promptly. GNB paraphrases with “will give up their faith,” and NRSV with “will fall away.” That certainly is the outcome, and they will go so far as to hand one another over (the verb is that used in v. 9); we could translate “betray one another” (as several translations do). So far from fulfilling their function as the servants of God they will actively assist the evil people in authority by handing over to them those with whom they had been associated in the church. The final disaster for those who formerly professed the Christian faith is that they will hate one another. Those who had been taught to love as Christ had loved them will degenerate into living in hatred. If this passage refers to the siege of Jerusalem, it is worth noticing that Josephus gives vivid pictures of the hatred and strife that characterized those days.21
11. In the early church prophets were very significant figures (they are ranked second to apostles, 1 Cor. 12:28). Clearly they were valued very highly and their words listened to with close attention. Accordingly it is a disastrous situation when false prophets make their appearance, and in that there will be many of them Jesus is speaking of no small trouble in the church. The inevitable result, given the church’s estimation of the prophets, is that they will deceive many people. Jesus’ followers were accustomed to valuing the prophets highly; until a false prophet discredited himself, therefore, he was going to be heard and heeded, and he was going to lead simple people astray.
12. In that situation lawlessness will abound.22 With the increase of evil both inside and outside the church many people will choose to go their own way. It is possible to put too much stress on the letter of the law and thus to descend to legalism. But the opposite error can cause much wider devastation. When people refuse to submit to law and each person does what is right in his own eyes, moral disaster follows (as is abundantly documented in many lands in modern times).23 It is basic to the Christian way that the follower of Jesus must be humble, must say “No” to self (16:24). To acknowledge no law is to place oneself outside the sphere of those who are Christ’s, so it is not surprising that in an atmosphere of lawlessness Jesus says, “the love of many24 will grow cold.” Jesus does not here speak either of love to God or of love to people; in this context the noun probably means both.25 But real love is impossible for the lawless person. By definition the lawless person is motivated by personal, selfish concerns, not by any regard for others or for the rules that govern our intercourse with one another. So with the upsurge of lawlessness there is a cooling off of love. The one necessarily involves the other.26
13. All this, however, should not daunt the true follower of Christ. “He who endures27 to the end will be saved.” Saving faith is known not by some firm declaration or a well-intentioned beginning, but by endurance. The words, however, are not to be thought of wholly as an injunction to constancy. They are that, but they contain also a valid and valuable promise: the person described will be saved. The power of God is such that he can and will sustain his faithful servants through whatever trials they may be called upon to endure.
14. Mark has a parallel to verse 13, but not to this verse (nor has Luke). The church’s missionary task is very important for this Evangelist. For the third and last time in his Gospel Matthew speaks of the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom (for this expression see on 4:23). He has first spoken of Jesus as proclaiming this gospel (4:23; 9:35), but now it is a task for his followers. Gospel, of course, means “good news.” The good news that God has established his kingdom through what his Son has done for sinners is a message that must be taken to the ends of the world. So Jesus now says that it will be proclaimed (the word is that used for a herald passing on the message that has been committed to him) in all the world. At a time when his followers were confined to a little group of people mostly in Galilee with a few in Judea, Jesus looked to the gospel message as good news that would be taken throughout the whole world.
It is perhaps somewhat unexpected that the proclamation is to be done as a testimony, but we must bear in mind that throughout the New Testament the gospel is always the good news of what God has done. It is never simply a challenge for people to do something for themselves. There is, of course, a challenge in living out the Christian life, but the essence of the gospel is what God has done in Christ. Christian salvation calls for endurance, as this passage makes abundantly clear, but in its essence it is not anything that people do. It is what God in Christ has done. The death of Jesus was to be an atoning death, a death in which he would deal with the problems of human sin and be (as Matthew has earlier reported) “a ransom for many” (20:28). The proclamation of the gospel is the bearing of testimony to that great fact. And this is to be done in no minor way but to all the nations. The followers of Jesus must not lose sight of the fact that their Savior, during his life on earth, spoke of carrying the gospel to every nation. Christianity must always be a missionary faith.
All this is spoken in an eschatological context. Jesus has been speaking of the importance of being prepared for all manner of troubles before the end of this age. Now he says that the missionary task must be carried out, and then the end will come. Strictly this verb means something like “will have become present,” “will have made its appearance.”28 Jesus has foretold grievous trouble for his followers in the days ahead. But he does not let them forget the certainty of final triumph.
3. The Climax of the Troubles, 24:15–28
15“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation’ spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16then let those in Judea flee to the mountains, 17let him who is on the housetop not come down to fetch the things in his house, 18and let him who is in the field not turn back to take up his cloak. 19But woe to pregnant women and to those with babies at the breast in those days. 20But pray that your flight be not in winter nor on a Sabbath. 21For then there will be great distress, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, and will not be again. 22And unless those days were shortened, no one would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘Here he is,’ do not believe him. 24For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear, and they will perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if that were possible, even the elect. 25Look, I have foretold it for you. 26If therefore they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or ‘in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27For just as the lightning comes out from the east and flashes to the west, so will the coming of the Son of man be. 28Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
Jesus has spoken of the troubles through which his followers would have to go as well as of the importance of the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom and of the certainty of final triumph. Now he turns his attention to the happenings at the destruction of Jerusalem.
15. Therefore connects with the preceding statement and leads into what follows. It is because the end will certainly come that the disciples are to be on their guard. When29 has the force of “whenever”; Jesus is giving no indication of the exact time when what he speaks of will take place. It will surely happen, but it is the occurrence and not the precise timing that occupies his interest. The abomination of desolation is an expression that recurs in Daniel with some variation in wording (Daniel 8:13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11), where most scholars agree that there is a reference to the desecration perpetrated by Antiochus Epiphanes when he built an altar to Zeus in the temple and offered swine and other unclean animals on it as sacrifices (cf. 1 Macc. 1:41–61).30 It may refer here to the Romans with their standards; they certainly brought desolation to the land (cf. Luke 21:20). There has been a good deal of dispute about the precise meaning of the expression in this context, but there can be no doubt that Jesus was referring to some “abominable” thing, that is, something that brought or would bring defilement to the temple. It would stand in the holy place, that is, the temple. At the siege of Jerusalem many horrific things took place as zealous Jews fought over the temple and defilement of some sort certainly took place. The reference seems to be to something of this sort rather than to what the Romans did when they captured it, for by that time it would be too late to flee; there were opportunities earlier. “Let the reader understand” is a little parenthesis inserted at exactly the same place in Mark’s account (Mark 13:14); it will refer to the reader of Daniel, not to the reader of the Gospel in which the words occur. It encourages the reader to think hard about the words: “it means, Look more deeply into this, because what is said is less than what is meant” (Fenton). Our problem is that with our background it is not at all easy to understand what the expression means. Perhaps Jesus meant that nobody will be able to understand the prophecy fully until the event of which he speaks takes place. But clearly he is saying that there will be some sacrilegious happening that will pollute and empty the holy place and that his followers should take notice of it when it occurs.
16–18. That is to be the signal for those of them in Judea to take refuge in flight. There is the thought that the city faces destruction; thus it will be a very unsafe place in which to be. Jesus says that they should make for the mountains, presumably because mountains have always been a refuge for those harried by armies. The terrain makes pursuit difficult, and there are greater possibilities of survival. It is sometimes urged that this injunction was fulfilled when the Christians fled to Pella at the time of the Jewish revolt, as the historian Eusebius reports (Eccl. Hist. 3.5.3), but it is objected that Pella is not in fact in the mountains but at the foothills. There are serious doubts whether the Christians in fact did flee to Pella at that time (see Hendriksen, p. 858, for the difficulties in the way of the Pella hypothesis). Jesus is saying that flight will be important in those days, but Pella is not what he is speaking about. Jesus goes on to underline the urgency of flight in that trying time. He speaks of anyone who is on the housetop, a place that was important in family life in first-century Palestine. Houses had flat roofs, and these were used as part of the living quarters of a house. While doubtless they would be uncomfortable during the hottest hours of the day, they would form a cool living room on hot evenings. If a man was taking his ease on his housetop and there received the signal that the dangerous time had come and that he should lose no time in escaping, it would be natural for him to think of some of his valued and easily portable possessions and to go down into the interior of his house to fetch them.31 Jesus tells them not to do it. The danger he prophesies is great; the need for flight is urgent. No time should be lost. Better to lose one’s portable possessions than one’s life. Carson thinks that the meaning is that the man is to run from rooftop to rooftop to get out of the city with the utmost speed (Josephus speaks of people avoiding the streets by leaping from roof to roof [Ant. 13.140], so the method was used).
There is a similar urgency for the man who is in the field when he gets the news. Presumably he is at work, for what else would he be doing in the field? The natural thing would be for him to take off his cloak before he started work and leave it at the side of the field (or even at home before he started out), and since it was an important part of his clothing he would want to snatch it up before he left. But Jesus warns him not to be concerned about clothing. It is better to concentrate on saving his life.
19. In a similar strain is a remark about women. Jesus says nothing about their flight, but pronounces a woe on those who are pregnant and those with babies at the breast. It would be difficult for women to make a speedy getaway, and exceedingly difficult for the two classes of which he speaks. Jesus does not tell them what they should do, but he indicates that there will be difficulties for them. They are warned. They, of course, would be in a worse position than that of the men just described. They could not leave their burdens behind as the men could.
20–21. A word in the same strain now comes for all the people. Flight in winter would be difficult, for winter weather could create all manner of hindrances. The disciples could do little about such conditions if they met them, but they could pray that they would not face the necessity of such a flight. With that Jesus joins, nor on a Sabbath. The regulations about “a Sabbath day’s journey” would make for a difficulty of a different sort; journey on a Sabbath would present a problem for Jewish Christians, and Sabbath-observing Jews would make things difficult for hurrying Christians.32 These are ways of underlining the difficulties of flight when the time comes. But we must not miss the point that even should the critical time come on the Sabbath instant flight is imperative. Something of a reason appears with the information that then (see on 2:7 for this word; here it locates what follows at the same time as the preceding) there will be great distress, where the term indicates very serious trouble, pressure to the point of bursting (see the note on 13:21; Phillips translates “misery”). This is underlined with the information that it will be of a magnitude unparalleled in the entire history of the world; such trouble has never been, nor will it be equalled thereafter.33
22. This verse is usually taken with the preceding, and this may be the way to understand it. But it makes a good deal of sense to take it as resuming the line of reasoning from verse 14 and applying primarily to the end time (though, of course, it has an application to the fall of Jerusalem also). The reference to the elect seems to take us beyond Judaism,34 and again “all flesh” (no one is literally, “all flesh will not—”) surely means more than Judaism. It is further brought home by the necessity for it to be shortened,35 for without this no one would have been saved. In this context saved is not to be understood in the sense of receiving eternal life, but saved from death here on this planet. An interesting feature of this shortening is that it is for the sake of the elect. God’s people bring a certain mercy to the people around them; while the unrepentant do not share in the ultimate salvation, yet something of good comes to them because of the presence of the elect in their communities. Jesus does not indicate how the time of trouble will be shortened, but we are doubtless to see the hand of God in this.36
23–25. Then does not necessarily denote “immediately after,” and it may well be that there is an interval of time at this point, perhaps even a considerable interval.37 In times of trouble people tend to look for some kind of deliverer; Jesus foretells that in the troubles of which he is speaking there will be those who proclaim that the Messiah has come. They will not lack confidence, for they will point him out with “Look, here is the Messiah,” or in another place they may say, “Here he is.” This may indicate fickleness as people shift from one they regard as Messiah to another, or it may mean that different people will put forward rival claimants to messiahship. Either way the followers of Jesus are not to give credence to the claims. How could they? For them it is a fundamental article of faith that Jesus is the only Messiah. All others of necessity are false. But false Messiahs will appear, and so will false prophets, who may be prophets attesting one or other of the false Messiahs or who may be claiming to have the gift of prophecy as they pursue some career of their own.38 These false religious figures, apparently both Messiahs and prophets, will do miracles in support of their claims. Signs is a term used often in John’s Gospel for the miracles of Jesus, but not so in the Synoptics. As John uses it, it indicates that the miracles are meaningful; the person who contemplates them in faith will see the hand of God at work and understand that God is saying something to him in the miracle. Here the meaning seems to be that those who see the false religionists performing their miracles will discern that what they are seeing is more than human. This will be reinforced in that what they do are wonders, happenings that cannot be understood on the basis of merely human powers. There is something more than the merely human at work. They will be correct in seeing this, but, whereas they will be persuaded that they are seeing the power of the one true God, in fact it will be the power of the evil one, the enemy of God. But their miracles will be convincing. They will impress even the elect. Since the elect are God’s own, and are kept by the power of God, it will not be possible for them to be led away by these charlatans. But Jesus brings out the impressive character of the things they will do by saying that if it were possible to lead the elect astray, they would do it. However, he knows what they will have to go through, and it will be a further strength to them that he has foretold that all this will come to pass. When it happens they will surely remember his prophecy, and this will help them not to be unduly impressed.
26. Therefore leads on to a consequence of Jesus’ having foretold all this. Since he has assured them of the coming of false teachers, they must not be unduly impressed by those who will claim to know precisely where the Messiah is located. There will be some who will say that he is in the wilderness. John the Baptist had made his appearance in the wilderness, and other holy men sometimes made such places their dwellings as they sought to escape the corrupting influences of urban society (cf. the Qumran community). There might thus be some plausibility in claiming that the Messiah was in some remote locality. Others might go to the other extreme and say that he is in the inner rooms. But since the inner rooms of a house were the less accessible rooms (and might even be used as storerooms), this way of locating him, too, put him out of the reach of ordinary people.39 Those trying to lead them astray will be claiming that they have special knowledge; whereas ordinary people do not know where the Messiah is, they do. If people will only trust them, they will lead them to him. Jesus says definitely, “do not believe it.” His followers must not be led astray in this way.
27. The coming of the Messiah will not be some secret thing such that only those with special knowledge will be able to say where the Messiah is. Jesus likens his coming to the lightning. Nobody needs to be told where the lightning is. When it flashes, the whole sky is lit up from east to west. The coming of the lightning is a coming that thrusts itself on our notice; we cannot overlook it. The coming of the Son of man will be like that. It will be open and public; nobody will need to be told about it.
28. It is not easy to see the connection of this saying with the immediately preceding. Perhaps the thought of judgment follows hard on that of the coming of the Son of man. These words are found also in Luke 17:37 in a passage dealing with the coming of the kingdom and the consequent judgment and that has a number of affinities with this discourse. The words may well be a known proverbial saying, bringing out the truth that it is the dead body and not something less that attracts vultures (KJV has “eagles,” but eagles are not eaters of carrion, nor do they gather in flocks). The thought will be that the spiritually dead inevitably attract judgment.
4. The Coming of the Son of Man, 24:29–51
29“And immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will lament, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32“Learn the parable from the fig tree; when its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33So you too, when you see all these things, know that it is near, right at the doors. 34Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things happen. 35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
36“But as for that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37For as the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. 38For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39and they knew nothing until the Flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of man be. 40Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. 41Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one left. 42Watch therefore, because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But know this, that if the householder had known in what watch the burglar was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44For this reason you also be ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45“Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom the master has appointed over his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46Blessed is that slave whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47Truly I tell you, he will appoint him over all his goods. 48But if that wicked slave says in his heart, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49and begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunken fellows, 50the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect and at an hour that he does not know, 51and he will cut him in two and give him a place with the hypocrites. There will be the wailing and the grinding of teeth.”
The remainder of the chapter is taken up with the coming of the Son of man back to this earth40 and with the kind of conduct required in his followers in view of the certainty of that coming. No indication is given as to the time of that coming, and indeed Jesus specifically says that he does not know this (v. 36). But he does know that many people will go on living as though this life is all that there is and their personal success is all that matters. Such attitudes are not for the followers of Jesus. They are to have much more of a sense of purpose. Jesus, who is aware of current eschatological speculations, proceeds to give what information his followers need about the End. Much of the language is the apocalyptic language of the prophets (e.g., Isa. 13:19–22; 34:4; Dan. 7:13–14; Zech. 12:10–14), and of such passages it has been said, “It is important to remember that all these natural portents in the apocalyptic literature are signs of God’s power and overruling providence; they are a terror only to the faithless” (AB). Jesus speaks of some happenings that could be terrifying, but because God is in them and God is working out his loving purposes they are an encouragement to his people, not a reason for them to be afraid.
29. Jesus has spoken of troubled times that will precede the end of all things, and he now goes on to speak of what will follow the distress he has earlier mentioned (vv. 9 and 21; for the meaning of the word see the note on 13:21). He speaks of significant celestial phenomena in language reminiscent of Old Testament passages but without specifically quoting them (e.g., Ezek. 32:7; Joel 2:10). The most striking thing is that neither the sun nor the moon will give any light: the whole earth will lie in darkness. With that is joined disturbance in the stars, for they will fall from heaven (Matthew has the word for star 5 times, which is more than in any other New Testament book). That the stars will fall means that starlight is affected as much as is sunlight and moonlight. There is to be no source of light here on earth in that day. It accords with what will happen to sun, moon, and stars that the powers of the heavens will be shaken. The word for heaven is singular in the reference to the stars, but plural where the powers are spoken of, but there does not seem to be any great significance in this (Matthew uses both forms with no apparent difference of meaning). Jesus does not say what these powers are, but in the first century it was widely accepted that there were many heavenly beings and that on occasion they might make their present felt on earth. Jesus is saying that, whatever the powers of the heavens may be, they are subject to God, and that at this time, that of the return of the Son of man to this earth, their power will be disturbed. Whatever functions they may be exercising at the time will be affected by the great fact that the Son of man is coming back to this earth to bring an end to the current system and to inaugurate the reign of God over all the earth.
30. Matthew’s favorite then (see on 2:7) brings us to the central happening: the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven. It is not completely clear what is meant by the sign.41 It may be some outward sign (Chrysostom thought it would be the cross, p. 459, as did others in the early church). REB renders “the sign that heralds the Son of Man,” a translation that at any rate makes clear the function of the sign even if it does not tell us what it is. Or it may simply mean the coming of the Son of man himself, a view that is supported by the fact that neither Mark nor Luke refers to the sign; they both say, “they will see the Son of man.” Whatever it is, the sign will appear in the sky and will be clear enough to be recognizable, for it will have its effect on all the tribes of the earth (a point mentioned by Matthew only; he also is the only Evangelist to speak of the trumpet call). We would have expected a reference to “the nations,” and perhaps that is the sense of the term in this context (NIV, “all the nations of the earth”). If it is used strictly it will point to smaller groups than nations, but either way the whole of earth’s population is in view. They will not rejoice at the coming of the Son of man, but will lament at it. They will recognize that this coming is decisive and that it spells the end of their comfortable securities. Jesus does not say whether they will immediately recognize that he has come for judgment and that accordingly they will face the penalty for their misdeeds, but clearly there is something about the coming that will make them uncomfortable. In words reminiscent of Daniel 7:13 Jesus goes on to tell us that he will appear, and that is the important thing. He is speaking of his coming back to this earth, a return that will be so striking that it will leave no doubt as to his majesty. The clouds are often associated with the presence of the divine, and that will be their significance here. This is further made clear by the addition of with power and great glory. Jesus is speaking of the majestic appearance of a King, the very antithesis of his first coming, a lowly coming in the form of a servant.
31. The majestic appearance of the King will spell deliverance for the servants of God. He will send his angels (cf. 25:31; 2 Thess. 1:7) with a loud trumpet. This detail is peculiar to Matthew, but we must remember that Paul speaks of “the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:52) and says that a trumpet call will herald the coming of the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16). The coming of the King and his angels is to be no hole-in-the-corner affair, but a coming that will be known immediately throughout the earth. The angels will be sent to gather his elect; the messengers of heaven will gather up the saints of earth. Jesus brings out the truth that not one of them will be overlooked; the angels will gather them from the four winds, which is expressive enough as a reference to the whole earth, but here it is reinforced with from one end of the heavens42 to the other. Jesus’ followers are encouraged by the certainty that on the last day not one of God’s people will be missing.
32. Jesus turns from the signs that will precede his coming to the kind of conduct that is appropriate in his servants as they await him. As he has so often done throughout his ministry, he proceeds to teach by means of a parable, this one not so much a story (as many of them were) as a command to pay attention to the significance of the way the fig tree grows (REB, “Learn a lesson from the fig tree”). Most trees in first-century Palestine, we are told, kept their leaves throughout the year, but not the fig tree. This tree sheds its leaves in winter, but year by year the miracle takes place in spring. The branch43 becomes tender44 (the reference will be to the change that takes place when the sap rises in the spring) and puts forth leaves. There are other ways of knowing that the winter has come to an end, but anyone who has grown trees knows how satisfying it is to see the new leaves make their appearance. There is then no doubt that the harsh days of winter are gone and that summer is near. The fig tree does not bring the summer, but the appearance of its new leaves is a sure and certain indication that summer is now at hand.
33. The followers of Jesus are to be no less discerning than the orchardist. When the tokens of which he has spoken make their appearance, they are commanded, “know that it is near” (it is also possible to take the Greek in the sense “you know”); the imminence is underlined with right at the doors. It is also possible to understand the meaning as “he is near” (so NRSV), but this does not seem nearly as probable as “it”; the reference is to the whole series of events, not simply to the central person.
34. The solemn “Truly I tell you” (see on 5:18) introduces an important statement. Unfortunately there are problems relating to the meaning of this statement, the most important being the significance we should attach to the words this generation, the generation that will not pass away until the occurrence of all the things of which Jesus has been speaking. On the surface of it, the meaning is that he will be returning in glory during the lifetime of people then living, and indeed some exegetes hold to this view, claiming that Jesus thought that he would reappear on earth not so long after his death, perhaps at the fall of Jerusalem, to usher in the end of the world, which, of course, means that he was mistaken. In view of the fact that two sentences later he says that he does not know when it will occur (v. 36), this appears to be an erroneous interpretation of the words. A better view is that all these things refers to the distress indicated in verses 4–28, which must occur before Jesus comes again but which does not mean that his coming will follow immediately.45 A difficulty with this view is that it is not easy to see why all these things should include the events of verses 4–28, but not those of verses 29–31. So others have suggested that the generation is the Jewish nation (it means “not just the first generation after Jesus but all the generations of Judaism that reject him,” Schweizer, p. 458; so also Ryle, Hendriksen, and others) and point to its continuation through the centuries. Others think that the reference is to the human race,46 but this view has little to be said for it.
We should notice that in the Old Testament the term is sometimes used for a kind of person, as when we read of “the generation of the righteous” (Ps. 14:5) or “the generation of those who seek him” (Ps. 24:6). From passages like this some have taken Jesus to mean that the church will survive to the end (e.g., Green). But the term is used also of the wicked, as when the Psalmist prays, “guard us ever from this generation” (Ps. 12:7); or it may refer to “the generation of his wrath” (Jer. 7:29). If this is its meaning, Jesus is saying that this kind of person, “this generation,” will not cease until the fulfilment of his words.47 It is perhaps relevant to notice that a little earlier Jesus said of people to whom he was speaking, “you killed” Zechariah (23:35), a statement that implies the solidarity of the race through the years. Mounce draws attention to the phenomenon of multiple fulfilment. He points out that the “abomination of desolation” had one fulfilment in the desecration effected by Antiochus Epiphanes and another in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. “In a similar way, the events of the immediate period leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem portend a greater and more universal catastrophe when Christ returns in judgment at the end of time.” Right up to the time when all these things happen there will be people of the same stamp as those who rejected Jesus while he lived on earth.
35. Jesus makes a further statement that underlines the certainty and the permanence of what he is saying. Heaven and earth have lasted through many human lifetimes and stand for what is permanent. We know that they are not unchangeable and that, for example, through the centuries storms, earthquakes, erosion, and other forces have changed the face of the earth to some extent. But for all that, we speak easily of “solid earth” and view it as one of life’s permanencies. So also with the sun, moon, and stars. But, Jesus now says, all these things will pass away, and in doing so they form a contrast to his saying. His words will not pass away. This implies a far-reaching claim about his person, as well as about the end of the world. What he says will in the end have its fulfilment.
36. With such firm and detailed prophecies of the end of the age it seems natural to most of us to look for the date, and through the centuries there have never been lacking those who felt that it was possible to work out that date, sometimes exactly, sometimes approximately, referring only to a general period. But all such efforts are wrecked on this saying of Jesus. It is both clear and emphatic. That day and hour defines the measures we use in fixing a date, but that no one knows firmly excludes the possibility of doing so. One would have thought that no one is definite enough to make clear the impossibility of all date fixing. It shuts out the whole human race from the knowledge in question.48 But Jesus goes further. The angels do not have this knowledge; even in heaven the knowledge is not shared. And what surprises us even more is that the Son49 himself did not share the secret. The only person who knows, Jesus says, is the Father only. Nothing could be more explicit.
37. Up to this point Mark’s narrative has been on all fours with that of Matthew, but now Matthew includes a section to which Mark has no parallel (Luke has much of the content of this section, but in a different context, Luke 17:26–36). Jesus proceeds to bring out what this means for those who would live the life of service to God by pointing out what had happened in a critical period long ago. There is a resemblance of the coming of the Son of man to the coming of the Flood. The time until then is likened to the days of Noah. We are not told how long it took Noah to build his ark, but with all that had to be put in it, it must have been quite large and must accordingly have taken quite some time to build. But when Noah and his family and the animals entered the ark, the Flood came very swiftly. The emphasis is on the suddenness of the deluge. “So,” Jesus says, “will be the coming of the Son of man.” We get the picture of a long time of waiting and of a sudden act at the conclusion.
38. Jesus refers to life in the pre-Flood days. The Old Testament informs us that the people of that day were sinners, and indeed that it was their exceeding sinfulness that brought down the Flood on them. But Jesus refers to none of this. He reminds his hearers that life before the Flood was in many respects like life in their own day. People were engaged in eating50 and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage (the verbs normally used of the man and of the woman respectively). We should notice that there is nothing sinful in the activities Jesus mentions; these actions are the stuff of life.51 No community could exist without them. And these actions continued right up to the day Noah entered the ark.
39. The people could see Noah building his ark, and doubtless, human nature being what it is, some mocked him. But they knew nothing; they did not share in Noah’s wholehearted commitment to the service of God, so they did not know what was coming on the earth. They disregarded what Noah said to them, doubtless believing firmly that their views were just as valid and just as likely to be correct as those of the ark maker. But such convictions did not avail when the Flood came and took them all away. The purposes of God are worked out quite irrespective of what puny humans think about them. Jesus is saying that people will in this way continue to be about their normal business right up to the time of his coming. That will be the critical point; after that it will be too late, just as it was too late for the antediluvians when the Flood came. The coming of the Son of man will be just as abrupt, just as unexpected, just as decisive as the coming of the Flood was.
40–41. Two pictures of the activities that will be going on at the time of Jesus’ return bring out the importance of being ready and also of the fact that some will not be ready and will miss the glories of the great day. The first picture is of two people in the field. Presumably these will be men at work on their land. No distinction is made between them; their circumstances are the same. But one is taken, to share in the blessings of being with the Lord (it is possible to understand taken in the sense “taken for punishment,” but this seems less likely). But there is also one who is left. In both cases the verb is in the present tense, which makes it all very vivid. The reality is that some will have lived with no thought for the things of God; in that day they will, of course, have no part in the things of God. The story is repeated with two women. They, too, will be going about their normal duties, on this occasion grinding52 at the mill, a regular part of normal life for women of that day. The reference is to a hand mill that the women used each day to grind the grain required for the day’s food. Here, too, there is separation: one is taken and one is left. In both the field and the mill the emphasis is on division. The coming of Jesus marks a complete and permanent division. Jesus makes clear that the coming of the Son of man does not mean that all indiscriminately will enter into the joys of that day. Those who have chosen to live without God will find their choice respected when the great day comes. It will be the portion of the godless to be without God.
42. In the light of this certainty Jesus calls on his followers so to live that they will be ready when the great day comes. He says, “Watch therefore,” where his verb looks for his followers to live such lives that whenever he comes they will be prepared, and the present tense conveys the meaning “Keep watching.” Therefore links the demand to the uncertainty that attaches to the time of the coming. If people knew just exactly when the coming would take place, they could delay preparations until just before the time. They do not know, and therefore they must live in constant readiness. Jesus underlines the point with “you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Ignorance of the day is one of the conditions of living here and now.
43. A homely illustration underlines the point. The hearers do not know at what hour their Lord is coming, but they do know53 what they would do if a certain situation arose in their normal course of life. Burglaries, alas, do happen from time to time, but what makes them possible is that the burglar does his work unknown to the householder. He chooses a time when he will not be expected and thus can get away with his nefarious business. If the time of his coming was known, even in general terms,54 the householder would be ready for him. A watch would be about three hours on the Jewish system and about four hours as the Romans ordered things. Thus Jesus is not arguing for a position in which the householder knew the exact time when the burglar planned to do his breaking in.55 He is saying that if the man knew approximately when the burglar would come, he would keep watch and protect his goods; he could safely neglect watching at all other times. Since he does not, he must take reasonable precautions at all times or run the risk of losing his valuable goods. Constant readiness is his only safeguard. The point is that no one knows even approximately when the Son of man will return. There is no particular “watch” that we may keep and be sure that Jesus will come within those limits.
44. For this reason carries on the chain of the argument: because disciples are in essentially the position of the householder and do not know when the coming is to be. Jesus therefore calls on his followers (his you is emphatic) to be ready at all times, and again he repeats the reason; it is because they do not know the time of the return that they must live in a state of constant preparedness. Jesus says once more, “the Son of man is coming.” He leaves no doubt about the fact. That is a certainty on which they may reckon. But the timing of it all is another matter. The hour of the coming is one that they do not expect.
45. Jesus turns attention from the duty of watchfulness in view of the uncertainty of the hour to the fate first of the servant who is ready when his master comes and then to that of the one who is unprepared. Jesus does not nominate the servant who is ready but asks who he is. This is a way of inviting his hearers to reflect on their own state of readiness. He designates this servant as “the faithful56 and sensible slave.” Jesus is taking his illustration from a household where there are many slaves, one of whom is put in a responsible position while his master is away. He does not owe his position to his own deliberate choice: his master has appointed him over his household. But being there, he is responsible. It is his task to be sure that the members get their food,57 and get it at the proper time.58
46–47. This slave does what he should. He does not know when his master will return, but apparently that does not concern him greatly. He works at the task committed to him so that whenever the master chooses to come back all will be in order. When the master comes back and finds him working at the things at which he should be working, then that servant’s lot is blessed (for this term see on 5:3). The solemn “Truly I tell you” (see on 5:18) emphasizes that the following words are significant. The master will reward the slave by setting him in the most responsible position in the estate—he will be appointed over all his goods. The reward for faithful service is the opportunity of serving in a higher and more responsible place (not ease and rest forevermore).
48. But that slave’s accomplishment is not the only possibility. Therefore Jesus proceeds to refer to another slave, this one at the opposite pole of character and achievement. If introduces a hypothetical case; Jesus is not speaking of something that actually happened. He designates him as “that wicked slave,” so he lacks the moral fiber of the first slave (but Jesus does not speak of him as actively rebelling). He reasons within himself; in his heart signifies “in his innermost being”; this is not what he says to other people, but the thinking that governs his actions. “My master is delayed” (is there perhaps a hint that Jesus’ coming will be delayed also?) sums up the situation for him. He does not ask how long the delay will be, but seizes on the fact that he will not have to give account of himself for quite some time. He acts for all the world as though the delay had somehow removed all possibility that his master would ever come back.
49. Now we observe the kind of man he is. Knowing that there is no possibility of being called to account speedily, he begins to act unjustly. He takes advantage of his temporary superiority to beat his fellow slaves. They were really on a level with him, his fellows. But he has temporary authority, and he uses it to inflict punishment on them. To this strain of cruelty he adds that of self-indulgence and proceeds to eat and drink with drunken fellows. This speaks of dissoluteness as well as lack of care in discharging his function.59
50. The slave in temporary charge has failed to reckon with the fact that his charge is indeed temporary. His conduct is on the basis that the master’s absence will continue indefinitely. He has not reckoned with the basic fact that inevitably his master will come back. Jesus speaks of him not simply as the householder or the master of all, but as the master of that slave; he had a relationship to the slave who was neglecting his duties. He will come on a day that he does not expect (in view of the conduct of his slave he could scarcely do anything else). This is emphasized with the addition at an hour that he does not know. Jesus is underlining the truth that delay does not mean cancellation. The master may have been away for longer than this particular servant expected, but that did not mean that he would never come back. The application to the coming of the Son of man is obvious.
51. The illustration ends with the unhappy fate of the wicked slave. “The master,” Jesus says, “will cut him in two.”60 This cannot be meant literally (the man is still alive in the next clause), but clearly it stands for severe punishment, perhaps a heavy beating. The master will also put him with the hypocrites (for this word see the note on 6:2; in the Lukan version of the saying the word is “unbelievers,” Luke 12:46). It is not at first easy to see why this should be his fate. But perhaps we should bear in mind that throughout this Gospel hypocrites come in for severe condemnation; Jesus has left no doubt that their ultimate fate will be a most unhappy one. This man who pretended to be a capable overseer of a whole household and who proved to be inefficent and interested only in his own self-indulgence belongs with them. The wailing and the grinding of teeth is a proverbial expression that Matthew uses quite a number of times, but that is rare elsewhere in the New Testament. It stands for the anguish and suffering of those who are finally lost (see on 8:12).
Schweizer regards the fact that this chapter about the followers of Jesus follows the severe denunciation of the Pharisees in the previous chapter as important. “Chapter 23 pronounces judgment on Pharisaic Judaism in harsh and oppressive terms; chapter 24 pronounces judgment in equally harsh terms—but this time on the community of Jesus” (p. 464). It is important to understand that Jesus does not set a high standard for people like the Pharisees and a lower one for those who have given their allegiance to him. All those who profess to serve God must accept the truth that that service must be wholehearted and that in due course they will have to give account of themselves to one from whom nothing is hidden.
Matthew 25
5. The Parable of the Ten Girls, 25:1–13
1“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten girls who took their torches and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2Now five of them were foolish, and five were sensible. 3For when the foolish took their torches, they did not take any oil with them. 4But the sensible ones took oil in the flasks with their torches. 5Since the bridegroom was delayed, they all nodded off and slept. 6Now in the middle of the night a cry went up, ‘Look, the bridegroom! Go out to meet him.’ 7Then all those girls woke up and trimmed their torches. 8But the foolish girls said to the sensible ones, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our torches are going out.’ 9But the sensible ones answered, saying, ‘There will not be enough for us and you. Better go to the sellers and buy for yourselves.’ 10But while they were going to make their purchase, the bridegroom came, and the girls who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut. 11Later the other girls came, saying, ‘Sir, sir, open up for us.’ 12But he answered, saying, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ 13Watch therefore, because you know neither the day nor the hour.”
Jesus continues to teach his followers the necessity of continual readiness as they await his coming again. From the emphasis he put on watchfulness he clearly regarded it as very important. Some explanations of this parable contain considerable elements of allegory,1 and it is not difficult to interpret the bridegroom as the Messiah,2 his delay in coming as the delay in the Parousia, and so on. One may discern some elements of allegory, but this does not mean that this passage is not a genuine parable, nor that Jesus did not intend some of its details to be understood allegorically. Allegory was widely used, and there is no reason at all for holding that he rejected it and refused to use it. But this story makes excellent sense if taken as what it purports to be, a parable. Our interpretation is handicapped by the fact that we do not have complete information about wedding customs in first-century Palestine. Nobody seems to have thought it worthwhile to set down in detail what was normally done; after all, why should anyone do this? Everyone knew what happened in a wedding. So we are left with stories like the present one, which tell us some of things that were done and leave us to guess at others.
1. Then is a favorite Matthean conjunction (see on 2:7). Some translations bring out the temporal connection with “At that time” (NIV, GNB). We are to understand that this parable was delivered on the same occasion as the teaching Matthew has recorded at the end of chapter 24, and that it refers to the time of the Lord’s return. For the last time in this Gospel we have the expression the kingdom of heaven (see on 3:2). The general idea of God’s rule will be before us throughout this chapter, but the precise expression introduces this parable and is not used again. Jesus says that this kingdom will be like3 ten girls4 with torches5 who were going out to meet the bridegroom.6 This makes clear that Jesus is speaking of a wedding. Not much is known of the actual wedding ceremony in first-century Palestine. It was preceded by a betrothal that was much more binding than is an engagement in modern societies. It was really the first stage of marriage, and it took divorce proceedings to dissolve it. At the end of the betrothal period the marriage took place, on a Wednesday if the bride was a virgin and on a Thursday if she was a widow (Ketub. 1:1). The bridegroom and his party made their way to the home of the bride, or to some other place; there is a record of a wedding in which two parties, one of the bridegroom and his friends and the other of the bride and her people, went out to meet each other at an unspecified place (1 Macc. 9:37–39). When the two groups came together the wedding took place. After this there was a procession, generally to the home of the bridegroom, where feasting took place that might go on for days. The processions often took place at night, when torches made for a spectacular display. Clearly this is presupposed in Jesus’ parable. The ten girls were involved in going out to meet the bridegroom, which makes it appear that they belonged to the bride’s party. They would then have had their place in the procession to the bridegroom’s home for the feast.
2. The girls fell into two groups, five of them in each, though there appears to be no particular significance to the fact that the same number were in each group; it seems to be no more than a convenient division. The important thing is that some of them were foolish (Moffatt, “stupid”), and some were sensible. Matthew has an interest in people who behaved foolishly, and he has half the occurrences of the adjective foolish in the New Testament.7 But he is also interested in the sensible, and interestingly he also has exactly half the New Testament occurrences of this word.8 Jesus sets the scene, then, with a wedding procession in prospect and a group of girls waiting to take part in it with torches for the procession, and the information that some of them were more stupid than the others.
3. For introduces the evidence for judging some of them to be foolish and some wise. They all had torches and to that extent were prepared, but the foolish took no oil with them. Jeremias points out that it was necessary to pour oil on the rags at the end of the torches to get them to burn brightly, but these girls had not bothered to bring the necessary oil. He says, “their negligence can no longer be judged as lack of foresight excusable by the unexpectedly long delay of the bridegroom. It must be judged as inexcusable, punishable carelessness.”9 The rags would have been oily to start with, but in a society where people set little store on punctuality and where preparations for a wedding were extensive and time-consuming this might well not be enough. It was foolish to think that the amount of oil the rags in a torch could hold would be sufficient.
4. But is adversative; it sets the sensible over against the foolish and particularizes by referring to the oil. These girls apparently reasoned that there was no way of knowing when the bridegroom would make his appearance and that he might well be late. In any case, if we are thinking of torches, oil was needed to ensure a bright and lasting flame. So the sensible took oil in the flasks.10
5. The bridegroom was late. No reason is given for this, and none, of course, is necessary. The bridegroom would take his time, as everyone knew. A wedding was important. Everything else would be set aside for it. And since nobody expected punctuality, no great attention would be paid to getting through the preliminaries smartly. The bridegroom was in no great hurry, so the ten girls waited. Evidently all their preparations had been made, and there was nothing for them to do but wait. So they all nodded off and slept.11 This is not regarded as reprehensible; Jesus speaks no word of blame for the sleepers. In the circumstances to sleep was a good idea. All their preparations had been made, and from the time the bridegroom made his appearance they would be kept busy for a long time. To sleep while they could was an opportunity not to be missed.
6. The night was well on before the bridegroom made his appearance. Several translations say that he arrived “at midnight” (NIV, NRSV, etc.), but the expression may not be as definite as that: in the middle of the night is the sense of it. The bridegroom had not actually arrived as yet, but he had been sighted and a cry went up.12 “Look, the bridegroom!” indicates that someone in the place where the ten girls were had sighted the approach of the party. So the command is given, ”Go out to meet13 him.” The bridegroom is the center of attention: they should give him the appropriate welcome.
7. Then is used with precision; the shout got immediate action. At this point there is no difference among the ten. All of them woke up, and all got to work on their torches. This probably entailed putting more oil on the oily rags to make sure that the torch would burn steadily and give out its maximum light.
8. Now the difference between the two groups begins to appear. It is not necessary to hold that the torches were kept burning during the time the girls were sleeping. A torch would hold only a small amount of oil, and it could be consumed between the time of the shout and the arrival of the bridegroom. The foolish girls now found themselves in trouble, for their torches were going out (the present tense indicates that the torches were even then going out; it was not a matter of “our torches will soon go out”; they were going out right then).14 There would be no place in a torchlight procession for girls whose torches gave no light. But there was no immediate panic because there were other girls there who had oil. So they asked them to give them some of their oil. To the careless girls that must have seemed the obvious solution.
9. But it did not appeal to the sensible girls. They were not sure whether the supply would be adequate for them all. There is a textual problem relating to the negative, and this affects the sense of their reply.15 Thus they may be saying definitely, “there is not enough” (GNB; so also REB, “there will never be enough”). Alternatively they may be hesitant; if the other reading be accepted, they are saying no more than “Perhaps there will not be enough” (RSV). On the whole it seems that they are saying that there certainly won’t be enough oil if it is split up among them all, but even if the “Perhaps” version be accepted as their meaning they are not prepared to take the risk that none of them would see the procession out.
But there is no such ambiguity about their suggested line of action. “Better go16 to the sellers,” they say, “and buy for yourselves.” Evidently it was quite possible to buy oil in the middle of the night, though, of course, it might mean routing the sellers of oil out of their beds and getting them to open up their stores, which would have been safely locked up for the night.17 All this would take time and may explain why the foolish girls did not suggest this to one another in the first place. It is possible to argue that the girls with the oil ought to have been kinder to those without and to have shared what they had. To this more than one thing might be said. One is that the possibility that there would not be enough oil to get any of them to the banquet was evidently real (“enough for one cannot be made to do for two,” Glover). It would have been silly to have excluded them all, foolish and sensible alike, from the festivities. The bridegroom had to be welcomed (“if all the torches went out, the procession would be a disaster,” Mounce). Another is that a parable does not cover all the options. It is there to teach a specific lesson, and in the case of this parable it is the lesson of being ready. A story about sensible girls who shared their oil and stayed with the foolish in being unable to go to the banquet might have taught a lesson about being ready to sacrifice for the improvident. But it would not have taught the necessity for being ready, and that is the point of this story.18 Jesus is teaching the importance of watchfulness, not going into all the possibilities in the life of the believer. And in the sense of being ready for the coming of the Christ being ready is not something that can be shared or passed on. It is an individual matter.
10. The delay was fatal. But is adversative: what happened was not that they came back quickly with enough oil, but that while they were still on their journey the bridegroom came. Jesus omits all that followed until they went into the place where the feast was to be held. He says nothing about what happened when the bridegroom arrived, nor about the procession for which the torches were required. His hearers were well enough versed in what went on at weddings to understand this for themselves. He goes immediately to the time when the girls who were ready went in with him to the wedding. Their forethought was justified, they had the oil they needed, and they took their appointed place in the wedding festivities. That the door was shut indicates that at this wedding feast, at any rate, there was a time to join the festivities and those who were not there when the time expired were totally excluded.
11. In time the careless ones evidently got their oil (or did they fail to get it and simply turn up, late for the banquet but hopeful?) and arrived at the banqueting hall. They called to the bridegroom, which is interesting, for one would think that it would be someone else who would have the responsibility for keeping the door. But the story is about the bridegroom and the ten girls, so it is what the bridegroom says and not what some subordinate does that is important. “Sir, sir,”19 they say, using a respectful form of address. It could be understood to mean “Lord, lord” and was a suitable form of address to the Son of God (it is used, also in a context of rejection, in 7:21). Jesus may be using the term with a glance at the time in the future when it was to him as Lord that petitions must be addressed. The girls in the parable plead, “open up for us.” They have no lack of desire to be numbered among the guests. And they are there, on the spot. Presumably they had been invited earlier and they are sure that there must be a place for them. The door shut in their faces is mystifying. There must be a way for them to get it. So they plead to the bridegroom.
12. But is adversative; far from opening up as they request, the bridegroom utters words that make it clear that they will be firmly excluded from the rejoicing throng. “Truly I tell you” (for which see on 5:18) is a solemn beginning and emphasizes that the words that follow are important. “I don’t know you”20 is devastating. They had been expecting to be on center stage with their torches in the procession. But their failure to be ready when the time came meant that they were excluded finally. If we reason that no bridegroom would say that he did not know some of the invited guests, we miss the sting in the story. Jesus is not telling a story about something that actually happened; he is warning people of the dreadful fate of those who know that they should be watching for the coming of the Son of man but who do not do this. Thereby they exclude themselves from any place among the people of God. The Savior cannot recognize them among the saved. While there was time they shut themselves out. There is no way by which they can now come in.
13. Jesus hammers home the lesson of it all. “Watch therefore,” he says, employing a verb that he has used twice before in this discourse (24:42, 43; the call for watchfulness runs through this whole address). It is important. And he repeats that his hearers “know neither the day nor the hour” (cf. 24:36, 38, 44, and 50). It is a condition of life here on earth that we cannot know how long it will last, and it is similarly a condition of life in the kingdom of God that we cannot know when that kingdom will be consummated here on earth.
6. The Parable of the Talents, 25:14–30
14“For it is like a man going abroad, who called his own servants and handed over his property to them. 15And to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. 16At once he who had received the five talents went and worked with them, and he gained another five. 17Likewise he who had the two gained another two. 18But he who received the one went away and dug in the ground, and hid his master’s money. 19Now after a long time the master of those servants comes and settles accounts with them. 20And he who had received the five talents came and brought another five talents, saying, ‘Sir, you handed over to me five talents; look, I have gained five talents more.’ 21His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will appoint you over many things; enter the joy of your master.’ 22And he also who had the two talents said, ‘Sir, you handed over to me two talents; look, I have gained two talents more.’ 23His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will appoint you over many things; enter the joy of your master.’ 24But he also who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Sir, I knew that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter. 25And being afraid I went off and hid your talent in the ground; look, you have your own.’ 26But his master answered him, saying, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter. 27You ought therefore to have put my money with the bankers, and when I came I would have received my own with interest. 28Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents; 29for to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness; there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ ”
There are resemblances between this parable and that narrated in Luke 19:11–27; indeed, some scholars see the two as differing forms of the same parable. But the differences in the two accounts are formidable; therefore it is better to see them as two distinct parables, though with the same basic theme of servants trading with their master’s money. But in Matthew the amounts are large, while in Luke they are quite small; in this Gospel the amounts vary from servant to servant, in that one they all receive the same amount. Luke’s story brings in a reference to a man receiving a kingdom and to the attitude of his subjects, whereas that in Matthew concentrates on trading. The story in Luke teaches that all the servants of God have one basic task, that of living out our faith; this one starts with the fact of the different gifts to be found in God’s servants and brings out the way they use (or do not use) those gifts.
14. The story starts rather abruptly with “For it is like” without any explanation of what it signifies. But since the story follows on a parable explicitly said to refer to “the kingdom of heaven” (v. 1), there is no reason for doubting that it carries on the teaching about the kingdom (GNB makes this explicit with “At that time the Kingdom of heaven will be like—”). The preceding parable has taught the importance of being ready; this one carries on that theme by showing what readiness means.21 The kingdom, then, is likened to a man going abroad.22 This man was obviously a man of means, and he wanted to have his money used profitably while he was away. He summoned his own servants23 and passed over to them the money he wanted them to invest while he was away.
15. That the money was calculated in talents presents us with a problem, for a talent was a measure of weight,24 not a specific unity of currency. It was the largest weight in normal use (see on 18:24), and when used for money it might refer to either gold or silver or copper.25 Attempts to render the equivalent in modern monetary terms run up against difficulties: we do not know exactly what weight the talent was in Palestine in New Testament times, nor do we know whether gold or silver or copper is in mind here, and, of course, with inflation and the like modern currencies vary in worth. All that we can say is that five talents26 represents a considerable sum of money, two was not a small amount, and one was a sum not to be disregarded. The fact that different amounts were allotted to different servants seems to mean that the master thought one of them distinctly more able than the others, the second one to be a man of some ability, and the third to be distinctly less capable than the first two. No instructions are recorded, and we are left to understand that the master wanted the servants to use their own initiative. He wanted them to trade as best they could with the money he had left with them, but he did not want to tie them down with binding instructions when he could not tell what conditions would be like throughout his absence. Having allotted his money as he saw best, he went off.
16. There is a little problem related to the way we should take at once. Since there is no punctuation in our oldest MSS, it is possible to take it as the last word in verse 15 (as KJV, “and straightway took his journey”) or as the first word in verse 16 (as most modern translations).27 The sense seems to require this latter view; if we accept it, Jesus is saying that the first servant immediately set to work. He does not say what that servant did, and it is of no great importance. What matters is that he worked28 with them. This signifies that he put them to good use in some way. In time diligence was rewarded, for the five talents entrusted to him became ten. His activity resulted in the doubling of his original capital.
17. There is little to be said about the second servant. He was also a diligent worker, and he likewise29 doubled his original capital. He gained but two talents, but then his base was narrower than that of his colleague who had gained five. Both had done well; both had doubled the amount entrusted to them.
18. The third servant was a very different kind of person (“a mouse-minded man,” Meier). The word But, which introduces this section of the story, has adversative force; this man forms a contrast to those mentioned earlier. Jesus says nothing about his reasoning at this point, but simply that he hid the money. Not for him the labor of buying and selling, working and making a profit. He simply dug a hole and hid his master’s money.30 This was a not uncommon way of hiding objects for safekeeping in antiquity (cf. 13:44). If it was carefully done, nobody other than the person who dug the hole would know where it was and what was in it. Jesus does not indicate at this point why the man did this (laziness? fear?). The important thing for this man was that the money was secure and that he could produce it when the time came. Keeping it in this way meant that there was no possibility of loss, but it also meant that there was no possibility of gain.
19. The period of the master’s absence is not specified, but it was a long time; it was this that enabled the first two servants to increase their capital by 100 percent. The master then comes and settles accounts31 with them (the present tenses introduce a note of vividness). The day of reckoning had come.
20. The first to give account of himself was the first to have received the money. After the one sentence with the vivid present tenses the past tenses are resumed. The man who had been entrusted with five talents brought his original sum plus the money he had gained and explained to his master that he had made a gain of five talents. In both clauses he puts emphasis on the amount: “Five talents you gave me; look, another five talents I have gained.”32
21. His master commended this servant. First he says simply, “Well,” which we normally put into English with “Well done,” but which could be taken in some such sense as “It is well.” Or we could understand it as an interjection, “Bravo!” (BDF 102[3]). However we take it, it is a mark of approval. This is something the master understands and approves. He goes on to salute the servant as good and faithful, an expression that approves both his character and his diligence; he had been all that the master expected (Cassirer translates, “excellent and trustworthy servant”). The master goes on to develop the thought of faithfulness. The servant, he says, has been faithful over a few things. Clearly Jesus wants his hearers to understand that the master was a very rich man. While we do not know exactly how much five talents were worth in our money, it seems clear that it was a considerable sum. But the master can speak of it as no more than a few things. Now that the servant has proved himself in what the master regards as a comparatively lowly piece of service, further doors of opportunity will be opened to him. “I will appoint you over many things” indicates that the faithful servant will be rewarded with a position that will give him more scope for the use of the abilities that he has shown he possesses. Once again Jesus is teaching that the reward for good work is the opportunity of doing further work. “Enter the joy33 of your master” may be understood in the sense of REB, “share your master’s joy.”34 Whether that is the way to take it or not, it clearly means that the servant has received the warm approval of his master and that his future is one in which joy will be prominent.
22–23. The process is repeated with almost identical wording in the case of the servant who had been given two talents. The man reports as his predecessor had reported with the one change of two talents for “five talents,” and he receives his commendation in exactly the same terms. It is noteworthy that though he had gained but two talents, his praise is in words identical with that given the man with five. They had both doubled the sum entrusted to them, and they were both congratulated for doing so. The actual size of their gain was not as important as the fact that each had doubled the amount entrusted to him.
24. Finally there came also the man who had received35 the one talent. He used the same polite address as the other two, “Sir,” but diverges by going into a description of his owner. He says, “I knew that you are a hard36 man”; he puts this forward to excuse his failure to do anything with his talent, but in doing so he takes away some of his defense. If he knew that his master was a hard man, he knew also that he had been expected to do something profitable with the money entrusted to him. He explains something of what hardness means in this case. “Reaping where you did not sow” means that the master had the habit of enjoying a crop on which he had expended no labor. “Gathering where you did not scatter” probably has much the same meaning; it refers to the winnowing process at the end of harvest (as it does in 3:12), plying the winnowing shovel to scatter the mingled chaff and grain and thus separate the two. The sowing and the scattering refer to the processes that began and completed the getting of a crop. The master, this man says, profited from sowing and winnowing where he had not gone through the hard work of using the plough and plying the winnowing shovel. The picture this servant draws is of a man with an eye to business; he picked up profits in all sorts of places and not only those that resulted from his own hard work.
25. All this is said to explain his reaction to being left to look after a talent. He says that he was afraid, evidently afraid that if he used the money in business undertakings as his fellow servants were doing he would lose it and thus make himself liable to punishment. So, he says, “I hid your talent in the ground.”37 This made him certain of losing nothing,38 but it also meant that when he was face to face with his master he could say nothing better than “look, you have your own.”
26. But is adversative; far from accepting the explanation, the master was about to rebuke his servant. He did this, calling him both wicked and lazy. It was a wicked thing to receive money from his master and fail to use it to the best advantage, whatever his motive. But in any case, his motive was something for which he could be blamed, and the master says that he is lazy.39 He let a natural disinclination for work cooperate with a dislike for getting some gain for his master, with the result that he did nothing. He felt that his preservation of the talent was something for which he should receive credit. He did not realize that anyone with a talent must use it. The master accepts the description of himself as reaping what he did not sow and gathering what he did not winnow,40 but interestingly he drops the word “hard” that the defaulter had applied to him. It may well be that he is not saying that he really is the kind of man he has been said to be, but saying that if the third servant really thought that he was like that he would have acted in a different manner. What the servant had done was not in accordance with a genuine belief that his master reaped where he did not sow, gathered where he did not winnow.
27. The master points out how easily the servant could have made some gain, even if he mistrusted his own ability to trade profitably. “You ought” is a strong term;41 the master is thinking of the easiest possible way of getting a profit, and at the very least this is something that the man was under an obligation to do. So he says that the servant should have put his money42 with the bankers,43 a procedure that he could have undertaken with safety and no great personal exertion. The result would have been that his master44 would have profited from the interest earned. As it was, he got his money back, but nothing more.
28. Having rebuked his servant and made it clear why he was being blamed, the master proceeds to the action required in that situation. “Take therefore the talent from him,” he says. Therefore is important. The master is not acting in an arbitrary fashion. The man has had the money for quite some time and has shown that he has no intention of making any use of it. Left with him it would stay buried in the ground. But money should be used, and therefore it was necessary to take the money away. “Give it to him who has the ten talents,” he goes on. That man has shown that he knows how to use money profitably. He will make the best use of it, and therefore it should be left with him.
29. This verse largely repeats the words of 13:12 (where see the comments), and the small alterations make no difference to the sense. Jesus is not countenancing business practices that enable the wealthy to become wealthier at the expense of the deserving poor. He is laying down a principle of the spiritual life, a principle of great importance. Anyone who has a talent (using the word in the modern sense) of any kind and fails to use it, by that very fact forfeits it. By contrast, anyone who has a talent and uses it to the full finds that that talent develops and grows.45 This is a law of the spiritual life, and we neglect it at our peril. The parable illustrates both possibilities. The servants who used what they had saw it grow; the one who refused to use what he had lost it. Jesus’ followers are warned.
30. The servant who failed to use the talent entrusted to him is now characterized as unprofitable.46 He has had control of a full talent and has buried it. He has failed completely when he had the opportunity to do something useful.47 So he is consigned to the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. With one exception, this expression combining the thoughts of punishment and of deep grief is found in Matthew only (see the note on 8:12). It stands for complete and final rejection and for unceasing sorrow and regret. We should bear in mind that this is not here pronounced over someone who has done some particularly heinous crime. It is the final result for the man who had only one talent and who steadfastly refused to use it.48
7. The Sheep and the Goats, 25:31–46
31“But when the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne; 32and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33and he will put the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left. 34Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are my Father’s blessed ones; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger was I and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, in prison was I and you came to me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ 40And the king will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I tell you, insofar as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
41“Then he will say to those on the left too, ‘Go away from me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43a stranger I was and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not do service to you?’ 45Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I tell you, insofar as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to life eternal.”
This passage is often described as a parable, but Jesus does not use this term for it. This, of course, is not decisive (he does not describe the story of the talents as a parable either, but most of us are happy to refer to it in this way). But this concluding part of the discourse reads like a description of what will happen on Judgment Day rather than like another parable.49 It puts strong emphasis on the truth that ultimately every person on earth will be called upon to account for his or her use of the opportunities of service experienced through life.50
Up to this point in the discourse Jesus has been teaching about the responsibility of disciples and, with the emphasis on being ready for the coming of the Lord, implying the thought of judgment.51 But now there is explicit treatment of the judgment of the nations. Not only is the concept of judgment made explicit but the horizon is extended worldwide. Jesus makes it clear that on Judgment Day there are going to be some surprises. There will be people who will be rewarded for doing kind things to the Lord, only to find that what they did to all kinds of insignificant people were kind things done to the Lord who was in them. So also others will be punished for failing to make use of their opportunities to serve lowly folk, and for thereby failing to make use of opportunities to serve him.52
The passage deals only with works, which are seen as the test of whether one is saved or not; nothing is said here about grace or faith or Christ’s atoning work. But we must bear in mind that this picture of Judgment Day does not give us a full account of everything that has to do with salvation; it does not include, for example, the fact that from the beginning of his Gospel Matthew has been writing about one who will “save his people from their sins” (1:21; cf. also 11:25–30; 20:28). This passage deals with the evidence on which people will be judged, not the cause of salvation or damnation.53 That grace is not part of the present picture does not mean that it is any the less significant. We must bear in mind that it is common to the whole scriptural picture that we are saved by grace and judged by works (for this latter point cf. 16:27; Rom. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:10, etc.). The works we do are the evidence either of the grace of God at work in us or of our rejection of that grace.54
It is sometimes suggested that this is so different from anything else in Jesus’ teaching that it cannot really be his. To this Manson retorts, “Whether or not it belongs as a whole and in all its details to the authentic teaching of Jesus, it certainly contains features of such startling originality that it is difficult to credit them to anyone but the Master Himself” (Sayings, p. 249). Perhaps we should notice especially the place Jesus assigns here to the Son of man; in the characteristic Jewish teaching about the Last Judgment the Judge is God, not the Messiah.55 It is new and distinctive teaching that the Judge on the last great day will be none other than the Messiah, the Son of man himself.56
31. The previous section has ended with those who had used their talents well being praised and given the opportunity for wider work while the one who refused to use his talent was consigned to the outer darkness with its wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus goes on from there to give a fuller picture of our responsibility, a picture of Judgment Day. He looks to the time when57 the Son of man comes in his glory, a thought that has been with us in one way or another throughout this whole discourse. Jesus’ whole earthly life had been one of lowliness and service; now he looks forward to a coming that will be strikingly different. He does not define in his glory, but clearly he means that when he returns at the end of this age he will come in majesty and splendor. His servants must not be misled by his readiness to take the lowly place and think that that is his only place. His second coming will be strikingly different. He will come in power and majesty to inaugurate the final state of affairs. He will not be alone, but all the angels will be with him. His kingly state is brought out by the reference to his sitting on his glorious throne. GNB understands this to be his “royal throne,” while NIV refers to “his throne in heavenly glory”; both are ways of bringing out the splendor of the Son of man. JB has “his throne of glory,” which means that it is his glory that is itself his throne.
32–33. That all the nations58 will come before him59 makes it clear that Jesus is speaking of the final judgment of the whole race. In the end each of us must stand before Jesus to give account of what we have done. He does not go into detail, but says that he will “separate them from one another.”60 He takes an illustration from the pastoral processes and says the separation will be like that when the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (cf. Ezek. 34:17). These were the most common of the smaller domestic animals, and of the two the sheep were prized the more highly. The two groups of animals would graze together, but in due course the shepherd would separate them out (most commentators agree that the goats were more sensitive to cold than the sheep, so that at the end of the day the separation had to be made, the goats being put in a warmer place to keep both groups comfortable through the cooler hours of the night). Thus Jesus is referring to a well-known pastoral practice. His hearers would be well aware of separation into two sharply different groups. He gives no explanation as to why these names are chosen for the groups, but it emerges that those called sheep are those who receive a favorable judgment and those called goats are those regarded unfavorably. It accords with this that the sheep are on his right and the goats61 on his left, for the right-hand side was generally seen as the favored side; for example, to be at the ruler’s right hand was to be in the place of highest honor the ruler could give. The left was thought of as the side of ill omen (see the note on 20:21), so it is the appropriate place for the less favored goats.
34. Since “the Son of man” will have come in glory and it is he who will be sitting on “his glorious throne” (v. 31), it will be he who is now called the king. This appears to be the only passage in which Jesus refers to himself as king. At the time he was speaking he might well be “despised and rejected of men,” but in due course he will be sovereign over all. It is he who will pronounce the verdicts over those in either group. First he speaks to those on his right. He calls on them to “come,” and he addresses them as “my Father’s blessed ones.”62 “Inherit the kingdom,” he says to them, where his verb draws attention to a significant aspect of their salvation.63 Something that is inherited comes to one as a gift, not as the result of one’s own earnings, and that may be why the word is used of the life of the world to come. Dalman can say, “ ‘To possess one’s self of the future age’ is a very popular Jewish expression, whose use from the end of the first century onwards can be demonstrated” (Dalman, p. 125; he proceeds to cite examples). The use was congenial to Christians, all the more so since their heavenly possessions came to them as the result of a death, the atoning death of their Savior.
What they are to inherit is the kingdom, which signifies a sure and accepted place in the kingdom of God rather than that they are to be kings themselves (they are “made” a kingdom, Rev. 1:6, where we find that they are also “priests”). And the kingdom they will inherit is no afterthought, but one “prepared64 for you from the foundation65 of the world.” This strong expression brings out the truth that this has always been in the plan of God. Jesus is not speaking of some afterthought, but of what God had always planned to bring about, and that will come to its consummation at the end of this age. He leaves “the sheep” in no doubt but that they are entering into a glorious destiny. This should not be overlooked when we come to consider the words commending those who go into the kingdom. Some interpret the passage as though those on the King’s right merited their salvation by their good works, but here we have the kingdom prepared for them by God before ever they were born. We should not miss the implication that they are God’s elect.66
35. He goes on to speak of some of the things they have done in their lives on this earth. Four times this list is repeated in this and the following verses (it “is clearly meant to be remembered as a guide to practical discipleship,” France). We should not understand this in the sense that these good works have earned them their salvation; grace is as important throughout this Gospel as anywhere in the New Testament. Jesus is not saying that these are people whose good lives have earned them salvation as their right. He is saying that God has blessed them and brought them into his kingdom, and he proceeds to cite evidence that shows that they do in fact belong in that kingdom.67 Their lives are evidence that God has been at work in them. “I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me food,” a kindly action for which the world has always provided scope. So with being thirsty and the need for something to drink. The stranger is always in a somewhat difficult position, and in first-century Palestine, with its lack of facilities like the hotels that in modern times we so easily take for granted, this was especially the case. Where would a stranger lodge when he came to an unfamiliar place? The Old Testament knows of a man who prepared to spend the night in the town square (Judg. 19:15; cf. Job 31:32); thus a stranger could not rely on facilities for temporary lodgings. If he was not to spend the night in the open air, someone would have to take him into a private home. This was done among the Christians (Acts 10:23; Heb. 13:2, etc.), who seem to have taken the duty of hospitality very seriously. Bonnard takes the word to mean exiles from their own country and thus people without rights and without protection. These, too, would be people who were very needy and obvious candidates for the kind of help that the King now praises. So now Jesus commends those who welcomed68 him when he was in need of a place. They offered him hospitality when he needed it.
36. There were other ways in which these “sheep” on the right had helped their Lord. When he was naked69 they clothed him. Nakedness in first-century Palestine indicated poverty, the inability to buy clothes (not some form of exhibitionism, as we might suppose in modern times). When he was sick they visited him. Those without medical skills might not be able to do much for a sick person, but at least by paying him a visit they were able to convey something of their interest and their sympathy. And when he was in prison they came to him. First-century prisons were grim places; they were meant as places of punishment, and the idea of treating prisoners as normal human beings would have been regarded with astonishment. It was thus a kind act to visit people in prison. Any prisoner was a needy person; these people saw this and did what they could. Jesus does not say what these people did when they came to him in prison, but the fact that they came was in itself striking; most people avoided prisons like a plague.
37–39. But all this is news to the “sheep,” and they say so. They are now called the righteous; what God has done in them has transformed them70 into people who are acceptable in his sight and who accordingly do deeds like those Jesus has listed. They ask when they did all these things; they go through Jesus’ list and inquire when they did each of them, listing them one by one. Their surprise (and that later of those who were rejected) is not unimportant. It shows clearly that their salvation did not depend on their good works; for in doing those works they must have known that they were doing things that other people did not do. But clearly their kindness to the needy was not in order to gain a reward and merit salvation, but was part of the way they lived in response to what Christ had done in and for them.
40. Again there is the royal title the king in Jesus’ reply. His answer begins with the solemn “Truly I tell you” (see on 5:18); what follows is an important and serious statement and is to be given good heed. Insofar71 as they did the good deed to one of the least72 of these my brothers (REB, “one of my brothers here, however insignificant”), they did it to him, he says. Throughout his earthly life Jesus had never sought to be in a lofty and comfortable position. He lived “despised and rejected of men,” as the prophet put it (Isa. 53:3), and his followers must not forget it. It is natural to the human race to seek what is comfortable and to be ready to serve only the great. But Jesus’ ministry was to the poor and the outcast (cf. 11:5; Luke 4:18), and now he is saying strongly that the ministry of his followers is likewise to be to the needy. Two ways of understanding the least of these my brothers have won wide acceptance. One is to bear in mind that elsewhere Jesus’ brothers are his disciples (12:48–49; 28:10); Jesus may be asserting that the test will be the way people have reacted toward his lowly followers. They do not seem to be in the least important, but their relationship to Jesus is significant. This accords with such teachings as that on giving a cup of water to the “little ones” (10:42; cf. also 18:6, 10, 14). To receive a disciple is to receive Jesus (10:40). The other is to say that brothers includes anyone in need; in this case the test is the way they behaved toward lowly people in general. In either case the test is the way people behave toward needy people whom they do not suspect of having any great importance. To act in this way shows what they are. What they did to those needy ones they did to Jesus. The former is probably the way we should understand the words, but that does not give the follower of Jesus license to do good deeds to fellow Christians but none to outsiders. Such an attitude is foreign to the teachings of Jesus. Everyone in need is to be the object of Christian benevolence.73
41. Then introduces what is next in sequence. Following the commendation of those who have responded to Christ’s love and who have lived in the way he taught them there is an address to those on the left.74 Whereas he had invited those on the right with “Come,” the king begins his address to these sinners with “Go away from me,” and he greets them as “you cursed ones”75 (Chrysostom remarks, “no longer of the Father; for not He laid the curse upon them, but their own works,” p. 476). The nature of the curse is brought out with their destination; they are to go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Whereas the righteous go into the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world (v. 34), those rejected go into a fire prepared not for them, but for the devil and his angels. The symbolism of fire is sometimes associated with God (Heb. 12:29) or his servants (Heb. 1:7), but more commonly it is the destination of the evil. Thus we read of a vision of a lake of fire and brimstone into which the devil was thrown, together with the beast and the false prophet (Rev. 20:10), and which is to be the place where everyone whose name is not written in the book of life will eventually come (Rev. 20:15). In line with this the fire of hell is often said to be the destination of those who do not accept the salvation of God (5:22; 18:8, 9). Here his angels is linked with the devil and refers to Satan’s helpers. Scripture tells us little about them, but there is no reason to think of Satan as a solitary figure. There are, of course, evil angels as well as good ones. Angels are included among the beings that might try to separate us from God (Rom. 8:38); they could be objects of worship, which means that they are opposed to the one God (Col. 2:18). There are angels that sinned (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6), and angels are associated with the dragon who is equated with the devil (Rev. 12:7–9). Jesus is now saying that those on his left at the judgment will find their eternal habitation in the place where the evil are, Satan and all those associated with him.
42–43. Jesus goes through the list of the things that those on the right have done, but this time prefixed by the negative in each case. When he was hungry they did nothing for him, and so with all the items in his list. We get a picture of people who were wrapped up in their own concerns and indifferent to the plight of sufferers around them. Throughout this list GNB has “would not,” but that is not what Jesus is saying; more than intention is involved. They “did not” do these things.
44. These people will be just as surprised as those in the other group. They are not conscious of ever refusing to give food to Jesus when he was hungry or water when he was thirsty, and so through the entire list.76 Jesus does not go through the whole list again, but summarizes with a list that includes all the things on the previous lists, omitting only the verbs that indicate the way the need was or was not supplied. This time he sums it all up with did not do service.77 These people were not conscious of having failed to render service of any kind to Jesus. They had not realized that their failure to serve the needy was important. We should notice that their condemnation (like that of the foolish girls in the preceding parable) is expressed not in terms of their having done some awful crime, but in terms of their failure to do what is right. Sins of omission can be very important.
45. The king’s answer parallels that to the people on his right (v. 40). The words are almost identical, except that here they are preceded by the negative in the last two clauses (Jesus also omits the reference to his “brothers” in this place, saying no more than the least of these). Throughout this judgment scene it is made clear that the service of the lowly, the insignificant, the unimportant in this world’s eyes is in the last resort the test of discipleship. To fail this test is sheer calamity.
46. Jesus rounds it all off by telling his hearers what the eternal destiny of each of the two groups will be. “These,” he says (i.e., those of whom he has just been speaking, the people who did not do service to the lowly), “will go away to eternal punishment.”78 Many in modern times strongly oppose the doctrine of eternal punishment (and none of us really likes it), but Hamann points out that “The net result of the elimination of the teaching of eternal punishment from the Bible would be the loss of the Gospel. Not too many people would be overly upset at the alternatives of eternal life and annihilation. … So to eliminate eternal punishment is to extract the teeth of the Law and its presentation of a holy God. The blessing of the Gospel can be retained only if the Law is seen as the completely serious will of the holy God, to whom sin is grievous rebellion, requiring his punishment if it is not forgiven” (pp. 256–57). In contrast, the destination of the righteous (the word used in v. 37) is to be life eternal.79 The same adjective is applied to both the punishment and the reward. Jesus is not speaking of some small experience that would be but for a moment, but of that which has no end. He leaves his hearers in no doubt as to the solemnity of what he is saying. Eternal issues are involved, and this is so for both those on his right hand and on his left.
It is worth reflecting that this is Jesus’ last teaching to his disciples in this Gospel; Matthew proceeds from this to the story of the passion. He leaves with his followers the teaching that in daily life the way they treat the lowly, the needy, and the unimportant is of the greatest significance. Not for them is it to flatter the great and to seek to ingratiate themselves with the wealthy and the powerful in this world. They will serve their Master when they serve “the least of these.”
Matthew 26