B. Baba Meṣi‘a
20 The Mishnah refers, for example, to an occasion when Simeon ben Gamaliel found a pair of doves being sold for a golden denar (worth twenty-five silver denars). He took vigorous action, with the result that “the same day the price of a pair of doves stood at a quarter-denar each” (Ker. 1:7).
21 “It should be noted moreover that the Prophet uses the word prayer for the whole worship of God” (Calvin, III, p. 5; he refers to Ps. 50, “where God relates all the exercises of devotion to prayer”).
22 σπήλαιον denotes a “cave” that may be used for any one of a variety of purposes. Thus it might be a tomb (John 11:38), or a place of refuge (Heb. 11:38: Rev. 6:15). Here there is no emphasis on a cave as such; it is simply a place where dishonest men might gather (GNB, “hideout”).
23 ὑμεῖς is emphatic, “you, who listen to me”; Gundry notes that it “stands in terrifying isolation” (p. 412).
Vermes G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Harmondsworth, 1968)
24 θαυμάσιος is the adjective of θαῦμα, “a wonder”; it is found only here in the New Testament. It indicates that what Jesus had been doing was miraculous.
25 τοὺς παῖδας is masculine; Matthew could have used τὰ παιδία, as in 18:3; 19:14, etc.
26 The Hebrew appears to mean that “by the mouth of children and infants God has erected a bulwark which is designed to silence his adversaries” (A. Weiser, The Psalms [London, 1962], p. 141).
27 νήπιος signifies “an infant,” while θηλάζω indicates “to suckle, suck.” In those days a child would often remain breast-fed for longer than with us. A mother addressed her son during the persecutions leading up to the Maccabean era in these terms: “I carried you nine months in my womb and suckled you (θηλάσασαν) for three years …” (2 Macc. 7:27).
28 The verb is αὐλίζομαι, which properly means “to lodge in a courtyard (αὐλή)” and thus “camp in the open.” But the word was used simply of lodging, wherever one’s bed might be. MM notes its use for the lodging of a wayfaring person.
29 Hill thinks that this parable was “meant to be interpreted as a prophetic action prefiguring the judgment brought by the Messiah upon the Jewish nation and the strictness of Jewish religion, neither of which bore the fruit which by right was expected from them—they gave promise of fulfilment but in fact produced nothing!” Of the view that it is a dramatization of the parable in Luke 13:6–9 he says, “that story is governed by the theme of delay in judgment, whereas this miracle is concerned with immediate judgment.”
30 πρωΐ means “early”; it points us to the next morning.
31 Cf. R. K. Harrison, “When the young leaves are appearing in spring, every fertile fig will have some taksh on it, even though the season for edible figs (Mk. 11:13, AV) has not arrived. When the leaves are fully developed the fruit ought to be mature also. But if a tree with leaves has no fruit, it will be barren for the entire season” (ISBE, II, p. 302; he explains taksh as “underdeveloped fruit” that nevertheless “is often gathered for sale in the markets”).
32 W. E. Shewell-Cooper comments, “the fruit often starts to be ready before the leaves and this is especially true in the case of an early variety. Anyway, our Lord who made the trees would certainly know whether this particular type should have been fruiting or not. He certainly would not have been looking for the fruits long before their proper time” (Plants and Fruits of the Bible [London, 1962], p. 26).
Carson D. A. Carson, Matthew, in F. E. Gaebelein, ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, 1984)
33 μηχέτι, “no more,” “no longer,” here only in Matthew. Burton points out that “the Imperative Subjunctive” is “rare in the third person” (167).
34 εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is a not uncommon expression, but Matthew has it only here (and as a v.l. in 6:13). John has it 12 times.
35 On which Stonehouse comments, “If it be granted that Matthew does not fix the exact point after the entry when the temple was cleansed, one will be prepared to recognize that the position of the story of the cursing of the fig tree, following the cleansing of the temple, does not necessarily fix its order of occurrence” (Witness, p. 161).
36 Ridderbos comments on the withering of the tree “immediately”: “This does not mean that it became barren at once, but merely that it began to wilt from that moment on” (p. 390). The word “is associated with delay for a month” (MM), so we cannot press it. Robinson points out that Mark’s account “leaves open the possibility that the words of Jesus have been misunderstood, and that he saw as he looked at the tree that it was soon to die.” Matthew leaves no such misunderstanding possible.
37 Matthew has θαυμάζω 7 times; Mark has it 4 times, and only one of these refers to astonishment at a miracle.
38 πάντα ὅσα ἄν opens the door to its widest extent; nothing is excluded.
39 For προσέρχομαι see on 4:3. Matthew is not describing a chance meeting, but a deliberate confrontation of Jesus.
40 ποῖος often has very little qualitative force in the New Testament, but Chamberlain finds it here: “By what sort of authority do you do these things?” (p. 209).
41 Twice Jesus employs the emphatic χἀγώ: “You have asked questions, and I, too, will ask one. You answer, and I, too, will answer.”
42 “Actually this is no escape from their dilemma, for they thereby confess incompetence to judge one who except for Jesus has been the most prominent preacher of their day. If they cannot tell whether God was at work in John the Baptist, they are not competent to question and judge Jesus” (Filson, p. 226).
43 The variants are discussed in Metzger, pp. 55–56.
44 One way of making sense of it would be to regard verbal rejection of authority as worse than actual disobedience. There is a story in Exodus Rabbah 27.9 of a man entrusting a field to others. Several refused to have it, but one accepted it, agreeing to the condition that he should till it. But when he got the field, he did not do so. This is likened to Israel accepting the law when the other nations would not. The fact that the nation did not keep the law as it should did not alter the fact that it accepted it, which was more than any other nation did. So here, the son at least agreed to do something even if he did not live up to his undertaking. But this view comes up against the fact that the other son did indeed go and (presumably) do what was required.
45 τέχνον denotes a child (of either sex), but the context can make it clear whether it is a male or female child; clearly the one who was asked to work in the vineyard was a boy. The vocative may be used “as an affectionate address to a son” (BAGD, 1.a.b).
46 His ἐγώ, used without a verb, indicates an affirmation of the instruction just given: “I will” or “Yes”; it is a polite acceptance of the command. χύριε is a respectful form of address (cf. 7:21).
47 χαί is used in the sense of χαίτοι, “and yet.”
France R. T. France, The Gospel according to Matthew (Leicester and Grand Rapids, 1985)
48 “Comparison = exclusion may be contained in the verb, or rather its preposition, Mt 21:31 προάγουσιν ὑμᾶς ‘…go into the Kingdom, but you do not’ ” (BDF 245a[3]).
49 Chrysostom brings out the point by referring to a notorious harlot “from Phoenice” who was converted and transformed (p. 412).
50 It also seems to mean that John baptized repentant harlots. To admit women to such a religious rite would have been unusual among the Jews, and, of course, this attitude was carried further by the Christians (cf. Gal. 3:28).
51 Burton classifies τοῦ πιστεῦσαι as an “infinitive of result” and renders “did not even repent afterward, so as to believe him” (Burton, 398). Moulton says that this infinitive “gives rather the content than the purpose of μετεμελήθητε” (M, I, p. 216).
52 Some view the parable as largely or wholly the creation of the church, but as Filson says, “The parable is not what the Apostolic Age would have produced. It offers no real doctrine of atonement or clear mention of the resurrection; its atmosphere is not post-Easter. It can best be understood as coming in essentials from Jesus” (p. 228).
53 “A parable like this shows how restrictive it would be to assume that a parable always has one point. The word ‘parable’ means ‘a throwing together’ for comparison. Very often there is one main point in the comparison, but there may well be more. In this case there clearly is” (M. Green, p. 206)
54 As in 13:52; 20:1 Matthew reinforces οἰχοδεσπότης with ἄνθρωπος, which is more or less equivalent to the indefinite pronoun.
55 The Mishnah tractate Kil’ayim has detailed regulations governing vineyards, specifying such matters as minimum size, spaces between rows, etc.
56 H. N. Richardson defines a watchtower as “A structure from which a certain area of land could be guarded.” He says further, “In present-day Palestine watchtowers are usually round and may be as high as ten feet. Often they consist of two levels—a ground level, where there will be living quarters, and the top level, surrounded by a low wall, from which there is a good view of the entire field” (IDB, IV, p. 806). In biblical days it is likely that the tower would have been much like this.
57 γεωργός means someone who works the land, a farmer. But in this context it refers to those who are competent in working with grape vines, vine growers.
B. Baba Meṣi‘a
58 J. D. M. Derrett has an informative study of this parable (Derrett, pp. 286–312) in which he emphasizes that this had to be done so that the owner could establish his title.
B. Baba Batra
59 Both Mark and Luke say “at the time,” but Matthew adds τῶν χαρπῶν, “of the fruits,” which in a vineyard would be the vintage. Even though there would be little vintage if any at this early stage, this was the time to look for rent. And, of course, even in a vineyard there might be small amounts of other crops, planted between the rows, especially in the early years.
60 δέρω properly means “to skin, flay,” but the weakened sense of “beat” is found in later Greek (cf. New Documents, 4, p. 66).
61 The procedure is given in the Mishnah: “The place of stoning was twice the height of a man. One of the witnesses knocked him down on his loins; if he turned over on his heart the witness turned him over again on his loins. If he straightway died that sufficed; but if not, the second (witness) took the stone and dropped it on his heart. If he straightway died, that sufficed; but if not, he was stoned by all Israel” (Sanh. 6:4).
62 Cf. Hendriksen, “it is a parable depicting sin most unreasonable and love incomprehensible!” (p. 783).
63 The corpse would render unclean all the land it “overshadowed” (Mishnah Ohol. 2:1). There are also bothersome regulations about a “grave area” (Ohol. 18:1), some of which might be applicable. Mark says, “they killed him and threw him out,” which probably means that they gave him a mortal wound while still in the vineyard but carried him out before he died (so Derrett, p. 307).
64 In the Talmud there are examples of people claiming possession of land they had worked for three years (e.g., B. Bat. 35b). In one case a man mortgaged an orchard for three years, but when he came to get it back the mortgagee said, “If you will sell it to me, well and good, and if not, I will suppress the mortgage deed and say that I purchased it outright” (B. Bat. 40b). This is, of course, blackmail, but the point is that when the mortgage deed could not be produced the man who had worked the land for three years could indeed claim that the orchard was his.
65 There is a vivid wordplay with χαχοὺς χαχῶς, on which MM comments, “It seems clear that the collocation χαχοὺς χαχῶς ἀπολέσθαι, starting as a literary phrase, had been perpetuated in common parlance, like our stock quotations from Shakespeare” (sub χαχῶς). ἀπολέσει means that he will totally destroy them.
66 Since the future indicative may have a final sense, Moule finds it difficult to know whether we should understand the meaning here to be “who shall render …” or “so that they may render …” (IBNTG, p. 139).
Bonnard P. Bonnard, L’Evangile selon Saint Matthieu, 2nd edn. (Neuchâtel, 1970)
67 λίθον ὅν is an example of the attraction of a subject into the case of the relative (BDF 295).
68 We expect the neuter (“this thing”) but have the feminine αὕτη; it is usually explained as a literal translation of the Hebrew, where the feminine has the same function as the neuter in Greek.
69 Plummer remarks, “Deeply as the Jews lamented the cessation of Prophets after the death of Malachi, they generally opposed them, as long as they were granted to them. Till the gift was withdrawn, they seem to have had little pride in this exceptional grace shown to the nation, and little appreciation of it or thankfulness for it” (p. 297).
70 The verse is omitted by some important MSS, D 33 itmss syrs etc., but is read by א B C K L X etc. Those who reject it point out that it might well have been imported from Luke 20:18, but against this is the fact that a copyist’s eye might well have slipped from αὐτῆς at the end of verse 43 to αὐτόν at the end of the disputed verse, omitting everything in between. We should probably accept it.
71 λιχμάω mostly means “to winnow,” but the meaning “grind to powder” of AV is not excluded by MM, which cites Deissmann, BS, pp. 225–26 in support.
Morgan G. C. Morgan, The Gospel according to Matthew (London, n.d.)
1 The rabbis sometimes told parables about banquets. For example, there is one about a king who invited people to a banquet without fixing a time. The wise waited outside the palace in their wedding garments whereas the foolish went about their work, reasoning that they would have time to change. But the king suddenly called them in and the wise enjoyed the banquet while the fools without proper clothes stood watching (Shab. 153a).
2 Lenski understands the aorist as “spoken from the standpoint of the end of the world when the earthly history of the kingdom will be complete as here portrayed” (p. 847). The aorist is used also in introducing parables elsewhere (13:24; 18:23).
3 Once more Matthew uses ἄνθρωπος (“a man, a king”) as equivalent to the indefinite pronoun.
4 γάμος may mean a wedding or a wedding feast. It is used here in the plural (again in vv. 3, 4, and 9), but there does not seem to be any difference from the use of the singular in verses 8, 10, 11, and 12.
5 τοῖς χεχλημένοις means “to those who had been invited”; it points to a previous activity.
6 οὐχ ἤθελον ἐλθεῖν: their wills were set against coming.
7 ἄριστον properly denotes an earlier meal than does δεῖπνον (= dinner); the corresponding verb is used of breakfast (John 21:12; cf. v. 4), though the Pharisee’s invitation to Jesus employing the same verb (Luke 11:37) looks more like the midday meal. We should probably understand here a meal during the day rather than an evening meal, but not much depends on the word, for wedding feasts often went on for days, and this would certainly be true of a royal wedding.
8 σιτιστός, a rare word (found here only in the New Testament), is connected with σιτίζω, “to fatten”; it could signify any animals, but animals especially fed and thus in prime condition. NRSV has “fat calves,” but this is a trifle more definite than the Greek.
9 We should notice the perfects ἡτοίμαχα and τεθυμένα and the adjective ἕτοιμα. The perfect χεχλημένοις makes it clear that the invitations still stand.
10 ἀμελέω is seen by MM as a “common vernacular word”; it cites its absolute use from a papyrus of 73 B.C. It signifies “have no care for,” “be neglectful of.”
11 ἐμπορία (here only in the New Testament) can mean business of any sort. It is connected with πόρος, “a journey,” which reminds us that many merchants in antiquity wandered from place to place in pursuance of trade. But the word is used of settled businessmen as well as those who journeyed.
12 ὑβρίζω is connected with ὕβρις, “pride,” “insolence.” The verb has meanings like “outrage, insult, treat insolently”; it stands for an attitude that treats the objects as absolutely worthless.
13 It is sometimes objected that in real life people would not kill messengers simply because they did not want to go to a feast. But Josephus tells us that the Israelites did precisely this to those whom King Hezekiah sent to invite them to join him in the feast of the Passover (Ant. 9.265).
Carr Cambridge Greek Testament: A. Carr, The Gospel according to St Matthew (Cambridge, 1892)
14 στράτευμα can denote an army (Rev. 9:16), but it is also used for “a body of soldiers” (MM).
15 Some commentators see a reference to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and regard this Gospel as written after that date. Gundry, however, points out that this would imply that the mission to the Gentiles did not begin till that date, but “that implication would disagree with (Matthew’s) own theology of evangelism in 28:19–20”; Gundry thinks that the background is rather Isaiah 5:24–25. Those who identify what is said with the destruction of Jerusalem do not generally notice that Jerusalem was not in fact burned, though the temple was (see Introduction, II. Date).
16 ἐπὶ τὰς διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν. AS gives the meaning of διέξοδος as “a way out through, an outlet,” while GT takes it as “lit. ways through which ways go out” and thus “places before the city where the roads from the country terminate, therefore outlets of the country highways, the same being also their entrances.” MM approves this and suggests “ ‘the issues of the streets,’ ” i.e. where they lead out from the city into the country.”
17 τὰς ὁδούς.
18 Fenton, for example, says simply, “Matthew inserts two more parables into Mark—the marriage feast and the wedding garment.” He does not bother to discuss the view that these verses are part of one parable.
19 Bruce remarks that this paragraph “would form a suitable pendant to any parable of grace, as showing that, while the door of the kingdom is open to all, personal holiness cannot be dispensed with.”
20 οὐ with the participle rather than μή is unexpected; BDF finds it due to “the preference for χαὶ οὐ instead of χαὶ μή … and to the emphasis on the negation” (430[1]). Robertson says that this “lays emphasis on the actual situation in the description (the plain fact) while the second instance (i.e. μή in v. 12) is the hypothetical argument about it” (p. 1138).
Lenski R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis, 1964)
21 The verb φιμόω derives from φιμός, “a muzzle”; in the face of such a question from such a source he was “muzzled.”
22 Patte points out that these words apply to the parable of the two sons just as much as to this one, which is one of the reasons for regarding verses 11–14 as part of the original parable (p. 306, n. 26).
23 Ben F. Meyer has argued the case for this view in NTS, 36 (1990), pp. 89–97. He says, “I am arguing that, as in LXX Num 26.56, πολλοί and ὀλίγοι are used in Matt 22.14 as correlative comparatives to mean ‘more numerous’ and ‘less numerous’ ” (p. 95). J. Jeremias similarly says that “many” here is used in the sense of “the totality”: “Mt. 22:14 contrasts the totality of those invited with the small number of the chosen” (TDNT, VI, p. 542). It would probably be better to say “the smaller number.”
Sanh. Sanhedrin
24 Robinson points out that we should not think of God as unreasonable in first inviting people and then rejecting them: “It is not as if God were represented as summoning A and B by name, and then later casting them off. The call is the universal appeal which comes through the public preaching of the gospel, and if there are comparatively few of the hearers who accept it with all their heart and soul, God is hardly to be blamed for the rejection of the rest.”
25 παγιδεύω is connected with παγίς, “a snare,” “a trap.”
26 But they “were presumably pro-Roman and their presence accentuates the political trap which the question is supposed to be” (Stendahl).
NASB New American Standard Bible (La Habra, 1972)
JB The Jerusalem Bible (London, 1966)
NIV The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids, 1978)
27 οὐ γὰρ βλέπεις εἰς πρόσωπον ἀνθρώπων, “for you do not look at face of men.” This recognizes that Jesus did not consider “face” as important as most people do.
28 Bruce points this out and comments on the questioners, “They demanded more than they were ready to give, whatever their secret leanings; no fear of them playing a heroic part.”
29 ἔξεστιν means “it is permitted, it is possible, proper” (BAGD).
30 For χῆνσος see New Documents, 3, pp. 70–71.
31 The rabbis could say, “do not seek to evade poll tax, lest they discover you and deprive you of all that you possess” (Pes. 112b). Clearly the tax was not popular.
32 The word is πονηρία, “evil,” “wickedness” (the cognate word πονηρός is that from which we pray to be delivered in the Lord’s Prayer, 6:13). NIV has “evil intent.”
33 πειράζω is often used in the sense of applying a test with a view to the person failing; it can thus mean “tempt” (so KJV here).
34 εἰχών can denote a likeness in any one of a variety of ways. It may, for example, refer to an image. Here, of course, it is the likeness stamped on a coin.
35 A Roman denarius of the day had the inscription “TI CAESAR DIVI AUG F AUGUSTUS,” that is, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, Augustus” (see the reproduction in IDB, 3, p. 433, no. 29).
36 They used the verb δίδωμι, Jesus ἀποδίδωμι. Chrysostom drew attention to the change of word: “this is not to give but to render”; he further says, “it is possible both to fulfill to men their claims, and to give unto God the things that are due to God from us” (p. 427).
37 “This coin represented Roman organization, security of person and property, facilities of transit, and other beneficent elements of stable government” (Plummer, p. 305).
38 “By this apparently simple action, Jesus says: ‘I do not possess the coin used to pay the tribute; you, who seem so troubled about it, do carry and use the coin’ ” (Meier).
Calvin J. Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, 1980 rpt.)
39 Barclay comments, “failure in good citizenship is also failure in Christian duty. Untold troubles can descend upon a country or an industry when Christians refuse to take their part in the administration of the country, and leave that administration to selfish, self-seeking, partisan, and unchristian men” (II, p. 274).
40 The Samaritans denied the resurrection for the same reason (Sanh. 90b).
41 They also rejected the existence of angels (Acts 23:8), but it is difficult to understand why and how they did this in view of the emphasis they put on the books of the law and the fact that angels are mentioned there (e.g., Gen. 16:7–11; 28:12).
Daube D. Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1956)
42 The word ἐπιγαμβρεύω is cited by LSJ only from biblical passages, but they note ἐπιγραμβεία as meaning “connexion by marriage.” MM notes it only in passages in LXX. In this context becoming related by marriage clearly refers to the marriage of a man to his deceased brother’s wife. Since the word does not occur in the Deuteronomy passage, the Sadducees are giving the sense of it.
Gundry R. H. Gundry, Matthew (Grand Rapids, 1982)
43 Chrysostom is sure that the Sadducees made up the story; in real life, he points out, “the third would not have taken her, when he saw the two bridegrooms dead” (in case the third did, Chrysostom repeats the comment with the other brothers), and he goes on to point out that the Jews did not always keep this law (p. 428).
44 πλανάω, which Matthew has 8 times, the same number as Revelation, and more than in any other New Testament book.
Lenski R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis, 1964)
45 We should understand the participle as causal; cf. NIV, “because you do not know the Scriptures.”
46 The verb is ἀνίστημι and the noun ἀνάστασις.
47 γαμέω is the verb normally used of a man marrying a woman (though it can be used of a woman marrying, as in 1 Cor. 7:28, of a woman as well as a man, and of both sexes, as in 1 Cor. 7:9–10). γαμίζω normally refers to giving a woman in marriage. The two words make it clear that in heaven neither sex will seek marriage.
48 In the New Testament the general resurrection is often spoken of as ἀνάστασις ἐχ τῶν νεχρῶν; resurrection is “from the dead” (but cf. Rom. 1:4; 1 Cor. 15:12, etc.).
49 ἐφίμωσεν from φιμός, “a muzzle”; the verb is used in its literal sense in Deuteronomy 25:4 (LXX).
50 ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό is used in the sense “together,” as in Acts 1:15 etc. MM notes the use in the papyri.
51 νομιχός, here only in Matthew but 6 times in Luke, means, of course, “learned in the law.” The law in question was the law of Moses. Mark has “one of the scribes,” but the meaning will be much the same, for the scribes were experts in the law. Luke has Matthew’s word. Some MSS omit the word in Matthew, and this, taken in conjunction with the fact that Matthew does not use the word elsewhere, leads some to omit it. But the attestation is strong, and there is no reason why Matthew should not use a word once only. It should be accepted.
52 Howard regards Matthew’s form as “quite clearly a much less idiomatic translation of the Aramaic (which has no degrees of comparison)” (M, II, p. 30). In Aramaic “the great” could mean “the greatest”; μεγάλη here means “great as compared to the other commandments,” “the greatest.”
53 The rabbis could select other commands than those chosen by Jesus. Thus in reply to the question, “What short text is there upon which all the essential principles of the Torah depend?” the answer is Proverbs 3:6, “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Ber. 63a).
54 The combination was not unknown in Judaism; thus we find, for example, “Keep the Law of God, my children. … Love the Lord and your neighbor” (Test. Iss. 5:1–2; see also 7:6; Test. Dan 5:3; cited from Charlesworth, pp. 803, 804, 809). It should be added that the date of the Testaments is uncertain, and it is quite possible, as some scholars think, that these references are due to Christian influence. But, of course, Luke tells us of a lawyer who gave much the same summary (Luke 10:25–28).
55 There is a well-known passage in which a man told Hillel that he would become a proselyte if Hillel taught him the whole Torah while he stood on one foot. Hillel replied, “What is hateful to you do not to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof” (Shab. 31a). It is an interesting summary, but it is negative in form and it omits any reference to God.
56 “As a door hangs on its hinges, so the whole OT hangs on these two comm.” (BAGD, χρεμάννυμι 2b). Cf. G. Barth, the two commandments “are not only the greatest, but the whole law and the prophets ‘hang on them’. … They are the basic norms, in the performance of which all others are performed, they are the essence of the law” (TIM, p. 78).
57 Article on “Love” from the forthcoming Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels.
58 The perfect participle συνηγμένων points to a continuing assembly; it was not a casual contact where a few Pharisees happened to be in the same place.
59 We have here the impersonal use of δοχεῖ, “What does it seem to you?” (as in 17:25; 18:12, etc.); Matthew uses it with a personal subject in 3:9; 6:7, etc.
60 Derek Kidner points out that before the discovery of the Qumran scrolls there was a tendency “to date the psalm in the Maccabaean era (2nd century B.C.), and even to find the name of Simon, the Maccabaean High Priest and political leader, in the initial letters of the verses, with a little rearrangement.” He also points out that H. H. Rowley “saw in verse 4 David’s oracle to Jebusite Zadok, adopting him as Israel’s High Priest, while in the rest of the psalm Zadok addressed David, newly enthroned at Jerusalem.” In modern times, he says, most critics see it as “an enthronement oracle for either David or one of his successors” (Psalms 73–150 [London, 1975], p. 392, n. 1). In the first century everyone accepted the psalm as Davidic.
61 Cf. Kidner, “while other psalms share with this one the exalted language which points beyond the reigning king to the Messiah, here alone the king himself does homage to this personage” (Psalms 73–150, p. 392).
LXX The Septuagint
62 There is a textual variant in that the best text appears to read “under (ὑποχάτω) your feet” (א B D etc.) while some MSS have “footstool” (ὑποπόδιον) (W 0138 etc.). It seems clear that some scribes altered “under” to agree with the text of the psalm. The meaning is much the same.
Filson F. V. Filson, A Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew (London, 1960)
63 Cf. Plummer, “Christ’s argument is seriously misapprehended, when it is supposed that He criticized the assertion that the Messiah is the Son of David as untrue. He criticized it as inadequate” (p. 310). Ridderbos comments, “He would not remain bound to the limits posed by His human descent” (p. 420).
64 “It was fundamentally because they had the wrong conception of the Messiah, thinking of Him as a human warrior rather than as a divine Saviour, that they failed to see Him in Jesus” (Tasker, p. 213).
1 It is true that there are denunciations of hypocrisy in Jewish writings (e.g., Yoma 86b), so that later teachers at any rate were aware of the temptation. I. Abrahams tries to refute the criticisms of the Pharisees by citing the examples of Gamaliel, Hillel, and Aqiba (Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, 2nd ser. [New York, 1967], pp. 30–32). But this is to miss the point. No one doubts that there were some great and good Pharisees, but it is quite another thing to say that the average Pharisee in Jesus’ time made the same impression on lowly people as did some of the great leaders.
2 France speaks of “the faults inherent in the Pharisaic approach to religion even at its best. Even the most scrupulous of Pharisees followed a system which tended to understand righteousness in terms of more and more minute legal prescriptions, and which could therefore dangerously distort the whole question of what it means to please God.” Diétrich points out that “Jesus addressed these reproaches to the most ‘churchgoing’ believers of his day,” and Fenton aptly reminds us that in reply to anyone who complained of this section of his Gospel, Matthew might well have used the words of Nathan: “You are the man” (p. 365).
3 Mounce remarks, “a Jesus who is not allowed by his critics to say anything contrary to their tastes will be a Jesus quite different from what we should expect to find in history” (p. 222). He reminds us that A. M. Hunter lists as examples of the “astonishing variety of the portraits of Jesus which our learned men have given us”: Renan’s “Amiable Carpenter,” Tolstoi’s “Spiritual Anarchist,” Schweitzer’s “Imminent Cataclysmist,” Klausner’s “Unorthodox Rabbi,” and Otto’s “Charismatic Evangelist” (The Work and Words of Jesus [London, 1950], p. 14). We must all beware of making a Jesus who fits our own prejudices.
4 This chapter is sometimes included among the great discourses of this Gospel, but we should bear in mind that Matthew does not append to it “and it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings,” which we find in 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1. It is also perhaps relevant that whereas in the major addresses he speaks primarily to the disciples with the crowds, perhaps as part of the outer circle, here part of the discourse is addressed to the scribes and Pharisees and part to Jerusalem. It is, of course, possible to include this with the next two chapters to make chapters 23–25 the final discourse (as some scholars do), but this ignores the fact that Matthew says that before the words of chapter 24 Jesus went out of the temple and on his way (24:1); he further says that the discourse that followed was delivered on the Mount of Olives (24:3). Clearly Matthew does not regard what follows in chapter 24 as the same discourse as in this chapter. In any case, there is an abrupt change of subject matter. It would be possible to see chapters 23–25 as a section given over to teaching, but this is not the same as calling it one discourse.
5 There are separate articles with γραμματεῖς and Φαρισαίοι; thus the two are not regarded as one group (as they usually are in this Gospel; this is the one place in Matthew where the two expressions have separate articles); “the two classes are distinguished” (Robertson, pp. 758–59).
6 The aorist ἐχάθισαν is unusual; there is no reference to a definite point in the past. It may be equivalent to the perfect, but the emphasis is surely on the present state of affairs.
7 χαθέδρα can refer to any seat (Matthew has used it of the seats of the dove sellers, 21:12), but it sometimes has specific seats in mind, such as the judge’s seat (see BAGD). MM cites its use for the sophistical chair occupied by Nicagoras in the third century A.D., a chair whose holder, they say, “ranked above the other professors.” The term has influenced our language in various ways; for example, “cathedral” refers to the place of the bishop’s “seat.”
8 Some scholars have drawn attention to a prominent stone chair found in excavations of some synagogues (later than New Testament times) and suggest that the law of Moses was expounded from such a seat in Jesus’ day. But D. E. Garland is surely right in rejecting such an idea here. He says that, while there may indeed have been such a seat, Jesus “was not referring to a physical sitting but to the collective symbol of their legal authority” (ISBE, III, p. 425). Similarly H. C. Kee says that here “Moses’ seat” is to be seen “as the symbolic locus of authoritative interpretation of Torah (with its implicit links to oral law, or at least to legal tradition going back to Sinai)” (NTS, 36 [1990], p. 15). So Beare: “It is simply a metaphor; the scribes and Pharisees are those responsible for declaring to the people what the law of Moses requires of them.” The rabbis could say, “every three [judges] which have risen up as a court over Israel are like to the court of Moses” (Rosh. Hash. 2:9); in other words, the decisions of each such court are to be accepted just as were the words of Moses.
Sanh. Sanhedrin
9 So also Gundry: “ ‘All things whatever’ does not include their interpretative traditions, but emphasizes the totality of the law. ‘Therefore’ establishes the qualification” (Gundry, p. 455).
Carson D. A. Carson, Matthew, in F. E. Gaebelein, ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, 1984)
10 If the words are used strictly, μὴ ποιεῖτε will mean “stop doing”; it will indicate that Jesus’ audience had been in the habit of viewing Pharisaic practice as a godly model. Jesus tells them not to do this.
11 “They did not (in God’s sight) do what they appeared to do. Though they scrupulously observed their own rules, their motive and manner deprived their actions of all value” (McNeile).
12 βαρέα indicates that the loads are weighty. There is textual doubt about χαὶ δυσβάσταχτα; it has impressive support from MSS like B D K W, but the words are omitted by L f1 892 and others. The disputed words might well have been introduced from Luke 11:46, but on the other hand they might have been omitted by a copyist’s eye passing from one χαί to the other. Metzger rejects the words, but his committee favored including them within square brackets.
13 “Considerable social tension between the scribes and the people at large is implied in this saying” (Hill).
14 φυλαχτήριον occurs only here in the Bible. The word is connected with φυλάσσω, “to guard,” and there may be the thought of safeguarding, regarding the phylactery as in the nature of a charm. Two of them were worn, one on the forehead and the other on the upper left arm (and thus near the heart). See the article by R. L. Omanson in ISBE, III, pp. 884–85.
15 NTS, 36 (1990), p. 9. W. S. LaSor and T. C. Eskenazi say, “It may be that distinctive synagogue buildings in the Holy Land were not really common until after the destruction of the temple” (ISBE, IV, p. 678).
16 “In Oriental etiquette, the inferior had the prior obligation to greet his superior with a salutation whose length indicated the superior’s importance. The Pharisees wish to receive salutations and titles, not give them” (Meier).
17 The lexicon tells us that the word is “from רַב ‘lord, master’, רַבִּי ‘my lord’, properly a form of address, and so throughout our lit., then an honorary title for outstanding teachers of the law” (BAGD, sub ῥαββί).
18 Dalman, p. 334.
19 ὑμεῖς is emphatic; Jesus’ hearers are to be markedly different from the Pharisees.
’Abot ’Abot
‘Eduy. ‘Eduyyot
20 Moule sees emphasis on ὑμῶν, “for you there is only one Father” (IBNTG, p. 166).
21 χαθηγητής is found only in this verse in the New Testament. It signifies “a guide, teacher.” MM cites it from the papyri, and it is used in an inscription on a memorial to a teacher (New Documents, 4, p. 156).
22 The future is a little curious; perhaps it is “occasioned by the reference to the future of the disciples” (BDF 380[2]).
23 χλείω is connected with χλείς, “a key”; it is used of shutting up a door and locking it. The thought is not that the door may be easily opened, but that it is firmly closed.
24 We should notice the emphatic ὑμεῖς: “You, you of all people” are not entering.
25 The present participle εἰσερχομένους “amounts to an impf.” (M, III, p. 81), perhaps “those who were trying to enter.”
KJV The King James Version
26 For the trouble people might go to in making a proselyte see Josephus, Ant. 20.38–48.
27 “The intention behind the rulings of the scribes here under criticism was a good one: they were against insincere oaths and this led them to discourage oaths by the most holy things, allowing such by what appeared more removed from the centre of holiness” (Stendahl).
28 For example, if a man said, “ ‘I swear that I will not eat this loaf! I swear that I will not eat it! I swear that I will not eat it’ and he ate it, he is liable only on one count. Such is reckoned ‘a rash oath’, for which a man is liable to Stripes if he uttered it wantonly, but, if unwittingly, to a Rising and Falling Offering. For ‘a vain oath’, if it is uttered wantonly, a man is liable to Stripes, but if unwittingly, he is not culpable” (Shebu. 3:7). If you take this kind of regulation and definition through an entire tractate, you have an enormous volume of requirements for oaths. The unfortunate result of all this was that “By subtle distinctions the Pharisees have succeeded in making perjury legitimate” (Diétrich).
29 The aorist ὀμόσας (v. 20) is used of “the class of those who do the action,” the point being that it refers to “those who once do the act the single doing of which is the mark of the class” (Burton, MT, 123, 124). There is no emphasis on a past action.
30 There might possibly be the thought that a creditor might have a claim to something a worshiper brought to offer, such as gold or the gift on the altar, whereas no creditor could have a claim on the temple or the altar.
31 In the Mishnah we find that an oath “by heaven and by earth” is not binding, but an oath “by Alef-Daleth” (the first two letters of Adonai = “Lord”) is binding, as is an oath “by Yod-He” (the first two letters of the sacred name YHWH) (Shebu. 4:13).
32 The rules governing tithing are not gathered together conveniently for us although many are found in the Mishnah tractate Ma'aserot, the opening words of which say, “A general rule have they laid down about Tithes: whatsoever is used for food and is kept watch over and grows from the soil is liable to Tithes.” It is not easy to fit together all the pieces of information that have come down to us; evidently the way tithing was carried out was well known to the participants; therefore they had no need to have it described in full.
33 W. E. Shewell-Cooper discusses these plants in Plants and Fruits of the Bible (London, 1962), pp. 68–69, 79. The tithing of vegetables was the rabbinic rule (Yoma 83b), but this was not laid down in Scripture. The rabbis specifically required the tithing of dill (Maaserot 4:5) and cummin (Dem. 2:1).
Calvin J. Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, 1980 rpt.)
34 ὑλίζω means “to strain,” and with the prefix διά “to strain thoroughly” (διϋλίζω occurs here only in the New Testament); it signifies the act of straining a liquid through gauze or the like, a practice apparently employed to make sure that small sources of defilement would be removed before one drank. χώνωψ is a “gnat, mosquito,” according to BAGD, which also raises the question whether it may be “a certain worm found in wine” mentioned by Aristotle. Whatever the precise meaning, it was proverbial for smallness of size.
35 This saying may translate an Aramaic pun between קַלְמָא and גַּמְלָא (so Moule, IBNTG, p. 186 and others).
Johnson The Interpreter’s Bible, VII: S. E. Johnson, The Gospel according to St. Matthew, Exegesis (Nashville, 1951)
36 Jacob Neusner draws attention to disputes between the Shammaites and the Hillelites about the cleansing of cups: the Hillelites held that the outside was always unclean and that it was important to clean the inside, whereas the followers of Shammai favored the cleansing of both outside and inside (NTS, 22 [1975–76], pp. 486–95). But Jesus is not dealing with a minor ritual matter. He is concerned with the inward cleansing of people.
37 παροψίς (παρά, “beside” + ὄψον, “food”) signified “a side-dish of dainties” and later the dish itself (AS).
GNB Good News Bible (London and New York, 1976)
Robinson T. H. Robinson, The Gospel of Matthew (London, 1928)
38 ἁρπαγή, “pillage, plundering, robbery” (AS), is connected with ἁρπάζω, “to seize, carry off by force.” There may be some notion of the use of force, though, if so, we do not know what it was. But some of those in high position in any society have never been guiltless of using unfair pressure to gain their own ends.
39 ἀχρασία means “want of power,” thus “want of power over oneself,” “lack of self-control.” NEB renders, “which you have filled inside by robbery and self-indulgence,” and Argyle comments, “just as a ritually clean vessel may be full of poison, so a ritually clean person may be full of robbery and self-indulgence!” This is an important truth, though the passage seems rather to be referring to the things obtained by robbery and self-indulgence, as we noted above.
Ma‘aś. Ma‘aśer Sheni
Sheqal. Sheqalim
40 Some deny that whitewashing made tombs beautiful and suggest that what is meant is the plastering of urns or other containers for bones. Gundry sees a reference to “decorative plastering” as in Proverbs 21:9 LXX, and says forthrightly, “there is no allusion to whitewashing tombs” (p. 466). But he does not explain how a reference to the whitewashed tombs could be so definitely excluded when Jesus is speaking just before Passover to people who must have seen such tombs on their way to Jerusalem.
41 χοσμέω has the meaning “to order, arrange, prepare” and then “to adorn, furnish” (AS). μνημεῖον signifies “memorial” and thus “monument,” but it often means specifically the burial monument, the tomb. Herod erected “a memorial of white marble” at the entrance to David’s tomb (Josephus, Ant. 16.182), which may be an example of what is in mind.
42 “They witness against themselves that they are the physical sons of the prophets’ murderers. What they do not realize is that they are the spiritual sons also” (Nixon). J. D. M. Derrett argues that there is the idea of compensation for blood guiltiness: “To spend money on a tomb, when that money was incapable of being paid as compensation, would have been correct practice at Jewish law” (F. L. Cross, ed., Studia Evangelica, IV [Berlin, 1968], p. 192).
LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon, comp. by H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, rev. by H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1940)
43 Moulton translates, “how are ye to flee from the judgement of Gehenna?” and adds, “The thought is not of the inevitableness of God’s punishment, but of the stubbornness of men who will not take a step to escape it” (M, I, p. 116).
44 ὅπως is often used by Matthew to indicate the divine purpose, as in things happening “in order that” Scripture may be fulfilled (2:23; 8:17, etc.).
45 There is a difficulty in that in 2 Chronicles Zechariah is said to be the son of Jehoiada; therefore a number of other Zechariahs have been suggested. But none of them has any plausibility. It seems better to think of this Zechariah as being named from his grandfather rather than his father. That this was sometimes done is clear from the fact that the prophet Zechariah is called “the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo” in Zechariah 1:1, but the same man is also named from his grandfather; he is “the son of Iddo” in Ezra 6:14. Apparently the same procedure is followed in the case of the Zechariah of this passage also. Another view is that the man had two names. Lenski accepts Luther’s suggestion that Jehoiada also had the name Barachiah (Ryle is another to accept this view), and he cites the son of Joash who had the name Gideon and also Jerubbaal (Judg. 8:29, 32; Lenski, p. 920).
46 It is not without its interest that the later rabbis could say that the first temple was destroyed because of “idolatry, immorality, bloodshed.” When asked why the second was destroyed their answer was, “Because therein prevailed hatred without cause. That teaches you that groundless hatred is considered as of even gravity with the three sins of idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed together” (Yoma 9b). This is an interesting later commentary from leading Jews on the Judaism of the New Testament period.
47 This is the only place in this Gospel where Matthew uses the form Ἰερουσαλήμ; elsewhere he always has Ἱεροσόλυμα.
48 ὄρνις signifies “bird” and may refer to cock or hen; what the bird is doing here shows that a hen is meant.
49 In 2 Esdras God is reported to have said, “I gathered you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (2 Esdr. 1:30; the passage goes on to refer to the sending of the prophets and to their being slain).
50 ἔρημος means “solitary, deserted,” and the corresponding verb carries the force “to lay waste, make desolate.” The word is omitted by a few MSS, notably B. But this may be an assimilation to Luke 13:35; it should be accepted here.
51 AB translates “from this moment” and comments, “The Greek is far stronger than the usual English translations.”
1 It is often urged that what Matthew says about the destruction of Jerusalem must have been written after it. But this is to overlook the fact that the details mentioned in this Gospel are not such that they can have been derived only from a knowledge of that destruction. B. Reicke can say, “An amazing example of uncritical dogmatism in New Testament studies is the belief that the Synoptic Gospels should be dated after the Jewish War of A.D. 66–70 because they contain prophecies ex eventu of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70” (D. E. Aune, ed., Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature [Leiden, 1972], p. 121). He proceeds to examine the passages and to argue that they do not “indicate any historical knowledge of the first Jewish war and its results” (p. 133).
2 Ryle remarks, “let us remember that the first coming of the Messiah to suffer was the most improbable event that could have been conceived, and let us not doubt that as He literally came in person to suffer, so he will literally come again in person to reign” (p. 314).
3 Cf. Tasker, “As the language in which these events is expressed is partly literal and partly symbolic, and as Jesus would seem to have regarded both of them as ‘comings’ in judgment, scholars have found it extremely difficult to say with any degree of certainty which parts of the chapter contain an answer to the question of the disciples When shall these things be? (viz. the destruction of the temple buildings mentioned in verse 2), and which parts are a response to their supplementary question And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Tasker, p. 223).
4 France takes verses 1–35 to apply to the judgment of Jerusalem and verses 36–51 to that connected with the parousia (p. 333). J. Marcellus Kik takes verse 34 as the point of division: everything up to that point he sees as referring to the generation alive when Jesus came and everything after that to the second coming (Matthew Twenty-Four, An Exposition [Swengel, Pa., 1948], p. 9). But it is more than doubtful whether the chapter can be divided up so neatly.
5 For an excellent discussion of the problems in interpreting this chapter see Carson, pp. 488–95.
Morgan G. C. Morgan, The Gospel according to Matthew (London, n.d.)
6 To cite Josephus again, “being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white” (War 5.222–23).
B. Baba Batra
7 The question in the form οὐ βλέπετε looks for a positive answer: “Do you not see…?”
8 The emphatic double negative οὐ μή removes all possibility of one stone being left on another.
9 Mounce comments, “Critics who think that the bulk of Matthew comes from the early church rather than from Jesus himself are hard pressed to explain why there is no mention at this point of the burning of the Temple. A vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the event) would not have omitted such a specific item.” Nor would such a prophecy omit other information we find in Josephus about the siege, such as cannibalism (he has a terrible story about a woman who killed her baby, roasted him, and ate him; War 6.208) and the dreadful conflicts among the defenders.
10 παρουσία is found 4 times in Matthew (again in vv. 27, 37, and 39) and nowhere else in the Gospels. It signifies a “being present” and thus “coming.” It is used for the visit of an important person like a king (it is cited, e.g., from a papyrus that mentions a visit of King Mithridates, New Documents, 4, pp. 167–68), and it becomes the usual word in the Epistles for the “coming” of Jesus at the end of the age. The other Gospels have the question as to when “these things will be,” but only Matthew refers to Jesus’ coming.
11 “The consummation of the age” is found 5 times in Matthew (see on 13:39).
12 In the best text there is one article to govern both your coming and the consummation of the age; they are parts of a connected whole.
13 μελλήσετε ἀχούειν adds a touch of certainty; the wars and the like will take place.
14 θροέω is connected with θρόος, “a tumult.” In the New Testament it means “to be troubled, as by an alarm, alarmed” (AS).
15 Jesus “certainly does not intend either to justify war or to invite us to resign ourselves to evil. He simply states that in a world in revolt against God, a world of hate and violence, such explosions are in the logic of things, and should not trouble our faith” (Diétrich).
16 δεῖ conveys the thought of a compelling divine necessity. The text says no more than δεῖ γενέσθαι, “it is necessary to happen,” but a number of MSS supply πάντα (C W etc.). In English we need something like “these things.”
17 ὠδίν means “birth pain”; it is used mostly of the pains that accompany the physical birth of a child. But the word is also employed “of the ‘Messianic woes’, the terrors and torments traditionally viewed as prelude to the coming of the Messianic Age” (BAGD). G. Bertram points to the use of the term in Judaism for the “woes” of the Messiah and says of this passage, “The woes precede the new birth of the world” (TDNT, IX, p. 672).
REB The Revised English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge, 1989)
18 Trouble is θλῖψις, pressure to the point of bursting; it signifies no minor discomfort but the trouble that crushes. See on 13:21.
19 Johnson cites Tacitus, who speaks of Christians as “a class hated for their abominations.” What happened in first-century Rome will be widely repeated in the end time.
20 For the verb σχανδαλίζω see the note on 5:29; it is especially frequent in this Gospel. It refers to triggering off the bait stick of a trap, but many prefer to translate it “stumbled,” “offended,” or the like.
NRSV The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville, 1990)
21 Thus he speaks of the Zealots who killed the brave “from fear” and the nobility “out of envy” and who pursued private quarrels in order to exterminate their enemies (War 4.357–65).
22 πληθύνω means “increase, multiply”; the thought is that in the days of which Jesus is speaking lawlessness will not simply increase a little: it will be multiplied.
23 “ ‘Lawlessness’ does not mean apostasy from Pharisaic literalism in obeying all the commandments of the Mosaic Law, but a way of life that refuses to recognize any divine law, which is identical for Matthew with a way of life in which one’s neighbor no longer has any legal claim” (Schweizer, p. 451).
24 The article τῶν πολλῶν, “the many,” indicates the majority; cf. Moffatt, “most of you.”
25 This is the one occurrence of ἀγάπη in Matthew, but the corresponding verb is more frequent (8 times). It does not signify the reaction produced by an encounter with the beautiful or the attractive. It is first God’s love for those he has made, a love that persists despite the unworthiness of sinners. Then it is the sinner’s response to God’s love for sinners. Thus it denotes the love that proceeds from a loving person, in the first instance from God, but then in those who respond to God’s love. They become in their measure loving persons. The word may be used for their love for God or for their love for other people.
26 Verses 10–12 “are peculiar to Matthew and list most of the spiritual disasters which can come on the Christian community—apostasy, treachery, internal hatred, heresy, lovelessness” (Nixon).
27 The verb is ὑπομένω, which, Trench says, Chrysostom contrasts with μαχροθυμέω in this way: “a man μαχροθυμεῖ, who having power to avenge himself, yet refrains from the exercise of his power; while he ὑπομένει, who having no choice but to bear, and only the alternative of a patient or impatient bearing, has grace to choose the former.” Trench himself holds that “The man ὑπομένει, who, under a great siege of trials, bears up, and does not lose heart or courage” (Trench, pp. 195, 198).
28 ἥχω is a perfect with a present meaning, “to have come, be present” (AS). In one way or another in every occurrence of the verb in this Gospel there is the thought of the last things (8:11; 23:36; 24:50).
29 ὅταν is a “temporal particle, with a conditional sense, usually of things expected to occur in an indefinite future” (AS).
30 AB translates “the abominable sacrilege,” which omits the idea of desolation. It also states, “It was common practice then and for long centuries before, to assert sovereignty over a nation by dethroning its gods and replacing them by those of the conqueror.”
Fenton J. C. Fenton, The Gospel of St Matthew (Harmondsworth, 1963)
Hendriksen W. Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel according to Matthew (Grand Rapids, 1973)
31 We would have expected a reference to the things “in” (ἐν) the house rather than “out of” (ἐχ); there may be the thought that he would want to take them “out of” the house. Moule speaks of “a ‘pregnant’ sense” for the preposition here and explains: “to take from his house the things which are in it” (IBNTG, p. 74).
32 Most commentators think that Matthew records the words because Jewish Christians in the congregations for whom he wrote would wish to observe the Sabbath day limit for travel. But Meier says, “the context speaks of external circumstances which will make flight difficult, not impossible. The various dispute stories in Mt do not favor the view that Mt’s church still scrupulously observed the Sabbath, even when it meant endangering life (cf. 12:1–14).” Robert Banks points to the fact that flight on the Sabbath in emergencies may not have been condemned by rabbinic teaching and takes the meaning here as “shutting of gates of the cities, difficulty in procuring provisions, etc.” (Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Tradition [Cambridge, 1975], p. 102). G. Barth agrees that there is no evidence that contemporary Jews would have regarded flight on the Sabbath as a sin; he cites E. Hirsch, “A Christian congregation fleeing on the Sabbath would have been as recognisable in Palestine as a spotted dog”; there would be danger “from the side of the hate-charged Jews” (TIM, p. 92).
33 There is an unusual piling up of negatives—οὐδʼ οὐ μή—that makes for a very emphatic negation.
34 Although, of course, the term could be used by the Jews; for example, “The blessing of Enoch: with which he blessed the elect” (1 Enoch 1:1).
35 Enoch has a reference to shortening the days: “In respect to their days, the sinners and the winter are cut short” (1 Enoch 80:2).
36 It is not without its interest that according to Josephus, Titus saw the hand of God in the capture of Jerusalem. When he entered the city Titus is reported to have been impressed by the strength of the fortifications and to have said, “God, indeed, has been with us in the war. God it was who brought down the Jews from these strongholds; for what power have human hands or engines against these towers?” (War 6.411).
37 Chrysostom remarks, “Here, as I have often said, the word, ‘then,’ relates not to the connection in order of time with the things before mentioned. At least, when He was minded to express the connection of time, He added, ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days,’ but here not so, but ‘then,’ not meaning what should follow straightway after these things, but what should be in the time, when these things were to be done, of which He was about to speak” (p. 458). Since Greek was his native language, this is an important observation.
38 For example, Josephus tells of an Egyptian false prophet who gathered a following of about 30,000 and led them to the Mount of Olives, preparatory to an attack on Jerusalem. But Felix’s Romans routed these optimists, killing and imprisoning many, though the Egyptian himself managed to escape with a few followers (War 2.261–63; cf. Acts 21:38).
39 Carr thinks that “lecture rooms” are meant, giving the meaning, “whether the false Christ come like John the Baptist in the desert, or like a great Rabbi in the schools of the synagogue, be not deceived.”
40 Unless we assume, with Tasker, “that the events described in the symbolic language of Jewish prophecy in verses 29–31 would take place directly after the downfall of Jerusalem” (p. 225). Part of this section may refer to that event, but certainly the bulk of the rest of the chapter is concerned with Jesus’ second coming.
AB The Anchor Bible: W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew (New York, 1971)
41 The genitive τοῦ υἱοῦ is ambiguous. It may indicate “the sign which is the Son of man” (cf. “the sign of Jonah,” 12:39), or “the sign belonging to (or referring to) the Son of man.” T. F. Glasson argued from the normal Greek usage of σημεῖον and from its conjunction here with “trumpet” that the word should be understood as “standard” or “ensign” (JTS, n.s. XV [1964], pp. 299–300). Carson accepts this view. It is used in LXX of the serpent Moses put on a pole in the wilderness (Num. 21:8), and of the ensign the Lord will raise before the nations (Isa. 11:12).
Chrysostom John Chrysostom, Homilies on St. Matthew (NPNF, 1st ser., vol. X)
REB The Revised English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge, 1989)
NIV The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids, 1978)
42 Turner takes the plural οὐρανοί as “following a Jewish idea,” but “In the material sense of sky the sing. predominates,” this being one of the few “exceptional plurals” (M, III, p. 25).
43 χλάδος means “a young tender shoot broken off for grafting; then a branch” (AS; it is connected with χλάω, “to break”).
44 ἁπαλός (again in the New Testament only in Mark 24:32) means “tender” and is “a favorite expression w. plants” in Theocritus (BAGD).
NRSV The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville, 1990)
45 Thus Carson says, “all that v. 34 demands is that the distress of vv. 4–28, including Jerusalem’s fall, happen within the lifetime of the generation then living. This does not mean that the distress must end within that time but only that ‘all these things’ must happen within it.” Calvin comments, “Christ uses a universal term, but does not apply His words in general to all the afflictions of the Church, but simply teaches that in one generation events would establish all He has said” (III, p. 97).
Schweizer E. Schweizer, The Good News according to Matthew (London, 1976)
46 NIV mg. has “race.” A. R. C. Leaney notes that the equivalent saying in Luke means “mankind” (A Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke [London, 1966], p. 263). So also W. J. Harrington, “Luke may well have taken ‘this generation’ in the broad sense of ‘mankind’ ” (The Gospel according to St Luke [London, 1968], p. 242).
Green H. B. Green, The Gospel according to Matthew (Oxford, 1975)
47 Lenski is forthright in rejecting the view that the words refer to the people then living: that they refer to “those living at the time when Jesus spoke, is untenable. A look at the use of dor in the Old Testament and at its regular translation by γενεά in the LXX reveals that a kind of men is referred to, the evil kind that reproduces and succeeds itself in many physical generations” (p. 952).
48 Glover finds value in this: “No day is named, that every day may be hallowed by the sense of the possibility of its being the day of His Advent. It helps to hallow each day of life, to realize that before its close we may be in the presence of Christ’s glory.”
49 Apparently it surprised some in the early church too, for οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός is omitted by many MSS. But it is read by א*.b B D Θ etc. And, as Metzger comments, “The omission of the words because of the doctrinal difficulty they present is more probable than their addition by assimilation to Mk 13.32.”
50 This is the one example of τρώγω in the New Testament outside the Fourth Gospel. Properly it denotes noisy eating by animals, but it is also used of human eating.
51 Bonnard comments, “Contrary to certain Jewish ideas of the time, Matthew does not insist on the extraordinary laxity of the conduct of the Noachian generation.”
52 The participle in this construction “is not good Greek” (BDF 418[2]). But the meaning is clear.
53 γινώσχετε might be indicative, “you know,” or imperative, “know.” Either makes good sense.
54 φυλαχή (see on 14:25) signifies a “watch”; both Jews and Romans divided the night (the time between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. as we count time) into “watches,” the Romans having four and the Jews three. On either system a “watch” lasted for hours.
55 The verb διορύσσω literally means “to dig through,” a process obviously applicable to houses made of mud bricks, though, of course, it was used of any method of “breaking and entering.” MM cites the verb from a papyrus dated 260 B.C. where the meaning is to break into a house.
56 The adjective πιστός is applied to a slave in an epitaph cited in New Documents, 2, p. 53.
57 This will be the “consecutive or final sense” of τοῦ — the infinitive with the meaning “in order to give them food.” Turner says that the construction “belongs to a higher level of the Koine” and is mostly found in Paul and Luke in the New Testament (M, III, p. 141).
58 “It will be noticed that the lesson is most practical. The servant is not required to abstract himself from all business, and stand day and night looking out over the road” (Robinson).
59 Meier makes an application to a particular group of Christ’s servants: “if the church leader forgets that all his power is derivative and is conferred only for a time and for the good of others, the ‘servant’ will turn into a ‘cleric.’ ”
60 The verb is διχοτομέω (δίχα, “apart” + τέμνω, “cut”). Such a punishment is indicated in Hebrews 11:37 (though with a different verb).
1 The early church delighted to interpret the parable allegorically. Chrysostom, for example, says, “By lamps here, He meaneth the gift itself of virginity, the purity of holiness; and by oil, humanity, almsgiving, succor to them that are in need” (p. 470).
2 Hill points out that “the representation of the messiah as bridegroom is unknown in the OT and in the literature of late Judaism (except Pesik. 149a), and it makes its first appearance in 2 C. 11.2; therefore it seems improbable that Jesus’ hearers would have applied the figure to the messiah.” But he goes on to argue that whether we accept this allegorical understanding or reject it, “the essential point of the section is the same: ‘Be ready.’ ”
GNB Good News Bible (London and New York, 1976)
3 Matthew makes a good deal of use of the verb ὁμοιόω; he has it 8 times whereas Luke uses it only 3 times; nobody else has it more than once. To introduce parabolic teaching he sometimes has the aorist “was likened” (13:24; 18:23; 22:2), but he has the future in 7:24, 26; 11:16 as well as here. There does not appear to be any significant difference.
4 παρθένος is used 4 times in this Gospel and twice in Luke. It means “a virgin” (and on occasion may be used of men, Rev. 14:4). In this parable there is no particular emphasis on virginity, so I have translated παρθένος as “girls.” But they would have been virgins; married women were not attendants of the bride in weddings of that time. These girls would have helped in the dressing of the bride and acted as her attendants. When the bridegroom came, they would have formed part of the procession to his home for the feast.
5 It is not certain how we should understand λαμπάδας here. Traditionally this has been understood as “lamps” (which may be what the word means in Acts 20:8), but against this is the fact that λαμπάς means “torch” (Carr says that this is “the only meaning that the word bears in Greek literature early or late”); the word for “lamp” is λύχνος (5:15 etc.), while “lantern” is φανός. We should also bear in mind that ordinary lamps gave inadequate light for an outdoor procession, that they would be easily blown out in even a light breeze, and that they would hold enough oil for hours of burning. J. Jeremias cites evidence that in modern times in wedding processions in Palestine light is given by “long sticks, around the tops of which are wrapped rags completely soaked with olive oil” (J. McDowell Richards, ed., Soli Deo Gloria [Richmond, 1968], p. 84). It seems likely that this was the custom in antiquity and that we should understand the term in this way here. Lightfoot cites a passage from R. Solomon referring to “Ismaelite” weddings where the bride is preceded by “about ten wooden staves, having each of them on the top a vessel like a dish, in which there is a piece of cloth with oil and pitch: these, being lighted, they carry before her for torches.” Hamann is another who appeals to modern Palestinian customs and insists on torches as the meaning. He points out that the girls would not recline at the feast (only men did this). They would “dance for the groom and his guests as long as their torches permit” (p. 249).
6 Some MSS read χαὶ τῆς νύμφης (D X Θ f1 etc.). This reading is scarcely enough to outweigh the majority, but it is accepted by some scholars on such grounds as that the girls would be the bride’s attendants, not those of the bridegroom. A difficulty is that, while there would be maidens waiting on the bride and going with her to the bridegroom’s home, we know of none who would be going out to meet the couple. Allen calls it “a natural but thoughtless interpolation.”
Ketub. Ketubot
7 μωρός is found 6 times in this Gospel and 6 times in all the rest of the New Testament. AS notes that it is properly used “of the nerves, dull, sluggish,” and that it is used also “Of the mind, dull, stupid, foolish.”
8 φρόνιμος occurs 14 times, 7 being in Matthew. AS defines its meaning as “practically wise, sensible, prudent.” He can say that φρόνησις may be differentiated from σοφία and σύνεσις as denoting “practical, σύνεσις critical, both being applications of ς. in detail” (sub σοφία).
9 Soli Deo Gloria, p. 86.
10 ἀγγεῖον (in some MSS ἄγγος) is used here only in the New Testament; it means “vessel for holding liquid or dry substances” (LSJ). MM notes its use in the papyri for containers for a number of things, one use being to hold oil. NIV has “jars,” and GNB “containers.”
11 Matthew has two words for sleeping, νυστάζω and the more usual χαθεύδω (the former occurs twice in the New Testament, the latter 22 times). There does not appear to be any great difference in meaning; the expression may be rendered “slumbered and slept,” as in the KJV. But there is a difference in tense. Robertson remarks, “When the aorist and the imperfect occur side by side, it is to be assumed that the change is made on purpose and the difference in idea to be sought. In juxtaposition the aorist lifts the curtain and the imperfect continues the play.” Here he takes ἐνύσταξαν as ingressive, “fell to nodding,” and ἐχάθευδον as meaning “went on sleeping” (p. 838). Most translations ignore the difference (e.g., NIV, “became drowsy and fell asleep”).
12 The perfect γέγονεν is used in the sense of the aorist ἐγένετο (BDF 343[3]).
13 The expression is εἰς ἀπάντησιν αὐτοῦ, “for meeting of him.” The noun is often used for the arrival of great people; MM notes its use for magistrates and the like and comments, “The word seems to have been a kind of t.t. for the official welcome of a newly arrived dignitary—a usage which accords excellently with its NT usage.” Here it points to the bridegroom as the important man.
14 Chamberlain gets a lot out of the tense: “The present tense tells you that the lamps are still burning but getting very dim and, no doubt, smoking badly” (p. 70). Carr says that in the sixth-century Codex Rossanensis there is a picture in which “Three of the foolish virgins hold torches nearly extinguished, but still burning.”
15 The clause is introduced with μήποτε, but this is followed either by the simple negative οὐχ (with א A L Z f13 etc.) or the more emphatic double negative οὐ μή (B C D K etc.). On μήποτε BAGD says, “Somet. the negation is weakened to such a degree that μήποτε introduces someth. conjectured probably, perhaps”; it suggests that with the reading οὐχ the translation should be “perhaps there might not be enough.” But if the reading with the double negative οὐ μή be accepted, “The tone is sharper”; it translates “certainly there would never be enough” (4). Turner sees here “a cautious statement” (taking the negative οὐχ, M, III, p. 98).
RSV The Revised Standard Version
16 μᾶλλον has the meaning “more, rather”; here “the negative can be unexpressed, though easily supplied fr. the context: πορεύεσθε μ. (do not turn to us) rather go” (BAGD, 3.a.b). The significance of the construction, according to Blass, is, go “here and there, wherever you may find one” (BDF 336[1]).
17 Unless, as A. W. Argyle believes, shops would be open at all hours: “There was nothing to prevent a business, with sufficient staff to work night and day shifts, from keeping open for all day and all night, and these could well include not only shops that catered for victuals but those which supplied oil—in fact the same shops might do both” (ET, LXXXVI [1974–75], p. 214). Even if a shop did not do this regularly, it might when a wedding was on and the whole community was going to be up through the night.
18 Cf. M. Green, “there are some things you cannot borrow. You need to possess them for yourself” (p. 240). Buttrick points out that “we should not impose theological meanings on this particular verse.” But he goes on, “Yet the fact remains that spiritual preparedness cannot instantly be shared.”
19 χύριε, χύριε.
20 This may be “not a judicial penalty for arriving too late, but an inference from the late arrival that those without cannot belong to the bridal party” (Bruce). But, more probably, it may also be a formula for disowning those outside the closed door. “He will deny that there is any bond, any personal relationship, between Him and them. … He has nothing to do with them” (Ridderbos).
21 Cf. France, readiness “is not a matter of passively ‘waiting’, but of responsible activity, producing results which the coming ‘master’ can see and approve. For the period of waiting was not intended to be an empty, meaningless ‘delay’, but a period of opportunity to put to good use the ‘talents’ entrusted to his ‘slaves’.”
22 δῆμος means “district, country, land” (LSJ), and ἀποδημέω, “to be away from one’s land” and thus “to be abroad,” “to go abroad.”
23 ἰδίους puts some emphasis on the fact that they were his “own” servants; he did not choose some external financial house, but entrusted his money to those who were his own. δοῦλος normally signifies a “slave,” but that can scarcely be the meaning here, for these men were able to enter financial arrangements involving quite large sums of money.
24 From this parable we have derived the use of “talent” to indicate abilities of various kinds, but we should be clear that the word had no such associations for Jesus and his hearers. It was simply a unit of weight.
25 The fact that the third servant buried ἀργύριον (v. 18) may indicate that in this story the talents were of silver. But the word may be used generally of “money,” so this is not conclusive.
26 REB improves the occasion with “five bags of gold,” while GNB suggests “five thousand silver coins.”
KJV The King James Version
27 Metzger points out that elsewhere in Matthew εὐθέως (or εὐθύς) always goes with what follows; he further remarks: “there is no point in the master’s departing immediately; there is much point in the servant’s immediately setting to work.”
28 The verb is ἐργάζομαι; it can refer to any one of a variety of ways of working; it gives no indication of the precise way in which this servant went about his task. Modern translations supply the lack in a variety of ways: “traded with them” (NRSV), “invested his money” (GNB), “employed them in business” (REB), etc.
29 ὡσαύτως, “in the same way”; that is, he did the same as the first slave in increasing the money he was working with by 100 percent.
30 “He kept it in a manner which revealed his real attitude toward the gift and the Giver: he buried it. He thus was like one who had no gift at all; but it was he himself who made himself thus. In this he is a picture of all those in the church who for any reason refuse to use the gifts of Christ in his service” (Lenski, p. 976).
31 συναίρω means “to take up together,” but in conjunction with λόγον it is used of settling accounts. MM finds “numerous examples” of the expression used in this sense in the papyri.
32 He speaks of five ἄλλα τάλαντα, “five other talents”; the word ἄλλα preceding πέντε τάλαντα gives the expression some emphasis; not only did he bring the original talents, but also “others,” talents he had gained, not talents he had been given.
BDF F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament, trans. and rev. by R. W. Funk (Chicago, 1961)
33 Moffatt has “share your master’s feast,” and Ridderbos favors the meaning “banquet,” but χαρά does not mean “feast”; it means “joy.” Granted that a great feast loomed large in common eschatological speculations, this is not the word for the feast, but for the joy that went with it. BAGD notes the suggestion that “festive dinner, banquet” is meant (2.c), but asks, “but would this have been intelligible to Greeks?”
34 Diétrich finds an eschatological reference: “This is the joy of the Kingdom, of the Messianic banquet. The faithful worker participates in the joy of the Master; this is his supreme reward.” Cf. McNeile, “the joy that your Lord gives, and shares with you, is a unique expression for the bliss of the divine Kingdom.”
35 Is there any significance in the fact that the perfect tense is used of this man’s having received the talent: εἰληφώς? The aorist λαβών is used of the man with the five, while the verb is left to be understood in the case of the man with two talents. The man who got the single talent had it remain with him. Moulton says that “the rather more emphatic perfect suits the situation of v.25 better” (M, I, p. 238). Cf. Bruce, “εἰληφώς, the perfect participle, instead of λαβὼν in ver. 20, because the one fact as to him is that he is the man who has received a talent of which he has made no use.”
36 σχληρός means “hard to the touch, rough, harsh”; when used of people it signifies “hard, stern, severe” (AS). Hendriksen points out that in modern English we have taken over the word in “arteriosclerosis,” “hardening of the arteries” (p. 882, n. 823).
37 Among the rabbis it was held that hiding money in the ground was the safest thing one could do. “Samuel said: Money can only be guarded [by placing it] in the earth” (B. Meṣ. 42a). A footnote in the Soncino translation says, “Otherwise the bailee is guilty of negligence—In ancient days there was probably no other place as safe.” It goes on to quote Josephus, who refers to what “the owners had treasured up under ground against the uncertain fortunes of war.”
38 Schweizer has an apt comment, “Jesus is saying that a religion concerned only with not doing anything wrong in order that its practitioner may one day stand vindicated ignores the will of God” (p. 473). Ryle cites Richard Baxter: “To do no harm is the praise of a stone, not of a man.”
39 Patte comments that the Greek word ὀχνηρός “is derived from a verb that means ‘to hesitate’ (e.g., because of fear), a meaning that is quite appropriate in view of the explanation the servant gives of his action” (p. 352, n. 23).
40 “His acceptance supports the authenticity of the parable. Early Christians would hardly have made up such a description of Jesus, even in a parable” (Gundry, p. 508).
41 ἔδει means “It was necessary”; the master is not thinking of something that might possibly be done, but of something that must be done.
42 τὰ ἀργύρια will refer to the coins that make up the amount; the alternative reading τὸ ἀργύριον views the money as a whole. The use of this expression favors the view that the talents were of silver but does not prove it, for the term may mean simply “money.”
43 Βαλεῖν τὰ ἀργύριά μου τοῖς τραπεζίταις: “throw my money to the money-changers” (the people who sit at tables). These were people who changed money from one currency to another, charging a fee for the service. They also seem to have loaned money at interest; that will be the meaning of τόχος here. It is from such activities that modern banking evolved; hence the translation.
44 His ἐγώ is emphatic.
45 “Good living is not negative or static; faithful use of one’s gifts, large or small, increases them, brings recognition, and opens the door to greater usefulness, but lazy disuse is blameworthy abuse of one’s privileges and will mean the loss of one’s gifts and place in the Kingdom” (Filson).
46 ἀχρεῖος is literally “useless” (ἀ-privative plus χρεῖος, “useful”).
47 “The man who is punished is the man who will not try” (Barclay, II, p. 323).
48 D. C. Steinmetz speaks of God’s judgment as shown in this parable as “mercifully severe,” and explains, “The swift justice meted out to the lazy servant puts a merciful end to any notion that the disobedient and the dishonest will be able to blackmail their way into the Kingdom of heaven by manipulating the goodness of God or playing on divine pity. God’s goodness is too clever to be taken in by such nursery tricks. Divine pity will forgive sins, but it will not condone them” (Interpretation, XXXIV [1980], pp. 175, 176).
49 Cf. Hill, “Although the story is often referred to as a parable, it cannot really be classified as such. … The story seems to be a picture of the Last Judgment, an eschatological vision.”
50 Perhaps we should notice, however, that Albright and Mann deny that the topic is Judgment Day. They assert, “If we make this a scene of final judgment, we miss the point entirely. … It is precisely in the consummation of his ministry, in the seal of death, and in resurrection-glory, that men will be separated by the response they make, or do not make, to that central, crucial event” (AB, pp. 308–9). But it is more than difficult to accept this. That Jesus’ death and resurrection mark a separation between people is clear enough. That those events can be described in the language of this chapter is not.
51 This is the continuation of a topic that has featured throughout this Gospel. Thus Plummer draws attention to “the separations of the wheat from the chaff (iii.12), of the sincere from the hypocrites (vi.2, 5, 16), the wise builder from the foolish (vii.24–27), the wheat from the tares (xiii.30), the good from the bad fish (xiii.48, 49), the profitable from the unprofitable servants (14–30); and now we have the final separation of the sheep from the goats (31–46). The principle of separation throughout is the relation in which those who are judged stand to Jesus Himself” (p. 348).
52 This judgment scene “tells me that I am accountable. I am free to live my life just as I please, but at the end I shall have to give account to the one who gave me my life” (M. Green).
53 Nixon remarks of these kindly deeds, “presumably they are the outcome of a living faith and not the basis of acceptance.”
54 Schweizer regards 20:1–6 and 25:31–46 as “the two limiting statements of the New Testament, which protect us against righteousness through works on the one hand and righteousness through intellectualized theology on the other” (p. 480).
55 There is something of an exception in 1 Enoch, where “the Elect One” is on the throne of glory judging (1 Enoch 61:8) and “the Son of man” performs much the same function (1 Enoch 62:5). But such views are distinctly exceptional, and in any case “the Lord of Spirits” (God) keeps intervening. G. F. Moore has a useful survey of Jewish ideas on the subject (Moore, II, pp. 295–309).
56 There is a very useful discussion of the passage by G. E. Ladd in R. N. Longenecker and M. C. Tenney, eds., New Dimensions in New Testament Study (Grand Rapids, 1974), pp. 191–99.
57 ὅταν is indefinite, “whenever.” Jesus is speaking of a time that is not known to his followers.
JB The Jerusalem Bible (London, 1966)
58 πάντα τὰ ἔθνη seems clearly to mean the whole race, but Green holds that “the reference must be to Gentiles as opposed to Jews.” Such views seem to contradict the meaning of the Greek.
59 The verb is συνάγω; later in this discourse it is used in the sense “receive hospitably” (vv. 35, 38, 42), whereas here it has the more general sense of “gather together.” Matthew uses the verb 24 times (Acts with 11 times is the next highest total in any New Testament book). Although the subject is the neuter plural ἔθνη, the verb is plural; in the New Testament this normally takes place with a personal subject.
60 αὐτούς is masculine; it is not a matter of separating the nations from each other, but people.
61 In verse 32 Matthew has used ἔριφος for “goat,” but here he has the diminutive ἐρίφιον. There does not, however, appear to be a difference in meaning (though Bengel remarks, “Although giants, they will be kidlings”).
62 ἐυλογημένοι is the perfect passive participle and points to a state of continuing blessedness. τοῦ πατρός signifies “of the Father”; this seems to mean that the blessed ones are those who belong to the Father, “the participle being in effect a substantive” (Bruce). McNeile stresses this: “ ‘Ye blessed ones’ is absolute, followed by ‘who belong to My Father’ ”; he complains that the translation “ ‘ye blessed of My Father’ obscures this.” But it is also possible to take this genitive to denote the agent (BDF 183), “blessed by my Father,” and many translations and commentators in modern times understand the construction in this way.
63 χληρονομέω (3 times in Matthew, 18 times in the New Testament) is the normal word for inheriting possessions (e.g., Gal. 4:30; MM gives examples of this use from the papyri). But it also comes to be used of secure possession in general and among the Jews especially of a place in the messianic kingdom.
64 The perfect participle ἡτοιμασμένην points to something prepared long ago that continues in the state of preparedness.
65 χαταβολή may be used of a literal foundation of a building. As the foundation is the beginning of an edifice, the term lends itself to the beginning of anything, here the beginning of the whole creation.
66 “Before the good deeds of these ‘sheep’ are mentioned (verses 35, 36) emphasis is first of all placed on the fact that the basis of their salvation, hence also of these good deeds, is their having been chosen from eternity” (Hendriksen, p. 888).
France R. T. France, The Gospel according to Matthew (Leicester and Grand Rapids, 1985)
67 Cf. Hamann, “I can say: ‘It has rained for the atmospheric conditions were right for rain’, or ‘It has rained for the streets are wet’. The ‘for’ in one case gives the reason for the rain, and in the other case, the evidence for it. It is in the second sense that the for of verse 35 must be understood. The Judge points to the works of verses 35 and 36—he might have mentioned other works as well—as evidence for the position assigned to the sheep” (p. 256).
68 συνάγω means “to bring together,” and indeed it has just been used in that sense (v. 32); it was also used of the master of the servants who “gathered” (“brought together”) where he did not “scatter” (vv. 24 and 26). But the verb was also used of bringing people together as host and guest, the sense in which it is used here. NIV has “invited me in”; JB, “made me welcome”; and REB, “took me into your home.”
69 γυμνός means “naked,” but it is also used in the sense “poorly dressed” (BAGD; it also recognizes a use for “without an outer garment”). NIV reads “I needed clothes,” while Cassirer has “poorly clad.”
70 “The righteous are those who have God’s verdict in their favor. … The entire doctrine of justification by faith through the atoning merits of Christ is contained in οἱ δίχαιοι” (Lenski, p. 993). So also Hill, “the deeds which achieve acceptance (according to Matthew) are not the ‘works of the Law’, done to win justification; they are the outcome of faith and love.”
71 ἐφʼ ὅσον, “to the degree that.”
72 Robertson says, “There must be a special reason” for the construction used here (the adjective with an article of its own following the noun); “the adjective is added as a sort of climax with a separate article” (p. 776).
73 Calvin comments, “Only the faithful are expressly commended to our pity here,” but he goes on to say, “there is a common tie that binds all the children of Adam” (III, p. 117).