4
Jesus as the Ideal and Wise King

Monarchy is the chief metaphor Matthew employs to illuminate Jesus.1 The First Gospel presents Jesus as the Davidic king who leads Israel in faithfulness to the wisdom found in the Torah. He shepherds the people toward flourishing and righteous living, thus securing the nation’s territory. The king is the conduit through which God will bless and prosper his nation, thereby blessing the world. Yahweh rules through the obedience of his appointed monarch. This idea is not unique to Israel, for in the ANE numerous cultures viewed their king as the intermediary between the divine and the mundane worlds (sometimes labeled “sacral kingship”). While the discipled scribe presents Jesus as the Davidic messiah whose purpose is to restore his nation, the way in which he does so is unique and clarifies the promises that came before. Matthew wisely brings out treasures both new and old through the employment of shadow stories.

If the last chapter provided a bookend to the journey of Jesus, showing the geographic journey of the king, then this chapter takes a plunge into Jesus’s Davidic actions while in exile––the actions of the ideal and wise king.2 Matthew does not begin his Gospel with a theme and then leave it to shiver in anonymity. He extends it through his account, indicating the introduction and conclusion are the windows to the rest of his world. He invites readers to look more closely at the life of Jesus and to see him through the life of David. The previous analysis concerned Jesus’s birth and infancy and finally his reentry into Jerusalem and his death. In these we saw how Jesus was crowned as the king. He undergoes rejection, exile, suffering, and mockery, which is his path to the throne, as was David’s. Jewish readers should have been expecting an unsteady trip to the throne since this was David’s experience too.

In this chapter, we examine a different angle of Jesus’s Davidic kingship: the activities of this king while he is in exile (Galilee).3 In Galilee Jesus personifies what it means to be the true and wise king by embodying the Torah, thereby showing both Israel and the world the shape and character of his kingdom. In exile Jesus seeks the good of the city. Although this chapter can’t be exhaustive, three specific Davidic actions will be explored.

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Jesus not only gives the new law as the prophet in the Sermon on the Mount; he embodies the law as the wise king. Kings were meant not only to be lawgivers but also to live the law and demonstrate to their subjects what it means to be a citizen of their kingdom. The next two points then intertwine and function subordinately to the manner in which Jesus lives the law. First, Jesus personifies the law by acting as the righteous Davidic shepherd who watches over his flock—being the merciful, arbitrating, and sacrificial shepherd in contrast to the religious leaders of the day. Second, Jesus enacts justice as the Davidic merciful healer (which also has shepherding impressions). While in Galilee, Jesus restores those around him as they call out to the “Son of David.” Jesus does not neglect the weightier matters of the law: “justice and mercy and faithfulness” (23:23). In all of these actions, Jesus actively fulfills the role of the ideal and wise Davidic king, and the discipled scribe illustrates how the new interprets the old, and the old reveals the new.

The Living Law

Jesus has been introduced as the Davidic king in the genealogy; he is revered and rejected, and then exiled to Galilee. As Jesus begins his ministry, he is officially anointed as king in his baptism (3:16). Jesus claims that this is “to fulfill all righteousness” (3:15), which means to fulfill the total will of God for the earth by being its king. Not surprisingly, the word “righteousness” is regularly connected to wisdom in the wisdom tradition (Deut. 16:19; Ps. 37:30; Prov. 1:3; 9:9; 10:31; Eccles. 7:16; 9:1; 10:2; Jer. 23:5; 1 Cor. 1:30). John the Baptist, the last prophet of the old age, anoints him, and the Baptist later ends up being killed by King Herod.4 As David proves himself as fit to be the people’s deliverer by demonstrating his power over Goliath (1 Sam. 17), so too Jesus also proves himself as fit to be the people’s king by resisting Satan (Matt. 4:1–11). Both are loyal to God (1 Sam. 17:26; Matt. 4:10) and are dependent on God (1 Sam. 17:37; Matt. 4:4). David does not put on the normal armor of the king but clothes himself in humility (1 Sam. 17:38–40); Jesus defeats Satan by clothing himself not with the power of a normal king but with the armor of dependence on God’s word (Matt. 4:4).

This leads Jesus to declare that the kingdom is here through his teaching and healing. “He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people” (Matt. 4:23).5 The actions of the king in the exile are a combination of both authority and mercy. He “teaches” and “proclaims” the kingdom, but he also “heals” every disease and affliction. Jesus is the ideal and wise king. Camelot, so to speak, has arrived in King Jesus. These two tasks define and delineate the kingdom, and therefore Matthew devotes the rest of his narrative to an alternation between the teaching and the healing of Jesus.

Matthew’s first major discourse (teaching section) of Jesus comes in the famous Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). But when it comes to Jesus’s teaching, most commentators run to Jesus as a prophet. Nevertheless, much of the confusion concerning Jesus and his attitude toward the law stems from a narrow prophetic lens, forgetting that Matthew has begun the Gospel by announcing that Jesus is king. While I will be interacting with Jesus as the prophet in the next chapter, significant clarity comes to Jesus’s attitude toward the law if we begin by viewing Jesus as the Davidic king. Looking at the Sermon through the lens of royalty smooths out the rough hills, and separating kingship themes from the νόμος (law) wreaks havoc on our understanding of Jesus’s relationship to the law. Law and wisdom come in tandem in the Scriptures and in a king’s reign.

Although the title David never appears in the Sermon, and only once does the noun “king” occur (5:35), it would be a severe mistake to overlook Jesus as king here. At least three reasons present themselves for viewing the Sermon through the lens of royalty. First, the very occurrence of βασιλεία (kingdom), both throughout the Sermon and in the narrative leading up to the Sermon, give warrant for viewing each discourse as a kingship discourse. As just noted, Matthew speaks of Jesus “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” in two summary statements (4:23; 9:35), which are meant to act like an abbreviated canopy thrown over the entire narrative. The Beatitudes are framed with “kingdom of heaven” statements (5:3, 10), and the term kingdom (βασιλεία) occurs eight times in the discourse. The Sermon on the Mount is the king’s speech.

Second, it would be odd for Matthew to begin with the Davidic theme so clearly and then drop it once Jesus enters his ministry. In Matthew’s case, he must have come to understand Jesus as the Davidic messiah through the ministry of Jesus’s teaching, healing, (and) dying. Jesus’s ministry is a vibrant example of Jesus being in the line of David, which caused Matthew to write his introduction as he did. It isn’t legitimate to view one part of Matthew’s Gospel through the lens of this theme and exclude other parts. The Sermon isn’t hermetically sealed off from the rest of the narrative but integral to it.

Third, and most important for my purpose, kings in ancient times were not only to instruct in the law but also to “embody the law internally and produce good legislation that transforms the people and leads them in obedience to the law.”6 Evidence exists both in the ANE and the biblical text that kings were to be living embodiments of the law who instruct through both teaching and example what it means to follow the law. As the king goes, the nation goes. Jesus is the Davidic king who becomes the living law (à la wisdom). The true and wise king will live the Torah (Deut. 17:19; Ps. 1:2). Sirach even identifies wisdom with the Torah of Moses (Sir. 24:23). Jesus’s approach toward the law cannot be sufficiently explored by looking only at the places where νόμος occurs, but that is a place to start. Jesus’s best-known statement about the law comes in the Sermon on the Mount.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matt. 5:17–18)

In Matt. 5, Jesus’s statement about fulfilling the law has been the subject of much debate. In what way does he fulfill the law? By extending it? By showing its true intention? By bringing it to its end? Clarity emerges by seeing Jesus as fulfilling the law by “living it” as the ideal and wise king. To put this another way, as the king, he embodies the law: he meets its demands and thereby fulfills it. Some scholars reject this meaning for “fulfill.”7 Leon Morris claims, “We must bear in mind that ‘fulfil’ does not mean the same as ‘keep’; Jesus is speaking of more than obedience to regulations”; yet it is also true that “fulfill” does not mean less.8 To understand what “fufill the law” means from a monarchal perspective, one must put oneself into the first-century context and the common notion about kings.

As Joshua Jipp has shown, both Hellenistic and OT kingship discourses assert that virtuous kings submit to the law and thereby internalize it. “It is only through this royal ‘living law,’ whereby the king’s subjects imitate the king who provides the perfect pattern for their own character, that they are able to fulfill the demands of the law. The results of the people’s imitation of the royal living law are harmony, friendship, and the eradication of dissension among the king’s subjects.”9 Although Jipp is not referring here to the Sermon, this quote brings remarkable clarity to Jesus’s first speech. Jesus is not only the new Moses going up on the mountain to give the law; he is also the new king, fulfilling the demands of the law by instructing the people how to imitate him and live in harmony with the law.

The theme of the king as embodying the law is strewn throughout Hellenistic and kingship discourse. A few examples should suffice. In the Neo-Pythagorean essays “On Kingship,” Archytas of Tarentum presents the good king as the animate law: “Laws are of two kinds, the animate law, which is the king, and the inanimate, the written law. So law is primary; for with reference to it the king is lawful, the rulership is fitting, the ruled are free, the whole community happy. . . . So it is proper for the better to rule, for the worse to be ruled. . . . The best ruler would be the one who is closest to the law.”10

According to this text, the wise king is the one who embodies the law, who rules in accordance with the law. He is the animate law to be imitated by his subjects. Plutarch in a similar way says that kings shape their own character by the laws so that their subjects fit their pattern.11 The just king obeys the law and becomes a wise copy of the things the law commands. While the OT does not use the language of “living law” to describe Israel’s ideal king, it does speak of the task of Israel’s ruler; he is to write out, read, and obey the Torah.

When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel. (Deut. 17:18–20)

The king was to be a scribe who wrote the law so that he might fear the Lord and keep his statutes.12 A wise king would be centered on the law, learning himself how to internalize the law, thereby becoming an embodiment of the law. As Philo says, “Other kings indeed have staves for their scepters, but my scepter is the book of Deuteronomy, . . . a symbol of the irreproachable rulership which is copied after the archetype, the kingly rule of God.”13 As the OT continues, each of Israel’s kings and rulers is evaluated on whether he has internalized the Torah.

This internalizing of the law is exactly what Israel was called to do in Deut. 4:6 to become wise: “Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (emphasis added). Matthew, as the discipled scribe, goes to great lengths to show that Jesus not only teaches on the law but also internalizes it and thereby fulfills it.14 In fact, when Jesus teaches on a topic, Matthew makes sure to emphasize that Jesus performs it as well.

Jesus did not come to set aside or nullify the law. Rather, he affirmed it, accomplished it, and brought it to reality. Jesus embodies and lives the law that he delivers in the Sermon and in the rest of the Gospel. The standard responsibility of ancient kings was the task of enacting justice for his people. Moreover, related to his procuring justice for the king’s subjects is the task of executing judgment upon the wicked.15 Matthew’s dramatization of the law throughout his Gospel cannot be separated from Jesus’s kingship because Matthew’s programmatic statement about Jesus’s ministry is that he “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people” (4:23). The Sermon on the Mount is part of the wise king’s message about the kingdom of heaven. He teaches on the kingdom (Matt. 5–7), and then he heals every disease in anticipation of the kingdom (Matt. 8–9) and enacts the double love command.

Royalty and the Law of Christ

That the king is the living law is an old message, one that appears quite frequently in Hellenistic and OT literature. However, this message is also new because it is filtered through a new king. Unlike David, Solomon, and all the other kings, this king never breaks any of the laws. He embodies the law and teaches the people how to flourish under the law. For Jesus to fulfill the law at least partially means he comes and performs all it commands. In this way, Jesus does not abrogate the law but fulfills it. Not a jot or tittle goes away, because the law is wrapped up in him as the Davidic messiah. As Nolland says, “The fulfilment language represents a claim that Jesus’ programmatic commitment, far from undercutting the role of the Law and the Prophets, is to enable God’s people to live out the Law more effectively.”16 In one sense Jesus transcends the law, not by extending it or going beyond it, but by being a more perfect embodiment of the divine will than has ever happened before.17

The framework that Matthew has set up so far suggests that it is not until the arrival of Jesus, the divinely appointed heir of David’s throne, that the Deuteronomic curses (Deut. 27–28) begin to be reversed. Deuteronomy pronounces curses on those who lead the blind astray (27:18), who withhold justice from the foreigner (27:19), who do not uphold the words of this law (27:26). Jesus reverses the curses while in exile by fulfilling the law as the king: he heals the blind (Matt. 9:28–29; 11:5), shows mercy to a Canaanite woman (15:22), and keeps the law instead of abolishing it (5:17–20). The messiah’s apocalyptic appearance marks the end of the age of wrath and the renewal of God’s presence with Israel. The forgiveness of Israel’s sins provides the basis for the reestablishment of the kingdom of Israel. Jesus as the wise king reinforces the identity of the community of his kingdom. This community is in line with the Israel of old, but they also have their new king who embodies the law perfectly. The king as the living law continues in exile with Jesus acting as (1) their righteous shepherd and (2) enacting justice (healing them). It is to these themes that we turn.

The Righteous-Shepherd Motif

Jesus is not merely like David in his geographical movement but also in the way he carries out his kingship during his exile. One way he enacts his kingship is by being the Davidic righteous shepherd. In a defining and pivotal text, David’s kingship is linked with the idea of shepherding (2 Sam. 5:2). The context of 2 Sam. 5:2 concerns the transition from Saul to David. All the elders of Israel come to the king at Hebron. David makes a covenant with the people, and they anoint David as king over Israel (2 Sam. 5:3). The Lord defines for David what his kingship is to be. He says, “You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel.”

2 Samuel 5:2 LXX 2 Samuel 5:2 MT
Σὺ ποιμανεῖς τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ισραηλ, καὶ σὺ ἔσει εἰς ἡγούμενον ἐπὶ τὸν Ισραηλ. אַתָּה תִרְעֶה אֶת־עַמִּי אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאַתָּה תִּהְיֶה לְנָגִיד עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃

The word sometimes translated “prince” (ἡγούμενον) can also mean simply leader or ruler. Therefore, at the beginning of David’s rule, his kingship is defined by the metaphor of being a shepherd.

R. Hunziker-Rodewald correctly notes that, from the perspective of the narrative, the function of shepherding is the starting point for conceptions of David’s career and the presentation of his kingship is a “shepherdship” (Hirtenschaft).18 The Bible’s characterization of David’s story can be aptly summarized as a transformation from shepherding his father’s flock to shepherding Yahweh’s flock (2 Sam. 7:8; Ps. 78:70–71). Thus it is little surprise that Matthew, the Jewish scribe who knows his OT so well, picks up this motif and applies it consistently to Jesus. Though it is not sufficient to examine the occurrences of “shepherd” in Matthew, because all of Jesus’s ministry should be viewed under the lens of a shepherd, it is a good place to start. Matthew uses “shepherd” (ποιμήν) three times in his Gospel (9:36; 25:32; 26:31) and the verb ποιμαίνω once (2:6). The shepherd image is also implied in 15:24 and 18:12. The Gospel of Matthew employs the shepherd motif more than either Mark or Luke and explicitly links it to christological phrases like “Son of David” and “Son of Man” and typological themes like the “new Moses” and the “new David.”

As Willitts argues, the “Shepherd-King tradition and the phrase should be investigated within the sphere of a concrete-political Davidic Messianism.”19 As David was the shepherd of Israel, so too Jesus will shepherd his people. I will divide this section into two parts. First, I will step back and examine the relationship between kings/shepherds in the ANE and the Scriptures. Second, I will walk through five Matthean texts in which Jesus’s kingship is developed with the shepherd motif. My argument is that Matthew takes up the tradition of the historical and prophetic books to portray Jesus as the Davidic shepherd in his exile. This is set in contrast to the Jewish leaders, who are characterized as evil/false shepherds both explicitly and implicitly.20

Background to the Shepherd Motif

The shepherd metaphor is widespread in the ANE and Greco-Roman traditions and regularly connected to kingship and leadership. Many different deities of Mesopotamia are referred to as shepherds. The Greco-Roman world also linked a number of gods to the shepherd image: Hermes carries the lamb over his shoulders, and Pan is the god of herds and shepherds. The Iliad employs the image of a goat herder who separates and orders the flock as a hero-king.21 In the later Greco-Roman period, the philosopher (king/ruler) is the one who becomes the shepherd. Xenophon says the duties of a good shepherd and king are alike.22 The shepherd metaphor was evidently widespread in both the ANE and Greco-Roman literature and regularly linked to the gods and kings.

In the Hebrew Scriptures this pattern continues. Two primary traditions inform the shepherd/sheep metaphor. First, Yahweh is described as the shepherd of Israel. Jacob speaks of God as his shepherd (Gen. 48:15) and later uses the imagery again when he prays to the “Mighty One, . . . the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel” (49:24 NIV). The description of Yahweh as shepherd is also found in Ps. 80:1, “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.” The metaphor of Yahweh as shepherd is also extended by David in Ps. 23: “The LORD is my shepherd.” At other times Yahweh is depicted as feeding, gathering, and carrying his flock. In the Moses/exodus tradition, Yahweh leads his people like sheep and guides them through the wilderness like a flock (Ps. 78:52).

Not only is Yahweh portrayed as a shepherd, but also the leaders who guide Israel are considered undershepherds of God’s people. According to Gen. 4:2, “Abel was a keeper of sheep.” Early in Genesis, the patriarchs are described as shepherds. When Pharaoh asks the brothers of Joseph, “What is your occupation?” they say to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, as our ancestors were” (47:3 NRSV). In Num. 27:17 Moses prays that God will provide a shepherd for them. Later the psalmist describes the role of Moses: “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Ps. 77:20). But the most prominent undershepherd in the Hebrew Scriptures is King David.

Since rulers were shepherds in the ANE and the Greco-Roman literature, this stamp on David’s past is natural. The first time a reader meets David is as the shepherd of his father’s flock, when Samuel comes to Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the future king. After Samuel has gone through Jesse’s children, and the Lord has rejected them all, he asks, “Are all your sons here?” And Jesse says, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep” (1 Sam. 16:11). David is first described as a shepherd. This characterization continues when David is appointed to the service of Saul as a musician in 1 Sam. 16. Saul summons David by sending messengers to Jesse with the request: “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep” (16:19). David’s identity as a shepherd also arises a few times in the Goliath narrative (17:15, 34, 40).

This task transforms when David becomes the shepherd of Yahweh’s people. The tribal leaders of Israel join together to make David king over their united kingdom. They say, “In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the LORD said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel’” (2 Sam. 5:1–2). David’s activity as a literal shepherd turns into a figurative, military, and national shepherding of Israel. The point is further emphasized when Nathan the prophet gives a promise to David from Yahweh in 2 Sam. 7:5–17.

Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.” (2 Sam. 7:8–9)

The terms rulership and shepherding again cohere, as they do in 2 Sam. 5:2. The legacy of David as a shepherd continues to abide in the memory of Israel. In Ps. 78, amid a long recital of Israel’s story, this is what is said of David: the Lord “chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance. With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand” (Ps. 78:70–72).

In the LXX, Ps. 151 also resumes the tradition of David as the shepherd of his people. David is described as the shepherd in verse 1, and it emphasizes his humility and faithfulness to his father’s sheep. Whenever the text slows down to give a summary of David’s kingship, it regularly employs the metaphor of a shepherd. According to the Hebrew Scriptures, David is the shepherd-king. In the Prophets, the use of the shepherd/sheep motif continues but is expended mainly in contrast to David and Yahweh (the good shepherds); the prophets castigate those leading the people as false shepherds (see Mic. 5:1–4; Jer. 23:1–6). Ezekiel explores the meaning of the exile, which also includes the hope of a Davidic messiah (Ezek. 34:23–24), and this whole section is notably framed with the most extended use of the shepherd/sheep metaphor.23

Jesus as the Davidic Shepherd in Matthew

With this background in mind, it is no surprise that Matthew employs the shepherd motif to further portray the nature of the Davidic messiah. While in exile, Jesus shepherds his people back to Yahweh by embodying the Torah as the wise king. The shepherd imagery is a fundamental vehicle for Matthean Christology. Five Matthean texts (2:1–6; 9:32–38; 15:21–28; 25:31–46; 26:30–35) employ the shepherd/sheep metaphor relative to Jesus’s ministry. The first text is found in Matthew’s introduction (2:6), while the last one is found in the conclusion (26:31); the theme stretches across the entire narrative. Though these two texts do not describe this ministry during Jesus’s exile, they set up and conclude how we are to view Jesus’s actions during his deportation.24 The distinctive themes found in the introduction and conclusion are developed and expanded upon through the rest of Matthew’s narrative.

For the sake of space, I will limit this discussion to the explicit references to Jesus as a shepherd, but readers should note that the theme encompasses the Gospel just as the fulfillment quotations bracket large sections of the narrative.25 The explicit occurrences simply give readers categories for them to interpret the rest of the story.

The Development of the Davidic Shepherd Motif in Matthew

Matthew Motif
2:6 The royal shepherd
9:36 The ministering shepherd
15:24 The merciful shepherd
25:31–46 The shepherd-judge
26:31 The sacrificial shepherd

THE ROYAL SHEPHERD IN MATTHEW 2:6

The first explicit shepherd reference occurs in Matt. 2:6 and sets up how readers are to engage with the rest of the narrative. It comes in the birth and infancy narrative of chapters 1 and 2. In this larger context Matthew has the chief priests and the scribes answering Herod’s question about where the Christ is to be born but also curiously includes what type of messiah he will be (a shepherd). Herod asks where. Matthew gives an answer that includes both where and what kind. Matthew usually breaks his narrative flow to let his reader know that what just took place fulfills some prophecy. However, this is different. Matthew artfully places the fulfillment quote in the mouths of the actors in his narrative. Even more surprisingly, he puts the fulfillment quote on the lips of those opposed to Jesus. The chief priests and the scribes of the people read the Scriptures and even correctly know “where” the messiah is to be born, but they cannot see the deeper meaning relating to what kind of king. They have an understanding of the literal sense of the text but not the sensus plenior.

They can point to where the Davidic messiah is to be born, but they can’t recognize the messiah. In fact, as the narrative develops, this group will bring the messiah to his death (16:21; 20:18; 26:57; 27:41). The text the chief priests and scribes quote is a double citation, combining Mic. 5:2 (5:1 LXX) and 2 Sam. 5:2. Why does Matthew include the shepherd motif here? At the narrative level, it seems that Matthew desires to further define what type of king Jesus is going to be. He is not only born in the city of David, but he will also be a shepherd and ruler like David.26 The motif defines, characterizes, and typifies the type of kingship. This is in direct contrast to the current “ruler” (King Herod) they lived under. The combined metaphor of a ruler who shepherds his people would summon messianic and eschatological expectations. As W. D. Davies and Dale Allison note, “To a first-century Jew, a reference to a ruler coming forth to ‘shepherd my people Israel’ would have conjured up the eschatological expectation of the ingathering of the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Ezek. 34:4–16; Mic. 5:1–9; Pss. Sol. 17; 4 Ezra 13.34–50; 2 Bar. 77–86), an expectation apparently shared by Matthew (19:28).”27 The kingdom Solomon’s sons split, this wise shepherd will unite.

THE MINISTERING SHEPHERD IN MATTHEW 9:36

Matthew 9:36 is the second text that mentions the shepherd motif. The text reads as follows: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Matt. 9:36–38, emphasis added). The verses occur at a transition point, and scholars debate whether they more naturally relate to the previous two chapters (8–9) on the deeds of Jesus or whether they fit better with what follows, the sending out of the twelve disciples in chapter 10. In other words, is 9:36–38 primarily a conclusion to the healing narrative or an introduction to the Mission Discourse? The best solution is that the verses are transitional, both looking back to what precedes and forward to what follows. As Davies and Allison argue, “9:35–10:4 is a door that closes off one room and opens another. Structurally the pericope belongs equally to what comes before and to what comes after (as one door belongs to two rooms).”28 While this might seem like a pedantic debate, it helps readers understand the role of the shepherd motif in Matthew.

If this section is like a door, it helps us understand the shepherd motif in two ways. First, it points back to Jesus’s ministry of healing and teaching in chapters 5–9. Chapters 5–9 can be described as the shepherd-king watching his flock.29 Second, it points forward and claims that in the sending out of the disciples, Jesus is still being the shepherd. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (9:37). In many ways, this text covers everything in Matthew from chapter 5 through chapter 10 and probably up through chapter 13. The exiled king is thus reaffirmed as the ministering shepherd.

This expansive reading of shepherd also puts a little more flesh on the bones of what it means for Jesus to be the Davidic shepherd. He heals and teaches the people as the shepherd. His activity indicates both how Jesus will save them from their sins (1:21) and how he will be Immanuel to them (1:23).30 But not only that. He also authorizes his disciples to be Davidic shepherds in power. As the shepherd, he trains and empowers under-shepherds. As Willitts notes, connecting this to the sending out of the Twelve points to restoration themes.31 This text points to the need of the nation and implicitly contrasts Jesus with the current shepherds, who are not doing their job.

In Num. 27 Moses passes the leadership baton so that a new generation can take the mantle. Moses asks Yahweh to appoint a man over the congregation “who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that have no shepherd” (Num. 27:17, emphasis added; see also 1 Kings 22:17; 2 Chron. 18:16). This text is likely in the background for Matthew not only because of the linguistic parallels but also because a new phase is about to be introduced into Jesus’s ministry, as in Moses’s; the disciples are now to share in the management of the kingdom mission. Moses is concerned that the people will be left leaderless, and Jesus views the situation of the crowd with their current leaders and concludes that they are leaderless. The vacuum needs to be filled by the righteous Davidic shepherd and his followers.

THE MERCIFUL SHEPHERD IN MATTHEW 15:24

The third text employing the term “shepherd” is Matt. 15:24. Jesus withdraws to the district of Tyre and Sidon, where a Canaanite woman comes out, crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon” (15:22). Jesus pretty much ignores her and says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24). She pleads with him again, and Jesus recognizes her faith and heals her daughter (15:28).

Three interesting details occur in this text. First, Jesus describes himself as a shepherd of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” but it comes in a context where someone calls him the “Son of David.” Matthew develops the theme of Jesus as the righteous Davidic shepherd by linking the woman’s statement about Jesus being the son of David and Jesus’s role as shepherd to Israel and all the nations.32 Second, the shepherd son of David claims that his mission is to the “lost sheep of the house Israel” (τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ). Willitts argues that this phrase refers to the northern tribes of Israel.33 Already Jesus had sent his disciples to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6) and told them to go nowhere among the gentiles or Samaritans. The implication is that when Matthew has Jesus describe both his mission and the disciples, it centers on the reunification of the north and south. This son of David restores and mends the split kingdom by his staff.34

Third, Matthew indicates that while Jesus has a priority in his shepherding ministry, it is not exclusive. When the Canaanite woman appeals for mercy, Jesus initially is reluctant, which heightens the tension of the story, but then the son of David shows himself to be the merciful shepherd who has compassion even on gentiles. The shepherd who was sent to the lost sheep of Israel also has compassion on the gentiles who have faith. Although the mission of the son of David is first to the house of Israel, he is also merciful to those who display great faith in Israel’s king. Jesus’s activity in his exile is not only to restore the unity of Israel; he also welcomes all who are loyal to his kingship. The compassion of the shepherd will eventually lead to trouble.

THE SHEPHERD-JUDGE IN MATTHEW 25:31–46

The fourth text develops the Matthean motif of Jesus as the shepherd judge (Matt. 25:31–46). The section functions as a conclusion to the eschatological discourse of 24:1–25:46. In the larger context of Matthew, it concludes the formal teaching of Jesus that Matthew has gathered into five large blocks throughout his Gospel. The scene is one of judgment: the Son of Man sits on his throne, gathers all the nations before him, and separates the people into two groups. He places the “sheep” on his right and the “goats” on his left, just as David protected Israel and destroyed its enemies.

The focus of the text is on separation by the king, which is how the passage both begins and ends. In the middle, Matthew details why people have been divided into their respective groups. He combines three metaphors/titles here. Jesus is the Son of Man, the shepherd, and the king. The Son of Man is enthroned to exercise judgment, and he is seated on this glorious throne (25:31) and described as “the king” (25:34), but the king is also the shepherd who both gathers his people and separates/judges those who are against him. The metaphors inform each other. The shepherd is the judge, and the Son of Man is the shepherd.

The background to this text may come from Ezekiel’s extended meditation on good and evil shepherds in Ezek. 34. The chapter starts with the word of the Lord coming to Ezekiel and telling him to prophesy against the shepherds of Israel because the shepherds have been feeding themselves (34:2). They have not helped the weak, and so the sheep are scattered because they have no shepherd. The Lord pronounces judgment against the shepherds and says he is against them (34:10). Yahweh will rectify the situation by himself searching for his sheep and seeking them out (34:11). He will rescue them from the places in which they have been scattered and gather them together again. “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD” (34:15). Then in verses 17–19 he turns to his flock and speaks words from which Matthew may be drawing.

As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet? (Ezek. 34:17–19, emphasis added)

The sound of the text is appropriately similar because Jesus is the shepherd who now judges between sheep and goats. However, now the sheep are not limited to the people of Israel but include all the righteous and wise.35 The text begins by castigating the current shepherds (the leaders of Israel), and then Yahweh pronounces that he will be the shepherd to regather them and feed them. Jesus has come as Yahweh’s representative to feed his people (Matt. 2:6), to send out others to teach them and guide them (9:36), and to welcome those not of Israel (15:24–28). But if they reject him, he comes with wrath. He is not only the merciful and ministering shepherd but the shepherd-judge.

THE SACRIFICIAL SHEPHERD IN MATTHEW 26:31

The final shepherd text, Matt. 26:31, is a marked quotation from Zech. 13:7.36 Contextually, it sits within the passion narrative begun in Matt. 26 and colors the rest of the narrative in shepherd imagery. The opening verses of the chapter set the stage for the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Jewish leaders, thus becoming an implicit critique of their leadership. The leitmotif of Jerusalem leaders being false shepherds, which starts in chapter 2 with King Herod, comes to a climax here with the sacrificial shepherd enduring all for the sake of his sheep. This last reference to the shepherd is fitting, for the wise shepherd will ultimately gather his sheep through sacrifice (Isa. 53). The text appears as Jesus and the disciples go to the Mount of Olives and wait for Judas to betray Jesus. As they come to the Mount of Olives, Jesus reveals his foreknowledge of the situation. “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’”

The text functions on several levels. First, it reveals the shepherd protects by his own sacrifice. He guards his flock by giving himself over to the predators.37 Second, the passage speaks not only of the sacrifice of the shepherd but also of the departure of the sheep. They abandon him when he is struck. At the end of the section, Jesus says, “All this has taken place so that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” At that critical point “all the disciples left him and fled” (Matt. 26:56). Third, as Carson notes, the fulfillment quotation shows “that the disciples’ rejection, though tragic and irresponsible, does not fall outside of God’s sovereign plan.”38 Although the faithful shepherd is rejected, this is the path laid out for the Davidic messiah. Fourth, on the eschatological horizon, Willitts is right to hold that this quote points toward the restoration of Israel. “Zechariah 13:7 is taken from a discrete passage whose limits are 13:7–9. The unit has a poetic design that sets it apart from the previous section and consists of three statements. The first concerns the death of the Shepherd-King (13:7a), the second the scattering of the flock (13:7b) and the third: purification and restoration of the remnant of insignificant ones who remained in the Land (13:7c–9).”39 Through the sacrifice of the shepherd, Jesus reunites the kingdom. Though he is betrayed and left alone, he still purifies, atones for, and redeems his people.

In this story, Judas and the chief priests and scribes act as a foil to the righteous sacrificial shepherd. In Matt. 27 Judas admits that he has betrayed innocent blood, but the chief priests and the elders don’t care because they have captured the shepherd who was disturbing their flock. This story reminds readers of Jonathan, who defends David to Saul and asks his father. “Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause?” (1 Sam. 19:5); but Saul continues to pursue David, to end his life. So too Judas throws the pieces of silver down in the temple, and the chief priests take the money and do not put it in the treasury but buy a field with the money (Matt. 27:6–8).

The text aligns Judas with the elders of the people as worthless shepherds. The quote from Zech. 13:7 provides scriptural warrant for Jesus’s announcement that he is both coming to his death and that his disciples will abandon him. In Zechariah, the shepherd whose sheep are scattered “is one of the Judaic kings in the line of David whose rule comes to a violent end in the sixth century BC.”40 But interpreters should also connect Zech. 12:10 to chapter 13. The shepherd who is struck down is also the one “they have pierced.”

This sacrificial and struck shepherd is the messianic Davidic king who stays true to his mission while his followers all fall away. His enemies betray innocent blood, and the disciples fall away because of fear: only one shepherd turns the other cheek when he is struck and gathers his sheep. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is the only true shepherd left standing. All other people have paid to get rid of him or flee when he is arrested. The shepherd must go to Jerusalem, where he will suffer. The text from Zechariah clarifies that this is the wise righteous shepherd who will be left alone to face the wolves of Jerusalem. David sometimes protected himself, and at other times put his life on the line for his sheep. Jesus is both like and unlike David.

The Davidic Healer

This chapter has argued that Jesus is the “living law,” the wise king who embodies the Torah during his exile, as Deuteronomy instructs the later monarchy to do. One of the ways in which the king embodies the law is by being the righteous shepherd. The second way he lives the law is by performing justice and mercy through healing. While this theme only furthers the Davidic shepherding motif, it can also be looked at separately for the sake of clarity. While Mark is more interested in presenting Jesus as an exorcist, Matthew centers on Jesus’s healing ministry, while not excluding exorcisms. As Paffenroth notes, “there are nearly three times as many occurrences of the verbs θεραπεύω [to serve, take care of, heal] and ἰάομαι [to heal] in Matthew than in Mark.”41 Additionally, Matthew summarizes Jesus’s ministry as one of “teaching” and “healing” (4:23; 9:35).

Matthew also stands apart from the other Gospels in that he links Jesus’s healing activity to the title “Son of David.” Quite a few texts exist in Matthew that tie the Davidic Son to the healing ministry of Jesus. Nine times Matthew refers to Jesus as the “son of David,” as against the three Markan times and four Lukan times.42 Five of the Matthean occurrences associate Jesus and his Davidic ancestry with healings. However, David was not explicitly known as a healer, which leaves interpreters with a question. Why would Matthew connect David with healing? Three reasons arise, two in continuity with the Davidic line, and one in discontinuity.43

First, it could be that this puts readers’ eyes on the son of David: Solomon. Solomon, the patron of wisdom (1 Kings 4:29–34) and the last great king of a united kingdom, was known as a powerful exorcist and magician.44 In the Testament of Solomon, David’s son is consistently presented as one who subdued demons. This act is regularly connected to Solomon’s wisdom (T. Sol. 3.5; 4.11; 22.1, 3). But as already noted, Matthew emphasizes healing, not exorcisms. However, it is also true that Matthew lumps exorcisms under the banner of healings in Matt. 4:23–24 when he summarizes Jesus’s ministry as “proclaiming” and “healing” in verse 23. Verse 24 expands on the healing ministry of Jesus and includes “those oppressed by demons.” When John the Baptist asks who Jesus is, Jesus claims that he is the one who fulfills Isa. 35:5–6, who heals the blind, deaf, lame, and mute (Matt. 11:2–6). In Isaiah this healer is a Davidic king. Already we have seen how the suffering servant is tied to a Davidic king. Matthew 8:16–17 makes explicit the connection between Jesus’s healing ministry and his suffering.45 In addition, the verses from Isa. 35 exist in a larger section of Isaiah where Yahweh promises Israel that he will turn their desert (exile) into a garden (kingdom). He will bring them back to Zion on a highway, and they shall come in singing (Isa. 35:8–10). Already Isaiah has said this will be accomplished by the Davidic branch who will have the spirit of wisdom on him (Isa. 11:1–2). Therefore, Matthew could stress the healing ministry of Jesus to show that he is the new son of David (Solomon) who has come to unite the kingdom and bring them back from exile.

Second, Wayne Baxter and Young Chae have argued that Matthew’s leading warrant for the use of David as a healer stems from Ezek. 34 (a further connection between shepherding and healing).46 In Ezek. 34 the son of man (Ezekiel) prophesies against the shepherds of Israel because they have not fed the sheep (Ezek. 34:2) and have neglected the flock: “The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them” (34:4).

Overlaying this verse onto Jesus’s ministry in Matthew seems to fit as a puzzle piece. The religious leaders of Jesus’s day are also guilty of neglecting the sick and marginalized (Matt. 9:10–13), failing to exercise compassion (12:7, 10), and exploiting the flock (23:4, 14). Ezekiel says that the people are “scattered because there was no shepherd” (34:5), and in Matt. 9:36 Jesus observes that the people are “like sheep without a shepherd.” Later in Ezek. 34 Yahweh promises that he himself will search for his sheep and seek them out (34:11). This promise is specified as the narrative continues when he says, “I will set over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. . . . My servant David shall be prince among them” (34:23–24).

Third, a point of discontinuity also appears in relation to David as a healer. Paffenroth suggests that Jesus is contrasted and not compared with his father David in the healing episodes.47 Jesus is acclaimed the son of David both when he enters Jerusalem and when he heals the lame and the blind in the temple (21:9, 14–15). In contrast, when David conquers Jerusalem he shuns the lame and the blind. The relevant text is as follows:

Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.” (2 Sam. 5:7–8, emphasis added)

David therefore excluded the lame and the blind from his house, while Jesus welcomes the lame and the blind.48 Jesus also calls the scribes and Pharisees blind (15:14; 23:16–19) and excludes them from the temple people. As Hays says, “the textual echoes [to 2 Sam. 5:7–8] both establish the link and, at the same time, hint at Jesus’s peaceful reshaping of Israel’s messianic hope.”49 Jesus is the greater Davidic healer of whom Ezekiel prophesied. While David showed himself fit to deliver God’s people by demonstrating his power over Goliath, Jesus shows himself fit to deliver God’s people by demonstrating his power over sickness, the demonic realm, and ceremonial impurity. David shunned those with needs; Jesus welcomes them. The wise king creates order out of chaos, peace in the midst of combat. Now it is time to examine some of the specific Davidic healing texts to further the argument that Jesus acts as the ideal and wise king while in exile.

Blind Men and a Canaanite Woman See

The first text that pairs the healing ministry of Jesus with the title “Son of David” comes near the conclusion of Matthew’s first block of Jesus’s deeds (9:27–31). Two blind men follow Jesus and cry out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David” (9:27, emphasis added). Jesus asks them if they believe he is able to heal them, and they say that they do (9:28). Therefore Jesus touches their eyes and says, “According to your faith be it done to you” (9:30). Then he warns them not to tell anyone about this, but they go “and spread his fame through all that district” (9:31). As noted in the previous section, Matthew frames both the Sermon on the Mount and the healing chapters 8–9 under the banner of the kingdom. Jesus is acting as the king, enacting justice for those whom he meets on his travel ministry.

Most commentators see the miracles in Matt. 8–9 as occurring in three groups of three. In the third group, Jesus heals a ruler’s daughter and a woman with a blood discharge (viewed as one story), two blind men, and a demon-possessed man. All of them are social outcasts. The ruler is in some position of power, colluding with the enemy; the woman with the discharge of blood is unclean; the blind men are deemed of little use to society; and the demon-possessed man is a sinner and shunned. Jesus has mercy on all of them. Yet in this block of miracles, only the two blind men explicitly recognize Jesus’s royal Davidic status.

Two blind men in 20:29–34 also acknowledge Jesus’s kingship. Jesus goes out of Jericho, and two blind men cry out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” (emphasis added). The crowds rebuke them, but the men keep calling out to Jesus. Jesus takes pity on them and opens their eyes. In both stories Matthew has the blind men acclaiming Jesus’s Davidic status. Despite their condition, they recognize and identify Jesus with this specific reference. By placing this phrase on the mouths of blind men, Matthew indicates it takes a certain kind of sight to see who Jesus is; not like the sight of the chief priest and scribes. It is not physical sight but spiritual sight.50 They can see past the miracles and recognize that since Jesus is portraying the new David, he is fit to be their king. As David defeated the forces of darkness for Israel, so too Jesus now defeats the powers of darkness that also indwell the people of Israel.

“Outsiders” also recognize Jesus’s authority, as in 15:21–28, when a Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and cries out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon” (Matt. 15:22, emphasis added). Jesus initially turns a cold shoulder to her, saying that he “was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24). But she keeps pleading, and Jesus recognizes her great faith and heals her daughter (15:28). Like the blind men, she has insight into the nature of Jesus. Matthew communicates that while in exile in Galilee, this “son of David” is revealing himself to those who normally would be considered “outside” the kingdom.

These texts are scattered throughout Jesus’s exile, and therefore taken together they confirm that the Davidic king redefines the kingdom during his deportation. The kingdom of Israel is for the meek, the blind, the rejected. But Jesus also tells each one he heals that they are not to spread his fame around the region because if they do, people will misconstrue what type of messiah figure he is. The blind men can see, but his fame should not be extolled because Israel would misunderstand Jesus’s mission. Blind men and the Canaanite woman are given special intuition that Jesus is a messiah figure in the form of David. If the Jewish leaders hear that this is a Davidic figure, they will become jealous and have certain expectations for this new leader. The time for the inglorious enthronement of Jesus is not yet. That will have to wait until he comes to Jerusalem.51

The Children Cry “Hosanna”

In Matt. 21:14–15 the blind and the lame come to Jesus in the temple, and he heals them. While the chief priests and scribes are jealous, the children in the temple cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (emphasis added). “Hosanna” occurs in Ps. 118:25 and is translated as “help” or “save.” The term is also used as a shout of praise in Jeremiah 31:7, and although most might conclude that the children are using it in this latter sense, a case could be made that they are observing his action in the temple and requesting Jesus to save/help them from their current oppressors.52 In fact, Ps. 118 serves as a liturgy for the Feast of Tabernacles, and verse 26 says, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.” This image is particularly suited for the Davidic king leading in procession to Yahweh’s house. Thus the children may be employing it as a shout of praise and as a request. These two uses of language do not have to be at odds.

The chief priests and scribes are indignant at the children and their employment of language. Clearly, the children’s speech is evocative. The juxtaposition between the two groups is evident. “Hosanna,” the term the children address to Jesus, annoys the Jewish leaders. The Jewish nation rejects Jesus as their king, and the children have the eyes to see Jesus as David’s heir. Jesus replies to the chief priests and scribes by affirming what the children have attributed to him. He quotes from Ps. 8:2, saying, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” Readers should be thinking back to the Sermon, where Jesus proclaims, “Blessed are the meek” (Matt. 5:5). Psalm 8 is a hymn of praise to God, who created the universe. Despite their lack of knowledge, even infants praise God; therefore how much more should those who understand the things of God? Jesus picks up this text and uses it in the same way. Even the children can see that Jesus is the son of David; how much more should the chief priests and scribes be praising Jesus as the messiah? As God’s acts in creation elicit praise, so should the acts of Jesus in healing people in the temple. As God is the creator of all, Jesus is the royal son of David who through healing re-creates all things. The blind and the lame are made well, and only the children recognize that this is David’s heir. During his deportation, the king redefines the kingdom.

As David returned from battle with the Philistines and was met with tambourines, songs of joy, and musical instruments (1 Sam. 18:6), so too Jesus enters his city with the songs of praise on the lips of the people. Yet Saul was jealous that the people were praising David: “Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, ‘They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?’ And Saul eyed David from that day on” (1 Sam. 18:8–9). The chief priests and the scribes respond in a similar way to what the children shout. “But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ they were indignant” (Matt. 21:15).

In the flow of Matthew’s narrative, what comes to the surface here is the heightened opposition to the son of David. While in chapter 2 Jerusalem is only troubled at the birth of this king, now in chapter 21 the chief priests and the scribes are indignant. This is similar to the life of David. After David defeated Goliath, opposition grew toward David in 1 Sam. 18–20. The chief priests and the scribes know their Scriptures and think that the children should not be applying messianic language to this man from Nazareth. But Jesus knows the Scriptures better, and so does Matthew. Matthew flips this scenario on its head and has Jesus quoting another psalm, where the children ascribe praise to their messianic redeemer. The scribes think they know the Scriptures and the nature of the one who is coming. Through his narrative Matthew teaches them that they “know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). He is the scribe, teaching them to mine their Scriptures and see that Jesus fulfills all their hopes.

Summary of the Davidic Healer

Though David is not formally known as a healer in his life, there were prophetic hopes expressed by both Isaiah and Ezekiel that a Davidic king would come and heal the nation. This is exactly what this new son of David does while exiled to Galilee. Matthew indicates this by having key people cry out to the “Son of David.” They see the relationship between this Jesus and David, even if it is muddy to the current regime. Generally, kingship is evaluated based on the prosperity of its citizens. Evil kings are condemned because their people suffer, and good kings are celebrated because they lead the people into wholeness and security in their land. As David demonstrates compassion to Mephibosheth (2 Sam. 9:6–7), so too Jesus shows kindness to all his covenant people. Now his covenant people are redefined as those who have a new heart. Like Mephibosheth, they will always eat at the king’s table. But unlike David, Jesus will also welcome all the lame and blind to his new city (2 Sam. 5:7–8). He is like David but also better than David. Matthew is persuaded that Jesus is both like and unlike David, and he reveals this not in the mouths of the religious leaders but in those who would most naturally be outside the kingdom. This is because Matthew exposes what the Davidic king is to do and what sort of kingdom this is to be. His actions do not contradict what kings are to perform, but Jesus performs these actions for those whom the religious leaders are neglecting.

Matthew brings the new out of the old. If the religious leaders go back to the prophets and learn not only where this figure is to be born but also what he is to accomplish, then they will see that the Davidic Son will lead the nation not merely in military victory but in personal and communal healing. Jesus expands the kingdom for those outside of Israel. He turns their world upside down, but this does not contradict what the Scriptures say. Rather, it fulfills what the prophets whisper. The righteous branch who is full of wisdom and knowledge rises up; the question for Israel is whether they will recognize this branch or reject it out of fear and jealousy. Matthew uses his scribal techniques on the other side of Jesus’s resurrection to show his readers that they need to look harder at their OT texts and also take a hard look at their own hearts. The kingdom is not for those in power but for the humble, the meek, the thirsty.

The Ideal and Wise King

My argument has been that Jesus embodies the law during his exile as the wise king, thus uniting and saving the nation. He fulfills the law not only by being the one to whom the law points but by living it. He internalizes the law, giving the people a true picture of a Torah follower. Jesus therefore comes not only as a teacher but as one who exemplifies his own instruction. Both Hellenistic and OT discourses presented ideal kings as those who epitomized the law. This internalizing of the law would make both the king and the nation wise (Deut. 4:6). The true and wise king lived the Torah (Deut. 17:19; Ps. 1:2).

This “living of the law” can be seen in his healing and shepherding motifs. As David was known as the shepherd of Israel, so too Jesus holds forth both his staff and a rod. He welcomes, gathers, and draws his sheep to his side, but he also castigates those who will not listen to him. He is the royal shepherd who leads his nation to flourishing rather than attacking them like King Herod (Matt. 2:6); he is the shepherd who teaches and heals, instructing Israel on the law of Christ, and also gives his disciples authority to go out and perform the same tasks (9:36); he is the merciful shepherd, whose mission is first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (northern Israel) but also the one who will welcome gentiles (15:24); he is the shepherd-judge, who separates the sheep from the goats; finally he is the sacrificial and struck shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, even as they all turn their backs on him (26:31).

Jesus is also the Davidic healer whom both Isaiah and Ezekiel prophesied would come. The son of David describes his own ministry in the following words: “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Matt. 11:5–6). Blind men, a Canaanite woman, and children cry out to this son of David. They have true spiritual sight, while the leaders of Israel stumble over the stumbling stone. Jesus’s healing ministry is also put in the vortex of the suffering servant, for as Jesus heals, Matthew claims it fulfills Isa. 53:4: “He took our illness and bore our diseases.” Jesus’s sacrificial ministry extends beyond the cross, even while culminating on the cross.

This shepherding, healing, and sacrificial ministry of Jesus departs from the labels given to the chief priests and the scribes, who “clothe [them]selves with wool, . . . slaughter the fat ones, but . . . do not feed the sheep” (Ezek. 34:3). They do not strengthen the sick or bind up the injured, but they rule with force and harshness. They even pay to get rid of those who would oppose them. The imagery in Ezek. 34 is similar to Matt. 9:36, where the people are described as “harassed and helpless.” The fact that the people in Matthew are described as “harassed and helpless” implies that this condition has been inflicted upon them by a lack of leadership. Jesus must lead and create a new scribal school. Ezekiel castigates the shepherds for their harshness but also tells of a time when God will gather his people through a Davidic messiah who will embody the law by being their shepherd and healer.

Conclusion

While some deny or at least question that the Gospel writers portray Jesus as the Davidic messiah, I find this conclusion quite unconvincing. David’s life is woven into the garments of Jesus’s life. Matthew does this not just through fulfillment quotations but also through plot, characterization, geographical movement, cities, and even numbers. The previous chapter looked at the journey of the Davidic king, while this chapter examined his actions while in Galilee. David’s life looms large for Matthew. Although the Davidic allusions are diverse, they can all be gathered under the banner of the messianic Davidic king who unites the kingdom, brings the people back from exile, establishes the temple, installs the new covenant, and instructs his people in wisdom. The king is to embody the Torah, heal the nation, rebuild the temple, shepherd the flock, and be enthroned in the city of Jerusalem. “The desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom” (Wis. 6:20).53 Matthew grasps each of these themes and fastens them to the life of Jesus. He tells a shadow story.

But Matthew, as the wise scribe, also subverts these themes in Jesus’s life. Rather than rebuilding the temple, he pronounces its destruction. Rather than affirming the Jewish leader’s interpretation of the law, he clarifies that they are neglecting justice and mercy. Rather than entering the city as a warrior, he arrives humbly. Rather than being enthroned and worshiped, he is mocked and crucified. In one way, these things are old; in another they are new. Brandon Crowe rightly says that fulfillment reverses “the sinful trajectories of Israel’s history by the obedience of the messianic king, which was necessary for the eschatological blessings to accrue to the messianic community.”54 Fulfillment does not mean absolute continuity but also includes reversal. Just as an acorn stands in continuity and discontinuity with an oak tree, so too Jesus is the new and old fulfillment of David. Jesus is the apocalyptic Davidic messiah who is both the new king and the king of old.

In 2 Sam. 7 David is given a promise that one of his children will sit on the throne forever. Jesus is that heir who will sit on the throne forever. He acts like David in his life, and he dies as a type of David. The journey to his throne runs through the cross because he needs to die for his people. The king is to save his people from their enemies, and their enemies are both the spiritual forces waging war against them and the darkness arising from within their own hearts. The Jewish leaders are a symbol of this rejection for Matthew. Through David’s life we understand Jesus’s life, and through Jesus’s life we see David’s life fulfilled. Matthew is telling his readers to look harder and more closely at Jesus. There is a way to read Jesus’s life and miss many of the echoes reverberating back into Israel’s past. Matthew’s narrative embosses some of these allusions with clarity, but he also is sometimes subtle in his approach. He does this because he shows his cards at the beginning and expects readers to perk up as he moves along.

Matthew’s method reminds me of the scene in the movie The Lion King when Rafiki tracks down Simba.55 Simba tells Rafiki to go away because he doesn’t even know who he is. But Rafiki replies, “I sure do, you’re Mufasa’s boy.” Simba replies, “Well, my father is dead.” But Rafiki says, “No, he is alive!” He takes him on this wild reckless chase through the woods, brings him to a small pond, and instructs Simba to look into the water. Simba slowly does and says, “That’s not my father; that’s just my reflection.” Rafiki says, “Look harder. . . . You see, he lives in you.”

In a similar way, Matthew takes his readers on a journey through Jesus’s life, yet all the while we are looking at this figure who looks like David. He tells the Jews to “look harder.” See Jesus’s life. They too have forgotten who he is, who his father is. Matthew tells his readers, “This is David’s boy!” They have forgotten who David was, and they need to return to the Scriptures. They need to remember who David was, that this Jesus is David’s son, the one true wise king. David lives through Jesus. Like Simba, they need to “see,” and so Matthew has us peer into the pool so that we all can see the reflection with a crown on his head. He does not provide a simple, unadorned historical portrait of Jesus. No, he interprets each detail of Jesus’s life and looks to the past to show his readers that Jesus is the Davidic messiah.

  

1. By chief metaphor, I am not arguing that Matthew sidesteps Moses, for Moses is also compared to Israel’s kings (see Deut. 18). However, Matthew begins by relating Jesus to Abraham and David, not to Moses.

2. Support for labeling Jesus’s ministry in Galilee as an “exile” comes from Matt. 2. Jesus is born in the city of Bethlehem but must leave because of the rival king. He flees to Egypt (2:13–15). Then after Herod dies, Joseph brings his family back up to Judea but passes through and on up to Nazareth because of Archelaus (Matt. 2:22). Between these two movements, Matthew inserts a fulfillment quotation from Jer. 31:15, which speaks of Rachel weeping for her children at Ramah. Ramah is the place from which the people were taken into exile (Jer. 40:1). Matthew thus indicates that Jesus’s not being able to return to his birthplace is a type of exile, but he also points to the hope of a return from exile. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 115.

3. I will step outside this so-called exile to note some framing passages that instruct readers on how to view his exile.

4. Samuel also fears the wrath of the king when he is told to anoint a son of Jesse (see 1 Sam. 16:1–2). Samuel has the children of Jesse parade before him, but David is brought to him and described as a man who knows psalms (εἰδότα ψαλμόν, usually translated as “skillful in playing”), a man of intelligence, a man of war, a wise and good man, and “the LORD is with him” (1 Sam. 16:18). David is described as being with the sheep and watching them.

5. Sirach says, “Wisdom becomes known through speech, and education through the words of the tongue” (Sir. 4:24).

6. Jipp, Christ Is King, 45. What follows applies to Jipp’s observations on messiah in Paul and to Matthew’s presentation of Jesus.

7. Nolland (Gospel of Matthew, 218) dismisses the idea that “fulfill” means Jesus lives out the requirements of the law.

8. Morris, Gospel according to Matthew, 108.

9. Jipp, Christ Is King, 45.

10. Thesleff, Pythagorean Texts, 33.8–13; Goodenough, “Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 59–60. See Jipp, Christ Is King, 49.

11. Plutarch, Moralia 780B.

12. The word “fear” and the phrase “fear of the Lord” are employed consistently in the wisdom tradition: Pss. 2:11; 5:7; 9:20; 15:4; 19:9; 22:23, 25; 25:14; 31:19; 33:8, 18; 34:7, 9, 11; 36:1; 40:3; 55:19; 60:4; 61:5; 66:16; 67:7; 72:5; 85:9; 86:11; 90:11; 102:15; 103:11, 13, 17; 111:5, 10; 115:11, 13; 118:4, 6; 119:63, 74, 79, 120; 135:20; 145:19; 147:11; Prov. 1:7, 29; 2:5; 3:7; 8:13; 9:10; 10:27; 14:26–27; 15:16, 33; 16:6; 19:23; 22:4; 23:17; 24:21; Eccles. 3:14; 5:7.

13. Philo, Spec. Laws 4.160–64, quote from 164.

14. See the lists in the following two books, from which my list is borrowed: Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:715–16; Hood, Imitating God in Christ, 77–79.

15. Jipp, Christ Is King, 216.

16. Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 219.

17. If that is all people mean by saying that Jesus transcends the law, then I agree, but I fear that most are not careful with their language and are asserting something different. Some seem to imply that Jesus transcends the law in that he contradicts the law and gives a new law that negates the Torah in certain ways.

18. Hunziker-Rodewald, Hirt und Herde, 46. See Willitts, Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King, 53.

19. Willitts, Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King, 3–4.

20. This thesis is similar to Hedrick’s work. See Hedrick, “Jesus as Shepherd,” 7. The following section is in large part dependent on his work, since to my knowledge it is the most comprehensive treatment of this theme.

21. Homer, Iliad 2.474–77.

22. Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1–4.

23. Zechariah 9–12 also contains many shepherd/sheep motifs where the good shepherd is contrasted to the existing shepherds who exploit the people.

24. In some ways, we should not divide the actions of Jesus during his ministry in Jerusalem and his ministry in Galilee. In other ways, it enlightens and clarifies what sort of king this Jesus is going to be.

25. Luz (Matthew, 1:162) even says, “The formula quotations are notably frequent in the prologue, because here the evangelist introduces those viewpoints and accents which are important for the whole Gospel and which the reader must keep in mind while perusing the entire Gospel. The formula quotations which are scattered in the rest of the Gospel are then reminders.”

26. Heil, “Ezekiel 34,” 699–700.

27. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:243.

28. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:143. Matthew 9:35 closes off the narrative of chaps. 8–9, and the reader is introduced to the second block of instruction, the Mission Discourse in chap. 10. So together, 9:35–38 and 10:1–4 function as a hinge between the passages, introducing readers to the second major discourse.

29. Hence, this is another argument for the Sermon on the Mount to be viewed under the banner of kingship.

30. Heil, “Ezekiel 34,” 701.

31. Willitts, Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King, 119.

32. Identifying Jesus as the “Son of David” in this text opens up the possibility that Matthew could also be alluding to Ezek. 34:23–24, which prophesies that the Lord will set up over them one shepherd, “my servant David.” Ezekiel is also famous for the new-covenant passages that say Yahweh will pour out his Spirit on all people. No matter what interpreters decide to do with the allusion, the lost sheep of Israel implies the existence of a leadership crisis. With this shepherd metaphor, Jesus redefines his leadership style and defines his Davidic kingship.

33. Several texts form the background to Jesus’s reference to the “lost sheep of . . . Israel” (Num. 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17; 2 Chron. 18:16; Ps. 119:176; Isa. 53:6; Jer. 50:6; Ezek. 24:23–25; 34:5; Zech. 13:7). Jeremiah 50:6 alludes to the theme of people as “lost sheep,” and in the context it is the shepherds who have led the people astray and caused them to be lost. Willitts (Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King, 219) argues that “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” refers to the northern tribes of Israel and that the Davidic messiah is going to them. He distinguishes going to them from gathering them (8:11–12; 24:30–31). This would be taking the genitive phrase “of the house of Israel” as a partitive genitive (the lost sheep are a subset of Israel), whereas taking it as an epexegetical genitive would indicate that the “lost sheep” refers to the whole nation.

34. Hays (Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 128–29) notes that the language of “lost sheep” echoes Jer. 50:6–7. Jeremiah 50 is a judgment oracle against Babylon and predicts the return of Israel from exile.

35. Heil, “Ezekiel 34,” 705.

36. Willitts (Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King, 146) argues that it is a composite quotation from Zech. 13:7 and Ezek. 34:31.

37. One might think of David, who offers to sacrifice himself for his sheep. In 2 Sam. 24:17 when he sees the angel of the Lord who is striking the people, David speaks to the Lord and admits that he, not his sheep, has sinned and acted wickedly. So David pleads with the Lord for the angel’s hand to be against himself and against his father’s house rather than against his sheep.

38. Carson, “Matthew” (1984), 540.

39. Willitts, Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King, 150.

40. Blomberg, “Matthew,” 91.

41. Paffenroth, “Jesus as Anointed and Healing Son of David,” 548.

42. Matthew 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30, 31; 21:9, 15; 22:42; Mark 10:47, 48; 12:25; Luke 1:32; 3:31; 18:38, 39.

43. Novakovic (Messiah, the Healer of the Sick) also ties the healing Christ to Matt. 1:21, where she argues that their sins encompass both his atoning death and his healing ministry.

44. See Duling, “Solomon, Exorcism, and the Son of David”; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:157.

45. “That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases’” (Matt. 8:16–17).

46. Baxter, “Healing and the ‘Son of David,’” 37. Chae, Jesus as the Eschatological Davidic Shepherd.

47. At the beginning of this book I noted how continuity and discontinuity exist together. Paffenroth, “Jesus as Anointed and Healing Son of David,” 553.

48. The lame and the blind whom David attacks and does not welcome are Jebusites, who are Canaanites (Gen. 10:15; Josh. 18:16).

49. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 149.

50. Loader (“Son of David”) argues that this sight and blindness parallels the blindness of Israel and the sight of gentiles.

51. A second text concerns a similar healing, but the focus is on the crowd. A demon-oppressed man who is blind and mute is brought to Jesus in Matt. 12:22, and Jesus heals the man so that he can speak and see. However, unlike the text in Matt. 9, here the crowd is amazed and asks, “Can this be the Son of David?” (12:23, emphasis added).

52. Yet Silva (NIDNTTE 5:746) notes that by the time of the NT, “Hosanna” had become a full “cultic cry,” like the LXX use of the loanword ἁλληλουïά, from the Hebrew.

53. The text continues by saying, “Therefore if you delight in thrones and scepters, O monarchs over the peoples, honor wisdom, so that you may reign forever” (Wis. 6:21).

54. Crowe, “Fulfillment in Matthew,” 48.

55. The Lion King (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Pictures, 1994).