TEXT [Commentary]

4. Jesus’ teaching about anger, adultery, and divorce (5:21-32)

21 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’[*] 22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone,[*] you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot,[*] you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone,[*] you are in danger of the fires of hell.[*]

23 “So if you are presenting a sacrifice[*] at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

25 “When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny.[*]

27 “You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’[*] 28 But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 So if your eye—even your good eye[*]—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your hand—even your stronger hand[*]—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

31 “You have heard the law that says, ‘A man can divorce his wife by merely giving her a written notice of divorce.’[*] 32 But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery.”

NOTES

5:21-22 You have heard that our ancestors were told. This appears again in the fourth example (5:33) with the added word “also” (lit. “again”). This implies that the six examples are intended to be viewed as two groups of three. This first example of how Jesus definitively interprets the law (5:21-26) develops the OT teaching on murder. Matt 5:21 refers to Exod 20:13 and Deut 5:17, but only the words “you must not murder” are taken verbatim from the OT.

If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment. This is probably a summary of texts like Exod 21:12 and Deut 17:8-13. In contrast, Jesus lists three hypothetical instances in 5:22 in which anger or angry speech will lead to judgment just as surely as murder will. It is likely that the three descriptions of judgment (judgment, court, hell) are not ascending in severity but are progressively more vivid descriptions of the consequences of anger and abusive speech.

if you are even angry with someone. This calls attention to Jesus’ shocking elevation of anger to a capital crime. “Someone” is lit. “brother,” which likely means another person in one’s religious community rather than another human being in general (5:47; 7:3-5; 18:15; 25:40). The second and third instances both move from a furious attitude to abusive speech, calling a brother an idiot or a fool (see NLT mg).

5:23-24 be reconciled to that person. In keeping with the teaching of 5:22 on the consequences of anger and abusive speech within the community, Jesus poses a concrete situation in which personal reconciliation takes precedence over religious duty. Significantly the situation here does not pertain to one’s own anger but to the anger or grudge of another. Disciples are thus responsible not only to reign in their own anger but to take steps to reconcile with others who are angry at them. It is not a question of arguing about who offended whom but of both offender and injured party taking responsibility for reconciliation. Such reconciliation to a fellow disciple (NLT’s “someone” and “that person” both translate the word “brother”) must be addressed before one offers a sacrifice in the Temple. Jesus’ stress on the priority of reconciliation and justice over sacrificial worship is in keeping with such OT texts as 1 Sam 15:22; Isa 1:10-18; Hos 6:6, and Mic 6:6-8. As in the model prayer (6:12, 14-15; cf. 18:15-17), divine forgiveness is linked with human forgiveness. The Temple imagery is interesting in light of the likelihood that Matthew is addressing a Christian Jewish community. According to Acts, the Christian Jews in Jerusalem continued to observe the Temple rituals (2:46; 3:1; 5:12, 42; 21:26; 22:17; 24:12, 18; 25:8; 26:21).

5:25-26 settle your differences quickly. Here another concrete situation is posed. The obligation to seek reconciliation applies not only to relations within the community of disciples (5:23-24) but also to relationships outside that community. Adversarial legal situations should be settled out of court, or else serious judicial consequences will result. Debtors were evidently incarcerated until payment was made in the judicial system assumed here. Perhaps these verses are primarily metaphorical and speak to the matter of averting the wrath of God, but this is not so obvious as some think (e.g., Blomberg 1992:108). Compare the last contrast in 5:38-48, where disciples are enjoined to love their enemies. See also Luke 12:57-59 for this saying in a different context. Evangelical Protestant commentators frequently point out that these verses do not support the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory.

5:27-28 anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery. The second example of how Jesus definitively interprets the law moves from the sixth to the seventh commandment, developing the OT teaching on adultery (Exod 20:14; Deut 5:18; cf. Matt 5:32; 19:9, 18). By way of contrast to this command against adulterous behavior, Matt 5:28 likewise condemns adulterous thoughts, viewing them as tantamount to the act. By condemning the internal seed of the outward sin, Jesus obviously condemns the act itself. While the OT certainly does not condone lust, Jesus’ direct linkage of lust to adultery is a more stringent standard of sexual ethics. By stressing the lustful intention over the act itself, Jesus seems to be interpreting the seventh commandment by the tenth commandment (Exod 20:17; “You must not covet your neighbor’s wife”). But Matt 5:28 is speaking of women in general, not just married women. And it is possible that 5:28 is not simply about looking with lust at a woman but about looking at a woman in such a way as to entice her to lust (Carson 1984:151).

5:29-30 Both of these verses speak hyperbolically in parallel fashion to underline the gravity of Jesus’ teaching on lust in 5:28 (cf. 18:7-9 for similar language). Sin must be avoided even if radical sacrifice is required. Lust must be treated with the utmost seriousness because it can cause a person to be thrown into hell. The “good” (lit. “right”) eye (5:29; cf. 1 Sam 11:2; Zech 11:17; 2 Pet 2:14) and the “stronger” (lit. “right”) hand (5:30; cf. Gen 48:14; Ps 137:5) are respectively the means by which lustful thoughts are initially engendered and subsequently carried out (Josh 7:21; 2 Sam 11:2; Ezek 6:9). If these bring one into an occasion of sin, they must be dealt with by radical surgery (cf. Col 3:5). The mention of the right eye reminds the reader of the verb of seeing in 5:28. It should go without saying that the two commands here are hyperbolic. Since evil arises in the heart (15:19), amputation cannot cure it. But the hyperbole shocks the reader with the real point: it is better to deal decisively with lust than to be thrown into hell because of it.

5:31-32 The third example of how Jesus definitively interprets the law develops the OT teaching on divorce. Matt 5:31 (cf. Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18) refers to Deut 24:1-4 (cf. 19:7), which in its original context prohibits a man from remarrying a woman he has previously married and divorced if she has in the interim been married to and divorced by another man. The part of the Deuteronomy passage most relevant to Matthew 5 is the mention of the written divorce document in 24:1, 3. Evidently many teachers of Jesus’ day had taken this passage as carte blanche for divorce. Hillel is cited by the Mishnah (compiled from earlier oral tradition around AD 200) as permitting divorce for any indecency (Deut 24:1; m. Gittin 9:10).

Jesus’ strict view of divorce is evidently much like that of Rabbi Shammai, who is also cited by the above text from the Mishnah. According to Jesus, a man who divorces his wife (unless she has been unfaithful) causes her and her potential future spouse to commit adultery. If there has been no sexual infidelity, there can be no real divorce. If there has been no real divorce, there can be no remarriage, and any additional sexual unions are adulterous. There is much debate on the word porneia [TG4202, ZG4518], (the Gr. word represented by the NLT’s “unless she has been unfaithful”) but it seems most likely that Jesus has in mind any sort of sexual activity not involving one’s spouse (Davies and Allison 1988:529ff). It is plausible that the phrase “unless she has been unfaithful” is an allusion to the phrase “something about her that is shameful” in Deut 24:1 (lit. “something indecent” or “a matter of indecency”).

Jesus prohibits what the OT was understood to permit regarding divorce. As the definitive eschatological teacher of the law, his interpretation is evidently (cf. 19:3-9) based on the original divine intent for marriage, not the expediency of the moment. The Pharisaic misinterpretation of the OT capitalized on a concession to human sinfulness (cf. 19:8). See further discussion at 19:3-9.

COMMENTARY [Text]

In 5:21-32 Jesus begins to unpack what he meant when he said that he had come not to destroy but to fulfill the law and the prophets, and that his disciples’ uprightness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. He gives three concrete interpretations: (1) anger is tantamount to murder (5:21-26), (2) lust is tantamount to adultery (5:27-30), and (3) divorce and remarriage are tantamount to adultery (except when infidelity has occurred; 5:31-32). In each of the three examples the traditional understanding of the Torah is contrasted with Jesus’ understanding of it, and in the first two interpretations, there are examples that apply the teaching to concrete situations. The structure of each interpretation is very similar:

1. Traditional teaching (5:21, 27, 31)

2. Jesus’ contrasting teaching (5:22, 28, 32)

3. Concrete applications of Jesus’ teaching (5:23-26, 29-30)

The Question of Antithesis or Contrast. Although it is common for commentators to speak of Jesus’ six teachings in Matthew 5:21-48 as antitheses (see Harrington 1991:90), this is certainly a mistake. An antithesis is not merely a contrasting statement, it is a contradictory statement. If Jesus had intended to teach antithetically to the law and the prophets, he would have needed to say what amounts to an antithesis to Matthew 5:17 because he would have come to abolish the law and the prophets. If Jesus had been speaking antithetically, he would have said, “You have heard that it has been said, ‘you shall not murder,’ but I say unto you, ‘you shall murder.’” This is, of course, unthinkable. No doubt the transcendent teaching of Jesus here is in contrast to that of the traditional teachers of the law, but it does not formally contradict the law.

In all six of the contrasts there are two crucial matters to keep in mind. First there is the contrasting parallel in audiences: the ancestors (national Israel) versus “you” (Jesus’ disciples), implying that the disciples, not the Jews as a nation, are the locus of Jesus’ revelatory ministry. Second and even more noteworthy is the contrast between the agency of what has been said and what is now being said. The Greek text emphasizes that Jesus himself was speaking with an authority transcending that of the previous divine revelation through Moses. Jesus did not deny that God had spoken through Moses (cf. 15:4), but he affirmed his own transcendent revelatory agency in strong language. This authoritative way of speaking was not lost on those who heard him (7:29; 8:8-9; 9:8; 10:1; 28:18).

The Greater Righteousness Taught by Jesus. It is clear in each of the first three examples of Jesus’ teaching that his standards were higher than those of the traditional interpreters of the law. In the first two examples, Jesus goes to the heart of the matters of murder and adultery—anger and lust. It is not that the Old Testament does not condemn anger and lust, but that Jesus’ definitive teaching connects the outward behavioral symptoms with the inner attitudinal causes. Jesus means to nip the buds of anger and lust in order to avoid the blooms of murder and adultery. On the matter of divorce, Jesus seems to stand with Shammai over Hillel on the interpretation of the “indecency” of Deuteronomy 24:1 (see note on 5:31-32). Only infidelity is a permissible reason for divorce. In all other cases, adultery results. Jesus’ standard was much higher than was customary as can be seen from Matthew 19:9 and from the Mishnah passage cited in the notes.