5. Piety: True and False Three Contrasts (6:1–18)
1Be careful not to practise your righteousness in front of other people so that they will notice you. Otherwise you cannot expect1 any reward from2 your Father who is in heaven.
2So whenever you are giving alms, do not blow a trumpet in front of you as hypocrites do in the synagogues3 and in the streets so that they will be applauded by other people; I tell you truly, they have had all4 their reward. 3But as for you, when you give alms your left hand must not know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms-giving is in secret. Then your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.5
5And whenever you6 are praying you are not to be like the hypocrites: they love to pray standing up in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets7 so that people will notice them; I tell you truly, they have had all their reward. 6But as for you, when you pray go into your most private room, shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. Then your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.
7When you8 pray do not babble on like the Gentiles, for they think that the more they speak the more likely they are to be heard. 8So don’t be like them, since your Father9 knows what you need before you ask him. 9This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven,
May your name be held in reverence;
10May your kingdom come;
May your will be done,
as in heaven so also10 on the earth.
11Give us today the bread we need for the coming day.11
12And forgive us our debts
as we too have forgiven12 our debtors.
13And do not bring us into testing,13
but rescue us from the Evil One.14 15
14For if you forgive other people their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well; 15but if you do not forgive other people,16 neither will your Father forgive your offenses.
16Whenever you are fasting do not look miserable as the hypocrites do: they hide17 their faces so that everyone can see they are fasting; I tell you truly, they have had all their reward. 17But as for you, when you are fasting anoint your head and wash your face, 18so that other people cannot see that you are fasting, but only your Father, who is in secret.18 Then your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.
The last main section of the discourse (5:20–48) has been devoted to setting out a “righteousness” greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20). The discourse now goes on to warn against a wrong kind of “righteousness” (6:1), which is undertaken not to conform to the will of God and to imitate his perfection, but to gain human approval. The people who practise this kind of righteousness are described as “hypocrites,” a term which occurs frequently in Matthew for the official (or self-appointed) representatives of national religion, and more specifically six times over in ch. 23 for the scribes and Pharisees. Some of the failings with which the scribes and Pharisees will be charged in ch. 23 focus on a similar concern for externals and lack of inward depth. The contrast with the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees which underlay 5:20–48 is thus continued in this passage; the disciples are not to be like them. But the focus has moved from ethical distinctives to the practice of religion, the “righteousness” of 6:1 being not so much a moral orientation as a religious one, practical piety.
The basic framework of the passage is an introductory exhortation (v. 1) illustrated by three matching contrasts (vv. 2–4, 5–6, 16–18) setting out the wrong and the right way to undertake three prominent religious duties, alms-giving, prayer and fasting These three duties are recognized by most religious traditions;19 together with the two more specifically Muslim requirements of recitation of the creed and the pilgrimage to Mecca they constitute the Five Pillars of Islam. The wording of the three contrasts follows a standard pattern (don’t be like the hypocrites who … but as for you [singular], when you …), with verbatim agreement in the concluding clauses (“I tell you truly, they have had all their reward” … “in secret. Then your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you”). The wrong way in each case is a matter of outward show, looking for human approval; the right way is that of secrecy, which only God can see. It is only the latter kind of “righteousness” that God, who is strikingly described as “being in secret,” will reward, whereas the ostentatious piety of the hypocrites has received the only reward it will get (and is looking for), the approval of other people. The nature of God’s reward for secret piety is not stated, but since he is their Father “in heaven” (v. 1) we should probably think of the “reward in heaven” which was promised to the persecuted in 5:12 (see comments there on the theme of rewards in Matthew); cf. also the “treasure in heaven” of vv. 19–20 below.20 For the superiority of “secret” religion cf. Paul’s contrast between the person who is a Jew “in appearance” and the one who is “secretly” a Jew, “whose praise is not from other people but from God.” (Rom 2:28–29)21
This carefully balanced tripartite unit of teaching is, however, interrupted in vv. 7–15 by an extended discussion of prayer, consisting of (a) a further wrong way / right way contrast (vv. 7–8), (b) the pattern prayer (vv. 9–13) and (c) a pastoral comment on one clause of the pattern prayer (vv. 14–15). Matthew has apparently decided that the subject of true prayer is too important to be passed over as briefly as alms-giving and fasting and so has inserted other sayings material on the subject, parts (b) and (c) of which have inexact parallels in different contexts in Luke 11:2–4 and Mark 11:25. The centrally important tradition of the Lord’s Prayer thus finds its way into the center of the discourse (54 verses before it, 48 after), though by means of what is in effect a literary digression!
a. The General Principle: Avoiding Ostentation in Religion (6:1)
This verse is expressed in the plural, as compared with the singular focus of the following examples (see p. 230, n. 6). It is thus a general exhortation, which introduces 6:2–18 in much the same way as 5:20 introduced 5:21–48, and in each case the key term is dikaiosynē, “righteousness.”22 Here it is concerned not with personal or social ethics but with matters of religious observance, but it remains something to be “done.”23 see on 3:15 for the essentially behavioral sense of dikaiosynē in Matthew, as opposed to Paul’s more theological and soteriological use of the term. The three examples of alms-giving, prayer and fasting are thus categorized as activities which God requires of his people. Jesus’ quarrel is not with the doing of them24—indeed he assumes that the disciple will do them—but with the manner and the motive. The manner to which he objects is “in front of other people,” i.e. publicly; the motive is “so that they will notice25 you,” i.e. aiming for human approval. Cf. 23:5–7 for a similar criticism of the scribes and Pharisees, using the same verb theaomai in 23:5.
In 5:16 we were told that the result of the disciples’ way of life should be that other people “can see the good you do and give glory to your Father in heaven.” The secret “righteousness” of 6:1–6, 16–18 seems to negate that expectation. But there are two significant differences. First, 5:16 was talking about the whole character and life-style of disciples, while the subject here is specifically religious duties. The latter offer more fruitful ground for the development of a false piety leading to a reputation for other-worldly “holiness.” It is easier to be a religious hypocrite than to gain by false pretenses a reputation for overall goodness. In a society which values piety, as did first-century Judaism, people are more easily conned by religious ostentation. Secondly, and more importantly, this passage is about a deliberate search for public recognition, whereas 5:16 summed up a searching character-study of true disciples which focused on essential qualities; those who live like that will inevitably be “a town built on top of a hill which cannot be hidden,” whether they like it or not. And whereas the outcome of religious ostentation is the desired “reward” of human applause,26 the result of the shining light of the disciples’ life-style is that people glorify God, not them.
But there is a “reward” from your Father in heaven, not like the reward which the hypocrites have already received (vv. 2, 5, 16) but one which remains in the future, to judge by the future tense “will repay” in vv. 4, 6, 18, which recalls the future tenses of the “because”-clauses in the beatitudes, 5:4–9 (see comments there on the tension between present and future fulfillment). This “reward in heaven” (5:12) is on a quite different level from the hypocrites’ public approval and self-congratulation. It is perhaps most fittingly summed up in the formula of acceptance in 25:21, 23: “Enter into your master’s joy.” It is that reward which the disciples risk losing if they allow their allegiance to be diverted from their Father in heaven to their human contemporaries.
The general principle expressed in the plural in v. 1 is now more specifically applied to the practice of the individual disciple (see p. 230, n. 6). Giving to the poor was an important part of Jewish social life,27 one which Jesus has already endorsed in 5:42 and will require in 19:21, and one which is taken for granted in 25:35; 26:9. It was a religious duty enjoined on the people of God in such passages as Deut 15:7–11 and endorsed in e.g. Ps 112:9; Tob 1:3; 4:7–11; 12:8–10. Some specific means of poor-relief are set out in Lev 19:9–10; Deut 14:28–29; 24:19–21; 26:12–13. By the first century there was a well-organized system of poor-relief based in the synagogues,28 providing something of what our modern state-sponsored welfare systems aim to offer. The funding of this system depended on contributions from members of the community, some of them laid down under the regulations for the “tithe for the poor,”29 but also involving a great deal of private initiative,30 which could reach such an extent that there were rabbinic regulations to prevent a man from impoverishing himself and his family by giving away more than 20% of his income.31
2 “Applauded” here translates the same verb (doxazō) which was used in 5:16 for people “giving glory” to God as a result of the disciples’ good living; the repetition of the verb but now with the alms-giver not God as the object (God is the object also in Matthew’s two other uses of the verb in 9:8 and 15:31) speaks eloquently of the different perspectives in the two passages. There is no evidence for a literal blowing of trumpets32 in connection with alms-giving, and the phrase may be used purely metaphorically here, though it would not be untypical of Jesus to conjure up the image of such a crass piece of self-advertisement.33 It is in any case likely that significant donations were publicly announced in the synagogues.34 The impression of ostentation is increased by speaking of alms-giving not only in the synagogues, where it was expected but would probably go into a distribution system rather than straight to the beneficiaries, but also out in the streets, presumably directly to beggars, who could be expected to respond enthusiastically. The fact that the rabbis also warn against ostentation when giving alms (see Str-B 1.391–392; Davies & Allison, 1.579–580) indicates that it was a familar problem.35
Hypokritēs (the word originally meant a theatrical “actor”) is used by Matthew not only here in vv. 2, 5, 16 but also for a critic who does not criticize himself (7:5) and as a general term for those subject to ultimate judgment (24:51; in the LXX hypocritēs is used for the godless). Its main use, however, is for those with whom Jesus will be engaged in controversy in 15:7; 22:18, and six times in ch. 23. In several of these uses it probably carries the sense of insincerity, of consciously acting a part, which is close to what “hypocrite” means today. But in general, notably in 7:5; 15:7; 23:15, 23, 25, the focus is not so much on a conscious attempt to deceive as on a false perspective or sense of values which prevents the “hypocrites” from seeing things as God sees them; they are not so much deceivers as disastrously self-deceived (like the enthusiastic but misguided followers of 7:21–23).36 In this passage there is no necessary allegation of deceit as such—they presumably did give alms, pray and fast; the problem was that they wanted everyone to know it. Rather these religious show-offs are “actors” in that they aim to impress others, but at the same time their behavior demonstrates how far they are out of touch with God’s understanding of “righteousness.”
For “I tell you truly” see on 5:18. For “they have had all their reward” see p. 229, n. 4; the choice of the single word apechō contrives to convey both a sense of receipt in full (they have not been cheated) and also the threat of nothing still to come. It thus underlines their sadly limited perspective: they cannot see, and have no aspirations, beyond the applause of their peers.
3 The change from the plural hypocrites to a singular disciple here and in vv. 6 and 17 underlines the fact that these religious duties are not undertaken corporately but are between the disciple and God. In the cases of prayer and fasting (which are introduced by a plural “When you pray/fast”) the individual disciple’s action may be seen as falling within an agreed pattern of prayer or fasting undertaken by the community corporately, but how it is done is up to the individual, not for public awareness. In the case of alms-giving, even that degree of corporateness is apparently lacking (hence perhaps the singular introduction “When you give alms”). It is entirely a matter of private decision. The lack of communication between left and right hands37 is a delightfully grotesque but vivid way of describing absolute secrecy:38 no one is to know about it. Compare 25:35–40, where the righteous are themselves unaware of the good they have done.
4 In the phrase “your Father” in Matthew the “your” is normally plural; only here and in vv. 6 and 18 is it singular, because the scene has been set up in terms of the individual disciple’s private relationship with God. That God “sees in secret” reflects the OT understanding that nothing is hidden from him, expressed so eloquently in Ps 139; cf. Deut 29:29; Ps 90:8; Qoh 12:14; Jer 23:24; Sir 17:15–20; 23:18–19. In the OT it is often a threatening rather than a comforting thought, but here it is good deeds not bad which are to be “repaid.” The reference is apparently to the “reward” mentioned in v. 1 (and forfeited in v. 2) as well as earlier in 5:12, 46, which has been more fully outlined in the “because”-clauses of the beatitudes. The commercial term “repay” here and in vv. 6 and 18 may suggest a quid-pro-quo transaction which sits uncomfortably alongside a Pauline doctrine of salvation by grace and not by merit. It is, however, counter-balanced by the wider Matthean understanding of God’s disproportionate rewards which comes to the surface in 19:29; 20:1–15; 25:21, 23 (see above on 5:12).39
The second example of religious practice is prayer, which will be dealt with in vv. 5–6 in the same way as alms-giving and fasting in vv. 2–4 and 16–18, before the theme is taken further in the additonal sayings of vv. 7–15. For the standard formulae repeated in each of the three illustrations see above on vv. 2–4. The hope that other people will witness the public prayers of the “hypocrites” probably indicates that prayers were said aloud, not just that they were visibly engaged in prayer. Just as even private reading in the ancient world was done out loud, so too people generally prayed audibly. Even the call to secret prayer in v. 6 does not necessarily mean silent prayer: the point of going into a secret place is so that no one else will be in a position to hear. If synagōgē here refers to the gathering for worship (see on 4:23), prayer would of course be expected there, but the privilege of leading it was not open to everyone. But the following mention of praying out in the streets perhaps supports a more secular sense of “assembly” here; wherever people are gathered as a potential audience the “hypocrites” will make sure that their prayers are heard and seen. We should probably think of something more obtrusive than the silent prayer on a mat in the street or in a corner of a public room which is so familiar in Muslim countries today. Devout Jews prayed three times a day (Dan 6:10), not necessarily at fixed times (m. Ber. 1:1–2; 4:1),40 though the ninth hour (3 p.m.) seems to have been normal (Acts 3:1; 10:30). Standing was the normal Jewish attitude for prayer (cf. Mark 11:25; Luke 18:11, 13),41 though sometimes people knelt (2 Chron 6:13; Dan 6:10; Luke 22:41) or even, in special circumstances, prostrated themselves (Num 16:22; Matt 26:39).
The “most private room” is probably an inner store-room, which is likely to have been the only lockable room in an ordinary Palestinian house (the same term is used for a secret place in 24:26; Luke 12:3). Cf. 2 Kgs 4:33 for shutting the door before prayer, and Isa 26:20 for locking oneself in the store-room (LXX uses the same word tameion) for secrecy, though in the latter case the aim is not prayer but safety from God’s judgment on other people. In such a secret place42 the disciple encounters the God who “is in secret.” This remarkable phrase43 (not just who sees in secret, as in the following clause) used here and in v. 18 suggests not only that God is omnipresent, even in the secret place, but also that he is himself invisible, in stark contrast to his pretended worshipers who are only too visible.
This passage is not intended to prohibit audible prayer in public as such. While Jesus is often portrayed as praying privately (Mark 1:35; 6:46 etc.), he also on occasion prayed aloud where others could hear (11:25; 14:19; 26:39, 42; Luke 11:1). The pattern prayer given in vv. 9–13 is worded in the plural, as a corporate rather than a private prayer, and gatherings for prayer together were a regular feature of the life of Jesus’ disciples from the beginning. The issue here is not the prayer but the motive.
d. Further Teaching on Prayer (6:7–8)
The “digression” on prayer which breaks into the tripartite unit of teaching on religious secrecy (see above p. 233) begins with a similar contrast between the wrong and the right ways of praying, in which “the Gentiles” take the place of the “hypocrites” in v. 5.44 The focus this time is not on prayer performed with a view to human approbation but on an attitude and practice in prayer which betrays a misunderstanding of how God expects to be approached by his people.
The term for “Gentiles” is the same as that used in 5:47 (on which see below on 18:17) to denote the world outside the disciple community. The emphasis here is not so much on their not being Jewish as on their being religious outsiders, people who do not understand what it means to know God as a heavenly Father.45 So instead of trusting a Father to fulfill their needs, they think they must badger a reluctant Deity into taking notice of them (cf. the expressive modern term “God-botherer”). Their approach to prayer is characterized by two colorful terms, first “babbling,”46 a noisy flow of sound without meaning, and polylogia, “much speaking,” “many words.” It is an approach to prayer which values quantity (and perhaps volume?) rather than quality. It is not necessarily purely mechanical, but rather obtrusive and unnecessary. It assumes that the purpose of prayer is first to demand God’s attention and then to inform him of needs he may have overlooked. The terms used do not prohibit the use of liturgical forms as such (after all, a formulated prayer follows in vv. 9–13), nor do they denigrate persistence in prayer, as the unfortunate KJV rendering “vain repetitions” has often been taken to suggest.47 The issue is not the method or the frequency of prayer (Jesus himself repeated his prayer in 26:44, apparently spent a whole night in prayer in 14:23–25, and taught his disciples to keep on praying in Luke 18:1), but the attitude of faith which underlies and inspires it.
The reason why “you” (plural, the disciple community united in prayer) are not to be like them lies in a theology which attributes to God both the benevolent concern of a Father and an omniscience which makes the prayer apparently unnecessary (cf. Isa 65:24: “Before they call, I will answer”). But if God does not need to be informed of our needs, why does he expect us to tell him about them? Christian spirituality has traditionally found the answer in a concept of prayer not as the communication of information, still less as a technique for getting things from God (the more words you put in the more results you get out), but as the expression of the relationship of trust which follows from knowing God as “Father.” The pattern prayer which follows illustrates how such a relationship works.
e. The Pattern Prayer (6:9–13)
In contrast to the empty prayers of “hypocrites” (v. 5) and “Gentiles” (v. 7) we are offered a model of how to pray in the form of the Lord’s Prayer, which Matthew presents in a form close to that which is most widely used today. The significantly shorter form in Luke 11:2–4 and the textual accretions following v. 13 here (see p. 231, n. 15) indicate a text which was in frequent use and thus subject to liturgical variation and expansion. Did. 8:2–3 gives evidence of this trend around the latter part of the first century: the full wording of the Lord’s Prayer (in the expanded form familiar in modern use) is set out with the instruction “Pray thus three times a day,” where “thus” is normally taken to envisage liturgical repetition of the words rather than simply praying in the spirit of the pattern prayer. Such set forms of liturgical prayer were already familiar from the synagogue liturgy.48 The Lord’s Prayer has been used liturgically, with local variation and in different translations, ever since.
It is sometimes suggested that the introductory formulae in Matthew and Luke point to different conceptions of the nature of the prayer, Luke’s “When you pray say” (in answer to the request “Teach us to pray”) indicating a set form of words to be repeated, while Matthew’s “This, then, is how you should pray” (following a comment on the right attitude in prayer) indicates a pattern for right praying rather than a liturgical formula.49 But that is probably too artificial a distinction, and it is likely that when Jesus taught these words (in whichever form) he would have been content for them to be used in either way. Christian tradition has always found them to be suitable either for simple repetition or as a template for more extended prayer or a basis for thinking (and teaching) about prayer and its priorities. The fact that the early church seems to have been content for the prayer to be preserved in different forms does, however, suggest that it was more concerned with the content of the prayer than with its exact form.
The question which form of the prayer is “the original” is of course unanswerable. On the one hand the tendency for such a prayer to be expanded in use, as witnessed by the additions after v. 13, might suggest that the shorter Lucan form is the earlier. On the other hand the Matthean wording has been judged to be closer to a likely Aramaic original.50 In any case the instinctive critical assumption that any piece of Jesus’ teaching could only have been given on a single occasion, after which it became altered to different forms in transmission, is here more than usually suspect. If any aspect of Jesus’ teaching is likely to have been repeated, perhaps with varying wording, on a number of occasions and perhaps to different audiences, it must surely be so central a unit as this pattern prayer. There is then no basis for judging one or the other version to be “more authentic;” each in its own way (and the differences are not at a fundamental level) may appropriately be taken as demonstrating Jesus’ concept of true prayer.51
The pattern of the Matthean form is essentially as follows:
Opening address:
Our Father in heaven
Three clauses about God and his worship:
May your name be held in reverence;
May your kingdom come;
May your will be done,
as in heaven so also on the earth.
Three petitions for our own needs:
Give us today the bread we need for tomorrow.
And forgive us our debts
as we too have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us into testing,
but rescue us from the Evil One.
This balancing structure in itself speaks strongly against the “Gentile” view of prayer condemned in vv. 7–8. The first half of the prayer is concerned with God’s honor, kingdom and purpose, and only after that do our own needs find a place. The first three clauses are cast in the form of wishes, using the third-person imperative form; they are in effect a doxology, an act of worship, associating the praying community with God’s purpose in the world. The second-person imperatives of the following clauses are thus set within the overall priority of God’s will rather than our desires.
Not all aspects of prayer are included in this pattern prayer. There is no explicit confession of sin, no direct thanksgiving for blessings already received, no intercession for the needs of the world or for those to whom disciples are sent (or for their persecutors, 5:44). All of these may be developed through meditation around the clauses of the prayer individually. But the fundamental starting point is worship and petition.
The first three clauses of the prayer are strongly reminiscent of the Aramaic Qaddish prayer or doxology which was already in regular synagogue use by the time of Jesus. J. Jeremias52 translates the earliest accessible form of this prayer as follows:
Exalted and hallowed be his great name
in the world which he created according to his will.
May he let his kingdom rule
in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of
the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon.
Praised be his great name from eternity to eternity.
And to this say: Amen.
The first part of Jesus’ prayer may be regarded as a distillation into a more concise form of this familiar expression of eschatological hope, and as such would have caused no surprise to his disciples.53 Where Jesus’ prayer differs from the Qaddish is firstly in the second-person address to God as “Our Father in heaven” and secondly in the continuation of the prayer to include the community’s petitions.54
In the light of the clear sense of eschatological expectation in the Qaddish, many interpreters have argued for a similar orientation not only in the opening clauses of the Lord’s Prayer but in the prayer as a whole.55 I shall comment on this contention with regard especially to vv. 11 and 13 below. But even if vv. 9b-10 are understood as focused on a coming time of crisis rather than on the working out of God’s purpose in the present, it would not necessarily follow that the provison of daily needs, material and spiritual, would be inappropriate to such a prayer. In fact, as we shall see, even vv. 9b-10 deal with matters which should be the constant concern of disciples in the present as well as with a view to the future: they desire to see God’s name reverenced, his rule established and his will done in the world as it is. While the synagogue prayer was necessarily forward-looking, for Jesus and his disciples the kingdom of God has already been announced and is working its way into the world through Jesus’ ministry. In the light of that perspective, every clause of this prayer has an immediate relevance to the present situation and concerns of those who are praying.
9 The connecting “then” indicates that the following words will express the trust in a heavenly Father which has been stated in vv. 7–8 to be the basis of true prayer. The instruction is addressed to the disciples corporately, and the whole prayer will be phrased in the plural. It is the prayer of a community rather than an individual act of devotion, even though its pattern would also appropriately guide the secret prayers in the store-room (v. 6).
The simple “Father” with which Luke’s version of the prayer begins reflects the Aramaic vocative ʾabbāʾ which was Jesus’ distinctive approach to God in prayer (in this gospel see 11:25, 26, and for the Aramaic term see Mark 14:36), which his disciples were subsequently privileged to share (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6).56 Matthew’s addition of “our” makes the echo of the form ʾabbāʾ less obvious, but the implication of privileged access to God is equally clear.57 For God as the heavenly Father of disciples see, within this discourse, 5:16, 45, 48; 6:1, 4, 6, 8, 14–15, 18, 26, 32; 7:11. The same language will recur more rarely in the rest of the gospel (10:20, 29; 13:43; 23:9) and instead from 7:21 onward Jesus will speak frequently of God as his own Father in a way which seems to exclude others from that special relationship (notably in 11:25–27, see comments there), and which correlates to the title “(my) Son” applied uniquely to Jesus from 2:15 and 3:17 on. When Jesus prays to God as “Father” (11:25, 26) it is sometimes explicitly as “my Father” (26:39, 42; Jesus speaks of God as “my Father” a further 14 times in Matthew) and never in the form “our Father” which he here teaches his disciples to use. Here are the raw materials for a theological system which posits a unique filial relationship for Jesus and a derivative relationship for God’s other “children” into which Jesus introduces them (cf. 11:27) but in which he does not share with them on the same level. While such a doctrine may be more fully developed from other parts of the NT, Matthew is content to allow it to emerge by implication from his usage. But it is primarily here, in the discourse on discipleship, that this privileged status of the disciples emerges, and in the family prayer which is at the heart of the discourse it is most appropriately expressed as their corporate address to God. In well over half the references to “your Father” in the discourse “in heaven” or “heavenly” is added. It not only underlines the metaphorical nature of the concept, but also prescribes the disciple’s attitude to God: he is on the one hand all-powerful and therefore completely to be trusted but on the other hand to be approached with the reverence which the following clauses of the prayer will express.
The first three clauses of the Lord’s Prayer are expressed as third-person imperatives, two of them passive. In a prayer such an imperative is in effect a plea for God’s action to bring about the desired state of affairs, hence Hagner’s paraphrastic version using second-person imperatives: “Set apart your holy name; Bring your eschatological kingdom; Cause your will to be fulfilled.” (Hagner, 1.144) But perhaps something is lost when the third-person form is concealed, since the hallowing of God’s name, the acceptance of his kingship and the doing of his will involve human response (including that of the ones praying). To speak as Hagner does simply of “the divine passive” runs the danger of obscuring this human dimension, even though of course the point of including these wishes in a prayer is that it is by God’s intervention that they are to be fulfilled.
God’s “name” is a recurrent OT term for God himself as he is perceived and honored by people. It is frequently described as “holy” (Ps 30:4; 97:12; 103:1; 111:9 etc.) since holiness is a prime characteristic of God himself. The present clause is not then a request that it be made holy, as the traditional translation “hallowed” properly means—it is holy already. Rather it is that people may recognize and acknowledge its holiness, by giving God the reverence which is his due; cf. Isa 29:23 where to “keep God’s name holy” is further explained by “stand in awe of the God of Israel.” Compare the concern of the prophets that God’s name should not be profaned as a result of his people’s sinful behavior and its punishment (Ezek 20:8–9; 36:20–23; cf. Isa 48:11; 52:5–6). This clause then is not merely a petition that people in general may come to acknowledge God, but is itself an expression of that reverence which his holiness requires.
10 For God’s “kingdom” see on 3:2. There and in 4:17 (and in other places throughout the gospel) the coming of God’s reign is something already announced. Its actual presence is required by the wording of 12:28, though the sense of being caught unawares in that saying suggests that even when God’s kingdom is present not everyone recognizes and acknowledges it. The parables of chapter 13 will repeat this point, notably those of the mustard seed and the yeast (13:31–33) where the hidden presence of God’s kingdom is preparing for a future more public demonstration. It is probably in that sense that we are to understand this petition, perhaps the most clearly futuristic reference to God’s kingdom in Matthew. The “already—not yet” tension which underlies the synoptic uses of the term is vividly illustrated by the doxology later added to the end of this prayer, which requires the disciples who have just prayed that God’s kingdom may come to declare immediately afterwards that it is already a reality. As with the “making holy” of God’s name, this petition is not so much asking that something may become true which is not true already (that God may become king) but rather that his actual kingship de jure may be fully implemented de facto as people submit to his sovereignty. In so doing the disciples echoed the prayers of many faithful Jewish people in the Qaddish (see above) and the hopes of those who, like Joseph of Arimathea, were “expecting the kingdom of God” (Mark 15:43).58
The third of these clauses builds on the second: the essence of the coming of God’s kingship is that he is duly obeyed and his purpose fulfilled. The “already—not yet” tension is here more explicit, as the situations in heaven (where God’s kingship has been eternally honored) and on earth (where it is yet to be fully acknowledged) are compared. The time must come when God’s human creatures join his angelic forces in honoring and serving their king. “Doing the will of God” is for Matthew a potent summary of the disciple life59 (7:21; 12:50; and parabolically in 21:31), and even Jesus himself in prayer must submit his own will to that of his Father (26:42).
The final words, “as in heaven so also on earth,” can be seen to apply to all three of the preceding clauses. In heaven (among the angels) God’s name is already honored, his kingship acknowledged and his will done, and the prayer is that this heavenly state of affairs may be reflected also on earth. In the Lucan form of the prayer of course the first two clauses occur without this rider. but when it is added as part of the third its relevance also to the preceding two becomes obvious.60 To pray such a prayer is, of course, to be committed oneself to honor God’s name, accept his kingship and do his will.
11 The first of the petitions for the disciples’ own needs concerns material provision (cf. Prov 30:8, “feed me with the bread I need”).61 In vv. 25–33 we will be told that part of what it means to recognize God as our heavenly Father is to be prepared to trust him for food and drink and clothing, and this petition expresses that trust in its simplest form. Even bread, the most basic of survival rations, comes by God’s daily provision (cf. Ps 104:14–15, 27–28), and is thus a proper subject for prayer rather than to be taken for granted. If this is true even for bread, how much more for all our other physical needs.
The traditional term “daily” represents a Greek adjective epiousios which occurs nowhere else in extant62 Greek literature and whose etymology and meaning have been variously explained. The ancient Syriac versions have either “continual” or “for our need;” earlier Latin versions have “daily,” while Jerome’s Vulgate coined supersubstantialis which probably meant “supernatural.” Among modern interpreters some derive it from epi and ousia, giving a meaning “needed for existence,” some from epi tēn ousan [hēmeran], “for the present day,” but most recent interpreters prefer to see it as an adjective formed from hē epiousa [hēmera], which occurs in Acts 7:26; 16:11; 20:15; 21:18 for “the following day” (in a sequence of events or traveling stages). In these uses hē epiousa63 means the day after the one just described; in Acts 23:11 hē epiousa nyx means the ensuing night. The sense probably depends on the time of speaking: in the morning hē epiousa would mean the day then beginning (classical usage supports this sense), but later in the day it would mean “tomorrow.” If epiousios derives its meaning from hē epiousa, “for the coming day” may well have a similar range of meaning.64 The bread requested is therefore for the near future, which may be “today” or “tomorrow” depending on the time of utterance. This petition would remind a Jewish hearer of the provision of manna in the wilderness, enough for each day at a time, except for an extra supply when the following day was a sabbath (Exod 16:4–5).
To ask for such bread65 “today” is to acknowledge our dependence on God for routine provision. In a modern Western culture where the provision of food is usually planned and assured for a good time ahead, such immediate dependence seems remote from our experience. In many other parts of the world today, as in Jesus’ world, it is not so; Carson, 171, rightly reminds us of “the precarious lifestyle of many first-century workers who were paid one day at a time and for whom a few days’ illness could spell tragedy.”66 Similarly for Jesus and his disciples during their itinerant mission the daily provision of material needs could not be taken for granted (see 8:20; 10:9–14, 40–42).67 The instruction not to worry about material provision in vv. 25–33 (which seems equally remote from most modern Western experience) is dependent on all such needs having been trustfully committed to God as this prayer requires. Jesus himself had to depend on God for food rather than taking the matter into his own hands (4:3–4).
I have assumed hitherto that this petition is concerned with the literal provision of everyday material needs. Those who emphasize an eschatological dimension to the Lord’s Prayer suggest rather that “bread for tomorrow” is a short-hand expression for eschatological provision, perhaps with special reference to the messianic banquet (see on 8:11; cf. Luke 14:15), or more specifically to the eschatological hope of a return of manna (2 Bar. 29:8; Sib. Or. 7:149; Rev 2:17). Some support this sense by deriving epiousios not from hē epiousa (hēmera) but directly from the verb epienai, so that it is the bread itself rather than the day which is “coming,” “future.”68 Hagner, 1.144, expresses this view in his “interpretive paraphrase,” “Give us today the eschatological bread that will be ours in the future.” Whatever may be the case for the prayer as a whole, however, an eschatological sense does not suit the wording of this petition (Hagner’s paraphrase has added a lot to the actual wording of the Greek!). “Bread” carries its literal meaning elsewhere in this gospel, even when the context indicates that the literal bread is being used to convey a symbolic message (15:26; 16:5–12; 26:26), and the everyday dimension implied by epiousios (if derived, as is more linguistically probable, from hē epiousa) seems to require that meaning unless anything in the context suggests a non-literal sense. Further, the request for bread to be supplied “today” (and even more the Lucan version “every day”) sits uncomfortably with an eschatological perspective.
12 The petition for forgiveness is the only clause of the prayer which is singled out for comment at the end (vv. 14–15). The point of that comment, as indeed of the balancing structure of the clause itself, is that forgiveness is a reciprocal principle,69 a point which will be more fully underlined in the parable of 18:23–35. That parable, like the present petition, will be about debt, though the introductory question and answer in 18:21–22 makes it clear that debt is a metaphor for offenses which need to be forgiven. Here too any purely monetary understanding of debt is ruled out by the fact that it is debts to God for which forgiveness is asked.70 The substitution in vv. 14–15 of “offenses”71 (and cf. the “sins” of Luke 11:4a), gives a more prosaic but undoubtedly correct interpretation of the graphic metaphor of debt.72 Matthew’s version, unlike Luke’s, by keeping the same metaphor in both halves of the clause ensures that a close parallel is maintained between God’s forgiveness and ours. We should note that it is the debtors rather than the debts which we have forgiven; our concern, like God’s, is to be with personal relationships.
The hōs (“as”) which links the two halves of this clause leaves open the question whether the forgiveness of our fellow-humans is to be understood strictly as a prior condition of our being forgiven.73 The variation in the MSS as to the tense of the verb (see p. 230, n. 12) perhaps reflects uncertainty on this issue, the aorist tense properly indicating that our forgiveness of others is prior to God’s requested forgiveness of us, while the present may be thought to allow a less precise relationship. But perhaps precision on this point is not necessary; the issue is whether the forgiveness sought from God is mirrored in the attitude of those pray.74 In the parable of 18:23–35 God’s forgiveness comes first, but is withdrawn when the person forgiven fails to forgive another. There is then something inevitably reciprocal about forgiveness. To ask to be forgiven while oneself refusing to forgive is hypocritical.75 Those who ask for forgiveness must be forgiving people, whether the offenses concerned are past or future. J. Jeremias76 suggests that aphēkamen, “we have forgiven,” represents an Aramaic perfect with performative force: “as herewith we forgive our debtors.” It may be doubted whether the Greek aorist can naturally be taken in quite this sense, but Jeremias’ rendering offers an appropriately challenging perspective on what this clause of the prayer should involve for those who pray it.
13 After a petition for the forgiveness of past sin comes one for protection from future sin. The final clause of the prayer is again in two parts, but this time the two lines are both petitions whose theme is closely related, so that the second may be understood as an expansion or elucidation of the first. If the translation of tou ponērou as “the Evil One” is correct (see p. 231, n. 14), the parallel between the two lines is clear, since we have seen peirasmos (“testing”) as the role of the the devil already in 4:1–11 (where he is actually described as “the tempter,” ho peirazōn). It is possible to see a progression between the two lines, the first being a request to be kept free from testing, the second for rescue if it does occur (a “worst-case scenario”). But that is perhaps to be too pedantic concerning the meaning of the phrases “not bring into” and “rescue from.” Both are vivid ways of saying that the disciples are aware of the need for God’s help and protection in the face of the devil’s desire to lead astray.
The question is sometimes raised how the notion of God’s “bringing us into peirasmos” is compatible with his absolute goodness,77 but this involves two mistakes. Firstly, a negative request does not necessarily imply that the positive is otherwise to be expected—a husband who says to his wife “Don’t ever leave me” is not necessarily assuming that she is likely to do so. Secondly, peirasmos is not in itself always to be understood as a bad thing: it was after all the Holy Spirit who took Jesus into the wilderness “to be tested” (4:1). When James says that God “does not tempt anyone” (Jas 1:13) he is presumably using peirazō in its more limited sense of “tempt to do wrong”, but the idea of God “testing” his people is a biblical one (Gen 22:1; Deut 8:2 etc.).78 If peirazō is here taken in that more positive sense the point of the petition would be not that the testing is in itself bad, but that the disciples, aware of their weakness, would prefer not to have to face it.79 As in 4:1–11, it is possible to discern in the same circumstances both the devil’s “tempting” and God’s “testing” of his people.
Those who understand the petitions of this prayer as having a primarily eschatological focus tend to read this “testing” as referring to a specific event, the tribulation which was to introduce the end times.80 But the lack of a definite article before peirasmon suggests that the focus is not so specific (nor is peirasmos a recognized term for this idea). Moreover, a community eagerly looking for the eschatological consummation could hardly pray to be spared this “time of trial,” without which the final dénouement could not come. Their prayer would rather be to be preserved safe through it (the second line of v. 13 rather than the first). As in the prayer as a whole, while this petition might be made with an eschatological reference, its wording does not suggest that that is its main purpose. It relates rather to the testing experiences which are the normal lot of disciples who try to live according to the principles of the kingdom of God in a world which does not share those values. The sort of persecution envisaged in 5:11–12 comes to mind. In 26:41 Jesus will again exhort his disciples to pray for deliverance from peirasmos, with reference to their immediate danger rather than an eschatological threat.
f. Comment on the Lord’s Prayer (6:14–15)
Here is one of the few echoes of Mark in this discourse: see Mark 11:25 for the same principle of reciprocal forgiveness in relation to prayer. This expansion of the principle underlying the petition of v. 12 reflects the typically Matthean concern, which will be developed especially in the discourse of 18:1–35 (and cf. 5:23–24), that the disciple community should function properly as a group whose values have been transformed by their acceptance of God’s kingship in their life together. It puts into simple propositional form the message of the parable of the two debtors in 18:23–35. In 26:28 Jesus will place the forgiveness of sins at the heart of his mission. But if the disciple community which results from that mission is to be and to function as a community of the forgiven, its members cannot themselves begrudge forgiveness to others. In these verses the conditional element which was apparently implicit in v. 12 becomes quite explicit, and is emphasized by being stated both positively and negatively. Only the forgiving will be forgiven.
The stark simplicity of this pronouncement raises uncomfortable questions. First, how does this conditional forgiveness relate to the gospel of free and unmerited grace which Paul proclaims? Does our act of forgiving earn our forgiveness from God? The same problem arises elsewhere in Matthew, notably in 25:31–46, where we shall have to consider how far the salvation of the “righteous” is dependent on their behavior toward other people in need. It is neatly encapsulated in the parable of 22:1–14, where apparently undeserving people (“both bad and good”) are drafted into the wedding feast, and yet one of those is subsequently ejected for being improperly dressed. Salvation according to that parable may be undeserved and unexpected, but it is not without conditions. Like the debtor of 18:23–35, one of the recipients of grace turns out not to meet the expectations on which the continuation of that salvation depends. So also here, if the forgiveness of sins which is achieved through the saving death of Jesus (26:28) is not matched by an appropriately forgiving attitude on the disciple’s part, it cannot be presumed upon. Such a theology of salvation fits Matthew’s primarily ethical use of dikaiosunē (“righteousness”) over against Paul’s more “theoretical” use of the same term to denote a salvation (“justification”) independent of “works.” As with the traditional antinomy between Paul and James, there is not perhaps a simple contradiction, but there is certainly a clear difference of perspective on what the forgiveness of sins involves, though the parable of 20:1–15 will make it clear that Matthew has no room for a crudely mechanical view of salvation earned in proportion to human effort.
A second problem relates to the breadth of the forgiveness required. Its object is literally “people” without any further specification. So is there no limit to what and whom we must forgive? Should disciples forgive war criminals, serial murderers and abusers of children? What does “forgive” mean in such circumstances? In 18:21–22 the issue is discussed specifically with reference to a brother who sins “against me,” and in that case Jesus insists that there is no limit. The parable which follows in 18:23–35, by contrasting the unimaginable debt remitted by the king with the relatively paltry sum demanded by the debtor, indicates that no offense we may suffer can even get close to the weight of sin we have already been forgiven by God. Hard as it may be for human nature, there is to be no limit to disciples’ willingness to forgive those who offend against them. The phrase “against me” in that passage perhaps gives us a guide to the intention of this passage as well. While the reference to the offenses of “people” could hardly be more general, the clause of the prayer which these verses are explaining uses the metaphor of debt specifically of those who are indebted to us (v. 12). It is where there is personal offense that the concept of “forgiveness” properly applies. Those who commit evil by which we ourselves are not affected should be the object of our prayerful concern and (as far as possible) sympathetic understanding, but it is properly speaking not for us to “forgive” them: that is God’s prerogative. The concern of these verses, as of 18:21–35, is with the disciples’ response to those whose offense is against them. It is our own enemies whom we are to love (5:44).
The pattern established in vv. 2–4 and 5–6 is now resumed, with the third type of secret religious observance. For the standard formulae again see above on vv. 2–4. As with alms-giving and prayer, it is assumed that disciples will fast; the issue is not whether to do it but how. In a culture where few now give serious attention to fasting as a religious discipline (as opposed to token acts like giving up chocolates in Lent) this assumption causes surprise. In the NT as a whole there is little explicit instruction on fasting; it is simply mentioned occasionally (and never in the epistles) as something Christians sometimes did. Jesus himself fasted (involuntarily?) in the wilderness (4:2), but there is no other record of his doing so subsequently, and indeed it was the lack of fasting by him and his associates which was commented on in 9:14, though in his reply Jesus does envisage his disciples fasting at a future date (9:15).81 In Acts we are told of prayer and fasting on two occasions as an accompaniment to important decisions (Acts 13:2–3; 14:23), but not of any regular pattern of fasting. When Paul speaks of “fasting” as part of his apostolic sufferings (2 Cor 6:5; 11:27) the reference is to involuntary shortage of food rather than to deliberate abstention. It is not until Did. 8:1 (late first century?) that we find instruction on regular fasting for Christians—twice a week, like the Pharisee in Luke 18:12. In view of the paucity of evidence, it is hard to decide whether the fasting Jesus here assumes is expected to be a regular practice (as in the Didache) or only on special occasions as in Acts. He simply comments on the familiar Jewish practice with the expectation that his disciples will continue it.
Fasting is often mentioned in the OT, usually in connection with prayer and/or penitence. Normally it is a response to a special situation, whether by an individual alone (2 Sam 12:16–23; 1 Kgs 21:27; Neh 1:4; Ps 35:13; Dan 9:3) or by the nation as a whole (Judg 20:26; 2 Chr 20:3; Ezra 8:21–23; Neh 9:1; Jonah 3:5–9). The only regular fast laid down in the Pentateuch is that on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29–31; 23:27–32), but during the exile additional fast-days were established in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem (Zech 7:3–5; 8:19). But it is not until NT times that we find evidence of regular fasting by the Pharisees (9:14; twice a week according to Luke 18:12) and the disciples of John the Baptist (9:14). What had been a special provision for times of penitence or emergency had thus been turned into a matter of routine religious duty, despite the protest of Isa 58:3–7 against assuming that fasting had an automatic efficacy of its own. The asceticism of John the Baptist (and of the slightly later Bannus, see above on 3:1) displays the sort of approach to religion in which routine fasting might flourish, though it is interesting that the “monastic” community of Qumran does not seem to have had a regular régime of fasting. The implication of Did. 8:1 that (some) Jews observed Mondays and Thursdays as days for fasting is confirmed by m. Taʿan. 2:9. For the importance and prevalence of fasting in post-OT Jewish religion (and in outsiders’ impression of Judaism) see J. Behm, TDNT 4.929–931.
The sort of fasting envisaged here is presumably that of choice rather than of routine, since there would be little point in putting on a show to impress people with one’s fasting if it was already known and expected. In 9:14–17 we shall find the voluntary fasting of the Pharisees used as a stick with which to beat the Jesus movement, which is thus alleged not to take its religious obligations sufficiently seriously; the argument of course assumes that other people knew the Pharisees were fasting. Just how the “hypocrites” made their fasting visible (by making their faces “invisible”!) is not clear (see p. 231, n. 17), but there is a delicious irony in the play on words between aphanizō (“hide”) and phainomai (“everyone can see;” cf. also v. 18). Their “miserable” look was felt by some, then as now, to be a suitable expression of religious devotion.82 By contrast, the disciples’ washing and anointing are part of the everyday bodily care which were sometimes forgone as part of the self-affliction involved in fasting (m. Taʿan. 1:6). Anointing, like the washing of the face, represents normal cosmetics83 (Luke 7:46; cf Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam 14:2; 2 Chr 28:15; Dan 10:3), not an artificial show of gaiety; everything is to be outwardly normal. Fasting, like alms-giving and prayer, is to be between the disciple and God. No-one else should know. (Perhaps that is why we know so little of early Christian practice in this regard!)
6. Treasure in Heaven (6:19–24)
19Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and vermin1 ruin2 them and where thieves break in3 and steal them. 20Rather store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moths nor vermin can ruin them, and no thieves break in and steal them. 21For where your4 treasure is, there your heart will be too.
22The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound,5 your whole body will be illuminated; 23but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in the dark. So if the light which is in you is darkness, how great that darkness is!
24No one can be the slave6 of two owners; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will take the side of7 one and have no regard for the other. You cannot be slaves of both God and wealth.8
There is a clear continuity of thought between the idea of a secret, heavenly reward in vv. 1–6, 16–18 and the subject of treasure in heaven which opens this section of the discourse with its focus on the disciple’s attitude to material security. The theme of a heavenly reward for those who are disadvantaged on earth also recalls 5:3–12.
Three separate sayings (on treasure, the eye, and slavery), which have parallels respectively in Luke 12:33–34; 11:34–35; 16:13, are here grouped together probably on the basis that all contribute in different ways (vv. 22–23 rather obliquely, as we shall see) to an understanding of the disciples’ attitude to material possessions, a theme which will then be taken up in the more unified section of teaching which forms the rest of ch. 6, and to which this short collection thus provides an introduction. The separate origin of the sayings in vv. 19–24 is indicated by the alternation between plural and singular second-person pronouns (see n. 4). The thought which connects them is of single-mindedness, which comes to the surface in the subtle word-play on haplous, “single, sound,” in v. 22. Disciples, as subjects of God’s kingship, are totally committed to his service, and must allow no other concerns to distract them from this prior aim (see 6:33).
The relationship between discipleship and wealth or possessions is a recurrent theme in the gospels,9 particularly in Luke, who has included three substantial sections of material (most of it found only in his gospel) on issues relating to affluence and the affluent (Luke 12:13–34; 14:1–33; 16:1–31). In Matthew, in addition to the present section of the discourse on discipleship (6:19–34), the issue will recur in 19:16–30, in a section shared with the other synoptic evangelists, while other sayings will raise it more briefly (5:42; 6:2–4; 8:20; 10:8–11; 13:22; 26:6–11), and several parables and other teaching units can also be applied specifically to one’s attitude to possessions (7:7–11; 13:44–46; 25:14–30, 31–46). Recurrent themes are the expectation that disciples will not be among the affluent, the priority of spiritual allegiance to material security, the assurance of God’s care for his people’s material needs and the call for uncalculating generosity.
A cue for the inclusion of this topic at this point in the discourse may be found in the petition of v. 11, where “bread” may appropriately be taken to represent all the material needs which disciples are expected to commit to their heavenly Father. When that prayer has been sincerely prayed, the disciple is set free from material anxiety and can instead concentrate on the kingship and righteousness of God (6:33) which are the prayer’s primary focus. “Treasures on earth” and the demands of “mammon” are thus put into their proper place.
19–20 The instruction “Do not store up for yourselves” might better be rendered “Stop storing up for yourselves”;10 this is a call to reorientation away from one type of acquisition to another. In a culture where banking was embryonic and little used or trusted (see 25:25–27), “treasures” were normally kept in goods or hard currency in the home or in a supposedly safe place; see 13:52 for the former and 13:44; 25:25 for the latter. They were thus liable to physical deterioration (see p. 256, n. 1 for the nature of the damage)11 or theft, and the insecurity of material goods is a recurrent theme of the wisdom writers (Prov 23:4–5; 27:24; Eccles 5:13–17; cf. Jer 17:11); for the role of the “moth” in this cf. Ps 39:11; Job 13:28.12 Equally obviously, however carefully it may be preserved, material wealth is of no use beyond this life on earth (Ps 39:6; 49:16–19; Eccles 2:20–26; this is the point of the parable in Luke 12:16–21). In place of such dubious acquisitions, “treasures in heaven” are a much more desirable alternative; cf. Isa 33:1–6 where the stable “treasure” of the fear of the Lord is contrasted with the short-lived triumph of Zion’s enemies. The nature of these heavenly treasures is not spelled out here, but later in the gospel we shall hear of “inheriting eternal life” as the compensation for loss of earthly advantages (19:27–29; cf. 16:25–26), of “entering the master’s joy” (25:21, 23) and of “inheriting the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (25:34), which is further identified as “eternal life” (25:46). “Heaven” can of course serve as a surrogate for the name of God (as in “the kingdom of heaven” and e.g. in 21:25), so that “treasures in heaven” might be taken to mean “treasures with God” rather than referring specifically to a future life, but here the direct contrast with “on earth” and the sense of provision for the future implied in “store up for yourselves” strongly suggest an other-worldly focus. Cf. the similar metaphor of 1 Tim 6:19.13
The verb “store up for yourselves” (literally “make a treasure for yourselves”) might suggest that these heavenly treasures are to be earned by the disciples’ own efforts, and the frequent language of “reward” in this gospel easily conveys the same impression (see above on 5:12, and compare the “reward” language of 6:1–6, 16–18); in 19:21 it is by giving to the poor that “a treasure in heaven” is to be secured; in 19:29 eternal life is spoken of as compensation for earthly losses, and in 25:21, 23, 34, 46 the heavenly rewards are directly linked to the disciples’ use of earthly opportunities.14 But while the theme of reward is important in this gospel, we must remind ourselves again that in the parable which most directly addresses the issue (20:1–15) there is a deliberate discrepancy between the effort expended and the recompense received: God does not leave anyone unfairly treated, but his grace is not limited to human deserving. In a kingdom in which the first are last and the last first (19:30; 20:16) there is no room for computing one’s “treasures in heaven” on the basis of earthly effort. Those treasures are “stored up” not by performing meritorious acts (and certainly not only by alms-giving) but by belonging to and living by the priorities of the kingdom of heaven.
The focus of this saying is on priorities: heaven rather than earth (for these two contrasting spheres cf. 6:10; 16:19; 18:18; 23:9). It is going beyond the intention of the saying to use it as a basis for ruling out all material possessions and all provisions for the (earthly) future on the part of disciples. For a positive valuation of material possessions if properly used see e.g. 1 Tim 4:3–5; 5:8; 6:18; the itinerant and dependent lifestyle of Jesus and his disciples depended on the support of those who had not divested themselves of all their possessions (Luke 8:3; 10:38–42; John 12:1–2 etc.).
21 The singular “you”s and singular “treasure” of this verse suggest a separate origin from vv. 19–20, but the content of the verse could hardly be more appropriate to round off their message: each disciple’s priorities will be determined by his or her comparative valuation of earthly and heavenly benefits. The sequence might suggest that the orientation of the “heart” follows from the determination of where the treasure is to be, but that is to be pedantic; the valuing of the treasure both follows from and reveals the orientation of the heart. For the “heart” as a term for what is of central importance in a person, what constitutes their true character, cf. 5:8; 11:29, and especially 12:34; 15:18–19; 22:37. For the unhelpful effect of wealth on the “heart” cf. Deut 8:17; 17:17.
22–23 The singular address continues in this enigmatic saying, which has a parallel, differently developed, in Luke 11:34–36. The imagery of treasure gives way to that of light as another way of speaking of a healthy orientation in the disciple’s life, but the metaphor of light is complicated by its linkage with the function of the eye as “lamp of the body,” and a further nuance is added by the adjectives which I have rendered “sound” and “bad”, which allow a play on the usage of the Greek words to introduce the further theme of generosity and meanness. It is this last element in the saying which best explains its inclusion in this context dealing with the disciples’ attitude to material possessions.
The use of light and darkness as imagery for spiritual health or failure is familiar from e.g. John 3:19–21; 8:12; 11:9–10; 12:35–36, and cf. “sons of light” in Luke 16:8. In Matthew the disciples have been described as themselves a light to others (5:14, 16), but this is the only place in this gospel where the metaphor is used in the “Johannine” sense.15
But while the imagery of light may be familiar and easily understood, that of the eye as “the lamp of the body” is not so obvious. In the OT and later Jewish writings we hear of the “light of the eyes” as a mark of happiness,16 of eyes being enlightened or darkened as a mark of vigor or decline,17 and of light shining from the eyes, which may then be compared with torches or lamps.18 Ancient writings contain a variety of ideas about how the eye functions,19 but modern commentators have not been able to agree on how the image works here in relation to the body. A common view that the eye is the “window” through which light enters the body suggests the surprising notion that light is needed inside the body.20 Or the idea might be that our awareness of light around us comes through the eye,21 but “lamp” is not the most obvious way to say that. The lamp metaphor more naturally suggests the function of the eye in providing the light which shows the body the way to go,22 but the following adjectives appear to indicate that it is the body itself, not its surroundings, which is either “illuminated” or “in the dark” depending on how well the eye functions—cf. the final comment on “the light which is in you” being darkness. Perhaps we can be no more definite than to say that the imagery depends on light being necessary for the proper functioning of the body (person) and that this light is in some way dependent on the condition of the eye.23
To convey this sense we might expect an adjective meaning “healthy,” but that is not in itself a normal meaning of haplous, “single,” and the choice of this term suggests that something more is being said about what makes an eye “healthy.” One obvious sense would be “single-minded”, “undistracted,”24 and this would fit admirably with the emphasis on spiritual priorities already expressed in vv. 19–21 and soon to be given memorable epigrammatic form in v. 24 as well as an extended exposition in vv. 25–33. But ponēros, “bad,” is not a natural opposite to haplous in that sense. There is, however, another probable sense of haplous which does provide a natural opposite to ponēros: the meaning “generous” is suggested by the use of the derivative noun haplotēs for “generosity” in e.g. Rom 12:8; 2 Cor 8:2; 9:11, 13, and the adverb haplōs in Jas 1:5 for God’s giving “generously” (cf. LXX 1 Chron 29:17; Prov 11:25). If generosity is to be understood as the outworking of the “simplicity,” “openness” denoted by haplous, this would form a direct counterpart to the phrase ophthalmos ponēros, “bad eye,”25 which is used for a jealous stinginess in 20:15. In view of the recognized meaning of the “bad eye” to denote selfish greed or meanness,26 it seems likely that this saying is meant to indicate that one indication of a person’s spiritual health is their generosity or lack of it in the use of their material possessions.27
So this rather obscure little saying seems to be using a word-play28 which the English translator cannot reproduce without extensive paraphrase in order to commend either single-mindedness (in pursuing the values of the kingdom of heaven) or generosity, or more likely both, as a key to the effective life of a disciple. The final comment then underlines how spiritually disoriented is a life which is not governed by those principles, but rather aims to amass and hold on to “treasure on earth”.
24 The connection of this saying to vv. 22–23 is perhaps to be found in the idea of “single-mindedness” suggested by the adjective haplous in v. 22; v. 24 portrays the sort of “double-mindedness” which spells spiritual disaster. The traditional translation “No one can serve two masters” is patently untrue; we do it all the time, whether by combining part-time jobs or by “moon-lighting.” But a slave was not employed under contract, but was normally wholly owned by the person who had bought him or her (though see Acts 16:16 for the possibility of joint ownership). It is that total commitment which Jesus uses to illustrate the demands of God’s kingship and to show the impossibility of combining those demands with the pursuit of “mammon.”
Milton’s use of “Mammon” as the name of a fallen angel29 takes to the extreme this personification of wealth as a master making claims to rival those of God. But it is here merely a literary personification; there is no evidence that anyone in the ancient world thought of an actual being called “Mammon.” Nor is the term in itself pejorative, as may be seen from the use of māmôn in the targums of Deut 6:5 (“love the Lord your God with … all your māmôn”)30 and Prov 3:9 (“honor the Lord with your māmôn”); in Gen 34:23 it represents the Hebrew for “livestock,” the principal “wealth” of the Shechemites. When wealth is referred to pejoratively māmôn is commonly qualified by dišeqar, “of falsehood” (cf. “the mammon of unrighteousness,” Luke 16:9, 11; 1 En. 63:10), though sometimes the word alone is shown by the context to carry a pejorative connotation. The term is not used in OT Hebrew;31 in the Hebrew of Qumran and of the Mishnah māmôn denotes money or property without any pejorative connotation;32 in m. Sanh. 1:1 dînê māmônôt is a technical term for legal cases concerning property.
Jesus’ warning here is thus not specifically against ill-gotten wealth, but about possessions as such which, however neutral their character, can become a focus of concern and greed which competes for the disciples’ loyalty with God himself.33 The principle of materialism is in inevitable conflict with the kingship of God.34
7. Trusting Your Heavenly Father (6:25–34)
25I tell you, therefore, don’t worry about your life, what you are to eat,1 nor about your body, what you are to wear. Isn’t life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? 26Take a good look at2 the wild3 birds: they do not sow seed or harvest crops and store them in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more important than them? 27Which of you by worrying can add a single cubit to your lifespan?4 28And why worry about clothes? Take a lesson from the wild flowers;5 see how they grow: they do not have to work or spin, 29but I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed as magnificently as one of them. 30If God gives such clothing to the wild plants that are here today and will be thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not do much more for you, you faithless6 people? 31So don’t worry,7 “What are we to eat?” or “What are we to drink?” or “What are we to wear?” 32(all the things the Gentiles are searching for) since your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. 33Rather make it your priority to find God’s8 kingship and his righteousness; then all these other things will be given you as well. 34So don’t worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will worry about itself. Today’s own troubles are enough for today.
This unit of teaching occurs (with the exception of v. 34) in a closely parallel form (though not verbatim the same) in Luke 12:22–31, and its coherence of subject-matter and terminology suggests that the whole of vv. 25–33 belonged together in the tradition of Jesus’ sayings, rather than being collected together from individual sayings as we have seen in vv. 19–24. Verse 34, which makes a rather different point from vv. 25–33, may well have been an independent saying which Matthew added as a conclusion to this section of the discourse on the basis of the shared exhortation “Don’t worry.”
The subject-matter continues the theme of the disciples’ attitude to material needs and possessions, and the issue of priorities which underlies vv. 19–24 is more fully articulated in v. 33. Verse 32, with its contrast between the anxious attitude of Gentiles9 and the disciples’ dependence on their heavenly Father’s prior knowledge, closely echoes vv. 7–8. But while the subject-matter is familiar, the approach of this pericope is distinct and memorable, with its direct application to the most basic human needs and concerns, its insistent repetition of the term “worry” (six out of the seven Matthean uses of the verb are here), and its striking lessons drawn from God’s more than adequate provision for his natural creation. The simple analogy with the birds and flowers is worth many paragraphs of reasoned argument (“stunningly naive but undeniable,” Betz), and the assumption that God’s people are more important to him than his other creation provides the disciple with an attractive basis for filial trust. For a similar emphasis on trusting God for daily needs cf. Phil 4:6–7; Heb 13:5; 1 Pet 5:7.
The lessons are clear and simple, and many disciples have found them of great help and comfort. But they also raise problems in the modern world (and surely also in the world of Jesus’ day) which the discourse does not address and which leave many readers feeling that idealism has here triumphed over reality.10 Does God really provide so bountifully for the birds, which die or are killed in huge numbers every year, often for lack of suitable food, and many of which face the probability of extinction in our shrinking world? Even more pertinently, how are we to maintain the relevance of this teaching to those large numbers of human beings, many of them devout disciples, who simply cannot obtain enough food and die through famine while the affluent part of the world lives in excess? It would be a grossly insensitive and blinkered expositor who would dare to suggest that it was simply because they did not trust God enough. This teaching seems to envisage the world as it should be rather than the world as it is, and while it is true that much of both human and animal suffering can be blamed on human selfishness and greed and our disastrous mismanagement of God’s world, it is not easy to trace a human cause for every famine or disaster, ancient or modern.
Such philosophical and apologetic problems are simply not raised here. The focus is on the disciples’ trust in a heavenly Father, whose concern and ability to meet their needs are taken for granted. We must look elsewhere for a more wide-ranging theodicy. In the specific situation of Jesus’ first disciples the issue was one of direct existential importance: their itinerant and dependent lifestyle made the questions of daily provision constantly relevant, and worry about material needs a recurrent possibility. These were the people for whom the petition “Give us today the bread we need for the coming day” (v. 11) rang true each day, and it was the confident offering of that prayer to a “Father in heaven” that was their essential safeguard against worry.
Worry (merimna) is the antithesis of the practical trust in God which is the essential meaning of faith (pistis) in this gospel (8:10; 9:2, 22, 29; 15:28; 17:20; 21:21). Those who worry show their “lack of faith” (see on v. 30). Outside this passage Matthew contains only two other uses of merimna (ō): in 13:22 the thorns which choke the good seed represent “the worry of the world and the deceit of wealth” (a close parallel to the competing interests set out in this passage and already in vv. 19–21, 24), while in 10:19 disciples under pressure are again exhorted “not to worry,” this time not over material provision but over how they should respond to hostile accusation. In that situation, as here with regard to material needs, “it will be given to you in that hour.” The resultant impression of a carefree life of confident dependence on a caring and generous Father is an attractive one, but one which is less easy to relate to the lifestyle of a modern Western disciple with a nine-to-five job and a mortgage than it was to Jesus’ itinerant companions in Galilee. The concern for tomorrow which v. 34 condemns is firmly built into our commercial and economic structures, and even within the NT we find harsh words for those who do not make appropriate provision (1 Tim 5:8). Of course sensible provision and “worry” are not the same thing, and perhaps we may responsibly claim that the focus of this passage is on faith and its opposite rather than on the specifics of economic planning. It is, after all, worry about tomorrow, not provision for tomorrow, which v. 34 condemns.11 In normal circumstances our cushioned Western lifestyle leaves little scope for the sort of “worry” about basic provisions which this passage envisages. It is perhaps at times of economic catastrophe or of drastically changed personal circumstances that its message applies most directly, and that it becomes clear how far our essential priorities enable us to trust rather than to worry.
25 The “therefore”12 suggests a connection with v. 24: those who accept the demand to be slaves of God rather than mammon might well wonder how their material needs are to be met if they have forgone the wealth that would provide for them. The parallel mention of psychē (“life,” “soul”)13 and sōma (“body”) may seem initially to suggest that here, unusually in the NT, a distinction is drawn between two “parts” of a human being, “soul” and “body.” But the psychē and the sōma are mentioned here rather as the different aspects of our existence to which equally material worries might relate.14 Food maintains the “life” (continued existence) and clothes protect the body. But neither food nor clothing is an end in itself; it is the “life” and “body” for which they provide which ultimately matter, and it is those that the following verses will show to be the object also of God’s concern (as indeed they are the result of his creation). There is, however, a further nuance in the use of pleion, which I have translated “more important” but which literally means simply “more.” Not only is the life more important than the food which sustains it, it also consists of much “more.” A life which is dominated by worry about food is missing out on that “more,” which will be spelled out in v. 33 as the pursuit of God’s kingship and righteousness. A life which does not give priority to these higher concerns has fallen prey to materialism, as the third type of seed in the parable of the sower will illustrate (13:22). It is a life enslaved to mammon (v. 24).
26 The first of the concerns mentioned in v. 25 (food) is addressed by means of an illustration from nature; the second (clothing) will be similarly addressed in v. 28. For similar lessons from nature in the OT cf. Job 12:7–10; Prov 6:6–11; Jer 8:7. Solomon was famous for them, 1 Kgs 4:32–33. For a close rabbinic parallel see m. Qidd. 4:14. For God’s provision for his animal creation see e.g. Ps 104:10–15, 27–30. While it is true that God’s creation provides the food which birds need, the statement that “your heavenly Father feeds them” should not be misunderstood. As Luther famously put it, God provides food for the birds, but he does not drop it into their beaks. More obviously than the flowers of v. 28, birds have to work for their food by searching and hunting, even if not in the human way of sowing, reaping and storing.15 This is not a charter for laziness, for birds or for humans. The argument is a fortiori: if God provides for the birds, how much more for you? The assumption that God’s human creation is of more importance to him than the non-human (cf. 10:31; 12:12) echoes the pattern of the Genesis creation narrative, where human beings constitute the final and climactic act of creation and are given authority over the rest of the animal creation (Gen 1:26–28; cf. Adam’s naming of the animals in Gen 2:19–20). While the idea of the “dominion” of humanity over the rest of creation has been seriously abused, especially in recent generations, the contention of some more extreme proponents of animal rights that humanity has no special place in God’s order for his world finds little biblical support and is here clearly contradicted. It is interesting to observe that the same assumption with regard to the vegetable creation in v. 30, while equally taken for granted, is less explicitly stated than here.
27 The series of rhetorical questions continues with a different argument against worry—it does no good. Indeed worry is more likely to shorten a person’s life than to extend it, though that point is not made here as it is in Sir 20:21–24. The use of the spatial term “cubit” (a standard measure of length, rather less than half a meter) together with the fact that hēlikia, “lifespan,” can also occasionally refer to physical height, has led some to imagine that Jesus is here speaking literally of physical growth, but quite apart from the fact that for the vast majority of people an extra half-meter of height would be a major problem, not a benefit,16 the surrounding context is concerned with survival, not with stature. The cubit is being used here to represent the extension of life beyond the allotted “span”—an equally physical measure of length which in English also serves to indicate length of time; cf. the similar idiom in Ps 39:5. Our lifespan, no less than our food and clothing, is a gift of God, and is outside human control. Worrying about it changes nothing.
28–30 The second illustration from nature17 is even more far-reaching, in that not only are the wild flowers18 more obviously passive than the birds, but what is drawn to our attention is not their mere survival but their magnificence, beyond the best that human art can achieve. Indeed their survival is not at issue; they are here today and gone tomorrow. Yet even so God lavishes on them a craftsman’s care which the most ostentatious monarch can only envy. For the proverbial magnificence of Solomon see 1 Kgs 10:1–25 (which will be referred to in 12:42).19 The short duration of wild vegetation is equally proverbial: cf. Job 8:12; Ps 103:15–16; Isa 40:6–8. Once dead the wild plants provided a regular fuel for the klibanos, a domestic oven for cooking food. If God creates with such extravagant and loving care something which is destined so soon for such an ignoble end, his care for his “higher” creation (see on v. 26) may confidently be expected to be “much more.” It would, of course, be pressing the rhetorical language too far to find in this saying a promise that all God’s people may expect to be more magnificent than Solomon. The point is rather that such a God, author and sustainer of a lavishly beautiful universe, can be trusted to meet his disciples’ essential needs. Those who cannot exert such practical trust in God’s care and provision are oligopistoi, literally “of little faith,” a term used especially in Matthew for those who are afraid instead of trusting God to provide for their survival or need (cf. 8:26; 14:31; 16:8). In 17:20 we shall see that oligopistia means having faith less than a mustard seed, in effect no faith at all. “Faith,” in Matthew, means the confidence that God can and will act on his people’s behalf; without that, however much a person may “believe” intellectually, they are for practical purposes “faithless.”20
31–32 The “worry” which this passage forbids is here set in contrast with God’s prior knowledge of his people’s needs, since it is our awareness of that knowledge and our reliance on it that creates the faith which is the antithesis of worry. So, at least in theory, God’s people are characterized by faith, and thus by a calm confidence in their heavenly Father, while “Gentiles” are characterized by worry.21 That is the reason for their constant babbling in prayer, badgering a reluctant deity to take notice of them (v. 7). For Matthew’s use of “Gentiles”22 for people outside the community of God’s people see on 18:17. As in 6:8, it is of course his people’s needs, not necessarily their wants, that are the object of God’s fatherly concern and provision.
33 The language of priority which underlies vv. 19–21 and 24 is now again made explicit by the call to “make it your priority to find” (literally “seek first”)23 God’s kingship and righteousness. The verb “seek” (zēteō) echoes the stronger compound verb epizēteō which was used for the Gentiles’ anxious quest for material provisions in the previous verse. Disciples, by contrast, have a different orientation, a higher purpose in life. We have already seen “righteousness” used several times for living in the way God requires (see p. 119, n. 15). In 5:10, 20 it represents the distinctive lifestyle of disciples. As such it is something which is “done” (3:15; 6:1), but also the object of eager desire comparable to hunger and thirst (5:6), and the language of this verse points the same way. The disciple’s deepest wish and resolve must be to live in God’s way.24
In that case the idea of “seeking God’s kingship” is best understood as another way of saying the same thing, resolving to live under God’s direction and control, just as in 5:10 it is those who stand out for their pursuit of “righteousness” to whom the “kingdom of heaven” belongs. God’s kingship means God’s people living under God’s rule. This sense of “seeking the kingdom of God,” rather than any idea of “trying to bring in God’s kingdom” as an eschatological event, is indicated both by the present imperative of zēteite, “seek” (this is to be a constant preoccupation, not a specific aim for the future) and by the use of this verb, which in this context would not naturally mean “try to bring about,” even if such a view of human effort were consonant with the NT concept of God’s reign. One must pray for the coming of God’s reign (6:10), because it is God who will bring it into being. Such prayer is, of course, part of the “seeking” here required.
This is one of only five places where Matthew uses “kingdom of God” rather than “kingdom of heaven.” In each case it seems likely that he departs from his normal usage because the context requires a more “personal” reference to God himself rather than the more oblique language of his heavenly authority.25 In v. 32 we have heard of God as a “heavenly Father” who is personally concerned for his people, and a reference to “God’s kingship”26 follows naturally from this. There is nothing in the context to require any more subtle reason for the change of terminology.
“All these other things” refers to the material needs which are not to be the object of worry (v. 31). Following immediately after the priority given to “God’s kingship and righteousness” the passive “will be given you” is most naturally understood as the Semitic “divine passive:” the Father who knows your needs and whose way you seek to follow will himself supply those needs. Perhaps we should note, however, that it is these things (basic material needs) which are to be supplied, not “all things” as in one MS of Luke! The disciple is promised survival, not affluence; this is no carte blanche.
34 This additional saying27 has the ring of popular proverbial wisdom.28 The thrust of its first clause is fully consonant both with the summons not to worry about provisions in vv. 25–33 and also with the preceding petition for “bread for the coming day” in 6:11; once you have asked God for tomorrow’s needs there is no need to worry about them. But the following clauses speak not of God’s fatherly concern but, in a quite pragmatic way, of the pointlessness of anticipating tomorrow’s problems. Taken out of its current context this could, then, be read as simply a piece of cynical advice to live only for the present—the attitude condemned by Paul in 1 Cor 15:32 (following Isa 22:13; cf. 56:12), and indeed also by Jesus in Luke 12:19–20. In speaking of “tomorrow worrying” and of “troubles” as the likely experience of each day v. 34 strikes a more pessimistic (or at least realistic) note than the preceding verses. By including it along with vv. 25–33 Matthew has perhaps deliberately put a sobering question-mark against an unthinkingly euphoric attitude which vv. 25–33 might evoke in some hearers. God’s care and provision are assured, but that does not mean that the disciple life is to be one long picnic. Each day will still have its “troubles;” the preceding verses simply provide the assurance that by the grace of God they can be survived.
1Do not judge, so that you may not be judged; 2for you will be judged by the same standard by which you judge others, and the same measure which you measure out will be measured out to you. 3Why do you1 focus on the splinter which is in your brother’s2 eye, and fail to notice the plank3 which is in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, “Let me get the splinter out of your eye,” when all the time you have a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first get the plank out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to get the splinter out of your brother’s eye.
6Don’t give sacred things to dogs or throw down your pearls in front of pigs, or they may trample them under foot and turn round and savage you.
After the extended section of the discourse which has dealt with the disciples’ attitude to possessions, a number of shorter sections deal with apparently unrelated issues before a further summary verse (7:12) brings the main body of the discourse to a close. Verses 1–5 and 7–11 deal with the two separate subjects of criticism (as an aspect of relationships between disciples) and of the disciples’ trust in God’s generous provision. Each is a self-contained unit, and there is no obvious link between them; vv. 7–11 are linked rather with the preceding section on God’s provision of his people’s needs. Between these two short sections stands an enigmatic saying (v. 6) which does not closely relate to either of its neighboring pericopes,4 but which I have linked with vv. 1–5 because it may be understood to provide a balance over against what could be seen as a too uncritical attitude to the failings of others in vv. 1–5. This difficult saying will be dealt with below.
Verses 1–5 by contrast convey an obvious message. They address the very down-to-earth issue of unfairly5 critical attitudes to others, which combined with a naive lack of self-criticism threaten to disrupt a close-knit community such as that of Jesus’ first disciples. A simple negative instruction (v. 1) is supported by an explanatory comment (v. 2) and by a parable which uses broad humor to show up the ludicrous inappropriateness of such behavior (vv. 3–5). Underlying the whole pericope is a principle of reciprocity such as we have noted above in 6:14–15, which will be taken up again in the summary in v. 12. We must expect to be treated as we treat other people (cf. Sir 28:1–7 for an earlier statement of the same principle). Verses 1–2 do not specify who will do the judging of those who judge others; it would be possible to read this merely as a warning about the way society may be expected to react to those it perceives as hypocrites. But in the light of 6:14–15 we should probably read these as “divine passives” (cf. also 6:33); just as God will forgive only the forgiving, so he will judge his people as they judge others.
See, however, 18:15–17, and the comments there, for a proper desire to correct a “brother who sins.” The balancing of such pastorally responsible criticism against the dangers set out in this pericope calls for a rare degree of self-awareness combined with unselfish concern for others.
1 The verb krinō is used for technical legal decisions, but also more generally for forming judgments and reaching conclusions about both things and people. The verb is not in itself necessarily negative, but the following illustration shows that here the emphasis is on criticism of other people’s failings, and the warning “so that you may not be judged” makes it clear that this sort of “judging” is not something to be welcomed. For the warning that criticism can be turned back against the one who criticizes compare our proverb, “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” It is this reciprocal principle which is the focus of the whole pericope, rather than a prohibition of any use of the critical faculty in itself. Verse 6, as we shall see, appears to call for a proper discrimination which must be based on some “judgment” as to who are and are not fit recipients for “sacred things” and “pearls;” cf. the call to judge people by their fruits in vv. 15–20, and the requirement to draw a fellow-disciple’s sin to their own and if necessary other people’s attention in 18:15–17. But what is forbidden here is the sort of fault-finding mentality and speech which is likely to rebound against the one who exercises it (cf. Jas 2:13; 4:11–12; 5:9).6
2 The reciprocal principle is stated both directly with regard to judgment and indirectly using the metaphor of measuring out commodities in the market.7 In both cases you must expect the same standards of measurement to be applied to both parties (Rom 12:1 makes a closely similar point). The critic who is blind to his or her own failings is living in a make-believe world where one can exempt oneself from standards which others are expected to conform to. Society will not tolerate that, and still less can disciple society afford to operate by such double standards; it is a recipe for the breakdown of relationships. Still more seriously, behind the passive verbs lies the judgment of God, who maintains impartial justice. “You will be judged” looks beyond social criticism to God’s ultimate verdict.
The proverbial form of the “measure for measure” saying allows a number of different applications. In Mark 4:24 it encourages careful listening to Jesus’ parables (what you put in is what you will get out), while in Luke 6:38, in a slightly different form, it apparently encourages financial generosity (God will give to you as you have given to others). Similar proverbs occur in Jewish literature to indicate the appropriateness of God’s judgment, in which the punishment fits the crime (e.g. m. Soṭah 1:7; b. Sanh. 100a).8 The point here is similar; cf. the parable of 18:23–35, where the final condemnation of the obdurate slave stems from the way he has treated his fellow-slave.
3–5 The general instruction of vv. 1–2 is now supported by a parable in which we change to the second person singular, as an individual disciple’s action is portrayed. The robust imagery from the carpenter’s workshop9 makes two related points, the inappropriateness of drawing attention to another’s failing when your own is much greater, and the impracticability and insincerity of an offer to help until your own greater problem has been dealt with. It is not that it is wrong to notice or to try to help with another’s failing (cf. 18:15–17), but that the person who is unaware of their own greater failing is not in a position to do so. The scenario is deliberately ridiculous: like the equally impossible picture of a camel going through the eye of a needle (19:24; cf. also 23:24), its very incongruity commands the hearer’s attention and highlights the untenable position of the insincere critic.
For the meaning of hypocritēs in Matthew see on 6:2; this is the only time Matthew uses it of a disciple rather than of those outside the group. While it is possible that the critic here is to be understood as aware of his own failings but concealing them, it is more likely that he is criticized for failing to apply the same standards to himself that he applies to others (like David in his response to Nathan’s parable, 2 Sam 12:1–7), and thus being unaware of the inconsistency of his behavior; v. 3 speaks of “failing to notice” rather than of deliberate deception. It is other people, and especially God, who can see the “hypocrisy” of his self-righteousness for what it is.
The person being criticized is described as the critic’s “brother.” As in 5:22–24, the term is probably used here for a fellow-disciple (and not necessarily a male one) rather than literally for a member of the same family, though it might be argued that the term belongs merely to the setting of the parable, with two siblings working together in the family workshop. Here is another example of Matthew’s sustained concern for good relationships within the disciple community, which we have already noted in 5:22–26 and which will come to the fore in ch. 18.
6 Whereas vv. 1–5 carried a clear and simple instruction for disciples, this apparently independent saying is couched only in metaphor, with no indication how it might be applied to real-life contexts. The imagery of sacred things given to dogs and precious pearls to pigs is clearly about mismatch, about the inappropriate use of what is special. But what are the holy things and pearls, and from whom are they to be withheld? A very early interpreter (Did. 9:5) applied this saying to the Christian eucharist, which was to be available only to the baptized, but there is no indication in context of any such restricted relevance, and the eucharistic application would be anachronistic for a saying of Jesus to his disciples during his lifetime.10 The choice of dogs and pigs, both regarded by the Jews as unclean animals,11 provides a suitable contrast with “sacred things,” but does not identify what sort of people they represent. In 15:26–27 “dogs” will be used to represent Gentiles, as opposed to the Jewish “children,” and pigs were of course immediately recognizable as Gentile food, forbidden to Jews. Such a reference might suit the “anti-Gentile” element in the mission of Jesus and his disciples according to 10:5–6 and 15:24, but would conflict sharply with the much more pervasive ideal of the inclusion of Gentiles among the people of God which will culminate in 28:19, and the conclusion of 15:21–28 is that the “dogs” will in fact receive their bread. A more likely setting for the saying is perhaps in the mixed character of the disciple community, in which weeds grow alongside the wheat (13:24–30, 36–43), bad and good together (22:10), and in which there are prophets and miracle-workers whom Jesus does not recognize (7:21–23).
Perhaps we can be no more definite than to say that disciples are to be discriminating in sharing the “sacred things” of the gospel and the treasures of their Father in heaven, so as not to lay them open to abuse, but to avoid offering a more specific identification of who are to be regarded as unsuitable or incapable of receiving them (cf. Paul’s insistence in 1 Cor 2:13–16 that only the “spiritual” can receive spiritual teaching). Compare the ostracism of the unrepentant disciple in 18:17. So understood, this saying serves to counterbalance the prohibition of one-sided criticism in vv. 1–5:12 there may nonetheless be times and situations when a responsible assessment of the likely response requires the disciple’s instinctive generosity to be limited, so that holy things are not brought into contempt. The disciples’ response to those hostile to their mission (10:14) is a possible example (and cf. Paul’s policy in Acts 13:46; 18:6; 19:9). It is a principle which can easily be abused through an inappropriate use of the labels “dog” and “pig,” but we can all think of situations where it might apply, and where a totally “unjudging” attitude would be a recipe for disaster. Keener, 244, rightly points out that while one should not “prejudge who may receive one’s message,” neither should one try to “force it on those who show no inclination to accept it.”13
The imagery is compressed. The “sacred things” to be kept from the dogs may well be consecrated food (which in the OT was to be eaten only by the priests and their families); Exod 22:31 directs that unclean food should be thrown to the dogs. The incongruity of pearls (cf. 13:45–46 for their high value) thrown to pigs reflects the “gold ring in a pig’s snout” of Pr 11:22. The animals’ reaction is perhaps to be read chiastically: the pigs trample the pearls and the dogs attack those who feed them,14 though pigs are quite capable of a violent attack if provoked. The last clause indicates that the saying is aimed not only at keeping sacred and precious things safe from misuse, but also more prudentially at the disciples’ own safety: those who fail to exercise a proper discrimination are liable to get hurt themselves.15
9. Expect Good Things from God (7:7–11)
7Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks the door will be opened. 9Who1 is there among you who, if his son asks for a loaf of bread,2 will give him a stone?3 10Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake? 11So if you, bad as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
While these sayings do not link clearly with the sense of vv. 1–6, they pick up directly from the sense of 6:25–34, with the language about the Father in heaven who gives to his children (v. 11) echoing vv. 32–33 and thus returning us to one of the overriding themes of the whole discourse; the invitation to “seek” (vv. 7–8) echoes the call to “seek first” in 6:33.4 It is also possible to suggest a less direct link with the following v. 12, which envisages disciples doing good to other people, but the family imagery of these verses is not repeated there, and a comparison with God’s generosity can be found there only by inference. Verse 12 is about how we should relate to other people, vv. 7–11 about how we relate to God, with inter-human relations introduced here only as the foil for a “how much more” argument. I shall therefore deal with v. 12 as a separate unit of teaching summarizing the main body of the discourse.
The antidote to worry (vv. 25–34) is a robust confidence in God’s willingness to give his people all that they need. In vv. 25–34 the focus was explicitly on need rather than desire, and here too the son’s requests are for basic food, not for luxuries. It is therefore perhaps wise to read the unqualified offer of vv. 7–8 against that background: the “good things” which God will surely give do not necessarily include everything that his children might like to have. The “carte blanche” approach to petitionary prayer does not find support from the NT as a whole. It is God as the Father in heaven who knows what is “good” for his children, and as with a human parent his generosity may not always coincide with the child’s wishes. But for all that necessary caution, there is an openness about vv. 7–8 which invites not merely a resigned acceptance of what the Father gives, but a willingness to explore the extent of his generosity, secure in the knowledge that only what is “good” will be given, so that mistakes in prayer through human short-sightedness will not rebound on those praying. There is, fortunately, nothing inevitable or mechanical about God’s answers to his people’s requests (cf. 6:7–8). Perhaps we should note too that even in this gospel there are in fact circumstances when the door will not be opened to someone who knocks (25:10–12; cf. 7:21–23), just as there are prayers which will not be answered (6:5, 7; and cf. Jesus’ own “unsuccessful” request in Gethsemane, 26:39). The childlike confidence of vv. 7–8 is the prerogative only of disciples who, as vv. 9–11 illustrate, have a true relationship with their Father in heaven.5
7–8 This double saying (triple imperative followed by triple assurance in the indicative, the two neatly balanced to form a memorable saying) is not explicitly limited to any one aspect of prayer, such as the material needs which were the focus of 6:25–34. The imperatives are in the present tense, indicating a continued activity, and the “everyone” which introduces v. 8 increases the impression of generality. This is an invitation to prayer which matches the extraordinary openness of the promises in the Fourth Gospel (John 14:13–14; 15:7, 16; 16:23–24), as well as the confident expectation of 17:20; 18:19; 21:22 that prayers offered in faith, however improbable, will be answered. It is the context, and the general pattern of NT teaching on prayer, which suggests caution in applying it too indiscriminately (see introductory comments above) rather than any limitation in the wording of these verses themselves. It should, however, perhaps be noted also that the present imperatives imply something more than a passing, ill-considered request, though it is probably over-translation to render v. 7, “Keep on asking … keep on seeking … keep on knocking ….” Cf. the qualification in Jer 29:13, that those who seek God will find him if they seek with all their heart. The three verbs function as synonyms, as do the three responses; there is thus no need to seek a specific point of reference for the “door” (which does not appear as such in the Greek anyway); the saying simply uses the “rule of three” as a memorable means of communication. The “divine passives” serve as in 6:33 to indicate the response of the God to whom prayer is offered.
A further nuance, not explicit in either Matthew or Luke, may be hinted at in the version of this saying in Gos. Thom. 92: “Seek and you will find. But those things about which you asked me during those days, I did not tell you on that day. Now I am willing to tell them, and you do not inquire about them.” The notion of a previous period of concealment followed by open revelation does not well fit the Matthean context here, but that asking is a prerequisite to receiving may well be part of what this saying was originally intended to convey; it is not only a promise of response, but an encouragement to ask. As Jas 4:2 puts it, “You do not have because you do not ask.”6
9–10 The frequent characterization of God as “your Father in heaven” prompts an analogy from human parenthood. While the “how much more” of v. 11 will emphasize the contrast between human and divine parenthood, such an analogy is justified by the regular biblical use of this metaphor to point to the nature of God’s care for his people. God’s care is of course far more than even the best human parent can give, but it is never less. The point is not that human parents are incapable of cruelty or neglect of their children, but that our inbuilt assumption of what parenting ought to be like is a valid pointer towards the greater parental concern of the heavenly Father. The rhetorical questions depict what should be an unthinkable response to a child’s request, not merely the denial of the food they properly ask for (bread and fish, the Galilean staple diet as in 14:17; 15:34), but the cynical substitution of something which is superficially similar but is either useless (a stone; cf. 4:3 for the visual similarity to loaves of bread) or positively harmful (a snake, which might resemble an eel or the common catfish of the Lake of Galilee).7
11 Human parents, even at their best, are “bad” in comparison with the heavenly Father,8 and the adjective forms an effective contrast with the “good” things which even they will give to their children; the gifts of the wholly good Father must therefore be even more truly “good.” In Matthew’s version the promise is broad and unspecific, whereas in the otherwise close parallel in Luke 11:13 the Father’s gift is specified as “the Holy Spirit.” The lack of any reference to the Spirit in the context suggests that it is more likely that Luke (whose special interest in the Holy Spirit is often noted) has given a more specific application to the originally more general promise which Matthew records; “good things” follows more naturally both from the “good gifts” of the first half of the verse and from the preceding teaching of 6:25–34, where “all these things” (6:33) relates to material rather than to spiritual endowment.9 That does not mean that this saying relates only to material provision, even though the parables of vv. 9–10 are concerned with food; the wording is broad enough to cover anything “good” for disciples, but a specific focus on “giving the Holy Spirit” (an idea which has no close parallel in Matthew, though see 3:11) seems less appropriate to the context.10
10. Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets (7:12)
12So whatever you would like other people to do for you, you too are to do for them; for this is the law and the prophets.
This striking saying does not directly relate to vv. 7–11,1 which were concerned with our relationship with God rather than with other people—though they included human parental care as an illustration for God’s concern for his people. The second part of the saying rather echoes 5:17, which introduced a major section of the discourse dealing with the disciples’ relationships with other people under the rubric of “fulfilling the law and the prophets.” While most of the more recent part of the discourse has focused on the disciples’ relationship with God (the whole of ch. 6 and 7:7–11), the way we treat other people has been an even more prominent theme of the discourse as a whole, not only in the discussion of fulfilling the law and the prophets in 5:17–48, but also emerging in the beatitudes of 5:3–10, the metaphors of salt and light in 5:13–16, the requirement to forgive in 6:14–15 and the strictures on unfair criticism in 7:1–5. All this material is now incorporated in a far-reaching and memorable summary of the ethics of discipleship (the “greater righteousness” of 5:20), which thus serves to conclude the main body of the discourse: what follows in vv. 13–27 is a coda calling for decisive response rather than adding further instructions on the requirements of discipleship.
In 22:34–40 we shall find Jesus specifically challenged to provide a summary of the law by identifying its “great commandment,” and we shall note then the popularity of such a quest among Jewish teachers. Jesus’ response then will be to single out two OT texts to summarize the law,2 but the summary he offers here is of the spirit rather than the actual words of the law. It is a principle so all-embracing that he can declare not so much that it is the greatest commandment but that it actually “is” the law and the prophets. It does not, of course, cover every aspect of OT law, such as the sacrificial rituals or indeed the love for God himself which is the first of Jesus’ two commandments in 22:37–40; rather it draws out the principle enshrined in Jesus’ second commandment (cf. also 19:19), “You are to love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18), which underlies the ethical demands both of the law and of the prophets. Cf. Paul’s teaching that love for the neighbor fulfills the law so that “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:8–10), and “the whole law is fulfilled in this one saying, ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (Gal 5:14); note also James’ singling out of the love of neighbor as “the royal law” (Jas 2:8).
The famous summary of the law by R. Hillel (b. Šabb. 31a) provides an instructive parallel. Challenged by a Gentile to “teach me the whole Torah while I am standing on one leg” (a challenge curtly refused by Hillel’s rival Shammai), Hillel reputedly replied: “Do not do to your neighbor what is hateful to you. This is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.” The setting is roughly contemporary with Jesus, and the question in effect the same as that put to Jesus in 22:36. Hillel, like Jesus (and unlike Shammai), accepts the possibility of putting the law in a nutshell, and his comment, “This is the whole Torah,” is strikingly similar to Jesus’ saying here. Moreover, his summary is on the same lines as Jesus’ summary here (and indeed the call to “love your neighbor as yourself” in 22:39), but with the interesting difference that Hillel’s formula is negative where Jesus’ is positive. Other less exact parallels are found in both Jewish and pagan literature,3 but again the focus is predominantly negative, the call to avoid hurting others rather than positively to aim to please them. Surpisingly even the Didache, normally thought to be dependent on Matthew, also has only the negative form, “Whatever you would like not to be done to you, you also must not do to others” (Did. 1:2, following an abbreviation of Jesus’ other summary in Matt 22:37, 39), while in Gos. Thom. 6 (= P.Oxy. 654) the simpler “Do not do what you hate” appears without specific emphasis as one member in a list of ethical maxims. Jesus’ positive version of the formula, even if not unprecedented,4 represents a more demanding interpretation5 of love of one’s neighbor than was normal among other teachers of the time.
The common description of this saying as the “Golden Rule” is traditionally traced to the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (AD 222–235) who though not a Christian was reputedly so impressed by the comprehensiveness of this maxim of Jesus as a guide to good living that he had it inscribed in gold on the wall of his chamber. Its influence in Victorian Britain is illustrated by the name given by Charles Kingsley in The Water Babies to the good fairy “Mrs Do-as-you-would-be-done-by” (in contrast to Mrs Be-done-by-as-you-did). As a guide to how unselfish love should work itself out in our relations with other people, this simple principle would be hard to improve on.
11. Responding to Jesus’ Words: Four Warnings (7:13–27)
13Go in through the narrow gate, since the gate1 is wide and the road spacious which leads2 to destruction, and those who go in by it are many. 14But how3 narrow is the gate and how restricted4 the road which leads to life, and those who find it are few.
15Be on your guard against false prophets, who come to you dressed up as sheep while inside they are savage wolves. 16It is by their fruits that you will recognize them. People don’t pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? 17In the same way every good tree produces good5 fruit, while a rotten tree produces bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, or a rotten tree good fruit. 19Every tree which does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Well then, it is by their fruits that you will recognize them.
21Not everyone who says to me “Lord! Lord!” will come into the kingdom of heaven, but only the person who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, “Lord! Lord!, wasn’t it in your name that we prophesied, and in your name that we threw out demons, and in your name that we performed many miracles?” 23Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; get away from me, you law-breakers.”6
24So everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice will be like a sensible man who built his house on the rock; 25then the rain poured down, the rivers rose and the the winds blew and attacked7 that house, but it did not collapse, since it had been founded on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; 27then the rain poured down, the rivers rose and the winds blew and hammered against8 that house, and it collapsed—and its collapse was dramatic.9
The Golden Rule of 7:12 concludes the substantive content of the discourse on discipleship. What follows is a series of four short sketches which underline the importance of an existential response to what has been heard and warn of the consequences of failing to respond. There is no uniformity in their literary form (unlike for instance the six examples of the greater righteousness in 5:21–47 or the three examples of misdirected piety in 6:1–18), but each in a different way draws out the contrast between a right and a wrong response, between the true and the false, the saved and the lost. This is, then, a rhetorical conclusion to the discourse,10 aiming to motivate the hearers to take appropriate action.11 A key word which runs through the last three of the four sections is poieō, “to do,” though English idiom does not allow the repetition of the same verb in translation: it is represented above by “produce” (fruit) in vv. 17, 18, 19, by “do” (the will of God) in v. 21, by “perform” (miracles) in v. 22, and by “put into practice” (Jesus’ teaching) in vv. 24, 26. In each case except v. 22 it is those who “do” who are commended; in v. 22 the wrong sort of “doing” is contrasted with the right sort in v. 21. In vv. 24 and 26 both men are described as “hearing” Jesus’ words but only the first “does” them; the message is clear, that those who have now “heard” Jesus’ teaching receive no benefit from it unless they also put it into practice.
Some interpreters treat the third scene, vv. 21–23, as a subsection of the second dealing with false prophecy. Apart from a single use of the verb “prophesy” as one of a series of charismatic activities claimed in v. 22, however, the two sections have little in common, and v. 20 with its repetition of v. 16a looks like the conclusion of a section, after which a new group is introduced in v. 21. As we shall note below, the nature of the deception in vv. 21–23 is quite different from that in v. 15. Whereas that was deliberate deception of disciples by those outside the group, the people of v. 22 are, at least in their own understanding, insiders; they are not so much deceivers as self-deceived. Their situation is closer to that of the non-practising hearer of v. 26 than to that of the wolves dressed up as sheep.12
The resultant four sections therefore press increasingly closer to home: the first is a simple contrast between saved and lost, the second concerns outsiders who merely pretend to be insiders, the third looks at those who think they are insiders but are not, and the fourth draws a line even within the group of insiders (who hear Jesus’ words) between those who respond and those who do not. In each of the four cases, the result of a failure to respond is catastrophic: “destruction” (v. 13), “cut down and burned” (v. 19), excluded from the kingdom of heaven (vv. 21, 23), and the total collapse of the house (v. 27).
a. Scene 1: The Broad and Narrow Roads (7:13–14)
The first contrast is stark and clear, between “destruction”13 and “life.” This is not a matter of more and less successful attempts to follow the lifestyle of the kingdom of heaven, but of being either in or out, saved or lost. The two routes lead in opposite directions and their destinations are totally apart. Without using those words, this saying sets before us the radical alternative of heaven or hell.
The choice is set out in the imagery of two roads, contrasted in their character (broad and narrow), in their popularity (followed by many and few) and in their destination. Cf. “the way of life and the way of death” in Jer 21:8; cf. Ps 1:6; also Deut 11:26–29 etc. This traditional Jewish teaching on the two ways14 is developed at length in Did. 1–6. The nature of the imagery depends on which textual reading is adopted in v. 13 (see p. 284, n. 1). On the majority reading, translated above, each road has a gate leading onto it,15 appropriately wide and narrow respectively; on the alternative reading there is no gate on the wide road. The latter reading offers the appropriate sense of the majority route as a way of life which has no entrance requirement, onto which people find their way without effort or thought, simply drifting with the crowd; it is only those who make the effort to turn aside through the unattractively narrow gate who can find the alternative road which leads away (see p. 284, n. 2) from the crowd to real life. Such imagery lends itself to a preacher’s elaboration in terms of the need to fight one’s way through the thoughtless, contented crowd on the broad road in order to make a decisive break by going though the gate of disciple-commitment and undertake the hard, uphill struggle of the road to heaven. But unfortunately most textual scholars opt for the majority reading; it may even be that the popularity of the shorter reading among some ancient interpreters may have more to do with its homiletical possibilities than with its textual authenticity.
Whichever way the imagery is read, the saying offers a stark choice between two totally opposed orientations and their respective outcomes, and takes it for granted that those who find the way to life will be a minority.16 In Luke 13:23–24 the imagery of the narrow door is a response to the question “Are those who are saved few?”; the answer is clearly meant to be yes.17 This is consistent with the repeated assumption in this discourse that disciples stand out from the majority of the society in which they live (5:3–10, 13–16) and as such are subject to persecution (5:11–12, 39–47); see p. 284, n. 4 for the possibility that the wording here also envisages persecution for those on the narrow way. To envisage the majority as on the broad road to destruction adds a sense of urgency to the call to “seek first God’s kingship and righteousness.” (6:33) A similar contrast between the saved and the lost underlies several of the parables in ch. 13, and again there the impression may be gained that those who are saved are a minority taken out from a generally corrupt society (13:19–23; 37–43; 49–50). Cf. the imagery of the disciples as sheep among wolves in 10:16. Matthew’s Jesus does not seem to envisage the general conversion of society; those on the road to life are only those few who have “found” it.
b. Scene 2: False Prophets: Good and Bad Fruit (7:15–20)
The second contrast focuses on the danger posed by false prophets, who are, by implication, contrasted with true prophets who may be trusted. The term “prophet” locates these people within the disciple community, and the imagery of wolves dressed as sheep indicates that that community may contain impostors. The specific focus on prophecy is found only in v. 15, while the imagery of trees and fruit in vv. 16–20 could apply to any other people who purport to be godly. Indeed the same imagery will be used in 12:33 with reference apparently to the current Jewish leadership; the parallel in Luke 6:43–45 lacks the reference to prophecy and follows immediately upon the saying about the splinter and the plank, indicating that it there concerns hypocrisy on the part of any disciple. So perhaps Matthew has brought together in vv. 15–20 two originally separate pieces of teaching. But in that case he clearly intends them to be taken together: in his construction the clear antecedent of “their” and “them” in v. 16 (and therefore also in v. 20) is the false prophets, to whom the common-sense test of genuineness “by their fruits” must therefore especially apply.
15 False prophets are a recurrent problem in the OT, and Matthew’s term here, pseudoprophētēs, occurs in LXX Zech 13:2 and often in Jeremiah, who found himself frequently pitted against the more popular prophets who proclaimed “Peace” when there was no peace (Jer 6:13–14; 28:1–17 etc.). Cf. the classic story of Micaiah ben Imlah and the 400 court prophets in 1 Kgs 22:5–28. We shall hear more warnings against false prophets in 24:11, 24, and Did. 11:2–12:5 provides graphic evidence of the nuisance they soon became in the post-apostolic church.18 The false prophets of Didache 11–12 were apparently more mercenary than actively destructive,19 but we find the metaphor of wolves used again for false teachers in the church as early as Acts 20:29, and the NT is full of warnings against the damage that false teaching could do to the life and health of the Christian congregations. The added authority-claim implied in what purported to be prophecy (and so received directly from God) made false prophets even more dangerous. There is of course no evidence that “prophecy” as such featured in the disciple group during Jesus’ ministry, but it quickly became a prominent feature of early Christian congregational life, and almost as quickly became subject to abuse. The warnings of 24:11, 24 indicate that Jesus was aware of this future hazard, as indeed OT experience might lead one to expect. By the time Matthew wrote his gospel the issue had already taken on much more immediate relevance.
These false prophets are described as “coming to you,” and so apparently as people from outside the disciple group who nonetheless wish to represent themselves as on the same side. The contrast between their appearance and what they are “inside” makes it clear that, unlike the self-deluded charismatics of vv. 22–23, they are consciously putting on an act. The imagery of wolves dressed as sheep20 not only indicates that their destructive intentions are hidden behind a mild facade, but also draws on the common OT metaphor of God’s people as his flock (cf. 9:36; 10:6, 16; 15:24; 18:12–13; 25:32–33; 26:31): they want to be accepted as belonging to God’s people. For wolves as a metaphor for those who abuse their position of leadership among God’s people cf. Ezek 23:27–28; Zeph 3:3–4, in each case in association with false prophets. The instruction to “beware” of them implies the same need for discrimination on the part of God’s people as we saw in v. 6. People cannot always be taken at their face value, and the more so when they claim to speak for God. The testing of purportedly divine communications is a prominent and necessary concern of the NT writers; cf. 1 Cor 14:29, 37–38; 2 Thess 2:1–3; 1 John 4:1–6.21 Such wariness coexists in the NT, however, with a recognition of and welcome for prophecy as a genuine divine gift, and Matthew shares that recognition (10:41; 23:34); after all, the reason why false prophets can pass themselves off as “sheep” is presumably that genuine prophecy is a familiar and welcome phenomenon in the church.
16–20 The test of “fruits” is set out at some length, from a variety of aspects. (1) The basic principle is in vv. 17–18: trees produce only the kind of fruit which reflects their basic character, good or bad. (2) That general point is illustrated by the specific instance of thorn bushes and thistles (v. 16b), which from the point of view of human usefulness are “bad”22 and therefore cannot produce the useful (“good”) fruits of grapes and figs. This illustration depends on the species of the plant rather than its condition as “good” or “rotten,” but the principle is the same. (3) Verse 19 adds a note which is parenthetical to the issue of testing as such, the ultimate fate of the unfruitful tree, but in context this additional note fits into the general pattern of these four warnings (see introductory comments above) by indicating what is in store for the false prophets and for any who like them do not produce the “fruits” they promise (cf. the destruction of the unfruitful fig tree in 21:18–20, and comments there on its symbolic intention). Verse 19 repeats word for word the warning by John the Baptist in 3:10 (see comments there). (4) Finally, the pericope is framed by the repeated practical guideline which the fruit metaphor was introduced to support, “It is by their fruits that you will recognize them.” (vv. 16a, 20)
In the OT a variety of tests for prophets are suggested. In Deut 18:21–22 we find the test of subsequent events: if what they have predicted does not happen, they are false prophets. But in Deut 13:1–6 there is also a theological test: even if a prophet’s words do come true, they are to be rejected if they call God’s people to follow other gods. In Jer 23:9–15 and elsewhere there is the ethical test: their ungodly behavior gives them away. This last seems the closest to what is intended here. The “fruits”23 are not specifically identified, but the metaphor recurs several times in Matthew. In 3:8 it represents behavior which demonstrates true repentance, in 12:33 probably the words by which a person’s true allegiance is revealed, in 13:8, 23 a lifestyle which responds to the preaching of the word; in 21:19 fruitlessness illustrates the failure of the temple establishment, and in 21:33–43 the fruit of the vineyard represents the life and loyalty which God expects of his people. It is thus predominantly an ethical metaphor, based on the assumption that true loyalty to God will issue in appropriate behavior by his people. However plausible their words, it is by the life they live that you can recognize those who are not true prophets of God. Thus this pericope, like those that follow in vv. 21–23 and 24–27 (each of which also gives prominence to the verb poieō; see above), is concerned, as the discourse as a whole has been, with the way disciples live. The word “righteousness” does not occur in these concluding pericopes, but that is what they are about. Only those prophets whose lives reveal the righteousness of the kingdom of God are to be credited. The constant refrain of the NT is that bad teaching is reflected in bad living; it is by their fruits that you will recognize them. Carson, 191, adds the pertinent comment that while the test of fruit is reliable, it is “not necessarily easy or quick;” fruit may take some time to develop, and the pernicious results of false teaching may not be obvious at first.
c. Scene 3: Insiders and Outsiders: Things May Not Be as They Seem (7:21–23)
The third contrast24 presses even closer to home. Whereas v. 15 warned the insiders against interlopers who would pretend to belong to the group, here there is apparently no pretense. We meet people who profess their allegiance to Jesus as “Lord,”25 and who can back up that claim with impressive spiritual achievements (“fruits”?) all carried out explicitly “in his name.” Unlike the consciously fraudulent prophets of v. 15, these people are apparently themselves more surprised than anyone when they find themselves rejected from the kingdom of heaven. They really thought they had made the grade; like the “goats” of 25:44 they are quite unaware of where they have failed. But the basis of their rejection is expressed not in terms of what they have done or not done, still less in terms of the allegiance they professed, but in the poignant words, the more desolating when addressed to professed disciples, “I never knew you.”
This is the more surprising when v. 21 has contrasted merely professed adherents with those who do God’s will. “Doing” and “being known” sound like quite different criteria. And it is on their “doing” that they base their claim in v. 22, listing a series of charismatic activities done in Jesus’ name, surely in themselves all appropriate marks of those who belong to the kingdom of heaven, and indeed characteristics of Jesus’ own ministry and that expected of his disciples (10:7–8); the repetition of the verb poieō in v. 22 echoing v. 21 seems to clinch the point. Yet when they are rejected in v. 23 it is not merely on the basis that they have not been known, but that what they have done is itself no more than “lawlessness.”
It seems then that a new dimension is now added to the question of “fruits.” Even good works by themselves are not enough. Prophecy, exorcism and miracles can hardly be described as “bad fruit,” but even these spiritual activities can apparently be carried out by those who still lack the relationship with Jesus which is the essential basis for belonging to the kingdom of heaven. There are good people who claim to follow Jesus as “Lord” and who do good works and think they are doing them in Jesus’ name who are nonetheless on the broad road. “Doing the will of my Father in heaven” is not a merely ethical category; that will includes also to know and be known by Jesus the “Lord.” A professed allegiance to Jesus falls short of that, and so even does the enthusiastic performance of charismatic activities “in his name.”26
This is, then, a profoundly searching and disturbing pericope for all professing disciples. It raises sharply the issue of assurance of salvation, and taken alone it can be a cause of great distress to some more sensitive souls. But such questioning is not a new phenomenon. It was apparently in the light of just such painful spiritual self-examination that the pastoral treatise we know as 1 John was written, with its recognition of the need for reassurance when “our hearts condemn us” (1 John 3:19–22) and its painstaking examination of the grounds for assurance: “by this we know …” (1 John 2:3, 5; 3:16, 19, 24; 4:2, 6, 13; 5:2).
21 This is the first use in Matthew of “Lord,” kyrie, as an address to Jesus. God has been referred to frequently, both in OT quotations and in Matthew’s own editorial style, as ho Kyrios, the regular LXX translation of the divine name Yahweh. Matthew, unlike Luke, does not use ho Kyrios to refer to Jesus in his narrative or as a title used by Jesus for himself (21:3 is not an exception, see notes there), but the vocative kyrie will be the most common form of address to Jesus in the narrative from here on, used both by disciples and by strangers seeking Jesus’ help. The vocative in itself carries no necessary theological connotation, but simply recognizes a superior social status: ho kyrios in the parables often denotes an employer or slave-owner, and we find the vocative so used in 13:27; 21:30 (to a father); 25:11, 20, 22, 24. Pilate is so addressed in 27:63. But in Matthew’s narrative, addressed to Jesus as a Galilean villager of no social prominence, and frequently in the context of expecting miraculous help, kyrie clearly carries more weight, and the fact that Matthew uses it substantially more than the other synoptic evangelists indicates that he was well aware of this more than purely social dimension. In the present context this dimension is very clear, where the use of kyrie, kyrie (the doubling of the address draws attention to it as important in its own right, not merely polite) for Jesus is linked with entry to the kingdom of heaven and with the working of miracles. Cf 25:11, where this same double vocative similarly accompanies an appeal for entry to the eschatological wedding feast, and 25:37, 44 where Jesus as the eschatological judge is addressed as kyrie. While it would go beyond the philological evidence to claim kyrie as in itself an attribution of divinity, in these contexts it fits well with Jesus’ presentation of himself as the ultimate judge.
It is not only the address kyrie, kyrie, however, which makes this pericope christologically remarkable. The Jesus who in 5:21–47 repeatedly matched God’s OT laws with his own “but I tell you” now presents himself as the one who decides who does and does not enter the kingdom of heaven, and even more remarkably the basis for that entry is people’s relationship with him, whether or not he “knew them.” Further, the essence of their rejection from the klingdom of heaven is that they must go away from him. This pericope therefore stands alongside 25:31–46 in making the most exalted claims for Jesus as the eschatological judge and the personal focus of salvation.
For the meaning of “enter the kingdom of heaven” see above on 5:20. For “doing the will of God” see on 6:10. In 12:50 the same phrase “do the will of my Father who is in heaven” is used to describe those who truly belong to the disciple group, and the use there of family imagery (Jesus’ brother, sister and mother) gives further depth to the requirement of v. 23 that those admitted to the kingdom of heaven are those whom Jesus “knows;” cf. also 21:28–31, where, as here, “doing the father’s will” is contrasted with mere profession of obedience. Hitherto God has been spoken of frequently as “your Father in heaven,” but from now on Jesus will several times refer to God as “my Father” (10:32–33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 19, 35; 20:23; 25:34, 41; 26:29, 53) and the special relationship indicated by this phrase will be further explained in 11:25–27 and its depth explored in Jesus’ experience in Gethsemane (26:39, 42). Here, as in 25:34, 41, it is appropriate as the basis for Jesus’ role acting as judge on his Father’s authority.
22 “On that day,” like the idea of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, indicates that this scene is set at the final judgment (which will be more fully described in 25:31–46). For “that day” cf 24:36; Luke 10:12; 17:31; in the OT it frequently denotes “the day of Yahweh” (e.g. Isa 10:20; Hos 2:21; Amos 9:11; and throughout Zech 12–14). The three activities claimed are all accepted parts of early Christian discipleship, all practised by Jesus himself, and all mentioned with approval elsewhere in Matthew. That there should be false claimants to the gift of prophecy comes as no surprise after v. 15, but exorcisms and miracles are less easily counterfeited, and it is not indicated here that the claims were false. Matthew himself mentions apparently successful exorcists outside the disciple group (12:27), and in Mark 9:38–41 and Acts 19:13–16 we find that such exorcists used Jesus’ name as a source of power; perhaps the same sort of scenario underlies this saying. Matthew omits mention of the non-disciple exorcist of Mark 9:38–41, perhaps because the generous inference there, that his use of Jesus’ name guarantees his acceptability, would conflict with this saying. Matthew’s nearest equivalent to Mark 9:40, “Whoever is not against us is on our side,” has a very different tone: in 12:30 the scribal detractors of Jesus’ own exorcisms are dismissed with the verdict “Whoever is not with me is against me.” Matthew, it seems, is more cautious about fringe supporters, and is unable to accept charismatic activity, even charismatic activity “in the name of Jesus,” as itself evidence of being on the right side. After all, there were other exorcists and miracle-workers around. The striking threefold repetition of “in your name” is the more remarkable in that elsewhere what is done “in Jesus’ name” is taken to be a mark of genuineness (10:22; 18:5, 20; 19:29; 24:9), but cf. 24:5 where again we find impostors coming “in my name.” The use of Jesus’ name, like the reiterated address kyrie, can be a merely outward profession which does not guarantee genuine discipleship. And even the successful performance of miracles can be traced to other causes (as indeed Jesus’ enemies will allege with regard to his own exorcisms in 9:34; 12:24); see 24:24. There is no substitute for personal discipleship.
23 To “know” is commonly used in biblical literature for much more than acquaintance or recognition; it denotes a relationship (see further on 11:27). In 1:25 it was used following the Hebrew idiom for the sexual relationship, but here it reflects rather the OT idiom for God’s special relationship with his people, as in Amos 3:2 (cf 1 Sam 2:12; Jer 22:16; 24:7; 31:34 for God’s people “knowing” him). “I never knew you” means in effect that he does not acknowledge them as part of his true family (to use the imagery of 12:50); for its use as a formula of repudiation cf. 25:12; 26:70, 72, 74. The resultant verdict, “Get away from me, you law-breakers,” echoes Ps 6:9a (EVV v. 8a) where the psalmist dismisses his opponents and turns to the Lord for support; Matthew reproduces the LXX phrase which translates “workers of evil” as “workers of lawlessness.” To describe those who claim to have practised prophecy, exorcism and miracles as “law-breakers” is extraordinary: if Matthew is not simply mechanically reproducing the LXX term, the implication is apparently that all this charismatic activity, like their profession “Lord! Lord!,” was merely a veneer on a life fundamentally opposed to the will of God, rather like those whom Jeremiah famously accused of turning from fervent devotion to “the temple of the Lord” which was “called by my name” to a catalog of ethical and religious offenses (Jer 7:4–11). The focus here is on such ethical failure rather than their attitude to the law as such; for Matthew’s use of anomia,“lawlessness,” as a fairly general term for behavior displeasing to God rather than with specific reference to the breaking of laws cf. 13:41; 23:28; 24:12.27 That these professed disciples did not even realize their religious failure, and would no doubt have rejected the term “law-breakers” with indignation, only makes the verdict the more poignant.
d. Scene 4: Two House Builders: Hearing and Doing (7:24–27)
The parallel sermon in Luke 6:20–49 ends with a version of this same parable, which is similar in content but almost as different in wording and in the way the story is constructed as it would be possible to be while relating the same teaching.28 This powerful image was apparently reshaped, perhaps several times, but retained its function as the striking conclusion to a challenging discourse which has left Jesus’ hearers with a simple but demanding choice: to hear and ignore, or to hear and put into practice.29 It is a make-or-break choice with eternal consequences. And as we noted in v. 21, it is Jesus himself who is the key to this choice; it is his words (and not, as one might have expected, God’s words) which must be done. Indeed to do Jesus’ words here seems to be the equivalent of “doing the will of my Father in heaven” in v. 21. To ignore his words therefore will result in total spiritual disaster.
Unlike the image of the two roads in vv. 13–14, this parable does not draw a line simply between outsiders and insiders. Both men represent people who have “heard” Jesus’ teaching. In terms of the narrative setting we must remember the surrounding crowds of 5:1, whom we shall find in v. 28 to be there listening apparently on the fringe of the disciple group to whom the discourse is specifically addressed—though of course any of the inner circle of “real” disciples who fail to take up the challenge of this teaching must stand similarly at risk. In terms of Matthew’s church we are no doubt to envisage a typically mixed gathering such as we shall find depicted in 13:24–30, in which not all who hear are equally ready to respond. But to be there in the audience is no more guarantee of salvation than to have called Jesus “Lord! Lord!” and performed miracles in his name. It all comes down to “doing” what Jesus has now set out before them. The alternative is, in the imagery of the parable, total collapse.
The parable itself is simple and self-explanatory in a country where heavy rain can send flash floods surging down the normally dry wadis with devastating effect. For the contrast between “sensible” and “foolish” cf. 25:1–12.30 No particular building-site or type of construction need be specified, though a mud-brick house such as was envisaged also in 6:19 would be particularly susceptible to the effects of flooding. The point is not, as in 1 Cor 3:10–15, the suitability of the building material, but the solidity of the foundation. Cf. Isaiah’s image of the firm foundation-stone which provides the only security when the floods sweep through (Isa 28:15–19), the foundations washed away by a flood in Job 22:16, and the wall which collapses under the pressure of the elements in Ezek 13:10–16 (where the target of the imagery is the false prophets who proclaim peace when there is no peace). The importance of a solid rock foundation will be echoed in 16:18, where again the resultant building will remain secure against all threats. The total collapse of the badly-founded house probably suggests that, as in vv. 21–23, the final judgment is particularly in view, but that setting is not emphasized, and the imagery applies equally to the testing which discipleship will repeatedly encounter before the final consummation.31
12. The Authority of the Teacher Recognized (7:28–29)
28And then,1 when Jesus had come to the end of these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29because he was teaching them as someone who had authority and not as their scribes taught.
This brief conclusion forms with 5:1–2 a framework round the discourse on discipleship. Again we see Jesus as the teacher, but this time it is not the disciples, the primary audience of the discourse, who are in focus, but the crowds, away from whom Jesus had deliberately taken his disciples in 5:1, but who are now found to have been a secondary audience in the background. They have heard enough of this teaching, even if it was not directed toward them, to be mightily impressed. This response to Jesus’ teaching, added to the general enthusiasm for his healing ministry already outlined in 4:24–25, will form the essential background for the narrative which now takes over from the discourse and will be a continuing feature throughout the Galilean phase of Jesus’ activity.
The transition from discourse to narrative is marked by the formula which will conclude each of the five main discourses (cf. 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1);2 the first six Greek words are identical in each case, while the teaching which is the object of the verb “come to the end of” is expressed in slightly different phrases to correspond to the content of the discourse just concluded. The distinctiveness of this formula derives from its rather formal wording.3 The opening kai egeneto, “and it happened,” has an archaic ring (like the KJV phrase “and it came to pass”), representing the familiar OT Hebrew introductory phrase wayyehî; it is not a natural Greek idiom and occurs elsewhere in Matthew only at 9:10.4 Nor is the verb teleō in the sense of “to complete, come to the end of,” part of Matthew’s normal vocabulary: it occurs outside this formula only in 10:23. The whole clause thus looks like a set formula5 deliberately designed to mark the end of each main block of teaching and to lead back into narrative.6 In three of its five occurrences it is immediately followed by a main clause describing Jesus’ movement to another location; here that relocation (8:1) is separated from the formula only by the need to comment first on the crowd reaction.
The periphrastic tense “he was teaching them” (rather than “he had taught them”) suggests that Matthew intends us to think of the crowd’s astonishment as applying not only to this discourse but to Jesus’ continuing teaching in Galilee. The astonishment of both crowds and disciples at Jesus, already implied in 4:24–25, will be frequently noted as the story progresses. Often it will be Jesus’ miracles rather than his teaching which evoke it; the particular verb used here, ekplēssomai, is used especially of the effect of his teaching (cf. 13:54; 19:25; 22:33), but that teaching is linked with miracles in 13:54. In both the feature which will impress them is his authority (cf. 8:9; 9:6, 8; 21:23–27; 28:18). To set the authority of his teaching in contrast with that of the scribes7 is a bold claim, since the scribes were the authorized teachers of the law who in virtue of their training and office had a right to expect the people to accept their legal rulings. When Jesus comes to Jerusalem it will be with the scribes that he must debate, and against them that his tirade in ch. 23 will be delivered. It will be a contest of authority, that of the established guardians of legal tradition against that of the upstart Galilean preacher. But here already the people, perhaps remembering how in 5:20 Jesus has declared the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” inadequate, sense a new dimension in Jesus’ teaching. Whereas scribal rulings were based on the tradition of earlier interpreters of the law, Jesus has in 5:17–48 set himself up as an authority over against that interpretive tradition, on the basis not of a formal training or authorization but of his own confident, “I tell you.” It was that sort of inherent “authority” that the people missed in their scribes, even though their office commanded respect. When to that remarkable claim is added Jesus’ assumption that he himself is the proper object of people’s allegiance and the arbiter of their destiny (5:11–12; 7:21–23, 24, 26), the crowd’s astonishment is hardly out of place. W. D. Davies’ comment on the modern reader’s response to the Sermon on the Mount must apply at least as strongly to those who first heard this teaching: “The Sermon on the Mount compels us, in the first place, to ask who he is who utters these words.”8
E. The Messiah’s Authority Revealed in His Action: An Anthology of Works of Power (8:1–9:34)
Matthew’s overview of the messianic work of Jesus in Galilee has begun in chs. 5–7 with a lengthy and impressive collection of his teaching on discipleship. The conclusion of that discourse has commented on the astonished but presumably approving reaction of the crowd, who recognize in Jesus “someone who had authority, not like their scribes.” But Jesus did not come only to teach, and the introductory paragraph in 4:23–25 has focused even more strongly on his acts of power, primarily in healing and exorcism, as both one of the main components in his ministry and also the basis of his widespread reputation in and around Galilee. Matthew therefore now goes on to present in chs. 8–9 a parallel collection, almost as long as the discourse just concluded, of stories of Jesus’ miraculous activity in the area, before he introduces his second discourse collection in ch. 10. That second discourse will be introduced by an account of the mission of the disciples (10:1; cf. 10:7–8) which closely echoes central aspects of Jesus’ ministry as set out in these chapters. This anthology also provides the narrative basis for Jesus’ christological claim based on his miraculous acts in 11:2–6. These two chapters have thus been designed to play a foundational role in the building up of Matthew’s account of Jesus as the Messiah.
Chapters 8–9 thus present “a ‘slice of life’ view of Jesus’ overall ministry.”1 They contain fully half of all Jesus’ miracles individually recorded in Matthew’s gospel. The collection consists of nine separate miracle stories comprising ten individual miracles (since one of the stories, 9:18–26, contains two intertwined miracles of healing), which are arranged in three groups of three (8:1–17; 8:23–9:8; 9:18–34). Between these three groups are two narrative interludes (8:18–22; 9:9–17) each of which focuses on the call to discipleship and the response of a variety of individuals to that call. The discipleship theme of the discourse in chs. 5–7 is thus fleshed out in a number of case-studies which enable the readers to think more deeply about their own response to the challenge issued in 7:13–27, and to do so against the backdrop of a sequence of stories which increasingly underline the unique authority of the one who has issued that call.
Of the nine miracle stories which Matthew has collected here, six are paralleled in both Mark and Luke, one (8:5–13) in Luke but not in Mark, while the other two (9:27–31, 32–34) are similar to stories which Matthew himself tells elsewhere (20:29–34; 12:22–24) and which also have their synoptic parallels at those points. The collection of miracles is thus different in composition from the discourse of chs. 5–7, which contained virtually no Marcan material, and more than one third of which had no parallel in Luke either. The process of compilation, however, appears again to be a deliberate “anthologizing” on the part of Matthew, in particular by weaving together material most of which occurs in two separate sequences in Mark and Luke.
The following chart shows how Matthew has interwoven this material together with some Q material and his own pair of “doublets”:
The parallels printed in bold comprise the first Marcan sequence (Mark 1:29–2:22; Luke 4:38–5:38); those underlined comprise the second Marcan sequence (Mark 4:35–5:43; Luke 8:22–56); italic represents Q material.
We may note the following features of Matthew’s compositional method:
1. The only element in this whole complex of material which is peculiar to Matthew is the formula-quotation which concludes the first set of stories (unless one counts the two “doublets” as peculiar to Matthew; but each has a synoptic parallel in one of its occurrences). Formula-quotations are of course recognized as a distinctive feature of Matthew’s style, providing an editorial comment on the narrative to which they are attached.
2. Matthew has brought together two narrative sequences which occur separately in Mark and Luke, and has not only interwoven them, but also altered their sequence by moving the story of the leper (Mark 1:40–45) to the beginning of the first group.
3. While the second “interlude” (9:9–17) occupies the same place in Matthew’s sequence as in the synoptic parallels, following the story of the paralyzed man, the first (8:18–22) introduces Q material which in Luke is not connected with any of this collection of narratives.
4. This complex of miracles includes some of the most spectacular examples of Matthew’s abbreviated narration of stories told at more luxuriant length by Mark: note especially the seven verses of 8:28–34 compared with the twenty verses of Mark 5:1–20, and the nine verses of 9:18–26 compared with Mark’s twenty-three (5:21–43). Where Mark apparently enjoys telling these dramatic stories for their own sake, in Matthew they serve a more disciplined function within an overall framework setting out Jesus’ acts of power, and are pared down to contain only what is required for that purpose.
Mark | Luke | |
8:1–4 | 1:40–45 | 5:12–16 |
8:5–13 |
| 7:1–10 |
(8:11–12) |
| (13:28–29) |
8:14–16 | 1:29–34 | 4:38–41 |
8:17 (formula-quotation) |
|
|
8:18–22 |
| 9:57–60 |
8:18–22 |
| 9:57–60 |
8:23–27 | 4:35–41 | 8:22–25 |
8:28–34 | 5:1–20 | 8:26–39 |
9:1–8 | 2:1–12 | 5:17–26 |
9:9–17 | 2:14–22 | 5:27–38 |
9:18–26 | 5:21–43 | 8:40–56 |
9:27–31 (cf. 20:29–34) | 10:46–52 | 18:35–43 |
9:32–34 (cf. 12:22–24) | (3:22) | 11:14–15 |
All this suggests that these chapters contain a careful and original arrangement of traditional material by Matthew to serve his editorial purpose.2 The provision of interludes on discipleship in order to divide the nine stories into three groups of three is closely parallel to the arrangement of the parables of chapter 13 also into groups of three with intervening explanatory material, an arrangement which is equally peculiar to Matthew. As in chapter 13 it is easier to suggest a thematic coherence within the first group of three than it is subsequently, and it does not seem that this was a necessary part of Matthew’s plan, though he welcomed such thematic coherence when it occurred—and in this case underlined it by supplying a concluding formula-quotation for the first group but not for the others. See further below on 8:1–17.
The impact of the Messiah’s teaching has been expressed in terms of a unique authority (7:28–29), and the same may be said also of this account of his deeds. The crowd express themselves again as amazed by Jesus’ God-given “authority” in 9:8, and it is that same “authority” which has persuaded the centurion to expect healing from Jesus (8:9), an expectation which proves amply justified. While the actual term exousia does not occur elsewhere in this section, the theme is seen both in the expectation of miraculous deliverance on the part both of individuals and of crowds, even in the extreme case of a dying daughter, and also in the reaction of disciples and onlookers to Jesus’ miraculous response. Note especially 8:27: “What sort of person is this?” But it is not only in his acts that Jesus’ authority is seen in these chapters. The two interludes present us with a man who issues sudden and all-embracing calls to discipleship and expects to have them instantly obeyed, and who regards his presence among his disciples as sufficient authority for them to be exempt from the pious duty of fasting. The cumulative effect of these various displays of God-given authority is no less powerful than that of the teaching in chapters 5–7. The two anthologies, though very differently constructed, form a matching pair, and together leave no doubt that the story of Jesus in Galilee is, as the prologue to the gospel has told us to expect, that of the Messiah, the Son of God, breaking in upon the humdrum lives of his fellow-countrymen and calling them to decision. As the crowds appropriately comment at the end of this anthology, Israel has never seen anything like this before (9:33).3
1. Three Miracles of Healing and Restoration (8:1–17)
1When Jesus had come down from the hills4 great crowds followed him. 2And up came a leper,5 who approached Jesus with a low bow6 and said, “Lord,7 if you are willing you can make me clean.” 3Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he said; “Be clean.” And immediately the man’s leprosy was made clean. 4Jesus said to him, “See that you do not tell anyone, but off you go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering which Moses laid down, as a witness to them.”
5When Jesus had returned to Capernaum, a centurion approached him with an urgent request:8 6“Lord, my servant is lying9 in my house paralyzed and in terrible pain.” 7Jesus replied, “Am I to come and heal him?”10 8“No, Lord,” replied the centurion, “I am not fit to have you come under my roof. Just issue a command,11 and my servant will be cured. 9For I too am a man under authority, and I have soldiers under me: if I say to one ‘Go,’ he goes, and to another ‘Come,’ he comes; if I tell my slave ‘Do this,’ he does it.” 10When Jesus heard this he was amazed, and he said to his followers, “I tell you truly, I have not found anyone in Israel with faith like this.12 11And I tell you that many will come from the east and west and join Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast13 in the kingdom of heaven, 12while those who belong to that kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Off you go; as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was cured at that moment.14
14Then Jesus went to Peter’s house, where he saw Peter’s15 mother-in-law in bed with a fever. 15He took hold of her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and waited on16 him.
16In the evening they brought to him many people who were possessed by demons; he threw out the spirits with a command, and healed all the people who were suffering. 17This was to fulfill what had been declared through Isaiah the prophet, who said,
“He himself took up our weaknesses and carried our illnesses.”
The first group of three miracle stories seems to be treated as a connected whole, in that here, unlike in the following two groups, there is a concluding general summary of Jesus’ work of healing (v. 16) which then prompts Matthew to add a formula-quotation (v. 17) encapsulating the motif of deliverance which underlies these healings. Matthew’s rearrangement of the traditional order of the healings recorded in Mark 1:29–45, so that the story of the leper comes first, is perhaps also designed to highlight Jesus’ work of deliverance by putting up front a more striking instance of Jesus’ restoration of the distressed and excluded than the relatively mundane fever of Peter’s mother-in-law.
The three individual accounts are of the healing of people who for different reasons were from a Jewish point of view disadvantaged: the leper was by virtue of his illness an outcast from normal society, the centurion (and presumably also his servant) was a Gentile, and the third patient was a woman—though in this latter case the issue of social status is not explicitly raised. So the “weaknesses” (v. 17) which Jesus is here portrayed as responding to involve social as well as physical dimensions. The leper is restored to normal society, while the Gentile and the woman, even if their objective status cannot be changed, have found not only physical healing but also an acceptance with Israel’s Messiah which they could not have taken for granted. The point is strongly emphasized in Matthew’s telling of the story of the centurion, with its elevation of this Gentile’s faith above any in Israel, and its revolutionary vision of outsiders welcomed to take their place alongside the Jewish patriarchs at the messianic banquet.
The Greek lepra in biblical literature denotes a disfiguring skin condition17 which was believed to be contagious and which, following the instructions of Lev 13–14 (extensively developed in Mishnah Negaʿim), rendered the affected person ritually unclean and thus excluded them from normal life and worship. Other types of uncleanness, e.g. through contact with unclean creatures, dead bodies or bodily discharges, were temporary, and once the prescribed period was past and the appropriate offerings made the person concerned could re-enter normal life without stigma. With this condition it was different: as long as the condition persisted the person had no place in society and must contrive to exist away from other people’s dwellings (Lev 13:45–46). No other disease carried this stigma,18 hence the horror with which the “leper” was regarded.19 If the condition was cured a careful examination by the priest and an appropriate offering and cleansing ritual (described in detail in Lev 14:1–32) were required before they could be pronounced clean and allowed back into society. The NT consistently describes the cure of “lepers” as “making clean,” whereas other diseases are “cured;” see especially 10:8; 11:5 where the two are carefully distinguished. The terminology suggests that the physical suffering was not regarded as the most serious aspect of a “leper’s” problem. OT accounts of “leprosy” indicate that it was regarded as practically incurable by medical means (Exod 4:6–8; Num 12:9–15; 2 Kgs 5:1–27; 2 Chr 26:16–21; to cure it is on a par with raising the dead, 2 Kgs 5:7); for lepers to be made clean is a mark of the Messiah’s coming (11:5).
In comparison with Mark’s remarkably strong language about Jesus’ emotional reaction to the “leper’s” approach (including his unexplained anger) Matthew’s telling of the story is restrained. He says nothing of Jesus’ emotions nor of the disobedience of the man to Jesus’ demand for silence (Mark 1:45). But even in this more concise version it is a striking account when read against the cultural setting described above. The man’s confident approach20 contrasts with the self-isolation prescribed in Lev 13:45–46. His recognition of Jesus’ unique status is reflected not only in his deferential approach (a “low bow,” “Lord”) but also in his assumption that Jesus “can” make him clean. His uncertainty, derived no doubt from the general attitude toward “lepers,” is whether this remarkable healer will be willing to respond to his request. Jesus’ response is straightforward, “I am willing,” but is reinforced when he breaks the biblical taboo by touching the unclean man. The immediate disappearance of a long-standing and disfiguring condition is clearly miraculous. And with that the story, as an account of physical healing is complete. But Matthew was well aware that there was more to “leprosy” than that, and Jesus’ instructions in v. 44 ensure that the man is not merely cured but also restored to society through the proper procedure. By recounting Jesus’ response to the most feared and ostracized medical condition of his day, Matthew has thus laid an impressive foundation for this collection of stories which demonstrate both Jesus’ unique healing power and his willingness to challenge the taboos of society in the interests of human compassion.
1 Jesus’ physical relocation following his period of teaching in the hills21 corresponds to similar relocations at the end of each of the other discourses (though that in 26:6 is delayed by the need to set the scene for the passion narrative in 26:1–5); a new phase of the story is beginning. The specific location of this first narrative scene is not given; a “leper” would not be found in a town or village, and we are left to assume that it is somewhere in the countryside on the way back from the hills to Capernaum (v. 5). The approach of the “leper” must assume that Jesus is at this point away from the crowds, who would not have tolerated the presence of the unclean and supposedly contagious person, but Matthew does not feel the need to explain such details. As in 4:25 the “following” by the crowd carries no technical sense of discipleship as it will do in vv. 19–23;22 they are there to listen and to watch, not yet to commit themselves to join the “disciples” of 5:1.
2 Several of those coming to Jesus for healing or other miraculous help are said to have “bowed low” (see p. 303, n. 6; cf. 9:18; 15:25) and addressed him as kyrie (see p. 303, n. 7; cf. 8:6,25; 14:30; 15:22; 17:15; 20:30). Neither term in itself need involve more than a polite recognition of the superior status of the one addressed, but see on 7:21 above for the fuller sense clearly intended in at least some Matthean contexts.23 The man’s assumption that Jesus can cure his disease, reflecting Jesus’ popular reputation as set out in 4:23–25, indicates that he is doing more than merely being polite. More unusual is the explicit raising of the question of Jesus’ will to heal,24 which perhaps reflects the general horror with which “leprosy” was regarded. A Jewish teacher with a proper concern to maintain ritual purity might be expected to refuse to have anything to do with him.
3 Physical touch is a frequent (but not essential, 8:5–13) element in accounts of Jesus’ healings, but here it has an unusual significance, and is emphasized by the double expression “stretched out his hand and touched him.” Other people who were ill might naturally be touched, but to touch a “leper” was to contract defilement (Lev 5:3 etc.). If anyone else was near enough to see what happened they would have been horrified. Cf. on 9:20–22 and 9:25 for other instances where Jesus is in contact with the “unclean.” The narrative does not explain whether Jesus simply ignored the ritual consequences of this defiant mark of acceptance (as the principle enunciated in 15:11 might suggest), or whether the instant healing of the disease through the touch made the issue irrelevant. For the instant, visible cure of “leprosy” as a miraculous act cf. Exod 4:6–8; 2 Kgs 5:14. The reader is left to ponder the christological implications of Jesus’ remarkable reply, “I am willing” (rather than “God is willing”).
4 The demand that those healed should not talk about it is not so prominent a feature in Matthew as in Mark, but will recur in 9:30 and as a generalization in 12:16, where Matthew will explain it by a lengthy quotation from Isa 42:1–4 concerning the non-demonstrative nature of Servant’s acts of deliverance. There it appears to be a general policy of not encouraging popular enthusiasm for a wonder-worker, and Mark’s additional comment here on what happened when the instruction was disregarded (Mark 1:45) points to the pragmatic value of such secrecy.25 But Matthew gives no such explanation here, and the immediately following instruction to go and show the priest that he was cured would suggest that this is not so much a blanket prohibition as a matter of priorities: first show the priest, and so gain official sanction for re-entering “clean” society; to tell others before the priest had been informed and had ratified the man’s new status would have been pointless as well as contrary to established law. Once that was done, we may assume that others would be told, since a former “leper” could hardly be expected to reappear as a healthy member of society without people needing to know how it had happened. The visit to the priest and the sacrifices would take a long time: the ritual covers eight days (Lev 14:8–10) and the offerings would have to be made in the temple, necessitating a journey to Jerusalem and back before the man could rejoin his Galilean society.
The examination by the priest and the resultant cleansing ritual and offering (Lev 14:1–32) would be a “witness to them” (the people, to whom the man has been forbidden to go directly with the news) that the cure was complete and the ostracized person might safely be accepted back. That is probably all that the final phrase of the pericope implies. On two further occasions Matthew will speak of future events (the disciples’ appearance before rulers and kings, 10:18, and the worldwide preaching of the gospel, 24:14) occurring “as a witness to [them and] the Gentiles”, and it is therefore sometimes suggested that the “witness” here relates not only or mainly to the man’s own re-integration into society, but to increasing public awareness of Jesus and his special role, in other words, witness to the gospel.26 But that is a lot to build on just three occurrences of the phrase eis martyrion. While it is true that this and other healings did contribute substantially to the development of the gospel message of deliverance through Jesus, in this context and in direct connection with the visit to the priest (in Jerusalem, not in Galilee where for now the “witness” to the gospel is focused) the phrase is more naturally interpreted in the less theological sense outlined above. Still less is there any hint of the idea sometimes floated that the man’s visit is seen as a witness to the priest 27 that Jesus is a genuine healer or that in sending the man to make his offering he is duly observing the laws of purity; the plural “to them” tells decisively against that interpretation, since only one priest is mentioned. It is of course true that here we see the Jesus who in 5:17 felt the need to defend himself against the charge of “abolishing the law” actively encouraging a man to follow the prescriptions of that law, but this was a formal necessity for the man’s readmission to society, and should not be pressed as an indication of Jesus’ principled observance of the purity laws. When the issue is raised directly in 15:1–20 we shall meet a much less conventional approach; and it will be an issue between Jesus and the scribes, not a confrontation with the priests.
b. The Centurion’s Servant (8:5–13)
The next appeal for miraculous help comes from a Gentile, and Matthew tells the story in a way which emphasizes the significance of an approach to the Jewish Messiah from a non-Jew. The only other such appeal from a Gentile in Matthew is in 15:21–28, and there are important similarities between the two stories, both of which explore the paradox of a Gentile’s expectation of help from a Jewish healer, and in both of which Jesus’ initial reluctance to respond is overcome by the faith of the suppliant which refuses to be put off and which in each case draws Jesus’ admiring comment. Significantly, these are also the only two stories in Matthew involving a healing from a distance.
This is the only miracle story which Matthew shares with Luke (7:1–10) and not also with Mark.28 The basic story-line is the same, but Matthew typically omits material which he regards as inessential to the narrative, the warm relations between the centurion and the local Jewish community, and his use of Jewish elders as intermediaries (Luke 7:3–5). We shall note below that Matthew may have omitted this element not only in order to abbreviate but also because the inclusion of the Jewish elders would distract attention from the direct confrontation between the Gentile officer and the Jewish healer which is important for Matthew’s version of the story. The focus of that confrontation in Matthew, not in Luke, is a challenging and apparently discouraging question, “Am I to come and heal him?,” which resembles Jesus’ dismissive reply to the Gentile woman in 15:24. In the dialogue that follows there are two significant differences in Matthew’s version. Whereas “Not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:9) suggests that there may be great faith in Israel but that this man’s is even greater, “I have not found anyone in Israel with faith like this” (Matt 8:10) is far less complimentary to Israel. And following that pronouncement Matthew introduces (vv. 11–12) a saying which occurs in a different context in Luke (13:28–29) which makes explicit the salvation-historical significance of this Gentile’s faith in relation to the unbelief of the “sons of the kingdom.” All this indicates that what for Luke was a story of a good and humble man whose extraordinary request was granted is in Matthew more a paradigm for the extension of the gospel of Israel’s Messiah to include also those who had no natural claim on him.29
The introduced saying in vv. 11–12 is one of the clearest statements of Matthew’s understanding of the relation between Israel and the new community which results from the ministry of Jesus, and it gains added emphasis by its inclusion in this context of the Gentile officer’s faith which no one in Israel could match. Its vision of “the kingdom of heaven” combines elements of continuity (in that the Hebrew patriarchs remain at the head of the table in the messianic banquet) and of discontinuity (in that new people come in from east and west, while “those who belong to the kingdom of heaven” find themselves outside, exiled to the place traditionally reserved for the Gentiles). Here is the basic outline of a theology of the people of God which will be worked out through the confrontation with the Jewish leadership in chapters 21–23, explained in symbolic language in the discourse concerning the end of the old order in chs. 24–25, and triumphantly summed up in the command to go and make disciples of all nations in 28:19. This initial confrontation with a man of faith who is not a Jew prepares us also for the narrative of Jesus’ extension of his ministry to Gentiles in 15:21–39. We should not be surprised, in the light of the Gentiles who were among the first to welcome his coming (2:1–11).
For all its salvation-historical symbolism, however, this is also in itself a memorable story of the authority of Jesus to heal. That authority is the explicit basis of the centurion’s confidence (vv. 8–9). In this case it is accentuated by the need to effect the healing from a distance, simply “by a word.” That is all the centurion dare ask, since he cannot expect the Jewish healer to enter his Gentile home, but it is a remarkable request, and Matthew ensures that we notice its literal fulfillment by pointing out that the healing took place “at that moment”, with Jesus still at a distance.30 The only other distant healing in Matthew also involves a Gentile who comes to Jesus to beg for help for a person left at home; it seems that it was taken for granted that while Jesus could not be expected to go into a Gentile home this was no barrier to his ability to heal.
5 We have been informed in 4:13 that Jesus has made his base in Capernaum, and he now returns home after his trip into the hills. Here he is easily found by a local army officer who has heard of his reputation as a healer (4:23–25). There was no Roman legion stationed in Palestine at this time, but Herod Antipas had a small force of auxiliary troops at his disposal.31 We have no means of knowing how large a force may have been stationed in Capernaum, but the centurion (commander of a unit of theoretically a hundred troops) may well have been the senior officer in the area; his prominence in the local community according to Luke 7:3–5 suggests this. The auxiliaries, unlike the legionaries, would not be Roman citizens but drawn from the non-Jewish population of surrounding areas such as Phoenicia and Syria. Both the centurion and his servant may therefore be assumed to be non-Jewish, as indeed the following dialogue requires (and as Luke underlines by explaining how well he got on with the Jewish community, Luke 7:4–5). By omitting Luke’s mention of the Jewish friends whom the centurion used as intermediaries, Matthew has ensured that the reader will not be distracted from the direct face-to-face confrontation of the Gentile officer and the Jewish healer which is the essential basis for Matthew’s version of the dialogue which follows.
6 The Greek term pais can mean “child” as well as “servant,” and the fact that in the partially parallel story in John 4:46–54 the patient is the official’s son has led many to suggest either that Matthew is using pais in that sense or that the ambiguity of the word has led to a story which originally concerned a son becoming in the course of transmission a story about a servant. The usage of pais in the NT does not encourage the former option. The only use in the sense of “son” is John 4:51 (where it is parallel to hyios, “son,” in vv. 46–47, 50, 53 and to paidion in v. 49). In eight other cases it means “child,” but without implying any relationship to the speaker or to any character in the narrative. In twelve cases it means “servant,” including the parallel to this narrative in Luke 7:7 where it denotes the same person who is called a doulos, “slave,” in v. 2. For Luke the patient was clearly not the centurion’s son, and there is no reason to think that Matthew disagrees. Moreover, it is questionable whether the conditions of service in the Roman auxiliaries allowed a centurion to be accompanied by his family.32 We may reasonably suppose that the pais was a soldier detailed to act as personal aide to the commanding officer (a “batman” in the military sense, not that of popular fiction), though the term could also cover a domestic slave. At any rate, we may be fairly sure that for Matthew pais here means “servant” not “son;” it is only the “parallel” with John 4:46–54 which might suggest otherwise, and we have seen (n. 28) reason to doubt whether that story can help us in understanding Matthew’s account.
We can only guess the nature of the “paralysis.” What we would call polio or a stroke might be possible causes;33 in either case there would be no prospect of medical cure. In appealing to Jesus as kyrie (see on 7:21) here and in v. 8 the man makes it clear that he is looking for something beyond normal help. Even if the term is simply conventional politeness, it would be remarkable as addressed by an officer of the occupying forces to a socially insignificant member of the subject race. But the assumption of Jesus’ unique authority in the centurion’s words in vv. 8–9 makes it clear that it is more than mere politeness.
7 The nature of Jesus’ response to the centurion’s approach depends on how this verse is translated. While commentators generally recognize that both the wording and the flow of the dialogue require that it be construed as a question,34 English versions have been slow to catch up with this exegesis: among earlier versions I have found this translation only in E. V. Rieu and in NEB margin; more recently see TNIV.35 The traditional translation as a statement or promise, “I will come and heal him,” takes no account of the pronoun egō, which is not only grammatically unnecessary and unusual when the subject is already expressed in the first-person verb, but is also given added emphasis by being placed first in the sentence. If this is a statement, the emphasis requires a translation such as JB, “I will come myself and cure him,” but such emphasis sounds surprisingly pompous on the part of Jesus; there is no suggestion here or elsewhere that he might have sent someone else to do the healing for him! If, however, this is a question, the egō performs an obvious and important function: it draws out the surprising nature of the request apparently implied in the Gentile officer’s appeal to a local Jewish healer, and the emphatic “I” draws attention to the highly irregular suggestion that he, a good Jew, should visit a Gentile house—“You want me to come and heal him?”
The flow of the dialogue confirms this interpretation. So far the centurion has made no request, but merely stated the situation. Jesus’ question thus draws out the request which was implicit. But the emphasized egō ensures that the boldness of the implied request is not passed over. Matthew’s narrative has not so far seen the adult Jesus in contact with Gentiles, and the only time in the whole gospel (or indeed in any of the gospels) when he will enter a Gentile building is when he has no choice in the governor’s headquarters in Jerusalem at his trial. Acts 10–11 shows us the repugnance felt by even a relatively open-minded Jew to such “defilement” (cf. John 18:28); for a Jewish teacher in the public eye it would be an even more defiant breach of taboo than even Jesus’ controversial mixing with “tax-collectors and sinners” (9:10–11). Is that really what this army officer is expecting of him? The centurion’s remarkable reply follows naturally from such a probing question: “Of course not; I couldn’t expect you to come under my roof; all I am asking for is a word of healing, spoken here where you are.”
Jesus’ question thus places the racial issue firmly in the forefront of the reader’s understanding of the story, and the implied reluctance (indeed more than “implied,” in that Jesus did not in fact “come and heal him”)36 produces the same tension between Jesus’ mission as Jewish Messiah and his concern for all peoples which will be even more starkly raised in his reply to the Canaanite woman: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (15:24) The two Gentile-stories follow the same line of development: request met by a racial rebuff, which in turn provokes a remarkable declaration of faith in the light of which Jesus’ apparent reluctance is overcome and the Gentile is restored. It is not the least virtue of the exegesis that recognizes v. 7 as a question that it enables these two stories to be read so closely in parallel.
8 In what way did the centurion feel himself not “fit” to have Jesus in his house?37 The issue cannot be his social status: he was socially the more highly placed of the two, and in his following comments deals with Jesus as an equal at a “man-to-man” level. It is possible that he feels some sense of personal inadequacy at a moral or spiritual level, not because he was a specially bad man (Luke, who also reports this comment, has gone out of his way to emphasize the man’s goodness and kindness, Luke 7:2–5) but because he recognizes “the majesty and authority of Jesus which lift him above everything human, especially in the non-Jewish sphere.”38 But it is most likely in context, as we have noted on v. 7, that Jesus’ question has made him acutely aware of the impropriety from a Jewish point of view of a religious teacher visiting his Gentile (and therefore “unclean;” see m.ʾOhal. 18:7) home. Like the Canaanite woman in 15:27, he is prepared to allow for Jewish religious sensibilities in this area, but sees no reason why they should interfere with his request, which, it now transpires, was not dependent on a personal visit from Jesus. All he needs is a “word;” in v. 16 we shall find the same expression used for Jesus’ normal method of exorcism as opposed to physical healing, by a simple command and without touching the person affected. The gospel accounts of physical healings, however, elsewhere depend on the presence of Jesus and frequently involve his touching the patient or their touching him. The healing requested here is therefore untypical, probably on account of the racial barrier involved, and is a more clearly miraculous method. The simple confidence that as a result of such a command “my servant will be cured” is explained in the centurion’s following words.
9 A military man recognizes “authority” when he sees it. The centurion has both superiors and inferiors in the military hierarchy; he both receives and issues orders, and orders are expected to be obeyed. The orders which he issues at the human level are compared with those he expects Jesus to issue at the spiritual level, and he sees no reason why physical disability should resist Jesus’ authority any more than his own subordinates resist his. His is the no-nonsense faith of a practical man.
It would be pedantic to use the clause “For I too am a man under authority” as the basis for a christological argument; the point of comparison is in the issuing of effective commands, not in the respective hierarchical status of Jesus and this (subordinate) officer. There is in any case no problem in the recognition of Jesus as a “man” (which he was!), and if the centurion was sufficiently well-informed to understand that Jesus was operating under the authority of the God of Israel as he himself was operating under the authority of his military superiors, Matthew would have no problem with this. But this pericope is not about defining Jesus’ christological status, but about the recognition of his unquestioned authority.
10 Jesus recognizes something unique in this man’s grasp of the situation. This is the only time the verb thaumazō, “to be amazed,” which typically describes people’s reaction to Jesus (8:27; 9:33; 15:31; 21:20; 22:22; 27:14), is used by Matthew with Jesus himself as the subject. The man’s simple statement of confidence in his supernatural authority has mightily impressed him, and draws out an appreciative comment to “his followers,” probably not now the following crowd whom we met in v. 1, since Jesus has meanwhile arrived back in Capernaum, but his more regular entourage of disciples. The following words challenge them, and through them the readers of the gospel, to think radical thoughts about where true “faith” may be expected to be found. The formula “I tell you truly” (see on 5:18) marks this out as a pronouncement to be noted. The relatively few references to “faith” and “believing” in Matthew are mainly concerned with the practical faith which expects miracles from Jesus and in answer to prayer.39 Matthew uses the verb predominantly either in this sense or more generally of “believing” a person or a report, though there are two cases of the idiom (more familiar from John or Paul) of “believing in” Jesus (18:6; 27:42); the noun pistis, apart from a single use in the sense of “faithfulness” (23:23), always denotes the practical faith which expects a miracle, and in several cases, as here in v. 13, such “faith” is explicitly cited as the reason for a miraculous healing (9:2, 22, 29; 15:28). The remarkable “faith” of this centurion, then, is to be understood not in the Pauline sense of a soteriological commitment, but as the practical conviction that Jesus has the authority to heal. It is in this sense that he surpasses everyone in Israel. Matthew has told us in 4:23–25 of widespread Jewish enthusiasm for Jesus as a healer, and the numbers brought to him for healing in v. 16 will confirm that reputation. But this soldier’s instinctive recognition of authority and his bold request for healing at a distance have sounded a new note. He points the way forward toward a level of response to Jesus which no Jew has yet been able to match.
11–12 If the “faith” of v. 10 was of an essentially practical nature, it is now taken, in the saying which Matthew has added here (see introductory comments), as a symbol of something more “Pauline:” the vivid imagery of this saying of Jesus conveys a similar message to Paul’s explanation in Romans 4 of how all who believe, Gentile as well as Jew, are now children of Abraham. So here this believing Gentile represents the “many” who will now come within the sphere of salvation; his story provides a preview of the insight which was to come from the faith of another centurion in Acts 11:18: “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance leading to life.” This saying concerns who does, and who does not, ultimately belong to “the kingdom of heaven.” The imagery of reclining at table with the Hebrew patriarchs would inevitably speak to Jewish readers of the messianic banquet which was a popular way of thinking of the ultimate blessedness of the true people of God. In popular Jewish thought it would be taken for granted that, while not every Jew might prove worthy of a place at the banquet, it would be a Jewish gathering, while non-Jews would find themselves outside in the darkness; to be the people of God meant, for all practical purposes, to be Jewish. Jesus’ saying dramatically challenges this instinctive assumption, both by including “many” others from foreign parts (“east and west”) on the guest list, and also daring to exclude those who were assumed to have a right to be there, the “sons of the kingdom.” To add insult to injury, the fate of these “sons of the kingdom” is described in the terms traditionally used in Jewish descriptions of the fate of the ungodly (and therefore, predominantly, the Gentiles), “darkness outside,” “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The reason they are rejected is not explicit within this saying, but in the context in which Matthew has placed it it must be linked with the fact that Jesus has not found in Israel faith like that of the centurion. Thus belonging to the kingdom of heaven is found to depend not on ancestry but on faith.
Such, in brief, is the traditional understanding of this saying. It is, to my mind, one which fits well both with the narrative context into which Matthew has placed it, the “faith” of a Gentile which is greater than that of anyone in Israel, and also the wider theology of the reconstituted people of God which will develop throughout this gospel and which is one of its most distinctive motifs. But not all interpreters agree. Three issues need to be addressed: (a) Does the language justify a reference to the messianic banquet? (b) Are the “many from east and west” really to be understood as Gentiles? (c) Who are the “sons of the kingdom”?
(a) The setting is explicitly “the kingdom of heaven,” which we have seen to be a term with a broad range of reference (see on 3:2). It is that situation where God is recognized as king, his will is done and his purpose achieved. While the term in Matthew normally refers to the situation on earth where God’s people live under his sovereignty, there is an important strand of usage in which “entering the kingdom of heaven” functions as a term for ultimate salvation (5:20; 7:21; 18:3; 19:23–24; 21:31), and in 13:41, 43 the kingdom of the Son of Man and of the Father denotes the state of final blessedness from which the wicked are excluded and in which the righteous shine. The closest parallel to this usage, however, is in 26:29, where Jesus envisages drinking new wine with his disciples “in the kingdom of my Father” after his death. There is no explicit mention of food and drink here, but “reclining” (anaklinomai) suggests a meal, probably a more formal or festive one.40 The presence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lifts this above any ordinary meal; Jewish tradition not surprisingly gave them a leading role at the messianic banquet (b. Pesaḥ. 119b; Exod. Rab. 25:8). The imagery of the messianic banquet derives from Isa 25:6 (cf. 65:13–14) and was elaborated in Jewish literature both in the apocalyptic and the rabbinic traditions, but whereas in Isaiah it was a feast “for all peoples,” Jewish tradition soon made it a blessing specifically for Israel.41
(b) While most interpreters follow the line adopted here, that the “many from east and west” are Gentiles, Davies & Allison, 2.27–28, argue that the reference is to “unprivileged Jews,” just as in 21:31–32 it is Jewish tax-collectors and prostitutes who will go into the kingdom of God in front of those of the religious establishment who have failed to respond to the call of John the Baptist and of Jesus. That would undoubtedly be a theme congenial to Matthew, but here the context is decisively against it: the faith commended in v. 10 is that of a Gentile in specific contrast to Israel.42 The chief arguments offered for a Jewish reference here are that this saying draws on language which in the OT depicts the regathering of Israel after exile and that in the OT the messianic feast is associated with the return of diaspora Jews rather than with Gentiles. These points may be granted, but to establish what OT expressions referred to in their original context is not to determine the way Jesus or Matthew may have developed such language (see Gundry, n. 89). It is precisely the force of this saying that it takes familiar OT categories and deploys them in a new and shocking direction. The OT gathering of the people of God “from east and west” (Ps 107:3; Isa 43:5–6; 49:12; cf. Deut 30:4) provides the model for the ingathering of a new people from all over the world (see further on 24:31), but that model is no longer restricted to ethnic Israel.43 Such a reangling of OT motifs is entirely in accord with the consistent NT hermeneutic which understands the nationalistic and territorial promises of the OT in terms of a new supra-national people of God, a theme which Davies has himself been in the forefront of expounding.44 The inclusion of Gentiles in the (Jewish) messianic feast is part of the same theological reorientation. The argument of Davies & Allison that if the “sons of the kingdom” are Jews in contrast to Gentiles the saying “consigns all of Israel to perdition” is remarkably literalistic: it is not said that all the “sons of the kingdom” are excluded, and the presence of the Hebrew patriarchs at the feast makes it clear that what is here set out is not a Gentile takeover to the total exclusion of Jews, but a messianic community in which ancestry has ceased to be the determining factor.45
(c) The paradoxical force of the saying depends on these “sons of the kingdom” being those whom everyone would expect to be included.46 When the same term is used in 13:38 it denotes those who will be saved in distinction from the “sons of the evil one” who will be rooted out. Here, however, they are those who should have been saved but who are shockingly declared to be consigned to the place of the ungodly. Again we are in familiar Matthean territory, those who are in the position of privilege but who have failed to live up to their calling, and who will be symbolized by the disobedient son of 21:28–32, the defaulting tenants of 21:33–44 and those who despised their invitation to the feast in 22:1–10. All these will be Jewish groups, but the issue as to how far they represent the whole nation or only its discredited leadership will remain an important exegetical question when we come to those chapters. We shall note then the need for a new “nation” to take over the vineyard (21:43), and yet it is clear that Jesus and his disciples, whom we must assume to represent that new “nation,” are themselves also Jewish. Here, as there, it is not a simple matter of “Jews out; Gentiles in.” Rather we are to think of a reconstitution of the true people of God which is no longer on the basis of racial ancestry, but, as symbolized by the Gentile centurion, on the basis of faith in Jesus. The words of John the Baptist on the uselessness of an appeal to Abrahamic ancestry (3:9) have prepared the way for this radical rethinking of what it means to be the people of God.47
The “many from east and west” are pictured here not merely as sharing the residue of Israel’s eschatological blessings (eating the crumbs that fall from the children’s table, 15:27), but even as reclining at the same table as the Hebrew patriarchs who, we are to assume, do not fear ritual defilement by eating with those who do not share Israel’s purity. It is not suggested apparently that they come in as proselytes, but that they are accepted simply as Gentiles, on equal terms with the patriarchs. But if that side of the paradox is shocking to a traditional Jewish theology, what follows is worse: the “sons of the kingdom” will find themselves in the place they had reserved for the ungodly. For “darkness outside” see e.g. 1 En. 103:7; 108:14–15; Ps. Sol. 14:9; 15:10; Exod. Rab. 14:2 describes darkness as covering the wicked in Gehinnom. For “weeping and gnashing of teeth”48 (a favorite Matthean phrase: cf. 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30) see 1 En. 108:3, 5; 2 En. 40:12.49 In 1 Enoch 108 the punishment of the wicked is increased by their being able to see the bliss of the righteous, and the phrase “darkness outside” may be intended to picture the bright lights of the banquet visible to those who are excluded (cf “you will see” in the parallel to this saying, Luke 13:28).
13 The narrative is resumed with a simple closure which brings together two key elements in the story, the “faith” of the centurion and the immediate effect of Jesus’ authoritative word, spoken from a distance. The third person imperative, “so let it be done for you,” indicates not merely a prediction but, like Jesus’ other words of healing and exorcism, an effective pronouncement. It is what the philosophers call a “performative utterance,” not stating that something will happen, still less merely wishing it, but making it happen. This is the cure “by a word” which the centurion had asked for (v. 8) and which Matthew will again emphasize as Jesus’ method in exorcism in v. 16. The close similarity of this verse to 15:28 further underlines the links between these two accounts of Jesus’ response to a Gentile request.
c. Peter’s Mother-in-Law (8:14–15)
After the high drama of the meeting with the “leper” and the remarkable healing of the centurion’s servant by a word of power, this is a simple little narrative. Whereas in those incidents we were alerted to their wider implications with regard to ritual uncleanness and racial segregation, the banal domesticity of this scene invites no such theological extrapolation. If Matthew had it in mind that a woman was also an underprivileged or even in some senses “excluded” person (see introductory remarks on 8:1–17), he does not draw this out in his narrative. It is simply a story of Jesus meeting with illness and responding with effective healing power. Among the many miraculous healings noted in summaries such as v. 16 and 4:23–24; 14:34–36 the only distinctive feature which justifies this one being individually related is the family connection with the leader of the disciple group. That is no doubt why it was remembered and narrated in a church where Peter remained a dominant figure.
The setting is still Capernaum (v. 5), and in Mark’s narrative this incident is part of a sequence set on a sabbath day in Capernaum. Matthew does not have the same narrative framework, but the mention of Peter’s house (see 17:24–27) confirms the location.50 This incident and that in 17:24–27 suggest that the house of Simon and Andrew (as Mark 1:29 designates it) may have served as Jesus’ base in Capernaum, though the note that Jesus had “settled” there before his meeting with the fishermen (4:13) might more naturally mean that he had his own residence in the town. Matthew has told us in 4:18 of Simon’s nickname, Peter, and uses that distinctive name rather than the common Simon throughout his narrative (for a partial exception see 17:25) even though he will not recount Jesus’ giving of that name until 16:16–18. The fact that Peter has a home and family in Capernaum places an important caveat against a too radical understanding of the renunciation involved in following Jesus: Simon and Andrew left their nets, but not their home and (extended) family. For Peter’s wife cf. 1 Cor 9:5.
The “fever” is no more specific than the “paralysis” of v. 6; we have no means of knowing how seriously ill she was. This time Jesus is actually there in the house, and so this healing employs the more normal element of touch. The aorist tense of “left her” implies an immediate cure, and this is underlined by her getting up and resuming her household duties without any time for convalescence.
d. Conclusion of the First Group of Miracles (8:16–17)
This more general healing session “in the evening” follows immediately after the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law also in Mark and Luke. The time of day is significant in Mark, since he has said that the exorcism in the synagogue and the healing in Peter’s house took place on the sabbath, so that it was only after sunset that people could properly come for healing. But Matthew has not mentioned what day it was. His summary of Jesus’ ministry of exorcism and healing (the two types of deliverance being as usual carefully distinguished in the terms used for both diagnosis and cure) is brief and lacking in detail. The one notable feature here is the mention that, in contrast with the elaborate incantations and techniques used by other exorcists at the time,51 Jesus drove out demons52 simply “with a command,” the same wording which was used by the centurion in v. 8, thus again emphasizing Jesus’ unquestionable authority. But in Matthew this brief traditional summary is also made to serve a special purpose as the introduction for a formula-quotation which draws out the significance of this aspect of Jesus’ ministry, an editorial comment on the story so far.
As usual when the quotation is drawn from one of the major prophets, the formula includes the prophet’s name. The passage from which it is drawn, the fourth “servant song” in Isa 52:13–53:12, is one which may well have been framed originally in reference to the suffering of the people of God, or more probably of some group within them (since Israel corporately is often addressed or described in Isaiah 40–55 as God’s “servant”), but which is expressed in terms of an individual “servant” whose suffering benefits the people as a whole. As a result some early Jewish interpretation took it as presenting a messianic figure, whose suffering was variously interpreted (or evaded—see the remarkable rewriting of the passage in the Targum Jonathan). Early Christian interpreters were accustomed to find this prophecy fulfilled in Jesus, but the verse here singled out for quotation is not the normal focus of christological interest, and when it is alluded to elsewhere in the NT is understood not, as here, in relation to Jesus’ healing ministry, but of his dealing with his people’s sin (1 Pet 2:24; cf. Rom 4:25). The parallelism in Isa 53 suggests that this metaphorical interpretation represents what the prophet’s language about “weaknesses and illnesses” was intended to convey, but Matthew has also seen in the literal sense of the Hebrew terms used (“illnesses” and “pains”) a pointer to Jesus the healer. The LXX correctly interpreted the terms in context, and so rendered the clause “He carries our sins and is distressed on our behalf” (similarly also the targum), but Matthew either knows a different Greek version53 or has produced his own more literal rendering of the Hebrew.54 It thus seems that for Matthew the figure of the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah, which other early Christians looked to only for explanation of Jesus’ suffering and death, was a more holistic model for Jesus’ ministry as a whole.55 His only other formal quotation from the relevant Isaiah passages (12:17–21, quoting Isa 42:1–4) also relates to the style of Jesus’ ministry, not to his passion. Not that Matthew is uninterested in the traditional use of the Servant figure in connection with Jesus’ messianic mission and death; we have seen possible allusions in 3:15 and 3:17, and the Servant model will become central to Jesus’ explanation of his death in 20:28; 26:28 as well as probably underlying the whole concept of messianic suffering which will be developed from 16:21 on. But here and in 12:17–21 we see evidence of a more wide-ranging meditation on that scriptural model than elsewhere in the NT.56
In Isaiah the Servant’s “lifting” of illnesses and “carrying” of pains speaks in context of his sharing those experiences himself and so removing them (“by his stripes we are healed”); on that basis one Jewish tradition took Isa 53:4 to mean that the Messiah was to be a leper.57 But the Hebrew verbs used, and Matthew’s Greek versions of them, need mean no more than that he took them away, and Matthew does not suggest that Jesus himself became ill in order to heal.
2. Following Jesus: Two Contrasting Case Studies (8:18–22)
18Seeing a crowd1 around him, Jesus told his disciples to go away with him to the other side of the lake.2 19A certain3 scribe said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you may be going away to.” 20Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and the birds of the sky have roosts,4 but the Son of Man has no place where he can lay his head.”
21Then another of his5 disciples said to him, “Lord, give me permission first to go away and bury my father.” 22But Jesus replied, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
There is a change of scene between 8:18 and 8:28, when Jesus disembarks on the other (east) side of the lake, and vv. 23–27 will portray Jesus and his disciples during the crossing by boat—the first of several such crossings (see 9:1; 14:13, 22–34; 15:39–16:5). Jesus’ intention to leave his home territory for “foreign” parts is signalled in v. 18 (and note the repetition of the verb “go away” in vv. 19 and 21), and this inevitably requires a separation between the few who can go with Jesus in the boat and the crowd as a whole whom he will leave behind. In this situation two6 potential followers declare their intention to go with him. But the interest of the story is not in these two men in themselves (we are told nothing about them, not even whether they in fact joined Jesus or not), but in Jesus’ remarkable responses to them both which raise an abrupt challenge to any easy understanding of discipleship.7 They express both the uncompromising authority of the demand Jesus makes on his followers and also the radical 2. change of life-style which such following must involve. Verse 22 has been taken by M. H2. engel as the paradigm for his portrayal of Jesus as the “charismatic leader” whose call to follow him expresses here by its “unique offensiveness” an authoritative demand which “sharply runs counter to law, piety and custom.”8
This brief interlude in the series of miracle-stories thus prepares the ground for the account of the storm on the lake (vv. 23–27), where, as we shall see, the basic miracle-story is heavily overlaid with a symbolic depiction of the nature of discipleship. The language of discipleship runs prominently through these two brief cameos: “follow” (vv. 19, 22, then picked up in v. 23), “disciple” (v. 21, also picked up in v. 23), “teacher,” “lord”. The two case-studies are of men who wish to join Jesus when he separates himself from the “crowd.” They are thus at least potentially “disciples” (see on v. 21), though there is nothing in context to suggest that either of them belonged to the group who were later to be distinguished as the Twelve (10:1–4). We are not told that either of them did in fact follow Jesus after his sobering response to their initial enthusiasm. In these two tantalizing scenes, therefore, we are reminded of the grey area which existed between the uncommitted “crowd” (cf. 5:1; 7:28–29) and the fully-committed Twelve, an area which will be further delineated in the range of responses set out in the parable of the sower (13:3–8, 18–23).
18 Already before we are formally introduced to the Twelve as a coherent inner circle of Jesus’ followers this verse assumes that the “disciples” to whom the discourse of chs. 5–7 was addressed are a group distinguished from the crowd, who are expected to be Jesus’ traveling companions and to whom it is now natural for him to give instructions (note the authorittative verb ekeleusen, “gave orders”).9 The decision to cross the lake appears to be related to the presence of the crowd, and we may reasonably assume that Jesus’ intention is, as in 5:1 and later in 14:13, to get away from their pressure so as to be alone with his disciples. “The other side” of the lake from Capernaum suggests somewhere on the eastern shore, on the other side of the Jordan inflow, and their eventual arrival in the Gadarene area (see on v. 28) confirms this general area, even if the storm may have affected their actual landfall. This was the largely non-Jewish area known as Decapolis, a loose confederation of self-governing Hellenistic city-states outside the control of the Herodian rulers, to which Jesus will apparently return in 15:29–39. Its non-Jewish culture is indicated by the large herd of pigs being pastured in the area (v. 30). Jesus is thus at this point deliberately withdrawing from his Jewish environment. It is a “foreign” journey on which it could not be expected that his Jewish supporters outside the disciple group would wish or be able to “go away” with him.
19–20 It is thus remarkable that we hear of “a certain scribe” (see above n. 3) wishing to follow him. Unlike most of the scribes we meet in this gospel, this one is at least for the moment in favor of Jesus;10 scribes who are also disciples are mentioned also in 13:52; 23:34, but these are notable exceptions to the strongly negative tone of all Matthew’s other references to scribes. But even this scribe, despite his expressed enthusiasm, does not speak as a true disciple. He addresses Jesus as “Teacher,” a form of address which in Matthew (unlike Mark) is used only by people outside Jesus’ group, never by the disciples (with the significant exception of Judas Iscariot, who twice uses the Hebrew equivalent, “Rabbi”).11 His scribal training leads him to take it for granted that it is for him to choose to follow Jesus, as did the disciples of rabbis, rather than for Jesus to call him as he has done in 4:19, 22; cf. 9:9. Jesus’ response assumes that the scribe has not yet thought out the commitment involved in discipleship, and probably suggests that he is unlikely to be willing to face it. The wording of the scribe’s declaration (which I have translated literally above—he does not simply say “wherever you go”) perhaps indicates that his interest is only in the proposed journey across the lake, whose destination he does not yet know, rather than in a long-term commitment.
Jesus’ reply, however, focuses not on the immediate boat trip, but on the itinerant lifestyle to which his disciples were to be committed. As “the carpenter’s son” in Nazareth (13:55) Jesus presumably had a reasonably secure place in society, but he had left that behind (4:13). Even in Capernaum it seems that Jesus did have “a place where he could lay his head” (whether his own house or that of Peter, see on vv. 14–15), and sometimes on his travels he seems to have been able to find hospitality (e.g. in Bethany: 21:16; 26:6), as indeed he expected his disciples to do (10:11). But the itinerant ministry (4:23) which now required their crossing of the lake would allow no certainty of lodging, and many nights must have been spent in more exposed locations even than the foxes and the birds;12 the coming night will find Jesus sleeping in a boat (v. 24). The first use of the phrase “the Son of Man” in Matthew thus gives unusual weight to the literal meaning of the Aramiac phrase, “a human being,” by contrasting this human being’s material insecurity poignantly with the relatively better provision available to the non-human creation.13
This is not the place for a full study of Matthew’s use of the title “the Son of Man,” still less for entering the continuing and complex debate as to the origin and significance of that term in the light of its wider context. I have sketched out my understanding of these matters elsewhere,14 and here offer only a brief, unadorned summary, well aware that virtually every clause of it is open to dispute. Matthew’s use of the term is not markedly different from that in the other gospels. It is always used by Jesus himself, not by others about him, and it functions as a self-reference—note for instance how in 16:13 it corresponds to “I” in Mark, while in 16:21 the process is reversed. It is the only title by which Jesus refers to himself when speaking with people outside the disciple group.15 Its primary OT source is the vision of Dan 7:13–14, where the “one like a son of man” (who represents Israel) is a victorious figure enthroned by God in heaven to rule over all nations, and in several of its occurrences in the gospel the language and imagery of that passage is present. But it is clear that Jesus, having coined16 his chosen title from this biblical source, then used it much more widely, with reference to aspects of his ministry far removed from his future heavenly glory. In Matthew, as in the other Synoptic Gospels, it is customary to speak of three main areas of reference for the title “the Son of Man,” to his future heavenly glory, to the earthly suffering which must precede it, and, less frequently, to his current earthly status and authority. It seems that the reason why Jesus found this title convenient is that, having no ready-made titular connotations in current usage, it could be applied across the whole range of his uniquely paradoxical mission of humiliation and vindication, of death and glory, which could not be fitted into any pre-existing model. Like his parables, the title “the Son of Man” came with an air of enigma,17 challenging the hearer to think new thoughts rather than to slot Jesus into a ready-made pigeon-hole.
Here in 8:20 the reference is to Jesus’ current status, but whereas in 9:6 and 12:8 the title will denote a figure of unique authority, here it speaks paradoxically of a state of earthly deprivation which is sharply contrasted with the heavenly glory of Dan 7:13–14. As Matthew’s gospel progresses it will be the future, heavenly authority of the Son of Man which will be increasingly in focus, but this first use of the title brings out the contrast between its literal meaning and its specifically Danielic connotations: the one who is to rule over all first shares with his disciples in all the insecurity of their human condition.18
21–22 A second potential recruit is met by an even more off-putting demand from Jesus. The phrase “another of his disciples” suggests that both the potential follower of these verses and the enthusiastic “scribe” of v. 19 are in some sense to be understood as “disciples;”19 this one even uses the more committed form of address, “Lord,” rather than “Teacher.” Yet neither is identified as one of the Twelve, and we should probably assume that neither in fact became one of Jesus’ traveling companions. Whereas in Mark the term mathētēs is probably restricted to the Twelve,20 Matthew, like Luke, also uses it sometimes more widely of anyone who is committed to following Jesus. Note, in addition to this passage, its use in 10:24–25, 42. In 5:1, while it denotes people who are separated from the crowd, there is no reason to restrict it to those who would later be identified as the Twelve; the discourse is addressed to anyone who has become part of the kingdom of heaven. Matthew’s use of the verb mathēteuō (not used in the other gospels) confirms this broader usage, being applied to a “scribe who has become a disciple to the kingdom of heaven” (13:52), to Joseph of Arimathea (27:57), and to the people from all nations who will become followers of Jesus as a result of the mission of the “eleven disciples” (28:19).21 It seems then that here (and by implication also in vv. 19–20) Matthew is using the term for a potential committed follower, a volunteer who is thinking of leaving the “crowd” in order to travel with Jesus. Jesus’ response is then designed to draw out the radical implications of such a commitment.
The potential disciple’s words are usually understood of the immediate and pressing responsibility of arranging the funeral for his father who had just died. Burial took place within 24 hours of the death, so he would not be asking for a long postponement, though subsequent ceremonies could last up to a week. The arrangements were the responsibility of the eldest son (Gen 50:5–7; Tob 4:3; 6:15; 14:11–12; Sir 38:16), and Jewish custom and piety demanded that they take priority over all other commitments, even the most essential prayers (Lev 21:1–3; m. Ber. 3:1). The request would thus be entirely reasonable, indeed essential. If his filial duties prevented him from joining the group in the boat just now, he could catch up with Jesus as soon as his responsibilities had been discharged; the word “first” implies that was his intention. No Jew, especially one who took religious obligations seriously, could have expected him to do otherwise. Jesus’ refusal to allow so essential a filial duty would then be profoundly shocking.
But K. E. Bailey,22 drawing on the insight of Arabic commentators and on his own experience of cultures and idioms of the Middle East, insists that such a scenario results from a “western” reading of the text and is culturally impossible. If the father had just died, the son could hardly be out at the roadside with Jesus; his place was to be keeping vigil and preparing for the funeral. Rather, to “bury one’s father” is standard idiom for fulfilling one’s filial responsibilities for the remainder of the father’s lifetime, with no prospect of his imminent death. This would then be a request for indefinite postponement of discipleship, likely to be for years rather than days. In that case Jesus’ reply would be less immediately shocking—the man’s proposed “discipleship” was apparently not very serious.23
But even so Jesus’ demand would still cut across deep-rooted cultural expectations, and the reference to those who can be left to fulfill the filial responsibility as being themselves “the dead” is harsh.24 Like v. 20, it is an epigrammatic formulation designed to pull the man up short. The cultural “insensitivity” of Jesus’ demand underlines the radical newness and overriding importance of the message of the kingdom of heaven; even the most basic of family ties must not be allowed to stand in its way (cf. 4:22; 10:37; 12:46–50; 19:29). Compared with those who have found true life in the kingdom of heaven, those who remain outside it are “the dead.” This metaphorical use of nekros (literally “a dead person,” “corpse”) for those without spiritual life does not occur elsewhere in the gospels,25 but it is a metaphor readily understood in the light of sayings like 10:39; 16:25–26, and occurs elsewhere in the NT (Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13; Rev 3:1).26 A disciple’s business is with life, not with death.
Whether the metaphor is immediately grasped or not, Jesus’ reply is a stark refusal to allow filial duty to take priority over discipleship. No rabbi would have been so cavalier, and normal Jewish piety would find such an attitude incomprehensible,27 a prima facie breach of the fifth commandment, even though Jesus himself elsewhere endorses it (15:3–6; 19:19).28 If this is what “authority not like their scribes” (7:29) involves, most people would not want to have anything to do with it. The kingdom of heaven apparently involves a degree of fanaticism which is willing to disrupt the normal rhythms of social life.29 Jesus can hardly have been surprised that true discipleship remained a minority movement, and that popular enthusiasm for his teaching and healing generally stopped short of full discipleship. Many are invited but few are chosen (20:16; 22:14; cf. 7:14).