The Gospel of Matthew 0802823890, 9780802823892

Citation preview

© 2005 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Published jointly 2005 in the United States of America by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503 www.eerdmans.com and in the U.K. by Paternoster Press 9 Holdom Avenue, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MK1 1QR All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a license permitting restricted copying. In the U.K. such licenses are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Printed in the United States of America 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19

9876543

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN-10 0-8028-2389-0 ISBN-13 978-0-8028-2389-2 Paternoster ISBN 0-85364-575-2

Contents Foreword Preface Abbreviations General Bibliography

INTRODUCTION A. e Authorship of the Gospel B. e Gospel’s Sources 1. Mark and ‘Q’ 2. Other Sources a. Oral Tradition b. Larger Sets of Linked Units Related to Material in Mark or Q c. Smaller Sets of Linked Units without Parallel in the Canonical Gospels 3. Summary 4. Sources as a Constraint 5. Matthew and John C. How the Author Handled His Sources D. From Eyewitnesses to Matthew’s Sources

E.

F. G.

H. I.

1. Matthew and His Sources as Early Church Documents 2. e Early Development and Role of Gospel Tradition 3. e Gospels and the Historical Jesus e Date of the Gospel of Matthew 1. e Use of the Fall of Jerusalem as a Watershed for Dating 2. Other Claimed Dating Markers 3. A Date before A.D. 70 e Provenance of the Gospel of Matthew What Kind of Document Did Matthew ink He Was Writing? 1. Matthew and the Ancient Biographical Writings 2. Matthew and OT Accounts of the Lives of Key Figures 3. Matthew and Christian Proclamation 4. Matthew as a Manual for Discipleship 5. Matthew and Jewish Midrash 6. Matthew and Christian Self-De nition 7. Matthew and the Jewish Festal Calendar 8. How Matthew Intended His Gospel to Be Related to e State of the Gospel Text Elements of Matthew’s Narrative Technique 1. Repetition of Formulas 2. Use of the Same Source Information on More than One Occasion

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

J.

K. L. M.

Framing Chiasm Parallelism Imperfect Parallelism Internal Cross-Referencing by Means of Language Echoes 8. eme-Setting Episodes 9. Sectional Overlaps 10. Dramatisation Matthew’s Use of the OT 1. Text Forms Available to Matthew a. Mt. 1–2 b. Mt. 3–9 c. Mt. 10–18 d. Mt. 19–25 e. Mt. 26–28 f. Conclusion 2. How Matthew Interprets the OT Matthew’s Use of Other Jewish Tradition e eology of the Gospel of Matthew An Annotated Structural Outline of Matthew

COMMENTARY I. e Stock from Which Jesus Comes — and Its History (1:1-17) II. Infancy (1:18–2:23)

A. e Circumstances of Jesus’ Birth (1:18-25) B. e Visit of the Magi (2:1-12) C. To Egypt and Back (2:13-23) III. John Proclaiming in the Wilderness (3:1-12) IV. Preparation (3:13–4:12) A. Jesus Comes for Baptism by John (3:13-17) B. Led by the Spirit to Be Tested by the Devil (4:1-12) V. Establishing His Ministry (4:13-25) A. Preaching the Kingdom Back in Galilee (4:13-17) B. Calling Co-workers (4:18-22) C. Itinerant Ministry in Galilee, with In uence Far Beyond (4:23-25) VI. Sermon on the Mount (5:1–8:1) A. Preparing to Teach Disciples and Potential Disciples from All Israel (5:1-2) B. Good News to the Poor in Spirit (5:3-10) C. e Difficulties of God’s People Continued and Climaxed in Persecution for Jesus (5:11-12) D. Called to Be Salt and Light (5:13-16) E. Introduction to Jesus’ Vision of Abundant Righteousness (5:17-20) F. Six Antitheses (5:21-48) 1. On Murder (5:21-26) 2. On Adultery (5:27-30) 3. On Divorce (5:31-32) 4. On Oaths (5:33-37) 5. On ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (5:38-42)

G.

H.

I.

J. K.

L.

6. On Love (5:43-48) Practising Piety before Others (6:1-18) 1. Almsgiving (6:1-4) 2. Prayer (6:5-6) Excursus on Prayer (6:7-15) 3. Fasting (6:16-18) Seeking the Kingdom (6:19-34) 1. Storing Up Treasures in Heaven (6:19-21) 2. Having a Healthy Eye (6:22-23) 3. Serving God and Not Mammon (6:24) 4. Do Not Be Anxious; Seek the Kingdom (6:2534) Making Our Relationship with God the Measure of All ings (7:1-11) 1. Do Not Judge; Beware of the Beam in Your Own Eye (7:1-5) 2. Do Not Give Dogs What Is Holy (7:6) 3. Ask; Your Father Gives Good ings (7:7-11) e Golden Rule as the Summary of the Sermon, but Also of the Law and the Prophets (7:12) Challenges to Implement the Sermon (7:13-27) 1. Enter through the Narrow Gate (7:13-14) 2. Beware of False Prophets (7:15-20) 3. Do the Will of My Father (7:21-23) 4. Build Your House on the Rock (7:24-27) He Was Teaching as One Who Had Authority (7:28– 8:1)

VII. Jesus on the Move in Ministry (8:[1]2–9:34)

A. e First Day of Healings (8:[1]2-17) 1. Jesus Cleanses a Leper (8:2-4) 2. Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant (8:5-13) 3. Jesus Heals Peter’s Mother-in-Law (8:14-15) 4. General Healing: He Took Our In rmities (8:1617) B. Miracles in a Disciple Framework (8:18–9:13) 1. Jesus and His Would-Be Followers (8:18-22) 2. Jesus Stills the Storm (8:23-27) 3. Jesus Sends the Demons into the Pigs (8:28-34) 4. Jesus Forgives and Heals a Lame Man (9:1-8) 5. Jesus Heals Tax Collectors and Sinners (9:9-13) C. Healings in Connection with Fresh Wineskins for New Wine (9:14-32) 1. New Wine Is for Fresh Wineskins (9:14-17) 2. Jesus Raises a Girl from Death and Rescues a Woman from Perpetual Uncleanness (9:18-26) 3. Jesus Gives Sight to Two Blind People (9:27-31) 4. Contrasting Reactions to Jesus’ Exorcism of a Mute Man (9:32-34) VIII. Workers for the Harvest (9:35–11:1) A. ‘Ask the Lord of the Harvest to Send Out Workers’ (9:35-38) B. Jesus Bestows Authority on the Twelve (10:1) C. e Names of the Twelve Apostles (10:2-4) D. Jesus Instructs the Twelve for eir Mission (10:542) 1. Instructions, Part 1 (10:5-15)

2. Instructions, Part 2 (10:16-23) 3. Instructions, Part 3 (10:24-42) E. Jesus’ Pattern of Ministry Is Renewed (11:1) IX. Seeing Clearly and Relating Rightly to God’s Present Agenda (11:2-30) A. John the Baptist and Jesus (11:2-19) 1. ‘e Blind Are Seeing, and the Lame Are Walking …’ (11:2-6) 2. ‘My Messenger … Who Will Prepare Your Way’ (11:7-15) 3. ‘He Has a Demon … a Glutton and a Drunkard’ (11:16-19) B. Rejected and Accepted by; Hidden from and Revealed to (11:20-30) 1. Reproaching Privileged Towns (11:20-24) 2. e Good Pleasure of the Father and the Choice of the Son (11:25-27) 3. ‘Come to Me, All Who Are Weary …’ (11:28-30) X. Conflict with the Pharisees (12:1-50) A. ‘e Son of Man Is Lord of the Sabbath’ (12:1-8) B. ‘It Is Permitted to Do Good on the Sabbath’ (12:9-14) C. e Triumph of the Gentle and the Other-Centred Servant of God (12:15-21) D. By Beelzebul or by the Spirit of God? (12:22-29) E. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit Will Not Be Forgiven (12:30-37) F. ose to Be Condemned Seek a Sign (12:38-42)

G. ‘e Last State … Becomes Worse than the First’ (12:43-45) H. ‘Who Is My Mother, and Who Are My Brothers and Sisters?’ (12:46-50) XI. Parables of the Kingdom (13:1-53) A. Speaking to the Crowds in Parables (13:1-3a) B. Set 1 (13:3b-23) 1. e Parable of the One Who Sowed (13:3b-9) 2. Why Parables for the Crowds? (13:10-17) 3. Explanation of the Parable of the One Who Sowed (13:18-23) C. Set 2 (13:24-43) 1. e Parable of the Zizania among the Wheat (13:24-30) 2. e Parable of the Mustard Seed (13:31-32) 3. e Parable of the Leaven (13:33) 4. Jesus’ Parables Speak What Has Long Been Hidden (13:34-35) 5. Explanation of the Parable of the Zizania in the Field (13:36-43) D. Set 3 (13:44-52) 1. e Parable of the Treasure Hidden in the Field (13:44) 2. e Parable of the Very Valuable Pearl (13:4546) 3. e Parable of the Fishing Net, with Interpretation (13:47-50)

4. Conclusion: e Parable of the Landowner with a Treasure (13:51-52) E. Parables Completed, Jesus Moves On (13:53) XII. Jesus Interpreted, but Also Rejected (13:53[54]–16:20) A. Jesus Meets Unbelief in His Hometown (13:54-58) B. Part 1 (14:1-36) 1. Herod’s Opinion of Jesus (14:1-2) [Appendage] e Death of John the Baptist (14:3-12) 2. Jesus Heals and Feeds the Five ousand (14:1321) 3. Jesus Came Walking on the Sea (14:22-33) 4. General Healing in Gennesaret (14:34-36) C. Part 2 (15:1-20) 1. What Is It at Really De les? (15:1-11) 2. e Pharisees Who Are Blind Guides Took Offence (15:12-14) 3. Explanation of the ‘Parable’ of What Goes In and What Comes Out (15:15-20) D. Part 3 (15:21–16:20) 1. Jesus Heals a Canaanite Woman’s Daughter (15:21-28) 2. Jesus Heals Many and Impresses the Crowds (15:29-31) 3. Jesus Feeds the Four ousand (15:32-39) 4. Sign Seekers, Unable to Interpret ‘the Signs of the Times’ (16:1-4)

5. ‘Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’ (16:5-12) 6. ‘Simon Peter Said, “You Are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”’ (16:13-20) XIII. Anticipating a Future through Suffering and Beyond (16:1–17:20) A. Unveiling a Future in Which Suffering Precedes Vindication (16:21-23) B. Following Jesus Involves Giving Away Your Life to Gain It (16:24-28) C. A Vision of Jesus’ Glory (17:1-9) D. e Suffering of John the Baptist and of Jesus (17:1013) E. Jesus Heals Where the Faithless Disciples Had Failed (17:14-18) F. With Faith Nothing Will Be Impossible (17:19-20) XIV. Status and Behaviour in the ‘Royal Family’ (17:22– 18:35) A. Preparing for the Fateful Journey to Jerusalem (17:22-23) B. God Does Not Tax, but Provides for His Children (17:24-27) C. Becoming as Children to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven (18:1-5) D. Avoiding Sin (18:6-9) 1. Woe to ose Who Cause Little Ones to Stumble (18:6-7)

2. ‘If Your Hand … Causes You to Stumble …’ (18:8-9) E. Dealing with the Sinner (18:10-35) 1. ‘Goes in Search … Finds … Rejoices’ (18:10-14) 2. Challenging Sin with a Concern for Restoration (18:15-20) 3. Forgive Your Brother or Sister from Your Heart (18:21-35) XV. Family and Possessions in View of the Kingdom (19:1– 20:16) A. From Galilee to Judea (19:1-2) B. Marriages and States of Celibacy Fit for the Kingdom (19:3-12) C. ‘Let the Children Come to Me’ (19:13-15) D. Giving Up All (19:16-29) 1. ‘Sell Your Possessions … Follow Me’ (19:16-22) 2. How Difficult — but with God Possible — for the Rich to Enter the Kingdom (19:23-26) 3. What Is ere for ose Who Follow and ose Who Sacri ce? (19:27-29) E. Making All the Workers Equal (19:30–20:16) XVI. Redefining Greatness, Jesus Goes to Jerusalem to Die: Jericho, Bethphage, Entry into Jerusalem (20:17–21:11) A. To Jerusalem to Die (20:17-28) 1. Jesus Heads for His Fate in Jerusalem (20:17-19) 2. To Be at the Right and Le Hand of the One Who Gives His Life as a Ransom (20:20-28) B. Jericho, Bethphage, Jerusalem (20:29–21:11)

1. Insight and en Sight for Two Blind People near Jericho (20:29-34) 2. From Bethphage to Jerusalem: e Son of David on a Donkey (21:1-9) 3. Arrival in Jerusalem (21:10-11) XVII. Provocative Ministry in Jerusalem (21:12-46) A. Activity in the Temple, Part 1 (21:12-17) 1. Disrupting Business at the Temple (21:12-13) 2. Leaders Angered by Healing and Acclamation (21:14-17) B. A Withered Fig Tree and Faith at Will Remove the Mount of Olives (21:18-22) C. Activity in the Temple, Part 2 (21:23-44) 1. Discussion with Leaders: Jesus’ Authority and at of John the Baptist (21:23-27) 2. Starting Late Is Better than Lip Service (21:2832) 3. e Fate of the Son-Killing Tenants (21:33-43) D. Criticised Leaders Seek Jesus’ Arrest (21:45-46) XVIII. Jesus Silences the Leaders Who Are His Opponents (22:1-46) A. Guests at a Royal Wedding Banquet (22:1-14) B. Four Questions (22:15-46) 1. ‘To Caesar … and to God …’ (22:15-22) 2. ‘Not God of the Dead but of the Living’ (22:2333) 3. Love of God and Love of Neighbour (22:34-40) 4. ‘David Calls Him Lord’ (22:41-46)

XIX. Jesus Criticises the Scribes and Pharisees (23:1-39) A. e Scribes and Pharisees: Custodians of the Law but Bad Examples (23:1-12) B. Seven Woes against the Scribes and Pharisees (23:1333) C. Culmination: Emissaries to Be Rejected; Judgment to Fall (23:34-36) D. Lament over Jerusalem (23:37-39) XX. e Shape of the Future (24:1–25:46) A. e Temple Will Be Destroyed (24:1-2) B. e Question and the Main Body of the Answer (24:3-35) 1. e Beginning of the ‘Labour Pains’ (24:3-8) 2. Persecution and Preaching Prepare for the End (24:9-14) 3. Flee When the Desolating Sacrilege Stands in the Temple (24:15-22) 4. Beware of False Christs, Even en (24:23-28) 5. e Coming of the Son of Man (24:29-31) 6. ‘is Generation Shall Not Pass Away Until All ese ings Happen’ (24:32-35) C. Being Ready (24:36–25:30) 1. ‘About at Day and Hour No One Knows’ (24:36) 2. ree Kinds of Image of Being Caught Out by ‘at Day’ (24:37-44) 3. ree Parables about Being Ready to Meet the Master (24:45–25:30)

a. On the Job as the Slave Le in Charge b. Bridesmaids Waiting for the Bridegroom c. Slaves Entrusted with eir Master’s Business Affairs D. Universal Judgment by the Son of Man (25:31-46) XXI. e Passion Account (26:1–27:66) A. Section 1 (26:1-19) 1. Passover Identi ed as the Time for the Passion (26:1-2) 2. Conspiracy in the High Priest’s Palace (26:3-5) 3. Jesus Anointed by a Woman in Bethany (26:613) 2′. Judas Arranges to Betray Jesus (26:14-16) 1′. Arrangements for the Passover Meal (26:17-19) B. Section 2 (26:20-35) 1. Jesus Says, ‘One of You Will Hand Me Over’ (26:20-25) 2. Jesus Directs the Eating of Bread as His Body, and Wine as His Blood of the Covenant (26:2629) 1′. Jesus Says, ‘You Will Deny Me ree Times’ (26:30-35) C. Section 3: Praying to Be Spared Trial (26:36-46) D. Section 4 (26:47–27:2) 1. Identi ed by Judas, Judas Is Arrested (26:47-56) 2a. Jesus before the Sanhedrin, I (26:57-68) 1′. Peter’s Denial of Jesus (26:69-75) 2b. Jesus before the Sanhedrin, II

E. Section 5 (27:3-31) 1. Judas’s Remorse and Suicide, and the ‘Field of Blood’ (27:3-10) 2a. Jesus before Pilate, I (27:11-14) 2b. Jesus before Pilate, II (27:15-26) 1′. Pilate’s Soldiers Mock Jesus’ Claim to Royal Status (27:27-31) F. Section 6 (27:32-66) 1. e Soldiers Crucify Jesus (27:32-38) 2. ree Lots of Mockers (27:39-44) 3. e Death of Jesus (27:45-53) 2a′. ree Kinds of Affirmation, I (27:54) 2b′. ree Kinds of Affirmation, II (27:56-56) 2c′. ree Kinds of Affirmation, III (27:57-61) 1′. A Guard of Soldiers Is Set at the Tomb (27:6266) XXII. Resurrection and Commissioning (28:1-20) A. Events on Easter Morning at and around the Tomb (28:1-10) B. e Official Jewish Line on the Empty Tomb (28:1115) C. ‘Marching Orders’ from the Risen Jesus in Galilee (28:16-20) Bibliographical Appendix: Works prior to 1980

Foreword Although there have been many series of commentaries on the English text of the New Testament in recent years, very few attempts have been made to cater particularly to the needs of students of the Greek text. e present initiative to ll this gap by the publication of the New International Greek Testament Commentary is very largely due to the vision of W. Ward Gasque, who was one of the original editors of the series. At a time when the study of Greek is being curtailed in many schools of theology, we hope that the NIGTC will demonstrate the continuing value of studying the Greek New Testament and will be an impetus in the revival of such study. e volumes of the NIGTC are for students who want something less technical than a full-scale critical commentary. At the same time, the commentaries are intended to interact with modern scholarship and to make their own scholarly contribution to the study of the New Testament. e wealth of detailed study of the New Testament in articles and monographs continues without interruption, and the series is meant to harvest the results of this research in an easily accessible form. e commentaries include, therefore, extensive bibliographies and attempt to treat all important problems of history, exegesis, and interpretation that arise from the New Testament text. One of the gains of recent scholarship has been the recognition of the primarily theological character of the books of the New Testament. e volumes of the NIGTC attempt to provide a theological understanding of the text, based on historical-critical-

linguistic exegesis. It is not their primary aim to apply and expound the text for modern readers, although it is hoped that the exegesis will give some indication of the way in which the text should be expounded. Within the limits set by the use of the English language, the series aims to be international in character, though the contributors have been chosen not primarily in order to achieve a spread between different countries but above all because of their specialized quali cations for their particular tasks. e supreme aim of this series is to serve those who are engaged in the ministry of the Word of God and thus to glorify God’s name. Our prayer is that it may be found helpful in this task. I. HOWARD MARSHALL DONALD A. HAGNER

Preface I came to the research for this commentary fresh from a period of ten years in which the Gospel of Luke had dominated my horizons. e transition from the one to the other was initially quite a shock. Aer the urbane humanity of Luke, Matthew seemed very narrow and Jewish. And it was hard at rst to nd in Matthew the generosity of spirit that I had come to value so much in Luke. e idiom in which Matthew articulated the Christian faith was considerably different from that in which Luke had done so. But it is no accident that Matthew has been the dominant Gospel in the history of the church. ere is such a rich repository here of the teaching of Jesus; there is such a well-laid-out presentation of the ministry of Jesus; and there is such a profound challenge to Christian discipleship. Matthew may not have been the urbane world citizen that Luke was, but he shows the same generosity of spirit and he recognises the comprehensive signi cance of Jesus for the world every bit as much as Luke. e shock of transition from Luke to Matthew was real enough. A major cultural adaptation is involved in moving from the one to the other. But Matthew has taken me captive every bit as much as Luke did earlier. He has persuaded me that his idiom for articulating the faith is well chosen. I feel privileged to have been able to spend so much time in the company of one who shows at every turn that he was ‘discipled [to be] a scribe for the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt. 13:52).

e literature on Matthew is vast. I have tried to pay careful attention to as much of it as possible within the bounds of my modern-language competence, which generally means that bibliographies are restricted to works in English, French, and German. Only rarely have I reached into material in other languages. Part of my task has been to evaluate and digest the suggestions that are scattered throughout the specialist literature. But while I acknowledge a speci c debt as appropriate, the scholarship has been more a backdrop for attention to the Gospel itself than something I set out to provide comment on as such in the commentary. My central concern in this commentary is with the story Matthew has to tell and how he tells it. ough the reader will recognise that I have been in uenced by some scholarly methods more than by others, my work is committedly eclectic. I am indebted to quite a range of methods for their capacity to illuminate, but I have been struck by the narrowness introduced into many works by the studious implementation of a speci c method of inquiry, and also by the technical verbiage that especially the more recent methods oen generate. I take sources seriously, and with some regularity I try to see how Matthew has edited his sources to serve the purposes of his narrative. is commentary is, however, not as oriented to source matters and tradition history as was my work on Luke — in part out of concern not to cover the same ground again. Nonetheless, I continue to invest heavily in historical background. e whole commentary is, broadly speaking, redaction-critical, inasmuch as I see Matthew as a careful editor of sources—afairly conservative editor but one who carefully integrates his material into a well-considered, uni ed message. I also use narrative criticism in the commentary. Something of my interest here is

caught in the words of T. L. Donaldson when he speaks of ‘narrative worlds that readers can enter and experience through the act of reading’ (‘Mockers’, 4 [see the bibliography for Mt. 27:39-44]). I am quite interested in how rhetoric works and consider Matthew to be a highly rhetorical work. I am persuaded that most people will have initially encountered the Gospel of Matthew as something to be heard rather than as something to be read. At the same time the encoding used by Matthew appears much too subtle to allow oral possibilities to limit interpretation. I have been modestly touched by structuralist approaches, but in the end I generally nd structure more illuminating. I nd sociologically oriented studies very interesting, but I am suspicious of the degree to which the results are predetermined by the chosen sociological model. I am quite interested in Reader Response issues, but mostly in terms of the Gospel author’s orchestration of the reading process. (I have not considered it necessary to distinguish the many hypothetical kinds of readers identi ed in Reader Response theory.) I have less time for ideological readings or for the hermeneutics of suspicion. I care about many of the things that feminists care about, but I do not have feminist priorities. I have a particular interest in a close reading of the inner logic of the unfolding text. I also welcome the postmodern critique of the objectivity of Enlightenment rationalism and the exibility that postmodernism has brought to scholarship, but not its deconstructionist priorities or its radical hostility to all meta-narratives. Let me add here a note on gender-inclusive language as this pertains both to my own writing and to the translation of the Gospel. How is one best to show sensitivity to the needs of genderinclusive language? Many women are still happy to nd themselves included in a general ‘he’. But it cannot be denied that traditional language forms, while genuinely intended to be gender inclusive,

were so with a priority given to males. And many women and not a few men can no longer spontaneously relate a use of ‘he’ to a woman. To replace all uses of ‘he’ with ‘he or she’, ‘him’ with ‘him or her’, or ‘his’ with ‘his or hers’ seems excessive and exaggerates the place of genderedness. ‘S/he’ is compact but cannot be read aloud. e move to plural or to passive forms, adopted by, for example, the NRSV, comes at the cost of reshaping much of the NT syntax and loses the rhetorical individuation that the choice in the Greek of singular forms intended. ere are no easy solutions. e one that I have adopted will not be considered felicitous by language purists since it involves accepting into formal written language a looseness or even a laziness of spoken speech. It is a ‘solution’ that I have made use of both in the translation and in my own comments. I use the plural forms ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’, and ‘theirs’ as non-gendered resumptive singulars as well. at is to say, I will use ‘he or she’, ‘she or he’, and the like on rst occurrence to establish singularity, but for subsequent references I will use plural forms with a singular sense (but followed by plural verb forms, as in colloquial speech). For one reason or another I have not found this procedure possible everywhere. Where such is the case, I have occasionally dropped possessive pronouns in the interests of inclusive language (e.g., ‘the master’ rather than ‘his master’ in 25:21) and, especially in contexts where in the cultural setting there is a strong likelihood that males are in view, I have even occasionally used standard masculine forms with an inclusive sense (e.g., ‘him’ in 25:28). At some other points as well I have moved away from traditional language in the interests of gender inclusiveness. ἀδελϕός is the Greek word for ‘brother’. But oen in the plural it clearly intends to embrace women as well as men, and occasionally this may also be true of the singular. Wherever the Matthean text

clearly intends maleness I have translated ἀδελϕός as ‘brother’, but wherever it clearly or quite likely intends inclusiveness I have preferred ‘brother or sister’ as its translation. e general translation of ἄνθρωπος as ‘person’ rather than as ‘man’ needs no defence: ἀνήρ is the NT word for ‘man’. ἄνθρωπος does occasionally mean ‘man’, and I have translated it ‘man’ where this is appropriate. Finally, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου has traditionally been translated ‘the Son of Man’, but the imagery does not seem to be speci cally that of the son of a male parent but rather of a human gure. ‘Man’ in the traditional rendering is to be understood as a reference to humanity, not to a particular male gure. My preference, therefore, would have been to render ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου as ‘the Son of Humanity’ (on ‘Son’ see below). e editors of the series have, however, in the interests of consistency with the volumes in the series on the other Gospels, asked me to keep to the traditional rendering. ere are places in Matthew where one comes up against the competing claims of historically embedded language imagery and present-day language priorities. ‘ey shall be called sons of God’ in Mt. 5:9 is just as applicable to women peacemakers as to men, but the use of υἱοί (‘sons’) does not help women of today to sense this immediately. Here, however, the Gospel choice of language links to the privileges of sonship in the ancient world. For this reason I have retained the rendering ‘sons’. e coming of the kingdom of God means that women may be just as much ‘sons’ as their male counterparts, but in the historically embedded language imagery they are sons, not daughters, in the kingdom. In my view, translation should not, in deference to contemporary-language sensibilities, hide the intrinsic imagery of the language. My approach to gender-inclusive language has already involved comments on translation, but I should offer further explanation on

the translation of Matthew included in this commentary. For that I have chosen to be fairly literal and wherever possible have tried to follow the shape of the Greek syntax. I am aware that some of my readers, though they appreciate the need for exploration of the Greek text, will not have much facility with Greek themselves. I want the translation to be a reasonably good foundation for interacting with what follows. I have, however, tried to avoid ‘translationese’. My language may at times be wooden, but it does intend to be genuine English. An example of the impact of this policy on the translation is my decision to leave untranslated most of Matthew’s uses of ἰδού. Matthew uses ἰδού to create emphasis, and uses it many times, but I have not been able to convince myself that any contemporary English word functions in an equivalent manner. e traditional rendering is ‘behold’. More recent translations sometimes use ‘look’ or ‘see’. Sometimes ‘look’ or ‘see’ would work perfectly well, but this is not generally the case in Matthew (it works better in conversation than in narrative). With some reluctance I have mostly contented myself with noting the intended emphasis in the comments. I have produced a rendering of ἰδού only where the ow of the text in English was de cient without such a translation. By contrast, I have retained in English, even when it appears a little odd, Matthew’s uses of the present tense in contexts where a past sense is intended (the historic present). is is because I have become convinced that Matthew uses this phenomenon to mark emphasis, sometimes in connection with his intended structuring. In colloquial English a certain vividness can be conveyed in this manner. But that Matthew’s usage is rather more self-conscious than this comparison might suggest is indicated by his meticulous removal of most of Mark’s uses of the historic present and careful introduction of his own set.

While leaning towards the literal, I also intended the translation to embody to some degree the results of the exegesis to follow. e reader should be warned, therefore, that not all renderings are as neutral as possible. I have at times resolved syntactical ambiguities in terms of the decisions I made and supported in the body of the commentary. Moreover, I have adopted a fairly generous policy of supplying words not found in the Greek to complete the sense. Some of these are quite necessary to produce English. Others clarify the thought sequence as I understand it. Where I added words, I marked them with square brackets. A note on translations of ancient sources is also in order. For classical sources I generally use the translations found in the relevant Loeb Classical Library volumes. For the Pseudepigrapha I normally follow the translations of e Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by J. H. Charlesworth. For the Babylonian Talmud I generally use the translation of the Soncino Press edition, and for the Mishnah the translation in Danby, e Mishnah. For Qumran documents I have mostly followed the translations in Martínez and Tigchelaar, Dead Sea Scrolls. I have, however, felt free in each case to adapt translations or substitute my own, wherever this has seemed advisable; and where convenient translations have not been available, I have offered my own. For biblical texts the translations are for the most part my own, but the NRSV has tended to function as my ‘reference’ translation. I have sometimes cited ancient materials on the basis of a particular scholar’s use of them, and where this is the case I have noted it. Finally I want to explain the bibliographies. In order to reduce the bulk of the bibliographies I have, as the series editors encouraged, set apart pre-1980 items and placed them in a bibliographical appendix. roughout the text I have used short titles wherever possible. Where there is a short title, the full details

are to be found in the corresponding general bibliographies. ese general bibliographies do, however, include, in addition to the main pre-1980 and 1980 onwards bibliographies, separate bibliographies for commentaries on Matthew and bibliographies at the beginning of major sections of the commentary (e.g., at Mt. 1:1-18 for Mt. 1–2 and at Mt. 26:1-2 for Mt. 26–27). At a busy British theological college writing commentaries is very much a spare-time and aer-hours activity. My work on this commentary has inevitably progressed and ground to a halt in relation to the changing shape of the needs and opportunities of the moment. I record my gratitude to Trinity College, Bristol, for a sabbatical term on three different occasions while this labour was under way. I also record my appreciation to the college for its exibility in allowing me more recently to free up a day a week by renegotiating my contract to a less-than-full-time basis. Access to library resources lies at the heart of a project such as this. I am deeply grateful for the library resources that have been made available to me over the years. I mention in particular Tyndale House, Cambridge; the University of Cambridge Library; the Bodleian Library in Oxford; the University of Bristol Library; and the library of Trinity College, Bristol. I am especially grateful for the interlibrary loan services; they gave me access to a great many items not held by the particular libraries where I worked or which I visited from time to time. I wish to pay particular tribute to my son David, who in the early years of this project put forth great effort to gather library resources; to various people who helped me from time to time with the thankless task of entering bibliographical information into a database; and to Sue Brown, librarian at Trinity College, Bristol, who provided longsuffering and unstinting library support throughout the many years of the writing.

Writing a commentary takes its toll on family life, so I pay tribute to my wife Lisa and my daughter Elisabeth for their patience in living with my early morning starts and my long days through it all. I started the commentary just aer my daughter was born, so she has never known a time when I was not ‘writing Matthew’. JOHN NOLLAND Trinity eological College Bristol

Abbreviations A. General Abbreviations acc. adj. Aq. ca.

accusative adjective Aquila’s Greek translation of the OT circa, about

cf. chap(s). col(s). contra dat. diss. DSS ed. edn. Eg.

compare chapter(s) column(s) in contrast to dissertation dative Dead Sea Scrolls edited by, editor(s) edition Egyptian

e.g.

exempli gratia, for example

esp. et al.

especially et alii, and others

ET f., ff.

English translation following (verse or verses, pages, etc.)

fem. .

feminine ourished

frg(s). FS

fragment(s) Festschri, volume written in honour of

gen. Gk. hap. leg.

genitive Greek hapax legomenon, sole occurrence

Heb. ibid.

Hebrew ibidem, in the same place

idem

idem, the same author

i.e.

id est, that is

impf. Lat. lit. LXX

imperfect Latin literally Septuagint

masc. mg. MS(S) MT n.d. neut.

masculine margin manuscript(s) Masoretic Text (of the OT) no date neuter

NIV n(n). no. NRSV n.s. NT obs. o.s.

e New International Version (1978) note(s) number New Revised Standard Version (1989) new series New Testament obsolete old series

OT

Old Testament

p(p). P. Berol. pace

page(s) papyri originally owned by the Königlischen Museen, Berlin with due respect to, but differing from

//, par(s). par.

parallel(s) paragraph

passim pl. Q rev. Rom. rpt. RV Sam.

and elsewhere plural Quelle (‘Sayings’ source for the Gospels) revised, reviser, revision Roman reprint Revised Version, 1881-85 Samaritan

sc.

scilicet, that is to say

Sem. sic

Semitic sic, (it is) thus

sing. subj. Sy. Symm. Tg. eod. TR tr.

singular subjunctive Syriac Symmachus Targum eodotion Textus Receptus translation, translator, translated (by)

v(v). viz.

verse, verses videlicet, namely

Vg. v.l.

Vulgate varia lectio, alternative reading

vol. vs. v(v). x

volume versus verse(s) times (2x = two times, etc.)

B. Abbreviations of Periodicals, Reference Works, and Serials AARSR

American Academy of Religion Studies in Religion

AB ABD

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary

ABR

Australian Biblical Review

AbrN

Abr-Nahrain

ABW

Archeology in the Biblical World

AER

American Ecclesiastical Review

AfEcclRev

African Ecclesiastical Review

AfJT

African Journal of eology

AfTJ

Africa eological Journal (Tanzania)

AFLN-WG

Arbeitsgemeinscha für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein- Westfalen, Geistgewissenschaen Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Spätjudentums und Urchristentums Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute

AGJU AGSU AJBI AJSL

American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature

AJT

American Journal of eology

ALGHJ

Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des

ALW

hellenistischen Judentums Archiv für Liturgiewissenscha

AmCl

Ami du clergé

AnBib Ang

Analecta biblica Anglicum

Annéol

L’Année théologique

ANQ

Andover Newton Quarterly

ANRW

Anton

Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase, Berlin Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und Judentum Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen eologie und Zeitgeschichte Antonianum

AOS ArchLing

American Oriental Series Archivum linguisticum

ARW

Archiv für Religionswissenscha

ASB

Austin Seminary Bulletin

AshTB

Ashland eological Bulletin

AshTJ

Ashland eological Journal

AsiaJT

Asia Journal of eology

ASNU AsSeign

Acta seminarii neotestamentici upsaliensis Assemblées du Seigneur

ASTI

Annual of the Swedish eological Institute

ATAbh ATANT

Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen Abhandlungen zur eologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments

ANT ANTJ ANTZ

ATD ATDan

Das Alte Testament Deutsch Acta eologica Danica

ATJ

African eological Journal

ATLA ATR

American eological Library Association Anglican eological Review

AuCoeurAfr AulaOr

Au Coeur de l’Afrique: Revue interdiocésaine (Burundi) Aula Orientalis

Aug

Augustinianum

AusCathRec

Australian Catholic Record

AUSS

Andrews University Seminary Studies

BA

Biblical Archaeologist

BAC

Biblioteca de autores cristianos

BAGD

BAH BangTF

W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ET, ed. W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich; 2d ed. rev. F. W. Gingrich and E. W. Danker (Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1979) Bibliothèque archéologique et historique Bangalore eological Forum

BAR

Biblical Archaeology Review

BBB BBET BBR

Bonner biblische Beiträge Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und eologie Bulletin of Biblical Research

BBudé

Bulletin de l’Association C. Budé (Rome)

BCSR

Bulletin of the Council on the Study of Religion

BDAG

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament

BDB

and Other Early Christian Literature; 3d edn., based on W. Bauer’s GriechischDeutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schrien des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, 6th edn., ed. K. Aland and B. Aland, with V. Reichmann and on previous English editions by W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker, rev. and ed. F. W. Danker (Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 2000) F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907)

BDF

F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and R. W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament (University of Chicago/University of Cambridge, 1961)

BenM

Benediktinische Monatschri

BeO

Bibbia e oriente

BerlinTZ

Berliner eologische Zeitschri (Berlin)

BET

Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und eologie Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Beiträge zur evangelischen eologie

BETL BEvT BFCT BGBE

Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher eologie Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese

BibInt

Biblical Interpretation

Bib

Biblica

BibLeb

Bibel und Leben

BibNot

Biblische Notizen

BibOr

Biblica et orientalia

BibS(F)

Biblische Studien (Freiburg, 1995-)

BibS(N) BiTod

Biblische Studien (Neukirchen, 1951-) e Bible Today

BJRL

Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

BK

Bibel und Kirche

BLE

Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique

BLit

Bibel und Liturgie

BLS

Bible and Literature Series

BLT

Brethren of Life and ought

BNTC

Black’s New Testament Commentaries

BO

Bibliotheca orientalis

BPAA

Bibliotheca Ponti cii Athenaei Antoniani

BR

Biblical Research

BRev

Bible Review

BS

Biblische Studien

BSac

Bibliotheca Sacra

BSO(A)S

Bulletin of the School of Oriental (and African) Studies

BSR

Bibliothèque de sciences religieuses

BT

e Bible Translator

BTA/BAT

Bulletin de éologie Africaine/Bulletin of African eology

BTB

Biblical eology Bulletin

BTS

Bible et terre sainte

BU

Biblische Untersuchungen

BulBR

Bulletin for Biblical Research

BulCPE BurHist

Bulletin du Centre Protestant d’Études (Geneva) Buried History (Melbourne)

BVC

Bible et vie chrétienne

BW

Biblical World

BWANT

Beiträge zur Wissenscha vom Alten und Neuen Testament

BZ

Biblische Zeitschri

BZAW

Beihee zur ZAW

BZET

Beihee zur Evangelische eologie

BZNW

Beihee zur ZNW

CAH

Cambridge Ancient History

CahJos

Cahiers de Joséphologie

CalvaryB

Calvary Baptist eological Journal

CanCR

Canadian Catholic Review (Saskatoon)

CAT CB

Commentaire de l’Ancien Testament Coniectanea biblica

CB

Cultura bíblica

CBFV CBFV

Cahiers bibliques de foi et vie Cahiers bibliques de foi et vie

CBG

Collationes Brugenses et Gandavenses

CBP

Christian Board of Publication

CBQ

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBQMS

CBQ Monograph Series

CBVE

Comenius Blätter für Volkserziehung

CCAR

Journal Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal

CCER

Cahiers du cercle Ernest Renan

CÉ

Cahiers Évangile

CGTC

Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

CH

Church History

ChicStud

Chicago Studies

CHR

Catholic Historical Review

ChrCent

Christian Century

ChristJewRel

Christian Jewish Relations

ChrTod

Christianity Today

CIG

Corpus inscriptionum graecarum

CII

Corpus inscriptionum iudaicarum

CIL

Corpus inscriptionum latinarum

CIS

Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum

CJT

Canadian Journal of eology

CJud

Conservative Judaism

ClerMon

Clergy Monthly

ClerRev

Clergy Review

CLit

Christianity and Literature

ClQ

e Classical Quarterly

ClW

Classical Weekly

CM

Cahiers marials

CnS

Cristianesimo nella Storia

CNT

Commentaire du Nouveau Testament

CollMech

Collectanea Mechliniensia

Coleol

Collectanea eologica

ComLit

Communautes et liturgies

Communio

Communio: International Catholic Review (Notre Dame)

ConB

Coniectanea biblica

ConBNT Concil

ConB, New Testament Concilium

ConcJ

Concordia Journal

CongQ

e Congregational Quarterly

ConNT

Coniectanea neotestamentica

CQ

Church Quarterly

CQR

Church Quarterly Review

CRAIBL

Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belleslettres

CRev

Classical Review

CrisTR

Criswell eological Review

CrQ

Crozier Quarterly

CRBS

Currents in Research in Biblical Studies

CSR

Christian Scholar’s Review

CTJ

Calvin eological Journal

CTM

Calwer theologische Monographien

CTMonth

Concordia eological Monthly

CTQ

Concordia eological Quarterly

CTR

Catholic eological Review

CurTM

Currents in eology and Mission

CuW

Christentum und Wissenscha

CV

Communio viatorum

CW

Die christliche Welt

Diak

Diakonia

DJD

Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

DJG

I. H. Marshall, J. B. Green, and S. McKnight (eds.), Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels

(Leicester/Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992). DL

Doctrine and Life

DR

Downside Review

DSD

Dead Sea Discoveries

DT

Deutsche eologie

DTT

Dansk teologisk tidsskri

DunRev

Dunwoodie Review

EAJT

East Asia Journal of eology

Ébib

Études bibliques

EcR

Ecclesiastical Review

EDNT

H. Balz and G. Schneider (eds.), Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990-92)

EE

Estudios ecclesiásticos

EF

Estudios Franciscanos (Barcelona)

ÉglT

Église et théologie

EKK EKKNT

Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar EKK zum Neuen Testament

EKL

Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon

EL

Ephemerides Liturgicae

Emman

Emmanuel

EphMar

Ephemerides mariologique (Madrid)

EpR

Epworth Review

ER

Ecumenical Review

ErfTSchr

Erfurter theologische Schrien

ErJb

Eranos Jahrbuch

EstBíb

Estudios bíblicos

ETL

Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses

ETR

Etudes théologiques et religieuses

ETS

Erfurter theologische Studien

EuA

Erbe und Aurag

EV

Esprit et vie

EvErz

Das evangelische Erzieher

EvJ

Evangelical Journal

EvK EvQ

Evangelische Kommentar Evangelical Quarterly

EvT

Evangelische eologie

ExAuditu

Ex Auditu: An International Journal of eological Interpretation of Scripture

Exp

Expositor

ExpTim

e Expository Times

FB

Forschung zur Bibel

FBBS FJB

Facet Books, Biblical Series Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge

FC

Fathers of the Church

FilolNT

Filologia Neotestamentaria (Córdoba, Spain)

FM

Faith and Mission

FoiTemps

La foi et le temps (Tournai)

ForKatheol

Forum Katholische eologie (Aschaffenberg)

Forum

Forum: Foundations and Facets

FriedIsr

Friede über Israel: Zeitschri für Kirche und Judentum (Nurnberg)

FRLANT

Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Frankfurter theologische Studien

FTS

FV

Foi et vie

FZPT

Freiburg Zeitschri für Philosophie und eologie

GBS GJ

Guides to Biblical Scholarship Grace Journal

GNT GOTR

Grundrisse zum Neuen Testament Greek Orthodox eological Review

GPM

Göttinger Predigtmeditation

GR

Greece and Rome

GratzCAJS

Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies

Greg

Gregorianum

GTA GTJ

Göttinger theologischer Arbeiten Grace eological Journal

GuL

Geist und Leben

HBS HBT

Herders biblische Studien Horizons of Biblical eology

HD

Heiliger Dienst (Salzburg)

HDR

Harvard Dissertations in Religion

HerKor

Herder Korrespondenz

HeyJ

Heythrop Journal

HibJ

Hibbert Journal

HKAT HKNT HL

Handkommentar zum Alten Testament Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament Das heilige Land

HNT HNTC HPR

Handbuch zum Neuen Testament Harper’s NT Commentaries Homiletic and Pastoral Review

HTKNT

Herders theologischer Kommentar zum

HTR

Neuen Testament Harvard eological Review

HTS

Harvard eological Studies

HTS

Hervormde Teologiese Studies (Pretoria)

HUCA

Hebrew Union College Annual

HUT

Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur eologie Irish Biblical Studies

IBS ICC IDB G.

International Critical Commentary A. Buttrick (ed.), Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

IEJ

Israel Exploration Journal

IER

Irish Ecclesiastical Record

IES

Indian Ecclesiastical Studies

IKZ

Internationale kirchliche Zeitschri

IKZCom

Internationale katholische Zeitschri ‘Communio’ (Rodenkirchen)

ILS Int

H. Dessau (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Berlin, 1892) Interpretation

IntRMiss

International Review of Missions

ITQ

Irish eological Quarterly

ITS

Indian eological Studies

JAAR

Journal of the American Academy of Religion

JAC

Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum

JACE

JAC Ergänzungsband

JANESCU

Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University

JAOS

Journal of the American Oriental Society

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature

JBR

Journal of Bible and Religion

JBT

Jahrbuch für biblische eologie (Neukirchen)

JDS

Judean Desert Studies

JEH

Journal of Ecclesiastical History

JerPersp

Jerusalem Perspectives

JES

Journal of Ecumenical Studies

JETS

Journal of the Evangelical eological Society

JewBibQuart JFSR

Jewish Biblical Quarterly (Dor Le Dor) (Jerusalem) Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

JHC

Journal of Higher Criticism

JHS

Journal of Hellenic Studies

JIBS

Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies

JJS

Journal of Jewish Studies

JLH

Jahrbuch für Liturgie und Hymnologie

JLiteol

Journal of Literature and eology

JNES

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JournTransTextling

Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics

JourPsyChrist

Journal of Psychology and Christianity

JournRadRef JPT

Journal from the Radical Reformation (Morrow, GA) Journal for Pentecostal eology

JPTSup

JPT Supplement Series

JQ

Jewish Quarterly (London)

JQR

Jewish Quarterly Review

JR

Journal of Religion

JRE

Journal of Religious Ethics

JRomH

Journal of Roman History

JRS

Journal of Roman Studies

JRT

Journal of Religious ought

JSJ

Journal for the Study of Judaism

JSNT

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSNTSup

JSNT Supplement Series

JSOT

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup

JSOT Supplement Series

JSP

Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

JSS

Journal of Semitic Studies

JTBS

Jahrbuch der theologischen Schule Bethel

JTC

Journal for eology and the Church

JTS

Journal of eological Studies

JTSA

Journal of eology for South Africa

Jud

Judaica

Kairos

Kairos: Zeitschri für Religionswissenscha und eologie

KatBl

Katechetische Blätter

KBRS

Kirchenblatt für die Reformierte Schweiz

KD

Kerygma und Dogma

KEK KF

Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament Der Kirchenfreund

KRS

Kirchenblatt für die reformierte Schweiz

KTR

King’s eological Review (London)

KuBANT

Kommentare und Beiträge zum Alten und Neuen Testament Kirche und Israel

KuI

LCC LCL LD

Library of Christian Classics Loeb Classical Library Lectio divina

LebSeel

Lebendige Seelsorge

LexTQ

Lexington eological Quarterly

LingBib

Linguistica Biblica

LitMönch

Liturgie et Mönchtum

Liteol

Literature and eology (Oxford)

LM

Lutherische Monatshee

LQ

Lutheran Quarterly

LQuHR

London Quarterly and Holborn Review

LR

Lutherische Rundschau

LS

Louvain Studies

LSJ

Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon

LTK

Lexikon für eologie und Kirche

LTP

Laval théologique et philosophique

LTSB

Lutheran eological Seminary Bulletin

LUÅ LumVie

Lunds universitets årsskri Lumière et vie

LumVieSup

Supplement to LumVie

LutheolJourn

Lutheran eological Journal

LVit

Lumen Vitae

LW

Lutheran World

ManQ

e Mankind Quarterly

MC

Modern Churchman

McCQ

McCormick Quarterly

McMJT

McMaster Journal of eology (Hamilton, ONT)

MGWJ

Monatsschri für Geschichte und Wissenscha des Judentums

MHUC ModBelieving

Monograph of the Hebrew Union College Modern Believing

MonPast

Monatschri für Pastoraltheologie

MPG

Patrologia Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, 1844ff.

MScRel

Mélanges de science religieuse

MTS MTZ

Marburger theologische Studien Münchener theologische Zeitschri

NABPR

NB

National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, ed. B. and K. Aland et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellscha, 200127) New Blackfriars

Neot

Neotestamentica

NESTR

Near East School of eology Review

NGS NICNT

New Gospel Studies New International Commentary on the New Testament Niew theologisch tijdschri

NANTG 27

NiewTT NIGTC NKZ

New International Greek Testament Commentary Neue kirchliche Zeitschri

NorTT

Norsk Teologisk Tijdsskri

NotesTrans

Notes on Translation

NovT

Novum Testamentum

NovTSup

Supplement to NovT

NovVet

Nova et vetera

NPNF

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

NRF

Nouvelle revue française

NRT

La nouvelle revue théologique

NTAbh NTD

Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen Das Neue Testament Deutsch

NTF NTL NTOA NTR

Neutestamentliche Forschungen New Testament Library Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus New eology Review

NTS

New Testament Studies

NTT NTTS Numen

Nederlands theologisch Tijdschri New Testament Tools and Studies Numen: International Review for the History of Religions

NZSTR

Neue Zeitschri für systematische eologie und Religionsphilosophie

ÖAK

Österreichisches Archiv für Kirchenrecht

OBL OBO ÖBS

Orientalia et Biblica Lovaniensia Orbis biblicus et orientalis Österreichische biblische Studien

OCP

Orientalia christiana periodica

OGI

W. Dittenberger (ed.), Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae (Leipzig: Hirzel, 19035) Orientalische Literaturzeitung

OLZ OPTAT

Occasional Papers in Translation and Textlinguistics (Dallas)

Orient

Orientierung (Zurich)

OrSyr

L’orient syrien

OTS

Oudtestamentische Studiën

ParLit

Paroisse et liturgie

PEFQS

Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement

PenHom

La Pensée et les hommes

PEQ

Palestine Exploration Quarterly

PerTeo

Perspectiva Teologica

PFay PG

Fayyûm Papyri Patrologia graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne

PGM K.

Preisendanz (ed.), Papyri graecae magicae

PJ

Palästina-Jahrbuch

PM

Protestantische Monatshee

POxy PrinceSemBull

Oxyrhynchus Papyri Princeton Seminary Bulletin

ProcCTSA

Proceedings of the Catholic eological Society of America

ProcIBA

Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association

ProtBib

Protokolle zur Bibel

PRS

Perspectives in Religious Studies

PSTJ

Perkins School of eology Journal

PTMS

Pittsburgh eological Monograph Series

PTR

Princeton eological Review

QD

Quaestiones disputatae

QLP

Questions liturgiques et paroissiales (Louvain)

QRev

Quarterly Review (Nashville)

RadR

Radical Review

RB

Revue biblique

RBén

Revue Bénedictine

REA

Revue des études Augustiniennes

REAnc

Revue des études anciennes (Bordeaux)

RechBib

Recherches bibliques

RefRev

Reformed Review (Holland, MI)

REG

Revue des études grecques

REJ

Revue des études juives

RelArts

Religion and the Arts

RelLif

Religion in Life

RelLit

Religion and Literature

RelS

Religious Studies

RelStudeol

Religious Studies and eology

Releol

Religion & eologie/Religie & Teologie

RestQ

Restoration Quarterly

RevAf RevApol

Revue Africaine de eologie (KinshasaLimette, Zaire) Revue apologétique

RevArch

Revue archéologique

RevDiocNamur

Revue diocésaine de Namur

RevDTournai

Revue diocésaine de Tournai

RevExp

Review and Expositor

RevistB

Revista biblica

RevQ

Revue de Qumrân

RevRef

Revue Réformée

RevRel

Review for Religious

RevSR

Revue des sciences religieuses (Strasbourg)

Revom

Revue thomiste

RevUB

Revue de l’Universite de Bruxelles

RHD

Revue de l’histoire de droit

RHLR

Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses

RHPR

Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses

RHR

Revue de l’histoire des religions

RICP

Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris

RIDA

Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquité

RivB

Rivista biblica

RL

Religion in Life

RNT RSB

Regensburger Neues Testament Religious Studies Bulletin

RSPT

Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques

RSR

Recherches de science religieuse

RST

Regensburger Studien zur eologie

RTL

Revue théologique de Louvain

RTP

Revue de théologie et de philosophie

RTR

Reformed eological Review

RUL

La revue de l’université Laval

SaatHof

Saat auf Hoffnung

SAH

Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaen (philosophischhistorische Klasse)

Sal

Salmanticensis

SANT SAW

Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Sitzungsberichte der (königlich preussischen) Akademie der Wissenschaen zu Berlin (philosophisch-historische Klasse)

SB

Sources bibliques

SBB SBF

Stuttgarter biblische Beiträge Studium Biblicum Franciscanum

SBFLA

Studii biblici franciscani liber annuus

SBL SBLDS

Society of Biblical Literature SBL Dissertation Series

SBLMS SBLRBS SBLSBS

SBL Monograph Series SBL Resources for Biblical Study SBL Sources for Biblical Study

SBLSCS SBLSP

SBL Septuagint and Cognate Studies SBL Seminar Papers

SBLTT

SBL Texts and Translations

SBM SBS SBT

Stuttgarter biblische Monographien Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Studies in Biblical eology

ScEccl

Sciences ecclésiastiques

ScEs

Science et esprit

ScotBEvT

Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical eology

Scr

Scripture

ScrB

Scripture Bulletin

ScrT

Scripta eologica (Pamplona)

SBR ScrifKerk

Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Scrif en Kerk

SD SE

SEÅ

Studies and Documents Studia Evangelica 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (= TU 73 [1959], 87 [1964], 88 [1964], 102 [1968], 103 [1968], 112 [1973]) Svensk exegetisk årsbok

Sef

Sefarad

SeinSend

Sein und Sendung

SémiotBib

Sémiotique et Bible

SewaneeTR

Sewanee eological Review

SHAW

Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaen

SHT SIDIC

Studies in Historical eology Service international de documentation judéochrétienne

SJ SJLA SJOT

Studia Judaica Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament

SJT

Scottish Journal of eology

SLJT

St Luke’s Journal of eology

SNT

Studien zum Neuen Testament

SNTSMS

Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

SNTU

Studien zum Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt

SO

Symbolae osloenses

SPALTA

SPB SR

Summary of the Proceedings of the American eological Library Association (St. Meinrad, IN) Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaen Studia postbiblica Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses

ST

Studia theologica

STÅ

Svensk teologisk årsskri

STAp

Studia eologica et Apologia

StBibT

Studia biblica et theologica

STDJ

Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

SPAW

StMontReg

Studia Montis Regii (Montreal)

StimmZeit

Stimmen der Zeit (Munich)

Str-B

StudBib

H. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, 4 vols. (Munich: Beck’sche, 1926-28) Studia biblica

StudClas

Studii clasice (Bucharest)

StudPat

Studia patristica

STZ

Schweizerische theologische Zeitschri

SUNT

Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments

Sup SuppSer

Supplement, Supplementary Series Supplementary Series

SVTQ

St. Vladimir’s eological Quarterly

SWJT

Southwestern Journal of eology

TantY

Tantur Yearbook

TAPA

Transactions of the American Philological Association

TB

eologische Beiträge

TBl

eologische Blätter

TBT TBü TD

eologische Bibliothek Töpelmann eologische Bücherei eology Digest

TDNT

G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (eds.), eological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 vols., ET (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-76)

TE

eologica evangelica

TEH TF TGeg

eologische Existenz heute eologische Forschung eologie der Gegenwart

TGl

eologie und Glaube



eology

eolAnn

eology Annual (Hong Kong)

THKNT Viat

eologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament eologia Viatorum

TJ

Trinity Journal

TNTC TJT

Tyndale New Testament Commentaries Toronto Journal of eology

TK

Texte und Kontexte (Stuttgart)

TLZ

eologische Literaturzeitung

TP

eologie und Philosophie

TPQ

eologisch-Praktische Quartalschri

TRu

eologische Rundschau

TQ

eologische Quartalschri

TRE

eologische Realenzyklopädie

TRev

eologische Revue

TrinSemRev

Trinity Seminary Review (Columbus, OH)

TRRHD

Tijdschri voor Rechtsgeschiedenis: Revue d’histoire de droit

TS

eological Studies

TSFB

eological Students Fellowship Bulletin

TSK

eologische Studien und Kritiken

TT

Teologisk Tidsskri

TTJ

Trinity eological Journal (Singapore)

TToday

eology Today

TTR

Teaching eology and Religion

TTZ

Trierer theologische Zeitschri

TU TVers

Texte und Untersuchungen eologische Versuche (Berlin)

TynB

Tyndale Bulletin

TZ

eologische Zeitschri

UCL UFHM UnaSanc

Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis University of Florida Humanities Monograph Una Sancta (Freising)

UNT USQR

Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Union Seminary Quarterly Review

UUÅ UUC

Uppsala universitets årsskri Unitarian Universalist Christian

VC

Vigiliae christianae

VCaro

Verbum caro

VD

Verbum domini

VetC

Vetera Christianorum

VF

Verkündigung und Forschung

VoxEv

Vox evangelica (London)

VoxRef

Vox Reformata

VSpir

Vie spirituelle

VT

Vetus Testamentum

WBC WD

Word Biblical Commentary Wort und Dienst

WF WMANT WO

Wege der Forschung Wissenschaliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Die Welt des Orients

WortWahr

Wort und Wahrheit

WTJ

Westminster eological Journal

WUNT WW

Wissenschaliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Word and World

ZAW

Zeitschri für die alttestamentliche Wissenscha

ZDMG

Zeitschri der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellscha

ZDPV

Zeitschri des deutschen Palästina-Vereins

ZdZ

Die Zeichen der Zeit

ZEE

Zeitschri für evangelische Ethik

ZKG

Zeitschri für Kirchengeschichte

ZKT

Zeitschri für katholische eologie

ZMR

Zeitschri für Missionskunde und Religionswissenscha

ZeitNT

Zeitschri für Neues Testament

ZNW

Zeitschri für die neutestamentliche Wissenscha

ZPE

Zeitschri für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

ZRGG

Zeitschri für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte

ZSSR

Zeitschri der Savigny Stiung für Rechtsgeschichte, romantische Abteilung

ZST

Zeitschri für systematische eologie

ZTK

Zeitschri für eologie und Kirche

ZVR

Zeitschri für vergleichende Rechtswissenscha

ZWT

Zeitschri für wissenschaliche eologie

C. Abbreviations for Books of the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha Old Testament

Gn. Ex. Lv. Nu.

Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers

Dt. Deuteronomy Jos. Joshua Jdg. Judges Ru. Ruth 1, 2 Sa. 1, 2 Samuel 1, 2 Ki. 1, 2 Kings (1, 2, 3, 4 Kgdms. for the LXX) 1, 2 Ch. Ezra Ne. Est. Job Ps. Pr. Ec.

1, 2 Chronicles Ezra Neh Esther Job (Pss.) Psalm(s) Proverbs Ecclesiastes

Ct. Is. Je. La. Ez. Dn. Ho.

Canticles (Song of Solomon) Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel Daniel Hosea

Joel Am.

Joel Amos

Ob. Jon. Mi. Na. Hab. Zp. Hg.

Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai

Zc. Mal.

Zechariah Malachi

New Testament Mt. Mk. Lk. Jn. Acts Rom.

Matthew Mark Luke John Acts Romans

1, 2 Cor. Gal. Eph. Phil. Col. 1, 2 es. 1, 2 Tim.

1, 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1, 2 essalonians 1, 2 Timothy

Tit. Phm. Heb. Jas.

Titus Philemon Hebrews James

1, 2 Pet.

1, 2 Peter

l, 2, 3 Jn. Jude Rev.

1, 2, 3 John Jude Revelation

Apocrypha Tob. Jdt. Add. Est. Wis. Sir. Bar. 1 Esdr. 2 Esdr. Ep. Jer. Pr. Azar. Sus. Bel 1, 2, 3, 4 Macc. Pr. Man.

Tobit Judith Additions to Esther Wisdom of Solomon Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) Baruch 1 Esdras (= 3 Esdras in Vg.) 2 Esdras (= 4 Ezra) Epistle of Jeremiah (= Bar. 6) Prayer of Azariah and Song of the ree Young Men Susanna Bel and the Dragon 1, 2, 3, 4 Maccabees Prayer of Manasseh

Pseudepigrapha Adam and Eve

Life of Adam and Eve

Ahiqar

Ahiqar

Apoc. Abr.

Apocalypse of Abraham

Apoc. Sed.

Apocalypse of Sedrach

Apoc. Zeph.

Apocalypse of Zephaniah

2, 3 Apoc. Bar.

Syriac, Greek Apocalypse of Baruch

Aristeas

Letter of Aristeas

As. Mos.

Assumption of Moses

4 Bar.

4 Baruch (= e ings Omitted from Jeremiah the Prophet)

1, 2, 3 Enoch

Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch

Ezk. Trag., Exagoge

Ezekiel the Tragedian, Exagoge

Gk. Apoc. Ezra

Greek Apocalypse of Ezra

Jos. As.

Joseph and Aseneth

Jub.

Jubilees

Liv. Proph.

e Lives of the Prophets

Mart. Is.

Martyrdom of Isaiah

Odes

Odes of Solomon

Ps.-Philo

Pseudo-Philo

Ps.-Phoc.

Pseudo-Phocylides

Pss. Sol.

Psalms of Solomon

Sib. Or.

Sibylline Oracles

Syr. Men.

Syriac Menander

Test. Adam

Testament of Adam

Test. Abr.

Testament of Abraham

Test. Isaac

Testament of Isaac

Test. Jac.

Testament of Jacob

Test. Job

Testament of Job

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Test. Ash. Testament of Asher Test. Ben.

Testament of Benjamin

Test. Dan

Testament of Dan

Test. Gad

Testament of Gad

Test. Iss.

Testament of Issachar

Test. Jos.

Testament of Joseph

Test. Jud.

Testament of Judah

Test. Levi

Testament of Levi

Test. Naph.

Testament of Naphtali

Test. Reub.

Testament of Reuben

Test. Sim.

Testament of Simeon

Test. Zeb.

Testament of Zebulun

D. Abbreviations for New Testament Apocrypha and Other Early Christian Writings Acts And.

Acts of Andrew

Acts Jn.

Acts of John

Acts Paul

Acts of Paul

Acts Paul and ecla

Acts of Paul and ecla

Acts Pet.

Acts of Peter

Acts om.

Acts of omas

Ap. Jn.

Apocryphon of John

Apoc. Abr.

Apocalypse of Abraham

Apoc. El.

Apocalypse of Elijah

Apoc. Mos.

Apocalypse of Moses

Apoc.

Pet. Apocalypse of Peter

Asc.

Is. Ascension of Isaiah

Barn.

Letter of Barnabas

1, 2 Clem.

1, 2 Clement

Did.

Didache

Ep. Apost.

Epistola Apostolorum

Ep. Diog.

Epistle to Diognetus

Ep. Laod.

Epistle to the Laodiceans

Epiph. Haer.

Epiphanius Adversus lxxx Haereses

Panarion Euseb. HE Praep. Ev.

Panarion Eusebius of Caesarea Historia ecclesiastica Praeparatio evangelica

Gos. Eb.

Gospel of the Ebionites

Gos. Eg.

Gospel of the Egyptians

Gos. Heb.

Gospel of the Hebrews

Gos. Naass.

Gospel of the Naassenes

Gos. Pet.

Gospel of Peter

Gos. Phil.

Gospel of Philip

Gos. om.

Gospel of omas

Herm. Man.

Hermas Mandates

Sim.

Similitudes

Vis.

Visions

Ign. Eph.

Ignatius Letter to the Ephesians

Magn.

Letter to the Magnesians

Phil.

Letter to the Philadelphians

Pol.

Letter to Polycarp

Rom.

Letter to the Romans

Smyrn.

Letter to the Smyrnaeans

Trall.

Letter to the Trallians

Justin Apol. 1, 2 Dial.

Justin Apology 1, 2 Dialogue with Trypho

Iren. Haer.

Irenaeus, Against All Heresies

Mart. Pol.

Martyrdom of Polycarp

Pol.

Polycarp, To the Philippians

Prot. Jas.

Protevangelium of James

Tert. Praesc.

Tertullian On the Proscribing of Heretics

Apol.

Apologeticum

E. Indicative Abbreviations of Names of Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts CD

Cairo (Genizah text of the) Damascus (Document)

ḤevNahal Mas Mird Mur

Ḥever texts Masada texts Khirbet Mird texts

P

Wadi Murabbaʿat texts Pesher (commentary)

Q 1Q, 2Q 3Q, etc.

Qumran Numbered caves of Qumran, yielding written material; followed by abbreviation of biblical or apocryphal book or allocated title and/or number

QL 1QapGen

Qumran literature Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1

1QH

Hôdāyôt (anksgiving Hymns) from Qumran Cave 1

1QIsa, b

First or second copy of Isaiah from Qumran Cave 1

1QpHab

Pesher on Habakkuk from Qumran Cave 1

1QM

Milḥāmāh (War Scroll)

1QS

Serek hayyaḥad (Rule of the Community, Manual of Discipline)

1QSa

Appendix A (Rule of the Congregation) to 1QS

1QSb

Appendix B (Blessings) to 1QS

3Q15 4QFlor

Copper Scroll from Qumran Cave 3 Florilegium (or Eschatological Midrashim) from Qumran Cave First copy of Hosea from Qumran Cave 4

4QHosa 4QIsa 4QMess ar

First copy of Isaiah from Qumran Cave 4

4QMMT

Miqsat Maʿaśê ha-Torah from Qumran Cave 4

4QPatBless

Patriarchal Blessings from Qumran Cave 4

4QpGena 4QPrNab

Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran Cave 4

4QTestim

Testimonia text from Qumran Cave 4

4QTLevi

Testament of Levi from Qumran Cave 4

4QPhyl

Phylacteries from Qumran Cave 4

11QMelch

Melchizedek text from Qumran Cave 11

11QPsa 11QtgJob

First copy of Psalms from Qumran cave 11

11QTemple

Temple Scroll from Qumran Cave 11

Aramaic ‘Messianic’ text from Qumran Cave 4

Prayer of Nabonidus from Qumran Cave 4

Targum of Job from Qumran Cave 11

F. Abbreviations of Orders and Tractates in Mishnaic and Related Literature

(Italicized m., t., b., or y. used before name to distinguish between tractates in Mishnah, Tosephta, Babylonian Talmud, and Jerusalem Talmud.) ʾAb.

ʾAbot

ʿArak.

ʿArakin

ʿA.Zar.

ʿAboda Zara

B. B.

Baba Batra

Bek.

Bekorot

Ber.

Berakot

Beṣa

Beṣa (= Yom Ṭob)

Bik.

Bikkurim

B. M.

Baba Meṣiʿa

B. Q.

Baba Qamma Dem. Demai

ʿEduy.

ʿEduyyot

Giṭ.

Giṭṭin

ʿErub. Ḥag. Ḥal.

ʿErubin Ḥagiga Ḥalla

Hor.

Horayot

Ḥul.

Ḥullin

Kel.

Kelim

Ker.

Keritot

Ket.

Ketubot

Kil.

Kilʾayim

Maʿaś.

Maʿaśerot

Mak.

Makkot

Makš.

Makširin (= Mašqin)

Meg.

Megilla

Meʿila

Meʿila

Men.

Menaḥot

Mid.

Middot

Miqw.

Miqwaʿot

Moʾed

M. Qaṭ.

Moʾed

Moʾed Qaṭan

M. Š.

Maʿaśer Šeni

Naš

Našim

Naz.

Nazir

Ned.

Nedarim

Neg.

Negaʿim

Nez.

Neziqin

Nid.

Niddah

ʾOhol.

ʾOholot

Para

Para

Peʾa

Peʾa

ʿOrla

ʿOrla

Pes.

Pesaḥim

Qid.

Qiddušim

Qin.

Qinnim

Qod.

Qodašim

R. Š.

Roš ha-Šana

Šab.

Šabbat

Sanh.

Sanhedrin

Šebi.

Šebiʿit

Šebu.

Šebuʿot

Šeq.

Šeqalim

Soṭa

Soṭa

Suk.

Sukka

Taʿan.

Taʿanit

Tam.

Tamid

Ṭeb. Y.

Ṭebul Yom

Tem.

Temura

Ter.

Terumot

ʿUq.

ʿUqṣin

Yad.

Yadayim

Yeb.

Yebamot

Yoma

Yoma (= Kippurim)

Zab.

Zabim

Zeb.

Zebaḥim

Ṭeh.

Zer.

Ṭeharot

Zeraʿim

G. Abbreviations of Other Rabbinic Works ʾAbot R. Nat.

ʾAbot de Rabbi Nathan

Bar.

Baraita

Der. Er. Rab.

Derek Ereṣ Rabba

ʾAg. Ber

Der. Er. Zuṭa

ʾAggadat Berešit

Derek Ereṣ Zuṭa

Gem.

Gemara

Kalla

Kalla

Mek.

Mekilta

Midr.

Midraš; cited with usual abbreviation for

biblical book; but Midr. Qoh. = Midraš Qohelet Pal.

Palestinian

Pesiq. R.

Pesiqta Rabbati

Pesiq. Rab Kah.

Pesiqta de Rab Kahana

Pirqe R. El.

Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer

Rab.

Rabbah (following abbreviation for biblical book: Gen. Rab. = Genesis Rabbah)

Śem.

Śemaḥot

Sipra

Sipra

Sipre

Sipre

Sop.

Soperim

S. ʿOlam Rab.

Seder ʿOlam Rabbah

Yal.

Yalqut

H. Abbreviations of Targumic Material Tg. Onq.

Targum Onqelos

Tg. Neb.

Targum of the Prophets (Nebiʾim)

Tg. Ket.

Targum of the Writings (Ketubim)

Frag. Tg.

Fragmentary Targum

Sam. Tg.

Samaritan Targum

Tg. Is.

Targum of Isaiah

Pal. Tgs.

Palestinian Targums

Tg. Neof.

Targum Neofiti I

Tg. Ps.-J.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan

Tg. Yer. I

Targum Yerusalmi I

Tg. Yer. II

Targum Yerusalmi II

Yem. Tg.

Yemenite Targum

Tg. Est. I, II

First or Second Targum of Esther

I. Abbreviations of Classical and Hellenistic Writers and Sources Achilles Tatius

Achilles Tatius, e Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon

Aelian., Nat. anim.

Aelianus, De natura animalium

Apul., Met.

Apuleius, Metamorphoses

Aristoph. Frogs

Aristophanes Frogs

Peace

Peace

Aristotle, Eth. Nic.

Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea

Artem., Oneirocrit.

Artemidorus, Oneirocritica

Ausonius, Aletho

Ausonius, Aletho

Cato

Marcus Porcius Cato, De Agricultura

Cicero Ad. Att.

Marcus Tullius Cicero Ad Atticum

Amic.

De amicitia

Cat.

In catalinam

Fam.

Ad familiares

Nat. deorum

De natura deorum

Offic.

De officiis

Rep.

De republica

Tusc.

Tusculanarum quaestionum libri quinque

Cornutus, Nat. deorum

Cornutus, De natura deorum

Damascius, Vit. Isid.

Damascius, Vita Isidori

Dem.

Demosthenes

Cor.

De corona

Or.

Orationes

Demoph., Sent. Pythag.

Demophilus, Sententiae Pythagoreorum

Dio Cass.

Cassius Dio Cocceianus

History

Roman History

Epit.

Epitome

Dio Chrys., Or.

Dio Chrysostom, Orations

Diod. Sic. Diog. Laert. Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom.

Diodorus Siculus Diogenes Laertius Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae

Epict. Diss.

Epictetus Dissertationes

Ench.

Enchiridion

Fab. Verruc., Ben.

Fabius Verrucosus, De beneficiis

Galen (ed. Kühn)

Galen, ed. C. G. Kühn, 1823

Gellius, Noct. Attic.

Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae

Hdt.

Herodotus, History

Heracl. Hesiod, Works

Heraclitus Hesiod, Works and Days

Homer Il.

Homer Iliad

Od. Horace Carm. Sat. Iambl., Vita

Odyssey Horatius Flaccus Carmina Satirae Iamblichus, De vita Pythagorica

Pythag. Jos. Ant.

Flavius Josephus Jewish Antiquities

Ap.

Against Apion

Life

Life of Flavius Josephus

War

e Jewish War

Justin, Epitome

Marcus Junian(i)us, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus’ Historiae Philippicae

Juvenal

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, Satires

Livius

Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita libri

Lucretius, Rerum nat.

Lucretius, De rerum natura

Martial, Epigrams

Marcus Valerius Martialis, Epigrammaton libri

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso

Amores

Amores

Fasti

Fasti

Petronius, frag. Petronius, Sat.

Petronius Arbiter, preserved fragments of his novel Gaius Petronius, Satyricon

Philo Abr.

Philo of Alexandria De Abrahamo

Aet. mundi

De aeternitate mundi

De decal.

De decalogo

Det. pot. ins.

Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat

Ebr.

De ebrietate

Flacc.

In Flaccum

Fuga

De fuga et inventione

Gig.

De gigantibus

Ios.

De Iosepho

Leg. all.

Legum allegoriae

Leg. Gai.

Legatio ad Gaium

Migr. Abr.

De migratione Abrahami

Mut. nom.

De mutatione nominum

Op. mundi

De opificio mundi

Post. C.

De posteritate Caini

Praem.

De praemiis et poenis

Rer. div. her.

Quis rerum divinarum heres sit

Sacr.

De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini

Som.

De somniis

Spec. leg.

De specialibus legibus

Virt.

De virtutibus

Vita cont.

De vita contemplativa

Vita Mos.

De vita Mosis

Philostr. VA VS Plato

Philostratus Vita Apollonii Vita Sophistiarum Plato

Cri.

Crito

Grg.

Gorgias

Leg.

Leges

Rep.

Respublica

Symp.

Symposium

Tim.

Timaeus

Plautus Carb. Pseud.

Plautus Carbonaria Pseudolus

Pliny, Nat. hist.

Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis historia

Plut.

Plutarch

Caesar

Vitae parallelae, Caesar

De sera num. vind.

De sera numinus vindicta

Mor.

Moralia

Octavian

Vitae parallelae, Octavianus

Praec. coniug.

Praecepta coniugalia

Quaes. conviv.

Quaestiones conviviales

Romulus

Vitae parallelae, Romulus

Superst.

De superstitione

Tib. Gracch.

Tiberius Gracchus

Tranq. an.

De tranquillitate animi

Polyb.

Polybius, Universal History

Ps.-Aristotle,

Pseudo-Aristotle,

Rhet. ad Alex.

Rhetorica ad Alexandrum

Ps.-Heracl. Ep.

Pseudo-Heraclitus Epistles

Ps.-Phocyl., Sent.

Ps.-Phocylides, Sentences

Quintilian, Inst.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, Institutio Oratoria

Seneca Ben.

Seneca De beneficiis

Clem.

De clementia

Ep.

Epistulae morales

Ira

De ira

Nat. quaest.

Naturales quaestiones

Otio

De otio

Vita beata

De vita beata

Sextus, Sent.

Sextus (Pythagoreus?), Sentences

Soph. Aj.

Sophocles Ajax

OT

Oedipus Tyrannus

Soranus, Gyn.

Soranus, Gynaecia

Suetonius Aug.

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus Augustus

Cal.

Caligula

Dom.

Domitian

Nero

Nero

XII Tables

e Law of the Twelve Tables

Tac. Ann. Hist.

Tacitus Annals Histories

Terence Heaut.

Terence Heautontimorumenos

Tert. Apol.

Tertullian Apologeticus

eophr. Hist. plant.

eophrastus Historia plantarum

On Piety

On Piety

uc., Hist.

ucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

Val. Max., Facta

Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia

Varro De re rustica

Marcus Terentius Varro De re rustica

Virgil

Virgil

Aen.

Aeneid

Georg.

Georgics

Xen. Anab.

Xenophon Anabasis

Cyr.

Cyropaedia

Mem.

Memorabilia

Note: e textual notations and numbers used to indicate individual manuscripts are those found in the apparatus criticus of NANTG 27. is edition of the Greek New Testament is the primary basis for the “Translation” and “Textual Notes” sections.

General Bibliography COMMENTARIES Augsburger, M. S., Matthew (e Communicators Commentary. Waco, TX: Word, 1982). Barclay, W., e Gospel of Matthew (2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster, 19582). Beare, F. W., e Gospel according to Matthew (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981). Blomberg, C. L., Matthew (New American Commentary 22. Nashville: Broadman, 1992). Bonnard, P., L’Évangile selon saint Matthieu (CNT 1. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 20024). Boring, M. E., ‘e Gospel of Matthew’, in e New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 8 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995). Bruner, F. D., Matthew: A Commentary. e Christbook and e Churchbook (2 vols. Dallas: Word, 1990-91; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 20042). Buchanan, G. W., e Gospel of Matthew (Mellen Biblical Commentary, New Testament Series 1/1-2, 2 vols. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1996). Calloud, J., L’Evangile de Matthieu, Vol. 3: Lecture sémiotique des chapitres 21 à 28 (L’Arbresle: Centre omas More — Centre pour L’Analyse du Discours Religieux, 1998). Carson, D. A., ‘Matthew’, in e Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. F. Gaebelein (Vol. 8. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 3-599. Carter, W., Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Bible and Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000).

Davies, M., Matthew (Readings: A New Biblical Commentary. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993). Davies, W. D. and Allison, D. C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (ICC. Edinburgh: Clark, 1988, 1991, 1997). Drewermann, E., Das Matthäusevangelium, Erster Teil, Mt 1,1–7,29: Bilder der Erfüllungen (Olten/Freiburg: Walter, 1992). ———, Das Matthäusevangelium: Zweiter Teil, Mt 8,1–20,19. Bilder der Erfullung (Solothurn/Düsseldorf: Walter, 1994). France, R. T., e Gospel according to Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (TNTC 1. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985). Frankemölle, H., Matthäus: Kommentar (2 vols. Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1994, 1997). Gardner, R. B., Matthew (Believers Church Bible Commentary. Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1991). Garland, D. E., Reading Matthew: A Literary and eological Commentary on the First Gospel (Reading the New Testament. New York: Crossroad, 1993). Gnilka, J., Das Matthäusevangelium (HTKNT, 2 vols. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herders, 1986-88). Green, M., e Message of Matthew: e Kingdom of Heaven (e Bible Speaks Today: New Testament. Downers Grove/Leicester: InterVarsity/Inter-Varsity, 2001). Gundry, R. H., Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and eological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982). ———, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 19942). Hagner, D. A., Matthew (WBC 33A-B. Dallas: Word, 1993-95). Hamann, H. P., e Gospel according to Matthew (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1984). Hare, D. R. A., Matthew (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville: Knox, 1993).

Harrington, D. J., e Gospel of Matthew (Sacra Pagina 1. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991). Jones, I. H., e Gospel of Matthew (Epworth Commentaries. London: Epworth, 1994). Keener, C. S., Matthew (IVP New Testament Commentary. Downers Grove, IL/Leicester: InterVarsity, 1997). ———, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1999). Kilgallen, J. J., A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1992). Kraszewski, C. S., e Gospel of Matthew: Το Ευαγγελιον Κατα Ματθαιον, With Patristic Commentaries (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 40. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, Ont./Lampeter: Mellen, 1999). Lachs, S. T., A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament: e Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Hoboken, NJ/New York: Ktav/AntiDefamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1987). Limbeck, M., Matthäus-Evangelium (Stuttgarter Kleiner Kommentar, Neues Testament 1. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1986). Luz, U., Matthew 1–7: A Commentary, tr. W. C. Linss (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989). ———, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus: 2. Teilband, Mt 8–17 (EKKNT 1/2. Zurich: Benziger, 1990). ———, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus: 3. Teilband, Mt 18–25 (EKKNT 1/3. Zurich: Benziger, 1997). ———, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary (Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress, 2001). ———, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus: 4. Teilband, Mt 26–28 (EKKNT 1/4. Düsseldorf/Zurich: Benziger, 2002). ———, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus: 1. Teilband, Mt 1–7 (EKKNT 1/1, rev. edn. Düsseldorf/Zurich: Benziger, 2002). Mello, A., Évangile selon saint Matthieu: Commentaire midrashique et narratif, tr. A. Chevillon (LD 179. Paris: Cerf, 1999).

Montague, G. T., Companion God: A Cross-Cultural Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1989). Mounce, R. H., Matthew: A Good News Commentary (New York: Hendrickson, 1985). ———, Matthew (New International Biblical Commentary 1. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991). Patte, D., e Gospel according to Matthew: A Structural Commentary on Matthew’s Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987). Powell, J. E., e Evolution of the Gospel: A New Translation of the First Gospel with Commentary and Introductory Essay (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1994). Riches, J., Matthew (New Testament Guides. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). Sabourin, L., e Gospel according to St. Matthew (2 vols. Bombay: St Paul, 1982). Sand, A., Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (RNT. Regensburg: Pustet, 1986). Schnackenburg, R., Matthäusevangelium (2 vols. Würzburg: Echter, 1985, 1987). ———, e Gospel of Matthew, tr. R. R. Barr (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Senior, D., e Gospel of Matthew (Interpreting Biblical Texts. Nashville: Abingdon, 1997). Simonetti, M., ed., Matthew (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament 1a-b, 2 vols. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001-2). Smith, R. H., Matthew (Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989). Tresmontant, C., Évangile de Matthieu (Paris: O.E.I.L., 1986). Wainwright, E. M., ‘e Gospel of Matthew’, in Searching the Scriptures, Vol. 2: A Feminist Commentary, ed. E. Schüssler Fiorenza (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 635-77. Weiss, B., Das Matthäus-Evangelium (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 18989).

Wiefel, W., Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (THKNT 1. Leipzig: Evangelische, 1998).

OTHER LITERATURE Aarde, A. G. van, God-With-Us: e Dominant Perspective in Matthew’s Story and Other Essays (Hervormde Teologiese Studies Suplementum 5. Pretoria: Hervormde Teologiese Studies, 1994). ———, ‘e First Testament in the Gospel of Matthew’, HTS 53 (1997), 12645. ———, ‘Matthew and Apocalypticism as the “Mother of Christian eology”: Ernst Käsemann Revisited’, HTS 58 (2002), 118-42. Adam, A. K. M., ‘Matthew’s Readers, Ideology, and Power’, SBLSP 33 (1994), 435-49. ———, ‘Reading Matthew as Cultural Criticism’, SBLSP 36 (1997), 253-72. Agua, A. del, ‘Die “Erzählung” des Evangeliums im Lichte der DeraschMethode’, Jud 47 (1991), 140-54. Aichele, G., ‘Translation as De-canonization: Matthew’s Gospel according to Pasolini’, Cross Currents (New York) 51 (2002), 524-34. Aland, K. and B., e Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). Alexander, P. S., ‘Rabbinic Biography and the Biography of Jesus: A Survey of the Evidence’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 19-50. ———, ‘Midrash and the Gospels’, in ibid., 1-18. Allen, O. W., Reading the Synoptic Gospels: Basic Methods for Interpreting Matthew, Mark, and Luke (St. Louis: Chalice, 2000). Allison, D. C., e New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Edinburgh: Clark, 1993). ———, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). ———, e Intertextual Jesus: Scripture in Q (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000). ———, ‘Gnilka on Matthew’, Bib 70 (1989), 526-38.

———, e End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). ———, e Jesus Tradition in Q (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1997). Alter, R., e Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981). ———, e World of Biblical Literature (New York: Basic Books, 1992). Anderson, J. C., ‘Matthew: Sermon and Story’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 233-50. ———, ‘Double and Triple Stories, the Implied Reader, and Redundancy in Matthew’, in Reader Response Approaches to Biblical and Secular Texts, ed. R. Detweiler (Decatur: Scholars, 1985), 71-89. ———, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over Again (JSNTSup 91. Sheffield: JSOT, 1994). ———, ‘Matthew: Gender and Reading’, Semeia 28 (1983), 3-27. ———, ‘Matthew: Sermon and Story’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 496-507. ———, ‘Life on the Mississippi: New Currents in Matthaean Scholarship 1983-1993’, CRBS 3 (1995), 169-218. Arnal, W. E., ‘Gendered Couplets in Q and Legal Formulations: From Rhetoric to Social History’, JBL 116 (1997), 75-94. ——— and Desjardins, M., eds., Whose Historical Jesus? (Studies in Christianity and Judaism 7. Waterloo, ONT: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997). Ascough, R. S., ‘Matthew and Community Formation’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 96-126. Asgeirsson, J. M., Troyer, K. de, and Meyer, M. W., eds., From Quest to Q. FS J. M. Robinson (BETL 146. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 2002). Aune, D. E., ‘e Problem of Genre in the Gospels: A Critique of C. H. Talbert’s What Is a Gospel?’, in Gospel Perspectives: Vol. 2, ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT, 1981), 9-60. ———, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983).

———, ‘e Gospels: Biography or eology?’ BRev 6 (1990), 14-21, 37. ———, ed., e Gospel of Matthew in Current Study. FS W. G. ompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). Baarlink, H., Die Eschatologie der synoptischen Evangelien (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1986). Baasland, E., ‘Zum Beispiel der Beispielerzählungen: Zur Formenlehre der Gleichnisse und zum Methodik der Gleichnisauslegung’, NovT 28 (1986), 193-219. Bailey, K. E., rough Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983). Balch, D. E., ed., Social History of the Matthean Community: CrossDisciplinary Approaches (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). Balz, H. and Schneider, G., ed., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991-93). Bammel, E. and Moule, C. F. D., Jesus and the Politics of His Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Barreto César, E. E., ‘e Historical Radicality of the Reign of God: A Paradigm for Our Missionary Efforts’, TJT 8 (1992), 148-60. Barton, J., Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984). Barton, S. C., e Spirituality of the Gospels (London: SPCK, 1992). ———, Discipleship and Family Ties in Mark and Matthew (SNTSMS 80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). ———, ‘e Community Dimension of Earliest Christianity: A Critical Survey of the Field’, JTS 43 (1992), 399-427. Bauckham, R., Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). ———, ed., e Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998). Bauer, D. R., e Structure of Matthew’s Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (JSNTSup 31. Sheffield: JSOT, 1988). ———, ‘e Interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel in the Twentieth Century’, SPALTA 42 (1988), 119-45.

———, ‘e Major Characters of Matthew’s Story. eir Function and Signi cance’, Int 46 (1992), 357-67. ——— and Powell, M. A., eds., Treasures New and Old: Recent Contributions to Matthean Studies (Symposium 1. Atlanta: Scholars, 1996). Baum, A. D., ‘Ein aramäischer Urmatthäus im kleinasiatischen Gottesdienst: Das Papiaszeugnis zur Entstehung des Matthäusevangelium’, ZNW 92 (2001), 257-72. Baxter, W. S., ‘Mosaic Imagery in the Gospel of Matthew’, TJ 20 (1999), 6983. Bayer, H. F., Jesus’ Predictions of Vindication and Resurrection: e Provenance, Meaning and Correlation of the Synoptic Predictions (WUNT 2/20. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1986). Beare, F. W., ‘e Sayings of Jesus in the Gospel according to St. Matthew’, SE 4 (=TU 102) (1982), 146-57. Beasley-Murray, G. R., Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids and Exeter, Devon: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1986). Beaton, R., Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel (SNTSMS 123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Beauchamp, P., ‘L’Évangile de Matthieu et l’héritage d’Israël’, RSR 76 (1988), 5-38. Becker, J., Jesus of Nazareth, tr. J. E. Crouch (New York: de Gruyter, 1998). Bellinger, W. H. and Farmer, W. R., eds., Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1998). Bellinzoni, A. J., ‘e Gospel of Matthew in the Second Century (with Responses)’, Second Century 9 (1992), 197-258, 259-75. Berger, K., eologiegeschichte des Urchristentum (Tübingen: Franke, 1994). ———, ‘Der “brutale” Jesus: Gewaltsames in Wirken und Verkündigung Jesu’, BK 51 (1996), 119-27. Berry, D. L., ‘Revisioning Christology: e Logic of Messianic Ascription’, ATR 70 (1988), 129-40.

Best, E., Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark (JSNTSup 4. Sheffield: JSOT, 1981). Betz, O., ‘Jesus and Isaiah 53’, in Suffering Servant, ed. W. H. Bellinger, Jr. and W. R. Farmer, 70-87. ———, Jesus: Der Messias Israels; Aufsätze zur biblischen eologie (WUNT 42. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1987). Black, C. C., ‘Depth of Characterization and Degrees of Faith in Matthew’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 604-23. Black, D. A., ‘Conjectural Emendations in the Gospel of Matthew’, NovT 31 (1989), 1-15. Black, M., ‘e Use of Rhetorical Terminology in Papias on Mark and Matthew’, JSNT 37 (1989), 31-41, esp. 38-39. ———, ‘e Aramaic Dimension in Q with Notes on Luke 17.22 and Matthew 24.26 (Luke 17.23)’, JSNT 40 (1990), 33-41. Black, S. L., ‘e Historic Present in Matthew: Beyond Speech Margins’, in Discourse Analysis, ed. S. E. Porter and J. T. Reed, 120-39. ———, Sentence Conjunctions in the Gospel of Matthew: καί, δέ, τότε, γάρ, οὖν and Asyndeton in Narrative Discourse (JSNTSup 216. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002). Bloch, P., Der fröliche Jesus: Die Entdeckung seines Humors in den Evangelien (Stuttgart: Quell, 1999). Blomberg, C. L., ‘“Your Faith Has Made You Whole”: e Evangelical Liberation eology of Jesus’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 75-93. ———, Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990). ———, ‘New Horizons in Parable Research’, TJ 3 (1982), 3-17. ———, ‘Interpreting the Parables of Jesus: Where Are We and Where Do We Go from Here?’ CBQ 53 (1991), 50-78. ———, ‘Poetic Fiction, Subversive Speech, and Proportional Analogy in the Parables: Are We Making Any Progress in Parable Research?’ HBT 18 (1996), 115-32.

———, ‘Interpreting Old Testament Prophetic Literature in Matthew: Double Ful llment’, TJ 23 (2002), 17-33. Bloom, H., ed., e Gospels (Modern Critical Interpretations. New York/New Haven/Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1988). Böcher, O., ‘Matthäus und die Magie’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 11-24. Bock, D. L., Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002). Bolyki, J., Jesu Tischgemeinscha (WUNT 2/96. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1998). Borg, M. J., ‘An Orthodoxy Reconsidered: e “End-of-the-World Jesus,”’ in e Glory of Christ in the New Testament, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 207-17. ———, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 5. New York/Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 1984). ———, Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (San Francisco: Harper, 1987). ———, ‘A Temperate Case for a Non-Eschatological Jesus’, Forum 2.3 (1986), 81-102. Boring, M. E., Sayings of the Risen Jesus: Christian Prophecy in the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). ———, e Continuing Voice of Jesus: Christian Prophecy and the Gospel Tradition (Louisville: Westminster/Knox, 1991). ———, ‘Christian Prophecy and the Sayings of Jesus: e State of the Question’, NTS 29 (1983), 104-12. ———, ‘e Convergence of Source Analysis, Social History, and Literary Structure in the Gospel of Matthew’, SBLSP 33 (1994), 587-611. Bosch, D. J., Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shis in eology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), 56-83. Bossman, D. M., ‘Christians and Jews Read the Gospel of Matthew Today’, BTB 27 (1997), 42-52. Botterweck, G. J., Ringgren, H., et al., eds., eological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974-).

Bowe, B. E., ‘e Criteria for Judgment in the Gospel of Matthew’, BiTod 36 (1998), 295-300. Bowman, R. G. and Swanson, R. W., ‘Samson and the Son of God, or Dead Heroes and Dead Goats: Ethical Readings of Narrative Violence in Judges and Matthew’, Semeia 77 (1997), 59-73. Boys, M. C., ‘e Parabolic Ways of Teaching’, BTB 13 (1983), 82-89. Brandt, P.-Y. and Lukinovich, A., ‘Οἶκος et οἰκία chez Mark comparé à Matthieu et Luc’, Bib 78 (1997), 525-33. Bratcher, R. G., ‘“Righteousness” in Matthew’, BiTod 40 (1989), 228-35. Breech, J., e Silence of Jesus: e Authentic Voice of the Historical Man (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). ———, Jesus and Postmodernism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). Breytenbach, C. and H. Paulsen, H., ed., Anfänge der Christologie. FS F. Hahn (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991). Brodie, T. L., e Quest for the Origin of John’s Gospel: A Source-Oriented Approach (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). ———, ‘Vivid, Positive, Practical: e Systematic Use of Romans in Matthew 1–7: An Exploratory Article’, ProcIBA 16 (1993), 36-55. Broer, I., Freiheit vom Gesetz und Radikalisierung des Gesetzes: Ein Beitrag zur eologie des Evangelisten Matthäus (SBS 98. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1980). ———, ‘Antijudaism in Matthew’s Gospel’, TD 43 (1996), 335-38. ——— ed., Jesus und das jüdische Gesetz (Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne: Kohlhammer, 1992). Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community: e Evidence of His Special Sayings Material (JSNTSup 16. Sheffield: JSOT, 1987). Brown, F. B. and Malbon, E. S., ‘Parables as a Via Negativa: A Critical Review of the Work of John Dominic Crossan’, JR 64 (1984), 530-38. Brown, R. E., ‘Not Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity but Types of Jewish/Gentile Christianity’, CBQ 45 (1983), 74-79. ——— and Meier, J. P., Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity (New York: Paulist, 1983).

Brown, S., ‘e Matthean Community and the Gentile Mission’, NovT 22 (1980), 193-221. ———, ‘Universalism and Particularism in Mt’s Gospel: A Jungian Approach’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 388-99. Bruggen, J. van, Christ on Earth: e Gospel Narratives as History, tr. N. Forest-Flier (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998). Bryan, S. M., Jesus and Israel’s Traditions of Judgement and Restoration (SNTSMS 117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Bryce, D., ‘Sailors, Seismologists and Missionaries: Matthew 8:23-27’, LutheolJourn 36 (2002), 2-11. Bubar, W. W., ‘Killing Two Birds with One Stone: e Utter De(construction) of Matthew and His Church’, BibInt 3 (1995), 144-57. Buby, B., ‘Mary, Faithful Disciple’, Emman 99 (1993), 214-21. Buchanan, G. W., Jesus: e King and His Kingdom (Macon, GA: Mercer, 1984). ———, Typology and the Gospel (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), esp. 45-58. Buckley, T. W., Seventy Times Seven: Sin, Judgment, and Forgiveness in Matthew (Zacchaeus Studies, New Testament. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991). ———, ‘e Christology of Matthew’, ChicStud 40 (2001), 251-60. Burnett, F. W., e Testament of Jesus-Sophia: A Redaction-Critical Study of the Eschatological Discourse in Matthew (Washington: University Press of America, 1981). ———, ‘Characterization in Matthew: Reader Construction of the Disciple Peter’, McKendree Pastoral Review 4 (1987), 13-43. ———, ‘Characterization and Christology in Matthew: Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 588-601. ———, ‘e Undecidability of the Proper Name “Jesus” in Matthew’, Semeia 54 (1991), 123-44. ———, ‘Exposing the Anti-Jewish Ideology of Matthew’s Implied Author: e Characterization of God as Father’, Semeia 59 (1992), 155-91.

Busemann, R., Die Jüngergemeinde nach Markus 10 (BBB 57. Bonn: Hanstein, 1983). Buth, R., ‘Matthew’s Aramaic Glue’, JerPersp 3 (1990), 10-12. Byrskog, S., Jesus, e Only Teacher: Didactic Authority and Transmission in Ancient Israel, Ancient Judaism and the Matthean Community (ConBNT 24. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1994). ———, Story as History — History as Story: e Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (WUNT 123. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000). Caird, G. B., e Language and Imagery of the Bible (Duckworth Studies in eology. London: Duckworth, 1980). Camponovo, O., Königtum, Königsherrscha und Reich Gottes in den frühjüdischen Schrien (OBO 58. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984). Capon, R. F., e Parables of Judgment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989). Carlston, C. E., ‘Proverbs, Maxims and the Historical Jesus’, JBL 99 (1980), 87-105. ———, ‘Parable and Allegory Revisited: An Interpretive Review’, CBQ 43 (1981), 228-42. Carrillo-Guelbert, F., ‘“Une seule chair”: L’imaginaire à l’épreuve du réel’, BulCPE 45 (1993), 21-32. Carroll, J. T., et al., eds., Faith and History. FS P. W. Meyer (Scholars Press Homage Series. Atlanta: Scholars, 1990). Carson, D. A., ‘e Jewish Leaders in Matthew’, JETS 25 (1982), 161-74. ———, ‘Gundry on Matthew: A Critical Review’, TJ 3 (1982), 71-91. Carter, W., Households and Discipleship (JSNTSup 103. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994). ———, Matthew: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996). ———, Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001). ———, ‘e Crowds in Matthew’s Gospel’, CBQ 55 (1993), 54-67.

———, ‘Community De nition and Matthew’s Gospel’, SBLSP 36 (1997), 637-63. ———, ‘Towards an Imperial-Critical Reading of Matthew’s Gospel’, SBLSP 37 (1998), 296-324. ———, ‘Jesus’ “I have come” Statements in Matthew’s Gospel’, CBQ 60 (1998), 44-62. ———, ‘Learning to Live as Faithful Disciples’, BiTod 36 (1998), 287-93. ———, ‘Contested Claims: Roman Imperial eology and Matthew’s Gospel’, BTB 29 (1999), 56-67. ——— and Heil, J. P., Matthew’s Parables: Audience-Oriented Perspectives (CBQMS 30. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1998). Cartlidge, D. and Dungan, D., Documents for the Study of the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). Casetti, P., et al., eds., Mélange Dominique Barthélemy. FS D. Barthélemy (OBO 38. Fribourg/Göttingen: Editions universitaires/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981). Casey, M., Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel (SNTSMS 102. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). ———, An Aramaic Approach to Q: Sources for the Gospel of Matthew and Luke (SNTSMS 122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). ———, ‘An Aramaic Approach to the Synoptic Gospels’, ExpTim 110 (1999), 275-78. Catchpole, D., e Quest for Q (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). Cavallo, J. A., ‘Agricultural Imagery in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Truth’, RelLit 24 (1992), 27-38. Charette, B., e eme of Recompense in Matthew’s Gospel (JSNTSup 79. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992). ———, Restoring Presence: e Spirit in Matthew’s Gospel (JPTSup 18. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000). ———, ‘“Never Has Anything Like is Been Seen in Israel”: e Spirit as Eschatological Sign in Matthew’s Gospel’, JPT 8 (1996), 31-51.

Charlesworth, J. H., Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York: Doubleday, 1988). ———, ed., e Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments; Vol. 2: Expansions of the ‘Old Testament’ and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works (2 vols. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1983-85). ———, ed., Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Doubleday, 1992). ——— et al., eds., Graphic Concordance to the Dead Sea Scrolls (Tübingen/Louisville: Mohr-Siebeck/Westminster and John Knox, 1991). Chernick, M. and Levine, A.-J., ‘e Halakhah of Jesus according to Matthew’, JES 26 (1989), 530-35. Chilton, B. D., A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (London: SPCK, 1984). ———, Targumic Approaches to the Gospels: Essays in the Mutual Definition of Judaism and Christianity (Studies in Judaism. Lanham, MD/New York/London: University Press of America, 1986). ———, Profiles of a Rabbi: Synoptic Opportunities in Reading about Jesus (Brown Judaic Studies 177. Atlanta: Scholars, 1989). ———, e Temple of Jesus: His Sacrifice Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1992). ———, Judaic Approaches to the Gospels (University of South Florida International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism 2. Atlanta: Scholars, 1994). ———, A Feast of Meanings: Eucharistic eologies from Jesus through Johannine Circles (NovTSup 72. Leiden: Brill, 1994). ———, Pure Kingdom: Jesus’ Vision of God (Studying the Historical Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). ———, Jesus’ Baptism and Jesus’ Healing: His Personal Practice of Spirituality (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998). ———, ‘Jesus’ Purity and the Myth of Liberal Christianity’, SBLSP 40 (2001), 108-30.

——— and McDonald, J. I. H., Jesus and the Ethics of the Kingdom (London: SPCK, 1987). ——— and Evans, C. A., Jesus in Context: Temple, Purity, and Restoration (AGJU 39. Leiden: Brill, 1997). ——— and Evans, C. A., Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1999). ——— and Evans, C. A., Authenticating the Words of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1999). Clarke, K. D., Textual Optimism: A Critique of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (JSNTSup 138. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997). Claudel, G., La confession de Pierre: Trajectoire d’une péricope évangélique (Ébib, n.s. 10. Paris: Gabalda, 1988). Clines, D. J. A., et al., eds., e Bible in ree Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies at Sheffield (JSOTSup 87. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1990). Collins, R. F., Divorce in the New Testament (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1992). Combrink, H. J. B., ‘e Structure of the Gospel of Matthew as Narrative’, TynB 34 (1983), 61-90. ———, ‘Readers, Readings and Authors: An Orientation’, Neot 22 (1988), 189-203. ———, ‘Reference and Rhetoric in the Gospel of Matthew’, Scriptura 40 (1992), 1-17. ———, ‘e Use of Matthew in the South African Context during the Last Few Decades’, Neot 28 (1994), 339-58. ———, ‘e Reception of Matthew in Africa’, Scriptura 58 (1996), 285-303. ———, ‘Translating or Transforming-Receiving Matthew in Africa’, Scriptura 58 (1996), 273-84. Cook, D. E., ‘A Gospel Portrait of the Pharisees’, RevExp 84 (1987), 221-33. Cook, M. J., ‘Interpreting “Pro-Jewish” Passages in Matthew’, HUCA 53 (1984), 135-46.

Coppens, J., Le Fils d’Homme néotestamentaire (BETL 55. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1981). ———, Le Fils d’Homme vétéro- et intertestamentaire (BETL 61. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1983). Corley, K. E., Private Women, Public Meals: Social Conflict in the Synoptic Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993). Cortés-Fuentes, D., ‘Not Like the Gentiles: e Characterization of Gentiles in the Gospel according to St. Matthew’, Journal of Hispanic/Latino eology 9 (2001), 6-26. Coulot, C., Jésus et le disciple: Étude sur l’autorité messianique de Jésus (Ébib, n.s. 8. Paris: Gabalda, 1987). Cousland, J. R. C., e Crowds in the Gospel of Matthew (NovTSup 102. Leiden: Brill, 2002). Crawford, B. S., ‘Near Expectation in the Sayings of Jesus’, JBL 101 (1982), 225-44. Crosby, M. H., House of Disciples: Church, Economics, and Justice in Matthew (Maryville, NY: Orbis, 1988). Crossan, J. D., Cliffs of Fall: Paradox and Polyvalence in the Parables of Jesus (New York: Seabury, 1980). ———, In Fragments: e Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983). ———, Four Other Gospels (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985). ———, e Historical Jesus: e Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991). ———, e Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994). ———, ‘Itinerants and Householders in the Earliest Kingdom Movement’, in Reimaging Christian Origins, ed. E. Castelli and H. Taussig (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996), 113-29. ———, e Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately aer the Execution of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998).

Culbertson, P. L., A Word Fitly Spoken: Context, Transmission, and Adoption of the Parables of Jesus (SUNY Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). ———, ‘Changing Christian Images of the Pharisees’, ATR 64 (1982), 539561. Culpepper, R. A., ‘Story and History in the Gospels’, RevExp 81 (1984), 46778. Cunningham, S. and Bock, D. L., ‘Is Matthew Midrash?’ BSac 144 (1987), 157-80. Cuvillier, É., ‘Particularisme et universalisme chez Matthieu: quelques hypothèses à l’épreuve du texte’, Bib 78 (1997), 481-502. ———, ‘Justes et petits chez Matthieu: L’interprétation du lecteur à la croisée des chemins’, ETR 72 (1997), 345-364. ———, ‘Chronique matthéenne (II): “… mais ce n’est pas encore la n” (Mt 24/6b)’, ETR 71 (1996), 81-94. ———, ‘Chronique matthéenne (III): “… que le lecteur comprenne” (Mt 24/15)’, ETR 72 (1997), 101-13. ———, ‘Chronique matthéenne (IV): “Vous avez entedu qu’il été dit …” (Mt 5/27a)’, ETR 73 (1998), 239-56. ———, ‘Chronique matthéenne (V): “… jusqu’à la n du monde” (Mt 28/20b)’, ETR 74 (1999), 251-65. ———, ‘Chronique matthéenne (VI): “L’un de ces plus petits de mes frères…”(Mt25/40)’, ETR 76 (2001), 575-98. Danker, F. W., ‘God with Us: Hellenistic Christological Perspectives in Matthew’, CurTM 19 (1992), 433-39. Dannemann, I., Aus dem Rahmen fallen: Frauen im Markusevangelium: Eine feministische Re-Vision (Alektor-Hochschulschrien. Berlin: Alektor, 1996). Dautzenberg, G., Studien zur eologie der Jesustradition (Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände 19. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995). ———, ‘Gesetzkritik und Gesetzgehorsam in der Jesustradition’, in Gesetz, ed. K. Kertelge, 46-70.

———, ‘Jesus und die Tora’, Orient 55 (1991), 229-32, 243-46. Davies, M., ‘Reading the Book, 8: e Gospel according to Matthew’, ExpTim 108 (1997), 227-30. Davies, P. R. and White, R. T., A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History (JSOTSup 100. Sheffield: JSOT, 1990). Davies, W. D., e Territorial Dimension of Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). ——— and Finkelstein, L., eds., e Cambridge History of Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Davison, J. E., ‘Anomia and the Question of an Antinomian Polemic in Matthew’, JBL 104 (1985), 617-35. Dehandschutter, B., ‘e Gospel of omas and the Synoptics: e Status Quaestionis’, SE 7 (= TU 126) (1982), 157-60. Delobel, J., ed., Logia. Les Paroles de Jésus — e Sayings of Jesus. Mémorial J. Coppins (BETL 59. Leuven: Peeters/Leuven University Press, 1982). Delorme, J., ed., Les Paraboles évangélique: Perspectives nouvelles: XIIe Congrès de l’ACFEB, Lyon (1987) (LD 135. Paris: Cerf, 1989). Denaux, A., John and the Synoptics (BETL 101. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1992). ———, ‘Criteria for Identifying Q-Passages: A Critical Review of a Recent Work by T. Bergemann’, NovT 37 (1995), 105-29. Dermience, A., ‘Rédaction et théologie dans le premier évangile: Une perspective de l’exégèse matthéenne récente’, RTL 16 (1985), 47-64. Derrett, J. D. M., Studies in the New Testament (6 vols. Leiden: Brill, 197795). Descamps, A., Jésus et l’Eglise: Études d’exégèse et de théologie (BETL 77. Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1987). Deutsch, C. M., Lady Wisdom, Jesus, and the Sages: Metaphor and Social Context in Matthew’s Gospel (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996).

———, ‘Torah, Jesus and Discipleship in the Gospel of Matthew’, SIDIC 24 (1991), 43-52. ———, ‘Christians and Jews in the First Century: e Gospel of Matthew’, ought 67 (1992), 399-408. Dewey, J., ‘Jesus’ Healings of Women: Conformity and Non-Conformity to Dominant Cultural Values as Clues for Historical Reconstruction’, SBLSP 32 (1993), 178-93. Dihle, A., ‘Die Evangelien und die biographische Tradition der Antike’, ZTK 80 (1983), 33-49. Doble, P., ‘e Son of Man Saying in Acts 7.65’, NTS 31 (1985), 68-84. Dobschütz, E. von, ‘Matthew as Rabbi and Catechist’, in Interpretation, ed. G. N. Stanton, 19-29. Donahue, J. R., e Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative, and eology in the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). Donaldson, T. L., Jesus on the Mountain: A Study in Matthean eology (JSNTSup 8. Sheffield: JSOT, 1985). Doohan, L., ‘Images of God in Matthew’, MilltownStud 16 (1985), 65-84. ———, ‘Ecclesial Sharing in Matthew’s Gospel’, BiTod 24 (1986), 254-59. Downing, F. G., ‘Contemporary Analogies to the Gospels and Acts: Genres or Motifs?’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 51-65. ———, ‘Redactional Criticism: Josephus’ Antiquities and the Synoptic Problem. I’, JSNT 8 (1980), 29-48. ———, ‘Redactional Criticism: Josephus’ Antiquities and the Synoptic Problem. II’, JSNT 9 (1980), 46-65. ———, ‘Cynics and Christians’, NTS 30 (1984), 584-93. ———, ‘A bas les aristos: e Relevance of Higher Literature for the Understanding of the Earliest Christian Writing’, NovT 30 (1988), 21230. ———, ‘Compositional Conventions and the Synoptic Problem’, JBL 107 (1988), 69-85. ———, ‘A Paradigm Perplex: Luke, Matthew and Mark’, NTS 38 (1992), 1536.

Doyle, B. R., ‘“Crowds” in Matthew: Text and eology’, CTR 6 (1984), 2833. ———, ‘Positions of Leadership: Some Re ections from Matthew’s Gospel’, Pacifica 9 (1996), 135-44. Draisma, S., ed., Intertextuality in Biblical Writings. FS B. van Iersel (Kampen: Kok, 1989). Drazin, I., Targum Onkelos to Deuteronomy: An English Translation of the Text with Analysis and Commentary (New York: Ktav, 1982). Drury, J., e Parables in the Gospels: History and Allegory (New York: Crossroads, 1985). Dschulnigg, P., ‘Positionen des Gleichnisverständnisses im 20. Jahrhundert: Kurze Darstellung von fünf wichtigen Positionen der Gleichnistheorie (Jülicher, Jeremias, Weder, Arens, Harnisch)’, TZ 45 (1989), 335-51. ———, ‘Gestalt und Funktion des Petrus im Matthäusevangelium’, SNTU 14 (1989), 161-83. Duling, D. C., ‘Matthew’s Plurisigni cant “Son of David” in Social Science Perspective: Kinship, Kingship, Magic, and Miracle’, BTB 22 (1992), 99116. ———, ‘Matthew and Marginality’, SBLSP 32 (1993), 642-71. ———, ‘Matthew and Marginality’, HTS 51 (1995), 358-87. ———, ‘“Egalitarian” Ideology, Leadership, and Factional Con ict within the Matthean Group’, BTB 27 (1997), 124-37. Dungan, D. L., ‘Jesus and Violence’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 135-62. ——— and Cartlidge, D. R., Documents for the Study of the Gospels (London: Collins, 1980). ———, ed., e Interrelation of the Gospels: A Symposium Led by M.-É. Boismard — W. R. Farmer — F. Neirynck, Jerusalem 1984 (BETL 95. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1990). Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Pharisees, Sinners and Jesus’, in e Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism, ed. J. Neusner et al., 264-89. ———, Christology in the Making (London: SCM, 1980).

———, e Parting of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and eir Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM, 1991). ———, ‘e Signi cance of Matthew’s Eschatology for Biblical eology’, SBLSP 35 (1996), 150-62. ———, ed., Jews and Christians: e Parting of the Ways, A.D. 70 to 135: e Second Durham Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism (WUNT 66. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1992). Dupont, J., Études sur les Évangiles synoptiques (BETL 70. 2 vols. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1985). ———, ed., Jésus aux origines de la christologie (BETL 40. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 19892). Durken, D., ‘Mountains and Matthew’, BiTod 28 (1990), 304-7. Ebertz, M. N., Das Charisma des Gekreuzigten: Zur Soziologie der Jesusbewegung (WUNT 1/45. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1987). Ebner, M., Jesus — Ein Weisheitslehrer? Synoptische Weisheitslogien im Traditions-prozess (HBS 15. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1998). Eckstein, H.-J., ‘Die “bessere Gerechtigkeit”. Zur Ethik Jesu nach dem Matthäusevangelium’, TB 32 (2001), 299-316. Edin, M. H., ‘Learning What Righteousness Means: Hosea 6:6 and the Ethic of Mercy in Matthew’s Gospel’, WW 18 (1998), 355-63. Edwards, J. R., ‘e Use of Proserchesthai in the Gospel of Matthew’, JBL 106 (1987), 65-74. Edwards, R. A., Matthew’s Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). ———, Matthew’s Narrative Portrait of Disciples: How the Text-Connoted Reader Is Informed (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997). ———, ‘Reading Matthew: e Gospel as Narrative’, Listening 24 (1989), 251-61. ———, ‘Narrative Implications of Gar in Matthew’, CBQ 52 (1990), 636-55. Ehrman, B. D., Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986). ——— and Holmes, M. W., eds., e Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (SD 46. Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Ellington, J., ‘Where Is the Other Side?’ BT 38 (1987), 221-26. Elliott, J. K., ‘Six New Papyri of Matthew’s Gospel’, NovT 41 (1999), 105-7. Ellis, E. E., ‘e Making of Narratives in the Synoptic Gospels’, in Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, ed. H. Wansbrough, 301-24. ———, ‘Gospel Criticism: A Perspective on the State of the Art’, in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher, 27-54. Ellison, S. A., Parables in the Eye of the Storm: Christ’s Response in the Face of Conflict (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2001). Engelbrecht, J., ‘Trends in Miracle Research’, Neot 22 (1988), 139-61. ———, ‘e Language of the Gospel of Matthew’, Neot 24 (1990), 199-213. ———, ‘Are All the Commentaries on Matthew Really Necessary?’ Releol 2 (1995), 206-15. Ennulat, A., Die ‘Minor Agreements’. Untersuchungen zu einer offener Frage des synoptischen Problems (Tübingen: Mohr, 1994). Epp, E. J. and Fee, D. G., New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis. FS B. M. Metzger (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981). Erlemann, K., Das Bild Gottes in den synoptischen Gleichnissen (BWANT 126. Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne/Mainz: Kohlhammer, 1988). ———, Naherwartung und Parusieverzögerung im Neuen Testament: Ein Beitrag zur Frage religiöser Zeiterfahrung (Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter 17. Tübingen/Basel: Francke, 1995). Ernst, J., Matthäus: Ein theologisches Portrait (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1989). Evans, C. A., Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies (AGJU 25. Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1995). ———, ‘From Public Ministry to the Passon: Can a Link Be Found between the (Galilean) Life and the (Judean) Death of Jesus?’ SBLSP 32 (1993), 460-72. ———, ‘Early Rabbinic Sources and Jesus Research’, SBLSP 34 (1995), 53-76. ——— and Stegner, W. R., eds., e Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel (JSNTSup 104. Sheffield: JSOT, 1994).

——— and Sanders, J. A., eds., Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (JSNTSup 148; Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 5. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997). ——— and Sanders, J. A., eds., e Functions of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998). Fairhurst, A. M., ‘Matthew’s Hell: From Percy Dearmer to David Sim’, ExpTim 110 (1999), 138-40. Falk, H., ‘A Reply to Reviews by Chernick and Levine of Sigal’s e Halakhah of Jesus of Nazareth according to the Gospel of Matthew (with Replies)’, JES 27 (1990), 347-54, 355-64. Farmer, W. R., ‘Luke’s Use of Matthew: A Christological Inquiry’, PSTJ 40 (1987), 39-50. ———, ‘e Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark and the Two Gospel Hypothesis: A Study of the Minor Agreements in eir Compositional Contexts’, SBLSP 30 (1991), 773-815. ———, ed., New Synoptic Studies (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983). Farnell, F. D., ‘e Synoptic Gospels in the Ancient Church: e Testimony to the Priority of Matthew’s Gospel’, MastSJ 10 (1999), 53-86. Fenske, W., ‘Und wenn ihr betet …” (Mt. 6,5): Gebete in der zwischenmenschlichen Kommunikation der Antike als Ausdruck der Frömmigkeit (SUNT 21. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997). Finkel, A., ‘Yavneh’s Liturgy and Early Christianity’, JES 18 (1981), 231-50. Fischer, K. P., ‘“Der Berg” in den Evangelien — Zeichen für die Völker’, BibNot 99 (1999), 42-54. Fisher, N. F., e Parables of Jesus: Glimpses of God’s Reign (New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1990). Fitzmyer, J. A., To Advance the Gospel (New York: Crossroad, 1981). Flusser, D., Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzähler Jesus I (Bern: Lang, 1981).

Focant, C., ‘La chute de Jérusalem et la datation des évangiles’, RTL 19 (1988), 17-37. ———, ed., e Synoptic Gospels, Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism. FS F. Neirynck (BETL 110. Louvain: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1993). Fornberg, T., ‘e Figure of Peter in Matthew and in 2 Peter’, ITS 32 (1995), 237-49. ———, ‘Matthew and His Readers: Some Examples from the History of Interpretation’, eology and Life 22 (1999), 131-47. Foulkes, F., A Guide to St. Matthew’s Gospel (SPCK International Study Guides 37. London: SPCK, 2001). Fowler, R. M., ‘Reading Matthew Reading Mark: Observing the First Steps Toward Meaning-as-Reference in the Synoptic Gospels’, SBLSP 25 (1986), 1-16. France, R. T., ‘Jesus the Baptist?’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 94-111. ———, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher (London/Grand Rapids: Paternoster/Zondervan, 1989). ———, Divine Government: God’s Kingship in the Gospel of Matthew (London: SPCK, 1990). ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel in Recent Study’,  14 (1989), 41-46. ——— and Wenham, D., eds., Gospel Perspectives (Vols. 1–3. Sheffield: JSOT, 1980, ’81, ’83). Frankemölle, H., ‘Evangelium und Wirkungsgeschichte: Das Problem der Vermittlung von Methodik und Hermeneutik in neueren Auslegungen zum Matthäusevangelium’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 3189. ———, Jahwebund und Kirche Christi: Studien zur Form- und Traditionsgeschichte des “Evangeliums” nach Matthäus (NTAbh 10. Münster: Aschendorff, 19842). ———, ‘Jesus als deuterojesajanischer Freudenbote? Zur Rezeption von Jes 52,7 und 61,1 im Neuen Testament, durch Jesus und in den Targumim’,

in Vom Urchristentum, ed. H. Frankemölle and K. Kertelge (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1989), 34-67. ———, ‘Kommunikatives Handeln in Gleichnissen Jesu: Historische und Pragmatische Exegese: Eine kritische Sichtung’, NTS 28 (1982), 61-90. ———, ‘Von der Wurzel getragen (Röm 11,18): Das Neue Testament im “Alten” verwurzelt lesen — am Beispiel des Matthäusevangelium’, BK 55 (2000), 14-18. ——— and K. Kertelge, ed., Vom Urchristentum zu Jesus. FS J. Gnilka (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1989). Freyne, S., Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian (Wilmington: Glazier, 1980). ———, ‘Vilifying the Other and De ning the Self: Matthew’s and John’s Anti-Jewish Polemic in Focus’, in ‘To See Ourselves, ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs, 117-44. ———, Galilee, Jesus, and the Gospels: Literary Approaches and Historical Investigations (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988). ———, ‘Oppression from the Jews: Matthew’s Gospel as an Early Christian Response’, Concil 200 (1988), 47-53. Frickenschmidt, D., Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst (Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter 22. Tübingen: Francke, 1997). Fridrichsen, A., ‘e Parables in Recent Research’, in Exegetical Writings, 3448. ———, ‘Jesus Kampf gegen die unreingen Geister’, in Die Wunderbegriff im Neuen Testament, ed. A. Suhl (WF 295. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1980), 248-65. ———, Exegetical Writings: A Selection, tr. and ed. C. C. Caragounis and T. Fornberg (WUNT 76. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1994). Friedrichsen, T. A., ‘e Matthew-Luke Agreements against Mark: A Survey of Recent Studies: 1974-89’, in L’Évangile de Luc (1989) — e Gospel of Luke: Revised and Enlarged Edition of LʾÉvangile de Luc: Problème littéraires et théologique (2nd edn,; BETL 32. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters), ed. F. Neirynck, 335-91.

———, ‘e Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark: Critical Observations on R. B. Vinson’s Statistical Analysis’, ETL 65 (1989), 395408. Fuchs, A., ‘Aufwind für Deuteromarkus’, SNTU 17 (1992), 55-76. Fuchs, E., ‘Die Analogie’, in Die Neutestamentliche Gleichnisforschung im Horizont von Hermeneutik und Literaturwissenscha, ed. W. Harnisch (WF 575. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1982), 1-19. Fuller, R. H. and Perkins, P., Who Is is Christ? (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 81-95. Funk, R. W., ‘Myth and the Literal Non-Literal’, in Forms of the New Testament Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 111-37. ———, Parables and Presence: Forms of the New Testament Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). ———, A Credible Jesus: Fragments of a Vision (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2002). ———, ‘From Parable to Gospel: Domesticating the Tradition’, Forum 1.3 (1985), 3-24. ———, ‘Unraveling the Jesus Tradition’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 31-62. Fusco, V., ‘Tendences récentes dans l’interpretation des paraboles’, in Les paraboles évangéliques: Perspectives nouvelles. XIIe congrès de l’ACEF, ed. J. Delorme (LD 135. Paris: Cerf, 1989), 19-60. Gabriel, K. J., ‘Jesus’ Economic Perspective as Presented in Matthew’, Biblebhashyam 22 (1996), 200-209. Gager, J. G., e Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes towards Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). ———, ‘Shall We Marry Our Enemies? Sociology and the New Testament’, Int 36 (1982), 256-65. Garrett, S. R., e Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). Gaston, L., ‘e Messiah of Israel as Teacher of the Gentiles: e Setting of Matthew’s Christology’, in Interpreting the Gospels, ed. J. L. Mays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 78-96.

Gaventa, B. R. and Rigby, C. L., eds., Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2002). Geiger, G., ‘Falsche Zitate bei Matthäus und Lukas’, in e Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 479-86. Geist, H., Menschensohn und Gemeinde: Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung zur Menschensohnprädikation im Matthäusevangelium (FB 57. Würzburg: Echter, 1986). Gench, F. T., Wisdom in the Christology of Matthew (Lanham/New York/Oxford: University Press of America, 1997). Gendron, P., Peuret foi dans l’Evangile de Matthieu. L’acte de croire aujourd’hui (Coll. “Parole d’actualité” 6. Montreal: Médiaspaul, 1997). Gerhardsson, B., ‘e Gospel Tradition’, in e Interrelation of the Gospels, ed. D. L. Dungan, 497-545. ———, ‘Mighty Acts and Rule of Heaven: “God Is with Us”’, in Mystery, ed. T. E. Schmidt and M. Silva, 34-48. ———, ‘e Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels’, NTS 34 (1988), 339-63. ———, ‘If We Do Not Cut the Parables out of eir Frames’, NTS 37 (1991), 321-35. Gibson, J. B., e Temptations of Jesus in Early Christianity (JSNTSup 112. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995). Giesen, H., ‘Jesu Krankenheilungen im Verständnis des Matthäusevangeliums’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 79-106. ———, Christliches Handeln: Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung zum Begriff im Matthäus-Evangelium (Frankfurt: Lang, 1982). ———, Glaube und Handeln, I: Beiträge zur Exegese und eologie des Matthäus- und Markus-Evangeliums (Frankfurt: Lang, 1983). ———, Herrscha Gottes — heute oder morgen? Zur Heilsbotscha Jesu und der synoptischen Evangelien (BU 26. Regensburg: Pustet, 1995). ———, ‘Galiläa — mehr als eine Landscha: Bibeltheologischer Stellenwert Galiläas im Matthäusevangelium’, ETL 77 (2001), 23-45.

Gnilka, J., ‘Das Kirchenbild im Matthäusevangelium’, in A cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 127-44. Goergen, D., e Mission and Ministry of Jesus (Wilmington: Glazier, 1986). Goldberg, A., ‘Die funktionale Form Midrasch’, FJB 10 (1982), 1-45. ———, ‘Midraschsatz: Vorschläge für die descriptive Terminologie der Formanalyse rabbinischer Texte’, FJB 17 (1989), 45-56. Good, D. J., Jesus the Meek King (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999). ———, ‘e Verb in Matthew’s Gospel’, NovT 32 (1990), 1-12. Goodacre, M., e Case against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002). ———, ‘e Synoptic Jesus and the Celluloid Christ: Solving the Synoptic Problem through Film’, JSNT 80 (2000), 31-43. Goodblatt, D., ‘e Place of the Pharisees in First-Century Judaism: e State of the Debate’, JSJ 20 (1989), 12-30. Goppelt, L., eology of the New Testament, tr. J. E. Alsup, ed. J. Roloff (2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981, 1982). Gorman, F. H., ‘When Law Becomes Gospel: Matthew’s Transformed Torah’, Listening 24 (1989), 227-40. Goulder, M. D., ‘Already?’, in Mystery, ed. T. E. Schmidt and M. Silva, 21-33. ———, Luke: a New Paradigm (2 vols. Sheffield: JSOT, 1989). ———, ‘Sections and Lections in Matthew’, JSNT 76 (1999), 79-96. ———, ‘Self-Contradiction in the IQP’, JBL 118 (1999), 506-17. Gourgues, M., Les paraboles de Jésus chez Marc et Matthieu: D’amont en aval (Sciences bibliques 8. Montreal/Paris: Médiaspaul, 1999). Gowler, D. B., What Are ey Saying about the Parables? (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2000). Grassi, J. A., Rediscovering the Impact of Jesus’ Death: Clues from the Gospel Audiences (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1987). ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel as Live Performance’, BiTod 27 (1989), 225-32. ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel of Justice’, BiTod 38 (2000), 234-38.

Green, H. B., ‘e Credibility of Luke’s Transformation of Matthew’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 131-55. ———, Matthew, Poet of the Beatitudes (JSNTSup 203. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001). Green, J. B. and Turner, M., eds., Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology (Grand Rapids/Carlisle, UK: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1994). Greeven, H., ‘Die Heilung des Gelähmten nach Matthäus’, in MatthäusEvangelium, ed. J. Lange, 205-22. Grelot, P., ‘Remarques sur un manuscrit de l’Evangile de Matthieu’, RSR 83 (1995), 403-5. ———, ‘Note sur les propositions du Pr Carsten Peter iede’, RB 102 (1995), 589-91. Grundmann, W., ‘Die Arbeit des ersten Evangelisten am Bilde Jesu’, in Matthäus-Evangelium, ed. J. Lange, 73-102. Guelich, R. A., ‘e Gospel Genre’, in Die Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher, 183-219. ———, Mark 1–8:26 (WBC 34A. Waco: Word, 1989). Güttgemanns, E., ‘Narrative Analyse synoptischer texte’, in Die Neutestamentliche Gleichnisforschung im Horizont von Hermeneutik und Literaturwissenscha, ed. W. Harnisch (WF 575. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1982), 179-223. ———, ‘Die Funktion der Erzählung im Judentum als Frage an das christliche Verständnis der Evangelien’, LingBib 46 (1979), 5-61. Gundry, R. H., ‘A Responsive Evaluation of the Social History of the Matthean Community in Roman Syria’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 62-67. ———, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993). ———, ‘In Defence of the Church in Matthew as a Corpus Mixtum’, ZNW 91 (2000), 153-65.

Guyénot, L., Jésus et Jean Baptiste: Enquête historique sur une rencontre légendaire (Chambéry: Exergue, 1999). Häfner, G., Der verheissene Vorläufer: Redaktionskritische Untersuchung zur Darstellung Johannes des Täufers im Matthäus-Evangelium (SBB 27. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1994). Haase, W. and Temporini, H., eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1979-). Habbe, J., Palästina zur Zeit Jesu: Die Landscha in Galiläa als Hintergrund der synoptischen Evangelien (Neukirchener eologischer Dissertationen und Habilitationen 6. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996). Hagner, D. A., ‘e Sitz im Leben of the Gospel of Matthew’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 27-68. ———, ‘e “Sitz im Leben” of the Gospel of Matthew’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 243-69. ———, ‘Apocalyptic Motifs in the Gospel of Matthew: Continuity and Discontinuity’, HBT 7 (1985), 53-82. ———, ‘Balancing the Old and the New: e Law of Moses in Matthew and Paul’, Int 51 (1987), 20-30. ———, ‘Writing a Commentary on Matthew: Self-Conscious Ruminations of an Evangelical’, Semeia 72 (1995), 51-72. ———,’Matthew’s Eschatology’, SBLSP 35 (1996), 163-81. ———, ‘New ings from the Scribe’s Treasure Box (Mt 13:52)’, ExpTim 109 (1998), 329-34. ———, ‘Law, Righteousness and Discipleship in Matthew’, WW 18 (1998), 364-71. Hampel, V., Menschensohn und historischer Jesus: Ein Ratselwort als Schlüssel zum messianischen Selbstverständnis Jesu (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1990). Han, K. S., Jerusalem and the Early Jesus Movement: e Q Community’s Attitude toward the Temple (JSNTSup 207. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002).

Hanson, K. C., ‘Transformed on the Mountain: Ritual Analysis and the Gospel of Matthew (with Responses)’, Semeia 67 (1994), 147-70, 171-77. Hare, D. R. A., ‘Current Trends in Matthean Scholarship’, WW 18 (1998), 405-10. ———, ‘How Jewish Is the Gospel of Matthew?’ CBQ 62 (2000), 264-77. Harnisch, W., Die Gleichniserzählungen Jesu: Eine hermeneutische Einführung (Unitaschenbücher 1343. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985). ———, ed., Die neutestamentliche Gleichnisforschung im Horizont von Hermeneutik und Literaturwissenscha (WF 575. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1982). ———, ed., Gleichnisse Jesu: Positionen der Auslegung von Adolf Jülicher bis zur Formgeschichte (WF 366. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1982). Harrington, D. J., ‘Matthew’s Gospel: Pastoral Problems and Possibilities’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 62-73. Harrington, D., ‘e Reception of Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity during the Last Decade’, HTR 73 (1980), 289-98. ———, ‘A Dangerous Text: Matthew and Judaism’, CanCR 7 (1989), 135-42. ———, ‘Matthew as a Jewish Book’, Priests and People 7 (1993), 240-44. ———, ‘Matthew as a Christian Gospel’, Priests and People 7 (1993), 284-88. Harrington, W., ‘e Gospel of Matthew’, Scripture in Church 29 (1999), 25156. Hartin, P. J., ‘e Pharisaic Roots of Jesus and the Early Church’, Neot 21 (1987), 113-24. Harvey, A. E., Jesus and the Constraints of History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982). ———, ed., Alternative Approaches to the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1985). Haubeck, W. and Bachmann, M., eds., Wort in der Zeit: Neutestamentliche Studien. FS K. H. Rengstorf (Leiden: Brill, 1980). Havener, I., Q: e Sayings of Jesus (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1990).

Hawthorne, G. F., ‘e Role of Christian Prophets in the Gospel Tradition’, in Tradition and Interpretation, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 119-33. ——— and Betz, O., eds., Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). Head, P. M., Christology and the Synoptic Problem: An Argument for Markan Priority (SNTSMS 94. Cambridge: Cambidge University Press, 1997). ———, ‘e Date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew (P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64): A Response to C. P. iede’, TynB 46 (1995), 251-85. Hedrick, C. W., Parables as Poetic Fictions: e Creative Voice of Jesus (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994). ———, ‘Parables and Kingdom: e Vision of Jesus in Fiction and Faith’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 368-93. Heil, J. P., ‘e Blood of Jesus in Matthew: A Narrative-Critical Perspective’, PRS 18 (1991), 117-24. Hellenbach, P. W., ‘Help for Interpreting Jesus’ Exorcisms’, SBLSP 32 (1993), 119-28. Henderson, I. H., Jesus, Rhetoric and Law (BibInt 20. Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1996). Hendrickx, H., e Parables of Jesus (Rev. edn. London: Chapman, 1986). ———, e Parables of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986). ———, e Miracle Stories of the Synoptic Gospels (London: Chapman, 1987). ———, ‘Matthew’s Community’, eolAnn 12 (1990-91), 141-53. Hengel, M., e Atonement: A Study of the Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament, tr. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1981). ———, e Charismatic Leader and His Followers, tr. J. C. G. Greig (New York: Crossroads, 1981). ———, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, tr. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1985). ———, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995). ———, ‘Zur Wirkungsgeschichte von Jes 53 in vorchristlicher Zeit’, in Jesaja 53 und seine Wirkungsgeschichte, ed. B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), 49-91.

———, e Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I to 70 AD, tr. D. Smith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997). ———, e Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels, tr. J. Bowden (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000). ——— and Deines, R., ‘E. P. Sanders’ “Common Judaism’, Jesus, and the Pharisees’, JTS 46 (1995), 1-70. Hermant, D., Matthieu: Un écrivain? Les cinq discours du premier Evangile, un corpus organisé (Lyon: FROFAC, 1999). Hertig, P., Matthew’s Narrative Use of Galilee in the Multicultural and Missiological Journeys of Jesus (Mellen Biblical Press Series 46. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, Ont./Lampeter: Mellen, 1998). Hertig, P., ‘e Galilean eme in Matthew: Transforming Mission through Marginality’, Missiology (Scottdale, PA) 25 (1997), 155-63. ———, ‘Geographical Marginality in the Matthean Journeys of Jesus’, SBLSP 38 (1999), 472-89. Higgins, A. J. B., e Son of Man in the Teaching of Jesus (SNTSMS 39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Hill, D., ‘Son and Servant: An Essay in Matthean Christology’, JSNT 6 (1980), 2-16. ———, ‘e Figure of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel: A Response to Professor Kingsbury’s Literary-Critical Probe’, JSNT 21 (1984), 37-52. ———, ‘In Quest of Matthean Christology’, IBS 8 (1986), 135-42. Hobbs, T. R., ‘Soldiers in the Gospels: A Neglected Agent’, in Social Science Models for Interpreting the Bible, ed. J. J. Pilch (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 32848. Hoffmann, J. C., ‘Story as Mythoparabolic Medium: Re ections on Crossan’s Interpretation of the Parables of Jesus’, USQR 37 (1983), 323-33. Hoffmann, P., ‘Der Petrus-Primat im Matthäusevangelium’, in MatthäusEvangelium, ed. J. Lange, 415-40.

———, ‘e Redaction of Q and the Son of Man: A Preliminary Sketch’, in e Gospel behind the Gospels: Current Studies in Q, ed. R. A. Piper, 15998. ———, Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Jesus-Bewegung (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 17. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1994). ———, Tradition und Situation: Studien zur Jesusüberlieferung in der Logienquelle und den synoptischen Evangelien (NTAbh, n.F. 28. Münster: Aschendorff, 1995). ———, et al., Q 12:8-12: Confessing or Denying — Speaking against the Holy Spirit — Hearings before Synagogues, ed. C. Heil (Documenta Q: e Database of the International Q Project. Leuven: Peeters, 1997). Hollenbach, P. H., ‘From Parable to Gospel: A Response Using the Social Sciences’, Forum 2.3 (1986), 67-75. Holman, C., ‘A Lesson from Matthew’s Gospel for Charismatic Renewal’, in Faces of Renewal, ed. P. Elbert (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 4863. Holmberg, B., Sociology and the New Testament: An Appraisal (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). Holmén, T., Jesus and Jewish Covenant inking (BibInt 55. Leiden: Brill, 2001). Holmgren, F. C., e Old Testament and the Significance of Jesus. Embracing Change — Maintaining Christian Identity: e Emerging Center in Biblical Scholarship (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1999). Hooker, M. D., e Signs of a Prophet: e Prophetic Actions of Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997). Horbury, W., Jews and Christians: In Contact and Controversy (T&T Clark, 1998). ———, ‘e Benediction of the Minim and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy’, JTS 33 (1982), 19-61. ——— and McNeil, B., eds., Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Horsley, G. H. R., ed., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vols. 15 (North Ryde: Macquarie University, Ancient History Documentary

Research Centre, 1981-89). Horsley, R. A., Sociology and the Jesus Movement (New York: Crossroad, 1989). ———, ‘Popular Messianic Movements around the Time of Jesus’, CBQ 46 (1984), 471-95. ———, ‘“Like One of the Prophets of Old?”: Two Types of Popular Prophets at the Time of Jesus’, CBQ 47 (1985), 435-63. ———, ‘Popular Prophetic Movements at the Time of Jesus: eir Principal Features and Social Origins’, JSNT 26 (1986), 3-27. ——— with Hanson, J. S., Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987). ——— and Hanson, J. S., Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985). Howard, G., Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (2d edn. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995). ———, ‘e Textual Nature of an Old Hebrew Version of Matthew’, JBL 105 (1986), 49-63. ———, ‘Was the Gospel of Matthew Originally Written in Hebrew?’ BRev 2 (1986), 14-25. ———, ‘A Primitive Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and the Toledoth Jesu’, NTS 34 (1988), 60-70. ———, ‘e Textual Nature of Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew’, JBL 108 (1989), 239-57. ———, ‘A Note on Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew and the Gospel of John’, JSNT 47 (1992), 117-26. ———, ‘e Pseudo-Clementine Writings and Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew’, NTS 40 (1994), 622-28. ———, ‘Hebrew Gospel of Matthew: A Report’, JHC 2 (1995), 53-67. ———, ‘Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew and Early Jewish Christianity’, JSNT 70 (1998), 3-20. ———, ‘A Note on Codex Sinaiticus and Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew’, NovT 34 (1992), 46-47.

Howell, D. B., Matthew’s Inclusive Story: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel (JSNTSup 42. Sheffield: JSOT, 1990). Huber, K., Jesus in Auseinandersetzung: Exegetische Untersuchungen zu den sogenannten Jerusalemer Streitgesprächen des Markusevangeliums im Blick auf ihre christologischen Implikationen (FB 75. Würzburg: Echter, 1995). Hubner, H., Das Gesetz im der synoptischen Tradition: Studien zur ese einerprogressiven Qumranisierung und Judaisierung innerhalb der synoptischen Tradition (2nd edn. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986). Huggins, R. V., ‘Matthean Posteriority: A Preliminary Proposal’, NovT 34 (1992), 1-22. Hultgren, A. J., e Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (e Bible in Its World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). ———, ‘Mission and Ministry in Matthew’, WW 18 (1998), 341-47. Hunter, A. M., e Parables for Today (London: SCM, 1983). Hurst, L. D. and Wright, N. T., eds., e Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology. FS G. B. Caird (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987). Ilan, T., Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status (TSAJ 44. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1995). Imhof, P., ‘Das wahre Licht: Jesus Christus in Sebulon und Nephtali’, GuL 57 (1984), 401-405. Ingelaere, J.-C., ‘Universalisme et particularisme dans l’Évangile de Matthieu: Matthieu et le Judaïsme’, RHPR 75 (1995), 45-49. ———, ‘Chronique Matthéenne’, RHPR 61 (1981), 67-79. Ito, A., ‘Matthew and the Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls’, JSNT 48 (1992), 23-42. Ito, A. Y., ‘Les Sept Montagnes de Jésus dans saint Matthieu’, LVit 49 (1994), 413-23. Jacobson, A. D., e First Gospel: An Introduction to Q (Foundations and Facets: Reference Series. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1992).

Jeyakumar, J., ‘Ministry in Matthew’, BangTF 31 (1999), 87-100. Johnson, L. T., e Real Jesus: e Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996). Johnson, S. E., e Griesbach Hypothesis and Redaction Criticism (SBLMS 41. Atlanta: Scholars, 1991). Jones, I. H., ‘Matthew’, in Early Christian ought in Its Jewish Context. FS M. D. Hooker, ed. J. Barclay and J. Sweet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 59-69. ———, e Matthean Parables: A Literary and Historical Commentary (NovTSup 80. Leiden: Brill, 1995). Jones, P. R., Studying the Parables of Jesus (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1999). Jonge, M. de, ‘Jesus’ Rôle in the Final Breakthrough of God’s Kingdom’, in Geschichte, Tradition, Reflexion: Band III: Frühes Christentum. FS M. Hengel, ed. H. Lichtenberger (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), 265-86. Judge, E. A., ‘e Social Identity of the First Christians’, JRomH 11 (1980), 201-17. Juel, D., Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). Jullien de Pomerol, P., Quand un évangile nous conté: Analyse morphologique du récit de Matthieu (Brussels: Lumen Vitae, 1980). Kähler, C., Jesu Gleichnisse als Poesie und erapie: Versuch eines integrativen Zugangs zum kommunikativen Aspekt von Gleichnissen Jesu (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1994). Kahl, W., New Testament Miracle Stories in eir Religious-Historical Setting: A Religionsgeschichtliche Comparison from a Structural Perspective (FRLANT 163. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994). Katz, S., ‘Issues in the Separation of Judaism and Christianity aer 70 C.E.: A Reconsideration’, JBL 103 (1984), 49-75. Kea, P. V., ‘Dan Via as New Testament Critic in the Existential Mode: A Review Article’, PRS 18 (1991), 249-59.

———, ‘Writing a bios: Matthew’s Genre Choices and Rhetorical Situation’, SBLSP 33 (1994), 574-86. Kealy, S. P., Matthew’s Gospel and the History of Biblical Interpretation (Mellen Biblical Press 55. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1997). ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel Today’, ChicStud 40 (2001), 229-38. Keck, L. E., ‘Towards the Renewal of New Testament Christology’, NTS 32 (1986), 362-77. Kee, H. C., Christian Origins in Sociological Perspective (London: SCM, 1980). ———, Miracles in the Early Christian World: A Study in Sociohistorical Method (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). ———, Jesus in History: An Approach to the Study of the Gospels (3d edn. Fort Worth, TX/Philadelphia: Harcourt Brace, 1996). ———, ‘e Transformation of the Synagogue aer 70 C.E.: Its Import for Early Christianity’, NTS 36 (1990), 1-24. ———, ‘What Is the Meaning of “e Jews” in the New Testament’, Explorations 11 (1997), 2. Keegan, T. J., ‘Introductory Formulae for Matthean Discourses’, CBQ 44 (1982), 415-30. Keener, C. S., e Spirit in the Gospels and Acts: Divine Purity and Power (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 91-134. Kelber, W., e Oral and Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). ———, ‘Apostolic Tradition and the Form of the Gospel’, in Discipleship in the New Testament, ed. F. F. Segovia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 24-46. Kellner, W., Der Traum vom Menschensohn: Die politisch-theologische Botscha Jesu (Munich: Kösel, 1985). Kennedy, G., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). Kenny, A., A Stylometric Study of the New Testament (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press/Clarendon, 1986). Kermode, F., ‘Matthew’, in e Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. R. Alter and F. Kermode (London: Collins, 1987), 387-401.

Kertelge, K., ed., Mission im Neuen Testament (QD 93. Freiburg: Herder, 1982). ———, ed., Das Gesetz im Neuen Testament (QD 108. Freiburg: Herder, 1986). Kieffer, R., Jésus raconté: éologie et spiritualité dans les évangiles (Lire la Bible 108. Paris: Cerf, 1996). Kienle, B. von, Feuermale: Studien zur Wortfelddimension ‘Feuer’ in den Synoptikern, im pseudophilonischen Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum und im 4. Esra (BBB 89. Bodenheim: Athenäum/Hain/Hanstein, 1993). Kiley, M., ‘Law, Wisdom, and the Housing Crisis’, Continuum 2 (1993), 30924. Kilpatrick, G. D., ‘Matthew on Matthew’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 177-85. Kim, M.-S., Die Trägergruppe von Q: Sozialgeschichtliche Forschung zur QÜberlieferung in den synoptischen Evangelien (Wissenschaliche Beiträge aus Europäischen Hochschulen1/eologie 1. Ammersbek: Lottbek/Jensen, 1990). Kim, S., ‘Jesus — e Son of God, the Stone, the Son of Man, and the Servant: e Role of Zechariah in the Self-Identi cation of Jesus’, in Tradition and Interpretation, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 134-45. Kingsbury, J. D., ‘e eology of St. Matthew’s Gospel according to the Griesbach Hypothesis’, in New Synoptic Studies, ed. W. R. Farmer, 33161. ———, ‘e Form and Message of Matthew’, in Interpreting the Gospels, ed. J. L. Mays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 66-77. ———, Jesus Christ in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981). ———, Matthew as Story (Philadelphia: Fortress, 19882). ———, Gospel Interpretation: Narrative-Critical and Social-Scientific Approaches (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997). ———, ‘e Figure of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel: A Literary-Critical Probe’, JSNT 21 (1984), 3-36.

———, ‘e Figure of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel: A Rejoinder to David Hill’, JSNT 25 (1985), 61-81. ———, ‘e Developing Con ict between Jesus and the Jewish Leaders in Matthew’s Gospel: A Literary-Critical Study’, CBQ 49 (1987), 57-73. ———, ‘On Following Jesus: e “Eager” Scribe and the “Reluctant” Disciple’, NTS 34 (1988), 45-59. ———, ‘e Plot of Matthew’s Story’, Int 46 (1992), 347-56. ———, ‘Re ections on “the Reader” in Matthew’s Gospel’, NTS 34 (1988), 442-60. ———, ‘e Rhetoric of Comprehension in the Gospel of Matthew’, NTS 41 (1995), 358-77. Kirchhevel, G. D., ‘e “Son of Man” Passages in Mark’, BBR 9 (1999), 18187. Kirchschläger, W., Jesu exorzistisches Wirken aus der Sicht des Lukas: Ein Beitrag zur lukanischen Redaktion (ÖBS 3. Klosterneuburg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981). Kirk, A., e Composition of the Sayings Source: Genre, Synchrony, and Wisdom Redaction in Q (NovT 91. Leiden: Brill, 1998). Kistemaker, S. J., e Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980). Kitzberger, I. R., ed., Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-viewed (BibInt 43. Leiden: Brill, 2000). Kjärgaard, M. S., Metaphor and Parable: A Systematic Analysis of the Specific Structure and Cognitive Function of the Synoptic Similes and Parables qua Metaphors (ATD 20. Leiden: Brill, 1986). Klassen, W., Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996). Klauck, H.-J., e Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to GraecoRoman Religions, tr. B. McNeill (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). Klein, H., Bewährung im Glauben: Studien zum Sondergut des Evangelisten Matthäus (Biblische eologische Studien 26. Neukirchen/Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996). ———, ‘Jüdenchristliche Frömmigkeit im Sondergut des Matthäus’, NTS 35 (1989), 466-74.

Klinghardt, M., Gesetz und Volk Gottes: Das lukanische Verständnis des Gesetzes nach Herkun, Funktion und seinem Ort in der Geschichte des Urchristentums (WUNT 2/33. Tübingen: Mohr, 1988). Kloppenborg, J. S., ‘Jesus and the Parables of Jesus in Q’, in e Gospel behind the Gospels, ed. R. A. Piper, 275-320. ———, e Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987). ———, ed., e Shape of Q: Signal Essays on the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). ———, ed., Conflict and Invention: Literary, Rhetorical, and Social Studies on the Sayings Gospel Q (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995). ———, ‘Tradition and Redaction in the Synoptic Sayings Source’, CBQ 46 (1984), 34-62. Knoch, O., ‘Kenntnis und Verwendung Matthäus-Evangeliums bei den Apostolischen Vätern’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 157-77. Knowles, M., Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: e Rejected Prophet Motif in Matthean Redaction (JSNT 68. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993). Kodell, J., ‘e Eucharist of Matthew’, in e Eucharist in the New Testament (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1988), 93-104. Köhler, W.-D., Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums in der Zeit vor Irenäus (WUNT 2.24. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1987). Koester, H., ‘Gnostic Writings as Witnesses for the Development of the Sayings Tradition’, in e Rediscovery of Gnosticism, Vol. 1: e School of Valentinus, ed. B. Layton (Studies in the History of Religions 41. Leiden: Brill, 1980), 238-61. ———, Introduction to the New Testament (2 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). ———, Ancient Christian Gospels: eir History and Development (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Trinity Press International, 1990). ———, ‘Written Gospels or Oral Tradition?’ JBL 113 (1994), 293-97. Koester, W., ‘From the Kerygma-Gospel to Written Gospels’, NTS 35 (1989), 361-81.

Kollmann, B., Jesus und die Christen als Wuntertäter: Studien zu Magie, Medizin und Schamanismus in Antike und Christentum (FRLANT 170. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996). Kopas, J., ‘Jesus and Women in Matthew’, TToday 47 (1990), 13-21. Kosch, D., Die eschatologische Tora des Menschensohnes: Untersuchungen zur Rezeption der Stellung Jesu zur Tora in Q (NTOA 12. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1989). ———, ‘Q: Rekonstruktion und Interpretation: Eine methodenkritische Hinführung mit einem Exkurs zur Q-Vorlage des Lk’, FZPT 36 (1989), 409-25. ———, ‘Das Gesetz der Freiheit: Zum Toraverständnis von Jesus und Matthäus’, ProtoBib 6 (1997), 47-71. Kowalczyk, A., ‘Typological Cycles of Episodes in the Gospel of Matthew and Matthew as the New Hexateuch’, Angelicum 77 (2000), 223-74. Krentz, E., ‘Identity Formation: Matthew as Resource and Guide’, WW 18 (1998), 41-417. Kühschelm, R., Jüngerverfolgung und Geschick Jesu: Eine exegetischbibeltheologische Untersuchung der synoptischen Vervolgungsankündigungen Mk 13,9-13 par und Mt 23,29-36 par (ÖBS 5. Klosterneuburg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983). Kümmel, W. G., ‘Jesusforschung seit 1981: IV. Gleichnisse’, TRu 56 (1991), 27-53. Kupp, D. D., Matthew’s Emmanuel: Divine Presence and God’s People in the First Gospel (SNTSMS 90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Kvalbein, H., ‘Hat Matthäus die Juden aufgegeben? Bemerkungen zu Ulrich Luz’ Matthäus-Deutung’, TB 29 (1998), 301-14. Kynes, W. L., A Christology of Solidarity: Jesus as the Representative of His People in Matthew (Lanham, MD/New York/London: University Press of America, 1991). LaGrand, J., e Earliest Christian Mission to ‘All Nations’: In the Light of Matthew’s Gospel (University of South Florida International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism 1. Atlanta: Scholars, 1995).

Lambrecht, J., Once More Astonished: e Parables of Jesus (New York: Crossroad, 1981). ———, Out of the Treasure: e Parables in the Gospel of Matthew (Louvain eological and Pastoral Monographs 10. Louvain/Grand Rapids: Peeters/Eerdmans, 1993/1991). ———, ‘Les parables dans les Synoptiques’, NRT 102 (1980), 672-91. ———, ‘Righteousness in the Bible and Justice in the World’, TE 21 (1988), 6-13. ———, ed., L’Apocalypse johannique et l’Apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament (BETL 53. Gembloux: Duculot, 1980). Lane, W. L. and Robertson, M. J., III, eds., e Gospels Today: A Guide to Some Recent Developments (Philadelphia: Skilton House, 1990). Lange, J., ed., Matthäus-Evangelium (WF 525. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1980). Lapide, P., Die Bergpredigt (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1982). ———, Wie liebt man seine Feinde? (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1984). Laufen, R., Die Doppelüberlieferung der Logienquelle und des Markusevangeliums (BBB 54. Königstein/Bonn: Hanstein, 1980). Legrand, L., ‘e Parables of Jesus Viewed from the Dekkan Plateau’, ITS 23 (1986), 154-170. Lemcio, E. E., e Past of Jesus in the Gospels (SNTSMS 68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). ———, ‘Father and Son in the Synoptics and John: A Canonical Reading’, in e New Testament as Canon: A Reader in Canonical Criticism, ed. R. W. Wall and E. E. Lemcio (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 78-108. Léon-Dufour, X., Life and Death in the New Testament (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986). Leske, A. M., ‘Isaiah and Matthew: e Prophetic In uence in the First Gospel: A Report on Current Research’, in Suffering Servant, ed. W. H. Bellinger, Jr. and W. R. Farmer, 152-69. ———, ‘e In uence of Isaiah 40–66 on Christology in Matthew and Luke: A Comparison’, SBLSP 33 (1994), 897-916.

Levine, A.-J., e Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Matthean Salvation History: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles …’ (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 14. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1988). ———, ‘Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of Matthew’, in Anti-Judaism and the Gospels, ed. W. R. Farmer (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 9-62. ——— with Blickenstaff, M., eds., A Feminist Companion to Matthew (Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings 1. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001). Lichtenberger, H., ed., Geschichte, Tradition, Reflexion, Band III: Frühes Christentum. FS M. Hengel (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996). Liebenberg, J., e Language of the Kingdom and Jesus: Parable, Aphorism, and Metaphor in the Sayings Material Common to the Synoptic Tradition and the Gospel of omas (BZNW 102. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001). Lieu, J., North, J., and Rajak, T., e Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London/New York: Routledge, 1994). Limbeck, M., ‘Auf der Suche nach dem Himmelreich: Zur Verkündigung des Matthäus-Evangeliums (2)’, BLit 66 (1993), 111-14. ———, ‘Zugänge zu Matthäus’, TQ 174 (1994), 235-39. Lincoln, A. T., ‘Matthew — A Story for Teachers?’, in e Bible in ree Dimensions, ed. D. J. A. Clines, S. E. Fowl, and S. E. Porter (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 103-26. Lindars, B., Jesus, Son of Man: A Fresh Examination of the Son of Man Sayings in the Gospels in the Light of Recent Research (London: SPCK, 1983). ———, ed., Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity (Cambridge: J. Clarke, 1988). Lindemann, A., ‘Erwägungen zum Problem einer “eologie der synoptischen Evangelien”’, ZNW 77 (1986), 1-33. Lindenberger, J. M., e Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).

Linmans, A. J. M., ‘Correspondence Analysis of the Synoptic Gospels’, Literary and Linguistic Computing 13 (1998), 1-13. Linnemann, E., Historical Criticism of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990). ———, Is ere a Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First ree Gospels, tr. R. Y. Yarbrough (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992). Linton, O., ‘Coordinated Sayings and Parables in the Synoptic Gospels: Analysis versus eories’, NTS 26 (1980), 139-63. Lips, H. von, ‘Christus als Sophia? Weisheitliche Traditionen in der urchristlichen Christologie’, in Anfänge der Christologie, ed. C. Breytenbach and H. Paulsen, 75-95. Livingstone, E. A., ed., Studia Biblica 1978, II: Papers on the Gospels (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980). Llewelyn, S. R., ed., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vols. 6–8 (North Ryde: Macquarie University, Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1992-98). Loader, W., Jesus and the Fundamentalism of His Day: e Gospels, the Bible and Jesus (Melbourne: Uniting Education, 1998). Loader, W. R. G., Jesus’ Attitude towards the Law: A Study of the Gospels (WUNT 2/97. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1997). ———, ‘Son of David, Blindness, Possession, and Duality in Matthew’, CBQ 44 (1982), 570-85. Lövestam, E., Jesus and ‘is Generation’: A New Testament Study, tr. M. Linnarud (ConBNT 25. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995). Longenecker, R. N., ed., e Challenge of Jesus’ Parables (McMaster New Testament Studies. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). Louw, J. P., Semantics of New Testament Greek (SBL Semeia Studies. Philadelphia/Chico: Fortress/Scholars, 1982). Love, S. L., ‘e Household: A Major Social Component for Gender Analysis in the Gospel of Matthew’, BTB 23 (1993), 21-31. ———, ‘e Place of Women in Public Settings in Matthew’s Gospel: A Sociological Inquiry’, BTB 24 (1994), 52-65.

Lowe, M., ‘From the Parable of the Vineyard to a Pre-Synoptic Source’, NTS 28 (1981-82), 257-63. ———, ‘Real and Imagined Anti-Jewish Elements in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts’, JES 24 (1987), 267-84. ——— and Flusser, D., ‘Evidence Corroborating a Modi ed Proto-Matthean Synoptic eory’, NTS 29 (1983), 25-47. Lüdemann, G., e Great Deception; and What Jesus Really Said and Did (London: SCM, 1998). ———, Jesus aer Two ousand Years: What He Really Said and Did, tr. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 2000), 117-256. Lührmann, D., ‘e Gospel of Mark and the Sayings Collection Q’, JBL 108 (1989), 51-71. Luomanen, P., Entering the Kingdom of Heaven: A Study of the Structure of Matthew’s View of Salvation (WUNT 2/101. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1998). ———, ‘Corpus Mixtum — An Appropriate Description of Matthew’s Community?’ JBL 117 (1998), 469-80. Luz, U., ‘e Disciples in the Gospel according to Matthew’, in Interpretation, ed. G. N. Stanton, 98-128. ———, ‘Eine thetische Skizze der matthäischen Christologie’, in Anfänge der Christologie, ed. C. Breytenbach and H. Paulsen, 221-35. ———, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and Effects (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). ———, ‘e Son of Man in Matthew: Heavenly Judge or Human Christ’, JSNT 48 (1992), 3-21. ———, ‘Matthew’s Anti-Judaism: Its Origin and Contemporary Signi cance’, CurTM 19 (1992), 405-15. ——— and Lampe, P., ‘Diskussionsüberblick’, in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher, 413-31. ——— and Weder, H., eds., Die Mitte des Neuen Testaments: Einheit und Vielfalt neutestamentlicher eologie. FS E. Schweizer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983).

Lybaeck, L., New and Old in Matthew 11–13. Normativity in the Development of ree eological emes (FRLANT 198. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002). MacCaffrey, J., ‘Prayer and the Fatherhood of God in Matthew’, ClerRev 71 (1986), 104-9, 135-41. Maccoby, H., Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil (New York: Free Press, 1992). Mack, B. L., A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). ———, Rhetoric and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). ———, ‘e Kingdom at Didn’t Come: A Social History of the Q Tradents’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 608-35. ——— and Robbins, V. K., Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1989). Madigan, K., ‘Ancient and High-Medieval Interpretations of Jesus in Gethsemane: Some Re ections on Tradition and Continuity in Christian ought’, HTR 88 (1995), 157-73. Maier, G., ‘Johannes und Matthäus — Zwiespalt oder Viergestalt des Evangeliums?’ in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham, 2:267-92. Malina, B. and Neyrey, J. H., Calling Jesus Names: e Social Value of Labels in Matthew (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1988). Malina, B. J., e New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981). ———, e Social World of Jesus and the Gospels (London: Routledge, 1996). ———, e Social Gospel of Jesus: e Kingdom of God in Mediterranean Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001). ———, ‘Interpreting the Bible with Anthropology: e Case of the Rich and the Poor’, Listening 21 (1986), 148-59. ———, ‘Wealth and Poverty in the New Testament and Its World’, Int 41 (1987), 354-67.

———, ‘Patron and Client: e Analogy behind Synoptic eology’, Forum 4.1 (1988), 2-32. ———, and Rohrbaugh, R. L., Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Maloney, E. C., Semitic Interference in Markan Syntax (SBLDS 51. Chico: Scholars, 1981). Mangatt, G., ‘e Public Ministry of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew’, Biblebhashyam 16 (1990), 20-40. Mann, C. S., Mark (AB 27. Garden City: Doubleday, 1986). Marcus, J., e Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), 1993. Marguerat, D., Le jugement dans l’Évangile de Matthieu (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981). ———, ‘Le Nouveau Testament est-il anti-juif? L’example de Matthieu et du livre des Actes’, RTL 26 (1995), 145-64. Marin de Viviés, P. de, Jesus et le Fils de l’Homme: Emplois et significations de l’expression ‘Fils de l’Homme’ dans les Evangiles (Lyon: PROFAC, 1995). Marshall, I. H., ‘Is Apocalyptic the Mother of Christian eology?’ in Tradition and Interpretation, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 33-42. ———, ‘e Synoptic “Son of Man” Sayings in the Light of Linguistic Study’, in Mystery, ed. T. E. Schmidt and M. Silva, 72-94. Martínez, F. G. and Tigchelaar, E. J. C., e Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition (Leiden/Grand Rapids: Brill/Eerdmans, 1997-98). Martin, F., ‘Sortir du livre’, SémiotBib 54 (1989), 1-18. Martin, R. A., Syntax Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 10. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, ONT: Mellen, 1987). Martin, R. T., ‘Ideology, Deviance, and Authority in the Gospel of Matthew: e Political Functioning of Performative Writing’, Liteol 10 (1996), 20-32. Massaux, É., e Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature before Saint Irenaeus, tr. N. J. Belval and S. Hecht, ed. A. J.

Bellinzoni (New Gospel Studies 5/1-3, 3 vols. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990-92). Matera, F. J., ‘Jesus and the Law: Matthew’s View’, BiTod 39 (2001), 271-76. Matera, J., Passion Narratives and Gospel eologies: Interpreting the Synoptics through eir Passion Stories (New York: Paulist, 1986). Matthey, J., ‘Pilgrims, Seekers and Disciples: Mission and Dialogue in Matthew’, IntRMiss 9 (2002), 120-34. McArthur, K. H. and Johnston, R. M., ey Also Taught in Parables: Rabbinic Parables from the First Centuries of the Christian Era (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990). McIver, R. K., ‘Twentieth-Century Approaches to the Matthean Community’, AUSS 37 (1999), 23-38. McKnight, E. V., ‘e Contours and Methods of Literary Criticism’, in Orientation by Disorientation, ed. R. A. Spencer, 53-70. ———, e Bible and the Reader: An Introduction to Literary Criticism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). ———, Post-Modern Use of the Bible: e Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988). McKnight, S., A Light among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). ———, ‘A Loyal Critic: Matthew’s Polemic with Judaism in eological Perspective’, in Faith and Polemic, ed. D. A. Hagner and C. A. Evans (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 55-79. ———, A New Vision for Israel: e Teaching of Jesus in National Context (Studying the Historical Jesus. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1999). ———, ‘Literary Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels’, TJ 8 (1987), 57-68. McLaren, J. S., Power and Politics in Palestine: e Jews and the Governing of eir Land 100 BC–AD 70 (JSNTSup 63. Sheffield: JSOT, 1991). McNamara, M., Palestinian Judaism and the New Testament (Good News Studies 4. Wilmington: Glazier, 1983).

McNicol, A. J., with D. L. Dungan and D. B. Peabody, eds., Beyond the Q Impasse — Luke’s Use of Matthew (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996). Meadors, E. P., Jesus the Herald of Salvation: A Study of Q and Mark (WUNT 2/72. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1994). Meagher, P. M., ‘“To All Nations”: Universalism in Matthew’, Jeevadhara 30 (2000), 160-76. ———, ‘e eology of Matthew’, Vidyajyoti 62 (1998), 930-37; 63 (1999), 61-64. Mealand, D. L., Poverty and Expectation in the Gospels (London: SPCK, 1980). Meeks, W. A., ‘Breaking Away: ree New Testament Pictures of Christianity’s Separation from the Jewish Communities’, in ‘To See Ourselves’, ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs, 93-116. ———, e Moral World of the First Christians (London: SPCK, 1987). Meier, J. P., ‘Matthew and Ignatius: A Response to William R. Schoedel’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 178-86. ———, Matthew (New Testament Message 3. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1980). ———, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1: e Roots of the Problem and the Person (Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York/London: Doubleday, 1991). ———, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2: Mentor, Message, and Miracles (Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York/London: Doubleday, 1994). ———, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 3: Companions and Competitors (Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York/London: Doubleday, 2001). ———, ‘John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel’, JBL 99 (1980), 383-405. Meiser, M., Die Reaktion des Volkes auf Jesus: Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung zu den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 96. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1998).

Mell, U., Die ‘anderen’ Winzen: Eine exegetische Studie zur Vollmacht Jesu Christi nach Markus 11,27–12,34 (WUNT 77. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1994). Melzer-Keller, H., Jesus und die Frauen: Eine Verhältnisbestimmung nach den synoptischen Überlieferungen (HBS 14. Freiburg: Herder, 1997). Menninger, R. E., Israel and the Church in the Gospel of Matthew (American University Studies 7/162. New York/San Francisco/Bern: Lang, 1994). Meredith, A., ‘e Evidence of Papias for the Priority of Matthew’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 187-96. Merklein, H., Jesu Botscha von der Gottesherrscha (SBS 11. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983). Metzger, B. M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (third edition) (London/New York: United Bible Societies, 1994). Meurer, H.-J., Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern: Paul Ricoeurs Hermeneutik der Gleichniserzählung im Horizont des Symbols ‘Gottesherrscha/Reich Gottes’ (BBB 111. Bodenheim: Philo, 1997). Meyer, B. F., ‘How Jesus Charged Language with Meaning: A Study in Rhetoric’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 81-96. ———, ‘Appointed Deed, Appointed Doer: Jesus and the Scriptures’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 155-76. ———, ‘Objectivity and Subjectivity in Historical Criticism of the Gospels (with Response by R. H. Fuller and ‘Aerword’ by B. F. Meyer)’, in e Interrelation of the Gospels, ed. D. L. Dungan, 546-60, 561-64, 564-65. ———, Critical Realism and the New Testament (PTMS 17. Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1989). ———, Christus Faber: e Master Builder and the House of God (PTMS 29. Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1992). Millar, A. and Riches, J. K., ‘Interpretation: A eoretical Perspective and Some Applications’, Numen 28 (1981), 29-53. Miller, R. J., ed., e Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2001).

Mills, M. E., Human Agents of Cosmic Power in Hellenistic Judaism and the Synoptic Tradition (JSNTSup 41. Sheffield: JSOT, 1990). Mills, W. E., Index to Periodical Literature on Christ and the Gospels (NTTS 27. Leiden: Brill, 1998). Minear, P. S., Matthew: e Teacher’s Gospel (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984). Miyoshi, M., ‘Die eologie der Spaltung und Einigung Israels in der Geburts- und Leidensgeschichte nach Matthäus’, AJBI 15 (1989), 37-52. Mödritzer, H., Stigma und Charisma im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt: Zur Soziologie des Urchristentums (NTOA 28. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994). Mohrlang, R., Matthew and Paul: A Comparison of Ethical Perspectives (SNTSMS 48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Moitel, P., Des récits d’ Évangile: Apprentissage d’ une lecture (CÉ 93. Paris: Cerf, 1995). Moloney, F. J., ‘e Re-interpretation of Ps 8 and the Son of Man Debate’, NTS 27 (1981), 656-72. ———, ‘Narrative Criticism of the Gospels’, Pacifica 4 (1991), 181-202. Moore, S. D., Literary Criticism and the Gospels: e eoretical Challenge (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1989). ———, ‘Are the Gospels Uni ed Narratives?’ SBLSP 26 (1987), 443-58. ———, ‘Stories of Reading: Doing Gospel Criticism as/with a Reader’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 141-59. Mora, V., La symbolique de la création dans l’évangile de Matthieu (LD 144. Paris: Cerf, 1991). ———, La symbolique de Matthieu, Vol. 2: Les groupes (LD 187. Paris: Cerf, 2001). Morton, A. Q., e Gathering of the Gospels: From Papyrus to Printout (Mellen Biblical Press 53. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1997), 55-69. ———, ‘A New Look at the Gospel of Matthew’, JHC 3 (1996), 267-83. Moule, C. F. D., e Birth of the New Testament (San Francisco and London: Adam and Charles Black, 19823).

———, Essays in New Testament Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Mowery, R. L., ‘God, Lord and Father: e eology of the Gospel of Matthew’, BR 33 (1988), 24-36. ———, ‘e Activity of God in the Gospel of Matthew’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 400-411. ———, ‘Subtle Differences: e Matthean “Son of God” References’, NovT 32 (1990), 193-200. ———, ‘From Lord to Father in Matthew 1–7’, CBQ 59 (1997), 642-56. ———, ‘Son of God in Roman Imperial Titles and Matthew’, Bib 83 (2002), 100-110. Moxnes, H., ed., Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (London/New York: Routledge, 1997). Moyise, S., ed., e Old Testament in the New Testament. FS J. L. North (JSNTSup 189. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000). Mudíso Mbâ Mundla, J.-G., Jesus und die Führer Israels: Studien zu den sogenannte Jerusalemer Streitgesprächen (NTAbh 17. Münster: Aschendorff, 1984). Müller, M., Der Ausdruck ‘Menschensohn’ in den Evangelien (ATDan 17. Leiden: Brill, 1984). ———, ‘e eological Interpretation of the Figure of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: Some Principal Features of Matthean Christology’, NTS 45 (1999), 157-73. ———, ‘e Reception of the Old Testament in Matthew and Luke-Acts: From Interpretation to Proof from Scripture’, NovT 43 (2001), 315-30. Mullins, T. Y., ‘Jesus, the “Son of David”’, AUSS 29 (1991), 117-26. Munro, W., Jesus, Born of a Slave: e Social and Economic Origins of Jesus’ Message (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 37. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, ONT/Lampeter: Mellen, 1998). Murray, G., ‘Saint Mark’s Extra Material’, DR 105 (1987), 239-42. Mussner, F., ‘Die Stellung zum Judentum in der ‘Redenquelle’ und in ihrer Verarbeitung bei Matthäus’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 209-25.

Nau, A. J., Peter in Matthew: Discipleship, Diplomacy, and Dispraise … with an Assessment of Power and Privilege in the Petrine Office (Good News Studies 36. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1992). Neirynck, F., ‘e Minor Agreements and the Two-Source eory’, in Evangelica II, 3-42. ———, ‘Recent Developments in the Study of Q’, in Logia: Les paroles de Jésus — e Sayings of Jesus. Mémorial J. Coppins, ed. J. Delobel (Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1982), 29-75. ———, Evangelica. Gospel Studies — Études d’Évangile: Collected Essays, ed. F. van Segbroeck (BETL 60. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1982). ———, Evangelica II: Collected Essays 1982-1991 (BETL 99. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1991). ———, ‘L’in uence de l’Evangile de Matthieu. À propos d’une réimpression’, ETL 62 (1986), 399-403. ———, ‘QMt and QLk and the Reconstruction of Q’, ETL 66 (1990), 385-90. ———, ‘e Sources of Matthew: Annotations to U. Luz’s Commentary’, ETL 74 (1998), 109-26. ———, Verheyden, J., and Corstjens, R., e Gospel of Matthew and the Sayings Source Q: A Cumulative Bibliography, 1950-1995 (BETL 140A-B, 2 vols. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1998). Nepper-Christensen, P., ‘Die Taufe im Matthäusevangelium’, NTS 31 (1985), 189-207. Neusner, J., e Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1988). ———, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (Rev. edn. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University, 2000). ———, ‘Judaism and Christianity in the Beginning: Time for a CategoryReformation?’ BBR 8 (1998), 229-37. ——— and Frerichs, E. S., eds., ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985).

———, et al., eds., e Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism. FS H. C. Kee (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). New, D. S., Old Testament Quotations in the Synoptic Gospels and the TwoDocument Hypothesis (SBLSCS 37. Atlanta: Scholars, 1993). Newman, B. M. and Stine, P. C., A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew (Helps for Translators. London/New York/Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1988). Neyrey, J. N., Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1998). Nickelsburg, G. W. E., ‘Revealed Wisdom as a Criterion for Inclusion and Exclusion: From Jewish Sectarianism to Early Christianity’, in ‘To See Ourselves’, ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs, 73-92. Niclós, J. V., ‘L’évangile en hébreu de Shem Tob Ibn Shaprut: Une traduction d’origine judéo-catalane due à un converti, replacée dans son Sitz im Leben’, RB 106 (1999), 358-407. Niedner, F. A., ‘Rereading Matthew on Jerusalem and Judaism’, BTB 19 (1989), 43-47. Nielsen, H. K., Heilung und Verkündigung. Das Verständnis der Heilung und ihres Verhältnisses zur Verkündigung bei Jesus und in der ältesten Kirche, tr. D. Harbsmeier (ATDan 22. Leiden/New York: Brill, 1987). Nielson, K., ‘Intertextuality and Biblical Scholarship’, SJOT 4.2 (1990), 89-95. Niemand, C., ‘Nationalismus in der Bibel?’ TPQ 143 (1994), 263-75. Nissen, J., ‘Matthew, Mission and Method’, IntRMiss 91 (2002), 73-86. 106 (1999), 358-407. Nodet, E., ‘Jésus et Jean-Baptiste selon Josèphe’, RB 92 (1985), 497-524. Nolland, J., Luke (WBC 35A-C, 3 vols. Dallas: Word, 1989-93). ———, “No Son-of-God Christology in Matthew 1.18-25,” JSNT 62 (1996), 3-12. Nortjé, L., ‘e “Behind the Scenes”–In uence of Women: A Case Study in the Gospel of Matthew’, Ekklesiastikos Pharos 79 (1997), 36-46. Nortjé-Meyer, L., ‘Gentile Female Characters in Matthew’s Story: An Illustration of Righteousness’, in Transformative, ed. I. R. Kitzberger, 54-

76. Novakovic, L., ‘Jesus as the Davidic Messiah in Matthew’, HBT 19 (1997), 148-91. O’Grady, J. F., ‘e Community of Matthew’, ChicStud 40 (2001), 239-50. Oakman, D. E., Jesus and the Economic Questions of His Day (Lewiston, NY/Queenston, ONT: Edwin Mellen, 1986). Oberlinner, L., Todeserwartung und Todesgewissheit Jesu (SBB 10. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1980). ——— and Fiedler, P., eds., Salz der Erde — Lichte der Welt: Exegetische Studien zum Matthäusevangelium. FS A. Vögtle (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991). Oborji, F. A., ‘Poverty and the Mission-Charity Trend: A Perspective from Matthew’, IntRMiss 91 (2002), 87-101. Okeke, G. E., ‘e Aer-Life in St. Matthew as an Aspect of Matthean Ethic’, CV 31 (1988), 159-68. Okure, T., ‘“I will open my mouth in parables” (Matt 13.35): A Case for a Gospel-Based Biblical Hermeneutics’, NTS 46 (2000), 445-63. Oldenhage, T., ‘Parables of Our Time? Post-Holocaust Interpretations of the Parables of Jesus’, Semeia 77 (1997), 227-41. Onwu, N., ‘Righteousness in Matthew’s Gospel: Its Social Implications’, Biblebhashyam 13 (1987), 151-78. ———, ‘Righteousness and Eschatology in Matthew’s Gospel: A Critical Re ection’, ITS 25 (1988), 213-35. Onyinah, O., ‘Matthew Speaks to Ghanaian Healing Situations’, JPT 10.1 (2001), 120-43. Orchard, B. and Riley, H., e Order of the Synoptics: Why ree Synoptic Gospels? (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987). Orchard, J. B., Matthew, Luke, and Mark (Manchester: Koinonia, 1976). ———, ‘Some Re ections on the Relationship of Luke to Matthew’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 33-46. ———, ‘e Solution of the Synoptic Problem’, ScrB 18 (1987), 2-14.

Orton, D. E., ‘Matthew and Other Creative Jewish Writers’, in Crossing the Boundaries, ed. S. E. Porter et al., 133-40. ———, e Understanding Scribe: Matthew and the Apocalyptic Ideal (JSNTSup 25. Sheffield: JSOT, 1988). Overman, J. A., Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: e Social World of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). ———, Church and Community in Crisis: e Gospel according to Matthew (New Testament in Context. Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996). ———, ‘Who Were the First Urban Christians? Urbanization in Galilee in the First Century’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 160-68. ———, ‘Matthew’s Parables and Roman Politics: e Imperial Setting of Matthew’s Narrative with Special Reference to the Parables’, SBLSP 34 (1995), 425-39. Paesler, K., Das Tempelwort Jesu: Die Traditionen von Tempelzerstörung und Tempelerneuerung im Neuen Testament (FRLANT 184. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999). Paffenroth, K., ‘Jesu as Anointed and Healing Son of David in the Gospel of Matthew’, Bib 80 (1999), 547-54. Pagels, E., e Origin of Satan (London: Allen Lane, 1996). Pamment, M., ‘e Son of Man in the First Gospel’, NTS 29 (1983), 116-29. Pantle-Schieber, K., ‘Anmerkungen zur Auseinandersetzung von ἐκκλησία und Judentum im Matthäusevangelium’, ZNW 80 (1989), 145-62. Parker, D. C., e Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). ———, ‘Was Matthew Written before 50 CE? e Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew’, ExpTim 107 (1995), 40-43. Parsons, M. C., ‘“Allegorizing Allegory”: Narrative Analysis and Parable Interpretation’, PRS 15 (1988), 147-64. Patte, D., ‘“Love Your Enemy” — “Woe to You, Scribes and Pharisees”: e Need for a Semiotic Approach to New Testament Studies’, in Text and

Logos: e Humanistic Interpretation of the New Testament, ed. T. W. Jennings (Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), 81-96. Pawlikowski, J. T., ‘Christian-Jewish Dialogue and Matthew’, BiTod 27 (1989), 356-62. Payne, P. B., Metaphor as a Model for Interpretation of the Parables of Jesus with Special Reference to the Parable of the Sower (Unpublished Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1975). Peabody, D. B., ‘Repeated Language in Matthew: Clues to the Order and Composition of Luke and Mark’, SBLSP 30 (1991), 647-86. Perkins, P., ‘Gender Analysis: A Response to Antoinette Clark Wire’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 122-26. ———, Hearing the Parables of Jesus (New York: Paulist, 1981). Petersen, N., ‘Literary Criticism in Biblical Studies’, in Orientation by Disorientation, ed. R. A. Spencer, 25-52. ———, ‘e Reader in the Gospel’, Neot 18 (1984), 38-51. Peterson, W. L., ‘e Vorlage of Shem-Tob’s “Hebrew Matthew”’, NTS 44 (1998), 490-512. Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse Jesus und christliche Dogmatik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984). Phillips, G. A., ‘History and Text: e Reader in Context in Matthew’s Parable Discourse’, in Reader Response Approaches to Biblical and Secular Texts, ed. R. Detweiler (Decatur: Scholars, 1985), 111-40. Pilch, J. J., ‘e Health Care System in Matthew: A Social Science Analysis’, BTB 16 (1986), 102-6. ———, ‘Reading Matthew Anthropologically: Healing in Cultural Perspective’, Listening 24 (1989), 278-89. ———, ‘Insight and Models for Understanding the Healing Activity of the Historical Jesus’, SBLSP 32 (1993), 154-77. ———, ‘Imaginary Mountains in Matthew’, BiTod 37 (1999), 174-81. Piper, R. A., Wisdom in the Q-Tradition (SNTSMS 61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

———, ed., e Gospel behind the Gospel: Current Studies on Q (NovTSup 75. Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1995). Plisch, U.-K., ‘Die Perokopen über Johannes den Täufer in der neuentdeckten mittelägyptischen Version des Matthäus-Evangeliums (Codex Schøyen)’, NovT 43 (2001), 368-92. Polk, T., ‘Parables, Paradigms and “Mesalim”: On Reading the “Masal” in Scripture’, CBQ 45 (1983), 564-83. Polzin, R. A., ‘Literary and Historical Criticism of the Bible: A Crisis in Scholarship’, in Orientation by Disorientation, ed. R. A. Spencer, 99-114. Popkes, W., ‘Die Gerechtigkeitstradition im Matthäus-Evangelium’, ZNW 80 (1989), 1-23. Porter, S. E., Studies in the Greek New Testament: eory and Practice (Studies in Biblical Greek 6. New York etc.: Peter Lang, 1996). ———, e Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (JSNTSup 191. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000). ———, ‘Why Hasn’t Reader-Response Criticism Caught On in New Testament Studies?’ Liteol 4 (1990), 278-92. ——— and Reed, J. T., eds., Discourse Analysis and the New Testament: Approaches and Results (JSNT 170. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999). ———, Joyce, P. and Orton, D. E., eds., Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder (Biblical Interpretation Series 8. Leiden: Brill, 1994). Powell, J. E., ‘e Genesis of the Gospel’, JSNT 42 (1991), 5-16. Powell, M. A., ‘Characterization on the Phraseological Plane in the Gospel of Matthew’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 161-78. ———, What Is Narrative Criticism? (GBS. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). ———, God with Us: A Pastoral eology of Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). ———, ‘Direct and Indirect Phraseology in the Gospel of Matthew’, SBLSP 30 (1991), 405-17.

———, ‘Toward a Narrative-Critical Understanding of Matthew’, Int 46 (1992), 341-46. ———, ‘e Mission of Jesus and the Mission of the Church in the Gospel of Matthew’, TrinSemRev 16 (1994), 77-89. ———, ‘A Typology of Worship in the Gospel of Matthew’, JSNT 57 (1995), 3-17. ———, ‘Matthew as Pastor: e Presence of God’, WW 18 (1998), 348-54. ——— with Gray, C. G. and Curtis, M. C., e Bible and Modern Literary Criticism: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1991). Powery, E. B., ‘Ulrich Luz’s Matthew in History: A Contribution to Pentecostal Hermeneutics?’ JPT 14 (1999), 3-17. Pregeant, R., ‘Wisdom Passages in Matthew’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 197-232. Przybylski, B., Righteousness in Matthew and His World of ought (SNTSMS 41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). ———, ‘e Setting of Matthean Anti-Judaism’, in Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, ed. P. Richardson and D. Granskou (Waterloo, ONT: Wilfred Laurier, 1986), 1:181-200. Quesnel, M., Jésus-Christ selon saint Matthieu: Synthèse théologique (Jésus et Jésus-Christ 47. Paris: Desclée, 1991). Raja Rao, T. J., ‘Proverbs Jesus Used in the Gospel according to Matthew’, Jeevadhara 20 (1990), 133-50. Rau, E., Reden in Vollmacht: Hintergrund, Form und Anliegen der Gleichnisse Jesu (FRLANT 149. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). Reese, J. M., ‘e Parables in Matthew’s Gospel’, BiTod 19 (1981), 30-35. Refoulé, F., ed., À cause de l’Évangile: Études sur les Synoptiques et les Actes. FS J. Dupont (LD 123. Paris: Cerf, 1985). Reicke, B., e Roots of the Synoptic Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). Reiser, M., Jesus and Judgement: e Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context, tr. L. M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997).

Repschinski, B., e Controversy Stories in the Gospel of Matthew: eir Redaction, Form and Relevance for the Relationship between the Matthean Community and Formative Judaism (FRLANT 189. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000). ———, ‘Taking on the Elite: e Matthean Controversy Stories’, SBLSP 38 (1999), 1-23. Resseguie, J. L., ‘Reader-Response Criticism and the Synoptic Gospels’, JAAR 52 (1984), 307-24. Reumann, J., Righteousness in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). Rhoads, D., and Syreeni, K., eds., Characterization in the Gospels: Reconceiving Narrative Criticism (JSNTSup 184. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999). Riches, J., ‘Parables and the Search for a New Community’, e Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism, ed. J. Neusner et al., 235-63. ———, Jesus and the Transformation of Judaism (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1980). ———, e World of Jesus: First-Century Judaism in Crisis (Understanding Jesus Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). ———, Conflicting Mythologies: Identity Formation in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew (Studies of the New Testament and Its World. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002), 229-328. ———, ‘e Sociology of Matthew: Some Basic Questions concerning Its Relation to the eology of the New Testament’, SBLSP 22 (1983), 25971. Riesner, R., Jesus als Lehrer: Eine Untersuchung zum Ursprung der Evangelien-Überlieferung (WUNT 2/7. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 19842). Riley, H., e First Gospel (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1992). Riniker, C., Die Gerichtsverkündigung Jesu (Europäische Hochschulschrien 23/653. Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt: Lang, 1999). Robbins, V. K., ‘Writing as a Rhetorical Act in Plutarch and the Gospels’, in Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric. FS G. A.

Kennedy, ed. D. F. Watson (JSNTSup 50. Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 142-68. ———, ‘Pronouncement Stories from a Rhetorical Perspective’, Forum 4.2 (1988), 3-32. Robinson, J. A. T., Twelve More New Testament Studies (London: SCM, 1984). Rodd, C. S., ‘On Applying a Sociological eory to Biblical Studies’, JSOT 19 (1981), 95-106. Roh, T., Die familia dei in den synoptischen Evangelien: Eine redaktions- und sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu einem urchristlichen Bildfeld (NTOA 37. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 2001). Rolland, P., ‘L’arrière-fond sémiotique des évangiles synoptiques’, ETL 60 (1984), 358-62. Roloff, J., Die Kirche im Neuen Testament (GNT 10. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 144-68. ———, ‘Das Kirchenverständnis des Matthäus im Spiegel seiner Gleichnisse’, NTS 38 (1992), 337-56. Rosenblatt, M.-E., ‘Landless and Homeless’, BiTod 29 (1991), 346-50. Roth, W., ‘Moses and Matthew’, BiTod 30 (1992), 362-66. Rousseau, J. J., ‘Jesus, an Exorcist of a Kind’, SBLSP 32 (1993), 129-53. Rowland, C. C., e Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982). ———, ‘Apocalyptic, the Poor, and the Gospel of Matthew’, JTS 45 (1994), 504-18. Ruckstuhl, E., Jesus, Freund und Anwalt der Frauen, Frauenpräsenz und Frauenabwesenheit in der Geschichte Jesu (Stuttgart: Katholische Bibelwerk, 1996). Runnalls, D. R., ‘e King as Temple Builder: A Messianic Typology’, in Spirit within Structure. FS G. Johnston, ed. E. J. Furcha (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1983), 15-38. Russell, E. A., ‘e Image of the Jew in Matthew’s Gospel’, ProcIBA 12 (1989), 37-57.

Sahlin, H., ‘Emendationsvorschläge zum grieschischen Text des Neuen Testaments’, NovT 24 (1982), 160-79, esp. 161-65. Saldarini, A. J., ‘Reading Matthew without Anti-Semitism’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 166-84. ———, ‘e Gospel of Matthew and Jewish-Christian Con ict’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 38-61. ———, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1988). ———, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1994). ———, ‘Politics and the Social Roles of the Scribes and Pharisees in Galilee Society’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 200-209. ———, ‘Boundaries and Polemics in the Gospel of Matthew’, BibInt 3 (1995), 239-65. ———, ‘Comparing the Traditions: New Testament and Rabbinic Literature’, BBR 7 (1997), 195-203. ———, ‘Understanding Matthew’s Vitriol’, BRev 13.2 (1997), 32-39, 45. Sand, A., Das Matthäus-Evangelium (Erträge der Forschung 275. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1991). ———, ‘Die Gemeinde zwischen “jenen Tag Jesu” und “dem Tag des Gerichts”: Zum Geschichtsverständnis des Matthäusevangeliums’, TTZ 99 (1990), 49-71. Sandelin, K.-G., ‘e Jesus-Tradition and Idolatry’, NTS 42 (1996), 412-20. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). ———, Jewish Law from Jesus to Mishnah (London: SCM, 1990). ———, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Trinity Press International, 1992). ——— and Davies M., Studying the Synoptic Gospels (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Trinity Press International, 1989). ———, ed., Jesus, the Gospels and the Church. FS W. R. Farmer (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987).

Sanders, J. T., Schismatics, Sectarians, Dissidents, Deviants: e First One Hundred Years of Jewish-Christian Relations (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993). Sato, M., Q und Prophetie (WUNT 2/29. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1988). Sauer, J., Rückkehr und Vollendung des Heils: Eine Untersuchung zu den ethischen Radikalismen Jesu (eorie und Forschung 133, Philosophie und eologie 9. Regensburg: Roderer, 1991). Saunders, S. P., ‘“Learning Christ”: Eschatology and Spiritual Formation in New Testament Christianity’, Int 56 (2002), 155-67. Scaer, D. P., ‘A Review Article: e Roots of the Synoptic Gospels’, CTQ 51 (1987), 255-59. Schenk, W., Evangelium-Evangelien-Evangeliologie: Ein ‘hermeneutisches’ Manifest (TEH 216. Munich: Kaiser, 1983). ———, Die Sprache des Matthäus: Die Text-Konstituenten in ihren makround mikrostrukturellen Relationen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987). ———, ‘Das “Matthäusevangelium” als “Petrusevangelium”’, BZ 27 (1983), 58-80. Schenke, L., ed., Studien zum Matthäusevangelium. FS W. Pesch (SBS: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988). Schlarb, E. and Maser, S., eds., Text und Geschichte: Facetten historischtheologischen Arbeitens aus dem Freundes- und Schülerkreis (MTS 50. Marburg: Ewert, 1999). Schlatter, A., e History of the Christ: e Foundation for New Testament eology, tr. A. J. Köstenberger (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997). Schlosser, J., La règne de Dieu dans les dits de Jésus (Paris: Gabalda, 1981). ———, Le Dieu de Jésus (LD 129. Paris: Cerf, 1987). Schmidt, K. L., e Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature, tr. B. R. McCane (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002). Schmidt, T. E., Hostility to Wealth in the Synoptic Gospels (JSNTSup 15. Sheffield: JSOT, 1987).

——— and Silva, M., eds., To Tell the Mystery. FS R. H. Gundry (JSNTSup 100. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999). Schmithals, W., ‘e Parabolic Teachings in the Synoptic Gospels. JHC 4 (1997), 3-32. Schnabel, E. J., ‘Jesus and the Beginnings of the Mission to the Gentiles’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 37-58. Schnackenburg, R., ‘Petrus im Matthäusevangelium’, in A cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 107-25. ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel as a Test Case for Hermeneutical Re ection’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 251-70. ———, Jesus in the Gospels: A Biblical Christology, tr. O. C. Dean (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995). Schneider, G., ‘“Im Himmel — auf Erden”: Eine Perspektive matthäischer eologie’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 283-97. Schoedel, W. R., ‘Ignatius and the Reception of the Gospel of Matthew in Antioch’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 129-77. Schottroff, L., ‘Itinerant Prophetesses: A Feminist Analysis of the Sayings Source Q’, in e Gospel behind the Gospels, ed. R. A. Piper, 347-60. ———, ‘Die Gegenwart in der Apokalyptik der synoptischen Evangelien’, in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, ed. D. Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1983), 707-28. ———, Lydia’s Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity, tr. B. and M. Rumscheidt (London: SCM, 1995). Schottroff, L., and Stegemann, W., eds., God of the Lowly: Socio-Historical Interpretations of the Bible, tr. M. J. O’Connell (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984). ———, Jesus and the Hope of the Poor (tr. M. J. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986). Schrage, W., ed., Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments. FS H. Greeven (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1986). Schroeder, H.-H., ‘Haben Jesu Worte über Armut und Reichtum Folgen für das soziale Verhalten?’ in Studien zum Text, ed. W. Schrage, 397-409.

Schröter, J., ‘Rezeptionsprocesse in der Jesusüberlieferung: Überlegungen zum historischen Character der neutestamentlichen Wissenscha am Beispiel der Sorgensprüche’, NTS 47 (2001), 442-27. Schürer, E., e History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) (rev. edn. G. Vermes et al., 4 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1973, 1979, 1986). Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich — Jesu Geschick: Jesus ureiniger Tod im Licht seiner Basileia-Verkündigung (Teildruck) (Die Botscha Gottes 2/34. Leipzig: St. Benno, 1985). ———, Das Lukasevangelium: Zweiter Teil, Erste Folge, Kommentar zu Kapitel 9,51–11,54 (HTKNT III 2/1. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1994). Schwartz, D. R., Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity (WUNT 60. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1992). Schwarz, G., ‘Und Jesus sprach’: Untersuchungen zur aramäischen Urgestalt der Worte Jesu (BWANT 118. Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne/Mainz: Kohlhammer, 1987). ———, Jesus und Judas: Aramaische Untersuchungen zur Jesus–Judas– Überlieferung der Evangelien und der Apostelgeschichte (BWANT 123. Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne/Mainz: Kohlhammer, 1988). Schwarz, H., ‘e Signi cance of Matthew’s Eschatology for Systematic eology’, SBLSP 35 (1996), 182-87. Schweizer, E., ‘Matthew’s Church’, in Interpretation, ed. G. N. Stanton, 12955. ———, ‘Aufnahme und Gestaltung von Q bei Matthäus’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 111-40. ———, ‘What Q Could Have Learned from Reginald Fuller’, ATR 11 (1990), 55-67. Scott, B. B., Jesus: Symbol-Maker for the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981). ———, Hear en the Parables: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989).

———, Re-Image the World: An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2001). ———, ‘Parables of Growth Revisited: Notes on the Current State of Parable Research’, BTB 11 (1981), 3-9. ———, ‘Essaying the Rock: e Authenticity of the Jesus Parable Tradition’, Forum 2.1 (1986), 3-53. Scott, J. W., ‘Matthew’s Intention to Write Story’, WTJ 47 (1985), 68-82. Scroggs, R., ‘e Sociological Interpretation of the New Testament: e Present State of Research’, NTS 26 (1980), 164-79. Seeley, D., Deconstructing the New Testament (Biblical Interpretation Series 5. Leiden: Brill, 1994), 21-52. Segal, A. F., Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). ———, ‘Matthew’s Jewish Voice’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 3-37. ———, ‘Studying Judaism with Christian Sources’, USQR 44 (1991), 267-86. Segbroeck, F. van, et al., e Four Gospels, 1992. FS F. Neirynck (BETL 100, 3 vols. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1992). Segovia, F. F., ed., Discipleship in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). Sellin, G., ‘“Gattung” und “Sitz im Leben” auf dem Hintergrund der Problematik von Mündlichkeit und Schrilichkeit synoptischer Erzählungen’, EvT 50 (1990), 311-31. Selvidge, M. J., Daughters of Jerusalem (Scottdale/Kitchener: Herald, 1987), esp. 61-87. ———, ‘Violence, Women, and the Future of the Matthean Community: A Redactional Critical Essay’, USQR 39 (1984), 213-23. Senior, D. P., What Are ey Saying about Matthew? (Rev. edn. New York: Paulist, 1996). ———, ‘e Gospel of Matthew and Our Jewish Heritage’, BiTod 27 (1989), 325-31. ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel as Ethical Guide’, BiTod 36 (1998), 273-79.

———, ‘Between Two Worlds: Gentile and Jewish Christians in Matthew’s Gospel’, CBQ 61 (1999), 1-23. ———, ‘Directions in Matthean Studies’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 5-21. Sevenich-Bax, E., Israels Konfrontation mit den letzten Boten der Weisheit. Form, Funktion und Interdependenz der Weisheitselemente in der Logienquelle (Münsteraner eologische Abhandlungen 21. Altenberge: Oros, 1993). Shedinger, R. F., ‘e Textual Relationship between 45 and Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew’, NTS 43 (1987), 58-71. ———, ‘A Further Consideration of the Textual Nature of Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew’, CBQ 61 (1999), 686-94. Shillington, V. G., ed., Jesus and His Parables: Interpreting the Parables of Jesus Today (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997). Shuler, P. L., ‘e Genre(s) of the Gospels’, in e Interrelation of the Gospels, ed. D. L. Dungan, 459-83. ———, A Genre for the Gospels: e Biographical Character of Matthew (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). ———, ‘Philo’s Moses and Matthew’s Jesus: A Comparative Study in Ancient Literature’, Studia Philonica Annual 2 (1990), 86-103. Sickenberger, J., ‘Drei angebliche Hinweise auf die Matthäuspriorität’, in Matthäus-Evangelium, ed. J. Lange, 65-72. Sider, J. W., Interpreting the Parables: A Hermeneutical Guide to eir Meaning (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995). ———, ‘e Meaning of Parabolē in the Usage of the Synoptic Evangelists’, Bib 62 (1981), 453-70. ———, ‘Nurturing Our Nurse: Literary Scholars and Biblical Exegesis’, CLit 32 (1982), 15-21. ———, ‘Rediscovering the Parables: e Logic of the Jeremias Tradition’, JBL 102 (1983), 61-83. ———, ‘Proportional Analogy in the Gospel Parables’, NTS 31 (1985), 1-23. Sigal, P., e Halakah of Jesus of Nazareth according to the Gospel of Matthew (Lanham, MD/New York/London: University Press of America, 1986).

Sim, D. C., e Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: e History and Social Setting of the Matthean Community (Studies of the New Testament and Its World. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998). ———, ‘e Gospel of Matthew and the Gentiles’, JSNT 57 (1995), 19-48. ———, ‘e Social Setting of the Matthean Community: New Paths for an Old Journey’, HTS 57 (2001), 268-80. Simon, M., Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (AD 135-425), tr. H. McKeating (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Siverns, L. E., ‘A De nition of Parable’, NESTR 9 (1988), 60-75. Skeat, T. C., ‘e Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?’ NTS 43 (1997), 134. Sloyan, G. S., Jesus in Focus: A Life in Its Setting (Mystic, CT: Twenty-ird Publications, 1983). Smillie, G. R., ‘“Even the Dogs”: Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew’, JETS 45 (2002), 73-97. Smith, C. R., ‘Literary Evidences of a Fivefold Structure in the Gospel of Matthew’, NTS 43 (1997), 540-51. Smith, D. M., ‘e Problem of John and the Synoptics in Light of the Relation between Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels’, in John and the Synoptics, ed. A. Denaux, 147-62. Smith, M., Jesus the Magician (Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1985). Smith, R. H., ‘Matthew’s Message for Insiders: Charisma and Commandment in a First-Century Community’, Int 46 (1992), 229-39. ———, ‘Interpreting Matthew Today’, CurTM 19 (1992), 424-32. Snodgrass, K. R., ‘Matthew and the Law’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 99-128. ———, ‘Matthew and the Law’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 536-54. ———, ‘Matthew’s Understanding of the Law’, Int 46 (1992), 368-78. Soelle, D. and Schottroff, L., Jesus of Nazareth, tr. J. Bowden (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2002).

Sparks, H. F. D., ed., e Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984). Spencer, R. A., ed., Orientation by Disorientation: Studies in Literary Criticism and Biblical Literary Criticism. FS W. A. Beardslee (PTMS 35. Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1980). Spicq, C., Notes de lexicographie néo-testamentaire (OBO 22.1-3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978, 1982). Stanton, G. N., ‘Matthew’s Christology and the Parting of the Ways’, in Jews and Christians, ed. J. D. G. Dunn, 99-116. ———, ‘e Early Reception of Matthew’s Gospel: New Evidence from Papyri?’ in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 42-61. ———, ‘Matthew as a Creative Interpreter of the Sayings of Jesus’, in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher, 273-87. ———, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992). ———, Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995). ———, ‘e Gospel of Matthew and Judaism’, BJRL 66 (1984), 264-84. ———, ‘e Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980’, ANRW 2.25.3 (1984), 1889-1951. ———, ‘Aspects of Early Christian-Jewish Polemic and Apologetic’, NTS 31 (1985), 377-92. ———, ‘e Communities of Matthew’, Int 46 (1992), 379-91. ———, ‘A Gospel among the Scrolls?’ BRev 11 (1995), 36-42. ———, ‘Matthew’s Gospel: A Survey of Some Recent Commentaries’, BT 46 (1995), 131-40. ———, ‘Revisiting Matthew’s Communities’, HTS 52 (1996), 376-94. ———, ed., e Interpretation of Matthew (Studies in New Testament Interpretation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 19952). Stark, R., ‘Antioch as the Social Situation for Matthew’s Gospel’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 189-210.

———, ‘Jewish Conversion and the Rise of Christianity’, SBLSP 25 (1986), 314-29. Stassen, G. H., Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992). Stegemann, E. W. and Stegemann, W., e Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century, tr. O. C. Dean (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999). Stegemann, W., Malina, B. J., and eissen, G., eds., e Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002). Stegner, W. R., Narrative eology in Early Jewish Christianity (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989). ———, ‘Narrative Christology in Early Jewish Christianity’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 249-62. ———, ‘Breaking Away: e Con ict with Formative Judaism’, BR 40 (1995), 7-36. Stein, R. H., An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981). ———, e Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings (Rev. edn. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994). ———, ‘e Matthew-Luke Agreements against Mark: Insight from John’, CBQ 54 (1992), 482-502. Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte in den synoptischen Evangelien (FB. Würzburg: Echter, 1981). Stendahl, K., Meanings (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Stock, K., Jesus — Künder der Seligkeit: Betrachtungen zum MatthäusEvangelium (Innsbruck/Vienna: Tyrolia, 1986). Strecker, G., ‘e Concept of History in Matthew’, in Interpretation, ed. G. Stanton, 67-84. Stroup, G., e Promise of Narrative eology: Recovering the Gospel in the Church (London: SCM, 1984). Stuhlmacher, P., ‘e Genre(s) of the Gospels: Response to Shuler’, in e Interrelation of the Gospels, ed. D. L. Dungan, 484-94.

———, Biblische eologie des Neuen Testament, 1: Grundlegung von Jesu zu Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992). ———, ‘Jes 53 in den Evangelien und die Apostelgeschichte’, in Der leidende Gottesknecht: Jesaja 53 und seine Wirkungsgeschichte, ed. B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 14. Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), 93-106. ———, ‘Warum musste Jesus sterben?’ TB 16 (1985), 273-85. ———, ed., Das Evangelium und die Evangelien: Vorträger vom Tübinger Symposium 1982 (WUNT 28. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1983). ———, ed., e Gospel and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). Swanson, R. J., ed., New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines against Codex Vaticanus, Vol. 1: Matthew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995). Swartley, W. M., Israel’s Scripture Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994). Syreeni, K., ‘Peter as Character and Symbol in the Gospel of Matthew’, in Characterization, ed. D. Rhoads and K. Syreeni, 106-52. ———, ‘Between Heaven and Earth: On the Structure of Matthew’s Symbolic Universe’, JSNT 40 (1990), 3-13. Talbert, C. H., ‘Indicative and Imperative in Matthean Soteriology’, Bib 82 (2001), 515-38. Talbot, M., ‘Heureux les doux, car ils hériteront la terre’ (Mt 5, 4[5]) (ÉB 56. Paris: Gabalda, 2002) Tan, K. H., e Zion Traditions and the Aims of Jesus (SNTSMS 91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Tannehill, R. C., ‘Attitudinal Shi in Synoptic Pronouncement Stories’, in Orientation by Disorientation, ed. R. A. Spencer, 183-97. ———, ‘Tension in Synoptic Sayings and Stories’, Int 34 (1980), 138-50. ———, ‘Types and Functions of Apophthegms in the Synoptic Gospels’, ANRW 2.25.2 (1984), 1792-1829. Tate, W. R., Reading Mark from the Outside: Eco and Iser Leave eir Marks (Bethesda, MD: Christian Universities Press, 1995).

Taylor, J. E., e Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997). Telford, W. R., ed., e Interpretation of Mark (Studies in New Testament Interpretation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 19952). Teugels, L., ‘Midrash in the Bible or Midrash on the Bible? Critical Remarks about the Uncritical Use of a Term’, in Bibel und Midrasch. Zur Bedeutung der rabbinischen Exegese für die Bibelwissenscha, ed. G. Bodendorfer and M. Millard, with B. Kagerer (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1998), 43-63. ayse, A., Matthieu: L’évangile revisité (Brussels: Racine, 1998). eissen, G., e Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition, tr. F. McDonagh (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1983). ———, Localkolorit und Zeitgeschichte in den Evangelien: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (NTOA 8. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1989). ———, e Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition, tr. L. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). ———, Social Reality and the Early Christians: eology, Ethics and the World of the New Testament, tr. M. Kohl (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). ———, Gospel Writing and Church Politics: A Socio-Rhetorical Approach (Chuen King Lecture Series 3. Hong Kong: eology Division, Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong, 2001). ———, ‘Jesusbewegung als charismatische Wertrevolution’, NTS 35 (1989), 343-60. ——— and Winter, D., e Quest for the Plausible Jesus: e Question of Criteria, tr. M. E. Boring (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2002). iede, C. P., ‘Papyrus Magdalen Greek 17 (Gregory-Aland P64): A Reappraisal’, TynB 46 (1995), 29-42. ———, ‘Papyrus Magdalen Greek 17 (Gregory-Aland P64): A Reappraisal’, ZPE 105 (1995), 13-19. ———, ‘e Magdalen Papyrus: A Reply’, ExpTim 107 (1996), 240-41.

iemann, R. F., Revelation and eology: e Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1985), 112-40. iselton, A. C., ‘On Models and Metaphors: A Critical Dialogue with Robert Morgan’, in e Bible in ree Dimensions, ed. D. J. A. Clines et al., 337-56. ———, ‘Reader-Response Hermeneutics, Action Models, and the Parables of Jesus’, in e Responsibility of Hermeneutics, ed. R. Lundin, A. C. iselton, and C. Walhout (Grand Rapids/Exeter: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1985), 79-113. urston, A., Knowing Her Place: Gender and the Gospels (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1999). Tiede, D., Prophecy and History in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). Tisera, G., Universalism according to the Gospel of Matthew (European University Studies: Series 23, eology 482. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1993). Toit, A. B. du, ‘e Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Matthew’, ScrifKerk 21 (2000), 545-63. Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae Handlungen Jesu: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem geschichtlichen Jesus (FB 37. Würzburg: Echter, 1980). Trevett, C., ‘Approaching Matthew from the Second Century: e UnderUsed Ignatian Correspondence’, JSNT 20 (1984), 59-67. Trilling, W., ‘Die Täufertradition bei Matthäus’, in Matthäus-Evangelium, ed. J. Lange, 273-95. ———, Studien zur Jesusüberlieferung (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988). Trummer, P., Die blutende Frau: Wunderheilungen im Neuen Testament (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1991). ———, Dass meine Augen sich öffnen: Kleine biblische Erkenntnislehre am Beispiel der Blindenheilungen Jesu (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1998). Trunk, D., Der messianische Heiler: Eine redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Studie zu den Exorzismen im Matthäusevangelium (HBS 3. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1994).

Tuckett, C. M., ‘Q, the Law and Judaism’, in Law and Religion, ed. B. Lindars, 90-101, 176-80. ———, ‘Arguments from Order: De nition and Evaluation’, in Synoptic Studies,, ed. B. Lindars, 197-219. ———, e Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (SNTSMS 44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). ———, Nag Hammadi and the Gospel Tradition (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986). ———, Q and the History of Early Christianity: Studies in Q (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996). ———, ‘e Argument from Order and the Synoptic Problem’, TZ 36 (1980), 338-54. ———, ed., Synoptic Studies: e Ampleforth Conferences of 1982 and 1983 (JSOTSup 7. Sheffield: JSOT, 1984). ———, ed., e Scriptures in the Gospels (BETL 131. Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1997). Twelree, G. H., Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and eological Study (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999). Ukpong, J. S., ‘e Problem of the Gentile Mission in Matthew’s Gospel’, Vidyajyoti 59 (1995), 437-48. Uro, R., Symbols and Strata: Essays on the Sayings Gospel Q (Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 65. Helsinki/Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996). Vaage, L. E., ‘Q and Cynicism: On Comparison and Social Identity’, in e Gospel behind the Gospels, ed. R. A. Piper, 199-229. ———, Galilean Upstarts: Jesus’ First Followers according to Q (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994). ———, ‘Q1 and the Historical Jesus: Some Peculiar Sayings (7:33-34; 9:5758, 59-60; 14:26-27)’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 160-76. Vardaman, J. and E. M. Yamauchi, ed., Chronos, Kairos, Christos. FS J. Finegan (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989).

Venetz, H.-J., Von Klugen und Dummen, Waghalsigen und Feigen und von einem beispielhaen Gauner: Gleichnisse Jesu für heute (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1991). ———, ‘Der Gott der Gleichnisse Jesu: Mitten im Alltag neue Horizonte’, BK 54 (1999), 19-22. Vermes, G., Jesus and the World of Judaism (London: SCM, 1983). ——— et al., ed., E. Schürer: e History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) (3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 197387). Verseput, D. J., ‘e Role and Meaning of the “Son of God” Title in Matthew’s Gospel’, NTS 33 (1987), 532-56. ———, ‘e Davidic Messiah and Matthew’s Jewish Christianity’, SBLSP 34 (1995), 102-16. Via, D. O., Jr., ‘Structure, Christology and Ethics in Matthew’, in Orientation by Disorientation, ed. R. A. Spencer, 199-215. ———, ‘e Gospel of Matthew: Hypocrisy as Self-Deception’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 508-16. Viviano, B. T., ‘Matthew, Master of Ecumenical Healing’, CurTM 10 (1983), 325-32. Vledder, E.-J. and van Aarde, A. G., ‘e Social Strati cation of the Matthean Community’, Neot 28 (1994), 511-22. ———, ‘e Social Location of the Matthean Community’, HTS 51 (1995), 388-408. Vorster, W. S., ‘Kerygma/History and the Gospel Genre’, NTS 29 (1983), 8795. Votaw, C. W., e Gospels and Contemporary Biographies in the GraecoRoman World (Facet Books. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970). Vouga, F., Jésus et la loi selon la tradition synoptique (Le Monde de la Bible. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1988). ———, ‘La seconde passion de Jéremie’, LumVie 165 (1983), 71-82. ———, Jesus als Erzähler: Überlegungen zu den Gleichnissen’, WD 19 (1987), 63-85.

Wainwright, E. M., ‘“Your Faith Has Made You Well”: Jesus, Women, and Healing in the Gospel of Matthew’, in Transformative, ed. I. R. Kitzberger, 224-44. ———, Towards a Feminist Critical Reading of the Gospel according to Matthew (BZNW 60. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1991). ———, Shall We Look for Another? A Feminist Rereading of the Matthean Jesus (Bible and Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998). ———, ‘Tradition Makers/Tradition Shapers: Women of the Matthean Tradition’, WW 18 (1998), 380-88. Walker, W. O., ‘“Nazareth”: A Clue to Synoptic Relations’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 105-18. Walter, N., ‘Zur theologischen Problematik des christologischen “Schribeweises” im Neuen Testament’, NTS 41 (1995), 338-57. Wanke, J., ‘Bezugs- und Kommentarworte’ in den synoptischen Evangelien. Beobachtungen zur Interpretationsgeschichte der Herrenworte in der vorevangelischen Überlieferung (Leipzig: St. Benno, 1981). Wansbrough, H., ed., ‘e New Israel: e Community of Matthew and the Community of Qumran’, SNTU 25 (2000), 8-22. ———, Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991). Warner, A. R., ‘Ful lling All Righteousness: e Death of Jesus in Matthew’, CurTM 29 (2002), 12-19. Watson, D. F., ed., Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (JSNTSup 50. Sheffield: JSOT, 1991). Watson, F., ed., e Open Text: New Directions for Biblical Studies? (London: SCM, 1993). Weaver, D. J., ‘Power and Powerlessness: Matthew’s Use of Irony in the Portrayal of Political Leaders’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 179-96. ———, ‘Power and Powerlessness: Matthew’s Use of Irony in the Portrayal of Political Leaders’, JBLSP 31 (1992), 454-66.

Weber, B., ‘Schulden erstatten — Schulden erlassen: Zum matthäischen Gebrauch einiger juristischer und monetärar Begriffe’, ZNW 83 (1992), 253-56. Weder, H., Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern (FRLANT 120, 3d edn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984). Weinfeld, M., ‘e Jewish Roots of Matthew’s Vitriol’, BRev 13.5 (1997), 31. Weinrich, W. C., ed., e New Testament Age (2 vols. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984). Weiss, H.-F., ‘Noch einmal: Zur Frage eines Antijudaismus bzw. Antipharisäismus im Matthäusevangelium’, ZeitNT 4 (2001), 37-41. Weiss, W., ‘Eine neue Lehre in Vollmacht’ (BZNW 52. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989). Wenham, D., e Parables of Jesus: Pictures of Revolution (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1989). Wenham, D. and Blomberg, C., eds., e Miracles of Jesus (Gospel Perspectives 6. Sheffield: JSOT, 1986). ———, eds., Gospel Perspectives, Vol. 5: e Jesus Tradition outside the Gospels (Sheffield: JSOT, 1985). Wenham, G. J., Genesis 1–15 (WBC 1. Waco, TX: Word, 1987). Wenham, J., Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991). Weren, W., ‘Children in Matthew: A Semantic Study’, Concil (2, 1996), 5363. Westermann, C., e Parables of Jesus in the Light of the Old Testament, ed. F. W. Golka and A. H. B. Logan, tr. F. W. Golka and A. H. B. Logan (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990). White, L. M., ‘Crisis Management and Boundary Maintenance: e Social Location of the Matthean Community’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 211-47. Wielenga, B., ‘Mission and the Apocalyptic: A Perspective from Matthew’, IntRMiss 91 (2002), 111-19.

Wilder, A. N., Jesus’Parables and the War of Myths: Essays in Imagination in Scripture, ed. J. Breech (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). ———, e Bible and the Literary Critic (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress, 1991). Wilkens, W., ‘Die Komposition des Matthäus-Evangelium’, NTS 31 (1985), 24-38. Wilkins, M. J., e Concept of Disciple in Matthew’s Gospel, as Reflected in the Use of the Term Μαθητής (NovTSup 59. Leiden/New York: Brill, 1988). ———, Discipleship in the Ancient World and Matthew’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Baker, 19952). Williams, J. G., ‘e Sermon on the Mount as a Christian Basis for Altruism’, Humbold Journal of Social Relations 13 (1985-86), 89-112. Wills, L. M., e Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John, and the Origins of the Gospel Genre (London/New York: Routledge, 1997). ———, ‘Scribal Methods in Matthew and Mishnah Abot’, CBQ 63 (2002), 241-57. Wimmer, J. F., Fasting in the New Testament: A Study in Biblical eology (eological Inquiries. New York: Paulist, 1982). Wink, W., e Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of Man (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002). Winkle, R. E., ‘e Jeremiah Model for Jesus in the Temple’, AUSS 24 (1986), 155-72. Wire, A. C., ‘Gender Roles in a Scribal Community’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 87-121. Witherington, B., Women in the Ministry of Jesus (SNTSMS 51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). ———, e Jesus Quest: e ird Search for the Jew of Nazareth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995). Wogaman, J. P., ‘Homiletical Resources from the Gospel of Matthew: Faith and Discipleship’, QRev 13 (1993), 93-111. Wong, E. K. C., ‘Was Jesus without Sin? An Inquiry into Jesus’ Baptism and the Redaction of the Gospels’, AsiaJT 11 (1997), 128-39.

Wong, K.-C., Interkulturelle eologie und multikulturelle Gemeinde im Matthäusevangelium: Zum Verhältnis von Juden- und Heidenchristen im ersten Evangelium (NTOA 22. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992). Wouters, A., ‘… wer den Willen meines Vaters tut’: Eine Untersuchung zum Verständnis vom Handeln im Matthäusevangelium (BU 23. Regensburg: Pustet, 1992). Wrege, H.-T., Das Sondergut des Matthäus-Evangeliums (Zürcher Werkkommentare zur Bibel. Zurich: eologischer Verlag, 1991). Wright, N. T., Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 2: Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996). Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist in Life and Death: Audience-Oriented Criticism of Matthew’s Narrative (JSNTSup 167. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998). Yang, Y.-E., Jesus and the Sabbath in Matthew’s Gospel (JSNTSup 139. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1987). Yarbro Collins, A., ed., Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985). ———, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (JSJSup 50. Leiden: Brill, 1996). Young, B. H., Jesus and His Jewish Parables (New York: Paulist, 1989). ———, e Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998). Yri, N., ‘Seek God’s Righteousness: Righteousness in the Gospel of Matthew’, in Right with God: Justification in the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Carlisle/Grand Rapids: Paternoster/Eerdmans, 1992), 96-105. Zager, W., Gottesherrscha und Endgericht in der Verkündigung Jesu: Eine Untersuchung zur markinischen Jesusüberlieferung einschliesslich der QParallelen (BZNW 82. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996). Zeller, D., Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche bei den Synoptikern (FB 17. Würzburg: Echter, 19832).

———, Kommentar zum Logienquelle (Stuttgarter Kleiner Kommentar, Neues Testament 21. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984). Ziesler, J. A., ‘Matthew and the Presence of Jesus’, EpR 11 (1984), 55-63, 9097. Zimmermann, A. F., Der urchristlichen Lehrer: Studien zum Tradentkreis der διδάσκαλος im frühen Urchristentum (WUNT 2/12. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1984). Zucker, D. J., ‘Jesus and Jeremiah in the Matthean Tradition’, JES 27 (1990), 288-305. Zumstein, J., Matthieu: Le théologien (CÉ 58. Paris: Cerf, 1986). ———, ‘Antioche zur l’Orontes et l’évangile selon Matthieu’, SNTU 5 (1980), 122-38.

Introduction e introduction to a commentary gives the author an opportunity to discuss matters which are preliminary to engagement with the text itself. ough these matters are preliminary to engagement with the text, the facts about them generally cannot be determined without attention to the text. And in many cases what are presented as facts continue to be a matter of debate. In the various areas I have provided discussions and indicated my own judgments and my reasons for them. But I have been reluctant to make these judgments working assumptions for the commentary itself. Procedurally, I paid detailed attention to questions of introduction only aer I had completed the whole commentary in dra. I have tried to make my attention to questions of introduction answerable to an exploration of the whole text of the Gospel rather than bringing to the study of the text of the Gospel a set of preexisting conclusions about introductory matters. Sometimes scholars make it glaringly obvious that the material of the Gospel is being made to conform to conclusions already reached about matters of introduction. Admittedly these conclusions have arisen in part out of a consideration of various features of the Gospel, but they then seem to become a procrustean bed for all the other features of the Gospel. As I have worked my way through Matthew and pondered the scholarly views, I have not made judgments about matters of introduction a guiding star to help me nd my way from text to text through the various possible construals. I claim no pristine purity here. I am aware that I have been in uenced by

background assumptions of which I am not fully conscious. I am also aware that the more of the Gospel text I explored in detail, the more the exploration of a new piece was inevitably, and to a point I believe properly, conditioned by the earlier work. I want to say only that I have done everything within my power to avoid placing a straight jacket over the reading of the Gospel based on conclusions about matters of introduction. us there should also be a provisionality about how readers bring the conclusions of this introduction to the reading of the Gospel and of my commentary on the Gospel. e one clear exception to my pattern of leaving detailed consideration of matters of introduction to the end has to do with my working assumption that Matthew had available to him the Gospel of Mark, or something much like it. More tentatively, I have also assumed that the writer of the Gospel of John did not have access to any of the Synoptic Gospels. On these matters see the discussion below. e introduction is also the place to provide some overview material. Where I have provided an overview, this is a summary ahead of time and not a foundation for the commentary work to come. e support for the conclusions is to be found in the detailed work of the commentary. Where I have offered a synthesis (e.g., in the discussion of the theology of the Gospel), to some degree this is different from what may be found in the body of the commentary, but once again its detailed basis is to be found in what is to come in the commentary. ere are also places where the bringing together of material has encouraged a measure of further analysis, but where this occurs it is not to be viewed as freestanding; it depends for its cogency on the more detailed discussion to come, passage by passage, in the commentary. I have offered overview and synthesis in areas where I have judged that these might assist a reader in

nding his or her way through the commentary, and I have also commented on some matters on which perspective can emerge clearly only from a whole Gospel perspective. e areas addressed in this introduction are the authorship of the Gospel, the sources for the Gospel, the prehistory of the sources, the date and provenance of the Gospel, the kind of document the Gospel intends to be, the state of the Greek text of the Gospel, aspects of the author’s narrative technique, the Gospel’s use of the OT and of other Jewish tradition, and the theology of the Gospel of Matthew. At the end of the introduction I provide an annotated structural outline of the Gospel. A. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE GOSPEL e author of the Gospel of Matthew did not sign his name to the work that now bears the heading κατὰ Μαθθαῖον (‘according to Matthew’). ough Hengel has argued that the Gospels have always had their headings,1 it remains more likely that the headings were affixed sometime in the second century on a basis to which we no longer have access. e Matthew intended can only be the apostle Matthew of Mt. 9:9; 10:3.2 But did those who added ‘according to Matthew’ have a solid basis for their attribution? e earliest relevant comment that has been preserved is from Papias, from quite early in the second century. It is preserved in Eusebius, HE 5.8.2. Papias’s words are Ματθαῖος μὲν οὖν Ἑβραΐδι διάλεκτῳ τὰ λόγια συνετάξατο, ἡρμήνευσεν δ᾿ αὐτὰ ὡς ἦν δυνατὸς ἕκαστος (‘Matthew, then, compiled the oracles in the Hebrew/Aramaic language, and each interpreted/translated them as they were able’). Because Eusebius juxtaposes the present extract and an extract about Mark writing on the basis of the preaching of Peter, there can be little doubt that Eusebius thought that Papias was

referring to the activity that eventually produced the Gospel of Matthew as known to Eusebius. e matter is less clear in Papias since we can have no con dence that the two extracts come from the same part of his writing. Papias’s work is not oriented to the canonical Gospels — though he knew at least some of them and had access to other written Christian sources — but to the word-ofmouth tradition available to him. τὰ λόγια (‘the oracles’) is the same term found in what Eusebius gives as the title of Papias’s large work: Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξηγήσεως (‘Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord’). On the basis of the few surviving extracts, we may presume that ‘oracles of the Lord’ refers to teachings of Jesus. e coming together of διάλεκτῳ and ἡρμήνευσεν in Papias’s words suggests that the latter word should be taken here to mean ‘translated’ rather than ‘interpreted’. If this is so, ‘as they were able’ suggests the existence of multiple renderings into Greek of the ‘oracles’ assembled by the apostle Matthew. e nearest things that we have to such an ancient collection of ‘oracles’ are the Gospel of omas and the document Q — the latter reconstructed (variously) by scholars on the basis of material shared by Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark. It is easier to suggest that Matthew’s activity (if Papias is working from historically reliable tradition) provided the initial stimulus for the creation of such documents than that Matthew’s collection of ‘oracles’ directly underlies them, but the latter is certainly quite possible. Later in the second century, around A.D. 180, Irenaeus in Haer. 3.1.1 reports that Matthew wrote ‘a gospel… for the Hebrews in their own language’. e language overlap with Papias suggests dependence either on Papias or on a common source. e important difference is that Irenaeus is referring to a Gospel, not simply to a collection of sayings. But he is not yet speaking about our Greek Gospel of Matthew, though he may be speaking about a

document in Hebrew or Aramaic that he believed lay behind the Greek Gospel or even of which the canonical Gospel was a translation. e difficulty for us is that the Greek Gospel of Matthew shows not the slightest sign of having been translated from a Semitic language. As we will discuss below, Matthew not only seems to have been written in Greek but also to have drawn on sources which were at least predominantly in Greek. If Irenaeus has in mind our Gospel of Matthew, then he is clearly wrong. If he has in mind some other document, then it has not survived and has, in any case, no close relationship to canonical Matthew. No one in the early centuries ever attributes canonical Matthew to anybody other than the apostle. But it looks as if the claim that Matthew was its author is traceable to a tradition that Matthew produced a compilation of Jesus’ teaching in Aramaic or Hebrew. ere may be a track from this tradition to the canonical Gospel, but we cannot de nitely trace it. e basis for linking canonical Matthew to the apostle may be no stronger than someone’s recognition that of the canonical Gospels Matthew is notable for its collection of much of Jesus’ teaching into ve large discourses. It would have been easy for someone to assume that these must have been Matthew’s ‘oracles’, now translated into Greek, and that the one who provided the ‘oracles’ must also have been responsible for their Gospel setting. Our conclusion, then, must be negative. e composition of the canonical Gospel by the apostle Matthew, though never questioned in the early centuries, is most unlikely. A collection of the sayings of Jesus made by the apostle Matthew may have le its mark on canonical Matthew, but we cannot be certain even of this. ose who rst read Matthew undoubtedly knew who wrote it, but as its usage became widespread and its authority established the matter of authorship seems to have dropped from sight. For convenience I

will continue to speak of the author as ‘Matthew’, but the use of the name is no more than a convenience. B. THE GOSPEL’S SOURCES If we cannot know who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, can we know on what basis the author wrote it? In detail we cannot. But that does not mean that we cannot make a useful comment on this question. When Luke explained the writing of his Gospel (Lk. 1:1-4), he appealed to the fact that Gospel writing had become quite a popular exercise (v. 1), he appealed to a line of transmission that goes back to those who were eyewitnesses (v. 2), and he appealed to his own investigative efforts (v. 3). Matthew provides no comparable literary preface, but the obvious degree of ‘family likeness’ between his own Gospel and that of Luke suggests that we may fairly locate Matthew’s work much as Luke locates his own. 1. Mark and ‘Q’ Matthew makes no comments on his sources, but the patterns of similarity and dissimilarity among the three Synoptic Gospels as we have them have convinced the world of scholarship that there is dependence, almost certainly of a literary kind, among the three Gospels. Many views have been proposed as to the nature of this relationship. ough there is continuing vigorous argument, the majority view is, but with less con dence than was the case a generation ago, that Mark is the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, and that Mark was in turn used by both Matthew and Luke, who also both had access to, and made use of, an additional body of material which is designated by the letter Q. Variations on this basic view of the use of Mark would allow for a second edition of Mark to

be the underlying text (this could account for some troubling minor additional agreements between Matthew and Luke), or involve intermediate documents of one kind or another, or suggest composition in more than one stage, where, for example, the Markan material might have been added to a Gospel that already had been shaped without it. ere are those who would dispense with Q and make Matthew dependent on Luke or Luke dependent on Matthew, but this is a minority variant view which seems less credible to me, given that, in relation to the surviving forms of the Q material in Matthew and Luke, sometimes it is easier to account for the development of the Matthean form from the Lukan and sometimes for the Lukan form from the Matthean (and sometimes it seems most likely that the forms in which the common material was received by the respective Evangelists was already different).3 is commentary proceeds on the general assumption that Matthew had available the Gospel of Mark, or something much like it, and that he shared a considerable body of additional common source material with Luke, but probably did not receive it in quite the same form as that used by Luke. ere is no need to rehearse here the standard scholarly arguments that stand behind this judgment. is commentary is not oriented to source matters, and is not concerned to make a speci c contribution to that discussion. Readers may, however, want to make their own judgments about whether my account of the thinking that lies behind Matthew’s alterations of his Markan source does not make its own contribution to the credibility of Matthean use of Mark, or something much like it, and whether my account of Matthew’s rendering of additional material shared with Luke does not provide support for some form of Q hypothesis. I want to stress, however, that I have been interested to provide a coherent account of Matthew’s procedure in writing in order to better understand

Matthew’s nished Gospel, and not to support a source hypothesis. If I were to have intended that, wherever possible I would have wanted to provide an alternative account or alternative accounts, keyed to other source hypotheses, of the steps by which our present texts were formed. is I have not done. 2. Other Sources More, however, needs to be said about sources. e majority of Matthew’s material can be accounted for on the basis of his use of Mark and Q materials, but a good deal of Matthean material cannot be accounted for at all or completely in this way. is additional material falls into several categories. a. Oral Tradition e rst category, and most difficult to tie down, is material likely to have been drawn directly from oral tradition. Given retentive Eastern memories, our capacity to nd a dividing line between written and oral sources is strictly limited: oral materials could at times have a very xed form. For the purposes of this discussion, I will speak of ‘written’ materials as those consisting of linked units of material and of ‘oral’ material as that which has in uenced Matthew in relation to a single unit of material. In the commentary I have explained Matthew’s differences from Mark for the most part as editorial, but we must always keep in mind the possibility that in relation to individual Markan units Matthew may well have had another oral version or even versions available to him. At times the extent of the Matthean editing may be no more than the exercise of preference among available options. We can be most con dent about an oral parallel when it seems to have le a trace somewhere else in the canonical Gospels (or

elsewhere, if the form of the material elsewhere suggests that is not best accounted for by assuming dependence on Matthew). But oral parallels are likely to have existed in many more cases than we are in a position to demonstrate. b. Larger Sets of Linked Units Related to Material in Mark or Q e second category consists of more extensive parallels to Markan (or Q) material. We can be most con dent about this for the Eschatological Discourse and Passion Narrative materials. ough the details remain uncertain, it appears that several versions of an eschatological discourse were in circulation prior to the Gospel versions. For Lk. 21 Luke seems to have had, beyond Mk. 13, a second source version of the Eschatological Discourse, one which had not undergone what one might suspect to have been the secondary rewriting in Danielic idiom of the Mk. 13 form. Luke clearly has yet another source form that lies behind Lk. 17:22-37. And there seem to be outcroppings of yet another version in parts of Mt. 24, a version which probably also included Mt. 10:23. (see the discussion at 24:1-2.) In the case of the Passion Narrative, Matthew seems to have based his account rmly on Mark, except at a limited number of separated speci c points where individual items of oral tradition are most likely to provide the basis on which Matthew works. It is quite possible, however, that knowledge of a second Passion Narrative lies behind the extra tradition re ected in vv. 52-53 of Mt. 26:47-56 and the second source evidenced for vv. 57-68 and 26:69–27:2. e distinctive material of 27:3-10 need not have come to Matthew from a connected Passion Narrative, but it is suggestive that Matthew has it immediately aer three episodes where second-source in uence is evident. ere are source traces and/or distinctive materials in most of the subsequent episodes of the Passion Narrative. ere is no

strong reason for thinking that they all come from a connected Passion Narrative, although some of them might. (See the discussion in the commentary sections.) We cannot be certain, then, that Matthew had a second Passion Narrative to consult, but there are enough hints to suggest that he may well have, and he certainly had quite a bit of other Passion material to make use of. Certainly Luke’s Passion account provides evidence for a second primitive Passion Narrative which has some links in turn to a third primitive Passion Narrative that is likely to lie behind the account in John. (see the discussion at 26:1-2.) Once again what is visible points to the possibility of other sources which are likely to have been available to Matthew and/or to some of his readers. at Matthew had access to a source does not require that he used it extensively, or even at all. More general background in uence would be quite invisible to us. Passion Accounts and Eschatological Discourses may have been exceptional, but it is not at all unlikely that other kinds of topical collections of elements of Jesus’ teaching or collections of accounts of episodes from his ministry existed and formed a general background against which Matthew wrote, if not in uencing him in a more speci c manner. Markan scholars generally believe that Mark incorporated various preformed blocks of material into his Gospel; if such were available to Mark, it is likely that similar blocks were available to Matthew, perhaps even some of the same blocks that Mark before him had used. ese last comments apply equally to the third category, to which we now turn. c. Smaller Sets of Linked Units without Parallel in the Canonical Gospels A third category consists of smaller bodies of linked units of source material used by Matthew, but not having le any trace elsewhere in

the canonical Gospels. Given that, except in the one case we consider at the end, we can appeal only to internal considerations, our judgments about such traditions are necessarily rather more tenuous than in cases where we have at hand the use of the traditions in the other Gospels. But with reasonable con dence we can speak of such sources. e rst in Matthew provides the backbone for 1:18–2:23. It probably included material on Herod but not on the Magi, for whom Matthew is likely to have had a separate source. (See the discussion in the commentary sections.) e Sermon on the Mount may offer evidence of another body of linked units of source material. Since Luke has a short version of the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon will have been included in the Q materials. But did Matthew have the bene t of a more extended version as well, or in his copy of Q? Certainly some of the Q material in the Matthean sermon seems to have reached Matthew in a different form from that known to Luke. e present Matthean sermon is a Matthean collection, but Matthew may have had somewhat more to build from than the material parallelled in Lk. 6:17-49. An interplay between the preexisting structure of materials as they reached Matthew and Matthew’s own structuring would account for the fact that all scholars recognise Mt. 5–7 as highly structured but cannot readily agree on the actual structure. (See the discussion in the commentary sections.) Matthew has many parables that are not parallelled elsewhere in the Gospel material. In chap. 13 Matthew introduces quite a number of parables not found in the Mk. 4 parallel. Since some of these come in linked sets, it is quite possible that their linkage is, at least in some cases, pre-Matthean. As with Mt. 5–7, an interplay between Matthean structuring and preexisting structuring would account for scholarly difficulty over discerning the structure of what

is clearly a highly structured piece. (See the discussion in the commentary sections.) It has been possible to identify the linked units in these cases because Matthew keeps the material together. Interpreters generally think, however, that Matthew has considerably chopped up his version of Q. is suggests that other distinctive Matthean material could come from collections which can no longer be identi ed as such. Matthew has a number of extra parables, beyond those in chap. 13. Could some of these have come to Matthew from a parables collection? We do not know, but it is certainly possible. A parables source for the parables Luke includes in the Journey to Jerusalem section is discernible on the basis of the set exhibiting a chiastic arrangement, which seems to have no signi cance for Luke and is visible only when the parables are removed from their Lukan contexts and brought together (see Nolland, Luke, 2:530-31). Nothing similar has been identi ed in Matthew, but the discovery in Luke suggests that collections of parables likely existed. A family likeness runs through many of the Matthean parables, but because Matthew is at times rather free in his editing of parable material we cannot be sure whether the family likeness has been imposed by him or was already a characteristic of a set of parables which he used. Perhaps it is a little of both since a striking feature of Matthew’s editing is to take up a traditional feature and work it more extensively into his materials. ough separated in Matthew, the materials of 27:62-65, 28:2-4, and 28:11-15 clearly belong together, and roughly parallel materials are found together in Gos. Pet. 8:29–11:49. Of all the materials in the Gospel of Peter, it is for its parallel to these materials in Matthew that the best case can be made for the use in the Gospel of Peter of a source that is independent of the canonical Gospels.4 In this case

the Gospel of Peter makes visible a set of linked units of source material used by Matthew. (see the discussion at 27:62-65.) 3. Summary So Matthew can, I believe, be fairly represented as primarily based on Mark, or something quite like it, and on a version of Q. But one also needs to keep in mind further sets of linked materials, some distinctive and some parallelling collections already found in Mark or possibly Q, as of considerable importance. And the presence of large quantities of oral material is an important feature of the context from which Matthew wrote and the context into which he wrote. 4. Sources as a Constraint Whether or not something like Mark and something like Q were readily available to those for whom Matthew wrote, he writes in a context in which he is most unlikely to be the single conduit of the Gospel material to his readership. What is available to Matthew is likely to be available to at least some of his readers. is means that a wider pool of oral Gospel materials and various bodies of written Gospel materials were not only a base out of which Matthew could work, but also a constraint on Matthew. Whatever changes Matthew made to the traditional materials would need to have credibility in the eyes of those who had independent access to the Gospel traditions out of which Matthew worked. at is not to say that anybody would have expected him to reproduce his sources woodenly, but it is to say that Matthew’s artistic and editorial licence would need to have commended itself as faithful elucidation of

what was otherwise available, to those with independent access at various points to the traditions. 5. Matthew and John From time to time my source judgments will be in uenced by my conviction that the Gospel of John, though it re ects a knowledge of a good deal of ‘Synoptic-like’ Gospel tradition, did not make use of any of the Synoptic Gospels. is is a contentious matter, with scholars taking opposite views with equal con dence and some scholars convinced that John had access not to all but to one or perhaps two of the Synoptic Gospels. Since the debate continues, I have expressed my judgments with considerable reserve. I have now, however, considered the possibility that John may have been in uenced by something that comes from the editing work of one of the Evangelists in my detailed attention to all the materials in Luke and in Matthew, and indirectly therefore to virtually all the materials in Mark. In one or two cases, ‘could have been’ might be the best answer to give. (I am thinking particularly of Peter’s denial as threefold and of the intercalation of the account of Peter’s denial within the account of the high priest’s questioning of Jesus, where Johannine independence must assume that Mark is not the originator of either of these features.) My overwhelming impression, however, has been that anything that would suggest use of the Synoptic Gospels is absent in John. Since this work is not oriented to sources, I have been content to treat Johannine independence as a tentative working hypothesis. C. HOW THE AUTHOR HANDLED HIS SOURCES

ough Matthew proves to be for the most part a conservative editor, that does not mean that he does not intervene extensively in the actual language of his sources. Matthew fairly consistently abbreviates the Markan narrative. Matthew’s level of intervention in the actual language is strikingly variable, even within a single episode. He does tend, however, as is the case with Luke, to be considerably more conservative in the reproduction of the words of Jesus than in the rendering of narrative. Matthew makes extensive use of the Markan ordering, but always in relation to his own structuring of the material. His main departure from the Markan ordering is in his gathering into chaps. 8–9 of miracle stories scattered throughout the rst half of Mark; but even here he maintains the same relative order of these displaced miracle stories. Matthew also relocates the listing of the Twelve: Mk. 3:13-19 provides an account of the choice of the Twelve for their roles; Mt. 10:1-4 simply lists their names as an introduction to their extended mission charge. Matthew moves summarising and generalising statements around and adapts them much more freely, and he will from time to time reorder materials within a pericope. To a signi cant degree the Q material has a common order in Matthew and Luke, which suggests that Matthew (and Luke) have tended to preserve the order of its materials. Except for one inversion (Mt. 12:43-45, 38-42 par. Lk. 11:24-26, 29-32), all the Matthean dislocations of the Lukan order are related either to the formation of the collection of materials in Mt. 8–9 or of the collections of materials for one of the ve major discourses in Matthew (but there are no Q materials in the fourth discourse). Much more of the material is sequential or nearly sequential in Luke, who seems, therefore, to have stayed closer to the layout of Q. Two minor features of Matthew’s handling of his sources may be worth singling out for particular mention. One is his unwillingness

to lose source material. ere is very little Markan material that has not found a home in Matthew, in some form or other. But more speci cally I have in mind Matthew’s tendency to use in other contexts fragments of Markan language which have been pared away in his editing of Markan pericopes. To take just two examples: 9:30b-31 closely echo material which Matthew had passed over earlier from the Markan version of the healing of the leper (parts of Mk. 1:43, 45); Mt. 25:14 echoes language from Mk. 13:34, rescued from the unused Markan pericope 13:33-37, for which Mt. 25:14-30 will be Matthew’s equivalent. e second is Matthew’s capacity to x on an element of his tradition and to work it into his materials elsewhere. e sixfold use of ‘there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’, to be discussed further below, belongs here, as does the signi cant increase in the frequency of ‘Son of Man’ language in the sayings of Jesus, oen where Gospel parallels do not have the phrase. D. FROM EYEWITNESSES TO MATTHEW’S SOURCES 1. Matthew and His Sources as Early Church Documents We cannot tell for sure whether Matthew had any personal link with the ministry of Jesus. But what is clear is that his account of it is rooted in an understanding of its signi cance that belongs in the rst instance within the early church and not within Jesus’ own lifetime and, more importantly, that the small units that are its narrative building blocks have all the marks of having been well honed by extensive use within the life of the church rather than freshly formulated for their Gospel use. Classical form criticism has exaggerated the xity of the forms and the degree to which Gospel units were ever pure exemplars of the forms, but it was right to

focus on the prehistory of the use of the Gospel materials that was to be found echoed in their forms. 2. e Early Development and Role of the Gospel Tradition We have little direct information about the early decades of the church’s life. What we do know comes predominantly from Paul’s letters and from Acts. And neither of these sources throws a great deal of light on the early development of the Gospel tradition. ough Jesus’ identity, and his death and resurrection, are fundamental for Paul, very little of Jesus’ life story nds any echo in Paul’s letters. e accounts of the Last Supper in 1 Cor. 11:23-26 and of the resurrection appearances in 15:5-8 (aer the more formulaic and theologically interpreted account of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection) are important precisely because they are exceptional and focussed on the end of Jesus’ earthly life and beyond. e brief accounts of Jesus’ career in Acts focus on the Jewish rejection of Jesus and on his subsequent death and resurrection. Jesus’ earthly ministry can be covered by ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God through mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him, as you yourselves know’ (Acts 2:22) or ‘of [David’s] posterity God has brought to Israel a saviour, Jesus, as he promised’ (13:23). e most detailed account is addressed to Cornelius and those with him (10:36-39): e message [God] sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ — he is Lord of all. You know what happened through the whole of Judea, beginning in Galilee aer the baptism which John preached: Jesus from Nazareth — how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power — who went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him. And

we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the land of Judea and in Jerusalem.5

e Acts accounts more or less share the Pauline focus on death, resurrection, and beyond. But since the author of Acts is also the author of the Gospel of Luke, it is clear that he sensed no fundamental opposition between relating to the signi cance of Jesus predominantly in terms of his post-ministry experience and relating to the signi cance of Jesus in a major way through attention to the content of his actual ministry. Luke-Acts attests the importance of both. We should note that while Paul may never appeal in his letters to the historical Jesus as an authority,6 scholars have repeatedly spotted echoes of Jesus’ teaching in his letters. An important early role for the apostles seems to be a secure position, which is signi cant for the transmission into the life of the church of the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, and of his basic teaching. But our primary evidence for the role of the memory of Jesus’ activity and teaching in the life of the early church is actually the existence of the canonical Gospels and then, from there, the light that the likely pre-Gospel forms of the Gospel materials can throw on pre-Gospel use of these materials. 3. e Gospels and the Historical Jesus Scholars take very different views about how much we can learn about the historical Jesus from the canonical Gospels. I take quite an optimistic view. As will become clear below, I believe that Matthew wrote his Gospel before the Jewish war that led to the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in A.D. 70. On my understanding, that makes Mark and the Q document even earlier. e narrative materials in Mark (there are few such materials in Q)

show signs of having gained their form through a period of extensive use in what must be identi ed as a yet earlier period in the century. (My Gospel datings are earlier than normal among scholars, but not my view that the Gospel materials were widely transmitted and gaining their present forms in the decades immediately aer Jesus’ death.) By now we are well back into the life span of the eyewitnesses; indeed, we are back into the lifetimes of some, and perhaps many, of the apostolic gures. e forms were being honed through use alongside the continuing presence of eyewitnesses. is gives us reason to believe that if the tradition wanted to re ect accurately the reality of the historical Jesus, it was in a position to do so. So the question becomes: Did it want to? As I will have cause to say in a particular connection later in the commentary, So oen critical scholarship assumes that if something could have been made up by early Christians, then it must have been made up by early Christians. But that is to show undue scepticism. Early Christian tradents were no narrow literalists, and they were quite capable of embellishing and creating symbolic narratives, but they operated with a sense of integrity and responsibility which is oen not adequately reckoned with.

It was a religious conviction of those who preserved and passed on the Gospel tradition that something extraordinary had happened in the ministry of Jesus and that this was of signi cance not only for those who had been able to experience it directly but for others as well. As they talked about it, they did of course commend their own speci c theological convictions, but they were also of the opinion that a chief part of their task was to connect people with what had actually happened. A knowledge of what Jesus had said and done was a sacred trust to be passed on and not simply a pretext for religious propaganda. ere was something here to which the

tradents felt themselves answerable, not simply something that they could adapt and use as they wished. ese considerations do not eliminate the possibility of elements of oversimpli cation, confusion, or even misunderstanding and inadvertent distortion. (But because of the richness and range of what has been preserved and the subtle and careful work of the Evangelists, these matters should not worry us unduly. I also share the Christian view that a work of God and not simply a human endeavour is involved in the preservation of, and the elucidation of the signi cance of, what actually happened.) And they certainly do not place us in a position to separate early Christian conviction about Jesus sharply from the historical Jesus as his contemporaries experienced him. Nor do they imply that there are not huge gaps in our knowledge of the historical Jesus: the early tradents have preserved only what seemed useful to them; the rest has been irretrievably lost. ese considerations do, however, suggest that we may have considerable con dence that the Jesus with whom the Gospels connect us is, and is in detail, the Jesus who actually operated in Palestine in the rst century and not some mythical construct. e Gospel writers and those who supplied them their raw materials wanted people to get in touch with Jesus because of his potential signi cance for them, but they would feel no need to apologise for failing to meet all the needs of our historical curiosity. E. THE DATE OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 1. e Use of the Fall of Jerusalem as a Watershed for Dating Scholars have most commonly dated Matthew in the 80s or the 90s. But this is not to any signi cant degree because they have been able

to identify in Matthew features that re ect what is de nitely known of a situation in the 80s and 90s. ey regularly claim just one xed point: that Matthew re ects knowledge of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in A.D. 70. is knowledge is said to be re ected most clearly in Mt. 22:7 and is sometimes claimed to be re ected in 23:36, 38 and 24:2. But while they are likely right to think that the present form of Mt. 22:7 re ects the Jerusalem focus on the judgment materials of chaps. 23 and 24 (see the discussion at 22:7) and to that degree is not an original feature of the parable, there is no basis for going beyond this and claiming that Matthew has written in light of what actually happened in A.D. 70. Nothing in Matthew’s language encourages this belief. At 24:1-2 I grant that ‘it is not inconceivable that an original prophecy by Jesus has taken on some colouring from one or other crisis situation facing Jerusalem in the subsequent period’. But there is actually no sign in Matthew of colouring from the A.D. 70 events. In relation to what actually happened in A.D. 70, there ‘won’t be le here [one] stone upon [another] stone’ in Mt. 24:2 is already an exaggeration. NT critical scholarship has a curious capacity to identify as ‘genuine’ prophecy that which failed to be ful lled and, all too oen, to insist that ful lled prophecy is only aer-the-event description dressed up as prophecy. (OT critical scholarship seems to be more generous with its anticipation of the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 B.C.) e possibility of ‘touched-up’ prophecy is quite real, but to base the dating of Matthew on an assumption that the text could not have spoken so con dently of the coming judgment on Jerusalem and the temple if these had not already taken place represents an uncalled-for imposition. ose who date Matthew in the 80s or 90s do so largely on the assumption that Mark itself was written aer the fall of Jerusalem, with the extra decade or two to give it time for wide promulgation.

But the basis on which Mark is dated aer A.D. 70 is no more secure than is the A.D. 70 watershed in the case of Matthew. In both cases the dating is based on the claim that the text re ects knowledge of the actual fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; however, Mark offers even less evidence than Matthew on which to base this claim.7 Increasingly scholarship seems to be freshly open to the possibility of a pre–A.D. 70 date for Mark. 2. Other Claimed Dating Markers What else is there to go on in Matthew? Matthew has been accused of confusing the roles of the various categories of Jewish leadership during the period of Jesus’ ministry. But our knowledge base for determining how things were is quite limited, and at times Matthew might know more than we do. Matthew does in fact display reasonable historical logic in his groupings of Jewish leaders (see the discussion at 2:4), but sometimes he sits rather loose to the categories of Jewish leaders appearing in the sources he uses.8 Larger narrative needs sometimes overrule his concern for a historically more accurate attribution (see the discussion at 21:23). But here we are confronting Matthew’s artistry not coming up against the limitations of his knowledge. Some interpreters have thought that the material on being called ‘Rabbi’ in Mt. 23:7-8 re ects a post–A.D. 70 situation on the basis of the claim that ‘Rabbi’ was not used this way in Jesus’ lifetime. Information on the early period is sparse, but in discussing 23:7 I conclude that ‘Jesus’ ministry and the [pre–A.D. 70] period of development of the Gospel materials cover the period in which use of “rabbi” emerges and it gradually becomes an official title’. Others have argued that ‘Zechariah son of Barachiah’ in 23:35 is to be identi ed with the Zechariah the son of Baris who was

assassinated in the temple area by zealots in the Jewish uprising prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and feel justi ed, therefore, in dating the Gospel aer A.D. 70. But it seems altogether more likely that behind the reference to the murder of Zechariah the son of Barachiah in Mt. 23:35 lies the interpretive equation of Zechariah the son of Barachiah of Ze. 1:1 and the priest Zechariah whose murder in the temple courtyard is reported in 2 Ch. 24:2022. (See the discussion at Mt. 23:35.) Still others have looked to indicators of the degree of alienation of the Matthean community from the mainstream of Judaism for dating clues. But this is doubly difficult. Given the inner ris within rst-century Judaism and the mutual hostility that sometimes characterised the divisions, it is hard to be sure of what we may deduce from, for example, the hostility to the scribes and Pharisees in Mt. 23. Matthew’s Christians may well have had, for the most part, their own separate synagogues, but then so at times did other groups within Judaism, even, if we may judge from Acts 6:9, for reasons that did not necessarily point to sharp antagonism. Were Christians in any sense excluded from the Jewish synagogues in Matthew’s setting? Had Christians in Matthew’s setting withdrawn from the Jewish synagogue because it was not a t place for them to worship God? e evidence is inconclusive. is is once again an area in which our knowledge is strictly limited. And then, even if we could be clear about how to interpret the signals in Matthew, we have little knowledge about the development of the breach between Christianity and Judaism in the early decades. We have no welldelineated larger picture into which we can slot Matthew at the appropriate decade of development. 3. A Date before A.D. 70

Our discussion of the dating of Matthew began with Mt. 24; to this material we now return. In the discussion of 24:15-22 I have argued that despite all the horrors of the rst-century Jewish war, the events of the war cannot justify the description offered in v. 21. Much as had been true of the Daniel prophecies in their partial ful lment in Antiochus Epiphanes, the arrival of the ‘desolating sacrilege’ at the time of the Jewish war proved not to have the degree of immediate connection with the nal phase of the endtime events that had been anticipated. But Matthew’s account is not marked in the slightest by any attempt to soen the language to bring it more into line with what actually happened. Matthew anticipates the immediacy of connection (note his addition of ‘immediately’ in v. 29). He can, I think, do so only because for him the events of vv. 14-23 are still future. More broadly, the lack of precision in Mt. 24 and the limitation of a precise t between the materials in Mt. 24 and rst-century events between the time of Jesus and the outcome of the Jewish war make it likely that Matthew reports prophecy before the event, and not prophecy aer the event, as so oen maintained (see at 24:25). I conclude, therefore, that the state of Mt. 24 excludes the possibility that Matthew wrote aer A.D. 70. Is there anything that would help us guess how long before the war Matthew might have written? I have argued elsewhere that Luke wrote his Gospel and Acts against the background of a heightened Jewish nationalism and that a considerable part of the Lukan editing took place under the in uence of the need to respond apologetically to a Jewish polemical characterization of Christianity as hostile to foundational Jewish loyalties, such as to the Jewish Law and the Jerusalem temple.9 is background of heightened Jewish nationalism has led me to want to date Luke in the decade or so around the Jewish war: either in the buildup to it or in the

immediate aermath when the sensitivities stirred by the war period remain fresh. I have not found any re ection of a comparable heightened Jewish nationalism in Matthew. Matthew does evidence a comparable concern to affirm fundamental Christian loyalty to the Jewish Law. But the vigour and independence of Jesus as a teacher make this kind of apologetic intelligible at any point. (see the discussion at 5:17.) So it does not help us with dating. An apologetic concern would seem to lie behind the restriction of mission in 10:5. Matthew is here preparing, from the perspective of Jewish concerns, for the affirmation of multinational mission to which he will reach in 28:19. (see the discussion at 10:5.) Jewish sensibilities remain important to Matthew. But that is no surprise given the profound Jewishness of the whole Gospel; thus it does not help with dating. Despite its controversial status, Gentile mission emerged early in the life of the church, so reference to it in Matthew does not really help with dating either. At the most general level one might tentatively suggest that on the basis of the lack of any re ection of a heightened Jewish nationalism, Matthew is to be dated before the beginnings of the buildup to the Jewish war. F. THE PROVENANCE OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW Mark seems to have been written with non-Jews in mind, but all the features in Mark that point to a non-Jewish readership disappear in Matthew’s editing. Matthew promotes mission to all peoples, but he promotes it to Jewish Christians and to a constituency that appears not to have had any signi cant Gentile membership and seems not to have much natural social interaction with non-Jews. Were the

Gentile Christians in the region in separate churches (perhaps familiar with the Gospel of Mark), or were there yet no signi cant numbers of Gentile Christians there? We cannot tell, but Matthew’s use of Mark might be taken to favour the former option. We have already noted the profound Jewishness of the whole of the Gospel of Matthew. It is so pervasive that it hardly needs to be documented. Among the marks of this Jewishness we may note the in uence of postbiblical Jewish tradition on the telling of the story in Mt. 2, the use of ἐθνικός in blanket negative references to Gentiles,10 and the concern with all the minutiae of the Mosaic Law.11 But in Matthew’s story the Jewish leaders are uniformly hostile to Jesus, and though for most of the story the Jewish people are mainly depicted as having a positive attitude to Jesus, even these are eventually brought to support their leaders in pressing for the execution of Jesus. Matthew seems to have some con dence that the broad Jewish rejection of Jesus is not, however, the end of the story: he expected that the Jerusalem that had seen Jesus to his death would have a change of heart and ultimately be prepared to welcome him with the words ‘blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’ (see the discussion at 23:38). Moreover, starting as it does in Galilee, mission to all nations is for Matthew mission to Jews as well as to Gentiles. Matthew’s Christians clearly represent a minority Jewish view, but they are convinced that they have something to say to their fellow Jews. ey have had their share of hostility from their fellow Jews,12 but they have not allowed this to cut them off from their Jewish roots or to cause them to doubt their own Jewish identity. For all the hostility to Pharisees in Matthew, they and the scribes are recognised in 23:2 as valid sources for knowledge of the requirements of the Mosaic Law. Matthew writes for Jewish Christians who are very conscious of their Jewish identity. Can we say anything about where they lived?

Where would there have been a concentration of Jewish Christians whose primary language was Greek? Among the suggestions are Alexandria, Caesarea Maritima, Tyre or Sidon, Jerusalem, Edessa, and Pella, but the most popular suggestion has been Antioch. In both 4:15 and 19:1 ‘across the Jordan’ seems to mean to the west of the Jordan. Slingerland has pressed this viewpoint from the east of the Jordan to suggest a Transjordanian origin for the Gospel,13 but ‘across the Jordan’ in this sense need not be based on where these Christians lived. In 4:15 the perspective may be that of the entry into the Promised Land; in 19:1 the perspective may be based on travel through Perea as the standard way for coming south from Galilee to Judea. All the same, a home for the Matthean Christians that was not too far from the heart of Judaism has considerable attraction. Scholars generally favour an urban environment, and that seems likely to me, but at the end of the day we do not know where Matthew’s Christians lived.14 G. WHAT KIND OF DOCUMENT DID MATTHEW THINK HE WAS WRITING? 1. Matthew and the Ancient Biographical Writings As the life story of a revered gure, the Gospel of Matthew, like the other canonical Gospels, invites comparison with ancient biographical writings. ese were so diverse, however, that such comparison can take us only a relatively modest distance. We are indeed provided with an account of Jesus’ life story, and more particularly of his ‘career’. But there is no sense that Matthew reports this career as one that might sit alongside that of others whose biographies one might also be interested in reading. Of the ancient biographies those written about the founding gure of a

philosophical school and by disciples of the founding philosopher have the greatest similarity to a Gospel. In both cases it is something like a charter document which can provide de nition for the movement involved and provide a point of entry for those who might wish to align themselves with the movement. But though the disciples of the originator of a philosophical school looked to him as responsible for the foundational insights that de ned the movement and also frequently as a great example of and inspiration for how life was to be lived in the light of these foundational insights, his importance lay in what he perceived and how he acted and not also in who he was. Insight and example are important in Matthew, but so is christology. e basis on which Jesus spoke and acted is as important as what he said and did. Some comparison can be made here with biographies written about rulers where the royal identity of the gure is of some signi cance, but the degree of likeness is only slight. 2. Matthew and OT Accounts of the Lives of Key Figures A second useful point of comparison is provided by OT accounts of the lives of key gures in the history of Israel. e story of Elijah, with its outspoken prophetic challenges and its miracles, bears comparison, but it is especially to the stories of King David and King Solomon that we should look for the point of closest comparison. rough them God was achieving something fundamental for his people. What they do freshly de nes the life situation of God’s people on into the future. Here too we have ancient biographies, but what is important now is that these biographies are more fundamentally about what God is doing than about the human gure involved, and that these biographies are embedded in a larger story of the people of Israel and of God’s

dealings with his people. e story of Jesus is told as a continuation — indeed, as some kind of culmination — of the long story of God and his people. e Gospel of Matthew is not a freestanding story, but a story that must be set into a larger frame supplied by the history of God’s prior dealings with his people. 3. Matthew and Christian Proclamation e comparison with OT accounts alerts us to the need to get God into the story. But from more than one angle it still does not do justice to the signi cance of christology in Matthew’s story. For all the sense that Elijah, David, and Solomon were gures of huge signi cance for the Jewish people, they remained gures to whom one related as gures of the past. But Matthew tells the story of Jesus not out of a concern to link people with a gure of the past, but to link them with a gure who is still our contemporary. Matthew reports promises by the Jesus of the past to continue to be present with his disciples,15 and he expects that his story will serve as a catalyst for a complex religious experience that will con rm to responsive readers the validity of these promises.16 In this respect the expectation is that the story works with the same dynamic as the sermon. rough Christian proclamation people encountered the risen Christ, and they would also do so through the Gospel text. Claims that have been made that there is a unique gospel genre possess such validity as they have in this connection. e experience of how the Gospel message functioned in the early church has had its in uence on Matthew’s understanding of the kind of document he thought he was creating. 4. Matthew as a Manual for Discipleship

A notable feature of the Gospel of Matthew is its set of collections of teachings of Jesus, arranged by topic and presented schematically. ese are represented narratively as discourses of Jesus on particular occasions. eir pro le in the Gospel is enhanced by having the main ve of them linked by means of a common concluding formula. Largely as a result of the prominent role of these discourses, scholars have sometimes wanted to view Matthew as a catechetical manual. In light of the mission charge with which it ends, and which includes ‘teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’, the Gospel is clearly intended to function as a manual for discipleship. anks largely to the Sermon on the Mount the role of Jesus’ vision of the ethical and religious behaviour called for in connection with the kingdom of God is more prominent in Matthew than in the other Gospels, and thanks largely to the discourse in Mt. 18 the inner life of the disciples together as the church becomes a focus of attention in a manner not found in the other Gospels.17 Matthew’s self-understanding of the task of Gospel writing is oen thought to be re ected in Mt. 13:52, the text about being ‘discipled [to be] a scribe for the kingdom of heaven’. Despite the call to make disciples of all nations, the Gospel of Matthew lends itself more directly to playing a role in mission to fellow Jews than in mission to Gentiles. But the fact that throughout history Matthew has been the dominant Gospel of the Gentile church indicates that the bridge to Gentile usefulness does not have to reach too far. 5. Matthew and Jewish Midrash Some interpreters have wanted to draw a connection between the Gospel of Matthew and Jewish midrash. In Jewish midrash biblical stories are sometimes retold with elaborate, edifying

embellishments. To some degree Matthew displays an identi able ‘midrashic’ manner of retelling the stories. Inasmuch as midrash might involve the presentation of an edifying theological interpretation of Jesus, Matthew could be said to t the category. His Jewish writing style and his way of echoing of biblical and wider Jewish tradition are also reminiscent of Jewish midrash. But Jewish midrash is also characterised by the embellishment of the core biblical narrative with accounts of imagined events provided to illustrate some truth or other. ere is very little in the Gospel of Matthew that invites comparison with midrash in this sense (with the core narrative of the ministry of Jesus taking the place of the core biblical narrative). Some scholars have, however, wanted to relate to the infancy materials in this manner; the temptation account and the opening of the tombs have at times been thought to be midrashic embellishment as well. 6. Matthew and Christian Self-Definition e erce criticism of the scribes and Pharisees in Mt. 23 has led some interpreters to suggest that self-de nition over against the Jewish ‘opposition’ was a key purpose for Matthew in writing his Gospel. Certainly Mt. 23 is quite polemical, and Matthew is surely concerned to claim that the Christian movement, over against Jews who have rejected Jesus, is the line of continuity from the OT and the sphere of God’s present working. But these points are made in the service of more fundamental concerns which are better represented in the points made above. 7. Matthew and the Jewish Festal Calendar

e nal suggestion to be reviewed here is that Matthew wrote a document which was meant to be read liturgically in the ow of the Jewish festal year. To my way of thinking the connections with the Jewish festal year are more ingenious than convincing. 8. How Matthew Intended His Gospel to Be Related to e various suggestions as to the kind of document Matthew intended to write raise the question of how he intended his Gospel to be related to. Was it intended to be read and listened to from beginning to end in a single session? Did Matthew envisage that it would be subjected to the kind of careful perusal and study that was clearly the case with the biblical materials? Did he have in mind that it should be related to at various levels? e strong story line would t with a ‘performance’ of the Gospel, but the extended discourses of Jesus and their density suggest the need for other ways of relating to the material. Topical organisation and heavy structuring might suggest a role as a reference manual. e subtlety of the allusive quality of so much of the Gospel material is such that most of it would be lost in a single encounter on most of even the most biblically literate of readers or hearers. e complexity of the patterns of cross reference within the Gospel itself reveal themselves only to those who give patient and repeated attention to the text. Matthew seems to have understood himself to be creating a foundational text to which people would feel the need to return again and again. And that is what the church has done with his Gospel throughout its history. H. THE STATE OF THE GOSPEL TEXT

e text that I comment on in the commentary is a reconstructed text: the long tradition of copying by hand that lies behind our possession of the Greek text of Matthew means that the surviving Greek texts all differ from each other to some degree. e earliest surviving texts are fragmentary papyrus texts. Some of these come from as early as the second or possibly early third century.18 But, unfortunately, none of the surviving papyrus texts contains more than a small part of the whole Gospel of Matthew. Papyrus is quite fragile, so it is only with the beginning of the use of parchment for Bible texts that we get full surviving texts. e earliest parchment texts are from the fourth century: Codex Sinaiticus, designated ‫א‬, and Codex Vaticanus, designated B, both have a complete text of Matthew. From the h century there are texts designated A, C, D (Codex Bezae), and W. A is damaged at the beginning and has therefore lost most of its text of Matthew (it starts with Mt. 25:7). C is also not complete, missing 1:1-2; 5:15–7:5; 17:26–18:28; 22:21–23:17; 24:10-45; 25:30–26:22; 27:11-46; 28:1520. Codex Bezae has lost 1:1-20; 6:20–9:2; 27:2-12. is text is worthy of special note because similar readings are used by patristic writers and re ected by the Old Latin versions and the Curetonian Syriac version. is means that we should in effect count it as re ecting a text that goes back to the time of our earliest witnesses — which does not necessarily make it the most reliable witness to the original. W has a complete text of Matthew. Some other fourthand h-century parchments also preserve small pieces of Matthew. Additional parchment texts date from the sixth to the ninth centuries. Early translations constitute additional important areas of evidence for reconstructing the text. Translations were being made already in the second century, and manuscripts survive from the fourth century onwards.

Another source of readings is surviving lectionary texts. ese consist, naturally, of extracts rather than whole texts, and sometimes, in the interests of lectionary use, include minor editorial changes at the beginning or end to make them selfcontained for reading; used with care, however, they can provide valuable evidence. Surviving lectionaries are from the sixth century on. e comments of patristic writers on texts can help identify early readings, but their actual quotations have not always been reliably copied in the transmission of these texts. A huge scholarly investment has been made in the reconstruction of the original text of Matthew. is has produced a text which has achieved a high level of scholarly consensus. A very close approximation to the original text of Matthew has, I think, been achieved.19 ough I have freshly scrutinised the textual variants and paid careful attention to how the variant readings may have arisen, particularly where something of interpretive signi cance is involved, I have not invested heavily in the reconstruction of the Matthean text in this commentary, nor have I made source issues a major investment. e readings I have accepted are, with few exceptions, those found in NANTG 27. I. ELEMENTS OF MATTHEW’S NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE 1. Repetition of Formulas Matthew likes to repeat formulas. He sometimes repeats formulas to identify as sets materials that are scattered throughout the Gospel. He does so notably with the set of ten OT citations, beginning with 1:22-23, which are introduced with variants of ‘all this happened so

that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be ful lled’, and with the ve main discourses, all of which end with something like ‘it so happened that when Jesus had nished these words’. e repetition of formulas also unites materials that are found together: ‘good fortune now to the/those’ in 5:3-10; variations of ‘you have heard that it was said to the people of old. … But I say to you’ in the six antitheses of 5:21-48; three parables in sequence in 13:24-33 each introduced as ‘another parable’, and three in sequence in vv. 44-48 each introduced with ‘the kingdom of heaven is like’; seven woes in 23:13-33 introduced, with one exception, with ‘woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites’; and so on. However, the six uses of ‘there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’, starting with 8:12, are not intended to create a set, only to emphasise a point that was already made in Matthew’s tradition, but which he chooses to highlight by repetition. e Matthean Jesus twice repeats John the Baptist’s ‘offspring of vipers’ (3:7) with reference to the Pharisees. Again there is no set, but this repetition does contribute to the increased parallelling of John and Jesus in which Matthew invests in various ways, and to the negative Matthean characterisation of the Pharisees. Another kind of repetition may be illustrated from 19:30 and 20:16. Matthew introduces the parable of 20:1-15 to illustrate the principle embodied in 19:30 (drawn from Mk. 10:31); he marks this by providing a near repetition of 19:30 in 20:16 to provide a frame around the parable. Another important example of this kind of repetition is the near repetition of 4:23 in 9:35, which serves to underlines the importance of reading chaps. 5–7 and 8–9 together. A further example of interest is the repetition of ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ from 5:3 in v. 10. is helps to mark the beatitudes from vv. 3-10 as a set, to be distinguished from that to follow in vv. 11-12 (in which there is also a move from third person

to second and a more expansive and quite different overall structure). Yet another kind of repetition of a formula is found in 4:17; 16:21. Having marked an important transition in 4:17 with ‘from that time’, Matthew uses the same formula for a second important transition in 16:21.20 2. Use of the Same Source Information on More than One Occasion Matthew can be repetitive in other respects as well. e presence of doublets in Matthew has oen been explained in terms of sources, and this may well be part of the story. But Matthew is also capable of using the same source information on more than one occasion. 9:27-31 provides an interesting instance of this. On the basis of a skeletal use of material that he will use primarily in 20:29-34, Matthew has taken the opportunity, as he moves towards the end of his section, to formulate an account that draws together motifs from the range of healing accounts and related materials that he has presented through chaps. 8–9. For the nal episode of Matthew’s section here he will again use material which he will primarily use elsewhere (9:32-34; 12:22-24); as adapted by Matthew here, it establishes a contrast between people and leaders that is of importance for Matthew’s story. Repetition makes its own contribution to Matthew’s artistry, and he uses it to establish emphasis.21 3. Framing We have discussed framing above in connection with repetition of formulas. But Matthew will frame in other ways as well. By the use of 8:18-22 (would-be followers of Jesus) and 9:9-13 (the call of

Matthew, the tax collector), Matthew has created a discipleship frame which establishes the theme for the enclosed set of miracle stories in 8:23–9:8 as well. Matthew structures the Passion Narrative by means of a complex pattern of framing. He has a sixfold structure. Matthew highlights six items of the Passion Narrative by putting a frame around each. In the rst and last cases the frame becomes a double frame arranged in a chiastic manner (see the discussion at 26:1-2). is takes us to Matthew’s use of chiasm. 4. Chiasm Framing is the simplest form of chiasm (symmetrical parallelling of elements, generally around an emphasised centre — the next simplest form of chiasm beyond framing has an ABCB′A′ pattern). Matthew makes considerable use of chiasms, on the large scale and the small. He begins the Gospel with a chiasmic frame in 1:1, 17 (ABC, genealogy, C′B′A′) for the genealogy in vv. 2-16. In this case each half of the frame summarises the signi cance of the enclosed genealogy. e notices of Jesus’ arrival from and departure to Galilee in 3:13; 4:12 provide a framing which brackets together the two enclosed episodes which mark the period of preparation of the adult Jesus for his ministry. e framing role of 4:23; 9:35 mentioned above seems to be caught up in a larger chiasm because before the one and aer the other we have material on the mission of the disciples (4:18-22; 9:36–11:1), and before and aer these in turn we have material concerned with setting up the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus (3:1–4:17; 11:2-19). A chiasmic feature of Matthew’s subdivision of the materials of the section 8:2– 9:33 is evident in the way that he generalises and interprets the rst of the three subsections by placing 8:16-17 at its end, focuses the interpretation of the second set with, as noted above, a discipleship

frame consisting of 8:18-22; 9:9-13, and provides the third set with its interpretive perspective by prefacing it with 9:14-17. ere are many other chiasms in Matthew, some of which are featured in the ‘Annotated Structural Outline of Matthew’, below. 5. Parallelism Repetition and chiasm both involve the use of parallelism, but Matthew’s fondness for parallelism is much more pervasive. It is likely that Matthew uses concentrations of one of his favourite words, τότε (‘then’), to create a minor parallelism between his accounts of Herod and Jesus, John and Jesus, and the devil and Jesus (see at 2:7). Matthew takes up twice in the temptation narrative, in description of the devil’s action, the verb παραλαμβάνειν (‘take with’) which he has used twice in his description of Joseph’s action. is seems to be set up as a minor antithetical parallelism between Joseph and Herod: Joseph acts to protect the infant Jesus; the devil seeks to entice the newly emergent adult Jesus to his doom. Matthew establishes something of a parallelism between Peter and Judas, with denial set in parallel with betrayal both in 26:20-25, (30)31-35 and in 26:47-56, 69-75 (see the discussion at 26:1-2). We have already mentioned Matthew’s investment in increasing the parallelism between John the Baptist and Jesus. A notable part of this increase is in Matthew’s use of exactly the same words to summarise the preaching of the two gures (3:2; 4:17). Matthew oen spots a measure of parallelism in his source materials, as in the case of John and Jesus, and accents the parallelism. In 4:18-22, for example, he presents a series of special touches to enhance the formal parallelism between the call of Peter and Andrew, and that of James and John.

6. Imperfect Parallelism Matthew feels no need, however, to create perfect parallels. In the various formulas discussed above he typically provides variation in detail between instances of the recurring formula. Oen careful observation reveals that the variations in formula play their own role (e.g., the variations in the case of the OT formula citations), but this is not necessarily the case (e.g., the failure of pattern in 23:16, which is best given a source explanation, or the parallelled introductions in 6:2, 5, 16 to the three kinds of piety, where the rst is different from the other two in using the second person singular and not the second person plural). It seems that Matthew, in reproducing the structuredness of his source forms, can ignore their structural features in favour of his own intended structuring (see the discussion of sources above) or can damage the structure by his own editing (this seems to be the case, e.g., in 11:28-30, where, despite the marks of structuring in paired words and phrases, repetition of key elements, and balancing and linking of clauses, the only successful structuring proposals that have been offered all frame something different from the present Matthean text). 7. Internal Cross-Referencing by Means of Language Echoes Internal cross referencing through echoing of language is an important technique for Matthew. e introduction of παραλαμβάνειν into the Temptation Narrative, noted above, is an example of this. In the discussion at 25:31-32 I draw attention to a complicated web of verbal links that connect these verses to 24:3031 and 13:41, 49: Mt. 25:31 is linked with 24:30-31 and partly from there to 13:41 (24:31 has been in uenced by 13:41); 25:32 links with 13:49, which in turn echoes 13:41. Matthew works scores of these cross references into his text. Most of the time they seem to

establish thematic continuity, but sometimes their role seems to be less serious. Matthew provides an elaborate set of parallels between 2:22–3:2 and 4:12-17. e point seems to be that just as the presence of the infant Jesus in Nazareth provided the reference time for the beginning of the preaching ministry of John, so the arrival of the adult Jesus in Capernaum provides the reference time for the beginning of the preaching ministry of Jesus. ere is, however, a certain arti cial formality, or perhaps better a playfulness, about this parallelism; Matthew presumably uses it to prepare his readers for the various cross echoes which he establishes between John and Jesus. Some of the cross links in vocabulary seem to be nothing more than means by which Matthew weaves his materials together. An instance of Matthew’s playful cross linking is probably to be identi ed in the shared sequence τότε (‘then’) … ἰδών (‘seeing’) plus reference to wrath found in 2:16 and 3:7: as awful as its consequences are, the wrath of Herod is not the real thing. 8. eme-Setting Episodes We noted above that 9:14-17 provides a statement of theme for the sub section 9:14-33. As far as I can see, this is the rst time Matthew makes use of an episode, and actually one of quite a different kind from the rest of the set that it heads, to establish a theme for the following materials. However, having pioneered it here, he will come back to this procedure again for the section 17:22–18:35. At 16:21 the movement of Matthew’s story turns towards Jerusalem. Until Jesus enters Jerusalem in 21:11, each of the sections will begin with some statement that reminds the reader of its goal in Jerusalem (16:21; 17:22; 19:1; 20:17). For the rst and last of these the opening statement ts thematically with what follows, but this is not the case for the middle two sections, where the opening piece

serves simply to sustain the thrust towards Jerusalem and the fate that awaits Jesus there. e theme for these sections must be established in some other way. It is clear enough from the pieces included in 19:1–20:16 that the section is to deal with issues of family and possessions, but for 17:22–18:35 Matthew feels the need to establish a perspective from which he intends his readers to relate to what follows. Matthew uses 17:24-27 to provide a thematic introduction to the section. e introduction invites the reader to view the coming material as concerned with status and behaviour in the ‘royal family’. 9. Sectional Overlaps For the most part Matthew has clear-cut endings and beginnings, but in a number of places the material seems to function in a transitional manner or, perhaps better, to function as both the end of one piece and the beginning of a new piece. As previously noted, 4:12 serves with 3:13 to establish a frame around a section. But to divide 4:12 from v. 13 is somewhat arti cial since v. 12 marks the return to Galilee which establishes the beginning point for 4:13-16. V. 12 is transitional. I drew attention above to the way in which Matthew provides an elaborate set of parallels between 2:22–3:2 and 4:12-17. But what I did not draw attention to is the way in which 2:22–3:2 is made up of the end of a Matthean section and the beginning of the next. Matthew is concerned here to provide an interplay between his sections on the interrelationship of John the Baptist and Jesus. e formula with which the major Gospel discourses are brought to a conclusion (as discussed above) generally introduces the piece that provides the beginning of the following section.

10. Dramatisation We come nally to what might be called Matthew’s air for dramatisation. I noted above that Matthew is considerably more conservative in the reproduction of the words of Jesus than in the rendering of narrative. No doubt this feature is, in part, based on Matthew’s respect for the words of Jesus. But it must also be set into relation to Matthew’s notably stronger preference for telling his story through the words of his characters than is evident in the other Synoptists. When Matthew abbreviates his narratives, the words of his characters do not typically take their share of the abbreviation. More than that, Matthew at times represents extra elements of the story in the form of direct speech. For example, in 26:42 Matthew uses words for one more of Jesus’ sessions of prayer in Gethsemane, and in v. 72 for another of Peter’s responses to the claims that he had a connection with Jesus. Matthew can also increase the drama of his accounts by writing into the text spoken parts that are represented only in a general and indirect manner in his sources or by adding extra characters with speaking roles. e former is the case, for example, in 26:15, where he puts words on the lips of Judas, and the latter is the case in 15:23, where he has the disciples play a role that has no counterpart in Mark. Matthew can turn into direct speech what in his source was an editorial comment, as he does in the case of the rst clause of 26:2. His parables also tend to contain more conversational interchange. J. MATTHEW’S USE OF THE OT Matthew’s use of the OT achieves prominence through the ten formula citations, already discussed. But these are only the tip of the iceberg. Matthew also has at least sixty quotations from the OT and a large number of allusions. He quotes the OT at least twice as oen

as any other Gospel writer. Here is a work that is saturated with the OT. I intend to address two matters here. e rst is that of text forms available to Matthew. e second is that of how Matthew interprets the OT. 1. Text Forms Available to Matthew a. Mt. 1–2 First we will survey in Matthean sequence the main OT quotations in search of the basis of Matthew’s knowledge of the OT. Matthew writes in Greek, so there is an obvious likelihood that he knows the OT in Greek. His Greek OT may not have been identical to our preserved LXX, but the LXX is our best reference point for the Greek text as he will have known it. From time to time the point Matthew wants to make depends on a form of text preserved in the LXX. Matthew’s rst quotation in 1:23 is a good case in point. Speci c renderings at two key points mean that the LXX translation of Is. 7:14 lends itself admirably to Matthew’s interpretation. By contrast, however, the next citation in Mt. 2:6 is not at all close to the LXX. It is not much closer to the MT, but working from a Hebrew base allows emendation in word division and pointing to produce additional points of agreement. In addition, the last clause of the quotation is the result of a merging, on the basis of some verbal overlap, of a clause from 2 Sa. 5:2 (or 1 Ch. 11:2) into the main quotation from Mi. 5:1 (ET v. 2). is kind of merging will recur several times in Matthew e text form for the citation from Je. 31(38):15 in Mt. 2:18 is closer to the MT than to the LXX, but it probably also betrays some LXX in uence.

Only knowledge of the Hebrew text makes it possible to work out what is happening in Mt. 2:23, Matthew’s next ‘quotation’ (no OT text in any form has anything like what Matthew provides); the Greek is irrelevant. By the end of the infancy materials we have found (1) use of an LXX text-type; (2) use of a non-LXX wording based on a difference of Hebrew word division and vowel pointing from the MT; (3) use of composite quotations formed on the basis of verbal overlap between the different OT texts drawn upon; (4) a text form that seems to betray LXX text-type in uence on a basically MT text form; and (5) an unidenti able quotation which can make any kind of sense only in relation to the Hebrew OT. b. Mt. 3–9 e quotation from Is. 40:3 in Mt. 3:3 has the LXX wording (as in the other Synoptic Gospels), as do the four quotations in 4:1-11. e situation in 4:15-16 is, however, more complex. e LXX text of Is. 9:1-2 (LXX 8:23–9:1) seems to be based on a Hebrew version that has lost a phrase and has therefore, in compensation, been signi cantly restructured (though the general sense is not substantially altered). Matthew follows the overall structure of the LXX, but with a considerable number of verbal differences which in nearly every case either suggest an independent reading of the Hebrew or speci cally bring the text more into line with the Hebrew. e text form in Mt. 8:17 is a fairly literal translation of the Hebrew text of Is. 53:4, which is quite different from that of the LXX. Given the brevity of the quotation from Ho. 6:6 in Mt. 9:13 and variant readings in the LXX, we cannot determine what text is

re ected there. e materials of chaps. 3 to 9 exhibit more LXX readings than anything else, but they add to the ve text forms identi ed for chaps. 1–2 the following: (6) a basically LXX text-type which has been modi ed at various points on the basis of an independent reading of the Hebrew; and (7) a fairly literal translation of an MT text-type. c. Mt. 10–18 In the use of Mi. 7:6 in Mt. 10:35-36, Matthew’s wording for the nal clause — the only place where the language is close enough to tell — links to that of the MT and not of the LXX. For the rst clause of the quotation in Mt. 11:10 the wording is identical to that of the LXX of Ex. 23:20.22 e second clause echoes Mal. 3:1, but the language is signi cantly in uenced by the application, and, though not close to either the LXX or the MT, is derivable from the latter and not the former. As in Mt. 2:6, the merging is based on verbal overlap between the OT texts. In the case of the extended quotation from Is. 42:1-4 in Mt. 12:18-21, the text form is closer to the MT than to the LXX, but with LXX features at points. In the quotation from Is. 6:9-10 in Mt. 13:14-15 we have, distinctively, the exact use of the LXX for an extended quotation. e form of the citation from Ps. 78(LXX 77):2 in Mt. 13:35, however, again re ects Matthew’s multilingual competence. For the rst clause the wording is identical to that of the LXX, but for the second clause he seems to offer an independent rendering of the Hebrew. Mt. 15:8-9 follows closely the LXX of Is. 29:13 (minor changes may be the result of correcting the LXX in light of a Hebrew text

which is closer to the MT). is time, however, the LXX text used in Mt. 15:9 re ects a different Hebrew text, and this difference of text is crucial for the Gospel use. e materials of chaps. 10–18 have more LXX readings than anything else, but Matthew’s multilingual competence continues to be evident in the blending of MT and LXX features. To the seven text forms identi ed earlier there is not much to add. But we should note (8) the exact use of LXX wording for an extended quotation; (9) use of the LXX where it re ects a different Hebrew text from the MT, and where this difference is crucial for the Gospel use; and (10) heavy in uence on the wording of a text from the application intended. d. Mt. 19–25 For the quotations from Gn. 1:27 and 2:24 in Mt. 19:4, 5 the LXX wording is re ected. For the quotation from the Ten Commandments in Mt. 19:1819 Matthew has the MT order for the shorter commandments, but uses the future verb forms found in the LXX. In Mt. 21:5 part of Is. 62:11 is merged with Zc. 9:9. e text has strong LXX features but also several features which suggest independent consultation of the Hebrew. e acclamation of the crowds in Mt. 21:9 is based on Ps. 118(LXX 117):25-26. e language is basically that of the LXX, but ὡσαννά seems to be Aramaic and so neither the σῶσον δή (‘save indeed’) of the LXX nor a direct transliteration of the Hebrew hwšyʿhnʾ, which would transliterate into Greek as ὡσιαννά (‘hosianna’). Here the Hebrew text seems to be being mediated into the Greek via a customary use of the Aramaic term as a greeting.

Mt. 21:13 brings together Is. 56:7 and Je. 7:11, again on the basis of a measure of commonality. e language is that of the LXX, but in each case it is also the immediately obvious way of rendering the Hebrew. In Mt. 21:16 the LXX language of Ps. 8:3 (ET v. 3) is used. e citation from Ps. 118(LXX 117):22-23 in Mt. 21:42 agrees exactly with the LXX, which in turn is a fairly literal translation of the Hebrew, though there is evidence that the connection between the citation and the parable to which it is linked preceded the Greek stage of the parable. Heavy paraphrase is involved in the reference to Dt. 25:5 in Mt. 22:24, but in uence from the Greek text of the related material in Gn. 28:8 is evident. e language for Ex. 3:6 in Mt. 22:32 is that of the LXX, but also the natural way to render the Hebrew. e language of Ps. 110(LXX 109):1 in Mt. 22:44 is mostly that of the LXX. Differences seem to be in the interest of conforming the text to the language of Ps. 8:6, but this is a carryover from Mark and plays no discernible role for Matthew. (Is this one text that Matthew did not freshly scrutinise?) e quotation of Ps. 118(LXX 117):26 in Mt. 23:39 is the language of the LXX, which is, however, a literal translation of the Hebrew. e materials of chaps. 19–25 do not add a lot to the picture. e main text form is of an LXX type, but a merging of LXX and MT features is frequent. To our cumulating list we may add (11) quite loose paraphrase; and (12) in uence on the text of current Aramaic idiom. e. Mt. 26–28

e citation of Zc. 13:7 in Mt. 26:31 is loose, but it is clearly not based on the LXX but on the Hebrew text. In the quotation of Zc. 11:13 (said to be from Jeremiah) in Mt. 27:9, for the rst part the language is close to that of the LXX, but it is also the most natural translation into Greek of the Hebrew text; for the second part we seem to have an independent translation of the MT, and none of the language is Septuagintal. Matthew treats the ‘quotation’ as continuing into v. 10, where Matthew seems to have combined an allusion to Zc. 11:13 with allusions to texts from Jeremiah (and one from Jos. 24:31). ough there is not enough to say of a quotation referring to wine contaminated with gall, the wine in Mt. 26:34 and the sour wine (ὄξος) of v.48 are a nice echo of Ps. 68:22 LXX (MT 69:22; ET 69:21). LXX language also seems to be re ected in the echo of Ps. 22:19 (ET v. 18; LXX 21:18) in Mt. 27:35. Again, in uence from the LXX text form seems clear in the echo of Ps. 22:9 (ET v. 8; LXX 21:8) in Mt. 27:43. e situation is different when we get to the use of Ps. 22:2 (LXX 21:2; ET 22:1) in Mt. 27:46. Here we get a transliterated text with an attached translation into Greek. e translation includes some LXX language, but it is best treated as an independent translation of the transliterated text. e transliterated text itself seems to be an Aramaic rendering of the original Hebrew text of the psalm. As earlier, the main text form is of an LXX type in chaps. 26 to 28, but some quotations re ect the MT in whole or in part. To our list we may add (13) continuation of a quotation with material that represents a complex set of allusions to various OT texts; and (14) use and translation into Greek of an Aramaic rendering of the original Hebrew text.

f. Conclusion Our survey of OT quotations in Matthew has identi ed fourteen different approaches to the generation of the wording of the quotations. Since these have been summarised section by section above, there is no need to repeat the information here. Many smaller pieces in Matthew could also be claimed as quotations, but we have surveyed the main ones and have a good basis for drawing general conclusions about the nature of the access to the OT that was available to Matthew. ough some of Matthew’s text forms come to him straight from the Gospel tradition, the overall impression is of a man who freshly scrutinises, at least on many occasions, the OT texts to which he appeals, and is able to do so in Greek, Hebrew (not always the Hebrew of the preserved MT), and occasionally in Aramaic. When it suits him to do so, he produces translations that re ect in uence along more than one track of tradition.23 2. How Matthew Interprets the OT We turn now to the second question in search of ways in which Matthew interprets the OT. To attempt a list here of all Matthew’s uses of the OT would be excessive and could prove repetitive, so I will not attempt to be exhaustive. I will, nonetheless, try to illustrate the full range of Matthew’s approach, at least for the de nite quotations.24 ere is also a huge range of roles for echoes of the OT, but for the most part I will not address these here. I have offered comments on them throughout the commentary. In the genealogy with which Matthew begins his Gospel he echoes Genesis materials at the beginning and then draws on Ru. 4:18-22, supplemented by 1 Ch. 3:10-19. By evoking important

aspects of the story of Israel’s history the genealogy functions as a compressed retelling of the OT story. e rst explicit quotation comes in Mt. 1:23, the rst of the formula citations. Matthew offers a particular eschatological interpretation of Is. 7:14. e justi cation for doing so will be, in the rst instance, the widespread Jewish recognition that the ful lment of this, as of much other OT prophecy, had in the original time period been something less than seemed to be being offered by the prophecy, and the consequent inference that a greater ful lment must still be in store. At times it can be hard to tell when Matthew envisages ful lment in strictly prophetic terms and when he would be content to claim that an important biblical pattern is being reiterated in connection with Jesus. But the role of the second formula citation, in 2:15, is clearly to establish an Israel typology: as a little later in adult life Jesus will be called upon to relive the wilderness temptations of Israel (4:1-11), so now as an infant he retraces in his own life the foundational experience of Israel in being called by God out of Egypt. In the very next formula citation, in 2:18, Matthew is in all likelihood concerned to make the claim that the infant Jesus participated in a version of the Exile. Strictly speaking, there is no quotation in the next formula citation, in v. 23. But insofar as we can track Matthew’s intentions here, it seems that he is interested in the use of the root nṣr in Is. 11:1 and 42:6 and wants to suggest that Jesus is the one who will be able to take up the ministry of the Isaianic servant (42:6) and will come to be confessed (by at least some) as the Davidic messiah (11:1). While in 4:13-16 Matthew could have appealed to Is. 9:1-2 in a quite general way in relation to Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, instead he nds signi cance in the particular details of Jesus’ link with

Nazareth (in Zebulun) and Capernaum (in Naphtali). is is not to say that he does not believe that Jesus ful ls the prophecy in a wider sense, only that he gains a concreteness of focus by attending to speci c details. In some of the other formula quotations this same interest in matching Jesus to speci c points of detail in the text is also to be noted, and notably so in the use of Zc. 9:9 in Mt. 21:5, where Matthew, distinctively, has Jesus riding on two animals, which is probably to make a piece of prophetic symbolism out of the journey into Jerusalem. e appeal to Ho. 6:6 in Mt. 9:13 is for moral guidance. e abiding role of the Mosaic law for moral guidance is affirmed in 5:17-20. e antitheses to follow in 5:21-48 are not to be understood as overturning the Mosaic commandments to which they make reference, but as providing a more adequate interpretation of their scope and deeper intention. ere will be the same appeal for ethical guidance to Gn. 2:24 in Mt. 19:5 and to the Ten Commandments in Mt. 19:18-19. e use of Mi. 7:6 in Mt. 10:45-46 seems to be based on a logic that works like this: Mi. 7 describes the parlous situation in which the prophet nds himself as he waits for the salvation of God; this is precisely the situation in which Christian disciples nd themselves as they await the eschatological salvation that is to be theirs beyond their present role in witness. Mi. 7 can, thus, be appealed to as providing a paradigm for the situation of hard-pressed disciples. It is hard to be sure quite what is happening in Mt. 11:10, with the con ation of Mal. 3:1 and Ex. 23:20. Matthew’s use of Mal. 3:1 seems straightforwardly prophetic, but is the fusion with Ex. 23:20 intended to introduce the imagery of entry into the promised inheritance and thus an element of typology?

e quotation from Is. 6:9-10 in Mt. 13:14-15 seems to be used paradigmatically to suggest that the context of Jesus’ ministry is much the same as that of Isaiah’s ministry and therefore that Jesus shapes his approach in recognition of this. e citation from Ps. 78(LXX 77):2 in Mt. 13:35 also seems to be paradigmatic. On a bigger canvas Jesus does what the psalmist before him had done. e appeal to Ps. 8:3 (ET v. 2) in Mt. 21:16 is once again paradigmatic. e use of Is. 29:13 in 15:8-9 is perhaps primarily paradigmatic, but Matthew’s sense of the capacity of Scripture to freshly address a new situation, beyond the original historical one of the prophet, also seems to be involved: the future story of God’s dealings with his people and not just the past of his dealings with them is wrapped up in the prophetic writings. e acclamation of the crowds in Mt. 21:9, based on Ps. 118(LXX 117):25-26, is not actually an appeal to Scripture, but is rather to be seen as a development from the festal greeting of arriving pilgrims, itself based on the language of the psalm (cf. Mt. 23:38). In the use of Is. 56:7 in Mt. 21:13 Matthew appeals to an element of the ideal future that is promised for the temple in order to criticise the status quo, but he probably also suggests implicitly that with Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom of heaven the time has come for the realisation of God’s promises of Is. 56. e use of Je. 7:11 in Mt. 21:13 comes from a description of how things were in Jerusalem in the sixth century B.C. e point is that the situation with regard to worship in the temple is once more like it was then. If the use of Is. 56:7 carried an implicit claim that something better was coming, then the use of Je. 7:11 is likely to carry an implicit threat of judgment on the temple.

Ps. 118(LXX 117):22-23 as used in Mt. 21:42 belongs in the context of thanksgiving for restoration. It is to be seen as in the rst instance paradigmatic, but once linked with the restoration of Israel it lends itself to a messianic reading, and was so read in developing Jewish tradition. Mt. 22:32’s appeal to Ex. 3:6 involves reasoning from a divine self-declaration. Ps. 110(LXX 109) is assumed to be messianic in the appeal to v. 1 in Mt. 22:44. e use of Zc. 13:7 in Mt. 26:31 is only the most explicit of a whole set of links with materials from Zc. 11–13. ough the thought development of Zc. 11–12 is not easy to follow, the material used from Zc. 11–12 is all about the failure of the shepherding process among God’s people and God’s subsequent judgment; God’s people will be caught up in the fate of the shepherd, as God puri es his people by judgment. Comment on the contemporary situation, prophetic symbolism, and prophecy about what is coming are all involved in Zc. 11–13. e appeal to Zc. 11–13 in Matthew probably mixes the paradigmatic and the prophetic, in the process reapplying to a new situation judgment prophecy that initially related to an earlier context. Language from Ps. 22:2 (ET v. 1) is set on the lips of Jesus on the cross in Mt. 27:46. Ps. 22 offers an example of that puzzling form of abandonment by God in which the righteous are at the mercy of their enemies with no help in sight. Jesus’ situation is being identi ed as a rather special instance of what is outlined in Ps. 22. Various other echoes of psalm fragments in the Passion Narrative are used to link the sufferings of Jesus with OT patterns of the undeserved suffering of the righteous. In summary, we have been able to observe Matthew using OT material (1) to retell the OT story as context for the coming of Jesus;

(2) to straightforwardly claim the ful lment of previously unful lled prophecy (some texts are treated as speci cally messianic) — sometimes Matthew achieves a concreteness of focus by nding signi cance in speci c details; (3) to claim the eschatological ful lment of prophecy that has thus far had only a partial and inadequate historical ful lment (the line between this and the previous category is a blurred one); (4) to identify important biblical patterns as being reiterated in connection with Jesus; (5) to identify fundamental ethical principles of abiding signi cance; (6) to provide paradigms from the history of God’s people which are pertinent to the present situation (for Matthew the paradigmatic seems to shade into the prophetic, probably at times in terms of eschatological reiteration) — the use of psalm quotations to link the sufferings of Jesus with OT patterns of the undeserved suffering of the righteous is a notable paradigmatic use: Jesus’ situation is being identi ed as a rather special case of righteous suffering; (7) to appeal to an element of the ideal future that is promised in order to criticise the status quo; and (8) to locate a foundation in a divine self-declaration for arguing for a particular view. K. MATTHEW’S USE OF OTHER JEWISH TRADITION As we explored Matthew’s use of the OT above, I noted how Matthew’s appeals to Is. 7:14 t in with the widespread Jewish recognition that the ful lment of this, as of much other OT prophecy, had been something less than seemed to be being offered by the prophecy in the original time period, and consequently inferred that a greater ful lment must still be in store. In this and in other ways Matthew relates to the OT from the viewpoint of modes of understanding that existed in his setting. In other words,

Matthew’s very use of the OT is in part also a use of other Jewish tradition. is is a matter about which much more could be said, but what I want to comment on here is the use of Jewish tradition that takes us beyond the use of a Jewishly interpreted OT, for Matthew has drawn not just on the OT but on Jewish traditions that go beyond it. I make no attempt to be exhaustive here. In the commentary I draw many correlations between Matthew’s text and Jewish Intertestamental texts (including the Qumran documents). e correlations do not represent a claim to dependence, but cumulatively they strongly indicate the degree to which Matthew inhabited the same world as these other documents. It is intrinsically likely that the points at which we can demonstrate a connection will represent no more than the tip of the iceberg. I have chosen the examples below as representative and as being of some particular interest or importance. Matthew starts his story by referring to Jesus as the Christ. ough the OT provides the raw material out of which messianic hope developed, there is no OT use of ‘Christ’ of a messianic gure. e development of a messianic expectation is something that develops only aer the OT period. ough a pre-Christian Jewish messianic hope can be documented, in many ways the strongest evidence for a lively rst-century Jewish interest in the coming of the Christ consists of the strong early Christian interest in seeking to persuade Jews that Jesus was he. Matthew writes against the background of a Jewish messianic hope which he believes nds its ful lment in Jesus. One in uence in Mt. 1:18-25, especially in vv. 20-21, is likely to have come from haggadic traditions about Moses’ infancy, here alluded to in order to draw a connection between the two gures in terms of their respective roles in salvation history. Contact with these traditions continues in 2:1-12, where Matthew seems to have

one eye on the role of Magi/astrologers in Moses’ infancy haggadah. For 2:13-23 the Moses links can mostly be adequately accounted for by the OT materials, but Jewish tradition goes beyond the OT and links with vv. 13-18 in having Pharaoh engaging in the indiscriminate killing of children in order (unsuccessfully) to eliminate a newborn (Moses) who represented a threat to his control of the Israelites. e Matthean beatitudes in 5:3-10 have as their background the sufferings of the Exile. eir good news is that for those who have learned the lesson of the Exile the time of painful loss and deprivation will now come to an end, and God’s people will be fully restored. Historically there had been a restoration in around 537 B.C., but this had never represented a full restoration. And some strands of Jewish tradition, and notably the traditions of those at Qumran, believed that in an important sense the Exile continued and the OT promises of restoration still remained to be ful lled. Matthew thought like this too, at least to the degree that he held that imagery of suffering exile and restoration from exile offered an illuminating way of speaking of the signi cance of what God was now doing in Jesus. Almost certainly Mt. 11:28 echoes Sir. 51:27, where the wisdom teacher testi es to his own experience of drawing near to Wisdom: ‘See … that I have laboured but little and found for myself much rest (ἀνάπαυσιν)’. Matthew does not quote the Apocrypha as he quotes the OT. It is hard to tell to what degree the books of the Apocrypha are part of his repertoire. But he does seem to be relating appreciatively here to Sirach. More broadly the world of Jewish thought re ected in the Apocrypha provides important clues about the thought world out of which and into which Matthew wrote.

In my discussion of the nal two antitheses (Mt. 5:38-42, 43-48) I have sought to show that Jesus’ views on not returning evil for evil and on love of enemies represent a particularly radical exemplar of views found in a much wider world of moral re ection, and that to some degree the Matthean Jesus is manifestly dependent on that wider world of discussion, indeed that his view is best understood in conscious connection with other variants which I have explored in the discussion of these antitheses. In the discussion of Mt. 26:52 I have argued that an element in this wider discussion is being echoed jointly by Mt. 26:52 and the pseudepigraphal text Jos. As. 29:4. I am inclined to agree with Gerhardsson that a pattern of Jewish exegesis of the Shema has in uenced the Matthean form of the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower in Mt. 13:18-23.25 But unlike Gerhardsson I contend that this tells us something about Matthew and not something about the most original form of this material. Matthew was immersed in the kind of exposition of the Scriptures that is echoed in the preserved Jewish exposition of the Shema. It seems likely, nally, that a Jewish tradition that linked Ps. 8:3 (ET v. 2) with Ex. 15:2 on the basis of the shared use of ʿz lies behind Matthew’s choice of this psalm text to comment on the children’s praise in Mt. 21:16. Other examples could be added, but these suffice to show that Matthew related positively to the Jewish traditions of his setting and that they form an important backdrop for his telling of his own story. L. THE THEOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

Matthew does not write to have people engage with his theology, but rather to engage with Jesus. A good deal of Matthew’s theology remains largely out of sight as the assumed background of his story. Matthew writes out of and into a Jewish context, and brings to his task a full set of Jewish beliefs about God. ough some of these beliefs will have been clari ed and extended, and at points even radicalised by his embrace of the Christian movement, he will not have seen himself as having given up any of his Jewish heritage. Matthew presents good news of a fresh and decisive action of the God with whom he and his people have long been acquainted. Matthew has a monotheistic faith and believes in God as the creator of the world. He understands Israel to have been God’s chosen people and looks to the Scriptures for a history of his dealings with his people. He believes that God has been and can be active in the world and in human affairs, as and when he pleases. God’s action in the world is generally mediated in some way or other. Angels act for him; prophets speak for him; those who ruled over his people were to rule in his name (with a fresh urry of angelic activity and a renewal of prophetic ministry in John the Baptist, God is now acting to bring to an end the long period of being without a God-anointed king by sending the Christ to rule as his anointed). As its creator God remains sovereign over the natural order, which recognises him and responds to his presence. God is understood to be active in judgment and blessing, both within the present ow of history and beyond it, when all peoples will stand before him on the day of judgment. e human calling is to live out life, with all its richness and variety, in dependence on God and to place at the centre of life the worship of God and obedience to his will. Matthew’s story addresses a human situation, or more speci cally a Jewish situation, that has become problematic in

various ways. Not since the Babylonian Exile has there been a Davidic monarch to rule over God’s people in God’s name. e Jewish people continue to assert their identity as the chosen of God, but they are subject to the rule of Rome. Aer the Exile there had been a restoration of sorts and a rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple. ough elements of renewal in national life and among sections of the people from time to time are not to be denied, the degree of failure to live out what it should have meant to be the people of God which had led to the Exile continues to have its counterpart in the life of the people and their leaders. Neither in terms of situation nor of behaviour does the life experience of the Jewish people match the grand vision of restoration to be found in the OT prophets. ose who ought to have been providing spiritual leadership for the people are compromised in various ways and failing to provide the proper lead. A whole demonic empire is also active in the midst of the people: Satan has sown his zizania in the world; and individuals are in the grip of evil spirits. Matthew can sum up the state of God’s people as the need to be saved from their sins. Against this background Matthew tells his story of the fresh and decisive action of God in and through Jesus. In his genealogy Jesus is introduced from the beginning as the Christ. Jesus is being associated with Jewish hopes for the restoration of the kingdom. Great David’s greater son will rule over Israel, restore it to its former glory, and take it on to greater heights. Jesus proclaims the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven. God now intends to establish afresh his rule among his people. If people are to be ready for this development, then repentance is urgent. Only a fundamental change of life direction will match the needs of the moment. e coming of the kingdom turns out to be a much more complex matter than the simple announcement of its imminence might suggest. It clearly begins already in the

therapeutic ministry of Jesus, but also in the fresh orientation to God that Jesus’ ministry makes possible for people: for those who are open to it God is experienced afresh as being in the midst of his people. But its full realisation must await a set of developments that include Jesus’ own suffering and vindication, which includes judgment on Jerusalem and its temple but also the suffering witness of the disciple community. Jesus proclaims the gospel of the kingdom. God now intends to bring release from the trials of ‘Exile’ existence and blessing for those who have learnt the lesson of ‘Exile’. But the promise of release and blessing is far from being the whole story. Alongside the promise of a decisive change for the better in the circumstances of God’s people stands the challenge to face persecution for Jesus’ sake. e long string of beatitude promises serves as a backdrop for introducing the idea that, before there is to be a full realisation of the promises, the difficulties of God’s people are to be continued and brought to a climax and conclusion in persecution for Jesus. As those who become disciples of Jesus are persecuted for the stand they take, they become the light of the world by means of which others too are to be drawn into the blessings now promised. e good news to the faithful in Israel chastened and moulded by suffering into what God would wish them to be will become, through the shining of the light, rst through Jesus and then through the disciples, good news also to sinners and Gentiles in their distance from God. e stand that disciples are to take and for which they are to be persecuted involves, in part, living out Jesus’ vision of an abundant righteousness. Near enough is not good enough for disciples of Jesus. ey are to discover the full depth and range of what is involved in how God calls us to live. ey are to live a life of uncompromising love towards even their enemies, and their lives

are to be sharply focussed on the service of God. ough Jesus makes no concessions to laxity, he is not making sinless perfection a condition for entry into the kingdom. A heart for the new ways must be there, but Matthew recognises human frailty in his strong emphasis on the importance of forgiveness: extended to others and received from God. As disciples seek the kingdom, and the righteousness that God requires of them, they will nd that their needs will be met without the need for anxious care on their part. Jesus, as the one who reveals the full intention of the Mosaic Law, is the reliable guide for these new ways, but more than that, he is the one who rst and foremost lives them out, and he is one to whom ultimate loyalty belongs. e paradigm for discipleship is following Jesus at whatever cost. Running through the Gospel story is a major critique of how the world works: its typical values and priorities. A narrow focus on our creature needs shortchanges our dignity as made for relationship with God. ose who have privileges should not think they have them so that they can milk them for all they are worth: with privilege comes responsibility. ose who gain glory for themselves by compromise and self-assertion, through narrow self-interest and domination of others, are amassing a debt to Satan and impoverishing themselves with God. ose who embrace the inverted values that characterise the following of Jesus must leave a lot behind. In the disciple community the behaviour patterns that mark aspiration to greatness are those of service and not those of control. e values of the world are overturned by the one who exhibits his preeminence precisely by serving rather than by being served, by giving up his life rather than by preserving it at all costs. Jesus’ readiness to go to the cross becomes the supreme example of the value system he stood for. He could have called for angelic help;

he did not because he knew that this was the Father’s will for how he was to serve God’s people. Matthew clearly intended Jesus’ death to be viewed as a saving event, as the saving event. At the Last Supper covenant language displaces the kingdom language which has been prominent throughout the Gospel, and the pouring out of Jesus’ blood in death is identi ed as the means of forgiveness and the sealing of the (renewed) covenant. Just how we are to understand this is not entirely clear. But Matthew uses the imagery of ransom and of sacri ce. Jesus certainly does not absorb the wrath of God in such a way as to leave no room for other manifestations of his wrath. e judgment to come on the people of Jerusalem makes that clear. Jesus does, however, seem to function as a kind of lightning rod for the coming wrath of God, which is to be spent on him so that others may be spared the wrath that is justly their due. But to which others does this apply? e answer will nally be: only those who are prepared to align themselves with Jesus and all that he stands for. God’s ways are marked by generosity to the repentant but severity to the rebellious. Even in his salvi c death Jesus calls for a new way of life. And Matthew holds out the hope that Jesus’ death and vindication through resurrection will open the ears of many to his message who were deaf to it during his lifetime. Part of the newness of the new situation created by Jesus’ coming is that he is the focal point for a new eschatological work of the Spirit. Matthew combines OT expectation of an eschatological outpouring of the Spirit with the equally OT expectation of a Spiritanointed messiah to give a Spirit-dispensing messiah. is motif is clearly important for Matthew, but he almost never comments on how it works out in the lives of disciples.26 He must have thought that its outworking in the disciple community would be transparent enough to his readers.

ere is a huge paradox involved in Jesus, who comes to announce to Israel the restoration of the kingdom, ending his ministry with an alliance of all the Jerusalem leaders and all the Jewish people baying for his blood. Jesus does not die at the hands of those he came to save, but he certainly dies at their behest. e responsibility for Jesus’ death is well distributed in Matthew’s account, with nobody coming out with much credit, except perhaps the faithful women who had accompanied him from Galilee. But the comprehensiveness of the Jewish opposition to Jesus at the end is notable aer a ministry in which Jesus, despite criticism from the Jewish leadership, has known much popular acclaim from the people. Matthew blames the Jewish leadership for the change. In a manner which replicates the role of bad leaders in the earlier history of Israel, it is ultimately because of a failure of leadership that the Jewish people have been led away from that which should have represented the culmination of all their hopes. As a result, disaster is in store for Jerusalem. Bad leaders have resulted in exile previously, and bad leaders will do so again. But Matthew hopes for better things. He believes that there will be a change of heart. e exalted Jesus will come back to a Jewish people who are ready to say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’. In the light of God’s dramatic vindication of Jesus, his death on the cross turns out to be, not the tting fate of a spurious prophet dying the criminal’s death he justly deserved but rather the loving self-sacri ce of the one who gives his life to seal the covenant afresh and to win forgiveness for God’s people. e challenge to the Jewish people is to review again their response to Jesus in light of God’s dramatic vindication of him. From the beginning Matthew introduces Jesus in messianic categories, and messianic categories will remain important

throughout Matthew’s story. But for Matthew messianic categories cannot stand alone. Matthew does not get far into his story before he introduces the language of sonship in connection with Jesus. ‘Sonship’ refers to a special status and relationship with God. As Matthew’s story unfolds, the sense of what it might mean to identify Jesus as the Son also unfolds in all its richness and variety. Jesus is the Son in the way Israel is the son of God; Jesus is the Son as the messiah is the son of God; Jesus is the Son of God as an identity in the larger supernatural frame of things; Jesus is the Son as the one has received from God as his Father all that which it is God’s to dispose (God has treated him as Son and heir) and who can, therefore, speak with authority about and from the Father. ‘Son of Man’ gives Matthew another important angle for understanding Jesus. e language is introduced initially for Jesus as vaguely referring to an important Somebody. is important somebody endures major hardship, even death by cruci xion, before being vindicated by God. e repeated uses of ‘Son of Man’ gradually attract links to Dn. 7. Here is a gure with full authority to forgive sins. Here is a gure whose coming will relieve the missioning disciples from the cycle of persecution and eeing which has become their lot. Indeed, here is a gure whose coming will bring the ultimate eschatological resolution of all human history. Jesus is ‘Lord’ again and again in Matthew. e language is not used with any particular precision, but it does point to the right of Jesus to direct and to be obeyed. Matthew’s use of the language of worship offers an important window onto how he would have us understand Jesus. προσκυνεῖν means ‘to worship’ but is also used of prostrating oneself before another to show deferential respect. e ambiguity here is

something Matthew exploits. e verb is used repeatedly of people’s behaviour in the presence of Jesus. In most cases to show deferential respect is a strong enough meaning for the verb, but in two contexts it is not. Aer Jesus’ walking on the water, worship is the response of those who now recognise that Jesus is the Son of God. Also, when the women and the disciples rst encounter the risen Jesus their response is not merely to show deferential respect; it is to worship. For Jesus’ future eschatological role as Son of Man Matthew closely associates the accoutrements of deity with him. Jesus exercises the functions of deity, and nature responds to his presence as to the presence of God. Of all the Gospels Matthew paints the prospect of eschatological answerability in the most graphic of colours. In the Matthean telling Jesus is associated with the eschatological separation of people to nal salvation or condemnation from as early as John the Baptist’s words about the one who was to come aer him. Jesus associates the Twelve with him in his future judging function. e prospect of his future coming is to be both longed for and feared. Matthew tells the story of Jesus, but he writes for a situation in the early church which belongs aer the death and resurrection that brought Jesus’ ministry to an end. e disciples of Matthew’s day do not live directly within the story of Jesus. ere are, necessarily, adjustments involved in moving from the one situation to the other. For the new situation Matthew wants to emphasise that what was gained with the presence of Jesus is not lost. e Twelve are authorised and empowered to replicate Jesus’ preaching and therapeutic ministry. Peter as their leader will have in his hand the keys of the kingdom, and along with other disciples he will be in a position to bind and loose: to prohibit and command in a manner that is backed by God himself. Only in Matthew of the Gospels does

Jesus directly anticipate the (postresurrection) formation of a church with its corporate life; otherwise only the structured life of the Twelve anticipates this future. And Jesus promises to continue to be with the disciples in their corporate life and in their mission to all nations. But the major emphasis on a future coming of the Son of Man is based on, in another sense, the absence of Jesus. e imagery of responsibility to an absent Lord, the moment of whose return remains unknown, is considerably exploited. It is against the background of the absence of Jesus that it becomes important to realise that in serving the needs of the least, one is serving the (absent) Jesus. Matthew articulates a clear enough set of theological beliefs, but he has a story to tell, not simply a set of beliefs to articulate, and the story mode gives an event shape to his beliefs: this is what has happened; this is what is to happen; this is what his readers are being encouraged to relate themselves to in an appropriate manner. It is the drama of the story and how it works as a story which has priority over the set of beliefs which comes to expression. At the end of the day, except in a secondary and derivative sense, ‘What does Matthew believe about …?’ is not quite the right sort of question to be asking him. M. AN ANNOTATED STRUCTURAL OUTLINE OF MATTHEW Bibliography Carter, W., ‘Kernels and Narrative Blocks: e Structure of Matthew’s Gospel’, CBQ 54 (1992), 463-81. • Combrink, H. J. B., ‘e Macrostructure of the Gospel of Matthew’, Neot 16 (1982), 1-20. • Doyle, B. R., ‘Matthew’s Intention as Discerned by His Structure’, RB 95 (1988), 34-54. • Häfner, G., ‘“Jene Tage” (Mt 3,1) und der Umfang des matthäischen “Prologs”. Ein

Beitrag zur Frage nach der Struktur des Mt-Ev’, BZ 37 (1993), 43-59. • Matera, F., ‘e Plot of Matthew’s Gospel’, CBQ 49 (1987), 233-53. • Neirynck, F., ‘ΑΠΟ ΤΟΤΕ ΗΡΞΑΤΟ and the Structure of Matthew’, ETL 64 (1988), 21-59. • Powell, M. A., ‘e Plots and Subplots of Matthew’s Gospel’, NTS 38 (1992), 187-204. • Slater, T. B., ‘Notes on Matthew’s Structure’, JBL 99 (1980), 436. • Smith, C. R., ‘Literary Evidences of a Fivefold Structure in the Gospel of Matthew’, NTS 43 (1997), 540-51. • Smyth, K., ‘e Structural Principle of Matthew’s Gospel’, IBS 4 (1982), 207-20. • ompson, M., ‘e Structure of Matthew: A Survey of Recent Trends’, StBibT 12 (1982), 195238. • Trimaille, M., ‘Citations d’accomplissement et architecture de l’Évangile selon S. Matthieu’, EstBíb 48 (1990), 47-79.

I. e Stock from Which Jesus Comes — and Its History (1:1-17) Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy of Jesus which locates him rmly within, but at the climax of, the history of God’s dealings with his people. ere is rst an executive summary of the piece in v. 1 and then a fresh summary at the end in v. 17. II. Infancy (1:18–2:23) A. e Circumstances of Jesus’ Birth (1:18-25) In vv. 18-25 the wide-angle-lens view of vv. 1-17 gives way to close-up camera work. Matthew focusses on the immediate circumstances of Jesus’ birth and here begins his connected narrative. Vv. 18-25 have the dual function of providing an explanation for the formal anomaly in v. 16 and at the same time of providing the rst narrative unit of Matthew’s story. e piece includes the rst of Matthew’s ten formula citations. B. e Visit of the Magi (2:1-12)

Whereas 1:18-25 provide a domestic view of events surrounding Jesus’ birth, 2:1-12 set the birth in a wider context and mark its public impact. C. To Egypt and Back (2:13-23) e remainder of the chapter offers a sequence of scenes which are united by their concern with the threat represented by Herod’s hostility in the face of news of the birth of a messianic claimant to the throne. e threat substantially subsides by the end of the chapter, but there remains some residual sense that Judea represents a place of danger for Jesus. ese scenes include the next three of Matthew’s ten formula citations. III. John Proclaiming in the Wilderness (3:1-12) While Jesus is resident in Nazareth, quietly developing to readiness for his role to come, a major new development is marked by the appearance of John the Baptist. It is out of this new development that the ministry of Jesus will emerge, and in important ways John’s ministry will anticipate that of Jesus. IV. Preparation (3:13–4:12) A. Jesus Comes for Baptism by John (3:13-17) ough it will initially take a form which is a puzzle to John, Jesus’ ministry is to emerge out of the ministry of John. Baptism by John provides a major impetus for the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. B. Led by the Spirit to Be Tested by the Devil (4:1-12) In the larger structure of Matthew’s story, the Temptation account has a function which may be compared to that of the narrative element in a

standard story form in which some harrowing experience tests the determination of the hero at the point where he takes up his designated task. V. Establishing His Ministry (4:13-25) A. Preaching the Kingdom Back in Galilee (4:13-17) Matthew earlier linked the beginnings of John’s ministry (in the south) with the period in which Jesus, aer being brought to the north as an infant, was establishing his domicile in Nazareth; now Matthew links the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry (in the north) to a fresh coming to the north on the part of the now adult Jesus (to Nazareth and then to Capernaum). e ministry of Jesus is to be based on a reiteration of John’s message. is piece includes the next of Matthew’s ten formula citations. B. Calling Co-Workers (4:18-22) As Jesus begins his own independent ministry, he starts to assemble a group of disciples whom he will equip to become co-workers with him. e imperious call and the radical response are appropriate to the approach of the kingdom of heaven. e calling to ministry is framed by materials on Jesus’ own ministry. C. Itinerant Ministry in Galilee, with In uence Far Beyond (4:23-25) Matthew marks the expansion of Jesus’ ministry to the whole of Galilee. He also introduces as an important element Jesus’ ministry of healing, and builds up for Jesus’ ministry in Galilee a public that comes from all the regions of historic Israel.

VI. Sermon on the Mount (5:1–8:1) A. Preparing to Teach Disciples and Potential Disciples from All Israel (5:1-2) e itinerant ministry that has led to the gathering of crowds from all parts of Israel, and the instruction which is now to come, illuminate by example the nature of the ‘ shing’ to which Jesus was calling Peter and the others in 4:18-22. Jesus speaks centrally to his disciples, but also to a crowd gathered from all parts of Israel. e disciples learn from within the context of a relationship of committed discipleship, but what they learn is pertinent to all Israel as well. B. Good News to the Poor in Spirit (5:3-10) Beatitudes two to four spell out aspects of the poverty of the opening beatitude, while the next three beatitudes identify a linked set of personal traits that mark out an orientation that has been forged in those who have learned appropriately from the hard experiences through which God has allowed them to pass. e nal beatitude of this set creates a bracket with the rst and has to do with delity to God despite, through, and even because of the experience of impoverishment. C. e Difficulties of God’s People Continued and Climaxed in Persecution for Jesus (5:11-12) Where the set of beatitudes explored to this point were shaped so as to be addressed to the existing situation of Israel with all its needs, now the focus becomes forward looking. e mode of address moves from third to second person; the ‘you’ now to

be addressed are clearly those prepared to identify themselves with Jesus. ey can rejoice in being persecuted for this connection to Jesus. D. Called to Be Salt and Light (5:13-16) It is those who are persecuted for Jesus’ sake who are identi ed as the salt and light and to whom comes the challenge to sustain an active expression of this role despite all opposition. E. Introduction to Jesus’ Vision of Abundant Righteousness (5:17-20) e thread of continuity is provided by the link with ‘good works’ in 5:16, but the major role of this small section is to prepare for the antitheses to follow in vv. 21-48. Jesus insists that he came not to abolish the Law but to see it ful lled more effectively, and utters stern words on the need for an abundant righteousness. F. Six Antitheses (5:21-48) Matthew divides the antitheses into two sets of three: he furnishes only the rst antithesis of each set with the full introductory formula and marks a fresh start with the fourth with an introductory ‘again’. e rst antithesis is notably the most expansive, and the last is the next most developed. 1. On Murder (5:21-26) Jesus interprets the murder commandment in the light of the love commandment (which will becomes the speci c focus of attention in the nal antithesis); it therefore attracts to itself the same relational focus.

2. On Adultery (5:27-30) e adultery commandment is expanded to include indulgence in illicit sexual activity in the realm of the imagination. 3. On Divorce (5:31-32) is third antithesis connects divorce practice with the adultery commandment. 4. On Oaths (5:33-37) 5. On ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (5:38-42) 6. On Love (5:43-48) 5:48 rounds off both the nal antithesis and the whole set of antitheses, but it also, with its call to be thoroughgoing and uncompromising, marks the transition to the next block of the Sermon, 6:1-18. G. Practising Piety before Others (6:1-18) Where the focus in 5:21-48 has been on the neighbour, the focus through chap. 6 will be on how one relates to God. e opening verse sets up the principle which will be illustrated and supported by the following examples. 1. Almsgiving (6:1-4) 2. Prayer (6:5-6) Excursus on Prayer (6:7-15) 3. Fasting (6:16-18) H. Seeking the Kingdom (6:19-34) 1. Storing Up Treasures in Heaven (6:19-21) ere is an easy transition from the call in 6:118 to behaviour that God will secretly reward to the challenge in vv. 19-21 to store up treasure in

heaven. Indeed, we have here a tting conclusion, generalising from vv. 1-18. But v. 19 also looks forward to v. 24 in which devotion to ‘mammon’ is the equivalent to ‘stor[ing] up … treasures on the earth’. is allows vv. 19-24 to function as a unit in which the importance of the challenges in vv. 19-21, 24 to singlemindedness are underlined by a centrally positioned call in vv. 22-23 to have clear vision. 2. Having a Healthy Eye (6:22-23) e challenge of the imagery of the eye as a lamp and the eye as healthy or diseased is to see with clarity the point of the materials which in Matthew’s text frame this subunit. 3. Serving God and Not Mammon (6:24) e ‘treasures on the earth’ side of the contrast in vv. 19-20 is now taken up in the imagery of slave service to mammon. 4. Do Not Be Anxious; Seek the Kingdom (6:2534) Since slave service to mammon is not always recognised for what it is, vv. 25-34 offer concrete illustrations: anxiety about the concrete necessities of life is incompatible with the all-encompassing nature of the claim of the kingdom of God. I. Making Our Relationship with God the Measure of All ings (7:1-11) e three units here are probably best taken as an appendix to chap. 6. ey can all be seen as

concerned with how one ts God into one’s reckoning, which has been the consistent concern through chap. 6. 1. Do Not Judge; Beware of the Beam in Your Own Eye (7:1-5) 2. Do Not Give Dogs What Is Holy (7:6) 3. Ask; Your Father Gives Good ings (7:7-11) J. e Golden Rule as the Summary of the Sermon, but Also of the Law and the Prophets (7:12) K. Challenges to Implement the Sermon (7:13-27) 1. Enter through the Narrow Gate (7:13-14) 2. Beware of False Prophets (7:15-20) 3. Do the Will of My Father (7:21-23) 4. Build Your House on the Rock (7:24-27) L. He Was Teaching as One Who Had Authority (7:28– 8:1) A transitional piece including the formula with which Matthew ends the ve main discourses. VII. Jesus on the Move in Ministry (8:[1]2–9:34) A fast-moving section which is characterised by the many healings and other miracle stories concentrated here (8:2– 9:34). Our appreciation for and understanding of Jesus is carried forward as we observe the various attitudes displayed to him, and the groundwork is laid both for the disciples’ replication of his ministry and for the growing con ict with the religious leaders. A. e First Day of Healings (8:[1]2-17) 1. [Down the Mountain with the Crowds (8:1)] e transitional piece also belongs here.

2. Jesus Cleanses a Leper (8:2-4) e leper’s recognition of the importance of the will of Jesus implied authority (for the reader, following on from 7:29). 3. Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant (8:5-13) 4. Jesus Heals Peter’s Mother-in-Law (8:14-15) Jesus’ journey from the mountain of the Sermon comes to an end at the house of Peter. 5. General Healing: He Took Our In rmities (8:1617) Generalisation and the claim of ful lment of Scripture; the next of Matthew’s ten formula citations. B. Miracles in a Disciple Framework (8:18–9:13) 8:18-22; 9:9-13 establish a discipleship frame for the next set of miracle stories. 1. Jesus and His Would-Be Followers (8:18-22) 2. Jesus Stills the Storm (8:23-27) A discipleship focus for the stilling of the storm has been established by Matthew’s insertion of 8:19-22 aer the directive in v. 18 to make the voyage across the lake. e main action of the story appears to be presented in a chiasm centred on the disciples’ approach to Jesus and his words to them, but there is also an important christological emphasis related to the evident authority of Jesus, which is underlined especially by v. 27. 3. Jesus Sends the Demons into the Pigs (8:28-34)

Exorcisms will be important for the disciples’ mission (10:10), and this is the rst account of an exorcism; the experience of not being welcomed (8:34) also prepares the disciples for their own future role (10:14). e christological emphasis on the authority of Jesus continues. As with the previous unit, the material is arranged chiastically, with central focus on the request of the demons and the response of Jesus and its immediate outcome (vv. 31-32ab). 4. Jesus Forgives and Heals a Lame Man (9:1-8) e christological emphasis on the authority of Jesus continues. e authority to be conferred in 16:19; 18:18 links back naturally to the authority witnessed here. Once again the material is arranged in a chiasm centred here on the probing challenge offered by Jesus’ question in 9:4-5. 5. Jesus Heals Tax Collectors and Sinners (9:9-13) C. Healings in Connection with Fresh Wineskins for New Wine (9:14-32) ere is a chiastic symmetry to Matthew’s arrangement of his three sets of three miracle stories in 8:2–9:33. e rst set was generalised and interpreted by 8:16-17 at the end, the second set was placed in a discipleship frame by 8:18-22; 9:9-13, and now the third set beginning in 9:18 gains its larger interpretive perspective by being prefaced with 9:1417. 1. New Wine Is for Fresh Wineskins (9:14-17)

2. Jesus Raises a Girl from Death and Rescues a Woman from Perpetual Uncleanness (9:18-26) 3. Jesus Gives Sight to Blind People (9:27-31) 4. Contrasting Reactions to Jesus’ Exorcism of a Mute Man (9:32-34) e miracle itself is minimally reported because the focus is on the contrasting reactions of the crowds and Pharisees. is serves to conclude the section. VIII. Workers for the Harvest (9:35–11:1) A. ‘Ask the Lord of the Harvest to Send Out Workers’ (9:35-38) 9:35 and 4:23 mark an inclusion which underlines the importance of reading chaps. 5–7 and 8–9 together and, when linked with the emphasis on the mission of the disciples in what precedes 4:23 (vv. 18-22) and what follows 9:35 (9:36–11:1), provide a chiastic structure which enhances the signi cance of the mission perspective for the whole body of the encompassed materials. is allows the whole account of Jesus’ public ministry to 11:1 to be marked as preparatory to 28:19-20. B. Jesus Bestows Authority on the Twelve (10:1) Faced with needy sheep and a huge potential harvest, Jesus increases the number of workers by giving the Twelve a share in his own ministry. C. e Names of the Twelve Apostles (10:2-4) By using the listing of names in vv. 2-4 as a separator, Matthew marks a distinction between the general

commissioning/empowering of v. 1 and the speci c mission brie ng of vv. 5-42. D. Jesus Instructs the Twelve for eir Mission (10:542) Despite the absence of a report, a mission by the Twelve in the lifetime of Jesus is affirmed and allowed to play a foundational (but offstage) role. 1. Instructions, Part 1 (10:5-15) An extended set of speci c mission directives. 2. Instructions, Part 2 (10:16-23) e negative response to be expected and how to deal with it. Hostility will reach an eschatological crescendo that leads to the coming of the Son of Man. 3. Instructions, Part 3 (10:24-42) Further material about negative response is bracketed with units making points about the ‘equivalence’ of disciple and master. E. Jesus’ Pattern of Ministry Is Renewed (11:1) A transitional piece includes the formula with which Matthew ends the ve main discourses but also renews the itinerant mission theme by providing a strong echo of 9:35. is provides a framing for the mission discourse to match the framing of the call of the shermen in 4:18-22. IX. Seeing Clearly and Relating Rightly to God’s Present Agenda (11:[1]2-30) A. John the Baptist and Jesus (11:2-19)

Matthew makes use now of a pre-formed set of units relating to John the Baptist, also to be found in the same sequence in Lk. 7:18-35. 1. ‘e Blind Are Seeing and the Lame Are Walking …’ (11:2-6) Deals with relationship between Jesus and expectations generated by John. 2. ‘My Messenger … Who Will Prepare Your Way’ (11:7-15) De nes the signi cance of John in relation to the new state of affairs inaugurated by Jesus. 3. ‘He Has a Demon … a Glutton and a Drunkard’ (11:16-19) Treats John and Jesus together, over against a largely unresponsive public. B. Rejected and Accepted by; Hidden from and Revealed to (11:20-30) 1. Reproaching Privileged Towns (11:20-24) e immediate reason for locating 11:20-24 here is the link with the rejecting stance of ‘this generation’ in vv. 16-19: here are concrete cases of Jesus acting out the children’s game of vv. 1617. 2. e Good Pleasure of the Father and the Choice of the Son (11:25-27) e link with the rejecting stance of ‘this generation’ evident for Mt. 11:20-24 continues, but it is balanced now by the positive thread that runs from those who are fortunate in v. 6 through those who are willing to accept in v. 14.

3. ‘Come to Me, All Who Are Weary …’ (11:28-30) Mt. 11:25-27 has dealt with both the revealing and the concealing activity of the Father and the Son. Where the failure of response in vv. 20-24 corresponds to the concealing activity, the fresh invitation in vv. 28-30 is probably intended to correspond to the revealing activity. X. Conflict with the Pharisees (12:1-50) As Jesus continues with ‘the deeds of the Christ’ (11:2), some will nd themselves to be those who take no offense (v. 6) and experience the gentle yoke of Jesus (centrally the disciples who appear at the beginning and the end of the chapter), others (and centrally the Pharisees) will be incensed, and for them judgment (as for Chorazin and Bethsaida in vv. 20-24) is what is in prospect. ere is thus a close knitting together of the sections 11:1(2)-42 and 12:1-50.27 A. ‘e Son of Man Is Lord of the Sabbath’ (12:1-8) B. ‘It Is Permitted to Do Good on the Sabbath’ (12:1-8) C. e Triumph of the Gentle and the Other-Centred Servant of God (12:15-21) A minimally developed scene provides a setting for the quotation from Is. 42:1-4 which is the next in Matthew’s set of ten formula quotations, but the citation itself offers a much wider characterisation of the ministry of Jesus and has particular links back to 11:29 which allow it to function as one of the clasps between chaps. 11 and 12 and to con rm the link between the sabbath episodes in 12:1-14 and the yoke of Jesus in 11:28-30.

D. By Beelzebul or by the Spirit of God? (12:22-29) If Jesus is the one to ful l Is. 42:1-4, then his actions are empowered by the Spirit. But Jesus’ Pharisaic interlocutors propose the alternative that he is in league with Beelzebul. E. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit Will Not Be Forgiven (12:30-37) A comment by Jesus on the perversity of attributing his exorcisms to the power of Beelzebul. F. ose to Be Condemned Seek a Sign (12:38-42) is unit forms a bracket with vv. 1-8, rounding off the set of units reporting interaction with Pharisees, but it also serves to move the focus from the Pharisees as a distinct group within the people to the Pharisees as representative instances of ‘this generation’ more broadly. G. ‘e Last State … Becomes Worse than the First’ (12:43-45) For many of Jesus’ contemporaries his healings and exorcisms are like a windfall. But if his ministry is met with a failure to repent and to engage with the coming of the kingdom of God, the windfall will be short-lived; instead disaster looms. H. ‘Who Is My Mother and Who Are My Brothers and Sisters?’ (12:46-50) e chapter climaxes in 12:46-50 with a challenge to the crowds to distance themselves from the Pharisaic stance which they have been witnessing and unite with the disciples of Jesus in doing the will of his Father, the content of which it is the burden of Jesus’

ministry to make clear. e mention of Jesus’ birth family also allows 12:46-50 to function, with 13:5458, as a frame around the parables collection of 13:153. XI. Parables of the Kingdom (13:1-53) e three major units are 13:3b-23, beginning and ending with the parable of the sower; vv. 24-43, beginning and ending with the parable of the tares; and vv. 44-52, beginning and ending with imagery of treasure. e movement from crowds to disciples is fundamental to the dynamic of the materials: the parables have value ultimately only for those who are or will become disciples. A. Speaking to the Crowds in Parables (13:1-3a) A change of scene broadens the canvas and provides the setting for Matthew’s rst collection of parables of Jesus. B. Set 1 (13:3b-23) 1. e Parable of the One Who Sowed (13:3b-9) e parable in vv. 3b-9, with its imagery of successful and unsuccessful sowing, has a privileged place in the parables chapter. It has the lead position among the four parables to be addressed to the crowds, provides the sowing image which will be common to the rst three of these four parables, is one of the two of these parables to be provided with a private explanation to the disciples, and, with its explanation, frames the explanatory materials in vv. 10-17 as to why (unexplained) parables are being addressed to the crowds.

2. Why Parables for the Crowds? (13:10-17) 3. Explanation of the Parable of the One Who Sowed (13:18-23) e privileged disciples not only hear the parable (with some insight?), but in vv. 18-23 are led by Jesus into deeper understanding by his provision of a replacement narrative which explicates the parable. C. Set 2 (13:24-43) 1. e Parable of the Zizania among the Wheat (13:24-30) e explanation for this parable is kept back until vv. 36-43, so that the parable and the explanation can frame a subsection of the discourse. Each of the parables which supplement the parable of the one who sowed (13:3-9) is introduced as ‘another parable’ and involves likening something about the kingdom of God to some situation or other. 2. e Parable of the Mustard Seed (13:31-32) 3. e Parable of the Leaven (13:33) 4. Jesus’ Parables Speak What Has Long Been Hidden (13:34-35) A summary statement in readiness for the transition from crowds to disciples. With the seventh of the ten formula citations, Matthew identi es the use of parables as yet another way in which Jesus ful ls scripture. 5. Explanation of the Parable of the Zizania in the Field (13:43)

D. Set 3 (13:44-52) 1. e Parable of the Treasure Hidden in the Field (13:44) e rst of a nal set of three parables in the section, all ‘kingdom of heaven is like’ parables and addressed only to the disciples. Only the third will be provided with an explanation. 2. e Parable of the Very Valuable Pearl (13:4546) ere is a very close parallelism between this and the previous parable. 3. e Parable of the Fishing Net, with Interpretation (13:47-50) ematically and in vocabulary there are strong links between the interpretation in vv. 49-50 and the interpretation in vv. 36-43; and echoes of vv. 1-2 in vv. 47-48 signal Matthew’s intention to begin rounding off the section 13:153. 4. Conclusion: e Parable of the Landowner with a Treasure (13:51-52) Vv. 51-52 round things off by asserting that, having understood the teachings about the kingdom of heaven, the disciples can function like scribes and instruct others. E. Parables Completed, Jesus Moves On (13:53) Matthew again uses the formula with which he ends the ve main discourses, and marks the transition at the end of a major teaching block with a departure statement.

XII. Jesus Interpreted, but Also Rejected (13:53[54]–16:20) With Mt. 13:53(54)-58 as a theme setter, the materials of Part 1 and Part 3 below are positioned around Part 2. A. Jesus Meets Unbelief in His Hometown (13:54-58) Mt. 13:53(54)-58 functions with 12:46-50, to frame 13:1-53 and by itself to begin a fresh section, 13:53(54)–16:20. It offers the rst of a series of explanations of Jesus which will reach a rst climax in 14:33 and a second in 16:16; it also introduces what will be a continuing subtheme of rejection. His fate as rejected prophet in his hometown anticipates what will be played out on a larger canvas later. B. Part 1 (14:1-36) 1. Herod’s Opinion of Jesus (14:1-2) [Appendage] e Death of John the Baptist (14:3-12) As an appendage to Mt. 14:1-2, Matthew reports Herod’s role in the execution of John the Baptist in vv. 3-12. e evident interest here in the parallels with the coming fate of Jesus picks up on Jesus’ rejection in his hometown in 13:54-58 and especially on this as anticipating the larger-scale rejection to come. 2. Jesus Heals and Feeds the Five ousand (14:1321) e feeding miracle in 14:13-21 is framed by material that is centrally interested in the identity of Jesus and so is to be read primarily in connection with its contribution to christology. 3. Jesus Came Walking on the Sea (14:22-33)

A concentric structure within the piece seems likely, with vv. 22-23 corresponding to vv. 31-33 as separation and reunion, v. 24 to v. 30 as situation of danger and danger again, and vv. 25-26 to vv. 28-29 as rst miracle and second miracle. V. 27 is in the centre. 4. General Healing in Gennesaret (14:34-36) Mt. 14:34 brings closure to 14:22-33 but also provides the beginning of the present small unit, vv. 34-36. From this point the use of the boat, prominent from 14:13, will drop from sight until 15:39. e role of the present unit is to refresh the large-scale healing motif (there is continuity with 14:14) but also to provide a stronger link back to the foundational description of Jesus’ ministry in 4:23-25 and its echo in 8:16. C. Part 2 (15:1-20) 1. What Is It at Really De les? (15:1-11) Since the Markan materials at this point add nothing to the dominant christological theme of the Matthean section, Matthew will use vv. 1214, which he adds to the Markan material, to link vv. 1-20 more clearly to the rejection subtheme introduced at 13:54-58. e Sadducees will join the Pharisees in 16:1-12 as people with a programme antithetical to that of Jesus. 2. e Pharisees Who Are Blind Guides Took Offence (15:12-14)

e identi cation of the Pharisees as blind guides provides a link to Jesus’ warning against the teaching of the Pharisees (and Sadducees) in 16:5-12. 3. Explanation of the ‘Parable’ of What Goes In and What Comes Out (15:15-20) Mt. 15:15-20 rounds off the integrated materials of vv. 1-20 by offering an explanation of the ‘parable’ in v. 11 and a nal judgment by Jesus on the purity claims implicit in v. 2. D. Part 3 (15:21–16:20) 1. Jesus Heals a Canaanite Woman’s Daughter (15:21-28) In line with the dominant theme throughout this section, Matthew accentuates in 15:21-28 the christological dimension of this Markan pericope. 2. Jesus Heals Many and Impresses the Crowds (15:29-31) Matthew takes the opportunity in 15:29-31 to echo many motifs from earlier accounts (with a special interest in their christological implications) before, in the second feeding account, providing food for the four thousand. 3. Jesus Feeds the Four ousand (15:32-39) is section reiterates the substance of the earlier feeding, again with an interest in its christological focus. 4. Sign Seekers, Unable to Interpret ‘the Signs of the Times’ (16:1-4)

e main role of 16:1-4 is as an introduction for vv. 5-12. e concerns of 12:38-42 are reexpressed in a variant form, which both abbreviates and adds fresh notes. 5. ‘Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’ (16:5-12) rough its appeal back to the two feedings, this pericope links with the christological theme of those feedings and thus into the christological focus of the larger section, 13:53– 16:20. Especially with the link to 16:1-4, the subtheme of the larger section, the rejection of Jesus, is also plainly evident. 6. ‘Simon Peter Said, “You Are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”’ (16:13-20) e christological thrust of the section running from 13:54 reaches a climax and conclusion here. XIII. Anticipating a Future through Suffering and Beyond (16:1–17:20) A. Unveiling a Future in Which Suffering Precedes Vindication (16:21-23) e movement of Matthew’s story now turns towards Jerusalem. Until Jesus enters Jerusalem in 21:11, each of the sections will now begin with some statement that reminds the reader of the goal in Jerusalem (16:21; 17:22; 19:1; 20:17), and only in the case of 19:1 will this not include a Passion prediction. B. Following Jesus Involves Giving Away Your Life to Gain It (16:24-28)

e fate of the suffering messiah is to be mirrored in that of the disciples. C. A Vision of Jesus’ Glory — Beyond the InsistedUpon Suffering (17:1-9) e account is framed by 17:1 and 9. e three points of emphasis, marked by uses of the emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’), are the conversation between the three exalted gures, the arrival of the enveloping cloud, and the voice from heaven. D. e Suffering of John the Baptist and of Jesus (17:1013) As with Jesus, John’s restoring role is not completed without suffering. E. Jesus Heals Where the Faithless Disciples Had Failed (17:14-18) e le-behind disciples have failed to ful l their Mt. 10 mandate. In the failure of their faith they are like their contemporaries, who are repeating the pattern of unbelief of their ancestors in the Exodus period. F. With Faith Nothing Will Be Impossible (17:19-20) e link of vv. 19-20 with vv. 14-18 is close and rather like that between vv. 10-13 and vv. 1-9. XIV. Status and Behaviour in the ‘Royal Family’ (17:22– 18:35) A. Preparing for the Fateful Journey to Jerusalem (17:22-23) (See below and at 16:21-23.) B. God Does Not Tax, but Provides for His Children (17:24-27)

ough the section began in 17:22-23, the role of those verses was simply to sustain the thrust towards Jerusalem and the fate that awaits Jesus there, and it is le to vv. 24-27 to provide the thematic introduction for ch. 18. e introduction invites the coming material to be viewed as concerned with status and behaviour in the ‘royal family’. C. Becoming as Children to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven (18:1-5) D. Avoiding Sin (18:6-9) 1. Woe to ose Who Cause Little Ones to Stumble (18:6-7) Here causing to stumble functions as a contrast to the welcoming commended in 18:5, and the category broadens from children to ‘little ones’. 2. ‘If Your Hand … Causes You to Stumble …’ (18:8-9) e motif of causes of stumbling continues in vv. 8-9, but the focus moves to the responsibility individuals need to take for their own sin. E. Dealing with the Sinner (18:10-35) 1. ‘Goes in Search … Finds … Rejoices’ (18:10-14) 2. Challenging Sin with a Concern for Restoration (18:15-20) 3. Forgive Your Brother or Sister from Your Heart (18:21-35) XV. Family and Possessions in View of the Kingdom (19:1– 20:16) A. From Galilee to Judea (19:1-2)

e concluding formula used to mark the main discourses occurs again and, as with the previous pieces at the end of the major discourses, a transition piece is linked both to the preceding and the following sections. Jesus now moves from Galilee to Judea. e new section again begins with a statement reminding the reader of the goal in Jerusalem. B. Marriages and States of Celibacy Fit for the Kingdom (19:3-12) Whereas the section 17:22–18:35 dealt with status and behaviour within the life of the church as the ‘royal’ family, 19:1–20:16 now deals with issues of natural family and possessions. C. ‘Let the Children Come to Me’ (19:13-15) From marriage and divorce, and celibacy for the sake of the kingdom, Matthew turns his attention in vv. 13-15 to the place of children. Again the kingdom is the point of reference, as it will continue to be in the remaining units of this section. D. Giving Up All (19:16-29) 1. ‘Sell Your Possessions … Follow Me’ (19:16-22) is piece belongs in a closely integrated development to 20:16. A chiastic structure is likely for 19:16-22, centred on Jesus’ listing of the commandments in vv. 18-19. 2. How Difficult — but with God Possible — for the Rich to Enter the Kingdom (19:23-26) e role of 19:23-26 is to re ect on the rich young man’s failure: riches pose a profound

barrier to engagement with the kingdom, but with God even this barrier may be breached. 3. What Is ere for ose Who Follow and ose Who Sacri ce? (19:27-29) e challenge to the rich young man has real similarities to that to which the Twelve have responded. Peter’s question at the beginning of 19:27-29 is not exactly parallel to that of the young man, but it is related. E. Making All the Workers Equal (19:30–20:16) us far in the section 19:1–20:16 the balance between demand and grace has been tipped quite heavily in the direction of demand, but now in 19:30–20:16 the balance is redressed. XVI. Redefining Greatness, Jesus Goes to Jerusalem to Die: Jericho, Bethphage, Entry into Jerusalem (20:17–21:11) A. To Jerusalem to Die (20:17-28) 1. Jesus Heads for His Fate in Jerusalem (20:17-19) e section begins with a statement that reminds the reader of Jesus’ goal in Jerusalem. In connection with a renewed Passion prediction, Jesus heads for Jerusalem. e section covers the three stages, reaching rst to Jericho (20:29), then Bethphage (21:1), and nally to Jerusalem itself (v. 10). 2. To Be at the Right and Le Hand of the One Who Gives His Life as a Ransom (20:20-28) Mt. 20:20-28 and the preceding vv. 17-19 make up the rst half of the section 20:20–21:11, which is framed by the Passion prediction in vv.

17-19 and the fresh focus on the Passion in 20:28 (both with Son of Man statements) and provides the immediate introduction to Matthew’s account of the nal approach to Jerusalem. B. Jericho, Bethphage, Jerusalem (20:29–21:11) 1. Insight and en Sight for Two Blind People near Jericho (20:29-34) e rst half of the section, 20:17-28, has explained why Jesus must make his fateful journey to Jerusalem. Now with 20:29-34 Jesus and those with him begin their nal approach to the city — Jericho, Bethphage, and entry into Jerusalem. 2. From Bethphage to Jerusalem: e Son of David on a Donkey (21:1-9) 3. Arrival in Jerusalem (21:10-11) e section reaches its goal with Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. XVII. Provocative Ministry in Jerusalem (21:12-46) Events in the temple frame the withering of the g tree; and (apart from a conclusion) the section ends with parabolic material, as have two of the last three sections. e conclusion, as it marks the beginning of attempts to arrest Jesus, reiterates the recognition by the crowds of Jesus as a prophet with which the preceding section has ended. A. Activity in the Temple, Part 1 (21:12-17) 1. Disrupting Business at the Temple (21:12-13)

2. Leaders Angered by Healing and Acclamation (21:14-17) Healing in the temple is paired with the disruption of temple worship. B. A Withered Fig Tree and Faith at Will Remove the Mount of Olives (21:18-22) is single interlude away from the temple allows for a focus on the disciples rather than on the Jerusalem leaders who are otherwise in view. C. Activity in the Temple, Part 2 (21:23-44) 1. Discussion with Leaders: Jesus’ Authority and at of John the Baptist (21:23-27) e fresh mention of the Baptist in v. 32 suggests that vv. 23-27 and vv. 28-32 are intended by Matthew to function together. Where the treatment of Jesus and the Baptist in 11:2-19 has vv. 2-6 concerned with the signi cance of Jesus’ ministry, vv. 7-15 concerned with the signi cance of John’s ministry, and vv. 16-19 concerned with the combined impact of the two, now in 21:23-43 this sequence is inverted, with vv. 23-27 dealing with the authority of both, vv. 28-32 dealing with the signi cance of the Baptist’s ministry, and vv. 33-43 dealing with the signi cance of Jesus. 2. Starting Late Is Better than Lip Service (21:2832) 3. e Fate of the Son-Killing Tenants (21:33-43)

is is labelled ‘another parable’ aer vv. 28-32; as with the preceding parable, Matthew focusses attention on the failure of the Jewish leaders to pay attention to the initiatives taken by God. D. Criticised Leaders Seek Jesus’ Arrest (21:45-46) e section is rounded off with the hostile reaction of the chief priests and the Pharisees to Jesus’ parabolic challenge, which is set over against a renewed statement (cf. v. 11) of the popular view that Jesus was a prophet. XVIII. Jesus Silences the Leaders Who Are His Opponents (22:1-46) A. Guests at a Royal Wedding Banquet (22:1-14) e new section follows closely from the previous one. In particular there are strong cross links between the present parable and that in 21:33-43, and the rst role of the parable in 22:1-14 is to interpret the reaction of the Jewish leaders in the immediately preceding verses. How this parable functions as an introduction for the section is not entirely clear. We are probably to link the refusal of the invitation in this parable with the failure to hand over the owner’s share of the harvest in 21:33-43 and to hear in 22:15-22 (assertion of God’s claim on the whole person) and vv. 34-40 (love of God and neighbour) a fresh challenge to render to God his due. Perhaps we should also nd echoed in vv. 23-28 (resurrection as attested in scripture and in accord with the power of God) and in vv. 41-46 (the Christ seated at God’s right hand until all his enemies are

subdued) the eschatological future to which the imagery of the marriage feast points. B. Four Questions (22:15-46) 1. ‘To Caesar … and to God …’ (22:15-22) Aer the introductory parable the remainder of the section consists of reports of four cases of questions being raised to Jesus (the rst three) or by Jesus (the nal question). e conversation partners are respectively the Pharisees (with the Herodians), the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and again the Pharisees. Daube may well be right that the four questions correspond to different kinds of questions found in rabbinic discussion.28 2. ‘Not God of the Dead but of the Living’ (22:2333) 3. Love of God and Love of Neighbour (22:34-40) 4. ‘David Calls Him Lord’ (22:41-46) XIX. Jesus Criticises the Scribes and Pharisees (23:1-39) e new section 23:1-39 is again closely linked to the preceding one,29 giving three closely linked sections: 21:12-46, 22:1-45, and 23:1-39, beginning and ending with the prospect of judgment for the temple/Jerusalem. Given that the whole section 23:1-39 is a discourse of Jesus and that towards the end (at least from v. 34) it has a thematic unity with the continuing discourse materials of chaps. 24–25, one can make a case that chaps. 23–25 are the scope of the last of the ve main discourse units of Matthew’s Gospel. e close links, however, between 21:12-46, 22:1-45, and 23:1-39, as well as the frame around

them provided by the prospect of judgment for the temple/Jerusalem at the beginning and the end, suggest rather that the whole of 21:12–23:39 is intended to prepare for the discourse in chaps. 24–25.30 e dominant structuring feature of chap. 23 is the seven woes, beginning in v. 13 and ending with v. 33, with vv. 32-33 also serving as a transition piece to the futureoriented material of vv. 34-39. Vv. 1-12 provide the introduction to the section: Jesus’ disciples are dependent on the scribes and Pharisees for a knowledge of the Mosaic Law, but what these people do with it and how they live do not exemplify good practice. A. e Scribes and Pharisees: Custodians of the Law but Bad Examples (23:1-12) B. Seven Woes against the Scribes and Pharisees (23:1333) Whereas the introductory section spoke to the crowds and the disciples about the scribes and Pharisees, the present section (for the bene t of the crowds and the disciples) speaks to the scribes and Pharisees. Matthew has a set of seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees.31 ey appear to be organised into an opening set of two (keeping people out of what is good and drawing them into what is bad), a middle set of three (oaths, tithing, and washing of cups), and a nal set of two (dealing with tombs).32 In a manner parallelled in 5:48, 23:(32-)33 provide both a conclusion for the nal woe and a conclusion for the whole set. But 23:(32-)33 also acts as a transition piece, as already indicated, to the future-oriented material of vv. 34-39.

C. Culmination: Emissaries to Be Rejected; Judgment to Fall (23:34-36) e agenda for 23:34-36 is set by vv. 32-33: the opportunity fully to live up to the forebears’ measure (v. 32) is to be provided by the divine emissaries sent. e judgment of Gehenna will not be avoided (v. 33); rather, judgment will fall within the life span of the generation. D. Lament over Jerusalem (23:37-39) e section 23:1-39 and the linked sections 21:12-46, 22:1-46, and 23:1-39 now come to an end with an anticipation of the ultimate scale of Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus. God will withdraw from its temple, and it will become a desolation. Jesus will be removed, but nonetheless he anticipates being welcomed in joy at his future coming. XX. e Shape of the Future: e Destruction of the Temple and the Coming of the Son of Man; with Appended Parables of Judgment and Reward (24:1– 25:46) e new section, 24:1–25:46 (26:2), has been prepared for by the materials towards the end of chap. 23. Indeed, 21:12–23:39 have all been leading up to this. is section is the h and nal of the set of major discourses in Matthew which are linked by a shared formula marker at the end. Jesus’ extended discourse here divides into three major sections: 24:3-35 contain the question of v. 3 and the body of Jesus’ response; 24:36–25:30 take their point of departure from the note of uncertainty about the timing of the coming of the Son of Man, introduced in v. 36; and 25:31-46 portray the decisive separation of people carried

out at the nal judgment by the Son of Man, and the basis on which it will take place. A. e Temple Will Be Destroyed (24:1-2) B. Question and Main Body of Answer (24:3-35) 1. e Beginning of the ‘Labour Pains’ (24:3-8) e disciples ask for an expansion on what Jesus has said to them about the coming destruction of the temple, linking it with Jesus’ future coming and the end of the age. Jesus begins his answer in terms of what must happen rst. 2. Persecution and Preaching Prepare for the End (24:9-14) Jesus’ answer continues, with emphasis now on the distinctive experience of Christians. 3. Flee When the Desolating Sacrilege Stands in the Temple (24:15-22) Developments towards the end take a fresh step with the appearance in the temple of the desolating sacrilege. 4. Beware of False Christs, Even en (24:23-28) 5. e Coming of the Son of Man (24:29-31) What will bring the great oppression to an end will be the cosmic ‘drum roll’ that will herald the coming of the Son of Man and the gathering of the elect. 6. ‘is Generation Shall Not Pass Away Until All ese ings Happen’ (24:32-35) e primary answer to the disciples’ question of v. 3 is rounded off with the g-tree parable

about the approach of summer and the assurance that the present generation will see ‘all these things happen’. C. Being Ready (24:36–25:30) 1. ‘About at Day and Hour No One Knows’ (24:36) Matthew uses 24:36 as an introduction for 24:37–25:30, the next subsection of 24:1–25:46 (26:2): How is one to conduct oneself in the period of limited but uncertain length before the coming of the Son of Man? 2. ree Kinds of Image of Being Caught Out by ‘at Day’ (24:37-44) Whereas 24:36 has asserted the unknowability of the timing of the coming of the Son of Man, vv. 37-44 press the need, in light of this necessary ignorance, for constant readiness. 3. ree Parables about Being Ready to Meet the Master (24:45–25:30) a. On the Job as the Slave Le in Charge (24:45-51) Readiness for the coming of the Son of Man, the need for which has been highlighted in 24:37-44, is now given content in the set of three parables which Matthew links in 24:51–25:30. b. Bridesmaids Waiting for the Bridegroom (25:1-13) As the middle of the set of three parables, the present parable serves to refresh the

theme of readiness from 24:37-44, but it also sustains the focus of its two companion parables by locating this readiness in action that precedes the inevitable coming. c. Slaves Entrusted with eir Master’s Business Affairs (25:14-30) is parable is particularly linked with the rst parable in the set. D. Universal Judgment by the Son of Man (25:31-46) e Eschatological Discourse now comes to a climactic end with this account of the nal judgment. e three preceding parables about being ready to meet the master have all de ned readiness in terms of an abstractly expressed principle, but in this nal scene the basis of judgment is concrete acts of compassion to those in particular need. XXI. e Passion Account (26:1–27:66) ough the section ends at 27:66, the transition at 28:1 to resurrection morning is already well prepared for by material from at least 27:51 onwards, which means that chap. 28 is tightly bound together with the Passion Narrative. e Passion section is made up of six parts, each focussed on a centrally located item. A. Section 1 (26:1-19) e anointing in Bethany (26:6-13) is the focus of the rst subsection. It is provided with a double frame, rst an outer frame made up of the announcement of the coming Passover and Passion (vv. 1-2) and its parallel in the preparations for the

Passover (vv. 17-19), then an inner frame consisting of the conspiracy to do away with Jesus (vv. 3-5) and its parallel in Judas’s offer to make this possible (vv. 14-16). 1. Passover Identi ed as the Time for the Passion (26:1-2) 2. Conspiracy in the High Priest’s Palace (26:3-5) 3. Jesus Anointed by a Woman in Bethany (26:613) 2′. Judas Arranges to Betray Jesus (26:14-16) 1′. Arrangements for the Passover Meal (26:17-19) B. Section 2 (26:20-35) e Last Supper (vv. 26-29[30]) is the focus of the second subsection. It is framed by the announcement of the betrayal (vv. 20-25) and its parallel in the announcement of the coming desertion (vv. [30]3135). 1. Jesus Says, ‘One of You Will Hand Me Over’ (26:20-25) 2. Jesus Directs the Eating of Bread as His Body, and Wine as His Blood of the Covenant (26:2629) 1′. Jesus Says, ‘You Will Deny Me ree Times’ (26:30-35) C. Section 3: Praying to Be Spared Trial (26:36-46) To conform to his pattern here, Matthew has divided his account of Jesus and the disciples in Gethsemane into three subunits each beginning with τότε (‘then’). is allows vv. 36-37 and 45-46 to function as

framing material around the three sessions of Jesus’ private prayer, which are the focus. D. Section 4 (26:47–27:2) Jesus before the Sanhedrin (26:57-68; 27:1-2) is the focus of the fourth subsection. It is framed by the betrayal (26:47-56) and its parallel in the denial (vv. 69-75). 1. Identi ed by Judas, Jesus Is Arrested (26:47-56) 2. Jesus before the Sanhedrin (26:57-68; 27:1-2) e separation of 27:1-2 and the inclusion of 26:58 mean that there is a measure of intertwining of the account of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and of Peter’s denial of Jesus. Matthew’s main internal structuring of the unit is provided by a historic present in v. 64 to mark this verse as the high point of the episode and the two uses of τότε (‘then’) to identify vv. 65-66 and 66-67 as paired responses to Jesus’ words in v. 64 Davies and Allison have noted a diadic arrangement throughout.33 1′. Peter’s Denial of Jesus (26:69-75) e preparatory role of v. 58 suggests that the questioning of Peter by the women and the bystanders also constitutes a negative counterpart to the interrogation of Jesus by the chief priest (the two sets of events are to be seen as taking place at the same time). While Jesus remains true to his vision and is handed over to Pilate, Peter plunges deeper and deeper into

denial of Jesus and retains a freedom which gives him no joy. E. Section 5 (27:3-31) Jesus before Pilate (27:11-26) is the focus of the h subsection. It is framed by the accounts of the fate of the betrayer (vv. 3-10) and of the abuse by the soldiers (27:27-31). 1. Judas’s Remorse and Suicide, and the ‘Field of Blood’ (27:3-10) e parallelling of vv. 3-10 and 27-31 is based on a contrast (as will be the immediately framing elements around the account of Jesus’ death on the cross): the Sanhedrin hearing reduces Judas, who had handed Jesus over to the Jewish leaders, to a profound regret that culminates in Judas’ death; the Roman hearing, at the conclusion of which Jesus is handed over to the soldiers, leads to their mockery of Jesus and climaxes in their leading him off to death. Without difficulty the soldiers can redress Jesus in his own clothing, but there is nothing that Judas can do to undo what he has done. 2. Jesus before Pilate (27:11-26) Matthew’s account of Jesus before Pilate falls naturally into two parts. Only in the rst part, 27:11-14, is Jesus an active participant. a. Pilate Interrogates Jesus (27:11-14) b. Jesus or Barabbas? Pilate’s Preference or the Will of the Sanhedrin Leaders (27:15-26)

1′. Pilate’s Soldiers Mock Jesus’ Claim to Royal Status (27:27-31) e scene is arranged in a chiasm centred on the kneeling and mocking of 27:29b. F. Section 6 (27:32-66) Jesus’ death on the cross (vv. 45-53) is the focus of the sixth and nal subsection. As in the rst subsection, it is provided with a double frame, rst an outer frame made up of the cruci xion of Jesus by the soldiers (vv. 32-38) and its parallel in the guard of soldiers securing the tomb (vv. 62-66), and then an inner frame consisting of the ridicule of Jesus by three named categories of people (vv. 39-44) and its parallel in ‘affirmation’ of Jesus by three named categories of people (vv. 54-61). 1. e Soldiers Crucify Jesus (27:32-38) 2. ree Lots of Mockers (27:39-44) Echoing mostly the material of the Sanhedrin hearing, three lots of people mock the dying Jesus, whose pretensions now seem to be belied by his situation. 3. e Death of Jesus (27:45-53) 2′. ree Kinds of Affirmation (27:54-61) a. ‘is [Fellow] Was the Son of God!’ (27:54) is rst of three instances of affirmation of Jesus bears the main weight of the setting up of the parallelism between vv. 39-44 and vv. 54-61. ough vv. 54, 55-56, and 57-61 share a single slot in Matthew’s larger structure, the materials are diverse

and lend themselves to being presented as here in three separate subunits. b. e Galilean Women Disciples Were Still ere (27:55-56) c. Joseph Buries Jesus; the Women Are Still ere (27:57-61) 1′. A Guard of Soldiers Is Set at the Tomb (27:6266) It was the opposition of the Jerusalem leadership to Jesus that nally led to the role of the Roman soldiers as those who cruci ed Jesus in vv. 32-38; a fresh initiative on the part of the Jerusalem leaders now gives a guard of Roman soldiers the fresh role of securing his tomb. XXII. Resurrection and Commissioning (28:1-20) Matthew has a simple threefold structure for the nal section of the Gospel dealing with the resurrection of Jesus: an explanation of the falsely put-about Jewish view (28:11-15) is sandwiched between the two parts of Matthew’s outline of the Christian understanding of what actually took place (vv. 1-10, 16-20). A. Events on Easter Morning at and around the Tomb (28:1-10) B. e Official Jewish Line on the Empty Tomb (28:1115) e guards at the tomb now make their third appearance in Matthew’s narrative (cf. 27:62-66; 28:4). He places the role of the guards in parallel with that of the women on the one hand and with that of Judas on the other.

C. ‘Marching Orders’ from the Risen Jesus in Galilee (28:16-20)

1. Hengel, Four Gospels, 48-53, 77. For Hengel the question of authorship is not thereby established. 2. Matthew is also mentioned in the parallel texts to Mt. 10:3, Mk. 3:18, and Lk. 6:15, and in the list of apostles in Acts 1:13. 3. In a book and various articles (see general bibliography) G. Howard has drawn attention to a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew preserved in Shem-Tob’s Even Bohan, a treatise which appeared in manuscript form in 1380. Howard argues that the text of Matthew found there re ects, in part (as it has been subject to later revision), an original Hebrew version of canonical Matthew. What has been demonstrated is that Shem-Tob’s text re ects ancient tradition at points and that we are, therefore, not simply dealing with a medieval translation of Greek Matthew. What seems most likely, however, is that Shem-Tob had mediated access to an ancient translation of Greek Matthew into Hebrew, probably made by Jewish Christians but preserved in a Jewish context for anti-Christian polemical purposes, and that this ancient rendering was in uenced by various traditions current at the time. 4. Crossan has argued that the Gospel of Peter is based on the most original Passion-Resurrection account and that the canonical Gospels are all dependent on the primitive form of the Gospel of Peter. See Four Other Gospels, 124-181; Cross at Spoke (in Bibliography at 26:1-9); ‘oughts on Two Extracanonical Gospels’, Semeia 49 (1990), 155-68. Some scholars have found his arguments persuasive, but most of them have not been convinced. 5. e Greek is rough, and the translation attempts to mirror the roughness. 6. e Paul of Acts 20:35 does so, and he does so in terms of a teaching that is not re ected in our Gospels. 7. Luke offers a little more with the presence of 19:41-44; 21:20-24, but the language is largely a pastiche of OT judgment texts and there is nally

nothing here that should arouse suspicion of description aer the event. See Nolland, Luke, 3:930-33, 1000-1003. 8. ‘Scribes’ in Mk. 3:22 are ‘Pharisees’ in Mt. 9:34; 12:24. In 12:38 Matthew has added ‘scribes’ and in 16:1 ‘Sadducees’ to the ‘Pharisees’ of Mk. 8:11. In 16:6 ‘of the Pharisees and of Herod’ of Mk. 8:15 becomes ‘of the Pharisees and the Sadducees’. e unnamed people in Mk. 12:12, who from 11:27 are to be identi ed as ‘the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders’, become in Mt. 21:45 ‘the chief priests and the Pharisees’. In Mt. 27:41 ‘elders’ gets added to the ‘chief priests’ and ‘scribes’ of Mk. 15:31. ‘e chief priests and the scribes’ of Mk. 11:27; 14:1 have become ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’ in Mt. 21:23; 26:3. ‘e chief priests and the scribes and the elders’ in Mk. 14:43 have been reduced to ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’ in Mt. 26:47. ‘e chief priests with the elders and the scribes’ of Mk. 15:1 is similarly reduced in Mt. 27:1 to ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’. To ‘the chief priests’ of Mk. 15:3 Matthew adds ‘and the elders’ in Mt. 27:12, as he does in v. 20 to Mk. 15:11. 9. Nolland, ‘Luke’s Readers’, 129-240. 10. Mt. 5:47; 6:7; 18:17. 11. Mt. 5:17-19; 23:23. 12. See Mt. 5:11-12; 10:23; 23:34. 13. Slingerland, ‘e Transjordanian Origin of St. Matthew’s Gospel’, JSNT 3 (1979), 18-28. 14. e 1988 volume edited by R. Bauckham, e Gospel for All Christians, makes a powerful case for treating the Gospels as each written for a general and not a speci c audience. Certainly his contention is correct that they are written as open documents and not as closed documents. And certainly the book is right to protest that to know something of the provenance of the writer and/or his materials does not provide a basis for making immediate assumptions about readership. It will be clear to readers from the commentary below that I do not believe that Matthew was written to address any narrow set of local concerns (in the manner that Paul sometimes writes). I think, however, that the Bauckham volume is in danger of moving to the opposite extreme from those of the scholarly orthodoxies it is rightly concerned to dislodge. ere do seem to me to be some patterns of

assumptions about reader perspectives to be found in both Luke and Matthew; each Gospel bridges most naturally to a limited range from among all the potential readers available in the rst-century Greco-Roman world. is does not mean that the writers did not want their Gospels to be more widely read, but simply that consciously or unconsciously (I suspect sometimes the one and sometimes the other) they imagined the kind or kinds of people that they were addressing as they wrote, and possibly at times they simply assumed, perhaps unthinkingly, that their readers would be something like themselves. 15. Mt. 10:40; 18:20; 28:20. 16. e fundamentally religious nature of the experience is supported by the fact that although following Jesus is the main category Matthew develops for discipleship, it is the worship of Jesus that is used to mark as high points the moment of rst recognition of him as the Son of God (Mt. 14:32) and the moment of rst encounter with the risen Jesus (28:9, 17). 17. See also Mt. 16:18-19. Jn. 13–15 also re ects on the inner life of the disciple band as one of mutual love. 18. iede has dated 64/67 back into the rst century (see the three articles by iede in the general bibliography), but this view has not commended itself to other scholars. 19. I have not nally found persuasive the argument of Parker, Living Text, that there never was an original xed text of the Gospels. Variant readings can credibly be accounted for in the copying tradition, I think that the kind of attitude to texts that Parker envisages would have produced greater textual variation than is in fact the case, and texts that could not be as coherently interpreted as the existing texts of the Gospels have proved amenable to being. 20. A link is also likely to be intended to the use of the same language in relation to Judas in Mt. 26:16 and the related language of John the Baptist in Mt. 3:1, but 4:17; 16:21 provide the primary pair. 21. See Anderson, Web. 22. e MT has ‘your messenger’; Mal. 3:1 MT lacks an equivalent to the emphatic ‘I’ (ἐγώ) and has no equivalent to ‘ahead of you’ (lit. ‘before your face’). Mal. 3:1 LXX has the emphatic ‘I’, but uses a different word for ‘send’.

23. In a series of articles M. J. J. Menken has argued with great care (see the bibliographies below in the commentary for the various texts commented on above) that Matthew does not produce his own renderings but is dependent on a revision of the LXX which was available to him. is view is not easy to falsify since, ex hypothesi, the primary evidence for the existence of the revision is the form of the quotations in Matthew. Menken looks for points of agreement between Matthew’s quotations and later revisions of the LXX. ere are some such points, but not a striking number, and these are well explained as based on the same kind of fresh scrutiny of the Hebrew as that which I attribute to Matthew. Menken looks for ways in which Matthew’s quotations could have been made to t better thematically, or in terms of natural Matthean style. Judgments about exactly how the quotations are intended to function are involved, and sometimes Menken and I have different views as to the nature of the t intended. No doubt if Matthew had continued his editing work he could have improved the t in some instances, but the text forms Matthew uses are oen enough rather better for his purposes than either the LXX or MT would have been. Menken recognises a measure of likely Matthean editing in the quotations; and certainly the merged quotations have not come straight from any OT text available to Matthew. Menken also looks for ways in which Matthew’s quotations could have been made to t natural Matthean style better. Menken actually nds surprisingly few, and it is reasonably likely that the fact that Matthew is translating, and thus rendering another writer’s style, will have some in uence on the resulting language style. 24. ough I will note below an approach to already ful lled prophecy that Matthew shares with Jewish interpreters of the OT, I do not intend to discuss in any wider sense the relationship between Matthew’s approach to the interpretation of Scripture and that of his Jewish environment. Suffice it to say that Matthew is very much a Jewish interpreter of Scripture. 25. Gerhardsson, ‘Sower’, 165-93 (see the bibliography for Mt. 13:3-9). 26. Only Mt. 10:19-20. 27. In the commentary at Mt. 12:1-8 an alternative structuring of 11:1(2)–12:50 is explored in which 12:1-14 constitute the centre of a chiasm framed by 11:25-30 and 12:15-21, then 11:20-24 and 12:22-37, then 11:16-19 and 12:38-42, then 11:7-15 and 12:43-45, and nally 11:2-5 and 12:46-50.

28. Daube, Rabbinic Judaism, 159-61. 29. Speci cally, Matthew has increased the number of references to the Pharisees between 21:12 and 22:45 from one in the corresponding Markan material to four. e scribes have, however, not done as well: Mark has ve references to them to Matthew’s two (and one of these is with νομικός rather than γραμματεύς), but Matthew has in mind in chap. 23 those scribes associated with the Pharisaic movement. So for him the Pharisaic identity provides the important link. 30. Mt. 11:2-30 is also more or less a discourse, and it has not been granted a place in the set of ve main discourses. Whereas 23:1-39 comes immediately before one of the ve labelled discourses, 11:2-30 comes immediately aer one. 31. On the origin of these woes see at Mt. 23:1-12. 32. A difficulty with this structuring is the obviously close connection between woes four and ve, which have no role in the sectioning. If we ignore the apparent link between ‘blind Pharisee’ at the beginning of Mt. 23:26 and the linked phrases ‘blind guides’ (v. 16), ‘foolish and blind [ones]’ (v. 17), ‘blind [ones]’ (v. 19), and ‘blind guides’ (v. 24), and note, as discussed at 23:29, Matthew’s likely expansion to enhance links between the nal two woes, then we could think in terms of three pairs of woes and a climactic nal woe (this is favoured by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:282). 33. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:519.

COMMENTARY

I. THE STOCK FROM WHICH JESUS COMES — AND ITS HISTORY (1:1-17) 1[e]

record of the origin of Jesus: Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. 2Abraham produced Isaac; Isaac produced Jacob; Jacob produced Judah and his brothers; 3Judah produced Perez and Zerah out of Tamar; Perez produced Hezron; Hezron produced Aram; 4Aram produced Aminadab; Aminadab produced Nahshon; Nahshon produced Salmon; 5Salmon produced Boaz out of Rahab; Boaz produced Obed out of Ruth; Obed produced Jesse; 6Jesse produced David the king. David produced Solomon out of the wife of Uriah; 7Solomon produced Rehoboam; Rehoboam produced Abijah; Abijah produced Asaph;a 8Asapha produced Jehoshaphat; Jehoshaphat produced Jehoram;b Jehoramb produced Uzziah; 9Uzziah produced Jotham; Jotham produced Ahaz; Ahaz produced Hezekiah; 10Hezekiah produced Manasseh; Manasseh produced Amos [or Amon];c Amos [or Amon]c produced Josiah; 11Josiah producedd Jechoniah and his brothers, in the period in which the deportation to Babylon took place. Babylon, Jechoniah produced Shealtiel;e 13Zerubbabel produced Abiud; Abiud produced Eliakim; Eliakim produced Azor; 14Azor produced Zadok; Zadok produced Achim; Achim produced Eliud; 15Eliud produced Eleazar; Eleazar produced Matthan; Matthan produced Jacob; 16Jacob produced Joseph,f the husband of Mary, out of whom was producedf Jesus, who is called Christ. 17So, all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. 12Aer the deportation to Shealtiele produced Zerubbabel;

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. L W latpt sy and the majority text have Ασα, conforming the reading to the OT name of the king. b. e name can also be rendered ‘Joram’. ough less close to the Greek, ‘Jehoram’ has been preferred because it is the form mostly found in the OT for this king. c. L W f13 lat sy and the majority text have Αμων, conforming to the more usual form for the name of King Amon and eliminating the possibility of allusion to the prophet Amos. d. M Θ f1 33 etc. add τον Ιωακιμ, Ιωακιμ δε εγεννησεν (‘Jehoiakim; Jehoiakim produced’), lling in what was deemed to be the missing generation. e. ‘Salathiel’ is the Greek name, but ‘Shealtiel’ is used for the sake of continuity with OT translation usage. f-f. ough all the best texts and indeed almost all the Greek witness, supported by most of the versions, read the text as translated above, there are several strikingly different readings. Θ f13, with support from a (b) c d (k) (q) Ambr Aug Hipp, have ω μνηστευθεισα παρθενος Μαριαμ εγεννησεν. is could be taken to mean (a) ‘betrothed to whom, a virgin, Mary, bore’ or, linking Joseph to the main verb as well, (b) ‘to whom one betrothed (to him as) a virgin, Mary, bore’ or (c) ‘to whom a betrothed, a virgin, Mary, bore’. Sys could correspond to a Greek reading Ιωσηϕ ω μνηστευθεισα ην Μαριαμ παρθενος εγεννησεν, which seems to mean ‘Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary, a virgin [or Mary (as) a virgin], produced’. Syc could correspond to a Greek reading ω μνηστευθεισα ην Μαριαμ παρθενος η ετεκεν (‘to whom was betrothed Mary, a virgin [or Mary (as) a virgin], who gave birth to’). (Arm splices into the normal text an equivalent to ω μνηστευθεισα ην Μαριαμ παρθενος as witnessed to by the sy texts; copbo has an equivalent to η ετεκεν in place of the normal εξ ης εγεννηθη.) Syc is clearly something of a middle term between Θ and sys, sharing with the latter ην and the word order Μαριαμ παρθενος, but with the former referring the reproduction verb to Mary, not Joseph. e distinctive agreements of syc and sys may, however, be fortuitous: the addition of the verb may simply re ect better Syriac idiom, and the change in word order is

to a more natural one, especially given the addition of the verb. With reference to the Θ reading, both sys and syc are concerned to clarify the reference of the nal reproduction verb, which would be linguistically necessary at the point of translation into Syriac. Aer the long list of uses of εγεννησεν, all applied to the male role, it would be easy to take the nal use in the same way (easy, but a mistake, since it would be ungrammatical to do so). e syc reading eliminates this possibility by specifying the application of the verb to the female role. e sys reading, impressed by the consistent pattern in the uses of εγεννησεν, decides that the ungrammatical reading must be the correct one, and that the grammatical fault was the result of the loss of the second Ιωσηϕ. By the addition of a second Ιωσηϕ the grammar is restored, as is the pattern of repetition of names. (e thoughtfulness that stands behind this is re ected in the alterations in vv. 21 and 25: ‘she will bear you a son’; ‘she bore him a son’. At the same time, this is not meant as a denial of the virgin birth since vv. 18-24 are not at all changed. e translator probably thinks of legal paternity, not biological.) It seems reasonable, then, to derive both the sys and syc readings from that in Θ. But what account can be given of the reading in Θ? μνηστευομαι is used in v. 18 and παρθενος in v. 23, but since the two words come together in Lk. 1:27 (linked to a dative, and with Μαριαμ a few words later), it is the most likely source of in uence. Perhaps the scribe read Mt. 1:25a as indicating that the state of betrothal persisted until the birth had taken place. He certainly did not in any way want to undermine the virgin-birth tradition. He did, however, think that his clari cation could improve the text in another way as well: every other generation is introduced by εγεννησεν; now this one can be as well (admittedly the sense will be a little different, with the woman as subject, but the formal equivalence will be there). Our scribe did not realise that the text he produced could be taken in the senses represented by (b) and (c) above, nor that his bringing of the nal generation into the pattern of uses of εγεννησεν would run the danger of being misread as applying to Joseph as father. Bibliography

General for Mt. 1–2 Aarde, A. G. van, ‘e Evangelium Infantium, the Abandonment of Children, and the Infancy Narrative in Matthew 1 and 2 from a SocialScienti c Perspective’, SBLSP 31 (1992), 435-53. • Anderson, J. C., ‘Mary’s Difference: Gender and Patriarchy in the Birth Narratives’, JR 67 (1987), 183-202. • Barrett, J. E., ‘Virgin Birth’, BRev 4 (1988), 10-15, 29. • Bertrand, G.-M., ‘Les récits de l’Enfance selon Eugène Drewermann’, CahJos 42 (1994), 287-92. • Blomberg, C. L., ‘e Liberation of Illegitimacy: Women and Rulers in Matthew 1–2’, BTB 21 (1991), 145-50. • Borg, M., ‘Light in the Darkness’, ChrCent 115 (1998), 1218-21. • Bovon, F., ‘Die Geburt und die Kindheit Jesu: Kanonische und apokryphe Evangelien’, BK 42 (1987), 16270. • Brown, R. E., e Birth of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 19932). • Brown, R. E., ‘Gospel Infancy Narrative Research from 1976 to 1986: Part I (Matthew)’, CBQ 48 (1986), 468-83. • Cohen, J., e Origins and Evolution of the Moses Nativity Story (Numen Studies in the History of Religions 58. Leiden: Brill, 1993). • Crossan, J. D., ‘From Moses to Jesus: Parallel emes’, BRev 2 (1986), 18-27. • Cunningham, P. J., ‘A Tale of Two Creches’, BiTod 37 (1999), 378-81. • Elderen, B. Van, ‘e Signi cance of the Structure of Matthew 1’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 3-14. • Feuillet, A., ‘Le Sauveur messianique et sa Mère dans les récits de l’enfance de Saint Matthieu et de Saint Luc’, Divinitas 34 (1990), 17-52. • Fiedler, P., ‘Geschichten als eologie und Verkündigung: Die Prologe des Matthäus und Lukas-Evangeliums’, in Zur eologie der Kindheitsgeschichten: Der heutige Stand der Exegese, ed. R. Pesch (Munich: Schnell, 1981), 11-26. • France, R. T., ‘Scripture, Tradition and History in the Infancy Narratives of Matthew’, in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham, 2:239266. • Frankemölle, H., ‘Die Geburt im Stall: Die “Weihnachtsgeschichte” im Widerstreit zwischen tiefen psychologischer und historisch-kritischer Auslegung’, Diak 19 (1988), 402-10. • Freed, E. D., e Stories of Jesus’ Birth: A Critical Introduction (Biblical Seminar 72. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001). • Frenschkowski, M., ‘Traum und Traumdeutung im Matthäusevangelium: Einige Beobachtungen’, JAC 41 (1998), 5-47. • Fuller, R. H., He at Cometh: e Birth of Jesus in the New Testament (Harrisburg, PA/Wilton, CT: Morehouse, 1990). • Giesler, M. E., ‘Brown’s Birth of the

Messiah … Revisited’, HPR 101 (2001), 16-24. • Globe, A., ‘Some Doctrinal Variants in Matthew 1 and Luke 2, and the Authority of the Neutral Text’, CBQ 42 (1980), 52-72. • Gnuse, R., ‘Dream Genre in the Matthean Infancy Narratives’, NovT 32 (1990), 97-120. • Hanson, J. S., ‘Dreams and Visions in the Graeco-Roman World and Earliest Christianity’, ANRW 2.23.2 (1980), 1395-1427. • Hendrickx, H., e Infancy Narratives (rev. edn. London: Chapman, 1984). • Hooker, M. D., Beginnings: Keys at Open the Gospels (London: SCM, 1997), 23-42. • Hultgren, A. J., ‘Matthew’s Infancy Narrative and the Nativity of an Emerging Community’, HBT 19 (1997), 91-108. • Kensky, A., ‘Moses and Jesus: e Birth of the Savior’, Judaism 42 (1993), 4349. • Kingsbury, J. D., ‘e Birth Narrative of Matthew’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 154-65. • Laurentin, R., ‘Approche structurale de Matthieu 1–2’, in De la Tôrah au Messie. FS H. Cazelles, ed. M. Carrez et al. (Paris: Desclée, 1981), 383-416. • Laurentin, R., e Truth of Christmas (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s, 1986). • Legrand, L., ‘Angels’ Songs or Rachel’s Dirge: A Christmas Meditation’, ITS 29 (1992), 281-90. • Martin, E. L., e Birth of Christ Recalculated (Pasadena: Foundation for Biblical Research, 19802). • Mayordomo-Marín, M., Den Anfang hören: Leserorientierte Evangelienexegese am Beispiel von Matthäus 1–2 (FRLANT 180. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998). • McGaughy, L. C., ‘Infancy Narratives and Hellenistic Lives: Luke 1–2’, Forum 2.1 (1999), 25-39. • Michaud, J.-P., Marie des Évangiles (CÉ 77. Paris: Cerf, 1991). • Mills, W. E., Bibliographies on the Life and Teaching of Jesus, Vol. 1: e Birth Narratives (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1999). • Moloney, F. J., ‘e Infancy in Matthew’, in e Year of Matthew, ed. H. McGinlay (Melbourne: Desbooks/JBCE, 1983), 1-9. • Moloney, F. J., ‘Beginning the Gospel of Matthew: Reading Matthew 1:1– 2:23’, Salesianum 54 (1992), 341-59. • Mussies, G., ‘e Date of Jesus’ Birth in Jewish and Samaritan Sources’, JSJ 29 (1998), 416-37. • Nortjé, L., ‘Die Abraham-motief in Matteus 1–4’, Skrif en Kerk 19 (1998), 46-56. • Oberweiss, M., ‘Beobachtungen zum AT-Gebrauch in der matthäischen Kindheitgeschichte’, NTS 35 (1989), 131-49. • Parrinder, G., Son of Joseph: e Parentage of Jesus (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992). • Pénicaud, A., ‘Lecture de “l’Évangile de l’Enfance” chez Matthieu (I & II)’, SémiotBib 98 (2000), 3-30. • Pesch, R., ‘“Es wird Nazoräer heissen,” Messianische Exegese

in Mt. 1–2’, in e Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1385-1401. • Quarles, C. L., Midrash Criticism: Introduction and Appraisal (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998). • Quarles, C. L., ‘e Protevangelium of James as an Alleged Parallel to Creative Historiography in the Synoptic Birth Narratives’, BBR 8 (1998), 139-49. • Riedl, J., ‘Mt 1 und die Jungfrauengeburt’, in Salz der Erde, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 91-109. • Rochais, G., ‘La gure de Joseph dans les récits de l’Enfance selon saint Matthieu’, Cahiers de l’Oratoire Saint-Joseph 6 (1999), 21-44. • Rodger, L., ‘e Infancy Stories of Matthew and Luke: An Examination of the Child as a eological Metaphor’, HBT 19 (1997), 58-81. • Schaberg, J., e Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist eological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1990). • Schaberg, J., ‘Feminist Interpretation of the Infancy Narrative of Matthew’, JFSR 13 (1997), 35-62. • Schille, G., ‘Die ursprüngliche Krippenspiel: Weihnachtliche Bibeltexte szenisch beleuchtet’, ZdZ 51 (1997), 236-38. • Scott, B. B., ‘e Birth of the Reader: Matthew 1:1–4:16’, in Faith and History, ed. J. T. Carroll et al., 35-54. • Scott, B. B., ‘e Birth of the Reader’, Semeia 52 (1990), 83-102. • Smith, D. E., ‘Narrative Beginnings in Ancient Literature and eory’, Semeia 52 (1991), 1-9. • Stendahl, K., ‘Quis et Unde? An Analysis of Matthew 1–2’, in Interpretation, ed. G. Stanton, 5666. • Tatum, W. B., ‘e Historical Quest for the Baby Jesus: Matthew 1–2’, Forum 2.1 (1999), 7-23. • ériault, J.-Y., ‘La Règle de Trois: Une lecture sémiotique de Mt 1–2’, ScEs 34 (1982), 57-78. • omas, C., ‘e Nativity Scene’, BiTod 28 (1990), 26-33. • Tupper, E. F., ‘e Bethlehem Massacre — Christology against Providence?’ RevExp 88 (1991), 399-418. • Viviano, B. T., ‘e Genres of Matthew 1–2: Light from 1 Timothy 1:4’, RB 97 (1990), 31-53. • Vogler, W., ‘“Weihnachten” im Lichte der neueren Forschung’, ZdZ 51 (1997), 231-35. • Weaver, D. J., ‘Rewriting the Messianic Script: Matthew’s Account of the Birth of Jesus’, Int 54 (2000), 376-85. • Wright, N. T., ‘God’s Way of Acting’, ChrCent 115 (1998), 1215-17. For Mt. 1:1-17 Abadie, P., ‘Les généalogies de Jésus en Matthieu et Luc’, LumVie 48 (1999), 47-60. • Alter, R., World, 51-52. • Bailey, N. A., ‘“What’s Wrong with My Word Order?” Topic, Focus, Information Flow, and Other Pragmatic

Aspects of Some Biblical Genealogies’, JournTransTextling 10 (1998), 1-29. • Bauckham, R., Gospel Women, 17-46. • Bauckham, R., ‘Tamar’s Ancestry and Rahab’s Marriage: Two Problems in the Matthean Genealogy’, NovT 37 (1995), 313-29. • Bauer, D. R., ‘e Literary and eological Function of the Genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 129-60. • Bauer, D. R., ‘e Literary Function of the Genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel’, SBLSP 29 (1990), 451-68. • Böhler, D., ‘Jesus als Davidssohn bei Lukas und Micha’, Bib 79 (1998), 532-38. • Brown, R. E., Birth of the Messiah, 57-92. • Brown, R. E., ‘Rachab in Mt 1,5 Probably Is Rahab of Jericho’, Bib 63 (1982), 79-80. • Chazal, N. de, ‘e Women in Jesus’ Family Tree’,  97 (1994), 413-19. • Comerford, P., ‘Genealogies, Mythmaking, and Christmas’, DL 50 (2000), 552-56. • Corley, K. E., Private, 147-52. • Cunningham, P. J., ‘ose Shady Ladies in Jesus’ Family Tree’, BiTod 40 (2002), 184-88. • Dormeyer, D., ‘Mt 1,1 als Überschri zur Gattung und Christologie des Matthäus-Evangelium’, in e Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1361-83. • Fauquex, J., ‘Matthieu 1: une généalogie à surprises’, Hokhma 61 (1996), 15-26. • Feuillet, A., ‘Observations sur les deux généalogies de Jésus-Christ de saint Matthieu (1,1-17) et de saint Luc (3,2328)’, EV 98 (1988), 605-8. • Frankemölle, H., Jahwebund, 311-18, 360-65. • Freed, E. D., ‘e Women in Matthew’s Genealogy’, JSNT 29 (1987), 3-19. • Gillet-Didier, V., ‘Généalogies anciennes, généalogies nouvelles: Formes et fonctions’, FV 100 (2001), 3-12. • Graves, T. H., ‘Matthew 1:1-17’, RevExp 86 (1989), 595-600. • Hammer, W., ‘L’intention de la généalogie de Matthieu’, ETR 55 (1980), 305-6. • Hayes, C. E., ‘e Midrashic Career of the Confession of Judah (Genesis 38,26)’, VT 45 (1995), 62-81, 174-87. • Heil, J. P., ‘e Narrative Roles of Women in Matthew’s Genealogy’, Bib 72 (1991), 538-45. • Hempelmann, H., ‘Das “Dürre Blatt im Heiligen Buch”: Mt 1,1-17 und der Kampf wider die Erniedrigung Gottes’, TB 21 (1990), 6-23. • Hutchinson, J. C., ‘Women, Gentiles, and the Messianic Mission in Matthew’s Genealogy’, BSac 158 (2001), 152-64. • Jackson, G., ‘Have Mercy on Me’: e Story of the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15.21-28 (JSNTSup 228; Copenhagen International Seminar 10. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 86-99. • Johnson, M. D., e Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies: With Special Reference to the Setting of the Genealogies of Jesus (SNTSMS 8.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19882). • Johnson, M. D., ‘Genealogies of Jesus’, Forum 2.1 (1999), 41-55. • Jones, J. M., ‘Subverting the Textuality of Davidic Messianism: Matthew’s Presentation of the Genealogy and the Davidic Title’, CBQ 56 (1994), 256-72. • Légasse, S., ‘Les généalogies de Jésus’, BLE 99 (1998), 443-54. • Lerle, E., ‘Die Ahnenverzeichnisse Jesu’, ZNW 72 (1981), 112-17. • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic, 59-88. • Masson, J., Jésus fils de David dans les généalogies de saint Matthieu et de saint Luc (Paris: Téqui, 1982). • McDermott, J. J., ‘Multipurpose Genealogies’, BiTod 35 (1997), 382-86. • Menn, E. M., Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38) in Ancient Jewish Exegesis (JSJSup 51. Leiden: Brill, 1997). • Mussies, G., ‘Parallels to Matthew’s Version of the Pedigree of Jesus’, NovT 28 (1986), 32-47. • Nettelhorst, R. P., ‘e Genealogy of Jesus’, JETS 31 (1988), 169-72. • Nolland, J., ‘What Kind of Genesis Do We Have in Matt 1.1?’ NTS 42 (1996), 463-71. • Nolland, J., ‘e Four (Five) Women and Other Annotations in Matthew’s Genealogy’, NTS 43 (1997), 527-39. • Nolland, J., ‘Genealogical Annotation in Genesis as Background for the Matthean Genealogy of Jesus’, TynB 47 (1996), 115-22. • Nolland, J., ‘Jechoniah and His Brothers (Matthew 1:11)’, BBR 7 (1997), 169-78. • Ostmeyer, K.-H., ‘Der Stammbaum des Verheissenen: eologische Implikationen der Namen und Zahlen in Mt 1.1-17’, NTS 46 (2000), 175-92. • Overstreet, L., ‘Difficulties of New Testament Genealogies’, GTJ 2 (1981), 303-26. • Paul, A., ‘Matthieu 1 comme écriture apocalyptique: Le récit véritable de la “cruci xion” de ἔρως’, ANRW 2.25.3 (1984), 1952-68. • Petit, M., ‘Bethesabée dans la tradition juive jusqu’aux Talmudim’, Jud 47 (1981), 209-23. • Plum, K. F., ‘Genealogy as eology’, SJOT 3 (1989), 66-92. • Quinn, J. D., ‘Is ῬΑΧΑΒ in Mt 1.5 Rahab of Jericho?’ Bib 62 (1981), 225-28. • Schaberg, J., ‘e Foremothers and the Mother of Jesus’, Concil 206 (1989), 112-19. • Shimoff, S. R., ‘David and Bathsheba: e Political Function of Rabbinic Aggada’, JSJ 24 (1993), 246-56. • urston, A., Knowing Her Place, 89-98. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 21-48. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 61-69, 156-71. • Wassén, C., ‘e Story of Judah and Tamar in the Eyes of the Earliest Interpreters’, Liteol 8 (1994), 354-66. • Weren, W. J. C., ‘e Five Women in Matthew’s Genealogy’, CBQ 59 (1997), 228-305. • Zeller, D., ‘Geburtsankündigung und Geburtsverkündigung: Formgeschichte Untersuchung im Blick auf Mt 1f.,

Lk 1f ’, in Studien und Texte zur Formgeschichte, ed. K. Berger et al. (Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter 7. Tübingen/Basel: Francke, 1992), 59-134.

Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy of Jesus which locates him rmly within, but at the climax of, the history of God’s dealings with his people. In brief compass Matthew evokes the glories and tragedies of that story in which the purposes of God unfold. e genealogy appears to have been built up on the basis of the Greek OT, plus whatever traditions formed the basis for the names from Abiud (perhaps a genealogical record tracing descent from Zerubbabel or possibly Jechoniah?). More speci cally the genealogy seems to have been built up around a core based on Ru. 4:18-22. is provided ten generations, and the pattern ‘A produced B’. When this ran out, the genealogist turned primarily to 1 Ch. 3:10-19, which provided sixteen further names which he uses (plus one indirect use, plus three which are not used). e rst four names are so well known as not to require a speci c source. Matthew’s biblical sources are handled in such a way as to indicate a good knowledge of the OT narratives to which the individual names are linked. ere is no sufficient reason for tracing any form of the nished genealogy back beyond the author of Mathew.1 And the theological views implicitly articulated may be taken as those of the author of Matthew. e Matthean genealogy and the Lukan one (which starts from Adam, and even God, and is reported in the reverse sequence) have very little in common aer King David. ey meet brie y for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, and then not until Joseph. Various attempts have been made at harmonisation, none of which is better than speculative.2 Given the contradictions in OT and other ancient genealogies and the varied functions of genealogies,3 it is probably best to let each genealogy make its own contribution to an understanding of the signi cance of Jesus.

1:1 e total lack of de nite articles, along with the absence of any verb, helps to suggest that we have here a superscription or

heading. e scope of the text covered by the heading is signalled by the repetition in v. 17 (in reverse order) of the key terms ‘Abraham’, ‘David’, and ‘Christ’ (though indirectly this should be extended to cover vv. 18-25 since these verses are, structurally, an expansion and explanation of v. 16). It is likely that some in uence on the wording has come from Mk. 1:1. If this is so, Matthew has deliberately chosen to trace the roots of his story further back than Mark had considered necessary (but not as far as Luke or John). βίβλος is the normal word for ‘book’, and this fact has caused some interpreters to apply it here to the whole of the Gospel text. At least in Septuagintal Greek, however, it can also refer to a less substantial piece of writing, either a document in its own right4 or included within a larger whole.5 It is considerably more natural (given the link here with ‘origin’) to apply βίβλος to the genealogy bracketed by vv. 1 and 17. γένεσις (‘origin’) is used here and in v. 18 and must be taken in a manner which can do justice to the link between these two uses. Many have been struck by the use in the LXX of Gn. 2:4; 5:1 of the identical phrase βίβλος γενέσεως (but with the de nite article). In the underlying Hebrew the phrase refers in 2:4 (‘… of the heavens and the earth when they were created’) to 2:5–4:26, spanning from the creation of Adam to the birth of a son to Seth; the use in 5:1 (‘… of Adam’) probably covers the genealogy of 5:1-32 with the appended material in 6:1-8. e Hebrew has twldt, which, ttingly, points in the direction of where things are going (derived from the verb yld, meaning ‘to bear’, it has traditionally been translated ‘generations’), but the Greek γένεσις points rather in the direction of origins. Almost certainly this indicates that the translator took the reference, not unreasonably but erroneously, as to the preceding materials.6

Since, before Matthew, γένεσις was established as the Greek title of Genesis,7 some have insisted on nding here an allusion to the idea of a new creation with Jesus. But, while a Genesis allusion is probable, its intention is likely to be less profound (use of a ‘biblical’ style?; offering another important account of origins?).8 is rst use of γένεσις is concerned with the origins of Jesus in relation to the larger shape of the history of God’s people; the second use in v. 18 will focus on how Jesus gained his speci c place in this history. It is quite possible that συντελείας (‘end’) in 28:20 deliberately looks back to γενέσεως in 1:1:9 Matthew’s story embraces the whole history of God’s dealings with his people from the calling of Abraham to the end of the age. Matthew uses the name Jesus no fewer than 150 times.10 Is Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ here a double name (‘Jesus Christ’) or is Christ titular? In Matthew’s use the two alternatives are not as far apart as this way of putting the question might suggest. In v. 16 Jesus is ‘called Christ’ because he is deemed to be ‘[the] Christ’, as is clear from the end of v. 17 (cf. 27:17, 22). e phenomenon is similar to the use of places of origin or other descriptive designations in double names:11 the etymology of the name remains important. Given the total lack of de nite articles in v. 1, the lack of an article here should not be taken to exclude a titular use. e chiasm formed by vv. 1 and 17 favours a titular use. In v. 18 Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is a double name, but aer vv. 1, 16, 17 the reader knows how to read the double name ‘intelligently’ in relation to the title. e focus in the genealogy on the kings of Judah and ‘king of the Jews’ in 2:2 makes it clear from the outset that ‘Christ’ is being used in connection with some form of royal messianism. See the further discussion and background at 16:16.

While ‘Son of David’ can be a messianic title in its own right (see at 9:27), here nothing more than ancestry is immediately in view (cf. 1:20; admittedly the concern is with the appropriate ancestry for the messiah). ‘Son of Abraham’ takes us back to the foundation of the Israelite people in the calling of Abraham and the promises made to him.12 Descent from him marked the boundaries of the people of God.13 Jesus is shown to belong to the people of God and more speci cally to the royal line of that people.14 It is probably a mistake to nd any hint of good news for the Gentiles on the basis of the wider reach of the promises to Abraham.15 1:2 e genealogy will now ll in the details of what has already been sketched in outline in v. 1. e story of Jewish history begins with Abraham.16 γεννάω can refer either to the father’s role in reproduction (focussing on the origin of life in conception but not excluding the larger process through to birth, and even at times carrying implications of the father/son link thereby brought into existence) or to the mother’s giving birth (and carrying comparable implications).17 It is also used, metaphorically, to express more generally the idea of causing something to happen. I have chosen the translation ‘produced’, though unfortunately impersonal and nonbiological, partly to provide a suitable counterpart to ‘origin’ (my origin can be expressed in terms of how I was produced) — no doubt Matthew intends the γεν of γένεσις to be echoed in the γενν within ἐγέννησεν — and partly to enable a stable translation for the verb through the various (linked) uses in chap. 1. One cannot speak of the producing of Isaac and of Jacob without calling to mind the drama, the difficulty, and the involvement of God that stands behind the emergence and role of these patriarchs (see Gn. 12–27). In briefest compass we have in the genealogy an outline of salvation history which traces the line of

God’s promise and the unfolding of his purposes, rst in the founding of Israel, then in the emergence of, and promise to, the royal line, and nally in the ame of hope carried beyond the collapse of the Babylonian Exile. While the mention of ‘Judah and his brothers’18 calls to mind the origin of the twelve tribes (see Gn. 28–35 and further to Gn. 50), the speci c role of ‘Judah’ here is to be the repository of the promise of the emergence of the royal line (Gn. 49:10).19 1:3 e mention of both the twins as well as their mother calls to mind Gn. 38 with its report of the subterfuge resorted to by Tamar to produce a child to be counted (according to Levirate marriage customs) as the child of her dead husband. e mention here of two sons, only one of whom will carry the line of the promise, and of a named mother may evoke as well (though these have not been mentioned) the tracing of the promise through Isaac the son of Sarah, and not through Abraham’s son Ishmael by Hagar, and through Jacob, not Esau, of the twin sons of Rebekah.20 In no case to this point has the line been traced through the father’s rstborn.21 e ‘unnaturalness’ of this is likely to suggest the will and providence of God over against a purely natural development. Tamar is the rst of four named women in the genealogy (v. 5 has Rahab and Ruth; v. 6 has the wife of Uriah), or ve if we count Mary (v. 16). ere has been an extended but inconclusive debate about the precise reason for the inclusion of these women. Is there a single perspective from which each is included, and, if so, is Mary to be included under the same perspective? It is notable that all the women are linked to men who are mentioned in the nal verses of Ruth, listing David’s ancestors (4:18-21: Perez to David — the likely source for this part of the Matthean genealogy and for the pattern of presentation of the genealogy as a whole). is suggests that the place of both Tamar

and Ruth in the genealogy is inspired in the rst place by their presence in the book of Ruth. e link in Ru. 2:11 between Ruth and Abraham (the starting point for our genealogy), which is established by the echo of Gn. 12:1, may have had some in uence on Matthew.22 e genealogical piece in Ruth starts from Perez for no better reason than the presence of his name in 4:12, where Tamar and Ruth are speci cally linked: ‘may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah’, a connection which at once reminds the reader of other more pervasive links between these women.23 e tie with a restricted section of the genealogy should probably be allowed to count against any close linking of Mary with the other women. ese women, though unlikely candidates for greatness, perform a vital role in providing for the line of descent for a clan/family of major signi cance in Judah. ey have come for refuge under the wings of the God of Israel and have, in their progeny, received a full reward from the Lord (Ru. 2:12).24 Jewish tradition (though the antiquity of the traditions is uncertain) may have a contribution to make to seeing why Rahab has been added to the list of women included in the genealogy. Jewish midrash nds a link between the crimson thread of Gn. 38:28, 30 (Tamar) and the crimson cord of Jos. 2:18, 21 (Rahab).25 Prophets are said to have descended from both Tamar (b. Meg. 10:2) and Rahab (b. Meg. 14:2). 1 Ch. 4:21-22 is applied in Ru. Rab. 2:1-4 once to Ruth and her family and once to Rahab and her family,26 which at least raises the possibility of some sort of identi ed equivalence of role. But perhaps these ties are not speci cally needed. Rahab in her own way found refuge under the wings of the God of Israel (Jos. 2:8-21). What is more, her inclusion makes possible the evocation of the (exodus from Egypt and) entry into the Promised Land — a key phase of salvation history which otherwise goes unmarked.

What, then, of the addition of ‘the wife of Uriah’? Links with the other women are possible on the basis of the following. Both Tamar and Bathsheba produce children with a place in the genealogy who are in some sense replacements for those who fell foul of the judgment of God.27 Jewish tradition identi ed both Rahab and Bathsheba as exceptionally beautiful women.28 Later in her life Bathsheba acts decisively to secure her son’s place on the throne (1 Ki. 1:11-31) and thereby her own place in the ancestry of the rulers of Israel/Judah (as each of the other women had acted decisively to secure her place). As the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sa. 11:3), Bethsheba is likely to be, like the other women, of non-Israelite descent.29 However, the designation of Bathsheba in the genealogy, not by her own name but as the wife of Uriah, complicates the task of discerning the role of this inclusion. Does this warn us against nding too strong a connection with the other three? Does this throw the emphasis onto the taking of another man’s wife in the marrying of Bethsheba?30 A positive answer to both these questions seems called for. e disorders even within David’s own family that threatened his own rule and placed in question the succession, which are reported at such length in the OT, were seen to be God’s judgment on David for taking the wife of another (2 Sa. 12:11-12). e mention of ‘the wife of Uriah’ is likely to be intended to evoke these tumultuous disorders, despite which, true to God’s promise (2 Sa. 7), the succession moves on to Solomon the temple builder. e allusion to this blot on David may well set up its own marker for the need in God’s purposes for something or someone greater. e four women have been thought to mark the inclusion of the Gentiles in the genealogy of Jesus, as a way of anticipating the inclusion of the Gentiles at the climax of Matthew’s Gospel. Certainly each of the women may be thought of as a Gentile. But Ruth is very clearly a former Gentile who has found refuge under

the wings of the God of Israel, and the same should probably be said of Rahab (Bathsheba may be a Gentile, but she is not introduced as the ‘wife of Uriah’ to make this point, and her own implied role is too passive to offer any real evocations of conversion31). Tamar is best seen as non-Israelite, but no more Gentile than Rebekah or Rachel (see n. 24). Jewish tradition, inasmuch as it has re ected on them, gives these women solid Jewish identities as proselytes.32 eir non-Israelite background may indeed be of signi cance (for three of the women), but they are very much non-Israelites who have become Jewish converts. No separate identity as Gentile Christians is anticipated here, but the possibility of shelter under the wings of the God of Israel may well be. Scholars have argued that each of the women is notably a sinner: Tamar plays the prostitute to seduce Judah; Rahab is a prostitute; Bathsheba commits adultery with David; Ru. 3:4 (‘uncover the feet’ may be a euphemism for uncovering the genitals) may point to premarital seduction on the part of Ruth. Does their inclusion, then, highlight the grace of God, or does it offer a quiet apologetic in the face of accusations of illegitimacy in the case of Jesus?33 But (as above) the ‘wife of Uriah’ suggests passivity on the part of Bathsheba and ‘uncovered the feet’, though likely intended to symbolise a hoped-for link with Boaz (cf. v. 9), comes at the wrong place in the story to suggest sexual union on the threshing oor (see v. 8). Jewish tradition as well as the OT and NT seems to exonerate or commend rather than accuse these women.34 e women have also been thought to be linked, not so much as sinners but rather (picking up in part and in a different way on the sexual roles identi ed above) as indicating the production of children from unions with women where the union or the woman or both were apparently unsuited to the dignity of the royal line.35

Tamar was a Gentile (but see above) and involved in incest; Rahab was a Canaanite and a prostitute; Ruth was a Moabitess and thus a product of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters (Gn. 19:30-37), and she perhaps seduced Boaz to get him to marry her; Bathsheba was another man’s wife (probably also Gentile in origin). e production of Jesus involved its own marital irregularity (Joseph marries a woman who is pregnant with a child who is not his own). Again a quiet apologetic is possible — however unexpectedly, these are clearly unions whose fruit God has chosen to bless — but is there something more, as Schaberg suggests: a subtle pointer to illicit sexual activity in the case of Mary as well?36 We have already seen that this approach misconstrues the role of Ruth and gives a role to Bathsheba that the genealogy does not, that it does not do justice to the positive estimate of the women in the tradition, and that it links Mary too tightly to the other women. Levine37 offers quite a different line in suggesting that the women represent people oppressed by dominant political, religious, and social systems, united in their manifestation of a faith which outstrips that of their marriage partners: ‘ey were the ones who made history happen: they acted in order to secure their fate’. With only a little imagination one can see all four women as oppressed, though it is unlikely that any comment on systems is intended. It takes a special leap of imagination (or at least an appeal to a totally different phase of her life38), however, to make Bathsheba a hero of faith, and even more so in contrast to David. Some contrast is drawn between Tamar and Judah, but no such contrast is evident for the other couples. I conclude that, though there are important links between the women (much less so in the case of ‘the wife of Uriah’, and Mary is yet more separated), each is included primarily because of her

unique individual potential for evoking important aspects of the story of Israel’s history. e prominence in Judah of the clan tracing its descent from Perez is re ected in Ru. 4:12 (as cited above). e line from Zerah is marred by the sin of Achan (Jos. 22:20), but descent from Zerah was still claimed by postexilic Jews.39 ere was a clan in Judah which linked its ancestry to Hezron (Nu. 26:21). To this point all the names have been in consistent LXX forms,40 but with Aram we rst strike a complication. e Greek text of Ru. 4:19 has Ἀρραν (‘Arran’),41 while 1 Ch. 2:9-10 has the Ἀραμ used by Matthew (but the B text has Ἀρραν in v. 10).42 Matthew has adjusted the spelling for the Matthean genealogy aer consulting 1 Chronicles LXX for the expansion of the core list in Ru. 4:18-22.43 Nothing further is known of Aram (or of Ram, who may be the same person — see n. 42). 1:4 Aminadab marks the rst point of disagreement (beyond spelling) between the Lukan and Matthean genealogies: in Luke 3:33 he is son of Admin, but Admin is probably an abbreviation or corruption of Aminadab, which has inadvertently been included along with the full form of the name.44 Aminadab was the father-inlaw of Aaron (Ex. 6:23).45 Nahshon, the brother-in-law of Aaron, is called ‘prince of the sons of Judah’ in 1 Ch. 2:10. Numbers also portrays him as having the leading role in Judah in the wilderness period.46 Nothing further is known of Salmon. e spelling of his name is that of 1 Ch. 2:11 LXX. 1:5 Rahab here is certainly the prostitute of Jericho.47 e linking of Salmon with Rahab re ects an awareness in the genealogy of the place of his father Nahshon in the Exodus period. is is the only generation into which Rahab could be tted in the scheme of the genealogy.48 is tightness of t highlights a

historical difficulty in this section of the genealogy: the period of the Conquest and the Judges is compressed into the period covered by the mature years of Salmon, the lifetimes of Boaz and Obed, and part of the life of Jesse (David’s father).49 See further on Rahab at v. 3 above. For ‘Boaz’ the LXX has Βόος or Βόοζ rather than the Matthean Βόες, which has not been parallelled. Boaz is identi ed in Ru. 2:1 as ‘a prominent rich man’ (NRSV), but he is best known for his role in becoming the husband of Ruth (see Ru. 2–4). e linking of David to Bethlehem is rooted in the coming together of Boaz from Bethlehem (2:4) and Ruth, whose parents-in-law and rst husband came from Bethlehem (1:1-2), and whose mother-in-law returned there aer the death of her husband and two sons (1:19). See further on Ruth at v. 3 above. For ‘Obed’ the LXX A reading of 1 Ch. 2:12 is re ected (Ἰωβήδ). Elsewhere the LXX uses ᾽Ωβήδ. Nothing further is known of Obed, but his son Jesse is found located in Bethlehem (1 Sa. 16:1). Jesse has a large family of sons and a ock of sheep, but no particular prominence in Israelite life (1 Sa. 16–17). 1:6 e LXX A text of Ru. 4:22 has ‘David the king’, but this may be a secondary in uence from Matthew. e phrase occurs a number of times in the OT (e.g., 2 Sa. 6:12; 7:18). As with the women and the other noted intrusions, ‘the king’ once again breaks into the bare genealogical pattern. From v. 1 the reader is already aware of having reached an important point in the genealogy here. ‘e king’ con rms this and evokes the whole story of the rise of David to the throne and his subsequent rule. e next stage of the genealogy will be provided by the royal succession in Judah (Israel before the divided kingdom). Since messianic hope involved the reemergence of the royal line which had originally emerged out of

Jesse, it can be expressed in terms of ‘the stump (or root) of Jesse’ (see Is. 11:1, 10; Rom. 15:12). Here we reach the end of the mini-genealogy in Ru. 4:18-22; from now on the genealogist must go elsewhere for his sources. For Solomon to Josiah the most accessible listing is in 1 Ch. 3:10-15.50 is is likely to be the main source, though the form of listing (‘… his son’51) is conformed to that based on Ru. 4:18-22. e form Σολομών for Solomon is the common NT form, and the one used by Josephus. e LXX has Σαλομών occasionally and Σαλωμών (sometimes indeclinable) mostly (found in 1 Ch. 3:10). e united kingdom reached the high point of its glory with the reign of Solomon, who was responsible for the splendid temple in Jerusalem; but Solomon’s limitations also emerge clearly in the OT account (see 1 Ki. 1–11; 1 Ch. 22–28; 2 Ch. 1–9). Lk. 3:31 traces Jesus’ descent through another son of David named Nathan, probably on the basis of the perceived expiration of the Solomonic royal line with Jechoniah (see Je. 22:24-30). e two genealogies next meet with Shealtiel and Zerubbabel in v. 12. On ‘the wife of Uriah’ see the comments at v. 3. 1:7 e reign of Rehoboam marks the split between the northern and the southern kingdoms. He comes in for severe criticism.52 Abijah is viewed negatively in 1 Ki. 15:1-8 but positively in 2 Ch. 13:1-22. e spelling Ἀβιά is that of Chronicles (e.g., 1 Ch. 3:10); 1 Kings uses Ἀβιού (e.g. 14:31). Ἀσάϕ (‘Asaph’) is clearly an error for Ἀσα (‘Asa’), which is the consistent LXX name for this king (Josephus uses Ἄσανος). He is a good but awed king.53 Is there an accidental corruption, or a deliberate or accidental confusion, between Asa the king and the founding gure of a guild of levitical temple musicians (‘the sons of Asaph’)54 who was considered to have been a seer and musician in the time of David?55 ough

certainty is not possible, a deliberate ploy to evoke yet more of the history of the people of God is not unlikely; this would be only one step bolder than the introduction of Rahab into the genealogy. 1:8 Jehoshaphat is described in glowing terms in the OT,56 but Jehoram in quite negative terms.57 e name of the next king in the list, Ὀζίας, seems to be based on a confusion of Ahaziah58 and Uzziah — also called Azariah.59 Ahaziah is normally rendered Ὀχοζ(ε)ία(ς) in the LXX, but in 1 Ch. 3:11 the B text has Ὀζεία, and A, V, and Lucian have Ὀζιάς. For Uzziah = Azariah the LXX normally has Ὀζ(ε)ίας or Ἀζαρία(ς). In 1 Ch. 3:12 the B text has Ἀζαρία, the A text Ἀζαρίας, and Lucian Ὀζιάς. Is the genealogy here, then, based on a Greek text which in v. 12 had the Lucianic reading? is seems likely. e suggestion is oen made that this (near) identity of names led to a visual slip, but it may be better to see it as offering a deliberately taken opportunity.60 e role of the number ‘fourteen’ will be discussed below at v. 17, but here we can note that the loss of three generations of kings is necessary to achieve the required fourteen generations from David to the Exile.61 For a student of the OT accounts of the period of the monarchy, the jump might become almost a moral necessity once it was realized that the loss of the three kings involved would have the effect of (symbolically) implementing in Judah (implicated by the marriage of Ahab’s daughter to Jehoram) for three generations the curse that had been placed on the house of Ahab.62 Ὀζίας is, then, to be thought of as Uzziah, and not as Ahaziah. 1:9 e spelling Ἰωαθάμ for Jotham is a common LXX spelling, but not that found at 1 Ch. 3:12 (Ἰωαθάν, with Ἰωναθάν in A and Ἰωθάμ in Lucian). Jotham receives a favourable OT report,63 Ahaz a negative one,64 and Hezekiah an outstanding one.65

1:10 Manasseh comes out very badly in 2 Ki. 21:1-18; 2 Ch. 33:1-10, but is retrieved in vv. 11-20.66 Ἀμώς, coming in the place of King Amon, may be an allusion to the prophet Amos (Ἀμώς is the LXX spelling), of the kind suggested in v. 7. Here, however, the matter is much less certain since Ἀμώς is well attested as an LXX reading for Amon. At 1 Ch. 3:14 Ἀμώς is the reading of A Bc, with Ἀμνών in B and Ἀμών in Lucian. e evils of Amon are reported.67 e LXX has various spellings for Josiah, including that here, which is found in most MSS of 1 Ch. 3:14 other than B, which reads Ἰωσ(ε)ία. Josiah, the reformer who found ‘the book of the law’, is commended at length.68 1:11 1 Ch. 3:15 attributes four sons to Josiah: Johanan, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Shallum. e rst is otherwise unknown. e fourth (Shallum) succeeded Josiah as king.69 e second (Jehoiakim) succeeded Shallum to the throne,70 and was himself succeeded on the throne by his son Jehoiachin,71 also known as Coniah72 and as Jechoniah.73 Finally, Jehoiachin is taken off into captivity (but with a continuing signi cance)74 and is replaced by his uncle, the third son of Josiah (Zedekiah),75 who was to be the last reigning king of the Davidic line. What about brothers for Jechoniah? 2 Ch. 36:10 has the Zedekiah who became king aer him identi ed as a brother. But this is either an error, or a use of ‘brother’ to mean ‘kinsman’. 1 Ch. 3:16 might identify Zedekiah as a brother of Jechoniah,76 but it is more likely that the reference is to the uncle who succeeded him on the throne.77 Aer the use of the identical phrase ‘and his brothers’ in Mt. 1:2, it is unlikely that we should consider a nonliteral sense for ‘brothers’ in v. 11.

e Greek OT does not alter the picture that we have built up, but it does manage to use Ἰωακίμ at times for both Jehoiachin78 and Jehoiakim. e names ‘Jehoiachin’ and ‘Coniah’79 are no longer represented in the LXX: ‘Jehoiachin’ is either ‘Jechoniah’ or (a second) ‘Jehoiakim’.80 e Matthean text seems, then, to have difficulties on two fronts: Jechoniah is not a son of Josiah; and he has no brothers. Despite the possibilities for confusion that this rather complex situation opens up, it is hard to see how the person responsible for the genealogy thus far could now write ‘Josiah produced Jechoniah and his brothers’. It has to be admitted that at least one text has become confused in relation to all this: the B text of 1 Esdr. 1:32 (ET v. 34) puts a Jechoniah in the place of Shallum81 as the son of Josiah who rst succeeded him to the throne (in v. 41 a second Jehoiakim is named as the son of Jehoiakim as in the LXX above). is confusion in 1 Esdr. 1:32 seems to be exactly what we have in Mt. 1:11, but I nd myself reluctant to use it to explain the Matthean text precisely because there is no clear anchor for the error in either the distinctive LXX usage or in the general complexity of the OT picture that would encourage us to believe that this was a repeatable error.82 e in uence could even be, in the copying tradition, from the Matthean text. e best of the solutions on offer in the literature seem to be those which involve textual emendation (unfortunately, without any text-critical support). Vögtle83 argues for an original with ‘Josiah produced Jehoiakim and his brothers’. is leaves a gap between ‘Josiah produced Jehoiakim’ and ‘Jechoniah produced Shealtiel’ in v. 12. Such a gap was forced, Vögtle suggests, by the nature of the time expressions used to mark off the Exile as a signi cant turning point

in vv. 11 and 12. e time of the Exile is best thought of as beginning during the reign of Jehoiakim: Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babyon arrives on the scene; Jehoiakim at rst switches allegiance from Pharaoh Neco to Nebuchadnezzar but then rebels, and this is the beginning of the end (see 2 Ki. 23:34–24:4). Matthew’s putative original marks this well, but it leaves no place for ‘Jehoiakim produced Jechoniah’ to be tted. e alert reader is le to ll the gap. But a scribe, alert in another way, lled the gap by altering ‘Jehoiakim’ to ‘Jechoniah’. He could support his move by recalling that the LXX frequently represents ‘Jehoiachin’ = ‘Jechoniah’ as ‘Jehoiakim’.84 Vögtle’s view has two points of vulnerability. e rst is obviously the lack of any trace in the textual transmission of the scribal activity postulated. e second lies in the claim that a period of exile beginning in the reign of Jehoiakim explains the failure to include ‘Jehoiakim produced Jechoniah’. It does not! Jechoniah was born well before Nebuchadnezzar appeared on the scene.85 And while it may be true enough that the reign of Jehoiakim marks the beginning of the end, there is considerable arti ciality in using Jehoiakim to mark the end of Davidic kingship. What is clear is that the genealogy — if it is to keep to fourteen generations — cannot afford to have an extra generation marked here (so no room for a distinction between the generation of Shallum and that of Jehoiakim). In some sense the genealogy must mark the end of Davidic kingship with ‘Josiah produced Jechoniah and his brothers’. But is there a better way of incorporating this strength of Vögtle’s view? We can recall how serviceable the (near) identity of two kings’ names proved to be for the genealogy in v. 8.86 Could we have something similar here? In this statement the genealogist needs to evoke the end of the Davidic kingship, with the collapse of the

nation and exile. Clearly this does all happen in a single generation since, although a grandson of Josiah (i.e., Jechoniah) reigns for three months, it is one of Josiah’s own sons (i.e., Zedekiah) who is the nal king to reign over Judah. At the same time it is Jechoniah who clearly, in 2 Ki. 25:27-30, has some ongoing importance for the Davidic line.87 How can all this be evoked? We recall that in Septuagintal usage the grandson of Josiah is called either ‘Jechoniah’ or ‘Jehoiakim’, in the latter case using the same name as for the father. What about using a statement that creates a deliberate confusion between father and son? ‘Josiah produced Jehoiakim and his brothers’ would not achieve this since it would naturally be taken as a straightforward reference to the father. What about, then, using the other name of the son? ‘Josiah produced Jechoniah and his brothers’ is patently not true: Jechoniah is the grandson, not the son, and he does not seem to have had any brothers. e alert reader is set to ponder and recalls that this Jechoniah is also known as Jehoiakim, and that this other name is a name which he shares with his father. ‘Josiah produced Jechoniah and his brothers’ is a statement that clearly reaches the genealogist’s goal here in Jechoniah, while at the same time insisting that the Babylonian Exile came just one generation beyond Josiah. In the statement, ‘Jechoniah’ is rst and foremost himself, but secondarily a cipher for the father with whom he shares a name. e genealogist has contained his account of the period from David to the Exile within fourteen generations and has provided us with a rich texture of allusion to the salvation history of which his genealogy is a brief summary. ἐπί + gen. does not mean here ‘at the time of ’ in the sense of ‘during’, as it normally would. e whole phrase means, rather, ‘in the period in which the deportation to Babylon took place’. μετοικεσία is used of the Babylonian captivity in 2 Ki. 24:16; 1 Ch.

5:22; Ez. 12:11. e word means literally ‘transfer to another place of habitation’. But it intends to call to mind all the suffering and sense of tragedy known from the OT accounts.88 No particular interpretation of the Exile is re ected in the genealogy, but no doubt it assumes a sense of God’s well-deserved judgment. is is no end point in his concern for his people. 1:12 μετὰ δὲ τὴν μετοικεσίαν does not refer to the restoration, but rather to the period aer the deportation has happened. 1 Ch. 3:17 has Jechoniah, in captivity, as the father of Shealtiel. Elsewhere in the OT, Shealtiel is known only as the father of Zerubbabel.89 1 Ch. 3:19 MT has Zerubbabel as the son of Pediah, who appears to be a brother of Shealtiel,90 but the LXX text re ects the otherwise uniform view. Zerubbabel came back with the initial wave of returning exiles to be the rst Persian governor of Jerusalem in the restoration period.91 He was a focus of hope in the Davidic line (Hg. 2:23; Zc. 4:6-10), but this hope seems not to have survived in any signi cant form into the next generation. e Lukan genealogy meets the Matthean brie y in Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, but in Luke the father of Shealtiel is Neri (Lk. 3:27).92 1:13-15 At this point we lose contact with the OT and also once more with the Lukan genealogy, which is interested in a different son of Zerubbabel (Lk. 3:27).93 According to 1 Ch. 3:19, the children of Zerubbabel are Meshullam, Hananiah, and a sister Shelomith. Up to this point, however, Matthew has followed his sources responsibly, if at times creatively; there is no good reason to think that he will do differently now that his sources become invisible to us.94 It must be said, however, that Matthew clearly has far too few names for the 500 years that need to be covered (Luke has nearly twice as many for this period).95 Joseph’s grandfather is Μαθθάν in v. 15 and Μαθθάτ in Lk. 3:24, but since the generations

on either side do not agree, this is likely to be fortuitous. If the replay of (mostly minor) biblical names in this section tells us anything, it may point us to a replay in the most general of senses, but in a minor key, of the previous history.96 ere is nothing to allude to the Maccabean period as having any special signi cance in the ow of God’s purposes. 1:16 A certain amount of Joseph typology will emerge below, so there is something of a happy coincidence that Joseph’s father should be named Jacob. With Joseph comes a notable break in the pattern, ‘A produced B’. e language created a detour around this pattern in a manner which would normally be considered a distinction without a difference.97 But the breaking of the pattern is striking and produces a puzzle for the reader until it is resolved in the narrative of vv. 18-25. Joseph seems to be being denied the normal role in procreation, but without explanation. e previous occasional inclusion of the name of the mother in the genealogy creates a precedent for Mary’s inclusion here.98 One might expect her presence here to evoke some signi cant aspect of the salvation-history story, and so it does, but we discover what this is only in vv. 18-25. e name ‘Mary’ occurs in both declinable (Μαρία) and indeclinable forms (Μαριάμ). While there is considerable textual uncertainty, the NT probably makes no use of the declinable nominative for the mother of Jesus (the indeclinable form is common in other cases). On ‘called Christ’ see the discussion at v. 1. 1:17 On the chiasm bracketing the genealogy, created by vv. 1 and 17, see the comments at v. 1. A new γεν word is introduced here (γενεαί [‘generations’]) which echoes both the γεν in the use of γένεσις in v. 1 and the γενν of the repeated uses of γεννάω (‘produce’) in the genealogy.

For the fourteen generations from Abraham to David, the genealogist has had to count both Abraham and David. His list accurately re ects the OT materials. e next fourteen take us from Solomon to Jechoniah. e number is held to fourteen by the omission of three kings and the deliberate con ation of Jehoiakim and Jechoniah, but these are clearly justi ed omissions in his eyes. e third fourteen take us from Jechoniah to Jesus, and are achieved by counting both Jechoniah and Jesus. e genealogist probably does not consider this to be double counting because in counting Jechoniah in the second fourteen, he really had in mind Jehoiakim; this leaves Jechoniah actually to be counted in his own right in the third fourteen.99 Where does the idea of patterning in fourteens come from? Many of the speci c derivations fail because they have no real place for the number ‘fourteen’.100 Fourteen days is half the cycle of the moon. If the genealogy from Abraham to David can be seen as the waxing of the moon, that from Solomon to the Exile can be seen as its waning, and the genealogy from the Exile to Jesus as a second waxing reaching a full moon with the coming of Christ.101 A recognition of a twenty-eight-day cycle for the moon is not, however, documented, and in any case the genealogies represent no clear waxing and waning. Waetjen102 nds twelve + two epochs of history in 2 Bar. 53–74, but it is difficult to turn this into three lots of fourteen. ere is a pattern of three lots of fourteen in b. Sanh. 105b and b. Hor. 10b, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with history.103 e idea of a xed number of periods, years, or generations is common enough in apocalyptic texts,104 and it may reasonably be considered general background for the Matthean scheme, but some account must still be offered of the fourteen. e recent defence by Davies and Allison105 of the popular view that origin of the fourteen is in the Hebrew name for David seems to me

to be compelling. e Hebrew name is dwd. at there are three letters may account for the three lots of fourteen, but much more importantly the numerical values (four + six + four) add up to fourteen. If the genealogist noticed this, and then discovered that there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, he would be on his way. To discover, then, that the period of the kings can be rendered in fourteen generations would be a marvellous con rmation. We have no access to the source(s) to which he related to produce the nal fourteen, but in some way he will have found that satisfying as well.

1. Apart from an eccentric spelling of ‘Boaz’ and a non-LXX spelling of ‘Rahab’ (which is related but not identical to the spelling used by Josephus), only for the spelling of the name of Solomon do we lose contact with LXX spellings, and in that case with the uniform NT spelling and that found also in Josephus. Distinctive features of the LXX text provide the basis for understanding aspects of the present genealogy (see at vv. 8, 11). 2. e most attractive involves the claim that Mary was an only child, whose father, on the marriage of his daughter to Joseph, adopted Joseph as his own child (Holzmeister, ‘Erklärungsversuch’). See Nolland, Luke, 1:16970, for other approaches and further discussion. 3. ‘Genealogies established individual identity; re ected, established, or legitimated social structures, status, and entitlements to office; functioned as modes of praise or delineations of character or even as basis of exhortation’ (Nolland, Luke, 1:169). 4. E.g., Dt. 24:1, 3 of a bill of divorce; 3 Kgdms. 20:8-9 [= ET 21:8-9] of a letter; 2 Esdr. 17:5 [= Ne. 7:5] of a register of genealogical family links. 5. E.g., Gn. 2:4; 5:1. 6. Gn. 1:1–2:3 is the rst creation account. 2:4–4:16, while taking the story on to the seventh generation in the line of Cain and to the third generation in the line marking the fresh beginning with Seth, certainly

provides an account of the origin of humanity (note in 5:1 the use in the Greek text of the plural ἀνθρώπων ([‘human beings’]). Various spurious senses for γένεσις have been generated out of attempts to take the Genesis uses as applying in the LXX to subsequent text. 7. Philo, Post. C. 127; Abr. 1; Aet. mundi 19. 8. e idea of a fresh beginning with Jesus would seem to be excluded by the emphasis in the context on the origins of Jesus. 9. As Kynes, Christology of Solidarity, 171, suggests. 10. Schenk, Sprache, 298. Only John uses it more. e name will be discussed at v. 21. 11. Note that Judas is ‘Judas Iscariot’ in Lk. 6:16, but ‘Judas the one called Iscariot’ in 22:3. 12. See Gn. 12; 15; 17. Cf. Ex. 3:15-16. 13. See, e.g., Mt. 3:9; Lk. 1:55; Jn. 8:33; Rom. 4:1; 2 Cor. 11:22; Gal. 3:7; Heb. 2:16; 2 Esdr. 3:13-15; Jub. 12:24; 13:3. 14. e link to the genealogy to come suggests that we should understand that Jesus is the ‘son of Abraham’ via being the ‘son of David’, not the ‘son of Abraham’ as well as the ‘son of David’. 15. E.g., Gn. 12:3; 17:5; 18:18; cf. 1 Macc. 12:19-21. 16. Implicit in the notion of being children of Abraham (see the texts at n. 13) and Acts 7:2; 1 Macc. 2:51-60; cf. 2 Bar. 57. 17. In the passive, with the child as the subject, it can refer either to conception or to birth: in v. 20 conception is clearly in view; in v. 16 birth is more naturally implied (note the use of ἐκ). 18. ‘And his brothers’ is the rst of a series of elements in Matthew’s genealogy which go beyond the basic sequence of generations from father to son (see 1:3: ‘and Perez out of Tamar’; v. 5: ‘out of Rahab’ and ‘out of Ruth’; v. 6: ‘the king’ and ‘out of the wife of Uriah’; v. 11: ‘and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon’; v. 12: ‘aer the deportation to Babylon’; v. 16: ‘the husband of Mary, out of whom was produced Jesus who is called Christ’). 19. ere is no sharp difference here between taking Gn. 49:10 with the emergence of the Davidic line and with messianic hope (as the targums on

Gn. 49:8-12; 4QPatrBless; Rev. 5:5; etc.). 20. Both sets of twins are involved in a prenatal struggle over who is to have the primacy (Gn. 25:22-26; cf. 38:27-30). 21. ough in the unfolding genealogy many are likely to be so, it is hard to nd a definite rstborn of the father anywhere. Isaac is the rstborn of Sarah; Jacob supplants the place of the rstborn; Perez is the rstborn of Tamar. 22. Alter has drawn attention to the link in World, 51-52. 23. Schaberg, Illegitimacy, 28, identi es the parallels as trickery, Levirate obligation, and taint of scandal, but other less slanted formulations are possible. 24. Judah’s failure to give Tamar to his third son Shelah effectively excluded her from Israel (Gn. 38:11, 14); Tamar’s drastic action secures her reinclusion. Scholarship oen assumes that Tamar is a Canaanite (Philo, Virt. 221, identi es Tamar’s origins as from among idolatrous peoples in Palestinian Syria), but Jub. 41:1; Test. Jud. 10:1 identify her as of the ancestry of Aram, and this view provides a better t for the role of Tamar in the Matthean genealogy. As an Aramean during the patriarchal period (Bauckham, ‘Tamar’s Ancestry’, 314-18, has recently argued forcefully that the reference is to the Aram of Gn. 22.21 and not to the Aram of Gn. 10:22, but in any case the point of importance here is the ancestral link with Abraham [cf. Dt. 26:6]) she would not be thought of as, strictly speaking, a Gentile (any more than Rebekah or Rachel), but she would, nonetheless, have been understood to have been drawn into the chosen people of God through marriage. 25. See Zakowitch, ‘Rahab’, 4. 26. To Rahab also in Midr. Sipre Nu. 78; b. Meg. 14b. 27. Schaberg, Illegitimacy, 22-23, suggests that the symmetry of two sons for two dead husbands = sons of Judah, along with the language of acknowledgment in Gn. 38:26, imply the replacement of the dead sons. Coming aer 2 Sa. 12:14-23, vv. 24-25 suggest a replacement for the dead son. 28. 2 Sa. 11:2; Str-B, 1:20.

29. But Bathsheba is sometimes understood to be Israelite on the basis of the identi cation of her father Eliam (2 Sa. 11:3) with the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite in 2 Sa. 23:34 (e.g., this identi cation is assumed in b. Sanh. 101b). 30. e bald phrase ‘wife of Uriah’ might at rst seem to emphasise the initial adultery, but to see the production of Solomon as adulterous, though not impossible, would be to y in the face of 1 Sa. 12:24-25 (aer vv. 15-23). e parable in 2 Sa. 12 emphasises the taking of another man’s wife, and v. 10 talks about the marriage as a taking of ‘the wife of Uriah’. 31. It would be difficult to applaud as involving a conversion to the God of Israel what was at the same time being deplored as the one sin of David (1 Ki. 15:5) and the cause of all his troubles (2 Sa. 12:10-12). 32. Esp. Rahab and Ruth (see Johnson, Purpose, 159). 33. E.g., Blomberg, ‘Liberation’, 147, suggests that such a slur poses no threat to Jesus’ pedigree since key individuals in the royal genealogy suffered similar genealogical irregularities, and in any case the slur is unfounded in the case of Mary. We have already had reason to think that Mary might not be so closely linked with the other women in the genealogy. 34. See Gn. 38:26; Ru. 4:11; Heb. 11:31; Jas. 2:25; Johnson, Purpose, 16465. 35. Scott, ‘Birth’, represents a variant of this with its insistence that from the point of view of a shame/honour system all ve women are sexually tainted. Scott sees Mary as potentially shamed publicly but in fact divinely honoured, and Joseph as taking this public shame upon himself in marrying her. Scott becomes quite un-Matthean when he suggests that Joseph’s true righteousness is in acting in opposition to the expected law. 36. Schaberg, Illegitimacy, thinks it most likely that Mary was raped. Another approach is offered by Johnson, Purpose, 176-79, who nds traces of Pharisaic defence of the Davidic messianic genealogy against proponents of a priestly messiah, but this view is unnecessarily speculative and the evidence is lacking at crucial points. 37. Levine, Social and Ethnic Dimensions, 62, 81 (quotation from p. 81). 38. Note her place as one of the twenty-two women of valour in Midr. Ha-Gadol 1:334-39. Her obvious moment of greatness was in securing the

throne for Solomon (1 Ki. 1:11-31). 39. See 1 Ch. 9:6; Neh. 11:24. 40. Except for the declinable form for ‘Judah’, which is found only occasionally in the LXX. Also note that the Greek form of Hezron in some Greek texts of 1 Ch. 2:3, 9 is Ἑσερών, Ἑσρών, or Ἁσρών and not the Ἑσρώμ of Matthew, Ru. 4:19, and the main readings in 1 Ch. 2:3, 9. Where no comment is offered in subsequent verses on name forms, Matthew uses standard LXX forms. 41. is is the reading of A and B. Other texts are conformed to the Matthean Ἀράμ. 42. e Greek text of 1 Ch. 2:9-10 has four sons for Hezron, and the MT three, and it is the additional son, Aram, who is the father of Amminadab, not Ram as in the MT. Both names may be variant transliterations of the Hebrew rm (subsequently thought to be different people and leading to expansion and adjustment in the Greek text). Or perhaps one of two similar names has dropped out of the MT of v. 9, and v. 10 has subsequently been adjusted (rm for ʾrm). If the latter, then Ru. 4:18-22 would need to be dependent on this already damaged text of 1 Ch. 2:9-10. e issue is complicated yet further by the use in Lk. 3:33 of the form Ἀρνι, which seems to be a corruption in either the Hebrew or the Greek for ‘Aram’ (see Nolland, Luke, 1:172). 43. Matthew also uses the Chronicles spelling for Salmon in 1:4-5 and for Obed in v. 5. 44. See Nolland, Luke, 1:172. 45. Here the genealogy could have gained an expanded history-ofsalvation repertoire through the mention of a daughter. But Elisheba appears only once in the OT and is not well known. So, such a strategy did not emerge. 46. Nu. 1:7; 2:3; 7:12, 17; 10:14. 47. See Jos. 2 and 6:17, 23, 25. e spelling Ῥαχάβ is not, however, that of the LXX and other NT uses (Heb. 11:31; Jas. 2:25). ese have Ῥαάβ. Josephus uses a spelling related to that in Matthew: Ῥαχάβη. In b. Meg. 14b15a Rahab is said to have become the wife of Joshua.

48. See Bauckham, ‘Tamar’s Ancestry’, 320-29, for suggestions as to how the link between Rahab and Salmon may have found biblical support on the basis of Jewish exegetical techniques current in the rst century. 49. Perhaps up to 200 years of the biblical chronology is missing here, but there are many uncertainties about dating in this period. 50. e form changes in 1 Ch. 3:15 with the need to list several sons of Josiah. From this point the needs of the Matthean genealogy are no longer so directly served. 51. But at the beginning of 1 Ch. 3:10 ‘sons of Solomon’, though only one son is named and the MT has the singular. 52. 1 Ki. 14:21-24; 2 Ch. 12:13-14. 53. See 1 Ki. 15:9-24; 2 Ch. 14–16. 54. See 2 Ch. 35:15; cf. Ne. 12:46. Pss. 50, 73–83 are attributed to ‘the sons of Asaph’ 55. 2 Ch. 29:30; 1 Esdr. 1:15; Ps.-Philo 51:6. 56. 1 Ki. 22:41-50; 2 Ch. 17–20. 57. 2 Ki. 8:16-24; 2 Ch. 21:1-20. 58. See 2 Ki. 8:25-29; 9:16, 21-29; 2 Ch. 22:1-9. 59. See 2 Ki. 15:1-32; 2 Ch. 26. 60. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:176-77, note the following instances of omission of names from genealogies: Gn. 46:21, cf. 1 Ch. 8:1-4; Jos. 7:1, cf. v. 24; 1 Ch. 4:1, cf. 2:50; 6:7-9, cf. Ezra 7:3; Ezra 5:1, cf. Zc. 1:1; Jos., Life 1–5; Apocalypse of Abraham (title). Luz, Matthew 1–7, 107 n. 25, thinks that a similar copying mistake to that in Matthew may be found in Ezra 7:2-3, cf. 1 Ch. 5:34-38 (ET 6:7-12), but, given the length of text missing as a proportion of the genealogy, the discrepancy here is hardly a visual slip. A more complex text-critical solution is called for. 61. e bunching of Josiah’s descendants in Mt. 1:12 (which ignores the place of his grandson on the throne — see at v. 12) is a clear intervention on the part of the genealogist to achieve the necessary number of generations. 62. 1 Ki. 21:21-24 places a curse on the house of Ahab, which is deferred a generation in v. 29. Ahab’s daughter Athaliah married Jehoram (2 Ki. 8:18, 26), and their son Ahaziah succeeded Jehoram. On the death of Ahaziah,

Athaliah assumed the throne herself (2 Ki. 11:3; 2 Ch. 22:12), having attempted to wipe out all her son’s progeny (2 Ki. 11:1-3). A curse to the third generation (Ex. 20:5) would cover Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, the missing kings. It might not be fortuitous (at least not in the mind of the genealogist) that only these three kings meet a violent end which is said to be by the will of God (2 Ch. 22:7; 24:24; 25:20 — admittedly other kings are said to be struck down with illness by the will of God). See Masson, Fils de David, 116-24, for a recent defence of the view that the omission is based in part on the curse. 63. See 2 Ki. 15:32-38; 2 Ch. 27:1-9. 64. See 2 Ki. 16:1-20; 2 Ch. 28:1-27. 65. See 2 Ki. 18–20; 2 Ch. 29–32. 66. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:177, note the subsequent effect of con icting traditions in Judaism. 67. 2 Ki. 21:19-26; 2 Ch. 33:21-25. 68. 2 Ki. 22:1–23:30; 2 Ch. 34–35. 69. Je. 22:11; 2 Ki. 23:31 (called Jehoahaz in the latter). 70. 2 Ki. 23:34; 2 Ch. 36:4. ese indicate that his name had originally been Eliakim. 71. 2 Ki. 24:6; 2 Ch. 36:8. 72. Je. 22:24, 28. 73. 1 Ch. 3:16-17; Je. 24:1; 27:20; etc. 74. Noted in 2 Ki. 25:27-30; Je. 52:31-34. 75. 2 Ki. 24:17; 2 Ch. 36:10. e former indicates that his name had originally been Matthaniah. 76. is requires the two consecutive statements ‘Jechoniah his son’ and ‘Zedekiah his son’ to be taken in parallel. It also takes literally the plural ‘sons’ at the beginning of the verse — ‘the sons of Jehoiakim’ — but the parallel statement in 1 Ch. 3:10, ‘sons of Solomon’, which is followed by a list of the kings in sequence with ‘his son’ between each, suggests rather that the sense is ‘the descendants of ’ in each case (so NRSV etc., but contrast v. 1). 77. With bnw used in the sense of succession to the throne (cf. the previous note). Another possibility is to take Zedekiah as, literally, son of

Jechoniah. 78. 4 Kgdms. 24:6, 8, 12, 15; 25:27; Je. 52:31. 79. At 2 Ch. 36:8, 9 ‘Jehoiachin’ becomes ‘Jechoniah’, and in Je. 22:24, 28 ‘Coniah’ becomes ‘Jechoniah’. 80. Aberrantly, the A text of Je. 22:24 has the inversion ‘Jehoiakim son of Jechoniah’. 81. e other texts have ‘Jehoahaz’ (= ‘Shallum’). 82. Only a reading of 1 Ch. 3:16 and/or 2 Ch. 36:10 making Zedekiah a brother of Jechoniah could contribute to identifying Jechoniah as a son of Josiah; but the former text would, on this reading, make it clear that both Jechoniah and Zedekiah are sons of Johoiakim, while the latter makes it quite clear that the ‘brother’ of Zedekiah immediately preceded him on the throne (as the second Jehoiakim — and not the Jechoniah of 1 Esdr. 1:32 [ET v. 34] — does in v. 42 [ET v. 43]). e A text of Je. 22:24 (see the previous note but one) is not a credible source since its information would have needed to be supplemented by that of other OT texts which would immediately alert the author to its idiosyncrasy. 83. Vögtle, ‘Josias’ and ‘Genealogie’, 95-99. He is building on earlier views. Masson, Fils de David, 42-55, offers a more complex variant which involves a Semitic original and several stages of development: (a) an original with ‘Josiah produced Jehoiakim (and his brothers); Jehoiakim produced Jechoniah at the time of the Babylonian exile.’; (b) translation into Greek involved putting ‘Jehoiakim’ for ‘Jechoniah’; (c) the odd-looking ‘Jehoiakim produced Jehoiakim’ was dropped; nally, (d) ‘Jechoniah’ replaces ‘Jehoiakim’. e view is burdened by its own unwarranted complexity. 84. It is of course just possible that the scribe was aware of the B reading of 1 Esdr. 1:32. 85. See 2 Ki. 23:36, cf. 24:8. Jechoniah = Jehoiachim was born seven years before Jehioakim came to the throne, i.e., still in the reign of Josiah. 86. Similarity in names also seems to be made productive with ‘Asaph’ in Mt. 1:7 and possibly with ‘Amos’ in v. 10. 87. Je. 22:24-30 does not in any obvious way share the hope of 2 Ki. 25:27-30.

88. So many of the OT materials in some way re ect the exilic context that there is little point in seeking to list texts. 89. Ezra 3:2; Ne. 12:1; Hg. 1:1; etc. 90. e method of listing in 1 Ch. 3:19 MT has Shealtiel identi ed as the son, and then a list of other names without speci c indication that they refer to other sons (but v. 17 has begun ‘the sons of Jechoniah’, which could, however, mean ‘the descendants of Jechoniah’). 91. See Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah (he is also mentioned in Ne. 7:7; 12:1, 47). 92. For speculative attempts at harmonisation see Nolland, Luke, 1:16970, 172. 93. Various equations of names have been proposed: Abiud (‘my father is Ud = honour/glory/praise’) has a father Ud, who is to be identi ed with Hodaviah of 1 Ch. 3:24 and possibly with Joda of Lk. 3:26; Eliud in Mt. 1:14 is Esli in Lk. 3:25; etc. 94. Certainly the genealogies of Chronicles have any number of welldocumented difficulties. One should not make too much out of the absence of seven of the ten names here from Jewish Egyptian papyri of the period (see Johnson, Purpose, 179-80); Egypt is not Palestine, and the names all have an OT usage which keeps them in the stock of names available for reuse from time to time. On the possibility of genealogical knowledge in the period see Jos., Ap. 1.31-35; Life 3–6; m. Qid. 4:5-6. e possibility of knowledge of Davidic descent is re ected in Euseb., HE 3.12.19; 3.20.1-6; 3.32.3-6. 95. e vagaries in the length of generations, particularly in a genealogy which may not be traced through eldest sons means, however, that we should not make too much of this. 96. Ostmeyer, ‘Stammbaum’, 175-92, claims a tie here with priests and temple personnel as part of a pattern in which the major sections are linked respectively to patriarchs, kings and priests, and temple personnel. But the case is not particularly strong for this third section. 97. e same verb (‘produced’) is used, but now in the passive, and there is the same use of ‘out of ’ in connection with the role of the woman as is found in the other cases of inclusion of women.

98. It is tempting to nd some deliberate contrast expressed by the ‘wife of Uriah’ and the ‘husband of Mary’, but there is no adequate basis for deciding what this might be. e formal relationship may only be fortuitous. 99. Quite a range of (rather arti cial) explanations have been offered for how the Matthean genealogy can be counted as three fourteens. I will not rehearse them. By drawing attention to the counting error in the generations listed in Ex. Rab. 15:26 (8d), Luz, Matthew 1–7, 111 n. 46, reminds us that counting errors should not be excluded from consideration. 100. Daniel’s seventy weeks of years (9:24-27) comes out at fourteen generations if we assign thirty- ve years to a generation (see Moore, ‘Fourteen’), but why should we? Various solutions depend on making the three fourteens into six sevens, but our genealogist clearly prefers fourteens. 101. See Kaplan, ‘Schemes’. 102. Waetjen, ‘Genealogy’. 103. Heer, Stammbäume, 121-22. 104. See Dn. 9:24-27; 1 Enoch 91, 93; 2 Bar. 53–74 (where, unlike Waetjen, I nd a twelve + one pattern); 4 Ezra 14:11; b. Sanh. 97. e counting of generations is also re ected in Nu. Rab. 7:15; Midr. Pss. 105:3 (2, 181). 105. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:163-65. ey draw attention to the use in Gn. 46:8-27 of a set of patterns based on seven. Gad, whose name has the numerical value of seven, is put in seventh place and given seven sons. Note David’s position in the Matthean genealogy as the fourteenth name.

II. INFANCY (1:18–2:23) A. e Circumstances of His Birth (1:18-25) birtha of Jesus Christb took place like this. Aer his mother, Mary, had become engaged to Joseph, [but] before they came together [in sexual union], she was found to be pregnant ([a pregnancy which resulted] from [the intervention of] the Holy Spirit). 19Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wishing to expose her publicly, decided to divorce her quietly. 20Aer he had considered these things, can angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For what has been produced in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birthd to a son and you will call his name Jesus. For [it is] he [who] will save his people from their sins. 22All this happened so that what was spoken by thee Lord throughf the prophet might be fulfilled: 18e

23Look,

the virgin will be pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, ‘God [is] with us’. 24When Joseph got up from sleep, he did as the angel had commanded him and took his wife [to himself]. 25But ghe had no sexual relations with her beforeg she bore a son;h and he called his name Jesus.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e Greek is γενεσις, as in v. 1 (there translated ‘origin’). L f13 and the majority text read γεννησις (‘birth’). b. e inverted order Χριστου Ιησου, found in B, may be to assure a titular sense for Χριστου aer v. 17. Most of the Latin tradition, along with

sya, c, omits Ιησου, probably to conform to v. 17. ough the otherwise unparallelled article before Ιησου Χριστου in the accepted reading may count in favour of the shorter reading (so Davies and Allison, Matthew, 198 n. 3), a personal reference ts the immediate (μητρος αυτου) and wider (vv. 1 and 16) Matthean context better than a titular reference. c. ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) here is untranslated. d. Sys, c anticipate Joseph’s legal paternity with the equivalent to σοι (‘to you’) here. e. e LXX idiom using κυριος without the article for the divine name is ‘corrected’ by the addition of the article in L and the majority text. f. e prophet’s name is added by D pc it sys, (c), h sams. g-g. Omitted by k sys, perhaps sensing a contradiction with the angelic insistence that the marriage should go ahead. h. Sys adds an equivalent to αυτω (‘to him’ — cf. note d). Other texts are in uenced by the wording of Lk. 2:7, adding all or part of αυτης τον πρωτοτοκον (‘of her, the rstborn’). Bibliography Ahirika, E. A., ‘e eology of Matthew in the Light of the Nativity Story’, Biblebhashyam 16 (1990), 5-19. • Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Divorce, Celibacy and Joseph (Matthew 1.18-25 and 19.1-12)’, JSNT 49 (1993), 3-10. • Bauer, D. R., ‘e Kingship of Jesus in the Matthean Infancy Narrative: A Literary Analysis’, CBQ 57 (1995), 306-23. • Benoit, P., ‘Les récits évangéliques de l’enfance de Jésus’, in Exégèse et éologie: Tome IV (Paris: Cerf, 1982), 63-94. • Boers, H., ‘Language Usage and the Production of Matthew 1:18–2:23’, in Orientation by Disorientation, ed. R. A. Spencer, 217-33. • Brawley, R. L., ‘Joseph in Matthew’s Birth Narrative and the Irony of Good Intentions’, Cumberland Seminarian 28 (1990), 69-76. • Brown, R. E., ‘e Annunciation to Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25)’, Worship 61 (1987), 482-92. • Bulcke, M., ‘e Translator’s eology: A Response to “Taking eology Seriously in the Translation Task”’, BT 35 (1984), 134-35. • Calkins, A. B., ‘e Justice of Joseph Revisited’, HPR 88 (1988), 8-19. • Cantwell, L., ‘e Parentage of

Jesus’, NovT 24 (1982), 304-15. • Carter, W., ‘Evoking Isaiah: Matthean Soteriology and an Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 7–9 and Matthew 1:23 and 4:15-16’, JBL 119 (2000), 503-20. • Carter, W., ‘“To Save His People from eir Sins” (Matt 1:21): Rome’s Empire and Matthew’s Salvation as Sovereignty’, SBLSP 39 (2000), 379-401. • Cazelles, H., ‘La Septante d’Is 7,14’, in La Mère de Jésus-Christ et la Communion des Saints dans la Liturgie, ed. A. M. Triacca and A. Pistoia (Rome: Edizioni Liturgiche, 1986), 45-54. • Chilton, B., ‘Jésus, le mamzer (Mt 1.18)’, NTS 47 (2001), 222-27; Conrad, E. W., ‘e Annunciation of Birth and the Birth of the Messiah’, CBQ 47 (1985), 656-63. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Shared emes: e Virgin Birth (Matthew 1:18– 2:12)’, JHC 4 (1997), 57-67. • Erickson, R. J., ‘Joseph and the Birth of Isaac in Matthew 1’, BBR 10 (2000), 35-51. • Fenton, J. C., ‘Matthew and the Divinity of Jesus: ree Questions concerning Matthew 1.20-23’, in Studia Biblica, ed. E. A. Livingstone, 79-82. • Foskett, M. F., A Virgin Conceived: Mary and Classical Representations of Virginity (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002). • Frankemölle, H., Jahwebund, 12-21. • Green, H. B., Poet, 74-77. • Harrington, D. J., ‘Birth Narratives in Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities and the Gospels’, in To Touch the Text. FS J. A. Fitzmyer, ed. M. Hogan and P. Kobelski (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 316-24. • Harrington, D. J., ‘New and Old in New Testament Interpretation: e Many Faces of Matthew 1:18-25’, NTR 2 (1989), 39-49. • Horsley, R. A., e Liberation of Christmas. e Infancy Narratives in Social Context (New York: Crossroad, 1989). • Horton, F. L., ‘Parenthetical Pregnancy: e Conception and Birth of Jesus in Matthew 1:18-25’, SBLSP 26 (1986), 175-89. • Huat, T. K., ‘Christmas in Isaiah 7:14 — sensus literalis, sensus plenior aut felix culpa?’ TTJ 9 (2000), 5-33. • Jarrell, R. H., ‘e Birth Narrative as Female Counterpart to Covenant’, JSOT 97 (2002), 3-18. • Kupp, D. D., Matthew’s Emmanuel, 157-75. • Lagrand, J., ‘How Was the Virgin Mary “Like a Man” (ʾyk gbrʾ)? A Note on Mt. i 18b’, NovT 22 (1980), 97-107. • Légasse, S., ‘Joseph purvaitit répudier Marie “en secret”? Note sur Matthieu 1,19’, BLE 99 (1998), 369-72. • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic, 89-106. • Longenecker, R. N., ‘Whose Child Is is?’ Christianity Today 34.18 (1990), 25-28. • Mattison, R. D., ‘God/Father: Tradition and Interpretation’, RefRev 42 (1989), 189-206. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Textual Form of the Quotation

from Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23’, NovT 43 (2001), 144-60. • Miyoshi, M., ‘Zur Entstehung des Glaubens an die jungfräuliche Geburt Jesu in Mt 1 und Lk 1’, AJBI 10 (1984), 33-62. • Mülhaupt, E. D., Martin Luthers EvangelienAuslegung, I: Die Weihnachts- und Vorgeschichten bei Matthäus und Lukas (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1984). • Mussies, G., ‘Joseph’s Dream (Matt 1,1823) and Comparable Stories’, in Text and Testimony: Essays on New Testament and Apocryphal Literature, ed. T. Baarda et al. (Kampen: Kok, 1988), 177-86. • Neuner, J., ‘Immanuel, God with Us (Is 7:14; Mt 1:23)’, Vidyajyoti 62 (1998), 562-66. • Nolland, J., ‘No Son-of-God Christology in Matthew 1.18-25’, JSNT 62 (1996), 3-12. • Norelli, E., ‘Avant le canonique et l’apocryphe: aux origines des récits de la naissance de Jésus’, RTP 126 (1994), 305-24. • Orchard, B., ‘e Betrothal and Marriage of Mary to Joseph (Part 1)’, HPR 102 (2001), 7-14; Orchard, B., ‘e Betrothal and Marriage of Mary to Joseph (Part 2)’, HPR 102 (2001), 50-56. • Peffley, F. J., ‘e Two Josephs’, HPR 96 (1995), 61-64 • Pesch, R., ed., Zur eologie der Kindheitsgeschichten: Der heutige Stand der Exegese (Munich: Schnell & Steiner, 1981). • Plank, K. A., ‘e Human Face of Otherness: Re ections on Joseph and Mary (Matthew 1:18-25)’, in Faith and History, ed. J. T. Carroll et al., 55-73. • Poon, W., ‘“You Must Name Him Jesus”: Being Named as Kenosis’,  53 (2000), 433-36. • Raatschen, J. H., ‘Empfangen durch den Heiligen Geist: Überlegungen zu Mt 1,18-25’, TBl 11 (1980), 262-77. • Richards, H. J., e First Christmas: What Really Happened? (Mystic CT: Twenty-ird Publications, 1986). • Rösel, M., ‘Die Jungfraugeburt des endzeitlichen Emmanuel: Jesaja 7 in der Übersetzung der Septuaginta’, JBT 6 (1991), 135-51. • Schaberg, J., ‘Feminist Interpretations of the Infancy Narrative of Matthew’, JFSR 13 (1997), 35-62. • Schaberg, J., ‘A Cancelled Father: Historicity and the New Testament’, Forum 2.1 (1999), 57-78. • Schnider, F. and Stenger, W., ‘“Mit der Abstammung Jesu Christi verhielt es sich so: …”’, BZ 25 (1981), 255-64. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 69-76, 171-76. • Wouters, A., Willen, 206-13, 331-46, 367-72. • Zeller, D., ‘Die Ankündigung der Geburt — Wandlungen einer Gattung’, in Kindheitsgeschichten, ed. R. Pesch, 27-48. For Matthew’s Formula Citations

Beaton, R., Isaiah’s Christ, 86-121. • Luz, U., Matthew 1–7, 156-64. • Martin, F., ‘Parole, écriture, accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu’, SémiotBib 50 (1988), 27-51. • Miler, J., Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’Évangile de Matthieu: Quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité (AnBib 140. Rome: Editrice Ponti cio Istituto Biblico, 1999). • Miler, J., ‘Le travail de l’accomplissement: Matthieu et les Écritures’, FV 100 (2001), 13-29. • Schmidt, A., ‘Der mögliche Text von P. Oxy. III 405, Z. 39-45’, NTS 37 (1991), 160. • Senior, D., ‘e Lure of the Formula Quotations: Re-assessing Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament with the Passion Narrative as Test Case’, in Scriptures, ed. C. Tuckett, 89-115. See further at 1:1-17; for further bibliography on the Virgin Birth see Nolland, Luke, 1:36-39.

Vv. 1-17 provided an account of the origin of Jesus which was concerned with relating him, via genealogy, to the course of God’s dealings with his people from Abraham to his own generation. Now in vv. 19-25 the wide-angle-lens view of vv. 1-17 gives way to closeup camera work. Attention is focussed on the immediate circumstances of Jesus’ birth; here Matthew begins his connected narrative. Vv. 19-25 provide an explanation for the formal anomaly in v. 161 by providing the rst narrative unit of Matthew’s story.2 Matthew’s Infancy Narrative will run from 1:19 to 2:23. ere is considerable similarity of form between Mary’s encounter with Gabriel (Lk. 1:26-38) and Joseph’s with an angel of the Lord. In both cases we are dealing with accounts which have been in uenced by an OT birth oracle form,3 but also by an OT call-narrative form.4 In each case there is, however, a substantial shared content which is notably distinctive in relation to these OT patterns.5 A further shaping in uence in Mt. 1:18-25 is likely to have come from haggadic traditions about Moses’ infancy, here alluded to in order to draw a connection between the two gures in terms of their respective roles in salvation history.6

e story in its present form has a good deal about it that is Matthean. Matthean vocabulary and interests are pervasive. A good part of the account (especially the second half) is formulated in relation to the quotation of Is. 7:14, which is not likely to be a pre-Matthean feature of this pericope.7 Assuming no direct dependence either way between Matthew and Luke for the infancy materials, the minimum that could be pre-Matthean is made up of the elements common to 1:18-25 and Lk. 1:26-38 (see nn. 4, 5). is could be oral tradition and without xed form.8 e links with Mt. 2:13-15a, 19-219 do, however, offer the possibility of arguing in favour of a more extensive tradition base since Mt. 2:13-15a, 1921 are generally considered to be substantially pre-Matthean.10 e question is whether the similarity between 1:18-25 and these passages is the result of Matthean editing or a pointer to a pre-Matthean unit. On two counts the latter is to be preferred. First, it is hard to see how the travel materials of Mt. 2:13-15a, 19-21 could have existed without an earlier section introducing the parents and the birth of the child. 1:18-25 supplies this need.11 Second, the way that παραλαμβάνω in 2:13, 14, 20, 21 takes up the use in a different sense in 1:2012 makes reasonable sense from a beginning point in v. 20 but is an implausible editing move if the unit containing v. 20 is being composed to preface other preexisting units already making use of the verb.13 e scope of the pre-Matthean form is not ascertainable with any precision.14

e question of the fundamental historicity of the virginal conception of Jesus by Mary needs to be somewhat separated from issues of the nature of the artistic licence that may be involved in the development of the kind of narrative that we have here. While our present infancy narratives offer Christianised accounts of Jesus’ origins, the idea of a virginal conception has not been borrowed either from pre-Christian Judaism or from the wider world of the early Christian period. It is not readily explicable as a theologoumenon, and it is unlikely to be simply a pious lie to cover the embarrassment of Mary’s having fallen pregnant in the normal

manner prior to her marriage to Joseph. Despite all critical reserve the traditional view continues to have much to commend it.15 1:18 On the double name ‘Jesus Christ’ see the comments at 1:1. It comes at the beginning of the sentence to take up the thread of v. 16. ἡ γένεσις here is as concerned with origins as in v. 1, but here origins are thought of more narrowly. e translation ‘birth’ re ects this narrowing and prepares for the link with γεννηθέντος (‘was born’) in 2:1,16 but it should not be allowed to obscure the fact that its use in v. 18 deliberately takes up that in v. 1. e focus is on the attendant circumstances, not on the birth itself. e OT law treated betrothal as creating a legal state of marriage, with attendant possibilities of adultery, divorce, and widowhood.17 Despite this, during the betrothal the wife continued to be the responsibility of her father for a maximum of twelve months (provided she had reached puberty) prior to the marriage ceremony.18 In this interim period sexual relations were not considered proper, though no doubt they did at times occur.19 συνελθεῖν could refer to setting up house together or to sexual intimacy, but if the former is intended, there is an implicit reference as well to the latter since it is the absence of sexual intimacy between the couple which causes Mary’s pregnancy to present itself to Joseph in the particular way it does. Mary as the subject of the passive verb εὑρέθη (‘was found’) is portrayed in a way typical of her narrative role in the infancy materials. Quite in contrast to Luke 1–2, at no point is she allowed to emerge as a person in her own right. Her identity is simply embedded in that of her husband. ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα (lit. ‘in stomach having’) anticipates the language of Is. 7:14 in v. 23. ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου (lit. ‘out of [a] holy spirit’) is a rather cryptic remark, not well integrated into the syntax of the sentence (the

discovery of the pregnancy is not to be understood as involving from the beginning an awareness of the role of the Spirit — but see further below). e phrase anticipates for the sake of the reader a perspective which emerges in the narrative only at v. 20. e cryptic form suggests a writer’s assumption that readers are already familiar with the idea involved. Does ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου imply, however asexually, the taking of the male role by the Spirit?20 To this point in Matthew’s narrative ἐκ has consistently pointed to the female role in reproduction.21 In the LXX, ἐκ can refer to the male role when used with ἐν γαστρὶ λαμβάνειν or συλλαμβάνειν, but not normally with ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχειν.22 Unlike the other LXX idioms, ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχειν is concerned with being pregnant rather than becoming pregnant. In v. 20 we nd again the ἐκ, but now the verb is γεννᾶν. Linked with γεννᾶν, ἐκ is used for the male role (in a metaphorical sense) in the Johannine tradition,23 but the idiom in Mt. 1:20 is not γεννηθὲν ἐκ, but τὸ γεννηθὲν ἔστιν ἐκ, which creates a measure of separation between the verb and the preposition.24 It is hard to see how a statement of divine paternity, no matter how asexually understood, could function in v. 20 to reassure Joseph of the appropriateness of going ahead with the marriage.25 ese various considerations count against understanding the Spirit’s role as providing the male principle.26 But if the Spirit’s role does not represent God as the father of Jesus, what alternative possibilities presents themselves? ose who nd new creation imagery in Mt. 1:1 may be drawn to the creation role of the Spirit,27 but new creation does not t well without such support. Likewise there is little to commend a link here with an eschatological pouring out of the Spirit.28 Other lines of approach offer more promise. e Spirit can readily be understood here with reference to power from God producing the

extraordinary.29 In the present case the exercise of this power may be seen as a particularly heightened instance of the regular role of the Spirit in the formation of a child in the womb.30 Other possible contributing elements here are an understanding of election to God’s purposes as from the womb and earlier,31 and the connection between the Spirit and special agents of God which is evident both for the messiah and for the Isaianic servant.32 Due attention to each of these contexts of possible signi cance should not be allowed to detract from the sense of uniqueness that remains: this is a unique miracle of God, not simply another miracle of God. Despite some recent support,33 ‘according to the will of God’ is not a satisfactory sense for ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου. Such a sense has not been satisfactorily parallelled; it involves treating Joseph’s concern to be righteous (v. 20), with a high-handedness (it is simply overridden) that hardly ts Matthew;34 and it does not do justice to the use of Is. 7:14 in the Matthean context (see below). 1:19 Joseph as ‘husband’35 and the prospect of divorce both re ect the Jewish understanding of betrothal as discussed at v. 18. Despite the range of ways in which the elements of the sentence here have been pieced together, the most obvious remains the most likely: ‘righteous’ relates to the decision to divorce; and avoidance of public disgrace for Mary has its counterpart in λάθρα (‘quietly’).36 We should not, however, locate any tension between Joseph’s righteousness and his desire to spare Mary. Nor are we to understand that Joseph abandons his righteousness under the promptings of the angelic messenger.37 Rather, his subsequent behaviour only con rms the appropriateness of labelling this man as ‘righteous’. In Matthew’s understanding, it is important to be righteous; and, while this involves obedience to the law, righteousness is, for Matthew, a much wider concept.38

δειγματίσαι (lit. ‘bring to public notice’) must have a negative force in the present context.39 It is likely to refer to the role of a public trial in determining the cause of Mary’s pregnancy: had she been raped or seduced, or was she pregnant already prior to the betrothal? Dt. 22:22-27 covers the rst two cases, and vv. 28-29 partially covers the third. It is not clear how the absence of the death penalty affected the implementation of these laws.40 How were sexual crimes punished?41 In a case involving a women who was well advanced in pregnancy, an important consideration in practice would be the likelihood that no certain verdict could be reached so many months aer the event.42 In the absence of any indication that rape had been claimed at a much earlier stage, any trial could only be expected to prove guilt or leave strong suspicion of guilt.43 Would Joseph have considered himself obliged to divorce Mary in these circumstances? If ‘righteous’ relates to the intention to divorce as I have suggested above, then such an obligation is assumed. For the married state an obligation to divorce an adulteress is likely to be assumed in Nu. 5:11-31 and would seem to have been the mishnaic norm.44 e exception clauses of Mt. 5:32 and 19:945 are likely to re ect a culture which understood the marriage bond as effectively destroyed by the in delity of the wife. ough they can be quite synonymous, θέλω and βούλομαι are distinguished here as dealing respectively with desire and decision. λάθρα normally means ‘secretly’ but here, in relation to divorce practice, it must take, as an opposite to ‘publicly’, a force something like ‘privately’. A divorce required only a written document (Dt. 24:1) and competent witnesses (m. Giṭ. 9:4, 8), with none of the unavoidable publicity of a trial.

1:20 e timing of the angel’s appearance is carefully placed between Joseph’s resolution and its implementation:46 his re ections have been based on inadequate information,47 and he needs to be redirected. ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) is used here and frequently by Matthew to mark the importance of what follows, but it is oen untranslatable into contemporary English. ough the genitive absolute followed by ἰδού is characteristic of Matthew,48 the idiom here, using the aorist participle, recurs only in 2:1, 13, 19 and thus helps to link the pericopes involved. 2:13, 19(-20) are further linked to 1:20 by mention of an angel of the Lord appearing (ϕαίνειν as here — but aorist in 1:20 and present in 2:13, 19) in a dream (κατ᾿ ὄναρ as here) to Joseph saying (λέγων as here). e Magi of 2:1 have another kind of revelatory experience, but fail to share the more precise links.49 In Gn. 31:11 the angel of God speaks to Jacob in a dream, and God himself comes/speaks in a dream in a number of texts.50 Matthew’s ἐϕάνη (‘appeared’) is used of an appearance of God in Nu. 23:4 and in a variant reading in Gn. 35:7. Despite these strong OT connections, Matthew’s angel of God is, in line with later Jewish thought, a messenger of God rather than, as in Genesis (‘the angel of the Lord’),51 a way of speaking about the presence of God himself. To call Joseph ‘son of David’ (elsewhere used only of Jesus) highlights the importance of Joseph to the incorporation of Jesus into the Davidic line. e incorporation will happen through his taking Mary as his wife and the naming of Jesus by Joseph. e reassuring ‘do not be afraid’ is more typically addressed to the fear caused by the visitation, but it can be addressed, as here, to elements in the situation addressed.52 παραλαβεῖν is used of the man taking his betrothed into his home as his wife. e change of verb from v. 18 suggests a change of

focus from sexual union to domestic union (cf. vv. 24-25). As noted above, on two further occasions the angel will use this same verb to direct Joseph (2:13, 20), and the verb will recur in the description of Joseph’s obedience (2:14, 21). ese recurrences will bring to the fore the taking-care-of which is already implicit in the rst use of the verb. e neuter form τὸ … γεννηθέν (‘what has been produced’) is probably chosen to keep back the gender of the child until it can be revealed with emphasis in v. 21. On γεννηθέν see the comments at v. 2, and on the role of the Spirit see those at v. 18. Against the background of the understanding of marriage and divorce which is assumed at v. 19 (see above), the reference to the Spirit can only reassure Joseph if it is taken to imply the absence of a human (or divine) father. It may be proper to nd echoes here and in v. 21 of popular traditions about the birth and infancy of Moses.53 As Moses’ father Amram anxious and fearful about the circumstances of his wife’s pregnancy, sleeps, God appears to him in a vision54 and seeks to allay his fears. He is reminded of God’s miraculous provision of a child to Abraham despite the barrenness of Sarah.55 e child to be born ‘shall indeed be yours’. He shall deliver the Hebrew race.56 On awaking, Amram acts on what has been disclosed to him.57 1:21 If the woman is to be the subject of the verb, a change from the previously used γεννᾶν (which would refer to conception, not birth) is required. e use of τέξεται (‘she will give birth’) anticipates the wording of Is. 7:14 used in v. 23 (cf. at v. 18 above). Only a son could be tted into the genealogical sequence of vv. 2-16 and be the expected Christ. καλέσεις (‘you will call’) is both a true future (in parallel with τέξεται) and an imperatival use of the future.

In performing the father’s role in naming the child, Joseph will make the child his own.58 In the OT, heaven-given names always have etymological signi cance,59 but not elsewhere one that focuses as here on the future role of the child (but cf. nn. 81, 82).60 Ἰησοῦς is the Greek form for the Hebrew name Joshua (Yēšûaʿ). In popular etymology this was related to yšʿ (‘save’) and yêšûʿâ (‘salvation’).61 While salvation language is not nearly as important to Matthew as to Luke, the verb is used to cast Jesus in a saving role in a number of places.62 e messianic and salvation history focus of Mt. 1 thus far requires that ‘his people’ be referred not to a new Christian people of God, but to the historic people of God. ‘His’ points to Jesus’ own embeddedness within this people: the people to whom he belongs. As the story unfolds, it will become clear that a considerable part of the people place themselves beyond the reach of this saving activity, and that this salvation is also opened up to those outside the historic people of God. Salvation ‘from their sins’ is initially surprising. e need for forgiveness was, of course, clearly recognised (e.g., Je. 31:34), but this was normally seen as in the hands of God alone.63 When a mediating gure was involved at all, cleansing from sin was normally seen in terms of the destruction and removal of sinners and/or the moral renewal of the people (forgiveness is no doubt implicitly assumed in the latter).64 Forgiveness does, however, seem to be bestowed by the heavenly Melchizedek in 11QMelch 2:6-8 and successfully petitioned for by the messiah in (the probably later) Tg. Is. 53:4, 6-7. What might be involved for Matthew in being saved from sins can be clari ed by looking at his later references to ‘sins’: John the Baptist’s ministry provokes the confession of sins (3:6); Jesus himself forgives sins (9:2, 5, 6); his blood is nally ‘poured out

for the forgiveness of sins’ (26:28; cf. 20:28). Also pertinent is Jesus’ orientation to ‘sinners’ in 9:10-13; 11:19, and perhaps also his call to greater righteousness in 5:20. at it is ‘his people’ whom Jesus will save from their sins brings to the fore here the corporate dimension of forgiveness and its connection with the covenant (as in 26:28).65 On possible echoes of popular traditions on the infancy of Moses see the remarks at 1:20. 1:22 1:22-23 provide the rst of a series of formula quotations which are a distinctive feature of the Gospel of Matthew, the rst four of which are found in the infancy chapters.66 Despite the support of several interpreters, it is unlikely that vv. 22-23 should be taken as part of the angelic communication.67 Only 26:56 (which has almost identical wording to the opening part of the formula) offers a serious parallel for this possibility (as the words of Jesus), but it contains no actual quotation. e location of vv. 22-23 is striking since they introduce the ful lment claim before the verses which report the actual ful lment (vv. 24-25). e same phenomenon is found in 21:4-5,68 where the words of introduction are very similar.69 In both cases what precedes involves a directive, the carrying out of which has a part to play in the ful lment of the cited Scripture, and what follows reports the obedient execution of the task assigned.70 From this perspective, ‘all of this’ is likely to embrace the pregnancy of Mary and the appearance of the angel, but not yet the obedience of Joseph or the actual birth. ‘By the Lord through the prophet’ seems rather fulsome, a fulsomeness which is matched at 2:15, but by none of the other ful lment formulae.71 In 2:15 ‘by the Lord’ is in keeping with a cited text that must be spoken by God (‘my son’) and not by the prophet. Pesch72 has argued at length that all the attributions are carefully

craed in relation to the role of the particular citations, and that in particular ‘by the Lord’ in 1:22 serves to alert the reader that the ‘son’ in v. 23 is to be identi ed as the son of God. It is probably better, however, to explain the presence of ‘by the Lord’ in terms of the previous reference to the Lord in the phrase ‘angel of the Lord’ (v. 20): as the Lord has now spoken through his angel, so he spoke long ago through his prophet.73 1:23 e wording of the text is like that of the LXX of Is. 7:1474 except for καλέσουσιν (‘they will call’) in place of καλέσει (‘s/he will call’).75 Matthew’s plural may be a compromise generalisation, intended to harmonise the range of readings of which Matthew was aware (see n. 75). Other possibilities are that the plural may be to distinguish the literal naming of Jesus by Joseph from this metaphorical naming; it may be to allow the naming to function as a profession made by people saved from their sins (v. 21); or it may be to open a place for Joseph in the naming of the child,76 where the singular verb would give the naming function only to the mother. e nal option is to be preferred as offering the most coherent reading. ough the role attributed to the Spirit has already implied that Mary’s pregnancy is not the fruit of sexual activity, only by means of the quotation is she identi ed speci cally as a virgin. e LXX wording lends itself admirably to Matthew’s interpretation. First it uses παρθένος, which normally implies virginity,77 where the underlying Hebrew ʿalmâ has no such implication (though a young woman who was a virgin would be quite naturally termed ʿalmâ). en, it represents Hebrew hārâ with ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει which, while quite a standard LXX rendering, focuses on the state of pregnancy rather than the process of becoming pregnant. e combination of these two features (probably unanticipated by the translator) makes

it quite natural to read the text as speaking of a virgin who will be pregnant as a virgin rather than as speaking of one who is a virgin at the time of speaking but who will become pregnant in the normal manner. A messianic interpretation of Is. 7:14 is more ready to hand if the child anticipated was, in the original context, to be Ahaz’s son and heir to the throne.78 A wider eschatological interpretation may, however, depend on nothing more than the recognition that, as was the case with so much other OT prophecy, the ful lment in the original time-period produced considerably less than seemed to be being offered by the prophecy. Christians and Jews of the rst century period shared a conviction that, given their fundamental convictions about the God whom they served, there must be more yet to come. e experience of what had actually happened for Christians in the coming of Jesus offered an interpretive grid for giving tangible content to this more. Ἐμμανουήλ (‘Emmanuel’) transliterates the Hebrew ʿimmānûʾēl. ough not found in Is. 7:14, the words for the translation79 are also supplied by the LXX of Isaiah (8:8, cf. v. 10). Should we translate μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός as ‘God with us’ and understand that Matthew intends to make the equation ‘Jesus = God’? Christian conviction readily reads it this way, and there are some features of Matthew’s story that can be taken to point in this direction. (a) e Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel is a more God-like gure in the responses that he elicits than is the case in the other Synoptic Gospels.80 (b) e nature of the presence of Jesus contemplated in 18:20; 28:20 is of a spiritual kind, which would t a divine Jesus well. (c) e correspondence between μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός in 1:23 and ἐγὼ μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν εἰμι (‘I am with you’) in 28:20 may

allow us to nd an allusion to the divine name in the ἐγώ εἰμι of the latter.81 e weight of the argument, however, is against this approach. (a) OT names given from heaven point to the actions and purposes of God rather than of the named gure.82 e Isaiah context (including 8:8, 10) and the heaven-given name of Isaiah’s son in 8:3 (cf. 7:3) count in favour of taking ‘Emmanuel’ in a similar way. (b) e word order μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός is less naturally rendered ‘God with us’ than ὁ θεὸς μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν would be.83 (c) e transition between the two names (Jesus and Emmanuel) is eased if each points to what God will do (through or in the time of Jesus). (d) ‘Jesus = God’ is too powerful as a christological statement to be carried in an account which is centrally focussed on the irregular incorporation of Jesus into the Davidic line. (e) Similarly, ‘Jesus = God’ in a context as Jewish as this and at such an early stage in the narrative is so overwhelming that it does not t well with the way in which christological perspective is allowed, at least to some extent, to cumulate throughout the narrative and certainly to operate in a number of different dimensions. μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός is, then, best taken as ‘God is/will be with us’. It is the unfolding of the story that will clarify the precise manner in which God’s presence will be manifested.84 While one could see the presence anticipated here in connection with the covenant promise of God’s presence to the Davidic dynasty,85 ‘with us’ ts a more general eschatological realisation of the covenant better.86 (Behind both lies the more general promise of God’s presence made repeatedly in relation to the covenant from Gn. 26:3 onwards.) 1:24-25 Joseph is the rst person in the Gospel called upon to commit himself to the signi cance of Jesus in the purposes of God.87 ἐγερθεὶς … παρέλαβεν (lit. ‘having risen … he took’) links

this episode to 2:13-15, 19-21, where the language recurs (see at v. 20 for other language links). e detail offered here, with its emphasis on full obedience88 to the angel’s directive, is not repeated in the linked pericopes but is intended to be carried forward from here. e end of the dream state and, thus, the move from the dream mode in which the directive is given to the waking state in which it is to be executed is marked by ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου (‘from sleep’). Obedience is imaged as immediate and unhesitating. e repetition from vv. 20-23 emphasises both the obedience of Joseph (‘angel of the Lord’; ‘took his wife’; ‘he called his name Jesus’) and the ful lment of Scripture (‘she bore a son’; ‘called his name’). In such a context ‘he had no sexual relations with her before’89 is best taken as having to do with the literal ful lment of Is. 7:14: Mary was to be a virgin not only at the point of conception but also at the point of giving birth.90 Matthew offers no psychological motivation for Joseph’s failure to consummate the marriage; his concern is solely with the ful lment of Scripture.91 ough important as ful lling both the angelic announcement and the prophecy from Isaiah, the birth of a son is kept subordinate in the syntax to the role of Joseph. B. e Visit of the Magi (2:1-12) 1When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod aMagi from the East came into Jerusalem, 2saying, ‘Where is bthe

the king, newborn kingb of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to do obeisance to him.’ Herod heard [about this], he was disturbed, and call Jerusalem with him; 4and gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, 3When

he inquired from them where the Christ was to be born. 5ey said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea. For it has been written as follows through the prophet: you, Bethlehem, ddistrict of Judah,d You are not at all least among the leaders of Judah. For out of you will come a ruler Who will shepherd my people Israel.’ 6And

7en

Herod secretly summoned the Magi and ascertained from them the exact time at which the star made its appearance. 8en he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and inquire diligently about the child; and when you find [him], report to me, that I also may come and do obeisance to him.’ they had heard the king, the Magi,e went [on their way], and fthe star which they had seen at its rising went before them until it came and stood over gthe place where the child was.g 10When they saw the star, they were overcome with joy. 11Coming into the house, they hsaw the child with Mary his mother, and, falling down, they did obeisance to him, and opening their treasure chests they offered him gis, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12en, warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed by another route to their own region. 9When

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) is untranslated. Its role is to provide emphasis. b-b. Or ‘the one born to be king’. c. D Γ avoid the hyperbole by omitting πασα (‘all’). d-d. e difficulty of the phrase γη Ιουδα (discussed below) has produced the easier reading in D pc it sys, c, p της Ιουδαιας (‘of Judea’). ff1 boms(s) have γη των Ιουδαιων (‘land/region of the Jews/Judeans’). e. Greek: ‘ey’. f. ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) is untranslated. Its role is to provide emphasis. See the comment at n. 51.

g-g. D it smooth the awkwardness of the Greek here by reading του παιδιου (‘the child’). h. 474 lat have ευρον (‘found’), picking up on the verb in v. 8. Given the use of ιδοντες (‘seeing’) in v. 10, this alternative reading, though poorly supported, could possibly be original. Bibliography Aus, R. D., ‘e Magi at the Birth of Cyrus, and the Magi at Jesus’ Birth in Matthew 2:1-12’, in New Perspectives on Ancient Judaism, ed. J. Neusner et al. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), 2:99-114. • Aveni, A. F., ‘e Star of Bethlehem’, Archaeology 51 (1998), 34-38. • Broer, I., ‘Jesus ucht und Kindermord: Exegetische Anmerkungen zum zweiten Kapitel des Matthäusevangelium’, in Kindheitsgeschichten, ed. R. Pesch, 74-96. • Brown, R. E., Birth of the Messiah, 165-201, 607-15. • Buetubela, B., ‘L’Universalisme du salut de Mt 2,1-12, RevAf 18 (1994), 149-59. • Couffignal, R., ‘Le conte merveilleux des mages et du cruel Hérode’, Revom 89 (1989), 97-117. • Cuvillier, E., ‘La visite des Mages dans l’Évangile de Matthieu (Matthieu 2,112)’, FV 98 (1999), 75-85. • D’Occhieppo, K. F., Der Stern von Bethlehem in astronomischer Sicht: Legende oder Tatsache? (Giessen: Brunnen, 19942). • Dorival, G., ‘“Un astre se lève de Jacob”: L’interprétation ancienne de Nombres 24,17’, Annali di storia dell’esegesi 13 (1996), 295-352. • Eltrop, B., ‘Du aber, Bethlehem Efrata, … aus Dir soll mir einer hervorgehen (Mi 5,1)’, BK 51 (1996), 168-71. • Ferrari-D’Occhieppo, K., ‘e Star of the Magi and Babylonian Astronomy’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 41-53. • France, R. T., ‘e Formula Quotations of Matthew 2 and the Problem of Communication’, NTS 27 (1981), 233-51. • Friggens, M. A., ‘e Relationship of the Prophetic Quotations in Matthew ii in the Light of the Triennial Lectionary Cycle’, SE 7 [= TU 126] (1982), 183-88. • Fuller, R., ‘4QMicah: A Small Fragment of a Manuscript of the Minor Prophets from Qumran, Cave IV’, RevQ 16 (1993), 193-202. • Gubler, M.-L., ‘Wo nehmen wir die Stern her? Gedanken zur Wiehnachtsbotscha nach Mattäus’, Diak 19 (1988), 410-15. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Sun, Moon, Stars’, in NIDNTT 3:730-37. • Heater, H., ‘Matthew 2:6 and Its Old Testament Sources’, JETS 26 (1983),

395-97. • Hengel, M. and Merkel, H., ‘Die Magier aus dem Osten und die Flucht nach Ägypten (Mt 2) im Rahmen der antiken Religionsgeschichte und der eologie des Matthäus’, in Orientierung, ed. P. Hoffmann, 139-69. • Horsley, R. A., e Liberation of Christmas, 39-60. • Humphreys, C. J., ‘e Star of Bethlehem, a Comet in 5 BC and the Date of Christ’s Birth’, TynB 43 (1992), 31-56. • Jensen, R. M., ‘Witnessing the Divine: e Magi in Art and Literature’, BRev 17.6 (2001), 24-32, 59; Jenson, P. P., ‘Models of Prophetic Prediction and Matthew’s Quotation of Micah 5:2’, in e Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Messianic Texts, ed. P. E. Satterthwaite, R. S. Hess, and G. J. Wenham (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995), 189-211. • Kidger, M., e Star of Bethlehem: An Astronomer’s View (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). • Kruse, H., ‘Gold und Weihrauch und Myrrhe (Mt 2,11)’, MTZ 46 (1995), 203-13. • Küchler, M., ‘“Wir haben seiner Stern gesehen …” (Mt 2,2)’, BK 44 (1989), 179-86. • Kügler, J., ‘Gold, Weihrauch und Myrrhe: Eine Notiz zu Mt 2,11’, BibNot 87 (1997), 24-33. • Lawrence, L. J., ‘“Fearing Within”: “e Herods” of Matthew’s Gospel’, eology in Scotland (St Andrews) 8 (2001), 39-52. • Lust, J., ‘Mic. 5:1-3 in Qumran and in the New Testament, and Messianism in the Septuagint’, in e Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 65-88. • Maalouf, T. T., ‘Were the Magi from Persia or Arabia?’ BSac 156 (1999), 423-42. • Martin, F., ‘Naître entre juifs et païens’, FilolNT 1 (1988), 77-93. • Molnar, M. R., e Star of Bethlehem: e Legacy of the Magi (New Brunswick, NJ/London: Rutgers, 1999). • Mora, V., Création, 195-200. • Murphy, G. L., ‘Epiphany as a Cosmic Festival’, CurTM 23 (1996), 421-26. • Nolland, J., ‘e Sources for Matthew 2:1-12’, CBQ 60 (1998), 283-300. • Paffenroth, K., ‘Science or Story? e Star of Bethlehem’, ExpTim 106 (1994), 78-79. • Pagels, E., Origin, 63-88. • Parpola, S., ‘e Magi and the Star: Babylonian Astronomy Dates Jesus’ Birth’, BRev 17.6 (2001), 16-23, 52, 54. • Petrotta, A. J., ‘A Closer Look at Matt 2.6 and Its Old Testament Sources’, JETS 28 (1985), 47-52. • Petrotta, A. J., ‘An Even Closer Look at Matt 2:6 and Its Old Testament Sources’, JETS 33 (1990), 311-15. • Phipps, W. E., ‘e Magi and Halley’s Comet’, TToday 43 (1986-87), 88-92. • Powell, M. A., Chasing the Evening Star: Adventures in Biblical ReaderResponse Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2001). • Powell, M. A., ‘Neither Wise Nor Powerful: Reconsidering Matthew’s Magi in Light of

Reader Expectations’, TrinSemRev 20 (1998), 19-31. • Powell, M. A., ‘e Magi as Wise Men: Re-Examining a Basic Supposition’, NTS 46 (2000), 1-20. • Powell, M. A., ‘e Magi as Kings: An Adventure in Reader-Response Criticism’, CBQ 62 (2000), 459-80. • Raimbault, C., ‘Une analyse structurelle de l’adoration des Mages en Mt 2,1-12’, EstBíb 56 (1998), 221-35. • Sachs, A. J. and Walker, C. B. F., ‘Kepler’s View of the Star of Bethlehem and the Babylonian Almanac for 7/6 B.C.’, Iraq 46 (1984), 43-55. • Schwank, B., ‘Und sie sahen das Kind mit Maria, seiner Mutter (Mt 2,11)’, EuA 74 (1998), 51013. • Sim, D. C., ‘e Magi: Gentiles or Jews?’ HTS 55 (1999), 980-1000. • Strobel, A., Die Stern von Bethlehem — Ein Licht in unserer Zeit? Erwägerungen zu Mt 2,1-12 (Fürth: Flacius, 1985). • Tisera, G., Universalism, 49-75. • Trexler, R. C., e Journey of the Magi. Meanings in History of a Christian Story (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). • Viviano, B. T., ‘e Movement of the Star, Matt 2:9 and Num 9:17’, RB 103 (1996), 5864. • Voigt, H.-H., ‘Astronomie, Astrologie, eologie’, TRu 54 (1989), 42226. • Yamauchi, E. M., ‘e Episode of the Magi’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 15-39. On Dating Matters Bernegger, P. M., ‘Affirmation of Herod’s Death in 4 B.C.’, JTS 34 (1983), 52631. • Edwards, O., ‘Palestinian Chronology’, PEQ 114 (1982), 29-42. • Hoehner, H. W., ‘e Date of the Death of Herod the Great’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 101-11. • Johnson, D., ‘And ey Went Eight Stades toward Herodeion’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 93-99. • Kokkinos, N., ‘Cruci xion in A.D. 36: e Keystone for Dating the Birth of Jesus’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 133-63. • Maier, P. L., ‘e Date of the Nativity and the Chronology of Jesus’ Life’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 113-30. • Martin, E. L., ‘e Nativity and Herod’s Death’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 85-92. • Martin, E. L., e Birth of Christ Recalculated (Pasadena: Foundation for Biblical Research, 19802). • orley, J., ‘When Was Jesus Born?’ GR 28 (1979), 81-84. • Vardaman, J., ‘Jesus’ Life: A New Chronology’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 55-82. See further at Mt. 1:1-17.

Where 1:18-25 provide a domestic view of events surrounding Jesus’ birth, 2:1-12 set the birth into a wider context and mark its public impact. e double focus of the narrative, on the Magi and on Herod, likely re ects a merging here of originally independent Magi and Herod accounts.92 It is the Herod account which continued the source form behind 1:18-25. e in uence (noted at 1:18-25) of the haggadic traditions about Moses’ infancy continues and may have played a role in bringing together the Herod and the Magi accounts. e general t of the Magi story in rst-century culture can be read as counting either for or against historicity, depending on other assumptions brought to bear by the interpreter. Cultures which expect such omens not only at times produce apocryphal tales containing them, but also experience them. With all due allowance for oriental artistic licence, Matthew would have his readers believe that there were Magi who were guided by a star to the infant Jesus, despite failing to receive support for their project in Jerusalem. Curiously, assuming a separate origin for the Magi and Herod accounts, more is at stake in the question of the historicity of Herod’s agitation over news of the birth of a Christ child. e difficulty is not with historical verisimilitude in Herod’s reported response. e issue, rather, is whether there was among any groups of Jews a ush of messianic hope focussed on the infant Jesus; otherwise there is nothing to come to the ears of Herod. e problem is posed by Jesus’ apparent emergence from obscurity at the beginning of his adult ministry. If there was a focus of messianic hope on the infant Jesus, no line of continuity between this and the adult ministry of Jesus has survived.93

2:1 For all uses of γεννάω thus far the generative role of a parent has been important, but here this drops from sight. is is re ected in the translation ‘was born’ rather than ‘was produced’ (see at 1:2). ere is a somewhat comparable narrowing of focus in

1:18 (see there), and the corresponding changes in translation allow the link between 2:1 and 1:18 to be kept visible: insofar as it is Matthew’s intention to provide an account of the birth of Jesus, he looks to the narratives introduced by these two verses (1:18-25; 2:112) to serve this role. Whereas 1:25 draws attention to the actual birth of Jesus but keeps it offstage by syntactically subordinating it to the role of Joseph, here the same effect is achieved by the introduction of the Magi. In the larger shape of Matthew’s narrative it is a little surprising to have the location and timing of Jesus’ birth introduced for the rst time here94 and not at the point where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus rst enter the narrative, but the reference to Bethlehem and Herod, together with the mention of the birth of Jesus, achieves an introduction which identi es all the main reference points for the story to come in Mt. 2:1b-12. (e reader is thus prepared for an active role for Herod in what is to come, and knows at once that the chief priests and scribes speak truth when, in v. 5, they point to Bethlehem.) Matthew offers no comment on how it is that the birth happened to take place in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is the place of David’s origin,95 so it would not be unnatural to imagine this ‘son of David’ as permanently domiciled there (cf. vv. 21-22). Bethlehem is only about ve miles from Jerusalem. ‘Of Judea’ prepares for ‘in the land of Judah’ in v. 6, but without the archaising that would have been involved in anticipating the language precisely.96 e Herod here is Herod the Great, who ruled as king from 37 to 4 B.C. He was a gure of heroic proportions, whose rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple represented a major feat of ancient architecture, but whose rule was tyrannical, ruthless, and cruel.97

If Jesus was born while Herod still ruled, if Jesus’ ministry began when he was ‘about thirty’ (Lk. 3:23), if Jesus’ ministry emerged out of that of John, and if John’s ministry began in A.D. 28-29 (Lk. 3:1), then Jesus must have been born quite late in Herod’s reign. 5/4 B.C. is the most favoured suggestion, but see the comments at v. 2 for astronomical reasons for favouring 7/6 B.C. Matthew highlights the beginning of the action of the pericope with ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) and forms a distinctive construction which he has already used at 1:20 (see there for its role in linking the pericopes), and will use again in 2:13, 19. Matthew introduces the Magi with παραγίνεσθαι (‘come’), and will introduce John the Baptist (3:1) and the adult Jesus (3:13) with (his only other) uses of the same verb. is probably points to Matthean style, but it appears to have only a minor structural signi cance (the verb is aorist here and [historic] present in the other cases). e word ‘Magi’ was originally applied exclusively to members of a priestly caste of the Medes and Persian who had esoteric skills in interpreting dreams. However, the use of the word broadened to embrace various categories of persons who were marked out by their superior knowledge and ability, including astrologers, soothsayers, and even oriental sages. From here the term became debased rst to functioning as a label for sorcerers and magicians in general, and then in the end to becoming a term for quacks, deceivers, and seducers.98 edifficulty with the term is that later developments do not displace earlier usages, but rather the various usages tend to coexist. ere is, however, nothing in Matthew’s text to encourage an in uence from any of the negative images.99 Matthew’s Magi do not interpret dreams,100 but they do observe and interpret the stars (or at least one), and they are from the East.101 If Matthew has one eye on the role of Magi/astrologers in Moses’ infancy haggadah (as seems likely), then this helps to brings

the role of astrologer to the fore.102 It would be wrong to look here for any polemic against astrology or any claim that now the power of the astrologers/magicians is broken.103 e Magi are positive gures who receive guidance from God (in a manner tailored to their circumstances), not opponents to be vanquished. It is inappropriate to read off this account any evaluation of astrology, either positive or negative; the interest is elsewhere. e Magi presumably headed for Jerusalem in search of the king of the Jews because of Jerusalem’s central role in Jewish life, and more especially because it was the throne city of the king.104 2:2 e Magi make general inquiry in Jerusalem for the one who is the goal of their journey. Either ‘the one born as king of the Jews’ (= ‘the newborn king of the Jews’) or ‘born to be king of the Jews’ is possible. (e hostility of Herod does not need to be justi ed by an immediate threat to his throne, and born to be king of the Jews is an easier idea; but ‘newborn king of the Jews’ underlines the sense of new beginning, would be artistically effective, and need not be taken literally.) As an adjective Ἰουδαῖος can mean ‘Judean’ (e.g., Mk. 1:5) or, much more commonly, ‘Jewish’, but as a noun (as here in τῶν Ἰουδαίων) it likely can mean only ‘a Jewish person’ (and not ‘a person who lives in or comes from Judea’). ‘King of the Jews’ is presumably meant to be an imprecise messianic designation on the lips of the Magi, of a kind that might be appropriate on the lips of non-Jews. In the Passion Narrative it appears again as a non-Jewish designation and again with messianic overtones.105 ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ can mean either ‘in the East’ (though since the plural is used for the place of origin of the Magi, and not the singular as here, this seems less likely) or ‘at [its] rising’.106 In either case, gaining travel

directions from the star does not arise at this stage of the narrative: the Magi come to Jerusalem because of whose star they have seen. e identity of the ‘star’ has been extensively debated. e main options which have been canvassed may be divided between those which look for a natural astronomical explanation (the conjunction of planets, a comet, or a supernova) and those which look to a miraculous event (a new star in the heavens, a wandering ‘star’). e conditions which the star must satisfy are the following. It must be the kind of star (a) for which Magi might be considered to be on the lookout; (b) which on some basis or other could be identi ed as the star of the messiah of the Jews; (c) which can blaze a trail for the Magi to follow from Jerusalem; and (d) which can nally come to rest over a particular dwelling. While the rst two conditions alone would point in the direction of astrological observation of the natural heavens, the third and fourth can point only to a miraculously provided heavenly light. We appear to be dealing with a new light in the heavens which on the basis of location and/or time of emergence pointed in astrological lore to some special ascendancy of the Jews, but which goes away from its location in the heavens to lead the Magi from Jerusalem to the location of Jesus in Bethlehem. e story itself provides no basis on which the Magi could have determined the identity of the star at its rising with the star which later went ahead to Bethlehem. e reader is le to depend on the superior knowledge (and the reliability) of the narrator. e general t in the ancient world of interest in a star whose emergence heralded the birth of a gure of particular importance (note the interest in v. 7 in the time of the star’s appearance) is helpfully documented by Davies and Allison.107 Conjunctions of constellations, appearances of comets, and the appearance and disappearance of stars were all at times believed to herald the rise

and fall of monarchs, and astrologers are said to have heralded the future greatness of various monarchs on the basis of their lore. One might speculate that a new star108 appearing close to a near conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (it has been popular to identify [one of three] near conjunctions of these planets in 7/6 B.C. with the star of the Magi) might be taken to herald a key royal birth among the Jews, on the basis that Jupiter was the royal planet and that Saturn, as the star of Saturday, was at times associated with the Jews because of their sabbath observance.109 Luz110 provides references to several ancient accounts in which wandering lights or stars provide guidance. Matthew’s miraculous star has a double function and probably needs to be understood against both kinds of background. e motif of the star is frequently linked with Balaam’s prophecy in Nu. 24:17 of a star out of Jacob. In a general sense there is a measure of parallelism between Balaam and the Magi: both are outsiders who by God’s intervention are caused to bless what he is doing with/for his people; both are, by a speci c revelation from God, kept from acting in a manner which would be destructive of God’s purposes. But speci c links are not to be found: the star in Numbers does not signal the ruler but is the ruler. Where common vocabulary does occur in Mt. 2:16 and Nu. 22:27, 29, the referent in Matthew is Herod and not the Magi as required to create the parallel.111 in late Jewish sources Balaam is connected with the Magi of the Moses haggadah,112 but there is no good reason to think that these links predate Matthew. προσκυνεῖν is used of the Magi’s intentions when they nd the one to be king of the Jews. In Mark the term means only to show deferential respect to (5:6; 15:19); in Luke it always denotes worship (4:7, 8) and is used with Jesus as its object only aer the resurrection (24:52); in Matthew it can mean reverence (4:9, 10), at times seems clearly to involve (religious) worship directed towards

Jesus (14:33; 28:9, 17), and is used repeatedly of Jesus from infancy onwards in a manner which seems designed to blur, in the case of response to Jesus, the distinction between deferential respect and religious worship.113 In the case of the Magi the translation ‘to do obeisance’ is intended to mark this ambiguity.114 For Matthew an adequate response to Jesus will nally involve worship; all worthy response to Jesus in Matthew is on the way to worship, without the need being felt to identify how far along this way different ones have travelled. In each case the reader is able, for him- or herself, to take the sense all the way to religious worship, no matter how far or how short a distance along this path the particular participants in the story have yet come. 2:3 Herod does not in the rst instance hear directly from the Magi;115 a report is brought to him (perhaps courtesy of his extensive system of informers).116 e report of the birth of a royal gure is naturally disturbing to Herod; he had his own plans for the royal succession. A parallel state of unrest for ‘all Jerusalem’ is less evident, as is the apparent coincidence of interest re ected in the language ‘with him’.117 Is Matthew anticipating the hostility of the city to Jesus that will emerge later in his story?118 ‘All Jerusalem’ plays no further role in the present narrative,119 so it is difficult to nd a basis for any other view. 2:4 ‘Chief priests’ is used of the upper echelon of the priestly order: the chief priest (and his predecessors), the captain of the temple, those who headed the twenty-four courses into which the priesthood was divided for service in the temple, the priest who had charge of the treasury, and other high-ranking priests. e scribes were the antecedents of the later Jewish rabbis. ey functioned both as scholars of the law and as teachers, and they also had a role

in the administration of justice, which in Jerusalem included a part in the highest levels of the Jewish political power structure.120 In Matthew, chief priests and scribes are only ‘of the people’ here, but chief priests and elders are ‘of the people’ in 26:47, and ‘the elders of the people’ is found on three occasions in the Jerusalem setting of the nal part of the Gospel.121 Matthew stresses a leadership role in and responsibility for the people. While the role of the chief priests and scribes is quite neutral here, their inactivity in comparison to that of the Magi may imply criticism, and their later hostility to Jesus may be seen as that much more reprehensible in the light of the evident scriptural knowledge of this grouping and their participation in events which pointed to the signi cance of the birth of Jesus.122 Matthew pairs chief priests and scribes on three occasions;123 they form a trio with elders on two further occasions.124 Matthew also pairs chief priests and elders,125 chief priests and Pharisees,126 scribes and elders (perhaps),127 scribes and Pharisees,128 and Pharisees and Sadducees.129 e ve terms involved identify the categories of Jewish leadership to which Matthew draws attention.130 Outside these groupings he refers a signi cant number of times to Pharisees and to scribes separately, but Sadducees appear in only one incident,131 and elders132 and chief priests not at all. (e singular of the term translated chief priests is used of the high priest, who plays a signi cant role in the Passion Narrative.) ere is for the most part a reasonable logic to Matthew’s groupings: chief priests and elders come to the fore together in the Passion Narrative (the pairing is not found earlier) as key players in the political power structure in Jerusalem (and are occasionally joined by the scribes in this role); chief priests and scribes are linked only in Jerusalem (once as jointly the repositories of holy lore, once as objecting to the children’s adulation of Jesus in the temple, and once in a role indistinguishable from that of the chief priests and elders); the Pharisees and scribes come together in contexts

concerned with issues of teaching and living; Pharisees and Sadducees are linked as perpetrators of evil and proponents of insidiously false views; and the chief priests and the Pharisees join together in recognising that Jesus was speaking against them and in calling for a guard over the tomb of Jesus.

Herod takes the Magi’s language ‘the king of the Jews’ as having to do with Jewish messianic hopes and consults the chief priests and scribes in connection with their professional role as custodians of sacred lore. e Magi had asked, ‘Where?’; Herod asks the same question. 2:5 e similarity of the use of Mi. 5:1 here to Matthew’s formula quotations (see at 1:22 — a ful lment formula as such could not be put on the lips of the chief priests and scribes in this setting) raises the question of whether the present citation is a preMatthean feature of the account. Certainly the response ‘in Bethlehem of Judea’ must be an original feature. is might already involve implicit reference to Mi. 5:1, but it could also have a wider and less speci c basis in typological reading of the story of King David,133 perhaps in relation to the expectation that ‘a shoot will come out from the stump of Jesse’ (Is. 11:1; cf. v. 10). 2:6 e citation here is not at all close to the LXX, with only ‘you, Bethlehem’, ‘are’, (second) ‘Judah’, ‘out of you will come’,134 and ‘Israel’ strictly in common. It is not much closer to the MT, but ‘least’ (following a minor conjectural emendation in word division), ‘rulers’ (with a conjectural pointing emendation), and ‘ruler’ (where the MT matches the participial form in Matthew)135 can be added to the agreements by working from a Hebrew base. From either the LXX or the MT ‘shepherd’ is available from the context in v. 4, but the clause in which it occurs owes its presence here to a merging into Mi. 5:1 of a clause from 2 Sa. 5:2 (or 1 Ch. 11:2): ‘will shepherd

my people Israel’ (the second person singular form in Samuel becomes third person in Matthew’s use of it).136 Matthew has replaced ‘Ephratha’ with γῆ Ἰούδα. He may well have thought of ‘Ephratha’ as unhelpful to his readers as a way of specifying the location of Bethlehem. e link with Judah is available from the following line, to be used as a substitute. γῆ Ἰούδα may have the sense ‘[in the] land of Judah’ and be a gloss in LXX style,137 but two things suggest the need to look for an alternative explanation: this LXX idiom usually has a de nite article with γῆ; and γῆ is found here in Matthew in the nominative where the genitive would be expected. It may therefore be better to treat γῆ Ἰούδα as in apposition with ‘Bethlehem’ and take the sense as ‘district of Judah’. Matthew’s interest in Judah is as the tribe from which the royal line came (cf. at 1:2). ‘Not at all’ in line 2 and ‘for’ in line 3 function together. Mi. 5:1 (MT and LXX) contrast the paltry stature of Bethlehem with the dignity that accrues to it in virtue of being the place of origin of the liberating king. In Matthew this has become a denial of what would appear to be the paltry stature of Bethlehem in virtue of being the place of origin of the liberating king. e result is much the same. ‘Rulers’138 in line 2 and ‘one who rules’ in line 3 are cognate terms in Greek, so the rendering of the Hebrew in the latter may have in uenced the rendering of a rather more ambiguous Hebrew word in the former. Bethlehem is, of course, not a ruler, so a considerable looseness of expression needs to be allowed for (‘… least among [those from whom issue] the rulers of Judah’). e language borrowed from 2 Sa. 5:2 for the nal line expresses the conviction of ‘all the tribes of Israel’ that David is destined to be king, and leads to the anointing of David as king over Israel at Hebron. e David connection is thus underlined. e text is here applied typologically to the king of messianic expectation. e

reference to ‘shepherd my people Israel’ can hardly avoid evoking the eschatological expectation of the ingathering of the twelve tribes of Israel.139 e Magi should probably be understood as not distinguishing, in their use of ‘king of the Jews’, between king of the Judean kingdom and king over all Israel. How this traditional restoration hope functions in relation to the larger shape of Matthean expectation is not fully clear. It does, however, seem unlikely that Matthew would have made the investment that he evidently has in tracing the contours of traditional Jewish hopes, as they emerge out of that salvation history which he outlines up to the present, if he expected nothing to come of the restoration of the twelve tribes. ough he fails to share the information with his readers, Matthew’s con dence in the appropriateness of his citation is likely to have been strengthened by other features of the context of Mi. 5:1. In particular ‘whose origin is from of old, from ancient days’ in v. 2 ts well the sense of programmed divine destiny which permeates the genealogy, and ‘until the time when one who is about to give birth bears a child’ in v. 3 gives the same prominence to the birth of the child of destiny as Matthew has already in 1:18-25 and is continuing to provide in 2:1-12. e universally-to-be-recognised signi cance of the messiah, which Matthew is marking with his Magi account, is well parallelled in ‘he will be great to the ends of the earth’ in Mi. 5:4. 2:7-10 It is likely that Matthew uses one of his favoured words, τότε (‘then’), to create a minor parallelism between his accounts of Herod and Jesus, John and Jesus, and the devil and Jesus.140 e secrecy of Herod’s action is already ominous, especially aer v. 3. Again, the reader is set to wonder what Herod plans to do with the timing information, once supplied.141 Herod’s ‘come and

do obeisance’ deliberately (‘I too’) picks up on the verbs used by the Magi in v. 2. e need to search or inquire is preempted by the star, which at this point becomes (for the rst time) a guiding star.142 Presumably the star con rms the correctness of looking for the child in Bethlehem, as well as guiding the Magi to the speci c location. e great joy of the Magi at seeing the star expresses the con dence that its appearing inspires in them that their quest will now be successful. e account does not raise the question of whether the guiding star would be visible to others, but less extraneous elements are set loose by the imagination if we assume that it was not. 2:11 e highlighting of the role of Mary here, coupled with the absence of any mention of Joseph, sets this item apart from Matthew’s other infancy materials, which, despite the importance of the virginal conception, are clearly focussed on Joseph. is is likely to re ect a source rather than pointing to a speci c Matthean concern here to draw attention to Mary.143 A θησαυρός is primarily a place where something is kept, and, since one stores away what one values, its meaning extends to a place to store treasure (‘treasure chests’ in the translation) and from there to the treasured contents themselves (‘treasure’). Frankincense was a luxury import, the rosin of a tree which grew in Arabia, India, and Somalia. Myrrh, similarly, was the rosin of a tree which grew in Arabia and Ethiopia. ese rosins had a wide range of uses from ritual use in cultic practice and in magic, to use at wedding ceremonies and for cosmetic purposes, to consumption as spices or medicinally. In OT use we nd various pairs from Matthew’s gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but never the three together.144 No particular symbolism should be attributed to the individual items making up the present from the Magi: as

expensive luxury items the gis be t the dignity of the role for which this child is born.145 An allusion to Is. 60:6 is possible: Israel being glori ed in the person of the messiah by the wealth of the nations. 2:12 We have noted the close links between 1:20 and 2:13, 1920 at 1:20. 2:12 looks like a Matthean abbreviated paraphrase of v. 13, as adapted to the situation of the Magi: the idea of warning but not the language is found in v. 13; the direct speech of v. 13 and the use of ‘saying’ give way to the more abbreviated expression of the contents of the message with an in nitive construction (‘not to return to Herod’), in which it is not considered necessary to give an explanation of the directive (contrast 1:20; 2:13, 20); the angel of the Lord as the source of the dream is presumably assumed but no longer speci cally mentioned (contrast 1:20: 2:13, 19). e same pattern of abbreviation is found in v. 22, where it is taken a step further, and we are le to deduce the content of the warning from the context. e similarity between vv. 12 and 22 extends to verbal identity (except for plural versus singular forms) for ‘being warned in a dream’ and ‘he/they departed into’. Because there is no natural narrative logic to the sequence of full form and abbreviation,146 it is likely that a source explanation best accounts for this state of affairs. e dreams of 1:20; 2:13 and 19-20 are drawn from a single Matthean source, but those of 2:12 and 22 are Matthean extrapolations, the need for which has been created by Matthew’s linking of sources (here the Herod and the Magi narratives). Matthew has no further interest in the Magi once they have pointed to the signi cance of Jesus. e Magi are not the rst Gentile followers of Jesus: Jesus has not yet begun his ministry and, speci cally, he has not yet directed that discipleship is to be extended to all peoples. Nonetheless, with the hindsight that comes from looking back from the end of Matthew’s story it is probably

right to nd some foreshadowing, especially in the scale of the Magi’s joy and in the use of the verb ‘do obeisance’; also, the Magi coming to Jerusalem may pick up on the OT motif of the coming of the Gentiles.147 C. To Egypt and Back (2:13-23) [the Magi] had departed,a, b an angel of the Lord cappears in a dream to Joseph, saying, ‘Get up and take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.’ 14So [Joseph] got up, took the child and his mother by night, departed to Egypt, 15and was there until the death of Herod, so that what was spoken by the Lord through dthe prophet might be fulfilled: 13When

Out of Egypt I called my son. 16en

Herod, seeing that he had been made a fool of by the Magi, became very angry and sent and killed all the boys in Bethlehem and in its environs of two years of age and under, in accord with the exact time that he had ascertained from the Magi. 17en what was spoken ethrough the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18A

voice was heard in Ramah, fweeping

and loud lamentation, Rachel crying for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are no more. Herod died, gan angel of the Lord appears in a dream to Joseph, in Egypt, 20saying, ‘Get up and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. For those who were seeking the life of the child have died.’ 21So he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22[In fact], having heard that Archelaus was king of Judea in place of his father, [Joseph] 19When

was afraid to head for there. But warned in a dream, he departed for the district of Galilee, 23and when he arrived he settled in a town called Nazareth, so that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, h‘He shall be called a Nazorean’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. B completes with εις την χωραν αυτων (‘to their own country’). b. ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) is untranslated here. c. e rst of many uses of the historic present. Since Matthew seems to use them to mark emphasis or to indicate structure, I have maintained the present tense in translation. B conforms the tense and word order here to that of 1:20. d. Sys adds, curiously, an equivalent to του στοματος Ησαιου (‘the mouth of Isaiah’). Cf. at 1:22. e. In conformity to v. 15, D aur add υπο κυριου (‘by the Lord’). f. To give three terms as in the LXX, C D L W etc. add θρηνος και (‘a dirge and’). g. ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) is untranslated here. h. e expression is loose here: obviously Jesus is intended, but the natural reading of the syntax would make ‘he’ Joseph. Bibliography Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘e Son of God as Israel: A Note on Matthean Christology’, IBS 9 (1987), 74-81. • Brown, R. E., Birth of the Messiah, 20230. • Bruce, J. A., ‘e Flight into Egypt: e Dreams of the Fathers’, SLJT 27 (1984), 287-96. • Enuwosa, J., ‘e Soteriological Signi cance of Matthew 2:15 in His Use of Hosea 11:1 from an African Perspective’, AfTJ 24 (2001), 39-52. • Erickson, R. J., ‘Divine Injustice? Matthew’s Narrative Strategy and the Slaughter of the Innocents (Matthew 2.13-23)’, JSNT 64 (1996), 5-27. • France, R. T., ‘e Formula Quotations of Matthew 2 and the Problem of Communication’, NTS 27 (1981), 233-51. • Graves, T. H., ‘A Story Ignored:

An Exegesis of Matthew 2:13-23’, FM 5 (1987), 66-76. • Howard, T. L., ‘e Use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15: An Alternative Solution’, BSac 143 (1986), 314-28. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Greek Translation of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15: Matthean or pre-Matthean?’ FilolNT 12 (1999), 79-88. • Sailhamer, J. H., ‘Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:15 (with response)’. WTJ 63 (2001), 87-105. • Soares-Prabhu, G. M., ‘Jesus in Egypt: A Re ection on Mt 2:13-15, 19-21 in the Light of the Old Testament’, EstBíb 50 (1992), 225-49. For 2:16-18 Becking, B., ‘“A Voice Was Heard in Ramah”. Some Remarks on the Structure and Meaning of Jeremiah 31,15-17’, BZ 38 (1994), 229-42. • France, R. T., ‘e “Massacre of the Innocents” — Fact or Fiction?’, in StudBib, ed. E. A. Livingstone, 83-94. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 33-52. • Mans, M. J., ‘e Early Latin Church Fathers on Herod and the Infanticide’, HTS 53 (1997), 92-102. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Quotation from Jeremiah 31(38).15 in Matthew 2.18: A Study of Matthew’s Scriptural Text’, in Old Testament, ed. S. Moyise, 106-25. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e References to Jeremiah in the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 2,17; 16,14; 27,9)’, ETL 60 (1984), 5-24. • Niedner, F. A., ‘Rachel’s Lament’, WW 22 (2002), 406-14. • Quesnel, M., ‘Les citations de Jérémie dans l’évangile selon saint Matthieu’, EstBíb 47 (1989), 513-27. • Winandy, J., ‘Sur l’année où naquit Jésus: Deux témoignages concordants’, ETL 75 (1999), 419-20. • Zoba, W. M., ‘Mary Rejoicing, Rachel Weeping’, Christianity Today 41.14 (1997), 24-26. For 2:19-21 Abramowski, L., ‘Die Entstehung der dreigliedrigen Taufformel — Ein Versuch: Mit einem Excurs: Jesus der Naziräer’, ZTK 81 (1984), 417-46. • Allan, G., ‘He Shall Be Called — A Nazirite?’ ExpTim 95 (1983), 81-82. • Berger, K., ‘Jesus als Nazoräer/Nasiräer’, NovT 38 (1996), 323-35. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Sources of the Old Testament Quotation in Matthew 2:23’, JBL 120 (2001), 451-68. • Pritz, R., ‘He Shall Be Called a Nazarene’, JerPersp 4 (1991), 3-4. • Rüger, H. P., ‘ΝΑΖΑΡΕΤ/ΝΑΖΑΡΑ ΝΑΖΑΡΗΝΟΣ/ ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ’, ZNW 72 (1981), 257-63. • Taylor, D. B., ‘Jesus — of Nazareth’, ExpTim 92 (1981), 336-37. • Wojciechowski, M., ‘Mt 2,20: Herod or

Antipater? A Supplementary Clue to Dating the Birth of Jesus’, BibNot 44 (1988), 61-62. • Wagner, V., ‘Mit der Herkun Jesu aus Nazaret gegen die Geltung des Gesetzes?’ ZNW 92 (2001), 273-82. • Zolli, E., ‘Abermals: Ναζωραῖος in Mt 2,23’, TZ 57 (2001), 402-5. See further at 1:1-17; 1:18-25; 2:1-12.

e remainder of the chapter, bringing Matthew’s Infancy Narrative to its conclusion, offers a sequence of scenes which are united by their concern with the threat represented by Herod’s hostility in the face of news of the birth of a messianic claimant to the throne. e threat substantially subsides by the end of the chapter, but there remains some residual sense that Judea represents a place of danger for Jesus. Matthew is continuing to follow the source from which he drew the main outlines of 1:18-25 and the Herod part of 2:1-12. Various source proposals have been offered. An original link between 1:18-25 and 2:13ff. is defended above. e difference in style between the Herod narrative and the Joseph travel episodes has been adduced as an argument against original unity.148 is argument is considerably weakened once some form of 1:18-25 is included and the Magi part of 2:1-12 excluded. Together, the core materials of 1:18-25 and an account which establishes Herod’s awareness of the existence of Jesus provide a foundational narrative, setting up the situation out of which the action of 2:13ff. can develop. Vv. 16-18 have oen been suspected of being a Matthean expansion. Vv. 17-18 are clearly so, as expressive of Matthew’s desire to point to the ful lment of Scripture, but v. 16 is hardly spun out of vv. 17-18. Once it is allowed that there is an original unity between the core Herod narrative of 2:1-12 and the Joseph travel materials, then v. 16 takes a natural and even a necessary place in the logic of the narrative development.149 Aside from stylistic changes, Matthew’s main contributions are (a) the transition at the beginning of v. 13; (b) the ful lment citations in vv. 15, 1718, and 23; and (c) the whole of vv. 22-23. e role of traditions about Moses, noted for 1:18-25 and 2:1-12, continues to be evident. ere is little

critical basis for commenting on issues of historicity. e t is not so perfect as to suggest that the materials might have been spun out of the Moses traditions.150 e disturbing story in v. 16 is oen dismissed, ostensibly on the basis of the lack of explicit support from Josephus.151 But the general corroboration from Josephus’s portrayal of Herod is strong,152 and it is too much to ask that Josephus report the speci c episode. e core difficulty is that raised in the discussion of 2:1-12 in connection with Herod’s awareness of the existence of an infant messianic pretender. If that problem is solvable, then, there is no barrier to belief in a sojourn in Egypt and a slaughter of Bethlehem infants.

2:13 ϕαίνεται (‘appears’) is the rst of many historic presents in Matthew. Where reproducing Markan material, Matthew rarely carries these over from Mark but generates his own. He seems to use them to create emphasis or to mark structure. Here it is to mark structure: the historic presents here and in v. 19 identify the starting point for subsections of the unit (in v. 16 τότε [‘then’] serves this function). e noncompliance of the Magi with Herod’s directive delays but does not eliminate the threat to the infant Jesus.153 As in 1:20, the intervention of the angel is timely. And, as there, the angel provides a supporting reason for the directive. On the ‘angel of the Lord’, the form of his intervention, and the shared construction which links 1:20; 2:1, 13, 19, see at 1:20. e use of παραλαμβανεῖν links the angelic words here and in v. 20 to 1:20, but the sense changes from ‘take in marriage’ (1:20) to ‘take along on a journey’ (2:13, 20). e mother and the child are treated here as an inseparable unit (cf. vv. 11, 14, 19, 20). Egypt is the traditional place of refuge for those who must ee from Israel.154 e rampage of Herod in v. 16 and the angelic message of v. 20 are prepared for here: Herod will make his attempt to destroy the child, and further direction will

come later. Natural reader suspicion of the emptiness of Herod’s words in v. 8 has already been encouraged by v. 12; now it nds retrospective con rmation in the angelic statement about Herod’s present intentions. His intentions are evil, and he is not to be diverted by the lack of a report from the Magi. reat to the life of a child intended for some important destiny is a common enough feature of ancient narratives,155 but here the more important point of comparison is the threat to the life of the infant Moses,156 and beyond that it seems likely that we are intended to see in this threat a prolepsis of that threat to Jesus’ life which would ultimately result in the cruci xion. 2:14 Note the repetition of language from 1:24 (see there). Joseph’s obedience is underlined by the reuse in the report of the action of most of the words of the angel’s directive (‘by night’ is added, and ‘departed’ replaces ‘ ee’). ‘By night’ re ects the nighttime occurrence of dreams, but also the immediacy of obedience in response to the urgency implied in the angelic directive. Night travel offers fewer witnesses. ‘Departed’ has been used in connection with the Magi (vv. 12, 13), but more importantly for Matthew its use links Jesus’ movement to Egypt to his later movements to Nazareth (v. 22) and to Capernaum (4:12-13).157 In each of these movements Matthew identi es a ful lment of Scripture. In this verse it rst becomes evident that Matthew’s and Luke’s infancy narratives cannot be fully harmonised. Lk. 2:39 would not have tied the timing of the return to Nazareth to the completion of the requirements of the Jewish law subsequent to a birth if Luke had known that he should leave room for a period of exile in Egypt. Conversely, Matthew would not have felt the need to offer a particular reason in 2:22 for the holy family’s going to Nazareth if he had been aware of the Lukan view that the family normally

resided there. But these are not serious problems to harmonisation in the kind of literature where sequencing and time links are frequently part of narrative technique rather than re ecting a concern with historical detail. 2:15 is verse deals with the time Joseph, Mary, and Jesus spent in Egypt, in anticipation of v. 19. Meanwhile the tragedy of vv. 16-18 will take place back in Bethlehem. On the set of formula quotations of which this is the second see the comments at 1:22; on ‘by the Lord’ see those at 1:23. Not the stay in Egypt, but the call out of it is connected to Ho. 11:1: the sojourn in Egypt has as its purpose the call out of Egypt in that it allows for the necessary passage of time until the right conditions for the call are established (cf. the way in which ‘all this’ functions in 1:22). Matthew may have placed the text here rather than aer v. 20 because close juxtaposition of the angel’s words and the quotation would have tended to put the two items of quoted speech in competition.158 e text form follows the MT closely and is quite different from the LXX.159 e quotation establishes an Israel typology: as a little later in adult life Jesus will be called upon to relive the wilderness temptations of Israel (4:1-11), so now as an infant he retraces in his own life the foundational experience of Israel in being called by God out of Egypt.160 e language of sonship will recur in 3:17; 4:111; etc. As Matthew unfolds his story, he will gradually clarify the speci c content to be given to sonship in the case of Jesus.161 2:16 Herod now shows his true colours. He thinks the Magi have made a fool of him.162 His fury produces extreme measures.163 His method is crude but potentially quite effective for the removal of the rival he believes to be in Bethlehem. According to Jewish tradition, Pharaoh also engaged in the indiscriminate killing of

children in order (also unsuccessfully) to eliminate a newborn (Moses) who represented a threat to his control of the Israelites.164 e inclusion of the surrounding territory may be in preparation for the quotation to come: the site of Rachel’s tomb is now included in the district affected.165 Matthew will have in mind the small farming communities in the area which had their natural links with Bethlehem. e age range does not t particularly comfortably with the cross reference to the Magi166 (more precision would be expected on the basis of v. 7167); it probably remains over from the earlier form in which there was no Magi link and all Herod had to go on was rumour. 2:17-18 Matthew introduces here the second of the three formula quotations which punctuate this piece (see at 2:15). In the two cases where the action which makes possible the ful lment have a human (and sinful) origin rather than being undertaken by Jesus or the ‘angel of God’, the ful lment formula begins with τότε (‘then’) rather than with ἵνα or ὅπως (‘in order that’): neither Herod nor Judas (26:14-16, 47-50; 27:2-10) was interested in ful lling Scripture! is is the rst of the formula quotations in which the prophet is named.168 e text form for the citation from Je. 31(38):15 is closer to the MT than to the LXX, but probably betrays some LXX in uence.169 With the exception of the importance to Matthew of the reference to Ramah (LXX A etc. reads ‘in the height’), the details of the text form seem to have no particular signi cance for the role Matthew gives the citation.170

Matthew evidently assumes a location for Ramah near Bethlehem. is depends on a merging of the two biblical traditions on the location of Rachel’s tomb. 1 Sa. 10:2 offers ‘in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah’ as the location.171

is is presumably not too far from Zuph (1 Sa. 9:5), which is probably to be identi ed with the Ramah with which Samuel was closely associated (1 Sa. 7:17; 8:4), which in turn will be the Ramah of Je. 31:15. is is a town four to seven miles north of Jerusalem (depending on which of the two proposed sites is preferred). On the other hand, Gn. 35:19; 48:7 (and cf. Mi. 5:1) locates Rachel’s tomb ‘on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem’ (and, so, south of Jerusalem and in the traditional territory of Judah). Matthew is happy to make the most of the variety of traditions at his disposal: he draws his text from one line of tradition but depends for the link with Bethlehem on the other line of tradition.

Je. 31:15 laments the Northern Exile (722/1 B.C.) at the time of the Southern Exile (587/6 B.C.) in the context of a prophetic anticipation of a restoration embracing both the northern and the southern kingdoms in a renewed people of God. Since the other ful lment quotations all concern the experience of Jesus in some way or other, it is unlikely that Matthew thinks only of the experience of the slain children of Bethlehem and their grieving mothers. e loss of the children in mind in Je. 31:15 is primarily their loss to exile (see v. 17: ‘your children shall come back to their own country’), but the literal loss of life as the country fell prey to the invading forces should probably not be excluded from view. It would be easy, therefore, for Matthew to encompass the slaughter of the children and the displacement of Jesus and his family in his intended referent. ough part of the pathos comes from the evocative power of the image of a mother grieving the loss of a dependent child, Je. 31:15 does not speci cally think in terms of children rather than adults. Matthew is more literal in this respect. In all likelihood he is concerned here to make the claim that the infant Jesus participated in a version of the Exile.172 ough in quite a different way, the Exile could be considered almost as foundational for Jewish life as the Exodus. e recapitulation of the

life of the nation in the life of Jesus is in some way, for Matthew, foundational for Jesus’ signi cance in the purposes of God.173 2:19 e time period passed over cursorily in v. 15 now comes to an end, and the scene moves brie y to Egypt (with a historic present marking the start of the new subunit), where the angelic communication anticipated in v. 13 now takes place. On the pattern of construction which links 1:20; 2:1, 13, 19 and shared features, see the discussion at 1:20. 2:20-21 A strong echo of language links the words of the angel here and in v. 13. But now the directive is to ‘go to the land of Israel’, and the reason this time is the death of Herod, not the threat of his action. e tie between Jesus and Moses is further underlined here by the echo of the language of Ex. 4:19-20 in which God directs Moses at Midian, and Moses obeys (cf. at v. 13). e plural ‘those who were seeking’, where the only obvious referent is Herod, is best explained as signalling this link.174 e language of Joseph’s obedience takes up every word of the angel’s directive (cf. at v. 14). ‘Israel’ (rather than something more precise) is the appropriate counterpart to ‘Egypt’, but probably more is involved. ough both Matthew and Luke use ‘Israel’ quite frequently, the full phrase ‘the land of Israel’ is not found elsewhere in the NT. OT uses are particularly concentrated in Ezekiel. Exile and Restoration are frequently in focus (privilege lost and regained). Ez. 20:42 could be particularly in mind: ‘You shall know that I am the LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel, the country that I swore to give to your ancestors’. It is likely that Matthew’s neatly structured source form ended here. In the source Herod and Joseph are the chief actors. We rst learn how Joseph accommodates himself to the unexpected pregnancy, then about Herod hearing by rumour of a messianic birth and setting in train plans for the discovery of the child. e angel who had illuminated the pregnancy

situation for Joseph and directed him regarding the proper response steps in again to direct Joseph about removing his family from danger. en follows the unsuccessful search which leads Herod to indiscriminate slaughter. Finally, the danger passed, Joseph is directed to return with the family to Israel.175 Matthew, however, feels the need to link these materials into a tradition which located Jesus’ origins in Nazareth.176 So it becomes necessary for him to continue the story in vv. 22-23.177

2:22 e present tense of βασιλεύει (lit. ‘he reigns’) is not a historic present; it re ects the keeping of original tenses for the indirect report of what has been heard (analogous to the same phenomenon in indirect speech). e breadth of the term ‘Israel’ means that Matthew can present vv. 22-23 as a ne-tuning of the imprecise directive of v. 20. Where in Israel? Not in Judea; rather, somewhere in Galilee. Joseph’s choice lands nally on Nazareth. Aer Herod’s death his territory was divided. Archelaus was made Tetrarch of Judea and was a true son of his father.178 Another son of Herod, Antipas, ruled in Galilee, and both John and Jesus were to have dealings with him at a later stage.179 But a move away from Bethlehem was prudent, and Antipas was a less threatened ruler. Galilee enters Matthew’s story as a less dangerous place to be than Judea; the larger shape of Matthew’s story will bear out this initial impression. ἀκούσας (‘having heard’) is used to point to Joseph’s motivation, as it has been earlier for Herod’s (v. 3).180 It is also one of a series of terms which creates a strong structural link between vv. 22-23 and 4:12-14: ἀκούσας … ὅτι … ἀνεχώρησεν … εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν καὶ … ἐλθὼν κατῴκησεν εἰς … πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ τοῦ προϕήτου (‘having heard … that … he departed … to Galilee and…he came and dwelt in…[so that] what was spoken through the prophet might be ful lled’).181 2:22-23 is also linked back to 2:15 and 1:22 by

the use of the prophetic ful lment formula and back to 2:19, 13, 12 and 1:20 by the dream revelation motif.182 e high proportion of language which is shared here is one of the reasons for suspecting total Matthean creation. Most likely, Matthew thinks of vv. 22-23 as a supplement to vv. 19-21, not as a quite separate unit.183 e addition of vv. 22-23 strengthens the measure of parallelism with 1:18-25 (formula quotation), 2:1-12 (closely linked dream revelation verbally, departure statement), 2:13-15 (formula quotation, departure statement), and 2:16-18 (formula quotation). If we take Matthew’s use of ἀπελθεῖν (‘to depart’) seriously, then Joseph would have had to have travelled to Galilee without entering Judea. Also, the time frame for hearing about Archelaus and the second dream revelation of v. 22 would need to be placed between the getting up and taking of v. 21 and the entry into Israel at the end of the same verse. e departure statement at the end of v. 22 then becomes a reiteration of ‘entered the land of Israel’. (e translation above re ects this approach.) e alternative is that ἀπελθεῖν is not a well-chosen verb for the role which Matthew needs it to play and that the ow of thought assumes a verb meaning something like ‘remain’, ‘live’, ‘(re-)settle’. On the question of harmonisation with Luke here see the remarks at v. 14. 2:23 Fieen miles to the west of the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth was a quite insigni cant town in biblical times and is never mentioned in the OT. Projections from archaeological evidence suggest a maximum population of no more than 500.184 Each of the three subsections of 2:13-23 ends with one of Matthew’s formula quotations (on the formula quotations in general see at 1:22). e formula here is distinctive in three respects: only here do we nd the plural ‘prophets’, a use of ὅτι, and the failure to

provide an opening λέγοντος (lit. ‘saying’, but treated as redundant in the translation). ὅτι could play a number of different roles: introducing direct quotation, introducing indirect quotation, or being the rst of the quoted words (meaning either ‘that’ or ‘because’). e three changes taken together suggest that Matthew is deliberately being imprecise and thus favour taking ὅτι as introducing the gist of whatever Scriptures he has in mind and not any exact wording (so: indirect quotation). at no OT text actually uses Matthew’s term ‘Nazorean’ offers further support for this choice. It is hardly likely that Matthew is claiming that there is a hidden reference to Nazareth in the OT. What from the OT does he have in mind, and how does the presence in Nazareth point to it? NT texts give the name in three forms, all of which Matthew uses (though he has the name only three times): Ναζαρέτ (here), Ναζαρά and Ναζαρέθ. e related adjective comes in two forms, Ναζαρηνός, (in Mark and Luke) and Ναζωραῖος (Matthew, LukeActs, and John).185 ough the town was continuously occupied from the seventh century B.C., the name does not occur in Jewish writings until many centuries into the Christian era. It is, however, mentioned in a third- or fourth-century Jewish inscription found at Caesarea,186 where the spelling is Nṣrt. In the Christian Palestinian Aramaic of the Jerusalem church lectionary the name is found as Nāzōrat. Matthew may have been drawing on a folk etymology of the name Nazareth, but, if so, no evidence for it has survived. e spelling variants suggest that Matthew would have felt free to relate the name Nazareth to quite a range of Hebrew forms using either the nṣr root (‘keep watch, guard, protect; keep, preserve; comply with, observe’ + ‘sprout, shoot’ for the cognate noun naṣer) or the nzr root (‘dedicate oneself; forsake, desert; treat with awe; fast;

restrain; live as a Nazirite, abstain’ + ‘prince’ for the cognate noun nāzîr [besides ‘Nazirite’]).187 To go further we need to be able to correlate the possibilities here with OT materials. e main texts which have been suggested fall into two categories (connected to the two Hebrew roots identi ed above).188 e two Nazirite gures for whom links to Jesus would be possible are Samson and Samuel, for whose births there was a particular intervention by God (see Jdg. 13:2-7; 1 Sa. 1–2).189 e range of relevant texts can be expanded here by noting that the LXX at times transliterates nāzîr as Ναζιρ(αιος) and at times translates it as ἅγιος (‘holy’), and that textual variants move easily from the one to the other. is opens up the possibility that Matthew is interested in a text which has ἅγιος in the LXX (translating the Hebrew qdš) but which he can regard as equivalent to Ναζιρ(αιος). Along this track Is. 4:3 offers itself. e MT reads, ‘(He) will be called holy (qādōš)’. e context is eschatological and contains the idea of a preserved remnant. And, once we allow synonyms, it also offers (in v. 2) ṣmḥ (‘branch’), which is used in similar ways to naṣer (‘sprout, shoot’). e main text linked with the nṣr root is Is. 11:1: ‘ere will come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a sprout (nēṣer) will blossom’. is is clearly a messianic text. If this were to be the text Matthew had in mind, it would take us back to the Davidic categories which were especially evident in 1:18-25 and 2:1-11. Related texts use ṣmḥ (‘branch’).190 Other features of the semantic range of nṣr may also be exploited in the search for links. In Je. 31:6-7 the root refers to watchmen who will announce that God has saved his people. Unless one were already con dent of a link with Mt. 1:21, this tie must look tenuous.191 More can be said in favour of a link with Is. 42:6: ‘I have called you … I have kept [using nṣr] you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the

nations’. Preserved from the threat posed by Herod, the infant Jesus can ful l the role of the Isaianic servant.192 Matthew’s other formula citations in this section have been concerned to link the infant Jesus typologically to the history of Israel. Neither a tie with Samuel nor with Samson makes a good t with the other typological links.193 ough it requires a move from typological reiteration to prophetic anticipation, Is. 4:3 offers a rather more attractive option. But it is a tortuous journey to reach it from ‘Nazorean’.194 Despite the help from LXX transliteration and the more straightforward equivalence of Greek ζ for Hebrew z which an appeal to nzr offers, nṣr seems to provide the most likely link in Matthew’s mind. Since Matthew is careful not to make his appeal precise and has a propensity for merging traditions, there may be no need to choose between Is. 11:1 and 42:6: preserved from the threat to his life posed by Herod, Jesus will be able to take up the ministry of the Isaianic servant and will come to be confessed (by at least some) as the Davidic messiah.195 It is important to note that this conclusion suggests that the context addressed by Matthew was at least somewhat multilingual. An awareness that Ναζιρ(αιος) could function as an equivalent to ἅγιος was possible to a Greek speaker on the basis of Greek OT variants, but an awareness that the root nṣr was used in Is. 11:1 and 42:6 (and its range of meanings) depends on access to Hebrew. is does not at all imply that general readers knew Hebrew, but it does imply reader access to explanation from at least some in the community who might be in a position to illuminate the opacity by referring to the Hebrew Scriptures.196

1. Stendahl, ‘Quis et Unde?’, 61, speaks of ‘the enlarged footnote to the crucial point in the genealogy’. 2. is dual function explains the intractability of the argument for those who argue for a main break aer 1:17 and for those who place the break at 1:25. Cf. Nolland, ‘Genesis’, 470 n. 27. 3. See Gn. 16:7-14; 17–18; Jdg. 13:2-23. 4. See Ex. 3; Jdg. 6:11-24; Je. 1:4-10. e call narrative has had a more fundamental in uence on the Lukan annunciation, but the emphasis in the Matthean narrative on directive and obedience narrows the gap between the two forms. 5. Angelic announcement, virgin conception, role of the Spirit, naming of Jesus, obedience. Betrothal to Joseph may be secondary in the Lukan tradition (see Nolland, Luke, 1:49, 53-54). 6. e persuasiveness of the ties is cumulative for the traditions which span Mt. 1:18–2:23. For those which relate to 1:18-25 see the comments at v. 20. 7. See further at Mt. 1:22 below. 8. e shared links with OT birth oracle and call narrative forms might, however, suggest more. 9. See below for details. 10. See the discussions at those passages below. 11. Something much less elaborate than the present form of Mt. 1:18-25 would serve the purpose. See Brown, Birth, 154, for a minimal form including betrothed state, appearance of the angel in a dream, Joseph to take her to his home because a son who will save his people is to be born, obedience of Joseph, birth. 12. See the discussion at Mt. 1:20. 13. One may appeal to the Moses typology which is pervasive in Mt. 1:18–2:23 in favour of a pre-Matthean form of 1:18-25, but the argument is uncertain because a Matthean contribution to this typology is likely and the limits of the typology are uncertain. 14. Pre-Matthean elements would include: betrothed state of Mary and Joseph, discovery of pregnancy, decision to divorce (but this could be in a

reduced form: Joseph considering what he should do), appearance of the angel in a dream, directive to marry, role of the Spirit, name and role for the child, obedience of Joseph reported or implied. Brown, Birth, 154-59, suggests with some plausibility that elements from a dream narrative and from an annunciation report might have been combined secondarily into a single account. e relevant section of Brown’s reconstructed dream narrative (p. 154) does, however, already have the main elements of a birth annunciation. 15. For further discussion see Nolland, Luke, 1:42-48. 16. While Tatum, ‘Origin’, 529-33, is right to note the emphasis on geography which links Mt. 2 with the following materials through to 4:16, his error in taking 1:18a as providing a rubric for 1:18b–4:16 is evident precisely in the lack of any geographical information in 1:18-25. 17. See Deut. 22:23-27; cf. m. Yeb. 2:6; 4:10; 6:4; m. Ket. 1:2; 4:2; m. Giṭ. 6:2; 11QTemple 61. 18. See m. Ket. 5:2; m. Ned. 10:5. 19. See m. Yeb. 4:10; m. Ket. 1:5. 20. e lack of a de nite article here does not imply inde niteness: in prepositional phrases Matthew normally omits the article with πνεῦμα (1:18, 20; 3:11; 12:28; 22:43), uniformly so with ἐν and ἐκ. 21. Lagrand, ‘“Like a Man”’, suggests that Mary has the male role and the Holy Spirit the female role! 22. Waetjen, ‘Genealogy’, 223. Waetjen claims that ἐκ never refers to the male role with ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχειν, but Kupp (Matthew’s Emmanuel, 171 n. 53) has drawn attention to Gn. 38:25. 23. See Jn. 1:13; 3:8; 1 Jn. 3:9; 5:1. e male agent is interchangeably God and the Spirit. 24. A separation of verb and preposition is also implicit in Mt. 1:18, where the discovery of the pregnancy belongs on the story line, while the role of the Spirit is, functionally, an aside to the reader. 25. But see below at Mt. 1:20 for the view that it is precisely the divine involvement which lies behind the reluctance of Joseph to go through with the marriage.

26. e other main line of argumentation in favour of divine paternity is based on nding a Son of God christology in vv. 22-23. On this see below. 27. See Gn. 1:2; Job 26:13; Pss. 33:6; 104:30; Is. 32:15: 2 Bar. 21:4. 28. See Is. 32:15; 44:3-4; Ez. 37:1-14; Joel 2:28-29; Ex. Rab. 48 (102d). 29. Cf. Jdg. 14:6, 19; 15:14; Mt. 12:28. 30. See Job 33:4; Ps. 104:30. 31. See Is. 49:1; Je. 1:5. 32. See Is. 11:2; 42:1; 61:1; Pss. Sol. 17:37. An involvement by the Spirit at conception might be seen as a tting precursor to empowerment by the Spirit for the adult role. 33. E.g., Horton, ‘Parenthetical Pregnancy’, 186, 188; Schaberg, Illegitimacy, 62-68. 34. Schaberg, Illegitimacy, 68, tries to meet this concern, but at the expense of quite a bit of reading between the lines. 35. ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς is the standard LXX rendering for ʾîšâ (‘her man’), the normal Hebrew idiom for ‘her husband’. 36. Some take ‘righteous’ as pointing to Joseph’s compassion and so gloss the καί linking the participles as ‘and so’ or ‘and therefore’ (e.g. Spicq, ‘Joseph’, and Pesch, ‘Ausführungsformel’, 91), but this is to leave the divorce intention unexplicated. Another view involves linking ‘righteous’ with the plan to divorce, but not as Joseph’s response to the supposed sexual activity of Mary but as his attempt not to trespass on the activity of God (so LéonDufour’s articles). is view assumes that the nal phrase of Mt. 1:18 implies Joseph’s knowledge of the source of the pregnancy prior to the re ection of v. 19, but this requires a rather unnatural understanding of v. 20 (see there). 37. So, e.g., Freed, ‘Women’, 15. 38. Joseph could be being linked with the heroes of the Jewish faith from the past (as in Mt. 13:17; 23:29, 35), but it is more likely that he takes his place among the righteous of the present (5:45; 10:41; 23:28), whose righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20; 6:1), who respond to God’s present initiative in Jesus, and who will enter into blessing at the end (13:43, 49; 25:37, 46).

39. e alternative suggestion, that the concern was not to bring to public visibility the secret work of God in her, becomes difficult when one contemplates the aermath of the quiet divorce: no matter how quietly the matter was handled, the lack of a husband means that the advancing pregnancy and then the birth itself would make their own public statement about this irregular pregnancy. Léon-Dufour, ‘L’annonce’, 397 shows his sensitivity to this difficulty with his view when he comments on the uselessness (as a detail super uous to the Evangelist) of trying to work out how Joseph would be able to realise his intention. 40. On the legal situation concerning capital punishment during the Roman period see K. Müller, ‘Möglichkeit und Vollzug jüdischer Kapitalgerichtsbarkeit im Prozess gegen Jesus von Nazaret’, in Der Prozess gegen Jesus: Historische Rückfrage und theologische Deutung, ed. K. Kertelge (D 112; Freibourg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1988), 41-83, and the comments in Nolland, Luke, 3:1106. 41. e mishnah materials are not very helpful here since they tend to operate at the ideal level and conduct the discussion on the assumption of the availability of the death penalty (except in the case of the ‘waters of bitterness’, where the death penalty was not envisaged even in the OT). According to m. Soṭa 5:5, confession of adultery results in divorce but not in execution. 42. According to m. Soṭa 4:1, the ‘waters of bitterness’ of Nu. 5:11-31 were not used in the case of betrothed women. 43. Where the burden of proof lay in such cases was likely to be a matter of some dispute (cf. m. Ket. 1:6; 2:6). 44. See m. Soṭa 1:5; 3:6; 4:2; 5:1; m. Ket. 2:9; m. Ned. 11:12; etc. She is said to be ‘forbidden to the husband’. Cf. 1QapGn. 20:15. Jub. 33:9 re ects similar thinking, but here in a case of incest. Tg. Ps.-J. on Dt. 22:26 requires the divorce of the raped betrothed woman. M. Soṭa 2:6 may, however, assume the possibility of taking back a de led wife (though both Danby, Mishnah, and Neusner, Mishnah, gloss the text so as to avoid this sense). ough certainty is not possible, m. Soṭa 1:3 may also imply that resumption of sexual relations with the wife cancels the applicability of trial by the ‘waters of bitterness’ (despite a continuing assumption of ritual de lement).

M. Ket. 4:9 may imply the taking back of a de led wife (one who has been taken captive) by a layman but not by a priest, but the distinction may have to do only with where the burden of proof was considered to lie in the respective cases. B. Ket. 51b assumes the possibility in theory of taking back a raped wife, but denies the possibility in practice on the basis that what began as rape may have ended in consent. Je. 3 and Ho. 2, in their application of marital imagery to the relationship between God and his people, both assume the possibility of restoring a faithless wife, and Je. 3 treats divorce rather than execution as the ultimate sanction. ough these texts may well re ect customary practice at the times of composition, they are less likely to have in uenced how the Mosaic law was understood and applied. 45. Mt. 1:19 is linked to these and other Synoptic texts on divorce by the unusual use of ἀπολύειν for divorce (not found in the LXX or elsewhere in the NT). 46. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:206, note that ‘the mental states of those having important dreams are frequently related in Hellenistic literature’, but that is not quite what we have here. 47. Notwithstanding the curious congruence of Mt. 1 and 2 Enoch 71 in reporting a pregnancy involving no male role, Zeller, ‘Ankündigung’, 47 n. 17, is quite wrong to claim a parallel here to the disturbed state of the fathers in connection with the births of Noah/Melchizedek in 1 Enoch 106–7; 1QapGen 2; 2 Enoch 71: Joseph shows no uncertainty about how to proceed. 48. See Mt. 1:20; 2:1, 13, 19; 9:10, 18, 32; 12:46; 17:5; 26:47; 28:11. 49. Matthew also ties 2:12 and 22 in here, but not as strongly: the Magi will receive a dream message (κατ᾿ ὄναρ — but without speci c mention of the angel of the Lord) in v. 12, and the same is true of Joseph in v. 22 (there are several other verbal links between these two verses whose signi cance we will explore at 2:12). Matthew’s κατ᾿ ὄναρ will come again in 27:19 with no reference to an angel. 50. See Gn. 20:3, 6; 31:24; Nu. 12:6; cf. Gn. 46:2; 1 Ki. 3:15; Job 3:15-16. e LXX idiom is καθ᾿ ὕπνον or ἐν (τῷ) ὕπνῳ. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:207, claim the relevance of the dream patterns of Greco-Roman literature on the ground that Matthew is closer to the Greco-Roman

materials in having ‘the contents of a dream … given concurrently with the dreaming’ than to the standard OT pattern where the contents of the dream are given only aer the dreamer awakes. But Gn. 20:3, 6; 31:24 have the same pattern as Matthew (and cf. 46:2, where ‘vision of the night’ is likely to imply a dream mode [cf. Dn. 7:7, 13, 15; 8:1], and Gn. 31:11, which is, however, rst person rather than third person narrative). Given the links the pericope has to OT birth oracle and call narrative forms, it will be these Genesis texts rather than Greco-Roman patterns which have in uenced Matthew’s telling. Cf. the exploration by Gnuse, ‘Dream Genre’, of the dream genre in Mt. 1–2 as based on the patriarchal dreams in Genesis. 51. Because of the use of the Hebrew construct state and the literal tendencies of the LXX, this distinction is not linguistically marked in either the MT or the LXX. 52. E.g., Gn. 21:17 (with a supporting γάρ clause as in Matthew); Jos. 8:1; 10:8; 11:6. Cf. Acts 27:24. Sometimes the cause of fear is not fully clear; see, e.g., Gn. 15:1; Gn. 26:24 (the latter has a supporting γάρ clause as in Matthew). Gn. 46:3 offers the closest parallel, matching Matthew in ‘do not be afraid to’ and in the supporting γάρ clause. 53. Known to us in early form from Jos., Ant. 2.210-17 and Ps.-Philo 9. 54. In Ps.-Philo 9:10 ‘a man in a linen garment’ (an angel) appears in a dream, not to Amram but to Miriam, upon whom the Spirit of God came. 55. In Ps.-Philo 9:5 Amram nds a precedent in the bizarre manner in which Tamar produces children to Israel. 56. In Ps.-Philo 9:10 ‘he will save my people’. In the birth oracle of Samson the angel announces that ‘he will begin to save Israel’ (Jdg. 13:5). 57. Ex. Rab. 1:13 (on Ex. 1:15) has no vision, but it does have Amram divorce his three-months pregnant wife and then reinstate her when reproved by his daughter Miriam (parallelled in the medieval text Zefer haZikronot (cf. Crossan, ‘From Moses’). 58. M. B.B. 8:6 is frequently cited in this connection: ‘If a man says, “is is my son”, he is to be believed.’ 59. See Gn. 16:11; 17:5, 15, 19; Is. 8:3; Ho. 1:4, 6, 9; cf. Is. 7:3, 14.

60. OT birth oracles do, however, oen reveal the future role of the child. God could be the implied subject of σώσει (‘will save’ — this would t better the OT pattern), but later uses of the verb are decisive in favour of Jesus as the subject. 61. An awareness of this etymology in Greek texts is evidenced by Sir. 46:1; Philo, Mut. nom. 121. 62. See Mt. 8:25; 9:21-22; 14:30; 27:42. 63. Verbally closest to Mt. 1:21 is Ps. 130:8, ‘It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities’. 64. E.g., Pss. Sol. 17:22-25; 1 Enoch 10:21-22; Test. Levi 18:9. 65. Cf. Wouters, Willen, 331-34. 66. Each involves a fairly similar formulaic introduction and a quotation. e other formula quotations are found in Mt. 2:15, 17, 23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:9-10. 2:5-6; 26:54, 56 show some similarities to the patterns involved and have at times been included in the set; cf. further 3:3. e formula quotations are widely recognised as Matthean additions, partly because they are regularly detachable from their contexts and partly because in those cases where Matthew is drawing on an identi able source the quotations are not found in the source. 67. So, e.g., Zahn, Matthäus, 80; Fenton, ‘Matthew’, 79. 68. e location of Mt. 2:15b should likely be seen in a similar light. If the shining of the light anticipated in 4:16 is seen as nding its ful lment in 4:17, then 4:14-16 might be seen to be similarly mislocated, but in this case there is no directive (as in the other cases) to which Jesus has responded in moving to Capernaum. 69. ὅλον (‘all’) and ὑπὸ κυρίου (‘by the Lord’) are missing in Mt. 21:4. 70. Pesch, ‘Ausführungsformel’, identi es the use here of an OT form used for articulating response to a divine directive: reaction to the command; general statement of execution; concrete details of execution. 71. Mt. 2:15 also has ‘through the prophet’; 2:17 has ‘through Jeremiah the prophet’; 2:23 has ‘through the prophets’; 4:14, 8:17, and 12:17 have ‘through Isaiah the prophet’; 13:35 and 21:4 have, again, ‘through the prophet’; 27:9 also has ‘through Jeremiah the prophet’. e rst ve introduce the four forms that will be drawn upon for the whole set, and the

last three repeat the sequence of the rst three. In related texts, 2:5 has ‘through the prophet’; 26:54 and 26:56 do not follow the participial construction of the other texts: 26:54 has ‘the Scriptures’, and 26:56 has ‘the Scriptures of the prophets’. 72. Pesch, ‘Gottessohn’. 73. God is said to speak through the prophets in Ez. 38:17; Dn. 9:10; Sir. Prologue; Lk. 1:70. 74. For an extensive bibliography on Is. 7:14 see J. W. Watts, Isaiah 1–33 (WBC 24. Waco, TX: Word, 1985), 95, 100-103, to which may be added G. Rice, ‘A Neglected Interpretation of the Immanuel Prophecy’, ZAW 90 (1978), 220-27; R. Bartelmus, ‘Jes 7:1-17 und das Stilprinzip des Kontrastes,’ ZAW 96 (1984), 50-66. 75. is is the ‫ א‬reading, in agreement with the Hebrew text. A B have καλέσεις. Q L have καλέσετε. Instead of Matthew’s ἕξει B L C have λή(μ)ψεται. If this is the original LXX reading, then it is likely that Brown, Birth, 151, is right to locate the source of the Matthean variant in OT birth stories (Gn. 16:11; 17:17; Jdg. 13:3, 7). 76. On this understanding, the naming of the baby as Jesus would serve as a recognition that the presence of God was to be experienced in the saving work of this child. 77. But with de nite exceptions. See the discussions in M. Rehm, ‘Das Wort ʿalmah in Jes. 7.14’, BZ 8 (1964), 89-101; J. M. Ford, ‘e Meaning of “Virgin”’, NTS 12 (1966), 293-99; C. H. Dodd, ‘New Testament Translation Problems I’, BT 27 (1976), 301-11. 78. As argued by, e.g., Watts, Isaiah 1–33, 99-101. 79. ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμενευόμενον (‘which is translated’) is also found in Mk. 5:41; 15:22, 34; Jn. 1:41; Acts 4:36; cf. Ps.-Philo 6:18. 80. In Mark προσκυνεῖν means only to show deferential respect to (5:6; 15:19); in Luke it denotes religious worship (4:7, 8) and is used with Jesus as the object only aer the resurrection (24:52); in Matthew it can clearly mean religious reverence (4:9, 10), at times seems clearly to involve worship directed towards Jesus (14:33; 28:9, 17), and is used repeatedly of Jesus from infancy onwards in a manner which seems designed to blur, in the case of response to Jesus, the distinction between deferential respect and true

worship. Mt. 14:22-33 clearly has something of a theophany about it, perhaps to the point of allusively attributing the divine name to Jesus in the ἐγώ εἰμι (‘I am’) of v. 27. 81. e argument that since μετά + gen. in Matthew almost always means ‘in company with’ the phrase in Matt. 1:23 applies more readily to the Son (as concretely present to be ‘in company with’ us) than to the Father, seems to be based on a confusion about language imagery. Certainly ‘God with us’ means that God is present and not simply ‘God [is acting] for us’, but what is the nature of that presence, and does it preclude the possibility of speaking at the same time of God as ‘in heaven’? ose who take ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου as indicating divine paternity and those who correlate ‘son’ in v. 23 with ‘by the Lord’ in v. 22 have these judgments to offer as additional reasons for identifying Jesus as ‘God with us’. 82. Gn. 17:5 is a partial exception, where the name Abraham refers to something which is to be true about Abraham, but the content of that truth has nally to do with the unfolding of God’s purposes beyond Abraham rather than with a task, role or identity for Abraham as such. 83. ὁ μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν θεός would be polytheistic. 84. is is not necessarily to argue for a lower christology in Matthew (so Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:217), but rather at this point for a less precise christology. We will explore the points made in favour of the translation ‘God with us’ as we treat the relevant texts later in the commentary. 85. See 2 Sa. 7:9; 1 Ki. 1:37; 11:38; Ps. 89:21, 24. 86. See Is. 43:5; Ez. 34:30; 37:26-27; Zc. 8:23; 11QTemple 29:78; Jub. 1:17, 26; Rev. 21:3. 87. Cf. Wouters, Willen, 213. 88. Note the similar language in Mt. 21:6. 89. ἕως οὗ is conventionally translated ‘until’, but because the focus is on the period prior to the birth and implies nothing about what happened aerwards, I prefer the translation ‘before’ here. Cf. Mt. 5:25; 16:28; 28:20. 90. In such circumstances the possibility of a premature birth could not be proposed as offering the basis for an alternative to virginal conception.

91. If a psychological motivation were to be needed, then the best on offer comes from the view that sexual intimacy is for procreation and not for pleasure. Allison, ‘Divorce’, 7-9, helpfully documents this view in both Jewish and Greco-Roman sources. Reverential reserve is a less likely possibility. 92. Note also the redundancy involved in the role of both the star and Herod’s advisors in getting the Magi to Bethlehem and the difference between the focus on Mary (without Joseph) in Mt. 2:11 and the focus on Joseph in the continuation of the narrative about Herod in 2:13-21. In the present account Herod’s exclusive dependence on the returning Magi for information seems odd for one so well supplied with informers. Detailed argumentation for the existence of the sources can be found in Nolland, ‘Sources’. For the speci c scope of these accounts see there and in the comments below on particular verses. 93. As long as messianic interest in the infant Jesus remained private or almost private (as is otherwise characteristic of Gospel infancy materials), the difficulties are not so great. e more tentative and small scale we imagine the basis of what was reported to Herod to be, the easier it is to account for its failure to emerge visibly as constituting any sort of starting point for the adult ministry of Jesus. Even better if the quiet years between infancy and adulthood had largely dissipated such hopes as had existed! From the point of view of a claim for historicity, it is helpful, therefore, that the imprecision of Herod’s knowledge re ected in 2:16 suggests that the nascent messianic movement envisaged had a very low pro le. Also relevant here is the possibility that precisely this experience with Herod promoted secrecy. e pattern of movement re ected in Matthew would have the effect of breaking natural ties and limiting the spontaneous spread of rumour about the infant Jesus. 94. e need for this introduction impressed itself on Matthew as he formed Mt. 2:1-12 out of the originally independent Magi and Herod narratives (see Nolland, ‘Sources’). 95. 1 Sa. 16; 17:12, 58; 20:6. 96. e immediate point of borrowing for the whole phrase ‘in Bethlehem of Judea’ is from the answer of the chief priests and scribes to Herod in Mt. 2:5.

97. Recently on Herod see N. Kokkinos, e Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse (JSPSup 30; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998); D. J. Bryan, ‘e Herodians: A Case of Disputed Identity: A Review Article of Nikos Kokkinos, e Herodian Dynasty’, TynB 53 (2002), 223-38. 98. For texts see, e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:227-28, who helpfully digest the relevant information. 99. Despite Powell, ‘Magi’, 1-20. 100. e dream of Mt. 2:12 functions quite differently in that it aligns the Magi and Joseph (both guided by dreams). 101. Once we have decided that the original use of Magi is not in view, which in the East rather loses its importance. For Matthew, the importance of the Magi is not in their speci c identity, and so it is likely that the generality of ‘the East’ serves his purposes better than a particular place of origin would. 102. Magi or astrologers are part of the Moses story in Tg. Ps.-J. Ex. 1:15; b. Sanh. 101b; Mid. Rab. 1.18 to Ex. 1:22. In the last, the Magi are Pharaoh’s source of information about the impending birth. In the rst-century world the role of Magi and of the ‘sacred scribes’ of Josephus’s account (Ant. 2.205, 234) need not be far apart. 103. So Clark, ‘Rout’; Mann, ‘Epiphany’; cf. Davies, Setting, 78-80; Riedinger, Kampf, 130-46. 104. In OT usage Jerusalem was the ‘city of David’ (2 Sa. 5:7, 9; 6:10, 12, 16; 2 Ki. 9:28; 12:22), and there was never any question but that the seat of power should be located here. 105. Mt. 27:11, 29, 37. 106. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:236 follow BDF §253.5 in insisting that ‘points of the compass never take the article’, but, despite the articular use of ἀνατολή (in any sense) being extremely rare in the LXX, 1 Esdr. 5:46 offers a contrary instance. 107. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:233-34 (and cf. 230). See also Luz, Matthew 1–7, 131, 135; Rosenberg, ‘Star’; Str.-B. 1:77-78; and Küchler, ‘Stern’ (who focuses on the use of a star above a person as an image of royalty).

108. ere was a widespread ancient belief that at the birth of each person, or at least of each person of real signi cance, a new star of a brightness appropriate to the stature of the person emerged in heaven, to stay there until the death of that person (see Boll, ‘Stern’, 138, for texts and, further, Hengel and Merkel, ‘Magier’, 148-50). 109. For references (but not the present speculation) see, e.g., Luz, Matthew 1–7, 132. e location of the conjunction in the constellation of Pisces can also be given a role since it is sometimes associated with the last days and even with the Hebrews (see Brown, Birth, 172-73). Since various constellations of stars could be associated with the birth of a king (see Hengel and Merkel, ‘Magier’, 147 n. 40, for references) and ancient astrology is only imperfectly understood, we can have no great con dence in any particular proposal. 110. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 137. e guidance of the Israelites in the wilderness by a pillar of cloud/ re is also relevant for comparison (Ex. 13:21). 111. ἀνατελεῖ ἄστρον (‘a star will [a]rise’) from the LXX of Nu. 24:17 looks striking at rst, but a different word is used for star, and the star arises ‘out of Jacob’, not in the heavens. 112. See the references in Luz, Matthew 1–7, 131. 113. Mt. 14:22-33 has something of a theophany about it, perhaps to the point of allusively attributing the divine name to Jesus in the ἐγώ εἰμι (‘I am’) of v. 27. 114. ough the visiting of an infant is distinctive, there are many records of foreign dignitaries coming to honour a king (see Jos., Ant. 16.13641; Dio Cass., History 63.1-7; Suetonius, Nero 13). 115. Sentences beginning with a participial use of ἀκούειν (‘hear’) are quite common, but Matthew seems particularly fond of them. 116. Before the Magi and Herod narratives came together, it is likely that what Herod hears about is not the Magi’s question, but some rumour of a messianic birth. Herod’s agitation has its counterpart in that of Pharaoh when he learnt of the birth of the future liberator of Israel, but the Pharaoh parallel becomes striking only with the slaughter of the infants (see Jos., Ant. 2.205-9; Tg. Ps.-J. Ex. 1:15).

117. While the aristocracy may at least at times have had a coincidence of interest with Herod, he was not a ruler who was popular with the people. It is not satisfactory, as has been suggested, to resolve this puzzle by giving ἐταράχθη a double sense: negative in the case of Herod, but pointing to the unrest of eager anticipation of the people of Jerusalem (cf. 21:10; but this is best taken somewhat negatively). 118. Cf. Mt. 16:21; 20:17-19; 21:10; 23:37; 27:20, 25. e bringing together of Herod and ‘all Jerusalem’ is likely to have happened as Matthew merged his sources here: his Magi source probably had something at this point about ‘all Jerusalem’ being unable to help the Magi in their quest. Matthew sees already in this fact the seeds of the later fully developed hostility. 119. Since ‘the chief priests and scribes’ are said to be ‘of the people’, the role of ‘all Jerusalem’ could be thought to be carried forward by these leaders. But the juxtaposition of ‘with him’ in v. 3 and ‘gathering’ in v. 4 hardly encourages such an identi cation, and in any case such an identi cation would not take us anywhere because these leaders at this point play a quite neutral role. 120. e word ‘scribe’ was capable of a great variety of senses sharing in common only the capacity to write, but Matthew is interested only in such scribes as ful lled signi cant leadership roles related to their knowledge of the Law. e role of the Law in both religious life and the wider life of the Jewish society meant that a knowledge of the Law was indispensable to a range of societal roles. 121. Mt. 21:23; 26:3; 27:1. 122. Since the events of Jesus’ ministry come a generation later, the comment is made of the grouping rather than with respect to individuals. 123. Mt. 2:4; 20:18; 21:15. 124. Mt. 16:21; 27:41; cf. 26:57. 125. Mt. 21:23; 26:3, 47; 27:1, 3, 12, 20; 28:11-12. 126. Mt. 21:45; 27:62. 127. Mt. 26:57 (but the presence of the chief-priestly group might be assumed on the basis of the location in the house of the high priest). 128. Mt. 5:20; 12:38; 15:1; 23:2, 13, 14 (variant), 15.

129. Mt. 3:7; 16:1, 6, 11, 12. 130. Matthew also mentions priests (8:4; 12:4, 5 — these have a subordinate and minor role), the prophets of the past (as those whose words from God are found in Scripture and are coming to ful lment in the present; and as persecuted in their own time), John, Jesus, and some Christian gures as prophets in the present (10:41; 11:9; 13:57; 14:5; 16:14; 21:11, 26, 46), and prophets and wise men (23:34 — in a trio with scribes as rejected envoys from God). Herodians might be included for completeness (22:16). 131. Mt. 2:23, 34. 132. In ‘tradition of the elders’ (Mt. 15:2) ‘elders’ is being used with a different sense (see there). 133. Bethlehem was where David was brought up and anointed king of Israel (1 Sa. 16:1-13; cf. 17:12, 15, 58; 20:6, 28 — Davies and Allison mistakenly claim that “city of David” refers to Bethlehem in the OT [Matthew, 1:226]; it refers rather to Jerusalem). Apart from Micah 5:2 (where the reference to the messiah becomes explicit in the targum), there is only limited and late attestation for a Jewish belief in a Bethlehem origin for the messiah (see y. Ber. 2.4.5a; La. Rab. on 1.16). Mt. 2:5 and Jn. 7:42 both treat the birth of the messiah in Bethlehem as a Jewish and not a distinctly Christian tradition. 134. But B* C read ‘out of whom’ (MT has ‘out of you’). 135. A further in uence on the word choice here could be from the use of this term in the LXX clause in 2 Sa. 5:2 following that which is inserted into the Matthean quotation (see below), but this remains uncertain because there is no clear indication of reference to the LXX. 136. ‘From me’, which is found in both the LXX and the MT (‘go forth from me’) may have dropped out in anticipation of the use of ‘me’ in the insertion from 2 Sa. 5:2. e loss of ‘of Israel’ (‘ruler of Israel’) is likely to be similarly motivated. 137. Cf. Ru. 1:7; 2 Ch. 17:6; 35:19a; Ne. 5:14; Am. 7:12; (Is. 26:1); etc. 138. ἡγεμόσιν is regularly translated ‘princes’ or ‘governors’, but the former suggests members of the royal family in a manner not implied here, and the latter tends to make a reader think of a governing function analogous to that of the governor of a Roman province.

139. See Ez. 34:4-16; 37; Ho. 2; Mi. 5:1-9; 2 Esdr. 13:34-50; 2 Bar. 77–86; Ps. Sol. 17; m. Sanh. 10:3; cf. Mt. 19:28. 140. e Herod materials are threaded together with the use of τότε in vv. 7, 16, 17; for John the Baptist the link is made with τότε in 3:5, 13, 15; in the temptation account τότε comes in 4:1, 5, 10, 11. Perhaps the patterning would be stronger if there had been three uses in each case, but it is not inappropriate that the three sets of three should be climaxed with a nal use marking the completion of the use of this pattern. Cf. the comment at 4:5 on the uses of παραλαμβάνειν (‘to take with’), which establish a(n antithetical) parallelism between Joseph and the devil. 141. In the Herod account before it was joined to that of the Magi, it is likely that some of his own officials are summoned secretly at this point and directed to search in Bethlehem for the messianic pretender. 142. In the present form of the story, the Magi clearly do not need the star to direct them to Bethlehem, so its necessary role is reduced to identifying the place of residence of the child. Nonetheless, the star appears to take up its guiding role already at the point of departure from Jerusalem. In an originally separate Magi story it is likely that the star is needed already to identify Bethlehem as the goal of the journey because the Magi fail to get direction in Jerusalem. e exceeding joy of the Magi at the reappearance of the star is better motivated in relation to a quest which had otherwise deadended in Jerusalem than (as in the present form) in relation to the relatively straightforward task of nding the right home in the small village of Bethlehem. Despite Matthew’s fondness for ἰδοῦ (lit. ‘behold’), its presence at the point of introduction of the Magi and again at the point at which the star takes up its second role may well be a pre-Matthean feature of the text, formally marking the two stages of the story. (προῆγεν could be applied, it might be argued, not to a guiding role along the way, but only to going on ahead to the house in order to mark it out. is would allow v. 10 to refer to the discovery of the star at rest over the house [the NRSV takes v. 10 in this way, but to do so without removing from the star a role in guiding travel is forced]. is alternative way of taking προῆγεν is unlikely because [a] the immediately preceding reference to the earlier seeing of the star makes it more natural to assume that the star is also seen now as it goes ahead; and [b] ἕως [‘until’] has no satisfactory role on this understanding.)

143. is is a minor pointer to a separate origin for the Magi and Herod narratives since the continuation of the Herod narrative involves the same focus on Joseph as was evident in 1:18-25. 144. Ex. 30:23, 34: myrrh and frankincense are, respectively, ingredients, among others, of anointing oil and incense for use in the tabernacle; Ct. 3:6: frankincense and myrrh perfume the litter of Solomon; Ct. 5:11, 13: gold and myrrh (interspersed with other terms) are images of the attractiveness of the beloved; Is. 60:6: gold and frankincense symbolise the wealth of the nations brought in offering to Israel. 145. Among the suggestions which have been made about the signi cance of the gis we may note the following: Jesus as king, God (or as priest) and human (or as pointing to the coming death of Jesus); offerings of reasonable faith, pure reason, and good works; pure works (or wisdom, or faith), prayer, and morti cation of passion (or the esh); faith, love, and hope; mercy, prayer, and purity; and, in an entirely different register, gis which address the poverty of the holy family, the smell of the stable, and the health needs of the child. 146. e full form is found in Mt. 1:20, the abbreviated form in 2:12 (speci cally an abbreviation of the v. 13 version), the full form in v. 13 and again in vv. 19-20, the abbreviated form in v. 22 (closely related to that in v. 12). 147. Given its classic formulation in Is. 2:1-4; Mi. 4:1-3; Zc. 8:20-23; and cf. Ps. 72:11, 15; Is. 45:14; 56:6-7; 66:18-21; 1 Enoch 53:1; Pss. Sol. 17:31. 148. E.g., Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 185-88: ‘popular narrative vs. ‘stylized “stills”’. 149. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 187-88, recognises an original unity between 2:1-12 and 16-18. 150. ough such an origin is oen assumed. See the observations of France, ‘Herod’, 108-13; and Nellessen, Kind, 122-25, who offers arguments on both sides. e appeal to prophecy would be quite disingenuous if Matthew did not believe that such an event had taken place. On the possibility that the story has been derived from the formula quotation, Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 261, comments: ‘e suggestion … must appear absurd’.

151. I say ‘ostensibly’ because I suspect the background difficulty with the story has to do with the way that in context it seems to re ect badly on God, who treats the other infants of Bethlehem as dispensable. 152. See Jos., Ant. 17.191: ‘He was a man who was cruel to all alike and one who easily gave in to anger and was contemptuous of justice.’ See further n. 163 below. 153. In the source form it is likely that the angelic intervention comes between Herod’s instruction to his deputies to search for the child and their arrival in Bethlehem (see Nolland, ‘Sources’). 154. See 1 Ki. 11:40; 2 Ki. 25:26; Je. 26:21; 41:16-18; 43:5-7; Ze. 10:10; Jos., Ant. 12.387; 14:21; etc. 155. e motif of the ight of the threatened child is found in stories about Cyrus (Hdt., 1:108-13), Mithridates (Justin, Epitome 1.37.2), Gilgamesh (Aelian, Nat. anim. 12.21), and Abraham (see Str-B 1:77-78; 3:3435); the death of other children plays a part in stories about Moses (Ex. 1:8– 2:10; Jos., Ant. 2.205-9; Ps.-Philo 9:9-16), Cyrus (as above), Abraham (as above), Augustus (Suetonius, Aug. 94.3), Nero (Suetonius, Nero 36), Romulus (Livius 1.3-6). See Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:258-59, for further examples. France, ‘Herod’, 107 n. 43, makes the important observation that, apart from the case of Moses, ‘indiscriminate killing of children’ is found only in the case of Augustus (and here only as an unrealised intention). 156. See especially the comments at Mt. 2:16 below. e Matthean text also draws on a subsequent threat by Pharaoh to the life of Moses. Ex. 2:15 (and cf. 4:20) provides the closest point of verbal comparison for Mt. 2:13 (and cf. at v. 20). e probability of a secondary allusion to the ight of Joseph to Israel (cf. Gn. 46:2-7) depends on the dating of midrashic developments of the story, which make Joseph’s journey to Egypt a ight from the murderous intentions of Laban (see L. Finkelstein, ‘e Oldest Midrash: Prerabbinic Ideals and Teaching in the Passover Haggadah’, HTR 31 [1938], 291-317; Daube, Rabbinic Judaism, 189-92; Bourke, ‘Genus’, 16772; Cave, ‘Infancy’, 387-88). If present, it could be thought to play only a minor role. e language of 1 Ki. 11:40 reports Solomon’s attempt to destroy Jeroboam, his ight to Egypt, and his sojourn there until the death of

Solomon in language which is strikingly similar to the nal part of Mt. 2:13 and the opening part of v. 15. If there is any deliberate link, it can only be that in each case we are dealing with the interplay between rival claimants to the throne. 157. e movement statement here is complicated by the need to have Jesus return to Galilee before making the move to Capernaum. 158. e ful lment formula (suitably adapted) and quotation could have come aer Mt. 2:21. Matthew’s choice of location allows a formula quotation to be linked with each major subdivision in vv. 13-23. 159. e LXX uses the compound verb μετεκάλεσα for ‘called’, the plural τὰ τέκνα (‘the children’) and the third person αὐτοῦ (‘his’). 160. Prophecy had used the Exodus pattern to speak of the return from Exile, and this in turn had become the language of eschatological expectation (see Is. 40:3-4; 42:14–55:13, passim; Ez. 20:33-44; Ho. 2:14-15; 1QS 8:12-18; etc.). Matthew’s typology goes beyond this but is a development from it. 161. ose who look for divine sonship already in 1:18-25 come to this verse with a focus on ‘my son’ which is not justi ed by the development of the narrative to this point (see Nolland, ‘No-Son-of-God’, 3-12). At this point there is no emphasis on ‘my son’ as distinct from any other designation for Israel, but having introduced the terminology, Matthew will make extensive use of it later. 162. Before the merging of the Magi account, the unsuccessful search by Herod’s deputies will have provoked his action here. 163. Based on the likely population of Bethlehem, estimates of the number of children killed never go higher than about twenty and are oen considerably lower. Horrendous as it is, such an act ts well with what is known of Herod’s ruthlessness and cruelty. France, ‘Herod’, 114-15, succinctly summarises what is known from Josephus: [Herod’s] victims include not only his predecessors Antigonus and Hyrcanus, together with a large number of their supporters and eventually all remaining members of the Hasmonean family but also those Hasmoneans directly related to him by marriage: his brother-inlaw, his mother-in-law, and even his favourite wife, Mariamne. Later his

three eldest sons were also eliminated…. Outside the Hasmonean family, in addition to the general account of Herod’s piecemeal elimination of political suspects and his reliance on espionage, four incidents are recorded in which Herod executed large groups of actual or suspected conspirators, in one case with their entire families…. one was in response to a prediction that Herod’s dynasty was to lose the throne…. e pre-Matthean nature of the material here is well supported by Soares Prabhu’s comparison of Mt. 2:16 with the redactional formulation in 22:7 (Formula Quotations, 257-58). 164. Jos., Ant. 2.205-9; Tg. Ps.-J. on Ex. 1:15. 165. Cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 46. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 259, points to Matthew’s tendency to add ‘a hyperbolic πᾶς to a noun signifying a city or a place’. 166. e reference to the Magi provides the nal clamp in Matthew’s careful integration of the Herod and Magi narratives. e language here involves heavy borrowing from 2:7. 167. Cf. Lagrange, Matthieu, 33. 168. For the various ways in which the prophets are identi ed see the discussion at Mt. 1:18-25 n. 176. 169. In uence from the LXX may be visible in ‘a voice was heard’, ‘in Ramah’, ‘weeping and loud mourning’, ‘would not’, ‘because they are no more’ (for the A text also ‘be comforted’), and in the lack of an equivalent to one of the two uses of ‘her sons’ in the MT (the A and B texts differ over which is dropped; Matthew agrees with A, but not with the associated syntax), but some of this could be independent agreement in translation of the Hebrew. Like the MT, Matthew’s citation has only two terms for lamentation (the LXX has three), uses for them a syntactical pattern that parallels that of the MT, has a modi er linked to the second term as the MT, and parallels the Hebrew syntax pattern for the latter half of the material. See Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 253-54; Knowles, Jeremiah, 36-38. Menken, ‘Quotation’, 118-21, thinks that Gn. 37:35 has in uenced the translation (for Menken, a pre-Matthean revision of the LXX). If he is right,

then Matthew may be making a minor investment in a Joseph typology here: both Joseph and Jesus seem to have been done away with. 170. e rendering of bnyh (lit. ‘sons’, but the plural can refer to both sexes together) as ‘children’ (the LXX and the MT agree against Matthew) might seem signi cant since the Herod massacre is only of male children (Daube, ‘Earliest Structure’, 185, nds an allusion here to the Passover Haggadah on the basis that Laban intended the destruction of the whole, while Pharaoh decreed only the destruction of the males.) But Matthew’s rendering corresponds to the original intention of the text (the LXX, as oen, is overly literal) and shows no more than that Matthew’s concern here is broader than simply nding a prophetic reference to the slaughter of male children in his Bible (‘sons’ would have suited better such a restricted vision). 171. e versions suggest that there is textual uncertainty over whether a place name should appear in the text at this point (see D. V. Edelman, ABD, 6:1,073-74). 172. Matthew is not likely to have been bothered about a distinction between the Northern and the Southern Exile. In any case, his text helpfully embraces both. His vision is certainly for the whole of Israel (cf. Mt. 19:28). 173. e action of Herod, therefore, does not symbolise Jewish rejection of the messiah, as is oen maintained (e.g., Hengel and Merkel, ‘Magier’, 165), but, rather, suffering at the hands of a foreign power (as happened in the period of the Exile). (e link to Pharaoh identi ed at Mt. 2:13 is also better respected by this understanding.) Similarly, since the infant Jesus and the slaughtered children belong together, the massacre does not symbolise, as is sometimes proposed, God’s judgment of Judaism for its rejection of the messiah (e.g., Kingsbury, Structure, 48 [following Vögtle, ‘Kindheitsgeschichte’, 173-74]). Scholars sometimes appeal to the hope-ofrestoration context of Je. 31:15 in order to identify a message of hope beyond the present disaster (this would require linking the slaughter of the infants with Jesus’ death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection), but this is to nd too much. 174. Moses is told, ‘Go back to Egypt. For all those who were seeking your life are dead’. In response, ‘Moses took his wife and his sons … and

went back to the land of Egypt’. In exact wording, Matthew and the LXX share εἰς … τεθνήκασιν γὰρ οἱ ζητοῦντες τὴν ψυχήν … λαβ[… παιδι[… εἰς. 175. For further details see Nolland, ‘Sources’. 176. See Mk. 1:9, 24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6; Lk. 1:26; 2:4, 39, 51; 4:16, 34; 18:37; 24:19; Jn. 1:45, 46; 18:5, 7; 19:19; Acts 2:22; 3:6; 4:10; 6:14; 10:38; 22:8; 24:5; 26:9. In Matthew the tie to Nazareth plays only a very modest role, since Jesus moves from Nazareth to Capernaum already at 4:13. e hometown of 13:54 is probably Capernaum, but it could be Nazareth because of the presence of family members there, and Jesus is identi ed as ‘the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee’ in Mt. 21:11 and ‘Jesus the Nazorean’ in 26:71. Otherwise Capernaum is Jesus’ home base. 177. Davis, ‘Tradition’, 407, points to the emphasis on the feelings and motivation of Joseph in v. 22, which distinguishes the development in vv. 2223 from that in vv. 13-21. 178. His reign is said to have been inaugurated with the slaughter of 3,000 people (Jos., War 17.342-44). Strictly speaking, Matthew should not have used βασιλεύει (lit. ‘He reigns as king’) for Archelaus as Tetrarch, but, for the purposes of Matthew’s narrative, there is the same con ict of interests for Archelaus as there had been for Herod, and Matthew feels no need to draw attention to the difference of status between the two gures (there is a similar problem at Mt. 14:9). 179. See Mt. 4:12; 14:1, 3, 6; Lk. 3:19; 13:31; 23:7, 8, 11, 12, 15; etc. 180. ἐϕοβήθη (‘he was afraid’) for Joseph also corresponds to ἐταράχθη (‘he was disturbed’) for Herod. 181. Note also that both formula citations deal with a location. It might well be that Matthew is also encouraging his readers to see a parallel between the move to Galilee based on the threat posed by Archelaus in 2:2223 and the return to Galilee based on the threat implied by John’s arrest in 4:12-14. (In the latter case the threatening ruler is actually also ruler of Galilee, but this need not affect the parallelism at the literary level.) 182. e link between Mt. 2:22 and 2:12 is particularly close: they have in common χρηματισθεὶς … κατ᾿ ὄναρ … ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς τήν … (‘warned…ina dream…they departed to the’). For a more detailed statement

about the relationship between the forms of the dream revelations and the likely source implications see the comments at 2:12. 183. e very abbreviated form in which the dream revelation is presented allows it to function as little more than a footnote to that in Mt. 2:19-20. 184. Technically Nazareth should not be called a πόλις (lit. ‘city’), but in popular use the distinction between πόλις and κώμη is not always sharply maintained. 185. Scholars have at times questioned whether this form has an origin quite separate from any connection with Nazareth, and have suggested that the link with Nazareth is a secondary Christian confusion. e argument depends on the unexpected vowel pattern. ese scholars can point to a Jewish Torah-observant sect of Νασαραῖοι mentioned by Epiphanius (Haer. 29.6.1) and to the obvious similarity of one of the names of the Mandeans: nāṣōrāyyāʾ. Wagner, ‘Herkun’, 273-82, has recently argued that originally the reference was to Jesus as one who was characterised as committed to keeping (using the root nṣr) the law. e arguments have, on the whole, not been found persuasive, and, in any case, they have no bearing on how Matthew intends the term. 186. See M. Avi-Yonah, ‘A List of Priestly Courses from Caesarea’, IEJ 12 (1962), 137-39. 187. ough normally the ζ of the Greek would stand for z in the Hebrew or Aramaic, it can also correspond to ṣ (cf. Brown, Birth, 207-8). Vowel movements in transliteration between the languages are complex, not always consistent, and not fully understood. 188. An alternative approach which is occasionally advanced depends on making the connection not with texts but with what is claimed to be a scriptural theme. Based on the insigni cance of Nazareth, the thrust becomes, ‘He shall come as a humble and unrecognised messiah’. is seems unlikely to represent the Matthean intention. 189. Despite 1 Sa. 1:11, Samuel is not speci cally identi ed as a Nazirite in the MT, but he is in a fragmentary Hebrew text of 1 Sa. 1:22 found at Qumran.

190. Is. 4:2; Je. 23:5; 33:15; Zc. 3:8; 6:12. Brown, Birth, 212, identi es uses of a number of further synonyms which may be pertinent. 191. e link is proposed by Zolli, ‘Nazarenus’, 135-36. 192. Gärtner, Rätselhaen Termini, defends this link. He also points to Is. 49:6, where the corrected form nṣwry could be taken adjectivally and made subject, not object: ‘a preserved [one] to restore Israel’. 193. A stronger case can be made for a link between Jesus and Nazirite holiness more broadly in early Christian tradition than for a Matthean appeal to such a link. 194. e most attractive form of this view is that of Brown (Birth, 22325), who in effect sees a merging of Jdg. 16:17 and Is. 4:3. But there is nothing to connect the Matthean Jesus to the Nazirite category (not even anything stronger than the link with the Holy Spirit to connect him with the category of the holy). 195. In Matthew’s telling the only one who actually calls Jesus a Nazorean is the anonymous maid of 26:71. 196. e access could be, instead, to an interpretive tradition based on the Hebrew text which had already linked Jesus’ origins in Nazareth with Is. 11:1. Is. 49:6 would then need to drop from the picture.

III. JOHN PROCLAIMING IN THE WILDERNESS (3:1-12) 1In

those days John the Baptist comes proclaiming in the wilderness of Judea, 2‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.’ 3(is is the one who was spoken about through Isaiah the prophet: aA

voice of one calling out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make his paths straight.’ 4is

John had his clothing [made] from camel hair and had a strip of hide around his waist; his food was locusts and wild honey.) 5en Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region along the Jordan went out to him, 6and they were baptized by him in the Jordan bRiver, confessing their sins. many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to chis baptism, [John] said to them, ‘Offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8[If you are serious about this], then bear fruit [that is] worthy of repentance. 9And do not [even] think of saying to yourselves, “We have Abraham as [our] father”; for I say to you, God is able to raise up children to Abraham out of these stones. 10dAlready the axe is laid to the root of the trees: every tree not bearing good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’ 7Seeing

11‘eI

baptize you with water for repentance; but the one coming faer me,f is mightier than I. [He is one] whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will “baptize” you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12[He is one] whose winnowing shovel [is already] in his hand; and he will clear his threshing floor and gather ghis wheat together into the granary; but the chaff he will burn in an inextinguishable fire.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Sys has only the middle line of the quotation. b. Omitted by C3 D L f13 etc., in conformity with the usage in v. 5 (and in agreement with the Markan parallel). c. Omitted by ‫ *א‬B etc., perhaps as awkward. d. και (‘indeed’) is added by L f13 33 892 etc., in conformity with Lk. 3:9. e. γαρ (‘for’) is added in ‫ א‬891 bo, making the explanatory role of vv. 1112 explicit. f. Omitted by a d samss, in conformity with Lk. 3:16. g. Omitted by f13 pc a q, in conformity with Lk. 3:16; linked instead with αποθηκη (‘granary’) by E L 892 983, etc.; and repeated with αποθηκη by B W pc. Bibliography Badia, L. F., e Qumran Baptism and John the Baptist’s Baptism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1980). • Barth, G., Die Taufe in früchristlicher Zeit (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1981), 17-43. • Bauckham, R., ‘e Messianic Interpretation of Isa. 10:34 in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2 Baruch and the Preaching of John the Baptist’, DSD 2 (1995), 202-16. • Bénétreau, S., ‘Baptêmes et ablutions dans le Judaïsme: L’originalité de JeanBaptiste’, FV 80 (1981), 96-108. • Böcher, O., ‘Johannes der Täufer in der neutestamentlichen Überlieferung’, in Kirche in Zeit und Endzeit (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1983), 70-89. • Brown, C., ‘What Was John the Baptist Doing?’ IBR 7 (1997), 37-49. • Cotter, W., ‘“Yes, I Tell You, and More than a Prophet”: e Function of John in Q’, in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 135-50. • Davies, S. L., ‘John the Baptist and Essene Kashruth’, NTS 29 (1983), 569-71. • Davies, W. D., Jewish and Pauline Studies (rev. edn. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 72-83. • Dobbeler, S. von, Das Gericht und das Erbarmen Gottes: Die Botscha Johannes des Täufers und ihre Rezeption bei den Johannesjüngern im Rahmen der eologiegeschichte des Frühjudentums (BBB 70. Frankfurt am M.: Athenäum, 1988). • Ernst, J., Johannes der Taufer:

Interpretation — Geschichte — Wirkungsgeschichte (BZNW 53. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1989). • Ernst, J., Johannes der Täufer — der Lehrer Jesu? (Biblische Bücher 2. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1994). • Ernst, J., ‘Öffnet die Türen dem Erlöser: Johannes der Täufer — seine Rolle in der Heilsgeschichte’, TGl 74 (1984), 137-65; Frankemölle, H., ‘Johannes der Täufer und Jesus im Matthäusevangelium: Jesus als Nachfolger des Täufers’, NTS 42 (1996), 196-218. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die Überschneidung von Mk und “Q” nach B. H. Streeter und E. P. Sanders und ihre wahre Bedeutung (Mk 1,1-8 par)’, in Wort, ed. W. Haubeck and M. Bachmann, 28-81. • Fuchs, A., ‘Exegese im elfenbeinernen Turm: Das quellenkritische Problem von Mk 1,2-8 par Mt 3,1-12 par Lk 3,1-17 in der Sicht der Zweiquellentheorie und von Deuteromarkus’, SNTU 20 (1995), 23-149. • Goppelt, L., eology of the New Testament, 1:32-42. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 4-33. • Häfner, G., ‘“Jene Tage” (Mt 3,1) und der Umfang des matthäischen “Prologs”: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der Struktur des Mt-Ev’, BZ 37 (1993), 43-59; Kazmierski, C. R., John the Baptist: Prophet and Evangelist (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1996). • Krentz, E., ‘“None Greater among ose Born from Women”: John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew’, CurTM 10 (1983), 333-38. • Légasse, S., Naissance du baptême chrétien (LD 153. Paris: Cerf, 1993). • Lindeskog, G., ‘Johannes der Taüfer: Einige Randbemerkungen zum heutigen Stand der Forschung’, ASTI 12 (1983), 55-83. • Luz, U., ‘Q 3-4’, SBLSP 23 (1984), 37576. • Meier, J. P., ‘John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel’, JBL 99 (1980), 383405, esp. 387-92. • Merklein, H., ‘Die Umkehrpredigt bei Johannes dem Täufer und Jesus von Nazaret’, BZ 25 (1981), 29-46. • Murphy-O’Connor, J., ‘John the Baptist and Jesus: History and Hypothesis’, NTS 36 (1990), 359-74. • Nepper-Christensen, P., ‘Die Taufe im Matthäusevangelium’, NTS 31 (1985), 189-207. • Pusey, K., ‘Jewish Proselyte Baptism’, ExpTim 95 (198384), 141-45. • Reicke, B., ‘e Historical Setting of John’s Baptism’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 209-24. • Rivkin, E., ‘Locating John the Baptizer in Palestinian Judaism: e Political Dimension’, SBLSP 22 (1983), 79-85. • Robinson, J. M., ‘e Preaching of John: Work Sheets for the Reconstruction of Q’, SBLSP 23 (1984), 305-46. • Smith, D., ‘Jewish Proselyte Baptism and the Baptism of John’, RestQ 25 (1982), 13-32. • Snodgrass, K. R., ‘Streams of Tradition Emerging from Isaiah 40:1-15 and eir Adaptation in the New Testament’, JSNT 8 (1980), 24-45. • Uro, R., ‘John the Baptist and the Jesus

Movement: What Does Q Tell Us?’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 231-58. • Wainwright, E. M., ‘Reading Matthew 3–4: Jesus — Sage, Seer, Sophia, Son of God’, JSNT 77 (2000), 25-43. • Walter, N., ‘Wer machte Johannes den Täufer zum “vorläufer Jesu”?’, in Text und Geschichte, ed. E. Schlarb and S. Maser, 122-35. • Webb, R. L., John the Baptizer (JSNTSup 62. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991). • Wouters, A., Willen, 70-103. • Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist, 81-95. • Yarbro Collins, A., Cosmology, 218-30. For 3:7-10 Arnal, L. E., ‘Redactional Fabrication and Group Legitimation: e Baptist’s Preaching in Q 3:7-9, 16-17’, in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 165-80. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Beginning of Q [3,7-9.16-17]’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 15359. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 34-85. • Kazmierski, C. R., ‘e Stones of Abraham: John the Baptist and the End of Torah (Matt 3,7-10 par. Luke 3,79)’, Bib 68 (1987), 22-40. • Menahem, R., ‘A Jewish Commentary on the New Testament: A Sample Verse’, Immanuel 21 (1987), 43-54. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 167-93. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 28-30. • Tavardon, P., Les métamorphoses de l’esprit: Une exégèse du logion des deux baptêmes Mt 3:10-12 et parallèles (Ébib 48. Paris: Gabalda, 2002). • Wilkens, W., ‘Die Täuferüberlieferung des Matthäus und ihre Verarbeitung durch Lukas’, NTS 40 (1994), 542-57. For 3:11-12 Campbell, R. A., ‘Jesus and His Baptism’, TynB 47 (1996), 191-214. • Charles, J. D., ‘e “Coming One”/“Stronger One” and His Baptism: Matt 3:11-12, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16-17’, Pneuma 11 (1989), 37-50. • Fleddermann, H., ‘John and the Coming One (Matt 3:11-12//Luke 3:16-17)’, SBLSP 23 (1984), 37784. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 93-125, 405-26 • Légasse, S., ‘L’autre “baptême” (Mc 1,8; Mt 3,11; Lc 3,16; Jn 1,26.31-33)’, in e Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 257-74. • Martin, F., ‘Le baptême dans l’Ésprit: Tradition du Nouveau Testament et vie de l’Église’, NRT 106 (1984), 23-58. • Mason, S., ‘Fire, Water and Spirit: John the Baptist and the Tyranny of Canon’, SR 21 (1992), 163-80. • Schwarz, G., ‘τὸ δὲ ἄχυρον κατακαύσει’, ZNW 72 (1981), 264-71. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 30-40. • Webb, R. L., ‘e Activity

of John the Baptist’s Expected Figure at the reshing Floor (Matthew 3.12 = Luke 3.17)’, JSNT 43 (1991), 103-11. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 128-36.

While Jesus is residing in Nazareth, quietly developing to adult readiness for his role to come, a major new development is marked by the appearance of John the Baptist. It is out of this new development that the ministry of Jesus will emerge, and in important ways John’s ministry will anticipate that of Jesus (both pre-announcement and prototype are involved here). Since John has his own signi cance in 3:1-12 but is subordinated to the story of Jesus from v. 13, it is perhaps best to think of v. 1-12 as constituting by itself a section in Matthew’s narrative. Almost all of Matthew’s material in 3:1-6 is found already in Mk. 1:2-6, but a trace of a second source is evident in Mt. 3:5.1 Beyond stylistic and minor interpretive changes, Matthew has substituted his own summary of John’s message, stripped the quotation of its non-Isaianic features, and signi cantly reordered the material. Apart from a difference over who is being addressed, Matthew uses material in vv. 7-10 that can be found in almost identical form in Lk. 3:7-9.2 For vv. 11-12 Matthew continues to follow his non-Markan source closely (cf. Lk. 3:16-19), with no certain in uence from the material parallelling v. 11 in Mk. 1:7-8.3

3:1 e best suggestion as to Matthew’s intended referent for ἐκείναις ἡμέραις (‘those days’) is that of Häfner:4 the days in which Jesus resided in Nazareth, and thus established his right to be ‘called a Nazorean’. e phrase is clearly intended to link together the preceding and following materials, despite the time frame’s presumably having moved on a whole generation.5 With 3:1-2 thus strongly linked to 2:22-23, we can, for 2:22–3:2 and 4:12-17, add considerably to the parallels between 2:22-23 and 4:12-14 noted at 2:22.6 Just as the presence of the infant Jesus in

Nazareth provides the time reference here for the beginning of the preaching ministry of John, so the arrival of the adult Jesus in Capernaum will provide the time reference for the beginning of the preaching ministry of Jesus.7 On παραγίνεται (‘comes’) see the comments at 2:1. e historic present emphasises John’s message (which is the message that will be taken up by Jesus). Matthew introduces John as ‘the Baptist’ but, unlike Mark, does not give the kind of centrality to baptism in his presentation of John which would elucidate the nickname for his readers.8 is may involve a conscious appeal to existing reader knowledge, but it is more likely to be an accidental by-product of Matthew’s deliberate use of identical words to provide the primary summary of the preaching message of John and of Jesus (cf. 4:17). e only source of information on John the Baptist independent of the NT is Jos., Ant. 18.116-19.9 Josephus suppresses the eschatological focus of John’s preaching and offers his readers a somewhat hellenised John, but his John the Baptist is recognisably the same gure as that offered in the Gospels. While Christian sources undoubtably display a measure of Christianisation of John, there is little to be said for the various attempts to identify a historical John who is substantially different from the Gospel portrayal. e nature of John’s baptism and the distinctive features of his preaching will be discussed below at v. 6 and vv. 7-12. Despite the virtual absence of κῆρυξ (‘herald’) from the NT, it is likely that for at least some NT uses of κηρύσσειν (‘proclaim, preach’) the best sense is ‘proclaim, as [God’s] herald’.10 e content of v. 2 and the use of Is. 4:3 in v. 3 suggest that the present use may be a case in point.

e wilderness location of John’s activity is to be related to the biblical (Ez. 20:33-38; Ho. 2:14-23) and contemporary (CD 8:12-15; 1QS 9:20) tradition which located the beginning of eschatological renewal in the wilderness.11 Because the mention of the wilderness location is geared to evoking the tradition of wilderness renewal, the reader is given no help in imagining how John, at least in the early stages, could have gained any audience for his message in an unpopulated wilderness area. John is being thought of as a prophet, but where the prophets characteristically take their message from God to the people, here the people must trek out into the wilderness to receive the message.12 is is presumably because the commerce with God which John is calling for is deemed to have its natural setting in the wilderness (as the place to initiate eschatological renewal). Matthew’s addition of ‘of Judea’ to Mark’s ‘in the wilderness’ (Mk. 1:4; cf. Lk. 3:2-3) is more for the sake of the parallelism between John and Jesus (see Mt. 2:1: ‘Bethlehem of Judea’) than to offer greater geographical precision.13 ough our sources suggest that John may have been active in a number of locations,14 he is chie y associated with the lower Jordan valley, particularly on the eastern side, in the territory of Perea. His arrest and subsequent execution by Herod Antipas (14:11-12) locate his activity, at least at that stage, as outside Judea (which had come directly under Roman rule by this time). 3:2 John’s message is summarised in terms identical to those used for the message of Jesus (cf. 4:17). is summary displaces ‘preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’, found in both Mk. 1:4 and Lk. 3:3.15 More overtly than the other Synoptic Evangelists, Matthew has absorbed the signi cance of John into that of Jesus, and so John pre-announces the message of Jesus.

e extent of the Matthean parallelling of John and Jesus is well caught in the summary of Davies and Allison:16 e two men say similar things (cf. 3.2 with 4.17, 3.7 with 12.34 and 23.33, and 3.10 with 7.19). Both are introduced in a similar fashion (cf. 3.1 with 3.13). Both are opposed by the Pharisees and Sadducees (cf. 3.710 with 12.34 and 23.33). Both appeal to the same generation to repent (11.16-19). Both act by the same authority, the authority of heaven (21.23-32). Both are taken by the people to be prophets (11.9; 14.5; 21.11, 26, 46). Both are rejected and executed as criminals (14.1-12; 2627). And both are buried by their own disciples (14.12; 27.57-61).

λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν (‘for I say to you’) in 3:9 may even for Matthew anticipate the same in 5:20 and be on the way to the related ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν (‘but I say to you’) of Jesus’ diction in Matthew. Matthew has made use of and developed what was already a good measure of intrinsic similarity and such parallelism as already existed in the tradition before him. Since Matthew’s primary concern is with the Christian signi cance of the summary in 3:2, it will be discussed at 4:17. On the call to repentance see the discussion at 3:8. 3:3 All three Synoptists use part of Is. 40:3, in identical wording (LXX wording), as an element in their presentation of the signi cance of John.17 Matthew has gone his own way in forming the introduction to the text. He clearly wants to echo the kind of language which he has chosen for introducing the formula quotations (see at 1:22), but at the same time he is not quite prepared to make this one of the set. is is likely to be because he reserves the formula quotations for the story of Jesus.18 What distinguishes the present introduction from the linked set is the absence of πληροῦν (‘ful l’) and the use of the masculine form for ὁ ῥηθέν (‘the one spoken [about]’) instead of the neuter τὸ ῥηθέν (‘what was spoken’).

In the Isaiah text, e imagery is of a coming of the Lord (to Jerusalem; cf. Isa 40:2) by way of the wilderness. Only a perfect road will be t for him to travel upon. e Baptist context provides a threatening edge to these words not present in their Isaianic context (cf. Isa 40:1-2, 9-11). Preparation has become a responsibility for personal readiness (as in CD [sic for 1QS] 8.12-15), and the coming means both salvation and wrath….19

Since the coming which for the Synoptists corresponds to John’s anticipation is the coming of Jesus, ‘the paths of God’ of Is. 40:3 (MT and LXX) has become ‘his paths’. 3:4 From now on in the present block of materials on John, he will be called simply John; ‘this John’ (αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ Ἰωάννης)20 marks the transition by referring back to the opening identi cation of John as ‘the Baptist’.21 Matthew avoids Mark’s periphrastic constructions here but otherwise follows the Markan wording closely. Apart from the reference to luxury clothing made of so camel hair in Apollonius Paradoxographus 20, I know of no ancient reference to camel hair clothing which is independent of this Gospel tradition. Rough cloth was usually made of goats’ hair and, apart from offering a cheap form of clothing, was used (as sackcloth) as a means for expressing mourning and penitence. We are to think of John as clad in only the most basic of attire. Contrast the ‘so robes’ of Mt. 11:8.22 As the other elements of the description will indicate, here is a man who lives roughly, and perhaps for the most part self-sufficiently, in the wilderness. Loose garments were regularly held in place with a belt or a sash (fasteners, pins, and buttons were also used). ζώνην δερματίνην (lit. ‘skin girdle’) is best taken as a strip of hide used for this purpose. Nothing of the decorator’s art here!

Is there a link between John’s garb and that of Elijah in 1 Ki. 1:8? Despite some recent denials there almost certainly is. Beyond the closeness of the descriptions,23 there is the fact that the desire to create an analogy to the ability to identify Elijah from his clothing indicated in 2 Ki. 1:8 makes the best sense of the inclusion of a description here of John’s clothing. John, it is suggested, is a gure who bears comparison with Elijah. Lv. 11:20-23 distinguishes locusts as the only winged insects not to be treated as unclean. eir use as food is also noted in other ancient sources,24 notably among other wilderness dwellers at Qumran (CD 12:14). ‘Wild honey’ is presumably that produced in the wild without any role for a beekeeper.25 e presence of honey in John’s diet suggests a simple and self-sufficient diet, but not any rigid asceticism. ough it is true that locusts did not count as meat (m. Ḥul. 8:1), any discussion of vegetarianism or oaths of abstinence, or any insistence that John has distanced himself from the sacri cial cult of the temple, is out of place here: Matthew makes no claim here that on principle he refused all food items other than locusts and wild honey.26 In his linking of John and Jesus, it might not be too imaginative to see a parallelism between John’s abstemious patterns in the wilderness and Jesus’ (temporary) fasting in the wilderness (4:1-2). 3:5 e opening τότε (‘then’) ties the thread of action back to v. 2, aer the descriptive aside of vv. 3-4.27 Compared to Mk. 1:5, Matthew brings Jerusalem to the head of the list (dropping Mark’s ‘all’), personi es the city (‘Jerusalem’ rather than ‘the Jerusalemites’) to conform to the idiom of 2:3, drops ‘region’ from Mark’s ‘all the Judean region’ (so the adjective becomes a noun: ‘all Judea’), and adds ‘and all the region along the Jordan’ (a phrase found in almost identical form in Lk. 3:3, and so probably adopted into Matthew’s text from a second source).

If in 2:3 Matthew anticipates the later hostility of Jerusalem to Jesus (see there), he provides a balance here by pointing to an openness on the part of Jerusalem to John’s ministry.28 A good part of ‘all the region along the Jordan’ is included in ‘all Judea’,29 but the phrase is likely to be included to indicate that the in uence of John’s ministry extended east of the Jordan (in Perea — cf. the discussion in v. 1 above). Since Matthew’s uses of ‘all’ have to do with people coming from all over the region (cf. n. 28), his assertion is less hyperbolic than Mark’s (where, taken literally, every single person would be intended), but Matthew is still claiming a massive response to the preaching of John. is nds indirect support in Mt. 21:23-27 and from Jos., Ant. 18.116-19. e statement of the scope of John’s in uence is echoed for Jesus in 4:24-25 (note at the end of the list ‘Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan’), but for Jesus the scope is extended to include ‘Galilee and the Decapolis’, and even ‘the whole of Syria’. 3:6 Since Matthew’s telling does not mention a call to baptism, it does not speci cally prepare for the report here of John baptising (cf. the discussion at v. 1); the confessing of sins links back to the call to repent in v. 1. John’s baptism apparently marks in a concrete manner God’s reception of the act of repentance made by the penitent, as sin is confessed in the presence of God’s representative (it will be of no signi cance whether any wider public heard the confessions). OT rituals using water are always concerned with ritual puri cation and not with sin and guilt. e connection with sin and guilt surfaces in calls for metaphorical self-washing (Is. 1:16-17; Je. 4:14) and where there is interest in the possibility of a metaphorical washing by God.30 Jewish texts of the period may take us a step closer to John’s baptism by linking literal washing with moral cleansing, but this remains uncertain.31

It is unlikely that Jewish proselyte baptism, which is frequently compared with John’s baptism, had emerged as a Jewish practice this early; even when it did emerge, it was self-baptism in the presence of witnesses, and not baptism by another. ough intelligible in a rst-century Jewish context, John’s baptism was sufficiently distinctive to justify the nickname ‘the Baptist’. Ancient bathing practices frequently involved effusion or effusion with partial immersion, and this fact has led to renewed support for the view that the mode of John’s baptism was effusion, but immersion remains the more likely mode. ‘e wilderness of Judea’ has been a precise enough indication of John’s location in v. 1, but for baptism one needs water, so Matthew now supplies a more precise location. (e location for the baptisms provides some clari cation of the logic of a separate listing of the Jordan region in v. 5.) It is not clear whether we are to envisage John at a stable location near the Jordan or whether Matthew thinks in terms of John itinerating in the wilderness and taking with him to the Jordan those who were ready to respond (perhaps the latter). Certainly for Matthew, and probably for the historical Baptist, no appeal should be made to any symbolic crossing of the Jordan as though to make a fresh entry into the Promised Land. Christian baptism, anticipated in 28:18, is to be seen as a development from John’s baptism. It is not entirely clear why baptism plays no role in the Synoptic account of Jesus’ ministry (contrast Jn. 3:22; 4:1-2), but the best suggestion seems to be, though this is not worked out in any systematic way, that there is a general assumption that those who respond to Jesus’ ministry have already been baptized by John.32 is passage views Jesus’ ministry as endorsing and building on that of John, and the Synoptists have no desire to set Christian baptism in competition with that of John.

(Christian baptism emerges in 28:18 precisely because of the expansion of vision at that point to include the peoples of the nonJewish nations.) 3:7-8 Matthew has the same unlikely combination of Pharisees and Sadducees in 16:1, 6, 11, 12,33 where they represent ‘an evil and adulterous generation’ against whose teaching Jesus warns his disciples. ough they are radically different in their views, Matthew can lump the Pharisees and Sadducees together because they shared a hostile stance towards the early Christian movement. On the Pharisees see the comments at 5:20. On the Sadducees see those at 22:23. eir appearance here is part of Matthew’s parallelling of John and Jesus. Other Gospel tradition is also aware of tension between John and Jewish leadership groups.34 ough the most common view — the correct one, I think — is that Matthew is responsible for changing a general audience here into a speci c one, there has been some recent vigorous support for an original with ‘Sadducees’ and, along with this, for the view that ἐρχομένος ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα αὐτοῦ (both in the original and in Matthew) refers not to coming to John for baptism, but only to coming to where he was baptising, to see what was going on. e main difficulty with this is that if baptism is not being sought, then there is nothing to link John’s question to.35 It also means that the challenge to ‘produce fruit that is worthy of repentance’ can be seen only as a renewed call to repent and not (as seems more natural) as a demand that the repentance called for in v. 1 and connoted by baptismal confession (cf. v. 6) be carried through into a genuine change of life.36 An original that mentioned one or more leadership groups here is oen supported by the claim that ‘brood of vipers’ is too harsh for general reference to those responding to John’s ministry. Perhaps the harshness re ects John’s scepticism about the authenticity of the

kind of mass response he was encountering.37 at John’s call seems to assume that repentance is a general (universal?) need suggests that he would have no qualms about using colourful language to label his hearers as sinners. ‘Offspring of vipers’ (γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν) is quite similar in imagery to the LXX phrase ‘offspring of asps’ (ἔκγονα ἀσπίδων), which is regularly concerned with the mortal threat posed by snake venom.38 Matthew’s Jesus will label the Pharisees ‘offspring of vipers’ in 12:34 and 23:33.39 In the latter, the imagery is linked with the killing and crucifying of prophets, sages, and scribes who are to be sent by Jesus. Matthew probably thinks already of the threat to Jesus’ own life which will be posed by the Jewish leaders. As already suggested, coming for baptism is ‘[an attempt] to ee from the wrath to come’. God’s ‘wrath’ has not been mentioned to this point,40 but it is implicit in v. 1 in the call to repent in view of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. ough the motif of God’s judgment is prominent in Matthew,41 God’s wrath is not mentioned again.42 e signi cance of the call to bear fruit is noted above; Matthew will take up the topic again in v. 10. He is clear that the baptismal marking of God’s acceptance of the act of repentance is subject to the reality of that repentance coming to expression in subsequent life. e μετανο- root plays only a minor role in the LXX in relation to repentance43 since it almost never represents šûb, the root used dominantly to speak about repentance in the Hebrew OT.44 e idea that God graciously provides opportunity for repentance, which comes through strongly in those LXX texts which do use the μετανο- root, is, however, pertinent to John’s call. John has much more in mind than the regular need of even the most godly for confession and restoration;45 his call is for a

fundamental change of life direction. As Davies and Allison put it, ‘Israel is called to turn to God and away from sin, to arise in moral earnestness from a sinful slumber and to gain a wakeful heart and sober thought’.46 As with the major OT prophets, John’s call is based on a conviction that at both the national and the individual level there had been a turning away from God. ere is, however, no basis in the materials which have survived for determining speci c contours for John’s perception of the nature and scale of the apostasy. If John’s uniqueness had lain in his particular vision of what God required, we might expect that traditions might have survived to leave some trace of this. In their absence we can best illuminate his call from the challenge issued by his OT predecessors in the prophetic role. In the Matthean context the content of John’s call to repentance merges into that of Jesus’ call as it emerges in the unfolding of the Gospel, and this in turn merges into the call to discipleship in the context of the postresurrection church. As was the case with some of the OT prophets before him, John’s call gained pressing urgency in light of an imminently expected act of judgment on the part of God. 3:9 In the present context ‘we have Abraham as [our] father’ is being considered as an alternative to ‘fruit worthy of repentance’ (not as an alternative to baptism). What is being challenged is a misplaced con dence in God’s goodwill, a con dence based on the ancestral link to Abraham and seen as obviating the need to take seriously the call for change.47 We ought not to think that any downgrading of the importance of Abrahamic descent is intended (cf. 1:1). What is being denied is not privilege but immunity from God’s outrage at the abuse of privilege. A wordplay in Aramaic or Hebrew between ‘children’ (or rather ‘sons’) and ‘stones’ is oen claimed in a postulated original. e

terms are suggestively close,48 and this would explain why (beyond their presence in the wilderness near the Jordan) ‘stones’ are chosen to form the image. Also, or instead, commentators oen appeal to Is. 51:1-2, where Abraham is the rock from which Israel has been hewn. Is the imagery in Matthew of turning rocks into children or of rocks bearing children? If it is the latter,49 then the rocks are the mothers and Abraham is the father, which rather spoils the link with Is. 51:12; if it is the former, then this also hardly suits a link with Is. 51:12.50 e possible wordplay in Aramaic or Hebrew stands in favour of an image of rocks becoming children, but the image of rocks, yet more barren than Sarah, bearing children to Abraham is yet more likely. e latter would pick up effectively on the emphasis in Gn. 12–22 on the freedom and power of God not to be constrained by the limits of natural possibility.51 e promise to Abraham stands, but if necessary God can call into being alternative children of Abraham to replace those who would make presumptuous use of their claim on God. ough there is not the slightest hint here of Gentiles replacing Jews, the opening to the Gentiles which is later to emerge is not out of keeping with the freedom of God which is asserted here. 3:10 e image is of the blade of the axe placed against the base of the trunk (i.e., where trunk and root meet) in order to judge accurately the rst strike of the felling operation. Are we to think of a single axe or many coordinated axes, with each tree said to be in a ready-to-be-felled situation? Perhaps the latter: each tree is in an ‘axe to the root’ situation. For the axe as a symbol of judgment cf. Is. 10:15. e felling of trees is a prophetic image of judgment in a number of OT texts.52 We are given a gnomic statement of the

culling principle to be operated: if the fruit is good, keep the tree; otherwise dispose of it. For the expectation of good fruit cf. Is. 5:2; Je. 2:21; 11:16-17. e theme of good and bad fruit is taken up by the Matthean Jesus.53 Destruction by re is a universal image of judgment, and is oen used by the Matthean Jesus.54 In a land where fuel wood was in short supply and therefore valuable, the wood (even if of poor quality) would in fact be kept as rewood (aer any necessary drying), but to draw attention to this lengthening out of the process of destruction would detract from the intended urgency. 3:11 In Matthew’s hands vv. 11-12 continue to be addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees. Compared to the Markan and Lukan parallels, where the audience is general, there is, therefore, an accentuation of the aspect of challenge and even threat. Similarly, the closer proximity between vv. 10 and 12 than is the case for the parallels in Lk. 3:9-17 will throw the emphasis in v. 12 onto the prospect of judgment. Matthew’s ‘for repentance’ keeps the need for genuine repentance (from v. 8) rmly in focus. For Matthew, vv. 1112 are an expansion of vv. 7-10. V. 11 provides an agent for the imminently expected activity of God of v. 10. For the hearers ‘aer me’ picks up on the anticipation of v. 10, but for the reader it points back as well to the heralding role of v. 3. Pressed about implementing it in more than a super cial manner, the Pharisees and Sadducees may feel inclined not to take John’s challenge seriously, but he warns that another, who is of much greater importance,55 will validate the signi cance of his (John’s) warning, or indeed give effect to his warning.56 e scale of the status difference between John and the coming agent of God is gured by the image of John’s being unworthy to carry his sandals.57 Carrying the clothing of another is clearly a servant role. It became

a rabbinic image of self-humiliation.58 Smelly and dirty footwear could be a particularly unpleasant part of the clothing to have to deal with.59 John inverts an obvious image of humiliation to express graphically the status differential involved. e status claimed for the one to come is a buildup for what is to be said of his activity. e medium of John’s baptising activity is only water, but what is coming involves baptising by means of the Holy Spirit and re. Despite frequent claims to the contrary, no connection with Christian water baptism is at all evident. It is for the sake of the parallel with John’s activity that this fresh activity is spoken of as baptising: the formal parallelism underlines the material contrast. Because Mk. 1:8 mentions only ‘the Holy Spirit’, there is a question as to the original form. Did it speak only of a baptism with re that has been Christianised into a baptism with the Holy Spirit? Or has Mark trimmed down an original with both re and the Spirit? Or did the Matthean form gain ‘and with re’ when it was linked with the material of v. 12? e rst of these options is to be ruled out as not satisfactorily doing justice to John the Baptist’s concern with both the mercy and judgment of God.60 A choice between the other two is more difficult. e probabilities here are caught up in turn in the question of whether a single activity is involved, ‘with the Holy Spirit and with re’, or whether separate activities are intended, one involving the Holy Spirit and the other involving re. e latter will be accepted below as the more likely. If so, it seems best to suggest that at the point of union with v. 12 the baptismal imagery has been expanded to include as well the ery judgment anticipated there.

We will not rehearse here the variety of ways in which baptism in Spirit and re have been understood.61 e question of whether a single baptising activity is involved is of key importance. Webb has recently pointed to the way in which discussions favouring reference to a single baptism have regularly but inadvertently

distorted the frame of reference for the discussion by conducting it in terms of the noun ‘baptism’ rather than in terms of the verb ‘baptize’ which is what is actually found in the text.62 While a baptism ‘with the Holy Spirit and re’ is more naturally taken as a single baptism, to baptize ‘with the Holy Spirit and with re’ is just as naturally referred to two distinct (but probably related) activities. In the context, the ‘Holy’ in ‘the Holy Spirit’ is naturally linked with the repentance called for by John and with the bearing of fruit that be ts it, while the ‘ re’ links with the consuming re of vv. 10 and 12. So while it is possible to nd rûaḥ (‘spirit/wind/breath’) linked both to puri cation and destruction in the OT63 and there is the same double possibility for re imagery,64 it is altogether more natural in the present context to distinguish between the function of the Holy Spirit as puri catory and of re as destructive. At Qumran ‘the spirit of holiness’ is connected with puri cation from sin (1QS 3:7-9; 4:20-21), as is even ‘your holy spirit’ (1QH 16:20). John anticipates that the changed life begun by those who respond genuinely to his call for repentance and baptism will nd its culmination in a purifying work of the Spirit as bestowed by the one to come, but this coming one will also implement the threatened judgment on those who fail to respond in the required manner. Bestowal of the Spirit is not a normal part of Jewish messianic expectation. But it constitutes no difficulty here. John is not focussed on Davidic royal messianism: he is anticipating not a particular de ned gure of Jewish expectation but rather an agent of God’s decisive intervention in judgment and mercy whose speci city remains largely to be de ned by future developments. Of course, Matthew thinks in terms, partly, of Davidic messianism, but it is only a small step to linking the OT expectation of an eschatological outpouring of the Spirit65 with the equally OT

expectation of a Spirit-anointed messiah66 and to thinking in terms of a Spirit-dispensing messiah.67 In Matthew ‘you’ in v. 11 is focussed on the Pharisees and Sadducees. Despite John’s critical stance towards them, he still holds out to them the possibility of encountering the activity of the one to come as either gracious or condemnatory. 3:12 ere is an awkwardness about the linkage of v. 11 and v. 12, but it is not caused by the use of a redundant personal pronoun aer a relative pronoun68 since τὸ πτύον (‘the winnowing shovel’) has no attached personal pronoun. Despite the intervening clause, we should probably think of two οὗ (‘whose’) clauses set in parallel (‘whose sandals’/‘whose winnowing shovel’). e πτύον was a tool used in the winnowing process, sometimes for tossing the grain in the air to separate the seed (depending on the crop) and regularly to gather up into their respective piles the grain for storing and the chaff for disposal.69 διακαθαριεῖ is literally ‘he will cleanse thoroughly’. τὴν ἅλωνα is most naturally taken to mean ‘the threshing oor’, but it could refer to the grain sitting on the threshing oor. e most likely image is that of clearing the threshing oor aer the winnowing has separated the grain and the chaff, but the imagery has been taken to refer to the winnowing process: he will cleanse the threshed grain from its chaff by the winnowing process.70 Even if we opt for the former image here (as Luke evidently does), the Matthean form of the imagery remains less certain than the Lukan form. In Luke only the nal stage of gathering up the already winnowed materials is in view; in Matthew this may also be so, or a wider process embracing both winnowing (signalled only by the mention of the winnowing shovel) and gathering may be envisaged, but with a de nite emphasis on the process being seen

through to its nal goal of gathered grain and disposed-of chaff. In the Matthean setting, the address to the Pharisees and Sadducees, with its focus on the issue of authentic repentance, along with the parables of the wheat and tares and the drag net to come in 13:2430, 36-43, 47-50, makes it more likely that the imagery remains broader.71 While John can point to the importance of bearing fruit worthy of repentance, he probably thinks that another will decide whether this has really happened and, having separated the truly repentant from those who are not (winnowing), will see the respective categories of people to their ultimate destinies (clearing the threshing oor). e winnowing shovel in his hand recalls the axe already placed against the root of the tree of v. 10. For a third and nal time John’s address mentions re.72 ἀσβέστῳ (‘inextinguishable’) underlines the nality and irreversibility of what is to happen. e word protrudes somewhat from the imagery as an allegorical element designed to evoke images of the re of God’s irreversible nal judgment.73 As Matthew’s story unfolds, John’s expectation of the imminent arrival of another gure proves justi ed, but the one who is to come is not easily identi able from John’s description. All the elements John attributes to the gure will emerge in connection with Jesus, but they are basically relegated to a future role rather than constituting the immediate agenda of his ministry.74

1. Since Mt. 3:7-10 (parallelled in Lk. 3:7-9) is not found in Mark and can hardly have been transmitted other than in connection with some account of the Baptist’s ministry, it is clear that Matthew and Luke had access to a second source. Since this second source seems to have had very

little in uence on either Matthew or Luke, it may be that the second source was substantially the same as the Markan form. 2. e Lukan form begins, ‘He would say (ἔλεγεν) to the crowds who went out to be baptized by him’. Luke has plural forms (preparing for Lk. 3:10-14) for Matthew’s ‘fruit worthy’ in 3:8, prefers the idiom ‘begin to say’ (ἄρξησθε λέγειν) to Matthew’s ‘think of saying’ (δόξητε λέγειν) in v. 9, and lacks Luke’s ‘indeed’ (καί) at the beginning of v. 10. 3. Because Luke follows Mark for a substantial part of his equivalent to Mt. 3:11, Matthew provides the only evidence for most of the source form here, but there is nothing to suggest that he has introduced any change of signi cance. ‘For repentance’ (εἰς μετάνοιαν) is Matthew’s addition rather than Luke’s abbreviation. e main difference between the Markan and Matthean forms of v. 11 is that whereas the Markan form has in sequence a statement about the greatness of the greater one to come and a statement about his superior baptising activity, these are merged in the Matthean form, with the comparison of baptisms taking the dominant role. In the Markan form the baptism is ‘with the Spirit’ and not ‘with the Holy Spirit and with re’, and the imagery involves an untying of sandals rather than the carrying of sandals. In v. 12 Matthew has reproduced his source without change (Lk. 3:17 is identical, apart from some grammatical and stylistic improvement). 4. Häfner, ‘Jene Tage’, 45-54. e other main suggestions are that the phrase provides a loose connecting link and that there is no particular referent for ‘those days’; or that it refers to the times in which the revelation of the kingdom of God takes place (with these times understood either to begin with the ministry of John or also to embrace the infancy period). Given Matthew’s borrowing of language for John from Jesus in 3:2, Luz, Matthew 1–7, 166, may be right to suggest that the phrase ‘in those days’ may be borrowed from Mk. 1:9. 5. In the absence of the Lukan infancy materials and with no Matthean indication of the length of John’s ministry, it is, however, not clear how the reader is to divide the time in which Jesus lives in Nazareth between time prior to the start of John’s ministry and time aer this ministry is under way. 6. Immediately in common is κηρυσσ[… λεγ]… μετανοείτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘preach[… say]… ‘Repent. For the kingdom of heaven has drawn near’). In addition, ἀπὸ τότε (‘from that time on’)

functions somewhat analogously to ἐν δὲ ἐκείναις ἡμέραις (‘in those days’) and ἤρξατο (‘began’) to παραγίνεται (‘came’ [using historic present]). 7. ere is a certain arti cial formality, or perhaps better a playfulness, about this parallelism; Matthew presumably uses it to prepare his readers for the various cross-echoes which he establishes between John and Jesus. 8. Cf. Mk. 1:4, ‘John the Baptist came… preaching a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.’ 9. John is mentioned in Slavonic Josephus and in the Mandaean literature, as well as in several extracanonical gospels, but these references have little claim to be independent of the NT materials (see, e.g., Webb, John, 43-45, 77-84). 10. In the ancient world the herald necessarily had a vital role in public life and functioned in relation to many spheres of life. e image of the herald of the gods was patterned aer that of the herald of the king. In Jewish and Christian sources preference for a range of other terms limits κῆρυξ to a minor role. 11. Similar motivation for the wilderness connection is perhaps evident in Acts 21:38 and Jos., War 2.258-60, 261-63; Ant. 20.118, 167-68; Vita 1112; and cf. Ant. 20.97-98. 12. What is involved here is quite different from the occasional OT pattern of consulting a prophet (e.g., 1 Sa. 9:6; 1 Ki. 22:5-28). It is a little closer to the gathering of groups in the wilderness noted in the texts listed in the previous note, but here the prophetic gure gathers the group and then leads them out into the wilderness. 13. Matthew may also have been in uenced by the mention in his tradition (see 3:5) of Jerusalem and Judea as the place of origin of (most of) those who came to him. ough Matthew does connect ‘Judea’ and ‘Judah’ (see 2:1, 6), he will be thinking in terms of the then-current boundaries of Judea and not the ancient boundaries of Judah. So there is no basis for raising as a difficulty the fact that the Jordan nowhere touches the ancient tribal area of Judah (in any case, see the discussion at 3:6). 14. See Lk. 3:3; Jn. 1:23, 28; 3:23, 26; 10:40. 15. It is wrong, however, to think that this change takes forgiveness away from John’s baptism: the change is concerned to bring together the

signi cance of John and Jesus, not to separate. 16. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:289. 17. Mk. 1:2-3 has a composite citation in which a con ation from Mal. 3:1 and Ex. 23:20 prefaces the Isaiah material (the citation precedes the introduction of John); Lk. 3:4-6 extends the Isaiah quote to end with ‘and all esh shall see the salvation of God’. Matthew and Luke make later use (11:10; 7:27) of the Mal. 3:1/Ex. 23:20 con ation in words which are identical to Mark’s, except for the addition of a nal phrase, ‘before you’. Christians were not alone in interpreting Is. 40:1 in an eschatological manner: see 1QS 8:12-16; Sir. 48:24; Bar. 5:7; As. Mos. 10:4; 1 Enoch 1:5; Lv. Rab. on 1:14; Dt. Rab. on 4:11; Pesiq. R. 29; 30; 33. 18. Cf. Gundry, Matthew, 44. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:292 n. 13, object that 2:17 is not part of the story of Jesus, but see the discussion of that verse offered above. 19. Nolland, Luke, 1:143. 20. e phrase would more usually be rendered ‘John himself ’. In this rendering, the role of αὐτός would have to be to distinguish John from either the one whose coming he announced or from the prophesied voice with whom, nonetheless, he is ultimately to be equated. On this understanding, αὐτός functions to mark the transition from citation back to narrative text, but it probably should not be represented in English translation. Either approach is possible, but the use of τότε (‘then’) in the transition to v. 5 makes better sense with ‘this John’. 21. When John comes into the story again in 11:2, he does so simply as John. But when Jesus speaks to the crowds about John, he is freshly introduced in the quoted words as ‘John the Baptist’ (used twice), and this is then resumed with ‘John’ (when Jesus speaks about John again in 21:25, the reference is immediately to John). In quoted words of Herod Antipas, John is again introduced as ‘John the Baptist’ in 14:2 and then called John in the explanatory narrative to follow. On the lips of a fresh speaker John is ‘John the Baptist’ again in 14:8, but ‘John’ in the narrative sequel. With fresh speakers John is ‘John the Baptist’ again in 16:14. Perhaps for emphasis, John is ‘John the Baptist’ again in 17:13 in the narrative, indicating that the

disciples had understood that Jesus was identifying John the Baptist as the expected Elijah. 22. Esp. in the Hebrew text Sir. 40:4 makes a similar contrast (‘garment of hair’). 23. For ‘a strip of hide around his waist’ the language is very close, but the Hebrew ʾîš baʿal śēʿār (lit. ‘man, lord of hair’) is ambiguous. e reference could be to a hairy man (so the LXX and NRSV), but ʾîš śāʿir is how this is expressed in Gn. 27:11, or it could be to a man clothed in a hairy garb (so RSV). e prominence accorded to Elijah’s mantle (1 Ki. 19:13, 19; 2:8, 13, 14) suggests that a hair-cloth mantle may have been one of the two identifying features of Elijah (the expression ‘hairy mantle’ is found in Gn. 25:25 and is used in Zc. 13:4 in reference to the distinctive garb of a prophet). A hair-cloth mantle makes a nice coordinated pair with the strip of hide which would have kept the garment in place. 24. See 11QTemple 4; m. Ḥul. 3:7; m. Ter. 10:9; Pliny, Nat. hist. 6.35; 7.2; Str-B 1:98-100. 25. See Jdg. 14:8; 1 Sa. 14:25. Dt. 32:13 and Ps. 81:16 may also have ‘wild honey’ in mind. 26. Mt. 11:18 comes closer with its language of abstention, but since meat is not mentioned (nor wine for that matter, but wine is probably implied), it is likely that only a committed basic simplicity is in view. Luke’s ‘not eating bread and not drinking wine’ (7:33) is likely to be secondary. Since it probably contrasts John’s immediate living off the land with the use of normal food items which are the product of signi cant human investment in cultivation and processing, the t with Mt. 3:4 suggests that Luke’s gloss may well be historically accurate. Cf. Bannus, ‘who dwelt in the wilderness, wearing only such clothes as trees provided, feeding on such things as grew of themselves, and using frequent ablutions of cold water’ (Jos., Life 11). 27. On the likely role of the sets of uses of τότε in chaps. 2–4 in establishing a parallelism between the sections dealing with Herod and Jesus, John and Jesus, and the devil and Jesus, see at Mt. 2:7. 28. e dropped ‘all’ does not hint at only a limited response by Jerusalem. Rather, a use of ‘all’ with Jerusalem would not quite match the

other two uses, where the full range of an extended geographical area is in view. 29. As, of course, ‘Jerusalem’ is included in ‘all Judea’. 30. Ps. 51:7-9; Is. 4:2-6; Ez. 36:25-26, 33; 37:23; Je. 33:8; and cf. Rev. 7:14; Jub. 1:23. 31. Adam and Eve 4–5 proposes standing in a river for many days as an ascetic act of penance, but makes no appeal to cleansing imagery. Sib. Or. 4:162-69 exhorts to ‘wash your whole bodies in ever- owing rivers’, but it remains unclear whether this washing is metaphorical or literal and, if literal, whether the linked call for forgiveness indicates that the washing is to be from sin or whether it is the combination of turning away from wickedness and observing cultic purity which provides the basis for entreating God for forgiveness. e washing in the addition to Test. Levi 2:3 found in the eleventh-century manuscript from the Monastery of Koutloumous on Mount Athos (discussed by Webb, John, 116-20, who argues for an early date on the basis of partial parallels with 4QTLevi ara 1:810) is certainly literal, but there is the same question about whether the bathing is concerned with moral puri cation or whether it relates to cultic purity to be set alongside repentance. In none of these cases is baptism administered by another, as with John’s baptism. 32. is becomes explicit in Lk. 7:29-30. See the discussion in Nolland, Luke, 1:342-43. 33. On the various pairings that Matthew uses in relation to Jewish leaders see the comments at 2:4. is is the only Matthean pairing in which both terms refer to members of religious parties. 34. See Mk. 11:27-33 and pars.; Lk. 7:29-30. 35. Talk of irony and sarcasm does not really overcome this difficulty. 36. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:304, are aware of this difficulty; their suggestion that ‘this inconcinnity could be the outcome of imperfect editing’ is hardly satisfactory. It is of course easy to imagine Matthew thinking that John’s challenging words might have caused his visitors to abandon their intention to be baptized by John. Kazmierski, ‘Stones’, 30-32, seeks to drive a wedge between tradition and redaction and claims that the thrust of v. 9 (which is taken to point to the

ineffectiveness of standard Jewish channels of salvation) means that the call for good fruit in v. 8 can have nothing to do with Torah obedience (though he admits that this is how the Evangelists understand it). But this is to misuse v. 9 and totally distort the focus of the materials. He is in uenced signi cantly by Merklein, ‘Umkehrpredigt’, 29-46, for whom the necessary fruit is the actual water baptism of John as an expression of a repentance which involves the radical surrender of all prior certainty of salvation. Only in such abandonment is there a nal chance of salvation. Lutheran visions of law and grace are more in uential here than a natural reading of the relevant texts. 37. What seems more striking to me is John’s apparent surprise that people were seeking to ee the coming wrath, despite the fact that the challenge to do so is the thrust of his ministry. Cf. the speculation in Nolland, Luke, 1:147-48, that John initially expected the response to his ministry to come mainly from those groups who were already in the wilderness because they were alert to the need for renewal in the wilderness. ere may be a link between John’s surprise here and the question raised in the discussion of Mt. 3:1 above about how Jesus gained an audience in his wilderness location. 38. See Is. 11:8; 14:29; 30:6; cf. 59:5. 39. Mt. 23:33 is even more strongly linked, with ‘how can you escape (ϕύγητε) from the judgment of gehenna’. 40. But the wrath of Herod has been mentioned (Mt. 2:16). ough a different root is involved (ἐθυμώθη; τῆς ὀργῆς), it is possible that there is another instance of Matthew’s playful cross-linking to be identi ed in the shared sequence τότε (‘then’)… ἰδών (‘seeing’) + reference to wrath found in 2:16 and 3:5-7. 41. See the remarks at Mt. 5:21. 42. e related verb is found in the imagery of two parables (Mt. 18:34; 22:7). 43. Only Je. 8:6; 31:19; Wis. 5:3; Sir. 17:24; 48:15 for the verb; and Wis. 11:23; 12:10, 19; Sir. 44:16 for the noun. 44. e one exception appears to be Is. 46:8, but here repentance is not in view in the Hebrew text, and a use of šûb seems to have been rendered

twice into the Greek. 45. For the role of this kind of repentance in maintaining one’s status in the covenant community see Test. Ash. 1:6. B. Šab. 153a commends daily repentance on the basis that any day might be the day of one’s death and therefore the time when one needs to be ready to face God. 46. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:306. 47. Sir. 5:4-7 criticises a similar sentiment (v. 5: ‘Do not be so con dent of forgiveness that you add sin to sin’). 48. Hebrew: bānîm/ʾăbānîm; Aramaic benayyāʾ/ʾbnayyāʾ. 49. See the particular development of this interpretation in Davies and Allison, Matthew, 308. 50. e proposal by Seitz, ‘Stones’, 247-254, to link the stones with the twelves stones set up by Joshua at the River Jordan is quite unlikely. 51. A similar freedom of action stands behind the threat in Ex. 32:10 to destroy the Israelites and to make a great nation out of Moses alone. 52. See Is. 6:13; 10:33-34 (cf. v. 15); 32:19; Ez. 31:12; Dn. 4:14. 53. See Mt. 7:16-20; 12:33; and cf. 13:8, 26; 21:19, 41, 43. 54. See Mt. 5:22; 7:19; 13:40, 42, 50; 18:8, 9; 25:41. Only 18:8, 9 are not distinctive to Matthew. 55. A good deal of unnecessary effort has been expended in looking for a speci c background for ὁ ἰσχυρότερος (‘the mightier one’). e meaning of the term here is controlled by the comparison with John: ‘than me’. at God is termed ‘mighty’, that ‘might’ is associated with the expected messiah, and that Jesus is elsewhere said to be mightier than Satan, are all irrelevant in the present context. 56. As a piece of freestanding tradition about John the Baptist the present statement has at times been claimed to refer to a coming of God, but no satisfactory account has been offered for the oddity of John needing to say that God is ‘the one who is greater than I’ (ὁ ἰσχυρότερός μου); and while in a larger frame God could be conceived of as, metaphorically, having sandals (Pss. 60:8; 108:9), the interactive image in the present text calls for a gure who might more literally be conceived of as wearing sandals.

57. It is just possible that βαστάσαι here means ‘take off ’ (as involving liing away from the foot) and that the intended imagery is the same as in Mk. 1:7; Lk. 3:16. B. Pes. 4a combines the imagery of taking off and carrying. If, as seems likely, Matthew intends a different image, it is unclear which of the images is the more original, but nothing of signi cance is at stake. 58. See b. Sanh. 62b; b. ʿErub. 27b; etc. where a rabbi offers to carry the clothing of another to the bathhouse if some conundrum is resolved by the other. 59. At least when on the owner’s feet, the particular offensiveness of handling footwear seems to be what lies behind the interest in sparing all but the Gentile slave the obligation of complying with a directive to remove the sandals of another (see Str-B 1:121). 60. See Nolland, Luke, 1:151-52. 61. See Nolland, Luke, 152-53. 62. Webb, John, 289-91. e discussion in Nolland, Luke, 1:152-53, is no exception. 63. Together in Je. 4:11-12; of purgative cleansing in Is. 4:4; and as a means of judgment in Is. 11:4; 29:6; 30:28; Ez. 13:13; etc. 64. e double possibility for the re is present in the imagery of the re ner’s re which destroys the dross but puri es the precious metals (see Is. 1:25; Ez. 22:18-22; Zc. 13:9; Mal. 3:2-3). 65. See Is. 32:15; 44:3; Ez. 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28. 66. See Is. 11:2; cf. 42:1 and 61:1. 67. A closely related passage is 4Q521 2:1-13, where mention of the messiah is linked with allusion to Is. 62:1; 26:19; etc. and the clause ‘upon the poor he will place his spirit’ is used. 68. As has been frequently proposed (e.g., recently, by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:319-20). 69. See Webb, John, 295-98. 70. As far as I am aware, there is no instance of διακαθαρίζειν used in this way. 71. Noting that in the image only the chaff is not said to be ‘his’, Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:319, cite to good effect a rabbinic parable about a

eld being sown for the sake not of the straw, nor of the chaff, but of the grain (Midr. Ps. on 2:12). 72. It is much more normal to think of chaff as being blown away by the wind (e.g., Job 21:18; Pss. 1:4; 35:5; Is. 17:13; Dn. 2:35; Ho. 13:3; Zp. 2:2) since under normal circumstances that will be what happens to most of it. But that which remains on the threshing oor would need to be dealt with as in our image. And it is the fate of this part of the chaff which offers the image that is useful to John. To represent re as the fate of all the chaff is akin to describing the re as ‘inextinguishable’. Schwarz’s speculation (‘ἄχυρον’, 264-71), that an original reference to chaff being blown away has become corrupted, is quite unnecessary. 73. Cf. Is. 34:10; 66:24; Je. 7:20; Jdt. 16:17; Mt. 18:8; 25:41; Mk. 9:43; Jude 7; Rev. 14:10-11. 74. is degree of mismatch stands in favour of the fundamental historical accuracy of the report of John’s preaching.

IV. PREPARATION (3:13–4:12) A. Jesus Comes for Baptism by John (3:13-17) 13en

Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan, to John, in order to be baptized by him. 14But aJohn tried to prevent him, saying, ‘I need to be “baptized” by you; and you are coming to me?’ 15Jesus answered him, ‘Allow [me to be baptized] now; for in such manner it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.’ en he allows him.b Jesus had been baptized, he came up from the water cimmediately. en the heavens were opened dto him,d and he saw ethe Spirit of Gode f coming down [in a form] likef a dove and alighting on him. 17en a voice from heaven said, ‘is is my beloved Son, in whom I have come to delight.’ 16When

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e name is omitted by ‫ *א‬B sa. It may be a clarifying expansion. b. Sys, c complete the sense with an equivalent to βαπτισθηναι (‘to be baptized’). c. Omitted by 1391 etc. ss, probably because it seemed to read oddly in the present context (see below). d-d. Omitted by ‫ *א‬B vgmss sys, c sa, but probably to be accepted: the addition of ‘to him’ seems an unlikely way for a scribe to conform the present text to the private revelation assumed for Mark and Luke, whereas its omission is understandable as allowing the text to express a simpler idea. e-e. ough the articles are present in almost all forms of the text apart from ‫ א‬B, it is likely that the form without the articles is original. e form without the articles represents the standard LXX designation; it is easy to see how the articles would have been preferred later.

f-f. D pc it vgmss have the interesting reading καταβαινοντα εκ του ουρανου ως (‘coming down out of heaven as’), which is clearly an attempt to resolve the difficulty as to how to take the comparison with a dove (see below). Bibliography Ahirika, E. A., ‘e eology of the Matthean Baptism Narrative’, Biblebhashyam 18 (1992), 131-39. • Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘e Baptism of Jesus and a New Dead Sea Scroll’, BAR 18 (1992), 58-60. • Capes, D. B., ‘Intertextual Echoes in the Matthean Baptismal Narrative’, BBR 9 (1999), 3749. • Chevallier, M.-A., ‘L’Apologie du baptême d’eau à la n du premier siècle: Introduction secondaire de l’etiologie dans les récits du baptême de Jésus’, NTS 32 (1986), 528-43. • Cothenet, E., ‘Le baptême selon S. Matthieu’, SNTU 9 (1984), 79-94. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die Übereinstimmungen der Perikope von der Taufe Jesu: Mt 1,9-11 par Mt 3,13-17 par Lk 3,21-22’, SNTU 24 (1999), 5-34. • Garnet, P., ‘e Baptism of Jesus and the Son of Man Idea’, JSNT 9 (1980), 49-65. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 21-41. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 86-155. • Hill, D., ‘Son and Servant: An Essay on Matthean Christology’, JSNT 6 (1980), 2-16. • Hollenbach, P. W., ‘e Conversion of Jesus: From Baptizer to Healer’, ANRW 2.25.1 (1982), 196-218. • Huber, K., ‘ὡς περιστερά: Zu einem Motiv in den Tauferzählungen der Evangelien’, ProtBib 4 (1995), 87-101. • Jankowski, G., ‘Messiastaufe: Markus 1, Matthäus 3, Lukas 3: Die Taufe des Messias im Jordan’, TK 35 (1987), 17-44. • LentzenDeis, F., ‘e Gospel between Myth and Historicity — As Demonstrated in the Accounts about the Baptism of Jesus’, TantY (1980-81), 165-86. • Manns, F., ‘La symbolique animale évoque-telle l’Esprit Saint?’ LVit 54 (1999), 255267. • Marchadour, A., ‘Au commencement, le baptême, les tentations’, CE 50 (1984), 10-17. • McVann, M., ‘e Making of Jesus the Prophet: Matthew 3:13–4:25’, Listening 24 (1989), 262-77. • McVann, M., ‘One of the Prophets: Matthew’s Testing Narrative as a Rite of Passage’, BTB 23 (1993), 14-20. • Mettayer, A., ‘L’Esprit descendit du ciel tel une colombe ou, lorsque le déplacement détermine le choix de la métaphore’, SR 24 (1995), 433-39. • Porsch, F., ‘Erwählt und erprobt: Die Taufe und Versuchung Jesu’, in Das

Zeugnis des Lukas: Impulse für das Lesejahr C, ed. P.-G. Müller (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985), 36-43. • Ruckstuhl, E., ‘Jesus als Gottesohn im Spiegel des markinischen Tauerichts’, in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), 9-47. • Samuel, S. J., ‘Communalism or Commonalism: A Study of Matthew’s Account of Jesus’ Baptism (3:13-17)’, ITS 25 (1988), 33447. • Schroer, S., ‘Der Geist, die Weisheit und die Taube: Feministischkritische Exegese eines neutestamentlichen Symbols auf dem Hintergrund seiner altorientalischen und hellenistisch-früjüdischen Traditionsgeschichte’, FZPT 33 (1986), 197-225. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Wie eine Taube”? (Markus 1,10 par. Matthäus 3,16; Lukas 3,21.22; Johannes 1,32)’, BibNot 89 (1997), 27-29. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 40-45. • Stegner, W. R., ‘e Baptism of John and the Binding of Isaac’, in e Answers Lie Below, ed. H. O. ompson (New York: University Press of America, 1984), 331-47. • Stegner, W. R., ‘e Baptism of Jesus: A Story Modeled on the Binding of Isaac’, BRev 1 (1985), 36-46. • Suder, R. N., ‘Epiphany Texts and the Akedah’, LTSB 62 (1982), 3-7. • Trudinger, P., ‘Jonah: A Post-Exilic Verbal Cartoon?’ DR 107 (1989), 142-43. • Uprichard, R. E. H., ‘e Baptism of Jesus’, IBS 3 (1981), 187-202. • Vigne, D., Christ au Jourdain: Le Baptême de Jésus dans la tradition judéo-chrétienne (Ébib n.s. 16. Paris: Gabalda, 1992). • Webb, R. L., ‘Jesus’ Baptism: Its Historicity and Implications’, BBR 10 (2000), 261-309. • Wouters, A., Willen, 214-26. • Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist, 95-100. See further at 3:1-12.

is is the point in Matthew’s story where Jesus takes an active role. ough it will initially take a form which is a puzzle to John, Jesus’ ministry is to emerge out of the ministry of John. Between them, Jesus’ dialogues with John the Baptist and with the devil establish, for the reader, foundational perspectives on the nature of Jesus’ ministry to come. 3:13–4:12 constitute a period of preparation of the adult Jesus for his ministry. e two episodes are bracketed together by notices of Jesus’ arrival from and departure to Galilee (3:13; 4:12).

ere is broad scholarly agreement that Matthew is responsible for the material of vv. 14-15. For the rest there is no clear evidence of anything beyond the Markan source, despite the likelihood that Matthew’s source for 4:1-11 was preceded by some form of baptismal declaration of Jesus as Son. e historicity of Jesus’ baptism by John cannot be doubted, and with good con dence we can speak of a major impetus for the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as coming at this time. e precise form in which Jesus may have spoken of this experience to others is now lost from sight for us since it is clear already from the different form the words from heaven take in the different Gospels that we are dealing with re ective formulations of a Christian confession.1

3:13 Matthew introduces the adult Jesus with the use of παραγίνεσθαι (‘come’), as he has the Magi and John the Baptist (see at 2:1). e beginning of Jesus’ adult activity warrants the use of another historic present. Aer 2:23 Matthew does not need the precision of Mark’s ‘from Nazareth of Galilee’ (1:9), but he does need to make room for the pre-baptismal dialogue with John, so he cannot move straight on to Mark’s ‘and was baptized in the Jordan by John’ (cf. Mt. 3:16). e solution is to have Jesus come to John with the intention of being baptized. It is unlikely that Matthew gives any particular signi cance to the fact that Jesus comes from further a eld than what is otherwise the catchment area for John (see v. 5). Many suggestions have been given as to why the historical Jesus took the step of coming to Jesus for baptism; Matthew makes his own modest contribution in vv. 14-15. In the absence of speci c evidence the proposals are almost inevitably little more than projections from understandings of the historical Jesus held on other grounds. Perhaps minimally one can say that (a) he felt impelled by God to do so; (b) he was convinced of the rightness of the thrust of John’s ministry; and (c) he wanted to be publicly

identi ed with the radical orientation towards God to which people were committing themselves in coming for baptism. Beyond this, interpreters have made the following suggestions: (d) Jesus came in human solidarity to identify himself with the sinners whom he had come to save; (e) Jesus came to join (for a time) the Baptist movement — alternatively, the saved remnant — for which baptism was the initiatory rite; (f) if John’s baptism may be seen as a pledge from God of ultimate deliverance, Jesus may have, in the face of the dark trial that he sensed awaited him, come for this assurance; (g) Jesus came to be anointed as messiah by one he took to be Elijah (assuming a Jewish tradition which is said to have expected Elijah to reveal the messiah); (h) though not aware of sin, Jesus came in repentance, ‘just in case’; (i) Jesus came in repentance to nd forgiveness of his sins. I have listed the suggestion roughly, as I see it, on a sliding scale of probability. I will offer further comment at 3:15. 3:14 Matthew does not address the question of how John knows that Jesus is the gure he has heralded. His concern is, rather, with the apparent impropriety of John’s baptising Jesus, given his and his readers’ convictions about the signi cance respectively of John and Jesus. Since Matthew has identi ed both John and the coming one as ‘baptisers’, John is given to express his unease in terms of who needs to be baptized by whom. He is not asking for the reversal of roles at the Jordan. His point is that his own baptism is by its very nature provisional and anticipatory. By John’s reckoning the presence of the one coming aer him should mean that the provisional gives way to that which it anticipates: baptism with the Holy Spirit (and also ery judgment). 3:15 e words here carry extra weight as the rst words Matthew sets on the lips of Jesus. Jesus’ insistence represents a modi cation in some respects of the timetable announced by John

in vv. 10 and 12 (and cf. v. 2). What is to happen now (ἄρτι) is not yet what John was anticipating. ‘Now’ allows for a future in which what John expects will transpire, but rst there is to be an interlude which is to begin with the surprising development that Jesus seeks baptism from John. Both John’s baptism of Jesus and Jesus’ submission to baptism at the hands of John (note the use of ‘for us’) are identi ed as having their part to play in the unfolding of God’s purpose. According to Jesus, this act of baptism administered and received strikes a tting opening note (πρέπον ἐστιν [‘it is tting’]) for the role to which he is called2 in the present period. It is not the baptism alone which ‘ful l[s] all righteousness’; rather, the baptism constitutes the opening move of an unfolding sequence designed (building on John’s existing efforts) ‘to ful l all righteousness’.3 But what can Matthew mean by ‘ful l all righteousness’? Matthew has already used πληροῦν (‘ful l’) four times for the ful lment of Scripture, and will do so eight more times (see at 1:22). Otherwise Jesus is said to have come to ful l the Law and the Prophets (5:17 [using the in nitive as here]), a shing net is lled (13:48), and the scribes and Pharisees are sarcastically invited to ‘ ll up the measure [of the sin] of your ancestors’ (23:32). Matthew also favours the word ‘righteousness’. Of immediate relevance is 21:32: ‘John came to you in [the] way of righteousness’. Otherwise, righteousness is something to be hungered and thirsted for (5:6); the kingdom of God and his righteousness are to be sought as the top priority (6:33 [see the discussion there]); one can be persecuted for righteousness (5:10); it is important to have more of it than the scribes and Pharisees have (v. 20), and one should not practice one’s ‘[acts of] righteousness before others in order to be seen by them’ (6:1).4 John’s coming in the way of righteousness clearly means more than that he was, as an individual, righteous. His concern was, with

an urgency based on his conviction of the imminence of the kingdom of God, to call people back into a right relationship with God. rough repentance and baptism people would once again be set on the path of righteousness. Beginning with his baptism by John, Jesus was committed to carrying forward the mission begun by the preparer (3:3). e righteousness that both John and Jesus are concerned to establish involves being restored to a right relationship with God and living this out in a quite tangible righteousness of life. e righteousness that both John and Jesus have their eyes set on is the righteousness of the kingdom of God: that state of affairs in which all is right between God and his world. is is what John and Jesus are concerned to see anticipated in the lives of God’s people in the present. Jesus’ words suggest, however, that there is more to be done than has been or can be done by John’s prophetic ministry. e ‘now’, which was said above to separate the future expected by John from what is for the moment coming in the ministry of Jesus, is also likely to mark (but not so strongly) a transition from the time when John’s ministry stood alone to the time when Jesus is ready to play his own active role. e use of ‘all’ points to a developing and unfolding process that may involve a number of stages. e culmination of this process remains the puri cation and judgment John anticipates at the hands of the one he heralded (vv. 11-12), but rst a preliminary role for the historical Jesus, quite unanticipated by John, is to be intercalated. e language of ful lment here is likely intended to pick up on its use with the formula quotations. Matt. 5:17 (‘to ful l… [the Prophets]’) may serve in part to con rm this connection by providing a bridge between the form in 3:15, with its use of the

active in nitive verb form and with no speci c reference to Scripture, and the passive forms with clear reference to the Prophets which characterise the formula quotations. e concern ‘to ful l all righteousness’ is the concern to prepare for and see it in the kingdom of God as anticipated in Scripture and the Jewish faith.5 It still remains to consider how in the Matthean view the baptism of Jesus is intended to function within this framework. It is clear that in baptism Jesus is placing himself alongside his fellow Israelites. Does this involve a commitment to be himself rst what he will call others to be? Probably. In light of the contrast pointed up by John’s objection, we may also talk about Jesus taking a path of humility (see 21:5; cf. 12:20; 5:5), a path which opens up the way, ultimately, to the cross. See also the discussion above at v. 13. At quite another level, it is the baptism by John which prepares for the endowment with the Spirit of the one who will in the future ‘baptize’ with the Spirit, and it is the baptism which leads to the heavenly affirmation of the identity of Jesus. e compliance of John, his doubts dispelled, gains emphasis from the use of a historic present. 3:16 e actual baptism recedes behind the statement of permission with which v. 15 ends. From baptism at the hands of John, Jesus moves immediately to an appointment with God himself.6 By introducing an emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) at the two key points, Matthew separates the opening of heaven and coming down of the dove from the acclamation made by the heavenly voice but also identi es them as coordinated elements. e opening of heaven is an apocalyptic revelation motif,7 and the coming down also ts in this context8 (though the presence of the coming down tends to expand the form to embrace divine action as well as divine

revelation). Whereas Mark had ‘[Jesus] saw the heavens split open’, Matthew keeps the same personal focus by rendering, ‘the heavens were opened for him’. He saves ‘[Jesus] saw’ for the appearance in visible form of the Spirit. Mark’s ‘the Spirit’ is too imprecise for both Luke and Matthew: where Luke speaks of ‘the Holy Spirit’, Matthew opts for ‘the Spirit of God’, which is the common LXX expression (cf. 12:28). e Spirit of the Lord came upon the judges (Jdg. 3:10; 6:34; etc) and the prophets (2 Ch. 15:1; 20:14); the Spirit is to rest on the messiah in Is. 11:1 (cf. Pss. Sol. 17:37); God puts his Spirit on the servant of Is. 42:1; and the Spirit is on the herald of Is. 61:1. ough links between Jesus and the judges are modest, in Matthew’s intention it is unlikely that we are called upon to choose between these options for background. ough largely assumed and hardly commented on in the unfolding of the story (only at 4:1; 10:18, 28), a foundational importance is established here for the leading and empowering role of the Spirit in the unfolding ministry of Jesus. Since Jesus can see the Spirit, it is best to refer ‘like a dove’ to the visual form taken by the Spirit rather than to the motion of the Spirit in coming. e language of likeness is another trait of apocalyptic language, signalling a certain inadequacy in the literary description of apocalyptic realities.9 We will not rehearse here the many suggestions that have been made about the signi cance of the dove symbolism.10 e symbolism remains something of a puzzle, but it seems best to link it with the widespread messenger role of the dove.11 e simplest connection would be to think of the Spirit as (by coming on him for his role) conveying to Jesus the message that now is the time to implement the role to which he is called: Jesus is receiving his marching orders. Matthew’s doubling of the verbs ‘coming down’ and ‘coming upon’ (Mark and Luke have only

the former) seems to serve nothing more speci c than the concern to give greater weight to this scene. In a distinct and dramatic manner Jesus is being anointed by God for the role that he is to play in the economy of God. Matthew offers us no reason to think that this is anything other than, as in Mark, a private experience of Jesus. 3:17 To whom does the Matthean heavenly voice speak? e dove made her way from heaven to earth, but this is not necessarily the case for the voice, which Matthew presents as a distinct and separately important second part of this scene. Whereas the voice addresses Jesus in both Mark and Luke (‘You are…’), this is not the case in Matthew (‘is is…’). Commentators normally assume that we have here a public divine affirmation of Jesus, directed towards the crowds standing nearby. Occasionally the suggestion is made that the scope of the revelation should be restricted to John the Baptist.12 Since, however, neither John nor the crowds are reported as making any response to this dramatic event, we must clearly identify Matthew’s readers as in his own mind the primary recipients of this revelation. But is the voice from heaven intended to have hearers on the Matthean story line? To John the Baptist the words would con rm the identity of Jesus despite his insistence on baptism. While this would not be inappropriate, it would seem better to hold that John has ful lled his role and drops from sight aer the end of v. 15. It is not clear what speci c role the words could have for the wider public. Crowds are not present in the immediate context, and the Pharisees and Sadducees who form the wider public in vv. 7-12 are not very likely candidates for such a revelation. I would suggest that it is best to think of the words from heaven as being heard in heaven: this is God’s acclamation of Jesus before the heavenly court.13 It is an open question whether Matthew thinks in terms of Jesus overhearing the acclamation (for him — but

not for others — the heavens are at this point open), but perhaps it is best to think of Jesus as privileged to overhear the heavenly conversation.14 With the change from rst to third person in the opening clause of the words of the heavenly voice comes the need for a corresponding change in the second clause. Instead of making the obvious change from ‘you’ to ‘him’ Matthew links the clauses more closely by using ‘whom’ to create a relative clause. e question of the meaning of the voice from heaven is closely tied to the question of possible OT allusions. e texts primarily considered here are Gn. 22:2; Ex. 4:22-23; Ps. 2:7; and Is. 42:1. ‘ere can be no doubt that in Matthew the voice from heaven and Isa. 42:1 are bound together since Matthew’s rendering of Isa. 42:1 in Matt. 12:18 contains the two key words ἀγαπητός, “beloved,” and εὐδοκεῖν, “to come to delight in.”’15 Matthew’s change to the third person has weakened the links with Ps. 2:7 (‘You are my son’). But almost certainly there is a pre-Matthean link, and nothing suggests that Matthew intended to obliterate it. ὁ ἀγαπητός (‘beloved’ or ‘the beloved’) could signal a tie with Gn. 22:1, but its presence is more readily explained as a natural change from ὁ ἐκλεκτός (‘the chosen’) of Is. 42:1 at the point where Ps. 2:7 and Is. 42:1 were linked.16 e main point in favour of an echo of Ex. 4:22-23 is the obvious Matthean typology encountered above in chap. 2 (for the connection here cf. esp. 2:15), in which Jesus reiterates key aspects of the experience of the nation Israel. More of the same will come in 4:1-11.17 Since the keyword ‘servant’ is missing from the allusion to Is. 42:1, the point of the connection is not likely to be to identify Jesus as the Isaianic servant as such. e focus of the link to Is. 42:1 is on the use of εὐδοκεῖν. e verb means ‘take pleasure, delight, be glad

in’, but it can also involve an element of decision or choice.18 Jesus is acclaimed as God’s favourite, approved and chosen for the role for which he is now endowed by the Spirit. It is likely that part of what is involved here is an endorsement of the attitude of mind re ected in Jesus’ decision to seek baptism from John. e signi cance of a tie to Ps. 2:7 would be to identify a messianic element in the language of sonship. For Matthew it is clearly important that Jesus is the messiah. What is not so clear is that Matthew intends to use the language of sonship to make this point. Since, however, Matthew obviously has no difficulty juxtaposing the Sonship of Jesus in reference to a quite exalted christology with reference to his identity as one who recapitulates the history of his people, there should be no difficulty in principle with including a messianic element as well. ‘Son of God’ will refer to the messiah on the lips of the high priest in Mt. 26:63, and probably no more is intended on the lips of those who mock in 27:40, 43. But even in these references Matthew is likely to be interested in an ironic fuller sense. It is important to note that even in connection with the messiah ‘son’ is not simply another word for ‘messiah’: sonship refers to a special status and relationship with God which the messiah may experience. It is sonship as status and relationship which ties together the different strands involved in identifying Jesus as Son of God. For Matthew, Ps. 2:7 is probably meant to play only a minor role in understanding the voice from heaven; Matthew will be more concerned to open up the way for the more profound understanding of Sonship which will become clear as his story unfolds. It will not be an accident that the close linking here of (the voice of) the Father, the Son, and the Spirit will be repeated at the climax of Matthew’s tale in 28:19: ‘baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’.

I have suggested above that ἀγαπητός (‘beloved’) is based on ἐκλεκτός (‘chosen’) in Is. 42:1 and marks the seam where Is. 42:1 and Ps. 2:7 were combined. In light of this, ἀγαπητός should probably be allowed the connotation ‘only’, which it periodically has in the LXX.19 In the present context of divine acclamation in heaven, this implied uniqueness and the use of εὐδοκεῖν to identify Jesus as God’s favourite prepare for the unique father/son relationship which will come into clearest focus at 11:27. B. Led by the Spirit to Be Tested by the Devil (4:1-12) 1en

Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and aerwards he was hungry. 3en the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, say that these stones should become bread’. 4He answered, ‘It is written, A person does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ 5en

the devil takes him into the holy city and places him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6and he says to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, He will direct to his angels concerning you and ey will raise you up on their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ 7Jesus

said to him, ‘Again, it is written,

You are not to put the Lord your God to the test.’

8Again,

the devil takes him to a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, 9and he says to him, ‘I will give all these to you if you will fall down and worship me.’ 10en Jesus says to him, a’Get away, Satan! For it is written, You are to worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’ 11e

devil leaves him, and angels came and waited on him.

12Having

heard that John had been handed over, bhe departed to Galilee.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Lit. ‘depart’, but translated as above to allow the verbal link with 16:23 to have some visibility (see below). οπισω μου is added by C2 D L Z etc. to conform the wording precisely to that in 16:23 (‘Get behind me, Satan!’). While not likely to be original, it provides evidence for an early recognition of the link. b. Quite a lot of texts add Ιησους (‘Jesus’) at this point to specify the subject. Bibliography Achtemeier, P. J., ‘It’s the Little ings at Count (Mark 14:17-21; Luke 4:113; Matthew 18:10-14)’, BA 46 (1983), 30-31. • Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Behind the Temptations of Jesus: Q 4:1-13 and Mark 1:12-13’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 195-213. • Batut, J.-P., ‘e Chastity of Jesus and the “Refusal to Grasp”’, Communio 24 (1997), 5-13. • Baudoz, J.-F., ‘Les tentations de Jésus’, Christus 48 (2001), 37-44. • Black, S. L., ‘e Historic Present in Matthew: Beyond Speech Margins’, in Discourse, ed. S. E. Porter and J. T. Reed, 120-39, esp. 129-35. • Carré, P.-M., ‘V — La tentation de Jésus au désert en Matthieu et Luc’, EV 110.21 (2000), 9-13. • Carré, P.-M., ‘Regards sur l’Évangile selon saint Marc. IV — La tentation de Jésus au désert’. EV 110.20 (2000), 15-19. • Carruth, S. and Robinson, J. M., Q 4:1-13, 16: e Temptations of Jesus, Nazara: Documenta Q: Reconstruction of Q

through Two Centuries of Gospel Research Excerpted, Sorted, and Evaluated, ed. C. Heil (Leuven: Peeters, 1996). • Davidson, J. A., ‘e Testing of Jesus’, ExpTim 94 (1982-83), 113-15. • Donaldson, T. L., Mountain, 87-104. • Droge, A. J., ‘Call Stories in Greek Biography and the Gospels’, in SBLSP 22 (1983), 245-57. • Flusser, D., ‘Die Versuchung Jesu und ihr jüdischer Hintergrund’, Jud 45 (1989), 110-28. • Fuchs, A., ‘Versuchung Jesu’, SNTU 9 (1984), 95-159. • Gibson, J. B., Temptations, 25-118. • Gibson, J. B., ‘A Turn on “Turning Stones to Bread”: A New Understanding of the Devil’s Intention in Q 4:3’, BR 41 (1996), 37-57. • Grelot, P., ‘Les tentations de Jésus’, NRT 117 (1995), 501-16. • Han, K. S., Jerusalem, 132-169. • Hasitschaka, M., ‘Die Verwendung der Schri in Mt. 4:1-11’, in e Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 487-490. • Hieke, T., ‘Schrigelehrsamkeit in der Logienquelle: Die alttestamentlichen Zitate in der Versuchungsgeschichte Q 4,1-13’, in Quest, ed. J. M. Asgeirsson et al., 43-71. • Hunter, A., ‘Rite of Passage: e Implications of Matthew 4:1-11 for an Understanding of the Jewishness of Jesus’, ChristJewRel 19 (1986), 7-22. • Kähler, C., ‘Satanischer Schrigebrauch: Zur Hermeneutik von Mt 4,1-11/Lk 4,1-13’, TLZ 119 (1994), 857-68. • Marchadour, A., ‘Au commencement, le baptême, les tentations’, CÉ 50 (1984), 10-17. • Mora, V., Création, 19-32. • Murphy O’Connor, J., ‘Triumph over Temptation’, BRev 15 (1999), 34-43, 48-49. • Murphy O’Connor, J., ‘Why Jesus Went Back to Galilee’, BRev 12 (1996), 2029, 42-43. • Murphy O’Connor, J., ‘Was Jesus Tested?’ Priests and People 14 (2000), 92-95. • Myllykoski, M., ‘e Social History of Q and the Jewish War’, in Symbols and Strata, ed. R. Uro, 143-99, esp. 155-66. • Neugebauer, F., Jesu Versuchung: Wegentscheidung am Anfang (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986). • Nielsen, K., Satan — e Prodigal Son? A Family Problem in the Bible (e Biblical Seminar 50. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 106-28. • Nielsen, K., ‘Intertextuality and Biblical Scholarship’, SJOT 4.2 (1990), 89-95. • Paffenroth, K., ‘e Testing of the Sage: 1 Kings 10:1-13 and Q 4:1-13 (Lk 4:1-13)’, ExpTim 107 (1996), 142-43. • Panier, L., Récit et commentaires de las tentation de Jésus au désert: Approche sémiotique du discours interprétatif (Paris: Cerf, 1984). • Porsch, F., ‘Erwählt und erprobt: Die Taufe und Versuchung Jesu’, in Das Zeugnis des Lukas: Impulse für das Lesejahr C, ed. P.-G. Müller (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985), 36-43. • Querdray, G., ‘La tentation de Jésus au désert: Prélude de la Passion’, EV 90 (1980), 184-

89. • Rey, B., ‘L’engagement de la foi: D’Abraham à Jésus’, Christus 44 (1997), 25-33. • Rohrbaugh, R. L., ‘Legitimating Sonship — A Test of Honour: A Social-Scienti c Study of Luke 4:1-30’, in Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in Its Context, ed. P. F. Esler (London: Routledge, 1995), 183-97. • Scheuller, A., ‘And the Desert Shall Be Made like Eden’, TBT 25 (1987), 104-8. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 91-109. • Schwarz, G., ‘Τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ (Mt 4,5/Lk 4,9)’, BibNot 61 (1992), 3335. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 45-48. • Stegemann, W., ‘Die Versuchung Jesu im Matthäusevangelium: Mt 4,1-11’, EvT 45 (1985), 29-44. • Stegner, W. R., Narrative, 33-51. • Stegner, W. R., ‘e Use of Scripture in Two Narratives of Early Jewish Christianity (Matthew 4.1-11; Mark 9.2-8)’, in Interpretation, ed. C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders, 98-120. • Stegner, W. R., ‘e Temptation Narrative: A Study in the Use of Scripture by Early Jewish Christians’, BR 35 (1990), 5-17. • Taylor, N. H., ‘e Temptation of Jesus on the Mountain: A Palestinian Christian Polemic against Agrippa I’, JSNT 83 (2001), 27-49. • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 206-21. • Tuckett, C. M., ‘e Temptation Narrative in Q’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck et al., 479-507. • Wilkens, W., ‘Die Versuchung Jesu nach Matthäus’, NTS 28 (198182), 479-89. • Wimmer, J. F., Fasting, 31-51. • Zeller, D., ‘Die Versuchungen Jesu in der Logienquelle’, TTZ 89 (1980), 61-73.

As already noted, Jesus’ dialogues with John the Baptist and with the devil serve to provide foundational perspectives on the nature of Jesus’ ministry to come. In the larger structure of Matthew’s story, the temptation account has a function which may be compared to that of the narrative element in a standard story form in which some harrowing experience tests the determination of the hero at the point where he takes up his designated task.20 Beyond the brief Markan account (1:12-13) which has had a modest in uence on Matthew’s telling, Matthew and Luke share another source which they each reproduce with only minor modi cation (the most signi cant of which is an inversion of the order of the second and third temptations).21 A series of distinctive elements set the temptation account

off from other Gospel material22 and make a helpful formal classi cation difficult. Attempts to contest the historicity of the account remain inconclusive, except against a narrow literalism. As we have it, the account is primarily concerned with identifying what constituted Satanic temptation for Jesus, affirming the fact of Jesus’ steadfastness and re ecting on the signi cance of his success. e precise nature of the event is of secondary importance.23

Interpreters have understood the particular temptations and the set of temptations as a whole in a bewildering variety of ways. No full account can be offered here, but a schematic overview may be useful.24 Some scholars place the emphasis on Jesus’ being tempted in a fully human manner with the temptations that typically befall the Christian. Others insist that Jesus’ temptations are the distinctive temptations of the Saviour who is preparing to undertake his particular role in salvation history: on his obedience hangs the outcome of God’s saving purposes; perhaps, here is the decisive power struggle between Jesus and Satan. e third main group of interpreters identify an apologetic role for the temptation account, primarily in connection with false understandings of messiahship which were current in the Jewish world of the day (but inner church dispute and polemical accusation against Jesus are also possibilities). is view may be understood in terms of Jesus’ own setting of his face against the attractions of such approaches to messiahship, or in terms of early Christian insistence that Jesus was the messiah despite the fact that he did not t the current categories, or in terms of the way that Christians should (in light of the nature of the messiahship of their messiah) relate themselves to zealot uprisings against Rome or to the preoccupation of some Christian groups with miracles. e claims of Israel, Adam, and Moses typology also vie with one another.

As we shall see below, none of these is quite right: to set the fully human and the distinctively messianic over against each other involves a failure to see that the temptations are messianic as a heightening of the fully human; not a power struggle, but testing and temptation are the operative categories. e exploration which we nd in the temptations of what perversion of his role as son or abandoning it in favour of operating from a quite different authority base might mean could function apologetically, but it is seen more naturally as an exploration of key aspects of the value system that undergirds the ministry of Jesus; Israel typology is prominent, but it is not the key to an understanding of the temptations. 4:1 e opening ‘then’, the role of the Spirit, and the Son of God language to come in vv. 2 and 6 create a strong link between 4:1-11 and 3:13-17.25 e role of the Spirit in leading Jesus here should be taken as paradigmatic for the whole of the ministry to come.26 ‘Led up into the wilderness’ takes its reference point from the river both as the low point of the topography and as, at least in the kind of place where John could readily have dealt with the crowds, not properly wilderness. ‘Wilderness’ looks back to 3:1, 3 (see at 3:1), but also and more strongly forward to other elements to come which will cohere with it to form a typology based on the OT testing of Israel in the wilderness. Because of the agency of the devil (and the speci c temptations to come) πειρασθῆναι has been translated ‘to be tempted’, but there is in fact a play on the two senses of the πειραζ- root: ‘test’ or ‘tempt’.27 For reasons of theodicy, Jewish re ection came to prefer attributing to Satan/the devil what had earlier been univocally attributed to God,28 but the sense that God was involved was nonetheless never lost. Such a double attribution is represented here by the role of the Spirit and the role of Satan: Satan tempts and, thereby, God tests.29 So, despite the role of the devil, the πειραζ-

root as used of God’s testing of Israel in the wilderness30 nds its echo here. Notwithstanding his overt prominence in the story, there is no special focus here on the role of the devil as such; the interest is in the content of the temptations and the nature of their rebuff. Later in Matthew the devil will be identi ed as the one who has sown the weeds (Mt. 13:39) and as the one for whom the eternal re has been prepared (25:41). In 4:3 the devil will be called ‘the tempter’. Under the name ‘Satan’ he will be rebuffed in 4:10 with language which will nd its echo in the identi cation of Peter with Satan in 16:23; and his role as prince of the demons will be re ected in 12:26, in the context of which he will be labelled ‘Beelzebul’ (vv. 24, 27), and the imagery introduced of a strong man tied up by a stronger so that his goods may be plundered (v. 29). Designated as ‘the evil one’, he takes away the seed sown on the path (13:9), and the weeds he sows (v. 39) are identi ed as his sons (v. 38).31 4:2 Matthew identi es Jesus’ failure to eat (cf. Lk. 4:2) with the religious practice of fasting (cf. Mt. 6:16-18). No particular theory of fasting is offered in the biblical materials, but fasting takes place in a variety of contexts.32 e most likely emphasis here is on deliberate self-deprivation to facilitate exposure to one’s self of the nature of the self before God: the pressure of hunger can be immensely self-revealing. In this way fasting plays a role in bringing the issues facing Jesus into sharp focus. But other emphases are not to be ruled out. Not the fasting itself, but the resulting hunger has its clear parallel in the testing of Israel in the wilderness (Dt. 8:2-3), while ‘forty days and nights’ is almost certainly intended to echo the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness in order to be tested (v. 2).33 Matthew’s addition of ‘and nights’ may be no more than a logical completion for the sake of emphasis (cf. Mt. 14:21; 15:38), but, given the Moses typology of chap. 2, it is more likely to echo

the forty days and forty nights of Moses’ fast before God (Ex. 34:28; Dt. 9:9).34 Being present before the devil is not be thought of in this narrative as incompatible with being present before God as well. 4:3 With the role anticipated in v. 1, the devil is now introduced into the scene as ‘the tempter’ (cf. 1 es. 3:5). e devil’s ‘if ’ is not an expression of doubt on his own part, nor an attempt to insinuate doubt into the mind of Jesus. Rather, it is on the basis of the possibilities that are his as Son that Jesus is being encouraged to act. Jesus knows that he has a special status with God and relationship with him (see discussion of sonship at 3:17); the devil suggests that sonship is a privilege to be exploited, that Jesus should use his opportunities to see to his own needs. Whereas in the Lukan form Jesus is to address the stones, the Matthean form leaves open whether Jesus is to demand of God that the stones be transformed into bread (this would bring the rst two temptations into closer alignment) or whether he is himself to undertake the transformation.35 If the latter is envisaged, then the notion of sonship here will go a step beyond anything that has been made clear in Matthew’s telling thus far.36 Presumably we are to imagine that the stones involved are of the size and general shape that loaves of bread would have been. Perhaps, at the reader level, the fact that John anticipated the possibility of God transforming stones into children of Abraham (3:9) is meant to add a note of reasonableness to the self-evident attractiveness of the devil’s suggestion. 4:4 Jesus responds with words from Dt. 8:3 (the wording is that of the LXX, which does, however, follow the MT closely), which take us once again to the wilderness testings of Israel (v. 2). e Lukan form has only the rst clause; the expansion is likely to be Matthew’s work.

… attention should not be on bread alone. When the Israelites were hungry in the wilderness and pined for the bread of Egypt (Exod 16:3), God provided manna to nourish them (Deut 8:3). ere is no need to leave off attending to God to seek for oneself. Rather, one should seek God’s kingdom (Luke 12:31 [Mt. 12:31; 6:33]). e desire for bread should not determine the Son’s use of the possibilities and privileges that are his.37

While the possibility of having stones become bread suggests for Jesus a distinctive class of sonship, the answer operates in more general terms of human life before God. e temptation has a particular accentuation based on the distinctive identity of Jesus, but its fundamental shape is not different from temptation which faces other ‘sons of God’.38 ough, following the Hebrew dbr, ῥῆμα can have a more general sense (‘thing/matter’), elsewhere in Matthew it means ‘word’. So it is likely that Matthew thinks here of listening to God as that which is life-sustaining. 4:5 e wilderness location is abandoned for the second and third temptations, but, as we shall see, the parallelling of Israel’s wilderness temptations continues. e devil ‘takes’ Jesus here, and will do so again in v. 8. is is the rst of what will be an increasing concentration of uses of the historic present through this episode. ey come too thick and fast to mark speci c points of emphasis, but they do create a sense of crescendo.39 Matthew has used the word involved, παρέλαβεν, for Joseph’s taking of the infant Jesus (and his mother) to Egypt as well as for the return journey (2:14, 21).40 It is likely that he takes the word up here and in v. 8 to establish a(n antithetical) parallelism between Joseph and the devil: Joseph acts to protect the infant Jesus; the devil seeks to entice the newly emergent adult Jesus to his doom. e distinctive status of Jerusalem is affirmed in the use of ‘the holy city’ (cf. 27:53; 6:35).41 e temple location within the city

takes this matter a step further, calling to mind the presence of God there and therefore the reality of his help.42 While there is no certainty as to what part of the temple ‘the pinnacle [lit. winglet]’ was, its role here is only to provide a high enough point from which Jesus might be encouraged to jump.43 4:6 Where the rst temptation had its starting point in the immediacy of Jesus’ own hunger, here one must appeal to some larger framework of signi cance. e devil supports and, in part, explains his suggestion by pointing to the promises in Ps. 90(91) of protection for the godly.44 But Jesus is being asked to create the situation of need rst. e reader is already well aware from chap. 2 of the reality of divine protection for Jesus (even through angelic intervention). But here Jesus is called upon to force the issues of divine protection and to provoke a life-threatening situation. Jesus is ‘to demand from God, on the basis of his privileged status as Son of God, release from vulnerability to threat upon his life…. According to the Devil’s theory there should be no martyrs. But the divine purpose for Jesus, as for certain others, is that they should be preserved through death, not from death’.45 Jesus’ con dence in the possibility of angelic help from God will be re ected in Mt. 26:5354, as will the priority of the will of God as revealed in Scripture. Because of the location, this time it is easier to project a wider audience into the account, but there is still nothing to encourage such an expansion of the horizon. Certainly the two ‘if you are the Son of God’ temptations function better together if we do not take this second as concerned with the possibility of a public spectacle, designed to establish Jesus’ credentials in the minds of the people. 4:7 In reply Jesus quotes from Dt. 6:16, where Israel is challenged to do better than they had at Massah. ere they had confronted Moses about the preservation of their lives (Ex. 17:3; cf.

v. 7). But it is not the people’s place to dictate to God how he is to express his covenant commitment to his people. Instead they should accept his pledge that he will do well by his ‘son’.46 Again the Israel in the wilderness typology is clear, and again, despite the distinctiveness of the temptation in the particular case of Jesus, its fundamental shape is not different from any temptation which faces other ‘sons of God’. 4:8-9 As ‘again’ has marked the second appeal to Scripture in v. 7, now it marks the second time that the devil takes Jesus to a new place. ‘To a very high mountain’ is probably a Matthean touch (Luke has only ‘took him up’). Some scholars claim an echo of Moses’ viewing of the land from Mount Pisgah (Dt. 3:27; 34:1-4), but that would involve some rather curious ironic inversions,47 and the language links are not strong. Matthew also sets the Sermon of chaps. 5–7 on a mountain (5:1; 8:1) — a scene which he echoes in 15:29 — and he provides a mountain setting for Jesus’ nal words to his disciples (28:16).48 e mountain location clearly underlines the importance of the event and is likely to establish some connection between the episodes which have been distinguished in this way,49 but at this point perhaps nothing more precise is intended. e only other ‘high mountain’ (not ‘very high’) is in 17:1: the ‘supernaturalism’ of the events taking place in these respective locations may link them. e steady rise in altitude — from wilderness, to temple pinnacle, to a mountaintop from which all the kingdoms of the world are visible — is appropriate to the role of the third temptation as climax. Where the previous two temptations urge on Jesus a perversion of his calling as the Son of God, in this nal temptation the stakes are higher: to comply would involve the abandonment of Jesus’ calling as the Son (not now: ‘if you are the Son of God’) and the transfer of his allegiance to the devil. Matthew may be thinking in

terms of direct Satan worship, but he may also envision a more indirect form of Satan worship: if Jesus was to take as his goal to possess ‘all the kingdoms of the world and their glory’, then he would need ‘to pursue his task in the ways of the world …, to gain glory for himself in this world by compromise with the forces that control it … and to become indebted to Satan in the manner that every successful man of the world is’.50 Indeed, it is likely that this nal temptation brings into the open what is to be understood as already the ultimate goal of the earlier two.51 e world offered here to Jesus is identi ed, as Matthew’s story continues, as a place of stumbling blocks (18:7) and in need of light (5:14) and of the gospel (26:13). ‘e kingdoms of the world’, as in the devil’s gi, stands in antithesis to ‘the kingdom of heaven’, as in God’s gi. Jesus will assess the devil’s offer in the light of the warning which he will later give others: ‘What will it pro t a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his own self?’ (16:26). Despite this theoretical formulation in 16:26, the whole world is not on offer to other humans as it is to Jesus in 4:8,52 and so the scale of the offer makes its own implied assertion about the uniqueness of Jesus.53 e glory of all the kingdoms of the world as offered to Jesus is to be contrasted with the heavenly glory that will be his to manifest at his future coming.54 It is likely that Matthew enjoys the irony of expressing the devil’s call for worship of himself in language reminiscent of that used to describe the reverence paid to Jesus himself by the wise men (2:11).55 Partly guided by the shared mountain setting, quite a number of scholars have pointed to 28:18 as indicating that it is in the postresurrection context, aer the accomplishment of his ministry and Passion, that God gives Jesus the positive counterpart to the Satanic counterfeit offered in 4:8-9. But Matthew fails to provide the

vocabulary links which could have made this clear, and nowhere else does he connect any kind of change of status or function with the resurrection (or ascension).56 Matthew does clearly locate a major change of function at the parousia,57 which makes it less likely that the resurrection/ascension could also play such a decisive role. It is true that mission to the Gentiles represents a signi cant development at this point (28:19), and ‘with you always’ (v. 20) has to be understood in a manner that is qualitatively different from the way in which Jesus has been present during his ministry, but ‘all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’ (v. 20) can only with considerable difficulty be taken as referring to a fresh post-Passion acquisition once we recognise the echo of 11:25-27, where Jesus addressed his Father as ‘Lord of heaven and earth’ and maintained that ‘everything has been handed over to me by my Father’.58 It is likely, then, that Jesus is to be understood as faced at this point of temptation with the option of exercising his ministry on the basis of one or other of the two kinds of authority which were being made available to him, the one derived from God, the other derived from Satan. 4:10 Matthew marks a climax as Jesus speaks for the last time in the account using τότε (‘then’) and a historic present (‘says’). He will mark the departure of the devil in v. 11 in the same way. e devil is now called ‘Satan’, using a Grecized form of the Hebrew or Aramaic word for ‘adversary’. In line with the sense of climax noted above for this third temptation, here we nd Jesus’ decisive repudiation of Satan: ‘Get away, Satan!’ ese words will nd their echo in 16:23, where Peter becomes the spokesperson for Satanic temptation.59 Matthew would have us see that the implication for Jesus of his stand against Satanic temptation will be suffering and death as one rejected by the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Peter’s insistence in 16:22 that Jesus should not accept such a fate

represents in cameo a fresh confrontation with the temptations of chap. 4. Jesus supports his rebuff of Satan with a further quotation from Deuteronomy, this one three verses earlier than the previous one (6:13).60 Again we note that Jesus’ response focuses on what is to be the proper human demeanor before God, and once more he alludes to Israel in the wilderness setting. 4:11 Jesus has stood rm against every attempt of the devil to de ect him from his calling as the Son of God. e devil has tempted, and Jesus has been tested. He has stood the test, and the devil has been rebuffed. He can do no other than withdraw. We are not to understand that this is the end of all temptation for Jesus (see 16:22-23; 26:36-46).61 But it is the nature of temptation to press at certain times, and we are to understand that Jesus has here faced in a fundamental way the issues in relation to which he might be tempted to de ne a life path different from that set for him by his Father. It is likely that Matthew draws on his Markan source for the nal statement about angelic ministration to Jesus (cf. Mk. 1:13). He would have found it satisfying to be able to offer this nal comment on the deceptiveness of the Satanic viewpoint. Here, in a totally unforced way, the angels come to Jesus’ aid (contrast Mt. 4:6); here Jesus, who refused to turn (or to press to have turned) stones to bread (vv. 3-4), receives food from heaven.62 God is no one’s debtor. 4:12 ere is probably a chronological gap between vv. 11 and 12 which Matthew makes no attempt to ll (contrast, e.g., 3:1); John’s ministry continues, but no role is ascribed to Jesus for this period.63 More details about John’s arrest (and subsequent execution) are held back until 14:1-12. Since Herod Antipas ruled over both Perea (where John would have been arrested) and Galilee,

the withdrawal is not from Antipas’s territory, but rather from the area in which John the Baptist had been active and, ultimately, apprehended. Where in Mark (1:14-15) the arrest of John is offered as itself precipitating the public ministry of Jesus, the insertion of Mt. 4:13-16, along with the link between v. 12 and 2:22,64 encourages the reader of Matthew to think rst of prudent withdrawal from an area of danger.65 Matthew does not develop here the Markan concern to parallel the fates of John and Jesus, but he probably intends the parallel to be recognised.66 Certainly we are to see here a renewal of the threat posed to the infant Jesus in 2:123. Jesus is said in 3:13 to have come from Galilee, now he departs to Galilee.67 In both cases Nazareth is speci cally in view (see 2:23; 4:13). Despite the prudent withdrawal it will soon be evident (4:17) that there has been no loss of enthusiasm for the thrust of John’s message.

1. A helpful defence of the general historicity may be found in Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:342-43; see also Nolland, Luke, 1:159. 2. οὔτως (‘in this manner’) is not likely to refer narrowly to the act of baptism (for this τοῦτο would be better), but rather to the act of baptism as typifying what is tting in the present period (so, e.g., Dupont, Béatitudes, 3:237). 3. Cf. Wouters, Willen, 216 n. 185. 4. ere has been extensive scholarly debate over the meaning Matthew intended for ‘righteousness’. Attention has focussed centrally on Matt. 5:20, where some (perhaps most) take ‘righteousness’ as referring to right human conduct while others discern a soteriological content and link Matthew’s use of the term to Paul’s. A range of mediating positions have also been proposed. e discussion at 5:20 will show that faithful practice of the

requirements of the Law is in view, but that this is related to the new depths of insight into the Law that Jesus intended to offer. 5. Cf. the linking of notions of reign and righteousness in Is. 32:1; Je. 23:5-6; cf. 33:15; Zc. 9:9. Gnilka, Matthäus, 1:76, catches something of the understanding proposed here when he speaks of a ‘programme’. 6. is is one of the few places where Matthew retains one of the many uses of ‘immediately’ which are part of Mark’s style. In Mark’s use here the immediacy is of the divine action following Jesus’ coming up out of the water. Matthew’s changes in the syntax transfer the immediacy to Jesus and indicate haste in coming up out of the baptismal waters. is is sometimes treated as a Matthean lapse (e.g., Dupont, Béatitudes, 3:228-29), but it is better to see re ected here the same clarity of agenda with which the Matthean Jesus pressed John the Baptist about the appropriateness of the coming one’s receiving the baptism of John. e correspondence between the going up of Jesus and the coming down of the dove offers further support for this reading (though by switching from the participle to a nite verb for ‘he went up’ Matthew has reduced the level of syntactical parallelism). 7. See Ez. 1:1; Jn. 1:51; Acts 7:56; 10:11; Rev. 19:11; Test. Levi 2:6. As here in Matthew, a human gure sees heaven opened in Ezk. 1:1. In Jn. 1:51; Acts 7:56; 10:11; Rev. 19:11 the human gure sees heaven opened and action follows. Test. Levi 2:6 implies, but does not speak explicitly of seeing. e Matthean language is quite close to that of Ez. 1:1 (καὶ ἠνοίχθησαν οἱ οὐρανοί, καὶ εἶδον), which may be consciously echoed by Matthew. Capes, ‘Baptismal Narrative’, 42, identi es other possible links with Ezekiel. ose most likely to be of signi cance are Ezekiel also being near a river in 1:1 and the use of πνεῦμα ἐπ᾿ (‘spirit upon’) and the reference to God speaking in 2:2. 8. See Jn. 1:51; Acts 10:11. ough a speci c term is not used, the larger contexts of Ez. 1:1 and of Rev. 19:11 also involve a coming down. 9. Cf. Dn. 7:13; 4 Ezra 13:3; Acts 2:2, 3. 10. An older but fairly complete survey is provided by Keck, ‘e Spirit and the Dove’; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:331-34 list sixteen options.

11. See esp. O. Keel, Vögel als Boten: Studien zu Ps 68,12-14, Gen 8,6-12, Koh 10,20 und dem Aussenden von Botenvögeln in Ägypten: Mit einem Beitrag von Urs Winter zu Ps 56,1 und zur Ikonographie der Göttin mit der Taube (OBO 14. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht), 1977. Ruckstuhl, ‘Gottessohn’, has exploited this background, arguing that the dove symbolism is concerned with a messenger of divine love, expressing the love of the Father for the Son. Schroer, ‘Der Geist, die Weisheit und die Taube’, makes use of the same background, but, with appeal to wisdom traditions as well, she contends that this messenger of love speaks for divine wisdom, announcing that Jesus will be the place in which divine wisdom takes up residence. In both cases a committed agenda has taken insight on into overreading. 12. e suggestion has even been made that, despite the form of words, it is Jesus himself to whom the words are directed. But this seems to be a patently unnatural reading. 13. Job 1:8 (cf. 2:3) is only slightly similar, but the possibility of a link with Job is greatly strengthened when we call to mind the immediate transition in Matthew from this divine acclamation of Jesus as Son to the temptation of Jesus as the Son of God by the devil in 4:1-11. B. Ber. 17b parallells the note of general acclamation, but not the heavenly-court context: ‘Every day a divine voice goes forth from Mount Horeb and proclaims: e whole world is sustained for the sake of My son Ḥanina….’For conversation in the heavenly court cf. 1 Ki. 22:19-22. 14. Matthew’s third person form strengthens the link between the heavenly voice here and in 9:7. is could count in favour of taking the heavenly voice as audible to Jesus, but it is also possible that there is a progression from acclamation in heaven to acclamation on earth. e devil’s ‘if you are the Son of God’ could be taken as evidence of Jesus’ hearing the voice from heaven, but it is as easy or easier to nd the continuity here in terms of the supernatural identity of the devil and thus the possibility of his (over)hearing the affirmation made in heaven. 15. Nolland, Luke, 1:162. See pp. 162-63 for a more elaborate discussion with further defence of this statement. e other possible OT links are also discussed there.

16. To obviate the semantic awkwardness of ‘my chosen son’, which would otherwise have resulted from the combination. 17. Matthew’s third person form takes us a little closer to Ex. 4:22-23. 18. In the LXX see 2 Sa. 22:20; Pss. 44:3; 149:4; 151:5; Is. 62:4; Hab. 2:4; Mal. 2:17. 19. ἀγαπητός is the rendering of yĕḥîd (‘only’) in, e.g., Gn. 22:2, 12; Jdg. 11:34; Je. 6:26. 20. See, e.g., Zeller, ‘Versuchungen’, 63. Cf. the language of Sir. 2:1: ‘My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing.’ 21. It is likely to be Luke who is responsible for the inversion of order, but certainty is not possible because the order favoured by the respective Evangelists ts their redactional concerns. 22. As nowhere else, Jesus’ words consist almost entirely of quoting from Scripture (this includes an element of Scripture being set against Scripture, as in rabbinic debate); there is conversation with the devil only here (Mk. 1:24-25; 3:11-12 is the closest). 23. Nolland, Luke, 1:177. See Neugebauer, Versuchung, 7-18, for an interesting defence of the basic historicity of the account. 24. Adapted and developed from Zeller, ‘Versuchungen’, 64-68. 25. On the likely role of the sets of uses of τότε in Mt. 2–4 in establishing a parallelism between the sections dealing with Herod and Jesus, John and Jesus, and the devil and Jesus, see at 2:7. 26. Aer the greater precision in v. 16 (‘Spirit of God’), ‘the Spirit’ is adequate here. 27. e use of the root for enticement to sin is sometimes denied, but it seems clear enough here and in Jas. 1:13-14, and is likely in a number of other texts. e related idea of Satan as a deceiver (rooted in Gn. 3) is de nitely to be found (e.g., Rev. 12:9; Test. Job 3:3; Odes Sol. 31:9-11; Adam and Eve 7–11 spells out an instance of deception; cf. Jn. 8:44; Acts 13:10). 28. Ex. 4:24-26, cf. Jub. 48:2-3; 2 Sa. 24:1, cf. 1 Ch. 21:1; Gn. 22:1, cf. Jub. 17:15-18. See Jas. 1:13: ‘God … πειράζει no one’, where πειράζει is to be understood simply as ‘entices to sin’ and the concern is to prevent any shiing of responsibility to God.

29. ough the speci c language of testing is absent there, the role of Satan in testing is probably ultimately dependent on Job 1–2 (note how the Job pattern has been taken over in Jub. 1:15-18 in relation to the Gn. 22 testing of Abraham, and with repeated use of the language of testing). 30. Ex. 16:4; 20:20; Dt. 8:2. 31. Mt. 5:37; 6:13 could also be taken as referring to the evil one. 32. Fasting is particularly associated with repentance, with mourning, with seeking the guidance of God, and with imploring God for his help in a particularly intense fashion or, more generally, with an intensity of focus on God. Fasting is also viewed critically when it functions as a piece of public religiosity. See further at Mt. 6:16-18. 33. For the correspondence between forty days and forty years see Nu. 14:34; Ez. 4:6. 34. It will be Matthew who enhances the Jonah/Jesus link in 12:40 by adding ‘and three nights’ to conform the text to Jon. 1:17. 35. Gibson, Temptations, 99, insists on the former option. 36. e step is not a very large one since ‘God with us’ in Mt. 1:23 is powerfully suggestive and the descent of the Spirit involves an empowering of some kind. 37. Nolland, Luke, 1:178. 38. Interpretations which talk about a faith based on miracles generally import a public to witness the miracle, but nothing in the account provides a foothold for such an expedient. If the devil’s challenge was to demonstrate that he was the Son of God, then the answer given by Jesus would be somewhat beside the point. 39. Cf. Black, ‘Historic Present’, 129-35. 40. Each of these follows from an angelic directive, using the same verb. e verb παραλαμβάνειν is also used by Matthew in 1:20 (angelic directive) and v. 24 (Joseph’s obedience), but here the meaning of the verb is different. 41. See Is. 48:2; 52:1; Ne. 11:1; Dn. 9:24; 2 Macc. 3:1; Rev. 11:2; etc. 42. See Solomon’s prayer in 1 Ki. 8:22-53 for this focus on the temple as a place from which to seek God’s help.

43. See Nolland, Luke, 1:181, for a discussion of the proposals that have been made. Since then Schwarz (‘ΤΟ ΠΤΕΡΥΓΙΟΝ’) has claimed on the basis of the Syriac translations that the reference is to a shoulder (the Syriac word sometimes used can carry this sense) of the roof of the temple. e suggestion is worth considering. 44. e LXX wording of Ps. 91:11-12 is used, with the second line of v. 11 missing (‘to guard you in all your ways’) and a compensating ‘and’ added to bridge the gap. 45. Nolland, Luke, 1:181. See Mt. 10:21, 39; 16:25. 46. Doubt, demand, and dissatisfaction would seem to be the core components of the wilderness testing of God (Ex. 17:2, 7; Nu. 14:22; Dt. 6:16; Pss. 78:18, 41, 56; 95:9; 106:14). 47. Moses was barred entry, but the devil promises it to Jesus. Not the holy land, but now the whole world is involved, and it appears to be in the devil’s gi, so the promise to give comes now from the devil, not God; etc. 48. Matthew takes over from the tradition a mountain location for private prayer in 14:23, for the trans guration in 17:1, 9, and (as the Mount of Olives) for certain events leading up to the Passion in 21:1; 24:3; 26:30. 49. Donaldson, Mountain, 23-83, provides a useful survey of the traditions which made use of mountain symbolism and would have been available to Matthew. 50. Nolland, Luke, 1:180. 51. To use eissen’s language (Gospels in Context, 207), ‘Satan drops his mask’. 52. e exception might be the rule of a worldwide empire, in the manner aspired to by the Romans (and others earlier). 53. But it is probably a mistake to nd (as many do) an echo of Ps. 2:8. 54. Mt. 16:27; 19:28; 24:30; 25:31. It is not at all clear that Matthew thinks of this glory as something which Jesus has yet to gain. e earthly ministry of Jesus was not a coming in glory, but it may well be that it is the intrinsic glory of Jesus which is momentarily unveiled in 17:2 rather than that we have, as in Lk. 9:29, merely a foretaste of Jesus’ future glory (see Nolland, Luke, 2:498).

55. e same conjunction of verbs will recur again (as a slight allegorical touch?) in 18:26. 56. Mt. 21:42 could be read this way; in 17:9 the resurrection marks the point at which the embargo on the news of the vision of the mount of trans guration is to be lied. 57. See already the discussion at Mt. 3:12, 15. To the texts in n. 54 add Mt. 13:40-41; 16:28?; 19:28; 24:27, 30-31, 37-44, 50-51; 25:10-13, 19, 31-46; 26:64. 58. See the further discussion at Mt. 28:16-20. e authority of Jesus during his earthly ministry is also referred to in 7:29; 8:9; 9:6, 8; 21:23, 24, 27. 59. Since ‘Get off, Satan!’ is absent from the Lukan parallel, Matthew has possibly introduced the words to create the parallel with 16:23. Elsewhere in Matthew ‘Satan’ occurs only in 12:26. 60. e wording is that of the A text of the LXX, which is particularly apt for the purpose (it uses the same verb προσκυνεῖν [‘to worship’] as the temptation and includes μόνῳ [‘alone’] to stress the exclusiveness of God’s claim to worship), but the point would also be made by the MT or other LXX forms. 61. ‘Test/tempt’ is also used with Jesus in Mt. 16:1; 19:3; 22:18, 35. 62. διακονεῖν can mean ‘serve’ in a quite broad sense, but in the present context the original verbal imagery of serving at table makes a reference to providing food very likely. Cf. the reference in Ps. 78:25 to ‘the bread of angels’ provided in the wilderness, and 1 Ki. 19:5-8, where Elijah is fed by an angel. 63. In Matthew’s schematization Jesus has already moved on from John, so one cannot readily ll the gap with continued involvement with the Baptist (but Jesus’ withdrawal in v. 12 is clearly a getting away from the area in which John had been operating); further private preparation for his coming role probably provides the most satisfactory imaginative t, but since the verse is designed to provide closure by functioning as the other bracket to 3:13, it is probably best not to ll the gap. 64. ἀκούσας δὲ ὅτι … ἀνεχώρησεν … τὴν Γαλικαίαν (‘when he heard that … he departed. Galilee’) is in common. See Mt. 3:1 and 2:22 for the

elaborate set of links between 2:22–3:2 and 4:12-17. 65. ἀκούσας δὲ … ἀνεχώρησεν (‘when he heard … he departed’) will come again in Mt. 14:13 in relation to Jesus’ hearing of John’s execution, where again prudent withdrawal is probably in view. Cf. also 12:15 and possibly (in light of 12:15) 15:21. 66. Cf. Mt. 17:22; 20:18; 26:2, 45, where the same verb is applied to the arrest of Jesus. see the discussion at 17:22 of the relationship between human opposition and the divine purpose in these handings over. 67. Since Matthew introduces the Magi, John the Baptist, and the adult Jesus with παραγίνεσθαι (‘come’), it is probably no accident that the departures of both the Magi and Jesus are expressed with a use of ἀναχωρεῖν. e framework of arrival and departure is a further small encouragement to read 3:13-17 and 4:1-11(12) closely together.

V. ESTABLISHING HIS MINISTRY (4:13-25) A. Preaching the Kingdom Back in Galilee (4:13-17) he le aNazareth and came and lived in Capernaum, which is by the sea, [thus basing himself] in the regions [both] of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, 13en

15Land

of Zebulun and land of Naphtali (way of the sea) across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles — 16e people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and on those in a bregion overshadowed by deathb — for them light dawned. 17From

that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Because Matthew appears to have a different spelling for Nazareth in each of his three uses (2:23; 4:13; 21:11), there has been considerable scribal correction. e Ναζαρα form, found in ‫א‬1 B Z 33 etc., is the most likely reading. b-b. Lit. ‘region and shadow of death’ (see Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 100-101). Bibliography

Carter, W., ‘Evoking Isaiah: Matthean Soteriology and an Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 7–9 and Matthew 1:23 and 4:15-16’, JBL 119 (2000), 50320. • Genuyt, F., ‘Évangile de Matthieu, chapitres 4,12–7,29’, SémiotBib 62 (1991), 2-20. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 112-21. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Textual Form of the Quotation from Isaiah 8:23–9:1 in Matthew 4:1516’, RB 105 (1998), 526-45. • Mora, V., Création, 135-40. • Neirynck, F., ‘NAZARA in Q: Pro and Con’, in Quest, ed. J. M. Asgeirsson et al., 159-69. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 79-100. • Zilonka, P., ‘e Pain of Migration’, TBT 29 (1991), 351-56. For 4:17 Beasley-Murray, G. R., ‘e Kingdom of God and Christology in the Gospels’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 22-36. • Camponovo, O., Königtum, Königsherrscha und Reich Gottes in den frühjüdischen Schrien (OBO 58. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984). • Carter, W., ‘Narrative/Literary Approaches to Matthean eology: e “Reign of the Heavens” as an Example (Mt. 4.17–5:12)’, JSNT 67 (1997), 3-27. • Farmer, R., ‘e Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Matthew’, in e Kingdom of God in 20th-Century Interpretation, ed. W. Willis (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 119-30. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 112-21. • Marcus, J., ‘Entering the Kingly Power of God’, JBL 107 (1988), 663-75. • Mowery, R. L., ‘e Matthean References to the Kingdom: Different Terms for Different Audiences’, ETL 70 (1994), 398-405. • Pamment, M., ‘e Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel according to Matthew’, NTS 27 (1981), 211-32. • Sanders, E. P., ‘Jesus and the Kingdom: e Restoration of Israel and the New People of God’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 225-39. • omas, J. C., ‘e Kingdom of God in the Gospel according to Matthew’, NTS 39 (1993), 13646. • Uro, R., ‘Apocalyptic Symbolism and Social Identity in Q’, in Symbols and Strata, ed. R. Uro, 67-118. • Vaage, L. E., ‘Q and Cynicism: On Comparison and Social Identity’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 199-229. • Vaage, L. E., ‘Monarchy, Community, Anarchy: e Kingdom of God in Paul and Q’, in TJT 8 (1992), 48-65. • Williams, J. G., ‘Neither Here nor

ere: Between Wisdom and Apocalyptic in Jesus’ Kingdom Sayings’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 7-30.

Just as Matthew joined the beginnings of John’s ministry (in the south) to the period in which Jesus, aer being brought to the north as an infant, was establishing his domicile in Nazareth, so now Matthew links the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry (in the north) to a fresh coming to the north on the part of the now adult Jesus (to Nazareth and then to Capernaum). e ministry of Jesus is to be based on a reiteration of John’s message. Matthew will use the three small pieces 4:13-17, 18-22, 23-25 to characterise the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and to prepare for the presentation of the material of the Sermon on the Mount in chaps. 5–7. Apart from v. 17, which reformulates part of Mk. 1:14-15, the material here is substantially a Matthean formulation, but it has a clear basis of a general kind in the traditions which connect Jesus with Capernaum. A fragment of speci c source material may also be evident in the unusual Greek form for Nazareth used here as well as in Lk. 4:16.

4:13 4:12 is transitional, providing a sense of closure for 3:13– 4:12 but also establishing the beginning point for 4:13-16. e move from Nazareth to Capernaum is not necessarily part of the withdrawal to Galilee. It may not even be that Matthew envisages a rapid departure from Nazareth (the only perspective from which Matthew is interested in this move is that of the ful lment of Scripture, and in this perspective a period of time and even ministry in Nazareth would, as we shall see, make the ful lment more evident). A Capernaum base for (part of) Jesus’ ministry is already evident in Mk. 2:1.1 Located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum is identi ed as ‘by the sea’ in anticipation of ‘way of the sea’ in the citation in v. 15. ‘In the territories of Zebulun and Naphtali’ (which also anticipates v. 15) should

probably be applied to Jesus’ periods of residence in Nazareth and Capernaum respectively.2 4:14 is is the h of Matthew’s ten formula quotations (see at 1:22), and the rst of those labelled as coming from the prophet Isaiah (see 8:17; 12:17; and cf. 13:14; 15:7). In appealing to Is. 9:1-2, Matthew may in part be motivated by an awareness of ‘the stumbling block which Jesus’ association with Galilee could have caused’.3 4:15-16 e LXX text of Is. 9:1-2 (8:23–9:1) seems to be based on a Hebrew version that has lost a phrase and has therefore been signi cantly restructured (though the general sense is not substantially altered). Matthew follows the overall structure of the LXX, but with a considerable number of verbal differences which in nearly every case either suggest an independent reading of the Hebrew or speci cally bring the text more into line with the Hebrew.4 e sense Matthew gives to ‘way of the sea’ and ‘across the Jordan’ remains disputed. e difficulty is in part created by the relationship between the Hebrew and Greek texts. In the Hebrew ‘the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles’ is normally understood to designate a tripartite larger area within which Zebulun and Naphtali were to be found: the Mediterranean seacoast in the west, Galilee in the centre, and a region east of the Jordan.5 In the LXX ‘way of the sea’ and ‘across the Jordan’ follow Zebulun and Naphtali in a rather confusing list in which they are separated by ‘and the rest who live on the seacoast’ and followed by ‘and Galilee of the Gentiles, the parts of Judea’. e extra elements in the LXX list would seem to represent a desire to expand the scope of the promise language to all of Jewish Palestine, but do they affect the meaning of the terms in which we are interested? It is impossible to be sure, but it is likely that the addition of ‘and the rest who live on the seacoast’ indicates that the ‘way of the sea’ is now being taken in

connection with Naphtali, most likely with reference to the fact that the territory of Naphtali abutted the western coast of the Sea of Galilee.6 So how will Matthew have taken ‘way of the sea’? With his interest in a restricted northern focus here, Matthew is in general closer to the Hebrew text, but his text is like the Greek in juxtaposing Zebulun and Naphtali with the other items. It is the note in v. 13 that Capernaum is ‘by the sea’ which provides the clue that Matthew, like the LXX, takes ‘way of the sea’ as in apposition to ‘land of Naphtali’.7 In the case of ‘across the Jordan’, it is more difficult to be certain. In both Greek and Hebrew texts ‘across the Jordan’ seems to refer to territory east of the Jordan (but see n. 5), but there is nothing in Matthew’s context with which to link such a sense. A more compact sense for the territory designated in the citation and one which better ts the movements of Jesus at this point is offered by the possibility that Matthew takes ‘across the Jordan’ to refer to territory west of the Jordan.8

It seems most likely, then, that ‘Zebulun and Naphtali, … across the Jordan’ stands in apposition to ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, and that the ‘way of the sea’ stands in apposition to ‘land of Naphtali’. ough generally claimed, it is not at all clear that the originally pejorative connotation of ‘of the Gentiles’ (the presence of the Gentiles lies behind the darkness) is now to be freshly construed in a positive way (foreshadowing the extension of the gospel to the Gentiles). e images of the text come from the eighth-century experience of devastation in the northern kingdom, and in such a context the value of the Gentiles can only be negative.9 ἔθνη in Matthean usage ranges from a strongly Jewishly ethnocentric designation for those seen as outsiders (translated ‘Gentiles’)10 to a universalistic perspective in which the relevance to all peoples of what has happened in Christ is in view (translated ‘nations’, except in 10:18, where, although a universalistic perspective is in view, there is separate handling of Jews and non-Jews).11

While it would have been possible for Matthew to appeal to Is. 9:1-2 in a quite general way for its connection with Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, instead he nds signi cance in the particular details of Jesus’ link with Nazareth (in Zebulun) and Capernaum (in Naphtali). is is not to say that he does not believe that Jesus ful ls the prophecy in a wider sense, only that he gains a concreteness of focus by attending to speci c details. In other formula quotations this same interest in matching Jesus to speci c points of detail in the text is also to be noted. Unless we count the transformation of Jesus’ garments in 17:2, Matthew does not elsewhere exploit the particular use here of the imagery of light and darkness. It is to be understood in relation to the eighth-century collapse of the northern kingdom, which provides the primary imagery of the text. Darkness readily connotes hardship, deprivation, and perhaps lack of clarity about direction. Light is the opposite of darkness and is a universally recognised image of salvation. In what is clearly a derivative sense disciples are said to be lights in 5:14. ‘Region overshadowed by death’ belongs to the imagery of the eighth-century collapse; it is not evident that Matthew has any particular aspect of the contemporary situation in view.12 As indicated in n. 4, Matthew is responsible for moving the nal image from the shining of light to the dawning of light, probably to provide a cross reference to other Isaianic salvation texts (58:8, 10; 60:1-3; cf. Mal. 4:2). Matthew’s unfolding story makes it quite clear that the political dimensions intrinsic to the original signi cance of Is. 9:1-2 play no role for him. It is not likely to be lost on Matthew that his citation from Isaiah has in its context the messianic text Is. 9:6-7, which makes such a good connection with his own infancy account in 1:18-25. 4:17 Given that both Nazareth (in Zebulun) and Capernaum (in Naphtali) are implicated in the ful lment of Is. 9:1-2, it seems

best to relate ‘from that time Jesus began’, not narrowly to Jesus’ move to Capernaum but to the return to the north which involved residence in turn in Nazareth and in Capernaum. ough Mt. 4:17 is oen separated from vv. 12-16, without it no light is yet shining in Zebulun and Naphtali. e immediately striking thing about a rst reading of v. 17 has to be the repetition by Jesus of the message of John the Baptist: Jesus proclaims in the north the message that had been silenced in the south. How happy would Matthew have been with the idea that those in the south ‘saw a great light’ when John exercised his ministry? ough no doubt in Matthew’s view a different piece of the action was taking place in the two cases, there is probably no very great difference, at least at this point in the telling of the story, between the eschatological stirrings which he associates with John by means of the use of Is. 40:3 and those which he associates with Jesus by means of the use of Is. 9:1-2.13 In various ways Matthew has already created a set of expectations in relation to Jesus which a setting of him on the same level as John will not ultimately satisfy. Nonetheless, Matthew wants to say that their ministries begin from the same place and share the same overall vision of what God is in the process of doing. Matthew achieves this by summarising John’s message in terms which have actually been borrowed from a summary of Jesus’ preaching. But, to be fair to him, Matthew has carefully trimmed down his Markan source form of this summary (see Mk. 1:15) so that the content that remains genuinely does represent something of the commonality: the call for repentance was an important part of the thrust of John’s message (see discussion at 3:8) and, though there is no evidence that he spoke explicitly of the near approach of the kingdom of God, the set of expectations attributed to him in

3:7-12 can readily be summarised in such language. Jesus will offer much more than John, but, in Matthew’s view, nothing less. At the same time it is unfair to restrict the meaning of the summary in 4:17 to a sense that it can have in common with that in 3:2. e unfolding of Matthew’s story will offer clari cation and development that will allow for reader recognition that a fuller sense is to be found hidden in 4:17. Reference to repentance is actually quite limited in the reported speech of Jesus (Matthew has only 11:20-21; 12:41; and cf. 13:15). In the Matthean frame it seems best to understand Jesus’ call to repentance as primarily implicit since the repentance texts represent complaint that it has not happened rather than calls to repent as such. e phrase ‘the kingdom of heaven’ is found repeatedly on Jesus’ lips in Matthew.14 e Markan form ‘the kingdom of God’ is also found, but on a much more limited scale.15 en there are absolute uses,16 references to ‘the kingdom of my Father’17 and ‘the kingdom of their Father’,18 and uses with various pronouns.19 Despite some attempts to nd a speci c difference of meaning between ‘kingdom of God’ and ‘kingdom of heaven’, the most common and almost certainly the correct view is that Matthew, for the context in which he writes, prefers the standard Jewish expression ‘kingdom of heaven’ but is not at all rigid about the matter. e most convincing background for understanding Jesus’ talk of the kingdom of God is supplied by the expectations in Isaiah of a future intervention of God to establish his rule.20 Chilton has pointed to the Isaiah Targum, where ‘kingdom (of God)’ is regularly used to replace references to God as being king or ruling, and even to replace references to God has re ecting (whatever the actual date of the targum) the kind of language use that meets us in the Gospels.21

e proclamation is that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. For the Markan source one can make a good case for understanding this as implying the present inauguration of the kingdom: Jesus announces the arrival of the kingdom of God. In Matthew this seems much less likely. Certainly it is an imminent arrival for which John laboured to prepare people, and, despite materials yet to come which will complicate the picture,22 at this point in Matthew’s story there is no basis for offering any signi cantly different sense to the same words when placed on the lips of Jesus. But as insistent as we might want to be about the future orientation, there remains the issue of giving content to the imagery of having drawn near. ‘Will come in a short time span’ seems altogether too minimal a content.23 At the very least we are to understand that God has now acted to set in process advance arrangements for the coming of the kingdom. At least in terms of this preparatory activity, if not in some larger sense, things were now on the move in relation to God’s rule. Clearly it is the conviction of the Matthean John and Jesus that the way in which the coming rule of God would impact individuals depended heavily on how they were prepared to relate themselves already now to what was coming, but also that new possibilities were now present precisely because the kingdom of heaven had drawn near. In the case of Jesus, the imagery of a fresh dawn in 4:16 makes for a yet stronger bond between the coming of the future kingdom and what is presently happening in Jesus’ ministry.24 Moreover, the element of present saving activity thereby implicit is continued in the healings and exorcisms which are linked to the proclamation of the nearness of the kingdom on the part of the Twelve (10:7-8).25 Just as the report of the beginning of John’s ministry in 3:1-2 is followed by further elaboration, so Matthew now goes on, aer 4:13-17, to begin his detailed account of the ministry of Jesus.

While a beginning point in Galilee is clearly important for Matthew and there are signi cant changes of focus at different points in the story (e.g., 16:21; 26:2), it is wrong to think that 4:17 summarises only a speci c part of Jesus’ ministry: despite surprising developments, in a structural sense it summarises the whole (which begins in Galilee). Despite various attempts to deny or to limit its signi cance, the repetition of ‘from that time Jesus began to’ in 16:21 is clearly important for the Matthean structuring,26 but not so as to truncate the scope of 4:17: in the ministry of Jesus new developments coexist with what precedes. B. Calling Co-workers (4:18-22) he awalked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, bcalled Peter,b and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea. For they were fishermen. 19And he says to them, ‘Come on! Aer me! And I will make of you cthose who fish for people.’ 20Immediately they le the nets and followed him. 21And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they le the boat and their father and followed him. 18As

TEXTUAL NOTES a. D it sys conform the verb here to that of Mark. b-b. Omitted by sys to conform to Mark. etc.

c. A fulsome γινεσθαι (‘to become’), found in Mark, is added in ‫א‬1 D 33

Bibliography

Abogunrin, S. O., ‘e ree Variant Accounts of Peter’s Call: A Critical and eological Examination of the Texts’, NTS 31 (1985), 587-602. • Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 128-40. • Carter, W., ‘Matthew 4:18-22 and Matthean Discipleship: An Audience-Oriented Perspective’, CBQ 59 (1997), 58-75. • Coulot, C., Jésus, 139-159. • Coulot, C., ‘Les gures du maître et de ses disciples dans les premières communautés chrétiennes’, RSR 59 (1985), 1-11. • Derrett, J. D. M., ΗΣΑΝ ΓΑΡ ΑΛΙΕΙΣ (Mk. I.16): Jesus’ Fishermen and the Parable of the Net’, NovT 22 (1980), 108-37. • Edwards, R. A., ‘Characterization of the Disciples as a Feature of Matthew’s Narrative’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1305-24, esp. 1313-17. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 19-27. • Hengel, M., Charismatic, esp. 76-78. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 194-97. • Kowalski, W., ‘e Call to Discipleship: A Challenge to Personal Commitment’, AfricEcclRev 36 (1994), 366-78. • Mora, V., Création, 141-44. • Murphy-O’Connor, J., ‘Fishers of Fish, Fishers of Men’, BRev 15 (1999), 22-27, 48-49.

We will learn later that John had gathered about him a band of disciples; here, as Jesus is beginning his own independent ministry, he starts to assemble a group of disciples whom he will equip to become co-workers with himself. e imperious call and the radical response are appropriate to the approach of the kingdom of heaven. e account of the call of the shermen is oen thought to echo the call of Elisha by Elijah (1 Ki. 19:19-21). is is quite likely, but if there is this link, it is also important to note the radicalisation.27 Matthew follows Mark here and makes only modest changes to his Markan source (Mk. 1:16-20).28

4:18 It is natural to assume that Capernaum is the location for this episode (note the echo of τὴν παραθαλασσίαν [‘beside the sea’] of v. 13 in παρὰ τὴν θάλασσαν [‘beside the sea’]).29 e strong focus on Galilee, arising from the use of Is. 9:1-2 in vv. 15-16, is sustained by the reference to ‘the Sea of Galilee’ (cf. vv. 12, 15, 23,

25). Aer the present string of references, Galilee will not be mentioned again until 15:29. Jesus is pictured as commandeering from what lies at hand rather than making a careful selection from candidates meeting some strict set of criteria. ‘Two brothers’ (not found in Matthew’s Markan source and needlessly fulsome, given ‘his brother’ to come) is the rst of a series of Matthean touches by means of which he enhances the formal parallelism between the call of Peter and Andrew, and that of James and John.30 Predominantly, Matthew uses the name ‘Peter’ for the apostle (twenty-three times), but he uses ‘Simon’ in ve places.31 Except where the two names are closely connected, the apostle is always ‘Peter’ in Matthew’s narration, but on the two occasions when Jesus addresses Peter by name, it is as Simon or Simon Bar-Jona (16:17; 17:25).32 Curiously, given the signi cance assigned to the name ‘Peter’ at 16:18, Matthew is the only Evangelist who does not explicitly make Jesus responsible for this extra name for Simon.33 Despite his awareness that Jesus addressed Peter as Simon, Matthew’s own perspective is that Peter is the other (and more usual) name rather than that it became Simon’s other name.34 But he gives a priority to the name in that it is Simon who is (otherwise) called Peter rather than the other way round. at Peter is the rst called accords with the prominence he is given in the larger telling of Matthew’s story. Apart from his place in the list of the twelve apostles (10:2), Andrew is identi ed only here.35 e use of ἀμϕίβληστρον identi es the shing method: a net with weights at the edges is thrown onto the surface and encloses sh as it sinks through the water and its weighted edges come together. As with James and John to come, Jesus will address Peter and Andrew in their work-a-day routine and totally disrupt it.

4:19 Matthew changes Mark’s aorist tense, ‘said’, to a present, ‘says’. is identi es Jesus’ words as the point of emphasis in the account; perhaps it conjures up a picture of the brothers carrying on with their work as Jesus speaks to them. For the relevant picture of Jesus’ movements (as the one to be followed) we need to look forward to v. 23 rather than back to v. 18. What the rst instance calls for is a quite literal following of Jesus. But what is in view is an apprenticeship which prepares these men for carrying out the same activity as Jesus himself. e shing metaphor should not be overly pressed: it is used because of the work in which these men had been engaged. e way in which people were to be gathered ( shed for) needs to be read from the example of Jesus’ own ministry, summarised in v. 23 as preaching and healing.36 e call to catch people is presented as a more urgent calling than that of catching sh, despite the latter’s essential part in the life patterns of Galilee. 4:20 e abruptness of the call is matched by the immediacy of the following. Following Jesus involved the abandonment right then and there of their lifestyle and material possessions (nets cast but not gathered in): the call of Jesus is totally disruptive. e urgency and the radical nature of the call are based on the near approach of the kingdom of heaven (4:17); following Jesus has to do with his signi cance for this kingdom. Are Peter and Andrew called to be apostles, or are they the rst of a wider circle of disciples? At this point only the extension of Jesus’ ‘ shing’ activity is in view; and that is an activity which Matthew associates with the Twelve (10:1; 28:16-20). But it is unclear whether Matthew thinks in terms of disciples other than the Twelve during the ministry of Jesus (see further discussion at 5:1). Beyond the coming call to James and John (vv. 21-22), in 8:22 Jesus issues a call to follow him to an unnamed disciple who is seeking permission to go off and bury his father, in 9:9 Jesus calls Matthew

from his tax office to follow him, and in 19:21 Jesus unsuccessfully calls the young man with many possessions to follow him. Otherwise there are only the conditional statements about following with a cross in 10:38 and 16:24 (both in the context addressing those identi ed by Matthew as disciples).37 It looks as if the only discipleship Matthew recognises is a discipleship in mission and that the only disciples he directly identi es as such are the Twelve (but see n. 37 for the identi cation of the women from Galilee as followers of Jesus). To anticipate, it would appear that, in Matthew’s view, the speci c call of Jesus puts the Twelve into a unique category (cf. 19:28 and discussion there), but that in following Jesus and becoming his disciples they embody patterns that are meant to be seen as pertinent to all Christians, who in a more general way recognise themselves to have been called to come to Jesus (cf. 11:2830). Calling, following, and discipleship in the postresurrection period are in an important sense derivative from the foundational discipleship of the Twelve. 4:21 Jesus now similarly calls a second pair of brothers. Aer Peter, James and John are the most prominent of the Twelve in Matthew. ey always appear together,38 and they form a trio with Peter in 17:1; 26:37. Matthew improves the logical ow of his Markan source by noting the presence of Zebedee at this point. καταρτίζοντας probably means ‘mending’, but it could refer more generally to getting shing nets ready for subsequent use. In either case the point is that James and John are called away from their work in much the same way that Peter and Andrew are. e speci c language of the call is not reported this time. 4:22 e language used of the response echoes the key elements of v. 20. Matthew omits Mark’s ‘with the hired help’, which was probably there to assure the reader that Zebedee would be able

to cope: it disturbs the symmetry and is super uous to the picture of imperious call and radical response which is Matthew’s interest.39 Leaving their nets in the case of Peter and Andrew and the boat in the case of James and John is only artistic distribution (both pairs had both nets and boat), but leaving their father adds the dimension of family disruption to the cost of discipleship.40 C. Itinerant Ministry in Galilee, with Influence Far Beyond (4:23-25) 23a[Jesus]

travelled around in the whole of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people. 24And his fame spread through the whole of Syria. [People] brought to him all those sick with various kinds of diseases and those afflicted with severe pain, bthose possessed by demons, those subject to epilepsy, and those who were paralysed, andb he healed them. 25And great crowds followed him, from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from Transjordan.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e name is found in ‫*א‬, 1 C*,3 D W f1, 13 etc. b-b. Omitted by sys. If the attestation were better, one might suspect expansion. Bibliography Boismard, M.-É., ‘Réponse aux deux autres hypothèses: La théorie des deux sources: Mc 3:7-12 et parallèles’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 259-65. • Donaldson, T. L., Mountain, 105-21. • Frankemölle, H., Evangelium — Begriff und Gattung: Ein Forschungsbericht (SBB 15. Stuttgart: Katholisches

Bibelwerk, 1988), 171-80. • Kampling, R., ‘Jesus von Nazaret — Lehrer und Exorzist’, BZ 30 (1986), 237-48. • Krieger, K.-S., ‘Das Publikum der Bergpredigt (Mt 4,23-25)’, Kairos 28 (1986), 98-115. • Loh nk, G., ‘Wem gilt die Bergpredigt? Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung von Mt 4.23–5.2 und 7.28f ’, TQ 163 (1983), 264-84. • Neirynck, F., ‘Matthew 4:23–5:2 and the Matthean Composition of 4:23–11:1’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 2346. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 183-86. See further at 5:1-2.

If the concrete locations Nazareth and Capernaum are important for Matthew’s understanding of the ful lment of Scripture, so is the expansion of Jesus’ ministry to the whole of Galilee. e present text generalises from v. 17, introduces as an important element Jesus’ healing ministry, and adds other elements of precision, as well as building up for Jesus’ ministry in Galilee a public that comes from all the regions of historic Israel. With vv. 12-25 Matthew has now characterised the opening phase of Jesus’ ministry. Matthew draws eclectically on Markan summary materials, but develops them in his own distinctive manner.41

4:23 In this generalising summary statement, Jesus’ ministry begun in Nazareth and Capernaum is extended to cover the whole of Galilee.42 At the same time reader awareness of the content of that ministry gains in precision with the mention of synagogue teaching and of a healing ministry. e fresh mention of Galilee keeps alive the prophetic ful lment perspective of 4:14. In rstcentury Jewish culture the synagogue was the most obvious place to speak to a Jewish audience about God. Despite the emphasis on teaching in the synagogues here (and reiterated at 9:35), the only speci c episode Matthew reports of Jesus teaching in a synagogue is the occasion of his rejection in his hometown (13:54-58).

It is unlikely that Matthew intends any sharp distinction between ‘teaching’ and ‘proclaiming’. e choice of ‘teaching’ for synagogue activity may simply re ect the educational orientation of synagogue life. Matthew’s most concentrated set of references to Jesus teaching will actually come in relation to the open-air teaching of Mt. 5–7. ‘eir synagogues’, which lacks a proper antecedent,43 is oen taken as marking a distance between Matthew’s community and the Jewish synagogue, but it is probably no more than a concretisation earthing the activity into particular synagogues (here those of communities of people in Galilee). ‘Gospel’ is not a word in which Matthew has any clear investment. Mark’s seven uses come down to four, all with a basis in Mark. Matthew’s preference for ‘gospel of the kingdom’ throws the emphasis onto ‘kingdom’.44 For Matthew, ‘gospel’ simply underlines the predominantly positive content of the preaching of the kingdom.45 e signi cance that Matthew attributes to the healing activity has for the most part yet to emerge,46 but we are probably intended to see here a counterpart to ‘region overshadowed by death’ in v. 16 (note the use of ‘the people’ — God’s historic people, contrasted with the Gentiles — in both verses). ose called in vv. 18-22 to become those who sh for people here follow Jesus as he undertakes his ministry, before being directed later to emulate it (10:1, 7-8). 4:24 e scope of the reference to Syria is disputed. If it is preparatory for what follows, then the scope must include the regions mentioned in v. 2547 and the reference will be to the Roman province, including (because of its subordinate status) the linked province of Judea. It is, however, better to treat the reference to Syria as connected backwards and not forwards.48 Matthew is likely

to be basing his statement on Mk. 1:28, which he takes to refer to the territory surrounding Galilee.49 Matthew is going to pick up on all of the southern arc of territory in v. 25 (in terms intended to evoke a sense of all Israel); for the northern arc, which takes us outside Jewish Palestine, Matthew chooses the term ‘Syria’. It is of little moment whether he thinks more comprehensively of the Roman province (but not including Judea) or more restrictedly of the territory north-east of Galilee (in continuity with OT Aram).50 Matthew would have us think of Gentile awareness of the good that was now happening to and for the people of God.51 What subject should be supplied for ‘they brought’?52 We have already ruled out a reference to Syria (the use of it links to what precedes, not what follows it), so the obvious choice is between the people of Galilee from v. 23 and the list which supplies the subject for ‘followed’ in v. 25. Since both in the rst part of v. 24 and in v. 25 Matthew is concerned with the expanding effect of Jesus’ teaching and healing, the same is likely to be true here. is cannot be, then, only an expanded reiteration of what has been said of healings in v. 23. Probably Matthew intends the imprecision of ‘they’ to provide a staging post for v. 25: more and more people came for healing, and in a short time people were following Jesus from all over Jewish Palestine. e listing is not particularly intended to specify disease types; it is rather to underline the massive range and scale of Jesus’ healing activity. In his survey of disease, Matthew’s thought ranges over the pain and suffering involved, the imprisoning control of evil spirits,53 the episodic attacks of maladies such as epilepsy (the word used points to folk belief that the in uence of the moon was involved, and it may well have a wider reference than to epilepsy), and the awful limitations imposed by paralysis.

A thread runs from the uses of ‘whole’ and ‘every’ in v. 23 (‘the whole of Galilee’, ‘every disease and every sickness’) through the uses of ‘whole’ and ‘all’ in v. 24 (‘all those sick’, ‘the whole of Syria’) and on in v. 25 to the list of all the parts of Jewish Palestine. Matthew is concerned to create an image of comprehensiveness, clearly in the interests of asserting the scale of the signi cance of Jesus. From a historical perspective this involves some exaggeration.54 4:25 Matthew is fond of the plural ‘crowds’, using it nearly twice as many times as the singular. While here a segmented crowd (based on places of origin) could be in view, the frequency of the Matthean use of the plural suggests nothing more than a desire to emphasise the large numbers involved.55 e ‘crowd/s’ in Matthew are characteristically appreciative of Jesus’ ministry and bene ciaries of it, but they are not committed followers of Jesus. Matthew may well have chosen the language of following here (and elsewhere) to suggest that, in the attention they are paying to Jesus, the crowds are headed in the direction of that following which would make true disciples of them,56 but he clearly has no intention of identifying their following with that costly following to which the shermen have been called in vv. 18-22. ough a focus on Galilee has been important for Matthew from v. 12, at this point he wants, while continuing to report a Galilean ministry, to transcend the parochial focus that this might seem to imply. Matthew’s approach is to suggest that while Jesus moves out from Nazareth and Capernaum to extend the scope of his ministry to the whole of Galilee, the movement of others also plays a part. e effective scope of Jesus’ ministry becomes coextensive with historic Israel because people come from all the other parts to where he is in Galilee. e focus on historic Israel is evident when one compares Matthew’s list with its likely source in

Mk. 3:7-8. ‘Idumea’ and ‘the region around Tyre and Sidon’ have dropped out, and ‘the Decapolis’ has come in (not because of the signi cant Jewish minority in the Decapolis, but rather because of the region to the east of the Jordan which was reckoned to have been part of the Promised Land as originally given).57 Matthew probably intends a cross reference to 3:5: not only does Jesus parallel but he outshines John in the way that he draws crowds from a distance, but he is in Galilee now, aer John’s voice has been silenced, reiterating the message of the kingdom to (among others) the same groups of people to whom John had spoken previously.58

1. Peter and Andrew came from Capernaum (Mk. 1:29). In Matthew Capernaum is mentioned again in 8:5; 11:23; 17:24; and cf. 9:1. 2. On this understanding the syntax is rough (but cf. the way in which the nal phrase of Mt. 1:18 is incorporated into the sentence), but traditional tribal boundaries would clearly locate Nazareth in Zebulun and Capernaum in Naphtali. 3. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:379. See Jn. 7:52; cf. 1:46; 7:41-42. 4. In Mt. 4:15 χώρα (‘district’) and ἡ γῆ (‘the land’) become consistently γῆ (‘land’), and the two items are linked with καί (changes which match the Hebrew); the LXX addition aer ‘way of the sea’, καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ τὴν παραλίαν κατοικοῦντες καί (‘and the rest who live on the seacoast and’), is dropped, as is the LXX addition, τὰ μέρη τῆς Ἰουδαίας (‘the parts of Judea’), aer ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’. In v. 16 ὁ καθήμενος (‘who sit’) replaces ὁ πορευόμενος (‘who go’), which followed closely the Hebrew (hhlkm), obviously to parallel τοῖς καθημένοις (‘those who sit’) in the following clause; ἴδετε (‘behold’) becomes εἴδεν (‘saw’), rendering more literally the Hebrew perfect; Matthew adds καί (‘and’) to separate the clauses; τοῖς καθημένοις (‘on those who sit’) for LXX οἱ κατοικοῦντες (‘those who live’ — Matthew has used this verb for Jesus’ residence in Capernaum and so avoids its use here) seems to be an alternative rendering of the Hebrew yšby

(Matthew’s dative form for the verb anticipates the coming αὐτοῖς [‘on them’]); the καί (‘and’) between χώρᾳ (‘region’) and σκιᾷ (‘shadow’) is a Septuagintal detail that Matthew keeps; ἀνέτειλεν (‘dawned’) for λάμψει ἐϕ᾿ (‘will shine upon’) looks like an independent rendering of the Hebrew which, while treating more literally the Hebrew perfect, is otherwise a less literal rendering which somewhat changes the imagery, perhaps to provide a cross reference to other pertinent Isaianic texts (58:8, 10; 60:1-3; cf. Mal. 4:2); and the third person αὐτοῖς (‘for them’) for the second person ἐϕ᾿ ὑμᾶς (‘on you’) conforms more closely to the Hebrew. 5. e designations may be Hebrew names for three Assyrian districts. Some uncertainty, however, is created by the sequence in which the names come: western, eastern, and central. One should, therefore, allow for the alternative possibility that all three terms are alternative ways of referring to the territory west of the Jordan (see Slingerland, ‘Transjordanian’, 22). e conclusion below about the Matthean sense may be thought to count in favour of Slingerland’s proposal on the sense of the Hebrew text. 6. On this understanding, ‘and the rest who live on the seacoast’ has been added to the LXX to ensure that the full sweep from the Mediterranean to east of the Jordan has been included. ‘e parts of Judah’ is then added to include the rest of Jewish Palestine. (is explanation does, however, leave ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ not well integrated. But perhaps this was unavoidable in any conservative rendering, once the loss of a phrase from the underlying Hebrew caused Zebulun and Naphtali to be immediately juxtaposed with the elements of the Hebrew list of locations.) 7. In keeping with this view, the sea otherwise mentioned in Matthew is the Sea of Galilee (as in 4:18; etc.) and not the Mediterranean. It is likely to be a mistake to nd in ‘way of the sea’ (a Greek form of) the (Latin) name of the Roman road connecting Damascus with Caesarea (as suggested by, e.g., Hagner, Matthew, 1:73). 8. It is true that ‘across the Jordan’ refers to Perea (east of the Jordan) in Mt. 4:25, but in 19:1 the more natural reference is, as Slingerland (‘Transjordanian’, 18-22) has noted, to west of the Jordan and the uses in 4:15 and 19:1 can be distinguished as adjectival from that in 4:25 as substantival.

9. As rightly observed by Loh nk, ‘Wem gilt die Bergpredigt?’, 273 (in the bibliography for 4:23-25). ere has been extensive discussion about the nature of the population mix in Galilee and the question of whether assimilated forms of Jewish faith were a signi cant element of the scene. Important as these issues are, the present text has no bearing on these matters. 10. Mt. 4:15; 6:32; 10:5; 20:19, 25. 11. Mt. 10:18; 12:18, 21; 24:14; 28:19. Singular uses are neutral (21:43; 24:7, 9), as is the plural use in 25:32. 12. is allows his readers to supply from imagination speci cs that come from their own awareness of the needs of their situation. 13. In the actual content of the Isaianic texts used, the emphasis in the case of John falls on the challenge to be ready and not to be caught by what is coming, whereas in the case of Jesus the emphasis falls on help coming to needy people. While the former emphasis is also part of what the Matthean Jesus stands for, the difference may still be more than accidental. 14. Mt. 3:2; 4:17; 5:3, 10, 19, 20; 7:21; 8:11; 10:7; 11:11, 12; 13:11, 24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52; 16:19; 18:1, 3, 4, 23; 19:12, 14; 20:1; 22:2; 23:13; 25:1. 15. Mt. 12:28; 19:24; 21:31, 43. 16. Mt. 4:23; 8:12; 9:35; 13:19, 38; 24:14; 25:34. 17. Mt. 26:29. 18. Mt. 13:43. 19. Mt. 6:10 (‘your’); 6:33 (‘his’); 20:21 (‘your’ — with reference to Jesus); 13:41 (‘his’); 16:28 (‘his’) — in both cases with reference to the Son of Man. 20. Is. 24:23; 52:7. 21. Chilton, God in Strength, 87-88. See, e.g., Tg. Ps.-J. Is. 24:23; 31:4; 40:9; 52:7. 22. Notably Mt. 12:28, but also 11:4-5; 13:16-17; 15:31; etc. 23. e LXX formulation which is closest is in Ez. 9:1, where the punishment of the city has drawn near. Here the text continues, ‘and each has his weapons of destruction in his hand’. 24. Since in the formulation of his understanding of the kingdom of God Matthew’s dependence on Isaiah is strong, it is worth noting, in solving the

problem of the relationship between the kingdom in Matthew as both future from the ministry of Jesus and present in that ministry, that the Isaianic materials picture a process (cf. Gaston, No Stone, 414: ‘One can even speak of the coming of salvation in Deutero-Isaiah as a process’). 25. We should probably understand that Mt. 10:8 (while also echoing 4:24 and 9:35) anticipates 11:5 with its echoes of salvation texts from Isaiah (see at 10:8). 26. Matthew’s third ‘from that time’ in 26:16 is probably intended to provide a minor echo of the earlier uses of ‘from that time Jesus began’, but now it is Judas Iscariot who begins (from 16:21 the Passion is anticipated; from 26:16 — marking a beginning from a time period which we should understand to embrace 26:3-16 — the Passion is enacted). As we have already seen, there is also a measure of deliberate parallel between ‘in those days John’ in 3:1 and ‘from that time Jesus began’ in 4:16. e difference of language, however, ensures that 3:1 is not treated as the rst in a sequence with 4:17 and 16:21. e nature of the transition at 16:21 will be discussed further at that point. 27. Cf. Pesch, ‘Berufung’, 9-18. 28. On the relationship between Mt. 4:18-22 and Lk. 5:1-11, see Nolland, Luke, 1:220, 223. 29. It is likely to be only accidental that all Matthew’s other uses of περιπατεῖν (‘to walk’) involve the miraculous (9:5; 11:5; 14:25, 26, 29; 15:31). 30. τὸν λεγόμενον Πέτρον (‘called Peter’) provides a parallel for τὸν τοῦ Ζεβαδαίου (‘son of Zebedee’); a οἱ δέ construction is introduced in Mt. 4:20 and repeated in v. 22, which with a change in the Markan position for ‘immediately’ (εὐθύς in Mark and εὐθέως in Matthew) produces a sequence of four words which are repeated from v. 20 to v. 22; the language for following at the end of v. 22 is conformed to that in v. 20 (ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ). 31. e name Peter is never far away: Mt. 10:2, ‘Simon who is called Peter’; 16:16, ‘Simon Peter’ (followed by a reference in v. 17 to ‘Simon, BarJonah’); in 17:25 the reference to Simon follows a narrative reference to Peter in v. 24.

32. But Jesus says of Peter, ‘You are Peter’, in Mt. 16:18. 33. Contrast Mk. 3:16; Lk. 6:14; Jn. 1:43. 34. is may be a minor way in which a post-Easter perspective obscures a historical one. 35. Andrew is slightly more visible in Mark (see 1:29; 13:3), and notably more so in John (see 1:40, 44; 6:8; 12:22). 36. It is almost certainly a mistake to appeal to the OT use of the shing metaphor in contexts of judgment (see Je. 16:15-16; Am. 4:2; Hab. 1:14-15; cf. 1QH 5:8) or, on the basis of a mythological view of the sea (e.g., Ps. 74:13; Jon. 2:2-4), to see the sh as rescued from chaos and evil. 37. e one that is difficult to locate is the offer to follow at Mt. 8:19. It appears to break the pattern in that Jesus does not take the initiative in issuing a call. e response underlines the radical demands of following Jesus, but it is not immediately clear whether this should be understood in terms of rebuff or challenge (most likely the latter). Many uses of the verb ‘to follow’ intend nothing more than physical movement (but see discussion at 4:25 for the possibility that in some of these cases the following involved may be seen as a stage along the way to true discipleship). One may also identify a number of texts which, with varying degrees of con dence, show concern with the response of the disciples to Jesus’ challenge to follow (4:20, 22; 8:23; 9:9; 19:27-28). 26:58 is probably concerned to document the last faltering steps in Peter’s following, before his temporary apostasy. If so, the women’s following in 27:55, which picks up the use of ἀπὸ μακρόθεν (‘from afar’) in connection with Peter, offers its own parallel to the following of the Twelve and suggests that Matthew may have been prepared to think of the women as disciples too. 38. By name in Mt. 10:2; 17:1; as sons of Zebedee in 26:37, and with mention of their mother as well in 20:20; 27:56. 39. Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 199-200. 40. Cf. Mt. 8:22; 10:21, 35, 37; 19:29. 41. Summaries related to Mt. 4:23-25 are found in 8:16; 9:35; 12:15(-16); 14:13-14, 35-36; 15:30-31; 19:2; 21:14. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:413, quote for comparison a fragment from Empedocles (a h-century-B.C. aristocrat from Acragus in Sicily) in which he speaks in a summary way of

his own wanderings, during which he was revered as a god and looked to for prophecies and healings. 42. Matthew uses Mk. 1:39, with some in uence also from 6:6. Since he already has Jesus in Galilee, there is some recasting at the beginning (‘came … into the whole of Galilee’ becomes ‘went about [περιῆγεν as in Mk. 6:6] in the whole of Galilee’). ‘e gospel of the kingdom’ is added to provide a speci c link back to v. 17; the use of ‘gospel’ is likely intended to re ect that in Matthew’s source for v. 17 (Matthew will use the same phrase, ‘gospel of the kingdom’, again in 9:35 and 24:14). Partly in the interests of the link to v. 17, Matthew keeps the activity wider than synagogue preaching by distinguishing the preaching from ‘teaching (διδάσκων as in Mk. 6:6) in their synagogues’. Matthew keeps back the mention of exorcisms for v. 24 to throw the emphasis onto healing in a broader sense (the formulation is his own, but Mark uses νόσος [‘disease’] in 1:34). 43. ‘eir synagogues’ is also found in Mt. 9:35; 10:17; 12:9; 13:54; cf. 23:34. Mt. 12:9 and 13:54 are said to share the lack of a precise grammatical antecedent, but in 12:9 the link is back to ‘the Pharisees’ of 12:2 and the point is that the synagogue incident takes place under the scrutiny of these same Pharisees, while in 13:54 there is an immediate antecedent (‘them’) — it is actually the use of ‘them’ which is strictly ungrammatical, but it is clearly intended to pick up on (the people of Jesus’) ‘hometown’ and manifests a need to construe according to sense in a manner similar to that which I am suggesting for 4:23. e idiom is also found in Mk. 1:23, 39 (the latter without a precise antecedent and the source for this feature of Mt. 4:23) and Lk. 4:15 (based on Mk. 1:49 and sharing its lack). 44. ‘is gospel’ in Mt. 26:13 is probably intended to refer back to the fuller phrase used earlier. Mark has ‘gospel of Jesus: Christ, Son of God’ (1:1), ‘gospel of God’ (v. 14), and ‘the gospel’ (v. 15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9). 45. As with Mt. 4:17, an echo of Is. 52:7 is likely, with its language of a messenger of good news (‘one announcing good’ [Greek: εὐαγγελιζόμενος ἀγαθά; Hebrew: mbśśr ṭb]). 46. See further at Mt. 8:14-17; 11:2-5; and individual healing accounts. 47. It is hardly satisfactory to separate the healings and the following and to have people from Syria healed but people from the named regions

(understood as not in Syria) following Jesus. 48. at is, we are not to understand that it is the people of the whole of Syria who, subsequently, bring their sick. See Loh nk, ‘Wem gilt?’ 268, 27174. 49. τὴν περίχωρον τῆς Γαλιλαίας could mean either the territory in Galilee all around where Jesus was, or the territory surrounding Galilee. 50. Probably the former, since a reference to the Roman province gives a more satisfying counterpart to Mk. 1:28 (though it does involve treating the territory of Philip as, for these purposes, part of the province of Syria) because it allows for a full arc both to the north and to the south. e north is outside Jewish Palestine, so there is only awareness there of what is happening; the southern arc embraces the historic regions of Israel, so Matthew reports active involvement and bene t. But Matthew’s Jewishness may count in favour of a more historically Jewish sense for ‘Syria’. 51. Cf. Is. 61:9; 62:2; 66:19. 52. e healing statement in Mt. 4:24 is Matthew’s own formulation, but it seems to have echoes of Mk. 1:32, 34. (Given the in uence of 3:7-8 on Mt. 4:25 to come, Mk. 3:10 might also be in mind.) 53. Kampling, ‘Jesus von Nazaret’, 237-48, has shown that exorcism was quite rare in the rst century and that Jesus’ combination of teaching and exorcism was quite distinctive. 54. Gerhardsson, Mighty Acts, 24: ‘Here, theology — or shall we say: the grandiose perspective of praise and confession — has clearly gained the upper hand over historical correctness.’ 55. Consequently I have translated ὄχλοι πολλοί as ‘great crowds’ rather than more literally as ‘many crowds’. 56. Cf. the discussion of προσκυνεῖν at Mt. 2:2. 57. It is true that Samaria is notably absent from the list, but it could not have been added without raising the complex problem of the Samaritans (those whose identity as Israelites was uncertain), which would have obscured Matthew’s concerns at this point (cf. Mt. 10:5). 58. Despite the verbal identity of πέραν τοὺ Ἰορδάνου (‘Transjordan’) here with the phrase used in Mt. 4:15, the link is to 3:5 and not to 4:15 (see discussion at 4:15-16).

VI. SERMON ON THE MOUNT (5:1–8:1) A. Preparing to Teach Disciples and Potential Disciples from All Israel (5:1-2) the crowds, [Jesus] went up aa mountain and, when he had sat down, his disciples came to him. 2en he opened his mouth and began to teach them.b 1Seeing

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e Greek has the de nite article (see discussion below). b. ‘Opened his mouth and’ is already rather pleonasic, but purposefully so (see below); a pleonastic λεγων (‘saying’) has been omitted in translation. Bibliography For chaps. 5–7 Allen, L., ‘e Sermon on the Mount in the History of the Church’, RevExp 89 (1992), 245-62. • Allison, D. C., Jr., e Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination (Companions to the New Testament. New York: Crossroad, 1999). • Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘e Structure of the Sermon on the Mount’, JBL 106 (1987), 423-45. • Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘A New Approach to the Sermon on the Mount’, ETL 64 (1988), 405-14. • Ansaldi, J., ‘Le sermon sur la montagne ou les tribulations d’un théologien protestant (with response)’, LumVie 36 (1987), 67-84, 85-96. • Bailey, J. L., ‘Sermon on the Mount: Model for Community’, CurTM 20 (1993), 85-94. • Bauman, C., e Sermon on the Mount: e Modern Quest for Its Meaning (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985). • Berner, U., Die Bergpredigt: Rezeption und

Auslegung im 20. Jahrhundert (GTA 12. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 19853). • Betz, H. D., Essays on the Sermon on the Mount (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). • Betz, H. D., ‘e Problem of Christology in the Sermon on the Mount’, in Text and Logos: e Humanistic Interpretation of the New Testament. FS H. W. Boers, ed. T. W. Jennings Jr. (Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), 191-209. • Betz, H. D., ‘e Sermon on the Mount and Q: Some Aspects of the Problem’, in Gospel Origins and Christian Beginnings. FS J. M. Robinson, ed. J. Goehring et al. (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1990), 1934. • Betz, H. D., ‘e Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Interpretation’, in e Future of Early Christianity. FS H. Koester, ed. B. A. Pearson et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 258-75. • Betz, H. D., e Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27 and Luke 6:20-49), ed. A. Yarbro Collins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). • Betz, H. D., ‘e Sermon on the Mount: In Defence of a Hypothesis’, BR 36 (1991), 74-80. • Betz, H. D., ‘e Portrait of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount’, CurTM 25 (1998), 165-75. • Betz, O., ‘Bergpredigt und Sinaitradition: Zur Gliederung und zum Hintergrund von Matthäus 5–7’, in Messias Israels, 333-84. • Betz, O., ‘Eschatology in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 34350. • Böcher, O., et al., Die Bergpredigt im Leben der Christenheit (Bensheimer Hee 56. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980). • Bockmuehl, M. N. A., ‘Halakha and Ethics in the Jesus Tradition’, in Early, ed. J. Barclay and J. Sweet, 264-78. • Bouttier, M., ‘Le Père, manifesté dans les actes et caché à la piété: Contraste et unité des chap. 5 et 6 du Sermon sur la Montagne selon Matthieu’, A cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 39-56. • Brooks, J. A., ‘e Unity and Structure of the Sermon on the Mount’, CrisTR 6 (1992), 3-14. • Brooks, O. S., e Sermon on the Mount: Authentic Human Values (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1985). • Cahill, L. S., ‘Nonresistance, Defense, Violence, and the Kingdom’, Int 38 (1984), 380-97. • Cahill, L. S., ‘e Ethical Implications of the Sermon’, Int 41 (1987), 144-56. • Carlston, C. E., ‘Recent American Interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount’, BangTF 17 (1985), 9-22. • Carlston, C. E., ‘Betz on the Sermon on the Mount — A Critique’, CBQ 50 (1988), 47-57. • Carruth, S., ‘Strategies of Authority: A Rhetorical Study of the Character of the Speaker in Q 6:20-49’,

in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 98-115. • Carson, D. A., e Sermon on the Mount (new edn. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1994). • Carter, W., What Are ey Saying about Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount? (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1994). • Carter, W., ‘Some Contemporary Scholarship on the Sermon on the Mount’, CRBS 3 (1995), 183-215. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘Jesus and the Community of Israel — e Inaugural Discourse in Q’, BJRL 68 (1986), 296316. • Cranford, L. L., ‘Bibliography for the Sermon on the Mount’, SWJT 35 (1992), 34-38. • Davies, W. D. and Allison, D. C., ‘Re ections on the Sermon on the Mount’, SJT 44 (1991), 283-309. • Derrett, J. D. M., e Ascetic Discourse: An Explanation of the Sermon on the Mount (Eilsbrunn: Ko’amar, 1989). • Descamps, A., ‘Le discours sur la montagne: Esquisse de théologie biblique’, RTL 12 (1981), 5-39. • Dewes, R., ‘Bergpredigt und Politik’, ZdZ 51 (1997), 182-87. • Donelson, L. R., ‘e Sermon on the Mount: e Stripping of Ideology’, Insights (Austin, TX) 110 (1995), 43-53. • Douglas, R. C., ‘“Love Your Enemies”: Rhetoric, Tradents, and Ethos’, in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 116-34. • Draper, J. A., ‘e Genesis and Narrative rust of the Paraenesis in the Sermon on the Mount’, JSNT 75 (1999), 25-48. • Dumais, M., Le Sermon sur la Montagne (Matthieu 5–7) (CÉ 94. Paris: Cerf, 1995). • Dumais, M., Le Sermon sur la Montagne: État de la recherche, Interprétation, Bibliographie (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1995). • Dumais, M., ‘e Sermon on the Mount: An Unattainable Way of Life?’ ChicStud 37 (1998), 316-24. • Durston, C., ‘Historical Interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount’, ScrB 18 (1988), 42-49. • Feldmeier, R., ed., ‘Salz der Erde’: Zugänge zur Bergpredigt (Biblisch-theologische Schwerpunkte 14. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998). • Flusser, D., Die Tora in der Bergpredigt: Entdeckungen im Neuen Testament, Bd. 1 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1987). • Frankemölle, H., ‘Neue Literatur zur Bergpredigt’, TRev 79 (1983), 177-98. • Genuyt, F., ‘Du règne de la loi à la loi du royaume’, LumVie 36 (1987), 41-56. • Ginzel, G. B., Die Bergpredigt: jüdisches und christliches Glaubensdokument (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1985). • Gonella, G., ‘Song of the Beatitudes’, Church 7 (1991), 8-11. • Green eld, G., ‘e Ethics of the Sermon on the Mount’, SWJT 35 (1992), 13-19. • Guelich, R., e Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding (Waco, TX: Word, 1982). • Guelich, R., ‘Interpreting the Sermon on the Mount’, Int 41

(1987), 117-30. • Guillemette, N., ‘e Sermon on the Mount: Feasible Ethics?’ Landas 9 (1995), 209-36. • Gundry, R. H., ‘H. D. Betz’s Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount’, Critical Review of Books in Religion 10 (1997), 39-57. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Ethics and the Sermon on the Mount’, ST 51 (1997), 44-59. • Harrington, D. J., ‘e Sermon on the Mount: What Is It?’ BiTod 36 (1998), 280-86. • Hartin, P. J., ‘James and the Q Sermon on the Mount/Plain’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 440-57. • Harvey, A. E., Strenuous Commands: e Ethics of Jesus (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990). • Hauerwas, S., ‘e Sermon on the Mount, Just War and the Quest for Peace’, Concil 195 (1988), 36-43. • Hendrickx, H., e Sermon on the Mount (rev. edn. London/San Francisco: Chapman/Harper and Row, 1984). • Hengel, M., ‘Die Berpredigt im Widerstreit’, TB 14 (1983), 53-67. • Hengel, M., ‘Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt und ihrem jüdischen Hintergrund’, TRu 52 (1987), 327-400. • Hill, D., ‘e Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel’, IBS 6 (1984), 120-33. • Hochgrebe, V., ed., Provokation Bergpredigt: Mit dem Text von Matthäus 5–7 in der Übersetzung von W. Jens und mit Beiträgen von J. Blank et al. (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1982). • Hoppe, R., ‘Vollkommenheit bei Matthäus als theologische Aussage’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 141-64. • Johner, M., ‘L’éthique de Jésus: A propos du Sermon sur la montagne’, RevRef 49 (1998), 27-43. • Kantzenbach, F. W., Die Bergpredigt (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982). • Kilgallen, J. J., ‘Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount’, ChicStud 40 (2001), 261-74. • Kingsbury, J. D., ‘e Place, Structure, and Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount within Matthew’, Int 41 (1987), 131-43. • Kodjak, A., A Structural Analysis of the Sermon on the Mount (Religion and Reason 34. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986). • Lambrecht, J., e Sermon on the Mount: Proclamation and Exhortation (Good News Studies 14. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1985). • Lapide, P., e Sermon on the Mount: Utopia or Program for Action? tr. A. Swidler (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986). • Lea, T. D., ‘Understanding the Hard Sayings of Jesus’, SWJT 35 (1992), 20-27. • Limbeck, M., ‘“Ich aber sage euch …”: Weshalb die Bergpredigt keine gesellschaliche Alternative eröffnet’, TPQ 150 (2002), 166-75. • Loh nk, G., Wem gilt die Bergpredigt? Beiträge zu einer christlichen Ethik (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1988); Lohse, E., ‘“Vollkommen sein”: Zur Ethik des Matthäusevangelium’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler,

131-40. • Luz, U., ‘Die Bergpredigt im Spiegel ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte’, in Nachfolge und Bergpredigt, ed. J. Moltmann, 37-72. • Luz, U., ‘Sermon on the Mount/Plain: Reconstruction of Q(Mt) and Q(Lk)’, SBLSP 22 (1983), 47379. • Macdonald, D., ‘A Perspective on Poverty’, RevRel 56 (1997), 311-19. • Marion, D., ‘Le sermon sur la montagne ou la règle de vie des ls du royaume’, EV 110.7 (2000), 20-29; 110.8, 18-24; 110.9, 14-20; 110.10, 19-25; 110.11, 16-21; 110.12, 14-19. • Massey, I. A., Interpreting the Sermon on the Mount in the Light of Jewish Tradition as Evidenced in the Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch: Selected emes (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 25. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, ONT/Lampeter: Mellen, 1991). • Matera, F. J., ‘e Ethics of the Kingdom in the Gospel of Matthew’, Listening 24 (1989), 241-50. • McEleney, N. J., ‘e Sermon on the Mount — en and Now’, Living Light 27 (1990), 30-35. • Miller, R. J., ‘e Lord’s Prayer and Other Items from the Sermon on the Mount’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 177-86. • Mills, W. E., Bibliographies on the Life and Teaching of Jesus, Vol. 3: e Sermon on the Mount/Plain (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2000). • Moltmann, J., ed., Nachfolge und Bergpredigt: Mit Beiträgen von H. W. Schmidt, U. Luz, R. Heinrich, H. Gollwitzer (Kaiser Traktate 65. Munich: Kaiser, 1981). • Nelson, J. L., ‘Preaching Values in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7)’, SWJT 35 (1992), 28-33. • Parrent, A. M., ‘e Sermon on the Mount, International Politics, and a eology of Reconciliation’, SewaneeTR 42 (1999), 176-90. • Pathrapankal, J., ‘e Ethics of the Sermon on the Mount: Its Relevance for and Challenge to Our Times’, Jeevadhara 27 (1997), 389-407. • Patte, D., Discipleship according to the Sermon on the Mount: Four Legitimate Readings, Four Plausible Views of Discipleship, and eir Relative Value (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1996). • Prior, M., ‘Jesus’ Teaching on the Mount’, ScrB 18 (1988), 26-33. • Römelt, J., ‘Normativität, ethische Radikalität und christlicher Glaube: Sur theologisch-ethischen Hermeneutik der Bergpredigt’, ZKT 114 (1992), 293-303. • Robbins, V. K., ‘Pragmatic Relations as a Criterion for Authentic Sayings’, Forum 1.3 (1985), 35-63. • Robinson, G., ‘e Sermon on the Mount and Eschatology’, BangTF 27 (1995), 30-41. • Robinson, J. M., ‘e Sermon on the Mount/Plain. Work Sheets for the Reconstruction of Q’, SBLSP 22 (1983), 451-54. • Roh, T., Familia dei, 186-201. • Saunders, E. W., ‘A Response to H. D. Betz on the

Sermon on the Mount’, BR 36 (1991), 81-87. • Scaer, D. P., e Sermon on the Mount: e Church’s First Statement of the Gospel (St Louis: Concordia, 2000). • Schnackenburg, R. et al., Die Bergpredigt: Utopische Vision oder Handlungsanweisung? (Schrien der Katholischen Akademie in Bayern 107. Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1982). • Schnackenburg, R., All ings Are Possible to Believers: Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount, tr. J. S. Currie (Louisville: Westminster/Knox, 1995). • Schrage, W., e Ethics of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992). • Schweizer, E., Die Bergpredigt (Kleine Vandenhoeck-Reihe 1481. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1982). • Scott, B. B. and Dean, M. E., ‘A Sound Map of the Sermon on the Mount’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 311-78. • SevenichBax, E., Konfrontation, 68-160. • Sission, R. B., ‘Voices of Authority in the Sermon on the Mount’, SBLSP 36 (1997), 551-66. • Smit Sibinga, J., ‘Exploring the Composition of Matth. 5–7: e Sermon on the Mount and Some of Its “Structures”’, FilolNT 7 (1994), 175-95. • Söding, T., ‘Die Predigt Jesu und die Kirche auf dem Berg der Seligpreisung’, GuL 73 (2000), 405-15. • Songer, H. S., ‘e Sermon on the Mount and Its Jewish Foreground’, RevExp 89 (1992), 165-77. • Stalder, K., ‘Überlieferung zur Interpretation der Bergpredigt’, in Mitte, ed. U. Luz and H. Weder, 272-90. • Stanton, G. N., ‘e Origin and Purpose of the Sermon on the Mount’, Gospel, 307-25. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Interpreting the Sermon on the Mount’, in A Gospel, 285306. • Stassen, G. H., ‘Grace and Deliverance in the Sermon on the Mount’, RevExp 89 (1992), 229-44. • Stefanovio, Z., ‘“One Greater than the Temple” — e Sermon on the Mount in the Early Palestinian Liturgical Setting’, AsiaJT 6.1 (1992), 108-16. • Stefanovio, Z., ‘“One Greater than the Temple”: e Sermon on the Mount in the Early Palestinian Liturgical Setting’, AsiaJT 9 (1995), 341-51. • Stiewe, M. and Vouga, F., La Sermon sur la Montagne: Un abrégé de l’Évangile dans le miroitement de ses interprétations (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2002). • Stoutenburg, D., With One Voice/bʾqol echad: e Sermon on the Mount and Rabbinic Literature (Bethesda, MD: International Scholars, 1996). • Strecker, G., e Sermon on the Mount: An Exegetical Commentary, tr. O. C. Dean Jr. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988). • Strelan, R. E., ‘e Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount’, LutheolJourn 23 (1989), 19-26. • Strobel, A., ‘Die Bergpredigt als ethische Weisung heute’, TBl 15 (1984), 3-

16. • Stuhlmacher, P., ‘Jesuvollkommenes Gesetz der Freiheit: Zum Verständnis der Bergpredigt’, ZTK 79 (1982), 283-322. • Syreeni, K., e Making of the Sermon on the Mount: A Procedural Analysis of Matthew’s Redactoral Activity, Part 1: Methodology and Compositional Analysis (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987). • Tilborg, S. van, e Sermon on the Mount as an Ideological Intervention: A Reconstruction of Meaning (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1986). • Tolar, W. B., ‘e Sermon on the Mount from an Exegetical Perspective’, SWJT 35 (1992), 4-12. • Vaage, L. E., ‘Q and Cynicism: On Comparison and Social Identity’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 199-229. • Vaage, L. E., ‘Composite Texts and Oral Mythology: e Case of the “Sermon” in Q (6:20-49),’ in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 7597. • Vaught, C. G., e Sermon on the Mount: A eological Investigation (rev. edn. Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2001). • Venetz, H.-J., Die Bergpredigt: Biblische Anstösse (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1987). • Vögtle, A., Was ist Frieden? Orientierungshilfen aus dem Neuen Testament (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1983). • Vouga, F., ‘Les sources de la composition matthéenne’, LumVie 36 (1987), 21-39. • Weder, H., Die ‘Rede der Reden’: Eine Auslegung der Bergpredigt heute (Zurich: eologischer, 1985). • Weder, H., ‘Die “Rede der Reden”: Beobachtungen zum Verständnis der Bergpredigt Jesu’, EvT 45 (1985), 45-60. • White, L. J., ‘Grid and Group in Matthew’s Community’, Semeia 35 (1986), 61-90. • Wick, P., ‘Volkspredigt contra Gemeinderegel? Matthäus 5–7 im Vergleich zu Matthäus 18’, KuI 13 (1998), 138-53. • Williams, J. G., ‘Paraenesis, Excess, and Ethics: Matthew’s Rhetoric in the Sermon on the Mount’, Semeia 50 (1990), 163-87. • Wink, W., ‘Beyond Just War and Paci sm: Jesus’ Nonviolent Way’, RevExp 89 (1992), 197-214. • Worden, R. D., ‘e Q Sermon on the Mount/Plain: Variants and Reconstruction’, SBLSP 22 (1983), 455-71. • Worth, R. H., e Sermon on the Mount: Its Old Testament Roots (New York/Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1997). • Wright, A., ‘e Sermon on the Mount: A Jewish View’, NB 70 (1989), 182-89. • Wudel, B. D., ‘Enticements to Community: Formal, Agonistic and Destabilizing Rhetoric in the Sermon on the Mount’, SR 29 (2000), 275-85. • Zauner, W., ‘Bergpredigt und Bürokratie’, Diak 30 (1999), 289-92. • Zeilinger, F., Zwischen Himmel und Erde: Ein Kommentar zur ‘Bergpredigt’ Matthäus 5–7 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2002). • Zeller, D., ‘Jesus

als vollmächtiger Lehrer (Mt 5–7) und der hellenistische Gesetzgeber’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 299-317. • Zumstein, J., ‘Proximité et rupture avec le judaïsme rabbinique’, LumVie 36 (1987), 5-19. For 5:1-2 Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Jesus and Moses (Mt 5:1-2)’, ExpTim 98 (1987), 203-5. • Black, D. A., ‘e Translation of Matthew 5.2’, BT 38 (1987), 241-43. • Deutch, C., ‘Torah, Jesus and Discipleship in the Gospel of Matthew’, SIDIC 24 (1991), 43-52. • Donaldson, T. L., Mountain, 105-21. • Doyle, B. R., ‘Disciples, Sages and Scribes in Matthew’s Gospel’, Word in Life 32.4 (1984), 6-7. • Edwards, J. R., ‘e Use of Προσέρχεσθαι in the Gospel of Matthew’, JBL 106 (1987), 65-74. • Edwards, R. A., ‘Characterization of the Disciples as a Feature of Matthew’s Narrative’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1305-24. • Edwards, R. A., ‘Uncertain Faith: Matthew’s Portrait of the Disciple’, in Discipleship in the New Testament, ed. F. F. Segovia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 47-61. • Hartin, P. J., ‘Disciples as Authorities within Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community’, Neot 32 (1998), 389-404. • Keegan, T. J., ‘Introductory Formulae for Matthean Discourses’, CBQ 44 (1982), 415-30. • McCurley, F. R., Ancient Myths and Biblical Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 126-82. • Melbourne, B. L., Slow to Understand: e Disciples in Synoptic Perspective (Lanham, MD/New York/London: University Press of America, 1988), esp. 58-72. • Mora, V., Création, 33-47. • Morris, L., ‘Disciples of Jesus’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 11227. • Oberlinner, L., ‘Wem gilt die Bergpredigt?’ BZ 34 (1990), 104-8. • Trainor, M., ‘e Begetting of Wisdom: e Teacher and the Disciples in Matthew’s Community’, Pacifica 4 (1991), 148-64. • Wilkins, M. J., Concept of Disciple. • Wilkins, M. J., Discipleship. • Wilkins, M. J., ‘Named and Unnamed Disciples in Matthew: A Literary-eological Study’, SBLSP 30 (1991), 418-39. • Wouters, A., Willen, 274-80. See further at 4:23-25.

e itinerant ministry that has led to the gathering of crowds from all parts of Israel and the instruction which is now to come in chaps. 5–7 illuminate by example the nature of the ‘ shing’ to which

Jesus was calling Peter and the others in 4:18-22. e present sermon will be marked in 7:28 as the rst of a set of ve discourses that Matthew will link by means of a shared formula conclusion (see at 7:28). e formulation of 5:1-2 is Matthean, but elements of agreement with Luke about the setting for the sermon suggest that they have drawn on some shared tradition.1

5:1 ‘Seeing a crowd’ motivates withdrawal in 8:18, but ‘seeing the crowds’ in 9:36 (where the language is closer) evokes compassion for them. Since the crowds are clearly identi ed in 7:28-29 as the ones being taught in Mt. 5–7 (they are not merely eavesdroppers), we should take our lead from 9:36.2 Also, the concern in 4:25 to have crowds from all Israel present makes best sense if they are there to act as the audience for the sermon. e mountain, then, is not here a place of withdrawal but a vantage point for addressing a large number of people.3 But, for all that, it is those who are identi ed as his disciples who ‘take the ringside seats’. e disciples of Jesus are introduced at this point without explicit explanation. A μαθητής is etymologically one who learns, but the learning from Jesus as he taught in the synagogues (4:23) would not of itself justify use of the term. e word generally points to a commitment to some speci c kind of learning, normally based on an allegiance to a particular teacher and oen involving a full sharing of life by a group of disciples with their teacher.4 Given that the call of the four in 4:18-22 is to follow Jesus and be prepared by him for a role patterned on his own practice, the four must clearly be counted as disciples. What is less clear is whether we are to understand that the disciple group is to be thought of as having expanded by this point (by 10:1 there are twelve disciples, named in vv. 2-4) and whether a speci c call to follow is required of those for

whom Matthew will use this language (the only other call scene before 10:1 is the call of Matthew in 9:95). Matthew does not use ‘disciple’ in a way which de nitely takes us beyond the Twelve.6 But he does use the related verb μαθητεύειν (‘disciple/make disciples’), which suggests that in principle he does not intend to restrict the discipleship category exclusively to the Twelve. e action of Joseph of Arimathea in asking for the body of Jesus is based on the fact that he had ‘been discipled to Jesus’ (27:57), and this discipleship anticipates that disciple making to which the Eleven are directed in 28:19-20.7 ‘e disciples’ in Matthew are the Twelve because it is they whose sharing of life with Jesus and learning from him at every level provide the foundation on which the discipleship to which Matthew challenges his readers is ultimately based. But that which they have gained from being ‘the disciples’ in an exclusive sense, they have in order to pass on to others (28:19-20) who will know the call of Jesus in a more general sense (cf. 11:28-30), who will, not physically but in a very deep sense, nd that they have Jesus with them (18:20), and who will make great sacri ces in following him (19:29). e content of the sermon takes us in the same direction. As radical as its demands are, this is no manual for an exclusive spiritual elite. Its concern to elucidate the will of God is based on theological and ethical considerations and is not linked to a distinctive call for an exclusive few. e double audience of disciples and crowds ts in with this: the disciples learn from within the context of a relationship of committed discipleship, but that which they learn has pertinence as well to all the others who hear. is is the second mountain setting that Matthew uses (cf. at 4:8). Why does he use the de nite article this time? Before we insist too quickly on some particular identity for the mountain, it will be important to note the frequency of Gospel references to τὸ ὄρος (lit.

‘the mountain’) where the text speci ed no identity for the mountain.8 ere is clearly a generic use (i.e., one in which the reference is more to a kind of location than to a speci c location9) of τὸ ὄρος to mean ‘mountainous country’10 rather than ‘mountain’, and this may account for some of these. In most cases, however, a related but different generic usage seems to be involved in which (any) mountain location is indicated. Accordingly, the translation offered above is ‘a mountain’. Against the background of the widespread sacralization of mountains among ancient peoples, including the Jews,11 the mountain setting undoubtedly underlines the importance of the event taking place there. e mountain here is oen taken more speci cally as providing an allusion to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai (cf. 5:17),12 but it has also been linked with the Zion eschatology in which there was ‘the expectation of a great gathering of Israel to the holy mountain of Yahweh where they would be constituted afresh as the people of God’.13 If Matthew intends one or other of these allusions (and that is far from certain), it can play only a minor role. ‘Sat down’ is here the posture of the Jewish teacher.14 5:2 ‘Opened his mouth’ is a Semitic idiom, which adds a note of solemnity to the beginning of this public address.15 e content of the coming address is appropriately identi ed as teaching rather than proclamation, but what Jesus is to say is to be thought of as grounded in his proclamation of the near approach of the kingdom of God and as clarifying what, for the disciple, lies beyond the repentance called for in 4:17. e verb sequence ‘followed’, ‘went up’, ‘began to teach’ in 4:25–5:2 returns in reverse sequence in 7:29–8:1 to create a bracket around the sermon.

B. Good News to the Poor in Spirit (5:3-10) 3aGood

fortune now toa the poor in spirit! For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4bGood

fortune now to those who mournc! For they will be comforted. 5Good fortune now to the lowly! For they shall inherit the land!b 6Good fortune now to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness! For they shall be satisfied. 7Good fortune now to the merciful! For they shall receive mercy. 8Good fortune now to the pure in heart! For they shall see God. 9Good fortune now to the peacemakers! For dthey shall be called sons of God. 10Good fortune now to those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake! For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. To catch the implied sense of immediacy (the kingdom has now drawn near) the translation here and in each of the following beatitudes departs from the more literal ‘fortunate are’. b-b. e sequence of vv. 4 and 5 is inverted in D 33 b f q vg syc boms. is produces a more logical sequence by bringing the more general term ‘lowly’ (see discussion below) back before the more focussed ‘mourn’ and ‘hunger and thirst’ (provided one takes ‘poor in spirit’ to be a broad category

— see below). e change also brings together the future passives of vv. 4 and 6. c. νυν [‘now’] is added by ‫א‬1 33 892 etc., under the in uence of Lk. 6:21. d. e emphatic αυτοι [‘they’ — found in vv. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] is missing from ‫ א‬C D f13 etc. Bibliography Amaladoss, M., ‘Blessed Are the Peacemakers (Mt 5:9)’, Vidyajyoti 65 (2001), 917-20. • Ambrozic, A. M., ‘Re ections on the First Beatitude’, Communio 17 (1990), 95-104. • Barré, M. L., ‘Blessed Are the Poor of Heart’, TBT 22 (1984), 236-42. • Bloomquist, L. G., ‘e Rhetoric of the Historical Jesus’, in Whose?, ed. W. E. Arnal and M. Desjardins, 98-117. • Boring, M. E., ‘Criteria of Authenticity: e Lucan Beatitudes as a Test Case’, Forum 1.4 (1985), 338. • Boring, M. E., ‘e Historical-Critical Method’s “Criteria of Authenticity”: e Beatitudes in Q and omas as a Test Case’, Semeia 44 (1988), 9-44. • Broer, I., Die Seligpreisungen der Bergpredigt: Studien zu ihren Überlieferung und Interpretation (BBB 61. Königstein/Bonn: Hanstein, 1986). • Brooke, G. J., ‘e Wisdom of Matthew’s Beatitudes (4QBeat and Mt. 5:3-12)’, ScrB 19 (1989), 35-41. • Buby, B., ‘From the Mountain to the Plain: e Bigger Picture of the Beatitudes’, Emman 102 (1996), 467-71. • Buchanan, G. W., ‘Matthean Beatitudes and Traditional Promises’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. W. Farmer, 61-84. • Buth, R., ‘Pursuing Righteousness’, JerPersp 4, 11-12, 15. • Chareire, I., ‘Les Béatitudes, espace de la vie théologale’, LV 47 (1997), 85-92. • Charlesworth, J. H., ‘e Qumran Beatitudes (4Q525) and New Testament (Mt 5:3-11, Lk 6:20-26)’, RHPR 80 (2000), 13-35. • Cousin, H., ‘Les yeux levés sur ses disciples, Jésus disait…’, VSpir 147 (1992), 5-18. • Crossan, J. D., In Fragments, 168-71. • Di Lella, A. A., ‘e Structure and Composition of the Matthean Beatitudes’, in To Touch the Text. FS J. A. Fitzmyer, ed. M. P. Morgan and P. J. Kobelski (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 237-42. • Domeris, W. R., ‘“Blessed are you…” (Matthew 5:1-12)’, JTSA 73 (1990), 67-76. • Dumbrell, W. J., ‘e Logic of the Role of the Law in Matthew V 1-20’, NovT 23 (1981), 1-21. • Dupont, J., ‘Les béatitudes, le coeur du message de Jésus’, in Jésus aujourd’hui: Historiens et

exégètes à Radio-Canada II (Vie, message et personnalité. Montréal/Paris: Bellarmin/Fleurus, 1980), 75-84. • Eigo, F. A., ed., New Perspectives on the Beatitudes (Proceedings of the eology Institute of Villanova University 27. Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1995). • Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘A Palestinian Collection of Beatitudes’, in e Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 509-15. • Funk, R. W., ‘e Beatitudes and Turn the Other Cheek: Recommendations and Polling’, Forum 2.3 (1986), 103-28. • Genuyt, F., ‘Les Béatitudes selon saint Matthieu (5,3-12)’, LumVie 47 (1997), 21-30. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 79-122. • Gnilka, J., ‘“Selig, die reinen Herzens sind”’, IKZCom 17 (1988), 385-91. • Gnilka, J., ‘“Selig, die Frieden stien”’, IKZCom 18 (1989), 97-103. • Gourgues, M., ‘Sur l’articulation des béatitudes matthéenes (Mt 5.3-12): une proposition’, NTS 44 (1998), 340-56. • Green, H. B., Poet. • Grimm, W., ‘Die Hoffnung der Armen: Zu den Seligpreisungen Jesu’, TB 11 (1980), 100-113. • Hamm, M. D., e Beatitudes in Context: What Luke and Matthew Meant (Zacchaeus Studies: New Testament. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1990). • Hanson, K. C., ‘How Honorable! How Shameful! A Cultural Analysis of Matthew’s Makarisms and Reproaches’, Semeia 68 (1994), 81-111. • Hartin, P. J., ‘Call to Be Perfect through Suffering (James 1,2-4): e Concept of Perfection in the Epistle of James and the Sermon on the Mount’, Bib 77 (1996), 477-92. • Hieke, T., ed., Q 6:20-21: e Beatitudes for the Poor, Hungry, and Mourning (Documenta Q. Leuven: Peeters, 2001). • Hoyt, T., ‘e Poor/Rich eme in the Beatitudes’, JRT 37 (1980), 31-41. • Jacob, G., ‘Die Proclamation der messianischen Gemeinde: Zur Auslegung der Makarismen in der Bergpredigt’, TVers 12 (1981), 47-75. • Kehl, M., ‘“Selig die Trauernden, denn sie werden getröstet werden” (Mt 5,4)’, GuL 73 (2000), 96-97. • Kellenberger, E., ‘Plädoyer für ein nicht-moralisierendes Verständnis von ʿānāw und πραΰς’, ProtBib 6 (1997), 81-86. • Kertelge, K., ‘“Selig, die verfolgt werden um der Gerechtigkeit willen” (Mt 5,10)’, IKZCom 16 (1987), 97-106. • Kertelge, K., ‘“Selig die Trauernden …” (Mt 5,4)’, IKZCom 20 (1991), 387-92. • Kessler, C., ‘Exégèse juive des béatitudes Matthéennes’, LumVie 47 (1997), 51-61. • Kirchschläger, W., ‘Die Friedenbotscha der Bergpredigt: Zu Mt 5,9.17-48; 7.1-5’, Kairos 25 (1983), 223-37. • Kloppenborg, J. S., ‘Blessing and Marginality: e “Persecution Beatitude” in Q, omas, and Early Christianity’, Forum 2.3

(1986), 36-56. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 117-24. • Koch, K., e Growth of the Biblical Tradition (New York: Macmillan, 1988), 6-8, 16-18, 28-29, 39-44, 59-62. • Lapide, P., ‘e Beatitudes’, Emman 92 (1986), 322-29, 355. • Leske, A. M., ‘e Beatitudes: Salt and Light in Matthew and Luke’, SBLSP 30 (1991), 816-39. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 431-61. • Loh nk, N., ‘e Appeasement of the Messiah: oughts on Ps 37 and the ird Beatitude’, TD 44 (1997), 234-41. • Lux, R., ‘Das Erbe der Gewaltlosen. Überlegungen zum Mt 5,5 und seiner Vorgeschichte’, in Gottesvolk: Beiträge zu einem ema Biblischer eologie, ed. A. Meinhold and R. Lux (Stuttgart: Evangelische, 1991), 75-90. • Maartens, P. J., ‘Critical Dialogue in eory and Practice of Literary Interpretation: A Study of Semiotic Relations in Matthew 5:11 and 12’, LingBib 65 (1991), 5-24. • Manns, F., ‘Blessed Are the Meek, For ey Shall Inherit the Earth’, SBFLA 50 (2000), 37-51. • Martin, F., ‘e Paradox of the Beatitudes: Between Eschatology and History’, Anthropotes (Vatican City) 17 (2001), 225-38. • McEleney, N. J., ‘e Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount/Plain’, CBQ 43 (1981), 1-13. • Meadors, G. T., ‘e “Poor” in the Beatitudes of Matthew and Luke’, GTJ 6 (1985), 305-14. • Monloubou, L., ‘“Les coeurs purs verront Dieu”: Le culte et l’eschatologie’, EV 107 (1997), 487-90. • Nadeau-Lacour, T., ‘Les béatitudes, entre spiritualité et morale, dans la vie familiale’, Anthropotes (Vatican City) 17 (2001), 239-54. • Neirynck, F., ‘Q 6, 20b-21; 7,22 and Isaiah 61’, in e Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 27-64. • Neyrey, J. H., Honor and Shame, 16489. • Nieuviarts, J., ‘Jésus, l’homme des Béatitudes’, LV 47 (1997), 33-46. • Powell, M. A., ‘Matthew’s Beatitudes: Reversals and Rewards of the Kingdom’, CBQ 58 (1996), 460-79. • Przybylski, B., Righteousness, 96-99. • Puech, E., ‘Un Hymne essenien en partie retrouve et les Beatitudes: 1QH V 12–VI 18 (= col. XIII-XIV 7) et 4QBeat’, RevQ 13 (1988), 59-88. • Puech, E., ‘4Q525 et les péricopes des Béatitudes en Ben Shira et Matthieu’, RB 138 (1991), 80-106. • Ritter, A. M., ‘Die Väter als Schriausleger am Beispiel Gregors von Nyssay: De beatitudinibus’, ZNW 93 (2002), 120-37. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 2:423-50. • Schnackenburg, R., ‘Die Seligpreisung der Friedensstier (Mt 5,9) im matthäischen Kontext’, BZ 26 (1982), 161-78. • Sicari, A., ‘e Hunger and irst of Christ’, Communio 18 (1991), 590-602. • Smith, R. H., ‘“Blessed Are the Poor in (Holy) Spirit”? (Matthew 5:3)’, WW

18 (1998), 389-96. • Stegemann, W., e Gospel and the Poor, tr. D. Elliott (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). • Steinhauser, M. G., ‘e Beatitudes and Eschatology: Announcing the Kingdom’, Living Light 19 (1982), 121-29. • Stock, K., ‘Der Gott der Freude: Die acht Seligpreisungen (II)’, GuL 62 (1989), 433-46. • Stock, K., ‘Der Weg der Freude: Die acht Seligpreisungen (I)’, GuL 62 (1989), 360-73. • Talbot, M., ‘Heureux. • ompson, J. W., ‘e Background and Function of the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke’, RestQ 41 (1999), 109-16. • Trites, A. A., ‘e Blessings and Warnings of the Kingdom (Matthew 5:3-12; 7:13-27)’, RevExp 89 (1992), 179-96. • Tuckett, C. M., ‘e Beatitudes: A Source-Critical Study: With a Reply by M. D. Goulder’, NovT 25 (1983), 193-216. • Turner, D. L., ‘Whom Does God Approve? e Context, Structure, Purpose, and Exegesis of Matthew’s Beatitudes’, CrisTR 6 (1992), 29-42. • Viviano, B. T., ‘Beatitudes Found among Dead Sea Scrolls’, BAR 18 (1992), 53-55, 66. • Whitters, M., ‘e Beatitudes: Glimpses of Heaven for ose Stuck on Earth’, Emman 102 (1996), 223-29. • Wick, P., ‘Die Antithesen der Bergpredigt als paränetische Rhetorik: Durch scheinbaren Widerspruch zu einem neuen Verständnis’, Jud 52 (1996), 15678. • Wouters, A., Willen, 259-70. See further at 5:1-2.

Jesus speaks centrally to his disciples, but also to a crowd gathered from all parts of Israel. e disciples learn from within the context of a relationship of committed discipleship, but what they learn is pertinent to all Israel as well. In part the sermon illustrates the ‘ shing’ to which Jesus has recently called some shermen. While scholars broadly agree that the Sermon on the Mount (5:3–7:27) is a highly structured piece, and parts of the structuring are immediately evident, there is no clear consensus about the details of the structure. Obvious features are an opening set of beatitudes which somehow sets the scene for and quali es the signi cance of all that follows; a series of six antitheses; discussion of three fundamental areas of piety (almsgiving, prayer, and fasting); and a nal sequence of pieces that shares an interest in

eschatological judgment. I will offer more detailed discussion of structure section by section. A notable feature of the sermon is that it begins with statements formulated in the third person and then switches at 5:11 to second person address, which is then sustained through the main body of the sermon.16 Is this move structurally signi cant? I think so. e initial reference point for exploring the Matthean beatitudes is given in Jesus’ proclamation that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near (4:17), coupled with the conviction that this is good news (4:23). It seems likely that the distinctive third person format of 5:3-10 allows these verses to serve functionally as an expanded restatement of 4:17: this is what is now imminent. is is good news speci cally to those who nd themselves in these identi ed situations (a list which is probably designed to echo key elements of the shared experience of God’s people: chastened by the humiliation of exile and beyond, and living as a subject people; longing for God to put things nally to rights; peacemakers, not motivated by a thirst for vengeance, having discovered the depth of their own need of mercy; seeking to be pure in heart; and ready to suffer, if need be, as those identi ed with the way of God). Jesus brings good news for those who have travelled the distance with God and been educated by the history of their people.17 A break between vv. 10 and 11 nds further support from the repetition in v. 10 of the supporting clause found in v. 3, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’, a repetition which invites the reader to identify all the coming bene ts mentioned between as also aspects of the coming kingdom of heaven, and which also focuses special attention on the beatitudes in vv. 3 and 10. e beatitudes have been grouped in various ways.18 Perhaps the best way is to link the three beatitudes in vv. 4-6 (all sharing the initial π- of the opening beatitude) as directly spelling out aspects of the poverty of the

opening beatitude; and to connect the three beatitudes in vv. 7-9 as identifying a linked set of personal qualities that mark out an orientation that has been forged in those who have learned appropriately from the hard experiences God has allowed them to pass through.19 e eighth beatitude in v. 10, which rounds off the set and is joined with v. 3, will have to do with delity to God despite, through, and even because of the experience of impoverishment. Extended lists of beatitudes are rare in biblical and other early Jewish sources.20 Normally alone or in pairs, beatitudes occur primarily in wisdom and eschatological texts. ough they vary in function,21 they regularly verge on the congratulatory: a category of persons is singled out and their good fortune proclaimed.22 e Matthean beatitudes likely have a complex prehistory. Luke knows only four beatitudes, balanced by four woes (Lk. 6:20-26). Matthew has nine, the rst, second, fourth, and ninth of which match the Lukan beatitudes (with the order inverted for the second and fourth). ere is reasonable scholarly consensus that Luke’s rst three are the core beatitudes and that the divergences between the present forms are not all to be attributed to the respective Evangelists. I think it most likely that Luke’s fourth beatitude formed an original unity with the fourth woe (poetic antithetical parallelism) and that it was the linking of it to the original three which caused the separation of the woe and inspired the formation of the other three woes. Matthew’s sermon may, in turn, have been in uenced by the Lukan woes.23 Matthew’s eighth beatitude, probably inspired by the ninth, would make best sense if it was created to complete a set (note the repetition in the eighth of the second clause of the rst beatitude and the clear formal difference of the ninth beatitude), but a set of seven seems more likely than a set of eight. is in turn suggests that the formation of the eighth predates the inclusion of one (most likely the third — cf. n. 18) of the present set and is therefore pre-Matthean.

5:3 e language of poverty is rst and foremost the language of neediness. ‘e poor’ we meet in the NT are characteristically not merely the economically disadvantaged but rather those in need of charity to sustain their lives (e.g., 19:21; 26:9, 11);24 not simply relative deprivation but real distress marks their state. But what of the present beatitude where the poverty is quali ed as being τῷ πνεύματι [‘in spirit’]? Poverty here has been variously taken as referring a. to poverty (primarily economic) in a general sense; b. to poverty (primarily economic) voluntarily chosen as an expression of piety; or c. to hardship (of which economic poverty is likely to be a component but not the de ning feature) experienced as a patient bearing of the judgment of God (‘exile’) in expectation of a future restoration (‘return from exile’); or as used with d. a state of mind arising from deprivation and hardship (feeling poor); or e. an attitude of inner detachment from possessions, deemed to be in some sense equivalent to not having them; or as identifying (without any particular reference to material circumstances) f. g. h. i.

a state of depression, a state of personal inadequacy; a state of faintheartedness; or a moral quality of humility; or

as indicating a state of personal awareness, whether j. as a knowledge of one’s own personal inadequacy (before God); or k. as an insight into and acceptance of the general human condition as a humble one.25 e different understandings of ‘poor’ interact with and are already, in some cases, heavily in uenced by how τῷ πνεύματι [‘in spirit’] is taken. e phrase has occasionally been referred to the Holy Spirit, in which case the state of poverty will be understood to result in some way from the work of the Spirit of God. But a reference to God’s Spirit here seems quite unlikely; the context supports reference rather to the human spirit. ‘In spirit’ has been seen as a. making the reference to poverty more comprehensive: ‘those whose poverty reaches even to their inner spirits’; b. pointing to the element of decision or choice in the embracing of poverty; c. referring to the human attitude or state of mind; or d. indicating an awareness of a state of being as distinct from the state of being (or mind) as such.26 (e third of these is the most common, and almost certainly the correct choice.) e overall pattern of the beatitudes (reversal-of/compensationfor/recognition-for-handling-well-of a situation of difficulty) requires that the understanding of the present one have room for the identi cation of an undesirable state of affairs which is to be overturned in the kingdom of God. A further important point of

reference comes from 11:5, where a second reference to ‘poor’ is found (‘[the] poor have good news proclaimed [to them]’), and where allusion to Is. 61:1 is unmistakable.27 e phrase ‘poor in spirit’ is not found in the OT, but the Greek of Ps. 33(34):19 comes close: οἱ ταπεινοὶ τῷ πνεύματι (‘the humbled/downhearted/lowly/humble in spirit’);28 there the concern is to provide assurance to the afflicted righteous that God is near them and will rescue them. Otherwise the clearest parallel comes from the Qumran documents where ʿnwy rwḥ (‘humbled of spirit’) is found. At Qumran ʿnw (‘humble’) was used with reference to the members of the community. e members of the Qumran community identi ed themselves as the poor to whom the eschatological promises apply (1QH 18.12-15). ey were those who continued patiently to bear until the day of the nal battle the affliction and poverty of the exile period, the period of God’s wrath (1QM 11.8-15; CD 1.5, 8-9), continued and heightened in their own experience of persecution (4QpPs37 1.9; 1QH 5.16-19, 20-22). ose at Qumran felt they had learned the lesson of the exile and gloried in their powerlessness apart from God.29

In Qumran usage no discernible difference of meaning is created by the addition of ‘of spirit’, which serves only to point beyond any more restricted sense for ʿnw.30 If we strip away the sharp contours of Qumran ideology, there can be little doubt that it is this Qumran usage which provides the best starting point for understanding the Matthean sense.31 e poor in spirit will be those who sense the burden of their present (impoverished) state, and see it in terms of the absence of God; who patiently bear that state, but long for God to act on their behalf and decisively claim them again as his people. To people like this belongs the kingdom of heaven which has now drawn near.32

5:4 is beatitude corresponds to Luke’s third (Lk. 6:21), but the formulations are quite different: Matthew speaks of mourning and comfort; Luke speaks of weeping and laughter.33 Matthew’s form echoes language from Is. 61:2 and therefore reinforces the link between 5:3 and Is. 61:1.34 Interest in a contemporary ful lment of Is. 61 also marked the Qumran community.35 Again, the state of ‘exilic’ suffering of Israel is evoked. e time of painful loss will come to an end, and the sense of loss will be transcended by the comfort of God.36 is, too, is part of the coming of the kingdom of heaven to the poor in spirit. 5:5 What does Matthew mean by πραεῖς? In wider Greek the word normally means ‘mild/gentle/so’, and in ethical discussion the cognate noun refers to the morally prized quality of ‘meekness’.37 But in the present context it may be important to take our bearings from Jewish Greek usage. e beatitude follows closely Ps. 36(37):11,38 where πραεῖς renders the plural of ʿnw.39 e same term underlies πτωχοί in Is. 61:1, which suggests that the rst and third beatitudes may well need to be read closely together.40 None of the eight or nine times that πραεῖς renders the plural of ʿnw in the LXX contextually calls for rendering it ‘gentle’ or ‘meek’.41 e common quality is, rather, the state of powerlessness: inability to forward one’s own cause; and in every case God either is, does, will, may be expected to, or should come to the rescue.42 e one thing that might give us pause in applying this background to Matthew’s meaning is the use of the singular πραΰς of Jesus in Mt. 11:29; 21:5. In his case it certainly doesn’t mean ‘powerless’! Perhaps the plural, more collective uses and the singular uses to some degree go their separate ways (see discussion at nn. 29, 41), sharing in common the quality of ‘lowliness’ but with implied limitation of power in the one case and not in the other.

In Ps. 36(37):11 the γῆ (‘land’) to be inherited is clearly the land of Israel, in the context of God’s covenant promise to his people. But since γῆ can also mean the ‘earth’, what about the meaning in Matthew? e interest in 4:25 in the scope of historic Israel (see discussion there) and the evocation of exile and return in the opening beatitudes weigh in favour of Matthew’s also intending γῆ to refer to Israel as the land of covenant promise.43 is, of course, is in the rst instance a judgment about imagery and not about a literal referent. 5:6 e present beatitude corresponds to Luke’s second (Lk. 6:21). e notable difference is Matthew’s additional ‘and thirst for righteousness’. e addition of ‘and thirst’ is readily understandable. Together ‘hunger and thirst’ point more adequately to the fundamental human need for sustenance than ‘hunger’ alone can. e words constitute a frequent biblical pair,44 but only because they rst belong together in universal human experience. What is involved in hungering and thirsting? Coming aer poverty, mourning, and lowliness, the rst possibility that presents itself is that here too we are dealing with another dimension of human need;45 that what is in focus is the need as such and what it feels like to be needy in these speci c ways. But hungering and thirsting for righteousness is an unusual image, and other alternatives have been advocated. Perhaps the point is not so much the need as the (moral) insight that enables one to recognise that the present situation is one of such neediness, and to long for something better.46 Or are ‘those who hunger and thirst’ people who manifest ‘an active desire, capable of action, a determined personal endeavour’,47 with the imagery intending to imply that this is a chosen appetite, a focussing of interests and aspirations upon; something like the ‘seek rst …’of Mt. 6:33?

A decision here must be related to the question of what Matthew is doing with ‘for righteousness’. Is he no longer interested in the concreteness of people’s physical needs? is seems prima facie unlikely from our consideration of the previous beatitudes. ‘Righteousness’ here has been variously taken as referring to (a) right (individual) behaviour, as doing what God requires; (b) a just social order as something to be worked for in the present; (c) a just social order as eschatologically achieved; (d) the vindication of God’s people; (e) the free gi of justi cation; or (f) something which combines human and divine activity: the human doing of God’s will and God working out his own saving purposes in grace and mercy. Various other combinations are possible, and several of the proposals have differing nuances, depending in particular on how integral the link with God is seen to be to the ‘righteous’ state of affairs hungered and thirsted for (in the discussion at 3:15 above the concern to be rightly related to God was considered to be central). e primacy of the opening beatitude encourages us to look for our understanding of ‘righteousness’ somewhere between (c) and (d), with the possibility of a connected but de nitely subordinate element of (b). is being the case, the imagery of hungering and thirsting is best seen as focussing on the sense of need created by the present lack of a just social order lived out in the presence of God; the desire to see things put right is a re ex of the sense of deprivation in the present. However, the precise contours of the sense of need and therefore the speci c focus of the hunger and thirst will be shaped by what has been experienced and how it has been understood and related to (cf. discussion of v. 3); to that degree an element of ‘acquired appetite’ is involved. χορτάζειν is used predominantly for the satisfaction of hunger, but its use for slaking thirst is also attested;48 therefore, its use is

natural with the combination of hunger and thirst. Occasionally interpreters have separated the use of the verb from the imagery of hunger and thirst and their satisfaction, but this seems quite uncalled for. e satisfaction promised is precisely the advent of the righteousness hungered and thirsted for. 5:7 As we take up the second linked trio of beatitudes, we notice that the sharp emphasis on the neediness of the people of God recedes and what now comes to the fore is a more focussed interest in how they deal with aspects of situations of need which they encounter. ose who are merciful are kind to people in serious need. eir mercy is marked by generosity and by emotional identi cation with the situation of those trapped in their need. Mercy does not concern itself with strict calculation of deserts. It allows people to make a fresh start and oen involves forgiveness and the release of others from their indebtedness. It is costly in a variety of ways. ough we will consider the place of mercy extensively in the further unfolding of Matthew, at this point all that is in view is a standard Jewish emphasis on mercy as part of the calling of those who seek to live in obedience to God. e OT repeatedly identi es God as merciful.49 e call to practice mercy was part of Israel’s wisdom tradition50 and one of the burdens of the prophets.51 And the link between extending mercy and receiving God’s mercy was soon made.52 However, in a context of pressure and deprivation the openness and generosity that mercy calls for are not easy to sustain. A sense of deprivation can easily narrow the circle of kindness, sometimes in a rather extreme manner. Mercy can also be narrowed by formalising it into the religious duty of almsgiving.53 For those who are oppressed it is all too easy to think that at their moments of weakness and need oppressors need to be ‘kicked in the teeth’, not

shown mercy. Also, in a context of pressure and deprivation, the wisdom perspective that mercy is the ‘sensible’ course of action (Pr. 11:17: ‘ose who are merciful reward themselves’) can lose its plausibility. ‘Good fortune now … they shall receive mercy’ is a timely reinforcing and sustaining word for a perspective that is under pressure. In this manner, too, the perseverance of God’s people will be vindicated. 5:8 Only in this beatitude is there no speci c hint of a situation of need, though presumably this is to be carried over from the context and we should deal with purity of heart as with the other qualities against the background of the pressures of deprivation and oppression. A speci c tie with Ps. 24 is likely, where in vv. 3-4 a pure heart is one of the conditions for ascending the hill of the Lord (to go into the temple),54 and part of what is involved in ‘seek[ing] the face of the God of Jacob’ (v. 6).55 e material in vv. 7-10 on the king of glory coming in should probably be understood as referring to God’s arrival in the temple and thus by implication as pointing to the fruition of seeking God’s face. Purity of heart connotes integrity and stands opposed to deviousness. ere is purity of heart when the motives behind the (mostly apparently good, but on occasion apparently bad) actions can stand up under open scrutiny. e ‘heart’ locates the core of a person, that place from which we feel and think and determine our actions.56 e idea does not, however, have the degree of introspective focus that developments in Christian tradition and, in modern times, psychological studies have tended to impose on it. In contexts of deprivation and oppression the temptations for the kind

of integrity involved here to lapse are huge; it is so much easier to serve one’s own interests by hiding behind a false front. e prospect of seeing God is also held out in Pss. 11:7 (‘the upright’), 17:15 (‘in righteousness’), and Job 19:26-27 (Job’s own con dent expectation), and it is longed for in Ps. 42:3. e concrete form anticipated for this is unclear.57 But a reader of Matthew will think of 1:23: ‘Emmanuel, which is translated “God is with us”’. ere may be a deliberate correlation between ‘will inherit the land’ from the central beatitude in the earlier trio (v. 5) and ‘will see God’ here in the central beatitude of the second trio. Possessing the land in the presence of God makes a compact but comprehensive statement of restoration. 5:9 e action of a peacemaker implies a situation where peace is threatened or absent. e social (or sociopolitical) context is primarily in view. Peacemaking is a mode of response to hostility or other destabilising activity.58 What is envisaged is not particularly intervention as a third party but rather peace-seeking ways of handling one’s own (individual or corporate) situation. 2 Enoch 52:11 (A) pronounces a beatitude on the one ‘who cultivates the love of peace’. e call in Ps. 34:14 is ‘to seek peace, and pursue it’.59 ‘Called sons of God’ has to do with the prospect that God will now manifestly acknowledge them as his covenant people. It is likely to belong in the tradition of widening the application to the whole people of God of the covenant promise of 2 Sa. 7:14, made in the rst instance to the anointed king and regularly applied to the Davidic messiah.60 e alternative possible background is Ho. 1:10, where the idea is that of the restoration of status as the people of God beyond abandonment and exile.61 Despite current language sensitivities, I have chosen to keep the gender-marked language ‘sons of ’ precisely because of its

connection to the privileges of sonship in the ancient world: the coming of the kingdom of heaven means that women may be just as much ‘sons’ as their male counterparts. ough peace is clearly to be associated with God (e.g., Lv. 26:6; Nu. 6:26; Ps. 28:11), there is no intrinsic connection between being peacemakers and being called sons of God.62 e content of the explanatory clause here is likely, rather, to have more to do with establishing a suitable sequence with the previous two explanatory clauses: receiving mercy, seeing God, and now being acknowledged as sons of God.63 5:10 e closing bracket is provided by the beatitude pronounced over those persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It is likely to be a back-formation from vv. 11-12,64 designed to round off the present set of third person beatitudes,65 but also to create a bridge to vv. 11-12. A near beatitude is pronounced in relation to the suffering righteous in 2 Bar. 52:4-5.66 It may be that the Matthean beatitude draws inspiration from the martyr tradition of the Maccabean period.67 e suffering of the righteous is also eulogised (indirectly, by reporting the thoughts and reactions of the ungodly) in Wis. 1:16–2:24; 4:20–5:8. e persecution of the faithful prophets is already thematised in 2 Ch. 34:16.68 e persecution of God’s people plays a signi cant role in the Psalms.69 ough the beatitude’s scope is more general, extending mercy, being pure in heart, and working for peace are among the marks of the righteousness for which one is seen as suffering here. Persecution for righteousness’ sake is to be set over against compromise and apostasy; it marks delity to God despite all kinds of pressure. is, too, the poor in spirit have been bearing with patient endurance. e kingdom of heaven is now promised them in their need.

C. e Difficulties of God’s People Continued and Climaxed in Persecution for Jesus (5:11-12) 11aGood fortune is yoursa when bpeople crail at you and persecute youc and speak devery kind of evile against youd ffalsely gfor my sakeg — 12rejoice and be

glad. For your reward is great in heaven, because this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. More literally ‘fortunate are you’ (see the textual note at 5:3). e change in grammatical structure means that the ‘now’ introduced at 5:3 etc. is no longer appropriate. b. Only a few texts (0133 [aur g1 q vgs] sys, c) have a word for ‘people’ here [οι ανθρωποι] — aligning the text with Lk. 6:22, but some such general term is in any case implied. c-c. e order is inverted in D 33 h k syc mae bo, presumably to bring the two verbal activities together (‘revile’, ‘say … evil’), perhaps under the in uence of Lk. 6:22 again. d-d. ere is an inversion of order in D h k (part of the same impulse as in c-c.). e. e addition of ρημα in C W Θ 0133 0196 f1,13 etc. gives ‘every evil word’. f. Omitted in D it sys, but note the correlation with a change from ‘on my account’ to ‘for righteousness’ sake’ (note g-g), which would make ‘falsely’ redundant. g-g. D it have δικαιοσυνης (‘righteousness’) (so v. 10) instead of εμου [‘my’]. Bibliography

Geist, H., Menschensohn, 290-300. • Holmes, M. W., ‘e Text of Matthew 5.11’, NTS 32 (1986), 283-86. • Stenger, W., ‘Die Seligpreisungen der Geschmähten (Mt 5,11-12; Lk 6,22-23)’, Kairos 28 (1986), 33-60. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10.

Where the set of beatitudes thus far explored were shaped so as to be addressed to the existing situation of Israel with all its needs, now the focus becomes forward-looking. e mode of address moves from third to second person; the ‘you’ now to be addressed are clearly those prepared to identify themselves with Jesus. 5:11-12 is parallelled in Lk. 6:22-23. On the tradition history of Mt. 5:11-12 see further at 5:1-10.

5:11 e expanded reiteration in vv. 3-10 of the announcement that the kingdom of God has drawn near poses the question of how and where these longed-for developments are to occur. e present verse begins to imply an answer.70 e announcement of good fortune is no longer expressed in generalised third person form: it zeroes in on people who are there listening to Jesus, and it addresses them in relation to their preparedness to be identi ed with him at any cost. In 4:18-22 already a small group of men have emerged who have taken an initial but decisive step of identifying with Jesus, but here in 5:11 it comes into focus for the rst time in Jesus’ public ministry that identi cation with him is to be key to bene cial participation in the coming kingdom of heaven.71 is is how people are to become part of what God is now doing. Speci cally, to be persecuted on account of Jesus is the appropriate continuation in the present of all the persecution on account of righteousness that has thus far befallen God’s people. We see at once that the hardships sketched in vv. 3-10 are not to be expected to go away immediately; indeed, they are rst

to be freshly focussed and intensi ed.72 Similarly, it will soon emerge that the appropriate ways in which God’s people have learned to respond in their situations of need keep their pertinence; indeed, in the newly emerging situation they are sharpened and focussed by the instruction that Jesus goes on to provide in the unfolding sermon. As already indicated, the backward glance of vv. 3-10 becomes a forward glance here: coming incidents of suffering for Jesus’ sake are to be seen as occasions of good fortune. ‘Persecuted’ sits rather unnaturally between two verbs which point to different forms of verbal denigration. e sequence is unlikely to be in order to suggest that persecution will primarily be restricted to the verbal. Rather, Matthew is keeping ‘persecuted’ central, as one of the important links with v. 10, by placing it in the middle position.73 Verbal abuse, persecution, and defamation are the three categories that Matthew brings forward. Reference to the verbal abuse experienced by Jesus at 27:44 makes use of the same word. Jesus’ comment in 12:34 on the defamation of v. 24 makes use of a Greek idiom similar to that found in 5:12.74 Persecution will get more extensive treatment in Matthew, sometimes with the underlying verbal imagery of pursuit clearly to the fore: the identi cation with Jesus is close at hand in 10:23 (cf. v. 22); in 23:34 those persecuted are Jesus’ envoys; in 13:21 (cf. v. 19) persecution is on account of the word of the kingdom (proclaimed by Jesus); yet to come within the sermon itself is the injunction to pray for those who persecute you (5:44). e nature of the identi cation with Jesus called for gains clarity in various ways, not least through the challenge of 7:21-23 (‘Not everyone who says to me …’) and its connection to following Jesus in the way of the cross established in 10:38-39. 5:12 ‘Rejoice and be glad’ is to be read closely with the beatitude: ‘to rejoice and be glad’ is to recognise one’s good

fortune.75 e call is to experience the present in immediate connection with the ultimate outcome in the kingdom of heaven (which is itself considered to be imminent). ‘For your reward is great in heaven’ plays a parallel role to that of the supportive clauses in the earlier beatitudes. e clause lacks a verb, but the implied verb is almost certainly to be understood as present. e imagery is of a (cumulating) reward kept with God (i.e., in heaven) to be received at some appropriate future date. With the word ‘treasure’ rather than ‘reward’ a closely related image is developed in 6:19-21. e same reward imagery is found in 6:1, which actually uses the present tense.76 No doubt the reward is to be received at the coming of the kingdom of heaven. roughout, the beatitudes place considerable emphasis on the troubles of the present time but do not focus on the speci c causes of these troubles. In a broad sense the background of Scripture and history makes it possible to assume that a combination of foreign oppression and Israelite in delity will be in view. In the nal section of v. 12 the Israelite’s in delity comes into sharp focus. Israelite persecution of the prophets God had sent to them is clearly marked in the OT,77 and is used signi cantly in Christian explanation of the widespread Jewish rejection of Jesus and of the Christian mission.78 Here in Matthew the role of the clause about the prophets is to support the clause about reward.79 e logic is not immediately clear because it depends on an unstated assumption. e assumption must run something like this: in being persecuted by Israel the prophets were not personally failing, they were not being shown up as false prophets; rather, since their suffering was a consequence of their faithful obedience to God, they were becoming entitled to a great reward from God. is parallels the situation of those prepared to suffer for their identi cation with Jesus. Verbal abuse, persecution, and defamation easily make one

feel a failure and readily label one a failure in the eyes of others. e text provides another perspective by appealing to a set of instances on which there was common agreement that suffering did not have such signi cance, but quite the opposite. Since we have already seen that the only discipleship Matthew recognises is a discipleship in mission (see at 4:20), and since a mission perspective is going to come to the fore quite explicitly in 5:13-16, there is likely a deliberately intended parallel with the prophets’ role and not only with their suffering.80 It is unclear whether ‘the prophets before you’ is meant to bring this to direct expression (they were prophets and so, in effect, are you), or whether the comparison operates at a more general level and the phrase is simply a slightly loose expression for ‘the prophets of earlier times’. D. Called to Be Salt and Light (5:13-16) 13a[It

is] you [who] area the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes insipid, with what can it be [re-]salted? It is of no further use. It can only bbe thrown outside and trampled under footb by people. 14a[It

is] you [who] area the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15cIt is no more fitting that people shouldc light a lamp and put it under the peck measure; rather, [they put it] on the lampstand, and it shines out for all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine out before dothers, so that they may see your good edeeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. e bracketed words have been added to catch the force of the emphatic use of υμεις [‘you’].

b-b. is is expressed in D K W Δ Θ f13 etc. with coordinated in nitives linked with και and in ‫ א‬B C f1 etc. with an in nitive and subordinated participle, but the sense is the same. c-c. Literally ‘Neither do they’. d. των ανθρωπων [lit. ‘the people’]. e. Missing from B*, but with no effect on the meaning. Bibliography Barr, J., ‘“Abba” Isn’t “Daddy”’, JTS 39 (1988), 28-47. • Berger, P.-R., ‘Die Stadt auf dem Berge: Zum kulturhistorischen Hintergrund von Mt 5.14’, in Wort, ed. W. Haubeck and M. Bachmann, 82-85. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘e Light and the City’, in Studies, 6:1. • Dumbrell, W. J., ‘e Logic of the Rule of the Law in Matthew v 1-20’, NovT 23 (1981), 1-21. • Dupont, J., ‘La transmission des paroles de Jésus sur la lampe et la measure dans Marc 4,2125 et dans la tradition Q’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 201-36. • Feneberg, R., ‘Abba-Vater: Eine notwendige Besinnung’, KuI 3 (1988), 41-52. • Fowler, M., ‘City on a Hill: An Interpretation of Matth 5:14b/Gom. 32’, JHC 8 (2001), 68-72. • Heiligenthal, R., Werke als Zeichen (WUNT 2/9. Tübingen: Mohr,1983), 115-23. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 359-64. • Latham, J. E., e Religious Symbolism of Salt (éologie historique 64. Paris: Beauchesne, 1982). • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 156-73, 456-69. • Minear, P. S., ‘e Salt of the Earth’, Int 51 (1997), 31-41. • Pöttner, M., ‘Metaphern der universalen Liebe (Mt 5,13a. 14a)’, TLZ 122 (1997), 105-21. • Porter, L. B., ‘Salt of the Earth’, HPR 95 (1995), 51-58. • Schelbert, G., ‘Sprachgeschichtliches zu “Abba”’, in Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy: Études bibliques offertes à l’occasion de son 60e anniversaire, ed. P. Casetti et al. (OBO 38. Fribourg/Göttingen: Editiones universitaires/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 395-447. • Shillington, V. G., ‘Salt of the Earth? (Mt 5:13/Lk 14:34f)’, ExpTim 112 (2001), 120-21. • Soares-Prabhu, G. M., ‘e Church as Mission: A Re ection on Mt. 5:13-16’, Jeevadhara 24 (1994), 271-81. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 327-83. • Visotzky, B. L., ‘Overturning the Lamp’, JJS 38 (1987), 72-80. See further at 5:1-2, 3-12.

e second person address introduced in v. 11 continues here: it is those who are persecuted for Jesus’ sake who are identi ed as the salt and light, and to whom comes the challenge to sustain an active expression of this role despite all opposition. e opening clause of Mt. 5:13 is not found in the other Gospel forms of the tradition underlying v. 13 (Mk. 9:49-50; Lk. 14:24-35) and is likely to be the result of adaptation to the present context. It displaces a more general statement about the goodness of salt. ere are other differences of detail between the Gospel forms, but they are verbal rather than substantial. In particular the expansion of the image of rejection with ‘to be trampled under foot by people’ is distinctive to Matthew, and may be his touch, perhaps compensating for abbreviating the statement about uselessness. Neither Mark nor Luke has any parallel to Mt. 5:14. In parallel with the opening clause of v. 13, the opening clause here is likely to have been formed on the basis of the material of v. 15. ough no de nite parallel has been reported, the second clause of v. 14 sounds as if it might have been proverbial. Material related to v. 15 is found in Mk. 4:21; Lk. 8:16; 11:33. It seems likely that Luke’s second source for 8:16 (i.e., beyond the Markan source) had a wording very close to that of Matt 5:15.81

5:13 e opening ὑμεῖς, here and in v. 14, makes emphatic the ‘you are’ introduced at v. 11. It is not immediately clear whether the emphasis is to underline the privilege of discipleship, to stress that it is the disciples who carry forward the historic role of Israel, or to establish a contrast with the inappropriate evaluation implied in the attitude of the persecutors of vv. 11-12. Perhaps a combination of the second and third options is most likely; if so, the qualities valued in the beatitudes and the comparison with the prophets in v. 12 offer starting points for understanding the use made of the imagery of salt.

Apart from the obvious role of salt in avouring and preserving, in the ancient world it was seen as a purifying or cleansing agent.82 No doubt in some connection with this it was a required addition to sacri ces,83 sometimes spoken of as the salt of the covenant.84 It was also used to brighten the light of lamps (b. Šab. 67b) and perhaps to enhance the efficiency of baking ovens.85 Finally, it was recognised as a fundamental human necessity.86 Salt was also a means of rendering land useless.87 Metaphorical uses of salt include ‘the salt of money’ with reference to action which guarantees the preservation of (or perhaps gives value and signi cance to) one’s wealth (ʾAbot R. Nat. 17); placing salt on a table ‘to remind us of what is right; for salt preserves whatever it nds, and it arises from the purest of sources’ (Diog. Laert. 8:1:35); ‘to have salt’ in oneself as making for peace with others (Mk. 9:50); speech ‘seasoned with salt’ as gracious speech, offering apt answers (Col. 4:5). Probably one ought not to be looking for anything too precise. e main point is that salt has the capacity to bene t in quite fundamental ways. e available reference points for elucidating this in the Matthean context are, as already mentioned, the comparison with the prophets in v. 12 and the qualities valued in the beatitudes. To these may be added the call to mission beginning from 4:19 (though this runs the danger of bringing to bear a much more message-oriented perspective than 5:16 would encourage) and the coming parallel role of ‘light of the world’ (5:14), which leads to the speci c application in 5:16. e unfolding content of the sermon is also relevant here. e meanings of γῆ include ‘soil’, ‘ground’, ‘shore’, ‘region’, ‘land’ (sometimes speci cally the land of Israel), and ‘the earth’. Matthew makes use of the whole range of meanings. Here ‘land of Israel’ (cf. 5:5) and ‘the earth’ (cf. 5:18) are the possible options. Once we have decided that salt in v. 13 and light in v. 14 are closely parallelled,

then the use of ‘world’ in v. 14 decides the issue here in favour of ‘the earth’. ough Matthew continues to tell a very Jewish story, the universal signi cance of what Jesus has set in motion is allowed to show through. μωρανθῇ is literally ‘is made or become foolish/mad/stupe ed’. ere is no documented use of the term in the sense clearly required here (‘become insipid/lose [its] saltiness’). A possible explanation for this is the use of the Semitic root tpl both in relation to stupid behaviour and insipid taste in food, but textual variants mean that the former meaning for this Semitic root is not certain.88 If such a usage is lurking beneath the surface here, then the translator has allowed the translation to be in uenced by the application of the metaphor in a manner that disturbs the imagery.89 e various explanations offered for how ancient (impure) salt may have lost its saltiness are probably beside the point. e point is that it would be bizarre and unnatural for salt to lose its saltiness: if other foodstuffs are or become insipid, they can be salted into palatability, but this won’t work for the salt itself!90 e corresponding image of unnaturalness for light is to hide the light of a lamp (5:15). e rhetorical force of the image comes from normal human discomfort with things not being or behaving in accord with what is understood to be their intrinsic nature. is sense of unnaturalness is then reinforced with images of uselessness, rejection, and humiliation. εἰ μή points here not to a residual usefulness (‘no use, except’), but rather to the fate of the useless (‘no use. It can only’).91 5:14 ‘Light of the world’ is found in a range of Jewish sources applied to God, Adam, distinguished rabbis, Israel, the Torah and the temple, and Jerusalem.92 Cicero, Cat. 4:6, considered Rome ‘a

light to the whole world’. Jn. 8:12 uses ‘the light of the world’ for Jesus (cf. Mt. 4:16). e closest OT texts are Is. 42:6; 49:6; 60:3, where the servant/Israel is a light to the nations.93 But the lack of the exact phrase there and the breadth of alternative background suggest that we should not read the Matthean phrase as a de nite allusion. At most the identity of the disciples as the light of the world may be linked with the other indications that have been noticed of the role of Israel being carried forward by the disciple band. Light illuminates bene cially. Once again the text points to the universal signi cance of what is happening. It is not at once clear what the intended role of the second clause is. e best clue comes from the role of the οὐδέ, which links to it the following clause: the two clauses represent parallel ‘impossibilities’. To build a city on a hill is a piece of assertiveness. It expresses a certain con dence and a claim to importance, and ags a desire on the part of the inhabitants to play a wider role in human affairs. People who want to live a quiet and secluded life build their cities tucked out of sight in the hope that they won’t be noticed. In the biblical tradition Jerusalem is a city with a wider signi cance, a signi cance which was expected to be eschatologically enhanced (Is. 2:2-4; Mi. 4:1-3). But it is almost certainly a mistake to nd a speci c link to Jerusalem here. e interest is in the ridiculous image of trying to hide a city which is built for prominence, not in any particular city as such. 5:15 ough the material of this verse is used rather differently by each of the Evangelists (cf. Mk. 4:21; Lk. 8:16; 11:33), in each case there is an interest in the coming to visibility of what is being effected by Jesus’ ministry. Homes were illuminated with small terra-cotta oil-burning lamps. ese could be carried around when required, but would normally sit on a stand conveniently located to provide a basic level of illumination for the whole

dwelling (this is possible because the homes in mind consisted of single rooms, as was typically the case with Palestinian homes of the period). A loanword from Latin, μόδιος, referred originally to a quantity of grain, but it came to be used of the container for measuring out that quantity of grain (but it would also be available for other domestic purposes). One must assume that the use of such a container was sufficiently integral to ordinary life that each home was likely to be equipped with one. Lighting a lamp in order to hide it under the peck measure is as senseless as thinking that a city built on a hill can be kept from the sight of those who pass by. In order to ful l their nature, those who are the light of the world must be prepared to be located in places of clear visibility. 5:16 e imagery shis a little: the light which you are becomes the light which you have. is may be a clue that what is oen seen as a very Matthean verse has an origin in the preMatthean tradition.94 Despite the movement in the imagery, this is the point of practical challenge to which vv. 14-15 have been leading. e challenge is to live out in the public arena what one is intrinsically. at to which the Matthean Jesus calls is neither private nor to be ghettoised in the Christian community. e interest in public visibility here is of a very different kind from that which is criticised at 23:5 and 6:1, 2, 5. It is more akin to the visibility of the ‘deeds of the Christ’ in 11:2 (and cf. v. 19) and of the great light of 4:16. All is here viewed in a mission perspective. e outcome is to be that people are impressed by what God is currently doing (cf. 9:8; 15:31). e phrase ‘your Father in heaven’ is restricted to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s usage,95 which may have signi cance for the question of the pre-Matthean state of the Sermon materials. e expression is likely to re ect a standard Jewish designation of God,

as Father of his people.96 Here is yet another instance in which the disciples are seen as carrying forward the active role of Israel in the purposes of God. E. Introduction to Jesus’ Vision of Abundant Righteousness (5:17-20) 17Do

not make the judgment [when you find me critical of what you have heard it was said to the people of old] that I came to annul the Law or the Prophets; I came not to annul but to fulfil. 18For, amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or one pen stroke will pass away from the Law,a until bit has allb happened. 19Whoever, then, dismisses one of the least of these commandments and teaches others [to do] the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; cbut whoever does [them] and teaches d[them] — this one shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.c 20For, I say to you, unless your righteousness is abundant — more than [that of] the scribes and Pharisees — you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. και των προϕητων (‘and the prophets’) is added in Θ f13 565 1342 etc., clearly to align with v. 17. b-b. ‘It all’ renders παντα (lit. ‘all [things]’). c-c. is is missing from ‫ *א‬D W 579 boms, probably because of a jump from the previous occurrence of ‘in the kingdom of heaven’ (in D the jump is even further — to the end of v. 20). d. It and sy compensate for the missing objects by repeating their equivalent to ουτως (lit. ‘In the same way’) from earlier. Bibliography

Balch, D. L., ‘e Greek Political Topos Περὶ νόμων and Matthew 5:17, 19 and 16:19’, in Social History, ed. Balch, D. L., 68-84. • Beauchamp, P., ‘L’Évangile de Matthieu et l’héritage d’Israël’, RSR 76 (1988), 5-38, esp. 30-38. • Betz, H. D., ‘e Hermeneutical Principles of the Sermon on the Mount’, JTSA 42 (1983), 17-28. • Broer, I., Freiheit, 11-74. • Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community, 25-30. • Byrskog, S., ‘Matthew 5:17-18 in the Argumentation of the Context’, RB 104 (1997), 557-71. • Charles, J. D., ‘e Greatest or the Least in the Kingdom?: e Disciple’s Relationship to the Law (Matt 5:1720)’, TJ 13 (1992), 139-62. • Flusser, D., ‘“It Is Said to the Elders”: On the Interpretation of the So-Called Antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount’, Mishkan 17-18 (1992-93), 115-19. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 12246. • Guelich, R. A., Sermon, 134-74. • Hahn, F., ‘Mt 5,17 — Anmerkungen zum Erfüllungsgedanken bei Matthäus’, in Mitte, ed. U. Luz and H. Weder, 42-54. • Heubült, C., ‘Mt 5:17-20: Ein Beitrag zum eologie des Evangelisten Matthäus’, ZNW 71 (1980), 143-49. • Houlden, J. L., ‘e Puzzle of Matthew and the Law,’ in Crossing the Boundaries, ed. S. E. Porter et al., 115-31. • Johnston, R. M., ‘“e Least of the Commandments”: Deuteronomy 22.6-7 in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity’, AUSS 20 (1982), 205-15. • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 159-66, 427-44. • Légasse, S., ‘Mt 5,17 et la prétendue tradition paracanonique’, in Begegnung mit dem Wort, ed. J. Zmijewski and E. Nellessen (BBB 53. Bonn: Hanstein, 1980), 1122. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 69-92. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 110-41. • Martin, B. L., ‘Matthew on Christ and the Law’, TS 44 (1983), 53-70. • Moo, J. D., ‘Jesus and the Authority of the Mosaic Law’, JSNT 20 (1984), 3-49. • Przybylski, B., Righteousness, 80-87. • Riesner, R., Lehrer, 456-60. • Schwartz, D. R., ‘“Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites”: Who are the Scribes in the New Testament?’, in Studies, 89-101. • Schweizer, E., ‘Matth. 5,17-20: Anmerkung zum Gesetzverständnis des Matthäus’, in Matthäus-Evangelium, ed. J. Lange, 164-73. • Seeley, D., Deconstructing, 25-30. • Sim, D. C., ‘Are the Least Included in the Kingdom of Heaven?: e Meaning of Matthew 5:19’, HTS 54 (1998), 573-87. • Snodgrass, K. R., ‘Matthew and the Law’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 536-54, esp. 545-49. • Westerholm, S., ‘e Law in the Sermon on the Mount: Matt 5:17-48’, CrisTR 6 (1992), 43-56. • Wilcken, J., ‘Matthew 5.17-19 and Aboriginal Christians (Part One)’, AusCathRec 77 (2000), 449-

59. • Wilcken, J., ‘Matthew 5.17-19 and Aboriginal Christians (Part Two)’. AusCathRec 78 (2001), 259-70. • Wong, K.-C., Interkulturelle, 36-44, 56-64. • Wouters, A., Willen, 47-50. • Yang, Y.-E., Sabbath, 134-38. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10.

e link with ‘good works’ in 5:16 provides the thread of continuity, but the major role of this small section is to prepare for the antitheses to follow in vv. 21-48. e parallelism of structure of v. 17 and Mt. 10:3497 may count in favour of the existence of a pre-Matthean form of 5:17, but Matthew is fond of repeating traditional patterns, the ful lment language is notably Matthean, and Matthew repeatedly pairs the Law and the Prophets. Transmission as an isolated fragment makes little sense, but Matthean extraction from a larger unit is a possibility that must be allowed for. Matthean (or Matthean editing of a pre-Matthean) back-formation from v. 18 remains most likely. V. 18 is parallelled in Lk. 16:17 in a form which lacks the emphatic introduction and the nal ‘until’ clause, and uses a comparative difficulty statement (‘it is easier for heaven and earth …’) rather than a time statement (‘until heaven and earth …’) to express the (relative?) permanence of the Law. e nal Matthean clause is likely to be an expansion; the form of the Matthean time statement is probably more original than the form for comparative difficulty; the judgment on other features is less certain.98 (e level of overlap between Mt. 5:18 and 24:34-35 is striking, but because a strong tie between these texts does not seem to produce a coherent redactional sense, the overlap has been judged to be largely fortuitous and as, therefore, not having implications for judgments about source forms.) ere is no Gospel parallel to 5:19. Some of the vocabulary re ects language favoured by Matthew, and Matthew is certainly interested in the disciples’ being both learners and teachers (cf. 13:52; 23:34; 28:20), but the verse, or at least the rst half, is most likely to be primarily pre-Matthean tradition. With its use of the language of righteousness and its introduction of the scribes and Pharisees, 5:20 is likely to be a Matthean application of the preceding (in anticipation of what is to come).

5:17 In the story to this point there has been nothing to prepare us for the denial at the beginning of this verse. Studies regularly ll the gap by postulating the existence of competing groups within early Christianity (now Matthew addresses antinomian Christians). But at the narrative level a perfectly good reason for this denial will emerge in vv. 21-48: there is material coming here which can very easily be taken, and oen is taken, as undercutting the Mosaic Law. Surely Matthew is providing, by way of introduction, an optic for understanding the antitheses to come. In Jewish terms any attempt to annul (Gk. καταλύειν) the Law could have been viewed only with horror. Ancient conservatism in relation to established national custom is re ected, for example, in the attempt by the nobles of Adiabene to overthrow their king by inviting Parthian intervention: ‘ey had come to loathe their own king, who had overthrown [using καταλύειν] their traditions and had become enamoured of foreign [in this case Jewish] practices’ (Jos., Ant. 20.81). Nicolas of Damascus defends the Jews of Ionia by suggesting that their preferring to ‘have taken from them life [rather than] their country’s customs … [to] suffer all manner of things [rather than] violate [using καταλύειν] any of their country’s customs’ is akin to how other peoples feel about their own ancestral ways (Jos., Ant. 16.35). But Jewish adherence to the Law, and thus abhorrence of any attempt to overthrow it, ran yet deeper. Philo reports a failed attempt in Egypt ‘to do away with [using καταλύειν] the law of the Seventh Day which we regard with most reverence and awe’ (Som. 2.123). e exploits of the Maccabees in restoring the practice of the Law was much celebrated: ‘e story of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers [who] … re-established the laws that were about to be abolished [using καταλύειν]’ (2 Macc. 2:19-22; cf. 4:11); and the martyrs of the period were deeply revered: ‘I [Eleazar] do not so pity my old age as to break [using καταλύειν] the ancestral law by my own act’ (4 Macc. 5:33).

e Law de ned the identity of the Jewish people.

Clearly Jewish polemic, against this background of erce loyalty to the Law, at times sought to dismiss Christianity as an upstart religion seeking to overturn the ancestral Law of the Jews.99 e extreme form of the language in Matthew here is likely to re ect just such polemic: what Jewish polemic seeks to discredit as an attempt to overthrow the Law Christian faith knows to be the true ful lment of the Law. ‘e Law or the Prophets’ allows for the possibility that one or other or both might be under threat. Such a set of options depends on a Jewish distinction between Law and Prophets. e Law was clearly central in all streams of Jewish faith, and the reading of the Law had primacy in the synagogue; it was the role of the Law to regulate Jewish life and practice. For all the Jewish groups of which we are aware the prophetic books had a supporting secondary role which no doubt was capable of being variously conceived,100 but the Samaritans recognised only the authority of the Law (in their own recension). Matthew’s own concern is to bring the Law and the Prophets into closest possible connection since in his understanding it was the prophetic perspective which enabled to Law to be correctly apprehended (see 12:7; cf. 9:13). Here, as in 7:12 and 22:40, Matthew sees the Prophets in relation to their ‘legal’ contribution (contrast 11:13, where the order of the terms is reversed); only this makes sense of the use of καταλύειν with the Prophets. Matthew twice negates the view that Jesus came to annul the Law or the Prophets before he offers the alternative. ‘Ful l’ must be taken in a manner that allows it to be an appropriate counterpart to ‘annul’. e chosen sense must also illuminate what is coming in 5:21-48: it is clear that Matthew is not simply reaffirming the status quo. Jesus is functioning in the role of teacher throughout this sermon (see 5:2 and the form of the material content of the

sermon); so ‘to ful l’ must focus primarily on what Jesus offers as a teacher. If this framework of constraints has been rightly constructed, then many of the proposed senses of ‘ful l’ can be dismissed: to add to the Law; to replace the old Law with a new one which transcends it; to replace the Law with the spirit of love; to con rm the validity of the Law; to live out (perfectly) the requirements of the Law; to empower others to live out the Law’s demands; to ful l the prophetic content of the Law and the Prophets. In the discussion at 3:15 I suggested that the language of 5:17 is likely to constitute a bridge between the ful lment of Scripture language of the formula quotations and the ful lling of all righteousness which Jesus expresses at his baptism. Whether one accepts this link or not, the interest at 5:17 is clearly with the practical implementation of the directives of the Law (and the Prophets). e ful lment language represents a claim that Jesus’ programmatic commitment, far from undercutting the role of the Law and the Prophets, is to enable God’s people to live out the Law more effectively. In and of itself the language lacks precision of content since in the rst instance it has the function of emphatic denial. e sense in which the positive counterpart is to be understood gains in clarity only through the analysis of the antitheses to come. To anticipate, it would appear that Matthew holds that Jesus offered, in part by drawing on the insight of the Prophets, a new depth of insight into what the Law requires over against what he (Matthew) considered to be a general super ciality, a fore-shortened perspective, in the reading of the Law. 5:18 Matthew buttresses his assertion of the seriousness of Jesus’ commitment to the Law and the Prophets with a statement about the validity of the Law down to its tiniest detail. at

Matthew thinks in terms of a supporting role for the Prophets is indicated by the narrowing of focus at this point to the Law. e verse opens with the rst of what will be thirty-one uses of the phrase ἀμὴν (γὰρ) λέγω ὑμῖν/σοι (‘[For,] amen, I say to you’).101 e retention of the Hebrew/Aramaic ‘amen’ in the Greek is notable in a nonliturgical context.102 e introductory role of the ‘amen’ is also striking. While frequent in statements attributed to Jesus, it has elsewhere been de nitely parallelled only in Test. Abr. A 8:7; 20:2.103 Matthew uses it to re ect the diction of Jesus and to underline his self-con dent authority. Matthew can contemplate the passing of (the present) heaven104 and earth (24:35), and he may even anticipate the present Law becoming obsolete at that time, but the point he has Jesus make here is rather that the validity of the Law is as enduring as heaven and earth.105 It is this sentiment which provides support for the assertion in 5:17. To what does Matthew intend ἰῶτα to refer? While ἰῶτα is the simplest of the Greek letters (a vertical line), it does not make a particularly striking image for a tiny detail of the wording of the Law. e synagogue practice of giving the reading from the Law in Hebrew, followed by translation, may suggest that Matthew has the Hebrew text in mind. In that case ἰῶτα could represent yod (as frequently claimed), the smallest of the Hebrew consonants, and one which sometimes contributes nothing to the meaning. Alternatively waw might be in mind, the Hebrew letter that looks rather like an ἰῶτα and which also oen contributes little or nothing to the meaning.106 κεραία is literally a horn. e term is applied to projections on letters, to breathings, and to accents. It was used proverbially in Greek to indicate the smallest detail,107 but is likely to be a Greek rendering here of reference to the projections that

either ornamented the square characters of Hebrew script or enabled a distinction between visually similar letters.108 In the Greek word order here a minor chiasm binds the two images closely together.109 ese images are being used hyperbolically; they are intended to make the point that even the tiniest detail of the Law’s demands remains secure in the hands of Jesus. ἕως ἄν πάντα γένηται (‘until it has all happened’) has been taken in various ways. Some have taken it as a differently nuanced repetition of the opening clause, which either guarantees that the opening clause be taken as indicating a de nite end to the role of the Law (but we have rejected this understanding of the earlier ‘until’ clause above), or adds a reference to the unfolding of the redemptive purposes of God which are to climax in the passing away of heaven and earth (subject to the same difficulty). Others have sought to refer ‘everything’ (plural in the Greek) to events which would already have transpired by the time of Matthew: Jesus’ complete obedience to the whole Law; Jesus’ death (as an eschatological act?) which leads to the obsolescence of the Law; the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. Each of the views in this set makes something nonsensical of the rst clause (its force is removed by sleight of hand). Some have even tried to give ἕως ἄν the sense ‘so that in the meanwhile’. πάντα is then glossed as ‘everything required by the Law’, and the clause is understood as referring to the time-limited period (until heaven and earth pass away) in which the Law has its validity. Such a force for ἕως ἄν is doubtful, particularly given its earlier use in the verse, and once again the view must take the earlier ‘until’ clause in a manner faulted above. Nonetheless, there is something to be gained from this suggestion, namely, the close link between ‘everything’ and the preceding reference to the Law. e clause remains difficult, but it seems most likely to be concerned to guarantee a permanence to

the Law until such time as every item on the Law’s agenda has been achieved, until all that it lays out as God’s will for humankind has been accomplished. is should probably be brought into relationship with ‘ful l all righteousness’ in 3:15. 5:19 Now Matthew draws an implication from the affirmations already made about the consequences of certain chosen paths of behaviour. In vv. 17-19 we have moved from a statement of Jesus’ role vis- à-vis the Law to a statement of how things stand with regard to the permanence of the Law (in the purposes of God) and to a statement focussed on the wilful behaviour of individuals and its consequences. e Greek is likely to show some interplay between the uses of καταλύειν (‘annul’) in v. 17 and of λύειν (lit. ‘loose’) here, but where καταλύειν in v. 17 envisages the role of one who de nes things for others (with, no doubt, his personal outlook and behaviour aligned), λύειν here refers to an individual’s personal orientation: here we have people who dismiss a particular command as having any claim on themselves (and then convey the same views to others). e use of ‘these’ is somewhat surprising. Interpreters have variously taken it (a) as an overtranslation of a Semitic original in which no demonstrative stress was intended (but most of them nd active Matthean redaction in this verse, if not a Matthean creation, and Matthew’s Greek is better than that), (b) as taking us speci cally to the Ten Commandments (but this is strained, ruptures the thought sequence from v. 18, and makes it difficult to provide a satisfactory account of ‘shall be called least’), (c) as pointing forward to the commandments which Jesus is about to give in the body of the Sermon (this is initially attractive because it takes seriously the way in which v. 17 already anticipates the teaching to come in the antitheses, but it ruptures the connection of

v. 19 with v. 18, which is unlikely to be justi ed given the conceptual links of v. 18 to v. 19 and the role of logical links through the section — note the γάρ [‘for’], οὖν [‘then/therefore’], γάρ[‘for’] sequence), and (d) as referring to the commandments implicitly called to mind by the focus on the smallest parts of the Law in v. 18. is last view is to be preferred, but it does involve a (very understandable) thought jump from the smallest and most insigni cant element of physical form of the Law to the least of the commandments of the Law. In the view that ‘these commandments’ are the Ten Commandments, ‘the least’ become the commandments which are expressed with the fewest words, but I have already dismissed this view. But what commandments could they be? A converse interest in ‘the great(est) commandment in the law’ is evident in 22:36, and in the ‘weightier matters of the law’ in 23:23, where by implication the requirement to tithe mint, dill, and cummin ( avouring agents used in tiny quantities) might count as one of the least of the commandments. In discussing the relative importance of various aspects of the Law, rabbis generally thought in terms of what is great (gdl or rb) or weighty (Żwr or šqwl), and normally, but not always, in terms of principles (kll) rather than speci c commandments.110 Mishnaic reference to ‘light (ql) commandments’ encourages careful ful lment of them on the basis that the (unknown) attached reward may be signi cant and that ful lment of one command leads naturally to ful lment of other perhaps more important commands, while failure to ful l has the converse effect.111 In rabbinic discussion the law about the bird’s nest in Dt. 22:6-7 is sometimes identi ed as the least of the commandments.112 e linking of doing and teaching is of a piece with Matthew’s view that discipleship is discipleship in mission113

and has its negative counterpart in the teaching role of the scribes and Pharisees (23:2; cf. vv. 15, 16). e connection between ‘least’ of the commandments and ‘least’ in the kingdom of heaven does not seem to have been well described in the literature. ere is talk of lex talionis or of having the punishment t the crime. Certainly a correspondence between action and consequence is intended, but its thrust is quite different. e point being made by the repetition of ‘least’ is that the commandments are so important that setting aside one of the least of them is a sufficiently serious matter that the consequence will be to ‘be called the least in the kingdom of heaven’. By implication, setting aside anything more than one of the least of them must have an even more serious consequence. At least, this the shape of the logic provided that being ‘least in the kingdom of heaven’ still leaves one in the kingdom and not outside it. But some have taken this as a statement of exclusion.114 If ‘in the kingdom of heaven’ could mean ‘from the perspective of the kingdom of heaven’, then it might be possible to imagine that to be ‘called the least’ might imply exclusion. But such a sense for ‘in the kingdom of heaven’ seems unlikely in relation to other Matthean uses of the phrase and the related phrase in v. 20.115 Matthew is certainly familiar with Jewish ideas of ranking in the kingdom of God.116 It is, however, important to note that the practical effect of marginally allowing (no more than one) disregard of a least important commandment is to insist that anything short of a commitment to the whole of the Law in all of its detail is tantamount to excluding oneself from the kingdom. ‘Does’ implies not only affirming in principle but also carrying out in practice. Once again the teaching role is closely related. e object to be supplied for the two verbs is ‘all the commandments of the Law’, not simply ‘the least commandments’ which were in view in the contrasting statement.117 ough it is possible for the positive

adjective ‘great’ to stand for the superlative ‘greatest’ (likely in 22:38), that is unlikely here. e category of the least in the kingdom has been so marginally de ned that in practice those who will enter the kingdom are those who commit themselves to the whole of the Law, and they will all share the designation ‘great’. Clearly nothing less than commitment to the complete will of God as expressed in the entire Law will do. Despite the strong link with action here, it is important to note that the framework of thought does not encourage us to think in terms of a need for moral perfection: the issue is not the degree of success in resisting temptation but rather recognition of and commitment to the will of God in all its breadth, depth, and detail.118 5:20 In this verse the language moves to the second person and so directly identi es the stake that Jesus’ hearers have in the point he has been making. e opening words ‘For, I say to you’, repeat the opening words of v. 18, but without the ‘amen’. It is difficult to be sure precisely how the ‘for’ statement is meant to be attached to the preceding, but those who nd a break at this point and join v. 20 to the following materials need to ignore the formal repetition and the role of the linking ‘for’ (γάρ). e primary link is likely to be with v. 17 (and so we should look here for light on ‘to ful l’), but the orientation to action (in the word ‘righteousness’) and the ‘kingdom of heaven’ language show that v. 19 is also in view. First, to clarify the content of v. 20. περισσεύῃ … πλεῖον (lit. ‘be the excess/be abundant/over ow/grow … more [neut. sing. adj.]’) is regularly taken as a statement of comparison, with πλεῖον sometimes taken as an adverbial intensi er (thus: ‘surpasses by far’) and sometimes considered pleonastic, functioning simply to mark the point of comparison119 (thus: ‘surpasses’). But scholars have noted oen enough that μᾶλλον (‘more’) would be the expected adverbial intensi er. A better alternative is to treat the περισσεύῃ

clause as syntactically complete without the phrase introduced by πλεῖον and to consider the πλεῖον phrase as an elliptically expressed aside: ‘[there needs to be something] more than [the righteousness of] the scribes and Pharisees’. Admittedly the change in meaning is slight, but the central focus moves away from comparison with the scribes and Pharisees and onto a concern, in the rst instance, for an abundant righteousness. What can be said about the righteousness in view in v. 20? e imagery is immediately of a quanti able righteousness (‘abundant’). e close integration of v. 20 into the thought sequence of vv. 17-20 makes clear that the faithful practice of the requirements of the Law is in view. At the same time the aside about the scribes and Pharisees suggests that something different from mere punctilious attention to the details of the Law is in view. See also the discussion at the end of v. 17, the survey of Matthew’s uses of the word ‘righteousness’ at 3:15, and the discussions at 5:6, 10. e Pharisees have already made an appearance as negative gures in 3:7; the scribes have appeared in 2:4 (see there), but only in relation to their specialist knowledge of the religious traditions of Israel. e scribes and Pharisees are a fairly frequent pairing in Matthew, always as objects of criticism.120 ere is a long Christian history of seeking to characterise the scribes and Pharisees purely on the basis of NT criticisms. is is a very dangerous procedure for at least three reasons. First, it fails to realise that the criticisms levelled by Jesus were so memorable precisely because the perspectives involved were strikingly at variance with normal perceptions of these gures. Second, it tries to make a whole picture out of the critical remarks, which in their original setting would have been kept from caricature by functioning against the background of a shared perception, and to some degree valuation, of the scribes and Pharisees as honoured and appreciated members

of their society. ird, it fails to allow for the possibility that some of the sharpness of the Gospel criticism may tell us as much about the context of con ict between Jews and Christians in which these traditions were passed on as about the form in which they functioned in the ministry of the historical Jesus. Source difficulties show that it is possible to know rather less about the rst-century Pharisees than might be wished.121 Clearly they had a particular interest in tithing, ritual purity, and sabbath observance and committed themselves to a set of shared views as to how these should be best lived out, which included the desire to widen the application of aspects of temple purity law to society at large. e intensity of their interest in these matters is likely to relate to their concern to maintain the purity of Jewish faith against the inroads of Hellenistic culture. ey functioned as a political interest group seeking to in uence the governing classes and society at large, with sometimes more and sometimes less success, but with a level of public credibility which gave them the potential of being important opinion formers. ough not well represented in the upper echelons of governing classes, they were well represented in a wide range of community leadership roles (officials, bureaucrats, judges, educators, etc.). e level of hostility between the Pharisees and Jesus is probably indirect evidence that (beyond the disputed areas) there was a great deal of commonality between Jesus and the Pharisees. Matthew’s pairing of the scribes and Pharisees is probably based on their shared legal competence. His usage would give the impression that the scribes constituted a more uniform and coherent body than historically would have been the case. Such scribes as he is interested in combine legal expertise and a societal role in which they made official use of that legal knowledge.

e threat of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven corresponds closely with the sentiment of v. 19, where, however, the discussion takes place in terms of rank in the kingdom. For discussion of the kingdom of heaven see 4:17. So, in the light of our survey of its content, how might v. 20 be intended to provide support for what precedes? First, it underlines the importance, in Jesus’ view, of living out in practice the righteousness to which the Law directs God’s people. ere is a certain kind of one-upmanship involved in Matthew’s aside here: Jesus was so far from being the one intent on annulling the Law that he believed that those who had the reputation of being especially punctilious about the details of the Law were totally failing to take it seriously enough. V. 20 does not, then, express the attitude of someone who wants to annul the Law. But there is more here. If the best that those who have the public reputation of being outstanding law-keepers can do is inadequate, then simply to reaffirm the Law will not be enough. Something further is needed. Hence the intention ‘to ful l’. So much for the link with v. 17. e assertion of the seriousness of the situation in relation to the kingdom of God of those with inadequate righteousness underlines the importance of the kind of comprehensiveness of engagement with the Law that is commended in vv. 18-19. Unlike v. 19, v. 20 does give some sort of quantitative test for entry into the kingdom of heaven, though the chosen language — that of abundance — is not designed to encourage speci c calculation or measurement. It is rather more likely that the desire is to encourage an exuberant engagement with the demands of the will of God made known through the Law as unveiled by Jesus.122

F. Six Antitheses (5:21-48) 1. On Murder (5:21-26) 21You

have heard that it was said to the people of old, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders will be liable to judgment’. 22But I say to you that everyone who is angry with ahis or her brother or sistera, b will be liable to judgment. Whoever says to a abrother or sistera, ‘Raka,’ will be liable to [the judgment of] the council. Whoever saysc, ‘Fool’, will be liable to the Gehenna of fire. 23If then you are offering your gi at the altar and you remember there that your dbrother or sisterd has something against you, 24leave your gi there before the altar and go off. First be reconciled to your dbrother or sisterd, and then come and offer your gi. 25Make friends with your accuser quickly, while you are eon your way togethere [to the court], so that the accuser may not hand you over to the judge, fand the judgeg to the court official,f, h and you be thrown into prison. 26Amen, I say to you, you will certainly not get out of there until you have paid up the last quadrans.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Lit. ‘his brother’. b. εικη (‘without cause’) is added by ‫א‬2 D L W Θ 0233 f1, 13 etc., but this is a weakening that moves the focus of the challenge. c. A few texts improve the parallelism by adding τω αδελϕω αυτου (lit. ‘to his brother’). d-d. Gk. αδελϕος (lit. ‘brother’). For the general rendering of αδελϕος as ‘brother or sister’, see the Author’s Preface. is is the rst of quite a number of such renderings; I have not provided a textual note for every instance of this rendering. e-e. Lit. ‘with him on the way’.

f-f. is phrase is missing from sys, perhaps being seen as a confusing complication. g. Many texts complete the sense by repeating ‘may not hand you over’. h. e Greek υπηρετης is a general term for ‘attendant/servant’. Bibliography Black, D. A., ‘Jesus on Anger: e Text of Matthew 5:22a Revisited’, NovT 30 (1988), 1-8. • Boxel, P. W. van, ‘You have heard that it was said’, Bijdragen 49 (1988), 362-77. • Broer, I., Freiheit, 75-113. • Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community, 30-42. • Chilton, B., ‘Forgiving at and Swearing by the Temple’, Forum 7.1-2 (1991), 45-50. • Derrett, J. D. M., Studies, 1:32-47. • Egger, W., ‘Handlungsorientierte Auslegung der Antithesen Mt 5,21-48’, in Ethik, ed. K. Kertelge, 119-44. • Fitzmyer, J. A., Advance, 79-111. • Flusser, D., ‘“Alten ist gesagt”: Zur Interpretation der sog. Antithesen der Bergpredigt’, Jud 48 (1992), 35-39. • Goppelt, L., eology, 2:98-101. • Harrington, D. J., ‘“Not to abolish, but to ful ll”’, TBT 27 (1989), 333-37. • Kampen, J., ‘A Reexamination of the Relationship between Matthew 5:21-48 and the Dead Sea Scrolls’, SBLSP 29 (1990), 34-59. • Kampen, J., ‘e Sectarian Form of the Antitheses within the Social World of the Matthean Community’, DSD 1 (1994), 338-63. • Keener, C. S., ‘Matthew 5:22 and the Heavenly Court’, ExpTim 99 (1987), 46. • Kühlwein, K., Familienbeziehung und BergpredigtWeisungen (Europäische Hochschulschrien 23/435. Frankfurt/Bern/New York: Lang, 1992). • Levison, J. R., ‘A Better Righteousness: e Character and Purpose of Matthew 5.21-48’, StBibT 12 (1982), 171-94. • Levison, J. R., ‘Responsible Initiative in Matthew 5:21-48’, ExpTim 98 (1987), 231-34. • Llewelyn, S. R., ‘e Procedure of Execution and the προσβολή’, in New Documents, ed. S. R. Llewelyn, 7:197-232, esp. 218-24. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 142-67. • Matthews, V. H. and Benjamin, D. C., ‘e Stubborn and the Fool’, TBT 29 (1991), 222-26. • Milikowsky, C., ‘Which Gehenna? Retribution and Eschatology in the Synoptic Gospels and in Early Jewish Texts’, NTS 34 (1988), 238-49. • Moo, D. J., ‘Jesus and the Authority of the Mosaic Law’, JSNT 20 (1984), 17-23. • Neudecker, R., ‘e Sermon on the Mount as a Witness to “Inculturation”: e First Two Antithetical Cases (Mt

5,21-32)’, in Inculturation: Working Papers on Living Faith and Cultures, ed. P. Beauchamp et al. (Rome: Centre ‘Cultures and Religions’, Ponti cal Gregorian University, 1982), 73-89. • Neyrey, J. H., Honor and Shame, 190211. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 281-90. • Röhser, G., ‘Jesus — Der wahre “Schrigelehrte”: Ein Beitrag zum Problem der “Toraverschärfung” in den Antithesen der Bergpredigt’, ZNW 86 (1995), 20-33. • Ruzer, S., ‘e Technique of Composite Citation in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:2122, 33-37)’, RB 103 (1996), 65-75. • Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism, 260-64. • Schmahl, G., ‘Die Antithesen der Bergpredigt’, TTZ 83 (1974), 284-97. • Schüller, B., ‘Zur Interpretation der antithesen der Bergpredigt’, in Jesus Rede von Gott und ihre Nachgeschichte im frühen Christentum. FS W. Marxsen, ed. D.-A. Koch, G. Sellin, and A. Lindemann (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1989), 101-15. • Seeley, D., Deconstructing, 31-39. • Sellew, P., ‘Reconstruction of Q 12:3359’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 617-68. • Venetz, H., ‘eologische Grundstrukturen der Verkündigung Jesu? Ein Vergleich von Mk 10,17-22; Lk 10,25-37 und Mt 5,21-48’, in Mélanges, ed. P. Casetti, O. Keel, and A. Schenker, 613-50. • Wick, P., ‘Die erste Antithese (Mt 5,21-26): Eine Pilgerpredigt’, TZ 52 (1996), 236-42. • Wolbert, W., ‘“Wer seinem Bruder ohne Grund zürnt”: Zu einer Lesart der 1. Antithese’, TGl 78 (1988), 160-70. • Wouters, A., Willen, 228-48. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 55-67, 101-13, 124-25. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10, 17-20.

e six antitheses are prepared for in 5:17-20 by the report both of Jesus’ insistence that he came not to abolish the Law but to see it ful lled more effectively, and of his stern words on the need for an abundant righteousness. Matthew divides the antitheses into two sets of three: only the rst and fourth antitheses are furnished with the full introductory formula (‘You have heard that it was said to the people of old’),123 and a fresh start with the fourth is also marked by an introductory ‘again’.124 e rst antithesis is notably the most expansive; and the last is the next most developed. e rst two are related to commandments from the Ten (murder and adultery) in their MT

order (Ex. 20:13-14; Dt. 5:17-18),125 the next relates to Dt. 24:1 (divorce)126 but also back to the adultery commandment, two others (the fourth and sixth) relate to materials from Lv. 19 (swearing falsely and love of neighbour), and the remaining one ( h) links to language found three times in the Pentateuch127 but given general application, as assumed in the antithesis, only in Lv. 24:20 (an eye for an eye). In this rst antithesis the murder commandment is interpreted in the light of the love commandment (which will becomes the speci c focus of attention in the nal antithesis) and therefore attracts to itself the same relational focus. It is difficult to say anything de nite about sources for Mt. 5:21-22. e construction of the three examples is such that they have their present form in close relationship with the form of v. 21. So this material is likely always to have been in the antithesis form and may well go back to the historical Jesus in some such form. e material of v. 22 could have existed outside an antithesis form, but the likelihood that the antithesis form was an original feature for the second antithesis (see Mt. 5:27) makes it likely that there was an original pair of antitheses covering murder and adultery (in the sequence of the Ten Commandments). For vv. 23-26 Matthew has used material that is unlikely to have been part of the original antithesis. is material contributes to the link between the rst and last antitheses. ere is also a degree of thematic similarity between vv. 23-24 and Mk. 11:25. ere is a version of Mt. 5:25-26 in Lk. 12:57-59. e differences are mainly to be ascribed to Luke.128

5:21 e particular antithesis form here is quite different from anything elsewhere in the NT and has not been closely parallelled elsewhere.129 ‘You have heard’ is intended to create distance from but not doubt about what was actually said in the past.130 ‘You have heard’ connotes a chain of transmission and probably also of communal appropriation. A chain of verbal

communication implying other unmentioned intermediate instances of verbal transmission, is set up by the correlation of ‘you have heard’ with ‘it was said’. Since the content following ‘it was said’ in each antithesis has a close relationship to Scripture, there can be little doubt that God is the speaker. And since the rst two antitheses relate to commandments from the Ten, the initial image is probably of God speaking the commandments from Mount Sinai (Dt. 5:22). While use of τοῖς ἀρχαίοις (‘the people of old’) with reference to the generation of the Exodus has not been closely parallelled, that is clearly the sense here. e murder commandment has the form of a negative directive. is is immediately followed by a statement of casuistic law (‘everyone who … will be…’). e coming antithesis makes clear that this second statement functions as a restrictive interpretation of the commandment: the commandment has been taken as having to do only with criminal law. ough the legal statement is not strictly parallelled in the OT, it summarises accurately enough elements of the Law.131 In the antithesis its use as a gloss on the commandment is under scrutiny.132 κρίσις refers primarily to the activity of judging, and then derivatively to the bringing of justice, to the body that makes judgment (a court), to the sentence of condemnation, or even to the punishment resulting. e best ow of sense from v. 21 through v. 22 is probably achieved by translating ‘judgment’ and understanding that what is in view is the whole process of being brought before the court, found guilty, and punished. 5:22 e emphatic counterpoint is introduced with ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν (‘But I [emphatic] say to you’). Taken alone, this is nothing more than a piece of emphatic assertion.133 Its juxtaposition with the speaking of God is striking134 and implies the claim to a distinct capacity to speak the demand of God into the present situation. e counterassertion appears to accept the legal focus

introduced by v. 21b, but it does so only to parody and discredit it as an adequate framework for appreciating the thrust of the commandment. Matthew considers three parallel cases by way of example. Because there appears at rst sight to be an ascending order of seriousness of the sphere of answerability ([local?] court, high court, God), interpreters have struggled to nd some ascending sequence in being angry, saying ‘Raka’, and saying ‘Fool’. But such efforts are probably misplaced. e introduction of anger here is not speci cally to bring inner attitudes to the fore: the assumption is that this anger will nd its expression and so will be manifest to those involved in the situation. e point is rather that (expressions of) anger can operate at a whole range of degrees of severity, and all are embraced by Jesus’ assertion. In each case an alienation from and a hostility over against the other person are involved. e language of ‘brother or sister’135 re ects Jewish usage136 and points to shared membership in the community of the historic people of God. Such outbursts of anger breach the family solidarity of the community.137 e fate of the angry person is deliberately expressed in exactly the same words as that used for the fate of the murderer in v. 21 (see discussion of κρίσις [‘judgment’] there). Since a capital crime is involved in v. 21, it is unlikely that the context in which judgment is envisaged there and here is that of a lower court than that intended in the second example (where συνέδριον [‘council’] is used). Rather, the context of judgment remains unspeci ed, but the imagery remains that of the human justice system. e statement is and intends to be a puzzling one. Clearly some sort of equation is being made between (expressions of) anger and murder, but no matter what kind of equation might be involved, as a legal principle Jesus’ statement is a recipe for disaster.

e second example takes up the syntactical shape of the opening clause of v. 21b (ὃς δ᾿ ἄν [‘whoever’] + subjunctive) not used in the rst example, repeats ‘to his brother or sister’ from the rst example, and repeats again ‘will be liable to’ which has already been taken up from v. 21b in the rst example. is time the offence is to say ‘Raka’, an Aramaic word (rêqāʾ) taken over into Greek as a loanword and meaning ‘empty’ (as an insult).138 Here saying ‘Raka’ represents a relatively modest concrete form that the expression of anger might take.139 Corresponding to this move to the more concrete, the general reference to ‘judgment’ in the rst example is now replaced by reference to a/the council (or the Sanhedrin)140 sitting to exercise its judicial function. Once again Jesus expresses an impossible legal principle. e third example follows the wording of the second exactly up to ‘will be liable to’, merely substituting the Greek term μωρέ (‘fool’) for the Aramaic loanword. But in place of the general term ‘judgment’ of the rst example or the concretisation as ‘a council’ (or ‘the Sanhedrin’) of the second, we now get ‘the Gehenna of re’.141 If the legal framework was creaking through the rst two instances, now it has burst fully apart. e proper sentence for all of these ‘crimes’ is, now we learn, the judgment of hell, which no human court is able to impose.142 In effect Jesus is saying: If you want to apply the commandment solely within a legal framework, then you will need to feed into the legal system every case where there has been a rush of anger or words of insult; what is more, you will need to treat all of these as capital cases, or, more exactly, your courts will need to be able to send the culprits to hell. For the Matthean Jesus the commandment can have its proper force only if it is allowed to speak against every expression of human alienation from and hostility towards another and if its proper nal sanction is viewed as the judgment of God.

5:23 It is not at rst clear what the new set of examples in vv. 23-26 (the rst of which has no link to the criminal justice system) has to do with clarifying the murder commandment. But the rst set of examples has begun to focus on action as an expression of (broken) relation, and that focus on relationship will be taken further here. e key to the big picture is almost certainly the recognition that the murder commandment is being interpreted in the light of the love commandment (which will become the speci c focus of attention in the nal antithesis) and therefore attracts to itself the same relational focus. e murder commandment becomes to some degree a negative formulation of the love commandment.143 Where vv. 21-22 have focussed sharply on the activity of the offender, in vv. 23-25 the perspective of the one wronged comes into view. at is to say, the state of relationship resulting from the offence is now being considered from the angle of the one wronged. At the same time there is a loss of interest in the nature of the offense which might be involved: the actual wrongdoing has now moved entirely out of sight. In the context of the antithesis the effect of this loss of interest in the nature of the offense is to generalise: the area addressed by the murder commandment is now seen to be relevant to any act which wrongs another and therefore ‘damages’ the other. Further, where in vv. 21-22 the sequence is offence followed by judgment, in vv. 23-25 the sequence is recognition of the relational breakdown caused by the offence followed by active pursuit of reconciliation: patterns of ‘repentance’ are being proposed in a context where what is carried forward from the previous set of examples is a recognition of the ultimate seriousness of wronging others even in relatively minor ways. e rst scene is one in which the protagonist is at the point of offering a sacri ce in the temple. We should probably understand

‘offering your gi at the altar’144 as referring to a whole complex process in which both the worshipper and the priest played a part, but which did not literally involve the worshipper placing the offering on the altar (only priests were permitted in the immediate altar region, but the altar was visible to the worshippers).145 e sacri ce envisaged here is not an obligatory one (for ritual puri cation, sin, etc.)146 but a voluntary one expressing devotion or thanksgiving and the desire to draw near to God. When in 22:37-40 the reader reaches the Matthean Jesus’ insistence on a committed coordination of love of God and love of neighbour, it will become clear that such a principle has already been governing the demand which is to emerge here for reconciliation as a precondition for acceptable worship. Whatever is awry between the worshipper and his or her ‘brother or sister’, clearly it is the brother or sister who is the one disturbed by it: the worshipper has quite forgotten the matter until this moment! In the examples of the rst set we might think, for instance, of the worshipper as having lashed out in anger: feelings expressed, the one party has equanimity restored, but the second party remains a victim ‘damaged’ by the anger. 5:24 e precise details of temple sacri ce in the rst century are no longer recoverable, but a moment prior to the transfer of the sacri ce into the custody of the priest must be in view. Again, the location ‘before the altar’ is not immediately proximate to the altar. Possibly the practical difficulties of the course called for might have loomed alarmingly in such a religious culture; it is no longer possible to be sure, but certainly for, say, a Galilean a long journey may well have been involved. In any case, priority must be given to the restoration of the damaged relationship. Worship that is acceptable to God cannot take place against the background of a damaged human relationship which is being ignored.147 e perspective here is related to that of Is. 58:2-7.148

One cannot insist that either the formulation of Mt. 5:23-24 or its transmission depends on the continued existence of the Jerusalem temple (since long aer the loss of the temple and the cessation of sacri ce Jews continued to be interested in proper temple piety, presumably with a view to its ultimate restoration). But a Jewish-Christian context that had in principle abandoned temple sacri ce is less likely to have preserved such a tradition: temple sacri ce remains part of the law for the Matthean community.149 5:25 e second example involves two people on their way to court; the one has accused the other in a case where a severe and perhaps impossible nancial obligation will be the outcome if the accusation is upheld. e accuser’s arrival to fetch the accused to court is the presupposed equivalent in this example to the situation in v. 23. As in vv. 23-24, the precise nature of what has gone wrong between the two parties remains unspeci ed, but Betz150 is likely right that the focus is intended to be on the breakdown of their relationship and thus the state of hostility. e need for reconciliation is once again the theme. Whereas the rst example concludes with a positive outcome — resumption of the sacri ce — the second one pursues the opposite possibility: the outcome of failure to take the offered advice. e approval of God which stands implicitly behind the resumption of sacri ce is likely being contrasted with the judgment of God which stands implicitly behind the punitive action of the legal officials. No light is thrown on what it might take to ‘make friends’,151 but whatever it takes will be less costly than the alternative; reconciliation is all-important. e journey to the court presents itself as a window of opportunity;152 once the judge is involved, the wheels of justice will be unstoppable. e accused will be handed

over to the judge (partly parallelled in 10:17) when the two arrive at court. e sharing of the verb ‘hand over’ between the accuser and the judge and the pattern of repetition and progress in the language point to the inexorable nature of what is set in process once the journey is complete.153 5:26 e opening ‘Amen, I say to you’154 highlights the nal statement and may alert the reader to look for more here than appears on the surface. e justice system envisaged is not Jewish since there is no evidence for imprisonment for a nancial obligation in the Jewish legal system; it is part of the Greek and Roman patterns of justice.155 A quadrans, the smallest Roman coin, is one sixty-fourth of a denarius; the picture is of ‘squeezing out the last drop’. e power of the image depends on the assumption that the penalty, whether able to be ultimately paid off or not, represents a terrible crushing burden for the person. Given (a) the way in which the images of judgment in the rst set of examples point ultimately to the judgment of God, (b) the emphatic beginning with ‘Amen, I say to you’,156 and (c) the Godward orientation at the corresponding point of the previous illustration, we are probably to understand that the human judgment scene (though intended literally) is meant to point beyond itself to the analogous judgment of God, to whom we must ultimately answer for our behaviour towards others. 2. On Adultery (5:27-30) have heard that it was said,a ‘You shall not commit adultery’. 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a [married] woman in order to desire herb [sexually] has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If [even] your right eye causes you to stumble [into sin], pluck it out and cast it away from you. It is better for you that one of your members be destroyed and 27You

your whole body not be cast into hell. 30cIf [even] your right hand causes you to stumble [into sin], cut it off and cast it away from you. It is better for you that one of your members be destroyed dand your whole body notd ego off e into hell.c

TEXTUAL NOTES a. τοις αρχαιοις (‘the people of old’) is added to conform to v. 21 by L Δ Θ 0233 f13 etc. b. Not found in 64 ‫ *א‬etc. It may have been added for clari cation. Without it we might translate, ‘for purposes of sexual arousal’. c-c. V. 30 is omitted by D pc vgms sys boms, probably because of a jump caused by the repetition in v. 30 of much of the language of v. 29, but just possibly with a view to a tighter thematic unity (with v. 30 viewed as a crosscontamination from another form of this tradition?). d-d. ‘And … not’ [και μη] becomes ‘than’ [η] in ‫ *א‬mae. e-e. To enhance the parallelism or accidentally, the word order and verb here are conformed to that in v. 29 by (L) W Θ f13 etc. Bibliography Basser, H. W., ‘e Meaning of “Shtuth”: Gen. R. 11 in Reference to Matthew 5.29-30 and 18.8-9’, NTS 31 (1985), 148-51. • Chilton, B. D., Galilean Rabbi, 101-7. • Cornell, J. F., ‘Anatomy of Scandal: Self-Dismemberment in the Gospel of Matthew and in Gogol’s “e Nose”’, Liteol 16 (2002), 270-90. • Deming, W., ‘Mark 9.42–10.12, Matthew 5.27-32, and B. Nid. 13b: A FirstCentury Discussion of Male Sexuality’, NTS 36 (1990), 130-41. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Law in the New Testament: Si scandalizaverit te manus tua abscinde illam (Mk. IX.42) and Comparative Legal History’, in Studies, 1:4-31. • Parker, D. C., Living Text, 75-94. • Safrai, S., ‘With All Due Respect …’, JerPersp 56 (1999), 10-12. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10, 17-20.

In this second antithesis the adultery commandment is expanded to include indulgence in illicit sexual activity in the realm of the imagination. e challenge is given to go to the limit to eliminate sin. e antithesis form would seem to be an original feature of vv. 27-28 since v. 28 needs to be referenced to the commandment on adultery to fully function. Vv. 29-30 are unlikely to represent an original unity with vv. 27-28, but represent tradition which has been adapted to t the present context. Another form of these verses is found in Mt. 18:8-9, in a location parallel to a third form found in Mk. 9:43-47. e Markan form has three parts: hand, foot, eye (in that order); it is echoed in the second Matthean form, where the hand and foot parts have been combined. e Markan and second Matthean forms have clauses about entering into life/the kingdom of God which Mt. 5 has no need of because of 5:20. In Mt. 5:29 and 30 a generic ‘one of your members should perish and your whole body not’ replaces what is in the other forms language speci c to each loss; the references to Gehenna lack the expansion found in the other forms; ‘eye’ and ‘hand’ have become ‘right eye’ and ‘right hand’; the level of parallelism in the call for self-mutilation is enhanced in both Matthean forms by resolving the Markan ἔκβαλε αὐτόν (‘cast it out’) for the eye into ἔξελε αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ (‘pluck it out and cast it away from you’), preferring ἔκκοψον to the Markan ἀπόκοψον for the cutting off of the hand, and using the ἀπό in a repetition of καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ (‘and cast it from you’). ere are further less signi cant language and syntax changes.

5:27 On the antithesis form see the comments at 5:21-26, and on the form and meaning of the opening clause see those at 5:21. e abbreviated form here (lacking ‘to the people of old’) stands for the full form and should be understood in the same way. We move from the murder command to the adultery command in the Ten Commandments order (Ex. 20:14; Dt. 5:18). is time there is no interpreting gloss, and it is unlikely that an equivalent to the earlier gloss from v. 21 should be implied: here there is not the same focus

on judgment and the legal system. What, however, can be carried forward is the rejection of any narrow focussing of the commandments on the justice system. e implied interpretation that is opposed is the limitation of the adultery command to the physical act of adultery. 5:28 On ‘but I say to you’ see the discussion at 5:21. Since the topic is adultery, γυνή refers to a married woman. πρὸς τό with the in nitive expresses purpose and not simply result:157 this is a look that has sexual arousal in mind and may well involve contemplating the steps to adultery in one’s imagination.158 As far as the Matthean Jesus is concerned, in such activity the adultery command is already violated. ough the role of the visual in male sexual arousal is foundational for what is being said,159 the concern is with the secret violation of another’s marriage and not with sexual arousal as such. However, in a context of concern about fornication rather than adultery this sort of teaching would naturally extend to the kind of things we probably nd in Test. Iss. 7:2: ‘Except my wife, I have not known any woman. I did not act sexually immorally (οὐκ ἐπόρνευσα) by liing up my eyes’ (where ‘liing up’ is μετεωρισμῷ, which is likely to be intended to imply a full visual focus on the woman for purposes of sexual arousal); and Test. Iss. 4:4: ‘He did not see to welcome the beauty of a woman so that he might not pollute his mind in perversion’ (where ‘to welcome’ is ἐπιδέξασθαι, most likely implying taking in a woman’s beauty in an imaginative exercise of sexual possession). e thought may already be present in Job 31:1, but ‘look upon’ there might well be euphemistic for much more. Cf. also Ps. Sol. 4:4, where in criticism it is said that ‘his eyes are on every woman’. Neither in Matthew nor in the Testament of Issachar is sexual desire itself viewed negatively, nor are men criticised for nding women sexually attractive. Criticism is directed at making use of

these things in order, in the realm of the imagination, to indulge in illicit sexual activity.160 With a lightness of touch and with a recognition that adulterous thoughts may be present at different levels of intensity the Stoic philosopher Epictetus also spoke against contemplating adultery in one’s imagination.161 Philo counsels men and women to avoid seeing the naked bodies of those of the other sex, since even against the will of the individual this can lead to conceiving disgraceful actions. For Philo this act of imagining is to a degree reprehensible, but if it is only a passing fancy, not carried through to action, it does not attract guilt since the eyes and the soul have, as it were, acted outside the fundamental will of the individual.162 It is doubtful whether the Matthean Jesus would be as generous (see below). While others held to a laxer view, a considerable part of rabbinic thought also condemned the adultery of the eyes.163 e Qumran documents, too, condemn fornication of the eyes.164 ough there is some connection, we should not too quickly jump from this discussion of sexual sin in the imagination to a consideration of evil intention versus evil action,165 since the point of 5:27 is speci cally related to an understanding of human (male) sexuality. Similarly, though the viewpoint of the antithesis may well be rooted in the link between the adultery command and the command not to covet (including: ‘your neighbour’s wife’), the desire involved here is speci cally that of the sexual imagination and not the more general desire of covetousness. 5:29-30 As noted above, these verses are unlikely to represent an original unity with vv. 27-28. Matthew places reference to the eye rst to link it with the seeing of v. 27 (contrast Mt. 18:8-9; Mk 9:4347). In its Greek background the σκανδαλ- root provides the image of a snare or trap, but LXX usage adds to this the image of a cause of

stumbling (thus the translation above). e references to Gehenna provide a link with the rst antithesis (see 5:22). ough clearly intended to reinforce the seriousness of vv. 2728, the precise thrust of vv. 29-30 in the present context remains elusive. e sequence of eye and hand is probably intended to re ect a sequence of steps towards physical adultery.166 Whereas Philo was inclined to excuse the eye somewhat,167 but to condemn the hand, the Matthean text is equally condemning of each. Indeed, vv. 29-30 may have been added precisely to counter any view that the lust of the eyes is unavoidable (since not fully under the control of the person) and therefore excusable. If so, these verses will also have a generalising function: other actions which stop short of physical adultery come under the condemnation of this second antithesis. Matthew’s addition of ‘right’ is initially puzzling. If ‘right’ has been added because of the greater signi cance of the right side, then the text should be glossed ‘even if the right …’. συμϕέρει (tr. ‘it is better’ above) is literally ‘it is an advantage’. e text implicitly compares (using ‘better… than’) being caused to stumble into sin (by the eye or the hand) and remaining free of sin (by removal of the eye or the hand) — the ‘than’ clause remaining unexpressed. e linked καὶ μή (‘and not’) clause in each case stands in parallel with the ἵνα clause and identi es the advantage: the one who takes drastic measures to avoid sin does not end up in Gehenna.168 Rabbinic tradition can be as harsh against male sexual selfarousal with the hand.169 ere has been considerable discussion whether the Mishnaic ‘cut it off ’ was meant to be taken literally (as ‘a law’) or as an execration. Rabbinic opinion favours a literal

understanding of the Mishnah, though there is no evidence of actual implementation of this judgment. Whereas the rabbinic discussion has in view mutilation by others, the Matthean text contemplates self-mutilation and is therefore incapable of incorporation into a legal system. e Matthean text is also different in another important respect: punishment is in view in the rabbinic discussion, whereas the Matthean horizon is the avoidance of (any repetition of) the sin of adultery (in the extended sense that has been insisted on).170 However, there is still the question whether the Matthew text is intended to be taken literally. Despite the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ of Lv. 24:20,171 mutilation does not seem to have been part of Jewish legal practice.172 Such background may count against literalism. But perhaps the question of literalism is not quite the right one. e challenge is to go to whatever extreme are necessary to eliminate sin. By taking up dramatic and extreme instances, the text urges such a level of seriousness about avoiding sin that there will be unrestrained commitment to the use of all possible means to avoid it (with no particular interest in distinguishing between strategies that relate to the inner life, the physical body, or the arrangement of the external circumstances of life).173 e goal is what is important here, not the means.174 It is unlikely that we should read the text as assuming, if taken literally, that the maimed person would remain so in the kingdom of God. ere is certainly an assumption that the whole person will participate in the judgment of Gehenna, which in turn suggests a matching assumption of fully embodied participation in the kingdom of God.175 But the text is concerned to point to the limited value of having retained one’s body intact through life, only to go, no matter how full-bodied, to the judgment of God.

Given the harshness of the text and its radical moral seriousness, it is worth pointing out that the passage assumes forgiveness of the initial sin. It is the failure subsequently to take the sin seriously and to focus on eliminating it that is seen as potentially leading to Gehenna. 3. On Divorce (5:31-32) 31It

was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a [document of] release’. 32 But I say to you that aeveryone whoa divorces his wife, except [in relation to] a matter of sexual impurity, causes her bto have adultery committed against herb; cand whoever marries a woman who has gained a divorce [for herself] commits adultery.c

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. D E (0250) 346 579 1006 etc. conform the language here to that of the parallel phrase in v. 31. b-b. L 1006 1342 1506 etc. have μοιχασθαι, the verb used in following clause, and clearly take the woman to be the one who commits adultery. c-c. is nal clause is omitted by D a b k etc., probably because it is missing from the corresponding point in Mt. 19:9 (cf. Mk. 10:11-12). e recent defence of this omission as original by Cottiaux (Sacralisation du mariage, 666-67), while identifying some difficulties of traditional understandings, is not nally convincing. Bibliography Bauer, J. B., ‘Bemerkungen zu den matthäischen Unzuchtsklauseln (Mt 5,32; 19,9)’, in Begegnung mit dem Wort, ed. J. Zmijewski and E. Nellessen (Bonn: Hanstein, 1980), 23-33. • Bockmuehl, M. N. A., ‘Matthew 5.32; 19.9 in the Light of Pre-Rabbinic Halakhah’, NTS 35 (1989), 291-95. • Brooten, B. J., ‘Konnten Frauen im alten Judentum die Scheidung betreiben?’ EvT 42

(1982), 65-80. • Condon, K., ‘Apropos of the Divorce Sayings’, IBS 2 (1980), 40-46. • Cottiaux, J., La sacralisation du mariage de la Genèse aux incises matthéennes: Contribution à une théologie du développement dogmatique, à l’histoire de la discipline des moeurs, et aux problèmes posés par l’absolue indissolubilité de mariage chrétien (Paris: Cerf, 1982), 109-18, 373-75, 64091. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 205-13. • Crouzel, H., ‘Le sens de “porneia” dans les incises matthéennes’, NRT 110 (1988), 903-10. • D’Angelo, M. R., ‘Remarriage and the Divorce Saying Attributed to Jesus’, in Divorce and Remarriage, ed. W. D. Roberts (Kansas City: Ward and Ward, 1990), 78-106. • Descamps, A.-L., ‘e New Testament Doctrine on Marriage’, in Contemporary Perspectives on Christian Marriage, ed. R. Malone and J. R. Connery (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984), 217-73, 347-63. • Donahue, J. R., ‘Divorce: New Testament Perspectives’, e Month 242 (1981), 113-20. • Down, M. J., ‘e Sayings of Jesus about Marriage and Divorce’, ExpTim 95 (1984), 332-34. • Fridrichsen, A., ‘Excepta fornicationis causa’, in Exegetical Writings, 116-19 • Guenther, A. R., ‘e Exception Phrases: Except πορνεία, Including πορνεία or Excluding πορνεία? (Matthew 5:32; 19:9)’, TynB 53 (2002), 83-96. • Hays, R. B., e Moral Vision of the New Testament — Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 349-57. • Heth, W. A. and Wenham, G. J., Jesus and Divorce: e Problem with the Evangelical Consensus (Nashville: Nelson, 1985). • Holmes, M. W., ‘e Text of the Matthean Divorce Passages: A Comment on the Appeal to Harmonization in Textual Decisions’, JBL 109 (1990), 651-64. • Holwerda, D. E., ‘Jesus on Divorce: An Assessment of a New Proposal’, CTJ 22 (1987), 11420. • Hubner, H., Gesetz, 68-81. • Jacobson, A. D., ‘Divided Families and Christian Origins’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 361-80, esp. 369-73. • Janzen, D., ‘e Meaning of Porneia in Matthew 5.32 and 19.9: An Approach from the Study of Ancient Near Eastern Culture’, JSNT 80 (2000), 66-80. • Kampen, J., ‘e Matthean Divorce Texts Re-Examined’, in New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris 1992, ed. G. J. Brooke and F. García Martínez (STDJ 15. Brill: Leiden, 1994), 149-67. • Keener, C. S., … And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New

Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991). • Kilgallen, J. J., ‘To What Are the Matthean Exception Texts (5.32 and 19.9) an Exception?’ Bib 61 (1980), 102-5. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 343-60, 573-94. • Lövestam, E., ‘Divorce and Remarriage in the New Testament’, e Jewish Law Annual 4 (1981), 47-65. • Luck, W. F., Divorce and Remarriage: Recovering the Biblical View (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). • Marrow, S. B., ‘Marriage and Divorce in the New Testament’, ATR 70 (1988), 3-15. • Molldrem, M. J., ‘A Hermeneutic of Pastoral Care and the Law/Gospel Paradigm Applied to the Divorce Texts of Scripture’, Int 45 (1991), 43-54. • Mueller, R. J., ‘e Temple Scroll and Gospel Divorce Texts’, RevQ 10 (198081), 247-56. • Neirynck, F., ‘e Divorce Saying in Q 16:18’, LS 20 (1995), 201-8. • Neudecker, R., ‘Das “Ehescheidungsgesetz” von Dtn 24,1-4 nach altjüdischer Auslegung: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der neutestamentlichen Aussagen zur Ehescheidung’, Bib 75 (1994), 350-87. • Niebergall, A., Ehe und Eheschliessung in der Bibel und in der Geschichte der alten Kirche, ed. A. M. Ritter (MTS 18. Marburg: Elwert, 1985). • Nolland, J., ‘e Gospel Prohibition of Divorce: Tradition History and Meaning’, JSNT 58 (1995), 19-35. • Reicke, B., ‘Ehe, Eherecht, Ehescheidung, IV: Neues Testament’, TRE 9:318-25. • Ruckstuhl, E., ‘Hat Jesus die Unau ösigkeit der Ehe gelehrt?’ in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), 49-68. • Sand, A., Reich Gottes und Eheverzicht im Evangelium nach Matthäus (SBS 109. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983). • Satatowich, J., ‘Christian Divorce and Remarriage’, BT 25 (1987), 253-55. • Scharbert, J., ‘Die Ehrescheidung und die “Unzuchtklauseln” bei Matthäus’, ForKatheol 13 (1997), 106-26. • Schürmann, H., ‘Die Verbindlichkeit konkreter sittlicher Normen nach dem Neuen Testament, bedacht am Beispiel des Ehescheidungsverbotes und im Lichte des Liebesgebotes’, in Sittliche Normen: Zum Problem ihrer allgemeinen und unwandelbaren Geltung, ed. W. Kerber (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1982), 107-23. • Schweizer, E., ‘Scheidungsrecht der jüdischen Frau?’ EvT 42 (1982), 294-300. • Sigal, P., Halakah, 83-118. • Smith, D. T., ‘e Matthean Exception Clauses in the Light of Matthew’s eology and Community’, StBibT 17 (1989), 55-82. • Stenger, W., ‘Zur Rekonstruktion eines Jesuworts anhand der synoptischen Ehescheidungslogien (Mt 5,32; 19,9; Lk 10,11f [sic

for 10:18]; Mk 10:11f)’, Kairos 26 (1984), 194-205. • Tosato, A., ‘e Law of Leviticus 18:18: A Reexamination’, CBQ 46 (1984), 199-214. • Trilling, W., ‘Ehe und Ehescheidung im Neuen Testament’, TGl 74 (1984), 390-406. • Venetz, H.-J., ‘Die Ehe unter dem Anspruch der Bergpredigt: Neue Kommentare zum Matthäusevangelium’, Orient 52 (1988), 229-33. • Wacholder, B. Z., e Dawn of Qumran: e Sectarian Torah and the Teacher of Righteousness (MHUC 8. Cincinnati: HUC, 1983), 16-17, 124-27, 152. • Wambacq, B. N., ‘Matthieu 5,31-32: Possibilité de divorce ou obligation de rompre une union illégitime’, NRT 104 (1982), 34-49. • Warden, D., ‘e Words of Jesus on Divorce’, RestQ 39 (1997), 141-53. • Warren, A., ‘Did Moses Permit Divorce? Modal wĕqāṭal as Key to New Testament Reading of Deuteronomy 24:1-4’, TynB 49 (1998), 39-56. • Weibling, J. M., ‘Reconciling Matthew and Mark on Divorce’, TJ 22 (2001), 219-35. • Wenham, G. J., ‘e Restoration of Marriage Reconsidered’, JJS 30 (1979), 36-40. • Wenham, G. J., ‘May Divorced Christians Remarry?’ Churchman 95 (1981), 150-61. • Wenham, G. J., ‘Matthew and Divorce: An Old Crux Revisited’, JSNT 22 (1984), 95-107. • Wenham, G. J., ‘Gospel De nitions of Adultery and Women’s Rights’, ExpTim 95 (1984), 330-32. • Westbrook, R., ‘e Prohibition on Restoration of Marriage in Deuteronomy 24:1-4’, in Studies in Bible 1986 (Scripta Hierosolymitana 31. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 387-405. • Wiebe, P. H., ‘Jesus’ Divorce Exception’, JETS 32 (1989), 327-33. • Witherington, B., ‘Matthew 5.32 and 19.19 — Exception or Exceptional Situation?’ NTS 31 (1985), 571-75. • Yadin, Y., e Temple Scroll (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University, Shrine of the Book, 1983), 1:353-57. • Zmijewski, J., ‘Neutestamentliche Weisungen für Ehe und Familie’, SNTU 9 (1984), 34-69. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10, 17-20; 19:3-12.

is third antithesis connects divorce practice and the adultery commandment. Despite all the legal niceties of a divorce, the establishment of a new marital relationship will be an act of adultery against a man’s spurned wife.

e close links between Mt. 5:31-32 and 19:3-9 suggest that the present antithesis is based in part on the same tradition as that utilised in 19:3-9 (par. Mk. 10:2-12). However, the notable agreement between 5:32b and Lk. 16:18b, along with elements of similarity between Mt. 5:32a and Lk. 16:18a not shared by Mt. 19:9 or Mk. 10:11, indicates that Matthew also draws on a second source, which has had the dominant in uence on the wording of 5:32. Matthew’s wording is likely to be more original, except for the lack of ‘and marries another’ and the inclusion of ‘except [in relation to] a matter of sexual impurity’.176

5:31 On the antithesis form see the comments at 5:21-26, and on the pattern of introduction see those at 5:21. is third antithesis has the least elaborated introduction, probably to allow a close link with the preceding antithesis: this antithesis, too, has to do with a full understanding of the command not to commit adultery. is time the words offered as what ‘was said’ are an interpretive paraphrase of Dt. 24:1. e paraphrase takes Dt. 24:1 as accepting the practice of divorce and as regularising it through the requirement that a document of dismissal177 be given to the divorced woman (‘if someone wants to divorce, this is how to do it’).178 Modern translations and interpreters,179 by contrast, take the material to the end of v. 3 as contributing to a complex condition (‘if…and…and… etc.’) and nd the only directive in v. 4 with its insistence that the rst husband not remarry his divorced wife aer an intervening marriage (‘if someone divorces and the divorced wife remarries, then no subsequent restoration of the earlier marriage is permitted’).180 By not addressing the basis for the divorce the Matthean paraphrase insinuates a greater concern with ‘doing it by the book’ than with whether it ought to be done at all. As we will see, over against this the antithesis will set the view that despite all the proper ‘paperwork’, such an approach to divorce

amounts to nothing more than a form of publicly sanctioned adultery. 5:32 On ‘but I say to you’ see the discussion at 5:21. ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι is a difficult phrase, normally understood as ‘causes her to become an adulteress’ and explained in terms of the practical need and near inevitability of the wife’s remarrying. But this has never seemed very satisfactory.181 It seems better to note that each of the other forms of this tradition includes at this point an assertion that the man (as he subsequently remarries) is guilty of adultery against his rst wife. Such a thought was novel in the rstcentury world, where adultery was an offence against the rights of a married man, and neither the Hebrew nor the Greek language was receptive to its expression.182 e verb here, μοιχεύειν, is normally used in the active of a man committing adultery and in the passive of a woman committing adultery. But the active could refer to a woman’s role in adultery, especially in a statement that did not intend to be gender-speci c. is opens up the possibility that the passive form, obviously available to express the idea that a man might be the victim of adultery through the action of his wife, might also be used to express this new thought that the woman as well might be the victim of adultery through the action of her husband. e distinctiveness of 5:32 from other Gospel forms of this tradition in not actually mentioning the man’s subsequent remarriage might at rst be thought to count against this possibility. But the absence of a speci c mention of remarriage is a consequence of the form of wording in v. 31: the remarriage is assumed, but the focus is on the divorce; the structural correspondence would have been disturbed by a speci c mention of remarriage.183 What is being asserted, then, is that, in divorcing, the man is not creating a clean slate with freedom to remarry; on the

contrary, his establishment of a new relationship will be an act of adultery against his spurned wife.184 e Matthean text does not, however, make this damning statement in the case of all divorces. An exception is made: παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας.185 e language used to indicate the exceptional case is quite striking, and probably not natural Greek. It is best taken as an evocation of the language of Dt. 24:1, where the basis of divorce is ʿrwt dbr.186 Dbr translates literally into Greek as λογός (lit. ‘word’). ʿrwt is the construct state of ʿrwh, which literally means ‘nakedness’. It may refer to the genital area and oen carries connotations of intimacy or shame. One ‘uncovers the nakedness’ in sexual intimacy. e phrase ʿrwt dbr also occurs in Dt. 23:15 (ET v. 14), where the reference is to the self-exposure involved in defecating (this should not happen in the camp because God is there). While literal enough to establish the link with Dt. 24:1,187 λόγου πορνείας is as much an interpretive paraphrase as is the language found in Mt. 5:31, where this piece of the text is passed over altogether. But λόγου πορνείας is probably not intended to be a particularly precise interpretation. e primary contrast between the approach intended to be represented by v. 31 and that offered in v. 32 is that between an easy assumption of the right of divorce (provided the proper mechanism is observed) and the view that divorce of this easily gained kind is no true divorce but only a licence for adultery. e Matthean text allows room for divorce, but only on the grounds speci ed by Dt. 24:1, as now understood. What sense, then, should be given to πορνεία in the present context? In Qumran documents a good case can be made for understanding znwt (a term the LXX translates with πορνεία) in relation to a well-worked-out sectarian sexual ethic which extended

the normal range of znwt (fornication, including adultery or whoredom) to include bigamy, and even possibly incest (with a distinctive view as to the range of relatives to whom this applies), marriage with other prohibited classes of people, and intercourse with one’s menstruating wife.188 But no NT document invests in trying to give precision to πορνεία. e point of rendering ʿrwt as πορνεία here is likely to be no more precise than to insist that an adequate basis for divorce will involve serious moral failure, speci cally in the sexual area.189 ough there were certainly major strands of Jewish tradition in which divorce would have been considered a necessity subsequent on the adultery of the wife,190 Mt. 19:8 suggests that in the present context no more than permission is involved.191 e normal understanding of Mt. 5:32b runs the danger of leaving the woman involved a double victim: she has been divorced by a husband who may well have rejected her at his own whim (as per v. 31) and is now to be barred from any new relationship because she bears the stigma of the ‘divorcee’. In the context of a search for the most original form for the divorce materials found in the Gospels, I have argued elsewhere that ἀπολελυμένην here and in Lk. 16:18 carries the sense ‘a woman who has gained a divorce’ rather than the normal passive force ‘a woman who has been divorced’, and has in mind the situation of a woman who has manipulated her situation so as to gain a divorce.192 It is not possible to be certain of this, but it makes for the most coherent account of the origins of our present Gospel forms193 as well as for a good match between the two assertions of Mt. 5:32. It is notable that in Philo’s reporting of the contents of Dt. 24:1-4 the prohibition of return to the rst husband is explained in terms of the wife having parted from her husband (Spec. leg. 3.30-31). Philo understands Dt. 24:1 in terms of the wife’s having engineered a divorce by her

provocation of her husband.194 He goes on to berate the man who is prepared to marry a woman who has abandoned her earlier marriage in this way. It is, therefore, likely that the intention of the present Gospel text is to challenge easy divorce, whether initiated by the husband or provoked by the wife, in each case by labelling the subsequently formed relationship as adulterous. In each instance the challenge is addressed to the man: whether he be the one contemplating divorce or the one planning to collude with the stratagems of a woman who has found her way out of a marriage in pursuit of something better. Marriage is not a contract to be cancelled when no longer convenient but rather, as testi ed to in Mal. 2:14-16,195 a covenant relationship that calls for sustained faithfulness. 4. On Oaths (5:33-37) have heard that it was said ato the people of old,a ‘You shall not swear falsely; you shall hand over to the Lord what you have sworn [to give].’ 34But I say to you that you are not to swear [an oath] at all; not [even] by heaven, because it is the throne of God; 35nor by the earth, because it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the Great King; 36nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37Let your word be, ‘Yes, yes’, b‘No, no’; what is [more] ‘abundant’ than this is of evil [origin]. 33You

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Absent from most of the antitheses, this is omitted here by k sys Irlat. b. A separating και is inserted here by L Θ b sys, c, p etc., making it clear that these are different (alternative) assertions.

Bibliography Blank, J., ‘Schwört überhaupt nicht’, Orient 53 (1989), 97-99. • Brant, J.-A. A., ‘Infelicitous Oaths in the Gospel of Matthew’, JSNT 63 (1996), 3-20. • Brunner, H., ‘“Eure Rede sei ja ja, nein nein” im Ägyptischen’, in Das hörende Herz: Kleine Schrien zur Religions- und Geistesgeschichte Ägyptens (OBO 80. Fribourg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 396-401. • Carrón, J., ‘Das Zweite Gebot im Neuen Testament: “Euer Ja sei en Ja, euer Nein ein Nein”’, IKZCom 22 (1993), 36-53. • Dautzenberg, G., ‘Ist das Schwurverbot Mt 5,33-7; Jak 5,12 ein Beispiel für die Torakritik Jesu?’ BZ 25 (1981), 47-66. • Duling, D. C., ‘Against Oaths: Crossan Sayings Parallels 59’, Forum 6.2 (1990), 99-138. • Duling, D. C., ‘“[Do Not Swear…] by Jerusalem Because It Is the City of the Great King” (Matthew 5:35)’, JBL 110 (1991), 291-309. • Garlington, D., ‘Oath-Taking in the Community of the New Age (Matthew 5:33-37)’, TJ 16 (1995), 139-70. • Ito, A., ‘e Question of the Authenticity of the Ban on Swearing (Matthew 5.33-37)’, JSNT 43 (1991), 5-13. • Kollmann, B., ‘Das Schwurverbot Mt 5,33-37/Jak 5,12 im Spiegel antiker Eidkritik’, BZ 40 (1996), 179-193. • Kollmann, B., ‘Erwägerungen zur Reichweite des Schwurverbots Jesus (Mt,34)’, ZNW 92 (2001), 20-32. • Tan, K. H., Zion, 81-99. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10, 17-20.

Over against the pervasive use of oaths to con rm truth, the challenge of this antithesis is to stand, as far as one’s word is concerned, nakedly on one’s own integrity. ere is quite a range of views as to the development of the present antithesis. e antithesis form is unlikely to be original, and it appears that there has been some development in the content. Jas. 5:12 is likely to offer an independent attestation to a pre-Matthean form (see also Justin, Apol. 1.16.5) which, while indicating areas of likely development, retains all the main elements of the Matthean content. e references to heaven and earth may already represent earlier development.

5:33 e beginning of the second set of three antitheses is heralded by the introductory formula in its full form (otherwise only in the rst antithesis) and by the use of ‘again’ to mark a fresh beginning (see further at 5:21-26). e technique here for representing what ‘was said’, while again using scriptural allusion and summary, is little different from that seen in the earlier antitheses. e opening clause, including what ‘was said’, can only represent Lv. 19:12 (‘You shall not swear by my name falsely’), but the language is not at all close.196 e Matthean form is probably fashioned to echo the citation of two of the Ten Commandments in the rst two antitheses, and thus to call to mind the commandment from the ten which is relevant here: ‘You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain’ (Ex. 20:7; Dt. 5:11).197 e second clause containing what ‘was said’ probably has in mind Dt. 23:22 (ET v. 21 — ‘When you make a vow to Yahweh your God, you shall not delay to pay it’),198 but the link has a complication: there is a slide from the world of oaths ( rst clause) to the world of vows to God (‘you shall hand over to the Lord’), expressed, however, still with the language of oaths (‘what you have sworn’ in the second clause). What appear to be in view in the second clause are vows which have been strengthened by means of an oath.199 It seems entirely unlikely that the second clause is meant to restrict the scope of the rst clause to vows taken by oath. It is altogether more likely that we have a particular illustrative application which has been chosen because in the case of vows con rmed by oath the obligation to God inherent in all oaths becomes patently visible. 5:34 All of the sentiment of v. 33 would seem to be straightforwardly faithful to biblical teaching. If we are to

understand the critical perspective of Mt. 5:34-37, we must, however, dig more deeply. What exactly was understood to be going on when an oath was uttered? e fundamental element in an oath seems to be the (mostly formulaic) joining of words of promise or assertion with something or someone of considerable signi cance. By means of the association the reliability of the words is in some way thought to be buttressed (both in terms of the seriousness of the oath taker’s commitment to his or her words and of the believability of the words to others). Mostly the connection is to God (or a god or the gods),200 and this is the link which is probably to be understood as implied where no tie is speci ed.201 But one may also swear by heaven and earth, the sun, the stars, a city, the law of Moses, a temple or things related to the temple, a king, one’s parents, one’s own head, and so on. Oaths in which the link is to God (or the gods) may take the alternative form of a conditional curse (e.g., 1 Ki. 2:23).202 However, in ancient de nitions of oaths the emphasis is on God (or the gods) acting as witness.203 e case of swearing by parents offers a window onto a different way in which the linkage could operate: here something which is deemed to be valuable to the one swearing (the good memory of dead parents; the health and well-being of living parents) is somehow laid on the line in support of the affirmation being made.204 Something not too dissimilar seems to be involved in the invocation of holy things and celestial bodies: false swearing dishonours not only the one who swears but also and more importantly that by which the oath has been sworn. In this way the weight of the oath depends on the regard which the swearer has for that by which he or she swears.

Philo (Spec. leg. 2.11) applies the same sort of logic to swearing by God: when I swear falsely ‘I take ee [God] as a cloak for my wrongdoing. I am ashamed to appear a sinner, be ou my accomplice’. To push the logic (which Philo is prepared to do only in the case of false oaths), in swearing by something we appear to be making that by which we swear responsible or answerable for our conduct. e critical perspective of Mt. 5:34-37 is anticipated by a range of concerns about oaths in the ancient world. Important strands of the philosophical tradition opposed oaths either entirely or as much as practically possible.205 In Jewish contexts also questions were raised about the use of oaths. Philo held (Spec. leg. 2.2) that oaths should be avoided if at all possible, since fundamentally our word should be our oath. He was also concerned about the cheapening of oaths through their frequent and thoughtless use (Spec. leg. 2:6; De decal. 92–93; cf. Sir. 23:9-11), and pointed out that ‘in the eyes of sensible people much swearing is a proof, not of good faith, but of faithlessness’ (Spec. leg. 2.8; cf. De decal. 84). Similarly, Josephus (War 2.135) attributes to the Essenes the avoidance of oaths, ‘for they say that one who is not believed without an appeal to God stands condemned already’.206 We have already noted Philo’s concern about involving God in our wrongdoing. For him, if we are not able to avoid swearing altogether, it would be better to swear by something less than God, such as our parents, or if we need something more grand, the heavenly bodies (Spec. leg. 2:2-5). e logic is not transparent, but there does seem to be a concern about human beings overreaching themselves by involving the heart of the divine mystery in their oaths.207 An oblique complaint about the attempt to bolster the credibility of one’s word by associating it with something grand or holy is made in what is called the oath of Rhadamanthys, according

to which one swore ‘by the dog’ or some other very ordinary creature.208 On ‘but I say to you’ see the comments at 5:21. e contrasting statement begins with an absolute prohibition of oaths. Hidden within it is the prohibition of swearing by God: the cases taken up for speci c mention are those which might in the eyes of some be considered more acceptable than swearing directly by God, his name, or one of his characteristics standing euphemistically for God himself.209 e challenge is to stand, as far as one’s word is concerned, nakedly on one’s own integrity: neither by the introduction of an oath implicitly to downgrade the commitedness of one’s word without an oath nor by the use of the oath to seek to take hostage the honour of anything else to our own claim to truthfulness. Nothing by which I might swear can be made to carry responsibility for my truthfulness; the responsibility is my own. For Philo, swearing by heaven, while not to be positively promoted, is preferable to swearing by God himself. But our text in Matthew is more extreme.210 e human oath-taker has no claim on heaven, but God has full claim on heaven: it is his throne (the allusion to Is. 66:1 is con rmed by the following reference to earth as God’s footstool). One might as well swear by God (cf. Mt. 23:22).211 5:35 Earth takes us further away from the immediate claim of God, but not far enough away to change the logic of the argument: earth is God’s foot-stool and therefore subject to him and not to the human oath-taker. e appeal to Jerusalem represents a signi cant change in the nature of the currency.212 e appeal could be to the honour of Jerusalem as the mother city of the Jewish people, and it could be taken as having either speci c political or religious overtones. No

matter. No one has the claim on Jerusalem that God has: it is the city of God as the Great King (appealing to the language of Ps. 48:2). 5:36 e nal alternative falls in a class apart.213 If all the other things pertain to the realm of God, surely one’s own head is within reach!214 How does the comment about inability to change the colour of one’s hair represent a response to this possibility? is is not only not literally true today with modern dyes; it was not true already in the rst century. Ancient medicine had developed ways of colouring hair, and hair dying was practised in Egypt.215 Perhaps the reference to ‘white’ is the key. e hair of one’s head becomes white in old age. And in the ancient world one’s honour increased with one’s age (Pr. 16:31; 20:29). One cannot give or take from oneself the honour of old age; it is nally up to God to honour or dishonour one’s head (in this way or in any other way). So not even one’s own head turns out to be within one’s own power of disposition. ere remains only one’s bare word of truthful assertion. 5:37 If oaths are not permitted, how may one support the truthfulness of one’s statement? Having said our ‘yes’ or our ‘no’, what do we say next? e answer offered is that we can and should do nothing other than repeat the initial statement.216 All places of appeal outside the self are rejected. e double assertion is not understood to have a greater seriousness of intent than the single assertion (it is not a new Christian form of oath);217 it is offered only as a way of saying that nothing can be added to the initial assertion. Anything beyond the bare assertion takes away from the consistent transparent truthfulness to which Jesus calls, and inasmuch as it does this it is the product of an evil impulse.218 e translation above of the nal clause draws attention to the allusion back to 5:20:

the kind of ‘abundance’ involved in powerfully formulated oaths is not at all the kind of abundance called for in v. 20. It is not clear how the injunction of the antithesis would have been viewed in connection with such oaths as were speci cally commanded in the OT (e.g., Ex. 22:11; Nu. 5:19, 21) or such as were required in the legal practice of the day.219 It is unlikely that Matthew saw any contradiction with the detailed requirements of the Law, any more than Josephus did when he said of the Essenes, ‘swearing they avoid, regarding it as worse than perjury’ (War 2.135).220 We cannot insist that the materials call for a de ance of legal requirement. e concern is centrally with behaviour which is within one’s own control, but this should not be taken so as to restrict the scope of the antithesis to the private sphere. It would seem tting that the community of those who aspire to the abundant righteousness pointed to by Jesus should order its affairs without oaths and that it should seek for its members the maximum possible freedom from secularly required oaths. Did the apostle Paul know the dominical injunction against the use of oaths? e discussion in 2 Cor. 1:17-20 is oen said to echo the ‘yes’/‘no’ language of the injunction, but this remains uncertain since the problem in the Pauline text is that two different and apparently contradictory things have been said, not that one thing has been said and another been the actual truth. Paul makes no use of oath forms, but he does quite frequently call on God as witness,221 which might be considered to violate the dominical injunction. And he does make use of the form ‘as surely as something is true of God… this is the case’,222 which the LXX sometimes interprets as involving an oath (e.g., Jdg. 8:19). It is unlikely that Paul regarded either of these practices as involving the use of oaths, and he is likely to have contended that his appeal to God as witness was entirely in line with his own understanding of

his calling as apostle and his concern for the defence and proclamation of the gospel that stood behind all the assertions in relation to which he makes this appeal: God was not being called on to witness to Paul’s personal integrity but to the truth of the gospel message, understood to be embodied in as well as proclaimed by the apostle.223 5. On ‘an Eye for an Eye’ (5:38-42) 38You

have heard that it was said, ‘An eye [in retaliation] for an eye and a tooth [in retaliation] for a tooth’. 39But I say to you that you are not to set [yourself] against one who does evil. Rather, whoever strikes you on athe right cheek — turn to him yourb other one also; 40and cto the one who wants to take you to court and get your tunic — let him or her have dthe coat also; 41and whoever presses you into service to go one mile — go with him etwo. 42To the one who asks from you give; and fthe one who wants to borrow from youf do not turn away.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ‘Your’ in B D E G L Δ Θ f13 etc.; but not in ‫ א‬W f1 etc. b. Omitted by D k sys, c, perhaps as inexplicably restrictive. c. e nominative in D simply moves the brokenness of the syntax to another point. d. ‘Your’ in ‫ א‬33 1241 1424 etc. makes no difference to the sense. e. [ετι] αλλα (‘[still] other’) is added in [D it vgcl sys] lat syc to make the two miles a further two. f-f. Conformed to the dative used at the beginning of the verse by D, which also lacks ‘from you’. Bibliography

Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Anticipating the Passion: e Literary Reach of Matthew 26:47–27:56’, CBQ 56 (1994), 701-14. • Blank, J., ‘Gewaltlosigkeit — Krieg — Militärdienst’, Orient 46 (1982), 157-63, 213-16, 220-23. • Broer, I., ‘Plädierte Jesus für Gewaltlosigkeit? Eine historische Frage und ihre Bedeutung für die Gegenwart’, BK 37 (1982), 61-69. • Broer, I., ‘Zur Wirkungsgeschichte des Talio-Verbots in der Alten Kirche’, BibNot 66 (1993), 23-31. • Daly, R. J., ‘e New Testament and the Early Church’, in Non-Violence — Central to Christian Spirituality: Perspectives from Scripture to the Present, ed. J. T. Culliton (Toronto Studies in eology 8. Toronto: Mellen, 1982), 34-62. • Dautzenberg, G., ‘Mt. 5.43c und die antike Tradition von der jüdischen Misanthrope’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 47-77. • Donelson, L. R., ‘“Do Not Resist Evil” and the Question of Biblical Authority’, HBT 10 (1988), 33-46. • Ebner, M., ‘Feindesliebe — Ein Ratschlag zum Überleben? Sozial- und religionsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zu Mt 5,38-47/Lk 6,27-35’, in Quest, ed. J. M. Asgeirsson et al., 119-42. • Frymer-Kensky, T., ‘Tit for Tat: e Principle of Equal Retribution in Near Eastern and Biblical Law’, BA 43 (1980), 230-34. • Funk, R. W., ‘e Beatitudes and Turn the Other Cheek: Recommendation and Polling’, Forum 2.3 (1986), 103-28. • Gill, D., ‘Socrates and Jesus on Non-Retaliation and Love of Enemies’, Horizons 18 (1991), 246-62. • Hoffmann, P., Tradition und Situation, 3-61. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Tradition und Situation: Zur “Verbindlichkeit” des Gebots der Feindesliebe in der synoptischen Überlieferung und in der gegenwärtigen Friedensdiskussion’, in Ethik im Neuen Testament, ed. K. Kertelge (QD 102. Freiburg: Herder, 1984), 50-118. • Horsley, R. A., ‘Ethics and Exegesis: “Love Your Enemies” and the Doctrine of Non-Violence’, JAAR 54 (1986), 3-31. • Huber, W., ‘Feindscha und Feindesliebe: Notizen zum Problem des “Feindes” in der eologie’, ZEE 26 (1982), 128-58. • Hubner, H., Gesetz, 81112. • Jahnke, V. J., ‘“Love Your Enemies”: e Value of New Perspectives’, CurTM 15 (1988), 267-73. • Klassen, W., Love of Enemies (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 213-426. • Krieger, K.-S., ‘Fordert Mt 5,39b das passive Erdulden von Gewalt? Ein kleiner Beitrag zur Redaktionskritik der 5. Antithese’, BibNot 54 (1990), 28-32. • Lambrecht, J., ‘e Sayings of Jesus on Nonviolence’, LS 12 (1987), 291-305. • Lambrecht, J., ‘Is Nonviolent Resistance Jesus’ ird Way? An Answer to Walter Wink’, LS 19 (1994), 350-51. • Légasse, S., “Et qui est mon prochain?”: Étude sur l’objet

de l’agapè dans le Nouveau Testament (LD 136. Paris: Cerf, 1989). • Lienemann, W., Gewalt und Gewaltverzicht: Studien zur abendländischen Vorgeschichte der gegenwärtigen Wahrnehmung von Gewalt (Munich: Kaiser, 1982), 48-67. • Linskens, J., ‘A Paci st Interpretation of Peace in the Sermon on the Mount?’ Concil 164 (1983), 16-25. • Loh nk, G., ‘Der ekklesiale Sitz im Leben der Aufforderung Jesu zum Gewaltverzicht (Mt 5,39b-42/Lk 6,29f)’, TQ 162 (1982), 236-53. • Merklein, H., Jesu Botscha, 114-24. • Neugebauer, F., ‘Die dargebotene Wange und Jesu Gebot der Feindesliebe: Erwägungen zu Lk 6,27-36/Mt 5,38-48’, TLZ 110 (1985), 865-76. • Piper, R. A., ‘e Language of Violence and the Aphoristic Sayings in Q: A Study of Q 6:27-36’, in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 53-74. • Rathey, M., ‘Talion im NT? Zu Mt 5,38-42’, ZNW 82 (1991), 264-266. • Sauer, J., ‘Traditionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu den synoptischen und paulinischen Aussagen über Feindesliebe und Wiedervergeltungsverzicht’, ZNW 76 (1985), 1-28. • Schwienhorst-Schönberger, L., ‘“Auge um Auge, Zahn um Zahn”: Zu einem antijüdischen Klischee’, BLit 63 (1990), 163-75. • Steinhauser, M. G., ‘e Violence of Occupation: Matthew 5:40-41 and Q’, TJT 8 (1992), 28-37. • Strecker, G., ‘Compliance — Love of One’s Enemy — e Golden Rule’, ABR 29 (1981), 38-46. • Vaage, L. E., Upstarts, 40-54. • Vögtle, A., ‘Ein “unablässiger Stachel” (Mt 5,39b-42 par. Lk 6,29-30)’, in Neues Testament und Ethik. FS R. Schnackenburg, ed. H. Merklein (Freiburg: Herder, 1989), 53-70. • Wink, W., ‘Neither Passivity nor Violence: Jesus’ ird Way’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 210-24. • Wink, W., ‘Beyond Just War and Paci sm: Jesus’ Nonviolent Way’, RevExp 89 (1992), 197-214. • Wink, W., ‘Jesus and the Nonviolent Struggle of Our Time’, LouvStud 18 (1993), 3-20. • Wolbert, W., ‘Bergpredigt und Gewaltlosigkeit’, TP 57 (1982), 498-525. • Zerbe, G., Non-Retaliation in Early Jewish and New Testament Texts (JSPSup 13. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993). See further at 5:1-2, 3-10, 17-20.

In this antithesis the behaviour of the other is to be challenged by the moral strength of one who can provocatively signal a preference for suffering wrong over feeding the spiral of violence.

e antithesis form is unlikely to be an original feature of the materials of the present antithesis. ough with signi cant differences of form and sometimes of meaning, materials parallel to all but the third of Matthew’s examples are found in Lk. 6:29-30. Luke has combined materials found in Matthew’s nal two antitheses.224

5:38 On the antithesis form see the comments at 5:21-26, and on the form and meaning of the opening clause see those at 5:21. e abbreviated form here (lacking ‘to the people of old’, as in the second and sixth antitheses) stands for the full form and should be understood in the same way. What ‘was said’ is represented by a quotation of the core element common to the three OT texts (Ex. 21:24; Lv. 24:20; Dt. 19:21) in which the principle of proportionate justice is applied to cases of physical harm.225 ere is some slight evidence that the rst phrase, ‘an eye for an eye’, was already a Jewish manner of offering a digest of these Scriptures (see b. B. Q. 83b). Surviving early Jewish discussion of these texts is focussed on the question of whether a nancial equivalent could be or must be substituted for the physical punishment called for in a literal understanding. Strong views were held on both sides of the argument, and the texts are likely to re ect a situation in which legal practice varied.226 e OT texts are frequently said to be concerned to limit retaliation to a proportionate punishment. However, while this may be true for analogous materials from the Greco-Roman context,227 there is nothing to support this view in relation to either the OT materials or the related material in the Code of Hammurabi (see §§195-214), where the interest is rather in marking the full seriousness of the crime committed (Dt. 19:21: ‘show no pity’) and making sure that the guilty party ‘bear[s] the sin’ and the whole

community not be contaminated (Lv. 24:15, noting that the discussion of equal damage and proper compensation is set within one of bearing the consequences of blasphemy). e OT texts address the community and its leadership structures and not the victim or the victim’s family as such. As in previous cases, we are le to deduce the particular understanding or application of ‘an eye for an eye’ which is being opposed from the contrasting view being offered. But here the difficulty is unusually acute because the contrasting view does not make any easy contrast with either a contextually based understanding or a known Jewish understanding. I will offer further comment in the context of the exploration of the following verses. 5:39 On ‘but I say to you’ see the comments at 5:21. e contrasting statement begins with a prohibition which is normally translated something like ‘you are not to resist evil (or an evildoer)’. But this does create a tension with the following speci c examples, which ask for rather more than passive toleration in each case. What works best is for this opening clause to function as a middle term between the view represented in v. 38b and the thrust of the examples to follow. Indeed, the ἀλλ᾿ (‘but/rather/instead’) which connects the set of examples suggests that the opening clause alone is an incomplete statement (only the negative half, the positive counterpart to which needs to be deduced from the actual examples).228 Given this fact, a translation such as ‘you are not to set [yourself] against one who does evil’ would serve well,229 with an understanding that the speci c form of setting against which this is in view is retaliation in kind: ‘an eye [in retaliation] for an eye’. In the Greek text the ἀντι-at the beginning of the verb for ‘to set against’ is likely meant to be seen as taking up the uses of ἀντί in v. 38 (translated ‘[in retaliation] for’ above).230

As we turn to the examples, several things are immediately striking. Only the rst of the examples could (but even this one probably should not) be taken to operate in that realm of physical harm envisaged in the OT texts alluded to in v. 38.231 is makes clear at once that in v. 38 the alluded-to texts have become a basis for a more general principle of proportionate retaliation (abstracted from the question of physical maiming). Also striking is the only modest connection of the examples to the functioning of the legal system.232 e rst example can be tted into the legal system, by suggesting that there could be legal compensation for the hurt or insult suffered. e second takes place within the legal system, but the redress is being sought by the wrong party (not the one to whom the challenge is addressed). e nal three examples have no evident link at all with the possibility of legal compensation. e alluded-to OT texts have clearly been made to function (also) beyond the sphere of the legal system. Again striking is the difficulty in nding a link between any of the examples, except for the rst, and a principle of proportionate retaliation: only in the rst case is it clear that any injustice has been done and therefore any proportionate retaliation could be contemplated.233 Judging from this nal observation, it would appear that a statement which, taken literally, could refer only to a principle of proportionate retaliation has by abstraction come to stand for a principle of aggressive protection of one’s own interests.234 From the perspectives thus gained we turn to a more detailed exploration of the examples. Each example is concerned with the appropriate response to an initiative rst taken by another. e initiative in the rst example involves violence against the person. How much violence? We do not seem to be operating at the level of the kind of permanent damage envisaged in the texts alluded to in v. 38. Scholarship has

seized on Matthew’s use of ‘right’ and pointed out that, for a righthanded person using the dominant hand and facing the one being stuck, this would mean that the blow would be delivered with the back of the hand. If this is the scene envisaged, then the insult involved might be as important or more than the hurt itself.235 In any case, in this example we think most readily of one man picking a ght with another.236 His challenge is not to be taken up. e selfassertion involved is to be challenged not by a counter self-assertion but by means of a totally different form of challenge: the moral strength of the one who aggressively signals his preference for suffering wrong over feeding the spiral of violence.237 is kind of nonretaliation will be placed within a larger context in the nal antithesis.238 5:40 e second example involves how to respond to a person who is seeking to take one to court in order to sue one for the very clothing on one’s back. e rst garment mentioned (χιτών, translated above as ‘tunic’) is the basic garment worn in some form or other by everyone. e second garment (ἱμάτιον, translated above as ‘coat’) is a supplementary outer garment, able to serve a number of practical functions (e.g., for carrying grain or objects), essential in cold weather, and serving in some cases for the poor as a night blanket as well. A number of assumptions seem justi ed in order to esh out this illustration. First, we have no reason to doubt that the indebtedness implied is genuine: the plaintiff has a good case. Second, the one being summoned to court is extremely poor: there is nothing but the clothing in which he or she stands to sue for in compensation for the unpaid debt. ird, the attempt to gain possession of the tunic, while probably not technically in violation of OT law, is clearly in violation of the spirit of Ex. 22:25-27.239

It is doubtful whether the situation envisaged in the example would ever arise in practice, and if it did, whether the court would countenance such an action. But in any case, the situation envisaged is one of extreme and unreasonable pressure on the indebted poor person. e response proposed sets in sharp relief the unreasonable nature of the behaviour and brings the situation into sharper con ict with Ex. 22:25-27. Stripping naked the poor person graphically reveals the destruction of human dignity which the plaintiff is engaged in.240 e plaintiff ’s demands are not resisted, indeed they are exceeded, but they are in the process unmasked for what they are. 5:41 In the third example we are dealing with a practice of compulsory and oen unpaid241 or poorly paid public service. We have no speci c knowledge of the forms in which this was practised in Roman Palestine, but since Persian times impressing people and animals without notice for temporary service to the authorities had been customary and legal; the practice has been well documented.242 It is understandable that the populace experienced this requirement as irksome, that they oen resented it, and that it was all too subject to abuse. Hostility to Roman rule would make such impressment yet more distasteful. e recommendation is to generous and ungrudging compliance. Presumably such compliance has the power to turn an exaction into genuine public service, generously given to a representative of the government who has ‘need’ of it. is is not necessarily an endorsement of the practice of impressment as such, but in a situation in which changing the rules was not a possibility, the proposed response would have the capacity of turning the nature of the transaction from one in which both parties felt worse about each other aer the encounter to one in which positive human interaction might become possible.243

5:42 For the rst four examples we have a pattern of alternation of ‘whoever’ clauses with clauses beginning with a dative participle. At rst sight the h example seems to break the pattern, but we are probably meant to see the fourth and h examples together as corresponding to the second example.244 To some degree the roles of the second and the fourth/ h examples are inverted: in the second the protagonist is trying to retrieve a debt from a poor person; in the fourth/ h the protagonist is a poor person asking for help (see below). Matthew’s fourth example deals with the request of the beggar. e called-for openhandedness is in line with a strong Jewish tradition of almsgiving.245 ere is no precise de nition for the behaviour called for, but, as with the other examples, it involves responding appropriately to an initiative taken by another. e linked h example is concerned with lending to those who have fallen on hard times. is kind of lending, focussed on in the Law, is in view here.246 e difference between giving and lending was the possibility of being paid back,247 but since the coming of hard times was the reason for the borrowing in the rst place, there could be no guarantee that such loans would ever be repaid. Loans that could not be repaid before the years of remission (every seventh year) were to be forgiven.248 A nal overview will clarify the development of thought throughout this antithesis. e Matthean Jesus speaks against those who would extrapolate from the OT’s ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ to justify aggressive protection of their own rights and interests. Jesus insists that in situations of challenge the other person should not be treated as an antagonist to be ercely resisted and counter-challenged. Where a self-protective approach would have responded aggressively to the blow of an antagonist, Jesus proposes an alternative to such counter self-assertion: the behaviour

of the other is to be challenged by the moral strength of one who can provocatively signal a preference for suffering wrong over feeding the spiral of violence. Even a situation of extreme and unreasonable pressure on an indebted poor person should not encourage complaint and resistance: by complying and more than complying, indeed by stripping naked, the poor person is able to reveal graphically the destruction of human dignity which the plaintiff is engaged in, and to signal its plain de ance of the spirit of the Law. Instead of responding with self-interested attempts at avoidance or grudging compliance, the person whose services are commandeered by someone in authority is encouraged to generous compliance which could change the transaction from one in which both parties felt worse about each other aer the encounter to one in which positive human interaction might become possible. Finally, when the pressure on one’s own interest takes the more modest form of begging or asking for a loan, Jesus calls for generosity rather than pushing the other away on the ground that ‘What is mine is my own and I intend to keep it’. Matthew clearly saw no tension between the behaviour recommended here and the place in the Law of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. e materials in the Law were never concerned to leave no place for pardon or for generosity. He chose his examples carefully from a restricted range in order to be able to highlight the contrast between a generous-spiritedness not narrowly committed to the interests of the self and an aggressive protection of one’s own interests that would retaliate as a re ex when aggrieved. By way of example, he offers creative, one-off strategies for certain situations. It goes way beyond the evidence, however, to suggest that what he proposes would require the end of legal compensation or proportionate penalty or that it would rule the use of violence entirely out of court. No doubt his goal is to ‘overcome evil with

good’, and this stands over against any vindictiveness of spirit or lack of generosity, but the restricted range of the examples allows him to make the fundamental point in all sharpness without the need to grapple with the very real difficulty of de ning boundaries of applicability and the nature of the relationship of this vision to other (perhaps equally valid) obligations and concerns.249 is is not to narrowly privatise the vision, but it is to suggest that in concrete situations at every level other considerations may also be important. 6. On Love (5:43-48) 43You

have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy’. 44But I say to you, Love your enemies aand pray fora those who persecute you, 45so that you might [by such responses] be sons of your Father in heaven, because he makes the sun rise and shine forth on the evil and the good and causes it to rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46For if you love [only] those who love you, what [basis] do you have for a reward? bDon’t even the tax collectors do the same?b 47And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what [is] abundant [in what] you are doing? Don’t the cGentiles do the same? 48You shall be complete [in the reach of your goodness], just as your heavenly Father is complete [in the reach of his goodness].

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. D L W Θ f13 33 etc. replace this with three corresponding clauses from Lk. 6:27-28 (with the rst two clauses inverted from the Lukan order). b-b. A statement, not a question, in ‫ א‬sys, c bo (in uence from Lk. 6:32). c. τελωναι (‘tax collectors’) is repeated from v. 46 in L W Θ f13 1006 etc. Bibliography

Arokiasamy, S., ‘“Your Father in heaven…makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45)’, Vidyajyoti 63 (1999), 381-84. • Beck, M., ‘“Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect” (Mt 5:48)’, Vidyajyoti 63 (1999), 381-84. • Becker, J., ‘Feindesliebe — Nächstenliebe — Bruderliebe: Exegetische Beobachtungen als Anfrage an ein ethisches Problemfeld’, ZEE 25 (1981), 518. • Bergmeier, R., ‘Und deinen Feind hassen’, TB 29 (1998), 41-47. • Borchert, G. L., ‘Matthew 5:48 — Perfection and the Sermon’, RevExp 89 (1992), 265-69. • Borg, M. J., Conflict, 127-30. • Boxel, P. van, ‘e Poor and the Rich: Two Opposing Christian Communities’, Way Sup 97 (2000), 13041. • Broshi, M., ‘Us and em: Loving Both’, JerPersp 56 (1999), 28-31. • Brown, E., ‘e Meaning of Perfection in Matthew’, UUC 53 (1998), 24-30. • Dungan, D. L., ‘Jesus and Violence’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 135-62. • Funk, R. W., ‘e Beatitudes and Turn the Other Cheek: Recommendations and Polling’, Forum 2.3 (1986), 103-28. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 146-66. • Hartin, P. J., ‘Call to Be Perfect through Suffering (James 1,2-4): e Concept of Perfection in the Epistle of James and the Sermon on the Mount’, Bib 77 (1996), 477-92. • Huber, W., ‘Feindscha und Feindesliebe’, ZEE 26 (1982), 128-58. • Jahnke, V. J., ‘“Love Your Enemies”: e Value of New Perspectives’, CurTM 15 (1988), 267-73. • Klassen, W., ‘e Authenticity of the Command: “Love Your Enemies”’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 385-407. • Kuhn, H.-W., ‘Das Liebesgebot Jesu als Tora und als Evangelium: Zur Feindesliebe und zur christlichen und jüdischen Auslegung der Bergpredigt’, in Vom Urchristentum, ed. H. Frankemölle and K. Kertelge, 194-230. • Lach, J., ‘Die P icht zur Versöhnung und Liebe (Mt 5,43-48)’, Coleol 57 (1987), 57-69. • Luz, U., ‘Jesus Gebot der Feindesliebe und die kirchliche Verantwortung für den Frieden’, Reformatio 31 (1982), 253-66. • Mathys, H.-P., Liebe dienen Nächsten wie dich selbst: Untersuchungen zum alttestamentlichen Gebot der Nächstenliebe (Lev 19:18) (OBO 71. Göttingen/Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/Universitätsverlag, 1986). • Milavec, A., ‘e Social Setting of “Turning the Other Cheek” and “Loving One’s Enemies” in Light of the Didache’, BTB 25 (1995), 131-43. • Poruther, A., ‘Ahimsâ and the Love Commandment’, Vidyajyoti 58 (1994), 617-22. • Reiser, M., ‘Love of Enemies in the Context of Antiquity’, NTS 47 (2001), 411-27. • Reuter, R., ‘Liebet eure

Feinde’, ZEE 26 (1982), 159-87. • Ruzer, S., ‘From “Love Your Neighbor” to “Love Your Enemy”: Trajectories in Early Jewish Exegesis’, RB 109 (2002), 371-89. • Sabourin, L., ‘Why Is God Called “Perfect” in Mt 5:48?’ BZ 24 (1980), 266-68. • Schneider, G., ‘Imitatio Dei als Motif der “Ethik Jesu”’, in Neues Testament und Ethik. FS R. Schnackenburg, ed. H. Merklein (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1989), 71-83. • Schwarz, G., ‘αγαπατε τους εχθρους υμων: Mt 5,44a/Lk 6,27a (35a): Jesu Forderung κατ᾿ εξοχην’, BibNot 12 (1980), 32-34. • Smith, R. H., ‘e End in Matthew (5:48 and 28:20): How to Preach It and How Not To’, WW 19 (1999), 303-13. • Weizsäcker, C. F. von, ‘Intelligente Feindesliebe’, Reformatio 29 (1980), 413-18. • Wolbert, W., ‘Die Liebe zum Nächsten, zum Feind und zum Sünder’, TGl 74 (1984), 26282. • Wong, K.-C., Interkulturelle, 65-76. See further at 5:1-2, 3-10, 17-20, 38-42.

e nal antithesis takes up and radicalizes the highest demands group solidarity might impose and asks that these be practised in relation to the enemy. 5:48 rounds off both the nal antithesis and the whole set of antitheses, but it also, with its call to be thoroughgoing and uncompromised, marks the transition to the next block of the Sermon, 6:1-18. ough with signi cant differences of form and sometimes of meaning, all the material from Mt. 5:44-48 is parallelled in Lk. 6:27-28, 32-33, 36. Luke has combined materials found in Matthew’s nal two antitheses. In most cases, but not all (notably not for Mt. 5:44), the Matthean forms seem more original than the Lukan.250 e antithesis form is widely thought not to be an original feature here, but the contrast between restricted love and universal love is so central that a contrast such as that provided in v. 43 seems to be implied. If this is so, then Luke’s ἀλλὰ ὑμῖν λέγω (‘but I say to you’), otherwise quite adequately explained as a Lukan editorial transition, is likely to be a relic of the antithesis form.251

5:43 On the antithesis form see the comments at 5:21-26, and on the form and meaning of the opening clause see those at 5:21.

e abbreviated form here (lacking ‘to the people of old’, as in the second and h antitheses) stands for the full form and should be understood in the same way. What ‘was said’ quotes the key words, ‘You shall love your neighbour’, from Lv. 19:18, but it continues with an interpreting gloss, ‘and hate your enemies’.252 Two things are at once obvious. First, unless Matthew intends a rather limited understanding of ‘enemy’, this gloss is not true to Lv. 19:18, where the context speaks against hating, taking vengeance, and bearing a grudge — matters which arise when one perceives that another has behaved like an ‘enemy’. Second, the wording of Lv. 19:18 nonetheless opens itself to some kind of restricting gloss since it addresses the command to love (only) to one’s relationship with one’s neighbour.253 How are we to understand the particular gloss offered in Mt. 5:43? If it took its lead from the Lv. 19:18 context, it should refer to those who belong to a different tribal, ethnic, or national group which is hostile to the Jewish people. But the Matthean context no more encourages a focus on nationalism here than the related ‘You are not to set [yourself] against one who does evil’ (v. 39) was found to focus on the issue of resistance to Rome. A wider OT perspective raises the possibility that the enemy might be the sinner, hostile to God, to godliness, and to the faithful.254 But the Matthean countermaterials suggest nothing as focussed as this. e central concern of this wider OT perspective is, in any case, the need for the godly to display attitudes and practices sharply demarcated from those of their enemies, and nothing that could be related to this concern surfaces in the Matthean materials; indeed, the very use of the antithesis form points to an act of demarcation. e best option is to take ‘enemy’ in a quite general sense at the individual and personal level,255 and to think in terms of how one should orient oneself to someone who is hostile.

If this is right, then we should notice that the juxtaposition of ‘neighbour’ and ‘enemy’ as opposites has inevitably in uenced the sense of ‘neighbour’ in the Matthew statement. e force of ‘neighbour’ has been moved sharply in the direction of that of ‘friend’: the potential in the word ‘neighbour’ for reference to a concrete relationship has been exploited with reference to a positively functioning personal relationship; the neighbour has become one’s friend. In this form (love for friends, hate for enemies) the Matthean statement expresses a popular maxim of the GrecoRoman world256 and re ects the reciprocity ethic that was so in uential in that world. Since the maxim re ects a perennial human orientation, there is no need for speci c documentation to con rm that it also surfaced among Jewish people of the rst century.257 5:44 On ‘but I say to you’ see the discussion at 5:21. e call to love one’s enemies places nothing in question of the directives of Lv. 19:18 in its Leviticus setting, but (no doubt taking its lead from the challenging of narrow self-interest already present in the immediate Leviticus text) calls for such practice to be universalised rather than restricted. Note the move from the singular ‘enemy’ of v. 43 to the generalising plural here. e call to love one’s enemies has oen been too quickly claimed as a Christian distinctive. While there may be distinctive features to the Christian call to love of enemies, however, the call itself has in one form or another a wide province and a long history. e ancient Babylonian text Counsels of Wisdom, lines 41-45, advises: ‘Do not return evil to the man who disputes with you; requite with kindness your evil-doer … smile on your adversary. If your ill-wisher is […] nurture him’. In the context these recommendations have a shrewdly pragmatic role: this is a strategy for avoiding entanglements in legal disputes, especially important in

the case of a powerful antagonist. Rather less self-interestedly the Egyptian wisdom text Instruction of Amenemopet 4:10–5:6 advises: ‘So steer that we may be able to bring the wicked man across…. Fill his belly with bread of thine, so that he may be sated and may be ashamed’. It directs the privileged to practise philanthropy in the interests of the reformation of the sinner.258 We have already noted the call in Lv. 19:18 and its context to refrain from hating, taking vengeance, and bearing a grudge. Along the same lines Ex. 23:4-5 calls for help to one’s personal enemy who has problems with his donkey, and Pr. 25:21-22 calls for the provision of food and drink to the needy personal enemy. In these texts to love one’s enemy is to rise above (what is oen the pettiness of) one’s own personal animosities in the interests of the community of the people of God. One is to put community values ahead of individual hurts. e limitation of this generosity is that it reaches only one’s own kind. In the Greco-Roman world a wider vision of humanity was able to transform this kind of communitymindedness into a general humanism (‘Nature has generated us as kindred since she has created us out of the same elements’) that would be a basis for doing good to all and absorbing hurt rather than returning it in kind (e.g., Seneca, Ep. 95.52-53).259 In some contexts an important basis for not taking revenge was a distinction between what is appropriate in the divine and in the human sphere. Pr. 24:17 warns against rejoicing over the downfall of one’s enemy: when God sees one’s malicious glee, he may well withdraw his judgment (cf. Job 31:29)! Vengeance is distinctly God’s business.260 is is very much the basis on which, according to 1QS 10:17-21, members of the Qumran community were to return good for evil: ‘To God [belongs] the judgment… and it is he who pays man his wages’.

A related though importantly different encouragement to generosity in relation to the evil acts of others is that if one responds to the failures of another with enmity and anger and not with forgiveness, then God is likely to show the same severity in response to one’s own sins. is thought is fully articulated in Sir. 27:30–28:7,261 and something quite similar is found in b. Ř. Š. 16b: ‘ree things call a man’s iniquities to mind, namely … and calling for judgment on one’s fellow man’. Mt. 7:1-2 develop this perspective. Kindness to enemies is a strategy recommended to rulers. Cicero, Offic. 2.22-24, maintains that ‘e most suitable means to win and maintain power is love, the most unsuitable is fear…. For fear is a terrible guardian for lasting certainty; but upon love one can rmly rely, even for ever’. Rulers should practice clemency, which, according to Seneca, Clem. 2.3.1, ‘means restraining the mind from vengeance when it has the power to take it’ and ‘leniency of a superior towards an inferior in xing punishment’. ese are clearly recommendations to the one who has the upper hand (this is how you treat a defeated enemy, not one with whom you are engaged in a life-and-death struggle). Such patterns of behaviour on the part of rulers have clear practical value, but they also offer a way of demonstrating one’s greatness: here one can show one’s moral superiority to and greater nobility than one’s enemies (or the comparison might be with other rulers). Indeed, the kind of superiority and nobility to be demonstrated in this way was not simply a virtue for rulers.262

Not only the powerful and the great, however, could demonstrate superiority by absorbing ill-treatment. e circumstances of the death of Socrates were much meditated on, and he became the symbol of the philosopher who when brutally treated by society shows his superiority and the superiority of his views precisely by foregoing any attempt to respond in kind. He may point out the injustice, but he will submit to the fate imposed on him.263 Perhaps developing out of this, but nonetheless distinctive is the Cynic view as reported by Epict., Diss. 3.22.54, that ‘while he [the Cynic] is being ogged he must love the men who og him, as though he were father and brother of them all’. e basis here is a profound belief in providence: since what comes is what should come, no real evil is being done to one.264 Finally (but the list is probably not complete), the impartial dispensing of good without consideration of the merit of the recipient was commended as an imitation of God or the gods. Seneca, Ben. 4.26.1, proposes that ‘If you wish to imitate the gods, do good deeds also to the ungrateful: for the sun also goes up upon the evil, and the sea stands open even to pirates’.265 e similarity to Mt. 5:45 is evident. e actual language of love is quite rare, indeed it never takes the role it is given in Mt. 5:44,266 but for a whole variety of reasons people saw the appropriateness of doing good not only to the good but also to the enemy. We will come back, aer considering what the Matthean text offers us by way of concrete example and explanation, to the question of how the call in Matthew relates to these other ancient calls for generosity to people who show enmity towards us.

e Matthean text immediately links to the call to love one’s enemies the call to ‘pray for those who persecute you’. Praying for someone is to be seen here as a deeply personal expression of the inner orientation of the heart; it is not meant to be an easy option, sparing one the responsibility of relating to enemies in a loving manner and acting towards them with practical expressions of love. e persecution in view here is likely to be the same as that envisaged in 5:10; it is persecution for staying true to one’s most fundamental commitments. is is a particularly odious form of enmity in relation to which to be called to respond with love.267 5:45 On the gender-speci c language here see the remarks at 5:9. On ‘your Father in heaven’ see those at 5:16. Where 5:9 promised divine acknowledgement as sons, here the link with the example of God is best respected by taking the thrust of the text to be: ‘By loving enemies you will be acting in the proper family manner (like father, like son)’.268 Marked by this family likeness, one’s actions will be good works that ‘glorify your Father in heaven’ (5:16). e challenge to be like God will be taken further in v. 48. e sun is very speci cally ‘his [God’s] sun’ here. e parallelism between the role of the sun and the rain suggests that τὸν ἥλιον ἀνάτελλει may refer to the sun rising as a visible orb bright and warming (in contrast to the dark cloud cover that brings rain) rather than simply to the sun as the cause of the light of day. ἀνάτελλει (lit. ‘makes rise’) is therefore translated fulsomely above as ‘makes [the sun] rise and shine forth’.269 e use of βρέχει is causative (‘causes it to rain’), but because of the other uses of the verb (‘he wets’, ‘it rains’) may carry overtones of the immediacy of God’s involvement. e call to love one’s enemies is grounded in a vision of God as bene cent to all because of creation: he does not withdraw his creational kindness from the wicked.270

e vision of God here is more strongly marked by a creational and wisdom perspective than the otherwise similar sentiment in Ps. 145:9: ‘Yahweh is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made’.271 As oen with wisdom perspectives, we are offered a powerful image which, while persuasive and cogent in its own way, nevertheless does not tell the whole story. e OT vision of God also included a strong sense that God is presently active in judgment (e.g., Ex. 20:5; in the present context pointedly Am. 4:7) and holds out the prospect of future judgment (e.g., Joel 1:15). At least the latter of these is strongly taken up in Matthew. ere remains the reality, however, of a general experience of God’s indiscriminate kindness through the created order, and this is what we are called upon to imitate in our response to those who show enmity to us. 5:46 e twofold example of God (sun and rain) is contrasted with two faulty examples (mutual love even of tax collectors; friendly greeting of their kin even by Gentiles), which are for the most part constructed in close parallelism. e language here of ‘loving those who love you’ supports the suggestion at v. 43 above that the addition of the hate clause causes the sense of ‘neighbour’ there to move strongly in the direction of ‘friend’. Matthew has introduced the category of ‘reward’ at v. 12 (see there). It is the readiness to press beyond reciprocated love, which represents something which could be rewarded. Behaviour that be ts the coming kingdom of God accumulates a reward to be received at that time. Tax collectors are referred to simply to take advantage of their bad popular image.272 ey had to work in a social context whose very structure was de ned by gra and corruption. e kind of mutual love found even among tax collectors is of course to be found among all human groups where there is a sense of solidarity.

In itself it is no bad thing, and it can on occasion be a very good thing.273 But it is not the stuff of which the kingdom of God is made; it does not make for the abundant righteousness called for.274 5:47 Where for the example of v. 46 the solidarity has been one of social identity, now it will be one of kinship. How broadly or narrowly the kinship expressed by ‘brother or sister’ is meant to reach remains unclear. In vv. 22-24 it is likely to be as wide as the Jewish people; the same may be true here, and therefore a corresponding ethnic sense for non-Jewish ethnic groups would be implied for the nal clause. e act of greeting is a concrete expression of the fact that the other person has personal signi cance for the one doing the greeting. ose not greeted are excluded from signi cance.275 περισσόν means here ‘out of the ordinary’, but is translated above as ‘[is] abundant’ to catch the echo of v. 20. ‘Gentiles’ is used in a typically Jewish way, calling up Jewish negative stereotypical images.276 Again, there is no cricitism of the mutual recognition that gives people a sense of place and identity. But the Matthean Jesus calls for more. We come back to the question of how the Matthean call to love one’s enemies relates to other ancient calls for generosity to the evil. What Jesus enjoins is in no way a virtue for the powerful. Nor is it a manifestation of community solidarity (or solidarity with humankind). Nor is it a counsel of self-interest. Nor is it based in the Cynic’s assessment that no real evil has been done to one. It is certainly an imitation of God…. It is also clearly an exercise in moral superiority…. Jesus calls for an aggressive pitting of good against evil. is is a thoroughly evangelistic strategy…; it takes up and radicalizes the highest demands group solidarity might impose and asks for these to be practised in relation to the enemy. ere is a kinship with Jesus’ fellowship with sinners in this aggressive attempt to establish

community with those who are alienated from the community of God’s People.277

We have already noted the unusual focus on the word ‘love’, but the actual examples explored suggest that the importance of the speci c word should not be overemphasised. At the heart of what is called for is a concern to remain ‘on the side of ’ all people, no matter what they might do to provoke a different orientation. Matthew clearly had no difficulty reconciling this call for unremitting love with sharp speaking (e.g., Mt. 3:7; 12:34), with social withdrawal for the purposes of church discipline (18:17), or with the prospect of God’s nal judgment of the wicked (e.g., 13:40). 5:48 is verse rounds off both the nal antithesis and the whole set of antitheses, but it also, with its call to be thoroughgoing and uncompromised, marks the transition to the next block of the Sermon, 6:1-18, which will continue the theme of the contrast between the behaviour called for by Jesus and that practised by certain others (this time ‘the hypocrites’). Jesus appeals to the Father/son relationship in a manner which echoes v. 45. e shape of this appeal to be like God may well have been inspired by Lv. 19:2 (‘You shall be holy, as/because I, Yahweh your God, am holy’), but if so, the content has been developed to suit the Gospel writers’ purposes and to point more clearly to the speci c nature of what is being called for. e future ἔσεσθε (lit. ‘you will be’) is imperatival, as was the future with which the antithesis begins (‘You shall love your neighbour’), and as is the case at the beginning of the rst, second, and fourth antitheses (ἔσεσθε is rendered in translation above as ‘you shall be’ — in the sense ‘you are to be’ — to conform to the translation pattern in these other cases).278

Luke’s οἰκτίρμονες (‘compassionate’) (6:36) sustains thematic unity in a more obvious manner than Matthew’s τέλειοι (lit. ‘perfect’), but the obvious link with the appeal to the example of God in v. 45 indicates that the Matthean thought is broadly along the same lines. τέλειοι, however, offers a number of advantages for Matthew. Important as love of enemies (or compassion) is for the antitheses, it cannot sum up the whole set. e LXX uses τέλειος to translate tmym, which has a basic meaning of ‘whole/entire’ and in relation to human behaviour before God points to wholeheartedness and lack of compromise with pagan practices. Dt. 18:13 has, ‘You shall be tmym/τέλειος with Yahweh/the Lord your God’.279 For Matthew the antitheses have been calling for unalloyed commitment to the will of God as expounded by Jesus. More speci cally, in the case of each antithesis, what has purported to be what God conveyed to his ancient people has turned out on closer examination to be a rather foreshortened version of what God really desires of his people, or even quite a distortion of it. e call is to go all the way with the will of God, now seen with fresh clarity. e completeness here answers to the ful lling promised in Mt. 5:17 and to the sense in vv. 18-19 that nothing should be missing from obedience to the whole claim of the Law. One must go all the way in obeying the will of God; one cannot be content with some circumscribed version of obeying God’s will, as witnessed to in the Law and the Prophets.280 G. Practising Piety before Others (6:1-18) 1. Almsgiving (6:1-4) care not to practise your arighteousness before others in order to be seen by them. Otherwise you will have no reward with your Father in heaven. 1Take

2When,

therefore, you practise almsgiving, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the city streets, so that they might be glori ed by others. bAmen, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3As you practise almsgiving, do not let your le [hand] know what your right [hand] is doing, 4so that your almsgiving may be in secret; and your Fatherc who sees d[it] will reward you ein secret.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. L W Z Θ f13 33 etc. have ελεημοσυνην (‘almsgiving’), as in v. 2. is has sometimes been defended as original, but at the expense of destroying the role of v. 1 as establishing the principle for all three examples to follow (see below). b. e Johannine double ‘amen’ is found in ‫ *א‬13 and a few other texts, but is not original. c. An emphatic αυτος (so: ‘your Father himself’) is added in D W f1. d. Or perhaps ‘[you]’, as the Palestinian Syriac takes it (see Schwarz, ‘Ο ΒΛΕΠΩΝ’, 38-40). e. L W Θ 0250 etc. understand ‘in secret’ as linked to ‘sees’ and add εν τω ϕανερω (‘publicly’). Bibliography Agnew, F. H., ‘Almsgiving, Prayer, and Fasting’, TBT 33 (1995), 239-44. • Barr, J., ‘e Hebrew/Aramaic Background of “Hypocrisy” in the Gospels’, in Essays, ed. P. R. Davies and R. T. White, 307-26. • Batey, R. A., ‘Jesus and the eatre’, NTS 30 (1984), 563-74. • Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community, 4246. • Dietzfelbinger, C., ‘Die Frömmigkeitsregeln von Mt 6:1-18 als Zeugnisse frühchristlicher Geschichte’, ZNW 75 (1984), 184-200. • Ellingworth, P., ‘“In secret”? (Matthew 6.4, 6, 18)’, BT 40 (1989), 446-47. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 146-66. • Giroud, J.-C., ‘La porte étroite du royaume ou le secret de l’impossible’, LumVie 36 (1987), 57-65. • Heiligenthal, R., ‘Werke der Barherzigkeit oder Almosen? Zur Bedeutung

von ἐλεημοσύνη’, NovT 25 (1983), 289-301. • McEleney, N. J., ‘Does the Trumpet Sound or Resound? An Interpretation of Matthew 6,2’, ZNW 76 (1985), 43-46. • Neyrey, J. H., Honor and Shame, 212-28. • Oakley, I. J. W., ‘Hypocrisy in Matthew’, IBS 7 (1985), 118-38. • Pantle-Schieber, K., ‘Anmerkungen zur Auseinandersetzung von ἐκκλησία und Judentum im Matthäusevangelium’, ZNW 80 (1989), 145-62. • Schwarz, G., ‘Ο ΒΛΕΠΩΝ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΚΡΥΠΤΩ (ΚΡΥΦΑΙΩ)? (Matthäus 6,4b.6e.18b)’, BibNot 54 (1990), 38-40. • Syreeni, K., ‘Separation and Identity: Aspects of the Symbolic World of Matt 6.1-18’, NTS 40 (1994), 522-41. • Wick, P., ‘Der historische Ort von Mt 6,1-18’, RB 105 (1998), 332-58. • Wouters, A., Willen, 248-53. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 71-74, 133-35. See further at 5:1-2.

6:1-18 continues the exposition of what might be involved in the kind of uncompromised and unrestricted goodness (5:48) called for from those who aspire to the abundant righteousness which Jesus declared necessary (5:20) in view of the approach of the kingdom of God. But whereas the focus in 5:21-48 has been on the neighbour, through chap. 6 it will be on how one relates to God. Matthew has worked out a detailed and carefully structured parallelism between the treatments of the three practices singled out for comment (6:24, almsgiving; vv. 5-6, prayer; vv. 16-18, fasting);281 into this structure he has inserted, as an attachment to the section on prayer, the Lord’s Prayer with associated framing materials (vv. 7-15). Vv. 19-21 provide a suitable conclusion by picking up on the reward motif by appealing to the imagery of a treasure-hoard, but they also have a bridging role. e whole chapter is uni ed by the links between vv. 7-15 and vv. 25-34 and by the bridging role of vv. 19-21 (see those passages for discussion). Mt. 6:1-6, 16-18 shows all the marks of being a preformed unit incorporated with little change into the Sermon on the Mount. V. 1 is, however, mostly judged redactional since it manifests a range of Matthean usages (προσέχειν

[‘take care’], but the construction elsewhere is different; δκιαιοσύνη [‘righteousness’], but τὴν δικαινοσύνην … ποιεῖν [‘practise your righteousness’] is shaped in relation to the present context; the imperatival use of μή with the in nitive [as at 5:34, 39]; ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων [‘before others’], but the rst term is found in 6:2 and the second in vv. 2, 5, 16 [the phrase is, however, present in 5:16]; πρός with in nitive; ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς [‘in heaven’], especially as used with ‘your [pl.] father’ [also in 5:16]). An opening summary is likely to be an original feature, but Matthean editing is evident.

6:1 e opening verse sets up the principle which will be illustrated and supported by the following examples. ‘Your righteousness’ picks up language from 5:20; the interest in abundant righteousness has been kept alive in the intervening material primarily by means of the substance of the antitheses, but also through the echoes in vv. 37 and 47 of the language of abundance of v. 20. e choice of language in ‘practise (ποιεῖν) your righteousness’282 has in mind the kinds of acts of piety to be singled out for comment in the verses to follow (note the use of the same verb in vv. 2-3). What is being warned against has two linked elements: it is not action before others as such which is the problem, but action before others with a view to being seen (to be doing good). e desire to create an impression of piety and virtue is what is being criticised. e overlap of vocabulary with 5:16 indicates a concern to create a dialectic between the desired visibility of that verse and the problematic nature of visibility here.283 In this way Matthew moderates the emphasis on secrecy in the actual examples to come (but absent from the present statement) ahead of time. Clearly the desire to be seen in 6:1 has to do with making a good impression for one’s own bene t. Failure to follow through on this advice has dire consequences. e language of reward links back via 5:46 to 5:12 (see there). Acts

of righteousness have their reward with God, presently accumulating (as a treasure hoard; see 6:20) with him in heaven. ough an abundant righteousness is necessary for entry into the kingdom of God, the reward in view here is not simply access to the kingdom. e opening statement of principle leaves implicit the alternative reward at the human level that is the lot of publicity seekers (6:2, 5, 16). On ‘your Father in heaven’ see the discussion at 5:16. 6:2 e linking οὖν (‘then, therefore’) indicates that what is coming is to be seen as an application of the principle enunciated in v. 1. e move from statement of principle to concrete example prompts a move from second person plural to singular (the subsequent examples will start with the plural). ἐλεημοσύνη can have the broader meaning of ‘kind deed’, but used with ποιεῖν the sense in Jewish Greek is ‘give alms’.284 Almsgiving has a central place in Jewish piety (see at 5:42), and clearly it is expected to continue in the Christian community as well. With ὅταν (‘whenever’) plus the present subjunctive the passage envisions a repeated pattern of practice. Whereas in 5:42 the beggar takes the initiative, here the initiative is in the hands of the giver. No such trumpet blowing has been documented, and it seems best to see here the language of grotesque exaggeration.285 e point is that the focus on one’s act of mercy which a trumpet call would create (but quite crassly) is actually gained by all sorts of much more subtle means; readers are le to discover by re ection what kind of ‘trumpet blowing’ represents their own particular pattern of temptation in their charitable giving. In the ancient world the names of donors and the scale of their generous gis were oen inscribed on stone monuments; it is not so different today. e trumpet blowers are identi ed as ‘the hypocrites’.286 ough it was originally a metaphor from the theatre (‘play actors’), it is

doubtful whether this imagery remained active in rst-century Greek usage. Hypocrisy is a complex notion, and the language of hypocrisy encompasses quite a semantic range, but the common core has to do with some kind of falseness in relation to virtue or piety. In the present context the falseness comes from the tension between what the act (almsgiving) would seem to be by its intrinsic nature (a religiously motivated act of compassion) and the quite different signi cance it has gained by the effort made to draw public attention to it (an act of self-promotion). e locations for this trumpet blowing are identi ed as synagogues and city streets.287 e former provides a public religious setting where people are gathered; the latter is a nonreligious public setting where people are present and move by in considerable numbers. e goal of such acts of almsgiving is identi ed as public acclaim. ese people seek to attract to themselves the glory which according to 5:16 should be directed to God. On ‘Amen, I say to you’ see the comments at 5:18. Where the statement of principle in 6:1 le implicit the present reward on the human level, now the lack of any divine reward remains implicit (with the corresponding gaining of a divine reward to become explicit in v. 4). Various studies have tried to make much here of some fundamental principle of justice according to which one can be rewarded only once for any act.288 But this is to confuse rhetoric and substance.289 In any public recognition they can gain, the hypocrites have already the only ‘reward’ that is appropriate to their behaviour. e real point is not that a double reward would be unfair, but that there is no basis for a divine reward since the action never was the religiously motivated act of compassion that it purported to be. e ‘reward’ is tted to the act, and in this case it is honoured with the name ‘reward’ only for the sake of the parallelism with the divine reward which has been foregone.

Studies frequently make the mistake of drawing into the present discussion the attack on the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites found in Mt. 23. But this is to read in the wrong direction. Mt. 23, among other things, accuses the scribes and Pharisees of falling foul of the kind of challenge mounted in 6:1-21; but 6:1-21 is quite general and makes no particular assumptions about where the hypocrites are to be found (they are not described as active in the synagogue with a view to identifying the synagogue as a place of hypocrisy, but simply because, in a Jewish context, that is where a great deal of the public face of religious life was to be found; cf. 4:23).290 6:3 e contrasting behaviour called for here is described with as much hyperbole as was that challenged in v. 2. e point about the le hand not knowing could be that such a tight circle of privacy would eliminate the possibility of building up one’s own image even in one’s own eyes (in the imagery le and right hands, in practical activity, are very close together — much closer to each other than to the head or eyes). e alternative is that such a restriction of knowledge would certainly eliminate any possibility of public acclaim. e focus on secrecy in v. 4 favours the second, as does the impossibility of taking the thrust of the rst on into the subsequent examples. No literal application can be attempted or even approximated. e statement is intended to represent in a symbolic manner the radical opposite to publicity seeking.291 6:4 e strict secrecy here takes on the same symbolic function as not letting the le hand know (indeed, the one is presented as the concrete form for the achievement of the other). In practical terms, secrecy may be neither possible nor desirable, but at the symbolic level it represents to the imagination in a powerful way an approach to almsgiving in which religiously motivated compassion is the sole consideration. Part of the rhetorical power of

the symbolism comes from its ability to isolate totally from each other pure religious motivation and the pursuit of public recognition. In real-life situations the separation is likely to be less clear-cut. Despite all secrecy, everything remains visible to God (cf. Pss. 33:13-15; 139; etc.), and he repays according to what he sees (Pr. 24:12; Ec. 12:14). ‘Your [sing.] Father’ is striking; it is parallelled in the Gospels only at Mt. 6:6, 18. It locates the act of piety within a deeply personal and individual relationship with God as Father.292 e second use of ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ (lit. ‘in the secret’) is difficult. Is the reference to the invisibility at the human level of God’s seeing and taking note of such action? Or is it to the activity of rewarding that takes place in secret (a secret stockpile in heaven)? Or is it just possible that the reference is to God seeing the place of privacy in which the almsgiving has taken place? e parallelism between the two uses of the phrase is best respected by favouring the second option. In this way the secrecy of the divine reward ts with the pattern of secrecy initiated by the giver, ensuring that no subsequent publicity at the human level results from the divine act of reward.293 2. Prayer (6:5-6) 5aAnd

when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, because they love, [both] in the synagogues and on the corners of the public squares, to stand and pray so that they may be seen by others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6But you, when you pray, go into your storeroom and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in the secret [place]; and your Father who sees b[it] will reward you cin secret.

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. V. 5 is omitted by sys. e opening second person verbs are conformed to the singulars of v. 2 by (‫ )*א‬D L W Θ f13 33 etc. b. Or ‘[you]’. c. L W Θ f13 33 etc. understand ‘in secret’ as linked to ‘sees’ and add εν τω ϕανερω (‘publicly’)(cf. v. 4). Bibliography Bradshaw, P. F., Daily Prayer in the Early Church (London: SPCK, 1982), 146. • Finkel, A., ‘e Prayer of Jesus in Matthew’, in Standing before God, ed. A. Finkel and L. Frizzell (New York: Ktav, 1981), 131-70. See further at 5:1-2; 6:1-4.

On the structure of 6:1-18 see the discussion at 6:1-4. Comment on almsgiving gives way to comment on prayer. Prayer is not to be used to build a reputation for piety, but solely for engagement with God. 6:5 Like almsgiving, praying was a fundamental and regular part of Jewish piety.294 Unlike v. 2 (but note the likeness to v. 1 for the rst feature), this verse makes use of the generalised second person plural, to be individuated for the positive call in v. 6; this pattern is repeated in vv. 16-18. On hypocrisy see the comments at 6:2. As in v. 2, there are religious and nonreligious public settings. e religious setting remains ‘the synagogues’; for variation the nonreligious public settings are now ‘on the corners of the πλατειῶν’. πλατειῶν is normally translated ‘streets’ (with a following ὁδῶν implied), but I have chosen ‘public squares’ to bring out the sense of a broad open place in πλατειῶν and to provide a suitable contrast with the (narrow) city streets of v. 2 (ἐν ταῖς ῥύμαις). Such prayer in a public place would not be strange in Matthew’s day in

the way it would in a modern Western city; the xed hours of prayer of the Jews would easily have led, much as in Muslim practice, to public prayer by those who were out and about at the designated time.295 Standing is the normal Jewish posture for prayer296 and carries no emphasis here. Since the activity of praying is not as grand as that of making a (large) charitable gi, in place of the lavish ‘be glori ed by others’ stands the more limited ‘be seen by others’.297 Much as in v. 1 and in v. 2, the problem is not precisely with the public visibility as such, but with the desire to be noticed which motivates this particular use of the stance and locations. It is ‘the hypocrites’ who abuse these locations of prayer; the verse does not suggest that all prayer in such locations is publicity seeking! Failure to give controlling weight to ‘so that they might be seen by others’ has led to a variety of overreadings of this verse, in particular to readings that inappropriately nd here a hostility to Jewish synagogue life, and even to readings that would see here a radically privatised approach to piety. ‘Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward’ repeats v. 2 exactly (see there). 6:6 For variation a ‘when’ clause takes the place of the genitive absolute of v. 3. ταμεῖον is an imprecise word used with reference to any kind of storage chamber.298 Unlike the proposal in v. 3, the directive here is not impossible;299 but we are to conjure up the image of going to a place that is not well suited to the task, perhaps of clambering up onto the stored goods, or of being very cramped, or of being in total darkness once the door has been closed. e pre xed τῷ forces a slightly different role on the rst use of ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ: here it is descriptive of ‘the Father’. e hiddenness of God in heaven does not make a good t. It is God present (even in) the secret place chosen for prayer which makes for a good contrast with the focus on the people to watch in v. 5. ‘And

your Father who sees [it] will reward you in secret’ is identical to v. 4 (see there). Attempts to relate the practice here to Christian meetings (meeting in ‘the storeroom’ as the alternative to the synagogue) fail to take account of the totally individual privacy which is in view. On the other hand, those who nd an attack here on all corporate piety fail to be guided by the nonliteralism signalled in v. 3, and do not fully appreciate the symbolic level at which the discussion operates in order to radically isolate, for purposes of clari cation and challenge, behaviour which is directed by one’s relationship with God from behaviour which is shaped for public viewing. e challenge is to take the purity of motivation which by de nition must characterise totally private engagement with God out into the complexities of normal life where others see what we do. Excursus on Prayer (6:7-15) you pray, do not babble on as the aGentiles [do]. For they think that they will be listened to because of their many words. 8Don’t be like them. For byour Father cknows what you need before you ask him. 9Pray like this: 7When

Our Father in heaven: let your Name be sanctified; 10let your kingdom come; let your will come into effect — das in heaven, [so] also on eearth. bread ffor this day give us today. 12Release us from our debts, 11Our

as we also ghave released those indebted to us. 13Do not lead us into [that which will be] a trial;

rescue us, instead, from [that which is] evil.h 14iFor

if you jforgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive othersk, neither will lyour Father forgive your trespasses.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. B 1424 syc have υποκριται (‘hypocrites’), conforming to v. 2. b. ‫א‬1 B sa mae add a clarifying ο θεος (‘God’). c. 047 892c 1242 etc. add ο ουρανιος (‘heavenly’), conforming to 5:48. d. Omitted by D* a b c k bomss to make the petition embrace the doing of God’s will in heaven. e. An added ο (‘the’) is found in D L Θ f13 etc., to align with Matthew’s normal usage. f. e Greek επιουσιος (‘for the day’) is rendered into Latin as cottidianum (‘daily’) and supersubstantialem (‘supersubstantial’); other early translations suggest ‘uninterrupted’, ‘necessary’, ‘coming’, and ‘of tomorrow’. g. Conformed to the present tense (‘release’) of Lk. 11:4 by ‫א‬1 D E (L) W ΔΘ f13 etc. h. αμην is added by 17 vgcl; the doxological conclusion is added in L W Θ f13 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. (with some variations). Liturgical use is being re ected. i. e linking γαρ (‘for’) is missing from D* L etc. Even with this reading, the thought connection with v. 12 ensures a link, but the loss of γαρ leaves the link less precise. j. e same verb through vv. 14-15 as for ‘release’ in v. 12. k. ‘Your trespasses’ is repeated from v. 14 by B L W Θ 0233 f13 33 etc. l. υμιν in ‫ א‬etc., giving ‘will the Father forgive you …’. Combining the readings has produced ‘will your Father forgive you …’ in D 1241 it etc.

Bibliography Amphoux, C.-B., ‘La révision marcionite du “Notre Père” de Luc (11,2-4) et sa place dans l’histoire du texte’, in Recherches sur l’histoire de la Bible latine, ed. R. Gryson and P.-M. Bogaert (Cahiers de la RTL 17. Louvain-la-Neuve: Publications de la Faculté de éologie, 1987), 105-21. • Bandstra, A. J., ‘e Original Form of the Lord’s Prayer’, CTJ 16 (1981), 15-37. • Bandstra, A. J., ‘e Lord’s Prayer and Textual Criticism: A Response’, CTJ 17 (1982), 88-97. • Barth, H.-M., ‘Das Vaterunser als ökumenisches Gebet’, UnaSanc 45 (1990), 99-109, 113. • Bartsch, C., ‘Translating the Lord’s Prayer: Are We Telling God What to Do?’ NotesTrans 8 (1994), 1-3. • Baumgardt, D., ‘Kaddish and the Lord’s Prayer’, JewBibQuar 19 (1991), 164-69. • Bindemann, W., ‘Das Brot für morgen gib uns heute: Sozialgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu den Wir-Bitten des Vaterunsers’, BerlinTZ 8 (1991), 199-215. • Bivin, D., ‘Prayers for Emergencies’, JerPersp 5 (1992), 16-17. • Black, M., ‘e Doxology to the Pater Noster with a Note on Matthew 6.13B’, in Essays, ed. P. R. Davies and R. T. White, 327-38. • Boismard, M.-É., ‘“Notre pain quotidien” (Mt 6,11)’, RB 102 (1995), 371-78. • Brown, M. J., ‘“Panem Nostrum”: e Problem of Petition and the Lord’s Prayer’, JR 80 (2000), 595614. • Brož, L., ‘eology of the First Petition’, CV 31 (1988), 243-51. • Bruggen, J. van, ‘e Lord’s Prayer and Textual Criticism (with a Reply by J. A. Bandstra, 88-97)’, CTJ 17 (1982), 78-87. • Buchan, W. M., ‘Research on the Lord’s Prayer’, ExpTim 100 (1989), 336-39. • Buth, R., ‘Deliver Us from Evil’, JerPersp 55 (1999), 29-31. • Byargeon, R. W., ‘Echoes of Wisdom in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13)’, JETS 41 (1998), 353-65. • Cameron, P. S., ‘“Lead us not into temptation”’, ExpTim 101 (1990), 299-301. • Carruth, S. and Garsky, A., Q 11:2b-4, ed. S. D. Anderson (Documenta Q: e Database of the International Q Project. Leuven: Peeters, 1996). • Carter, W., ‘Recalling the Lord’s Prayer: e Authorial Audience and Matthew’s Prayer as Familiar Liturgical Experience’, CBQ 57 (1995), 514-30. • Collins, R. F., ‘“Lord, Teach Us to Pray” (Luke 11:1): A Re ection on the Prayer of Petition’, LouvStud 10 (1985), 354-71. • Collins, R. F., ‘Is the “Our Father” Jesus’ Own Prayer?’ Living Light 31 (1995), 24-30. • Cothenet, E., ‘Le Pater au coeur de la prédication de Jésus’, EV 109 (1999), 193-202. • Crampsey, J. A., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: A Prayer of the Ageing’, Month 22 (1989), 4-9. • Crosby, M. H., e

Prayer at Jesus Taught Us (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002). • Dewailly, L.-M., ‘“Donne-nous notre pain”: quel pain? Notes sur la quatriéme demande du Pater’, RSPT 64 (1980), 561-88. • Dohmen, C., ‘Von Gott zu Gott sprechen: Wenn die eologie ins Gebet genommen wird’, GuL 74 (2001), 326-35. • Dorneich, M., ed., Vaterunser Bibliographie (Veröffentlichungen der Stiung Oratio Dominica, 2nd edn. Freiburg: Herder, 1988). • Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘Abba and Jesus’ Relation to God’, in À cause de l’Évangile, ed. F. Refoulé, 15-38. • Flusser, D., ‘Das Vaterunser — Ein jüdisches Gebet’, in Das Christenum — Ein jüdische Religion (Munich: Kösel, 1990), 53-62. • French, H., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: A Primer on Mission in the Way of Jesus’, WW 22 (2002), 18-26. • Freye, R. M., ‘On Praying “Our Father”: e Challenge of Radical Feminist Language for God’, ATR 73 (1991), 388-402. • Garland, D. E., ‘e Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Matthew’, RevExp 89 (1992), 215-28. • Gatzweiler, K., ‘Jesus in Prayer: Texts of the Our Father’, LVit 39 (1984), 141-54. • Genuyt, F., ‘Le “Notre-Père” selon Saint Matthieu’, LumVie 47 (1998), 27-37. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘e Matthean Version of the Lord’s Prayer’, in e New Testament Age, ed. W. C. Weinrich (2 vols. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 1:207-20. • Gibson, J. B., ‘Matthew 6:9-13//Luke 11:2-4: An Eschatological Prayer? BTB 31 (2001), 96-105. • Gielen, M., ‘“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung”, Die 6: Vater-Unser Bitte — Eine Anfechtung für das biblische Gottesbild?’ ZNW 89 (1989), 201-16. • Green, H. B., Poet, 77-91. • Grelot, P., ‘L’arrière-plan araméen du “Pater”’, RB 91 (1984), 531-56. • Grelot, P., ‘L’épreuve de la Tentation’, EV 99 (1989), 280-84. • Haacker, K., ‘Stammt das Vater-Unser nicht von Jesus?’ TB 27 (1996), 176-82. • Hartman, L., ‘“Your Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven’, AfTJ 11 (1982), 209-18. • Heinen, H., ‘Göttliche Sitometrie: Beobachtungen zur Brotbitte des Vaterunsers’, TTZ 99 (1990), 41-54. • Hemer, C., ‘ἐπιούσιος’, JSNT 22 (1984), 81-94. • Hill, D., ‘“Our Daily Bread” (Matt 6.11) in the History of Exegesis’, IBS 5 (1983), 2-10. • Hinkle, M. E., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: Empowerment for Living the Sermon on the Mount’, WW 22 (2002), 9-17. • Hoffmann, P., ‘“Er weiss, was ihr braucht …” (Mt. 6,7): Jesu einfache und konkrete Rede von Gott’, in ‘Ich will euer Gott werden’: Beispiele biblischen Redens von Gott (SBS 100. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981), 151-76. • Hultgren, A. J., ‘e Bread Petition of the Lord’s Prayer’, in Christ and His Communities. FS R. H.

Fuller, ed. A. J. Hultgren and B. Hall (ATR-SupSer 11. Cincinnati, OH: Forward Movement Publications, 1990), 41-54. • Hultgren, A. J., ‘Forgive Us, As We Forgive (Matthew 6:12)’, WW 16 (1996), 284-90. • Irigoin, J., ‘La version lucanienne de Notre Père’, RHPR 80 (2000), 207-12. • Juel, D., ‘e Lord’s Prayer in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke’, in e Lord’s Prayer: Principles for Reclaiming Christian Prayer, ed. D. Migliore (PrinceSemBullSup 2. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 56-70. • Kiley, M., ‘Enemies at Prayer’, BiTod 39 (2001), 151-54. • Kratz, R. G., ‘Die Gnade destäglichen Brots: Späte Psalmen auf dem Weg zum Vaterunser’, ZTK 89 (1992), 1-40. • Lanier, D. E., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: Matt 6:9-13 — A ematic and Semantic-Structural Analysis’, CrisTR 6 (1992), 73-89. • Lapide, P., ‘Das Vaterunser — Ein jüdische oder ein christliches Gebet?’ Renovatio 47 (1991), 108-10. • Lash, E., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: e Text and Its Translators’, Sobornost 21 (1999), 7-21. • Limbeck, M., ‘“Es geschehe dein Wille!” (Mt 6,10): Zur Verkündigung des Matthäus-Evangeliums (1)’, BLit 66 (1993), 5053. • Lindemann, A., ‘Die Versuchungsgeschichte Jesu nach der Logienquelle und das Vaterunser’, in Jesu Rede von Gott und ihre Nachgeschichte. FS Willi Marxsen, ed. D.-A. Koch (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1989), 91-100. • Lochman, J. M., e Lord’s Prayer, tr. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). • Loh nk, G., ‘Der präexistente Heilsplan: Sinn und Hintergrund der dritten Vaterunserbitte’, in Neues Testament und Ethik. FS R. Schnackenburg, ed. H. Merklein (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1989), 110-33. • Lowe, J., ‘La réception de le variante “Vienne ton Esprit saint sur nous et qu’il nous puri e” (Lc11,2) et l’origine des épiclèses, du baptême et du “Notre Père”’, EL 102 (1988), 81-106. • Lowe, J., ‘La variante du Pater de Lc 11,2’, LTP 44 (1988), 369-74. • Mattam, J., ‘e Our Father: e Revolutionary Prayer of Commitment to the Kingdom of God’, AER 35.2 (1993), 69-78. • McCaughey, D., ‘Matthew 6:13a: e Sixth Petition in the Lord’s Prayer’, ABR 33 (1985), 31-40. • Mell, U., ‘Gehört das Vater-Unser zur authentischen Jesus-Tradition? (Mt 6,9-13; Lk 11,2-4)’, BerlinTZ 11 (1994), 148-80. • Mell, U., ‘Das Vater-Unser als Gebet der Synagogue — Eine Antwort an Klaus Haaker’, TB 28 (1997), 283-90. • Metzler, N., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: Second oughts on the First Petition’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 187-202. • Miller, R. J., ‘e Lord’s Prayer and Other Items from the Sermon on the Mount’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 177-86. • Milton, E.,

‘“Deliver Us from the Evil Imagination”: Matt. 6:13B in Light of the Jewish Doctrine of the Yêṣer Hârâʿ’, RelStudeol 13-14 (1995), 52-67. • Minear, P. S., ‘e Home of the Our Father’, Worship 74 (2000), 212-22. • Minear, P. S., ‘But Whose Prayer Is It?’ Worship 76 (2002), 324-38. • Miskin, J., ‘e Lord’s Prayer: A Green Mediation’, NB 72 (1991), 385-86. • Monsengwo Pasinya, ‘Lokola biso tokolimbisaka baninga (Mt 6,9 par): Incidence théologique d’une traduction’, RevAf 12 (1988), 15-21. • Moor, J. C. de, ‘e Reconstruction of the Aramaic Original of the Lord’s Prayer’, in e Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry, ed. P. Van der Meer and J. C. De Moor (JSOTSup 74. Sheffield: JSOT, 1988), 397-422. • Moore, E., ‘“Lead us not into temptation”’, ExpTim 102 (1991), 171-72. • Moule, C. F. D., ‘“As we forgive …”: A Note on the Distinction between Deserts and Capacity in the Understanding of Forgiveness’, Interpretation, 278-86. • Nijman, M. and Worp, K. A., ‘Ἐπιούσιος in a Documentary Papyrus?’ NovT 41(1999), 231-34. • Oakman, D. E., ‘e Lord’s Prayer in Social Perspective’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 137-86. • Okorie, A. M., ‘e Lord’s Prayer’, Scriptura 60 (1997), 81-86. • Orchard, B., ‘e Meaning of τὸν ἐπιούσιον (Mt 6:11 = Lk 11:3)’, BTB 3 (1973), 274-82. • Otte, K., ‘Gebet als Spielraum der eologie: “Von Gebet zu Gebet” — Nochmals das Unser Vater’, TZ 55 (1999), 187-98. • Parker, D. C., Living Text, 49-74. • Philonenko, M., Le Notre Père: De la Prière de Jésus à la prière des disciples (Bibliothèque des Histoires. Paris: Gallimard, 2001). • Philonenko, M., ‘La troisième demande du “Notre Père” et l’hymne de Naburchodonosor’, RHPR 72 (1992), 23-31. • Philonenko, M., ‘De la “Prière de Jésus” au “Notre Père” (Abba; targoum du Psaume 89,27; 4Q369,1,2, 1-12; Luc 11,2)’, RHPR 77 (1997), 133-40. • Philonenko, M., ‘La sixième demande du “Notre Père” et le livre des Jubilés’, RHPR 78 (1998), 27-37. • Philonenko, M., ‘La quatrième demande du “Notre Père” et le targoum palestinien’, RHPR 79 (1999), 17385. • Popkes, W., ‘Die letzte Bitte des Vater-Unser: Formgeschichtliche Beobachtungen zum Gebet Jesu’, ZNW 81 (1990), 1-20. • Porter, S. E., ‘Matthew 6:13 and Luke 11:4: “Lead us not into temptation”’, ExpTim 101 (1989-90), 359-62. • Prockter, L. J., ‘e Blind Spot: New Testament Scholarship’s Ignorance of Rabbinic Judaism’, Scriptura 48 (1994), 1-12. • Ramaroson, L., ‘“Notre part de nourriture” (Mt 6, 11)’, ScEs 43 (1991), 87-

115. • Robinson, J. A. T., Twelve More, 44-64. • Rordorf, W., ‘e Lord’s Prayer in the Light of Its Liturgical Use in the Early Church’, Studia Liturgica 14 (1980-81), 1-19. • Sabugal, S., ‘La redacción mateana del Padrenuestro (Mt 6,9-13)’, EE 58 (1983), 307-29. • Sabugal, S., ‘Our Daily Bread: Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3’, SIDIC 18 (1985), 12-15. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 1:247-322. • Schneider, G., ‘Der Vaterunser des Matthäus’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 5790. • Schneider, G., ‘Die Bitte um das Kommen des Geistes im lukanischen Vaterunser (Lk 11,2 v. 1)’, in Studien, ed. W. Schrage, 344-73. • Schneider, G., ‘Das Vaterunser: Oratio dominica et judaica?’, in Weisheit Gottes — Weisheit der Welt. FS J. Ratzinger, ed. W. Baier et al. (St.-Ottilien: Eos, 1987), 405-17. • Schroer, S., ‘Konkretionen zum Vaterunser’, UnaSanc 45 (1990), 99-109, 110-13. • Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich — Jesu Geschick, 100-104. • Schürmann, H., Das Gebet des Herrn als Schlüssel zum Verstehen Jesu (4th edn. Freiburg im B.: Herder, 1981). • Standaert, B., ‘Crying “Abba” and Saying “Our Father”: An Intertextual Approach of the Dominical Prayer’, in Intertextuality, ed. S. Draisma, 141-58. • Strecker, G., ‘Vaterunser und Glaube’, in Glaube im Neuen Testament, ed. F. Hahn and H. Klein (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1982), 11-28. • Stritzky, M.-B. von, Studien zur Überlieferung und Interpretation des Vaterunsers in der frühchristlichen Literatur (Münsterische Beiträge zur eologie 57. Münster: Aschendorff, 1989). • Taussig, H., ‘e Lord’s Prayer’, Forum 4.4 (1988), 2541. • Templeton, D., ‘e Lord’s Prayer as Eucharist in Daily Life’, IBS 11 (1989), 133-40. • Topel, L. J., ‘e Lukan Version of the Lord’s Sermon’, BTB 11 (1981), 48-53. • Tournay, R. J., ‘Que signi e la sixième demande du Notre-Père?’ RTL 26 (1995), 299-306. • Tournay, R. J., ‘Ne nous laisse par entrer en tentation’, NRT 120 (1998), 440-43. • Trudinger, P., ‘e “Our Father” in Matthew as Apocalyptic Eschatology’, DR 107 (1989), 49-54. • Urbanek, F., ‘“Vater im Himmel” — Das alte Vaterunser in sprächlicher Neuau age’, LingBib 66 (1992), 39-54. • Walker, W. O., Jr., ‘e Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and John’, NTS 28 (1982), 237-56. • Watt, W. M., ‘Lead Us Not into Temptation’, ExpTim 110 (1999), 80. • Wright, N. T., ‘y Kingdom Come: Living the Lord’s Prayer’, ChrCent 114 (1997), 268-70. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 223-29. • Zimmerman, T., ‘e Historical Background and Setting of the Lord’s Prayer’, eology and Life (Hong Kong) 22 (1999), 3-11.

• Zumstein, J., Notre Père: La prière de Jésus au coeur de notre vie (Poliez-leGrand: Editions du Moulin, 2001). And see further at 5:1-2; 6:1-4.

On the structure of 6:1-18 see the comments at 6:1-4. e present excursus on prayer is attached to the section on prayer in vv. 5-6. Perspective-creating material in vv. 7-8 and vv. 14-15 frames the model prayer: the Lord’s Prayer. Mt. 6:7-8 are likely to be a pre-Matthean unit of teaching which Matthew has adapted to its present context and used to introduce the (separately transmitted) Lord’s Prayer. A shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer than that of vv. 9-13 is preserved in Lk. 11:2-4. e extra elements in the Matthean form are most likely to represent elaboration of the shorter and more original prayer form (Mt. 6:10bc: ‘let your will come into effect — as in heaven, [so] also on earth’; v. 13b: ‘instead, rescue us from [that which is] evil’). It is unclear whether the elaboration re ects liturgical use or is Matthean or pre-Matthean editing in the context of a more elaborate document. Matthew’s longer opening (‘Our Father in heaven’) may, however, be more original than Luke’s simple ‘Father’, which is likely to be a secondary conforming of the mode of address to Jesus’ own normal manner of addressing God. In the case of smaller differences the Matthean wording seems more original.300 V. 14 is clearly a version of the tradition found also in Mk. 11:25.301 Mt. 6:15 may well be a (pre-)Matthean expansion designed to underscore the point by adding a negative reformulation.

6:7 e opening participle302 followed by an imperatival aorist subjunctive negative and then ὥσπερ (‘as’), along with a later reference to ‘your [but here plural] Father’, by partly mimicking the structural features of the sections around it allows the present section to slip comfortably into its setting, but without disturbing the threefold structure of vv. 2-4, 5-6, and 16-18.303 A discussion on the hypocrisy of praying in order to be seen praying gives way to a

discussion on the appropriate content for prayer; the contrast group changes from ‘the hypocrites’ to ‘the Gentiles’. Attempts to tie down the meaning of βατταλογήσητε have been indecisive. It is clear from the following clause that the activity led to the use of lots of words in prayers and was valued precisely for this reason. βατταλογήσητε may be related to a Greek root βατ(τ)used for stuttering.304 If so, it is likely to be a deprecatory way of speaking about the formulaic repetition of either intelligible (names of gods, petitionary formulas, etc.) or unintelligible (‘words’ of magical power or the language of the gods) elements in order to multiply effectiveness with the gods. Schlatter305 has noted that in compound verbs -λογεῖν means ‘to gather’; so the intended sense could well be something like ‘to string together [i.e., gather] stuttered elements of speech’.306 e translation ‘babble on’ above is not quite precise, but catches something of this. As in 5:47, the text trades on the bad image of Gentiles in Jewish eyes. No doubt Gentile popular piety and a great deal of official cultic piety did seek to gain leverage with the gods by ‘battering at the gates of heaven’ at length and with all the armaments at their disposal. But more re ective voices were critical of the desire to badger the gods into granting their favours.307 Our text is content with a broad brush caricature; its real interest is in the alternative being recommended, not in the practice being criticised. e ancients frequently criticised garrulousness, but that is not what is at issue here. Ec. 5:2-3 recommends few and well-chosen words in God’s presence, but the point is not the same: this passage has to do with applying to God patterns which re ect the respect to be shown by an inferior to a superior.308 Matthew’s text is critical of viewing prayer as a means of pressuring God into giving us what we think we need.

6:8 An explanation of the critical stance might have come in the form of an assertion of the sovereignty and autonomy of God. But, instead, the logic moves in quite the opposite direction: God is way ahead of you; he is already fully aware of your needs (and deeply committed to caring for you in respect of them). e reference to God as ‘your Father’ sets prayer into the context of God’s existing paternal commitment. Jewish piety was well aware of the omniscience of God, but it did not oen play as comforting a role as here.309 e positive affirmation here of the signi cance to God of human need is quite important. It stands over against the asceticism, dualism, and narrowly spiritual orientation that would devalue the pressing sense of basic needs that it is normal to feel from time to time. Vv. 25-34 will continue the discussion of human need. e verb cognate to the noun in v. 8 will be used in v. 32, and ‘your Father’s’ awareness of your needs will once again be emphasised. 7:7-11, without the speci c language of need but taking up the language of asking, will hold out encouragement to pray with con dence inspired by the ability of God as Father to meet one’s basic needs (bread in v. 9; sh in v. 10; good things in v. 11). e way is already well prepared for coming to God with our needs; there is no need of special stratagems.310 6:9 e introductory material in vv. 7-8 invites us to see the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer which displays a relaxed con dence about God’s prior knowledge and his fatherly commitment. ‘Pray like this’ suggests a model prayer rather than a xed prayer (contrast Lk. 11:1-2). Since the prayer is only partly about ‘what [we] have need of ’, its role as a model cannot be related narrowly to praying about our needs. It is, however, notable that it does not speci cally include prayer for others, the one area of prayer that has already been touched on (Mt. 5:44). Perhaps in the Matthean context the rst half of the prayer in vv. 9-10 sets out the framework for and central

thrust of all Christian prayer, while vv. 11-13 offer an appropriate articulation of prayer for our needs. God is understood to be Father (in heaven) of the Jewish people, but only occasionally did they actually address God as Father.311 He is at times (not in address) identi ed as ‘our Father in heaven’.312 In the Matthean ow ‘our Father in heaven’ takes up into the address to God what has already been affirmed about God (see 5:16, 45; 6:1). ‘Heaven’ points to God’s transcendence, while ‘Father’ picks up the committed relationship in which God and those praying stand. Is the praying corporate or individual? e language is clearly corporate (‘our’), and the praying is undertaken in conscious identi cation with and on behalf of a corporate body. But since the prayer is not offered as a xed form, and individual prayer is in view in vv. 5-6, there is no particular reason to think that the prayer is to be prayed corporately (either in unison or by means of a shared ‘amen’). e rst petition concerns the sancti cation of God’s name. I have argued elsewhere313 that the Lukan form of the prayer has a present orientation for this petition, to be balanced by an eschatological orientation for the following (kingdom) petition. However, we must freshly ask the question in the Matthean context because of the addition of the third petition (God’s will). An eschatological orientation would connect with the thought of Ez. 36:23: ‘I [God] will sanctify my great name’. ere the sancti cation in view is exclusively an act of God. A noneschatological view would match the evident similarity between the rst two petitions and the ancient Qaddish, the prayer used in the synagogue aer the sermon,314 which says, ‘May his [God’s] great name be sancti ed…. May he establish his kingdom in your

lifetime’, and envisages the appropriate honouring of God in the present moving on to the eschatological establishment of his kingdom.315 is noneschatological sense for the rst petition links with the thought of Is. 29:23, which anticipates that ‘they [the Israelites] will sanctify my [God’s] name’, and where, though God is clearly involved, it is people who are to honour God’s name in action and in praise.316 All three of the opening petitions of the Lord’s Prayer could be governed by the central one (kingdom), which is clearly eschatological in focus. But this produces a sharp bifurcation between the rst and the second halves of the prayer (none of the petitions in the second half is eschatological — see below). e attraction of the alternative view is that it enables the rst two petitions to span the time from the present to the eschatological future and thus to create a framed space for the petitions of the second half of the prayer. is is the better approach, provided that the third petition can be effectively connected with such an understanding (see below). e rst petition is that the peoples of the world might, in the present, honour God in word and in action. e focus here on the name of God is more Jewish than Christian and has no close analogy in the rest of the Gospel, but it is common enough in other parts of the NT.317 Ultimately it is likely to be linked with the importance of the personal name of God in Ex. 3:13-15. Since the Jews gave up the actual naming of the name, speaking about ‘the name’ became yet more important!318 It is not sufficient to honour deity in a general and abstract sense. Referring to the name of God points to his speci c personal identity as made known in his deeds and self-revelation. To sanctify his name will involve, in particular, ful lment of his commands in conscious obedience.

6:10 Clearly the second petition is eschatologically oriented. ere are no parallels to the reference to the ‘coming’ of the kingdom in ancient Jewish texts. But since the coming of (the day) of Yahweh is common OT diction,319 and the OT looked forward to a time when in some greater sense God would become king,320 the petition is readily understood as a reformulation in kingdom language of the OT anticipation of the coming of God in judgment and salvation. In the Matthean setting this petition gains a note of expectancy from the developing sense in the narrative that the kingdom of God was not only being announced as imminent by Jesus (and had been by John the Baptist), but also that Jesus’ own ministry represented the present stirrings of the coming kingdom (see at 4:17). How should we relate the third petition (absent from the Lukan prayer) to the preceding two? Is God’s will to come into effect precisely by means of the coming of the kingdom, or is the thought broader? e closest Gospel and Jewish parallels are ethical rather than eschatological in orientation. Lk. 22:42 is striking: ‘Let not my will but yours come into effect [but with the present imperative in place of the aorist of the Lord’s Prayer — possibly to express the thought that Jesus’ concern is to retain his alignment with the will of God]’. Matthew has two versions of this, the second of which (26:42) reproduces exactly the petition of the Lord’s Prayer. M. ʾAb. 2:4 expresses a similar sentiment: ‘Annul your will in the face of his will’.321 Other uses of θέλημα (‘will’) in Matthew point us towards the same concern for obedience to God (Mt. 7:21; 12:50; 18:14; 21:31). e best suggestion seems to be that the third petition encompasses the scope of the rst two, unifying their respective present and future orientations by focussing on the common central thread: that in a comprehensive way people should come to act in conformity to the will of God.

e nal phrase, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς (lit. ‘as in heaven and on earth’), is not closely integrated into the syntax and is itself formulated cryptically. Differences of approach are, therefore, possible. First, there is the question of the meaning of ‘heaven’. In Matthew the plural regularly means the dwelling place of God, but the meaning of the singular is more varied and harder to tie down. It can represent the upper reaches of the created order, excluding the dwelling place of God;322 it can also represent the upper reaches of the created order, including the immediate dwelling place of God;323 or the focus can be more immediately on God and/or his place of dwelling.324 Linked to this question is that of whether we should view what happens in heaven as a reference standard for what needs to happen on earth (in heaven things are not troubled by evil), or whether we should envisage a change in both heaven and earth325 (evil is also to be found in the suprahuman realm). Finally, there is the question of how to connect the phrase to what precedes. Does it relate immediately to doing the will of God (‘your will be done … on earth’)? Does it relate to this clause, but with a measure of independence of syntax (‘your will be done, [and may this be true] … on earth’ or ‘[and may this be] so in heaven and on earth’)? Or does this possible measure of independence point to a relationship not simply to the third petition, but to the rst three as a set? e choices are in part difficult. However, Matthew’s use of ‘heaven’ never hints at the presence of evil. is makes it relatively easy to rule out the prospect of a change in heaven, given also that such an understanding requires an unnatural reading of the syntax. Because I have argued already in favour of taking the third petition

as embracing the perspectives of the rst two, there is little difference in meaning if we link it with the third petition or with all three. But since the third already embraces the other two, it would be artistically better to nd the link with the third, and to allow it to contribute an end weighting to the comprehensive petition. e closeness of linkage is a minor question, but the word order (not ‘on earth as in heaven’, but ‘as in heaven, [so] also on earth’) favours treating the phrase as functionally an independent clause. e use of οὐρανός (‘heaven’) may well involve an echo of οὐρανοῖς in v. 9, contributing to the sense that a unit of thought ends here. Also, the ὡς (‘as’) at the beginning of the phrase is likely to anticipate the one at the beginning of v. 12b and serve to formally hook the two halves of the prayer together.326 6:11 e discussion at 6:9 above depended in part on a noneschatological understanding of the set of petitions in vv. 11-13. e bread petition is the most important for deciding whether these petitions are eschatological. However, in the Matthean setting we already have a guide from the fact that the focus in v. 8 on need is not well answered by a prayer that is only eschatological in its thrust. e bread petition in particular would seem to t well with a concern for basic human needs. e Lukan form here has a present imperative for Matthew’s aorist and τὸ καθ᾿ ἡμέραν (‘day by day’) for Matthew’s σήμερον (‘today’); clearly the petition is not eschatological for Luke. e word ἐπιούσιος (translated above as ‘for this day’) has had to carry the major weight in discussing the meaning of this verse. ere is no other de nite use of this Greek word prior to patristic discussing the Gospel uses. It is, however, unlikely to be a Gospel coinage because there is a later, but independent use of the cognate noun.327 Interpreters have suggested three main derivations for the word: (a) the word combines ἐπί and οὐσία; (b) the word is based

on a combination of ἐπι- with the feminine participle of the verb ‘to be’ (οὖσα), the feminine gender implying a following ἡμέρα (‘day’); and (c) the feminine participle may come instead from ἰέναι (‘to come, draw near’). e rst and the third of these can each produce a range of senses.328 e one that makes best sense from the rst is ‘our bread for subsistence’. e second leads to the sense ‘bread for the day that now exists’. For the third, the most coherent sense emerges if we supply ‘day’ (and not something like ‘kingdom’) and we think in terms of ‘bread for the day that is dawning’. Happily the most likely senses to emerge from each of these derivations converge quite closely. Yamauchi329 has drawn together a wide range of ancient texts that point to the daily rhythm of making and consuming bread. e need for daily bread likely stands for all the recurring basic (material?) needs of humanity. e focus on one day at a time will be taken up at 6:34. 6:12 e positions of the verb and the object of v. 11 and v. 12a are probably interchanged to tie the two petitions together in a chiastic manner (the nal petitions to come in v. 13 form a natural pair on the basis of language and subject matter). If this is so, it counts against taking the present petition as related to eschatological forgiveness. To use the imagery of debt in relation to sin is natural in Aramaic, the most likely original language of the prayer, where the root ḥbʾ is used for both debt and sin. To t with the imagery of debt, ἄϕες is translated above as ‘release’ rather than the narrower ‘forgive’. It is, however, a mistake to take the language of debt literally, if for no other reason than that a situation in which one is both seriously in debt but also owed signi cant amounts, while commercially realistic, is not at all the kind of situation which commends itself as one to be especially brought to the attention of God (jubilee release of debts looks only in one direction: it is about

releasing the debtor from the possibility of an ever increasing burden of debt). at is not to say that a narrow spiritualisation should govern our thought here: it is quite likely that forgiveness at the human level quite oen involve the cancellation of debts, and at the divine level forgiveness may well involve release from what may be the impossible burden of making full restitution. Debt is also an image for sin in Mt. 18:23-35; Lk. 7:41-43.330 Judaism well recognised God’s forgiveness as a basic human need.331 And the psalmist of Ps. 103:10-13 rejoices in the readiness to forgive that ows from God’s fatherly love and compassion. e aorist tense in the correlated clause (‘as we have released’) relates better with a day-by-day332 ‘clearing of debts’ with God than with the prospect of a once-and-for-all, nal eschatological forgiveness (a present tense would suit that better). As the only (implied) condition in the prayer, the clause in v. 12b must stand under suspicion of being an expansion. But if so, it represents an expansion which glosses the petition in a manner which is in keeping with other fundamental Gospel teaching. ough God prefers the coinage of mercy, he will deal with us in the coinage with which we have chosen to deal with others.333 is one implied condition is brought to special prominence in the comment on it in vv. 14-15 to follow. Sir. 28:1-4 is such a close match that it deserves to be quoted at length. e vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance…. Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done, and then your sin will be pardoned when you pray. Does anyone harbour anger against another, and expect healing from the Lord? If one has no mercy towards another like himself, can he then seek pardon for his own sins?334

Mt. 6:12b does not connect human and divine forgiveness as tightly as Ben Sirach, but in the explanation in vv. 14-15 clearly Matthew thinks of forgiveness of others as a necessary condition for seeking God’s forgiveness. is is not to say that the source of our whole understanding of forgiveness is not in the mercy of God (he is addressed as Father), but it is to say that failure to forgive closes the door to ongoing forgiveness (cf. Mt. 18:23-35). Prophetic religion insisted on a consistency between the Godward dimension of religious life and behaviour in the human community (e.g., Is. 58:67), and Matthew insists on the same here. 6:13 e two petitions of this verse are linked through their verbal imagery: the rst envisages God bringing the person into a certain situation, while the second has in mind his rescuing a person out of a situation. πειρασμόν (translated above as ‘[that which will be] a trial’) and τοῦ πονηροῦ (translated above as ‘[that which is] evil’) are also conceptually related. Various attempts have been made to spare God the responsibility for where we nd ourselves. A Semitic original may have been ambiguous, but our Greek text is not. e OT is quite comfortable with the idea that God puts his people to the test (LXX πειρασμός),335 and more generally with the idea that in an important sense we receive from the hand of God what we experience (e.g., Job 2:10).336 But what kind of πειρασμός is in view here? πειρασμός as temptation must be excluded (cf. Jas. 1:13-14).337 If the petition were to be understood eschatologically, then πειρασμός might be identi ed with the ultimate period of crisis which was part of eschatological expectation (e.g., Rev. 3:10). But nothing thus far in the prayer has encouraged us to focus on eschatology at this point. e relationship between the imagery here and that in Rev. 3:10 is illuminating: in Revelation the πειρασμός is coming on the whole

world, but Christian disciples are offered the possibility of being kept out of it; Mt. 6:12, by contrast, has nothing of this expectation of a comprehensive πειρασμός, but simply the possibility of being brought into a place where there is πειρασμός. e lack of a de nite article in Matthew’s text suggests the same thing. What about πειρασμός as that which establishes the true state of affairs? at can hardly be what one prays to be spared from! It would appear that, just as with the English word ‘trial’, πειρασμός has developed a usage that emphasises the pressure and difficulty of trial but has lost the element of something to be determined by the trial. Various NT texts t best here,338 and there is wider support for such a meaning.339 e prayer is to be spared times of great pressure, times which would prove very trying. e prayer re ects a sense of one’s own frailty and limitation, one’s vulnerability to situations in which one ‘is placed’.340 is sort of thinking would apply to the turmoil of the eschatological period but is here quite general in scope. e counterpoint to the request not to be put into ‘hot water’ is the appeal for rescue from ‘hot water’ when we nd ourselves already in it.341 Note the characteristically biblical exibility here about the nature of God’s control over events: prior to the event people looked to him as the most signi cant agent; but in relation to an existing situation, far from displaying passive acceptance, they are ready to appeal to him to intervene and change it (with a background assumption that the situation is not necessarily now as he would wish it). πονηρός (‘evil’) is that which harms.342 In most uses the word implies the wickedness of the perpetrator of the evil, but the word has no necessary connection with wickedness.343 Natural disaster is as much an ‘evil’ as is murder.344 When the focus is on the

perpetrator, the wickedness of the perpetrator will be implied (as in 5:39); when the focus is on the recipient of the harm (as here in 6:13), it will be on the harm done and wickedness of the deed will not speci cally be in view. Assurance that such prayer is answered is expressed in the con dent words of 2 Tim. 4:18: ‘e Lord will rescue me from every evil act (ἔργου πονηροῦ)’. Luz makes the point that, given that a Jewish prayer without a concluding doxology is unthinkable (though the form for such could be exible and the content variable), we make the best sense of the absence of a doxology from our earliest sources of the Lord’s Prayer, but the inclusion of a suitable doxology in actual use from the earliest times by understanding that readers would take for granted the addition of a suitable doxology.345 Aer the theocentric focus of vv. 9-10 which create a framed space for the petitions of the second half of the prayer (before the assumed doxology), the prayer identi es as the basic human needs for which one should pray regularly one’s requirements for sustenance on a daily basis, ongoing forgiveness by God, and God’s gracious control of one’s exposure to all that represents an external threat. e comment to follow in vv. 14-15 causes the central petition to be elevated in importance above its companions. 6:14-15 e etymology of παράπτωμα (‘transgression’) is probably sufficiently transparent for the etymological imagery to have remained active: ‘false step’. e switch from ‘debts’ to ‘transgressions’, which Matthew uses only in vv. 14-15, con rms that he intended ‘debts’ in v. 12 to be an image for wrongdoings.346 e presence of ‘your trespasses’ in the rst of the rst set of paired clauses and the second of the second set of paired clauses provides a chiasm between the two sets. Taken absolutely, the Matthean wording of v. 14 is seriously in danger of being excessively formulaic

(the forgiving person is automatically forgiven by God!), but that will not be Matthew’s intention. e readiness to forgive is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. In ringing the changes on how God is spoken of, Matthew reaches back to 5:48 for ‘your heavenly Father’ and to 6:8 for ‘your Father’, probably for no more precise reason than to provide general linkage. 3. Fasting (6:16-18) 16When

you fast, do not become gloomy-looking like the hypocrites. For they ‘ruin’ their faces so that they might be seen by others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17But you, when fasting, are to put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that you will not be seen by others to be fasting, but [only] by your Father who is in the asecret [place]; and your Father who sees b[it] will reward you cin secret.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Here and at the end of the verse most texts have a word for ‘secret’ (κρυϕαιω) that is different from that in vv. 4, 6 (κρυπτω), but L W Θ 0233 0250 f13 33 etc. conform the text to vv. 4, 6. b. Or ‘[you]’. c. Δ 0233 579 1241 etc. understand ‘in secret’ as linked to ‘sees’ and add εν τω ϕανερω (‘publicly’) (cf. vv. 4, 6). Bibliography Banks, R., ‘Fasting’, in DJG, 233-34. • Wimmer, J. F., Fasting, 52-78. See further at 5:1-2; 6:1-4.

Aer the interruption to the pattern of vv. 7-15, the closely parallelled set of comments on hypocrisy in piety practices

continues and concludes with comments on fasting. See further on the structure of 6:1-18 at 6:1-4. As with almsgiving and prayer, authentic fasting has nothing to do with creating an impression on others. 6:16 Like almsgiving and prayer, fasting is a fundamental and regular part of Jewish piety.347 On hypocrisy see the comments at 6:2. We are to understand that the visible ‘gloom’ of the hypocrites was, so to speak, painted on. Because of its close link with repentance, mourning, and disaster (mourning past disaster, humbling oneself before God that he might avert threatened disaster), fasting was oen accompanied by such things as weeping, sackcloth, ashes, soil, and rent clothing.348 e wordplay between ἀϕανίζουσιν (lit. ‘make disappear’; translated above as ‘ruin’) and ϕανῶσιν (lit. ‘appear’; here with the sense ‘make it visibly apparent that’) is probably intended to suggest that, under the impact of the exaggerated dis gurement which was meant to mark the seriousness of the fasting, the person disappears from sight or, perhaps better, is reduced to nothing of signi cance. What on the surface seems to proclaim people as of special piety, instead reduces them to nothing. Given the way the previous examples have made their point by means of hyperbole, it is likely that ‘ruin’ is deliberately exaggerated language. e point is the concern to have others notice that one is fasting, indeed fasting seriously. ‘Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward’ is repeated exactly from v. 2 (see there) and v. 5. 6:17 As a third variant on a pattern, there is now a participial phrase where v. 3 had a genitive absolute and v. 6 had a ‘when’ clause in the corresponding positions. e directives here are clearly designed to hide the fact of fasting from others. Oil was used to look and feel one’s best.349 It was used on the head350 but also rubbed into the skin. e focus on the head here is probably

because the dis guring of the face, as thought of in v. 16, would have included the state of the hair. Again, Jews practised washing both for ritual and hygienic reasons. e face is singled out because it has been the location of the dis gurement in v. 16. Washing and anointing with oil are oen spoken of as a pair.351 e question to be faced is whether the directives are realistic in relation to the proper practice of piety in a rst-century Jewish context. e only fast day called for in the Law was the Day of Atonement (Lv. 23:29, 32: humble oneself), and in Jewish tradition it was mandatory to abstain from washing and anointing on that day.352 M. Taʿan. 1:1-7 provides an illuminating window onto wider early Jewish practice. In the context of concerns over drought we get a picture of increasing intensity of fasting as the drought period extends. Extra self-denials are added and fast periods extended; eventually washing and anointing are caught up in the net of prohibitions accompanying the fast.353 ough speci c regulation in Jewish sources is sparse, it is clear enough that the external accompaniments to the fast (we have mentioned weeping,sackcloth, ashes, soil, and rent clothing above) were not optional extras but essential parts of serious engagement with God in fasting. Fasting that involved only abstinence from food (and drink) would normally be considered rather mediocre in its seriousness. But is our text actually concerned to separate fasting from its accompanying marks of self-humbling before God?354 With the previous two kinds of piety the focus on individual privacy proved to be of symbolic signi cance; the concern was not to privatise piety. e same is likely to be true here. e repetition of the familiar pattern in v. 18 suggests that we are dealing with the same dynamic.

6:18 e invisibility of the fasting to others355 comes to expression in language which mirrors part of v. 6. Whereas in v. 6 there is ‘pray[ing] to your Father who is in the secret [place]’, now we have ‘seen … to be fasting,… by your Father who is in the secret [place]’. is time there is no literal ‘secret [place]’ to retreat to, into the presence of God, but similar language to that in v. 6 is used by analogy (the text uses a different root with the same meaning). God is the only one who sees that no food has been consumed. With the same change for the word for ‘secret’, ‘your Father who sees [it] will reward you in secret’ is repeated exactly as in v. 4 (see there) and v. 6. e point of the challenge in 6:16-18 can be well expressed in words from Zc. 7:5: ‘when you fasted… in the h month and in the seventh … was it for me that you fasted?’ e total isolation of the fasting from visibility to others may not in practice be possible or even desirable (as destroying the larger pattern within which fasting gained its meaning). Once again the embedded challenge is to take the purity of motivation which by de nition must characterise totally private engagement with God out into the complexities of normal life where others necessarily see what we do.356 H. Seeking the Kingdom (6:19-34) 1. Storing Up Treasures in Heaven (6:19-21) 19Do

not store up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and corrosion ruina [them] and where thieves break in and steal [them]. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor corrosion ruins [them] and where thieves do not break in band they do notb steal [them]. 21For where cyour treasure is, there cyour heart will be as well.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In most texts the verb is singular, treating ‘moth and corrosion’ as a zeugma; D* f g1 k provide the plural. b. e separate negation here (ουδε) is lost in ‫ א‬f1 205 etc., which simply repeat the και (‘and’) of v. 19. c. Singular forms are found in v. 21; L W Θ f1,13 33 892 106 1342 1506 etc. stay with the plural (cf. Lk. 12:34). Bibliography Frankovic, J., ‘e Best Long-Term Investment — Making Loans to God’, JerPersp 54 (1998), 36-37. • Sellew, P., ‘Reconstruction of Q 12:33-59’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 617-68. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 236-49. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 77-81. See further at 5:1-2.

ere is an easy transition from the call in 6:1-18 to behaviour that God will secretly reward to the challenge here to store up treasure in heaven. Indeed, we have here a tting conclusion generalising from vv. 1-18. However, vv. 19-21 is a transitional piece, and v. 19 also looks forward to v. 24 in which devotion to ‘mammon’ is somewhat equivalent to ‘stor[ing] up … treasures on the earth’. Vv. 19-24 function as a unit in which the importance of the challenges in vv. 19-21, 24 to single-mindedness are underlined by a centrally positioned call in vv. 22-23 to have clear vision. Luke has parallel materials in 12:21, 32-34. Mt. 6:19 may be a Matthean doubling (from v. 20 — but the connection with wealth re ected in v. 19 is original), as may be the doubling involved in ‘moth and corrosion’ and’break in and steal’ (Betz draws attention to the minor chiasm created with two nouns and one verb in the rst ‘where’ clause and one noun and two verbs in the second357). It is striking that the Lukan form has none of the features

appealed to below to link vv. 19-21 back to vv. 1-18 (except for the word ‘treasure’, but in Luke it is in the singular).358

6:19 Despite the strong scholarly consensus to connect vv. 19-21 (only) with the materials following to the end of the chapter, there are various links back to 6:1-18: the opening negative imperative matches that in v. 16; as in vv. 2-4, 5-6, 16-18, what is forbidden is followed (with negative parallelism) by what is demanded; vv. 19-21 mimics the move from second person plural to second person singular forms that has marked vv. 1-4, 5-6, 16-18; the language of treasure picks up on the language of reward in vv. 2, 4, 5, 6, 16, 18 (τὸν μισθόν; ἀποδώσει), with perhaps the plural form (contrast v. 21) designed to pick up on the three contexts of reward reviewed in vv. 2-4, 5-6, 16-18; ἀϕανίζει (lit. ‘make disappear’ — see discussion at v. 16) in vv. 19-20 is probably an ironic echo of the same verb in v. 16. θησαυρίζειν refers to the activity of stockpiling for reserve or later use. Since that which is stockpiled is so on the basis of value, the cognate noun θησαυρός (‘place of storage’ and then what is stored there) develops the secondary meaning ‘treasure’ (here plural). Attention to the damage done by moths makes it clear that the imagery of treasure here extends to clothing, tapestries, and other goods.359 βρῶσις is literally ‘[the activity of] eating’ or ‘food’. Some scholars think in terms of a misleadingly translated Semitic word and suggest a reference to a wood-eating beetle attacking the storage boxes,360 but since the object of the activity of the moth stands parallel to that of the βρῶσις361 and moths are not to be thought of as attacking wooden boxes, both must be attacking the treasured contents. βρῶσις as some other textile-consuming insect is possible (cf. Mal. 3:11 LXX, where the term is applied to some

kind of grasshopper), but this would mean that the images of damage would apply narrowly to treasures of a textile nature. e traditional rendering ‘rust’ or, better, ‘corrosion’ remains the most likely (Galen used the word of the ‘decay’ of teeth).362 Matthew probably has in mind various forms of natural deterioration (rotting, pitting, rusting, staining, etc., from damp, corrosive elements in the atmosphere, mould growth, etc.). It is a moot point how literally one should take the imagery of digging (διορύσσειν = to dig) with the thief. In ancient times construction with un red bricks or other materials which a determined thief could fairly readily dig through led in time to the term’s gaining a quite general sense, like ‘breaking and entering’ in English.363 ough the insecurity of earthly wealth is quite real and even proverbial, the difficulties can easily be exaggerated (most stockpiling is relatively successful, most of the time), so the cogency of the argument here against stockpiling earthly wealth depends nally on the contrast of the absolute security of heavenly wealth. In a secondary and derivative sense Matthew may expect his reader to see the relevance of the imagery of storing up treasure on earth to the efforts of the hypocrites in vv. 1-18, but he is primarily anticipating the discussion of mammon in v. 24 (one has to become very nonliteral to get a sense for ‘moth and corrosion ruin[ing]’ out of vv. 1-18). is makes for a ‘cross-stitch’ arrangement, with v. 19 anticipating what follows but v. 20 looking back to what comes before. is helps to join the materials before and aer into a unity. 6:20 e positive formulation commends storing up treasure in heaven. e detailed repetition of the language of v. 19 is relieved by substituting for two of the uses of καί (‘and’) an οὔτε … οὔτε (‘neither … nor’) construction and a use of οὐδέ (‘and not’). Where similar language elsewhere in Matthew is always invested in

bringing heaven and earth together in some way or other, heaven and earth are sharply contrasted here. Heavenly treasure is vulnerable neither to nature nor to one’s fellow humans.364 What might be involved in storing up treasures in heaven has already been made clear by the principles established in vv. 1-18.365 On the location of the treasures in heaven see the discussion at 5:12 (on reward in heaven). While the notion of a treasure (or the opposite) with God in heaven is a common Jewish idea,366 the sharp dualism with which Matthew works (one kind of treasure or the other) is not matched in Jewish sources.367 It will nd further explanation and justi cation in v. 24. 6:21 What is the nature of the link between v. 21 and what precedes? e γάρ (‘for’) probably points to a more fundamental reason for the challenge to stockpile heavenly treasures rather than earthly. e words of the statement could mean either that the place of investment reveals the commitment of the heart (‘one’s treasure tells the tale of one’s heart’368) or that the heart will follow the stockpiled treasure. e former ts better and prepares for v. 24: to love God with all one’s heart (Dt. 6:5)369 produces activity that will stockpile treasures in heaven and not on the earth. 2. Having a Healthy Eye (6:22-23) 22ae

eye is the lamp of the body. If bthen your eye is healthy, your whole body will be illuminated. 23But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkened. If then the ‘light’ which is in you is darkness, how great the darkness!

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. ‘Your’ in B it vgcl (as in Lk. 11:34). b. Missing from ‫ א‬etc. lat syc mae boms, but the thought link is much the same with or without it. Bibliography Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘e Eye Is the Lamp of the Body (Matthew 6:22-23 = Luke 11:34-36)’, NTS 33 (1987), 61-83. • Betz, H. D., ‘Matt 6:22-23 and Ancient Greek eories of Vision’, in Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, 7187. • Bridges, C. B., ‘e Evil Eye in the Sermon on the Mount’, StoneCampbell Journal (Joplin, MO) 4 (2001), 69-79. • Dihle, A., ‘Vom sonnenhaen Auge’, JACSup 10 (1983), 85-91. • Garrett, S. R., ‘“Lest the Light in You Be Darkness”’: Luke 11:33-36 and the Question of Commitment’, JBL 110 (1991), 93-105. • Hahn, F., ‘Die Worte vom Licht: Lk 11,33-36’, in Orientierung, ed. P. Hoffmann et al., 107-38. • Philonenko, M., ‘La parabole sur la lampe (Luc 11:33-36) et les horoscopes qoumrâniens’, ZNW 79 (1988), 145-51. • Syreeni, K., ‘A Single Eye: Aspects of the Symbolic World of Matt 6:22-23’, ST 53 (1999), 97-118. • Via, D. O., ‘Matthew’s Dark Light and the Human Condition’, in e New Literary Criticism and the New Testament, ed. E. S. Malbon and E. V. McKnight (JSNTSup 109. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 348-66. • Zöckler, T., ‘Light within the Human Person: A Comparison of Matthew 6:22-23 and Gospel of omas 24’, JBL 120 (2001), 487-99. See further at 5:1-2; 6:19-21.

e challenge here is perhaps to see with clarity the point of the materials which in Matthew’s text frame this section (6:19-21, 24). e text has, therefore, no independent moral or spiritual challenge to make; its concern is instead to underline the weightiness of the block within which it sits. Luke has a close parallel in quite a different context (11:34-36). e Matthean wording seems more original.370

6:22 Taken alone, the opening sentence need be no more than a metaphorical way of saying that the eye enables a person to see, that is, to be ‘illuminated’ in relation to what is external to oneself. But ancient thought generally supposed that the human eye was quite literally a source of light, and the thought in vv. 22-23 is clari ed and uni ed by assuming that the metaphorical construction involved appeal to imagery based on this ancient view. Sight was understood to function by means of a ow of light from the eyes out to the object in view; the light from the eyes was thought to merge with the light coming from the object (with illumination by, e.g., the sun) and then to ow or bounce back to the eye and to penetrate through the eye into the person, where sight was registered.371 As the lamp is an image for the eye, so the eye in turn is an image for the human capacity to absorb from what is available externally.372 ἁπλοῦς is literally ‘single’ or ‘simple’, but it has a varied and subtle range of meanings. Its use with the eye is reported only in late sources (Damascius, Vit. Isid. 16), but the sense ‘clear/sound/healthy’ is a natural development, perhaps originally over against the possibility of some form of double or fractured vision. In ethically coloured contexts the ‘singleness’ involved is related to wholeheartedness, integrity, sincerity, or generosity. One needs to be open to the possibility that in the layered metaphoricality involved here an ethical sense is sitting behind the medical sense.373 (e medical use of the balancing πονηρός in v. 23 is well documented: ‘diseased’. But the moral sense ‘evil’ or ‘wicked’ may well be lurking not far beneath.374) e imagery is of light coming into the body through the eyes and illuminating the whole interior of the person. is may well stretch the imagery which has been borrowed from an ancient understanding of vision, but it makes for a striking and effective

image. But what is the image to be applied to? e light is undoubtedly an image of religious and moral insight, but the involvement of the whole body suggests that beyond theoretical insight there is a concern with the being and action of the whole person: an integrated whole free from all evil. e fundamental imagery is of seeing things as they really are and totally internalising the insight. ere is, however, nothing immediately in vv. 22-23 to be seen. Most likely, what is to be seen in all its sharp detail (singleness) is the sharpness of the delineation which separates the one who stores treasure in heaven (in singleness) from the one who stores treasure on earth, and the one who serves God (in singleness) from the one who serves mammon. It would be altogether more comfortable to blur the sharp distinctions, but that is not the way to full illumination. 6:23 e negative parallel follows closely the wording of the positive statement with only the verb of the ‘if ’ clause moved from the beginning to the end to create a minor chiasm. I have already commented on the eye that is πονηρός (translated above as ‘diseased’). But the question needs to be addressed whether this relates to any of the meanings of the common ancient phrase ‘an/the evil eye’. We can rule out a connection with the phrase as used in magic at once,375 but given that Matthew will use a related phrase in 20:15 (‘Is your eye πονηρός …?’) and Mk. 7:22 includes ‘an eye πονηρός’ in the list of evils that come out of the human heart,376 it is likely that the wider usage of this phrase is in mind. So what does it mean? Jewish materials, in the cases where the context throws light on the meaning, apply the phrase to those who are miserly, envious, or grasping.377 But this does not quite work for Mt. 20:15, which has a focus on money, but where ‘resentful’ is probably closer to the sentiment intended.378 It seems best to view the phrase, probably taking its rise from the way people’s eyes betray strong

emotion (in this case negative emotion), as referring to a range of negative attitudes (re ected in the cast of the eyes) and gaining a more focussed sense only from context. In common, however, is a narrowed or distorted way of viewing things,379 and this allows a bridge to the idea of a diseased eye. A nal ‘then’ clause summarises and focuses. ‘e “light” which is in you’ could be a reference to the eye, but is more likely to refer to what is ideally, in the imagery of v. 22, the state of total inner illumination. e system of sight is designed to supply such illumination, but if the system does not work, then no light gets through. Insight might be offered from outside, as it is in the teaching of Jesus, but a human process is involved in taking that insight inside, into one’s own person. If the eye allows nothing to come in effectively, then how great the inner darkness remains! e Lukan form makes the challenge explicit: ‘Take note, then, whether the “light” which is in you is darkness’ (11:35). 3. Serving God and Not Mammon (6:24) 24aNo

one is able to give slave service to two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or[, to say it another way,] he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot give slave service to God and to mammon.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. L Δ etc. have the Lukan wording ουδεις οικετης (‘no servant’). Bibliography Brennecke, H. C., ‘“Niemand kann zwei Herren dienen”: Bemerkungen zur Auslegung von Mt 6,24/Lk 16,13 in der Alten Kirche’, ZNW 88 (1997), 15769. • Dupont, J., ‘Dieu ou Mammon (Mt 6, 24; Lc 16, 13)’, CnS 5 (1984), 441-

61. • Jacobson, A. D., ‘Divided Families and Christian Origins’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 361-80, esp. 367-69. • Mastin, B. A., ‘Latin Mam(m)ona and the Semitic Languages: A False Trail and a Suggestion’, Bib 65 (1984), 87-90. • Piper, R. A., Wisdom, 86-99. See further at 5:1-2; 6:19-21.

e ‘treasures on the earth’ side of the contrast in vv. 19-20 is now taken up in the imagery of slave service to mammon. On the structure of vv. 19-24 see further at vv. 19-21. e material is to be found in a quite different context, but almost identically in Lk. 16:13 (Matthew has probably deleted the Lukan οἰκέτης [‘servant’] in the interests of generalisation).

6:24 e material of the verse is neatly arranged with parallelled opening and closing clauses (the nal clause restating the opening clause as applied to God and mammon) enclosing supporting argumentation consisting of two parallel statements in which the material is arranged to create a chiasm.380 e opening clause here is not literally true. Historically there were cases of co-ownership of slaves,381 and in fact the whole point of v. 24 is that Jesus here speaks against what people are actually doing. Despite the fact that the matter is explored in relation to the experience of the slave, Tilborg is probably right to suggest that it is the slave owner’s perspective which provides the basis of evaluation and not the slave’s perspective:382 being part owner of a slave is not a very satisfactory arrangement. e following supporting clauses identify the difficulty (not the impossibility) of split service. ‘Hate’ and ‘love’ are a coordinated pair here. e point is not that a slave might hate his master; it does not take two masters for that to be possible. With two masters it is the

contrast between feelings for the one and feelings for the other which makes for the difficulty. Given our harsh images of slavery, talk of love might at rst seem out of place, but in the Greco-Roman world the lot of slaves was extremely varied and in many cases was consonant with deep loyalty to and warm affection for the master.383 e slave owner who engendered affection was likely to get more than his fair share of the efforts of the shared slave. ough offered as an alternative (‘either … or’), the second statement is really only a restatement of the rst (‘or [to say it another way]’). In the nal clause God is mentioned for the rst time in vv. 1924, but he has not been far from sight throughout. ough implicit in the case of the contrasted eyes and explicit here, in both cases the application involves treating as involving a personal choice what in terms of the imagery is a xed given. It is likely that already the de nitive rejection of dual service in the image owed something of its sharpness to the application now to be made: it is when God is one of the masters in view that any consideration of dual service becomes totally impossible.384 In the OT serving idols and other gods is incompatible with service to God;385 now the service of mammon386 takes its place alongside these as an impossible combination. μαμωνᾶς is a grecized form of Hebrew māmôn or Aramaic māmônāʾ. e etymology of its Semitic origins is disputed, but it came to be used quite neutrally of all the possessions that make up one’s wealth, whether much or little (money, property, slaves, etc.). e best suggestion as to why the word remains untranslated is that the untranslated form suits the personi cation of worldly goods here as master.387 Probably already in the Semitic original the word had a certain colourfulness.

e target group for such a saying is not people who already understand themselves as serving both God and mammon and have as yet seen no difficulty. Rather, the saying is meant to provide a penetrating ash of insight for those who nd their behaviour mirrored here: suddenly the text exposes for what it is what they have seen as combining their devotion to God with a ‘responsible’ investment of effort to securing their own nancial situation. Mammon is actually functioning as a demanding master usurping the exclusiveness of God’s claim. at money can become an imperious master has been widely recognised and is not distinctive to Jesus.388 He simply placed this recognition into the context of the claim of God on the lives of those who were faced with the impending arrival of the kingdom of God. e Matthean Jesus clearly has a healthy suspicion of preoccupation with the material issues of life. He has already identi ed the importance of a readiness to give up the claim our material wealth has on us (see at 4:20; 5:42; 6:19). But the present text addresses the experience of being taken up (taken captive) by matters of material well-being; it does not address at all directly the question of the possession and use of wealth. 6:19 is more clearly directive, but the absoluteness of the contrasting options in vv. 1920 is probably to be seen in terms of the state of servitude imaged in v. 24 (note the role of the heart in v. 21). e ‘safest’ wealth is the wealth that one has walked away from or given away, but the Matthean Jesus also assumes that people will have and use wealth and did not necessarily treat this as a negative state of affairs (see, e.g., 11:19; 26:35-36). 4. Do Not Be Anxious: Seek the Kingdom (6:25-34)

25For this reason I say to you, Do not be worried shall eat,a or about your body, what you shall wear.

about your life, what you

Life is more than food, isn’t it, and the body than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air! For they do not sow, nor do they reap, nor do they gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of more value [to God] than they [are]? of you bby worryingb can add a ‘cubit’ to his or her age? 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Study closely the lilies of the field, how cthey grow.c ey neither work hard nor spin; 29but I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory robed himself as one of these. 30If this is the way God decks out the grass of the field which dis [here]d today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more [clothe] you — [you people of] little faith? 31Don’t worry, then, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we robe ourselves?’ 32For the Gentiles seek all these things; also, eyour heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33Instead first seek the kingdomf and his righteousness, and all these things shall be granted to you as well. 34Don’t worry, then, about tomorrow. For tomorrow will worry about gitself. Sufficient for the day is its [own] evil. 27Which

TEXTUAL NOTES a. η τι πιητε (‘or what you shall drink’) is added by B W (L Θ 1006 1506 etc.) f13 33 205 209 etc., but missing from ‫ א‬f1 892 etc. a b ff1 k l vg syc samss. e choice is difficult. V. 31 might support either an original inclusion or scribal insertion; the natural pairing of eat and drink makes a scribal insertion easily understandable. e role of the image pair in vv. 26, 28-30 tips the scales in favour of scribal insertion. b-b. Missing from 1293 it syc. is broadens the scope but ts the context less well. c-c. e original hand of ‫ א‬appears to have read ου ξενουσιν (‘they do not card’), with the order of the following two verbs inverted. P. Oxy. 655

seems to have been in uenced by such a reading. To read ου ξενουσιν for αυξανουσιν would be an easy mistake (as would the converse). If it is a mistake, then the word order has been subsequently adjusted to match. e change could also be an ‘intelligent’ correction, giving three linked work verbs (there are three matched verbs in vv. 26, 31). ose who view the change as an ‘intelligent’ correction nd support from noting that at Lk. 12:27 the corresponding verb has simply been dropped by D sys, c (a) and the general term ‘work hard’ (κοπια) has been replaced by ‘weave’ (υϕαινει): clearly a matched set has been deliberately created. We will offer suggestions below as to the likely role of the at- rst-surprising presence of ‘grow’. d-d. W supplies the lack of a predicate for οντα (lit. ‘being’) with εν αγρω (‘in [the] eld’), perhaps in uenced by Lk. 12:28. e. ‫ *א‬mae add ο θεος (‘God’) to make it immediately clear that God is the father intended; they then have no need of the following ‘heavenly’ (so also lat syc bo). f. του θεου (‘of God’) is added by L W Θ f1, 13 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. is re ects the awkwardness of the late position of αυτου (‘his’) aer the extended phrase την βασιλειαν και την δικαιοσυνην (‘the kingdom and the righteousness’), but is itself awkward aer ‘your heavenly Father’ in v. 32. B probably responds to the same awkwardness by inverting the order of ‘kingdom’ and ‘righteousness’ to bring ‘his’ and ‘kingdom’ together (though here the motivation might have been an understanding that ‘righteousness’ comes before possession of the ‘kingdom’). g. A de nite article (sing. or pl.) is added by E (Δ) Θ 0233 f1, 13 33 205 565 106 1424 1506 etc. is provides an accusative object for the verb: ‘the thing[s] concerning itself ’ (a gen. object for μεριμναν is unparalleled, so it has probably been ‘corrected’). Bibliography Bayer, O., Schöpfung als Anrede: Zu einer Hermeneutik der Schöpfung (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986), 142-48. • Betz, H. D., ‘Cosmogony and Ethics in the Sermon on the Mount’, in Essays, 89-123. • Bivin, D., ‘A Measure of Humility’, JerPersp 4 (1991), 13-14. • Carter, W., ‘“Solomon in All

His Glory”: Intertextuality and Matthew 6.29’, JSNT 65 (1997), 3-25. • Catchpole, D., ‘e Ravens, the Lilies and the Q Hypothesis’, SNTU 6-7 (1981-82), 77-87. • Crossan, J. D., ‘Against Anxieties: omas 36 and the Historical Jesus’, Forum 10.1-2 (1994), 57-67. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Birds of the Air and Lilies of the Field’, DR 105 (1987), 181-92. • Dillon, R. J., ‘Ravens, Lilies, and the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:25-33/Luke 12:22-31)’, CBQ 53 (1991), 605-27. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 250-75. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 166-79. • Goppelt, L., eology, 1:73-75. • Healey, J. F., ‘Models of Behavior: Matt 6:26 (//Luke 12:24) and Prov 6:6-8’, JBL 108 (1989), 497-98. • Hoffmann, P., Tradition und Situation, 62-134. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Der Q-Text der Sprüche vom Sorgen: Mt 6,25-33/Lk 12,22-31: Ein Rekonstruktionsversuch’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 127-55. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Die Sprüche vom Sorgen (Mt 6,25-33/Lk 12,22-31) in der vorsynoptischen Überlieferung’, in Artikulation der Wirklichkeit. FS S. Oppolzer, ed. H. Hierdeis and H. S. Rosenbusch (Frankfurt/Bern/New York/Paris: Lang, 1988), 73-94. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Jesu “Verbot des Sorgens” und seine Nachgeschichte in der synoptischen Überlieferung’, in Jesu Rede von Gott und ihre Nachgeschichte im frühen Christentum: Beiträge zum Verkündigung Jesu und zum Kerygma der Kirche. FS W. Marxsen, ed. D.-A. Koch, G. Sellin, and A. Lindemann (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1989), 116-41. • Irwin, M. E., ‘Considering the Lilies’, McMJT 2 (1991), 20-28. • Jones, J. N., ‘“ink of the Lilies” and Prov 6:6-11’ HTR 88 (1995), 175-77. • Lafon, G., ‘La gratuité de Dieu’, RSR 76 (1988), 485-97. • Lejeune, C., ‘Les oiseaux et les lis: Lecture “écologique” de Matthieu 6,25-34’, Hokhma 44 (1990), 3-20. • Linton, O., ‘Coordinated Sayings and Parables in the Synoptic Gospels’, NTS 26 (1980), 139-63, esp. 146-48. • Mealand, D. L., ‘“Paradisial” Elements in the Teaching of Jesus’, in Studia Biblica, II, ed. E. A. Livingstone (JSNTSup 2. Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), 179-84. • Parrott, J., ‘Seek Ye First …’, ModBelieving 37 (1996), 30-36. • Piper, R. A., Wisdom, 24-36. • Porter, S. E., ‘P.Oxy. 655 and James Robinson’s Proposals for Q: Brief Points of Clari cation’, JTS 52 (2001), 8492. • Powell, J. E., ‘ose “Lilies of the Field” Again’, JTS 33 (1982), 490-92. • Robinson, J. M., ‘e Pre-Q Text of the (Ravens and) Lilies: Q 12:22-31 and P.Oxy. 655 (Gos. om. 36)’, in Text und Geschichte, ed. E. Schlarb and S. Maser, 143-80. • Robinson, J. M., ‘A Written Greek Sayings Cluster Older

than Q: A Vestige’, HTR 92 (1999), 61-77. • Robinson, J. M. and Heil, C., ‘Zeugnisse eines schrilichen, griechischen vorkanonischen Textes: Mt 6,28b ‫*א‬, P.Oxy. 655 I,1-17(Ev 36) und Q 12,27’, ZNW 89 (1998), 30-44. • Robinson, J. M. and Heil, C., ‘e Lilies of the Field: Saying 36 of the Gospel of omas and Secondary Accretions in Q 12.22b-31’, NTS 47 (2001), 1-25. • Robinson, J. M. and Heil, C., ‘Noch einmal: Der Schreibfehler in Q 12,27’, ZNW 92 (2001), 113-22. • Schmeller, T., ‘Die Radikalität der Logienquelle: Raben, Lilien und die Freiheit vom Sorgen (Q 12,22-32)’, BK 54 (1999), 8588. • Schmidt, T. E., ‘Burden, Barrier, Blasphemy: Wealth in Matt 6:33, Luke 14:33, and Luke 16:15’, TJ 9 (1988), 171-89. • Schröter, J., ‘Vorsynoptische Überlieferung auf P.Oxy. 655? Kritische Bemerkungen zu einer erneuerten ese’, ZNW 90 (1999), 265-72. • Schröter, J., ‘Verschrieben? Klärende Bemerkungen zu einem vermeintlichen Schreibfehler in Q und tatsächlichen Irrtümern’, ZNW 92 (2001), 283-89. • Schwank, B., ‘Von den Lilien des Feldes (Mt 6,27-28)’, EuA 57 (1981), 145-48. • Schwarz, G., ‘προσθεῖναι ἐπὶ τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ πῆκυν ἕνα’, ZNW 71 (1980), 244-47. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 215-35. • Steinhauser, M. G., ‘e Sayings on Anxieties: Matt 6:25-34 and Luke 12:22-32’, Forum 6.1 (1990), 67-79. • Suess, G. E. M., ‘Lilies of the Field’, JerPersp 46-47 (1994), 18-23. • Wouters, A., Willen, 253-59. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 82-94. See further at 6:19-21.

Since people do not always recognise slave service to mammon for what it is, vv. 25-34 offer concrete illustrations. Anxiety about the concrete necessities of life is incompatible with the allencompassing nature of the claims of the kingdom of God.389 e material occurs in a quite similar form in Lk. 12:22-34. e most notable differences are: Luke has an assertion in the place of the rhetorical question of Mt. 6:25 (similarly in vv. 26, 30); Luke has ‘crows’ for Matthew’s ‘birds of the air’ and ‘God’ for ‘your heavenly Father’ in v. 24 (probably both Matthew’s change; in v. 32 Matthew has ‘your heavenly Father’ again where Luke has ‘your Father’); Luke appears to have inserted a transition piece before v. 28a, which has led to the substitution of ‘the other things’ for

‘clothing’; Luke has dropped the reference to clothing in v. 31 and replaced it with an unusual word for being anxious; Luke has soened the reference to Gentiles (as pagans) in v. 32 into ‘all the nations of the world’; Matthew has added ‘and the righteousness’ in v. 33 to Luke’s ‘his kingdom’; Matthew and Luke use entirely different materials at v. 34. e nal clauses of vv. 25 and 27, the opening clause of v. 32, and v. 34 have reasonably been suspected of being developments. But the greater expansion postulated for the Q form by Robinson and Heil,390 who claim that the version of Gos. om. 36 preserved in P.Oxy. 655 is more original, seems altogether less likely.

6:25 ‘I say to you’ denotes emphatic assertion as already in 3:9, but with an additional note of authority from the echo of the frequent occurrences of ‘[Amen] I (ἐγώ) say to you’ earlier in the Sermon on the Mount.391 While ψυχή is quite a exible word with a range of meaning, it is clear enough that ‘[physical] life’ is the sense here.392 e rst proscribed form of anxiety is that about the nourishment needed to sustain life. Is that which concerns the clothing of the body essentially different? at depends on the answer to a further question. Does ‘what shall you wear?’ have to do with concern about the prospect of exposure to the elements or with how one will appear to others? At rst sight the glamorous garb of the lilies (v. 29) might suggest the latter, but a promise of being more splendidly dressed than Solomon is hard to defend, and the language of need in v. 32 points in the direction of clothing for the body as a fundamental need of human life. Food and clothing are frequently paired as related basic human needs.393 Since σῶμα (‘body’) and ψυχή (‘life/soul’) also form a standard pair,394 the cumulative case is strong for taking the interest in clothing here as related to the basic human need to survive. ough it is inevitable that it is ‘the body’ which is clothed, there is nonetheless probably a conscious artistry in connecting ‘food’ (which goes into the person)

with ‘life’ (the inner aliveness of the person) and clothing (related to a need that remains external) with the body.395 e call not to be anxious about our basic human need to survive represents a profound challenge to fundamental human preoccupations. e situation of those whose material condition is marginal requires no comment, but those who are better placed materially are generally no less characterised by anxiety about their needs, either because their own perception of what their basic needs are has expanded to match their material circumstances396 or because the very fact of wealth makes for a sense of insecurity about successfully retaining hold of it. ose who discuss the issue have sometimes become polarised about whether the notion of anxiety involved here is essentially psychological or whether it has to do with patterns of human behaviour.397 If pressed to a choice, then one must claim that the former is where the emphasis must lie, but anxiety produces its patterns of action also.398 e question posed at the end of v. 25 represents the rst support for the challenge issued. But what is its point? It is commonly taken to mean: ‘life and body are greater than that which nurtures them physically; so, since God has given the greater, should we not have con dence that he will give the lesser?’ But some scholars have thought this approach to be awed, as a rather unclear anticipation of much the same point in the illustrations to come.399 Another possibility is to nd guidance from wisdom teaching which identi es negative emotion as damaging to life.400 ‘If you only have your worries, what is your life worth?’ is makes a poor t in the context, but it may nonetheless begin to point us in the right direction. An obvious characteristic of anxiety is its tendency to be all-consuming: the scope of life narrows under its pressure. It may well be that it is precisely to this narrowing that the question is directed. In the larger context seeking the kingdom (v.

33) will be excluded by the anxiety-induced restriction of focus (and thus mammon will have dominated in the attempt at double loyalty), but at this stage the point is more general and requires only the recognition that life is more than the basics of survival.401 e rst reason, then, for not being anxious is that it narrows life intolerably. 6:26 With the illustration of the birds we get to the main thrust of this section: anxiety is wrong because it represents a failure to trust God as provider. Appeal to nature is a wisdom pattern (e.g., Job 12:7-10; Pr. 6:6-11),402 as is the view that God provides food for his creatures.403 Matthew speaks of ‘the birds of the air (οὐρανοῦ)’ also in 8:20; 13:32, and this is a frequent OT phrase. ere is a nice balance between ‘the birds of the air’ and ‘the lilies of the eld’ to come in v. 28.404 e verse compares the birds with the farmers who in their planning and labour see through the stages of the agricultural cycle in order to have grain for bread for the coming year. e birds engage in no corresponding forward-planning; they do not work with a view to a future yet out of reach. Yet, through the provisions of the natural order, God feeds them. It is difficult to know whether we should nd here a comment on the farmers’ efforts. Are they characterised as the behaviour of the anxious? Are they mentioned to enhance the contrast with the birds (people are both more valuable and they work for their food)? Is there a connection with those who have le all in response to the call of Jesus to be wandering preachers? None of these options is really satisfactory.405 e focus is sharply on God as the one who provides. What the birds do not do makes no judgment on the activity of the farmer, it is merely a negative foil for what God does. e image is meant to evoke an awareness of God’s pervasive care and provision, not to give encouragement to be as careless as the [birds].

What the [birds] fail to do speaks to us, but does not exactly tell us what we should do. As oen with Jesus’ teaching …, while having our present pattern of action put in question [here acting on the basis of anxiety], we are not ultimately told what to do about the details of life; we are being addressed at a different level.406

e appeal to nature is entirely selective: planning for the future can be found among animals, as can starvation.407 But the reality of other images does not undermine the pertinence of the one which Jesus has chosen to use. It is this image which in the context of Jesus’ ministry has the capacity to speak relevantly about God to the speci c human situation of anxiety about basic life needs. 6:27 τίς ἐξ ὑμῶν (‘which of you’) on the lips of Jesus always invites a negative answer, and the negative affirmation thus established is applied by means of a comparison, implicit or explicit.408 It is not, however, immediately clear what comparison might be intended here. ere is rst of all a difficulty in deciphering the image. πῆχυς is literally ‘forearm’, and from this a ‘cubit’, a measure of length (ca. eighteen inches). ἡλικία means ‘age’ or ‘stage of life’, but also ‘stature’. e obvious image is of attempting to increase one’s height by worrying, but Luke does not seem to have taken it this way since he glosses with ‘If, then, you cannot [do such] a very small thing …’ (12:26), and working with a unit as large as eighteen inches makes for an odd image. e commonly claimed sense (adding to one’s span of life) involves taking ἡλικία to mean ‘length of life’, a sense which is otherwise unattested. What else is possible? ἡλικία has obvious links with the idea of maturity. Standing alone it can refer to the requisite age(-range) for some activity or state of affairs (to be physically mature, be of age to take responsibility, etc.). e physical sense

‘stature’ is also derived from the idea of growing up and thus becoming bigger over time.409 Is the term being used in relation to the desire to attain the stature required for something desired (whether this is something quite concrete like functioning as a priest, being an elder of the community, or gaining one’s inheritance, or something more general like the status of one who has gained maturity or seniority)? Along these lines, with a double layer of metaphoricality, πῆχυς could be functioning as a time measure (cf. Ps. 39:5) and standing for a passage of time that will take one a step closer to the necessary age (ἡλικία) for entry into that stage in life which opens up for one what is desired. e implied statement would be: You cannot by worrying gain the seniority to which you aspire.410 e important but unstated corollary is that what worrying cannot achieve comes nonetheless: it comes in due course as the provision of God. Understanding the verse this way, we have another image of getting something (from God) which has not been pursued by worry: God sees to such things without one worrying about it. is image from the human sphere is sandwiched between the rst nature image relating to food and the second nature image related to clothing. We are not told what to apply this image to, but its central position suggests that its thrust is general: it addresses both areas of need initially identi ed in v. 25. 6:28 In preparation for the second image from nature, the opening clause narrows the focus to concern about being adequately clothed. It again takes up ἔνδυμα, the term for clothing in the nal clause of v. 25, a word which (apart from Luke’s parallel to v. 25) only Matthew uses in the NT. Used technically, κρίνα most likely referred to the white lily, candidum lilium, but the added ‘of the eld’, the reference to ‘grass’ in v. 30, and the breadth of popular usage suggest that the reference is broader: eld owers with a lily-

like appearance (perhaps even the likeness to lilies is optional). e reference to growth invites the hearer to attend to the development process that produces the beautiful owers. e plants are not always like that; they change from being unadorned to being splendidly decked out (note the imagery in v. 30 of God clothing the [already existing] grass of the eld). What makes the difference? e chosen verbs probably invite us to consider the possibilities of hard work to earn enough to purchase the cloth or to domestic production of one’s own cloth; these are not the ways that plants gain their beautiful owers. 6:29 Solomon’s garments receive no OT comment, but his glory is spoken of (1 Ki. 3:13), and it is natural enough to think of his garb as of corresponding magni cence. Jesus can assume that his hearers will share his aesthetic judgment that natural beauty outshines the most artful of human productions.411 6:30 No uncertainty is suggested by the εἰ (‘if ’). e ephemeral nature of wild plants is proverbial.412 Here, however, their utter transience is underlined by pointing not to the falling owers, browning off and dying back, but beyond that to reduction to ash in the domestic oven. (When wood is expensive and in short supply, grass will help to heat the cooking oven.) Matthew may well have seen σήμερον (‘today’) as a useful hook back to v. 11 (the Lord’s Prayer); if there is any signi cance for meaning in the link, it can only be to underline the need to focus on ‘today’ (to surface again in v. 34).413 ἀμϕιέννυναι occurs in the NT only here and at 11:8, where it is used of one dressed in ne robes; the verb is probably chosen here because more than basic clothing is in mind (hence the translation above: ‘decked out’).414 Attention to the rapid demise of the beautiful eld grasses implicitly identi es them as less signi cant to God than are people and thus prepares for the howmuch-more statement at the end of the verse.

Where v. 26 ends with a value statement that leaves the provision statement implicit, vv. 28-30 end with an explicit provision statement (but characterised by the same language of ‘more’ found in the earlier implicit provision statement), with the value statement implicit. Despite the proximity of ‘decks out’, we should probably look back further to v. 28 for the implied verb for the clothing of those addressed.415 Otherwise we end up with the rather odd notion that while the eld owers are clothed more splendidly than Solomon, those addressed will be clothed yet more splendidly than the owers. ‘People of little faith’ (ὀλιγόπιστοι) is traditional here (cf. Lk. 12:28), but Matthew nds the expression useful and will use it three further times.416 It is always used of disciples and always points to their failure to believe that they will be taken care of.417 6:31 To restate the premise aer the supporting points made in between, we are taken back to the language of v. 25. References to ‘life’ and ‘body’ drop away; to be more concrete, the imperative is expressed with the aorist (subjunctive), not the present; the language changes to direct speech with the addition of ‘saying’ and the move from second to rst person forms; ‘What shall we drink’ comes in to make the standard pair and to provide another set of three; the clothing verb from v. 29 replaces that of v. 25, to echo a little of the journey between v. 25 and v. 31. 6:32 e verse starts with a belated additional negative reason for not being anxious about these basic needs, which, as elsewhere in Matthew,418 draws on the stereotypical negative Jewish image of Gentiles: one ought to be able to do better than the pagans! e ἐπι pre x in ἐπιζητοῦσιν may suggest a narrow focus of concentration on the seeking. No doubt we are to understand that the Gentiles seek in this way because they are anxious about their own basic

needs, but the text deliberately moves away from the focus on worry because over against what is now expressed as seeking a commended form of seeking is set in v. 33. e verse then moves to the positive with a point reaffirmed from the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer (v. 8): God knows that we have these needs.419 6:33 We have these needs, but that is not where our attention should be directed; the kingdom of heaven is on the move, and that is what must claim our attention. To ‘seek rst’ is not to indicate that other things are to be sought secondarily with a lesser amount of attention. πρῶτον either has the sense, ‘as being the most important thing of all’ or it sequences in the manner of Mt. 23:26 (‘ rst clean the inside of the cup’), with the point being that God’s provision of our basic needs follows on from the seeking of his kingdom. ough orientation rather than speci c action is rst and foremost in view, presumably one knows how to seek the kingdom from the whole dri of the Sermon on the Mount, set as it is in the context of Jesus’ announcement of the approaching kingdom.420 e addition of ‘righteousness’ helps to guide this awareness by drawing attention to the focal place given to righteousness (esp. 5:20).421 e understanding offered here does, however, depend on what we can make of the ‘his’ in ‘his righteousness’. So what are we to make of the αὐτοῦ (‘his’) that follows ‘righteousness’? e awkwardness of the whole phrase τὴν βασιλείαν καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ (lit. ‘the kingdom and the righteousness of him’)422 is best explained as resulting from Matthew’s insertion of ‘and the righteousness’ into the source form (cf. Lk. 12:31). What does this mean for the dislocated αὐτοῦ? Several translations (including the NRSV alternative) understand the sense as ‘its [the kingdom’s] righteousness’, which would be very attractive if it were grammatically possible, but the masc./neut. form can hardly refer back to the fem. noun for ‘kingdom’.423 Failing that, the antecedent

must be God as referred to in v. 32 (‘your heavenly Father’). Does αὐτοῦ cover both ‘kingdom’ and ‘righteousness’ or only the latter? One cannot be sure, but the force of αὐτοῦ in relation to ‘righteousness’ can be nuanced more effectively if it does not need to have a sense that works equally well for ‘kingdom’.424 Nearly all of Matthew’s absolute uses of ‘the kingdom’ have ‘kingdom’ in the genitive, but the use in 25:34 provides a point of comparison for an absolute use here. In what sense is the righteousness God’s (contrast 5:20: ‘your’)? It could be exemplary: ‘seek to imitate his righteousness’, with a back reference to 5:48. But this would seem to put too much emphasis on a relatively minor strand of the Sermon. It could be righteousness that comes from God, but that would be to introduce a new thought not encouraged either by the main dri of the Sermon or by earlier uses of ‘righteousness’.425 It is better to have the reference be to the righteousness that God requires of us, that he approves of, or something similar (cf. Jn. 6:28-29; 2 Co. 1:12; Jas. 1:20). Matthew does not lose sight of basic human needs. ey are also the subject of God’s promise, but only as something added on (προστεθήσεται — lit. ‘add [on/to]’) to the main thing.426 ‘All’ (not in Lk. 12:31) is meant to be fulsomely reassuring in respect to human needs. 6:34 is verse shows strong links with proverbial wisdom, which points out in many ways the fruitlessness of anticipating either by worry or action a tomorrow whose shape we cannot know.427 e Matthean context, however, gives a distinctive turn to the proverbial wisdom. e ties with the Lord’s Prayer continue here (with the reference to evil and the focus on today), and these probably provide the key for linking v. 34 with the preceding materials. In connection with the Lord’s Prayer, the promise of God’s provision which emerges in vv. 25-34 and climaxes with the

promise of v. 34b is a promise about the needs of the present. But a good deal of human anxiety involves worrying about ‘tomorrow’ (the future).428 What is implied about tomorrow in the thrust of teaching which has been given? is is the agenda of v. 34. We already know that we are not to worry about our basic needs of today; now we are speci cally challenged not to worry about our needs of tomorrow. We are not to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will do the worrying about tomorrow. But what can this mean? e goal here is to take from us our sense of worrisome responsibility for tomorrow. e rhetorical strategy used to achieve this is to relocate to a credible somewhere else the worry about tomorrow which comes so naturally to us. ‘Tomorrow’ ts the needs well, as a place to pass this responsibility to, because it is tomorrow and only tomorrow which is located in the appropriate time frame for paying attention to the needs of tomorrow (tomorrow’s today!). Of course the language is not intended literally: the whole passage is about stopping worrying (not transferring the task of worrying to another); and tomorrow cannot genuinely be an agent of action. In truth the handing of the task of worrying over to tomorrow is a convenient pedagogical ction intended to help us release the worrying into oblivion. e normal perspective from which the nal clause is read is that of the human capacity to cope with bad things, difficult things (one day’s worth is enough to manage at any one time). But with its emphasis on God’s provision and our need to focus on the kingdom, the whole dri of the passage is against this. Again the Lord’s Prayer can help us. Our prayer is (v. 13) for God to rescue us from such disastrous events as we nd ourselves engulfed by. It is likely that v. 34 does not have a comprehensive concern with evil, but that (avoiding an odd introduction of a new subject) the focus is on that aspect of evil which underlies the anxiety people feel about

their daily needs. If one had to worry only about planting enough grain or working enough hours, then the human situation would be less worrisome. Anxiety is created primarily by the very real possibility that such arrangements will let us down (there will be a drought; our supplies will be destroyed; we will be robbed; etc.). e promise of God’s provision involves a promise to deliver us (from the consequences of) such eventualities as they press on us on a daily basis. If God looks aer today, that will be enough. God does not abstractly guarantee the future; he deals with the needs of each today. is is the one-day-at-a-time perspective of the Lord’s Prayer which keeps so rmly in focus the immediacy of receiving from the hand of God. ere is no need to worry about tomorrow because God will deal with it as the ‘today’ of that day. I. Making Our Relationship with God the Measure of All ings (7:1-11) 1. Do Not Judge: Beware of the Beam in Your Own Eye (7:1-5) 1Do

not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2For on the basis of the [act of judgment] by which you judge you shall [yourself] be judged; and by means of the measure with which you measure it shall be measured to you. 3Why do you see the speck in the eye of your brother [or sister], but do not notice the beam in your [own] eye? 4Or how acan you saya to your brother [or sister], ‘bAllow me: I will cast the speck out of your eye’? — and, look, the beam [is] in your [own] eye! 5Hypocrite! First cast the beam out of your own eye, and then you will seek clearly to cast the speck out the eye of your brother or sister.

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. Rendering the future tense. Some texts have the present, but without any difference of meaning. b. αδελϕε (‘brother’) is added by ‫ א‬vgmss (sams) in agreement with Lk. 6:42. Bibliography Crocker, P. T., ‘Nets, Syli and Ophthalmology — A Mystery Solved’, BurHist 27 (1991), 59-63. • Crossan, J. D., In Fragments, 179-82. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 187-218. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Christ and Reproof (Matthew 7.15/Luke 6.37-42)’, NTS 34 (1988), 271-81. • Hendry, G. S., ‘Judge Not: A Critical Test of Faith’, TToday 40 (1983), 113-29. • Kollmann, B., ‘Jesu Verbot des Richtens und die Gemeindedisziplin’, ZNW 88 (1997), 170-86. • McEleney, N. J., ‘e Unity and eme of Matthew 7:1-12’, CBQ 56 (1994), 490-500. • Piper, R. A., Wisdom, 36-44. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 263-73. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 175-179. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 113-17, 12731. See further at 5:1-2.

ough this unit has several links with earlier parts of the Sermon,429 it takes up a new topic which has no speci c relationship with what precedes. ough it is hard to be sure, the three units 7:15, 6, 7-11 are probably best taken as an appendix to chap. 6. ey are all concerned with how one ts God into one’s reckoning, which has already been the consistent concern though chap. 6. e standard view of the development of this material is that Mt. 7:1 has been expanded rst with 7:2 (v. 2a is little more than a restatement, while v. 2b is found in a quite different context in Mk. 4:24), or with the more elaborate development found in Lk. 6:37b-38, and then with 7:3-5 (parallelled in Lk. 6:41-42), which may have had a quite separate history.

7:1 e call not to judge has made its way deeply into popular imagination: ‘Who am I to judge?’ Unfortunately the applications

people oen make (giving personal space to others; modesty about one’s own capacity to discern what is right; the desire not to be faced with responsibility for decisions in complex or disputed matters) probably have little to do with the intention of either Jesus or the Gospel writers. In a postmodern context there can be a siren call to a radical pluralism. As popularly understood, the principle is soon set aside when the wrong done by the other person touches a place of deep personal investment.430 On historical-critical grounds the text is regularly interpreted in isolation from its present Gospel contexts (cf. Lk. 6:37), but with such a small block of text and the breadth of meaning possible for the keyword κρίνειν (‘judge’) there is a real danger of subjectivity in choosing which aspects of the teaching and practice of Jesus it should be connected to. e text could be (a) a commendation of practice like Jesus’ ‘completely judgment-free fellowship with outcasts like sinners and tax collectors’;431 (b) an attack on the judiciary; (c) an insistence that one leave all judgment to God; (d) a warning against having a critical spirit; (e) a prudential awareness that others tend to treat one as one treats others, and so on. At the very least our present Gospels provide the earliest commentary on these words of Jesus and deserve to be carefully heard. As a place to start, we can note that the motivation for not judging is to avoid having it done to oneself. In Matthew the whole word group (κριν-, κριμ-, κρισ-) is used overwhelmingly for the eschatological judgment of God.432 Since Matthew clearly expects everyone to face the eschatological judgment of God, the only sense in which one can avoid being ‘judged’ by God, is in avoiding being condemned in the judgment. So κρίνειν here means ‘judge negatively/condemn’ in the second clause, and it must have a corresponding meaning in the rst clause.

Why is condemning others such a bad thing? And is all condemning condemned? To take the second question rst, Mt. 19:28 views quite positively a role for the Twelve in the eschatological judgment. Is the problem in 7:1, then, the desire to anticipate what properly belongs only to the eschaton (cf. 2 Co. 4:5) or what is properly God’s exclusive preserve (cf. Rom. 14:4, 10, 13; Jas. 4:11-12)?433 Either or both of these may play a role, but the development of Mt. 7:2 takes us in another direction. 7:2 e two supporting clauses that constitute this verse both make the same kind of point, the second more clearly than the rst. e imagery of the second comes from grain contracts in which it was frequently speci ed that grain delivery and payment therefore would be measured with the same instrument — that of the purchaser (see Couroyer, RB 77 [1970] 366-70). Similar statements are used proverbially in a variety of Jewish sources (see Rüger, ZNW 60 [1969] 174-82)…. If we [condemn] others … we must expect God to respond in the coinage of strict justice. Mercy and generosity [of spirit] to others is a declaration to God that such is the coinage we wish to have used in his dealings with us as well.434

e rst statement repeats the verbs from 7:1, but with the indicative forms (‘… you judge, you will be judged’); the signi cant difference is ἐν ᾧ … κρίματι (‘on the basis of the [act of] judgment by which’).435 e very act of judgment establishes a set of criteria to which the one judging must expect to answer (in relation to one’s own conduct) before God; and the suggestion is that it creates a set of criteria in relation to which it were better that one did not ask to be judged. e background thought is of one’s own need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. e thought of Jas. 2:13 is similar.436 To some degree we have a negative statement of Mt. 5:7.

A nal matter for comment is that of the relationship of all this to the judicial system. None of our comparative materials relates to court judgment, and there is no evidence that Jesus or the Gospel writers were critical of the existence of a judiciary. While it would be too much to say that the present teaching has no relevance to the judicial function, the focus is certainly on the human propensity to condemn others for their faults and failings. Any wider application will be a development from this. 7:3 e bizarre images in vv. 3-5 do not challenge precisely the propensity to condemn others for their faults and failings;437 they deal rather with a related tendency evincing something of the same spirit. e shared feature is that in each case one loses sight of the true nature of one’s own situation. In v. 3 the Greek word order provides a detailed chiastic arrangement between the two balanced clauses.438 e question form with its implicit accusation is rhetorical: it does not intend to insist that any particular hearer (singular forms are used; contrast the plurals of vv. 1-2) is like this; only that such things oen happen, and each individual should consider his or her own situation. e rhetorical questioning and the grotesque imagery represent a shock tactic designed to get through to the selfdeceived. ere are two linked scenes with shared imagery.439 κάρϕος is a speck or a chip of anything dry; the word emphasises smallness.440 e change of verbs from βλέπεις (‘see’ — normally literal) to κατανοεῖς (‘notice’ — related to mental perception and not to vision) is apt, as one does not ‘see’ but certainly should notice something in one’s own eye. δοκός is a plank of wood such as is used in a weight-bearing capacity in construction.441 e scale of exaggeration makes the image one that cannot actually be concretely visualised. On ‘brother or sister’ see the comments at 5:22. We have a scene of grossly selective perception. One acutely

observes even little problems in others, but one does not attend to the most glaring matters in oneself.442 7:4-5 e second scene presupposes the rst and moves on from it.443 e offer represents the one offering as competent and able to offer help from a position of secure superiority. But the reality is far different. A falsely based assertion of superiority is masquerading as care and generosity. e primary point is that the situation is being misrepresented. However, the exhortation in v. 5 develops a further aspect by taking up the practical difficulty of engaging in such a task when visually handicapped by the presence of a huge chunk of wood in one’s eye. On hypocrisy see the remarks at 6:2. Here the hypocrite is not actually conscious of the misrepresentation, but the label indicates that he or she is responsible, nonetheless: the self-blindness is a result of culpable failure to perceive how things really are. V. 5 makes clear that there is no problem in seeking to help others in their areas of failure.444 Such help, however, must be based on a realistic assessment of and attention to one’s own situation. In no case should one allow attention to minor matters in others to de ect one’s attention from major matters in relation to oneself. If Davies and Allison are right to nd a chiasm in vv. 4-5 centred on ‘ rst cast out’, this will reinforce the emphasis here on the need for remedial action in relation to one’s own situation.445 ough the clarity of vision here is for the sake of helping another and the clarity of vision in 6:22-23 is for one’s own situation, something of the content of the vision of 6:22-23 (the sharp antithesis between storing up treasure in heaven and on earth; the antipathy between serving God and mammon) should probably be brought forward to 7:5. is may help with the transition to v. 6.

2. Do Not Give Dogs What Is Holy (7:6) 6Do

not give what is holy to the dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or [the pigs] will trample them under foot and [the dogs] will turn and tear you apart.

TEXTUAL NOTES ere are no signi cant textual variants. Bibliography Bennett, T. J., ‘Matthew 7:6 — A New Interpretation’, WTJ 49 (1987), 371-86. • Lips, H. von, ‘Schweine füttert man, Hunde nicht — Ein Versuch, das Rätsel von Matthäus 7:6 zu lösen’, ZNW 79 (1988), 165-86. • Llewelyn, S., ‘Mt 7:6a: Mistranslation or Interpretation?’ NovT 31 (1989), 97-103. • Sandt, H. van de, ‘“Do Not Give What Is Holy to the Dogs” (Did 9:5D and Matt 7:6A): e Eucharistic Food of the Didache in Its Jewish Purity Setting’, VC 56 (2002), 223-46. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 259-80. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5.

7:6 It is difficult to be sure about the meaning and role of this verse, and many suggestions have been made. Without trying to be exhaustive, I will indicate something of the difficulty posed by this verse through a survey. A considerable body of interpretation improves the parallelism by postulating mistranslation of an original Semitic source (‘what is holy’ becomes ‘a ring/rings’, and the pearls end up ‘on the snouts’ of the pigs), but this is speculative and unnecessary (see below) and does not get us any closer to knowing what to apply the image to. Sensitive to these concerns, others have postulated that either already in Aramaic or at the point of translation into Greek the existing (and original?) application of the saying to some form of

Eucharistic exclusiveness led (on the basis of a ready-to-hand wordplay between ‘ring’ and ‘holy’ in Aramaic) to an interpretive rewording of the rst part of the text.446 Whatever the value of these suggestions, a Eucharistic reference in Mt. 7:6 has no contextual support. With either the text as we have it or with a reconstructed text, interpretive efforts have focussed on identifying a suitable referent for ‘what is holy’ and for ‘the dogs’ (‘your pearls’ and ‘the pigs’ are generally seen to share respectively the same referents). e main candidates for ‘what is holy’ have been the gospel message, the Sermon on the Mount, Israel, sacri cial esh for the temple (possibly disquali ed for temple use by blemish, etc.), and the Eucharist. e main candidates for ‘dogs’ (beyond the occasional attempt to take the word literally) have been Gentiles, the Romans, unbelievers, heretics, and Christians not living up to their profession. When scholars have made serious attempts to t the verse into its Matthean context, the preferred suggestions have been: a statement to counterbalance ‘do not judge’ (not judging can be taken too far!); an extension and generalisation of vv. 1-5 making the point that stupid acts (such as judging others) bring God’s judgment on oneself; a sarcastic restatement of vv. 3-5 (‘your pearls of helpful criticism are not going to be appreciated’); a relaying of a (Pharisaical?) proverb expressing a restrictive view only in order to overturn it on the basis of the (to-be-imitated) pattern of God’s generosity as laid out in vv. 7-11 to follow; a restriction to be imposed on vv. 7-11 (good things do not come to ‘dogs’ or ‘pigs’). Von Lips has made the case that, with parabolic materials like this, application should be based on an appreciation of how the imagery and the action function as a whole rather than on a rather allegorical decoding of the elements of the imagery. He has also, by

careful exploration of comparative materials, helped to clarify the imagery involved.447 ough the interpretation offered here is quite different from his, his work provides basic information for, and the central stimulus from which, my own proposals emerge. e dogs spoken of here are best understood as scavenging wild dogs.448 Such dogs were never fed. ey fended for themselves and played a useful role in disposing of organic rubbish in the ancient world. ey are to be imagined as always hungry and capable of aggressive and hostile behaviour. Pigs form a contrasting image. ey are domestic animals, and they are fed, indeed fattened, for the market. While wild boars may behave aggressively, this is not to be expected of the domestic pig. (is supports the common view that the verse is arranged in a chiasm, with the rst consequence clause relating to the pigs and the second reaching back to the dogs.) Both kinds of animals have an interest in food, but that is not to distinguish them from other creatures. Von Lips has identi ed a range of proverbial sayings in which something unsuitable is linked with a particular kind of animal to create an image of what is inappropriate; or, more pointedly, inappropriate food for the animal is called on to function in this way.449 ‘What is holy’ could refer to various things, but within the imagery emerging its natural reference is to sacri cial meat intended for the temple. is would at one and the same time be highly desirable from the point of view of the dogs, but a profanation of all religious sensibilities. ‘What is holy’ and ‘pearls’ are obviously both inappropriate as food, but for quite different reasons: dogs get rubbish, while what is holy belongs to God; pearls may be very ne for other uses, but they are quite useless as swine food. In proverbial sayings dogs and pigs at times function as a contrasting pair.450 We have in Mt. 7:6 not the synonymous parallelism that is normally assumed, but a synthetic parallelism

that builds a composite image of inappropriate behaviour out of two somewhat contrasting instances. How are we to move from image to application here? I suggest that the initial ‘what is holy’ is intended to provide the bridge. ‘What is holy’ belongs to God. at is what is meant by calling it holy. It belongs to him and should be given to him. is ts with the focus on God that has characterised chap. 6 and which seems to continue in 7:1-11. ere is an implicit antithesis here between the dogs and God. e absolute antithesis is of the kind found in 6:24 (God and mammon) and can be related to that of vv. 19-20 (in heaven and on earth). It seems to me that we have in 7:6 a fresh image for the challenge to make God our exclusive priority. In 6:19-20 the imagery was that of storing up treasure, in v. 24 it was that of having an exclusive master, but in 7:6 it is that of dispersing our resources (what we do with the holy and the valuable that we have available to us). In particular the rejected option is a use of our resources that is not focussed on God. An image of ‘spending’ now takes the place of an image of ‘hoarding’ (6:19-20) or an image of serving a master (v. 24) to make much the same point. ere is the same assumption of a rejected middle ground as earlier. What is not directed towards God is seen to be as inappropriately dispersed as sacri cial esh given to dogs or valuable pearls offered as pig feed. e pigs do not value the proffered pearls, and the dogs, stimulated by the taste and smell of raw meat, attack the giver in the hope of gaining more. e outcome here is probably the counterpart to the damage by moth and corrosion and the loss to thieves found earlier. If this understanding is along the right lines, then, while dogs and pigs are certainly negative images, they do not sharply correspond to anything in particular: when it comes to where we should expend our resources, compared to God everything and

everyone else is a dog or a pig (neither tting recipients of our dispersal nor able to appreciate what we can give).451 e imagery is harsh and clearly not to be taken outside the very speci c frame within which it is designed to function. Jesus is once again commending a radically theocentric vision of life. 3. Ask: Your Father Gives Good ings (7:7-11) 7Ask,

and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks it will opened. 9Or who is the person among you, whose son will ask for bread, [and] they will give him a stone? 10Or ahe will ask for a fish, [and] they will give him a snake? 11If, then, you who are evil know how to give good bgis to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good [things] to those who ask him?

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In various forms many texts respond to the syntactical difficulty here by introducing a conditional element: ‘if he asks’ (some also drop the linking ‘or’). b. Missing from L etc., bringing the idiom here into line with that used in relation to the heavenly Father. Bibliography Basinger, D., ‘Petitionary Prayer: A Response to Murray and Meyers’, RelS 31 (1995), 475-84. • Brox, N., ‘Suchen und Finden: Zur Nachgeschichte von Mt 7,7b, Lk 11,9b’, in Orientierung, ed. P. Hoffmann et al., 17-36. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 95-104. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 304-15. • Goldsmith, D., ‘“Ask, and it will be given…”:Toward Writing the History of a Logion’, NTS 35 (1989), 254-65. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 234-40. • Murray, M. J. and Meyers, K., ‘Ask and It Will Be Given to You’, RelS 30 (1994), 311-30. • Piper, R. A.,

‘Matthew 7:7-11 par. Luke 11:9-13: Evidence of Design and Argument in the Collection of Jesus’ Sayings’, in Shape of Q, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 131-37. • Rau, E., Reden in Vollmacht, 172-82. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 69-79. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 69-79. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5.

e focus on how one relates to God continues, with the emphasis now falling on the challenge to relate con dently to his parental generosity. e material here is found in a very similar form in Lk. 11:9-13, where it is included with the Lord’s Prayer in a section on prayer. Luke has smoothed the syntax at several points. e signi cant differences are: Matthew has ‘bread’ and ‘stone’ in 7:9 for Luke’s ‘egg’ and ‘scorpion’, and the order of the images is inverted (perhaps Luke is more original); Matthew has ‘good [things]’ in v. 11 for Luke’s ‘the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew is more original).452 One may doubt whether Mt. 7:7-8 and 9-11 formed an original unity, but the connection is rhetorically effective and may be original.

7:7 A surprising number of interpreters relate the asking, seeking, and knocking quite generally to an open vulnerability to others (God possibly included) that expects to be met with kindness and helpfulness.453 But this is hard to square with the Matthean context in which God has been explicitly or implicitly the centre of focus since the start of chap. 6, and with the follow-up parable in vv. 9-11 in which God is the one from whom good things are to be expected, and where there is a contrast (at least in degree) between what may be expected of God and of other people.454 On the other hand, interpreters who do relate the verse to God as provider tend rather narrowly to relate the verse to prayer, guided by the clear focus on prayer in v. 11. But the three images offered here de ne an area that is larger and more general than prayer. e three images are of ‘asking for something that another may be able

to provide; [of] seeking for what has been lost, or whose location is initially unknown for some other reason; and [of] knocking on a door to gain admission to a building’.455 What binds these images together is that they are all images of venturing out in pursuit of something, and in the context they become a set of mutually interpreting images of venturing with God. ‘Ask’ is naturally related to prayer and as such is taken up in vv. 9-11 (the verb is used three times); Matthew’s text will also link back to praying the Lord’s Prayer (see 6:8). ‘Seek’ repeats the verb of 6:33, which, with v. 32, provides focus and boundaries for the present seeking. Given the link with 6:33, Matthew will be glad to have this image in the prominent central position. ‘Knock’ lacks de nite links, but one may need to knock to go through the narrow gate of 7:13, and there are people who leave things too late and singularly fail to get a door opened to them in 25:10-11. e challenge is to nd one’s way forward in life with a clear focus on the kingdom of God and a deep trust that, as one looks to him, God will open the way ahead. 7:8 is verse substantially repeats v. 7, but where the emphasis of v. 7 falls on the imperatives, here the emphasis falls on the repeated assurance that asking leads to receiving (varied from the ‘given to you’ of v. 7), seeking leads to nding, and knocking leads to an opening of gates/doors. V. 8 provides support for v. 7, not by appeal to common experience as sometimes suggested,456 but simply by renewed insistence that with God asking, seeking, and knocking will work! e divide between those who want to take ‘everyone’ comprehensively and those who would restrict it (in light of v. 11) to everyone who is a child of the heavenly Father is perhaps misguided. Venturing with God is open to all, but to do so places one in the position of being a child of the heavenly Father. As we will see below, the supportive argument in vv. 9-11 bases itself on

what must at least be an implicit recognition of the fatherhood of God on the part of the hearers. 7:9 Matthew has an opening ‘or’ (not in Lk. 11:11) to indicate that over against possible protest at what is asserted in vv. 7-8 we are now to be given an argument in support of the assertion. e argument works by ushing out the implications of a conviction of the fatherhood of God which is assumed to already exist for the listeners (i.e., for disciples). It gains its persuasive power by appealing to what will be instinctively recognised as a fundamental aspect of being a father at the human level. If God is father, his fathering cannot fall short of the commitments of human fathering. e rhetorical power of the images is considerably enhanced by the judicious choice of options (‘if he asks for two loaves of bread, you will give him only one’ would open up pragmatic issues that the text is not interested in facing at this point). In vv. 9-11 the front of the argument is narrowed to prayer; but what has been demonstrated in the case of prayer will also be true pari passu for other modes of venturing with God (but still in connection with prayer). ‘Who is the person among you’ echoes the similar phrase in 6:27 (see there), which involves the same kind of appeal to human experience. e rst future verb in v. 9 (as in v. 10) is timelessly general but as a situation to be contemplated is represented with the future (translation as present would not be wrong). e clause linkages are awkward in the Greek, probably re ecting a Semitic original.457 Bread and stone are compared in 4:3,458 and it is just possible that this stands behind the preference for this pair over Luke’s egg and scorpion (11:12);459 but perhaps more likely the pairing of bread and sh anticipates the bread and sh of the feeding miracles (14:17, 19; 15:34, 36) in order to allow those texts to echo the present text. As in 4:3, we are to imagine a visual likeness between the stone and the small round loaf of bread.

7:10 Since the introduction to the second example is highly abbreviated, it is hard to be sure exactly how to take the opening ἢ καί (lit. ‘or and/or even/or also/or indeed’). Perhaps it is best to take καί as ‘and’ and to understand as implied between the two words a restatement of the opening in the form: ‘[which person among you] has a son’. Another possibility is that καί means ‘also’; then we could gloss with ‘or consider also the case where he asks’. A third option is for καί to mean ‘indeed’ and simply to be emphatic. For simplicity I have dropped καί in translation. Again the snake and the sh have super cial visual similarities. Since the sh would be dead, so would the snake. So presumably the snake is considered revolting and inedible as possible food, rather than speci cally dangerous (but in Lk. 11:11 the image presumes danger). 7:11 See the comments at v. 9 on how the argument functions as a whole. ‘Evil’ need not have a strong sense here: the point is to mark the contrast between morally awed human nature and God’s nature.460 e recognition here of a natural or instinctual goodness that can coexist with being ‘evil’ has rami cations that go far beyond its passing signi cance in the present context.461 ‘Good gis’462 points beyond a basic provision of fundamental needs to generosity within the warmth of family commitment. In light of vv. 9-10 and the end of v. 11, these gis are a relational response by a loving parent to the open vulnerability expressed by a child in the act of asking for something. Given the prayer context, ‘your Father in heaven’ echoes the addressing of God as ‘our Father in heaven’ in the Lord’s Prayer. As Luz aptly puts it, ‘e point is to give courage to “childlike” prayer’.463 Two examples and a ‘how much more’ structure to the argument repeat the pattern of 6:26-30 and point to the fundamental similarity between the two sections.

J. e Golden Rule as the Summary of the Sermon, but Also of the Law and the Prophets (7:12) 12aAll

of everything, bthen, thata you wish that people should do to you, so also you are to do to them. For this is the Law and the Prophets.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Without at all being literal, this is an attempt to mimic the fulsomeness of the Greek. b. Omitted by ‫ *א‬L 983 1424 etc. Probably the logical force of the linkage was considered problematic. Bibliography Alexander, P. S., ‘Jesus and the Golden Rule’, in Hillel and Jesus: Comparative Studies of Two Major Religious Leaders, ed. J. H. Charlesworth and L. L. Johns (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 363-88. • Bartsch, H.-W., ‘Traditionsgeschichtliches zur “goldenen Regel” und zum Aposteldekret’, ZNW 75 (1984), 128-32. • Benisch, M., ‘e Golden Rule as an Expression of Jesus’ Preaching’, BangTF 17 (1985), 83-97. • Borgen, P., ‘e Golden Rule, with Emphasis on Its Usage in the Gospels’, in Paul Preaches Circumcision and Pleases Men and Other Essays on Christian Origins (Trondheim: Tapir, University of Trondheim, 1983), 99-114. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 50-54. • Fuchs, J., ‘Die schwierige Goldene Regel’, StimmZeit 209 (1991), 773-81. • Jospe, R., ‘Hillel’s Rule’, JQR 81 (1990), 45-57. • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 391-97. • Ricoeur, P., ‘e Golden Rule: Exegetical and eological Perplexities’, NTS 36 (1990), 392-97. • Strecker, G., ‘Compliance — Love of One’s Enemy — e Golden Rule’, ABR 29 (1981), 38-46. • eobald, C., ‘La règle d’or chez Paul Ricoeur: Une interrogation théologique’, RSR 83 (1995), 43-59. • Topel, J., ‘e Tarnished Golden Rule (Luke 6:31): e Inescapable Radicalness of Christian Ethics’, TS 59 (1998), 475-85. • Wolbert, W., ‘Die Goldene Regel und das ius talionis’, TTZ 95

(1986), 169-91. • Wong, K.-C., Interkulturelle, 45-51. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 115-18. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5.

A nal summary rounds off the content of the main body of the Sermon (5:17–7:12), aer which Matthew presents a concluding series of challenges to implement Jesus’ teaching. Lk. 6:31 has a similar version of the Golden Rule, differing only in being more compactly expressed (καὶ καθώς [‘and just’] for Matthew’s πάντα οὖν ὅσα ἐάν [lit. ‘all things as many things, then, if ’]; ὁμοίως [‘in the same way’] for Matthew’s οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς [‘in the same way also you (emphatic)’]; lacking all of the nal Matthean clause).

7:12 at the linking οὖν (‘then’) functions to introduce a summary (and generalisation) is suggested by the inclusio with 5:7 created by ‘the Law and the Prophets’.464 It will, then, be important to read the Golden Rule as used here closely with what has already been said. e Golden Rule has a very ancient and diverse pedigree. ough the wording is not at all xed, versions of the rule have been found in Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Buddhist literature, ancient Indian literature, Greek literature from the time of Herodotus, and Jewish sources at least from the time of the Letter of Aristeas and of the Greek version of Sirach. e Rule is found in both positive and negative forms, but while the positive form highlights the need to take positive initiative, there is no fundamental difference of meaning between the two forms. Important differences of meaning emerge, rather, from the contexts. e Golden Rule (a) could be practised as a way of seeking to commend a particular moral vision; (b) it could be commended as a call to moral consistency (do not criticise others for doing to you

what you seem happy to do yourself to others); (c) it could be advised as a piece of prudential wisdom designed to maximise the possibility that others treat one well (a tacit appeal for positive reciprocity); or (d) it could be a challenge to put oneself sympathetically and imaginatively into the shoes of the other before determining how to act (this could be nuanced in a particular way by focussing on how one appreciates being given a break when found to be in the wrong or in special need). Despite the important differences between these possible roles, they all have in common the call to look at things from the other person’s angle, that is, they all in some measure share something of a humanist vision. e last is most overt in asserting the value of each other person in his or her own right. And the last (but not necessarily with the parenthesised nuance) is the way the Golden Rule functions in all the Jewish sources as well as here in Matthew.465 Interpreters have oen noted a signi cant commonality between the Golden Rule and the call to love one’s neighbour as oneself, a commonality which is embedded in the Targum Yerushalmi text of Lv. 19:18, which glosses with a form of the Golden Rule. To what degree can one say that the Golden Rule actually tells one what to do? Some people have criticised it as encouraging a naive egoism in which one’s immediate personal perception and experience become the ultimate moral arbiter. In our present culture with its tendencies towards radical relativism and private truth this could be a real danger, but the criticism is probably unfair for the historical intention and use of the Rule. Others have pointed out that far from being able to function in a normative fashion for ethics, the very principle of the Rule implicitly presupposes an existing awareness of a content for

appropriate behaviour. And this content is capable of being formed and developed in all the ways in which moral perception is created. e preceding content of the Sermon on the Mount represents just such an attempt to develop moral perception and thus to shape the actual moral content of what might be practised in response to the challenge of the Golden Rule. At the same time the Golden Rule does bring something of its own into the moral realm through its assertion of the signi cance of each other person in his or her own right and of the need to engage by sympathetic imagination with the reality of the other person’s experience. Despite the emphatic ‘all of everything’, the Golden Rule is meant to be understood qualitatively rather than quantitatively: it is not a demand that our actions reach out in speci c form to every person who might act in some way or other towards us. At the same time the call to love one’s enemies in 5:43-48 stands as a reminder that no circumscribed practice of the Golden Rule is to be accepted. How does the Golden Rule summarise the Sermon? Presumably it can do so because it is to be read in the light of the call to be radically geared to the well-being of the neighbour, including the enemy, which has emerged so powerfully in 5:21-48. Used as a conclusion in this way, the Golden Rule makes clear that the radical behaviour called for is not to be undertaken as focussed on the self (e.g., as some kind of ascetic discipline), but as focussed on the other person (of course this is already clear enough for the nal antithesis in 5:43-48 and is implicit in other parts of the sermon). e formulation of the Golden Rule also allows for the ethos formed from the speci c demands of the Sermon to be generalised and adapted into new situations with their fresh challenges. Finally, the summarising role of the Golden Rule represents the claim of a certain kind of rational intelligibility for the demands of the

Sermon. e Sermon is identi ed by the summary as a (radical) implementation of a moral insight that has broad currency.466 e Matthean text claims that the Golden Rule not only summarises Jesus’ teaching but also and at the same time summarises the Law (and the Prophets). is is, of course, designed to reinforce the assertion in 5:17. at such a summary of the Law is within the possibility of Jewish sensibility is indicated by the tradition in b. Šab. 31a that Hillel summarised the Law for a Gentile in these words: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary thereon; go and learn it’. Mt. 7:12’s failure to speak directly about God is striking both in relation to the Law and to the Sermon in which, as we have seen, 6:1–7:11 focusses on relating to God rather than to one’s neighbour. But this is also true of the Hillel tradition, and the same striking feature will be found in the listing of commandments in Mt. 19:17-19. Perhaps what is re ected is the prophetic consciousness that precisely in the treatment of one’s neighbour God is most oen and most agrantly dishonoured. Certainly the Rule intends no loss of focus on God. K. Challenges to Implement the Sermon (7:13-27) 1. Enter through the Narrow Gate (7:13-14) through the narrow gate. For athe gatea is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it [i.e., the wide gate]. 14bHow narrow is cthe gate,c and [how] constricted is the way that leads to life! And there are few who find it [i.e., the narrow gate]. 13Enter

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. Missing from ‫ *א‬a b c h k etc. to give ‘the way is wide and broad’, probably in an attempt to deal with the difficulty of linking the parts together if the chiastic arrangement is not spotted (see below). b. ‫( *א‬B* etc.) Nc 700c etc. read οτι (‘because’), conforming the text to the parallel in v. 13. c-c. Missing from a few minor texts (cf. note a-a). Bibliography Betz, H. D., ‘An Episode in the Last Judgment (Matt. 7:21-23)’, in Essays, 125-57. • Black, D. A., ‘Remarks on the Translation of Matthew 7:14’, FilolNT 2 (1989), 193-95. • Denaux, A., ‘Der Spruch von den zwei Wegen im Rahmen des Epilogs der Bergpredigt’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 305-35. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘e Merits of the Narrow Gate’, JSNT 15 (1982), 20-29. • Horsley, G. H. R., ‘Τί at Matthew 7:14: “Because’, not “How”’, FilolNT 3 (1990), 141-43. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 175-211. • Parrott, R., ‘Entering the Narrow Door: Matt 7:13-14/Luke 13:22-24’, Forum 5.1 (1989), 111-20. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 148-57. • Trites, A. A., ‘e Blessings and Warnings of the Kingdom (Matthew 5:3-12; 7:13-27)’, RevExp 89 (1992), 179-196. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 139-42. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5, 7-11.

is small section offers the rst of a series of challenges as to the importance of taking effective note of what has been laid out in 5:17–7:12. A much abbreviated version of this tradition is found in Lk. 13:24, which has ‘door’ for ‘gate’ and nothing of the parallel development of the two ways. While the Lukan material is likely to be an abbreviation of something like the Matthean form, the Matthew form itself is likely to be composite, and this makes decisions about tradition history very difficult.467

7:13 Structurally the opening imperatival clause (v. 13a) is the thesis statement for this section; it is then supported in vv. 13b-14

by two closely parallel statements. ough these will add the imagery of the way to that of the gate, the imagery of the gate retains its central focus by being mentioned at the beginning and end of each of the parallel statements. e opening imperative, ‘enter’, has no speci ed object, but given the link back to 5:17-20 in 7:12, the use of the same verb in 5:20 with the kingdom of heaven suggests that it is the object to be supplied. is arrangement nds support from the presence of the phrase ‘enter into the kingdom of heaven’ in 7:21 to come.468 Also in favour of this understanding is the identi cation of the destination in v. 14 as ‘life’: Matthew’s tendency to use ‘life’ in close relation with the kingdom is not difficult to establish.469 e kingdom is likely to be pictured here as a city-state. Matthew has probably chosen the imagery of narrowness to suggest the constriction of one’s choices involved in taking the challenge of Jesus’ teaching: there is a very sharply de ned mode of entry. e narrow gate throws up images of the need to make a choice which is not obvious (this is not where the crowd is going to go), to be attentive to where the gate is located, perhaps to experience the discomfort of squeezing through a narrow space, and possibly to wait patiently while others are going through the gate. e alternative to the narrow gate is a wide gate: the unstated assumptions are that everyone must go through a gate and end up somewhere and that only two gates exist. e default choice is clearly seen to be the wide gate: a wide gate beckons in a way that a narrow gate does not; a wide gate suggests an important destination; a wide gate (such as the main gate of a city) is set up to deal with the movement of large numbers of people. At this point the imagery expands to include a ‘way’, which is best seen as the way that leads to the gate in question.470 Having

been initially told to enter by the gate, the reader now faces the question of the way to get to the gate. To get to the right gate, one must rst choose the right way. e imagery of a way introduces the idea of the duration of the time of a journey and therefore adds the notion of tenacity to that of choice. To the wide gate corresponds the broad way. We are to think of a main roadway, not able to be missed, constructed to carry large numbers comfortably, implicitly claiming to be going somewhere important; perhaps we are to think of easy travelling conditions. A minor chiasm enables ‘which leads to destruction’ to qualify ‘the way’ and ‘there are many who enter through it’ to reach back to ‘the wide gate’ for its referent.471 Matthew uses ἀπώλεια (‘destruction’) only here as an image of the judgment of God in condemnation,472 but it hardly needs to be said that judgment is a theme found frequently in Matthew. e language of the ‘many’ and the ‘few’ is oen used in a selfcongratulatory sectarian sense, but that is not at all the case here: Matthew consistently points his Christian readers to their own answerability to the searching scrutiny of God’s judgment. In the immediate context v. 21 (‘not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” …’) will point this up. Here the language of the many and the few, as a natural development of the wide and narrow imagery, functions to accentuate the urgency of the imperative (cf. 22:14). 7:14 e statement about the narrow gate is closely parallel to that about the constricted way, but Matthew supplies variation by changing from a buttressing clause (‘for wide is …’) to an exclamation (‘how narrow …’).473 However, these are merely different rhetorical strategies to achieve an equivalent goal. Over against ‘broad’ stands the Greek τεθλιμμένη (perfect passive participle of θλίβειν), normally taken to mean ‘narrow’ (‘constricted’ in the translation above) and simply chosen to parallel the change of word between gate and way in v. 13. But when used to

mean ‘narrow’, the word gives the idea of something being under pressure because it is too small for the purpose to which it is being put (much as we might say ‘overstretched’). Where the presence of numbers of people is involved, this connotes overcrowding.474 But overtaxed due to excess of people is not what we have here. Possibly, then, we should consider an alternative approach to τεθλιμμένη. e cognate noun θλῖψις means ‘pressure’ and in Matthew is used for ‘suffering’ that is related either to persecution or to the eschatological turmoil to precede the end.475 By a kind of metonymy, could τεθλιμμένη be applied not to the track but to the people who travel along that track, and thus the term speak about the persecution to be expected by those who travel this way (cf. 5:11, 12, 44)?476 e parallelism between the two ways and the two gates makes this difficult since nothing comparable can be proposed for the broad way.477 Returning to the meaning ‘constricted’, we note that the pressure on the track which imperils its usability can readily be envisaged as caused, for example, by encroaching growth. e pressure of using the track can be imagined in terms of difficulty getting a mount through or even of getting oneself through a tangle of encroaching branches. But in this way, of course, pressure on the track means pressure on the people on the track; and it may well be that much as the presence of ‘holy’ in 7:6 led the way into the application of the imagery, the possibility of a secondary echo pointing to suffering through persecution may contribute here to locating at least one of the kinds of pressure that Matthew had in mind. Talk of the need to find the gate constitutes a point of imperfect parallelism with the statement about the wide gate and broad way (at the same time one should be guided by the chiasm in the earlier statement to take ‘gate’ as the object of ‘ nd’ — coming back to the gate from which v. 13 began also helps to bring closure to the

pericope). Presumably one nds the gate primarily by staying on the appropriate way, but the obscurity of a narrow gate may also be involved.478 For the possibility that ὀλίγοι should be translated ‘fewer’ rather than ‘few’ see the comments at 22:14. 2. Beware of False Prophets (7:15-20) 15Beware

of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are predatory wolves. 16From their fruits you shall know them. Do they gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17In the same way every good tree produces agood fruit; the bad tree produces ‘evil’ fruit. 18A good tree cannot bproduce ‘evil’ fruit; nor can a bad tree bproduce agood fruit. 19Every treec not producing good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, from their fruits you shall know them.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e word here is καλος, not the αγαθος of the ‘good tree’. b. ‘Produce’ renders the verb ποιειν throughout, but in the rst marked position B expresses this with the distinctive ενεγκειν, as does ‫ *א‬in the second marked position. c. A transitional ουν (‘then’) is added by C2 L Z f13 33 1582c etc. Bibliography Anderson, J. C., ‘Matthew: Sermon and Story’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 496-507, esp. 500-505. • Aune, D. E., Prophecy, 222-24. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 93100. • Piper, R. A., Wisdom, 44-51. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 79-96. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 213-41. • Via, D. O., Jr., ‘e Gospel of Matthew: Hypocrisy as Self-Deception’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 508-16, esp. 508-11. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5, 13-14.

e second challenge to the importance of taking effective note of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon focuses on the capacity to mislead of high-pro le gures who, despite seeming to be well centred on God, fail to produce the corresponding ‘fruit’. Mt. 7:16-18 are closely parallelled by Lk. 6:43-44 (cf. Mt. 12:33-35). Matthew has adapted the material with the addition of v. 15 (traditional motifs, but likely to be redactional), v. 19 (used earlier for John the Baptist), and v. 20 (reiteration).479 Matthew will make further use of this tradition in 12:33-35.

7:15 e language of ‘false prophets’ has regularly drawn the attention of interpreters away from the role of 7:15-20 in this concluding section of the Sermon. Expositors have offered many suggestions as to who these false prophets might be,480 but the very search for an identity probably involves a mistake regarding the role of the designation. Mt. 5:17–7:12 have been a challenge to the true meaning of the Law and the Prophets as illuminated by Jesus. ere are two natural ways in which the reference in 7:15 links to what precedes. (a) ‘e Prophets’ in 7:12 and 5:17 refers to (writings that emanate from) those who declare the will and purpose of God; in line with this, the Matthean Jesus of the Sermon has been engaged in just such a prophetic role.481 (b) ‘False prophets’ are to be de ned negatively as those who, while claiming for themselves the capacity to de ne for others the will of God, represent in their practice (and probably also in their teaching, but not necessarily so obviously) a false understanding of the will of God, speci cally an understanding that is not in accord with the OT (Law and the) Prophets as now illuminated by Jesus. What primarily de nes them is the falseness of their relationship to the prophetic stand of Jesus. Presumably one is to beware of false prophets because their in uence may distort one’s own embrace of the teaching of Jesus.482 Since they disguise themselves as sheep, their falseness is not

necessarily immediately apparent. ough ‘sheep’ here points in the rst instance to harmlessness over against the predatory nature of the wolves, we should almost certainly understand that the disguise is, more precisely, to enable free movement483 among the ock of sheep, which is thus implicitly identi ed as the prey. us an allusion to the image of Israel as the ock of God is probably involved.484 In Ez. 22:27 wolves who are making predatory attacks (the same Greek roots as in Mt. 7:15) on the poor and needy represent the behaviour of Jewish officials of the day.485 But where the attack there is blatant, the threat in Mt. 7:15 is insidious, and its source remains unspeci ed. While no doubt the attack of the wolf is to be understood as serving the self-interest of the wolf (appetite satis ed), the focus is probably more strongly on the damage done to the sheep (destruction of life). In the imagery ‘inwardly’ means ‘underneath the misleading clothing’, but this in turn points to the inner person (but the emphasis in what follows on externally observable fruit indicates that no dualistic contrast of the inner and the outer is intended). e kind of thing that Matthew is thinking of here is best clari ed by the way in which he later indicates that the scribes and Pharisees belong in this category.486 But we should not in the rst instance take the material here as an attack on the scribes and Pharisees. To do this would be to deprive it of its generality and in particular of its challenge to Christians, and yet more pointedly to Christian leaders. No doubt we are to understand that the ‘false prophets’ have the trappings of piety and righteousness — the obvious marks of being part of the people of God. It will become clear that their falseness is to be spotted, at least in the rst instance, not so much from what they say as from what they do. Nonetheless, the choice of the term ‘false prophets’ suggests the need to be wary

not only of their example but also of what they say about God and his will. 7:16 Knowing who the false prophets are is problematic precisely because of the use of disguise. e clever person can readily mislead others. Because we are probably not dealing with an actual claim to prophetic identity, the classic tests for the false prophet (incitement to idolatry, failed prediction — Dt. 13:1-6; 18:20-22) are of little help. Instead, the advice is to look at the fruit. What is the outworking in the lives of these people of what they stand for? is advice corresponds with a widespread human recognition that close observation of a person’s actions is the most accurate guide to what a person really is. In the Matthean context instinctive recognition of what constitutes appropriate fruit has now been sharpened and extended by the teaching of the Sermon itself. e validity of looking at the fruit in order to discern true identity is supported by examples from nature. e fruit of a plant is in accord with the identity of the particular plant.487 e use of inde nite third person active forms (‘do they gather’) in place of the passive is colloquial and as such has been retained in translation. Grapes and gs were vital produce in Palestine,488 while thornbushes and thistles ourished and were a constant problem.489 Compared to the Lukan parallel (6:44), Matthew prefers the question form and has a tighter parallelism between the two examples. He has also moved his parallel to Lk. 6:43 to aer the parallel to v. 44 in order to smooth the transition from his distinctive material in Mt. 7:15.490 7:17-18 With a move from imagery of fruit that is in accord with species to a concern with quality of fruit, Jesus now claims that the match between good and bad fruit and trees is similar to that between kinds of produce and species of plant. (e images of v. 16

are used to buttress the claim made in v. 17 using fruit-tree imagery.491) ere is proverbial wisdom here, true in general but capable of many exceptions (cultivation, climatic conditions, plant disease, and insect pests also determine the quality of the fruit). But perhaps in a more fundamental sense the proverbial claim is de nitionally true since for fruit trees the very meaning of ‘good’ has to do with the capacity to produce good fruit, and this may in the end may be the basis for Matthew’s point. With the move from σαπρός of the tree (originally meaning ‘decayed’ or ‘rotten’ but coming to have a more general meaning — ‘un t, unusable, bad, evil’) to πονηρός of the fruit492 (‘bad, evil’ — not always but generally morally evil), Matthew allows the application to intrude into the imagery. V. 18 is a restatement in negative form of v. 17, staying closer to the Lukan parallel (6:43). e repetition is for rhetorical intensi cation. 7:19 is verse repeats exactly the words of John the Baptist from 3:10 (see discussion there). It identi es the Matthean Jesus with the judgment emphasis of John. It also functions to make the ‘false prophets’ less attractive to identify with: Do you want to share their fate? It expands the good and bad fruit imagery into a miniature parable. And it establishes a measure of parallelism between vv. 15-20 and vv. 13-14 and 21-23 (‘cut down and thrown into the re’; ‘leads to destruction’; ‘depart from me, you workers of iniquity’).493 7:20 Aer the explanation and development of vv. 16b-19, we are brought back to a restatement of v. 16a.494 e central point has been the need to recognise in order to avoid the in uence of those who would represent a different vision from that proposed by Jesus. By watching their deeds one is likely to expose their identity more quickly than simply by listening to their words.

3. Do the Will of My Father (7:21-23) 21Not

everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of God, but [only] the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.a 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy bin your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23And then I will make the declaration to them: ‘I never knew you; depart from me, cyou who practice lawlessness’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αυτος εισελευσεται εις την βασιλειαν των ουρανων (‘this one will enter into the kingdom of heaven’) is added by (C2) W Θ (33) 1241 etc., possibly in uenced into spelling out the sense by the lack of a speci c word for ‘only’. b. πολλα (‘many things’) is added by ‫ *א‬to make the point yet more strongly. b.

c. παντες (‘all’) is added by L Q f13 1424 etc., adding emphasis as in note

Bibliography Davison, J. E., ‘Anomia and the Question of an Antinomian Polemic in Matthew’, JBL 104 (1985), 617-33. • Wouters, A., Willen, 50-55. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5, 13-14, 15-20.

is nal third unit of the linked set on the importance of taking effective note of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon issues the challenge of the priority of obedience over the more dramatic manifestations of the powers of the kingdom of God.495 A tradition base for Mt. 7:21-24 can be identi ed from the ties with Lk. 6:46 and 13:25-27; the differences almost entirely represent redactional

development of the Matthean form.496

7:21 us far Jesus has been identi ed as ‘Lord’ only implicitly in the quotation used in 3:3 to describe the role of John the Baptist, and nobody has yet addressed Jesus as Lord. By contrast, Jesus will be addressed as Lord no fewer than ve times in chap. 8. So it is best to see the role of this feature here as in some way introductory to this coming phenomenon. Clearly to call Jesus ‘Lord’ involves some sort of recognition of his signi cance. Whether the use of Lord points to affirmation of faith or to petition has been disputed, but since the text is focussed on what is missing rather than on what is present, there is no need for this level of speci city. To address Jesus as ‘Lord, Lord’ implies a serious level of engagement with him, as illustrated by the episodes in chap. 8 to follow.497

‘Enter the kingdom of heaven’ echoes the language of 5:20 and thus guides the reader to equate the abundant righteousness of 5:20 with ‘the will of my Father’ here. e importance of the ful lment of the will of God has emerged in the Lord’s Prayer at 6:10. God has already been several times designated ‘Father in heaven’, but thus far always as ‘your [or, in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘our’] Father in heaven’.498 From this point forward, however, it will always be (with two exceptions) ‘my Father in heaven’,499 a phrase which brings into focus Jesus’ capacity to mediate a link with the heavenly Father. Here the phrase points to Jesus’ own role (in the Sermon) of making clear what the will of the heavenly Father is.500 Jesus’ use of ‘my Father’ is to be linked with his identi cation as son of God in 3:17; cf. 4:3, 6.501 7:22 Matthew’s primarily future sense for the kingdom of heaven is re ected in his use of ‘on that day’: on the day in which people enter (or fail to enter) the kingdom of heaven.502 Picking up on the statement in v. 21 about failing to enter the kingdom, we are probably to understand the quoted words here as a protest against refusal of entry.503 e ‘Lord, Lord’ address which the people under discussion have been accustomed to using is repeated now in this eschatological scene. Only in 18:5 will Matthew use ‘in the name of ’ for carrying out activity in the name of Jesus, but it is a common early Christian way of speaking,504 and thematically Matthew probably has in mind the mission charge to come in chap. 10, where there will also be casting out of demons (10:8),505 healings (v. 8),506 and a prophetic role (v. 41; cf. 23:34).507 e reality of the claim is not to be doubted, and all of these activities are to be viewed in a thoroughly positive light, facts which throw into sharp relief the importance of what is missing.

7:23 Jesus is normally seen here as in the role of eschatological judge, a role in which he is clearly placed later in Matthew (e.g. 25:31-46), but this may be too developed for the current stage of the story. Clearly, Jesus is being appealed to, which suggests that he is imaged as possibly able to in uence the fate of the excluded ones who appeal to him. e choice of ὁμολογείν for ‘make the declaration’ here508 is likely to be in uenced by the use of this verb in the tradition represented by 10:32.509 ere the interest is in acknowledgment before the heavenly Father. Although judicial implications are not to be denied for 7:23 or 10:32, in neither case is the scene a judicial one as such. Even Betz’s imagery of Jesus as a legal advocate in 7:22-23 may be too precise and is certainly too technical.510 Jesus is simply viewed as potentially having in uence on the gatekeeping arrangements for the kingdom of God. What is meant by ‘I never knew you’? Already the Lukan form uses the language of knowing: literally, ‘I do not know you, where you are from’. is is not to be taken literally. It uses the language of origin because origin was so important for identity in the ancient world, but fundamentally it is a denial of relationship: no link of any signi cance exists. Matthew drops the language of origin and changes the tense to focus on the question of the point of origin of any signi cant relationship: no such point of origin can be identi ed.511 To lack a relationship with Jesus is not to be seen as different from failure to do the will of the Father. Nor does it identify an underlying reason for the failure. One’s relationship with Jesus is seen as established in the readiness to do the will of his Father, as articulated in his (Jesus’) teaching. e petitioners are dismissed in words borrowed from Ps. 6:9(ET 8).512 e choice may be related to the prospect of shame for the psalmist’s enemies (ET v. 10), which is to follow from the Lord having heard the psalmist’s petition (ET vv. 8-9). By itself ‘depart

from me’ is no more ominous than ‘stop bothering me’, but the context in both the psalm and Matthew suggests that much more is at stake. e description ‘you who practice lawlessness’ is not necessarily one which the hearers will immediately recognise as true of themselves. Matthew’s desire is to provoke his readers into the shock of insight that failure to take with utmost seriousness the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon leaves one vulnerable to just this accusation. Matthew will use ‘lawlessness’ three further times: in 13:41 the angels of the Son of Man will gather those who engage in lawlessness from his kingdom; in 23:28 the scribes and Pharisees are said to be full of lawlessness; and 24:12 says that the increase of lawlessness will lead to the love of many growing cold. 4. Build Your House on the Rock (7:24-27) 24Everyone, then, who hears athese words of mine and does them bwill be likeb a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25And the rain came down

and the floods came and the winds blew and cfell against that house, but it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27And the rain came down and the floods came and dthe winds blew andd estruck against that house, and it fell, and its downfall wasf gon a grand scale.g

TEXTUAL NOTES a. B* 1424 etc. omit ‘these’, dropping the narrow focus on the Sermon (cf. Lk. 6:47). b-b. C L W 1006 1342 1506 etc. have ομοιωσω αυτον (‘I will compare him’). c. προσεκρουσαν (‘struck against’) in W; προσερρηξαν (‘burst upon’) in Θ 579 etc. (cf. Lk. 6:48); προσεκοψαν (‘struck against’) in 33 1424 etc., as in

v. 27. None of the words is obviously to be preferred as re ecting a xed idiom, and all are reasonable synonyms. d-d. Omitted by ‫*א‬, perhaps with the idea that the house will fall before the third element of assault has ever arrived. e. προσεκρουσαν (‘struck against’) in f13 etc.; προσερρηξαν (‘burst upon’) in C Θ f1 205 etc. (cf. Lk. 6:49). Cf. note c. f. σϕοδρα (‘suddenly’) is added by Θ f13 33 etc. (cf. ευθυς [‘suddenly’] in Lk. 6:49). g-g. is is a colloquial translation of μεγάλη; the literal translation ‘great’ comes across rather atly in English. Bibliography Abou-Chaar, K., ‘e Two Builders: A Study of the Parable in Luke 6:47-49’, eological Review (Beirut) 5 (1982), 44-58. • Flusser, D., Gleichnisse, 98105. • Franz, G., ‘e Parable of the Two Builders’, ABW 3 (1995), 6-11. • Heil, J. P., ‘Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders in Matthew 7:24-27’, in Parables, ed. W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 23-35. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 13037. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 173-89. • Knowles, M. P., ‘“Everyone Who Hears ese Words of Mine”: Parables on Discipleship (Matthew 7:2427//Luke 6:47-49; Luke 14:28-33; Luke 17:7-10; Matthew 20:1-16)’, in Parables, ed. R. N. Longenecker, 285-305. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5; 7:13-14, 15-20.

e nal piece of the Sermon reiterates the general thrust of the three linked units which preceded it, but now in climax speaks directly of the doing of ‘these words of mine’ (of the Sermon).513 ‘e parable is about recognition of the authority of the words of Jesus; but the Matthean Christ situates … the recognition of his authority at the level of “doing”, hence at the ethical level.’ 514 e Lukan parallel in 6:47-49 also concludes the Sermon. e Matthean form is generally judged to be closer to an original oral form, but it is

unlikely that the differences between them are to be attributed entirely to intervention by the Evangelists.515

7:24 e two contrasting cases are reported in very close parallelism, with signi cant difference of wording only to emphasise the contrasting fates.516 Hearing is what the disciples and crowds have been doing throughout the Sermon, the challenge now is to do.517 Matthew’s future, ‘will be like’ (Luke has ‘is like’),518 though it could be merely logical, is likely to be eschatological. Matthew will again juxtapose the wise and the foolish in 25:2, 8, where contrasting eschatological fates are also involved. e juxtaposition of the wise person and the fool is a feature of Wisdom.519 Many OT texts appealed to the security and stability of God as the rock.520 7:25 Matthew’s imagery contemplates a multiple assault: a storm bringing battering winds along with heavy autumnal rains and associated ooding.521 e stability of a solid rock foundation will help the house to withstand stress imposed by the elements at other points as well. ere is likely to be some in uence from Ez. 13:10-16, but the contrast of fates is more like the wisdom perspective of Pr. 10:25; 12:7; 14:11. e wisdom perspective, which characteristically looks for the outworking of God’s justice in the present, is here applied by means of storm imagery to the period of stress and disturbance which ushers in the eschaton. While God’s judgment is certainly involved, we need to think here more broadly of a period of eschatological upheaval which engulfs God’s people along with everyone else (see discussion at 24:8, where the imagery of birth pangs is used). 7:26-27 e failure to do is the difference between foolishness and wisdom and means that sand has been substituted for rock. Hearing without doing also has an overtone of judgment in Ez.

33:32. Destabilisation due to the washing away of sand from around the foundation also makes the house more vulnerable to the stresses imposed by the elements at other points. e imagery contemplates not just damage but utter ruin.522 is is perhaps more than the logic of the story can guarantee, but it is no more than is contemplated in the application. L. He Was Teaching as One Who Had Authority (7:28–8:1) so happened that when Jesus had finished these words, athe crowdsa were astonished at his teaching, 29for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as btheir scribesc. 1When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. 28It

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. 998 has the generalising παντες (‘all’), and Δ Θ f1 etc. accentuate by adding this to ‘the crowds’. b. Missing from C* L 565 700 1424 etc. to give ‘the scribes’, conforming to the more normal usage. c. C* W 33 1241 etc. add και οι ϕαρισαιοι (‘and the Pharisees’) to give the standard pair. Bibliography For 7:28–9:34 Carson, D. A., When Jesus Confronts the World: An Exposition of Matthew 8– 10 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987). • Genuyt, F., ‘Évangile de Matthieu: Chapitres 8–9,8’, SémiotBib 63 (1991), 3-17. • Joubert, S., ‘Much Ado about Nothing? In Discussion with Study of Evert-Jan Vledder: Con ict in the Miracle Stories in Matthew 8 and 9: A Sociological and Exegetical Study’, HTS 51 (1995), 245-253. • Luz, U., ‘Die Wundergeschichten von Mt 8–9’, in

Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 149-65. • Moiser, J., ‘e Structure of Matthew 8–9: A Suggestion’, ZNW 76 (1985), 117-18. • Pilch, J. J., ‘Reading Matthew Anthropologically: Healing in Cultural Perspective’, Listening 24 (1989), 278-89. • Stewart-Sykes, A., ‘Matthew’s “Miracle Chapters”: From Composition to Narrative, and Back Again’, ScrB 25 (1995), 55-65. • eissen, G., Miracle Stories, 209-11. • Vledder, E.-J., Conflict in the Miracle Stories: A Socio-Exegetical Study of Matthew 8 and 9 (JSNTSup 152. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997). • Wainwright, E., ‘e Matthean Jesus and the Healing of Women’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 74-95. • Wong, K.C., Interkulturelle, 109-24. See further at 5:1-2; 7:1-5, 13-14, 15-20, 24-27.

is brief narrative conclusion to the Sermon (which, especially in 8:1, also functions to introduce the next section running to 9:34) picks up motifs from 4:25–5:2 in order to frame the extended discourse. is section stresses the authority of Jesus and his impact on the crowds. e similarity between Lk. 7:1a and Mt. 7:28a (but not verbal) suggests that a narrative ending concluded the Sermon in the tradition used by each of the Evangelists. For 7:28b-29 Matthew draws on Mk. 1:22, which he reproduces exactly, apart from the addition of ‘the crowds’ and ‘their’. 8:1 echoes language from 4:25; 5:1.

7:28 Matthew will also mark the completion of major speeches by Jesus in 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1 with the words καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘It so happened that when Jesus had nished’). e repetition highlights the signi cance of these collections of teaching in Matthew’s work. ‘ese words’ uses the same phrase as of the words needing to be acted upon in v. 24. e signi cant engagement of the crowds with Jesus’ teaching, suspected from 5:1, is now con rmed. How are we to evaluate the astonishment of the crowds? From 7:29 it will become clear that his

teaching as one who had authority was foundational to their astonishment. But were they simply astonished that he so taught (as in 22:33 the crowds are astonished by teaching of Jesus that silences the Sadducees), or were they (as the disciples in 19:25) astonished that he should make such radical demands on those who would wish to enter the kingdom of God, or does the possibility remain (as for the hometown synagogue in 13:54) that, impressive as the teaching was, it may need to be labelled ultimately as somehow overreaching or false? e Gospel stresses the positive impact, but various possibilities remain. e crowds have not yet embraced the way of Christian discipleship. Whether they will act on what they have heard remains uncertain. 7:29 is is the rst mention of the authority of Jesus. Matthew would have us understand that there was something palpable about the authority of Jesus. He will go on to identify Jesus’ authority as given him by God, and to show that, beyond teaching, the authority embraced healing by a mere word, declaration of forgiveness and the power that stands behind the symbolic claims involved in Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his disruption of business in the temple; on the basis of his own authority he will impart authority to the Twelve to heal and exorcise, and to engage in disciple making.523 e ‘scribes of the people’ were introduced in a scene from a generation earlier (see discussion at 2:4); ‘their scribes’ here echoes that language: because of their education and knowledge the scribes exercised a leadership role in and responsibility for the people. e contrast with the scribes is regularly linked with the rabbinic emphasis on transmitting the tradition in the name of predecessors who link one back into the chain of tradition.524 But this is not something for which the scribes are criticised in Matthew,525 and it seems better to see in the contrast here a (not particularly precise) criticism of the adequacy

of the scribes’ ful lment of their leadership role in the speci c area of teaching (equivocating between competing views? failing to provide guidance in important areas? unwillingness to challenge the status quo?). e Matthean Jesus steps into something of a vacuum (cf. 9:35: ‘sheep without a shepherd’). 8:1 As Jesus went up the mountain at 5:1, now he comes down from the mountain. As he set the scene for the Sermon Matthew noted that great crowds followed Jesus (4:25); now he reiterates this point (the Sermon has not lost Jesus his popularity). 8:1 is normally made the introduction for 8:2-4, but its role with 7:28-29 in creating the framing bracket around the Sermon suggests that it belongs here.526 ere is no clear continuing role for the great crowds as Matthew continues in chap. 8.527 On the other hand, v. 1 does mark the beginning of action again aer the Sermon, and Jesus moves in stages from the mountain to Peter’s house between vv. 1 and 14. V. 1 is a transitional piece.

1. Given the in uence of Mk. 3:7-8 and possibly v. 10 on Mt. 4:24-25, there is possibly a tie with Mk. 3:13 (note the Lukan link of the naming of the Twelve in a mountain setting [6:12-16] with the start of the sermon [v. 17]), both in terms of the mountain setting and the coming to Jesus of the disciples. Given the parallel between Mt. 7:28-29 and Mk. 1:22, ‘began to teach’ in Mt. 5:2 may echo the same text. 2. e close link between Mt. 4:23 and 9:35 stands in favour of connecting 5:1 and 9:36. 3. Mora, ‘La symbolique’, 35, observes that the crowds which Matthew introduces from 4:23 could not be addressed in a Galilean synagogue! 4. e evidence is surveyed by Wilkins, Disciple. 5. Mt. 8:22 is more in the nature of a renewal and clari cation of an existing call. Beyond 10:1 there is only the unsuccessful call of the rich

young man in 19:16-22. see the discussion at 4:18-22. 6. ‘A different one (ἕτερος) of the disciples’ in Mt. 8:21 can be read naturally as implying that the scribe of v. 19 could also be labelled a disciple, but the sense may well be ‘a different person, [this time one] of the disciples’. 7. See also Mt. 13:52. e cognate verb μανθάνειν (‘learn’) also occurs (9:13; 11:29; 24:32), but since it is used for any kind of learning it has no bearing on the present question. 8. Mt. 14:23; 15:29; Mk. 3:13; 5:11; 6:46; Lk. 6:12; 8:32; 9:28; Jn. 6:3, 15. 9. Cf. the use in American English of ‘in the hospital’ without reference to any particular hospital. 10. See 1 Macc. 4:18, 19; 9:38, 40; Jos., War 1.319; Ant. 5.177; 13.159. 11. See McCurley, Ancient Myths, 126-82. 12. is option has the virtue of joining with the Moses typology that was evident in Mt. 2 and the Exodus typology that plays a role in 4:1-11. 13. Donaldson, Mountain, 116. Donaldson offers a detailed case for taking the Zion tradition as the explanatory key to all the mountain scenes. 14. Cf. Mt. 13:1, 2; 23:2; 26:55; Lk. 2:46; 4:20. 15. Cf. Job 3:1-2; Ps. 78:2 (which Matthew will quote in 13:35). 16. e sermon comes back to third person formulation for the concluding materials (Mt. 7:21-27), but because the emphasis there is on doing what Jesus has been saying in the sermon, the material can easily be seen as remaining implicitly second person, and so it is less likely that a signi cant structure marker is involved. 17. e call for repentance in Mt. 4:17 suggests that there is also room here for people to reassess their own response to their situation and history, and to fall into line now with what God has intended his people to learn from their experience. 18. E.g., three sets of three; two sets of four, with the nal beatitude set off (various reasons are suggested); a set of ten (treating Mt. 5:12 as a kind of beatitude). Interpreters have also looked for structure which has subsequently been distorted in pre-Matthean forms. (Given that the beatitude of 5:5 is ‘intruded’ into the main three Lukan beatitudes, I nd attractive the view that an earlier form without 5:5 was organised on the

basis of the alternation of lines of ve and three words for the statement of beatitude.) 19. It is signi cant that the sequence of ‘divine’ passives is broken in the middle member of each three. is is one feature that counts against nding structural signi cance in the repetition of ‘righteousness’ (fourth and eighth beatitudes) and dividing the beatitudes into two sets of four. Since this alternative structuring normally still allows for Mt. 5:3 and 10 as brackets, the difference between the two suggestions is not great. 20. Tob. 13:14 (S text only) has three; 2 Enoch 42:7-14 has nine; 2 Enoch 52 has seven, alternating with curses; 4Q525 has a series of ve (the rst involves a reconstruction of the text), with the h having four positive and four negative statements instead of the single positive and single negative that mark each of the earlier beatitudes. e use of lists of beatitudes is not reported for ancient Greek literature. 21. In wisdom literature they serve to commend the proposed path of goodness; in prophetic and eschatological texts they express con dence in God’s intervention to put right the present unhappy situation; in historical texts they mark God’s blessing of the king or the people. 22. e extreme rarity of second person beatitudes, the grammatical awkwardness of the Lukan form (nothing in the rst clause anticipates the second person form of the second clause), the Lukan restriction of the audience to the disciples, and the availability of the nal second person beatitude (with its various formal differences) to in uence secondarily the form of the earlier beatitudes all suggest that the Matthean third person form is likely to be more original than the Lukan second person form. 23. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:280-81. 24. ere is much to be said for the view of Malina, New Testament World, 85, that ‘the poor’ are those who have suffered misfortune on such a scale as to be dislodged from their niche in society (whether this is high or low). 25. While I have tried to map the range of understanding, I inevitably cannot list here every nuance that has been offered in the scholarship. 26. e dative is taken variously as instrumental, of destination, or locative.

27. Note the juxtaposition in both Mt. 4:23–5:1 and 11:5 of good news for the poor and healing. Also, in both cases the context is linked with ‘the kingdom of heaven’ (5:3; 11:11-12). Some scholars are keen to minimise or even eliminate the role of Is. 61 in the beatitudes, most recently Talbot, ‘Heureux’, 361-67. 28. e sentence is ἐγγὺς κύριος τοῖς συντετριμμένοις τὴν καρδίαν καὶ τοὺς ταπεινοὺς τῷ πνεύματι σώσει (‘e Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and he will save the humble in spirit’). e Hebrew corresponding to ταπεινούς is dkʾy [‘broken/crushed’]. A tie between Ps. 33(34):19 and Is. 61:1 is provided by the shared reference in the immediate context to the brokenhearted (identical in Hebrew, same vocabulary but different syntax in Greek; no other match is as close in the OT, but cf. the related texts in Ps. 146[147]:3; Is. 57:15 [where, in both cases, the Hebrew is different]). Related Hebrew expressions are špl rwḥ (‘lowly in spirit’) in Pr. 16:19; 29:23; Is. 57:15; nkh-rwḥ (‘broken in spirit’) in Is. 66:2; dkʾy rwḥ (‘broken/crushed in spirit’) in Ps. 34:19; perhaps indirectly in Is. 57:15. 29. Nolland, Luke, 1:282-83. ough humility before God is part of the understanding that emerges here, this is not based on any assumption that OT uses of ʿnw need imply piety (humility before God) or humility as a desirable moral quality. In Nu. 12:3 humility is in view (Moses is not prepared to press his own case), as it may be in Pr. 3:34. In Zp. 2:3 the call to seek ʿnw suggests humility before God (but probably does so via a general imagery of lowliness: try to be so little that you are able to be tucked away and overlooked on the day of Yahweh’s wrath). Sometimes a contrast is drawn with the wicked (Pss. 37:11; 147:6), but this is likely to be only the contrast between oppressors and oppressed. Otherwise the emphasis is squarely on lowliness and powerlessness. 30. In 1QH 14:3 (6:3 in Martínez and Tigchelaar, Scrolls) ʿnwy rwḥ (‘humbled of spirit’) is followed in a list of qualities by ‘those re ned by poverty and those puri ed by ordeal’; in 1QM 14:7 weakness and neediness come more to the fore, where connected terms include ‘those with broken backs’, ‘the frail’, and ‘the melting heart’. 31. A more general term than πτωχός might have been preferred if the link to Is. 61:1 were not important, but the rendering of ʿnw in the LXX

allows πτωχός to be a reasonable choice (πτωχός four times, πένης three times, both of which terms involve strong socioeconomic imagery; πραΰς nine times, ταπεινός ve times). 32. αὐτῶν could mean ‘(made up) of them’, but this does not t as naturally with the explanatory clauses of the other beatitudes. For the kingdom as something that may be possessed cf. Mt. 21:43; 25:34. 33. e Lukan woes could not accommodate the Matthean form. No certain answer can be given to the question of the more original form here, but priority is more likely to belong to the Lukan form. is would mean that the Is. 61 link at this point represents a development. 34. e related language in Sir. 48:24 is also likely to be an echo of Is. 61:2. 35. See 1QH 18:14-15 (23:14-15 in Martínez and Tigchelaar, Scrolls); 11Q Melch 2:20. 36. For related sentiments see Ps. 126:5-6; Is. 60:20; 66:10; Je. 31:13; Bar. 4:23; 5:1. 37. On the basis of Aristotle’s de nition in Eth. Nic. 4.11 (meekness is a mean between irascibility and incapacity for anger), Luz, Matthew 1–7, 236 n. 68, de nes it as ‘well-measured, regulated mastering of wrath’. 38. Cf. the use of Ps. 37:11 in 4QpPsa 2:9-11. 39. e LXX reads οἱ δὲ πραεῖς κληρονομήσουσιν γῆν (‘the lowly will inherit [the] land’). 40. e bond with Is. 61 is strengthened further by the presence in Is. 61:7 of κληρονομ ήσουσιν τῆν γῆν (‘will inherit the land’). 41. e nearest thing to an exception is the one place where the singular is used in Nu. 12:3 with reference to the humility of Moses (cf. at n. 29). e texts are Job 24:4; Pss. 24(25):9 (2x); 33(34):2; 36(37):11; 75(76):9; 146(147):6; 149:4. 42. Possibly the very choice of πραεῖς is intended to inject a sense of humility before God, along the lines of the Qumran piety discussed at 5:3, but given the contexts this could not be at the expense of nding a primary reference to lowliness and powerlessness.

43. e Qumran interpretation also focusses on the holy land (4QpPsa 2:9-11; 3:9-11). 44. E.g., Ps. 107:5-9; Is. 49:10; 55:1-2; 65:13; Je. 38(31):25 LXX; Sir. 24:21. For ‘thirst’ alone see Pss. 42:2; 63:1; 143:6; Am. 8:11. Cf. 1QH 4:11 (12:11 in Martínez and Tigchelaar, Scrolls). 45. ere have been those who thought that literal hunger and thirst were in view. But this possibility can be dismissed on the basis of inability to handle the reference to righteousness in any satisfactory way. 46. Philo, Fuga 139, with its reference to ‘those who thirst and hunger aer nobility of character’, could fall either here or in the following category. 47. Quoting as representative Strecker, ‘Makarismen’, 265. 48. See BDAG, 1087. 49. Apart from references in Proverbs, all the LXX uses of ἐλεήμων (‘merciful’) are of God. e Hebrew word is ḥsd. Its core meaning is something like ‘the active kindness appropriate to a committed personal relationship’. It is dominantly rendered by ἔλεος (‘mercy’) in the LXX. 50. Pr. 11:17; 17:5 (developed further by the LXX), and in the LXX 20:6; 28:22. 51. Ho. 4:1; 6:4(5), 6(7); 12:6(7); Mi. 6:8; Zc. 7:9; and cf. Ps. 109:16. With regard to some of the texts scholars debate whether ḥsd refers to kindness to others or to faithfulness to God; in the LXX, with its use of ἔλεος (‘mercy’), there is no uncertainty. 52. Pr. 17:5 LXX: ‘He that has compassion shall receive mercy’; Test. Zeb. 5:1-4; 8:1: ‘Have compassion towards every person with mercy, in order that the Lord may be compassionate and merciful to you’; b. Šab. 151b: ‘Whoever has pity on people will obtain pity from heaven’; t. B. Qam. 9:30: ‘As long as you are merciful, the Merciful One is merciful to you’. Without the speci c correlation of mercy practised with mercy gained, the underlying idea is already found in Ps. 109:16-19; see also Sib. Or. 2:80. It is possible that the correlation is directly made in Ps. 18:26: ʿm-ḥsyd ttḥsd. e difficulty is that, while both the adjective form ḥsyd and the verbal form titḥsd are etymologically related to ḥsd, the adjective form seems to have developed a life of its own and therefore does not necessarily mean ‘showing mercy’,

while the verbal form is restricted to Ps. 18:26 and its parallel in 2 Sa. 22:26, where its meaning is determined by that of ḥsyd. e NRSV has, ‘with the pure you show yourself pure’. 53. Which is not to say that almsgiving is necessarily a narrowing in this way, only that this can happen. 54. Reference to being pure in heart is also found in Gn. 20:5-6; 4Q525 Frg. 2 2:1; Test. Naph. 3:1; Test. Jos. 4:6. 55. is is the reading of the Greek and Syriac; the Hebrew has ‘seek[ing] your face, O Jacob’, which may express the same thing more cryptically or could be corrupt. 56. See Gn. 27:41; Dt. 28:47; Jdg. 5:16; Pr. 6:18; 27:11; Is. 35:4; Je. 3:17; 23:20; Dn. 1:8. 57. ere is of course a strong biblical tradition that seeing God is either inappropriate or impossible (Ex. 3:6; 19:21; 33:20, 23. Cf. Sipre on Nu. 12:8; Jn. 1:18; 1 Tim. 6:15-16). 58. It goes without saying that the peacemaker will not be one who breaks peace down (cf. the curse in 2 Enoch 52:12, 14 on the one who ‘disturbs those who are peaceful by means of love’ and on the one who ‘with his tongue speaks peace, but in his heart there is no peace’). 59. Echoed in m. ʾAb. 1:12; cf. M. Peʾa 1:1; Mek. on Ex. 20:25; CD 6:21. Pr. 10:10, assuming the value of peacemaking, promotes a speci c strategy (bold rebuke) in relation to the wrong-doing of others. 60. An effective Christian instance of this is found in 2 Cor. 6:18 (where there is probably in uence from Is. 43:6; Je. 31:9). Jub. 1:24-25 is likely to be a Jewish instance. is process of broadening was no doubt facilitated by the more broadly based claim of Israel to be the son of God, rstborn, sons of God, etc. (Ex. 4:22-23; Dt. 14:1; Je. 31:20; Ho. 1:10 [restoration]; 11:1) and to name God as Father (Is. 63:16; 64:8). 61. A different tradition is likely to stand behind ‘sons of God’ in Lk. 20:36, namely, sons of God as members of the heavenly order (cf. Gn. 6:2; Jn. 10:36). 62. Philo does have God as ‘the peacemaker’ in Spec. leg. 2.192. ‘Peacemaker of the world’ was a royal epithet in the Roman world (e.g., Dio

Cass., History 72.15.5), but this is not likely to be relevant to the Matthean beatitude. Kirchschläger, ‘Friedensbotscha’, 225-26, argues for a connection by appealing to Is. 45:7, where the LXX has ὁ ποιῶν εἰρήνην (‘the one making peace’). Coupled with an understanding of sonship as likeness (cf. Mt. 5:45), this produces a coherent understanding, but one that ts the beatitudes context as a whole less well. 63. e importance of sequencing with the set of beatitudes in vv. 4-6 is less certain (and not needed for any explanatory role), but being comforted, inheriting the land, and experiencing the righteousness previously so lacking make quite an adequate sequence. 64. It is not clear what we ought to make of the similarity of 1 Pet. 3:14. Given that 4:14 echoes the tradition behind Mt. 5:11, there is clearly a link. Most likely a pre-Matthean form of the beatitudes is being re ected. But it is just possible that both 1 Pet. 3:14 and 4:14 echo the same beatitude, with the language of righteousness coming from the context (and speci cally the use of ‘righteous’ in 3:12). 65. It is possible that Pol. 2:3, ‘Blessed are the poor and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake! For theirs is the kingdom of God’, re ects an awareness of the role of the six enclosed beatitudes as expansions on the primary statement made by the framing brackets. 66. ‘Enjoy yourselves (‘the righteous ones’ of 2 Bar. 52:4) in the sufferings which you suffer now’. 67. See, e.g., 2 Macc. 6:30; 4 Macc. 10:20; 16:19: ‘you ought to endure any suffering for the sake of God’; 17:9-10: ‘Here lie buried an aged priest and an aged woman and seven sons, because of the violence of the tyrant who wished to destroy the way of life of the Hebrews. ey vindicated their nation, looking to God and enduring torture even to death’. 68. And see 1 Ki. 19:10, 14; Ne. 9:26; Je. 2:30. 69. E.g., Pss. 7; 31:15; 69:26; 109:16 (note the persecution of the poor here); 119:86. 70. e Lukan form is likely to re ect more closely an early form of this tradition, but the main lines of the meaning are not affected (see Nolland, Luke, 1:284-85).

71. Matthew has, however, been strongly christological in his focus from the beginning (e.g., 1:1, 17, 21, 23; 2:5; 3:14-15, 17; 4:1-11, 15-16, 19). 72. ough this is the point being made in the present verse, the larger Matthean approach is more nuanced: in a variety of ways the effects of the kingdom of God already begin to ameliorate the needs of God’s people (see already 4:14-16, 23-24; etc.); but to this is juxtaposed an intensi cation of the pressure on Jesus and those who identify with him. 73. Luke’s ‘hate’, ‘exclude’, ‘rail at’, and ‘cast out your name as evil’ have become ‘rail at’, ‘persecute’, and ‘say every kind of evil’. 74. To ‘speak evil’ of Mt. 5:11 corresponds in 12:34 the impossibility that Jesus’ defamers could ‘speak good’, being themselves ‘evil’. 75. e Matthean wording of the verse is likely to be more original than the Lukan here (Lk. 6:23), except for the use of ‘persecuted’ (continuing the link via Mt. 5:11 with v. 10) and the second of the rejoicing verbs, where the Matthean wording conforms the text to an established pairing (see Nolland, Luke, 1:286). 76. Similar reward language is found in Mt. 10:41-42, but because ‘heaven’ is not conceived of there as the (present) location of the reward, the tenses are future. 77. 1 Ki. 18:4, 13; 19:10, 14; 2 Ch. 36:15-16; Ne. 9:26; Je. 2:30; 26:20-24. In early Jewish tradition see 4QHosa 2:3-6; Liv. Proph., passim; Mart. Is. 2:16; 5:1-14; 4 Bar. 9:21-32; Jub. 1:12; Jos., Ant. 10.38. 78. See further at Mt. 23:30. 79. e reward clause begins with the ὅτι (‘for/because’) used in each of the preceding beatitudes, while the prophets clause begins with οὕτως γάρ (lit. ‘for, thus’). 80. See further discussion at Mt. 10:41 (where a prophet’s reward is also in view); 23:34. 81. For further discussion of original source forms see Nolland, Luke, 1:389-90; 2:656. 82. Ex. 30:35; 2 Ki. 2:19-23; Ez. 16:4. 83. Lv. 2:13; Ez. 43:24; Jub. 21:11; 11QTemple 20:13.

84. Nu. 18:19; 2 Ch. 13:5 have ‘covenant of salt’. In quite another context Ezra 4:14, ‘to eat the salt of the palace’, seems to bear an implication of covenantal loyalty. 85. See Cullmann, ‘Que signi e le sel’, 38, who draws on earlier studies which appeal to the practice of Arab bakers. Cf. Gibble, Yeast. 86. Sir. 39:26; Pliny, Nat. hist. 31.102. 87. Dt. 29:23; Je. 17:6; Zp. 2:9. 88. See Koehler and Baumgarten, Lexicon, 4:1,634. 89. In a somewhat different manner ‘inextinguishable’ protrudes from the imagery at Mt. 3:12. 90. Cf. b. Bek. 8b: ‘“When salt becomes unsavoury, wherewith is it salted”? He replied: “With the aer-birth of a mule”. “And is there an aerbirth of a mule?” “And can salt become unsavoury?”’ 91. Cf. Mt. 12:4; Lk. 4:26, 27. 92. References and German translations are found conveniently at Str-B 1:237. 93. To see people as lights in one way or another is a quite common metaphor (cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:475). 94. e use of οὕτως (‘thus/so/like this/in the same way’) and the phrase ‘your Father in heaven’ are the most Matthean features of the verse (the latter restricted to the Sermon on the Mount — see note below). ‘Shine’ is found in 5:15, ‘the light’ in v. 14. ere are two similar uses of ‘glorify’, but one is also in Mark and Luke (Mt. 15:31; 9:8; Mk. 2:12; Lk. 5:26). ough it ts his interests nicely, ‘good deeds’ is not really Matthean (the one other use, and that in the singular, is shared with Mark [Mt. 26:10; Mk. 14:6]). 95. Mt. 5:16, 45; 6:1; 7:11. See also the related ‘your heavenly Father’ in 5:48; 6:14, 26, 32, which is similarly restricted to the Sermon on the Mount, apart from 23:9. 96. See, e.g., m. Yoma 8:9; m. ʾAb. 5:20. 97. On the likely priority of the Matthean form see Nolland, Luke, 2:709. 98. Cf. Nolland, Luke, 2:815-16. 99. See Nolland, ‘Luke’s Readers’, 208-12, for a discussion of the use in Jewish polemic of the tradition behind Mk. 14:58; Acts 6:14.

100. at, however, we should not exaggerate the distinction between the Law and the Prophets is evidenced by the looser linguistic usage according to which ‘Law’ could be used to include texts from the wider sweep of Scripture (Rom. 3:19; 1 Cor. 14:21; Jn. 10:34; 12:34; for rabbinic texts see Str-B 2:542; 3:159, 463). 101. Mark has thirteen, Luke six. 102. ere are four uses of ἀμήν in the LXX re ecting a Hebrew original. ese and the further uses in Tob. 8:8; 14:15; 3 Macc. 7:23; 4 Macc. 18:23 suggest that ἀμήν gained some currency in Jewish Greek worship language as a loanword. 103. In both cases there is a supernatural speaker: God and Death, respectively. On the prefatory use of ‘amen’ see esp. V. Hasler, Amen; K. Berger, Amen; K. Berger, ‘Zur Geschichte der Einleitungsformen “Amen, ich sage euch”’, ZNW 63 (1972), 45-75; J. Jeremias, ‘Zum nichtresponsorischen Amen’, ZNW 64 (1973), 122-23; J. Strugnell, ‘“Amen, I Say unto You” in the Sayings of Jesus and in the Early Christian Literature’, HTR 67 (1974), 17782; B. Chilton, ‘“Amen”: An Approach through the Syriac Gospels’, Targumic Approaches, 15-23; and for specialist discussion of a possible instance of the prefatory use of ‘amen’ in a seventh-century-B.C. text see the bibliography in Fitzmyer, Luke, 1:536. 104. ‘Heaven’ here is probably the upper reaches of the created order (of which the sky is the most proximate part), and not the dwelling place of God (in Matthean use the plural always means the latter — oen as a euphemism for God — except in 24:31, while the singular spans the two senses). 105. Note the similarity in the thought structure of Je. 31:35-36; 33:2021. On the permanence of the Law cf. Bar. 4:1; Tob. 1:6; 2 Esdr. 9:37; 2 Bar. 77:15. B. Nid. 61b contemplates the possibility of change in the Law for the future life: ‘is implies that the commandments [relevant in this context] will be abolished in the Hereaer’. 106. e Lukan parallel lacks the reference to ἰῶτα. 107. See Philo, Flacc. 131; Plut., Mor. 1100A; Dio Chrys., Or 31.86. 108. For rabbinic texts that show a similar interest in the smallest detail of the scriptural text see Str-B 1:247-49.

109. e rst use of ‘one’ follows ‘iota’, and the second precedes ‘pen stroke’. 110. See Nolland, Luke, 2:582. 111. m. ʾAb. 2:1; 4:2; ʾAbot R. Nat. 2. 112. y. Qid. 1:61b:58; Dt. Rab. 6:2. 113. See the discussion at Mt. 4:20 and cf. 13:52; 23:7, 34; 28:20. 114. e alternatives are oen set in an unhelpful way by ignoring the restrictive ‘one’ and treating the statement as applying to those who disregard (as a whole class) those commandments which are considered to be of least importance. 115. See Mt. 8:11; 11:11; 18:4; and note the parallel to 5:19-20 in the relationship between ‘in the kingdom’ in 18:1 and ‘into the kingdom’ in v. 3. 116. See Mt. 11:11; 18:1, 4; 20:21. e idea of different rewards is closely related (5:12; 10:41-42; 20:23; Str-B 1:249-50; 4:1138-43 gives rabbinic texts). 117. And certainly not ‘one of the least of these commandments’. 118. is is quite different from the theological logic that Paul is seeking to impose in a reductio ad absurdum manner upon his opponents in Galatia (Gal. 5:3; cf. 3:10). It is much closer to the view expressed in Jas. 2:10, where James sets himself against those who feel able to disregard some part of the law (though it is not entirely clear what de nes the ‘law’ that James has in mind). B. Sanh. 99a is somewhat similar: ‘… even if he asserts that the whole Torah is from Heaven, excepting a particular verse … [he has no portion in the future world]’. Both in Judaism and in Matthean thought forgiveness plays a key role in one’s relationship with God, and in neither case are people understood as earning their way into the kingdom of God (though sometimes the use of notions of merit in rabbinic Judaism brings the thought quite close to this). 119. In effect πλεῖον is understood to repeat the thrust of περισσεύῃ. 120. See also Mt. 12:38; 15:1 (order inverted); 23:2, 13, 14 (variant), 15, 23, 25, 27, 29. Contrast Mark, which has no straightforward pairing (2:16 has ‘the scribes of the Pharisees’; 7:1 has ‘the Pharisees and certain of the scribes’, which is resumed in v. 5 as ‘the Pharisees and the scribes’). Luke adds ‘Pharisees’ at 5:21 to make the pair and then repeats this as part of his

patterning at 6:7. He also has the pair at 11:53 out of shared tradition with Mt. 23. e pairing is absent from John. 121. On the Pharisees see M. Smith, ‘Palestinian Judaism in the First Century’, in Israel: Its Role in Civilization, ed. M. Davis (New York: JTSA/Harper & Brothers, 1956), 74-77; E. Rivkin, ‘De ning the Pharisees: e Tannaitic Sources’, HUCA 40-41 (1969-70), 205-49; E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978); E. Rivkin, ‘Scribes, Pharisees, Lawyers, Hypocrites: A Study in Synonymity’, HUCA 49 (1978), 135-140; U. Luz, ‘Jesus und die Pharisäer’, Jud 38 (1982), 229-46; J. Neusner, ‘Two Pictures of the Pharisees: Philosophical Circle or Eating Club’, ATR 64 (1982), 525-38; J. Neusner, ‘Mr. Sanders’ Pharisees and Mine’, SJT 44 (1991), 73-95; A. I. Baumgarten, ‘e Name of the Pharisees’, JBL 102 (1983), 41128; A. I. Baumgarten, ‘Josephus and Hippolytus on the Pharisees’, HUCA 55 (1984), 1-25; A. I. Baumgarten, ‘e Pharisaic Paradosis’, HTR 80 (1987), 6371; D. R. Schwarz, ‘Josephus and Nicolaus on the Pharisees’, JSJ 14 (1983), 157-71; S. J. D. Cohen, ‘e Signi cance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism’, HUCA 55 (1984), 27-53; H. Falk, Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus (New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1985); K. Berger, ‘Jesus als Pharisäer und frühe Christen als Pharisäer’, NovT 30 (1988), 231-62; D. Gooblatt, ‘e Place of the Pharisees in First-Century Judaism: e State of the Debate’, JSJ 20 (1989), 12-30; S. N. Manson, ‘Josephus on the Pharisees Reconsidered: A Critique of Smith/Neusner’, SR 17 (1988), 455-69; S. N. Manson, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Critical Study (Leiden: Brill, 1991); S. N. Manson, ‘Pharisaic Dominance’, 363-81; G. Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); J. Neusner, e Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 (3 vols.; South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 202-4. Atlanta: Scholars, 1999); E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice, 380-451; F. C. Hyman, e Pharisees: Preservers of Judaism (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2001); J. P. Meier, Marginal, 3:289-388; A. J. Saldarini, ‘Pharisees’, ABD 5:289-303; A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (2d edn. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001);

122. e thought is of a piece with that of Rev. 2:5; 3:2-3 and is consonant with the sentiments of 1 Cor. 6:9; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5. 123. In the second, h, and sixth antitheses the formula is reduced to ‘You have heard that it was said’, in the third to ‘It was said’ (either this one is abbreviated because of the close link between the second and the third, or the sixth fails to follow the pattern of progressive abbreviation in each set because of its emphatic role at the conclusion of the whole set). 124. Note also that in the rst three antitheses the response, aer the formulaic introduction, is πᾶς ὁ + present participle; in the second three, constructions with imperatival force are found. 125. In the LXX the order is transposed, with murder coming aer adultery in Dt. 5:17-18 and aer stealing in Ex. 20:13-15 (except in the case of the A text, which keeps the MT order). Disturbance of the MT order is also re ected in Lk. 18:20; Rom. 13:9; Philo, De decal. 51. 126. e order of the rst three may nd an echo in the rst three of Matthew’s sixfold list in 15:19 (‘[acts of] murder, adultery, fornication’), where, however, the remaining three items are ‘[acts of] the, false witness, slander’. 127. Ex. 21:24; Lv. 24:20; Dt. 19:21. 128. See Nolland, Luke, 2:714. 129. For discussion of the closest parallels that have been adduced see Betz, Sermon, 205-6. 130. ‘You have heard that’ contrasts with the immediacy of ‘I’, just as ‘to the people of old’ contrasts with the immediacy of ‘to you’. 131. See Ex. 21:12; Lv. 24:17; Nu. 35:12; Dt. 17:8-13. 132. Ancient Jewish re ection on the commandment was predominantly legal. is is not of course to say that there was no ethical concern about hostile behaviour and attitudes to others, nor that this was not thought to be taken seriously by God. See, e.g., b. B. M. 58b: ‘Of the things which are entrusted to the heart [i.e., not amenable to legal regulation], it says: you shall be afraid of your God’. 133. Cf. Test. Dan. 2:1; Test. Naph. 4:1; 1 Enoch 94:1; 99:13; and esp. Test. Reub. 1:7.

134. Closest, but still not close, is the use of ‘but I say’ in emphatic refutation of an alternative rabbinic interpretation (see Smith, ‘A Comparison’; Lohse, ‘Ich aber sage euch’, 192-96). 135. I have adopted the NRSV practice of translating ἀδελϕός (lit. ‘brother’) as ‘brother or sister’ in contexts where the intended referent is not restrictedly male, and a similar policy with other gendered words. 136. Also re ected in Acts 2:29, 37; 3:17; 7:2; etc. 137. Discussion of the question whether the reference in Matthew is only to those of the Christian community is probably not to the point since the concern is not to restrict application, but rather to illuminate an aspect of the offense in the speci c cases. 138. Betz, Sermon, 220, translates ‘empty-head’, which is apt if we do not bring the loanword over into English. 139. ‘e insult was regarded as harmless’ (Jeremias, TDNT, 6:974). is is not to deny that there were contexts in which a verbal insult could be a very serious matter. E.g., b. B. M. 59b, ‘He who publicly shames his neighbour is as though he shed blood’. 140. e Greek is τῷ συνεδρίῳ and could refer to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem as the highest court of the land. But the de nite article may only be generic, and συνεδρίον may refer only to the local Jewish leadership acting in council as a judicial body. e difference matters little for the thought development. 141. ‘Gehenna’ is derived from the Hebrew gê hinnōm (‘valley of [the son(s) of] Hinnom’) and referred originally to the valley that runs northsouth on the west side of Jerusalem and then east-west on the south side. Jer. 19:6-7 foresees it as becoming a place of God’s judgment. In NT usage it has escaped its original location and is used to indicate the place in which the judgment of God is in icted. Matthew has seven of the twelve NT uses. Gehenna is also a place of re in Gk. Apoc. Ezra 1:9; 3 Enoch 33:5; 44:3; Sib. Or. 1:100. 142. In the rst two examples it is not entirely clear what the appropriate sentence might be, but the carryover of the liability statement of Mt. 5:21b in identical words into the rst example at least raises the suspicion that Matthew may consider the offenses exempli ed as capital crimes.

143. It is no accident that Mt. 5:21-22 does not show the slightest interest in whether the person who is the object of the anger deserves it. is prepares for the call to love one’s enemies. e use of anger language in v. 22 and of hatred language in v. 43 also facilitates the link. 144. προσϕέρῃς τὸ δῶρον σου ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον could also mean ‘bringing your gi to the altar’, but Jeremias, Abba, 103-4, has shown that the pleonasm involved in the chosen translation has good Jewish antecedents (and cf. Jas. 2:21; Rev. 8:3). 145. Betz’s suggestion (Sermon, 222-23) that the text re ects the lay sacri ce of Jewish-Christian temple practice is unlikely since it is hardly credible that temple authorities would have permitted such practice. 146. e gi in Mt. 8:4 is an obligatory one. 147. m. Pes. 3:7 offers an interesting point of comparison: ‘If a man was on the way to slaughter his Passover offering or to circumcise his son or to eat the betrothal meal at his father-in-law’s house, and he remembered that he had le ḥametz [leaven] in his house, if he has yet time to go back and remove it and return to ful l his religious duty, let him go back and remove it; but if not, he may annul it in his heart’. But here the tension is between religious duties and not, as in Matthew, between the Godward and that which relates to one’s neighbour. Closer in some respects is m. Yoma 8:9: ‘For transgressions that are between man and God the Day of Atonement effects atonement, but for transgressions that are between a man and his fellow the Day of Atonement effects atonement only if he has appeased his fellow’. Betz, Sermon, 224-25, also draws attention to Greek ethical texts, including Frg. 9 of eophr., On Piety: ‘One must go to the sacri ces having a soul pure from evils’. 148. And to the wisdom perspective of Pr. 15:8; 21:27; Sir. 34:22-24; 35:8-9. While not identical, the sentiment of Philo in Spec. leg. 1.203-4 is related. Here the worshipper is meant to have so ful lled the Law that he can say as he sets his hands on the head of the animal sacri ce that these hands have done no wrong. 149. Did. 14:2 (‘let none who has a quarrel with his fellow join in your meeting until they be reconciled, that your sacri ce be not de led’) clearly echoes the same tradition as Mt. 5:24, and does so in a context where temple

sacri ce no longer has religious signi cance. If Did. 14:2 is independent of Matthew, as oen judged, then it provides evidence of tradition behind the Matthean verse. 150. Betz, Sermon, 228. 151. e verb is found only here in the NT. 152. ἕως ὅτου (lit. ‘until which’) stands by attraction of the relative for ἕως τοῦ χρόνου ᾥτινι (‘until the time in which’). 153. ‘Accuser … accuser … judge … judge … court officer … prison’. 154. On the Greek phrase see the discussion at Mt. 5:18. 155. In a Greek context the approach is well indicated (in the case of the) by Plato, Leg. 9.857A. e penalty is twice the value of the stolen goods. In the case of failure to pay ‘he must be put in prison until he either has paid the sum or has been let off by the prosecutor’. Prisoners in ancient prisons could oen expect to starve if friends or relatives did not see to their needs. In Judea the Roman system would have functioned as the ‘senior’ legal system. In Galilee, as part of a Roman client kingdom and with a considerable non-Jewish population, a more complex pattern than a uni ed Jewish system of law will have been evident. 156. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 290, suggests that the use of ‘Amen’ almost always points to an eschatological statement, but he admits that there are exceptions in Matthew. 157. What BDAG, 874, calls result in its discussion of this text (‘looks … in such a way that’) is virtually indistinguishable from purpose. 158. Almost certainly the man’s sexual arousal is intended, but the language could allow for a look that is designed to stir desire in the woman. is, however, produces the less natural rendering of ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτήν as ‘led her to adultery’. 159. ough the focus there is not speci cally erotic, Betz, Sermon, 232, aptly cites Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 9.5.3, 1167a 4-8, which includes ‘the pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love’. 160. Hermas, Vis. 1.1.2–1.2.4 has a development in an ascetic direction when Hermas nds himself criticised on the basis of the following: ‘When I

[Hermas] saw her beauty I re ected in my heart and said: “I should be happy if I had a wife of such beauty and character.” is was my only thought, and no other, no, not one.’ 161. Epict., Diss. 2.18.15: ‘Today when I saw a … handsome woman I did not say to myself, “Would that a man might sleep with her”, and “Her husband is a happy man”, for the man who uses the expression “happy” of the husband means “Happy is the adulterer” also.’ 162. Drawing together the content of Philo, Spec. leg. 3.177; Det. pot. ins. 97. 163. For texts see Str-B 1:298-302. ough the point being made is not distinctive to the historical Jesus, there is no reason to question his espousal of the ethical view expressed. 164. 1QS 1:6; CD 2:16; cf. 1QpHab 5:7; Jub. 20:4. 165. Cf. the texts cited by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:523: Aristeas 133, ‘Even if a man should think of doing evil…he will not escape detection’; Test. Gad 5:5, ‘He is completely unwilling to wrong anyone, even in his thoughts’; Ps.-Phoc., Sent. 52, ‘It is each man’s intention that is examined’. 166. Cf. Philo, Spec. leg. 3.177: ‘If it is reprehensible for them to use their sight, their hands are far more guilty’ (in the context of potential sexual arousal and response in the presence of a naked person of the other gender). An alternative but less likely view is that ‘eye’ corresponds to the lustful look of Mt. 5:27-28 while ‘hand’ points to masturbation (presumably with the imagination focussed on another’s wife). Cf. n. 167. 167. Philo, Spec. leg. 3.177: ‘e eyes oen take liberties and compel us to see what we do not wish to see, but the hands are ranked among the parts which we keep in subjection’. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:526, cite Aristophanes for a parallel view: ‘’Twas not my mind that swore; my tongue committed a little perjury on its own account’. 168. Probably following BAGD 780, the translations tend to oversimplify and locate the comparison in what is likely to be the wrong place: better to lose an eye than to go to hell (rather than: better to lose an eye so as not to go to hell). e BAGD construal is possible (see Jn. 11:50, where there is an appropriate level of parallelism between the ἵνα clause following the συμϕέρει and the linked καὶ μή clause), but the larger syntactical structure in

Mt. 5:29-30 is closer to that in Jn. 16:7 (which does not, however, use a καὶ μή clause). 169. See m. Nid. 2:1: ‘e hand that oentimes makes examination [of the genital area] is, among women, praiseworthy [because of the importance for ritual purity of checking for menstruation]; but among men — let it be cut off!’ It is not entirely clear what the original concern was here. e discussion of the Mishnah text in b. Nid. 13 is concerned both with masturbation as such (‘Whosoever emits semen in vain deserves death’ with appeal to Gn. 38:9 and probably with married men primarily in mind) and with ‘adultery’ of hand or foot (‘ou shalt not practise nyʾwp [adultery] either with hand or foot’ — ‘hand’ only in a similar statement in the previous sentence), which probably has to do with physical self-arousal with the imagination focussed on another’s wife. Deming, ‘Male Sexuality’, 140, claims that the Jewish discussion labels as adultery (against one’s own wife) the sexual impropriety of the man, but this goes beyond the evidence. 170. e text is occasionally taken as proposing self-punishment in order to avoid divine punishment, but this is to expand the scope of the antithesis unnecessarily. 171. See also Ex. 21:12; Dt. 19:21; 25:11-12. Dt. 25:11-12 is commented on in Philo, Spec. leg. 3.175. 172. Jos., Life 171-73, 177 (cf. War 2.642-44), tells of Josephus as a military general punishing the leader of a rebellion with amputation of the hand. In b. Sanh. 59b we hear of Rabbi Huna having the hand cut off a man who persistently struck others. In b. Šab. 108b Rabbi Muna is said to have called for cutting off the unwashed hand whenever it is placed on any one of a whole range of body parts, but this can hardly be taken very seriously. 173. A somewhat similar seriousness is evident in Iambl., Vita Pythag. 7.34; 31.187, where the language of cutting off with re and sword is attributed to Pythagoras (but the language is clearly metaphorical and not directed towards self-mutilation). Similarly metaphorical language is found in Seneca, Ep. 51.13: ‘If any vice rend your heart, cast it away from you; and if you cannot be rid of it in any other way, pluck out your heart also’. Plato, Symp. 206E, contemplates people being prepared to have their feet and

hands cut off, but this is presumably in relation to a medical emergency. For further references see Betz, Sermon, 238 n. 343. 174. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:526, helpfully draw attention to the contrast between the barrier that mutilation had traditionally been to drawing near to God (Lv. 21:17-23; Dt. 23:1; cf. 1QSa 2:8-9; 1QM 7:4-6; contrast Is. 56:4) and the present possible role of mutilation in readying one for entry into the kingdom of God. 175. For the resurrection of both the good and the evil see Sib. Or. 4:18192; Jn. 5:28-29. 176. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:816-20; ‘Gospel Prohibition’. 177. ἀποστάσιον is literally ‘relinquishment/abandonment’; here it stands in place of the fuller form βιβλίον ἀποστασίου (‘document of relinquishment’) found in the LXX of Dt. 24:1. e relinquishment was with a view to the woman’s availability for a fresh marriage and the man’s replacement of the woman with a new wife. 178. Josephus’s paraphrase of Dt. 24:1 is focussed in exactly the same way (Ant. 4.253); the LXX seems to share this understanding, but could be taken otherwise. Mt. 19:7 takes Dt. 24:1 in the same way, but Mk. 10:4 is less precise and could be based on a directive, a permissive, or a descriptive understanding of the divorce document clause. In m. Giṭ. there is a nearly exclusive focus on what constitutes a legally valid document of divorce; the question of the appropriateness of a divorce in the rst place is not raised until the very end (9:10), and nal say then is given to the most lax view. Similarly, the approach to marriage contracts re ected in m. Ket. assumes male freedom to divorce and provides a measure of nancial protection for the wife in the form of an agreed payment from the husband in the case of divorce for other than reasons of major failure on the part of the wife. 179. With some dissent: e.g., Warren (‘Moses’, 39-56) identi es a series of subordinated conditional clauses and one subordinated consequence clause (‘he may/must write …’) which, he argues, some in Jesus’ day understood as permissive and some as obligatory, but which should be taken as permissive on syntactical grounds, and was so taken by Jesus. e obligatory view is represented in b. Giṭ. 90b.

180. In the absence of an actual paraphrase of Dt. 24:1 it is difficult to tell whether the evident role of a document of dismissal in wider Jewish tradition tells us anything about how the verse was being read, since the mention of the document of dismissal, even if only as an assumed background practice, would likely be taken as regulatory. 181. e assumed inevitability of the remarriage comes too easily, especially in the context of the heroic demands made by Jesus in the context of the coming kingdom of God. e nal clause of 5:32 would itself tend towards the blocking of remarriage for at least some categories of divorced women. Mishnaic sources suggest the possibility of a considerable degree of autonomy for the divorced woman, e.g., by insisting that as a previously married woman she is independent of her father (m. Ket. 4:2). 182. Mt. 19:9 and Lk. 16:18 solve this problem by asserting the adultery of the man in a context where only the divorced wife is available to be the wronged party; Mk. 10:11 probably uses ἐπ᾿ αὐτήν for ‘against her’, but this is not normal Greek. 183. In its context in Deuteronomy the paraphrase in Mt. 5:31 is oriented to future marital activity (notably of the wife, but also of the husband in terms of the possibility of remarrying the divorced wife). According to m. Giṭ. 9:3, the essential formula of a bill of divorce is ‘Lo, you are free to marry any man’. For a more detailed consideration of this whole line of argumentation see Nolland, ‘Gospel Prohibition’. 184. e identi cation of remarriage as adultery seems almost to require a background assumption of monogamy. Without such an assumption the new marriage could be seen as bigamy, and thus permitted, and not as adultery. Admittedly the act of divorce means that the ‘bigamy’ would be coupled with a withdrawal from the marital relationship with the existing [former] wife, which would fall foul of OT regulations designed to protect a wife in the case of the husband’s addition of a further wife (Ex. 21:10). See further at Mt. 19:3-12. 185. e dominant view is that an exception is identi ed here, but several other views have been proposed. For a full list see Nolland, Luke, 2:816. Of particular note is the view that treats the exception as relating narrowly to divorce, but as not justifying remarriage by the husband.

186. Indeed, it seems most likely that the exception clause has been incorporated into the tradition precisely in relation to the formation of the present antithesis: the setting up of one side of the antithesis in the form of an interpretive paraphrase of Dt. 24:1 presses the necessity of establishing concord between that verse and the dominical criticism of divorce. (is statement represents a change of view from Nolland, ‘Gospel Prohibition’, 22-25; Luke, 2:817-18.)

187. e reversal of word order is matched by the way that ʿrwt dbr and dbr ʿrwh are used interchangeably in m. Giṭ. 9:10. 188. See Kampen, ‘Divorce Texts’, 152-62. It is not easy to be sure of the structure of the key text CD 4:12b–5:14a. It seems most likely that of the three categories of snare identi ed in 4:16-18 (znwt, wealth, and de lement of the sanctuary) the rst and the last are taken up for explanation and that therefore incest and intercourse with a menstruating wife fall in the category of de ling the sanctuary and not that of znwt. Kampen’s case for the broadest de nition of znwt does, however, gain a measure of support from the more fragmentary sources surveyed. e double znwt mentioned in 4:20 is more obviously correlated with the ‘two wives’ which immediately follows (that there are two ways in which the sexual relationship with each is immoral) than with the sexual matters mentioned in connection with de ling the sanctuary. If this is the right explanation of the double znwt, then it makes it less likely that divorce and remarriage would also be comprehended in what is being commented on here. e fragmentary text of CD 13:17 may well allow for some possibility of divorce. 189. is places the understanding of Dt. 24:1 close to that traditionally ascribed to the school of Shammai (see m. Giṭ. 9:10), but the focus of the unit is not on the interpretation of this key phrase of Dt. 24:1 as such. 190. For details see Nolland, ‘Gospel Prohibition’, 23. On learning of her pregnancy, initially Joseph felt that he should divorce Mary (Mt. 1:18-20). 191. e question of whether the present exception is the only possible exception should perhaps be raised. A. E. Harvey, ‘Genesis versus Deuteronomy’, 64-65 (see the bibliography at 19:3-12), has drawn attention to the similarity between statements like Mk. 19:9 and OT proverbs and pointed out that we can expect that at least on occasion the statements of

Jesus would be subject to the same kind of quali cation regularly needed in the case of proverbs: the point is being made in a certain context and may not be intended as absolutely as at rst appears. at there is an exception at all should alert us to this possibility. 1 Cor. 7:15 would seem to allow for divorce when an unbelieving spouse no longer wants to remain married to a Christian believer. In a sensitive discussion of the pastoral application, C. L. Blomberg, ‘Matthew 19:3-12’, 192 (see the bibliography at 19:3-12), suggests that what in delity and desertion have in common is that they involve a fundamental rupture of the marriage covenant and in this way offer paradigms for framing discussion on when divorce might be countenanced. Instone-Brewer, Divorce, 99-110, 175-77 (see the bibliography at 19:3-12), has drawn attention to the signi cance of rst-century interpretation of Ex. 21:10-11 (which was not criticised by Jesus) to suggest that Jesus would have seen emotional and physical neglect as legitimate grounds for divorce. 192. See Nolland, ‘Gospel Prohibition’, 30-32. e use of ἀπὸ ἀνδρός (lit. ‘from a man’) rather than ὑπ᾿ ἀνδρός (lit. ‘by a man’) in Lk. 16:18, while hardly decisive, is suggestive. ἀπολύειν is not a very common word for ‘to divorce’, so it is difficult to check whether the use of the passive with the woman is likely to operate in a manner analogous to the other verbs (like μοιχεύειν), which, re ecting the priority given to the male in the culture, can use the active of the man undertaking the activity and the passive of the woman undertaking the activity. 193. In particular such an understanding allows naturally for development to the form in Mk. 10:12. 194. In m. Ned. 11:12 a judgment about various bases for necessary divorce is withdrawn ‘lest a wife gaze upon another and behave unseemly towards her husband’. According to m. Soṭa 5:1; 3:6; 4:2, a wife who committed adultery was forbidden to her husband and had become unclean to him. See m. Ket. 7:1-5, 10 for other situations of required divorce, b. Giṭ 90b for a situation in which it was a religious duty to divorce, and m. Ket. 7:6 for other situations likely to provoke divorce. In m. Soṭa 5:1 there is clearly an attempt to block the use by women of an illicit liaison with a preferred future partner to break up a marriage: the woman is declared to be forbidden to both her husband and her paramour.

195. e interpretive and textual difficulties of Mal. 2:16 are discussed at Mt. 19:3-12. 196. e Hebrew uses the standard verb for swearing, šbʿ, and indicates the falseness with lšqr where the meaning can range over ‘in vain’, ‘without reason’, and ‘falsely’; the LXX has οὐκ ὀμεῖσθε τῷ ὀνόματί μου ἐπ᾿ ἀδίκῳ (compared to Mt. 5:33 it has a different verb for swearing, the falseness is not indicated by a verbal pre x, and the verb form is plural). See also Nu. 30:3 (ET v. 2): ‘when a man… swears an oath…he shall not break his word’; Zc. 8:17: ‘love no false oath’; cf. Je. 7:9; Mal. 3:5. e LXX of Zc. 5:3 (‘every one who swears falsely shall be avenged’) uses a substantive with the same root for the Matthean verb. e root is also found in 1 Esdr. 1:46 (ET 48) and Wis. 14:25, 28, and occurs as well in Ps.-Phocyl., Sent. 16, and a number of times in Philo and Josephus. 197. ‘In vain’ renders lšwʾ, which has a very similar range of meaning to lšqr. 198. e LXX uses the same verb, ἀποδιδόναι (‘hand over’), as Mt. 5:33. Ps. 50:14 may also be in view: ‘pay your vows to the Most High’. 199. Nu. 30 deals with vows established by oath, but without interest in clearly distinguishing them from other kinds of promissary oaths. 200. In the OT one swore oaths by God or by other deities. Only if the oath form is taken to include assertions with the shape ‘(as surely as) such and such is the case, such and such is the case’ can we speak of oaths in the OT linked to other than deity (e.g., 1 Sa. 1:26; 17:55). e LXX identi es this form as an oath form only in the case where God alone is appealed to (see, e.g., Jdg. 8:19; contrast, e.g., 1 Sa. 20:3, where both God and a human gure are involved). 201. is mostly takes some such form as ‘I swear [with no ‘by’ phrase] that…’, but Philo, Spec. leg. 2:4, draws attention approvingly to the form ‘yes, by’, ‘no, by’ (which breaks off aer the ‘by’) and indicates that this ‘suggest[s] the clear sense of the oath without actually making it’. 202. To swear by the curses of the covenant (CD 15:3) seems to involve a conditional curse cast into the form of the language of swearing by. 203. See Philo, Spec. leg. 2.10; Cicero, Offic. 3.104; Ps.-Aristotle, Rhet. ad Alex. 17.34.1432a.33-34; cf. Quintilian, Inst. 5.1.2; 5.6.1-6; 5.10.87.

204. See discussion in Philo, Spec. leg. 2.2-3. 205. Betz, Sermon, 267, identi es a Delphic precept, the Pythagoreans, Solon, Democritus, Gorgias, Menander, Sophocles, Quintilian, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. 206. ough Josephus expresses their discomfort with oaths in the strongest language (‘swearing they avoid, regarding it as worse than perjury [τῆς ἐπιορκίας]’), it would appear from CD 9:8-12; 15:1-8; 1QS 5:8-10; 11QTemple 53:14–54:5 that the avoidance of oaths was not absolute. 207. Cf. Philo, Leg. all. 3.207, which deals with the impossibility of swearing by God as distinct from swearing by his name. 208. Betz, Sermon, 263, cites R. Hirzel, Der Eid: Ein Beitrag zu seiner Geschichte (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1902), 90-104, for materials on this oath. 209. As people increasingly frowned on use of the divine name, euphemisms and abbreviations allowed indirect appeal to God to continue unabated (see m. Šeb. 4:13). 210. As in the LXX (mirroring the Hebrew pre x b), Matthew expresses that by which one swears with ἐν + dat. rather than with the simple acc. or κατά + gen., which would be more usual Greek. 211. Early rabbinic thought would not have agreed: ‘by heaven and earth’, precisely because this is not a reference to God, does not make for a binding oath (see m. Šeb. 4:13). 212. e Greek preposition εἰς (lit. ‘into’) is used instead of the ἐν (lit. ‘in’) found in the other clauses, apparently without difference of meaning, though some have suggested that we should understand that facing towards Jerusalem takes the place of mentioning its name in this form of oath. 213. However, the fresh introduction of the verb ‘to swear’ is less likely to mark separation than the completion of the list, with Mt. 5:37 to follow as a restatement in positive terms of the general principle set out in v. 34a. 214. ‘Vow to me by the life of thy head’, from m. Sanh. 3:2, is generally cited as a parallel. In this case the oath is probably implicitly or perhaps even formally of the conditional curse kind (‘may God take my life if…’). e oath in Matthew is not as severe, but the relationship does suggest that there may at times be little difference between swearing by something and

swearing in terms of a conditional curse on something. e validity of the oath by the life of the head was disputed. e MT of 1 Ch. 12:20 (ET 19) contains the phrase brʾšynw, which has been taken as an abbreviated oath formula: ‘[we swear] by our heads’. But it is probably better to correct the text in the light of 1 Sa. 29:4b (‘by means of their heads’) or to translate like the NRSV (‘at the cost of our heads’). 215. For details and references see Betz, Sermon, 270 nn. 588, 589. 216. Formally the ‘yes, yes’ stands as the alternative to the rejected ‘yes, I swear’. 217. e discussion in b. Šeb. 36a about whether a single or double assertion (‘yes’ or ‘no’) counts as an oath belongs within a totally different world of discourse. 218. A reference to the Evil One is less likely, but not impossible. 219. Kollmann, ‘Reichweite’, 21-30, helpfully lays out the range of contexts in which oaths were in use in the period: in everyday life; as required by OT law; as loyalty oaths to the ruler; as oaths at census time; as Essene (Qumran) initiation oaths. 220. ough his answer is not straightforward, the Matthean Jesus does not object to being placed under oath in Mt. 26:63. 221. Rom. 1:9; 2 Cor. 1:23; cf. 11:11, 31; 12:19; Phil. 1:8; 1 es. 2:5, 10; Gal. 1:20. 222. 2 Cor. 1:18; 11:10. 223. In 1 es. 5:27 Paul, exceptionally, uses the language ἐνορκίζω ὑμᾶς τὸν κύριον (‘I adjure you by the Lord’), which functions as a charge rather than an oath, but, it could be argued, does so by treating the addressed parties as subject to an oath. Even if this is the case, it does not actually involve either Paul ‘or those he addresses’ taking an oath. e Gospel antithesis does not take up the question of putting pressure on others to act appropriately, which is what Paul is doing here. 224. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:292-93, 296-97. 225. e LXX expresses the equivalence in each case with ἀντί, as in Matthew, but the Hebrew uses tḥt in the rst two cases and b in the third. Lv. 24:20 states the general principle; Ex. 21:24 applies it to injury to a pregnant

woman; Dt. 19:21 applies it more indirectly: the false witness should be punished in accord with the punishment that would have been appropriate to the one accused, if guilty. e discussion in Philo, Spec. leg. 3.181-204, focusses on the same two elements as Matthew’s text: eye and tooth. 226. Philo, Spec. leg. 3.181, censures legislators who depart from a system in which crime and punishment correspond and belong in the same category. Jos., Ant. 4.280, places the decision in the hands of the victim, with the possibility, however, of the court overruling if the victim attempts to set the nancial equivalent at too high a level. M. B. Q. 8:1 assumes nancial equivalents, and the linked rabbinic discussion (b. B. Q. 84a-84b) provides it with exegetical defence and addresses a range of possible difficulties; the School of Hezekiah equivocates over the signi cance of a dictum; and the opposed position of (the earlier) R. Eliezer is explained as not meaning what it at rst seems to. Apparently, cultural developments were taking place which tended in the view of many to make punitive mutilation increasingly unacceptable as a form of punishment. e only such mutilation reported in the OT is found in Jdg. 1:6-7. 227. Betz, Sermon, 276, refers to Aeschylus, Choephori 304, cf. 301; Soph., OT 100; Plut., Romulus 7.23.1-3; Cato 1.5.3; Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 2.52-53; Quintilian, Inst. 5.10.14; XII Tables 8.4 (Gellius, Noct. Attic. 20.1.14). It is indeed fundamental to the development of any justice system to move beyond considering the person who has done one or one’s people a wrong as thereby constituted as an enemy and therefore one to be harmed to every extent that opportunity allows — beyond this to a focus on the offence as something which can in some way be measured so that the punishment can be made to t the crime. 228. A similar shape is evident in Rom. 12:17; 1 es. 5:15 and cf. Mt. 12:21. 229. It would be possible to consider taking τῷ πονηρῷ as referring to the hurt in icted, but the focus in the following examples on the other person stands against this. By the time we have been through the list of examples it becomes clear that (from the perspective of the view spoken against) the ‘evil’ person to be stood up to might be posing a threat to one’s

self-interest in no stronger sense than ‘threatening’ one’s wealth by begging or asking for a loan! 230. Observed by Krieger, ‘Fordert Mt 5,39b’, 30. 231. Physical harm which maims is in view in these texts. Ex. 21:23-24 could be read as having a slightly wider compass (‘wound for wound, stripe for stripe’), but even here permanent damage is likely in view. 232. Related to this is the way in which each of the examples places the initiative in the hands of the individual, whereas the OT texts alluded to give that role to the community and its leaders/officials. 233. We shall see below, however, that in the second example OT law is implicitly violated by the one taking the poor person to court. 234. e comparison is not close, but one is reminded of the boast of Lamech in Gn. 4:23-24. 235. In m. B. Q. 9:6 a slap with the back of the hand calls for twice the payment in recompense as for other blows; in terms of dishonour it is on the same level as tearing an ear, plucking out hair, spitting on someone, pulling a cloak off, and loosing a woman’s hair in public. e use of σιαγών does not help in determining the nature of the blow since it can mean either cheek or jaw. In Lk. 6:29 ‘right’ is missing. 236. e language is not intended to be sexist, but to mark the way in which the priority for violence is much more frequently evident in male con ict than in female. 237. Cf. the observation in Jos., War 2.351: ‘ere is nothing to check blows like submission, and the resignation of the wronged victim puts the wrongdoer to confusion’ (but the context in Josephus is dealing with the powers that be). It might be fair to see in Matthew’s inclusion of the same verb for ‘strike’ in Mt. 26:67 a hint that Jesus, though provoked yet more sorely, refused to meet aggression with aggression (Jesus is not viewed as the powerless victim; see 26:53). 238. e commendation in b. Šab. 88b of ‘those who are insulted but do not insult, hear themselves reviled without answering, act through love and rejoice in suffering’ expresses a similar view. At Qumran, 1QS 10:17-18 sounds similar (‘I shall not repay anyone with an evil reward; with goodness I shall pursue man’), but must also be read in light of 10:21-22 (‘everlasting

hatred for the men of the pit in clandestine spirit’). (Personal) retaliation is rejected in 7:11. OT sentiments related to that in Matthew are found in Lv. 19:18 (‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge’); Pr. 20:22 (‘Do not say, “I will repay evil”’) ; 24:29 (‘Do not say, “I will do to others as they have done to me; I will pay them back for what they have done”’). And cf. Jos. As. 29:3: ‘It does not be t a man who worships God to repay evil for evil’. Such sentiment is not restricted to a Jewish and Christian context, a matter which will be explored in relation to the nal antithesis. 239. In Ex. 22:26-27 taking the tunic as security is not even contemplated because it would leave the poor person without basic clothing. Taking the coat may be considered because it is not always worn. But once considered, this option is rejected because the poor person’s need of the garment is still too fundamental (cf. Am. 2:8). In our illustration we are dealing with debt recovery, not security for a debt as in Ex. 22:26-27. 240. e Dt. 24:10-13 parallel to Ex. 22:26-27 includes the requirement not to enter the neighbour’s house to take possession of the pledge, but to wait outside for it to be brought out. 241. See the marble stele inscription in which a legate of the Emperor Tiberius promulgates a set of xed fees for requisitioned transport precisely because, despite earlier edicts, some were persisting in claiming free use of transport (text and discussion in Horsley, New Documents, 1:36-45). 242. e practice began in relation to the needs of the Persian government postal service. e Greek root used to express the impressment is based on the Persian term. Since transport was generally involved, the focus is mostly on the animals, carts, and the like, but as drivers and for retrieval people would also be involved (donkey drivers are mentioned in texts cited in Horsley, New Documents, 2:77). See Betz, Sermon, 291-92 for further bibliography. In Mk. 15:21 par. Mt. 27:32 Simon of Cyrene is pressed into service to carry the cross of Jesus. From the antithesis material it looks as though going one mile may have been some recognised limit for certain forms of impressment, but this has not been independently documented. μίλιον (‘mile’) is a Latinism not found elsewhere in the NT. A Roman mile was about 20 percent shorter than the modern mile. 243. Cf. Epict., Diss. 4.1.79: ‘If there is a requisition and a soldier seizes it [your ass], let it go. Do not resist or complain; otherwise you will be beaten

rst, and lose your ass aer all’ (cited aer Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:547). 244. e two in nitives in the second example make for a double opening clause which prepares for the presence of two opening clauses in the fourth/ h example, the second of which begins with the same verb (also in participle form) as used in the second example, which is also the clause in the fourth/ h example that makes a corresponding use of an in nitive (lacking in the opening clause of the fourth/ h example). Note also the close relationship of content between the fourth and h examples, and the fact that the second and fourth/ h examples involve nancial matters. 245. Sir. 7:10; 12:3; 29:8; Tob. 4:7, 16; 12:8; m. ʾAb. 5:13; Test. Job 9:8; Sib. Or. 2:78-89. Harvey, Strenuous Commands, 120, is probably right that ‘given the size of the problem, the main point of interest ceased to be the provision of a viable existence for a particular individual, and became rather the virtue shown by thedonor in giving away his surplus wealth’. In Stob. 4:33:31 Crates commends philosophy as a way of becoming openhandedly and uncalculatingly generous. 246. Ex. 22:25; Lv. 25:35-37; Dt. 15: 7-11; 23:19-20; cf. Pr. 28:8; Ps. 112:5; Ezk. 18:18; Sir. 29:1-20. Contrary to frequent assumption it is very likely that Jewish practice in the rst century did not frown on business loans at interest (see Mt. 25:27; Lk. 19:23; Jos., Ant. 4.226-270; and discussion at Nolland, Luke, 2:798), but such are not in view in the present context. 247. Loans would have as their goal getting people back on their feet; almsgiving assumed continuing dependency. 248. Dt. 15:1-3, 9; 31:10; Neh. 10:31. 249. e range of considerations brought to bear in Paul’s comments in 1 Cor. 6:1-8 is instructive: while Paul shares the Matthean vision of nonretaliation, he is not prepared, despite misgivings, to rule out adjudication and compensation entirely (he only rules out appeal to the secular courts by believers in con ict with one another). 250. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:292-300. 251. is represents a change of view from Luke, 1:293-94.

252. e interpreting gloss has displaced ‘as yourself ’, which is otherwise an integral part of quotations from Lv. 19:18 (the presence of ‘as yourself ’ would make it impossible to construct the required parallelism between the love clause and the hate clause; the focus of the antithesis will be on whom to love, not how much to love them). 253. With roughly synonymous meaning the context speaks also of one’s ‘kin’ (ʾḥ, literally ‘brother’ but used as widely as national kinship, and also metaphorically to express relationship) and one’s ‘people’ (ʿm) with reference to ethnic solidarity. e narrowly ethnic perspective of Lv. 19:17-18 is relaxed in v. 34 to include ‘the alien who resides with you’ : ‘You shall love the alien as yourself ’. Sir. 18:13 may or may not echo Lv. 19:18, but it clearly indicates the limiting potential of the word ‘neighbour’: ‘e compassion of human beings is for their neighbours, but the compassion of the Lord is for every living thing’. 254. See Ps. 139:19-22, where to ‘hate’ such and to count them as ‘enemies’ (the LXX uses the same Greek words) is thought of as something to be commended; cf. 2 Ch. 19:2; Pss. 31:6; 119:113. 255. Of course, this is not to exclude the likelihood that nationalist feeling and religious conviction will play a signi cant role in speci c instances of enmity. 256. Ancient writers offer many versions of this maxim. See Betz, Sermon, 305-6, and Reiser, ‘Love of Enemies’, 412-18, for references and bibliography. Xen., Mem. 2.6.35, has, ‘a man’s virtue consists in outdoing his friends in kindness and his enemies in mischief ’. A Delphic maxim runs ‘To friends be kind, against enemies retaliate’. Plato argued against the maxim (Cri. 49a-e; Rep. 1.322d-336a). 257. But for Qumran see 1QS 1:9-10: ‘Love the sons of light … and hate all the sons of darkness’; cf. 2:24; 5:25; 1QM 1:1. For rabbinic references see Str-B, 1:353-54. e complained-about behaviour in 2 Sa. 19:6-7 (loving those who hate you and hating those who love you) is the antithesis of what was considered normal and proper. 258. In Aristeas 188, 227; b. Taʿan. 23b; and Syriac Menander 128-32 there is the same focus on the repentance of the sinner; cf. Diog. Laert. 8.1.23; uc., Hist. 4.19.1-4.

259. Cf. Seneca, Ira 1.14.2; Otio 1.4; Cicero, Offic. 1.25.88. 260. Gn. 50:19; Dt. 32:35; Ps. 94:1; Pr. 20:22. 261. ‘Anger and wrath, these…are abominations….Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does anyone harbour anger against another, and expect healing from the Lord? If one has no mercy towards another like himself, can he then seek pardon for his own sins? … Remember the end of your life, and set enmity aside … do not be angry with your neighbour … overlook faults’. 262. Seneca, Ira 2.23.2: ‘e ability to bear insults [is] a great help in the maintenance of a throne’; 2:32:1: ‘It is not honourable…to requite injuries with injuries…. “Revenge” is an inhuman word, and “retaliation” is not much different from injustice except in degree’; 2.32.3: ‘He is a great and noble man who acts as does the lordly wild beast that listens unconcernedly to the baying of tiny dogs’; cf. Jos. As. 29:3-4, where the nobility statement becomes, ‘it does not be t a man who worships God’, and Philo, Virt. 11718, where both a demonstration of true goodness (καλοκἀ γαθία) and an initiative towards reconciliation are involved. 263. In Plato, Cri. 49c, Socrates argues that ‘it is never right … to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return’; cf. Grg. 508c-9c. 264. Cf. Bion of Borysthenes as reported in Plut., Mor. 82E, whose ideal was that people should ‘listen to their revilers as though they were saying: “Friend, since you have not the look of one who is base and unthinking, health and great joy be yours, and God grant that you may ever prosper”’. Cited aer Vaage, ‘Q and Cynicism’, 218. 265. Cf. Seneca, Ben. 4.26.1; 7.30.2; Ps.-Heracl., Ep. 5.1; 9.7; Aristeas 188; Ex. Rab. 26:2 to 17:18; Mek. on Ex. 15:2; Sipre 49:1-2. 266. Love as the response to enmity is found only in the Cynic response, and in this case we have not so much love in response to evil as love in response to what is interpreted as actually being in our own best interests and as therefore not really to be thought of as evil at all. In the case of Cicero, the love spoken of is best understood as the responsive love evoked from those who have been well handled by the ruler. In b. Šab. 88b

nonretaliation is linked with the phrase ‘act through love’, but this bases the action in love of God, as the quotation from Jdg. 5:31 makes clear. Seneca, Ep. 95:52-53, is probably closest where he connects the natural unity of humanity to the human experience of mutual love and to our nature as social creatures and then derives from this natural order the lesson that it is worse to in ict harm than to suffer it. 267. Test. Jos. 18:2 (‘If anyone wishes to do you harm, you should pray for him, along with doing good, and you will be rescued by the Lord from every evil’) is along the same lines, but less radical in two respects: the response here is to the intention to harm rather than to do actual harm; and the assumption is that prayer and appropriate action will mean that no harm ensues. 268. Cf. b. Qid. 36a: ‘When you behave as sons, you are sons’. 269. In Mt. 13:6 the sun is clearly up and shining hotly, not simply behind the clouds. e verb seems to mean something like ‘shine forth brightly’ in Barn. 3:4. 270. Cf. Acts 14:17 for a similar vision of the indiscriminate goodness of God. As a minor artistic underlining of the evenhandedness of God which is being appealed to, the bad are mentioned before the good in the rst example in Matthew, and the order is reversed in the second example. 271. Ex. Rab. 26:2 to 17:18 (‘Resemble Me; just as I repay good for evil, so do thou also repay good for evil’) makes an appeal to the example of God similar to that in Matthew, but, as is evident from the link in the context to Mi. 7:18, not from the wisdom perspective shared with Seneca, Ben. 4.26.1. Without the call to imitate God the wisdom perspective here of God’s indiscriminate goodness in nature is also found in Philo, Virt. 160; Mek. on Ex. 18:12; b. Taʿan. 7a; Pesiq. R. 48:4. 272. Every Matthean use except possibly 10:3 involves this stereotypical negative image (5:46; 9:10-11; 11:19; 18:17; 21:31-32). ough the work of F. Herrenbrück, Jesus und die Zöllner: Historische und neutestamentlichexegetische Untersuchungen (WUNT 41. Tübingen: Mohr, 1990) makes clear that tax collectors (revenue contractors is how Herrenbrück argues their role is to be construed) were oen better integrated into Jewish society than it has been customary to allow; their negative image in relation to Pharisaic

tithing and purity concerns is secure; and perennial grassroots suspicion of such a role remains clear. 273. Loving those who love you implies investment in friendships. Cf. Cicero, Amic. 49–50 (‘Nothing gives more pleasure than the return of goodwill and the interchange of zealous service’); Hesiod, Works 353 (‘Be friends with the friendly, and visit him who visits you’). 274. e use of περισσόν in Mt. 5:47 (translated above as ‘[is] abundant’) echoes the cognate περισσεύσῃ [‘is abundant’] of v. 20. 275. e needs of religious demarcation clearly suggested to some Jews the inappropriateness of greeting Gentiles. But given the likely negative effect of snubbing Gentiles in this way, this needed to be countered with the pragmatic advice: ‘Greetings may be offered to Gentiles in the interests of peace’ (m. Giṭ. 5:9). Others thought more generously (m. ʾAbot 4:15: ‘Be rst in greeting every creature’). 276. See also Mt. 6:7, 32; 18:17 (in the latter the same juxtaposition of tax collectors and Gentiles occurs, but in the singular and in reverse order). 277. Nolland, Luke, 1:296 (written with the Lukan version in mind, but equally applicable to the Matthean vision). 278. e plural rather than the singular identi es the position as part of what Jesus calls for over against what ‘has been said’, which is also addressed to a plural ‘you’. 279. τέλειος also translates šlm, which again points to completeness. See, e.g., 3 Kgdms. 8:61: ‘Establish your hearts τέλειαι to the Lord our God … to keep his commandments’. τέλειος is not used of God, but a cognate verb is applied to him in 2 Kgdms. 22:26: ‘With a τέλειου man τελειωθήσῃ [you will be τέλειος]’. Qumran uses tmym in relation to the rigour demanded in the keeping of the Law (e.g., 1QS 1:8, 13; 2:2; 3:3; 4:22). It is not a claim to perfection, but to being committed to the whole will of God. 280. Matthew will use τέλειος again in 19:21 to distinguish between a conventional and limited keeping of the commandments and the full reach of the command of God as represented in the call of Jesus. 281. Gerhardsson, ‘Geistiger Opferdienst’, 69-77, correlates the three with the threefold demand to love God found in the Shema. If he is right, then there has been a reordering from an original sequence of prayer,

fasting, and almsgiving. But the addition of the appended prayer material, while supporting the placing of prayer in the centre, will not explain the inversion of the other two items. 282. Betz, Sermon, 351, prefers to take ‘righteousness’ as an accusative of reference aer ‘take care’, but this leaves ‘to practise’ (ποεῖν) without an object and makes for strained Greek. 283. e use of ‘glorify’ in Mt. 6:2 strengthens the connection. 284. See Sir. 7:10; Tob. 1:3, 16; 4:7-8; Acts 10:2; 24:17. 285. e various attempts to relate σαλπίσῃς to something other than the blowing of a trumpet remain unpersuasive. e usage may echo a widespread metaphor. See Dem., Or. 25.90(797); Achilles Tatius 8.10.10; Dio Chrys., Or. 8.2; Cicero, Fam. 16.21.2; Juvenal 14.152. 286. ere has been a lively discussion whether a Semitic source could have been a reference to hypocrites. Barr, ‘Hebrew/Aramaic Background’, 307-26, has shown that a heightened awareness of issues of deceit and falseness in religion characterised the period preceding the NT and that, probably against this background, the semantic range of the Hebrew root ḥnp had been expanding so that it could be used to refer to hypocrisy. A clear picture of hypocrisy is found in Pss. Sol. 4:1-7 (along with the use of the word in v. 6), which we have only in Greek (and translation from the Greek) but which is normally thought to have been composed in Hebrew. ough the particular examples are different, Mt. 6 has a strikingly similar focus on a public show of piety or righteousness (note particularly the phrase in v. 7, ‘those who try to impress people’). e difference, however, is that in Pss. Sol. 4:1-7 the focus is on out-of-sight evil deeds, and this focus is not found in Mt. 6. 287. ῥύμη is a narrow street, lane, or alley. But here I take the narrowness to indicate the cramped and crowded thoroughfares of a city. 288. Contrast Mk. 10:28-30. 289. Syreeni, ‘Symbolic World’, 532-34, makes much the same point by developing a distinction between ‘doctrinal concepts’ and ‘suggestive schemes’ (the latter here), in which suggestive schemes are simply ways of speaking that can be used, as occasion requires, to support ideology but do not represent as such the ideological conviction of the text.

290. Already in Mt. 3:7 many of the Pharisees and Sadducees are ‘offspring of vipers’, but in 5:20 the need to surpass the Pharisees and scribes is not so much a criticism of them as a call to great heights. 291. B. Pes. 113a tcommends ‘a wealthy man who tithes his produce in secret’ (presumably without ostentation); b. B. B. 9b, ‘a man who gives charity in secret’; and b. M. Qat. 16b, privacy in ‘the dispensing of charity and acts of loving-kindness’. M. Šeq. 5:6 and Mt. 6:4 both manifest a double secrecy pattern, but the double secrecy is of secret giving and secret receiving. e latter is to avoid shame, and the former might be, too, but the former is as likely to represent approval of the avoidance of selfadvertisement in charitable giving. Also related is ‘Make not of [good deeds] a crown wherewith to magnify thyself, nor a spade to dig with’ in b. Ned. 62a. Contrast b. B. B. 10b: ‘All the charity and kindness done by the heathen is counted to them as sin, because they do it only to magnify themselves’. 292. e idiom is parallelled in m. ʾAb. 5:20. God is the ‘Father’ of the individual pious Israelite in Sir. 51:10 (Heb. only, but the text may be vocalised as ‘God of my father’); 23:1, 4 (‘Father and Master/God’); Wis. 2:16, 18; cf. 2:13; 5:5. 293. Sitting as it is between the two verbs applied to God, ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ may join them. But if so, the secrecy of the Father’s seeing serves the same role as the secrecy of his rewarding: none of it generates any human publicity. While they are not in focus, the verse probably draws on OT notions of the hiddenness of God, and therefore of some of his actions. 294. e importance of prayer in Jewish piety is re ected in, e.g., Sir. 39:5; Acts 10:2. 295. See Tilborg, Sermon, 96-97; and for Jewish sources on the xed times of prayer Str-B, 2:696-702. ere was probably a difference of opinion as to how rigidly the times needed to be kept, since m. Ber. 4:1 treats them with great exibility. For prayer on the streets and in the public squares see the texts in Str-B, 1:399-400. In t. Ber. 3:20 the one praying on a public thoroughfare is required to step aside for passing traffic. M. Berakot requires dismounting from an ass to pray if it is practicable. 296. See 1 Sa. 1:26; Je. 18:20; Mk. 11:25.

297. Matthew rings the changes on this theme by using different verbs in 6:1 and 5 and a different construction in v. 16 (the same verb as in v. 5). 298. Sacred vessels could be stored in a ταμεῖον, but so could everyday supplies or even water for bathing. ere is a secondary use of ταμεῖον in which its connection with storage is lost in favour of a link with remoteness or privacy (in Ct. 1:4 the king took the beloved into his ταμίειον; in Ex. 7:28[ET 8:3] τα ταμίεια τῶν κοιτώνων are probably bedrooms [lit. ‘chambers of bedrooms’], but they could be bedroom closets; in Jdg. 15:1 ταμιεῖον is a bedroom or at least a person’s private room). In Matthew’s context, however, the imagery works best if there is something inherently odd about using the room for prayer. 299. Gn. 43:30 uses ταμιεῖον of the room to which Joseph retreated to weep and to regain his self-control. 300. For more details see Nolland, Luke, 2:610-11, 612-17. 301. e Markan version is curiously formulated, probably because it contains an unstated assumption that every occasion of prayer should include prayer for forgiveness. is makes the moment of prayer the last possible occasion for forgiving others prior to asking for forgiveness for oneself. Interestingly, the kind of forgiving of others which is involved here is envisaged as possible without reference to the state of mind of the other person and as taking place quite apart from contact with the person (contrast Mt. 18:15-20). Mk. 11:26 is best seen as a secondary completion of v. 25 inspired by Mt. 6:15. 302. At one level ‘when you pray’ takes up the prayer language of Mt. 6:6; but whereas v. 6 strongly individuates, vv. 7-15 are all collectively articulated (they consistently use the second person plural forms). 303. Instead of the participle found here the threefold structure uses a ‘when’ clause. e threefold structure also has a range of further features which extend the structural parallelism. 304. βάτ(τ)αλος (‘stuttererer’); βατταρίζειν (‘to stutter’); βατταρισμός (‘stuttering’); βάττος (‘stutterer’). 305. Schlatter, Matthäus, 206. Schlatter himself thinks that the βαττα element re ects the use of βάτος for ‘bramble’ and that the word is coined to

echo a (proverbial?) awareness of the futility of gathering brambles: a difficult and not very pro table business. But this derivation seems unlikely. 306. Others look for a Semitic derivation of the βαττα element and point to the Aramaic bṭl, meaning ‘empty, ineffectual’, and the Hebrew bṭʾ, meaning ‘speak rashly, thoughtlessly’. But these do not t as well with the following clause in Matthew and run the difficulty of needing to explain why such a hybrid form (the second element is clearly Greek) should appear in a Greek text. 307. e Latin phrase deos fatigare (‘to wear out the gods’) is used. See Seneca, Nat. quaest. 31.5; Horace, Carm. 1.2.26; etc. Philostr., VA 1.11, recommends a simple request of what we deserve, given that the gods are already thoroughly aware of our deserving, and warns against trying to bribe the gods. e ancient Egyptian text Instruction of Ani 4 comes closest to Matthew: ‘e dwelling of God, its abomination is clamour. Pray with a loving heart, all the words of which are hidden, and he will do what you need, he will hear what you say’. 308. Cf. Sir. 7:14: ‘Do not babble in the assembly of the elders, and do not repeat yourself when praying’. 309. See Pss. 94:9; 139:1-16; Is. 29:15; Sir. 42:18-20; Wis. 19:1. But Ps. 10:14 and Ps. 139:10 do make a comforting use of this motif. 310. Studies at times align the sentiment in Matthew with the view that one should not seek to enumerate one’s needs before God since one’s own view of the matter may be defective. Cf. Diod. Sic. 10.9.8: ‘Men should pray simply for all good things, and not name them singly,…forit frequently happens that any one of these works to the utter ruin of those who receive them in reply to their desire’ (cited aer Betz, Sermon, 366). But the point in Matthew is different. Matthew would free one from anxiety about accidentally omitting any important matter. 311. e Hebrew of Sir. 51:10 may be an instance. It can be translated ‘I shall thank you, my God, my Father’, but it is probably to be vocalised to give ‘I shall thank you, O God of my father’ (see Fitzmyer, ‘Abba’, 26 n. 50). In 4Q372 1:16 Joseph addresses God as ‘my Father and my God’. In Sir. 23:1, 4 (Greek only), God is addressed as ‘O Lord, Father and Master/God of my life’; in Wis. 14:3, as ‘Father’ in relation to his providential care; in 3 Macc.

6:3, 8, as ‘Father’ in the midst of a prayer which begins, ‘King of great power, Almighty God Most High, governing all creation with mercy’. In 1 Ch. 29:10 (Greek) God is addressed as ‘Lord, God of Israel’ and ‘our Father from everlasting [τοῦ αἰῶνος] to everlasting’. Both the Palestinian and Babylonian recensions of the Šemoneh ʿEsreh address God as ‘our Father’. 312. M. Soṭa 9:15; cf. m. Yoma 8:9; m. ʾAb. 5:20; Tg. Yer. I Ex. 1:19; Tg. Yer. II Nu. 21:9; etc. ough they are linked with the names of rabbis who ourished in the latter part of the rst century, the earliest reported instances of addressing God as ‘Father in heaven’ are in rather later documents (see Mek. Ex. 81a on 20:25; Seder Elij. R. 28:149). 313. Nolland, Luke, 2:613-14. 314. ough it is de nitely ancient, the date of origin of the Qaddish is unknown, and there are variant forms (but all with the paired elements drawn attention to here). 315. Attempts to read the rst petition of the Qaddish as itself eschatological are unconvincing. 316. Cf. also 1 Enoch 61:12: ‘Every spirit of light that is capable of … sanctifying your blessed name’; b. Yeb. 79a: ‘e heavenly name shall be publicly hallowed’. 317. E.g., Lk. 1:49; Jn. 12:8; 17:6; Rom. 15:9; Heb. 13:15; Rev. 15:4. 318. Cf. b. Ber. 40b: ‘Any benediction in which the Divine Name is not mentioned (šʾyn bh hzkrt hšm) is no benediction’. In practice a whole range of circumlocutions (pointing to the divine qualities) functioned as equivalents to ‘the Name’. 319. See 1 Ch. 16:33; Pss. 96:13; 98:9; Is. 13:6; 26:21; Joel 2:1; Mi. 1:3; Zc. 14:1; Mal. 4:5. 320. Is. 24:23; 33:22; 52:7; Zp. 3:15; Zc. 14:9. 321. Cf. B. Ber. 17a: ‘Do y will in heaven above and give rest of spirit to them that fear beneath. May it be y will, O Lord our God, to establish peace in the upper family and in the lower family’. But though the joining of heaven and earth is striking, in proposing the content of God’s will for the earth the orientation of the prayer is signi cantly different. See also 1 Macc. 3:60: ‘As his will in heaven may be, so shall he do’.

322. As in Mt. 5:18 and frequently in Matthew. 323. As probably in Mt. 11:23, 25; 14:19. 324. As in Mt. 6:20; 16:1; 18:18; 21:25; 22:30; 28:2, 18. 325. If we envisage a standard, then ὡς … καί (‘as … also’) stands in place of ὡς … οὕτως (‘as … so’) or, more likely, ὡς … οὕτως καί (‘as so also’) (cf. BDF §453.1). e construction in Acts 7:51 is quite similar: ὡς οἱ πατέρες ὑμῶν καὶ ὑμεῖς (‘as [did] your fathers, so also [do] you’); cf. Phil. 1:20: ‘as always, so now’. If a change in heaven is also anticipated, then ὡς may stand for ἕως and the phrase point to comprehensiveness: as far as to embrace heaven and earth. Another possibility is that ὡς stands for οὕτως: may it be like this in heaven and on earth. Syntactically the rst of these three is the most natural. 326. ere may be something of ‘in heaven’ and ‘on earth’ in Mt. 6:12b, with God’s act of forgiving taking place in heaven and forgiveness of one another taking place on earth. If so, then we may note an artistry in that in v. 10 the ‘as’ phrase relates to the existing heavenly state of affairs and comes before the linked phrase, whereas in v. 12 the ‘as’ clause relates to the existing earthly state of affairs and comes aer the linked clause (a double inversion). 327. See Hemer, ‘Ἐπιούσιος’, 89-90. For a more detailed discussion of ἐπιούσιος see Nolland, Luke, 2:615-17. 328. For a quite detailed list of views from the early centuries to the present see Ramaroson, ‘“Notre part”’, 87-115, who adds his own fresh suggestion to the list (42 views are identi ed). 329. E. Yamauchi, ‘Daily Bread’, 145-56. 330. What we have here is signi cantly different from the imagery of debit and credit with God that is found in m. ʾAb. 3:17: ‘e shopkeeper gives credit…butthe collectors go their round continually every day and exact payment’. 331. According to m. Yoma 3:8 on the Day of Atonement the high priest would say, ‘O God, I have committed iniquity, transgressed, and sinned before thee, I and my house. O God, forgive the iniquities and transgressions and sins which I have committed and transgressed and sinned before thee, I and my house’. In both the Palestinian and Babylonian recensions of the

Šemoneh ʿEsreh we nd, ‘Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned [Babylonian: ‘against you’]. Wipe away and remove our evil deeds from before thine eyes [Babylonian has instead: Pardon us, our King, for we have transgressed. For thou forgivest and pardonest]’. Cited following Schürer, History, 2:457, 460. 332. Cf. the day-at-a-time focus of the previous petition. e word immediately preceding the present petition is ‘today’. 333. Cf. Mt. 7:1-2; Mk. 11:25; Lk. 6:37-38. 334. Sir. 28 goes on in vv. 5-7 to warn against harbouring wrath, and calls for setting enmity aside, not being angry with your neighbour, and overlooking faults. See Str-B, 1:425-26, for a collection of rabbinic texts; see also Test. Zeb. 5:3; 8:1-2. 335. See Ex. 16:4; 20:20; Dt. 8:2, 16; 13:4 (ET v. 3); 33:8; Jdg. 2:22. 336. See b. Ber. 60b: ‘Bring me not into the power of (wʾl tbyʾny lydy) … temptation’. 337. See further at Mt. 4:1 on the relationship between πειρασμός as temptation and as testing. 338. With varying degrees of con dence, texts where this is likely to be the sense are Lk. 22:40, 46; Acts 20:19; Gal. 4:14; 2 Pet. 2:9. 339. Sir. 33:1 seems to t here. e LXX sense (in connection with God) of ‘provocation’ is related. See Ex. 17:7; Dt. 6:16; 9:22; Ps. 94:8; and with the cognate verb Ex. 17:2, 7; Sir. 18:23. For the use of the passive of the cognate verb to mean ‘sorely tried [i.e., to have a really hard time]’ and ‘attacked’, see LSJ 1354, where texts from the appropriate period are cited. 340. e reader is no doubt intended to nd an echo of this petition in Mt. 26:41: ‘Watch and pray, that you may not enter into [what will be] a trial [to you]’. 341. A very similar correlation of evil and trial is found in Sir. 33:1, where, however, the ‘rescue’ (Ben Sirach has ἐξελεῖται — rescue from trial is expressed with the Matthean verb in Ps. 17:30) is from trial, and the assurance is that no evil (Ben Sirach has κακόν) will befall. Has the expansion of the nal petition of the Lord’s Prayer taken place under the in uence of Sir. 33:1? ough set within a more complex development, the pairing in b. Ber. 60b is suggestive: ‘Bring me not into the power of (wʾl

tbyʾny lydy)… temptation … and rescue me (wtṣylny) from evil occurrence (mpgʿ rʿ) and terrible diseases (wmḥlʾym rʿym)’. e prayer ending in Est. 14:17 (‘God, the one who has power over all, hear the voice of the desperate and rescue us [ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς — as in Mt. 6:13] from the hand of those who do evil [τῶν πονηρευομένων’]) is another possible point of in uence. 342. If, as we have argued, πειρασμός is not ‘temptation’ in Mt. 6:13a, then τοῦ πονηροῦ will not be ‘the Evil One’ in v. 13b, which is not to say that the Evil One might not be thought to be lurking behind the evil that is experienced. 343. Applied to an eye in Mt. 6:23, the word means ‘diseased’, to fruit in 7:18 the sense is ‘[too] bad [to eat]’, to a sore in Rev. 16:2 the effect is a ‘bad sore’. 344. e range of meaning is similar to that of the Hebrew rʿ, which is regularly translated as πονηρός in the LXX. 345. Luz, Mattthew 1–7, 385, presumably following Jeremias (e.g., eology, 202-3), who in turn takes up and defends the view of Schlatter, Matthäus, 217. 346. e switch in imagery has forced a change in translation of ἀϕιέναι from ‘release’ to ‘forgive’, which unfortunately partly obscures the link between vv. 12 and 14-15. 347. While fasting was by no means a Jewish distinctive, the importance of fasting to Jewish piety did stand out to others. See Tac., Ann. 5.4; Suetonius, Aug. 76.3; Petronius, frg. 37. 348. See 2 Sa. 1:11-12; Neh. 9:1; Ps. 35:13-14; Dn. 9:3; Jdt. 8:5; 1 Macc. 3:47; Josephus, War 20.89. 349. 2 Sa. 14:2; Ps. 23:5; Ec. 9:8; Jdt. 16:8. 350. Ps. 23:5; Lk. 7:46 (cf. v. 44); Mk. 14:3; Mt. 26:7. 351. 2 Sa. 12:20; see, e.g., m. Taʿan. 1:4, 5, 6; m. Yoma 8:1; b. Yoma 77b; Plut., Praec. coniug. 29.142A. 352. See b. Yoma 77b. Exception in the case of washing was made for instances of major soiling, and in the case of anointing for those with medical need of the anointing.

353. Other variables include the need to go barefoot, to refrain from sexual intercourse, the closing of the bathhouses and shops, and the like. 354. e closest thing to a literal implementation of this challenge is found in Test. Jos. 3:4: ‘For those seven years I fasted, and yet seemed to the Egyptians like someone who was living luxuriously, for those who fast for the sake of God receive graciousness of countenance.’ However, the point being made is clearly quite different. 355. ‘In secret’ plays this role in Mt. 6:4; the identi cation of the storeroom as ‘the secret place’ has this role in v. 6. 356. See the discussion at Mt. 9:14-15 of the relationship between the acceptance of fasting here as part of legitimate piety and what is apparently an abandonment of fasting there. 357. Betz, Sermon, 428. 358. On the question of more original source forms see further Nolland, Luke, 2:694-95. 359. For moth damage cf. Is. 51:8; Sir. 42:13; Jas. 5:2. 360. E.g., Luz, Matthew, 1:395. 361. If the order were reversed, then a sequence from damage to container to damage to contents would have been possible. 362. Galen (ed. Kühn) 6:422; 12:879. 363. Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 395. 364. T. Peʾa 4:18 has an anecdote which uses the idea of treasure with God being out of reach of damage by fellow humans. 365. In Mt. 19:21 ‘treasure [sing.] in heaven’ is connected to the sale of one’s assets and the dispersal of the proceeds to the poor. But in 6:20 the point is more general and links naturally to the preceding examples of what God rewards. 366. Negatively see Dt. 32:34. Tob. 4:9 has, ‘[By almsgiving] you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity’. Pss. Sol. 9:5 has, ‘e one who practices righteousness stores up life with the Lord’. 2 Bar. 14:12 has, ‘e righteous… possess with you a store of good works which is preserved in treasuries’. With narrowly monetary imagery of capital (available for the coming world) and interest (usable now) m. Peʾa 4:18

identi es honouring one’s father and mother, deeds of lovingkindness, peacemaking, and study of the law as capital deposited and producing investment interest. 367. By far the closest is Sir. 29:10-11, where in a discussion of the use of money we nd, ‘Lose your silver for the sake of a brother or a friend, and do not let it rust under a stone or be lost. Lay up your treasure according to the command of the Most High, and it will pro t you more than gold’. 368. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:632. 369. To the reference to ‘heart’ in v. 21 v. 24 will add the language of love. 370. See Nolland, Luke, 2:656-58. 371. Something like a sonic bounce or radar system. See, e.g., Plato, Tim. 45B-46A. Allison, ‘e Eye’, 61-83, conveniently documents the range of Greek views and con rms that ancient Jewish sources also assume that vision operates on the basis of light originating from the eye. 372. No particular anthropological theory is involved (e.g., it is not the soul or the conscience or some other speci c dimension of the human entity which is privileged to be the channel of insight). 373. Tilborg, Sermon, 144, suggests a contrast between ἁπλότης and ‘the hypocrites’ of vv. 2, 5, and 16, and this is certainly possible. 374. Cf. Mt. 7:18. 375. For literature on the evil eye in magic, see Betz, Sermon, 451 n. 236. 376. Mt. 15:19 has abbreviated and reworked the list. 377. e MT has Pr. 23:6; 28:22. e LXX has Dt. 15:9; Sir. 14:10; 31:13. e phrase is found in m. ʾAb. 2:9, 11; 5:19, but the context throws little light on the meaning. 378. Cf. Dem., Cor. 307: ‘It was not his duty to look with an evil eye upon a man who had made it his business to support or propose measures worthy of our traditions, and was resolved to stand by such measures; nor to treasure vindictively the memory of private annoyances’; Plut., Octavian 9:87-88: ‘Many others inclined to that side, not that they were sincerely of that mind, but for fear of being looked upon with an evil eye, if they spoke against their companions’. In neither of these texts is there any connection with wealth.

379. In Test. Iss. 4:6 the idea of erroneous vision becomes explicit: ‘… making no place for an outlook made evil [ὀϕθαλμοὶ πονηροί — lit. ‘evil eyes’] by this world’s error’. e context (ἁπλότης — ‘integrity’) emphasises the noun cognate to ἁπλοῦς, and it is even linked to vision in the phrase in 3:5: πάντα ὁρᾷ ἐν ἁπλότητι (‘sees everything in integrity’). 380. Note the sequence: ‘hate … love … be devoted to … despise’. 381. Cf. Acts 16:16-19; Test. Jos. 14:2. Scholars who discuss dual ownership draw attention to the impossibility of satisfying the competing demands but also the possibility that the slave might evade duty by playing his two masters off against each other; see Dupont, ‘Dieu ou Mammon’, 441. 382. Tilborg, Sermon, 148-52. 383. E.g., Varro, De re rustica 1.17 (end), assumes that the desired norm for slaves working on agricultural estates would be to have ‘goodwill (voluntatem) and kindly feeling (benevolentiam) towards the master’. 384. For the exclusiveness called for in the service of God see Ex. 20:2-3; Dt. 6:4-5; 2 Ch. 33:17. 385. Ex. 20:5; 34:14; Dt. 4:23-24; 5:8-9; 6:14-15. 386. e double ‘m’ of the English spelling is the result of a Latin in uence. 387. As far as I have been able to discover, the Gospel uses (cf. Lk. 16:9, 11, 13) are the earliest surviving instances of the term in Greek. 388. Test. Jud. 18:2-6: ‘Love of money… enslave[s] him, so that he is unable to obey God’; cf. 19:1: ‘Love of money leads to idolatry, because once they are led astray by money, they designate as gods those who are not gods’. Philo, frg. 2.649 (cited following Str-B, 1:435): ‘It is impossible for love of the world to coexist with the love of God’. Plato, Rep. 8.555C: ‘It is impossible for the citizens of a city to honour wealth and at the same time acquire a proper amount of temperance; because they cannot avoid neglecting the one or the other’. Demoph., Sent. Pythag. 1.42 (cited following Wettstein, Novum Testamentum Graecum, 1:333): ‘It is impossible for the same person to be a lover of money and a lover of God’. For other texts see Wettstein, ibid. and Dupont, ‘Dieu ou Mammon’, 442 n. 4.

389. Other links have been suggested: to overcome the practical objection to exclusive service of God posed by the fundamental human need for food and clothing (God will provide); since the worrisome dilemma of having two masters has been addressed, attention is also directed to other kinds of illegitimate worry; to ensure that one keeps as far as possible from serving mammon or laying up treasures on the earth, one should not even worry about basic life needs; to reassure in the face of the need to depend on God’s provision implied by the challenge of v. 24. Since the linking ‘for this reason’ is traditional (cf. Lk. 12:22), interpreters oen do not inquire too closely for a Matthean sense. 390. Robinson, ‘Pre-Q Text’; Robinson and Heil, ‘Lilies’; ‘Schreibfehler’. 391. See Mt. 5:18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44; 6:2, 5, 16, with Mt. 6:29 yet to come. 392. e word can mean ‘life force [whether metaphysically conceived or not]’, ‘earthly life’, ‘living creature’, ‘the inner person/the self ’, ‘that in the inner person which has the capacity to transcend the earthly’. 393. Dt. 10:18; Tob. 1:17; 4:16; Mt. 3:4; Mk. 1:11; 1 Tim. 6:8; Jas. 2:15-16. Sir. 29:21 adds a house to the list on the basis that people need privacy. 394. Pr. 11:17 (LXX); 2 Macc. 7:37; 14:28; 4 Macc. 13:13; Wis. 1:4; Mt. 10:28. 395. Betz, Sermon, 472, has noted this in relation to the nal clause, but it is already true in the primary challenge. 396. Epict., Ench. 33.7, assumes the bare needs of the body to include not only food, drink, clothing, and shelter but also household slaves! 397. Discussed in terms of its original meaning, the statement is oen connected with the mission instruction to go out without resources (Mt. 10:9-11) in full con dence that God will provide through the hospitality of those ministered to. Whatever the merits of this view, Matthew’s Sermon is not so narrowly focussed. 398. It would not do to say, ‘I am totally taken up in actions concerned with seeing to my life needs, but I am not anxious about them’. e service of mammon would be just as visible, and the actions would be evidence of a preoccupation of mind that our text would label as anxiety.

399. E.g., Luz, Matthew 1–7, 404. e objection has been partly met by Dillon, ‘Ravens’, 612-13, 616-17, 621, who points out that in arguing from the greater to the lesser, 6:25 has the opposite shape from the argument of the illustrations, which goes from the lesser to the greater. e difficulty remains that so much of the point has to be read into the text. 400. See Pr. 15:16; 17:1; Ec. 4:6; Sir. 30:21-24; 38:18. 401. ‘Life’ and ‘food’ take the lead position here, but since human life is embodied life the body must give expression to a good deal of the ‘more’. 402. See also 1 Enoch 2–5. While Jesus uses images from nature frequently, human interaction with nature is mostly involved. One is, however, to learn from nature in Mt. 24:32; cf. 16:2. 403. See Job 38:39-41; Pss. 104:27-28; 147:9; and cf. Ps. 145:16, where the focus is on people. Cf. Pss. Sol. 5:9-10. 404. ere might also be a balance between male labour terms in v. 26 and female labour terms in v. 28, but the rather general ‘work hard’ (κοπιῶσιν) in v. 28 tends to spoil the pattern. 405. However much Jesus may at times have ridden above the practicalities of every day, he cannot intend a blanket condemnation of the basis of all food provision (including that which he ate). To put farmers’ work on the positive side of the equation makes for an obscuring complication in challenging anxiety about having enough to eat. In another context the image of the birds may have the capacity to address the situation of homeless itinerants (but the image in Mt. 10:10 of working for one’s living in another way counts against this), but Matthew’s sermon is not narrowly addressing the wandering preachers. 406. Nolland, Luke, 2:692. 407. Mt. 10:29 is quite realistic about the death of sparrows; Ps. 104:29 recognises the times when God withdraws his provision. 408. Mt. 7:9, 12:11; Lk. 11:5; 12:25; 14:28; 15:4; 17:7. 409. ough its sense becomes broader (e.g., Lk. 19:3). 410. A somewhat similar sense would result, with πῆχυς in the sense ‘cubit’ and ἡλικία in the sense ‘[physical] stature’, from taking the height increase to stand for a gain in status and signi cance. e suggestion above has, however, the advantage that seniority and status that are age related will

come along in due course without the worrying: it comes as God’s provision. And this ts in better with the overall ow of thought. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 406 n. 47, too quickly assumes that nobody could want to be older, but that is to impose modern Western values. 411. Cf. Diog. Laert. 1.51: ‘ere is a story that Croesus in magni cent array sat himself down on his throne and asked Solon if he had ever seen anything more beautiful. “Yes”, was the reply, “cocks and pheasants and peacocks; for they shine in nature’s colours, which are ten thousand times more beautiful”’. 412. See 2 Ki. 19:26; Pss. 90:5-6; 102:11; Is. 40:6-8; Jas. 1:11; Pliny, Nat. hist. 21.1; Plautus, Pseud. 1.1; Ausonius, Aletho 7. 413. e concern about basic food needs in the section is already suggestive of a link with the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:11), but the linkage becomes certain when we add the reuse in v. 32 of the bad example of the Gentiles (cf. v. 7), the restatement of the Father’s knowledge of our needs (cf. v. 8), the kingdom language of v. 33 (cf. v. 10), the emphasis on today, and the concern about evil of v. 34 (cf. vv. 11, 13). 414. As already in Mt. 6:29 (in context), but for variety another verb is chosen. e verb in v. 29 is used with no pretensions in v. 31. 415. Or just possibly Mt. 6:29, since the verb there is used in v. 31. 416. Mt. 8:26; 14:31; 16:8. 17:20 uses the related ὀλιγοπίστιαν. ὀλιγόπιστος is found in Sextus, Sent. 6; otherwise we have to look to rabbinic materials for parallels (see Str-B, 1:438-39). 417. Mt. 17:20, with its use of ὀλιγοπίστιαν (‘smallness of faith’), stands slightly outside the mainstream: here faith has proved inadequate for relaying God’s rescuing care to a demoniac, even though, as the context suggests, even the tiniest amount of faith would have been enough. 418. See Mt. 5:47; 6:7; 18:17. 419. e tie with Mt. 6:8 is a reminder that prayer can be not only a place where trust in God nds expression but also a place where anxiety is allowed free rein. 420. ere is a link with prayer for the coming of the kingdom in Mt. 6:10.

421. Of the various attempts to give ‘righteousness’ a different sense from that at Mt. 5:20 the most attractive are those which make a link with 5:6 on the basis of a likeness between seeking and hungering and thirsting (but 5:6 must be understood in a manner which has not been found satisfactory in our earlier discussion of the verse). e notions of reign and righteousness are linked in Is. 32:1; Je. 23:5-6 (cf. 33:15), but we do not get a good contextual t in Mt. 6:33 if we seek guidance from there. 422. For the effect of this awkwardness of the phrase on the transmission of the text, see ‘Textual Notes’ above. 423. A claimed mistranslation of a Semitic original form stands behind the suggestion. e attraction is that the whole phrase loses its awkwardness if αὐτοῦ can be understood as ‘its [the kingdom’s]’. 424. Another possibility is that the reference is to both, but given that the phrase is awkwardly composed because of the speci c manner in which it came to have its present form, αὐτοῦ must be allowed to have a slightly different sense for each of the nouns to which it relates (simple possessive with kingdom since that is what it means in the source and this ts Matthew’s own use of kingdom language). 425. In a broad sense, since the initiative of God stands behind all that Jesus’ ministry brings, any righteousness achieved as a consequence of the ministry of Jesus will be ‘from God’. Matthew’s uses of ‘righteousness’ in 3:15 and 5:6 come closest to re ecting this, but they do not offer us any easy basis for nding ‘the righteousness that comes from God’ in 6:33. 426. e language of Ps. 37:4 is more extravagant, but the point is similar. Cf. Ps. 37:25; Wis. 7:11. 427. We may be dead; what we fear may not happen; our preparations may match poorly the actual needs of tomorrow; we burden ourselves down (unnecessarily) with worry; etc. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:662-63, provide a good list of texts. Notable among the parallels is the ancient Egyptian text e Eloquent Peasant 183: ‘Do not prepare for tomorrow before it is come. One knows not what evil may be in it’ (quoted following Griffiths, ‘Wisdom’, 220). e proverbial nature of the language of the nal clause of Mt. 6:34 is suggested by its closeness to language in b. Ber. 9b: dyh lṣrh bšʿth (lit. ‘sufficient to the evil in its time’). e language of Mt. 6:34 is,

however, thoroughly Matthean, apart from the use of ἡ κακία (‘evil’ — the neut. adjectival form rather than the fem. noun form is used in v. 13). 428. In Mt. 6:30 a sharp distinction emerges between today and tomorrow. What is said about tomorrow points there only to the relative unimportance of the grass, but the dramatic contrast between the grass’s fate today and tomorrow may well serve a secondary role of preparing for what is to be addressed in v. 34. 429. e congruence in Mt. 7:1-2 of action towards others and the divine response to oneself is also found in 5:7; 6:12, 14-15. e move from the plural in 7:1-2 to the singular in vv. 3-5 has a function similar to the same move in 6:1-4, 5-6, 16-18. ere is some similarity between the role of impaired sight in 7:3-5 (v. 5: ‘see clearly’) and in the discussion of healthy and impaired vision in 6:22-23. e family language ‘brother or sister’ echoes that of 5:22, 47. ‘Hypocrite’ in 7:5 (but here as a mode of address) echoes the uses of ‘hypocrites’ in 6:2, 5, 16. 430. ere is oen an interesting line here between violation of one’s marriage pledge in adultery (not ours to judge) and incest. 431. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 416. 432. Beyond Mt. 7:1-2 the only exceptions are 12:18, 20; 23:23, which are clearly not relevant here, and 5:21, 22, where the human court system is in view, but where this becomes an image for the judgment of God. 433. e eschatological role in Mt. 19:28 is only apparently in tension with this, since an immediacy of acting in concert with the Son of Man/God and as his agents is assumed. 434. Nolland, Luke, 1:301. 435. ᾧ functions as a relative adjective in a syntax pattern which can hardly be parallelled in English: ‘by which-[act-of-]judgment-you-judge you shall be judged’ 436. Cf. Mt. 18:32-34; Test. Zeb. 5:3; 8:1, 3; Sir. 28:1; Tob. 4:7. In b. R. Š. 16b ‘calling for judgment on one’s fellow man’ is one of the things that ‘call a man’s iniquities to mind’. 437. e Lukan parallel is 6:41-42. In Luke the materials of vv. 39-40 have been intruded between the parallel to Mt. 7:1-2 and 3-5. e difference

between the Matthean and Lukan wording is very minor and has no bearing on meaning. 438. a: βλέπεις; b: κάρϕος; c: ὀϕθαλμῷ; d: ἀδελϕοῦ — d′: σῷ; c′: ὀϕθαλμῷ; b′: δοκόν; a′: κατανοεῖς. 439. ough there is clearly a connection, the relationship of the imagery to that found in Jewish sources is hard to assess. In b. ʿArak. 16b (cf. b. B. B. 15b) we nd, ‘I wonder whether there is anyone in this generation who accepts reproof, for if one says to him: Remove the mote from between your eyes, he would answer: Remove the beam from between your eyes!’ Elements of both of the Gospel images are present (the main difference is that in the rabbinic text one is to remove one’s own mote), but the perspective here is of seeking to evade correction, not of seeking to propose correction to another. 440. e smallness may be relative (e.g., the term can be used of a toothpick, a stick of cinnamon, or the bits and pieces that birds gather to make their nests), but for the eye nothing bigger than a piece of grit will t the emphasis on smallness. 441. e use of the plural for logs of wood for the re (LSJ, 443, cite a third-century-A.D. papyrus) indicates that the meaning of the word did broaden, but set over against κάρϕος the primary sense will be intended. 442. Cf. Cicero, Tusc. 3.73: ‘For it is a peculiarity of folly to discern the faults of others and to be forgetful of its own’; and Horace, Sat. 1.3.25: ‘When you survey your own errors, your eyes are watery as if in amed; why, when you view the aws of your friends, is your sight as keen as an eagle’s?’ 443. Matthew’s introductory ‘or’ (not in Lk. 6:42) must (with the following ‘how’) have the force ‘or how can you even go on from this and’. 444. e NT is well supplied with material on fraternal correction (see, e.g., Mt. 18:15-17; Lk. 17:3; Jn. 7:24; Rom. 2:1-3; 1 Cor. 5:1-2; Gal. 6:1), and reproving one’s neighbour is an aspect of love in Lv. 19:17-18 (cf. Ps. 141:5). 445. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:672. e pattern begins with ‘Let me cast out the beam from your eye’ and sets ‘and look’ in parallel with ‘and then you will see clearly’. at the pattern has rightly been seen gains some support from the chiastic arrangement of v. 3 (see above). La. Rab. on 3:40 has ‘Let us correct ourselves; then let us seek to correct others’.

446. Maxwell-Stuart, ‘“Do not give”’, 341, offers a variant on this procedure by proposing an early scribal change from τὸ τίμιον (meaning ‘what is valuable’ but understood by the scribe as ‘what is honourable’ and interpreted as referring to the Eucharist) to τὸ ἅγιον (‘what is holy’). 447. Von Lips, ‘Schweine’, 165-86. Van de Sandt, ‘Do Not Give’, 230 n. 17 and 234-38, also helpfully gathers relevant Jewish materials highlighting the Jewish horror of what is holy to the temple nding its way into the mouths of dogs. 448. κύων is used here. Mt. 15:26-27 uses κυνάριον to refer to dogs which have a master and a relationship to a household; their food needs were cared for. 449. Von Lips, ‘Schweine’, 177-178. E.g., ‘To feed water to a frog [imagined as located in or by a pond]’; ‘a dog does not eat cooking herbs’. 450. Von Lips, ‘Schweine’, 177. E.g., ‘ere is no one who is poorer than a dog and no one who is richer than a pig’. 451. Von Lips, ‘Schweine’, 183-85, builds his application from the same overall delineation of the thrust of the image: inappropriate behaviour has its reactions and consequences. But he gives no particular weight to the choice of ‘what is holy’ for the image and instead focusses on the reaction and consequence which he takes as an image of divine judgment. is ts better the biting by the dogs than the trampling by the pigs (since the pearls have already been given up, there is no loss to the person), but in both cases we have the awkwardness of needing to get the idea of consequences from God for inappropriate action towards others. Even allowing for von Lips’s insistence that gures in the image are not ciphers to be decoded, the movement of action in the interpretation does not closely match the movement of action in the imagery. 452. For further details see Nolland, Luke, 2:629-32. 453. For some, the challenge to this openness is a challenge to live in the light of the coming kingdom of God. 454. God is much more reliable in taking care of our needs than people are, even at the point where they are likely to do rather better than normal, i.e., in dealing with their own children. 455. Nolland, Luke, 2:629.

456. ough one can to some degree imagine the statements as proverbs (cf. in English ‘Every effort has its reward’; ‘Persistence has its reward’; ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’), it is a vision of God and not an immanent truth about life which is being promulgated. It is proverbial that those who seek Wisdom nd her (see Pr. 8:17; Wis. 6:12). A second form in which common experience is appealed to as background is the experience of the beggar: beggar wisdom is that if one persists, one will normally get what one wants/needs. is has an initial attractiveness in connection with the gospel suspicion of wealth, but it nally falls foul of the same difficulties (since Mt. 7:8 adds virtually nothing to v. 7, there is no real basis for looking here for a ‘how much more’ argument). 457. e αὐτοῦ (‘his’) is redundant, and there is no proper link to the nal clause. 458. e possible visual likeness between bread and stone is likely to be embedded in the phrase ‘loaf of stone (panem lapidosum)’ found in Fab. Verruc., Ben. 2.7, as an image of a ‘bene t’ that is not actually bene cial. 459. Luke’s pair have in common the potential of being a positive threat; Matthew’s pair are simply useless as food. 460. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:683-84, join the use of ‘you’ here to other features of Jesus’ speech that mark a distance between himself and his hearers. is may be right, but the second person form is natural aer the rhetorical questioning of Mt. 7:9-10. 461. What I have in mind here may be illustrated by the question of the relationship in ethics between the sel ess love of a mother for her child and the kind of sel essness to which the gospel calls. 462. e same language (in the sing.) is found in Sir. 18:17. In relation to God, ‘good gis’ is taken up in Matthew’s text as ‘good [things]’, but the sense is not different. 463. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 423. 464. Mt. 5:17 links the terms with ‘or’, but a link with ‘and’ corresponds to this once the expression is positive rather than negative. 465. I do not mean to deny this sense to some of the non-Jewish texts, but rather to point to the Jewish texts as the most appropriate context for considering Jesus and the Gospel of Matthew. See Tob. 4:15; Sir. 31:15;

Aristeas 207; Philo as quoted in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 8.7.6 (358d); Test. Naph. 1:6 (Hebrew); b. Šab. 31a; Tg. Yer. I Lv. 19:18; ʾAbot R. Nat. 15. 466. ere is a certain kinship here to the kind of argumentation found in Mt. 5:45-47; 6:20, 26-30; 7:9-11. ere has been considerable questioning of whether the teaching of the historical Jesus has a place for a ‘rational ethic’. But despite the apologetic element, that is not really what we have in the Matthean use of the Golden Rule. ere is no need to think of a slackening of eschatological fervour. 467. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:732-34. 468. Between Mt. 5:20 and 7:13 the only use of ‘enter’ (εἰσερχέσθαι) is in 6:6, where ‘your storeroom’ is clearly not relevant to 7:13. 469. See Mt. 25:46, cf. v. 34; and 19:16,17, 29, cf. vv. 23, 24. 470. Some scholars claim that the images function independently and in parallel, but there is too much intertwining for this. Others, guided by the order in which the images are introduced, think of a way that begins on the other side of the gate (giving twin ideas of beginning and carrying on), but on this basis it is hard to give a satisfactory role to the imagery of the gate (a city gate no longer ts; the gate into an enclosed eld leaves little room for the image of an appropriate destination — a residence is possible, but this does not t the kingdom as well). 471. We noted something similar in Mt. 7:6 in commenting on the dogs and the pigs. Of course the way leads to destruction because it leads to the gate, and people may enter through the gate because it lies at the end of the way they have travelled. Mt. 16:18 will use the imagery of ‘the gates of Hades’ (the relationship between ‘destruction’ and ‘Hades’ is shown in the following note). 472. In Tob. 13:2 ‘[the great] ἀπώλεια’ parallels ‘Hades’; in Pss. Sol. 14:9 ἀπώλεια parallels ‘Hades’ and ‘darkness’; similarly, ‘destruction’ (but this time διαϕθορά) parallels ‘Hades’ in Ps. 15:11 (LXX). ‘Life’ and ἀπώλεια are set in antithesis also in Pss. Sol. 4:9; 9:5; 13:11; and cf. Ps. 15:11, where διαϕθορά is used. ‘Way’ and ‘life’ are joined in Pr. 6:23 (with the plural also in Ps. 15:11 [LXX]; Pr. 15:24). Je. 21:8 contrasts ‘the way of life’ and ‘the way of death’. e notion of the two ways is very widespread and well attested in both Jewish and Greek sources.

473. e use of τί in this way is not documented for the NT period, but it is found in modern Greek. It is probably a development from the exclamatory use of τί: ‘what a narrow [one is] the gate’ = ‘how narrow [is] the gate’! e probable use of τί in a magical incantation as an abbreviation for ὅτι = ‘because’ (reported by Horsley, ‘“Ti” at Matthew 7:14’, 141-43) offers a less likely approach, in part because the very garbled spelling there raises questions about the level of literacy, phonetic representation of loose diction, and/or the possibility of a narrowly local dialect. 474. Cf. the discussion by Luz, Matthew 1–7, 436. 475. Mt. 13:21; 24:9, 21, 29. 476. ere is some evidence that στενός, the word used for the ‘narrow[ness]’ of the gate, could also connote suffering. See the LXX of 2 Kgdms. 24:14; Job 18:11; Is. 30:20; Je. 37:7. 477. e most that can be offered along these lines is to recognise that in Ps. 30:9 LXX (ET 31:8) being ‘in a broad place’ (ἐν εὐρυχώρῳ) is the antithesis to being in the hand of one’s enemy (but the imagery probably expresses good future prospects broadly, using a picture based on stock placed in a rich, open pasture; cf. Ho. 4:16); and to note that Ps. 118:96 (LXX) (ET 119:96) uses ‘exceedingly wide (πλατεία)’ as an image of quality in relation to God’s command: one can always nd a limit to the perfection of other ne things, but the quality of God’s commandment goes on and on. 478. e language of nding may be intended to echo Mt. 7:7 (‘seek, and you will nd’), which in turn builds a bridge to 6:33 (‘seek rst the kingdom’). Cf. Diog. Laert. 4.49, ‘e road which leads to Hades is easy to follow’ (cited following Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:697). 479. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:306, 308. 480. Suggestions include the Pharisees, the Zealots, the Essenes, Bar Kokhba, Simon Magus, Gnostics, representatives of Pauline Christianity (or a degenerate form of Pauline Christianity), antinomians, Jewish legalists, and the false prophets who mark the eschatological period. 481. Clearly for Matthew, it is more than a prophetic role, but that does not stop the language of prophet from being appropriate (13:57; cf. 14:5; 21:11, 46; 26:68).

482. Matthew will later apply the same language (προσέχειν ἀπό) to the ‘yeast’ of the Pharisees and Sadducees (16:6, 11, 12), probably with the intention of echoing 7:15. But one should not immediately think of Pharisees or Sadducees at 7:15. 483. ‘Come to you’ has no independent signi cance; it simply expresses the idea of a disguised wolf moving close to the sheep in order to make an attack. 484. Cf. Ez. 34:11-16; Mt. 9:36; 10:6; 15:24; 26:31. If there were no allusion to the ock of God, then it might be possible to take ἐν ἐνδύμασιν προβάτων as alluding to the distinctive animal skin (here sheepskin) garments of the prophets (cf. Mt. 3:4), but for this the language is not well chosen. 485. Similarly, the princes are likened to a roaring lion, the priests are criticised in non-metaphorical terms, and the prophets are accused of smearing whitewash. Cf. Zp. 3:3-4. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf (the same terms as in Mt. 7:15) in Gn. 49:27. Wolves and lambs are seen as antithetical in OT imagery (Is. 11:6; 65:25; cf. Sir. 13:7). 486. In n. 482 we have already noted the coincidence of language with Mt. 16:6, 11, 12 (here of the Pharisees and Sadducees). Mt. 23:23 contrasts the inner and the outer aspects of the scribes and Pharisees (cf. 15:8), while the falseness of the scribes and Pharisees is a pervasive thrust in chap. 23. In 3:7; 12:34 and 23:33 ‘offspring of vipers’ has a thrust similar to that of ‘predatory wolves’. 487. Cf. Jas. 3:12; Epict., Diss. 2.20.18-19; Plut., Tranq. an. 13; Mor. 472F; Seneca, Ep. 87.25. 488. ey are paired in Ps. 105:33; Is. 34:4; Je. 5:17; etc. 489. ey are paired in Gn. 3:18; Ho. 10:8. 490. Sheep and wolves are different species. e Lukan artistry is, however, more successful in that Matthew in the end needs to juxtapose images that involve a match between species and fruit and images that are concerned with the quality of a fruit tree being evident from the fruit. ough the sense is clear enough, the juxtaposition is jarring. On the one hand the images of Mt. 7:16 link most readily with v. 15 (different species), but on the other hand Matthew wants to think ultimately of the quality of

people (single species) and so needs to subordinate the imagery of v. 16 to that of v. 17 (developed in vv. 18-19). 491. is is signalled by the opening ‘in the same way’ (οὕτως) and the move from negative question form to positive assertion form (both unmatched in Lk. 6:43). 492. A change not matched by Lk. 6:43. 493. ough the marking is not strong, it is likely that the focus here on a negative fate, where Mt. 7:13-14 and 21-23 each deal with both a negative and a positive fate, is meant to create a minor chiasm identifying the three linked pieces as a set and intensifying the tone of warning by focussing centrally on the graphic image in v. 19 (the parallelism between vv. 13-14 and 21-23 is reinforced by the recurrence of ‘many’ and ‘enter’ and by the presence of ‘into the kingdom of God’ as a synonym for ‘into life’; there are verbal links between vv. 15-20 and 21-23, but in each case the words are used with a signi cantly different sense). 494. e opening ἄρα γε (‘so then’) is unusual in placing ἄρα in the initial position, but this was becoming possible in the Hellenistic Greek of the period. 495. ose who see Mt. 7:15-23 as a single unit draw attention to the shared language of prophecy, reference to knowing (in neither case identical roots), and the use of πᾶς (‘every’) and ποιεῖν (‘do’). In v. 15 the prophetic activity is false, but not so in v. 22; in vv. 16, 19 knowing has to do with establishing identity, but in v. 23 with relationship; in vv. 17, 19 πᾶς is used as an adjective in a universalising statement, but in v. 21 it is used substantivally with a negative in a limiting statement; and ποιεῖν is part of an idiom for bearing fruit in vv. 17-19 but not so in vv. 21-22. 496. See Nolland, Luke, 1:306, 309; 2:732, 734. 497. Jesus is addressed as ‘Lord’ in Mt. 8:2, 6, 8, 21, 25 (as well as in 9:28). 498. Mt. 5:16, 45; 6:1, 9; 7:11. 499. Mt. 10:32, 33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 19; exceptions are 18:14; 23:9. Without ‘in heaven’ there are also 10:29; 13:43. 500. Cf. Mt. 12:49-50, where the full phrase ‘the will of my Father in heaven’ is found in connection with people who are gathered around Jesus

to be instructed by him. 501. ough Jeremias’s oen repeated claim that ‘my Father’ was never used in ancient Palestinian Judaism as an address to God is overturned by the use of ʾbî (‘my Father’) on the lips of Joseph in address to God in 4Q373 frg. 1 16, Jesus’ use of ‘my Father’ of God remains nonetheless rare and striking. 502. ‘On that day’ (ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ) can be a xed eschatological expression (the day when God intervenes to ful l his purposes in human affairs), but it is so only marginally in the NT (2 Tim. 1:18; 4:8). Here the context gives an eschatological sense, so it is unnecessary to appeal to such an idiom. 503. Cf. Betz, Sermon, 549. 504. Mk. 9:38; 16:17; Lk. 9:49; 10:17; Acts 3:6; 4:10; 16:8; etc. 505. ough Jesus’ activity as an exorcist has already been marked at 4:24, the language here will be rst used of Jesus in 9:33 and will recur in 9:34; 12:24, 27, 28. 506. ‘Mighty works’ (δυνάμεις) is rst used of Jesus in Mt. 11:21 and recurs in 11:23; 13:54, 58. In 14:2 it probably means ‘powers’, but it refers to the same miraculous healings as in the other occurrences. 507. To prophesy in the name of Jesus is likely to be thought of as continuing in some manner the prophetic ministry of Jesus himself. 508. e Lukan parallel in 13:27 has ἐρεῖ λέγων (lit. ‘he will say, saying’). 509. ere ὁμολογείν ἐν means ‘acknowledge’, and the matter under discussion is the owning of a committed link with another. 510. Betz, Sermon, 549-56. 511. e aorist of γινώσκειν (‘know’) has a similar role in Job 19:13, where it means ‘to acknowledge a relationship with’. In Job it is a matter of withdrawal of relationship. In Matthew there has never been a relationship. 512. Since Luke follows the LXX wording for the rst part of the quotation and Matthew for the second, both Evangelists are clearly conscious of the source of their wording. 513. Mt. 7:13-14, 15-20, 21-23 represent more oblique or more restricted applications of the point which emerges now in a direct and more general

form in vv. 24-27. It is best, therefore, despite the similarity of subject matter, to separate vv. 24-27 from the preceding set of units. 514. Marguerat, Jugement, 207. 515. See Nolland, Luke, 1:310. 516. In the second case, along with the introduction of the negative, a participial construction replaces the use of the relative clause to speak of hearing and not doing (but not in Θ f13 etc.), ‘foolish’ replaces ‘wise’, ‘sand’ replaces ‘rock’, ‘strike against’ (προσέκοψαν) replaces ‘fall against’ (προσέπεσαν), and the negative is dropped from ‘it did not fall’. In comment on the fate, ‘and its ruin was great’ replaces ‘for it had been founded on the rock’. 517. ‘To do the word(s)’ is quite a common idiom in the LXX and is found elsewhere in the NT (e.g., Ex. 24:3 [pl.]; 33:17; Jdg. 21:11[A]; Je. 11:6 [pl.]; 22:4; Ez. 12:25; Lk. 8:21; cf. Rom. 2:13; Jas. 1:22-23). In the closest Jewish parallels, study of Torah tends to have the place given here to hearing the words of Jesus (ʾAbot R. Nat. 24; cf. m. ʾAb. 3:18), but given their role in the Sermon no particular signi cance should be given to this observation. e contrast between knowing and doing is found in Seneca, Ep. 75.7. 518. e verbal difference is greater than is visible in translation. Mt. 7:24, 26 have ὁμοιωθήσεται, the future passive of ὁμοιοῦν (‘compare with/liken to’). In the NT ὁμοιοῦν is used in the passive with the sense ‘be or become like’ (cf. at Mt. 13:24). Lk. 6:48, 49 has ὅμοιος ἐστιν (‘is like’). 519. E.g., Pr. 10:8, 14; Ec. 10:2; Sir. 20:7. 520. E.g., Dt. 32:4; 1 Sa. 2:2; 2 Sa. 22:3: Ps. 18:2; Is. 17:10 (all stripped from the LXX). 521. By contrast, the Lukan image is of a single mode of assault: a river over owing its banks in ood time and bursting on a nearby house. 522. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:724 (following Jeremias, Parables, 194 n. 8), are probably right that a xed or proverbial expression is being re ected (see Philo, Mut. nom. 55; Migr. Abr. 80; Ebr. 156). e expression in complete form goes on to speak of the impossibility of restoration. Even when this completion is absent, it would be implied.

523. See Mt. 8:9; 9:6, 8; 10:1; 21:23, 24, 27; 28:18. 524. See, e.g., y. Pes. 6.1.33a: ‘[Hillel] discoursed of the matter all the day, but they did not receive his teaching until he said, us I heard from Shemaiah and Abtalion’ (cited following Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:726). 525. See Mt. 2:4; 5:20; 7:29; 8:19; 9:3; 12:38; 13:52; 15:1; 16:21; 17:10; 20:18; 21:15; 23:2, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, 34; 26:57; 27:41. 526. Mt. 7:28-29 contribute to the bracket signals: a completion statement to match the beginning statement of 5:2; use of the verb ‘teach’ as in 5:2; and use of ‘the crowds’ as in 5:1. 527. ough there will be ‘a crowd’ in Mt. 8:18, ‘the crowds’ is found next in 9:8, and for ‘great crowds’ we must wait until 12:15.

VII. JESUS ON THE MOVE IN MINISTRY (8: [1]2–9:34) A. e First Day of Healings (8:[1]2-17) 1. Jesus Cleanses a Leper (8:2-4) 2aA

leper bcame up [to him] and did obeisance to him, and said, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can cleanse me’. 3en che [i.e., Jesus] stretched out d[his] hand and touched him, saying, ‘I do choose, be cleansed’. And immediately [his] leprosy was cleansed. 4en Jesus says to him, ‘See that you speak to no one; but go off and show yourself to the priest, and offer the gi which Moses commanded as a testimony to them [i.e., the people]’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. A dramatic ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) is dropped in translation. b. ελθων (‘came’) in C L W 33 1006 etc.; no arrival statement at all in 788 1424. c. C2 L W Θ 1006 1342 etc. avoid ambiguity by specifying ο Ιησους (‘Jesus’) as the subject. d. αυτου (‘his’) speci ed in ‫*א‬, word order in Mk. 1:41).

2

1506 etc. (perhaps in uenced by the

Bibliography Boismard, M.-É., ‘La guérison du lépreux’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 254-58. • Fossion, A., ‘From the Bible Text to the Homily: Cure of a Leper (Mk 1.40-45)’, LumVie 35 (1980), 279-90. • Helmer, F., ‘Die Heilung eines

Aussätzigen (Mk 1.40-45)’, EuA 55 (1982), 310-13. • Busse, U., Wunder, 10314. • Cave, C. H., ‘e Leper: Mark 1.40-45’, NTS 25 (1979), 245-50. • Elliott, J. K., ‘e Healing of the Leper in the Synoptic Parallels’, TZ 34 (1978), 17576. • Kellas, C., ‘e Healing of the Leper: e Accounts in the Synoptic Gospels and Papyrus Egerton 2, Papyrus Köln 255’, IBS 16 (1994), 161-73. • Neirynck, F., ‘Response to the Multiple Stage Hypothesis I: e Healing of the Leper’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 94-107. • Neirynck, F., ‘Papyrus Egerton 2 and the Healing of the Leper’, in Evangelica II, 773-83. • Pilch, J. J., ‘Biblical Leprosy and Body Symbolism’, BTB 11 (1981), 108-13. • Ryrie, C. C., ‘e Cleansing of the Leper’, BSac 113 (1956), 262-67. • Telford, G. B., ‘Mark 1.40-45’, Int 36 (1982), 54-58. • Wanke, J., Kommentarworte, 40-44. • Zeller, D., ‘Die Heilung der Aussätzigen (Mk 1.40-45)’, TTZ 93 (1984), 13846. See further at 7:28–8:1.

Aer the extended teaching of 5:2–7:27 we go on to a fast-moving section which is characterised by the many healings and other miracle stories concentrated here (8:2–9:34).1 Our appreciation for and understanding of Jesus are carried forward as we observe the various attitudes displayed to him, and the groundwork is laid both for the disciples’ replication of his ministry and for the growing con ict with the religious leaders.2 e rst subsection runs from 8:2 to 8:17: all events of a single day. Matthew abbreviates the Markan account (Mk. 1:40-45), in particular dropping words that express Jesus’ emotion, the reference to the leper ‘imploring’ Jesus, and any reference to the man’s disobedience to Jesus’ command. e essential features that remain emerge more sharply. Despite a number of notable minor agreements between the Matthean form and Lk. 5:12-16, there is insufficient reason to postulate a source for Mt. 8:2-4 beyond Mk. 1:40-45.

8:2 While Mt. 4:23-24 has given an elaborate summary statement about a healing and exorcising ministry for Jesus, only

now does Matthew begin to narrate particular instances of healing. Perhaps he wished his readers to relate to the individual incidents in the light of the Sermon on the Mount.3 He begins with the healing which in Mark follows from the summary material that has shaped the opening of 4:23-25 (Mk. 1:39).4 is is an excellent attentiongetting choice for the opening position. An account of the miraculous cure of leprosy does not seem to be included among the Jewish and pagan miracle accounts that have survived from antiquity…. [However,] there did exist a Jewish expectation that the ravages of leprosy would be removed in the time of messianic salvation…. e social exclusion of lepers combined with the growing rst-century Jewish preoccupation with issues of clean and unclean … separated leprosy from other forms of illness and would have given a heightened signi cance to its cure.5

e dramatic importance of the materials in chaps. 8–9 for Matthew is marked by an unusually high concentration of uses of ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’, but not translated above).6 e chapters have also concentrated into them most of the language of coming (προσέρχεσθαι) to Jesus to be found in the Gospel.7 In the healing accounts concentrated here those healed are oen provided with no identity beyond the affliction (the leper, the demoniacs, the women with the haemorrhages, the blind). e afflicted are on occasion linked with anonymous friends or helpers (those healed one evening, the paralytic, the mute person). e sick lad is identi ed by his connection to a certain centurion; Peter’s mother-in-law is identi ed by that relationship; and the daughter of the ruler is also identi ed by her family relationship. For the rst time since the Magi, someone is now said to ‘do obeisance’ (προσκυνεῖν) to Jesus. As discussed at 2:2, in his uses of this verb Matthew deliberately blurs the distinction between

deferential respect and religious worship: all such responses to Jesus are on the way towards the Christian recognition of Jesus as worthy of divine worship. With the leper we begin to be nudged in the direction of religious worship. e address, ‘Lord,’ is not signi cant by itself, but in light of what follows we perhaps hear echoes of the use of ‘Lord’ in the worship of God as exalted Lord. What is striking is the leper’s recognition of the supreme signi cance of the will of Jesus. e signi cance of the will of an Eastern despotic ruler approaches this, but nally it can only be said of God that the signi cance of his will is absolute in this manner. e will of Jesus is being set on a par with that of God.8 Wis. 12:18 says of God, ‘You have power to act whenever you choose’ (the same verbs as in Mt. 8:2) and in Job 42:2 Job says, ‘You can do all things and … no purpose of yours can be thwarted’. ough the word is not present, the ‘authority’ of Jesus’ teaching in 7:29 is now being recognised in his capacity to bring healing. e use of ‘cleanse’ focuses on the sense of de lement that attached to the condition of leprosy. e LXX applies the verb both to the healing of a leper (e.g., Lv. 14:4) and (more oen) to the ritual cleansing declared by the priest (e.g., 14:11). Biblical leprosy was more comprehensive than ‘leprosy’ as we use it (for Hansen’s disease), included a range of dis guring skin conditions of varying degrees of severity. 8:3 Luz identi es a chiastic arrangement, with one reaching out of one’s hand to touch as the emphasised centre of the chiasm.9 While touch plays a frequent role in healing,10 it has extra signi cance here because of the uncleanness and social exclusion imposed by leprosy. Despite the regular assumption of commentators, touching here does not seem to violate the rules of the cultic and ritual system.11 One might want to say that the uncleanness retreats before the touch and command of Jesus, but

Jesus himself is more cautious in v. 4 (see below). Jesus accepts the signi cance the leper gives to his will and indicates that the cleansing of the leper is indeed his will. at the healing is instantaneous points to the superabundant capacity of Jesus to deal with the situation. ough the instance is quite speci c, the reader is expected to draw much more general conclusions about the will and the capability (the authority) of Jesus to heal (cf. 4:23). 8:4 is verse draws emphasis onto the directive of Jesus by using a historic present. Matthew tends at times to overuse the historic present with verbs of speaking, and thus dulls its emphasis in these cases, but he nonetheless does seem to intend emphasis.12 What in Mark links with attempts at secrecy on the part of Jesus is here best understood as Jesus’ insistence that the man make no claims about his healing before it has been certi ed by a priest.13 Despite the elimination of the medical condition, in Jewish thinking the man would remain ritually unclean until the priestly examination and temple offering. Lv. 14:1-32 report in more detail what is involved in the ritual cleansing. Jesus has no intention of bypassing this requirement of the Law (cf. Mt. 5:17-20), nor of displacing the priests from their role. With a slight change of language Matthew creates an echo here of the activity of sacri cing of 5:23-24.14 e signi cance of ‘as a testimony to them’ is not immediately clear. Did the phrase explain the Mosaic directive? Moses made provision for people to be publicly assured that ritual cleanliness was indeed restored.15 Or does the phrase comment directly on the man’s action? And if so, is the testimony centrally about his own state (restoration to health, ritual cleansing)16 or is he attesting to the signi cance of Jesus (he heals in this extraordinary way; he affirms the Law)? ough witness to the kingdom of God (and therefore to Jesus) will become signi cant for the disciples in

Matthew (10:18; 24:14), a focus on the man’s own situation seems more likely here.17 Matthew’s ‘them’ has no proper antecedent, but it probably has a wider generality than application to the priests implied by reference to one of their number (‘show yourself to the priest’) would allow. e Markan text goes on to report the man ‘spreading the word’ (and the impact of this on Jesus’ own freedom of movement). Because of the range of motifs involved we cannot be sure why Matthew preferred to omit this continuation,18 but the loss of reference to the spreading of the word is of a piece with Matthew’s omission from chaps. 8–9 of any Markan mention of Jesus’ teaching or preaching.19 2. Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant (8:5-13) 5aAs

he entered Capernaum,a a bcenturion came up to him and began to appeal to him, 6saying, ‘cLord, my lad has been laid out at home, paralysed [and] suffering terribly’. 7He says to him, d‘Am I to come and heal him!’ 8eIn responsee the centurion said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; but only say the word and my lad will be healed. 9For I also am a person funder authority, having soldiers under myself; and I say to this [one], “Go”, and he goes, and to another [one], “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and he does [it].’ 10When he heard [this], Jesus was amazed and said to those who were following, ‘Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith gin anyone in Israel.g 11I say to you, many will come from the east and the west and recline at table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12but the sons of the kingdom hwill be thrown outh into the darkness outside; there there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 13 en Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Off you go! [Just] as you have believed, let it happen for you.’ And ihis lad was healed jin that [very] hour.j

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. μετα δε ταυτα (‘aer these things’) is preferred by k (sys) — journeying towards Capernaum has not been signalled —, and the two readings are combined by K it (syc). b. Sys, hmg (also in vv. 8, 13 by sys) read χιλιαρχος (‘chiliarch’) to give a gure whose authority functioned at a higher level. c. Missing from ‫ *א‬k sys, c, perhaps because of the non-Jewish identity of this suppliant, or to increase the signi cance of its presence in v. 8. d. ‫ *א‬adds ακολουθει μοι (‘follow me’), which forces the following clause to be construed as an indication of Jesus’ intention. e. Missing (as redundant?) from ‫ *א‬B 33 etc. f. In sys ‘having authority’ is preferred; syc combines the two readings. ‫א‬ B etc. add τασσομενος to give ‘set under authority’ (in uenced by Lk. 7:8). g-g. ‫ א‬C L Θ f13 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. conform to the Lukan wording using ουδε, giving ‘not even in Israel’. h-h. ‫ *א‬0250 k sys, c, p have εξελευσονται (‘will go out’), but the text above is more likely for Matthew. Perhaps a scribe noted the difficulty of throwing out those who have not gone in (see below). i. Missing from ‫ א‬B 0250 f1 33 205 etc. and perhaps not original. j-j. Following Lk. 7:10, και υποστρεψας ο εκατονταρχος εις τον οικον αυτου εν αυτη τη ωρα ευρεν τον παιδα υγιαινοντα (‘and the centurion, having returned to his house, found the child well in that hour’) is found in ‫*א‬, 2 C (E) Θ (0250) f1 (33) 205 983 1006 etc.; απο της ωρας εκεινης (‘from that hour’) is found in C Δ Θ 0250 33 etc.; εν τη ημερα εκεινη (‘on that day’) is found in W 700 1424. Bibliography Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Who Will Come from East and West? Observations on Matt 8.11-12/Luke 13.28-29’, IBS 11 (1989), 158-70. • Aurelius, E., ‘Gottesvolk und Aussenseiter: Eine geheime Beziehung Lukas–Matthäus’,

NTS 47 (2001), 428-41. • Bolyki, J., Tischgemeinscha, 68-70. • Boring, M. E., ‘A Proposed Reconstruction of Q 13.28-29’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 1-22. • Burchard, C., ‘Zu Matthäus 8,5-13’, ZNW 84 (1993), 278-88. • Catchpole, D., ‘e Centurion’s Faith and Its Function in Q’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 517-40. • Dauer, A., Johannes und Lukas: Untersuchungen zu den johanneisch-lukanischen Parallelperikopen Joh 4,46-54/Lk 7,1-10 — Joh 12,18/Lk 7,36-50; 10,38-42 — Joh 20,19-29/Lk 24,36-49 (FB 50. Würzburg: Echter, 1984), 39-125. • Gagnon, R. A. J., ‘Statistical Analysis and the Case of the Double Delegation in Luke 7:3-7a’, CBQ 55 (1993), 709-31. • Gagnon, R. A. J., ‘Luke’s Motivation for Redaction in the Account of the Double Delegation in Luke 7:1-10’, NovT 36 (1994), 122-45. • Gagnon, R. A. J., ‘e Shape of Matthew’s Q Test of the Centurion at Capernaum: Did It Mention Delegations?’ NTS 40 (1994), 133-42. • Happa, E., ‘Zur Selbsteinschätzung des Hauptmann von Kapharnaum im Lukasevangelium’, in Glaube und Gerechtigkeit. FS R. Gyllenberg, ed. J. Kiilunen et al. (Schrien der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellscha 38. Helsinki: Finnische Exegetische Gesellscha, 1983), 69-76. • Haslam, J. A. G., ‘e Centurion at Capernaum: Luke 7:1-10’, ExpTim 96 (1985), 109-10. • Judge, P. J., ‘Luke 7,1-10: Sources and Redaction’, in L’Évangile de Luc — e Gospel of Luke: Revised and Enlarged Edition of L’Évangile de Luc: Problèmes littéraires et théologiques, ed. F. Neirynck (BETL 32. Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1989), 473-90. • Landis, S., Der Verhältnis des Johannesevangeliums zu den Synoptikern: Am Beispiel von Mt 8,5-13; Lk 7,1-10; Joh 4,46-54 (BZNW 74. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1994). • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic Dimensions, 107-30. • Lindars, B., ‘Capernaum Revisited: Jn 4,46-54 and the Synoptics’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1985-2000. • Lowe, M. and Flusser, D., ‘Evidence Corroborating a Modi ed Proto-Matthean Synoptic eory’, NTS 29 (1983), 25-47, esp. 28-30. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 243-57. • Martin, F., ‘St. Matthew’s Spiritual Understanding of the Healing of the Centurion’s Boy’, Communio 25 (1998), 160-77. • Neirynck, F., ‘John 4,46-54: Signs Source and/or Synoptic Gospels’, in Evangelica II, 678-88. • Neirynck, F., ‘Jean 4,4654: Une leçon de méthode’, ETL 71 (1995), 176-84. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 230-41. • Reiser, M., Die Gerichspredigt Jesu (NTAbh, N.F. 23. Munster: Aschendorff, 1990), 216-26. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 2:603-69. • Schürmann,

H., Gottes Reich — Jesu Geschick, 117-22. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 160-86. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 101-29. • Wegner, U., Der Hauptmann von Kafarnaum (Mt 7,28a; 8,5–10.13 par Lk 7,1-10): Ein Beitrag zur QForschung (WUNT 2/14. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1985). See further at 7:28–8:1.

Where we were to imagine the meeting with the leper as taking place on the journey away from the mountain of the Sermon, the present encounter is to be thought of as coming at the stage where that journey is reaching its end. And where the leper’s recognition of the importance of the will of Jesus implied authority (for the reader, following on from 7:29), it is given to the centurion to recognise this authority in a carefully articulated manner. His faith is, consequently, celebrated, and this becomes the opportunity for an ominous assertion, by way of contrast, about a coming dire fate for many of those who might be expected to be heirs of the coming kingdom. Lk. 7:1-10 obviously reports the same incident. Although it relates the verbal exchange quite similarly (with the notable difference that in vv. 11-12 Matthew introduces a separately transmitted tradition that Luke uses in 13:28-29), in the Lukan account the interaction takes place entirely through intermediaries (two delegations). It has proved difficult to achieve a scholarly consensus about the contours of the earliest form. Matthew readily abbreviates his narrative sources, but the Lukan form re ects Luke’s own interests and has narrative difficulties with the second delegation. Probably the shared source had the rst Lukan delegation, but not the second. e account in Jn. 4:46-54 is also related. It is generally considered to be a variant account of the same incident, and this is not unlikely; but since interchange of motifs is demonstrable in the transmission of the Gospel materials, we should also consider the possibility that John reports a different incident that he has, nonetheless, told with the in uence of motifs from the centurion account.20 For Mt. 8:11-12 Matthew is likely to have the more original order, but he will have abbreviated the directions from which

people come and will be responsible for ‘of heaven’, ‘into the outer darkness’, ‘the sons of the kingdom’, and the setting that makes the material explicitly a comment on eschatological inclusion of Gentiles.21 e second spot given to the healing of the centurion’s servant may well be prompted in part by the link in his source with a version of the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Lk. 7:1-10 immediately aer the Sermon). at Mark follows the healing of the leper with a return to Capernaum also encourages placing here a tradition that has the same setting.

8:5 Capernaum is established as Jesus’ home base in 4:13 (cf. 11:23; 17:24). As with the leper (see at 8:2), the centurion comes to Jesus. Like his father, Herod Antipas used predominantly nonJewish soldiers.22 eir duties might have included public order, policing, and customs. Following the structure of devolved authority which marked Roman practice, the centurion would have had a wide-ranging authority over, and responsibility for, his men.23 e importance of Jesus’ will in 8:2-4 leads naturally to the desire here to in uence that will in relation to the needs of one’s own situation. Matthew 9:18-26 will again deal with healing asked for on behalf of another (this time a gure with some authority in the synagogue). 8:6 Jesus is once more addressed as Lord (see at 8:2). παῖς may mean ‘servant’ or ‘son’, but since παῖς μου always refers to a servant in the LXX, servant is more likely here. e translation, ‘lad’, catches something of the affectionate family link sometimes established with household servants/slaves.24 What is important for the story is only that personal signi cance to the centurion and not merely utility lies behind the approach to Jesus.25 Where Luke emphasises the prospect of death, Matthew emphasises the suffering: the paralysis is a symptom of the acute phase of an illness (not a permanent disability); and the pain is intense. It is not clear whether βέβληται here has the weakened sense, ‘has been placed

(and is therefore lying)’, regularly given it here or the strong sense, ‘has been struck down or laid out [lit. thrown]’. e same sense will need to be shared by 8:14; 9:2 (the latter also involves a person who is paralysed). e accompanying dramatic language of the onset of paralysis and of terrible suffering favours the strong sense (cf. Rev. 2:2).26 If this is correct, then the cause of the illness becomes the implied subject of the action of the verb. ἡ οἰκία (lit. ‘the house’) plays a role several more times in chaps. 8–9.27 8:7 Given the difficulties raised in 15:24, 26 (and cf. 10:5 — see discussion there), it is best to punctuate this verse as a question (or rather a questioning exclamation) and to understand that Jesus is seeing an implied request to come and heal in the words of v. 6, and questioning the appropriateness of such action.28 e evidence is mixed,29 but clearly the Jews tended to consider contact with Gentiles as contaminating;30 this will also be part of the background to the Matthean Jesus’ surprise at the request. ough Matthew uses θεραπεύειν (‘heal’) frequently, he normally does so in summaries or general statements; only here and in two other episodes (12:22; 17:16, 18) does he use it in relation to the healing of a speci c individual. 8:8a In part, we are probably to understand the centurion’s statement of unworthiness in relation to a Jewish understanding of clean and unclean as noted above. In Lk. 7:6, however, his sense of unworthiness is, beyond the Jew/Gentile distinction, clearly also christologically motivated. Here the christological motivation is less emphatic but also certainly present: here is a ‘Lord’ with authority analogous to his own, but operating in quite another league. 8:8b-9 e centurion here perceives the authority of Jesus as the capacity to dictate what is to happen. In a circumscribed frame the centurion has just this kind of authority. Because he says so, things

happen; to have his will performed the centurion does not need to do anything directly himself. And this is how the centurion also considers the situation to be with Jesus; but in Jesus’ case the word of command can lead to results quite outside the frame of any human authority structure, where authority reaches only as far as the resources one is able to command.31 e point in Luke is not different, but Matthew accentuates it with the addition of ‘only’.32 Matthew uses ἰᾶσθαι for ‘heal’ only in this episode and in the other Gentile healing in 15:28 (which has a series of similarities to the present episode).33 e phrase ‘under authority’ has troubled scholars and prompted proposals of mistranslation of a Semitic source (so: the original meaning was ‘with authority’) or suggestions that the comparison with Jesus is complicated at this point by a statement of contrast (both the centurion and Jesus have authority, but the centurion’s is only derivative). But Matthew has no difficulty with seeing Jesus’ authority as derivative (11:27; 28:18). It is precisely the centurion’s position in a chain of command that gives his word power. Similarly, Jesus’ authority is based on his relationship with his heavenly Father (see at 3:17). 8:10 Matthew’s placing of Jesus’ remarks to those who were following within the hearing of the centurion is striking,34 and creates an episode within an episode somewhat like 9:18-26.35 Matthew rarely attributes emotion to Jesus, and elsewhere it is always others who are amazed at Jesus. So the impression made here on Jesus stands out all the more. Matthew further underscores the importance of the statement by adding an introductory ‘Amen’ (on ‘Amen, I say to you’ see at 5:18). ose who are following are the crowds of 8:1, but given the general form of reference, their speci c identity has no particular signi cance.

Here for the rst time Jesus speaks about faith (but see 6:30), and he has an outstanding example to begin with. Half of Matthew’s uses of ‘faith’ will be in chaps. 8–9.36 Scholars have frequently remarked on the oddness of having such a sweeping statement about the lack of such faith in Israel placed so early in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry. As a statement made from the perspective of his whole ministry, it has something of a proleptic role (cf. discussion at 2:3).37 Jesus is not saying that he has failed to nd faith in Israel, but he is saying that he has not found faith on the level of the centurion’s (this will apply as much to the disciples as to others38). e following verses will go on to indicate, in effect, that the correlative of nding that the best of faith in Israel is not outstanding is that in some faith will be found to be entirely lacking. Israel is here viewed from a salvation-historical perspective: it is among God’s historical people that faith should most naturally be found.39 e kind of faith in view is one that recognises and responds to what God has now begun to do in Jesus. As in Luke, ‘Faith … is attributed to those who act decisively on the basis of the conviction that God’s help is to be found with Jesus and gratefully receive God’s action through him’.40 When he nds such faith in a Gentile, the logic of excluding such a one from help on the basis of Jesus’ exclusive call to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (15:24) loses its cogency. 8:11 For another ‘I say to you’ following from ‘Amen, I say to you’, see 5:18, 20: a fresh but related point is being made. Coming ‘from the east and the west’ echoes OT eschatological gathering texts, but Matthew has economised by mentioning only two of the compass points.41 It is sometimes said that Matthew reapplies texts about the eschatological gathering of the dispersed of Israel to the gathering in of the Gentiles, but this is to claim too much. By locating the text where he does, Matthew does no more than allow

for the inclusion of Gentiles in the gathering of Israel.42 Jewish thought43 anticipates an ongoing or later role for the patriarchs, and this is here linked with the imagery of an eschatological banquet.44 8:12 Matthew will use ‘sons of the kingdom’ again in 13:38.45 From the perspective of 13:38 the irony of the present use is clear: the reference here is to the natural heirs of the kingdom; in 13:38 it is to the actual heirs of the kingdom (cf. 3:9). e Jewishness of Matthew’s story makes clear that he does not have in mind the exclusion of the whole category of natural heirs, but his language may well already re ect the major rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people, a point to which his story reaches by the end. Coming so early in Matthew’s text, 8:11-12 may be intended to function as a prophetic anticipation of an aspect of the larger shape of the story. Matthew has already used the undesirability of being in the darkness in the imagery of 4:16; 6:23. ‘e darkness outside [the building which has the banquet hall]’ ts the imagery better than ‘the farthest darkness’.46 We are to think of an evening banquet well lit inside but surrounded by darkness outside. A range of Jewish texts use the imagery of darkness in relation to eschatological fate.47 ‘rown out’ suggests violent exclusion at the time when entrance is sought (cf. the refusal of entry standing behind the action of 7:22 — see there). In the context of the imagery of a wedding banquet and with reference to being thrown out when already inside,48 Matthew will develop this point in 22:13. e imagery of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ comes from the tradition (see Lk. 7:28) but is favoured by Matthew, who will use it ve more times.49 ‘Gnashing of teeth’ is oen an aggressive expression of hostility and anger, but the vexation of Ps. 112:10 is probably a better guide here.

8:13 Jesus has le the centurion dangling while he speaks (in part about him) to the crowd following him; now Jesus responds to him. People whom Jesus assists are also dismissed with ὕπαγε (‘off you go’) in four of the healings accounts in chaps. 8–9.50 ‘[Just] as you have believed, let it happen for you’ underlines the key role of faith here, in language which will be closely parallelled in 9:29 and slightly less closely in 15:28. Where the role in Lk. 7:10 of the parallel to the nal clause of Mt. 8:13 is to con rm the fact of the healing (which has taken place at a distance), here the point is to affirm both the authenticity of the centurion’s statement of faith and the reality of the authority of the simple word of Jesus. 3. Jesus Heals Peter’s Mother-in-Law (8:14-15) 14en

Jesus came into the house of Peter and saw his [i.e., Peter’s] mother-inlaw laid out and suffering from fever, 15and he touched her hand. en the fever le her. And she got up and began to serve ahim.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Conforming to Mark and Luke, ‫א‬1 L Δ f1, 13 33 565 892 1424 etc. have αυτοις (‘them’). Bibliography Fuchs, E., ‘Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Studie zu Mk 1,29-31 par Mt 8,14-15 par Lk 4,38-39’, SNTU 6/7 (1981-82), 21-76. • Lalleman, P. J., ‘Healing by a Mere Touch as a Christian Concept’, TynB 48 (1997), 355-61. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Er berührte ihre Hand”? (Matthäus 8,15)’, BibNot 73 (1994), 33-35. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 83-87, 92-95, 178-91, 214-15. See further at 7:28–8:1.

Jesus’ journey from the mountain of the Sermon comes to an end at the house of Peter, where a third healing takes place. A chiastic structure centred on the departure of the fever highlights Jesus’ initiative and the woman’s response.51 e pericope is parallelled in Mk. 1:29-31; Lk. 4:38-39. Since Matthew does not report the synagogue teaching of Mk. 1:21-28, the reference back to the (teaching in the) synagogue is lost. Despite minor agreements (mainly of omission) no adequate case has been made for a source beyond the Markan one. Aer departing from Mark’s order for 8:1-4, 5-13 Matthew now comes back to it.

8:14 Matthew offers no particular rationale for Jesus’ going to the house of Peter,52 but its location in Capernaum (see v. 5) retrospectively ties 4:18-22 to the Capernaum area. Given the focus on Peter’s mother-in-law, the loss of Mark’s inclusion of Andrew in the ownership of the house is natural, but the narrowing may also anticipate the centrality of Peter among the disciples. Matthew normally uses the name ‘Peter’ (rather than the ‘Simon’ of the Markan parallel).53 Mark’s naming of James and John is no longer appropriate given the generalisation in 5:1 from the group of four initially called in 4:18-22. Jesus is frequently said to act in response to what he sees, but the reactions that produce a healing are concentrated in chaps. 8–9.54 βαλλεῖν is used as in 8:5 and is probably meant to indicate that the woman has been struck down by the illness (see discussion at 8:5). Given the imprecision of ‘fever’, the use of βαλλεῖν helps to identify the illness as serious. Matthew’s dropping of Mark’s ‘and immediately they ask him about her’ is prepared for by ‘Jesus saw’: Matthew is interested only in reporting an encounter between Jesus and this woman. 8:15 Matthew uses ‘touched’ to create a link back to v. 355 as well as with other healings in chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:3). Unlike 8:3, 13,

here there is no word of healing; the touch suffices (as in 20:34). e departure language rei es/personi es the fever, but this is likely to be only metaphorical. ἠγέρθη is a perfectly good word for ‘she got up’, but the passive form makes room for the suggestion that she has been raised up56 and creates a link with the restoration to life of the ruler’s daughter in 9:19.57 In the context the natural reference of διηκόνει is to activities associated with domestic hospitality; the restoration is so complete that she can immediately resume such activities. But since service to Jesus58 emerges in 25:44 as an important and privileged activity and is identi ed in 27:55 as having played a signi cant role (by women) in supporting his ministry, the domestic service here gains in signi cance as the story unfolds.59 4. General Healing: He Took Our Infirmities (8:16-17) 16When

evening came, [people] brought to him many who were possessed by demons; and he cast out the aspirits with a word, and healed all those who were ill, 17so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, He has taken our infirmities and borne our diseases.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. A clarifying τα ακαθαρτα (‘unclean’) is added by (Δ) it vgmss samss. Bibliography Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 140-55. • Mayhue, R. L., ‘For What Did Christ Atone in Isa 53:4-5?’ MastSJ 6 (1995), 121-41. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Source

of the Quotation from Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17’, NovT 39 (1997), 313-27. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 186-188. See further at 4:23-25; 7:28–8:1; 8:14-15.

e events of a day that reaches back to the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount come to a close with a large number of exorcisms and healings in the evening. Matthew abbreviates Mk. 1:32-34, in particular eliminating the difficult image of the whole city gathered at the door of the house and the reference to the demons’ knowledge of Jesus’ identity. e formula quotation is Matthew’s own contribution.

8:16 Where in Mark (and Luke) the evening setting pointed to the fact that the sabbath was now past (the sick could be carried with impunity and healing sought without offending the sensibilities of any), the Matthean reordering allows instead for the signalling of the end segment of a long day of activity. e evening may also be mentioned as a time of day when normal work commitments were over and a new set of people were free to bring their sick. Finally, it makes time, retrospectively, for the refreshment break for Jesus in which the serving of v. 15 took place. e impersonal third person construction leaves unspeci ed the identity of those who bring the ill.60 For ‘brought to him’, Matthew prefers προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ to Mark’s wording; the choice accentuates the already signi cant echoes here of 4:24.61 Except in the summary statement in 4:24, exorcisms have not yet played a role in Matthew’s account (8:28-34 will be the rst).62 Matthew has inverted the more normal Markan order of healings and exorcisms.63 is may be a minor chiasm as in 6:19-21 (see at v. 19), here concerned to stitch together the set of three healings in 8:2-15 and the set of three amazing deeds in 8:23–9:7 (which has an

exorcism in the central position). For obvious rhetorical reasons Matthew has inverted Mark’s use of ‘all’ and ‘many’: now ‘many’ are brought, and ‘all’ (of them) are healed. Matthew normally speaks of ‘demon(s)’,64 but he uses ‘unclean spirit(s)’ in 10:1; 12:43 and ‘spirits’ alone in 12:45, where the context makes the identity clear. He is likely to be preparing here for 10:1. Matthew’s addition of λόγῳ (‘with a word’) underlines the commanding authority of Jesus’ words by taking up the term used by the centurion in 8:8. 8:17 Matthew adds here a citation formula (with citation), clearly one of the set of ten beginning at 1:22 (see there). It is the middle of three which are identi ed as coming from Isaiah, and the formula is identical for all three except that this middle one begins with ὅπως rather than ἵνα (both mean ‘so that’).65 e next one (12:17-21) will also be linked with a generalised statement about healings and exorcisms; the present text shares with the former one (4:14-16) a relationship to Capernaum. e second and third sit well under the rubric offered by the rst: ‘the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light’ (4:16). e text form is a fairly literal translation of the Hebrew text of Is. 53:4 (quite different from the LXX). What Matthew takes up from the Isaiah text is the release from suffering brought by the mysterious gure of Is. 53. He ignores the element in the Isaiah text of the suffering being taken instead by another; that is not happening in the healing ministry of Jesus.66 Matthew is well attuned to the signi cance of the suffering of Jesus, but he makes no particular link between that and the healing ministry of Jesus. ough Matthew does not use ἀσθνεία (‘in rmity’) elsewhere, its very generality makes it a useful term for him here. B. Miracles in a Disciple Framework (8:18–9:13)

1. Jesus and His (Would-Be) Followers (8:18-22) 18Seeing agreat

crowdsa about him, Jesus gave the order to go over to the other side. 19And a certain person, a scribe, came up to him and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go’. 20en Jesus says to him, ‘e foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have places to settle, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’. 21A different person, [one] of the disciples, said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father’. 22But Jesus bsays to him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. ere is some uncertainty about the correct reading here. I have followed ‫א‬2 C L Θ 0233 f13 33 etc. Singular forms are found in W 1424 etc. οχλον (‘a crowd’) is found in B symss. etc.

b. e historic present is replaced by the aorist (cf. Lk. 9:60) in L W Θ f13

Bibliography Araskumar, R., ‘Insecurity vs. Faith: Meaning and Purpose of Mt 8:18-27’, Vidyajyoti 61 (1997), 243-58. • Bailey, K. E., Peasant Eyes, 22-32. • Basser, H., ‘Let the Dead Bury eir Dead’, in Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series 5: Historical, Literary and Religious Studies, ed. H. Basser and S. Fishbane (Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1993), 79-96. • Bockmuehl, M., ‘“Let the Dead Bury eir Dead” (Matth 8:22/Luke 9:60): Jesus and the Halakhah’, JTS 49 (1998), 553-81. • Caragounis, C. C., e Son of Man: Vision and Interpretation (WUNT 68. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986), 175-79. • Casey, M., ‘e Jackals and the Son of Man (Matt. 8.20//Luke 9.58)’, JSNT 23 (1985), 3-22. • Coulot, C., Jésus, 18-40. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 237-44. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Two “Harsh” Sayings of Jesus Explained’, DR 103 (1985), 218-25. • Deutsch, C. M., Lady Wisdom, 43-46, 111-17. • Edwards, R. A., ‘Characterization of the Disciples as a Feature of Matthew’s Narrative’, in e

Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1305-24, esp. 1317-23. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 28-39. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Demands of Discipleship: Matt 8,19-22 par. Luke 9,57-62’, in e Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 541-61. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 252-55. • Goldenberg, D. M., ‘Retroversion to Jesus’ ipsissima verba and the Vocabulary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: e Case of mataʾ and qartaʾ’, Bib 77 (1996), 64-83. • Hengel, M., Charismatic Leaders, esp. 3-15. • Herrmann, L., ‘Correction du k en a dans une phrase de Jésus’, REAnc 83 (1981), 283. • Kiilunen, J., ‘Der nachfolgewillige Schrigelehrte: Matthäus 8.19-20 im Verständnis des Evangelisten’, NTS 37 (1991), 268-79. • Kingsbury, J. D., ‘On Following Jesus: e “Eager” Scribe and the “Reluctant” Disciple (Matthew 8.18-22)’, NTS 34 (1988), 45-59. • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 347-51. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 100-109. • McCane, B. R., ‘“Let the Dead Bury eir Own Dead”: Secondary Burial and Matt 8:21-22’, HTR 83 (1990), 31-43. • Mora, V., Création, 145-54. • Robbins, V. K., ‘Foxes, Birds, Burials and Furrows’, in Patterns, B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, 69-84. • Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism, 252-55. • Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich — Jesu Geschick, 91-96, 162-63. • Schwarz, G., ‘Ἄϕες τοὺς νεκροὺς θάψαι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς’, ZNW 72 (1981), 272-76. • Smith, M. H., ‘No Place for a Son of Man’, Forum 4.4 (1988), 83-107. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 96-121. • Uro, R., ‘Apocalyptic Symbolism and Social Identity in Q’, in Symbols and Strata, ed. R. Uro, 67-118. • Vaage, L. E., Upstarts, 89-93. • Zumstein, J., Condition, 220-25. See further at 7:28–8:1.

e larger unit 8:2–9:34 continues, but aer the formula citation of 8:17 Matthew has created a discipleship frame for his next set of miracle stories (8:18-22 and 9:9-13 frame 8:23–9:8). Various aspects of the discipleship calling are clari ed here. e stories gathered here are also interested in displaying a range of corporate responses to Jesus.67 e present episode accentuates the radical nature of the call to follow Jesus. For 8:18 Matthew draws on Mk. 4:35-36, but for the rest he draws on nonMarkan material parallelled in Lk. 9:57-60. In bringing the sea crossing back

from its later Markan position Matthew is likely to have been in uenced by the match between the evening setting of Mt. 8:16-17 and the evening crossing envisaged in Mk. 4:35. Matthew has already used up the key verse 1:39 from the Markan sequel, 1:35-39 (as well as the following vv. 40-45); in order to carry on with Mk. 2:1-12 he needs a block of material that he can use in relation to another return to Capernaum; Mk. 4:35–5:21 will serve admirably.68 Scholarship is almost unanimous in its recognition of the historical authenticity of Mt. 8:21-22, but though vv. 19-20 have been questioned more oen, because of the ‘Son of Man’ language, the saying in v. 20 makes better sense on the lips of Jesus than as a community product.69

8:18 ‘Seeing great crowds’ is probably concerned to establish continuity with the preceding ow of materials (Jesus is motivated to action by what he sees in v. 14; a crowd is envisaged in v. 16, implied in v. 10, and last speci cally mentioned in v. 1).70 ough the idea of leaving the crowds behind is based on Mk. 4:36, here in Matthew a clear rationale for the departure does not emerge. In Mk. 4:35-36 Jesus has nished teaching the crowds from the boat. Matthew may have had in mind the continuing Markan text in 1:35-39 (and thus the need to minister elsewhere and to people other than the crowds who have already had a chance to bene t from and respond to his ministry); but if so, he offers no speci c clues that he is thinking along these lines. But since 8:28-34 can hardly be said to offer such a ministry, the other and better alternative is that we should look forward to 14:13 for a pattern of intentional withdrawal for a period of respite to enable Jesus to spend time privately with his disciples. Jesus will catch a little sleep on the night journey (Mt. 8:24), but despite Matthew’s continuation of the chronological sequencing it is doubtful whether he intends us to think in terms of round-theclock activity. Perhaps he got a little carried away with his

investment in narrative sequencing! e presumption of the availability of a boat is credible in light of 4:18-22. To whom does Jesus issue the command? Despite some scholarly support for the view that the command is general and that a call to discipleship is being implicitly issued to the crowds, it is more natural to understand the directive as addressed to the disciple band. 8:19 By starting the story of the departure by sea in v. 18 Matthew has deliberately linked the materials of vv. 19-22 to the sea crossing: the demands of discipleship are illustrated by the stresses of the voyage, and the speci c trials of the voyage are generalised by being related to the challenges in vv. 20 and 22. ‘Scribe’ and ‘teacher’ are both likely to be intended to call to mind 7:29:71 this scribe recognises that Jesus has something that he (the scribe) does not have. e address, ‘teacher’, is oen treated negatively here because such address has negative associations in some Matthean texts.72 But while Matthew never has disciples address Jesus as teacher, he is oen termed ‘teacher’ as a neutral descriptive statement,73 and Jesus identi es himself as a teacher in several texts.74 It seems best to understand that this scribe is offering to become a disciple without yet knowing all that is involved. On discipleship and the following of Jesus see the comments at 4:20; 5:1. While the speci c call of Jesus does stand behind the unique discipleship of the Twelve, their following of Jesus patterns wider discipleship (see again at 4:20) in a manner that precludes objection here to the scribe’s putting himself forward. ‘Wherever you go’ picks up on ‘go over’ in v. 18 (ἀπέρχεσθαι is used in both cases). 8:20 Despite what is oen claimed, it is hard to see how Jesus’ statement here (on any possible meaning) could function as a simple rebuff. Depending on the sense given to ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (‘the Son of Man’, but more literally ‘the Son of Humanity’75), the words themselves could be taken as making a

statement about humanity in general,76 though this could hardly address the situation of the scribe. e alternatives are that this is a statement about Jesus himself, made because of its implications for his followers, or that it is some form of collective statement about the situation of the group of people being formed by Jesus’ call.77 What contribution does the designation ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου have to make? is is Matthew’s rst use of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, but he will go on to use the phrase twenty-seven more times, all of them either de nitely or possibly on the lips of Jesus.78 I have argued elsewhere that in Aramaic and on the lips of Jesus the usage would have been an idiolect of his own, understandable on the basis of known Aramaic idiom and meaning something like ‘this Somebody’, ‘the Somebody of whom I speak’. e literal translation into Greek was in part a recognition of the idiosyncratic nature of Jesus’ use of this phrase (cf. his use of ‘Amen’ and ‘Abba’).79 Matthew probably adds this diction to texts which did not originally incorporate it, but his use conforms well to this proposed original sense. In the present verse ‘the Son of Man’ picks up on the scribe’s recognition of Jesus as an important Somebody with whom he would like to be related. Jesus accepts the ascription of signi cance but offers a paradoxical assertion: important as he might be, this signi cant Somebody has nowhere to lay his head. e contrast with the birds of the air is (as in 6:26) a contrast with creatures of minor signi cance. Presumably what the birds have is perches in the trees and nests during the breeding season. e foxes are also chosen for their low status in the larger scheme of things.80 What sort of nowhere-to-lay-one’s-head can Matthew have in mind for Jesus? e Matthean Jesus is clearly not literally homeless.81 us far in Matthew’s story all that offers itself is the

leaving behind involved in the call of the four shermen in 4:182282 and the pattern of itineration in 4:23. But as the story unfolds, Jesus will soon be unwelcome in ‘the country of the Gerasenes’ (8:33), and the disciples will be warned to anticipate (sometimes) not being welcomed (10:14), judicial persecution (vv. 16-20), and family and wider hostility (vv. 21-22, 34-36) and will be advised to ee from their persecutors (v. 23). And these isolating experiences are to be linked with taking up the cross and following Jesus (v. 38), a concept which will gradually become clear as Jesus announces his coming Passion83 and then goes through the experience (chaps. 26– 27). Deprivation plays its part in what Jesus is speaking of, but the main focus is on being made unwelcome by others. e scribe is offering to join what is to become an outcast group.84 8:21 As he did by identifying the rst person to approach as a scribe, Matthew also makes the second person who approaches Jesus more precise (cf. Lk. 9:59). Now he is ‘a different person, [one] of the disciples’ (ἕτερος τῶν μαθητῶν).85 In line with this identi cation, Matthew drops the initial call to follow found in Lk. 9:59 (the disciples have already responded to the call to follow) — he repositions this call to the beginning of Jesus’ response to the disciple’s request for permission to temporarily do something other than follow.86 As a pair the would-be disciple and the disciple asking for a leave-of-absence from discipleship offer synthetic parallelism rather than sharp antithesis, but contrast is present. e address, ‘Lord’, is frequent throughout chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:2; 7:21). ἀπελθεῖν (here: ‘go off ’) is repeated from v. 18: a (temporary) substitute destination is proposed. For what is this disciple seeking permission? Suggestions range from permission to stay behind until his aging parent (presently still in good health?) dies,87 through permission to

remain to see out the secondary mourning period (perhaps a year aer the death) which was terminated by secondary burial of the bones,88 to permission to remain long enough to bury a dead or dying father, or to see out the primary seven days of mourning. While different degrees of extremity are involved, any one of these would be an important lial duty in a Jewish context, with strong links to the commandment to honour one’s parents. ough later, b. Ber. 31a catches the importance of this family duty: ‘He who is confronted by a dead relative is freed from reciting the Shema, from the Eighteen Benedictions, and from all the commandments stated in the Torah.’89 In rather harsh terms Jesus is to deny the request made by the disciple. 8:22 Scholars have made an extensive list of suggestions as to the terms in which Jesus refuses.90 Since there is no adequate reason for suspecting mistranslation of an Aramaic original or corruption of our received text, we must interpret the words as we have them.91 e perspective of the text is not that dealing with the death of one’s father is not a thoroughly proper thing to do, even an obligation. ere is nothing here of the Cynic’s disregard for the body once dead.92 Even the normal claims of pious duty to one’s parents must, however, give place to a more pressing duty (just as Jewish tradition allowed the pressing duty of dealing with one’s dead to override the performance of other commandments and duties).93 ere is here an incredible statement of self-importance on the part of Jesus, coupled with an acute sense of the urgency of the hour in which he was operating (cf. Mt. 3:10). It is difficult to see how Matthew might have thought such a challenge should press on disciples who read his Gospel. It is clearly of a piece with other ways in which Jesus downgrades the absolute claims of family.94 But one’s obligation to one’s family also features positively in the teaching of Jesus (15:3-9). We can do no more than say that disciples need to be open to an

analogous call from the living Lord, and need to hear here a challenge to any and every postponing of the demands of discipleship. More precisely, however, what can Jesus mean by saying ‘Let the dead bury their own dead’? What is this imagery of the dead burying the dead? If ‘dead’ were to refer to spiritual death, then the language could mark a sharp boundary between the community of faith and everybody else. But Jesus is responding to a matter related to physical death. So at least the second reference to the dead must be to physical death. To introduce the idea of a category of spiritually dead people is to add a new thought that has no clear links with the context. So rst priority must go to a physical meaning for both uses of ‘the dead’. Can the text make good sense with both uses of ‘the dead’ referred to the physically dead? Ehrhardt95 drew attention to the similarity of Euripides, Andromache 849: ‘For the dead are an object of care to the dead as the living [are] to the living’. In the speci c case of secondary burial, McCane makes a good case for an image of the already secondarily buried performing this function for the more recently arrived skeleton.96 e Semitic view of going down to the shades would allow for this kind of development of imagery. Of course, this understanding of Jesus’ words is absurd if taken literally. But it was never intended to be taken literally. e force of the words is: ‘Let other arrangements be made; you have more pressing duties’. 2. Jesus Stills the Storm (8:23-27) he got into athe boat, and his disciples followed him. 24And there was a great disturbance in the sea, so that the boat began to be bengulfed by the waves.c But he was asleep. 25ey came to him and roused him, saying, ‘Lord, save [us]; we are perishing!’ 26en he says to them, ‘Why are you being 23en

cowardly? [You people of] little faith!’ en he got up and rebuked the dwinds and the sea, and there came a great calm. 27e people marvelled, saying, ‘What sort of person is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e de nite article is missing in ‫א‬1 B C f1, 13 33 205 565 892 etc. (as in Lk. 8:22). b. Lit. ‘covered’. c. 108 etc. vgmss increase the parallelism with Mt. 14:24 by adding ην γαρ ο ανεμος εναντιος αυτοις (‘for the wind was against them’). d. Singular (as in Mk. 4:39; Lk. 8:24) in ‫ *א‬f1, 13 etc. Bibliography Aus, R. D., e Stilling of the Storm: Studies in Early Palestinian Judaic Traditions (International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism. Binghampton, NY: Global Publications, Binghampton University, 2000). • Feiler, P. F., ‘e Stilling of the Storm in Matthew: A Response to Günther Bornkamm’, JETS 26 (1983), 399-406. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die “Seesturmperikope” Mk 4:35-41 parr im Wandel der urkirchlichen Verkündigung’, SNTU 15 (1990), 101-33. • Heil, J. P., Jesus Walking on the Sea (AnBib 87. Rome: Ponti cal Biblical Institute, 1981), 84-103. • Hendrickx, H., Miracle Stories, 168-204. • Kynes, W. L., Christology of Solidarity, 57-63. • Park, S.-J., ‘La tempête apaisée: Matthieu 8,23-27’, SémiotBib 99 (2000), 33-51. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Ein grosses Beben entstand auf dem Meer”? (Matthäus 8,24)’, BibNot 74 (1994), 31-32. • immes, P. L., Studies in the Biblical Sea-Storm Type-Scene: Convention and Invention (San Francisco: Mellen Research University, 1992), esp. 88-90, 134-48. See further at 7:28–8:1; 8:18-22.

A discipleship focus for the present unit has been established by Matthew’s insertion of 8:19-22 aer the directive in v. 18 to make

the voyage across the lake. e main action of the story appears to be presented in a chiasm centred on the disciples’ approach to Jesus and his words to them;97 but there is also an important christological emphasis related to the evident authority of Jesus, which is underlined especially by v. 27. e text is parallelled in Mk. 4:35-41; Lk. 8:22-25. Matthew is likely to be solely dependent on his Markan source, but it is just possible that a second source is re ected in the opening words of Mt. 8:27. In the Markan form 4:38b, 40, 41b may be developments from an earlier form of the story in which these elements were lacking.98

8:23 Matthew has Jesus enter the boat rst so that he can highlight the motif of the disciples following Jesus and strengthen the link with vv. 19-22.99 Matthew drops Mark’s accompanying boats (he is not concerned with the evidential value of witnesses), but this means that he leaves his later use (in v. 27) of a group distinct from the disciples, a possibility opened up by this detail of the Markan text, unprepared for in his own text. 8:24 e verse opens with καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’), which I have le untranslated; see the comments at 8:2 for its role as a marker of emphasis throughout this section. Matthew identi es the cause of the problem as a σεισμός. is word means ‘a shaking’, and is normally applied to an earthquake rather than a storm.100 He has most likely chosen the word because its generality allows readers to think in terms of the many kinds of disturbance that may threaten their own lives.101 e choice of the word may also make it possible, retrospectively, to see anticipated here the eschatological turmoil of the period through which the disciples will be called upon to live out their discipleship (24:7).102 It is further possible that the general language allows the evocation of mythical images of the sea as a

frightening monster, once roused.103 e sea is being shaken up, and so there are large waves; but only with the mention in 8:26 of the presence of the wind will it become clear that the likely cause is a storm. e danger is that the boat will be swamped and sunk. e idea that the boat here signi es the church as a place of safety in the storms of life, despite its distinguished pedigree, goes beyond the text. Clearly the corporate identity of Christians together is of considerable importance for Matthew, but it does not surface here. Jesus asleep ts well the frantic pace of the action through this part of the Gospel, but in light of what is to come likely represents his own con dence in God as the one who controls the winds and the sea. e Markan ‘cushion’ has gone; there would be too much of a clash of images with v. 20. ere is a curious relationship between the present account and the story of Jonah’s sea voyage. e strongest verbal links are between v. 24 and Jon. 1:4-5. But there are also verbal links between Mt. 8:25 and Jon. 1:6, 14; Mt. 8:27 and Jon. 1:16 (much stronger for the Markan account at this point). Further content parallels can be noted between Mt. 8:23 and Jon. 1:3; Mt. 8:26 and Jon. 1:15. e differences between the Matthean and the Markan versions strengthen some links and weaken others, which suggests a continuing consciousness of the links between the narratives. In very different ways Jonah and Jesus are both presented as gures through whom God manifests his power over nature. e likelihood that this account also echoes Ps. 107:23-32 stands in support of seeing the Jonah link in a quite general manner. e desire to see signi cance in the Gospel journey into Gentile territory for the Jonah link104 has to reckon with the fact that Jonah was at this point journeying away from and not towards his role in Nineveh.105

8:25 As other needy people do throughout this section (see at 8:2), the disciples come to Jesus for help. ey address him as ‘Lord’, as do various suppliants in the section (see also at 8:2). For the rst time the verb σῴζειν appears in relation to gaining help from Jesus (but see 1:21). Its use in Matthew is generally in immediate connection with a pressing present difficulty or need,106 but this is not to say that behind and beyond the immediacy of Jesus’ assistance does not stand a larger sense of the neediness of Israel and the wider world, and of the saving purposes of God. e disciples’ conviction that they are perishing stands in contrast to Jesus, until disturbed, ‘sleeping like a baby’ through the storm.107 It is this contrast that prepares us for the difference between Jesus’ response to their request and to that of other suppliants throughout this section. 8:26 e Matthean Jesus will address the de ciency in the disciples’ faith before he takes up the point of their own concern (inverting the Markan order). e situation may be terrible, but the disciples’ terror is a mark of little faith. It indicates that they have lost sight of the reality of the power and presence of their Lord.108 When this happens, appropriate action on the basis of faith becomes impossible. e present episode illustrates, however, the point already made in 6:30, that God does not withhold help even from those whose faith is small. e language of rebuke is matched in the OT imagery of the rebuke of the sea.109 e imagery is of a power contest. e forces addressed have exerted their in uence, but they are stopped in their tracks by the rebuke of one greater than they. e great calm represents the total suppression of the initiative taken by the winds and sea.110 e image is of a glassy- at water surface and not a breath of wind. e language is thoroughly mythological, but neither in the OT nor in Matthew are we to treat the rebuked forces

as actually having a personal identity. What emerges is the total adequacy of Jesus to meet any situation. V. 27 underlines the theophanic nature of what has been experienced. 8:27 e role here of οἱ ἄνθρωποι (‘the people’), which is not found in Mark or Luke, is best explained as designed to introduce here people other than the disciples to voice the coming question.111 Despite their little faith, Matthew probably does not want the uncertainty expressed to be associated with the disciples.112 In Matthew it is mostly those observers of Jesus who are not (yet) disciples who are amazed at his actions.113 Matthew articulates the question as a category question rather than an identity question (as in Mark and Luke). e language of the question is designed to give strong guidance to the reader as to what might be the appropriate answer. Echoes of OT texts indicate that such action as has now been witnessed is the prerogative of God himself.114 e reader of Matthew is being ‘called upon to recognise in faith the security of his or her life in all danger [on the journey of discipleship]. e effective control which God exercises over his world now nds its concrete expression in the activity of Jesus, the Lord. He exercises God’s personal mastery over all the forces of destruction.’115 Surprisingly, though there are generalising statements, there does not seem to be a surviving account from the Greco-Roman world (no matter how legendary) of a human gure using his or her own native powers to still a storm.116 3. Jesus Sends the Demons into the Pigs (8:28-34) 28When ahe

came to the other side, to the territory of the bGerasenes, two demoniacs met him, coming out of the tombs; they were very fierce, so that no one could pass that way. 29ey cried out, saying, ‘What have we and you to do with each other, cSon of God? Have you come here to dtorment us before

[the] time?’ 30Now a herd of many pigs was being grazed eat a distance from them. 31e demons begged him, saying, ‘If you cast us out, fsend usf into the herd of pigs’. 32So he said to them, ‘Go’. And they came out and went off into the pigs. en the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and died in the waters. 33e herders fled, and going off into the town they reported everything, also what had happened to the demoniacs. 34All the town came out to meet Jesus; and seeing him, they begged him to leave their gregion.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Plural in ‫( *א‬vgmss), probably in uenced by the Synoptic parallels. b. is is the reading of 892c latt syhmg sa mae. It is not at all the bestattested reading; see below for its preference here. Γεργεσηνων (‘Gergesenes’) is read by ‫א‬2 L W f1, 13 etc. Γαζαρηνων (‘Gazarenes’) is found in ‫*א‬. Γαδαρηνων (‘Gadarenes’), the reading normally preferred, is supported by B C (Δ) Θ etc. c. C3 W Θ 0242vid f13 etc. add Ιησου (‘Jesus’) to align the text with Mark and Luke. d. απολεσαι (‘destroy’) in ‫( *א‬W) etc., in agreement with Lk. 4:34. e. e insertion of a negative here in some of the Latin tradition gives ‘not far’, probably having in mind the εκει (‘there’) in the Synoptic parallels. f-f. Probably under the in uence of Lk. 8:32, C L W f13 etc. read επιτρεψον ημιν απελθειν (‘let us go off ’). g. Omitted by sys to give the simpler ‘to leave them’. Bibliography Ådna, J., ‘e Encounter of Jesus with the Gerasene Demoniac’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 279-301. • Annen, F., ‘Die Dämonenaustreibungen Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien’, in eologisches Jahrbuch 1981 (Leipzig: St. Benno, 1981), 94-123. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Legend and Event: e Gerasene Demoniac’, in Studia Biblica, ed. E.

A. Livingstone, 63-73. • Karris, R. J., ‘Luke 8:26-39: Jesus, the Pigs, and Human Transformation’, NTR 4 (1991), 39-51. • Kirchschläger, W., Exorzistisches Wirken, 91-130. • Loader, W. R. G., ‘Son of David, Blindness, Possession, and Duality in Matthew’, CBQ 44 (1982), 570-85, esp. 580-82. • Maynard, A. H., ‘TI EMOI KAI SOI’, NTS 31 (1985), 582-86. • Merklein, H., ‘Die Heilung des Besessenen von Gerasa (Mk 5,1-20): Ein Fallbeispiel für die tiefpsychologische Deutung E. Drewermanns und die historischkritische Exegese’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1017-38. • Safrai, Z., ‘Gergesa, Gerasa, or Gadara? Where Did Jesus’ Miracle Occur?’ JerPersp 51 (1996), 16-19. • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 105-12. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 103-40. See further at 7:23–8:1.

e present episode does not make a major contribution to the discipleship framework established for 8:18–9:13 since the disciples play only a passive witnessing role. Exorcisms will, however, be important for the disciples’ mission (10:10), and this is the rst account of an exorcism. e experience of not being welcomed (8:34) also prepares the disciples for their own future role (10:14). e christological emphasis on the authority of Jesus, noted for 8:23-27, continues here. As with the previous unit, the material is arranged chiastically, with central focus on the request of the demons and the response of Jesus and its immediate outcome (vv. 31-32ab).117 Matthew continues the Markan sequence here. Mk. 5:1-20; Lk. 8:26-39 are the parallel accounts. ere is no indication that Matthew has used anything beyond his Markan source. Despite the complex form and the range of difficulties that have been identi ed, only Mk. 5:3-5, 8, 16 should be suspected of being expansions.118

8:28 e radical abbreviation in this verse compared to the Markan source makes quite clear that Matthew is not interested in

the experience of the demoniacs (only in Jesus’ act and the reaction of the townsfolk). Such is the focus on Jesus that even the reference to the disciples hidden away in ‘they came’ in Mk. 5:1 disappears. Matthew also drops Mark’s ‘of the sea’: ‘the other side’ provides the exact match for Mt. 8:18 and thus represents the ful lment of the intention declared there. Given the text-critical confusion (see above), it is uncertain what name we should read. I think it most likely that ‘Gerasenes’ should be read, in agreement with Mk. 5:1; Lk. 8:26.119 ‘Gadarenes’ is likely to be a conjectural correction, on the ground that the territory of Gadara did extend to the lakeside while that of Gerasa did not. e strength of attestation in Matthew probably re ects nothing more than the greater popularity, and therefore the more consistent correcting, of Matthew through the crucial period of scribal copying. ‘Of the Gergesenes’ was the reading championed by Origen because of the lakeside cliffs it offered. Of the various proposals, perhaps the most likely is that the name confusion results from the transliteration into Greek of the name of a lesswell-known non-Hellenistic lakeside town which, given the curious inconsistencies of ancient transliteration, proved subsequently difficult to identify.120 But the various suggestions remain conjectural. Matthew has two demoniacs where Mark and Luke have only one. is is one of a number of doublings in Matthew.121 ey probably represent nothing more than an insistence that the incidents were not ‘one-offs’ but part of a larger pattern. ere is likely to be some relationship to the importance in Jewish law of double witness, but Matthew is not focussed on legal proof. In sharp contrast to Mark, the two demoniacs here do not attract reader sympathy; rather, they are presented as being a public menace, making that area unpassable. Coming out from the tombs probably

represents a connection with the aberrantly supernatural, but it may also suggest a hiding place from which to emerge and attack travellers. 8:29 e verse opens with καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’), which I have le untranslated; see the discussion at 8:2 for its role as a marker of emphasis through this section. It will occur again in v. 32 to mark the stampede of the pigs and in v. 34 to mark the hostile encounter of the townsfolk with Jesus. Here in v. 29 it marks what replaces the attack that might have been expected at this point. Instead of representing a threat, the demoniacs behave as though threatened themselves.122 All their erceness has been drained away.123 τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; (lit. ‘What to us and to you?’) is an LXX idiom.124 It represents a denial that the parties have anything in common: ‘We don’t belong together; how can contact with you be in our interest?’ e rst clue that the men might be speaking not on their own behalf but with the voice of their possessing demons comes from the address ‘Son of God’. Certainly those speaking are supernaturally aware of Jesus’ identity (not his personal human identity as Jesus — that drops away from the Matthean text — but his signi cance in the larger supernatural frame of things),125 and that is something that comes from their state of being possessed. e content of the following clause makes quite clear that the demons are speaking. Con rmation comes with the reference to ‘the demons’ in v. 31. ‘Before [the] time’ is best taken as referring to the time of the eschatological judgment of all evil (cf. 25:41). e demons know themselves to be doomed, but the time has not yet arrived. However, since with the coming of Jesus the forces of the kingdom of God are freshly stirring, we might expect action that is anticipatory of the nal judgment of the demons. e demons ask

not to be tormented, but they will be.126 βασανίσαι (‘torment’) has a literal sense of ‘torture in judicial examination (to establish the truth)’. at is not quite what we have here, but the discomforting of the demons in being sent into the pigs (though there is also an element of concession in this) will reveal their utter destructiveness. Jesus has come to ‘torment them before the time’, but not with the full intensity of what will come aerwards. 8:30 Matthew probably has the pigs at a distance because the pigs are attended by pig herders, and the pig herders are not going to be anywhere near the erce demoniacs.127 If pigs are grazed rather than fed (as in Lk. 15:15-16), they need to be closely attended and moved frequently if the natural regeneration of plant life is to be sustained. e commercial keeping of pigs indicates that we are not dealing here with a Jewish community (cf. m. B. Q. 7:7). But this is no deliberate precursor of Gentile mission. As indicated in the discussion at v. 18, it is likely that, in Matthew’s telling, Jesus’ contact with demoniacs, pig herders, and townsfolk here is no more intended than is the encounter with the crowd of 14:14. A quiet place of retreat is not so quiet aer all, and he must deal with the situation that confronts him. 8:31 Matthew’s word here for demons (δαίμων) is not found elsewhere in the NT.128 In wider Greek it is used in a broad range of ways to refer to the (beings of the) supernatural world (the deity, gods, semi-gods, departed human souls, ghosts, etc.). Perhaps the choice for Matthew underlines the fact that we have a window here onto the signi cance of Jesus in relation to the larger supernatural realm. What are we to make of the affinity between demons and pigs? We could think in terms of the role of pigs as sacri cial animals in the wider world beyond Judaism and make a link here with the Jewish conviction re ected in 1 Cor. 10:20 that worship of pagan gods is worship of demons. We could content ourselves with

a link between the Jewish ritual uncleanness of pigs (Lv. 11:7; Dt. 14:8) and the uncleanness of demons (re ected in the designation ‘unclean spirit’). e two other reported cases of requests for concession by a confronted demon are in Test. Sol. 1:6 and the Bentresch stele (from the Persian period).129 In both of these texts the interest is in striking a bargain, but not so in Matthew; the demons here are in no position to bargain. 8:32 e use of a single word here, ‘Go’ (ὑπάγετε), may be designed to evoke the centurion’s con dence in 8:8 (‘only say the word’).130 Presumably Jesus is understood to countenance the demons’ request because it is still ‘before the time’.131 In the pigs, they are at least not disturbing people.132 Is the understanding that they must have a living host of some sort (cf. Lk. 11:24-26)? If Jesus does not specify their host, are we then to imagine them free to attempt to gain control where they will? e fate of the pigs illustrates the sheer destructiveness of demons to their hosts. It corresponds with the father’s report in Mk. 9:22 of the demon’s attempts to kill his possessed child by throwing him into water. Having been alerted to the question of demon migration, we are inclined to want to ask, ‘What now for the demons?’ Unfortunately the text offers us no help here. We must simply leave open the question of whether the plunge into the Sea of Galilee is understood as sending them back (temporarily?) to some place of origin or permanent home, as presenting them with the task of nding new hosts, as bringing their active role to an end, or as sending them off to a place of (preliminary) judgment.133 8:33 e eeing indicates that this is, naturally enough, a thoroughly disturbing experience for the pig herders, but in telling their story they are no doubt, among other things, reporting to their employer(s). e point has been well made that the town here need not be the chief city of the territory; it could be simply the closest

township, the one from which the pig herders come and where their employers live. Certainly the dynamics of the story require that the journey to and from the town not be of any great length. We are probably intended to understand the Matthean description as suggesting that the reporting is dominantly focussed on the fate of the pigs but does mention the role of demoniacs. is emphasis is con rmed by Matthew’s own failure to indicate how things came out for the demoniacs (contrast Mk. 5:15, 18-20). 8:34 As in the units on either side (8:23-27; 9:1-8), the episode ends with a collective response to Jesus. In the other episodes the response is enthusiastically positive (but with a minor negative note: the little faith of the disciples; the quiet accusation of the scribes); here the response is quite negative. Jesus has brought something frightening and disturbing into their midst, but perhaps we are to see that the priority of the pigs over the demoniacs in the concerns of the townspeople plays an important role in their desire to see Jesus leave. It might only be fortuitous, but the verb used to speak of the plea of the townspeople is the same as that used in relation to the demons. Is an un attering commonality between the demons and the townspeople being hinted at?134 Despite the almost certain Gentile identity of the townsfolk, at this point Matthew is likely to be much more interested in the fact of rejection than in the ethnic identity of the rejecters (cf. 8:20; 10:14). 4. Jesus Forgives and Heals a Lame Man (9:1-8) 1So ahe

got into b[the] boat and crossed over and came to his own town. 2en [people] brought a paralytic to him, laid out on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, child, your sins are forgiven.’ 3en some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘is fellow is blaspheming!’ 4And,

cseeing

their thoughts, Jesus said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5For which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Get up and walk”?’ 6([Dear reader], know [from this episode] that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.) en he says to the paralytic, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and go off to your home’. 7And he got up and went off to his home. 8Seeing [this], the crowds were dafraid and glorified God, who had given such authority to humans.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ιησους (‘Jesus’) in C3 (C* etc.) F Θc f13 etc. makes a stronger beginning here. b. e article is present in C* W 0233 etc. c. e easier ειδως (‘knowing’) is read by B (Θ) f1 565 700 1424 etc., but it is unlikely to be original. d. εθαυμασαν (‘marvelled’) in C L Θ 0233 f13 etc., matching the sense but not the language of Mk. 2:12. is has occasionally been supported as original. Bibliography Fuchs, A., ‘Offene Probleme der Synoptikerforschung: Zur Geschichte der Perikope Mk 2,1-12 par Mt 9,1-8 par Lk 5,17-26’, SNTU 15 (1990), 73-99. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 301-7. • Greeven, H., ‘Die Heilung des Gelähmten nach Matthäus’, in Matthäus-Evangelium, ed. J. Lange, 205-22. • Hendrickx, H., Miracle Stories, 104-48. • Hultgren, A. J., Adversaries, 106-11. • Klauck, H. J., ‘Die Frage der Sündenvergebung in der Perikope von der Heilung des Gelähmten (Mk 2.1-12 parr)’, BZ 25 (1981), 223-48. • Martin de Vivies, P. de, Jesus et le Fils de l’Homme: Emplois et significations de l’expression ‘Fils de l’Homme’ dans les Evangiles (Lyon: PROFAC, 1995). • McMahon, M., ‘Paralysis of the Heart’, TBT 31 (1993), 85-88. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 65-75. • Riggans, W., ‘Jesus and the Scriptures: Two Short Notes’, emelios 16.2 (1991), 15-16. • Rolland, P., ‘Jésus connaissait leurs pensées’, ETL 62

(1986), 118-121. • Schwarz, G., ‘ΑΠΕΣΤΕΓΑΣΑΝ ΤΗΝ ΣΤΕΓΗΝ (Markus 2,4c)’, BibNot 54 (1990), 41. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 234-57. • Tuckett, C., ‘e Present Son of Man’, JSNT 14 (1982), 58-81. • Vögtle, A., Die ‘Gretchtenfrage’ des Menschensohnproblems: Bilanz und Perspektive (QD 152. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1994). See further at 7:28–8:1.

is is the third of three linked miracle accounts (with 8:23-27, 2834). Despite the discipleship framework of the sub section 8:18– 9:13, the disciples are not even mentioned again in 9:1-8, but we are to understand once more that they are there to witness, as in 8:2834. e christological emphasis on the authority of Jesus, noted for 8:23-27 and 8:28-34, continues. e authority conferred in 16:19; 18:18 links back naturally to the authority witnessed here. Once again the material is arranged in a chiasm, centred here on the probing challenge offered by Jesus’ question in 9:4-5.135 Mt. 9:1 draws on Mk. 5:18, 21. Otherwise Mt. 9:1-8 is an abbreviated version of Mk. 2:1-12, with, however, a surprising number of minor agreements with the Lukan parallel (5:17-26). On the Matthean thinking in the ordering of his sources at this point see the comments at 8:18.136

9:1 As at 8:23, Jesus gets into the boat (in both cases the aorist participle of ἐμβαίνειν), but now for the return journey back to Capernaum,137 Matthew drops the more speci c setting provided by Mk. 2:2 (including the indoor setting), as he will drop Mark’s report of the heroics involved in the friends getting the paralytic to Jesus (2:4). Capernaum is established as Jesus’ ‘own town’ in 4:13. Mark’s reference to teaching the crowd (2:2; cf. v. 4) is omitted in line with a consistent tendency through chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:4). 9:2 e double focus of the account (the paralysed men; the scribes) is signalled by the use of καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’) as each

is introduced. By change of vocabulary and omission of details, this bringing to Jesus is largely subsumed under the general category of bringing the sick to Jesus.138 Only the mention of the bed (needed for the dramatic image of v. 6) and the reference to the faith of those who brought the paralytic remain to distinguish this bringing. Outside general or generalising statements, this is the only healing of a paralysed person reported in the Gospels.139 We rst noted the importance of faith for healing at 8:10 (see discussion there), as well as for concern for others. e marking of the faith of those who bring the paralytic to Jesus here is perhaps intended to suggest that all the other incidents of bringing people to Jesus for healing will be similarly motivated. is may, at least in part, stand behind Matthew’s drastic abbreviation. Matthew reports nothing which can be seen as indicating their faith to Jesus. Matthew’s addition of θάρσει (‘take heart’) here and in 9:22 strengthens the tie between two episodes involving faith.140 e Matthean Jesus uses the address ‘child’ only here.141 e closest parallel is the language of ‘the children’s bread’ in 15:26; since faith emerges prominently there also (v. 28), there may be an intended link. e present tense has a performative role in ‘are forgiven’ (ἀϕίενται).142 e ‘bracketing’ effect of 1:21 and 26:28 establishes sin and its forgiveness as key concerns for Matthew. at the forgiveness of God is vital is assumed in 6:12, 14-15 and worked out in the parable in 18:23-35. But this is the only place where Jesus declares sins forgiven.143 ough we would like to know how such a statement struck the paralytic or his helpers, the reaction of the paralysed man or his helpers to this statement is of as little interest to Matthew’s narrative, as was the experience of the demoniacs. No doubt the possible connection between sin and illness stands in the

background,144 but well in the background. Once again the focus is on the authority of Jesus, now exercised in yet another realm. On Jesus’ authority to forgive, see further at 9:3, 5, 6, 8. 9:3 Scribes have already featured in Matthew’s story on several occasions.145 He offers no particular rationale for their presence here. e critical stance of the scribes here is more anticipatory of what is yet to come than a development from earlier references.146 ἐν ἑαυτοῖς could include an interactive element (‘among themselves’), but the emphasis on thoughts in v. 4 suggests private thoughts (‘to themselves’). e NT uses ‘blasphemy’ much more loosely than does later Jewish discussion. Here the objection is to Jesus’ declaration of forgiveness of sin. While Judaism had clear provision for forgiveness with temple sacri ce and more broadly,147 in an ultimate sense God was thought to have reserved to himself the declaration of forgiveness on the day of judgment. e expectation of eschatological forgiveness was built up on the OT promises of forgiveness linked to the assurance of restoration beyond the period of the Exile.148 Forgiveness at the human level was always possible, but only God could have the last word on the matter. Here the scribes see Jesus as claiming to speak from God in this ultimate manner.149 Matthew drops Mark’s ‘Who is able to forgive sins except God alone?’ Probably he thought it would only tend to confuse the thought since he would not want to deny the view that only God could forgive sins. But he would want to allow Jesus and God to be simply merged. 9:4 ‘Seeing their thoughts’ is an unusual idiom, but the repetition of ‘seeing’ establishes a certain parallel between the two things (cf. v. 2b) to which Jesus reacts in this episode. Jesus’ insight

may be seen as paranormal, but it need not be anything more than an acute intuitive awareness (cf. 12:25); much can be read from people’s faces. rough the choice of ἐνυμήσεις for ‘thoughts’ and the use of πονηρά (‘evil’), Matthew links the thoughts of the scribes with the critical re ection of the Pharisees (frequent partners of the scribes in Matthew) in 12:25 (cf. vv. 34-35),150 and how Jesus will deal with it on that occasion. e evil here is the failure to see Jesus’ action for what it is: the advance effect of the coming of the kingdom of God. 9:5 Matthew’s abbreviation of Mark here has the effect of making the question more general.151 Scholars have taken different sides on the proper answer to this question. But the truth is that there is no easy answer. is is a riddling question. e answer is that it all depends on whether the words ‘your sins are forgiven’ are more than empty words. It is easier to say ‘your sins are forgiven’ if you are a charlatan because there is no immediate check; it is easier to say ‘get up and walk’ if you are the genuine article because restoration of physical ability, as amazing a bene t as that may be, pales into insigni cance beside the bene t of full and complete forgiveness. e challenge of Jesus’ question is: ‘You are scandalized at this act of mine which is not subject to public veri cation. What will you make of this other which is plain for all the world to see?’ [Jesus speaks against a piety which] was content to leave sinners shackled by their sin and could only leave paralytics bound to their beds.152

e emphasis on Jesus’ second act in relation to the paralytic, by which he confounds those who have criticised his rst act, is marked by Matthew’s introduction of it with τότε (‘then’) with a historic present (‘he says’).

9:6 Matthew carries over untouched the roughness of Mark’s syntax here. How is the ἵνα clause to be linked with the narrative ow? Scholars have made the case that the Markan and Lukan parallels here (Mk. 2:10; Lk. 5:24) should be understood as an aside to the reader, probably with the clause understood imperativally (‘know that …’),153 but is the same true of Matthew? Because in Matthew Jesus has already referred to himself publicly as the Son of Man, there is not the same awkwardness for the larger structure of thought involved in having the words on the lips of Jesus here.154 Nonetheless, the transitions in the Matthean text work more smoothly if we understand Matthew to have taken v. 6 as an aside to the reader. e alternatives are: ‘Reader, Jesus has set up this riddling question so that you might know (from what follows) that…’; or ‘Reader, know (from what I am reporting to you here) that …’. Otherwise there is an awkward break between this clause and the following ‘he says’. ough Jesus’ authority has been central to the three linked miracle accounts, the word ‘authority’ now occurs for the rst time since 7:29; 8:9. ‘e Son of Man’ picks up language from 8:20 (see there). Where the emphasis there was on the human marginalisation of this gure of dignity and authority, here his authority as such is in focus. e Son of Man in Dn. 7:13-14 is given authority (ἐξουσία in the Greek texts as in Matthew); the Daniel links for Matthew’s use of Son of Man will become clear as the story progresses. Both Matthew and Luke see that Mark’s text could be read as joining ‘on earth’ to ‘sins’ rather than to the Son of Man’s dispensing of forgiveness. So they bring the phrase ‘on earth’ back to a position immediately aer ‘the Son of Man’. Does ‘on earth’ operate with an implicit contrast/comparison between the Son of Man at work on earth and God who acts in heaven? Or is there a contrast between

the present period of life on earth and the coming eschatological period? e language of earth and heaven in 16:19; 18:18 stands in favour of the former: ‘done on earth but with full effect in heaven as well’. e language of 28:18, which says that the authority is operative in heaven and on earth, points in the same direction. Aer the interruption occasioned by the disapproval of the scribes, Jesus addresses the paralytic a second time. He directs the paralytic to behave in a way that would be possible only if he were restored (cf. 12:13). A note of cooperating faith may be introduced here. Homes are of considerable importance in Matthew (in Jesus’ case see at 8:20; Matthew uses οἰκία or οἶκος for ‘house/home’ thirty-one times), so Matthew is happy to repeat Mark’s language, ‘go off to your home’. 9:7 Matthew abbreviates Mark but repeats enough of the language of Jesus’ directive to indicate that the action properly matches the directive. Because in the telling the man functions as an object lesson, there is no interest in his response to his own experience of being restored (similarly at 12:13). 9:8 As with the two preceding miracle accounts, the unit ends with a collective response to what has happened. e interest is sharply focussed on Jesus’ authority to forgive, not on the physical restoration. Matthew does not explain the presence of the ‘crowds’ but picks up on the ‘crowds’ of 8:18. His use of ‘the crowds’ rather than Mark’s ‘all’ allows the scribes not to be part of this. He has used ‘seeing’ to mark the two things to which Jesus responds in the episode; now he introduces the crowds’ reaction to the outcome. Both for Matthew and Luke (5:26 with noun rather than verb) fear is the appropriate natural reaction to the presence of the action of God (cf. Mt. 17:6). ere may be an echo here of the pattern in 5:16 according to which God is to be glori ed for the works of his people (cf. 15:31).

Matthew’s use of ‘authority’ picks up immediately on v. 6, but the plural ‘humans’ (τοῖς ἀνθρώποις) is initially a surprise. Almost certainly it anticipates the developing situation in which the Christian community comes to participate in and to continue to bene t from the authority demonstrated here by Jesus.155 Other explanations include translating τοῖς ἀνθρώποις as ‘for humans’ (but this is forced), an emphasis on Jesus’ solidarity with humanity (but this is to import a dogmatic concern alien to the text), a corporate understanding of Son of Man (but this is not supported by Matthew’s previous use in 8:20 and ts less comfortably the christological focus throughout the subsection), and confused misunderstanding on the part of the crowds (but this does not t the language of fear of and glorifying God and is not matched for the other parallel collective responses). 5. Jesus Calls Tax Collectors and Sinners (9:9-13) 9As

Jesus was going away from there, he saw a person sitting at the tax booth; [he was] called Matthew. And he says to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. 10a[What happened next] was that as he [i.e., Jesus] reclineda [at dinner] in the house, bmany tax collectors and sinners, cwho had come [along],c reclined with Jesus and his disciples. 11e Pharisees, seeing [this], said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ 12[Over]hearing, dhe said, ‘ose who are in good health have no need of a doctor, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this is, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”. For I came not to call the righteous but sinners’.h

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Simpli ed to και ανακειμενων in ‫ *א‬892 sys, p, giving ‘as they reclined’.

b. An untranslated και ιδου (lit. ‘and behold’) at this point loses its και in ‫ א‬D (700) 892 etc. lat co, probably because of the unusual mid-sentence location (an LXX-style εγενετο … και construction is involved). c-c. Missing from ‫ *א‬sams mae boms (cf. Mk. 2:15; Lk. 5:29), this could be a clarifying expansion. d. Clari ed as Ιησους (‘Jesus’) in C L W Θ f1, 13 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. h. εις μετανοιαν (‘to repentance’) is added from Lk. 5:32 in C L W Θ f13 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. Bibliography Bolyki, J., Tischgemeinscha, 106-9. • Corley, K. E., Private Women, 152-58. • Coulot, C., Jésus, 160-67. • Crossan, J. D., In Fragments, 213-20. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 129-60. • Frickel, J., ‘Die Zöllner, Vorbild der Demut und wahrer Gottesverehrung’, in Pietas. FS B. Kötting, ed. E. Dassmann and K. S. Frank (JACE 8. Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1980), 369-80. • Genuyt, F., ‘Évangile de Matthieu 9,9-26’, SémiotBib 65 (1992), 3-17. • Kiley, M., ‘Why “Matthew” in Matt 9.9-13?’ Bib 65 (1984), 347-51. • Landmesser, C., Jüngerberufung und Zuwendung zu Gott: Ein exegetischer Beitrag zum Konzept der matthäischen Soteriologie im Anschluss an Mt 9,9-13 (WUNT 133. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2001). • Malbon, E. S., ‘τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτοῦ: Mk 2:15 in Context’, NTS 31 (1985), 282-92. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 7583. • Sanders, E. P., ‘Jesus and the Sinners’, JSNT 19 (1983), 5-36. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 132-66. • Young, N. H., ‘Jesus and the Sinners: Some Queries’, JSNT 24 (1985), 73-75. See further at 7:28–8:1.

We now come to the second half of the discipleship frame which Matthew has placed around the second set of three miracle stories (8:18-22 and 9:9-13 frame 8:23–9:8).156 Like a doctor Jesus seeks out the sick.

Matthew continues the Markan sequence and uses only his Markan source (2:13-17). His main change is to add at 9:13 the reference to Hos. 6:6.157

9:9 Matthew omits the lakeside teaching of the Markan parallel (2:13) in line with a consistent pattern throughout chaps. 8– 9 (see at 8:4). at Matthew has moved the location of 9:2-8 away from the house of Mk. 2:1-2 is retrospectively con rmed by his use of ‘going on from there’: Matthew’s Jesus has been on the move (albeit within Capernaum). e call of Matthew is closely modelled on that of the shermen in 4:18-22 (already so in the Markan parallels). Quite unusually Matthew retains Mark’s historic present, ‘he says’, here. at will be because Matthew introduced it to create emphasis at the corresponding point in 4:19, and wants a matching emphasis at this point.158 But unlike Mark, Matthew is explicitly working towards the completion of the Twelve (10:1-4); so ‘Matthew’ replaces ‘Levi’ as the name, and secures the link by adding ‘the tax collector’ at 10:3. e double role of the unique call to apostleship and the pattern for wider discipleship (cf. at 4:20) is sustained by the relationship with the ‘many’ of 9:10 and the call language of v. 13. Are we to understand that Matthew’s role is senior and supervisory? is would explain the ease with which he draws others with him into contact with Jesus (v. 10). 9:10 It is natural to think that the group has gathered as a consequence of Matthew’s following Jesus. If so, then Jesus must be the one responsible for the hospitality.159 is conclusion is supported by the ow of the text from following Jesus (at the end of v. 9) to the place of Jesus in the meal arrangements (at the beginning of v. 10).160 Matthew’s addition of ἐλθόντες (lit. ‘coming’) is naturally referred to a ‘coming’ on the part of (other) tax collectors and sinners that somewhat parallels Matthew’s own ‘following’. As elsewhere in Matthew, ‘the house’ will mean the

house of which Jesus was making use (with his disciples).161 ἀνάκεισθαι is used of seating arrangements (reclining on couches or cushions) at festive meals. So its use here indicates a celebration of some sort (presumably of the fact that Matthew has become a follower of Jesus). e presence of καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’) marks the presence of tax collectors and sinners with Jesus in meal fellowship as the second focal point of the episode. On the general image of tax collectors see the comments at 5:46. ‘Sinners’ here should be understood primarily ‘sociologically as identifying those publicly known to be unsavoury types who lived beyond the edge of respectable society’.162 But the presence of the term creates a link back to 9:2, 5, 6. In the Matthean setting what signi cance are we to give to Jesus’ welcome of tax collectors and sinners?163 e importance of repentance has already been established at Mt. 3:2; 4:17; the need for sin to be dealt with has already received signi cant attention;164 and the importance of practical righteousness has been the burden of 5:17–7:27. But the perspective that emerges here is that all this is expected to happen because of Jesus. As far as the Matthean Jesus is concerned, for these people the decisive turning point has already occurred. ey do not remain guilty until they prove themselves; rather, those who will come are welcomed. No ‘threshold score’ is required for entry. e imagery of the doctor in v. 12 will extend this point. 9:11 e Pharisees of the present verse belong in a natural pairing with the scribes of the previous episode. In both cases their perspective runs counter to the positive development of the episode.

Matthew does not explain the presence of the Pharisees, but we too readily impose modern Western notions of domestic privacy without realising the degree to which life in Palestine was much more public than is our experience. Given the signi cant numbers of people envisaged, ‘in the house’ might actually be out of doors in an open courtyard area belonging to the house. Or perhaps we are to think of the contact being made as the party is breaking up. e addressing of the question to the disciples allows the image of Jesus as teacher of the disciples to emerge. e Pharisaic approach to being pure before God involved active separation from sinners. On the analogy of communicable ritual uncleanness, one avoided contamination from contact with morally suspect elements of Jewish society as much as possible. ere is a considerable cogency to such an approach, it is clearly found, in a modi ed form, in Paul,165 and it is oen taken (but probably wrongly) to be part of what is operative in Mt. 18:17. But it is not at all the de ning impulse of Jesus’ mission. 9:12 A quite similar role for a saying about doctors and the sick is found in Philostratus.166 He reports, as used in defence against the accusation that the philosophers were always to be found at the doors of the rich, the saying ‘One also sees the doctors at the doors of the sick’. Jesus’ choice of company, by contrast, could offer him no social advantage. Jesus’ image of doctor and patients allows him to begin in agreement with the Pharisaic assessment of his company as sinners, and to treat that assessment with all seriousness. But he promotes an alternative vision of ‘seeing sinners as needy and able to be helped, rather than as contaminated and deserving to be spurned’.167 e image of God’s people as ill (and therefore in need of healing) is common in the OT;168 Jesus built on this background to express his concern to bring people in from the

margins. We should not, however, lose sight of the implication that there is a healing process through which the ill will regain health. 9:13 ough the evidence cited is modest in scale and later,169 ‘go and learn’ is likely a piece of technical (pre-)rabbinic ‘schoolroom’ diction. In v. 11 the Pharisees have spoken of Jesus as teacher (‘your teacher’); here they are challenged to become learners. Given the brevity of the quotation from Ho. 6:6 and variant readings in the LXX, we cannot determine what text is re ected here. ough the legendary care of the Pharisees for ritual matters makes for a nice t (cf. 15:1-2; 23:23), Matthew’s focus is sharply on the centrality of ‘mercy’; certainly he does not disparage sacri ce (cf. 5:23-34). How does he view the call for mercy here? In Hosea the Hebrew term is likely to have meant wholehearted covenant loyalty to God, but the move to Greek here shis the emphasis clearly to human interaction (which is also possible for the Hebrew). Covenant loyalty to God is not at all what springs to mind in the Matthean context (nor in the context of the use of the same phrase from Ho. 6:6 also in 12:7);170 it is the level of human interaction that needs to be addressed. As discussed at 5:7, those who are merciful manifest kindness to people who are in serious need; this is the world of thought pointed to by the image of a doctor with those who are ill. However, the second use of Ho. 6:6, at 12:7, suggests that already here we may need to link the call for such mercy back to God’s own merciful ways.171 It is the compassion of God which comes to expression in Jesus’ ‘medical’ work.172 Compassion and mercy are required of the one who would be the agent of God’s purposes. It is from this angle that there is a smooth transition to the nal statement about Jesus’ call.

e language of ‘call’ here echoes the call of Matthew in v. 9, while ‘sinners’ picks up on the language of vv. 10-11. Jesus, who in 5:17 says he has come to ful l the Law, now makes clear that he will do so not in relation to separatist isolation but in connection with a reaching out to sinners. In his concern with the restoration of Israel Jesus will focus on where there is an obvious need for restoration. ough this passage shows no interest in identifying a category of the ‘righteous’, we may well think of people like Joseph (1:18–2:23) who are already well attuned to the will and purpose of God and need no special call. C. Healings in Connection with Fresh Wineskins for New Wine (9:14-32) 1. New Wine Is for Fresh Wineskins (9:14-17) 14en

the disciples of John come to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fasta, but your disciples do not fast?’ 15Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding attendants bmourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? e days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; then they will fastc. 16No one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old coat. For [if one does], dwhat [is meant to] restore eit [actually]d takes away from the coat, and a worse tear results. 17Nor do [people] put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise fthe wineskins burstf, the wine is spilt, and the skins are destroyed. Rather, [people] put new wine into fresh wineskins. And both are preserved.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. πολλα (‘frequently’) is added here by ‫א‬2 C D L W Θ f1, 13 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. (‫א‬1 has πυκνα, with the same meaning). is could be original, but it could also be a half-hearted attempt to locate the difference

between Jesus’ disciples and John’s in their frequency of fasting (in the interest of the early church practice of fasting). b. D W 1424 etc. have νηστευειν (‘fast’), using the verb found in Mk. 2:19; Lk. 5:34. c. Luke’s εν εκειναις ταις ημεραις (‘in those days’) is included by D it syhmg. d-d. Concern to re ect the thought sequence here means that the translation is not very literal. e. Perceived as awkward by ‫ *א‬mae, and omitted. f-f. In uenced by Mk. 2:22 or Lk. 5:37, D (g1 k μ sys) have ρησσει ο οινος ο νεος τους ασκους (‘the new wine bursts the wineskins’). And there are readings for the following two clauses which reveal similar in uences. Bibliography Beckwith, R. T., ‘e Feast of New Wine and the Question of Fasting’, ExpTim 95 (1984), 334-35. • Brooke, G., ‘e Feast of New Wine and the Question of Fasting’, ExpTim 95 (1984), 175-76. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 121-27. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 257-82. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Modes of Renewal (Mk. 2:21-22)’, EvQ 72 (2000), 3-12. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 182-216. • Good, R. S., ‘Jesus, Protagonist of the Old, in Lk 5:33-39’, NovT 25 (1983), 19-36. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 364-68. • Kanjirakompil, C., ‘New Wine into Fresh Wineskins: An Exegetical Study on Mk 2:21-22’, Biblebhashyam 23 (1997), 409-19. • Muddiman, J. B., ‘Jesus and Fasting: Mark 2, 18-22’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont, 271-81. • O’Neill, J. C., ‘e Source of the Parables of the Bridegroom and the Wicked Husbandmen’, JTS 39 (1988), 485-89. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 83-91. • Rolland, P., ‘Les prédécesseurs de Marc: Les sources présynoptiques de Mc, II, 18-22 et parallèles’, RB 89 (1982), 370-405. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 4269. • Wanke, J., Kommentarworte, 82-88. • Wimmer, J. F., Fasting, 85-101. • Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist, 103-6. See further at 7:28–8:1.

ere is a chiastic symmetry to Matthew’s arrangement of his three sets of three miracle stories in 8:2–9:33. e rst set was generalised and interpreted by 8:16-17 at the end, the second set was placed in a discipleship frame by 8:18-22; 9:9-13, and now the third set gains its larger interpretive perspective by being prefaced with 9:14-17. is note of newness will take us beyond questions of fasting to raising the dead rather than mourning the dead, and to restoring sight to the blind and speech to the mute (rather than merely giving them alms?). e crowd at the end (v. 33) will declare, ‘Never has anything like this been seen in Israel’; but those not open to the new thing that Jesus brings will conclude, ‘He casts out demons by the prince of demons’ (v. 34).173 e material of Mt. 9:14-17 is parallelled in Mk. 2:18-22; Lk. 5:33-37. Despite minor agreements between Matthew and Luke a source beyond the Markan is unlikely. For the most part Matthew has simply dropped redundant elements in Mark’s telling and imposed his own style. Mk. 2:1820 and 21-22 will have originally been separate. Whether vv. 21-22 form an original unit is uncertain. V. 20 is generally judged to be a development, and is likely to be so unless the original setting related to an interaction between John and disciples of Jesus, at the point of either the imprisonment or, better, the death of John (providing a comparison and contrast for v. 20). In favour of this view is that it makes best sense of an oblique Passion prediction contemplating fasting during the Passion period (see at Mt. 9:15 below).174

9:14 e linking ‘then’ draws attention to the relevance of the celebratory meal of 9:10-13 to the question to be asked, but the connection will be stronger with the following episode (v. 18: ‘while he was saying these things’).175 Disciples of John will also come to Jesus in 11:2 (see there); Matthew considers them to be the most suitable spokespersons for the question now asked.176 Quite clearly, Matthew does not mention the common fasting practices of the disciples of John and the Pharisees in order to suggest any

fundamental commonality (see 3:7). e point is rather that the very fact of a shared practice despite the tension and difference throws into sharper relief the contrasting failure of Jesus to impose a similar discipline on his own disciples.177 e fasting in view is not that required by the Law on the Day of Atonement,178 nor the private fasting of individuals in their own engagement with God (see 6:16-18; and 4:2, with discussion there). What is envisaged is a voluntary (as far as the Law is concerned) but collective and regular discipline of piety, as was the Pharisaic practice of fasting on Mondays and ursdays.179 Matthew’s use of ‘mourn’ (πενθεῖν) in 9:15 indicates that he sees these corporate acts of fasting as expressions of sorrow, presumably in connection with the parlous state of the people of God.180 It was visible for all to see that the piety inculcated by Jesus was not focussed on selfdeprivation (cf. 11:19, where, however, we must allow for an element of caricature). 9:15 ‘e wedding attendants’ (lit. ‘sons of the wedding hall/bridal chamber’) is a Semitism, sometimes taken to refer to the wedding guests, but more likely designating the bridegroom’s attendants, as those most closely identi ed with the bridegroom in the joy of the wedding celebration. Where mourning may well have been an appropriate marker while Israel waited patiently for its rescue by God (cf. 5:4), the time has moved from that of waiting to that of ful lment, and the appropriate mood is one of celebration. e image here has obvious links with OT language of the marriage of God and his people as a means of expressing the joyous ful lment of his good purposes for them.181 But ‘as long as the bridegroom is with them’ already prepares for the shadow to fall since it already disturbs the link with the imagery of the OT background (one would not expect to need to think in terms of interruption or termination in relation to this culmination of God’s

purposes). e explicit mention of the bridegroom also allows the signi cance of Jesus for this claimed period of ful lment to become explicit in the imagery (cf. 22:1-14; 25:1-13).182 ‘Is taken away’ refers to an unnatural removal since the guests and not the couple are le at the end of the celebrations. is removal is ominous. e anticipated fasting is related to an anticipated disaster. e fasting will lament the loss.183 In focus is not the situation of the post-Easter church, but the Passion period. In fact, Matthew strongly marks the post-Easter period as a period of the presence of Jesus (18:20; 28:20; cf. 1:23), not a period of his absence.184 Despite the nearly universal claim, this is no justi cation of fasting practices in the early church, but rather an imaging of a dark interval which will interrupt the celebratory period.185 ough totally lacking in precision, the effect of such an image is to heighten reader sensitivity to the destructive potential of hostile currents as they emerge.186 9:16 Matthew heightens the contrast between the new and the old by imagining here a patch which uses cloth which is so new that it has not even been pre-shrunk by washing to ready it for its task. is is how new and different the present situation is from the old one which preceded it. Possibly there is an overtone here of the new situation as having freshly arrived versus the old situation which had gone on for a considerable period. πλήρωμα (lit. ‘fullness’) as ‘patch’ (that which lls up the hole) is otherwise unattested, but the situation is no better for the proposal of Steinhauser187 that πλήρωμα be understood as referring to the part of the patch which overlaps and is sewn to the existing cloth of the old garment. e αὐτοῦ aer πλήρωμα is best taken as an objective genitive, with αὐτοῦ referred to the garment (‘what lls up [the hole in] the coat’).188 Since αἴρειν (‘li up, take away’) does not seem to

have been used intransitively, the sense will not be that the patch pulls away from the coat but rather that it takes away from the coat: what should have supplied a lack in the coat actually takes away yet more of the substance of the coat (through what it tears away as it shrinks). While a powerful image emerges, it is less easy to discern the precise use to which the image is being put. As already suggested, the radical newness of the new situation is signalled clearly enough. But the idea that a wholly new garment is needed would y in the face of Matthew’s emphasis on ful lment rather than supersession. It is true that in the immediate context there is a straightforward incompatibility between the mourning appropriate to the period of Israel’s desolation and the rejoicing appropriate to a recognition that God has arisen to save his people. But how would Matthew generalise from this? e image has a potential for use with a continued valuing of the old coat (aer all, the focus is on the fate of the coat, not on that of the piece of cloth used for patching). Matthew’s addition at the end of v. 17 (‘and [so] both are preserved’) suggests that this potential was not lost on him. Perhaps Matthew’s point is that the new does not need to be constrained by the old, and that only in this way can that which is of value from the old be preserved. 9:17 Matthew adds an image from the agricultural sphere to one from the domestic sphere.189 But he makes various alterations here to improve the symmetry and balance of the Markan form.190 e image uses practical wisdom that has to do with making allowance for the pressure created as wine ferments.191 e suppleness of fresh wineskins made from tightly sewn goat-skins allows for the necessary give. Old skins that had already seen service were not reused for this purpose because experience had long since taught that, while presenting itself in the rst instance as

an obvious economy, this practice all too oen led to the splitting of the skins192 and the loss, therefore, of both skins and wine. Old wineskins could be used for containers in other ways, but no longer to contain fermenting wine. e Markan image already includes the loss of both wine and skins; Matthew completes the picture by referring to the preservation of both. Once again the image is clearer than the application, but the idea commends itself that what is being asserted is that the new does not need to be constrained by the old, and that only in this way can the new be welcomed and the abiding value of the old be preserved. 2. Jesus Raises a Girl from Death and Rescues a Woman from Perpetual Uncleanness (9:18-26) he was saying these things to them, aa certain leader camea and did obeisance to him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died. But come and lay your hand upon her, and she will live’. 19And Jesus got up and, along with his disciples, followed him. 20en a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind and touched the tassel of his coat. 21For she said to herself, ‘If only I touch his coat, I will be made well. 22Jesus turned and saw her, and said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well’. And the woman was made well from that [very] hour. 23en Jesus came into the house of the leader and, seeing the reed-pipe players and the crowd making a commotion, 24he said, ‘Go away. For the girl is not dead but sleeping’. And they laughed at himb. 25When he had expelled the crowd, he went in and took her hand, and the young girl got up. 26en the news of cthis went out into that whole district. 18While

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. A different word division (supported by ‫א‬2 C D E W Θ f1 205 700 788 etc.) would give ‘a leader came in’. ‫א‬1 B lat eliminate this option by reading εις προσελθων (‘a certain… came to [him]’). Either to eliminate the ambiguity of the word division or to deal with Matthew’s awkward use of εις for τις, other texts eliminate εις or substitute τις and prefer προσελθων. εις for τις is certainly a Matthean usage. See 21:19; possibly 12:11; and with inverted order 8:19; 26:69. b. ειδοτες οτι απεθανεν (‘knowing that she was dead’) is added (following Lk. 8:52) by ‫ *א‬samss. c. αυτης (‘her’) is found in ‫ א‬C(*) Θ f1 33 205 etc. αυτου (‘him’) is in D 1424 1506 etc. ese clari cations may be a response to the lack of a proper antecedent for ‘this’. Bibliography Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Mark’s Technique: e Haemorrhaging Woman and Jairus’ Daughter’, Bib 63 (1982), 474-505. • Ellis, P., ‘“Courage, my daughter …”’, Month 30 (1997), 199-203. • Fischbach, S. M., Totenweckungen: Zur Geschichte einer Gattung (FB 69. Würzburg: Echter, 1992). • Fonrobert, C., ‘e Woman with a Blood-Flow (Mark 5.24-34) Revisited: Menstrual Laws and Jewish Culture in Christian Feminist Hermeneutics’, in Interpretation, ed. C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders, 121-40. • Fuchs, A., ‘Schrittweises Wachstum: Zur Entwicklung der Perikope Mk 5,21-43 par Mt 9,18-26 par Lk 8,40-56’, SNTU 17 (1992), 5-53. • Gourges, M., ‘Deux miracles, deus démarches de foi (Marc 5.21-43 par)’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 229-49 • Harris, M. J., ‘“e Dead Are Restored to Life”: Miracles of Revivi cation in the Gospels’, in Miracles, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, 295-326, esp. 304-10. • Hutter, M., ‘Ein altorientalischer Bittgestus in Mt 9.20-22’, ZNW 75 (1984), 133-35. • Kalin, E. R., ‘Matthew 9:18-26: An Exercise in Redaction Criticism’, CurTM 15 (1988), 39-47. • Levine, A.-J., ‘Discharging Responsibility: Matthean Jesus, Biblical Law, and Hemorrhaging Woman’, in Treasures, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Allan, 379-98. • Loader, W. R. G., ‘Son of David, Blindness, Possession, and Duality in Matthew’, CBQ 44 (1982), 570-85. • Love, S. L., ‘Jesus Heals the Hemorrhaging Woman’, in Social

Setting, ed. W. Stegemann et al., 85-101. • O’Callaghan, J., ‘La variante ΕΙΣ/ ΕΛΘΩΝ en Mt 9,18’, Bib 62 (1981), 104-6. • Omanson, R. L., ‘A Question of Harmonization — Matthew 9.18-25’, BT 42 (1991), 241. • Robbins, V. K., ‘e Woman Who Touched Jesus’ Garment: Socio-Rhetorical Analysis of the Synoptic Accounts’, NTS 33 (1987), 502-15. • Rochais, G., Les récits de résurrection des morts dans le Nouveau Testament (SNTSMS 40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 39-112. • Rosenblatt, M.-E., ‘Gender, Ethnicity, and Legal Considerations in the Haemorraging Woman’s Story, Mark 5:25-34’, in Transformative, ed. I. R. Kitzberger, 137-61. • Selvidge, M. J., ‘Mark 5.25-34 and Leviticus 15.19-20’, JBL 103 (1984), 619-23. • Suhl, A., ‘Die Wunder Jesu: Ereignis und Überlieferung’, in Der Wunderbegriff im Neuen Testament, ed. A. Suhl (WF 295. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1980), 464-509. • eissen, G., Miracle Stories, 129-35. • urston, A., Knowing Her Place, 17-24. • Trummer, P., Blutende Frau. • Verweyen, H., ‘Einheit und Vielfalt der Evangelien am Beispiel der Redaktion von Wundergeschichten (inbesondere Mk 5.25-34 parr)’, Didaskalia 11 (1981), 3-24. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 87-92, 92-95, 191-214, 214-15. See further at 7:28–8:1.

e present unit is the rst of the three miracle episodes which Matthew gathers under the rubric: ‘new wine into fresh wineskins’ (see at 9:14-17). Jesus does not mourn the dead but raises them; he breaks the shackles of a perpetual menstrual uncleanness. To head the set of miracles Matthew reaches forward to Mk. 5:21-43, perhaps alerted to its potential for this spot when he used Mk. 5:1-20 for Mt 8:28-34. e parallel account in Luke is 8:40-56. Matthew has heavily abbreviated his Markan source. Despite a few minor agreements, there is not a sufficient basis for con dent appeal to a second source.193

9:18 Matthew omits the lakeside teaching implied by Mk. 5:21 in line with a consistent pattern throughout chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:4). e close link with the preceding unit created by Matthew’s

‘while he was saying these things’194 can only be to make the present episode a further instance of what Jesus has just been speaking of. Matthew highlights the parallel signi cance of the two narratives (one embedded in the other) with the use of ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) at the point where the key actor for each rst comes on stage. Matthew identi es the man simply as ‘a leader’,195 probably in the interests of comparison with the centurion: both men had authority and recognise that of Jesus.196 e leader approaches Jesus as the leper had, by doing obeisance to him (see at 8:2).197 Matthew attributes to the leader a breathtaking faith in Jesus’ ability to recall the dead to life.198 His abbreviation of the story requires this, if he is not to lose reference to the level of faith to which in the unfolding of Mark’s story the leader is ultimately called.199 Despite the plural language of 11:5, this is Matthew’s only report of Jesus raising the dead.200ough we should not deny some link in Matthew’s mind with eschatological resurrection, what is primarily in view is Jesus being called on to exercise his powers of healing in a situation which for the reader probes for limits by envisaging the ultimate in extreme cases. But as with other healings, this extreme case is also to be viewed in relation to the coming of the kingdom of heaven. Touch has played a role in the healings in 8:2-4, 14-15, and it will do so again in 9:20-21, 29.201 Healing through the laying on of hands is, surprisingly, absent from OT and rabbinic literature, but it has been found in a Qumran document (1QapGen ar 20:21-22; cf. line 29), where Abraham reports a request to ‘Come and pray for the king [i.e., the Pharaoh], and lay my hands upon him so that he would live’. e language is close to Matthew’s (but note Matthew’s use of the singular202).

9:19 In a totally uncomplicated way Jesus responds to the request. Following is the natural way to get to the dead girl.203 roughout the section 8:2–9:36 the disciples experience Jesus’ ministry with a view to being able to replicate it (see at chap. 10). 9:19 both continues the story of Jesus and the leader and provides the setting for the story of Jesus and women with the haemorrhages.204 9:20 Matthew refers to the woman’s condition with a term used in Lv. 15:33 (found only here in the LXX) with reference to menstruation. An allusion to Lv. 15:33 is possible, but a reference to the required sacri ce (as in Mt. 8:4) would have made this clearer. In any case, the reference is to a menstrual ow of blood which would have rendered the woman ritually unclean. ‘Twelve years’ heightens reader sympathy by opening up a large space in which to imagine the women’s difficulties, but it also points forward to the truly miraculous nature of the release to come.205 Modern sensibilities tend to lead to a scholarly exaggeration of the limitations imposed on the ritually unclean. e restrictions on women with a menstrual ow were real enough, but they operated essentially in the domestic and cultic spheres.206 Despite the embarrassment, humiliation, and degradation of health imposed by her condition, she would not have been socially isolated in the way that the leper would have been. Matthew all but deletes the secrecy motif of Mark’s account of the woman’s approach; only ‘came up behind’ remains, plus of course the unilateral arrangement of the contact (contrast 14:36). e woman does not want to advertise the nature of her condition. As does Luke, Matthew emphasises the minimal nature of the contact by referring to the ‘κράσπεδου of his coat’. e inspiration for this is likely to have been Mk. 6:56, where the same phrase is used of minimal contact; Matthew will make use of this material in

14:36. κράσπεδον is used for the tassels the Israelites wore on the four corners of their garments (Nu. 15:38-39; Dt. 22:12), but it can mean just ‘edge’ or ‘hem’. In Mt. 23:5 it is used of the tassels, and this is probably how we should understand Matthew’s other uses as well. 9:21 If the woman were to touch Jesus or he were to touch her, then the issue of the communication of uncleanness would come into play (see n. 206). Contact with the tassels of his clothing probably avoids this complication; and she is con dent that this will suffice. Matthew’s addition of ‘only’ provides a link with the centurion of 8:8. ‘Made well’ is σωθήσομαι. On the relationship between this deliverance which she sought and salvation in a larger frame see the discussion at 8:25. 9:22 Matthew has radically abbreviated at this point, omitting Mark’s report of the immediate cure and of the process through which the woman is brought to publicly acknowledge what had happened. In Matthew’s account the woman’s condition remains a private matter between her and Jesus. While this is not make explicit, we are to understand that Jesus was aware of the touch (not that he felt it) and of its signi cance, and so turns. ough the fact is not reported at this point, the words of Jesus presuppose that the healing has already taken place. Matthew’s use of ‘seeing’ strengthens the link with the story of the paralytic, where faith has most recently been mentioned (v. 2). Jesus’ seeing is not super cial: it takes in the whole signi cance of what lies before him.207 e use of ‘take heart’ also links back to v. 2, highlighting the similarity between Jesus’ address to the one as ‘child’ and to the other as ‘daughter’. At least in part, the series of links will be to help the reader track the motif of faith from 8:10 (see there) to 9:2 to 9:22. Matthean compression means that, just as in the case of the leader, Jesus attributes to the woman a fully developed faith from the outset.208

‘Your faith has made you well’ is not a statement about faith as a psychosomatic cause of healing. Rather, faith is that state of awareness, receptivity, and readiness for appropriate action which opens one to the working of the powers of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus. Matthew accepts ‘your faith has made you well’ from the tradition here, but will not include the other Gospel uses of the phrase.209 Perhaps he was nervous about possible misunderstanding. ough it is presupposed already by Jesus’ words, Matthew saves for the end a statement about the fact of the healing. ‘From that hour’ is best referred to the time of the touch (rather than to the moment of Jesus’ address). ere is some echo of 8:13 (again supporting the tracking of the faith motif).210 e woman is allowed to disappear from sight once the point has been powerfully made that contact with Jesus is transformatory for those who approach him with believing receptiveness. 9:23 Vv. 20-22 have brie y interrupted the engagement of Jesus with the leader, but the action of those verses has taken place as Jesus and disciples are following the leader to his home. Now the story is picked up at the point of arrival at the leader’s house.211 Reed-pipe players were a standard part of Jewish mourning customs. No doubt rather idealistically, m. Ket. 4:4 directs that ‘even the poorest in Israel should hire not less than two reed-pipes and one wailing woman’. More realistically Josephus (War 3:437) reports a situation in which ‘many of the mourners hired reed-pipe-players [τοὺς αὐλητάς, as in Matthew] to accompany their funeral dirges’. Professional mourners may also have been involved, but Matthew is content to speak of the reed-pipe players and crowd as making the noisy lamentation that was considered appropriate. He does not intend to criticise funeral practices; the contrast is between how the

leader himself has reacted to the death (given the possibility of contact with Jesus) and how these anonymous people are behaving. 9:24 In telling the crowd to go away, Jesus is protesting the basis on which they are there: they are there to mourn, but in this case there is no need. Matthew has created irony by having Jesus make a remark directed towards the future which the crowd takes as directed towards the past. ey hear diagnosis, Jesus offers prognosis; they know for a fact that she was dead, Jesus knows for a fact that by restoring her to life he will make this period of death into nothing more than a period of sleep. Given the irony, the laughter is in itself innocent enough, but it will be taken to re ect a deeper lack of perception about the newness of the situation which was emerging because of the presence of Jesus and, in re ecting this lack of perception, as a mild form of the hostility to Jesus which is beginning to build. Matthew does not intend to use τὸ κοράσιον in v. 25 in words of address to the girl, as in Mk. 5:41. In Mark this prepares for his use of the same term in v. 42, so Matthew prepares for his corresponding use in 9:25 by introducing the term into v. 24. 9:25 Again Matthew abbreviates severely.212 e expulsion of the crowd enforces the perspective of Jesus in v. 24 over against the crowd’s inclination to ridicule him. e ritual expression of authority anticipated in v. 18 becomes in execution a gentle expression of a caring relationship: Jesus takes the girl by the hand. Contact with the hand and getting up are reminiscent of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law in 8:15. 9:26 We have noted how thus far through this section Matthew has trimmed away from his source materials reference to the spread of Jesus’ reputation (8:4, 34): he has wanted to keep this note for the nal triad of miracles (here and in 9:31). is verse echoes the thought of 4:24; a background in uence from Mk. 1:28 is likely.

3. Jesus Gives Sight to Two Blind People (9:27-31) Jesus was going away from there, two blind people followed,a crying out and saying, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’. 28When he came into the house, the bblind people came to him; Jesus says to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do thisc?’ ey say to him, ‘Yes, Lord’. 29en he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, let it be done to you.’ 30And their eyes were opened. en Jesus bspoke to them severely,b saying, ‘See that no one knows [about this]’. 31But they went and spread the news about him in cthe whole ofc that district. 27As

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αυτω (‘him’) is added in ‫ א‬C L W Θ 0250 f1, 13 33 etc. It could be original, but more likely it is an addition consciously or unconsciously echoing the language of discipleship. b-b. Rendering ενεβριμηθη αυτοις, which is more literally ‘was angry with them’. Possibly the use of the middle rather than the passive form of the verb in B2 C D L W Θ f13 etc. is intended to soen the language, but since no other de nite uses of the passive of the verb are reported in esaurus Linguae Graecae, and certainly no early uses, the change may simply be to a known form. c-c. Missing from ‫( *א‬sys), this could be an expansion. Bibliography Anderson, J. C., Web, 179-89. • Beavis, M. A., ‘From the Margin to the Way: A Feminist Reading of the Story of Bartimaeus’, JFSR 14 (1998), 19-39. • Chilton, B. D., ‘Jesus Ben David: Re ections on the Davidsohnfrage’, JSNT 14 (1982), 88-112. • Duling, D. C., ‘Matthew’s Plurisigni cant “Son of David” in Social Science Perspective: Kinship, Kingship, Magic and Miracle’, BTB 22 (1992), 99-116. • Jonge, M. de, ‘Jesus, Son of David and Son of God’, in Intertextuality, ed. S. Draisma, 95-104. • Loader, W. R. G., ‘Son of David,

Blindness, Possession, and Duality in Matthew’, CBQ 44 (1982), 570-85. • Mullins, T. Y., ‘Jesus, the “Son of David”’, AUSS 29 (1991), 117-26. See further at 7:28–8:1.

e healing of the blind signals dramatically the newness of what God is now doing. Despite all attempts to avoid publicity, there is no containing news of such events. Such things are unmatched in the history of Israel.213 To begin this narrative, Matthew all but borrows the exact words he has used for the opening of 9:9. V. 9 may also have inspired reference to the blind people as following Jesus (but with a weakened sense here), and the role of the house in v. 28 is likely to echo that in v. 10 (but 8:14 is verbally closer and also likely to be involved). Other links are with the two demoniacs of 8:28 who also ‘cry out and say’;214 with the reference to mercy in v. 13 (see discussion there); with the various comings to Jesus in chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:2); with ‘Jesus says to him’ in 8:4, 20, 22 (same word order as the rst two); with the correlation of belief and consequence in 8:13 (which uses γενηθήτω [‘let it happen’], as does 9:29, where the point is reiterated); with the statement of Jesus’ ability to help in 8:2 (δύνασθαι [‘to be able’]); with the frequent address, ‘Lord’, in chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:2); with the healing by touch of 8:3, 15; with the underlining of the importance of faith through chaps. 8– 9 (see at 8:10); with the silence motif of 8:4; and with the phrase ‘that whole district’ of 9:31. When we add to this the observation that vv. 30b-31 closely echo material from the Markan version of the healing of the leper which Matthew passed over (parts of Mk. 1:43, 45), then implications emerge in relation both to sources and redaction. Matthew clearly has available an account of the healing of a blind man which he will use in 20:29-34 (in its Markan sequence). e material of 20:29-34 can account for almost all of the features of 9:27-31 not covered above.215

It looks as though Matthew, broadly basing himself on the tradition behind 20:29-34, has taken the opportunity to formulate an account that draws together motifs from the range of healing

accounts and related materials that he has presented throughout chaps. 8–9. He needs an instance of bringing sight to the blind to prepare for 11:5, but as he draws towards the end of this section it suits him to sound again many of the notes that have sounded through the section as he moves things towards a climax. 9:27 Matthew leaves the reader to imagine how these two blind people could manage to follow Jesus: presumably we are to think of them following the noise of Jesus, his disciples, and others following along; they are probably to be thought of as trailing behind the group rather than as mingling in with the group. Seventeen times in the LXX text of the Psalms ἐλέησον (‘have mercy’) is used in appeals for God’s help. e prospect of God’s mercy is one of the blessings announced in the Beatitudes. Against the background of Jesus’ connection with the kingdom whose coming he announces, these blind people seek mercy in a concrete form related to their condition. e Davidic connection of Jesus played a signi cant role in chaps. 1–2, but it has thereaer been allowed to drop out of sight up to this point. We are clearly meant to take Son of David as a royal messianic designation (as in Pss. Sol. 17:21).216 What is less clear is how such a perception of Jesus is to be understood to have come to these two blind people. All that immediately offers itself is that Jesus’ evident central role in relation to the advance effects of the kingdom he was announcing made the idea that he must actually be the Jewish messiah compelling.217 In discussing the Bartimaeus account in Mk. 10:46-52, Beavis has, however, offered an intriguing suggestion. She draws attention to a Greco-Roman tradition of blind poets and seers in which there is a perception that lack of physical sight can at times be compensated for by enhanced powers of other kinds. ough there is no evidence of blind Jewish prophets, Jewish tradition could

celebrate the wisdom of famous blind rabbis and a blind person could be called euphemistically gbr sgyh nhwr (‘a person of great sight’). Beavis thinks in terms of Bartimaeus being identi ed as a blind prophet, but perhaps we should go no further than to speak of a gi of divine inspiration, a gi of insight granted speci cally to those who lack physical sight.218 But if physical blindness is for these men the opportunity of spiritual sight, paradoxically their status as merely blind beggars also means that their views about Jesus could be readily ignored. Where Mark and Luke only have the blind men identify Jesus as the Son of David, Matthew not only makes two uses of the tradition of the appeal of the blind man/men to the Son of David, but in between he has the crowds link Jesus with the Son of David (12:23 questioningly; 21:9 con dently) and the Canaanite woman implore him as the Son of David (15:22) — these probably form Matthew’s primary set. Finally, as an echo of the crowds in 21:9, the children in the temple acclaim Jesus as the Son of David (21:15) in the context of the development of terminal hostility between Jesus and the Jerusalem leaders. 9:28 Jesus was summoned from the house in v. 18 (cf. vv. 10, 14); he now returns to the house. A house setting for the encounter removes Jesus from public gaze and provides a modicum of privacy to make possible the call for secrecy in v. 30 (a measure of arti ciality remains). Previously Jesus has recognised faith and responded to the faith that he has observed; here and only here he take the initiative in probing belief and calling for its verbal expression.219 In giving their answer the blind people are drawn into the circle of those who address Jesus as Lord (see at 8:2). ey believe not just that Jesus is some mediating channel for the power of God, but that he is in himself and by right God’s plenipotentiary.

9:29 For the place of touch in Jesus’ healings see the comments at 8:3. Only here (and at the matching 20:34) is the touch directed in a restricted sense to the afflicted part. Faith is the conduit along which what Jesus is able to bring is channelled to the speci c points of need (cf. 8:13 and discussion at 9:22). 9:30 A brief statement of the outcome of the healing brings a rst closure to the episode, but most miracle accounts have something beyond this, something having to do with response. In chaps. 8–9 only here and to the leper in 8:4 is there a follow-on directive from Jesus.220 ough prepared for by the introduction of the house setting, the insistence on silence lacks motivation. In Matthew’s thinking we should probably see it as anticipating 12:16221 and as therefore concerned to dissociate Jesus from any image of being a self-publicist (cf. v. 19). But at this point Matthew is more interested in the disobedience of those who had gained their sight: what had happened to them was so incredible that they could not keep it to themselves. As he draws towards the end of the section, Matthew wants to reinforce the point made in 4:24: Jesus becomes widely known for what he does. e crowds that will suddenly be found to be present in 9:33 are to be understood to be present on the basis of the dynamic earlier identi ed in 4:24: the spread of news in 9:26, 31 has drawn them. 4. Contrasting Reactions to Jesus’ Exorcism of a Mute Man (9:3234) 32As

they [i.e., those to whom sight has been restored] were going out, people brought to him a person who was a[deaf and] mutea, who was possessed by a demon. 33When the demon had been cast out, the mute person spoke. e crowds marvelled, saying, ‘Nothing like this has ever happened in Israel’. 34bBut the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he casts out demons’.b

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. e translation of κωϕος is difficult. ‘[Deaf and] mute’ is fulsome (it can mean one or the other — see below) and leaves the deafness apparently unattended to. But without ‘[deaf and]’ the anticipation of 11:5 is invisible (where the same translation difficulty is encountered in a context where deafness is the clear focus). b-b. Omitted by D a k sys, probably as anticlimactic. Its presence prepares for 10:25 and completes the series of links between 12:16-24 and 9:27-34. Bibliography Birdsall, J. N., ‘A Note on the Textual Evidence for the Omission of Matthew 9:34’, in Jews and Christians, ed. J. G. D. Dunn, 117-22. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Jesus of Nazareth: A Magician and False Prophet Who Deceived God’s People?’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 164-80. • Stanton, G. N., Gospel, 173-76. • Twelree, G. B., ‘ΕΙ ΔΕ … ΕΓΩ ΕΚΒΑΛΛΩ ΤΑ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ’, in Miracles, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, 361-400. See further at 7:28–8:1.

As in 9:27-31, for this nal miracle account Matthew makes use of a tradition which he will primarily represent elsewhere (12:22-24), but this time he reports the miracle itself minimally because his focus is on the contrasting reactions of the crowds and the Pharisees. e Lukan parallel, 11:14, indicates that the account in Matthew’s source was already extremely brief. e main Matthean contribution is the nal clause of 9:33, which is likely to be partly inspired by material from Mk. 2:12 passed over at Mt. 9:8.

9:32 Matthew establishes a close link with the preceding account by having the one group come in as the other leaves (like

successive patients entering a doctor’s office). As in 8:16; 9:2, others bring this needy person Jesus.222 κωϕός is literally ‘blunt’ or ‘dull’ and is applied to people whose capacity to communicate with others is severely compromised because they are either deaf or mute or both. e present account is likely intended to prepare for 11:5, but while the κωϕός here is enabled to speak, the κωϕοί in the generalising statement of 11:5 are said to be enabled to hear.223 ough in 4:24 Matthew uses the language of healing in a summary statement in relation (also) to those who are demon possessed, here he introduces the idea of a speci c affliction resulting from demon possession (cf. 12:22; 17:15). 9:33 e exorcism itself is represented minimally using a passive genitive absolute construction, requiring the reader to infer from the context even the fact that Jesus was responsible for the exorcism. e focus falls on the power of speech gained by the afflicted person, though even this is reported in a minimal way.224 is miracle is reported primarily for the sake of the paired reactions to it with which Matthew ends this section of his Gospel. e presence of the crowds is unexplained, but it is generally prepared for by the indications in vv. 26, 31 of the spread of Jesus’ reputation. e crowds are amazed, as had been those who witnessed the calming of the storm (8:27; see there). e crowds are not yet disciples, but they are given the function of registering how an ‘unprejudiced’ observer might experience the events in question.225 Matthew expounds the simple statement of amazement from his source by developing what he failed to use from his Markan source at 9:8. e Markan material identi ed the present experience as unique for those present; Matthew extends this by encompassing the whole experience of Israel as the people of God.226 He thus con rms the headline theme of the nal set of three

miracle stories: the newness of that which comes with the presence of Jesus.227 9:34 Matthew explains the presence of the Pharisees no more than that of the crowds. Luke has ‘some of [the crowds]’ (11:15), but Matthew might be in uenced by the related material in Mk. 3:22, which has scribes coming down from Jerusalem (in 9:11 Matthew has ‘Pharisees’ where Mark has ‘scribes of the Pharisees’). ere is a de nite deepening of hostility from 9:11 to v. 34. As Davies and Allison suggest,228 we may be meant to understand that the Pharisees are addressing the impressed crowds. Matthew marks a split of opinion between the Jewish crowds and the various categories of leaders at various points, but the leaders will nally gain control over public opinion in the climactic period of the narrative.229 A similar tie between a central gure of evil and demons is found at Qumran.230 e explanation offered by the Pharisees for Jesus’ miraculous powers is not too different from that offered by Paul in Acts 13:10 for the magic of Bar-Jesus (cf. 8:9-11).231 Invocation of the power of Satan offers itself as a ready explanation for the presence of extraordinary power in a person who is thought on other grounds not to be acting in concert with God. e cogency of such an explanation depends on a decision about whether the spectacular deeds are merely intended to create an impression in order to gain in uence or whether they have their own moral stamp as from God, and on whether the accompanying in uence is exerted in favour of apostasy from that faithfulness to God inculcated in the history of God’s dealings with Israel. As far as the Pharisees are concerned, the most obvious feature about Jesus to emerge thus far is his disturbance of the religious status quo in a manner that placed in question the adequacy of Pharisaic religious

life.232 When the present accusation is repeated in 12:24, the speci c juxtaposition of ‘ruler of the demons’ and ‘casts out demons’ will make possible a reductio ad absurdum rejoinder (see there).

1. It is not ultimately satisfactory to set the words of chaps. 5–7 over against the deeds of chaps. 8–9 since there is very important ‘incidental’ teaching in the healing episodes and, in any case, the ow of miracles is interrupted by 8:18-22 and 9:9-17. But see the comments at 8:4 below for Matthew’s consistent omission throughout this section of links in the Markan source material to occasions of Jesus’ teaching and preaching. 2. Cf. Stewart-Sykes, ‘Miracle Chapters’, 55-65. Luz, ‘Wundergeschichten’, 151, is right to insist on ‘continuous movement’ throughout this section where Matthew has been so careful to provide in the linkages a sequence of events without gaps. 3. Two immediately obvious instances of this are (a) the role of 7:21-23 in qualifying the signi cance of addressing Jesus as Lord in chaps. 8–9 and (b) Matthew’s desire to have Jesus’ authority manifested in healings linked closely with his authority manifested in teaching (7:29). 4. e use of Mk. 1:22 in Mt. 7:28-29 suggests that Mark’s teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum (including the exorcism) has been displaced by the Sermon on the Mount. e only other speci c healing in Mark before the healing of the leper is that of Peter’s mother-in-law, which does not t well into the lead position. e healing of the leper also lls a ‘journey slot’ in Mark. 5. Nolland, Luke, 1:226. Texts on leprosy include Lv. 13–14; Nu. 5:2; 12:12; Dt. 24:8-9; 2 Ki. 5:7; 7:3-10; 15:5; 2 Ch. 26:16-21; Job 18:13; CD 15:78; 11QTemple 45:17-18; 46:16-18; 48:17; 49:4; Jos., Ant. 3.261, 264; Ap. 1.281; Philo, Spec. leg. 1.80; Som. 1.202; Post. C. 47; m. Kel. 1:7; m. Neg. passim. 6. Mt. 8:24, 29, 32, 34; 9:3, 10, 18, 20, 32. 7. People also ‘come up’ to Jesus in Mt. 8:5, (19), 25; 9:(14), 20, 28 (the occurrences in parentheses are not for therapeutic help but refer to a

positive linking with Jesus). Individuals come to Jesus for therapeutic help in 15:25; 17:14, and groups in 15:30; 21:14. Elsewhere, angels come to Jesus in 4:11; disciples in 5:1; 13:10, etc.; the rich young man in 19:16; and those who are ultimately hostile to Jesus in 15:1; 16:1; 19:3; 21:23; 22:23; 26:47. 8. Cf. Mt. 11:27 and the discussion there. Jesus will assert the ultimate supremacy of the will of the Father in 26:39. 9. Luz, Matthäus, 2:8. Whereas for Luz Mt. 8:1 and 4 constitute the outer reaches of the chiasm, I would leave vv. 1 and 4 out of the chiasm and allow v. 4 to be a somewhat separate point. 10. In Mt. 8–9 touch plays a part in healing in 8:3, 15; 9:20, 29. Jesus also heals by touch in 20:34 and is touched for healing in 14:36. 11. Lv. 5:3 deals not with the guilt of becoming unclean, but with the guilt of unwittingly engaging, when ritually unclean, in behaviour prohibited to the unclean. It is certainly true that lepers were to be careful not to impart their uncleanness to others (cf. Nu. 5:1-4; Lk. 17:12). 12. In translation I have consistently represented the historic present with a present tense, but subsequent comment will be reserved for cases where a role that is more than that of providing a little extra emphasis is involved. 13. e one thing that might seem to place this view in question is the presence of the motif of silence in Mt. 9:30, where it would seem to have been absent from Matthew’s source (see there). is is but one of many cross links which Matthew has established between units in this section, apparently for no stronger reason than to weave a thread through the units. It has, therefore, no particular claim to offer the interpretive clue for its role in 8:4. In light of 12:16-21 its role in 9:30 would seem to be to indicate that despite his extraordinary powers the Matthean Jesus is no publicity seeker. 14. e coincidence of ὕπαγε (‘go off ’) in Mt. 5:24 and 8:4 strengthens the link. 15. A possible support for this is the LXX use of μαρτύριον (‘witness’) for the wilderness sanctuary (‘the tent of witness’). In particular this phrase is found twice with the cleansing of a leper in Lv. 14 (vv. 11, 23). Does Matthew see the temple, replacing the wilderness sanctuary, as the place of public testimony affirming cleansing?

16. is gives a sense close to that obtained if the phrase is linked to the Mosaic directive. 17. Testimony related to the man’s situation develops what is already present in the context, but testimony to Jesus adds a rather new element to the context. 18. Matthew has noted the spread of Jesus’ fame in 4:24; in 8:2–9:34 he saves this motif for the last set of three miracle stories (9:18-34) where it features in the rst two of the set (9:26, 31). 19. e mention in Mk. 1:29 that Jesus has come from (teaching in) the synagogue is gone (cf. Mt. 8:14); the leaving of the crowds in Mt. 8:18 loses its reference back in Mk. 4:36 to the day of teaching by the lakeside; ‘speaking the word’ from Mk. 2:2 has gone (cf. Mt. 9:1); the seaside teaching of Mk. 2:13 is gone (cf. Mt. 9:9); the implication of teaching by the lakeside in Mk. 5:21 is gone (cf. Mt. 9:18). 20. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:314-18. 21. See Nolland, Luke, 2:735. 22. Cf. Jos., Ant. 17.198; 18.113-14. 23. is even included supervision of capital penalties. Cf. Dobson, ‘e Signi cance of the Centurion’, 295-443. 24. Luke uses ‘slave’, but the bond of affection is marked (7:2). ‘Son’ in Matthew would match ‘daughter’ in 9:18, but Matthew has reduced the parallelism between the episodes by obscuring the threat of death which is explicit in Lk. 7:2. 25. Cf. the relationships in Mt. 8:14, (16); 9:2, 18; (12:22; 14:35;) 15:22; 17:15. 26. Scholars have not normally claimed the strong sense for Mt. 9:2, but the thought that the man has been reduced to lying on a bed by the cause of his paralysis ts quite satisfactorily (cf. Pesch, Neuere exégèse, 166). If this is right, the bed on which he is carried is not simply a device for bringing him to Jesus, but is the place where he regularly passed his time. 27. See Mt. 8:14; 9:10, 23, 28. 28. A questioning exclamation here also makes good sense if Matthew has deleted Luke’s delegation of Jewish leaders: in the absence of their

endorsement it is appropriate that Jesus express himself more cautiously. 29. Daube, Rabbinic Judaism, 107, can even claim that ‘Pagans are not susceptible to Levitical uncleanness’. 30. Jn. 18:28; Acts 10:28 are the strongest surviving statements. Jos., War 2.150, indicates the need to take a bath aer contact with those of other nations (the discussion is about Essene practice, but, though there is some ambiguity, the text is best taken as indicating that the Essenes required a senior Essene to bathe aer contact with a junior in the way that all Jews required bathing aer contact with a Gentile). M. ʾOhol. 18:7 says that Gentile houses are unclean. 31. e question of who or what carries out the directives of Jesus does not come into focus here, only that (no matter how) the result follows from his word of command. 32. e future passive in place of Luke’s imperative for ‘healed’ ts in with this. 33. In a broader sense the word is also found in the quotation of Is. 6:10 in Mt. 13:15. 34. Since in Luke the interaction takes place via a delegation and there is no nal statement corresponding to Mt. 8:13a, Jesus’ comment to the crowds there is not interruptive in the same way. 35. Otherwise the nearest parallel is Jesus’ comments on John in 11:7-19, provoked by the visit of John’s disciples. But here Jesus’ remarks take place aer the departure of the messengers (v. 7). 36. Mt. 8:10; 9:2, 22, 29. 37. It is Matthew’s ‘in no one’ for Luke’s ‘not even’ (probably more original) that makes this problem acute. 38. Note Matthew’s use of the language of ‘little faith’ in relation to the disciples. See 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20. 39. ‘Israel’ has been used earlier in Mt. 2:6, 20, 21. e importance of the geographical land to Israel’s history with God means that religious identity and geographical location are not to be separated from each other. In practical terms the Matthean Jesus can only be commenting on his experience in Jewish Palestine.

40. Nolland, Luke, 1:235. 41. See Ps. 107:3 (not originally eschatological, but interpreted so); Is. 43:5-6. Is. 49:12; Je. 3:18 have fewer directions, but not Matthew’s. Is. 43:5; Zc. 8:7 (and cf. Je. 25:33[LXX 32:33]) have Matthew’s directions, and he may have had one of these texts in mind. 42. See Is. 2:3; 19:18-25; 66:18-21; Je. 3:17; cf. Is. 45:22 for the (positive) inclusion of Gentiles in the future purposes of God. 43. See Lk. 16:22; 4 Macc. 13:17 (cf. 7:19; 16:25); Test. Abr. A 20:14; cf. Mt. 22:32; 17:3. 44. e imagery is based on Is. 25:6-8. 45. On the use of ‘sons’ rather than ‘children’ in translation see at Mt. 5:9. 46. e comparative is used. e former option envisages the outside as that which is further out than the inner parts of the building. e latter option takes the comparative as standing for a superlative. 47. E.g., Wis. 17:21; Tob. 14:10; Pss. Sol. 14:9; cf. 2 Pet. 2:17; Jude 13. 48. is is more natural than being thrown out without ever having gained entry. 49. Mt. 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30. 22:13 and 25:30 bring together being thrown out, the darkness outside, and the weeping and gnashing of teeth. 50. Mt. 8:4, 13, 32; 9:6. 51. e ve Greek clauses all begin with καί, the rst two have Jesus as the subject (he saw; he touched), in the middle one the fever is the subject (it le), and in the nal two the woman is the subject (she rose; she served). An alternative structure favoured by Hagner, Matthew, 1:208-9, centres on Jesus’ touch, and can balance the two references to the fever and set in chiastic parallel the lying sick and rising, as well as Jesus’ seeing the woman and the woman’s serving him. e Greek syntax favours the former, but either is possible. 52. Scholars have claimed that the remains of this house have been discovered within the remains of a later church. Certainly a good case can be made for Christians of the fourth century onwards believing that what has now been identi ed had once been Peter’s house. See J. F. Strange and H.

Shanks, ‘Has the House Where Jesus Stayed in Capernaum Been Found?’ BAR 8 (1982), 26-37. 53. See further at Mt. 4:18. 54. Mt. 8:14; 9:2, 22; 14:14. Except for the summary statement in 14:14, Mt. 8:14 is unique in having no indication of anyone else taking an initiative in seeking the healing. 55. Mark has ‘took hold of ’. In Mt. 8:3 Jesus stretched out his hand and touched; here he touches her hand. 56. Mark uses the same verb, but in the active with Jesus as subject: having taken her by the hand, he raises her up. In Mark this is preliminary to the healing. 57. ἠγέρθη is also used in Mt. 14:2 for the (putative) raising of John the Baptist from death, and of Jesus’ having been raised from the dead in 27:64; 28:6, 7. 58. In line with other alterations, Matthew has narrowed the scope in 8:15 to the serving of Jesus alone. 59. e reference to the role of the women in Mt. 27:55 offers some support to those who draw attention to the way in which Matthew’s telling of the story in 8:14-15 might be seen as accommodating a healing to the form of a calling (like 4:18-20; 9:9). See Wainwright, Feminist Critical Reading, 180-82. 60. Mark catches up on this later with a reference to the entire city, but Matthew is happier to think simply of more and more people. 61. In common are προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ … πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντες ἐθεράπευσεν (‘they brought to him … all who were ill he healed’) and (out of order) δαιμονιζομένους (‘those possessed’). Mt. 8:17 will add a use of the plural of νόσος (‘disease’). 62. eir signi cant place in Jesus’ ministry is implied by Mt. 7:22. 63. Matthew has actually achieved this by deleting Mark’s rst reference to (the bringing of) those who were sick and then inverting the order in which the healings and exorcisms are mentioned. Reading too literally, Matthew has the sick not brought, but nonetheless healed! (It is just possible that Matthew thinks of those whose possession produced the symptoms of

an illness [cf. 9:32; 12:22; 17:15], but a more general reference to healing remains more likely.) 64. As Mark does at this point. 65. e other two are Mt. 4:14-16 and 12:17-21. It may only be fortuitous, but the only other citation formulas beginning with ὥστε are the one before 4:14 (2:23) and the one aer 12:17 (13:35). If one were to allow the related texts 2:5-6; 26:54, 56 into the set, 8:17 would become the central seventh in a set of thirteen citation formulas. But this is probably not how we should count, unless we want to loosen the de nition further and add 3:3 and 13:14-15 (in which case 8:17 becomes the central eighth in a set of een — but this adds in an extra Isaiah reference, albeit introduced quite differently). 66. Both in Matthew’s Greek (ἔλαβεν [‘took’] and ἐβάστασεν [‘bore’]) and in the underlying Hebrew (nśʾ [‘bore’] and sblm [‘carried them’]) the imagery is of a gure taking upon himself the burden that was, or was to be, the people’s. But Matthew takes this language metaphorically as concerned only with the elimination of the problems (cf. the departure of the fever in Mt. 8:15); there is no thought that they are removed to another place. While Menken, ‘Isaiah 53:4’, is right about the meaning of the words (ἐβάστασεν can mean ‘carried away [and thus disposed of]’ and not only ‘carried as a burden’, while sblm is used only of the bearing of the burden), he is wrong to think that a mediating Greek text with ἐβάστασεν intended in the one sense, but being read in the other, is needed for Matthew’s interpretation. 67. Note the end position given to the corporate response in the three miracle accounts (Mt. 8:27, 34; 9:8), and the central location of the one that is negative. 68. ere is actually no other Markan block that would t so well. 69. See Nolland, Luke, 2:540. 70. In the Markan parallel (4:36) Jesus is leaving the crowds he has been teaching through the day, but mentions of teaching are systematically deleted through Mt. 8–9 (see at 8:4). 71. Distinctive to Matthew. Matthew sometimes uses εἷς with a noun for the more usual τις to mean ‘a certain’ (cf. 9:18; 21:19; 26:29; etc.). e link with the use of ἕτερος in 8:21 suggests that εἷς is being used pronominally: ‘a

certain person, a scribe’ is juxtaposed with ‘a different person, [one] of the disciples’. 72. e scribes and Pharisees address Jesus as ‘Teacher’ in a negative context in Mt. 12:38, as do the Pharisees and Herodians in 22:15-16 and the Sadducees in 22:23-24. A Pharisee alone addresses Jesus as ‘Teacher’ in 22:35 in a question designed to test him, but the tone is not necessarily negative. 73. Jesus is factually identi ed as the teacher of the disciples in Mt. 9:11; 17:24. e one who asks what he must do to gain eternal life calls Jesus ‘Teacher’ in 19:16. 74. Mt. 10:24-25 appeals to the disciple/teacher relationship; Jesus identi es himself as the only teacher in 23:8 and as ‘the teacher’ in 26:18. 75. On the translation question see J. E. Taylor, ‘Ho Huios tou Anthrōpou, “the Son of Man”: Some Remarks on an Androcentric Convention of Translation’, BT 48 (1997), 101-9, with a response by P. Ellingworth on pp. 109-13. 76. is would have some similarity to Homer, Od. 18.130-31, which suggests that the beasts are more protected and persistent than human beings. 77. ere is no guarantee that this saying of Jesus originally functioned as a response to an expression of interest in discipleship, but in the present context we can be guided by the link. Without such a link we can do no more than correlate the saying with core features of the teaching of Jesus. 78. Some uses may likely come in asides to the reader (as in Mark and probably Luke), but since the Matthean Jesus speaks so openly of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, this remains uncertain. Possible texts are 9:6; 12:8, 40, with 9:6 as the most likely of these. 79. See Nolland, ‘Excursus: Son of Man’, Luke, 2:468-74 (among the studies since are M. D. Hooker, ‘e Son of Man and the Synoptic Problem’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck et al., 189-201; B. D. Chilton, ‘e Son of Man: Human and Heavenly’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck et al., 203-18; F. H. Borsch, ‘Further Re ections on “the Son of Man”’, in e Messiah: Development in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 130-44; W. E. Aufrecht, ‘e

Son of Man Problem as an Illustration of the technē of New Testament Studies’, in Origins and Method. FS J. C. Hurd, ed. B. H. McLean [Sheffield: JSOT, 1993], 282-94; D. Burkett, ‘e Nontitular Son of Man: A History and Critique,’ NTS 40 [1994], 504-21; I. H. Marshall, ‘“Son of Man”’; M. Casey, ‘e Use of the Term br (ʾ)nš(ʾ) in the Aramaic Translations of the Hebrew Bible’, JSNT 54 [1994], 87-118; M. Casey, ‘Idiom and Translation: Some Aspects of the Son of Man Problem’, NTS 41 [1995], 164-82; M. Casey, Aramaic Sources, esp. 111-21; J. M. Robinson, ‘e Son of Man in the Sayings Gospel Q’, in Tradition und Translation: Zur Problem der Interkulturellen Übersetzbarkeit religiöser Phänomene. FS C. Colpe, ed. C. Elsas, R. Hae et al. [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994], 315-35; P. de Marin de Viviés, Jesus et le Fils de l’Homme; C. F. D. Moule, ‘“e Son of Man”: Some of the Facts’, NTS 41 [1995], 277-79; T. B. Slater, ‘One like a Son of Man in First-Century Judaism’, NTS 41 (1995), 183-98; Hoffmann, P., Jesus von Nazareth, 193-278; A. Yarbro Collins, Cosmology, 139-58; Guillet, ‘Le ls de l’homme’, 615-38; D. Burkett, Son of Man; Wink, Human Being; W. Schenk, Das biographische Ich-Idiom ‘Menschensohn’ in den frühen Jesus-Biographien: Der Ausdruck, seine Codes und seine Rezeptionen in ihren Kotexten [FRLANT 177. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997]; R. Buth, ‘A More Complete Semitic Background for bar-enasha, Son of Man’, in Functions, ed. C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders, 176-89; P. Owen and D. Shepherd, ‘Speaking Up for Qumran, Dalman and the Son of Man: Was Bar Enasha a Common Term for “Man” in the Time of Jesus?’, JSNT 81 [2001], 81-122; M. Goulder, ‘Psalm 8 and the Son of Man’, NTS 48 [2002], 18-29). Arguing along quite different lines (Jesus’ usage is to be linked to an understanding of Ps. 8:5-6 [ET 4-5]), Smith, ‘No Place’, 83-107, has reached a similar conclusion (Ps. 8 also has reference to ‘the birds of the air’). Focussing on the uses in Matthew, Luz, ‘Son of Man in Matthew’, 3-21, has reached what is, again, a similar conclusion. For my translation I have tried to re ect the Gospels’ instinct to retain something of the idiolect in translation. 80. Plut., Tib. Gracch. 9.5 (928c), expresses the pathos of the wandering homelessness of soldiers and their families in contrast to animals with their dens, lairs, and hiding places.

81. Mt. 4:13 presumes a house; in 8:14 Jesus uses Peter’s house; 9:10 may refer to a house Jesus is using; 9:28 and 13:1, 36; 17:25 certainly do; 10:12-14 assume a resident-guest status for the disciples. 82. e linked Mt. 19:29 speaks of leaving houses. 83. Mt. 16:21; 17:12, 22-23; 20:17-19; 26:2. 84. Any link with the motif of rejected wisdom (e.g., Wis. 8:20) seems to me to be entirely remote; beyond the sheer fact of exclusion there are no textual signals to point in this direction. 85. e language could be translated ‘a different one of the disciples’, but this would be to retrospectively identify the scribe as a disciple, a procedure which would be appropriate only if the content of Mt. 8:19-20 had already implicitly identi ed the scribe as a disciple, which is not the case. 86. Since there is also a possible Lukan reason for bringing the call to follow forwards (see Nolland, Luke, 2:541), it is not certain that Matthew makes this change, but certainly the Lukan text would not suit. 87. Appeal is made to modern Middle Eastern idiom in which to stay and bury one’s father would mean to take care of him in old age (until death). 88. McCane, ‘Secondary Burial’, 31-43, argues this case most effectively. 89. For further documentation see Hengel, Charismatic, 8-10. e pattern of mourning was likely quite regimented (as can be documented more precisely for the later period). 90. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:56-57, offer quite a full list of views. 91. Robbins, ‘Foxes’, 71-72, nds a rather clever scrambling of letters between the request and the response in the Greek, but the relationship seems too arcane for a reader or hearer to readily grasp it. 92. Or of Heraclitus’s view that ‘Corpses are more worthless than excrement’ (Frg. 85, cited following Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:57). 93. Hengel, Charismatic, 11-12, helpfully draws attention to God’s denial to Ezekiel of normal mourning for the death of his wife (Ezk. 24:15-24). e denial to Nazirites (Nu. 6:6-8) and the chief priest (Lv. 21:11) of the right to become ritually unclean through contact with the bodies of even their parents may be relevant.

94. See Mt. 10:34-37; 12:46-50; 19:29. 95. Ehrhardt, ‘Lass die Toten’, 130. 96. McKane, ‘Secondary Burial’, 40. 97. Mt. 8:24a-b parallels v. 26c; v. 24c parallels v. 26b. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:68, include vv. 23 and 27-28 in the chiasm, but the parallelism is limited, especially if (as below) the people in v. 27 are identi ed as not the disciples. 98. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:397-98. 99. Contrast Mk. 4:36; Lk. 8:22. On following and disciples see the comments at Mt. 4:20; 5:1. 100. BDAG, 918, have a couple of texts in which σεισμός appears to be applied to a storm. e related root σαλ(ευ)- is applied to the sea in Pss. 95:11; 97:7; Jon. 1:15; Ps. Sol. 6:3. 101. Luz, Matthäus, 2:27, focusses this too narrowly on inner psychological states. e widespread ancient use of danger at sea as a metaphor for a broad range of threats to human well-being facilitates generalisation (from the OT see Pss. 18:16-17; 65:7; 69:2-3, 15-16). 102. Anticipated in another way in Mt. 27:54 (cf. v. 51); 28:2. e shaking of the sea (but not alone; the land is also to be shaken) is an eschatological image in Hg. 2:6, 21. 103. If so, it is no more than imagery. Such a mythological background is possibly also re ected in the imagery of Rev. 13:1. 104. Mora, Création, 148-54. 105. e Jonah ‘christology’ proposed by Feiler (‘Stilling’, 399-406), appealing to Mt. 12:39-41, depends on later Jewish interpretation of Jonah as a self-sacri cing hero (Jon. 1:12). Even if we allow the likelihood of such a tradition of interpretation being already operative in the rst century, the interpretation depends on features of the Jonah story that have le no mark on the present account and makes use of traditions that re ect the kind of narrow Jewish nationalism that ts neither the historical Jesus nor the Gospel writers. 106. A larger theological sense in which salvation is connected with eschatological participation in the future kingdom of God emerges in Mt.

10:22; 19:25; 24:13, 22. 107. Cf. Lv. 26:6; Job 11:18-19; Pss. 3:5; 4:8; Pr. 3:23-24. 108. I am echoing the language of Luz, Matthäus, 2:30, but he means, I think, the presence of Jesus; I mean the presence of their Father in heaven. 109. Pss. 104:7; 106:9; Na. 1:4. 110. As already indicated, the role of the winds appears for the rst time in the rebuke. 111. Mora, Création, 149, nds a tie with the men of Jon. 1:16. Unfortunately for Mora’s proposal, Matthew has weakened the links with Jon. 1:16. 112. See at Mt. 8:23 for the tension between this and the loss of the accompanying boats mentioned in Mark. 113. See Mt. 9:33; 15:31; 22:22; 27:14; the disciples are amazed in 21:20. 114. See Job 26:12; Pss. 65:7; 77:16; 89:9; 104:7; 107:23-29; Je. 5:22. 115. Nolland, Luke, 1:401-402, written in connection with Luke, but equally true of Matthew. 116. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:398. 117. Luz, Matthäus, 2:31, includes Mt. 9:1 in the unit and offers a chiastic structure built around a series of repeated roots. But though 8:28 does correspond to 9:1, the stronger link for 8:28 is back to 8:18, 23; each of the three linked miracle accounts begins with a ‘sea travel’ statement, for which 8:18 has made preparation. e inclusion of 9:1 does not t the end role for group reactions noted for 8:27, 34; 9:8. Luz’s chiasm does not respect the emphasis-marking role of καὶ ἰδού (see at 8:29). Finally, the extended centre of Luz’s chiasm (vv. 30-33a — there is no clear end point for this centre) does not provide a credible main point of emphasis. An alternative chiasm, incorporating some of Luz’s observations, may be proposed: 8:28a (arriving in a district) parallels v. 34 (asked to depart from the region); vv. 28b-29 (the state of affairs with the demoniacs) parallels v. 33c (report of the outcome, with the outcome for the demoniacs speci cally identi ed); v. 30 (the pigs grazing) parallels v. 32cd (the pigs destroyed); the centre is the request of the demons and the response of Jesus and its immediate outcome (vv. 31-32ab). e centre here matches the centre for

the chiasm in 8:23-27, identi ed as vv. 25-26a. (I have been guided by the presence of καὶ ἰδού in v. 32c in locating the relevant boundary. Otherwise v. 32b would go as well or better with v. 32cd.) 118. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:403-5. 119. e text-critical situation is, however, quite split for Mk. 5:1 and Lk. 8:26 as well, where ‘Gadarenes’, ‘Gergystenes’, and ‘Gergesenes’ are also found as readings. 120. Cf. Cran eld, Mark, 176. e modern name of Gergesa (which is Kersa or Kursi) is suggestive. 121. For other healings see Mt. 9:27; 20:30. In 26:60 there is an extra witness (cf. 18:16). Jesus rides two animals in 21:7. 122. In line with the changes in Mt. 8:28, Matthew drops here the language in Mark that would link the demoniac(s) to other suppliants who approach Jesus. 123. e loss of Mark’s ‘with a loud voice’ helps the sense that at this point already in the Matthean account all the erceness of Mt. 8:28 has fallen away. 124. See esp. 2 Kgdms. 16:10; 3 Kgdms. 17:18; 4 Kgdms. 3:13. 125. is is the only place where Matthew allows this Markan emphasis to survive. Its link in Mark to the ‘messianic secret’ does not suit Matthew. e motif is preserved here precisely because in this case it does not have such a connection. 126. In Mark the demons seek to empower their request with oath language, but this drops away in Matthew’s accentuation of the submissiveness of the demons before Jesus. 127. ‘At a distance’ takes the place of Mark’s ‘on the hill’, which already in effect creates distance. Matthew is content to allow the elevation of the location to emerge implicitly in the story (8:32). 128. It is found just once in the LXX (Is. 65:11). 129. e text may be found in H. Gressmann, Altorientalische Texte zum Alten Testament (Berlin/Leipzig: de Gruyter, 1926), 78-79. An English translation is found in Pesch, ‘Gerasene Demoniac’, 363-64.

130. Jesus addresses the same single word (in the singular) to the centurion (Mt. 8:13), admittedly not directly as the word that addresses the situation of the paralysed youth and not without an explanatory addition from Jesus. 131. ere is an outcropping here of the problem to theodicy of the ongoing reality of evil, made in some ways yet more acute by the Christian claim that the coming of Jesus anticipates the eschatological righting of all wrongs. 132. e kinds of animal welfare issues to which modern Western peoples have been sensitised are not issues for ancient Mediterranean peoples. As far as Jews were concerned, the pigs should not have been raised in the rst place. As far as others were concerned, the pigs were destined for slaughter (for food or for religious sacri ce). As the ongoing story hints, the people involved are concerned about their own loss, not the experience of the pigs. 133. Perhaps like the sinning angels of 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6. ere is a possible tie in the Lukan version between the plunge into the lake and the ‘abyss’ (Lk. 8:31). 134. Perhaps supported by the use of ‘went off ’ for both demons and herders. 135. As in the rst of the linked miracle accounts (8:23-27), the framing materials for this third and nal account remain outside the chiasm. 9:2a is matched by v. 7; v. 2b is matched by v. 6b; v. 3 is matched by v. 6a; vv. 4-5 constitute the centre. (Luz, Matthäus, 2:35, would absorb vv. 3 and 6a into the centre; this time Luz recognises that the nal piece remains outside the chiasm.) 136. On source matters further and for consideration of the relationship of the account to the historical Jesus, see Nolland, Luke, 1:231-32. 137. διαπέρασεν (‘crossed to the other side’) echoes the use of τὸ πέραν (‘the other side’) at Mt. 8:18, 28. 138. See Mt. 4:24; 8:16; 9:32; 12:22 (passive used); 14:35. 139. e role of the word in Mt. 8:6 is different (see there). Outside general or generalising statements the healing of other crippled persons is

reported in the Gospels only in the incidents found in Mt. 12:9-14; Lk. 13:10-17. 140. Matthew also adds ἰδών (‘seeing’) to 9:22, creating another link. Both accounts also have one interaction imbedded within the other. 141. Mark has it also (in the plural) in 10:24. 142. Some texts conform to the perfect tense used in Mark and Luke (C L W Θ 0233 0281 f1, 13 33 etc.) here and in Mt. 9:6. 143. Otherwise forgiveness becomes an explicit topic only in Mt. 12:3132; 18:21. In Luke there is also 7:48. 144. See Lv. 26:14-16; Dt. 28:21-22; 2 Ch. 21:15, 18-19; Jn. 5:14; 9:2; 1 Cor. 11:30. 145. See Mt. 2:4; 5:20; 7:29; 8:19. 146. Antagonism is evident in Mt. 12:38-39; 15:1-2; 16:21; 20:18; 21:15; chap. 23 passim; 26:57; 27:41. 147. A cultic focus is not evident for Nu. 14:19; 2 Sa. 12:13; Pss. 32:1-2; 78:38; 85:2; etc., nor for b. Ned. 41a: ‘A sick man does not recover from his sickness until all his sins are forgiven him’. 148. See Is. 43:25-26; 44:22; Je. 31:34; Ez. 16:63, cf. 36:25; Mi. 7:19. Cf. CD 14:19; 11QMelch 4–9. 149. Despite the eschatological quality, in the Matthean vision the declaration of forgiveness does not dispense with the reality of a nal judgment at which all must answer. 150. Note as well the shared reference to the heart. 151. ‘To the paralytic’ and ‘take up your bed’ are pared away. Luke omits the same phrases. 152. Nolland, Luke, 1:236. 153. See Nolland, Luke, 1:237. To much the same effect, the clause could be attached to the following clause: Jesus says what he does to the paralytic so that the reader might know…. is option is less natural in Matthew, where the following clause is introduced by ‘then’ (τότε). 154. is is especially so in Mark, where an open statement at this point in the narrative (and at 2:28, where a similar kind of proposal is made)

would seem to violate the pattern of secrecy, giving way to openness only as the cross looms. 155. See Mt. 10:1; 16:19; 18:18-20; 28:18-19. 156. e close of the frame is signalled by the return of several key words: ‘follow’, ‘disciple’, and ‘teacher’ (Matthew has added the last in both 8:19 and 9:11; Matthew has added ‘disciple’ at 8:21; and Matthew has intruded into the Markan sequence the materials of 8:19-22, which use ‘follow’). It may also be suggestive that ‘Son of Man’ has returned (aer 8:20) just a few verses earlier (9:6). ‘Scribe’ has returned as well (aer 8:19) in 9:3, but here the situation is more complex. A more straightforward parallel would have been created by using ‘scribe’ in 9:11 (Mk. 2:16 has ‘the scribes of the Pharisees’), but Matthew prefers to draw on his conception of the scribes and the Pharisees as a coordinated pair (5:20 and nine further times) and to distribute the action in the sequenced pericopes between the scribes (9:3, as already in Mark) and the Pharisees (9:11). 157. On source, form, and historical questions see Nolland, Luke, 1:25253. 158. e link with Mt. 4:18-22 will be even a little greater if Schlatter, Matthäus, 302, is right that the tax booth in Capernaum has been set up to collect taxes levied on shermen. 159. For Matthew’s ‘the house’ Mark has ‘his house’, which, while probably referring to Jesus, is ambiguous. Lk. 5:29 has Levi as host and Jesus as guest of honour. 160. In Mt. 9:10 the reference could be to Matthew reclining, but this would involve reaching back beyond the rst available antecedent for the sense of αὐτοῦ (‘he’) and produces a tension between a strong sense of continuity between vv. 9 and 10 insofar as Matthew remains subject and a weak sense of continuity insofar as the action of reclining in his own house makes a poor follow-up for setting out to follow Jesus. 161. See Mt. 13:1, 36; 17:25. We may be intended to imagine this consistently as the house of 8:14, but that is not certain. 162. Nolland, Luke, 1:246. 163. On tax collectors see at Mt. 5:46. 164. See Mt. 1:21; 3:6; 9:2, 5, 6.

165. See 1 Cor. 5:7, 11; Gal. 5:9; Rom. 16:17; 2 Cor. 6:17. 166. Philostr., VS 2.70. Cited following Klauck, Allegorie, 154. 167. Nolland, Luke, 1:246. 168. Is. 1:6; 6:10; 53:5; Je. 3:22; 8:22; Ho. 5:13; 6:1; 7:1. e LXX of Dt. 30:3 says, ‘e Lord will heal your sins’. 169. See Str-B 1:499. Sifre to Nu. 15:41 has, ‘Go and learn the lesson from the religious duty of fringes’ (tr. from J. Neusner, Sifré to Numbers, 2:183). 170. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:105, support a reference to covenant faithfulness, but this makes the criticism very general and leaves the Pharisees nothing speci c to learn apropos the treatment of tax collectors and sinners. 171. In Mt. 12:7 the Ho. 6:6 call to mercy points to the need to relate the sabbath command itself to the sabbath intentions of the One who is himself gracious and merciful. 172. On the compassion of God see, e.g., Is. 54:7-8; Ho. 2:19. 173. See further Nolland, Luke, 243-44. 174. at the note of newness provides perspective for the following miracle stories is recognised by, e.g., Wainwright, Feminist Critical Reading, 87, 213; Bonnard, Matthieu, 135; Plummer, Matthew, 141. Because the nal set of miracle stories is also involved in building the conclusion for the whole section, the materials serve a range of purposes beyond that of stressing the newness of what Jesus brought (see further on individual passages below). 175. e following links will also be particularly tight: Mt. 9:27, ‘As Jesus was going on from there’; v. 32, ‘As they were going out’. 176. In Mk. 2:14 the asking is anonymous (‘[people] said to him’). 177. For Matthew, the Pharisees mentioned at the beginning and end of the subsection (9:14, 34) may add a minor guide to the identi cation of the scope of the subsection. 178. E.g., Lv. 16:29, 31. 179. Lk. 18:12; Did. 8:1; b. Taʿan. 12a; y. Pes. 4:1. For an allusion to John’s own practice see Mt. 11:18.

180. e focus could be on the problem of sin or on the downtrodden state of God’s people under foreign dominion (or both together). 181. Is. 62:4; Ho. 2:19-23; for rabbinic development see Str-B, 1:517-18. 182. Despite the claim oen made, ‘bridegroom’ here is neither a divine nor a messianic self-designation. 183. Cf. 1 Macc. 9:41, where following the slaughter of members of a wedding party, ‘the wedding was turned into mourning and the voice of their musicians into a funeral dirge’. 184. Clearly a future coming must be set alongside this, but it is the resurrection and not the future coming which restores what is lost when the bridegroom is taken away (note the ‘great joy’ of Mt. 28:8). 185. e image works effectively without the need of an actual report of fasting aer the death of Jesus. 186. ough developments thus far are modest, Mt. 8:2–9:34 already includes 8:12, 34; 9:3, 11, 34. 187. Steinhauser, ‘Patch’, 312-13. 188. e alternative is a partitive genitive or a genitive of source, referring back to the unshrunk cloth from which the patch has been taken (‘the patch made from unshrunk cloth’). Steinhauser refers αὐτοῦ back to the ‘patch of unshrunk cloth’. 189. Cf. Steinhauser, Doppelbildworte, 61. 190. Matthew economises by using the passive for the splitting of the skins; ‘wine’ gains its own verb in the third clause so that the fate of wine and skins can be presented in parallel clauses; to increase the parallelism, the opening verb is freshly used in expressing the positive case (the change from Mark’s ‘no one puts’ to ‘[people] do not put’ at the beginning of the verse is probably intended to prepare for the positive case here, where the singular verb could not be used); along the same lines, Matthew adds a new clause to express the positive counterpart to the loss of wine and skins. 191. For the pressure in the wineskins cf. Job 32:19. 192. e splitting of old wineskins (but for a different reason) is mentioned in Jos. 9:13.

193. On matters of pre-Markan form and historicity see Nolland, Luke, 1:416-18. 194. e language is probably inspired by the start of Mk. 5:35, a verse which Matthew will not use. 195. In Mk. 5:22 he is ‘one of the leaders of the synagogue, Jairus by name’. ἄρχων is normally translated ‘ruler’, but without quali cation in English this suggests signi cant political power, which is not necessarily to be implied. 196. e centurion’s lad and the leader’s daughter are also well matched. Slightly more imaginatively we may see a parallel between the aside to the crowd in Mt. 8:10-12 and the story within a story of the present episode. Only for these two accounts is there the prospect of Jesus going with someone to heal another. 197. Mk. 5:22 has, ‘seeing him, he falls at his feet’. 198. Accounts of restoration to life are found in 1 Ki. 17:17-24; 2 Ki. 4:18-37. See also, in rather legendary materials, b. ʿA. Zar. 10b (‘[R. Ḥanina b. Ḥama] prayed for mercy for [a slain man], and he was restored to life’); b. Meg. 7b (‘Rabbah prayed on his [a man whose throat he has slit] behalf and revived him’). Various Greco-Roman stories have similar accounts (see Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:124 n. 3, for references). 199. In Mark the request is initially for healing, but in the face of later news of the death of the girl Jesus says, ‘Do not be afraid; only believe’ (5:36). 200. But cf. Mt. 27:52-53. Luke also has 7:11-17. John has 11:1-44. 201. It may be more than fortuitous that this gives a role to touch in two of the rst set of three miracle accounts and in two of the nal set of three miracle accounts. Otherwise only children are blessed with a touch in Mt. 19:13-15. 202. ere is not sufficient reason to think that comparison is being made with the hand of God (against Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:126). 203. An echo of 2 Ki. 4:30 is possible, where Elisha follows the mother of the dead girl with a view to her restoration. 204. Cf. Wainwright, Feminist Critical Reading, 193.

205. In Mark the ‘twelve years’ also contributes to the parallelling of the two linked events, but Matthew drops the age of the child from his version of Mk. 5:42 (its role in Mark is awkward). 206. See Lv. 15; m. Niddah. e communication of uncleanness by a menstruating woman through touch of Lv. 15:19 is not taken up anywhere in m. Niddah (but there is mention in m. Zab. 5:6, where a more severe approach is evident). By contrast, it displays considerable interest in objects on which the menstruating woman has been sitting or lying, as well as on the avoidance of sexual contact with a menstruating woman. e uncleanness communicated by the woman’s touch is of a minor kind (to put it crudely, the blood which owed from her body was the cause of uncleanness, and the woman herself only secondarily so, by unavoidable contact with the blood), and it is likely that such uncleanness was generated only in the case of actual bodily contact (i.e., esh to esh). Despite the occasional scholarly suggestion to the contrary, there seems to be no evidence of a particular cloistering of women during the time of their menstrual ow (11QTemple 48:16 anticipates a future provision of places in each city for isolating menstruating women and others with conditions which rendered them ritually unclean, but even this is an indirect witness to a lack of domestic cloistering). In spite of the considerable attention to detail, the overall thrust of m. Niddah is to limit the scope within which menstrual uncleanness becomes a matter of concern. e evident inconsistency and variety of opinion over matters of detail in the materials indicate that while issues of ritual uncleanness were a matter of considerable preoccupation, no consistent or well-regulated system was in operation. 207. In the story of the paralytic, Jesus is also able to ‘see’ the thoughts of the scribes (Mt. 9:4), which have been expressed ‘to themselves’ (v. 3). Beyond identifying a further link via ‘to herself ’ in v. 21, this may suggest that we are to understand that part of what is visible to Jesus in v. 22 is the content of this inner working of the woman’s mind (cf. discussion at 9:3). 208. In Mark and Luke it is probably deliberate that the woman’s faith is spoken of only aer her open confession. 209. See Mk. 10:52; Lk. 7:50; 17:19; 18:42. 210. ‘From’ better allows for the need to reach back for the antecedent than the ‘in’ of Mt. 8:13 would have (but Matthew will use ‘from’ again in

15:28; 17:18, where there is no such need). 211. e exact arrangement remains uncertain: εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν could be ‘to the house’ or ‘into the house’; εἰσελθών in Mt. 9:25 could indicate entry or re-entry into the house or entry into the part of the house where the dead girl lay. ἐξεβλήθη (‘was expelled’) in v. 25 suggests that the mourners were inside the house. e parallel with 8:14 stands in favour of ‘into the house’. 212. No words are addressed to the girl; the girl’s walking about drops away, along with the linked statement of her age; there is no public response statement; there is no call for silence; there is no arrangement for food to be brought. 213. Legendary accounts of healings of the blind are known in GrecoRoman sources, but Jewish sources of the relevant period report no restorations of sight through a healer (cf. Jn. 9:32; sight is on occasion said to have been restored in reversals of judgment/disaster through prayer). 214. e Greek is not identical, but the same two verbs are used. 215. e link with Mt. 20:29-24 is evident in there being two blind people; their crying out and saying, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’; a question by Jesus; the touching of the eyes; the opening of the eyes. 216. Despite strands of Jewish tradition which link Solomon as the son of David and exorcism, there is no real basis for linking ‘Son of David’ as a messianic title with an expectation of a healing messiah (cf. Luz, Matthäus, 2:59-61). ‘Son of David’ as a current messianic designation is probably echoed in Mt. 22:43. 217. Both Mark (10:47) and Luke (18:38) keep ‘Son of David’ as a title for much later in their narratives. 218. Beavis, ‘Margin’, 19-39. 219. is may be in compensation for loss involved in the compression of the previous narrative. In Mk. 5:21-43 the leader is challenged to a deeper faith and the woman is brought to public confession (of her faith). ese features are lost in Matthew’s telling. 220. For any reader of Matthew who was familiar with Mark, this tie would have been strengthened by the recognition that the directive here has been extracted from the Markan directive to the leper.

221. e link with Mt. 12:16 is con rmed by the way in which the substance of 9:33-34 is repeated in 12:23-24. 222. Luz, Matthäus, 2:62, nds a special link with 9:2-8, a block which he thinks was omitted from the links of vv. 27-31 (but the emphasis on faith does join the accounts). Certainly a reader familiar with Mark could note that v. 33d was in uenced by the Markan form of Mt. 9:2-8 (see above). 223. e blurring of the distinction between deafness and muteness which seems to stand behind the usage of κωϕός (and understandable from the difficulty that profound deafness poses for learning to speak) is well illustrated in the case of Zechariah in Lk. 1. In 1:22 he is said to be κωϕός, which in context clearly means unable to speak, but in v. 62 he is communicated with by signs as though he were also unable to hear. 224. It would be attractive to draw a connection between the power of speech granted here and that granted to the disciples in Mt. 10:19 (‘what you are to say will be given you’), but against this stands the distance between the texts, the complicating presence of demonic possession, and the need for κωϕός to bridge between ‘mute’ and ‘deaf ’. 225. Cf. Mt. 7:28; 9:8; 12:23; 15:31. 226. Like Luke, Matthew has a profound interest in linking what is happening in the coming of Jesus with the history of Israel. at Matthew and Luke each use ‘Israel’ twelve times to Mark’s twice is indicative, but the concern is pervasive in Matthew’s telling. 227. ough the crowds’ reaction is literally to the nal miracle (as with the Pharisees), at a literary level its position at the end invites generalisation to the whole set of miracles of chaps. 8–9. 228. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:139. 229. For the split see already Mt. 9:3, 8 and to come 12:23-24; 14:5; 21:46; 26:3-5; cf. 21:26; 22:33-35. For the nal success of the leaders see 27:20. 230. E.g., 4Q286 frg. 7:2:2-3 has, ‘accursed be Belial in his plan of hostility, and may he be damned in his guilty service. And cursed be all the spirits of his lot in their wicked plans.’ 231. See also Rev. 16:13-14. Stanton, ‘A Magician’, 171-75, has argued that in that period there was a close relationship between accusations of

magic, false prophecy, and demonic possession. 232. See Mt. 5:20; 9:(3), 11, 14.

VIII. WORKERS FOR THE HARVEST (9:35– 11:1) A. ‘Ask the Lord of the Harvest to Send Out Workers’ (9:3538) 35en

Jesus travelled around all the towns and the villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness.a 36Seeing the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep who do not have a shepherd. 37en he says to his disciples, ‘e harvest is big; but the workers are few. 38erefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. εν τω λαω (‘among the people’) is added by ‫ *א‬C3 E F G L Θ f13 579 700 788c 1006 1506 etc., to conform to 4:23. (‫ )*א‬L f13 1424 etc. add this phrase as well, while a b h add και πολλοι ηκολουθησαν αυτω instead (‘and many followed him’). Bibliography For 9:35–10:42 Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Paul and the Missionary Discourse’, ETL 61 (1985), 36975. • Barta, K. A., ‘A Mission in Matthew: e Second Discourse as Narrative’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 527-35. • Bartnicki, R., ‘Die Jünger Jesu in Mt 9,35–11,1’, Colleol 58 (1988), 39-56 (special issue). • Boring, M. E., Sayings, 141-50, 158-69, 208-12. • Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community, 47-

57. • Brown, S., ‘Universalism and Particularism in Mt’s Gospel: A Jungian Approach’, SBLSP 28 (1989), 388-99. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘e Mission Charge in Q’, Semeia 55 (1991), 147-74. • Charette, B., ‘A Harvest for the People? An Interpretation of Matthew 9.37f ’, JSNT 38 (1990), 29-35. • Combet-Galland, C., ‘Du champ des moissonneurs au chant des serviteurs: Matthieu 9,35– 11,1’, FV 81(1982), 31-39. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 268-272. • Cuvillier, E., ‘Coopération interprétative et questionnement du lecteur dans le récit d’envoi en mission (Mc 6:6b-13, 30-32/Mt 10:1–11:1)’, RHPR 76 (1996), 13955. • Dillon, R. J., ‘Early Christian Experience in the Gospel Sayings’, BiTod 21 (1983), 83-88. • Doohan, L., ‘Mission and Ministry’, BiTod 26 (1988), 24347. • Frankemölle, H., ‘Zur eologie der Mission im Matthäusevangelium’, in Mission, ed. K. Kertelge, 93-129. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die synoptische Aussendungsrede in quellenkritischer und traditionsgeschichtlicher Sicht’, SNTU 17 (1992), 77-168. • Genuyt, F., ‘Évangile de Matthieu 10,1-42: Le discours apostolique’, SémiotBib 64 (1991), 3-14. • Hengel, M., Charismatic Leader, 73-80. • Hoffmann, P., Studien, 235-334. • Jacobson, A. D., ‘e Literary Unity of Q. Lc 10,2-16 and Parallels as a Test Case’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 419-23. • Kayalaparampil, T., ‘e Missionary Discourse in the Gospel of Matthew’, Biblebhashyam 10 (1984), 247-56. • Kloppenborg, J. S., e Formation of Q, 192-97. • Kynes, W. L., Christology of Solidarity, 75-84. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 201-301. • Luz, U., ‘Q 10:2-16; 11:14-23’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 101-2. • Mangatt, G., ‘Re ections on the Apostolic Discourse (Mt 10)’, BibLeb 6 (1980), 196-206. • Morosco, R. E., ‘Matthew’s Formation of a Commissioning Type-Scene’, JBL 103 (1984), 539-56. • Neirynck, F., ‘Paul and the Sayings of Jesus’, in L’apôtre Paul: Personnalité, style et conception du ministère, ed. A. Vanhoye (BETL 73. Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1986), 265-321. • Park, E. C., e Mission Discourse in Matthew’s Interpretation (WUNT 2/8. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1995). • Reiser, M., Judgement, 230-41. • Robinson, J. M., ‘e Mission and Beelzebul: Pap. Q 10:2-16; 11:14-23’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 97-99. • Rolland, P., ‘Je vous envoie (Mt 10,1-42; Mc 6,7-13; Lc 9,1-6; Lc 10,1-12)’, Spiritus 29 (1988), 359-65. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 541-69. • Tashjian, J. S., ‘e Social Setting of the Q Mission: ree Dissertations’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 636-44. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 167-233. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 193-200. •

Tuckett, C. M., ‘Paul and the Synoptic Mission Discourse’, ETL 60 (1984), 376-81. • Uro, R., Sheep among the Wolves: A Study on the Mission Instructions of Q (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae. Dissertationes Humanorum Litterarum 47. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987). • Vaage, L. E., ‘Q and Cynicism: On Comparison and Social Identity’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 199-229. • Venetz, H.-J., ‘Bittet den Herrn der Ernte: Überlegungen zu Lk 10,2/Mt 9,37’, Diak 11 (1980), 148-61. • Wanke, J., Kommentarworte, 21-25. • Weaver, D. J., e Missionary Discourse in the Gospel of Matthew: A Literary-Critical Analysis (JSNTSup 38. Sheffield: JSOT, 1990). • Weder, H., ‘Die Suche nach den Söhnen und Töchtern des Friedens: Auslegung der Botenrede der Logienquelle (Mt 10 par Lk 10)’, ZdZ 44 (1991), 54-59.

9:35 and 4:23 mark an inclusion which underlines the importance of reading chaps. 5–7 and 8–9 together and, when linked with the emphasis on the mission of the disciples in what precedes 4:23 (vv. 18-22) and what follows 9:35 (9:36–11:1), provide a chiasmic structure which enhances the signi cance of the mission perspective for the whole body of the encompassed materials.1 9:3537 function as an introductory piece for the section that runs to 10:42 (11:1), which consists mainly of the second major discourse by Jesus in Matthew, in a set of ve marked by a shared concluding formula (here in 11:1; see discussion at 7:29). For 9:35-36 Matthew draws on Mk. 6:6, 34 and echoes Mt. 4:23 in v. 35. e material of Mt. 9:37-38 is found in almost identical form in Lk. 10:2, also in connection with a mission charge (Luke includes it in the charge rather than in the introduction to the charge).

9:35 Mark has already used a brief summary of itinerant ministry by Jesus to introduce the mission of the Twelve (6:6); Matthew develops this idea further. Mt. 9:35 closely echoes 4:23 (see discussion there): this time Jesus is explicitly named; ‘all the towns

and the villages’ replaces ‘in the whole of Galilee’ (probably with the intention of being more general2); ‘among the people drops away’ (its speci c linking role in 4:23 is no longer needed); otherwise the wording is identical. Jesus’ ministry is freshly summarised/characterised aer the expansiveness that has marked chaps. 5–9. 9:36 ‘Seeing the crowds’ is probably intended to echo the language of 5:1. e presence of the crowds is not provided with a speci c rationale, but it is easy to understand a repeat of something like the development in 4:24-25 which produced the crowds of 5:1. Mark has linked the statement about Jesus’ compassion to the time of teaching and feeding in Mk. 6:34-44. Matthew abbreviates at the same point (14:14), but makes his main use of this tradition here: from Matthew’s early church perspective the provision of those who will extend and continue the ministry of Jesus is of profound importance. Compassion involves so identifying with the situation of others that one is prepared to act for their bene t. Apart from 18:27, in a parable (where compassion leads to forgiveness of debt), in Matthew compassion always addresses the physical needs of people,3 and so it will be in the ministry to which the disciples are called. e imagery intended by ἐσκυλμένοι καὶ ἐρριμμένοι (not in Mark) is not entirely clear. σκύλλειν is literally ‘ ay’ or ‘skin’, but comes to be used metaphorically of harassment of any kind, and then (in the passive) of the exhausted or troubled state produced by such harassment. ῥίπτειν or ῥιπτεῖν means ‘throw’. It is used in a wide range of derivative senses, but not normally with overtones of violence. It is perhaps best to think of sheep lying passive on the ground,4 with no sense of what to do in their need: they lack the protective and guiding role of a shepherd. A cognate image will be used in 10:16 of the disciples sent out as sheep into the midst of

wolves,5 but nothing quite so precise about the troubles of the sheep is intended here. Nonetheless, given the OT background of the image of sheep without a shepherd, it is likely that Matthew intends an oblique criticism of the Jewish leaders here.6 Jesus’ own role as shepherd of Israel (2:6) may also be slightly in view, considering the christological emphasis that emerges as chap. 10 unfolds. 9:37-38 As in 9:6, the emphasis intended here is marked by Matthew’s introduction using τότε (‘then’) with a historic present (‘he says’). e accompanying disciples have last been mentioned at 9:19. ‘e harvest is big’ presumably means more than that there are lots of Israelites to be dealt with. e size of the crop suggests that much has already been accomplished in bringing such a crop to the point of harvest (through the prophets? the exile experience? John the Baptist? the ministry of Jesus to this point?). e present sign of the readiness of a large crop is the coming of eager crowds to Jesus. Harvest here is not exactly an image of (eschatological) judgment as in Mic 4:11-13; Isa 63:1-6; Jer 25:30-31; Joel 3:13, nor is it straightforwardly an image of the eschatological gathering of Israel as in Isa 27:12-13. It is, however, from this background (where the saving of God’s people is always also involved) that it draws its force as an image for the eschatological calling of people into the kingdom of God….7

In the present imagery God has become the owner-manager of the farmland who employs farm workers to harvest the crop. ere is an urgent need for sufficient workers to be able to harvest the crop before it spoils.8 No speci c identity should be given to the ‘few’ existing workers: the focus is on the need for additional resources. e coming commissioning and direction of the Twelve will indicate something of what is involved in ‘harvesting’ (but we have also been seeing Jesus do it). e challenge to prayer, however, implies the need to call others beyond the Twelve into this task as

well. Perhaps we can also draw from the prayer focus here an indication that Jesus’ action in chap. 10 is to be seen as an expression of the will of the Lord of the harvest. B. Jesus Bestows Authority on the Twelve (10:1) 1en

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sicknessa.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. L etc. b g1 add εν τω λαω (‘among the people’) to conform to 4:23. Bibliography Agnew, F. H., ‘e Origin of the NT Apostle-Concept: A Review of Research’, JBL 105 (1986), 75-96. • Arbeitman, Y., ‘e Suffix of Iscariot’, JBL 99 (1980), 122-24. • Guenther, H. O., e Footprints of Jesus’ Twelve in Early Christian Traditions: A Study of the Meaning of Religious Symbolism (AOS 7/7. Berne: Peter Lang, 1985). • Horbury, W., ‘e Twelve and the Phylarchs’, NTS 32 (1986), 503-27. • Leidig, E., ‘Natanael, ein Sohn des olomäus’, TZ 36 (1980), 374-75. • McKnight, S., ‘Jesus and the Twelve’, BBR 11 (2001), 203-31. • Meier, J. P., Marginal, 3:148-54. • Meier, J. P., ‘e Circle of the Twelve: Did It Exist during Jesus’ Public Ministry?’ JBL 116 (1997), 635-72. • Mézange, C., ‘Simon le Zélote était-il un revolutionaire?’ Bib 81 (2000), 489506. • Villegas, B., ‘Peter, Philip and James of Alphaeus’, NTS 33 (1987), 29294. See further at 9:35-38.

Faced with needy sheep and a huge potential harvest, Jesus increases the number of workers by giving the Twelve a share in his ministry. By using the listing of names in vv. 2-4 as a separator, Matthew marks a distinction between the general

commissioning/empowering of v. 1 and the speci c mission brie ng of vv. 5-42. Matthew abbreviates Mk. 6:7, which he supplements by repeating language from the end of Mt. 9:35.

10:1 Jesus’ fresh calling of the (Twelve) disciples to himself immediately aer addressing them in 9:37-38 is probably nothing more than a residual in uence from his source.9 At this point Matthew speaks of a formed group of twelve disciples.10 eir introduction in this manner suggests that Matthew expects his readers already to be aware of the existence of such a group. His narrative has recounted the call of two pairs and one other (4:18-20, 21-22; 9:9). Matthew expects his readers to accept these as paradigms for the calls he has not reported but which are to be understood as having already taken place ‘offstage’ prior to 10:1. His failure to report an actual mission of the Twelve will involve a similar technique. Why twelve? 19:28 makes clear that it has something to do with the twelve tribes of Israel. Otherwise the number might have no greater signi cance than that of indicating a full set (e.g., there are twelve months in a year).11 Sometimes the choice of the Twelve has been connected with the idea of the establishment of a new Israel (the Twelve as the founding core, leaders, etc.), but 19:28 does not suggest substitution and the present mission context favours taking the number as signifying the claim upon all Israel of that which Jesus announces and brings. e restoration of Israel is in view. Up to this point all that has come of Jesus’ declared intention ‘I will make of you those who sh for people’ (4:19) has been the disciples’ witnessing of Jesus’ own practice of ‘ shing’. Jesus’ own authority is introduced as a motif in 7:29 (see discussion there); now Jesus gives the Twelve the possibility of a share in his own

authority. Matthew uses ‘unclean spirit’ as a designation for demons only here and in 12:43 (following sources); he prefers the language of demons (the δαιμον- root, noun or verb).12 e leading position given to exorcism is a source feature but is matched by a Matthean rendering in 8:16. e possible unclarity of ‘authority over unclean spirits’ (presumably Satan has this!) is glossed with ‘to cast them out’ (Matthew’s regular verb for exorcism).13 For the wording about healing Matthew makes the link with Jesus’ own ministry more explicit by repeating exactly the language at the end of 9:35 (which in turn repeats 4:23).14 C. e Names of the Twelve Apostles (10:2-4) names of the twelve aapostles are these: first, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, band James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, 3Philip and Bartholomew, omas and Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus and caddaeus, 4Simon the dCananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who indeed handed him over. 2e

TEXTUAL NOTES a. μαθητων (‘disciples’) is preferred by vgmss sys. b. Either re ecting the original pattern (names paired with ‘and’ between) or improving it, ‫*א‬vid, c C D L W Θ f1, 13 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. omit this ‘and’. c. Λεββαιος (‘Lebbaeus’) in D k μ. is may be a case of in uence from oral tradition. Lebbaeus and addaeus are equated in C*, 2 L W Θ f1 13 33 346 543 1006 1342 1506 etc. e Latin reads ‘Judas Zelotes’, slightly confusing the Lukan readings. Sys follows (in the Lukan order) the Lukan preference for ‘Judas, son of Jacob.’

d. In ‫ א‬W Θ f13 1006 1342 1506 etc. Κανανιτης (‘person from Cana’) is found, but this will be an attempt to deal with an unknown word. Bibliography See at 9:35-38; 10:1.

is piece expands on the reference to ‘the twelve disciples’ in 10:1 and prepares for the reference to their being sent out (ἀπέστειλεν) in v. 5 by introducing the one use of the word ‘apostle’ (ἀποστόλων) to be found in this Gospel. Mk. 3:13-19 and Lk. 6:12-16 list the Twelve in an account of their being chosen out of a wider group of disciples. Acts 1:13 provides a further list. It is not clear whether Matthew draws on anything beyond his Markan source here.

10:2 ‘Apostles’ is probably used as a designation for the Twelve known already to the readers. Its use may re ect the language of a second source, but Mark already uses the link between apostles and being sent out by Jesus (Mk. 6:7, 30 and probably also 3:14) which Matthew employs here.15 Despite the itinerant role clearly involved in Mt. 10:5-23, in early Christian usage the most important aspect of being an apostle would seem to have been authorisation by Christ for the designated task (commissioned to act rather than necessarily sent out to travel).16 e listing of the twelve names clearly points to a unique role (cf. 19:28), but for the most part Matthew labours to present the Twelve as patterning something which belongs more broadly to Christian identity and role (cf. recently 9:38 and discussion there). Simon (Peter) is always listed rst; Matthew emphasises his implied priority by adding ‘ rst’. Judas the betrayer is always put last. But these facts should not be taken to indicate that a xed

ranking is intended through the body of the list (the order in between seems to be varied for other kinds of reasons — see below). Matthew uses the same words as in 4:18 (see there): ‘Simon called Peter’.17 Taken with the repositioned ‘and Andrew his brother’, this gives a string of nine words which (except for nominatives in place of accusatives) exactly repeat 4:18.18 ‘His’ for ‘of James’ will produce another string of nine words repeated from v. 21.19 Matthew is concerned to recall the challenge to become ‘those who sh for people’ (4:19). 10:3 Each of the rst four names had a piece of additional information attached (extra name, identi ed as brother, name of father). e list now gives way to a sequence of three bare names. Aer that will come a pair of names with further information, then a single bare name. (Four, three, two, one is suggestive of patterning.20) e list ends with a nal pair of names with additional information, with the last name given an extra phrase to point to the betrayal. e name Philip comes at the same point in all the lists. It is a Greek name oen used by Jews. ough given a signi cant role in John, Philip plays no further individual role in the Synoptic Gospels. Βαρθολομαῖος (‘Bartholomew’) is a Grecised form of bar tolmay, ‘Son of Tolmay’. e following name, omas, is variably located in the lists, coming before Bartholomew in Acts 1:13 and aer Matthew in Mk. 3:18; Lk. 6:15. Since Matthew wants to add ‘the tax collector’ to the name Matthew, omas is likely to have come forward for no better reason than to allow for three bare names in sequence (the four, three, two, one pattern).21 e name omas is common in Greek, but the nickname ‘the twin’ for omas in Jn. 11:16 and elsewhere raises the possibility that in this case it is a Grecised form of tĕʾômāʾ, ‘twin’, and thus already a nickname. Mαθθαῖος (‘Matthew’) is likely to be a shortened form of

Ματταθίας derived from the Semitic Mattĕyah. ‘e tax collector’ bridges to Mt. 9:9 and plays a similar role to the links with 4:18-22. James the son of Alphaeus is otherwise unknown. Θαδδαῖος (‘addaeus’) transliterates a Semitic name. We cannot be sure whether the substitution of Judas son of James for addaeus in Lk. 6:16; Acts. 1:13 (put one place later in the list22) represents a genuine difference or an alternative name.23 10:4 Καναναῖος (‘Cananean’) transliterates the Aramaic qanʾān (āʾ), meaning ‘zealous one’, probably with reference to an approach to piety which drew inspiration from the zeal of Phineas and Elijah,24 perhaps in connection with some otherwise unknown movement, but also possibly as a merely personal epithet. Ἰούδας (‘Judas’) is a Grecised form of the name of the patriarch, Judah. e meaning of Iscariot remains disputed. It occurs in the NT with a θ ending (possibly a τ that is aspirated before a following rough breathing)25 and with a της ending.26 Suggestions as to the meaning include ‘dagger man’, ‘dyer’, and ‘one with a ruddy complexion’. But the most likely of the suggestions remain derivation from the Aramaic šĕqaryāʾ, meaning ‘the false one’ or ‘liar’ (taking Iscariot as a post eventum designation pointing to the betrayal), or derivation from the Hebrew ʾîš qĕrîyôt, ‘a man from Kerioth’ (a village about twelve miles south of Hebron).27 e reader may need to be informed about the names of (some of) the Twelve, but is assumed to know already about Jesus’ fate (Matthew chooses the aorist participle to point to the act of betrayal). D. Jesus Instructs the Twelve for eir Mission (10:5-42)

1. Instructions, Part 1 (10:5-15) 5ese

twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go in the direction of [the] Gentiles, and do not enter a town of the Samaritans; 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, preach, saying, “ae kingdom of heaven has drawn near.” 8Heal the sick, braise the dead, cleanse lepers,b cast out demons. You have received as a gi; give as a gi. 9Do not get gold, or silver, or copper for your belts; 10[do not get] a bag for the journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or ca staff. e worker is worthy of his or her dfood. 11In whatever town eor villagee you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there until you depart. 12As you enter the house, greet itf. 13And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14Whoever does not receive you or listen to your words — as you leave the ghouse org townh, shake the dust off your feet. 15Amen, I say to you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on [the] day of judgment than for that town.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e ‘missing’ call to repent is added by 251 etc. samss. b-b. e two speci c cases have proved difficult. ‘Raise the dead’ has been dropped from C3 K L Γ Θ 28 700* 1424* etc. (1424* also drops ‘cleanse lepers’, while 28 moves it to the end). Secondary reinsertion is likely to be responsible for the relocation of ‘raise the dead’ to the end of the list in P W Δ etc. syh, and to aer ‘cleanse lepers’ in 348 etc. ere is no Gospel account of disciples performing either of these miraculous restorations. c. Plural in C L W f13 etc., probably taking the ‘two’ before ‘tunics’ as applying to all three categories, perhaps encouraged by a desire to harmonise with Mk. 6:8. d. In uenced by Lk. 10:7, K 565 892 etc. it syhmg read μισθου (‘reward/wages’).

e-e. ‘Or village’ is missing (or pushed later to make it an aerthought) in f1 700 it sys (L 0281 f13 etc. co). is re ects the awkwardness of the pairing occurring only at this point in the text, and may also re ect an in uence from Lk. 10:10. f. λεγοντες ειρηνη τω οικω τουτω (‘saying, peace to this house’) is added under the in uence of Lk. 10:5 in ‫*א‬, 2 D L W Θ 0281vid f1 (1424) etc. it vgcl. g-g. Omitted in D: the juxtaposition is awkward, and in Lk. 10:10 the departure is related only to towns. h. η κωμης (‘or village’) is added to the list in light of v. 11.

110

‫( א‬0281) f13 892 etc, in

Bibliography Bartnicki, R., ‘Der Bereich der Tätigkeit der Jünger nach Mt 10,5b-6’, BZ 31 (1987), 250-56. • Brown, S., ‘e Matthean Community and the Gentile Mission’, NovT 22 (1980), 193-221. • Dobbeler, A. von, ‘Die Restitution Israels und die Bekehrung der Heiden: Das Verhältnis von Mt 10,5b.6 und Mt 28,18-20 unter dem Aspekt der Komplemetarität. Erwägerungen zum Standort des Matthäusevangelium’, ZNW 91 (2000), 18-44. • Enslin, M. S., ‘e Samaritan Ministry and Mission’, HUCA 51 (1980), 29-38. • Harvey, A. E., ‘“e Workman Is Worthy of His Hire”: Fortunes of a Proverb in the Early Church’, NovT 24 (1982), 209-21. • Lagrand, J., All Nations, 133-42. • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic, 13-57. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 256-58. • Sampatkumar, P. A., ‘e Prohibition of Foreign Missions: A Study of Mt 10:5-6’, Vidyajyoti 65 (2001), 245-48. • Schwarz, G., ‘Τῆς τροϕῆς αὐτοῦ oder τῆς μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ?’ BibNot 56 (1991), 25. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Seiner Nahrung” oder “seines Lohnes”? (Mt 10,10e/Lk 10,7c)’, BibNot 65 (1992), 40-41. • Scott, J. J., ‘Gentiles and the Ministry of Jesus: Further Observations on Matt 10:5-6; 15:21-28’, JETS 33 (1990), 161-69. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 131-58. • Vaage, L. E., Upstarts, 17-39. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 292-97. See further at 9:35-38; 10:1; 10:2-4.

Aer having paused to identify ‘the Twelve’ in vv. 2-4, Matthew resumes with ‘these Twelve’ and carries on from v. 1 to report an

extended set of speci c mission directives. eir primary orientation to the ongoing mission of the church is signalled by Matthew’s failure actually to report a mission by the Twelve (see 11:1). Despite the absence of a report, however, a mission by the Twelve in the lifetime of Jesus is affirmed and allowed to play a foundational (but offstage) role. e focus from 10:16 onwards on the difficulty of the task suggests that a new unit begins there. ‘Amen, I say to you’ in vv. 15, 23 and 42 identi es these verses as end points in a tri-part major division of the mission instructions. Matthew sets out by drawing language again from Mk. 6:7, and now by drawing on the beginning of v. 8 as well. He will go on to merge with material parallelling Mk. 6:7-11, material from a separate mission charge (cf. Lk. 10:1-16).28

10:5 In the absence of 11:1 it would be natural to take the statement about being sent out literally as in Mk. 6:7, where the attached instructions are marching orders. But since Matthew cannot report a mission that covers anything like the range of issues he will raise in 10:5-42, he prefers to keep the mission offstage.29 εἰς ὁδὸν ἐθνῶν (lit. ‘into a way of [the] Gentiles’) is an unusual idiom, perhaps in uenced by the use of εἰς ὁδόν in Mk. 6:8. e closest matches in the LXX suggest the sense: ‘in the direction of [the] Gentiles’.30 Were it not for the negative statement of restriction in the present verse, the focus in v. 6 on ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ would simply be of a piece with the strong focus on the restoration of Israel which has thus far been pervasive in Matthew’s story. e negative statement has been modestly anticipated in 8:7 and will receive clear expression in 15:24, 26. But compared to those texts, 10:5 is notable for its total lack of obvious psychological motivation in the immediate narrative. Jesus can hardly be thought

of as addressing disciples who are eager to go to the Gentiles! e role of the negative statements can only be apologetic.31 Much as 5:17 seeks to undercut criticism about delity to the Law which is likely to be unleashed by 5:21-48, Matthew is here preparing, from the perspective of Jewish concerns, for the affirmation of Gentile mission to which he will reach in 28:19. Jesus comes as, in the rst instance, a thoroughly Jewish and restrictedly Jewish messiah. rough and beyond that, Matthew will reach to a universalism, but for the moment we have not only Paul’s ‘Jew rst’ (Rom. 1:16) but the stronger ‘Jew only’. e separate mention of the Samaritans has no independent signi cance: these people considered to be of doubtful Israelite extraction32 are introduced only as a way of insisting with considerable tightness of de nition on a restriction of mission to ethnic Israel. In this respect Jesus is presented as having impeccable Jewish credentials.33 Matthew will not give a full answer to the question how one can get from this starting point to an unrestricted Gentile mission. He does, however, work along several lines towards an answer. First, there is the faith and insight of particular Gentiles who, while quite prepared to recognise the essential Jewishness of what is happening in and through Jesus, consider it to be of potential signi cance for themselves as well.34 Perhaps there is the suggestion that, as proved to be the case with Jesus himself, mission to Jews inevitably involved testimony before Gentiles as well (10:17-18). If Matthew is not already in 10:17-18 trailing his coat about future Gentile mission, he certainly is in 24:14. en there is the identi cation of Is. 42:1-4 as a messianic text in Mt. 12:17-21, which is cited in the rst instance in relation to how Jesus sought to manage the burgeoning popularity that was being thrust upon him, but which also offers key statements about the signi cance of the servant for the nations. Matthew may well intend his readers to take the

displacement of those who have refused the invitation to the wedding with others (22:1-10) as including Gentiles and as therefore justifying ultimate Gentile inclusion. Matthew identi es a universal signi cance of Jesus in relation to the nal judgment of all nations (25:31-46), which may be intended to provide its own clue that these nations had better be addressed about the signi cance of Jesus. In chap. 24 Matthew sets the shape of the future out on a universal canvas which makes its own contribution to the plausibility of the ‘testimony to all nations’ which v. 14 anticipates. In various ways Matthew indicates that the end of Jesus’ ministry, along with his death, marks a completion and not just an interruption;35 this sense of completion allows for a moving on to a new phase which soens the tension between 10:5-6 and 28:19. Matthew is aer an affirmation of universal mission which represents no threat to the election of Israel.36 10:6 Lost sheep of the house of Israel is distinctly Matthean and will be repeated in 15:24. It links with the imagery of 9:37, but is not identical. An allusion to Je. 50:6 (LXX 27:6) is likely, where the imagery of lost sheep (same Greek) is applied to the Jewish people, who have been led astray and abandoned by their leaders. In continuity with the interest here in the lost sheep will be the concern in the life of the church for those who go astray (under the imagery of sheep) and are in danger of being lost in 18:12-14. Since it is unlikely that Matthew wants to insist here that all of Israel were lost sheep (though he would have assumed that all were lost in the sense of being in need of the coming kingdom of God),37 it is best to take the genitive as partitive (so: those of the house of Israel who were lost) rather than explicative (so: all of the house of Israel constitute the lost). Nonetheless, Matthew does not intend to focus ministry here to some marginalised subsection of Israel, but rather to need in Israel wherever that was evident.

10:7 e target group identi ed, Matthew now turns his attention to what is to be said and done. ‘As you go’ underlines the itinerant nature of the ministry to which the Twelve have been called. e message given to them echoes Jesus’ own in 4:16 (and John the Baptist’s in 3:2), but does not repeat the associated call to repentance. is is probably a source feature (cf. Lk. 10:9, 11), but also ts the focus on the blessings of the coming kingdom found here in v. 8, but also already emphasised in 5:3-10 and implicitly in the whole thrust of chaps. 8–9 (see also 9:35). e nearness of the kingdom of heaven will become visible in the accompanying acts which manifest the powers of the kingdom of heaven. 10:8 e disciples are to preach the same message that Jesus preaches, and to perform the same mighty works of compassion. e list offered is meant to be suggestive of the range of Jesus’ acts as portrayed in chaps. 8–9. It begins and ends with general statements (opening with healing and ending with exorcism). e middle highlights the raising of the dead and the cleansing of lepers for the sake of their particular impact (in a minor chiasm Matthew picks up in reverse order on the opening miracles of the rst and last set of connected miracle accounts in chaps. 8–9 [8:2-4; 9:1826]). What the disciples have received is the authority which has been given in v. 1. Power over life and health would no doubt have been as highly valued in the rst century as it is in this one. But connected as they are with the kingdom of God, these powers have the nature of gi, and it would be improper to make them the basis of commercial transactions.38 10:9-10 e nal sentence of v. 8 is presumably located where it is (it is distinctive to Matthew) on the basis of a topical link with vv. 9-10. But the precise nature of the link is not immediately clear. Luz notes that both the nal clause of v. 8 and that of v. 10 are

proverblike,39 which makes it natural to treat them as some kind of inclusio or bracketing frame. But what are the connections? Luz’s own suggestion makes v. 9 an expansion of the nal clause of v. 8 (you should not get money for what you do), and v. 10 a call to visible trust in God for basic provisions. But this is difficult when the parallel construction of vv. 9 and 10 encourages the taking of κτήσησθε (‘get’) as the implied verb for v. 10 as well (presumably with the same sense in both). It is better to take vv. 9 and 10 as having the same basic thrust. Perhaps the best link is this: not only must you not pro t commercially from your powers, but you must go further, travelling in an impoverished state that will make visible a trust in God, and God alone, for your needs. In the prohibition of money Mark has copper (coins), Luke silver, and Matthew the full set: gold, silver, and copper.40 e sense is: not gold (rich provision), not silver (middling provision), and not even copper (modest provision). πήρα could refer to a traveller’s knapsack or to a beggar’s bag. e former makes the better t. Presumably having a second ‘tunic’ (the basic garment) allows for the possibility of washing the garment and emergency substitution if the garment becomes seriously damaged. e prohibition of footwear is quite dramatic, if that is what is intended. Mk. 6:9 permits sandals (rather than more substantial footwear). Lk. 10:4 prohibits carrying (presumably a spare pair of) sandals. It is just possible that in Mt. 10:10 the ‘two’ of the ‘tunics’ carries forward to the sandals as well, and that Matthew is prohibiting carrying a spare pair. But since Mk. 6:9 also allows a staff and Matthew does not, Matthew probably intends the prohibition of footwear. In hard walking conditions bare feet and lack of staff would create very visible vulnerability. To what do these restrictions point? For the list in Lk. 10:4 the addition of a prohibition of greeting people on the way suggests a

deliberately staged prophetic sign of the eschatological urgency of the situation.41 But Matthew does not have this, and lack of staff and footwear would inevitably slow the journeying rate and must force us to look elsewhere for the signi cance of Matthew’s set of prohibitions. e conduct of the mission in utter dependence on God is a much more likely rationale for the prohibitions; visibly staged in this way, it becomes in its own way a prophetic sign of the coming of the kingdom.42 e signi cant variation in the lists between the various Gospels suggests that at least in relation to ongoing mission they were taken to be suggestive rather than exhaustive, and therefore open to exible application.43 Lk. 10:7 has an equivalent to Matthew’s ‘e worker is worthy of his or her food’, but it is Matthew who has relocated the statement and made it the end piece for the subunit here, and who has changed the wording slightly. Matthew’s addition at the end of v. 8 eliminates the possibility that we are to think here of the disciples as being, so to speak, people who work for those to whom they bring their ministry. e tie is rather with 9:37-38: the worker here is working for God as a harvest gatherer. Similarly, the provision of food (unlike the case in Lk. 10:7) is not thought of as coming from those bene ting from the ministry, which they identify as a worthy ministry; the provision is thought of as being arranged by God (wherever it might come from at the practical level). e choice of τῆς τροϕῆς (‘of the food’) is to underline the thought connection with 6:25-26.44 10:11 Matthew now turns his attention to the mechanics of setting up a ministry in a particular location. His pairing of town and village echoes this feature of the ministry of Jesus as reported in 9:35. e initial nding of a person before entry into a house is a Matthean innovation, in relation to which he has not fully adapted vv. 12-13.45 Matthew uses ἐξετάσατε for the quest for a worthy

person as he has for the Magi’s quest in 2:8; he carries on the language of worthiness from v. 10 (Lk. 10:6 has, later, ‘son of peace’). e worthiness involved is not so much moral rectitude as a readiness to perceive and respond to what God is now doing (cf. Mt. 3:8). e worthy person is a gi, whose home is to become the base of operations for ministry in that area,46 no doubt in part among others who are less receptive. e scale of imposition is modest because nothing more than subsistence living is in view. ‘Remain there until you go out’ is cryptic to the point of appearing to be tautologous. ough closely matched in Mk. 6:10; Lk. 9:4, it must be an abbreviation of a longer original, perhaps partly preserved in Lk. 10:7. Once the hospitality has been secured, the focus is to be entirely on the ministry (it is rather like saying, ‘A piece of oor in any church hall will do; you will hardly be there except when you are asleep’). 10:12-13 e greeting is, strictly speaking, given to the people in the house, but Matthew writes loosely (contrast Lk. 10:56). Again the language of worthiness (this time applied to the house) displaces son-of-peace language. e greeting envisaged is something like, ‘Peace be to this house’ (this is what is found in Lk. 10:5). ough only a standard Jewish greeting, in the present context it has become an anticipatory bestowal of the blessings of the coming kingdom of heaven. With this precious new signi cance it seems improper to mis-bestow it. e disciples are, however, told not to worry about that possibility. eir bestowal of peace will function like the bene t bestowed by the baptism of John: the signi cance of the act will be determined by the manner in which it is received (cf. Mt. 3:8). e thought is caught by imagining the peace as moving out from the speaker to the (people of) the house, but as staying there only if the appropriate response to the work of

God takes place; otherwise it returns to the speaker, ready to be freshly dispensed in a new situation.47 10:14 Somewhat awkwardly, attention now turns to the question of how to respond to negative reception. One needs to assume that a statement of ministry from the provided house base (if achieved) is implied at this point. Luke has 10:9 at this stage in his account (aer a positive reception statement that reiterates in briefer form and for a town, not a house, the reception material of vv. 5-7), but Matthew has already used its content in 10:7-8. Matthew has an implied period of ministry at the end of v. 11; we also must understand an implied equivalent here. Now Matthew deals with situations in which ministry proves impossible. He both picks up on the negative possibility in v. 13 and deals with the possibility of a whole-town negative response. Matthean editing has produced syntax difficulties here which are analogous to that noted in v. 11 (see n. 46);48 he probably intends to create a parallelism with the nal two clauses of v. 11. Matthew has ‘hear your words’ (parallels either lack this clause or have ‘hear [i.e., listen to] you’) to parallel the importance in 7:24, 26 of hearing the words of Jesus and to stress again that the disciples speak words given to them by Jesus. is prepares for the way the signi cance of the reception of the disciples and of Jesus will be set in parallel in vv. 40-42. Shaking off the dust is a symbolically enacted statement of fundamental separation.49 Luke’s parallel in 10:11 expands by having the symbolism explained to the rejecters (and has ‘wipe off ’ rather than ‘shake off ’). Such unresponsive places are to be le to the judgment of God. 10:15 ‘Amen, I say to you’ signals the end piece of the present section of the mission instructions.

God’s attitude towards Sodom [and Gomorrah] had already been dramatically revealed in biblical history (Gen 19:24-28) and had become proverbial already in the OT (Isa 1:9-10); it continued to be vividly remembered in Jewish tradition (see Str-B, 1:574; 4.2:1188). e judgment upon Sodom in history was expected to be paralleled by its fate in the nal judgment. e saying is not designed to hold out hope for Sodom [and Gomorrah] but rather to suggest that the present situation created by the coming of Jesus means that what is involved in rejecting his messengers is much more serious than had been the wickedness of Sodom [and Gomorrah].50

e Lukan parallel has only Sodom, but Matthew mentions both cities. e importance of the judgment of God as a horizon in relation to which the signi cance of activity in life is to be measured is pervasive in Matthew, but ‘day of judgment’ language is restricted to four texts, the next two of which clearly echo the present one.51 e phrase is traditional.52 Matthew does not adjust his text here to take account of the double reference to ‘house’ and ‘town’ in v. 14 (his reference to Sodom and Gomorrah counts against doing so).

2. Instructions, Part 2 (10:16-23) out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise as asnakes and as doves. 17Be wary of people. For they will hand you over to councils and will have you flogged in their synagogues; 18and you will cbe brought before governors and kingsc on account of me — for testimony to them and to the Gentiles. 19When [people] hand you over, do not be worried about how you are to speak or what you are to say; dfor what you are to speak will be given you in that hour.d 20For the one speaking is not you, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. 21Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. 22And you will be hated by all because of my name. e one who endures to the end will be saved. 16I send you binnocent as

[people] persecute you in this town, flee to the next.e Amen, I say to you, you will not have finished [with] the towns fof Israelf before the Son of Man comes. 23When

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Singular in ‫*א‬, with Gn. 3:1 in mind. b. D has απλουστατοι (‘very much/most without guile’). c-c. ηγεμονων σταθησεσθε (‘stand before governors’) in D (0171 it sys), with in uence from Mk. 13:9 and probably re ecting difficulty about the possible identity of kings before whom one might stand in the Roman world. d-d. Missing from D L etc. g1 vgmss. A scribe’s eye has slipped from one occurrence of τι λαλησητε to the next. e. e iterative intention of the previous clause is made clear by the addition in D L Θ 0171vid f1, 13 565 etc. it vgmss sys etc. of καν (or εαν δε) εν

τη αλλη (or εκ ταυτης) διωκ(ω)σιν υμας, ϕευγετε εις την αλλην (or ετεραν) (‘and if in the other [or out of this] they persecute you, ee into the next’). f. Missing from B D, perhaps because the narrow Israel focus seemed inappropriate in an eschatological context. Bibliography Bartnicki, R., ‘Das Trostwort an die Jünger in Mt 10,23’, TZ 43 (1987), 31119. • Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 155-78. • Batten, A., ‘Patience Breeds Wisdom: Q 6:40 in Context’, CBQ 60 (1998), 641-56. • Betz, O., Jesus und das Danielbuch, Vol. 2: Die Menschensohnworte Jesu und die Zukunserwartung des Paulus (Daniel 7,13-14) (ANTJ 6.2. Frankfurt/Bern/New York: Lang, 1985), 75-95. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 227-38. • Graham, H. R., ‘A Passion Prediction for Mark’s Community: Mark 13:9-13’, BTB 16 (1986), 18-22. • Hampel, V., ‘“Ihr werdet mit den Städten Israels nicht zu Ende kommen”: Eine exegetische Studie über Matthäus 10,23’, TZ 45 (1989), 1-31. • Kühschelm, R., Jüngerverfolgung. • McDermott, J. M., ‘Mt 10:23 in Context’, BZ 28 (1984), 230-40. • McKnight, S., ‘Jesus and the End-Time: Matthew 10:23’, SBLSP 25 (1986), 501-20. • Nepper-Christensen, P., ‘Math 10,23 — et crux interpretum?’ DTT 58 (1995), 161-75. • Porter, C., ‘‘‘Wise as Serpents: Innocent as Doves”: How Shall We Live?’ Encounter 48 (1987), 15-26. • Reicke, B., ‘A Test of Synoptic Relationships: Matthew 10.17-23 and 24.9-14 with Parallels’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. W. R. Farmer, 209-29. • Sabourin, L., ‘Matthieu 10.23 et 16.28 dans la perspective apocalyptique’, ScEs 37 (1985), 353-64. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 280-97. • Wenham, D., e Rediscovery of Jesus’ Eschatological Discourse (Gospel Perspectives 4. Sheffield: JSOT, 1985), 21951. • Wrege, H.-T., Sondergut, 54-55. See further at 9:35-38; 10:1, 2-4, 5-15.

e focus in the mission charge now moves from a concern with the nature of the mission initiatives to be taken by the disciples to the negative response to be expected, and how to deal with that. It

pictures hostility as moving to an eschatological crescendo leading to the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew uses as a leading sentence material parallelled in Lk. 10:3 which he glosses with proverbial material. Otherwise he draws on material parallelled in Mk. 13:9-13 for all except Mt. 10:23. For 10:19-20 Matthew is also able to draw on a second source form (re ected in Lk. 12:11-12; 21:14-15).53 Possibly this second source also contained a version of Mt. 10:17-18. It is unclear whether the second source form was originally part of the second form of Mk. 13–like material mentioned below. Mt. 10:23 ts most comfortably in a Mk. 13–like context (cf. vv. 6, 21-22, 26, 35) and is perhaps best explained as either drawn from a second form of the Mk. 13 materials available to Matthew54 or as inspired by the Mk. 13 material as now directly applied to the question of mission. See further at Mt. 10:23 below. If 10:23 is from another form of the Eschatological Discourse, then there may be traces of it in some of the differences between Mt. 10:17-22 and Mk. 13:9-13, but perhaps the source is better seen in Mt. 24:9-14, which has replaced Mk. 13:9-13 in Matthew’s version of the Eschatological Discourse.

10:16 e verse begins with the emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) of which Matthew is so fond (but here in agreement with Lk. 10:3). e language of sending out echoes Mt. 10:5. Both features help to mark the beginning of the new unit. Where Lk. 10:3 has used ‘lambs in the midst of wolves’ to emphasise the committed vulnerability which is to characterise the missionaries, Matthew emphasises instead the external threats to be encountered by the missionaries. Imagery of sheep and wolves has been used in 7:15 of false prophets, and sheep have provided the imagery of sheep without a shepherd in 9:36 and of lost sheep in 10:6. ough there are some linking threads, the images function quite separately from one another. In particular the idea of the ock as Israel is quite out of sight here.

Presumably Gn. 3:1 is already making use of a traditional association of snakes with wisdom. Perhaps the snake’s wisdom was perceived in its capacity to wait quietly, hidden away from its predators, for just the right moment to strike its prey. Doves are associated with desirable traits in various ways, but of particular interest here is the lover’s address ‘my dove, my perfect one’ in Ct. 5:2; 6:9. e Hebrew tm is used, which, when related to the moral sphere, points to integrity. ἀκέραιος is literally unmixed. In its one use in the LXX (Est. 8:12; no matching Hebrew text) there is a contrast with those who ‘have beguiled by the false trickery of their evil nature’ (τῷ τῆς κακοηθείας ψευδεῖ παραλογισμῷ παραλογισαμένων). In Rom. 16:19 ἀκέραιος is juxtaposed with ‘wise’ as in Mt. 10:16. ἀκέραιος points to the innocence associated with the exercise of a consistent integrity. e juxtaposition of the wisdom of serpents and the innocence of doves is likely to be traditional; cf. the later Jewish text, Midr. Ct. 2:14, which says of the Israelites ‘with Me they are innocent like doves, but with the nations they are cunning like serpents’. e wisdom called for from the disciples will involve anticipating danger and avoiding it wherever possible, but not in such a way as to undercut their mission priorities. e innocence called for will involve a consistent integrity that is prepared to suffer rather than compromise and which is careful to give no grounds for legitimate legal objection to the action of the disciples. 10:17 From this point (for vv. 17-22) Matthew takes the long view by drawing in material which in the other Synoptic Gospels is part of Jesus’ anticipation of the future from a point where his own passion is imminent (Mk. 13:9-13; Lk. 21:12-17).55 Now we will see how the ‘wolves’ will attack. e warning note of Mt. 10:16 is continued with ‘be wary of people’ (προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων).56 A general wariness is encouraged, but not an

assumption that the negative treatment to come is to be general or universal. at persecution is to mark out the path of discipleship (‘for my sake’) has already been indicated at 5:11-12. ‘Councils’ are the governing bodies of the local Jewish communities. A disciplinary officer would administer punitive oggings in the synagogue (23:34; cf. Acts 22:19) on behalf of the council. (e clauses about the councils and synagogues are bound together in a minor chiasm by having ‘councils’ and ‘synagogues’ adjacent to one another with the related verbs before and aer the pairing.) ose who took a dislike to what the missionaries were doing would drag them before the council to lodge their complaint and to ask for legal redress to be taken.57 10:18 e Roman justice system and the local Jewish justice system sat side by side. Submission to the Jewish authority was a choice (but a necessary concomitant of membership in the Jewish community); submission to the Roman authority was mandatory. More severe penalties, including the death penalty, were available through Roman justice than through the Jewish legal system.58 So the stakes are now raised. In this context the ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ (‘on my account’) of 5:11 is echoed. In 10:17-18 thus far the disciples seem to be nothing more than passive victims of the unjust use of the judicial system, but with εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς (‘[is is] for [the purpose of] testimony to them’) a different perspective emerges. Even such travesties of justice are included in the divine plan for mission. Here is a perfect opportunity to speak the missionary message to a ‘captive’ audience! It is not clear whether we should relate εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς only to ‘kings’ and ‘governors’, or whether we should link it back as well to ‘councils’ and (to the people in the) ‘synagogues’. Matthew’s completion with ‘and to the Gentiles’ (no doubt intending to re ect something of the content of Mk. 13:10 but without creating the

sharp tension with Mt. 10:5, 23 which inclusion of Mk. 13:10 would have) does not help to clarify the syntax. ough the syntax remains difficult, it may be best to have εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς applied narrowly to ‘councils’ and (to the people in the) ‘synagogues’, with ‘and the Gentiles’ serving to expand the reference to include as well the Gentile kings and governors (and their entourages).59 e witness to the Gentiles that takes place here is fully intended in the divine purpose, but it is not initiated by the disciples. 10:19 ‘When [people] hand you over’ picks up the thread from early in v. 17. It is likely that there is a deliberate merging here of the ideas of religious testimony and legal self-defence. e worry language picks up on the concerns of 6:25-34.60 e anxiety is primarily about the place of personal threat in which one nds oneself. What can one say to extricate oneself from this place of personal danger? If a distinction is required, then ‘how’ will refer to tone and demeanor and perhaps other aspects of presentation and ‘what’ will refer to verbal content.61 A carefully prepared legal defence is probably what is being thought of. As in 6:25-34, the call is to trust that God will provide. e primary contrast to be established will not be that between thoughtful preparation and spontaneous inspired speech, but rather that between legal defence of life and limb and testimony to what God is now doing in the ministry of Jesus. is second kind of speech, when given to one, expresses a reality that is tangibly present in and with the speaking.62 For Matthew ‘in that hour’ may connect with the perspective of 6:34, but since the language is traditional and the link with 6:34 is not verbally close, we cannot be sure. In any case, ‘in that hour’ underlines the correspondence between the needs of the moment with all their speci city and the concrete provision made by God. e reference to ‘how’ drops away as less important.

10:20 ‘Your Father’ may provide a further link to 6:25-34 (see vv. 26, 32).63 Apart from the anticipation expressed in 3:11, thus far nothing has been said of the signi cance of the Holy Spirit for the disciples. Only in relation to Jesus has the Spirit been portrayed as operative.64 ough the language is not close, the thought of 12:18 makes it likely that the experience of the disciple is be understood to parallel in some measure that of Jesus himself. is would be yet another respect in which the disciples will extend the scope of their master’s ministry. ‘In you’ is a Matthean clari cation; does he nd a likeness between demons speaking through people and the Holy Spirit doing so (see at 8:29)? 10:21 is verse expands on the theme introduced in v. 17 and represents an intensi cation: among those who will seek to use the legal system to stop the missionary witness will be members of one’s own family; and the legal redress will go all the way to capital punishment.65 An echo of Mi. 7:6 is likely, which may be intended to point to the prophetic pattern of increasing wickedness as a precursor to the intervention of the Lord with his judgment and salvation (see Mi. 7:2-7). Brother against brother and father against child are treated together, while the case of the younger generation against the older is treated separately: it moves to the plural, it stops being as gender speci c (actually father against child is a mediating form here), and it speaks of rising up against rather than handing over. e differences are probably to signal that in this case we have behaviour that is in de ance of the commandment in the Ten that children honour their parents (cf. the language in which the command is echoed in Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20). 10:22 e intensi cation continues. Matthew seems to be thinking in terms of an eschatological crescendo (rather than in terms of universal rejection from the beginning); the family dimension in v. 21 is likely already to be seen as part of this

movement to a crescendo. e LXX of Mi. 7:6 has, ‘[e] enemies of a man will be all the men in his house[hold]’. e formulation in Mt. 10:22 is likely to be an accentuation of this. Since v. 22 climaxes the theme introduced in v. 17, a restricted focus on the family will no longer be appropriate. e note introduced in v. 18 with ‘on my account’ is taken up again here in ‘because of my name’. ‘Because of my name’ is likely to stand elliptically for ‘because of your confession of my name’ (cf. the confessional language of vv. 32-33). In part the information about coming persecution is provided to forewarn the disciples in order to prepare them for the path of perseverance along which they must make their way through the period of escalating difficulty.66 If the disciples can hold on long enough, the period of threat will be over and rescue will come (cf. related uses of the verb ‘save’ in 24:13, 22). Something far better lies beyond. is topic will be worked out in much greater detail in chap. 24, but the eschatological atmosphere of that chapter is already present here. Where practical wisdom might suggest that to abandon one’s profession in the time of persecution is the way to secure one’s future, quite the opposite is insisted on here.67 e end point for the need of endurance will be the coming of the Son of Man, and this will be the subject of v. 23. 10:23 ‘Persecute’ takes up and generalises the set of hostile reactions which have been anticipated thus far, but the word also provides a further link back to 5:11 (cf. at 10:18).68 e reference to towns connects with the discussion in v. 14 of nonreceptive towns, but in line with the escalation noted throughout vv. 21-22 the nonreceptive response is now more extreme. e use of ταύτῃ (‘this’), correlated with ἑτέραν (lit. ‘[an]other’), is unusual Greek and could re ect an overliteral translation of a pleonastic Aramaic demonstrative pronoun (the de nite article with ἑτέραν is also surprising and may be an Aramaism — in the translation above the

force is taken to be that of ‘the next’69).70 e immediate imagery is of wandering refugees (cf. 2:13; 24:16), persecuted and nding no place of permanent welcome. But in the mission context into which Matthew has incorporated the materials we must now also add the image of persecuted itinerant messengers. It is more likely that Matthew intends to expand the initial image to incorporate the second than that he intends the second image to replace the rst: missionaries are special cases of what is true of all Christians at a more general level. Luz raises the question of whether it is the commitment to non-retaliation of 5:39 which makes eeing the necessary corollary to persecution.71 If not exactly eeing, at least prudent withdrawal played a part in the Matthean Jesus’ own response to danger.72 As in 10:15, the emphatic ‘Amen, I say to you’ marks the last piece of the unit (vv. 16-23).73 τελέσητε τὰς πόλεις (lit. ‘ nished the cities’) is elliptical; an implied object of the verb has been dropped out, and ‘the cities’ has been drawn into the object slot. What is missing could either pick up on the mission task (‘ nished proclaiming the good news to the towns’) or on the experience of persecution (‘ nished nding temporary refuge in the towns’). e former could involve a justi cation of the eeing as a maximising of mission possibilities in light of the strictly limited time available (but Matthew has not made use of the symbol of urgency provided in Lk. 10:4 — ‘greet no one on the way’). e latter leads more naturally to a reassurance that places of temporary refuge will not have run out before the time of stress is dramatically brought to an end by the coming of the Son of Man. e latter is to be preferred (though perhaps not to the exclusion of the former): at this point Matthew is treating mission activity as only a particular case of the situation of Christians more generally in the world, at a time when events are moving to their eschatological crisis.

‘e towns of Israel’ combines the reference to Israel of v. 6 with the role of towns in v. 23a. ough v. 6 should not be taken as restricting mission to Palestine, the meaning of ‘the towns of Israel’ can hardly be extended to include Jewish settlements outside Palestine, as is sometimes claimed. e point is not to restrict mission to Palestine, but to make the point that (Palestinian) Jewish Christians will not have used up all the towns in Palestine as places of temporary refuge (and therefore have to abandon the Holy Land) before they are relieved of their problem by the coming of the Son of Man. ‘Son of Man’ has been established as a mode of self-reference for Jesus at 8:20; 9:6 (see discussion at these points). e link of the present statement to Dn. 7:13 is evident. What is odd, however, about the present statement is its talk about a coming of the Son of Man, set on the lips of Jesus at a point where there is nothing to signal that he contemplates a departure that would make such a coming necessary. is feature points strongly to the drawing of this material from a Mk. 13–like context, where, with the Passion imminent, just such a departure is readily implied. In fact, the Son of Man saying in Mk. 13:26 plays a quite similar role in its context to that of Mt. 10:23. Matthew does not notice the anticipation of a coming in v. 23 when there has been no departure in sight as a difficulty because, though he is reporting mission instructions to the Twelve, he very much has in mind the mission of the early church in the post-Passion context. e formal similarity between v. 23b and Mk. 9:1; 13:30; 14:25; Mt. 5:18; 23:39 has been well noted.74 ere is also considerable material similarity: in each case a salvi c eschatological outcome is envisaged, and in each case a period of prior difficulty is indicated or hinted at. In both Mk. 9:1 and 13:30 the sayings are actually connected with sayings about the coming of the Son of Man. It is difficult to be sure how this set of phenomena should be

interpreted. It could point to an origin of Mt. 10:23b with the historical Jesus, and re ecting his diction; it could point to secondary formation aer the known dictional patterns of Jesus (and reformulating in a new situation a content otherwise evidenced for the historical Jesus); it has also been claimed to re ect a pattern of diction used by early Christian prophets. At another level it could provide evidence that a form of Mk. 13–like material available to Matthew is likely to have included something like Mt. 10:23.75 e unusual use of ταύτῃ (‘this’), mentioned above, is the strongest piece of evidence that a solution involving use of nonextant source material is to be preferred to a solution that operates exclusively on the basis of the creative adaptation of (preserved) tradition. Since Matthew has 10:23 in relation to material related to Mk. 13:9-13, it would be most natural to think of a version of the Mk. 13 materials that had a form of Mt. 10:23 as a climax to that block of materials. It is possible that a form of Mk. 13 mapped out the path to eschatological climax along more than one axis, with a Son of Man climax statement, or something equivalent, at the end of each. We can only speculate, but aer 13:8 with its ‘the beginning of the birth pangs’ a simple bridge could be built to an eschatological climax; at the end of v. 13 we already have language of ‘the end’; and in v. 20 the end of the time interval is already implicitly reached with the talk about the time being ‘cut short’. Possibly two of the climax statements have been bundled together in vv. 26-27 (with ‘the Son of Man’ subsequently dropped from v. 27). V. 27 would t well with v. 20 (‘the elect’); v. 26 makes an effective climax where it now is, with the pseudo-powers of the false messiahs eclipsed by the power and glory of the true. Perhaps v. 8 has quite lost its climax or the piece that ends here always functioned as the foundation for the subsequent laying out of the different axes. Mt. 10:23 may re ect what had followed Mk. 13:13 (it is possible that v. 13b compensates for this loss, and that the sense of anti-climax noted by some in the sequence from Mt. 10:22 to 23 is a result of Matthew’s combining both concluding statements). e relationship between Mk. 9:1 and Mt. 16:28 has sometimes led to the suggestion that Matthew made an analogous change in 10:23. If the original spoke of the kingdom of God, then in the Markan source materials 10:23 might complete a line from ‘kingdom’ in Mk. 13:8 through ‘kings’ in v. 9.

If a form of Mt. 10:23 did come aer the Mk. 13:9-13 block, then the way was clearly prepared for Matthew to use the material in his mission charge with the combined effect of Mk. 13:10 and Mt. 10:23. e possibility that there may be separate origins for Mt. 10:23a and b is sometimes raised. But v. 23b requires that something like v. 23a, and v. 23a could not conceivably be transmitted alone. Even if they are together, transmission as a fragment seems much less likely than transmission as part of a larger unit.

Despite what is coming in 24:14; 26:13; 28:19, Matthew preserves an emphasis here on mission in Jewish Palestine right up to the eschatological coming of the Son of Man. It is clear, therefore, that he does not consider 28:19 as involving a replacement of mission to Israel with mission to the Gentiles: the church is to continue mission to Israel in the postresurrection situation.

3. Instructions, Part 3 (10:24-42) disciple is not above athe teacher, nor a slave above his or her master. 25Enough for disciples to be like their teachers and slaves like their masters. If [people] bhave calledb the master of the house cBeelzeboul, how much more [will they mistreat] those of his household. 26[Given] then [that this is going to be the case,] do not fear them. For nothing is concealed which will not be disclosed, and hidden which will not become known. 27What I say to you in the darkness, say in the light, and what you hear [privately] in the ear, dpreach [from] on the rooops. 28Do not fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. 29Are not two sparrows sold for an assarion? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without [the consent of] your Father. 30e[In your case,] even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31Do not fearf, then; you are of more importance than gheaps of sparrows. 24A

then, who acknowledges me before [other] people, hI in turnh will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever denies me before [other] people, I in turn will deny before my Father in heaven. 34Do not make the judgment [because I announce the kingdom of heaven] that I came to bring peace to the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I came to turn a iman against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36and a person’s enemies will be those of their own household. 37e one who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, jand the one who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.j 38Whoever does not take up his or her cross and follow aer me is not worthy of me. 32Everyone,

39ke

one who finds their life will lose it, andk the one who loses their life for my sake will find it.

40e

one who receives you receives me, and the one who receives me receives the one who sent me. 41e one who receives a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, land the one who receives a righteous one as a righteous one will receive a righteous one’s reward.l 42mIndeed, whoever gives neven a cup of cold water to one of these olittle ones as a disciple — amen, I say to you, phe or she will not lose their reward.p

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αυτου (‘their’) in ‫ א‬F W f13 1424 etc. sy co, probably to increase the symmetry of the paired statements. b-b. e tense for this verb is slightly unstable in the texts, probably from uncertainty as to the precise reference (imperfect: ‫ *א‬L etc.; present D). c. e rst λ is missing from the spelling in ‫ א‬B etc. ‘Beelzebub’ is found in c (ff1) vg sys, p. d. D Θ have κηρυσσεται (‘is being preached’), and L has the future passive, probably under the in uence of Lk. 12:2-3, where the future passives of the equivalent to Mt. 10:26 are continued in the following verse. e. Added to mark the emphatic front position of υμων (‘your’) in the Greek. f. αυτους (‘them’) is added in W f13 1424 etc., creating a stronger link back to v. 28. g. Lit. ‘many’. h-h. Representing καγω (lit. ‘I also’). i. ανθρωπον is normally ‘person’, but here ‘man’. D etc. it sys, c have υιον (‘son’), which provides better parallelism with the following clause (and cf. Mi. 7:6). j-j. Omitted by B* (but added at the bottom of the column) D 983 etc., presumably by an accidental jump of the eye, given the identical beginning and ending of the adjacent clauses. In 19 the whole of v. 38 is missing, probably for a similar reason.

k-k. e whole rst clause is missing from ‫*א‬: the common ending, shared vocabulary, and similarity of syntactical shape have allowed the clause to be accidentally passed over. l-l. Omitted by D etc., probably for reasons as above in k-k. m. Gk. και (lit. ‘and’). n. Missing from D etc. sys, c. Grammatically μονον (‘only’) could instead be linked with εις ονομα μαθητου, giving ‘on the basis alone that he or she is a disciple’, but this does not make adequate sense in the context. o. A superlative ελαχιστων (‘littlest/least’) is found in D latt, and this is combined with the positive form in 1424 etc. to give: ‘little ones of the least ones’. p-p. Cast into the passive in D it sys, c bo. Bibliography For 10:24-25 Schwarz, G., ‘Ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ ἵνα γένηται ὡς ὁ διδάσκαλος αὐτοῦ’, BibNot 58 (1991), 29. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 181-97. For 10:26-31 Allison, D. C., ‘Matthew 10.26-31 and the Problem of Evil’, SVTQ 32 (1988), 293-308. • Allison, D. C., ‘“e hairs of your head are all numbered”’, ExpTim 101 (1990), 334-36. • Cook, J. G., ‘e Sparrow’s Fall in Mt 10:29b’, ZNW 79 (1988), 138-44. • Derrett, J. M. D., ‘Light on Sparrows and Hairs (Mt 10,29-31)’, EstBíb 55 (1997), 341-53. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 290-303. • Harrison, C. H., ‘Are Not Two Strouths for an Assar Bought? Notes on the Principles of Bible Translation’, NotesTrans 5.3 (1991), 1-14. • Hirunuma, T., ‘ἄνευ τοῦ πατρός “Without (of) the Father”’, FilolNT 3 (1990), 53-62. • Kloppenborg, J. S., ‘e Q Saying on Anxiety (Q 12:2-7)’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 83-97. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 156-73. • MacDonald, D., ‘e Worth of the Assarion’, Historia 38 (1989), 120-23. • McKnight, S., ‘Public Declaration or Final Judgment? Matthew 10:26-27//Luke 12:2-3 as a Case of Creative Redaction’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 363-83. •

Milikowsky, C., ‘Which Gehenna? Retribution and Eschatology in the Synoptic Gospels and in Early Jewish Texts’, NTS 34 (1988), 238-49. • Pappas, H. S., ‘e “Exhortation to Fearless Confession” — Mt 10:26-33’, GOTR 25 (1980), 239-48. • Riesner, R., Lehrer, 464-67. • Schlosser, J., ‘Le logion de Mt 10,28 par. Lc 12,4-5’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 621-33. • Schwarz, G., ‘Matthäus 10.28: Emendation und Ruckübersetzung’, ZNW 72 (1981), 277-82. • Wanke, J., ‘Bezugs- und Kommentarworte’, 66-70, 76-81. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 169-75. • Zeller, D., Mahnsprüche, 94-101. For 10:32-33 Catchpole, D. R., ‘e Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12.8’, NovT 24 (1982), 255-65. • Copestake, D. R., ‘Luke 12:8 and “Silent Witness”’, ExpTim 94 (1983), 335. • Coppens, J., La relève apocalyptique du messianisme royal, III: Le Fils de l’homme néotestamentaire (BETL 55. Leuven: Peeters/University Press, 1981), 13-16. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Q Saying on Confessing and Denying’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 606-16. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 290-300. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 152-58. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Jesus versus Menschensohn: Mt 10,32f und die synoptische Menschensohnüberlieferung’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 165202. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Der Menschensohn in Lukas 12.8’, NTS 44 (1998), 35779. • Lambrecht, J., ‘Q-In uence on Mark 8,34–9,1’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 277-304. • Lindars, B., ‘Jesus as Advocate: A Contribution to the Christological Debate’, BJRL 62 (1980), 476-97. • Riesner, R., Lehrer, 454-75. • Tuckett, C. M., ‘Q 12,8: Once Again “Son of Man” or “I”?’, in Quest, ed. J. M. Asgeirsson et al., 171-88. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 245-59. For 10:34-36 Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Q 12:51-53 and Mark 9:11-13 and the Messianic Woes’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 289-310. • Allison, D. C., Jr., End, 118-20, 128-37. • Black, M., ‘“Not peace but a sword”: Matt 10:34ff; Luke 12:51ff ’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 287-94. • Garsky, A., Heil, C., Heike, T. and Amon, J. E., Q 12:49-51: Children against Parents; Judging the Time; Settling out of Court. Documenta Q: Reconstruction of Q through Two Centuries of Gospel Research Excerpted, Sorted, and Evaluated,

ed. C. Heil (Leuven: Peeters, 1997). • Grelot, P., ‘Michée 7,6 dans les évangiles et dans la littérature rabbinique’, Bib 67 (1986), 363-77. • Heil, C., ‘Die Rezeption von Micha 7,6 LXX in Q und Lukas’, ZNW 88 (1997), 211-22. • März, C.-P., ‘Zur Vorgeschichte von Lk 12,49-59’, SNTU 12 (1987), 69-84. • Patterson, S. J., ‘Fire and Dissension: Ipsissima Vox Jesus in Q 12:49, 51-53?’ Forum 5.2 (1989), 121-39. • Sellew, P., ‘Reconstruction of Q 12:33-59’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 617-68. • Sim, D. C., ‘e Sword Motif in Matthew 10:34’, HTS 56 (2000), 84-104. For 10:37-39 Coulot, K. E., Jésus, 51-95. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 89-94. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Taking Up the Cross and Turning the Cheek’, in Alternative Approaches, ed. A. E. Harvey, 61-78. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Hating Father and Mother (Luke 14:26; Matthew 10:37)’, DR 117 (1999), 251-72. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Cross and Discipleship in Q’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 472-82. • Green, M. P., ‘e Meaning of Cross-Bearing’, BSac 140 (1983), 117-33. • O’Neill, J. C., ‘Did Jesus Teach at His Death Would Be Vicarious as well as Typical?’, in Suffering, ed. W. Horbury and B. McNeil, 9-27. • Rebell, W., ‘“Sein Leben verlieren” (Mark 8.35 parr) als Strukturmoment vor- und nachösterlichen Glaubens’, NTS 35 (1989), 202-18. • Schwarz, G., ‘Der Nachfolgespruch Markus 8.34b.c. Parr.: Emendation und Rückübersetzung’, NTS 33 (1987), 255-65. • Seccombe, D. P., ‘Take Up Your Cross’, in God Who is Rich in Mercy. FS D. B. Knox, ed. P. T. O’Brien and D. G. Peterson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 139-51. • Vaage, L. E., Upstarts, 94-95. • Wanke, J., ‘Bezugsund Kommentarworte’, 76-81. • Wijngaards, J., ‘Let Him Take Up His Cross …’, Vidyajyoti 47 (1983), 106-17. For 10:40-42 Agourides, S., ‘“Little Ones” in Matthew’, BT 35 (1984), 329-34. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 104-19. • O’Callaghan, J., ‘Dissensio critica in Mt 10,42’, Eranos 86 (1988), 163-64. • Rowland, C. C., ‘Apocalyptic, the Poor, and the Gospel of Matthew’, JTS 45 (1994), 504-18. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 231-34. • Zimmermann, A. F., Lehrer, 189-94. See further at 9:35-38; 10:1, 2-4, 5-15.

e prospect of hostility continues to play a major role in this third major section of the mission charge. As a disciple one cannot expect to be treated better than one’s master. Faced with hostility, the missionary must not pull back in fear. Public acknowledgement of Jesus remains supremely important. One must be prepared to lose one’s place in one’s own family and venture all for him. e missionary makes Jesus and thereby God present, and so readiness to receive and identify with the missioning disciple offers major eschatological reward. e base in tradition of vv. 24a, 25a is evident from the parallel in Lk. 6:40. Since Jn. 15:20, like Mt. 10:24b, links the superiority of master to slave to the expectation of mistreatment, it is likely that Matthew is weaving together two strands of tradition here.76 V. 25b is an echo of 9:34, with language adjustments anticipating 12:25. Lk. 12:2-9 offers a close parallel to Mt. 10:26-33. e most striking differences are in Mt. 10:27 par. Lk. 12:3 (discussed below). An additional parallel to Mt. 10:26 is found in Mk. 4:22.77 Luke has parallel material to Mt. 10:34-36 in 12:51-53. e tradition history is difficult to disentangle, but the Matthean form would seem to have more of the original features than the Lukan.78 e Lukan parallel to Mt. 10:37-38 is in 14:26-27. Luke probably stays closer to the common source for v. 26, but will be responsible for some expansion of the range of family speci ed and the reference to ‘even his own life as well’. It is unclear whether Luke’s ‘my disciple’ or Matthew’s ‘worthy of me’ is more original: disciple language is not common on the lips of Jesus, but it is common language for the Evangelists; Matthew’s uses of ‘worthy’ are concentrated in chap. 10. Matthew’s dropping of the γάρ (‘for’) that otherwise links the following saying about loss of one’s life with the cross saying may indicate that the intervention is Matthew’s. For Mt. 10:38 the Matthean form of the relative clause will be more original.79 ere is a form of Mt. 10:38 in Mk. 8:34. Under the in uence of this Matthew will make a second use of this tradition at 16:24 (par. Lk. 9:23).80

Parallels to Mt. 10:39 are found in 16:25; Mk. 8:35; Lk. 9:24; 17:33; Jn. 12:25. In each case, except for Lk. 17:33; Jn. 12:25 (which both lack the cross saying), there is a linking γάρ (‘for’). While Matthew could have drawn 10:39 in at this point on the basis of the link between the cross saying and the saying on losing of one’s life in Mk. 8:34-45, the presence of ‘and even his or her own life as well’ in Lk. 14:26, with its use of τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ (‘his or her life’), is likely to betray Luke’s dependence, and therefore Matthew’s here, on a non-Markan source that had the two sayings already connected.81 Luke ends the mission charge in Lk. 10:1-16 with an equivalent to Mt. 10:40. Probably following a non-Markan source form available to him,82 Matthew joined this with material in vv. 41-42 which nds a partial echo in Mk. 9:37b, 41 (the shared use of ‘one of these little ones’ by Mk. 9:42 and Mt. 10:42 is striking and may betray an in uence, as well, from the Markan source). Matthew’s language of receiving is more original than the language of hearing found in Lk. 10:16, but the categories used in Mt. 10:41-42 (prophet, righteous one, these little ones, disciple), though he may well draw them from the tradition (cf. 13:17; 23:29; Mk. 9:42), are likely to be attributable to Matthew. e main features of Matthew’s form in 10:40 are already found in Mk. 9:37b (distinguished by its inclusion of ‘one of these children’ and ‘in my name’) and are preserved in Jn. 13:20 (its tripartite arrangement is also re ected in the negative formulation in Lk. 10:16b).

10:24 On the disciple/teacher relationship see the comments at 5:1. Jesus has been identi ed as the teacher of the disciples in 9:11 (and see discussion at 8:19). e wisdom form evident in ‘a disciple is not above the teacher’ probably re ects an existing piece of proverbial wisdom (as does the master/slave comparison in v. 25), but Matthew draws it from a source, as the parallel with Lk. 6:40 indicates. e imagery lends itself most naturally to identifying and delimiting appropriate aspirations for the disciple in connection with what is to be achieved in the disciple’s relationship to the teacher (the Lukan use bases itself on such a role for the imagery). e Matthean use, however, picks up on the fact that the allegiance of the disciple to the teacher marks the teacher as the superior party

in the relationship, and then sets the superiority and inferiority that have been identi ed into the context, not of the inner working of the relationship, but of status in the eyes of the wider society. is fresh thrust for the proverb is assisted by the juxtaposition of the related comparison of master (κύριος) and slave, where status in wider society comes more immediately to mind. On Jesus as κύριος (‘Lord/master’) see the discussion at 7:21. e master/slave relationship will feature prominently in later Matthean parables and is an image of one’s relationship with God that has already been used at 6:24. ough the immediate function of the imagery of master and slave in 10:24 is limited to concern about relative treatment, the christological evocation is evident: in key respects Jesus functions in the place of God. 10:25 e negative formulation of v. 24 gives way to a positive reformulation (as in Lk. 6:40): ‘not above’ is replaced by ‘enough to be like’. e upper reaches of aspiration for the inferior is to approximate the superior. e thought is that the inferior will gain from contact with the superior and may well act for the superior (cf. Mt. 10:40-42), and these developments will therefore justify similar treatment from (status in the eyes of) the wider society. e positive form of the master/slave statement is closely matched in a rabbinic saying, suggesting its proverbial origin.83 If, however, the master is maligned by those around him, what do such aspirations for maximum status amount to? e upper ceiling now becomes no better than being demonised by those who are nearby. e echo of 9:34 is clear, and it is unlikely that Matthew intends to make a stronger point here: ‘called Beelzeboul’ is only a loose way of repeating in summary ‘By the ruler of demons he casts out demons’ from 9:34. 9:32-34 already anticipated material that Matthew will primarily use at 12:22-32. e change of language (and imagery) from ‘master’ and ‘slave’ to ‘the master of the house’

(τὸν οἰκοδεσπότην) and ‘members of the household’ (τοὺς οἰκιακούς) is likely to be inspired from the same source (see 12:25; Lk. 11:17).84 In Matthew’s use here the household imagery may anticipate 10:35-37, where ‘family’ loyalty to Jesus is to displace the absolute claim of the family. At this stage in his story Matthew needs the ‘how much more’ because he is juxtaposing with ‘called Beelzeboul’ treatment of disciples that may cost them their lives. (In the case of Jesus we have already had the Son of Man with nowhere to lay his head in 8:20 and the vague but ominous hint of the bridegroom-taken-away in 9:15, and will have in 10:38 a text which might imply that Jesus anticipates — however metaphorically — carrying a cross in front of disciples carrying crosses.) Where ‘called Beelzeboul’ will lead to in Matthew’s story is not yet unveiled. e name Beelzeboul is a transliteration into Greek of the name of an old Canaanite god, meaning “Baal, the Prince” or “Baal of the Exalted Abode.” On the basis that the gods of the nations are demons (as 1 Cor 10:20-23), they became gures in the demonic power structure…. It would seem that with “Belial” (2 Cor 6:15; 1QS 1:18, 24; 2:5, 19), “Mastemah” (1QS 3:23; 1QM 13:4, 11; CD 16:5; Jub. 10:8), and “Asmodaeus” (Tob 3:8, 17), “Beelzeboul” had become in time simply an alternative name for Satan.85

10:26-27 e role of οὖν (translated fulsomely above as ‘[given] then [that this is going to be the case]’) appears to be to identify the previous statement as foundational to the present one. By adding a ‘do not fear’ introduction here, to match those reproduced from his source in vv. 28, 29-31, Matthew creates a set of three ‘do not fear’ units. ‘em’ refers back to the unspeci ed people of vv. 16-23, 25: the persecutors.

e following γάρ (‘for’) clause provides support for the challenge not to fear, but it is not at once clear how it is intended to work. In Luke’s use the material points to the eschatological denouement with its judgment and reward, where nothing escapes detection, but in Mk. 4:22 (where the horizon is again nally eschatological) the focus is on the ultimate purposes of disclosure (full presence) that stand behind the present less-than-self-evident presence of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus. ere the interest is, on the one hand, in the capacity of this paradoxical presence to make its way powerfully out from small beginnings and, on the other hand, in the consequent need to attend carefully and respond appropriately to what is present. at Matthew’s rendition of 10:27 is strikingly different from the Lukan parallel86 suggests that Matthew may have drawn something from both contexts of thought,87 and in the end created his own. We must come back to v. 26 aer discussing of v. 27. Mt. 10:27 appears to provide content for what fearless behaviour will consist in. e verse picks up on the call not to be anxious what to say in vv. 19-20. ose who do not fear will not be silenced by persecutors, but will speak out boldly. e image of Jesus speaking in the dark and whispering in the ear ts nothing of the Matthean portrayal of Jesus’ ministry to this point.88 It can be linked to the privileged place of the disciples which will emerge in 13:10-17, but, even granted that link, it has an initial esoteric dimension that does not t comfortably in Matthew.89 is is best accounted for by seeing the Lukan form as closer to the original here, with Matthew struggling as he feels the need both to maintain the sharp antitheses of his source and to adapt his materials to his mission focus here. e imagery does not work quite as well as it might. How then are we to take Mt. 10:26 in the light of v. 27? e same movement from hidden to manifest is found in the two verses.

ere is something here of Mark’s sense of what is present working its way out powerfully and irresistibly. e fearless proclamation of v. 27 is underwritten by the divine purpose of revelation (cf. vv. 1920), which moves to an eschatological climax. But that Luke’s sense of answerability to God has not been lost sight of is suggested by the second ‘do not fear’ unit to follow in vv. 28-30, where the alternative offered is to fear God. Mission participation is likely to be seen not only as underwritten by what God is now involved in but also as an activity for which the disciple is answerable to the judgment of God. 10:28 Matthew is likely to be responsible for a good part of the particular parallelism between the two halves of v. 28 (including a chiastic word order for the two occurrences of ‘body’ and ‘soul’).90 Where the rst ‘do not fear’ statement has taken up the challenge to speak (vv. 19-20), the second takes up the threat to life (vv. 21-22). e unresolved tension there between the need to endure to the end and the possibility of losing one’s life along the way is now addressed in terms of the post-death situation. e ultimacy of death is relativized by the image of a more fearful ‘death’ experience. Talk of killing ‘the body’ already implies that there is more to a person than the body,91 but the presence of the body again in the post-death state warns against a division along the lines of mortal body and immortal soul. On ψυχή more generally see the comments at 6:25. ere is no better word with which to render it with here than ‘soul’, but it means more the essential person than an ontologically separable component of a person.92 Matthew’s point is not that the soul is deathless, but that only God has power over it.93 Death is a dreadful reversal, but not the most extreme one possible. Fear of God is to displace fear of death-dealing persecutors. e stakes are higher with God.

‘Destroy’ replaces ‘kill’ as more appropriate for the post-death situation contemplated here. ‘Destroy’ would naturally imply annihilation. While there are no Matthean texts incompatible with such an understanding,94 there is probably some early Jewish tradition of perpetual punishment,95 and some biblical texts are naturally read this way.96 ‘Soul and body’ provide a comprehensive designation for all that makes up a person. On the word ‘Gehenna’ used of the place of punitive judgment see the discussion at 5:22. Matthew will have understood that one comes to this situation of judgment via resurrection (see 22:23-33). 10:29 e third call not to fear (vv. 29-31) is based on God’s active involvement in the world and his special care for Jesus’ disciples. Since the previous two calls not to fear are clearly linked with 10:19-20, 21-22, there is some likelihood that this third call is connected to the intervention anticipated in v. 23 in the form of the coming of the Son of Man. An assarion was worth about one-sixteenth of a denarius, with some variation due to uctuating values of local currencies. A useful reference point for the value of the assarion may be drawn from the price of bread (an assarion for a day’s needs97) and the wage for day labourers (a denarius). στρουθία is traditionally translated ‘sparrows’, but it could apply to any kind of small bird, here presumably small birds used for food.98 e ‘sparrows’ in Lk. 12:6 are 20 percent cheaper than in Matthew; in one place or the other up-to-date local knowledge has led to a pricing adjustment.99 e low price of the birds implies their modest value. Where the previous call not to fear argued that death at the hands of a persecutor was only a this-worldly event, eclipsed in signi cance by a post-death event in a larger frame, this time the

argument addresses the engagement of God with even this-worldly events. Without his consent, not even sparrows die.100 Matthew has the cryptic expression ἄνευ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν (lit. ‘without your Father’), which has been taken to refer to the presence of God, the concessive will of God, or the active will of God. All three senses have good linguistic parallels.101 e prospect of the presence of God as strengthening and consoling ts the coming application, but it is not well suited to what we can know of the experience of sparrows. e idea that God is ultimately in control, despite the apparent arbitrariness of many events in the world, does the best justice to the context. In a much more positive context the same active involvement of God in the care of birds is claimed in 6:26, which has a similarly constructed ‘how much more’ argument.102 10:30 In the development of the ‘how much more’ comparison, the image moves from God’s care for the sparrows to his ‘care’ for (counting of) each single hair on the human head and then back to the sparrows to make the contrast. Almost certainly this imagery is related to that of not losing a single hair of one’s head, an image probably derived ultimately from the phenomenon of male balding.103 e loss of a single hair from the head is as much in the hands of God as the fall of a sparrow.104 But the text is not promising that no hair will be lost! 10:31 Here Matthew makes his third call not to fear, and the basis for the call is completed by the ‘how much more’ statement, reintroducing the sparrows.105 His appeal to the detailed providential involvement of God in the world is strengthened by his focussing on the special place in that care accorded to disciples. 10:32-33 Matthew uses a tightly structured double parallelism (confession before others; confession before God; denial

before others; denial before God); only the slightest difference of wording at the beginnings of vv. 32 and 33 disturbs the exact balance.106 e precise nature of the link intended by οὖν (‘then/therefore’) is not clear. Perhaps the basis for vv. 32-33 is to be found in the prospect of persecution of v. 25 coupled with the calls not to fear it in vv. 26-31 (‘everyone who in the face of mistreatment or the fear of it, in obedience to the challenges not to fear …’).107 At the heart of the identi cation with Jesus that leads to persecution lies the public acknowledgement that one belongs to him.108 When and where the corresponding acknowledgement before God is to take place is not speci ed, but there is an echo of 7:23,109 where the timing according to v. 22 is ‘on that day’: on the day in which people ultimately enter (or fail to enter) into the kingdom of heaven. is accords with the concern about Gehenna in 10:28. But we do not have anything as precisely de ned as a judgment scene.110 As in 7:23, Matthew views Jesus as potentially having in uence for those with whom he is in relationship on the gatekeeping arrangements for the kingdom of God. ‘My Father’ is the nal reference point. God is ‘my Father in heaven’, as oen in Matthew.111 e seriousness of the situation of Peter in 26:69-75 is accentuated by the twofold use there of the same verb for ‘deny’ (in vv. 70, 72 — the only other uses in Matthew). e indication there that denial does not create an irrecoverable situation is retrospectively important for 10:33. 10:34 e difficulties to be faced by the disciples have already played quite a role in the mission charge,112 but now the Matthean Jesus in some sense claims to himself the initiative in creating these difficulties.

e language here is deliberately paradoxical: “peace” is self-evidently the goal of Jesus’ ministry [as recently as Mt. 10:13 the apostolic messenger brings peace; and cf. 5:9] and of the Jewish eschatological hope…. But the OT prophets had insisted that “the day of the Lord” so longed for would be “darkness and not light,” “destruction,” “gloom,” “very terrible” (Amos 5:18; Joel 1:15; 2:1-2, 11, 31; Isa 13:6; etc.); and the apocalyptic tradition anticipated a time of great distress to usher in the end (of particular note in the present context are 4 Ezra 6:24; “At that time friends shall make war on friends like enemies”; and Jub. 23:16: “they will strive with one another, the young with the old and old with the young”; cf. 4 Ezra 9:2-3; 1 Enoch 100:1-4; etc.).113

e opening ‘Do not make the judgment that I came…; I did not come’ repeats a pattern of words from Mt. 5:17: there Jesus asserts that he conforms to traditional expectations (though a super cial impression might be that he does not); here he asserts that he does not conform to (a super cial form of) traditional expectations (though in many respects he does seem to — and in a deeper sense really does). e tie is likely intended, but only as a piece of surface artistry pointing up the dangers of mistaking Jesus by relating him too rigidly (either positively or negatively) to popular traditional categories. e ‘sword’ stands as an image of destructive hostility. ough the sword is quite a common image for divine judgment,114 that does not appear to be how it is used here. e kind of responsibility which Jesus is claiming for this sword will become clear only in vv. 37-39. 10:35-36 e language of purposeful coming is repeated from v. 34. Vv. 35-36 are offered in support of v. 34 (γάρ [‘for’]), and focus on the domestic aspect of the coming of the sword. On the one hand this makes clear that the sword stands as a symbol for something much broader (and therefore not always so life

threatening), but on the other hand this more speci c focus also represents an intensi cation, since now the inner unity and domestic harmony of families are to be threatened. Whereas Lk. 12:53, with its symmetrical development, partly obscured the link to Mi. 7:6 Matthew has highlighted this connection by adding v. 36,115 which also makes clear that the six categories of people116 are living together in a single household (at marriage the wife117 joins the husband’s family; the daughter mentioned is no doubt unmarried). Matthew’s wording for the nal clause links to the MT and not to the LXX, but unlike both the MT and the LXX it does not focus exclusively here on males.118 (e use of οἰκιακοί for ‘members of [one’s] household’ may be a deliberate echo of v. 25 — see there).119 e echoed OT text provides a scriptural basis for such an expectation in the eschatological period.120 at the direction of hostility in Mi. 7:6 is from the younger generation to the older is probably intended to indicate failure to ful l the commandment to honour one’s parents (cf. Mt. 10:21).121 In what sense Jesus can claim to be responsible for this family con ict awaits clari cation from vv. 37-39. 10:37 ough the point is made only indirectly, it now becomes clear how Jesus can say that he is responsible for the coming of the sword and of division in families: he insists on such a erceness of loyalty to himself that the signi cance of normal bonds and commitments, and speci cally family ones, is undercut. e ties that bind are relativized in favour of a newly found, more fundamental tie. Matthew has three parallel clauses, two dealing with family members and one with the cross. As in v. 35, he focusses on crossgenerational relationships, but this time he includes cross-gender relationships (using ‘father and mother’ and ‘son and daughter’ as

pairs) and views the one addressed in terms of the link to the generation above and the generation below. As in v. 36, the statement does not give preference to one gender.122 ere is a formal similarity with m. B. M. 2:11, where priority is to be given to one’s teacher over one’s father, but here we are dealing with an aspect of the social ordering of a society, and not with a radical and disturbing disruption of normality as in Matthew. Matthew’s uses of the word ‘worthy’ are concentrated in chap. 10.123 As noted at 10:11, the worthiness involved is not so much a moral rectitude as a readiness to perceive and respond to what God is now doing in Jesus. It is vital to be found ‘worthy’. e discomfort of these challenging words is oen soened by placing an emphasis on readiness to put God ahead of family, and then establishing a context of expectations in which God is seen as so pro-family that such a possibility remains only hypothetical. is is very different from what we nd in Matthew. 10:38 In parallel with the two family statements comes a statement about taking up a cross. is nal statement both interprets and generalises the preceding two, and with its fresh image of suffering to be faced integrates the material here with that in vv. 34-36. Matthew focusses the imagery on the initial taking up of the cross (as does Mk. 9:34), while Lk. 14:27 emphasises the carrying along of the cross (on the journey). e imagery is taken from the Roman custom of requiring the condemned criminal to carry the cross bar to the place of execution. Plutarch reports: ‘Every criminal who is executed carries his own cross’.124 ‘Place yourself in the ring line’, ‘put your neck in the noose’, and ‘put your head on the chopping block’ would all be analogous to what is called for here. For the Christian reader an allusion to Jesus’ own cross is

unavoidable, but the focus is not there, and the text does not speci cally indicate that Jesus too is intended to be imagined as carrying a cross.125 e call is to make a dangerous and unselfregarding choice to follow Jesus.126 On the call to follow Jesus see the comments at 4:19-20. It is clear that the kind of radical commitment to Jesus (and therefore to what he stands for) called for is considered to be extremely dangerous. e only hint in the context as to the nature of this danger is given by the juxtaposition of the statement with the two preceding family statements: such radical loyalty to Jesus places one on a collision course with the natural and traditional expectations of others; it causes one to lose one’s place in the scheme of things. 10:39 Matthew does not specify a relationship between v. 39 and v. 38. ey are simply sayings that belong together as exploring the same general area. e loss of life127 contemplated relates to the imagery of cross and sword of vv. 34 and 38. While ‘ nd’ and ‘lose’ form a natural antithesis, finding one’s life is an unexpected manner of diction. e other forms of this saying contrast saving and losing, which seems a less natural contrast until one realises that the implicit context is that of one’s life being under immediate threat (the issue has to do with what one wants — what is one’s rst priority — in such a situation). Matthew drops the reference to what one wants at the same time that he changes the verb. is tightens the parallelism all around (the other forms never included any idea that loss of life was wished for), but it also probably produces a change in the imagery. Matthew does not use an implicit context in which life is under immediate threat. His wording makes best sense if ‘ nding life’ (εὑρὼν τὴν ψυχήν) can have a idiomatic force something like ‘making it/being successful in life’.128 e one

who successfully nds their way in life will lose that life, while the one who loses life for Jesus’ sake will nd it (again). e saying is deliberately riddling and paradoxical (in all its various forms). It clearly relates to the sentiment of Xenophon’s challenge to his troops in battle to maintain courage under re because it is precisely the soldier who is prepared to face death courageously who is least likely to die in battle.129 In a Jewish context which embraces a concept of life beyond death and implicitly introduces God, the same challenge to courage in battle can be put on a different footing by suggesting that the one who dies well wins life in the world beyond.130 e genuine loss of life contemplated in the Gospel saying requires some such appeal to a beyond-death reality for the individual. For one, however, who can nd the meaning of life outside oneself, ‘survival’ in terms of a good reputation (or, more privately, the maintenance of integrity in the context of loyalty to one’s friend or lover) or the long-term bene t of one’s community may be enough to undergird some forms of challenge to self-transcendence, though perhaps not in quite the paradoxical form offered in the Gospels. Epictetus’s view that Socrates was saved by his death (and not by ight) needs no appeal to a postdeath state of being.131 A piece of a legendary rabbinic interaction with Alexander of Macedon is almost as riddling and paradoxical as the Gospel saying: ‘[Alexander] said to them: What shall a man do to live? ey [i.e., the rabbis] replied: Let him mortify himself. What should a man do to kill himself? ey replied: Let him keep himself alive.’132 In the context of the piety represented, mortifying oneself is likely to mean study and hard work, and possibly self-deprivation; keeping oneself alive is likely to connote self-indulgence, but also possibly survival by means of apostasy. As in the Gospel saying, a

postdeath horizon is active, as is a concern with answerability to God. Beardslee speaks helpfully of the ‘[Gospel] saying [as] extremely revealing of the interweaving of self-concern and selftranscendence which has characterized Christian existence from the beginning’.133 But as the other texts surveyed here show, this should not be seen as a Christian distinctive. In the present Matthean context, the one who makes it in life will be understood to have done so by compromising the loyalty due to God/Jesus (cf. discussion at 4:8-9);134 there is no principled, life-denying asceticism here. ough the horizon of life beyond death is important, there is no contrasting of this life and the life to come. It is not another life which is subsequently lost/gained: the use of pronouns (‘it’) to pick up on the lost/gained life indicates that only a single life is in view, one which embraces the present and the future beyond death. 10:40 e role here of equivalence between Jesus and the missionary links back to the expectation of equivalent treatment established in the beginning of the unit at v. 24,135 while the role of welcome here refreshes the focus on being sent out, which was strong in the opening two units of the discourse136 but has lost visibility thus far in this nal part of the mission charge. e verse provides assurance that no ‘dilution’ is involved in encountering at one step removed what Jesus stands for and brings, but, more than that, it probably extends the recognised range of the presence of God anticipated in 1:23. In a mission charge such a statement offers great con dence of empowerment, and assurance of the signi cance of the task undertaken. A tie is generally claimed here with Jewish notions of the ‘authorised representative’ (šāliaḥ) whose presence is to be treated as equivalent to that of the one who has sent him or

her.137 A connection is certainly possible, but issues of legal authorisation are not particularly in focus here.138 In light of 10:11 and vv. 41-42 to come it is likely that receiving is intended to embrace welcoming and accepting for oneself the ministry of the disciple, and also supporting the ministry of the disciple.139 is is the rst time that the Matthean Jesus speaks of himself as sent (by God). e language will recur at 15:24 (cf. 21:37). Matthew also views John the Baptist and the prophets as sent by God (11:10; 21:36; 23:37). Jesus’ sending of the disciples (cf. 10:5) is implied by the mention of Jesus’ own state of having being sent by God. 10:41 Vv. 41-42 provide an exposition of the receiving spoken of in v. 40. Elsewhere Matthew uses only ‘prophet’ and ‘righteous one’ as a pair with OT gures in view (13:17; 23:29 — with plurals), and ‘righteous one’ appears to function as a near synonym for ‘prophet’. It is just possible that ‘will receive’ in 10:41 is a logical future and refers to the reception in the past of the prophets sent by God (on this understanding v. 41 would provide the precedent and v. 42 the present counterpart), but, since it is clear from 5:12 that Matthew sees the disciples as standing in continuity with the prophets of the past, it is more likely that the categories of prophet and righteous one have been borrowed for application to the disciples of Jesus (a similar process is evident in 23:34).140 εἰς ὄνομα προϕήτου (lit. ‘into name of [a] prophet’) must indicate recognition of the prophetic identity of the one received, but the ὄνομα idiom involved has not been closely parallelled, either in Greek or a putative Semitic original. μισθὸν προϕήτου is generally taken to refer to the reward which a prophet, for doing the work of a prophet, is due to receive from God, but there is a remote possibility that the reference is to the bene ts to be received from the prophetic ministry of the

prophet.141 is latter option does, however, offer an outcome which seems rather restricted aer the expansiveness of v. 40. Receiving the reward that is due to a prophet ts in with the sense of participation by support in the ministry of another which is claimed above for the receiving involved in v. 40. at the prophets (who suffered) were in line for a major reward from God is implied in 5:12. e move from what is gained in the present in 10:40 to what is to be expected in the future in vv. 41-42 is in line with Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of heaven, which involves major effects in the present but is oriented to an eschatological climax. e second clause has an identical structure to the rst, with ‘righteous one’ taking the place of ‘prophet’. No close parallel has been offered for Matthew’s use of ‘righteous one’, and the precise nuance is probably beyond recovery. But as with prophets, we are clearly dealing with people who are sent by God and act for him in the given situation. Perhaps they are, in particular, to be thought of as witnessing to and standing for the righteousness of God (cf. 3:15; 21:32). e nearest analogy may be in the designation of James as ‘James the righteous one’.142 e use of ‘the righteous one’ as a title for Jesus could also provide a link with the background tradition here.143 10:42 e change of structure and additional development, along with continuing general parallelism with the previous clauses, suggests movement to a climax aer the paired preceding clauses. But what kind of climaxing is involved? To give a cup of cold water is clearly intended to mark a very modest form of receiving. is makes it likely that the minimising language, ‘one of these little ones’, is also intended to mark a diminution, this time in comparison with ‘prophet’ and ‘righteous one’. In line with this, the reward statement as well makes a more modest claim: a reward, yes,

but not necessarily the scale of reward that is intended for the prophet and the righteous one. Since Jesus is ostensibly talking to and not about the gathered disciples, ‘one of these little ones’ is grammatically odd, implying talk about rather than to the disciples. Matthew’s wording is in uenced by a source, but the loss of focus probably does betray Matthew’s desire to address those who will receive (and support?) ambassadors of the faith as well as those who will be ambassadors for the faith. ere will be a strong echo at 18:6, where the phrase will be repeated but expanded with ‘who believe in me’. But at this earlier stage in the Gospel the inversion of values which will be important later and will transform the understanding of greatness in the kingdom of God (see, e.g., at 18:1-5) has not yet emerged. In view is simply a disciple whose discipleship operates at a modest level: nothing of the stature of prophet or righteous one, but nonetheless a genuine disciple.144 e giving of a cup of cold water here is distinguished from simple humanitarianism by the qualifying εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ (lit. ‘into name of [a] disciple’), which parallels the similar phrases in the two clauses of 10:41.145 e level of assistance may be modest, but it must be based on identi cation with the person as a disciple of Jesus. e insistent ‘Amen, I say to you’ comes for the third time in the discourse (cf. vv. 15, 23 and discussion there), once again marking the end of a major subdivision. e repetition of ‘disciple’ from the beginning of the unit (vv. 24-25) adds to the sense of closure. ‘Will by no means lose their reward’ is an inverted way of saying with special force ‘will certainly receive a reward’. e language of loss links back to v. 39, where the same verb is used. Sociologically oriented reconstruction of early Christianity has suggested that a radical discipleship was practised by wandering messengers of the Christian faith who were in turn supported by

local sympathisers who had not embraced the Christian faith in such a radical form. A text like Mt. 10:42 is thought to provide a window onto this two-level pattern. Certainly this speculative reconstruction offers a way of bringing together features of the Gospel tradition which are hard to reconcile with each other, and it is evident that only some of the early Christians took on an itinerant role. It is clear, however, that Matthew has no intention of creating two tiers of Christian discipleship. Matthew combines a radically demanding vision of authentic Christian discipleship with a generosity of spirit about the possibility of repeated forgiveness for repented-of failure and a pastoral approach that (along with warnings against failure) wants to provide positive encouragement for those who are barely inside the Christian fold. Implicit in the cup of cold water, for Matthew, is the (gradual?) embrace of all that the Christian mission stands for. E. Jesus’ Pattern of Ministry Is Renewed (11:1) so happened that when Jesus had finisheda instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and to proclaim in their towns. 1It

TEXTUAL NOTES a. An added τους λογους τουτους (‘these words’) in (aur) b ff1c vgmss enhances the parallel with Mt. 7:28. It is not original, but indicates that the link had been noted. Bibliography See at 9:35-38; 10:1, 2-4, 5-15, 24-42.

e echo in 11:1 of 9:35 makes a frame for the mission discourse. Since, however, 9:35 was already an echo of 4:23, which in turn looks back to 4:17, the effect is, as well, to provide a mission-of-thedisciples frame (i.e., 4:18-23, as itself framed; and 9:36–10:42, as framed) for the two major units found in chaps. 5–7 and 8–9.146 is allows the whole account of Jesus’ public ministry to this point to be marked as preparatory to 28:19-20. Aer the loss of action of the chapter of discourse, 11:1 freshly marks the itinerant nature of Jesus’ own ministry,147 perhaps judged to be particularly needed at this point because 11:2-30 will be for the most part yet another discourse. No tradition base is evident for 11:1.

11:1 On the use of the words καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘it so happened that when Jesus had nished’) to mark the completion of major speeches by Jesus, see the discussion at 7:28. ‘His twelve disciples’ picks up on 10:1 at the beginning of the discourse.148 But here there is also a strong echo of 9:35, with the shared words ‘Jesus’, ‘towns’, ‘teach’, ‘proclaim’, ‘their’. ‘Went on from there’ reintroduces the itinerant nature of Jesus’ own ministry. Who are the ‘their’ in ‘their towns’? In 4:23 ‘their synagogues’ appears to refer to the synagogues of the people of Galilee, and in 9:35 to the synagogues of the people of the towns and villages visited by Jesus. But for ‘their towns’ the most natural antecedent will be the twelve disciples. If this is correct, then we are probably to take this as Jesus preparing the way for the disciples’ own mission.149 e focus on towns matches the importance of towns in the preceding mission instructions.150 e mission of the disciples is to be book-ended by Jesus’ own work in these towns and his coming as the Son of Man (10:23). But for the immediate

present Jesus’ renewed itinerant ministry (starting from its ‘works’) provides the setting for 11:2-30.

1. It may well be that the chiasm reaches further to embrace Mt. 3:1–4:17 set in parallel with chap. 11 (both concerned with setting up the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus). 2. Without giving up the notion of a Galilean ministry, 4:24-25 have already generalised the signi cance of the ministry of Jesus to indicate an impact on the whole of Israel (along with a yet wider awareness of what was going on). e speci c language of ‘towns and villages’ may be to parallel that of the mission of the disciples: 10:11 is Matthew’s only other pairing of these words. 3. See Mt. 14:14 (healing; the Markan parallel has teaching); 15:32 (food); 20:34 (sight for the blind). 4. e perfect passive participle is used with νεκρός (‘dead’) in the LXX A text of Jdg. 4:22 of Sisera ‘lying dead’. As used there, the verb probably intends to re ect the idea of a ‘fallen’ state (Sisera did not literally fall, but the MT uses the present participle of npl, which is literally ‘fall’). 5. In Mt. 10:6 they are ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. 6. Joshua is appointed to succeed Moses so that ‘the congregation of Yahweh may not be like sheep without a shepherd’ (Nu. 27:17); Israel was scattered because there was no (functioning) shepherd, because the shepherds were feeding only themselves (Ez. 34:5); cf. Je. 50:6; but in 1 Ki. 22:17 Israel is shepherdless because the king has lost his life in war. 7. Nolland, Luke, 2:550-51. 8. M. ʾAb. 2:15 has a somewhat similar image of an under-resourced urgent task, applied in the context to the need for the study of the Law: ‘e day is short and the task is great and the labourers are idle and the wage is abundant and the master of the house is urgent’. 9. Possibly he intends to mark a time interval.

10. ‘Twelve disciples’ is a distinctive Matthean designation also found in 11:1 and possibly 20:17. An echo of it is also to be found in ‘the twelve apostles’ of 10:2, ‘these twelve’ of v. 5, the ‘twelve thrones’ of 19:28, ‘the twelve’ of (20:17); 26:14, 20, 47, and ‘the eleven disciples’ of 28:16. e historicity of Jesus’ call of the Twelve is occasionally questioned, but it makes the best sense of the early evidence of 1 Cor. 15:5, the inclusion of the betrayer Judas in the list, the limited role apparently played by the Twelve aer the earliest period of the church, and even the slight confusion as to the exact names (see below at Mt. 10:2-4). 11. e number ‘twelve’ probably points to completeness in Ex. 15:27 (cf. the explanation offered by Philo, Fuga 184-85). Mt. 26:53; Acts 19:7; 24:11 seem to re ect the use of twelve as a preferred round number for a set of about that size (like the traditional English use of ‘dozen’). Something similar is likely in Mt. 9:20, but there the notion of a full set of years may well carry the further nuance ‘for long enough’. In an apocalyptic pattern 2 Bar. 53–68 identi es twelve phases in the unfolding of world history. 12. ‘Spirit’ by itself is used twice in resumptions. e other sixteen cases use the δαιμον- root. 13. ‘Authority over’ is expressed with ἐξουσία + gen. also in Rom. 9:21; 1 Cor. 9:12. 14. Mk. 6:7 speaks only of authority over unclean spirits, but in v. 12 Mark’s mission account includes healings. 15. e existence of additional tradition about the membership of the Twelve is re ected in the inclusion in Lk. 6:15 of Judas son of James instead of addaeus and probably in the translation of the transliterated ‘Cananaean’ as ‘zealot’ in Acts 1:13. Matthew and Luke agree in putting Andrew next to Peter in the list as ‘Andrew his brother’, but this could be just accidental redactional agreement. ‘e tax collector’ is best taken as a Matthean gloss. e similar pattern between Matthew and Acts in their uses of καί (‘and’) may re ect a source. 16. See the discussion of apostleship in Nolland, Luke, 1:265-69. 17. Both Mk. 3:16 and Lk. 6:14 refer to Jesus’ naming of Simon as Peter. 18. Mk. 3:16 lacks ‘his brother’ and locates Andrew aer James and John; Lk. 6:14 has the names as Matthew does (probably in his case to retain a

piece of information otherwise lost in the failure to use Mk. 1:16). 19. e dropping of ‘to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of under’ increases the impact of the coincidence of wording. 20. ere is, however, another partially con icting pattern: the rst four names are connected with καί (‘and’), and aer that καί joins pairs of names (Mark has a καί between each name — but see ‘Textual Notes’ above for the possibility that for Matthew even the rst four names include two pairs with a καί between the members of each pair). Acts is very much like Matthew — the loss of Judas from the end means that the nal name gets an introductory καί though not being the second of a pair. 21. An alternative more extrinsic reason for the Matthean order might be offered from the change in Mt. 9:9 from ‘Levi son of Alphaeus’ to ‘Matthew’: aware of this change, he wants to set ‘Matthew’ next to another ‘son of Alphaeus’. e Acts order may betray the in uence of a different source, but the reason for the Acts order here might be something as mundane as the desire to put together the two names beginning with aspirated consonants. 22. e inversion is likely to be intended to avoid the impression that the rst Judas is the son of the James who is the son of Alphaeus. 23. Cf. the naming pattern in Acts 1:23: ‘Joseph…sonof Sabba who was called Justus’. 24. See Nu. 25:11; 1 Ki. 18:40; 19:10. 25. In Mark and Lk. 6:16. 26. In Matthew, John, and Lk. 22:3. 27. Others have suggested Jericho or Coreae as further possible place names (among other things the range of suggestions points up the difficulty caused by the variability of ancient transliteration). 28. For further discussion of sources and of questions of historicity see Nolland, Luke, 2:547-48. 29. e restricted scope of mission in Mt. 10:5-6 makes it clear that Matthew has not intended to delay mission by the disciples until aer the resurrection.

30. Jdg. 20:42; 1 Sa. 6:9, 12; 1 Ki. 19:15 establish a sense for εἰς ὁδὸν + genitive as ‘on the way to/in the direction of ’. 31. Bartnicki, ‘Bereich’, 256, considers an apologetic role possible. Scholars oen defend the material of Mt. 10:5b-6 for the historical Jesus on the basis of its connection with 15:24, 26, but seem to have paid no attention to the lack of narrative motivation at this point. In actuality the disciples are most unlikely to have strayed beyond engagement with fellow Jews, but given the natural focus of Jesus’ ministry on his fellow Jews it is hard to imagine a context in which this would have needed to be established as a principle (cf. Luz, Matthäus, 2:90 n. 15). 32. See m. Qid. 4:3; b. Qid. 75a-76a; Josephus, Ant. 9.277-91. 33. If Matthean circles were aware of the mission schema re ected in Acts 1:8, then this may have played a role in the formulation here (which represents an inversion of the Acts 1:8 set). 34. See Mt. 2:1-12; 8:5-13; 15:21-28. 35. See Mt. 17:9; 23:37-39; 27:51-53; cf. 28:20b. Note also the fresh start in Galilee (26:32; 28:7, 10, 16). 36. Explanations of the juxtaposition of Mt. 10:5b-6 and 28:20 include (a) quotation in 10:5b-6 of a view so solidly embedded in the tradition that Matthew did not dare to pass it over, though he did not at all agree with it; (b) a change of Jesus’ mind over time; (c) inclusion of two competing positions in Matthew’s church, but with a more favourable disposition to the latter; (d) elements in a strategy by which Matthew seeks to bring his readers from the stance of Mt. 10:5b-6 to that of 28:20; (e) a re ex of two phases of mission thinking in the early church; (f) re ection of a pre-70 mission to Jews and a post-70 mission to Gentiles; (g) a means of underlining the terminal guilt of Israel; (h) an expression of a ‘to the Jew rst and also to the Greek’ view; (i) representation of a development justi ed by the move from the earthly Jesus to the exalted Lord; (j) representation of the change of situation created by the Easter event, a change which indirectly also marks the giving up of circumcision and the gaining of freedom from the Mosaic Law; (k) material addressed to different groups (Twelve versus a wider group; or Jewish Christian missionaries versus Gentile Christian missionaries).

37. ere is no particular focus here on being lost in sin: Israel is viewed in relation to the whole range of its needs. 38. In 2 Ki. 5:16 Elisha refuses a reward for curing Naaman. 39. Luz, Matthäus, 2:95. 40. See Mk. 6:8; Lk. 9:3. Matthew is probably responsible for creating the set, but he may have been inspired by noting ‘copper’ in one of his sources and ‘silver’ in the other. 41. See the discussion in Nolland, Luke, 2:552. 42. For other suggestions see Nolland, Luke, 1:427. 43. Lk. 22:35-38 represents the extreme case of this (but probably only symbolically; see Nolland, Luke, 3:1075-77). 44. 1 Cor. 9:14; 1 Tim. 5:18; cf. Did. 13:1 have their links with the Lukan sense (despite the Matthean in uence on the wording of the Didache). 45. In Lk. 10:5-6 entering a house is the rst step towards nding ‘a son of peace’, so the greeting of peace may in any particular case turn out to be inappropriate. ough it should not happen once a worthy person has been identi ed, Matthew keeps the material that deals with this problem. 46. e ‘there’ in κἀκεῖ lacks a proper antecedent; one has to ll in the move from person to house (the house will be mentioned in Mt. 10:12). 47. If we were to take Matthew’s language literally, then we would need to think of a conditional blessing which sends out the peace of the kingdom but only gives it permission to ‘land’ once the house is discovered to be worthy, and which leaves it hovering ready to be summoned back in cases of unworthiness. But Matthew probably does not intend his language to be taken so precisely. 48. e ‘whoever (singular)’ at the beginning is resumed as ‘that house or town’. Lk. 9:5 has a less extreme version of the same problem, but Luke’s ‘whoever [pl.]’ makes the transition to ‘that town’ a little easier; Lk. 9:5 is also helped by the nal phrase ‘as an act of witness to them’. Lk. 10:10 escapes the difficulty with ‘whichever town’ resumed with ‘its streets’, as does Mk. 6:11 with ‘whichever place’ resumed with ‘from there’. 49. is is not likely to have any relationship to the rabbinic tradition appealed to by Str-B 1:571 of concern about the uncleanness of foreign

lands. 50. Nolland, Luke, 2:555. 51. See Mt. 11:22, 24; 12:36. 52. Cf. Is. 34:8; 2 Esdr. 12:34; 2 Enoch 39:1; Jub. 4:19; Pss. Sol. 15:12. 53. See the discussion in Nolland, Luke, 2:675-76, 680; 3:995. 54. See Nolland, Luke, 3:983-86, for discussion of the second form available to Luke. 55. Matthew will resume these materials very brie y in 24:9. 56. Mk. 9:9 has the more inward-looking βλέπετε ὑμεῖς ἑαυτούς (lit. ‘you, see yourselves’). 57. μαστιγώσουσιν can mean ‘will og’, but it is more likely to be causative: ‘will have [you] ogged’. 58. Client kings ruling with the approval of the Roman emperor did not exactly dispense Roman justice, but they produced something closer to Roman justice than to Jewish justice. 59. Other options are (a) to take the reference as to both sets, with ‘and to the Gentiles’ (καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) drawing attention to the Gentile presence: ‘and that will mean witness to Gentiles as well’; and (b) to take the reference as to the second set, with ‘and to the Gentiles’ indicating that witness to kings and governors will at least indirectly be witness to the Gentile peoples whom they govern. 60. Mt. 6:31 has μὴ μεριμνήσητε … τί (‘do not worry … what’), as here. 61. Weaver, Missionary Discourse, 96, takes ‘how you are to speak’ to mean ‘what will make it possible for you to speak’, and identi es a chiasm in which Mt. 10:19b deals with ‘what’ and v. 20 deals with ‘how’. 62. Matthew is unlikely to be thinking here of anything on the scale of the giving of the prophetic message in Ex. 4:12; Jer. 1:6-10. 63. Mk. 13:11; Lk. 11:13 both have ‘the Holy Spirit’ rather than Matthew’s ‘the Spirit of your Father’. 64. See Mt. 1:18, 20; 3:16; 4:1. To come are 12:18, 28 (vv. 31, 32 are about being prepared to recognise that the Spirit is at work in Jesus). Otherwise there is only ‘baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ in 28:19.

65. θανατώσουσιν could mean ‘put to death’, but in the context it will be causative: ‘have [them] put to death’. 66. Similar calls for perseverance are found in Dn. 12:12; 2 Esdr. 6:25. 67. No attempt is made at this point to integrate the survival anticipated here with the loss of life anticipated in Mt. 10:21, but there is no great difficulty for Matthew, for whom death is not a nal end (cf. 16:25; 22:2333). 68. διώκειν (‘persecute’) has been used thus far only in Mt. 5:11, in the related verses immediately before and aer, and in 5:44, which looks back to 5:11-12. 69. Encouraged by the use of τῇ ἑτέρᾳ to mean ‘on the next day’. See Xen., Cyr. 4.6.10; Acts 20:15; 27:3. 70. See Jeremias, Promise, 20 nn. 4 and 5. 71. Luz, Matthäus, 2:116. 72. See Mt. 4:12; 12:15; 14:13; 15:21 (see discussion at 4:12). 73. For a discussion of the language see the comments at Mt. 5:18. 74. In common is ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι … οὐ μὴ … ἔως (or μέχρις) …,except that Mt. 23:39 lacks both ἀμήν and ὅτι. 75. e place of eeing in Mk. 13:14 offers further support for a link with Mk. 13–like material. 76. Remarkably, however, b. Ber. 58b (quoted below) also applies the master/slave comparison to mistreatment. 77. For further discussion of sources see Nolland, Luke, 2:675-79, and individual verses below. 78. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:707, 709-10. For the opposite view see the recent study by Sim, ‘Sword’, 84-104. 79. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:762-63. 80. For an extended discussion of most original forms, historicity, and original meaning see Nolland, Luke, 2:476-77: an image of resolute readiness to embrace extreme danger gains sharp focus and fresh poignancy in light of the Passion. 81. On the most original form (probably close to the Markan) and historicity (attributable to the historical Jesus with reasonable con dence)

see Nolland, Luke, 2:478. 82. See Nolland, Luke, 2:517. 83. ‘Enough for the slave that he should be like his master’ (b. Ber. 58b; Sipra on Lv. 25:23). e saying is applied to the destruction of the house of a famous rabbi (to be compared to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem). 84. But the link between Mt. 10:24 and Jn. 15:20 suggests that Matthew had a tradition which made some reference to mistreatment at this point. 85. Nolland, Luke, 2:637. 86. In Luke what one says privately will be brought eschatologically into full public visibility (and hence answerability); in Matthew one should take what one has received privately and make it publicly known. 87. Despite his wording for Mt. 10:26 being almost identical to that in Lk. 12:2 and quite different from that in Mk. 4:22. 88. e situation would be eased if we were able to understand Mt. 10:27 as ‘Even what I say to you in the dark …’. is could be Matthew’s intention, but if so, his failure to signal it effectively would still count in favour of a secondary Matthean formulation. 89. Nor does it t Matthew’s careful investment in parallelling the ministry of Jesus and the role of the disciples. 90. Luke has a good measure of parallelism, but somewhat differently constructed. Both God and the persecutors kill; the persecutors can do no more, but God can; so God is to be feared and not the persecutors (Luke has as an added ourish, ‘I will show you whom to fear’, repeated in variant form at the end). 91. Cf. Sextus, Sent. 363b, ‘As a lion has power over the body of a sage, so too does a tyrant, but only over the body’. 92. Test. Job 20:3 distinguishes between power over the body and over the ψυχή, but in this text ψυχή means ‘life’ (cf. Job 2:6). 93. Aer ‘kill the body’ Lk. 12:4 has ‘and aer that have nothing further they can do’. Matthew is probably responsible for using the language of the soul to provide a paraphrasing explanation.

94. e ‘eternal re’ of Mt. 18:8; 25:41 can reasonably be taken as a re that has been kept available (and will be kept available) for its destructive role. 95. ‘To the gloom of everlasting re’ in 1QS 2:8 may well imply unending suffering. Jdt. 16:17, ‘he will send re and worms into their esh; they shall weep in pain for ever (ἕως αἰῶνος)’ is likely to imply unending suffering, but ‘for an age’ would be a possible translation. 96. Dn. 12:2 consigns the wicked to ‘everlasting contempt’, but that is not necessarily a statement about inde nite survival. Jude 7 speaks of ‘a punishment of eternal re (πυρὸς αἰωνίου δίκην)’, but this could be like Is. 34:10 and relate to the permanent desolation of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah — as the aereffect and memorial of their punishment — rather than to continuing punishment of the people. Rev. 14:11 is the most de nite: ‘And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever (εἰς αἰῶνας αἰώνων)’. But even here εἰς αἰῶνας αἰώνων could have a weaker sense: ‘a very long time’. 97. Cf. Luz, Matthäus, 2:128. 98. For the use of small birds as food see O. Bauernfeind, TDNT, 7:730. 99. A discount for volume is also possible; the number ‘ ve’ may have functioned much as half a dozen does. 100. Lk. 12:6 speaks more generally of ‘not one of them [as] ha[ving] escaped God’s notice’. is is probably to make an easier connection with the following numbering of the hairs of the head. e same sense of God’s providence in relation to the death of a bird is expressed in Gn. Rab. 33:18; y. Šebi. 9:38d. 101. See Cook, ‘Sparrow’s Fall’, 138-44, for texts; cf. Hirunuma, ‘Without (of) the Father’, 53-62. 102. Sparrows also nd bene t in God’s provision in Ps. 84:3. 103. See 1 Sa. 14:45; 2 Sa. 14:11; 1 Ki. 1:52; Lk. 21:18; Acts 27:34. 104. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:208-9, take the connection claimed with not losing a hair of one’s head as implying that this text also be understood as offering complete protection, and rightly reject this understanding. But this implication is not necessary, and the interpretation

offered above produces better coherence than that of Davies and Allison, which involves appeal here to the fathomless wisdom of God. 105. Some interpreters have sensed an arti ciality (and therefore a possible mistranslation) in the reference to ‘heaps of sparrows’, but the presence of ‘heaps of ’ functions as an intensi er: even if one piles up sparrows, there is still a discrepancy. 106. e corresponding text at Lk. 12:8-9 does not use such tightly controlled parallelism: ‘Son of Man’ replaces the rst person pronoun in the second confession statement; a participial construction replaces a full clause in the rst denial statement, and the subject disappears behind a passive construction in the second. A further difference is that confession and denial are ‘before the angels of God’ rather than ‘before my Father who is in heaven’. Luke is likely to have loosened the parallelism in the interests of brevity and variety, and Matthew is likely to have tightened the parallelism. In particular Matthew is likely to be responsible for the loss of Son-of-Man language in each of the second halves. Another form of the rst half is found in Mk. 8:38, which has in uenced Luke’s use at 9:26. ese speak of being ‘ashamed’ and locate the Son of Man’s role at the time of his coming in glory. Despite Hoffmann’s case for an original without Son of Man (‘Jesus versus Menschensohn’, 165-202), an original with Son of Man in both second halves is more likely. See the discussion in Nolland, Luke, 2:478-80, 676; and in relation to the larger Son-of-Man debate, 468-74. 107. e need for public proclamation in Mt. 10:27 and the prospect of Gehenna in v. 28 offer thematic links. 108. e use of ἐν aer ὁμολογήσει is generally thought to be a Semitic touch. 109. e signi cance of the shared use of ὁμολογεῖν (‘acknowledge/make the declaration’) is reinforced by the use of ‘my Father in heaven’ in both 10:32-33 and 7:21. 110. Some scholars appeal to the use of ἔμπροσθεν (‘before’) to argue for a judicial setting (for both the confession/denial before others and before God), but the same word is used of Peter’s denial in a nonjudicial context in Mt. 26:70. 111. See at Mt. 7:21.

112. See esp. Mt. 10:17-22. 113. Nolland, Luke, 2:709. 114. See Is. 66:16; Wis. 5:20; Sir. 39:30; Jub. 9:15; etc. 115. e same pairs are used with the same order within each pair and in the same sequence of pairs, and they share a concluding summary clause. 116. But only ve people, since the ‘mother’ and the ‘mother-in-law’ are the same person. 117. νύμϕη normally means ‘bride’, but in the LXX gains the meaning ‘daughter-in-law’, as here. 118. e de nite article before ἀνθρώπου is generic: ‘a person’. 119. Without the use of this term the imagery of a family link with Jesus is exploited in Mt. 12:46-50. 120. e general motif is quite common in early Jewish sources, but does not seem to have echoed Mi. 7:6. See 2 Esdr. 5:9; 6:24; 2 Bar. 70:3, 7; 1 Enoch 56:7; 100:1-2; Jub. 23:16, 19; Ps.-Philo 6:1. In m. Soṭa 9:15 the link is made with Mi. 7:6, but this is likely to be later. 121. Contrast Jub. 23:16, where the younger generation is in the right. 122. Luke addresses males and has only one long family clause, which includes wife, siblings, and self in the list. 123. See Mt. 10:10, 11, 13, 37, 38. Otherwise the word is found only in 3:8; 22:8. 124. Plut., De sera num. vind. 9.554b. 125. Almost certainly he is to be so imagined, but the emphasis is not there. 126. Matthew’s ‘follow aer’ is a middle term between ‘come aer’ in Lk. 14:27 and ‘follow’ in Mk. 8:34 (also Mt. 16:24; Lk. 9:23), probably re ecting in uence from two sources. (e evidence for the Markan reading is actually quite split, with 45 C* D W Θ 0214 f1 etc. supporting ‘follow aer’ and ‫ א‬A B C2 K L Γ f13 33 892 1241 etc. supporting ‘come aer’. I take the former as most likely re ecting a ‘correcting’ of Mark to Matthew, but the elimination of a redundant expression could be motivation for correcting in the opposite direction.)

127. ψυχή means ‘life’, not ‘soul’, here since the polarity involved is that of life and death. 128. e one LXX usage is in Pr. 21:21, where εὑρίσκειν means ‘obtain’ (re ecting this sense of mṣʾ), but this does not help to understand the Matthean use. 129. See Xen., Anab. 3.1.43. 130. See Syr. Men. 65. 131. See Epict., Diss. 4.1.65. 132. In b. Tam. 32a. 133. Beardslee, ‘Saving One’s Life’, 67. 134. e asymmetry of the inclusion of ‘for my sake’ in the second clause quietly suggests the lack of operation of this priority in the rst clause. 135. But it also connects with the various indications in the discourse that the mission of the disciples is to be understood as an extension of that of Jesus. 136. e language of welcome is used in Mt. 10:14. To the negative case in v. 14 corresponds the positive case in vv. 40-42. 137. See m. Ber. 5:5. 138. In Sipre on Nu. 12:8 the role of Moses is compared to that of a steward who represents his master, against whom to speak is to speak against the master (cf. Mek. on Ex. 14:31). Mek. on Ex. 18:12 is not about authorisation but is verbally much closer: ‘When one welcomes his fellow man, it is considered as if he had welcomed the Divine Presence’. However, the thought here is far removed from the mission-centred thought in Matthew (it is much closer to what we nd in Mt. 25:40). 139. We made the point in discussing 4:20 that Matthew thinks of all discipleship as involving mission. 140. Mt. 7:22 introduces people who prophesy in the name of Jesus. John the Baptist and/or Jesus are identi ed in prophetic terms in 11:9; 13:57; 14:5; 16:14; 21:11, 26, 46; 26:68. 141. Cf. Hill, ‘Δίκαιος’, 298-99. e difference is between a possessive gen. or a gen. of advantage (Hill thinks it is an obj. gen.) and a gen. of source.

142. Hegesippus as quoted in Eusebius, HE 2.23:4-18. e designation is likely to be older than the attached explanation. 143. Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14; cf. 1 Jn. 2:1; Jas. 5:6. 144. e core idea is that the person is not to be a major representative of the cause. Possibly this could be linked to other forms of modesty than that of limitations in their discipleship as such (e.g., socially insigni cant, immature), but the contrast with prophet and righteous one remains important. 145. e giving of a cup of water emerges as a minimal act of mercy in Test. Isaac 6:21; Test. Jac. 2:23. 146. e reemergence of John the Baptist at Mt. 11:2 may reinforce the framing by setting it within a chiastic pattern (speci cally 11:2 corresponds with 4:12). 147. μεταβαίνειν εκεῖθεν (‘go on from there’) will recur in Mt. 12:9; 15:29; Matthew uses ἐκεῖθεν (‘from there’) twelve times. 148. Matthew uses the precise phrase only in these two verses. 149. It is unclear whether this is to be seen in terms of disciples beginning mission from their own hometowns or in terms of the towns in which disciples will actually (begin their?) mission. 150. e word is found in Mt. 10:5, 11, 14, 15, 23.

IX. SEEING CLEARLY AND RELATING RIGHTLY TO GOD’S PRESENT AGENDA (11:2-30) A. John the Baptist and Jesus (11:2-19) 1. ‘e Blind Are Seeing, and the Lame Are Walking …’ (11:2-6) heard in prison about the deeds of the aChrist, John sent [word] his disciples 3and said to him [i.e., Jesus], ‘Are you the cComing One, or are we to wait for another?’4[Jesus] responded and said to them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind are seeing dand the lame are walking,d the lepers are being cleansed and the deaf are hearing, and ethe dead are being raisede and the poor are being brought good news. 6And fortunate is anyone who takes no offence at me.’ 2Having bthrough

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ιησου (‘Jesus’) in D 0233 1342 1424 etc. syc: ‘Christ’ initially seems odd, given that the Baptist is about to express uncertainty about the identity of Jesus. b. δυο (‘two’) in C3 L f1 892 1342 1506 etc. lat syhmg bo, instead of δια (‘through’), an easy mistake, especially in light of Lk. 7:18. c. εργαζομενος (‘working’) in D* is a simple slip, in uenced by εργα (‘deeds’) in v. 2. d-d. e clause is missing from D etc., probably no more than an accidental omission from the list.

e-e. e clause goes to the end of the list (for emphasis?) in Θ f13 etc. syc. An interplay between this reading and the standard may be responsible for a loss of the nal clause in k sys. Bibliography Backhaus, K., Die “Jüngerkreise” des Täufers Johannes: Eine Studie zu den religions-geschichtlichen Ursprüngen des Christentums (Paderborner eologische Studien 19. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1991), 116-37. • Cameron, R., ‘“What Have You Come Out to See?” Characterization of John and Jesus in the Gospels’, Semeia 49 (1990), 35-69. • Casey, M., Aramaic Approach to Q, 105-45. • Collins, J. J., ‘e Works of the Messiah’, DSD 1 (1994), 98-112. • Edwards, R. A., ‘Matthew’s Use of Q in Chapter Eleven’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 257-75. • Gench, F. T., Wisdom, 137-202. • Genuyt, F., ‘Évangile de Matthieu: Chapitre 11’, SémiotBib 68 (1992), 40-41. • George, A., ‘Paroles de Jésus sur ses miracles (Mt 11,5.21; 12,27.28 et par)’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont et al., 283-302. • Green, H. B., Poet, 91-95. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 159-91. • Habandi, P., ‘Eine wieder aktuelle Frage: Zu Lukas 7,18ff.: “Bist du es, der kommen soll, oder sollen wir auf einen andern warten?’ ZMR 6 (1980), 19598. • Kee, H. C., ‘Jesus: A Glutton and a Drunkard’, NTS 42 (1996), 374-93. • Kirchschläger, W., Exorzistisches Wirken, 229-36. • Kollmann, B., Wundertäter, 216-21. • Kvalbein, H., ‘Die Wunder der Endzeit: Beobachtungen zu 4Q521 und Matt 11,5’, ZNW 88 (1997), 111-25. • Kvalbein, H., ‘e Wonders of the End-Time: Metaphoric Language in 4Q521 and the Interpretation of Matthew 11.5 par.’, JSP 18 (1998), 87-110. • Lambrecht, J., ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ LS 8 (1980), 115-28. • Larsen, I., ‘e Importance of Context for Exegesis’, NotesTrans 9 (1995), 51-59. • Mason, S., ‘Fire, Water and Spirit: John the Baptist and the Tyranny of Canon’, SR 21 (1992), 163-80. • Mearns, C., ‘Realized Eschatology in Q? A Consideration of the Sayings in Luke 7.22, 11.20 and 16.16’, SJT 40 (1987), 189-210. • Meier, J. P., ‘John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel’, JBL 99 (1980), 383-405. • Minear, P. S., ‘On Seeing the Good News’, TToday 55 (1998), 163-74. • Neirynck, F., ‘Q 6, 20b-21; 7,22’, in e Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 27-64. • Niebuhr, K.-W., ‘Die Werke des

eschatologischen Freudenboten: 4Q521 und die Jesusüberlieferung’, in Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 637-46. • Nielsen, H. K., Heilung, 57-65. • Puech, E., ‘Une apocalypse messianique (4Q521)’, RevQ 15 (1992), 475-522. • Schönle, V., Johannes, Jesus und die Juden: Die theologische Position des Matthäus und des Verfassers der Redenquelle im Lichte vom Mt. 11 (BBET 17. Frankfurt: Lang, 1982). • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 192-201. • Tabor, J. D. and Wise, M. O., ‘4Q521 “On Resurrection” and the Synoptic Gospel Tradition: A Preliminary Study’, JSP 10 (1992), 149-62. • Verseput, D. J., e Rejection of the Humble Messianic King: A Study of the Composition of Matthew 11–12 (Europäische Hochschulschrien 23/291. Frankfurt: Lang, 1986). • Vogels, W., ‘Performers and Receivers of the Kingdom: A Semiotic Analysis of Matthew 11,2-15’, ScEs 42 (1990), 325-36. • Wainwright, E., ‘“But Who Do You Say at I Am?” An Australian Feminist Response’, Pacifica 10 (1997), 156-72. • Wilkens, W., ‘Die Taüferüberlieferung des Matthäus und ihre Verarbeitung durch Lukas’, NTS 40 (1994), 542-57. • Wink, W., ‘Jesus’ Reply to John: Matt 11:2-6//Luke 7:18-23’, Forum 5.1 (1989), 121-28. • Wise, M. O. and Tabor, J. D., ‘e Messiah at Qumran’, BAR 18.6 (1992), 60-65. • Witherington, B., III., ‘Jesus and the Baptist: Two of a Kind?’ SBLSP 27 (1988), 225-44. • Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist, 106-28. See also at 3:1-12.

e rst three units of the new section have to do with John the Baptist: Mt. 11:2-6 deals with the relationship between Jesus and expectations generated by John; vv. 7-15 de ne the signi cance of John in relation to the new state of affairs inaugurated by Jesus; vv. 16-19 treat John and Jesus together, over against a largely unresponsive public, as those whose deeds vindicate them because they are the deeds of wisdom.1 e three short, linked units in vv. 20-30 will continue the section. e overall theme for the section is something like seeing clearly and relating rightly to God’s present agenda. Matthew makes use in 11:2-19 of a pre-formed set of units, to be found in the same sequence in Lk. 7:18-35. e main differences between Mt. 11:2-6

and Lk. 7:18-23 are Luke’s addition of vv. 20-21. Also, each Evangelist has strongly moulded the opening words of the account for his own purposes.2 e basic historicity of 11:2-6 is well defended by Davies and Allison.3

11:2 A set of verbal and conceptual links bridges back to 4:12, the last mention of John the Baptist.4 In the one case Jesus hears something about John; in the other, John hears something about Jesus. e mutual interplay thus signalled matches the content of the three linked units in 11:2-19. Matthew and Luke envisage an extended period of imprisonment for John.5 By ‘the deeds of the Christ’ Matthew does not mean to distinguish between deeds of healing and Jesus’ preaching activity (cf. the inclusion of good news to the poor in v. 5, the most recent description of Jesus’ ministry in v. 1 as teaching and proclaiming, and the parallel attribution of ‘deeds’ to John in v. 19). In the rst instance the deeds are ‘deeds of the Christ’ to Matthew and his readers, not to John. e linking of deeds and identity is similar to that assumed in 9:27 (see discussion there). 4Q521 2:1-12 juxtaposes the role of the messiah and the Isaianic expectations echoed in Mt. 11:5 (see below), but in the Qumran text God, not the messiah, is said to ful l these expectations. Our sources do not allow us to discover precisely what might have been involved in being a disciple of John, beyond having responded positively to his ministry, but it is clear enough that such disciples existed, and continued to exist, into the early church period. Perhaps engagement in ministry based on John’s marked them out, or perhaps they had a higher view of John’s signi cance than our Christian sources allow to become visible,6 or perhaps the term refers without any particular precision to those who were drawn as retainers into a nearer circle of acquaintance with John.

11:3 John speaks through the mouthpiece of his disciples: the words are his and not theirs. Many claims have been made as to the precise thrust of ‘the Coming One’, but the basis for identi cation is in each case tenuous. Gn. 49:10 (the LXX and versions, but not the MT) and Hab. 2:3 both have a coming joined with the need to wait. An allusion to Hab. 2:3 is most likely. ‘e Coming One’ is deliberately nonspeci c, bringing to expression the essence of all the strands of Jewish eschatological hope which expected God to act by means of an agent. It is not clear how we are to relate John’s con dence about Jesus’ identity implicit in 3:14 with the present questioning, but a certain discomforting tension between John’s expectations and what Jesus did is common property to Mt. 3:14, 9:14, and 11:3.7 John needed to come to terms with the fact that the one of whom he had now been hearing such remarkable things was, despite the quite unexpected form of his ministry, the one whom he had heralded as eschatological judge and deliverer — ‘the one coming aer’ John (Mt. 3:11). 11:4 Hearing and seeing refer to the concrete experience of Jesus’ ministry as a ministry of word and deed (contrast hearing as secondhand report in v. 1). A minor chiasm links the hearing and seeing to the listing in v. 5 (with good news to the poor at the end of the list) and binds the two dimensions closely together. e suggestion here, that the visitors are exposed to the ministry of Jesus and not simply to Jesus’ summary of it, is developed by Luke (7:21) into a statement that Jesus ‘gave a demonstration’ for them. 11:5 e positioning of the uses of καί (‘and’) suggests that Matthew organises the list as two opening pairs balanced against a nal pair.8 But this seems to be nothing more than artistic tidiness unless there is a bridge between the pairing of ‘the deaf shall hear’ and the ‘eyes of the blind shall see’ in Is. 29:18 and the positioning of the blind and the deaf at the beginning and end of the set of two

opening pairs (see also n. 8). Certainly this version echoes Is. 29:18. e other con dent echo is ‘to bring good news to the poor’ in Is. 61:1. An echo of ‘the dead shall rise’ (MT, ‘your dead shall live’) in Is. 26:19 is also likely.9 e time for the ful lment of the Isaianic promises has dawned. e blind have been healed in 9:27-31, the lame made to walk in 9:2-8, a leper is cleansed in 8:1-4,10 Matthew’s κωϕοί are elsewhere enabled to speak rather than to hear (9:32-33; 12:22; 15:30-31) but Matthew probably thinks in terms of a single affliction affecting both speech and hearing (see at 9:32), a dead person is raised in 9:18-26, and good news to the poor is echoed in 5:3. e end of the list is emphasised by pairing good news to the poor with raising the dead and by setting these two alone over against the earlier two pairs. On the signi cance of good news to the poor see the comments at 5:3. is nal item in the list interprets and generalises the signi cance of the earlier items on the list. God’s intervention is not restricted to certain categories of sufferers but is for all the afflicted who will welcome his action. Jesus’ response is theocentric rather than christological, but it is quite clear that Jesus accepts the role of one who functions as the agent of God in this fresh initiative. e implicit christology will come into sharp focus in 11:6. 11:6 For a discussion of the Beatitudes see the comments at 5:3-10.11 In wisdom texts beatitudes serve to commend the proposed path of goodness. e present beatitude is somewhat analogous, but what it commends is a certain kind of readiness to see. ere is challenge here rather than the proclamation characteristic of other beatitudes of Jesus, but since proclamation can imply challenge (e.g., Lk. 11:28), the difference should not be

overstressed. Only in this beatitude is the christological focus explicit (but indirectly the christological focus is just as strong in Mt. 5:11). e beatitude has occasionally been taken as a nal item to the list of 11:5, but it is better to treat it as bringing us back to the opening question. e beatitude both calls for a positive answer to the question and acknowledges that there may be difficulties impeding such a recognition. What are these? Certainly what was happening in relation to Jesus lacked the comprehensiveness to be expected of eschatological ful lment. Also, Jesus was offering persecution to those who followed him, not the decisive vindication that would have matched better the expectations generated by 3:1112. ere may as well be a link with the way that Jonah was scandalised (4:1) when God’s mercy rather than the judgment heralded by Jonah came in the wake of the repentance of Nineveh. Finally, John’s opinion is not what is important in this piece. e beatitude has been expressed in a generic third person form, and we have no account of John’s reaction. It is the Christian community that is to relate itself to the challenge of Jesus’ words. 2. ‘My Messenger … Who Will Prepare Your Way’ (11:7-15) 7As

these were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8What bthen did you go out ato see? A persona decked out in fine clothing? ose who wear fine clothing are [to be found] in the houses of the kings. 9What then did you go out cto see? A prophet?c Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10is is the one about whom it has been written, See, I am sending my messenger before you, Who will prepare your way ahead of you.

11Amen,

I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen one who is greater than John the Baptist. But the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven presses forcefully, and those who are violent grab at it. 13For all the prophets dand the Lawd — until John — prophesy [the future]. 14But [there is more] if you are willing to receive it: he is Elijah, the one who is to come. 15Let the one who has earse hear!

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. e word order is inverted in ‫*א‬, which resolves the punctuation uncertainty to give ‘Why did you go out? To see …’. b. Here and in v. 9 ‘then’ represents the adversative force of the Greek αλλα (lit. ‘but’). c-c. Again, as with note a-a, the word order is inverted, this time in ‫ *א‬B1 W Z 0281vid 892 etc. In both cases the suspicion is of textual alteration to eliminate the uncertainty. d-d. Dropped from sys boms, no doubt because of the awkwardness. e. ακουειν (‘to hear’) is added by ‫ א‬C L W Z Θ f1, 13 33 etc. lat syc, p, h co. ere will be in uence from fuller forms of the formula in the other Gospels (Mk. 4:9; Lk. 8:8; etc.). Bibliography Allison, D. C., Jr., End, 120-24. • Cameron, P. S., Violence and the Kingdom: e Interpretation of Matthew 11.12 (ANTJ 5, 2nd edn. Frankfurt: Lang, 1988). • Catchpole, D. R., ‘e Law and the Prophets in Q’, in Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 95-109. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘On Doing Violence to the Kingdom’, IBS 3 (1981), 77-91. • Cuvillier, É, ‘Jésus aux prises avec la violence dans l’Évangile de Matthieu’, ETR 74 (1999), 335-49. • Doyle, B. R., ‘Matthew 11:12 — A Challenge to the Evangelist’s Community’, Colloquium 18 (1985), 26-27. • Dungan, D. L., ‘Jesus and Violence’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 135-62. • Fridrichsen, A., ‘Neutestamentliche

Wortforschung: Zu Matth. 11.11-15’, in Exegetical Writings, 120-21. • Green, H. B., ‘Matthew 11,7-15: Redaction or Self-Redaction?’, in Synoptic Gospels, ed. C. Focant, 459-66. • Green, H. B., Poet, 95-98. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 191-243. • Häfner, G., ‘Gewalt gegen die Basileia? Zum Problem der Auslegung des “Stürmerspruches” Mt 11,12’, ZNW 83 (1992), 21-51. • Kloppenborg, J. S., Formation, 108-17. • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 427-44. • Kosch, D., Die Gottesherrscha im Zeichen des Widerspruchs: Traditions- und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung von Lk 16.16, Mt 11.12f. bei Jesus, Q und Lukas (European University Studies 23/257. Bern/Frankfurt: Lang, 1985). • Kosch, D., Tora, 427-44. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferungen, 343-60. • Llewelyn, S. R., ‘e Traditionsgeschichte of Matt. 11:12-13, par. Luke 16:16’, NovT 36 (1994), 330-49. • Llewelyn, S. R., ‘Forcible Acquisition and the Meaning of Matt. 11.12’, in New Documents, ed. Llewelyn, S. R., 130-62. • Merklein, H., Gottesherrscha, 80-95. • Moore, W. E., ‘Violence to the Kingdom: Josephus and the Syrian Churches’, ExpTim 100 (1989), 174-77. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 155-78, 509-39. • Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich — Jesu Geschick, 124-29. • Schwarz, G., ‘καὶ βιασταὶ ἁρπάζουσιν αὐτήν?’ BibNot 11 (1980), 43-44. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Ein Rohr, vom Wind bewegt”? (Matthäus 11,7 par. Lukas 7,24)’, BibNot 83 (1996), 19-21. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 202-15. • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 25-42. • eissen, G., ‘Das “schwankenden Rohr” in Mt 11,7 und die Gründungsmünzen von Tiberias’, ZDPV 101 (1985), 43-55. • Vaage, L. E., Upstarts, 96-101. • Vaage, L. E., ‘More than a Prophet, and DemonPossessed: Q and the “Historical” John’, in Conflict, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, 181-202. • Viviano, B. T., ‘e Least in the Kingdom: Matthew 11:11, Its Parallel in Luke 7:28 (Q), and Daniel 4:14’, CBQ 62 (2000), 41-54. • Wanke, J., Kommentarworte, 31-35. • Witherington, B., III., ‘Jesus and the Baptist — Two of a Kind?’ SBLSP 27 (1988), 225-44, esp. 237-38. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 119-26. See further at 11:2-6.

While Mt. 11:2-6 has focussed on the relationship between Jesus and expectations generated by John the Baptist, vv. 7-15 will

comment on the signi cance of John in relation to the new state of affairs inaugurated by Jesus. e parallel Lukan materials are in 7:24-28; 16:16. For Mt. 11:7-11 the language agreement is very strong, but Luke has his (quite different) form of Mt. 11:12-13 at 16:16, has no parallel to Mt. 11:14-15 (probably Matthean with the use of fragments of tradition), and introduces distinctive material for 7:29-30 (which have some relationship to material in Mt. 11:31-32).12

11:7 e close link in Matthew’s mind with vv. 2-6 is indicated by the adequacy of ‘these’ to recall the two disciples of John the Bapist.13 e present participle πορευομένων (‘going’) overlaps the action of the two episodes (Luke prefers the aorist). e use of ‘he began’ is probably intended to mark a sense of duration for Jesus’ discourse on John. ‘e crowds’ are presumably there as a result of the ministry reported in v. 1. It makes little difference whether ‘to see’ (here and in vv. 8, 9) is joined to the preceding materials (and τί taken as ‘what’) or the following materials (and τί taken as ‘why’).14 On John in the wilderness see the comments at 3:1, and on the ocking of the crowds to him see those at 3:5. Is ‘a reed shaken by the wind’ intended literally or as an image of something else? Nonliteral readings suggested include: John the Baptist likened to a reed that has been bent over (his movement has rather zzled out); John contrasted to a reed (his stern message still rm despite imprisonment); John contrasted to Herod (the reed being an emblem on his coins and taken to symbolise his clever adaptability, his unreliability, or his vulnerability to the judgment declared against him by John). e objection to a literal reading is that the reed and the person decked out in nery do not make a good pair.15 But although one is found in the wilderness and the other not, they function well as a pair once it is realised that the

capacity to attract a crowd in the wilderness is the common denominator: reeds shaken by the wind are certainly to be found in the wilderness, but are too commonplace to attract crowds; members of a royal court certainly attracted crowds, but they were not to be sought out in the wilderness. Both the reed and the royal gure meet one condition each (different ones), but fail to meet the other of the two conditions to be met for a possible positive answer. e literal reading is to be preferred. 11:8 e implied answer in v. 7 is ‘No!’,16 so a second option is offered. μαλακός points literally to the soness of the clothing, not to the neness of the weave, but the imagery is of the kind of clothing that would mark out those of highest status. e gure is of a highly important person but is too generally formulated to be intended to point speci cally to the ruler. e rhetorical function of the two false options is to establish a momentum for going beyond the agreed term ‘prophet’ in v. 9 to Jesus’ more speci c assessment of the signi cance of John. 11:9 e common view that John the Baptist was a prophet becomes de nitely visible only at 14:5; 21:26, but it is clearly assumed here as an agreed starting point for Jesus’ own evaluation. Exactly what might have been involved in popular imagination in deciding that John was a prophet is hard to say. No doubt his preaching was considered to have been inspired by God (but this is not quite the same thing as a consistent appropriation of its content). But no precise content is needed because ‘prophet’ is only a launching pad for Jesus’ more speci c claims.17 With ‘more than a prophet’ Jesus moves into territory that his hearers may not immediately share with him.18 11:10 e introductory formula is similar to its usage in the Qumran texts.19 e text is a con ation of Mal. 3:1 and Ex. 23:20,

based on a signi cant degree of verbal overlap. For the rst clause the wording is identical to the LXX of Ex. 23:20.20 For the second clause the echo is of Mal. 3:1, but the language is not as close. In particular, ‘a way’ has become ‘your way’, and ‘ahead of you’ (ἔμπροσθέν σου) replaces ‘before me’ (lepānāy; πρὸ προσώπου μου).21 e latter change allows the con ate text to report a conversation between God and one who is to come aer the messenger, whose way the messenger is to prepare. e one who is to come aer is to make the visit that, according to Mal. 3:1, God has promised to make.22 e same preparatory role has been attributed to John at Mt. 3:2, where the wilderness location is also noted. Since John will be identi ed with Elijah in 11:14, the Mal. 3:1 link probably already implies an identi cation between the messenger of 3:1 and Elijah in 3:23 (ET 4:5). An identical con ation of Ex. 23:20 and Mal. 3:1 (except for the emphatic ‘I’ and the nal ‘before you’) is found in Mk. 1:2. It is not clear what one should make of this, but the latter may well be derived ultimately from the tradition represented in the former.23 11:11 Matthew uses ‘Amen, I say to you’ frequently to re ect the historic diction of Jesus and to underline his self-con dent authority (see at 5:18). ἐγήγερται could be passive (‘has been raised up’) and take up the sending by God of 11:10, but since it is applied to the whole parade of humanity it is more likely to be middle (‘has arisen’) and lack this precision of focus. ‘ose born of women’ re ects OT and other Jewish usage.24 In light of ‘in the kingdom of God’ to come, the phrase is likely to prepare for the ‘how much greater’ statement in v. 11b by gently underlining human limitation. Matthew’s pattern in using ‘John’ or ‘John the Baptist’ is basically to prefer the former in his own narrative, aer the rst introduction of the Baptist (aer this the other uses are resumptive),25 and to prefer the latter in speech (but not always in resumption within a

speech).26 John is not identi ed as the unique occupant of the highest place. Since John is more than a prophet, possibly Moses is to be seen as a co-occupant, but Matthew does not clearly indicate whether any co-occupant is intended. One can easily be caught in a tangle of logical problems in dealing with this verse. Does v. 11a subordinate Jesus to John (or at least put them on the same level)? Does the contrast between v. 11a and v. 11b exclude John from the kingdom? How can v. 11b (John’s apparent exclusion) be reconciled with v. 12a (John’s apparent inclusion in the same time period as Jesus)? At least in part the difficulties fade away when we identify the salvation-historical perspective from which the language has been formulated: rst there is the whole sweep of preceding human history, and then there is the kingdom of God. John is not affirmed for his personal qualities and achievements, but for his role in the unfolding of the purposes of God. It is his to prepare for and announce at its threshold the visit which will ful l Mal. 3:1. Mt. 11:11b is a comment on how the situation at the time of Jesus’ speaking differs from all preceding time, including even the privileged time of John’s role. Or, to be more precise, more than time is involved since what is at stake is the presence of the one heralded (v. 10) and the things that are happening in his presence (vv. 5-6). e comparative form of μικρότερος (lit. ‘littler’) could be taken to encourage an immediate comparison with John, which would suggest a reference to Jesus (younger, a former disciple of John, less signi cant as a baptiser?), but this would oblige us to link ‘in the kingdom’ of heaven’ forward, which word order does not encourage. It is better to take the comparative as standing for a superlative (as in Matthew’s only other use of the word, in 13:32) and to take the de nite article as generic. Clearly, what is indirectly being eulogised is the signi cance of the kingdom of heaven. e

thing that matters is to be in it. e language of importance here makes essentially the same point as the language of good fortune and privilege in 5:3-10. With the presence of Jesus it is now possible to be in the sphere of the presence and working of the kingdom of heaven.27 John is in prison and is not yet a participant in the new state of affairs inaugurated by Jesus’ ministry, and so the privilege of John pales into insigni cance when compared to the privilege of those who are now participating in the kingdom of God. 11:12 Matthew is, however, not entirely comfortable with what could easily be taken as exalting the signi cance of the kingdom of God at the expense of John the Baptist. For Matthew, John is a transitional gure who in important ways stands shoulder to shoulder with Jesus in working for God in bringing in the coming of the kingdom: both John and Jesus are preachers of the kingdom, and a brutal fate awaits both at the hands of the governing authorities. Seen together John and Jesus represent the ‘advance forces’ of the kingdom. ough ‘from’ can either include or exclude ‘the days of John the Baptist’, the syntax is overweighted if ‘from the days’ and ‘until now’ are not designed to draw together the ministries of John and Jesus.28 βιάζεται could be either middle or passive. e former renders the kingdom powerfully making an impact, while the latter has the kingdom suffering violence. e cognate βιασταί occurs in the next clause and means ‘violent (or impetuous) persons’.29 Occasional attempts are made to apply βιασταί to those who eagerly come to Jesus, but this requires a reading that is too cryptically parabolic to be plausible.30 Scholars sometimes feel obliged to take the verb and the cognate noun as expressing synonymous sentiments, but this makes the second statement somewhat redundant and therefore anticlimactic.31 e balance and poetry of the statement emerge if we take it as a statement about how one

kind of forceful activity is met by another, opposed kind of forceful activity. If we take βιάζεται as middle, the rst clause speaks of the power and authority of the preaching of the kingdom of God (by John and Jesus) and of Jesus’ assault on illness, disability, and even death itself.32 e second clause underlines the imprisonment of John in the immediate context and picks up on the various threads which have indicated the scale of opposition which what Jesus stands for will provoke.33 It is not easy to give a precise sense to ἁρπάζουσιν. is is yet another word connoting violence, this time ‘seizing’, ‘grabbing at’, ‘snatching up’, ‘plundering’, and the like. e proper force to be given depends a great deal on the way βιάζεται and βιασταί are to be understood. But given the above decisions, the word will express a hostile reaction of some kind. Trying to get into the kingdom on false terms is a possibility, with 3:7-9 in mind. Trying to control access to (the bene ts of) the kingdom might suggest itself with reference to 9:3, 34 and especially 23:13 to come. Plundering as an image of carrying off the resources of the kingdom might be applied to the imprisonment of John and its counterpart in the growing hostility to Jesus. e imagery could even be of the attempt to snatch back those who have been forcefully impacted by the kingdom of God. No de nite choice is possible, but the penultimate choice produces the best cohesion with the immediate context. 11:13-15 In v. 12 ἕως (‘until’) linked John with Jesus; here it probably includes John with the Law and the (other) prophets.34 e phrase ‘all the prophets and the Law’ is quite distinctive; ‘the prophets’ has probably been drawn to the beginning to identify from the beginning the focus of the clause on the activity of prophecy. In Matthew’s focus, the time of prophetic activity is seen as pointing to a time of ful lment, which he is eager to identify as

taking place in and through Jesus (see the role of the formula quotations beginning with 1:22-23). But John is a pivotal gure: he also belongs to the period of ful lment. In fact, his role signals the arrival of this period of ful lment. He is the Elijah prophesied in Mal. 3:23 (ET 4:5), the one who prepares Israel for the day of the Lord. ‘If you are willing to receive [it]’ has a somewhat parallel role to Mt. 11:6: difficulties lie in the way of believing what is asserted, presumably here because John’s role appears to have been rudely interrupted by his imprisonment, an impression to be con rmed by his subsequent execution. V. 15 is a Matthean use of a traditional saying that oated from one context to another.35 Re ecting as it does prophetic texts which deal with the failure to hear aright,36 it makes a point that is useful in various contexts: it takes more than ears to hear with understanding. e challenge is to pay proper attention to what is being said, not so much because the status of John as Elijah is central to faith, but because of where such a recognition places the signi cance of the ministry of Jesus. Where v. 13 has repeated the content of v. 9a, v. 14 represents a further elaboration of ‘more than a prophet’ of v. 9b, which has been explained in vv. 10-11a, while v. 15 brings closure by taking up as a direct imperative the thrust of vv. 11b-12. 3. ‘He Has a Demon … a Glutton and a Drunkard’ (11:16-19) 16To

what shall I compare this generation? [e situation] is like children sitting in the public square who call out to the othersa and say, 17‘We

played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailedb, and you did not mourn.’

John camec neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’. 19e Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘See, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ And yet Wisdom is vindicated by dher edeeds. 18For

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Expanded with αυτων (‘of them’) in C L W Θ f13 33 etc. syc, p, h to make it clear that the others are children. b. υμιν (‘for you’) is added in C L W Θ f13 33 etc. it sy, in parallel with the rst line of the refrain. c. Completed with προς υμας (‘to you’) in Θ f13 etc. syc, h. d. In uenced by Lk. 7:35, f1 etc. (k) add παντων (‘all’). e. In uenced by Lk. 7:35, B2 C D L Θ f1 33 etc. lat sys, c, hmg samss mae have τεκνων (‘children’). Bibliography Bolyki, J., Tischgemeinscha, 70-74. • Burnett, F. W., Testament, 81-94. • Carson, D. A., ‘Matthew 11:19b/Luke 7:35: A Test Case for the Bearing of Q Christology on the Synoptic Problem’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 128-46. • Corley, K. E., Private Women, 128-33, 152-58. • Cotter, W. J., ‘e Parable of the Children in the Marketplace, Q (Lk) 7:3135: An Examination of the Parable’s Images and Signi cance’, NovT 29 (1987), 289-304. • Cotter, W. J., ‘Children Sitting in the Agora: Q (Luke) 7:31-35’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 63-82. • Deutsch, C., ‘Wisdom in Matthew: Transformation of a Symbol’, NovT 32 (1990), 13-47. • Deutsch, C., Lady Wisdom, 46-54, 117-19. • Flusser, D., Gleichnisse, 1:151-55. • Franzmann, M., ‘Of Food, Bodies, and the Boundless Reign of God in the Synoptic Gospels’, Pacifica 5 (1992), 17-31. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 256-63. • Green, H. B., Poet, 98-101. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 244-80. • Hartin, P. J., ‘“Yet Wisdom Is Justi ed by Her Children” (Q 7:35): A Rhetorical and Compositional Analysis of Divine Sophia in Q’, in Conflict, ed. J. S.

Kloppenborg, 151-64. • Hoffmann, P., Studien, 96, 196-98, 224-31. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 202-12. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 266-69. • Kee, H. C., ‘Jesus: A Glutton and Drunkard’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 311-32. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 124-29. • Lövestam, E., ‘e ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη Eschatology in Mk 13.30 parr’, in Apocalypse, ed. J. Lambrecht, 403-13. • Sevenich-Bax, E., Konfrontation, 215-25. • Shantz, C., ‘Wisdom Is as Wisdom Does: e Use of Folk Proverbs in Q 7:31-35’, TJT 17 (2001), 249-62. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 158-79. • Vaage, L. E., Upstarts, 87-89. • Wanke, J. Kommentarworte, 35-40. • Wimmer, J. F., Fasting, 102-10. See further at 11:2-6, 7-15.

In the third and nal of the three pieces treating the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus, the two are placed together, over against a largely unresponsive public: their deeds vindicate them since they are doing the deeds of wisdom. e parallel material in Lk. 7:31-35 is quite close in wording. e main differences are Matthean abbreviation of the double form of the opening question in Luke and the preference in Mt. 11:19 for ‘deeds’ over the Lukan ‘children’.37

11:16-17 Comparisons are frequent in parables, but they generally identify a likeness to the kingdom of God.38 References to ‘this generation’ will appear again in 12:41, 42; 23:36; 24:34. By the phrase Jesus means his own contemporaries as the generation in whom the eschatological events, beginning with the ministry of John the Baptist, are being played out. As is quickly evident here, ‘this generation’ is generally viewed as not experiencing this unfolding in a positive manner. ere is surprisingly little so far in Matthew’s story to prepare us for the present characterisation of Jesus’ generation.39 For Jesus himself there is only the critical remark of ‘some of the scribes’ in

9:3, the uncomprehending laughter of the crowd of mourners in v. 24, and the suggestion by the Pharisees in v. 34 of collusion with Satan.40 In the immediate context we have the hint of people taking offence at Jesus (11:6) and not being willing to accept the claim that John is the returning Elijah (v. 14). But this is hardly enough, and it seems best to think that, as in 2:3 and 3:7, Matthew is being in uenced in his telling at this point by a perspective that comes from a later time when large-scale Jewish rejection of Jesus was evident. Perhaps part of the difficulty has to do with the nature of the source materials. Stories were preserved primarily for the purpose of pointing up the signi cance of Jesus. Reports of a positive response to Jesus make an obvious contribution to this aim, but accounts of him being ignored do not make good copy for this purpose, or at least not until we get something as dramatic as Jesus’ reproach in 11:20-24. It is not unlikely that the Gospel writers had to struggle with an information gap between the accounts of positive response on the one hand and isolated pieces like 11:20-24 and the fact of loss of public support at the time of the cruci xion on the other. e text says literally ‘it is like’, but it becomes clear from the range of parabolic comparisons yet to come that the Gospel syntax is loose (Semitic) and that the point of comparison in the likeness is not necessarily between this generation and the children calling out.41 e combined effect of lack of precision at this point, uncertainty as to the exact imagery involved in the mini-parable, and difficulty in identifying the commonality between the action of the parable and the actions of Jesus and John and the responses to them has been a multiplication of interpretations. It is clear enough that the playing of the ute is an invitation to dance (as in Herodotus 1.141), perhaps at a wedding, and that the

wailing is a dramatic expression of mourning,42 which invites sympathetic participation from others. But beyond that, things become more difficult. Do two groups of children own one line each of the words quoted?43 en the situation is one of mutual recrimination and the point of focus is the children’s failure actually to get (either) game played…. Does one group of children offer unwilling starters two alternatives? en the situation is one in which those invited to play cannot be pleased and will not play the game … (… the reluctant children are contradictory, obstinate, and capricious). Have self-appointed leaders of the play allocated to themselves the easy roles (so: ‘sitting’) and are now complaining that the other children will not take up the more strenuous play tasks (dancing, vigorous displays of mourning)…?44 en the interest will be in the unreasonable behavior of those who give orders and criticize…. Or is the refrain actually part of the game — a chorus whose point is that the second group of children have been baffled by the rst group’s mime…. ere are many variants of these major options.45

Recently Cotter has drawn links between the sitting posture of the children, the ἀγορά as not only the marketplace but also the place where the court sat, and the use of the formal προσϕωνοῦντα (‘calling out’) to suggest that the children are involved in playing the judge. Her suggestion is that the accusation is of an immaturity which presents itself as a pompous pretense of wisdom but is actually the pursuit of sel sh and vacillating whims.46 Is it this generation who are like the children, or are Jesus and John like the children? Since both the parable and the explanation (vv. 18-19) have a pattern of initiative and response, I favour a view that keeps these aligned — so, Jesus and John as the children — but I recognise that there could be signi cance in the repetition in vv. 18 and 19 of λέγουσιν (‘they say’) to introduce the words of the

children, and that this pulls in the opposite direction. Also in favour of identifying the children with John and Jesus is the ease with which John’s asceticism may be linked with mourning, and Jesus’ celebratory approach to meals with the dancing called for.47 e words of the children have the marks of being a xed form, whether taken from an actual children’s game or possibly used proverbially in some way.48 Drawing on Cotter’s observations but developing them quite differently, I suggest that we may have an image of John and Jesus playing the role of a pair of children calling their peers to account in a mock judgment scene. ey have offered a full range of play choice, but nothing has pleased the children, who remained unmoved. e important role of mourning and celebration in Palestinian life (and beyond) and the sharp contrast between the two allow for the paired images in the refrain to stand (as the extreme examples) for a full spectrum of choice. 11:18 If the refrain in v. 17 has been rightly construed, then the respective roles of John and Jesus are taken up in a chiastic manner (binding the two gures together). John’s food has been identi ed in 3:4 as locusts and wild honey. e fasting practices of his disciples have surfaced at 9:14. Davies and Allison think that ‘neither eating nor drinking’ functions as a negation of ‘eating and drinking’ as connoting carefree excess.49 But the avoidance of excess offers little to object to, and it seems to me that this connotation of carefree excess is rare or nonexistent in biblical idiom.50 Rather, eating and drinking connote meeting the basic needs of life, or enjoying life, or celebrating (as in a feast). Not eating or drinking is connected with mourning, with fasting, and with oaths to ful l some action before partaking again of food or drink. In 5:33 Luke can set over against each other the fasting and praying of John’s

disciples and the eating and drinking of Jesus’. It is John’s religious asceticism which is being pointed to. Wherever they specify, the Gospels always see demon possession as having the effect of producing damaging personality disorders and/or a state of debilitation. is generation views John’s self-deprivation as a distorting diminution of his life produced by the presence of a demon. en, no doubt, this interpretation in turn justi es ignoring his message. Historically, was such a thing ever said of John?51 We have a problem somewhat parallel to that above about popular rejection of Jesus. e Gospel sources (except here) and Josephus52 speak only of a positive reaction to John among the people (except in the case of Herod and his family, and leaders in Jerusalem53). e Christian sources probably emphasise the positive impact of John for the same sorts of reasons that they emphasise the positive impact of Jesus. But historically it is very likely that, though John was a widely popular gure, the diverse and riven Jewish population would have reacted in a wide range of ways to his ministry (and many may have changed their reactions when nothing seemed to come of his predictions as he languished in prison). e diversity of reaction is simply not available for inspection. To accuse John of being demon-possessed is of a piece with accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the ruler of the demons (9:34), just as to speak of Jesus as a friend of tax collectors and sinners (11:19) will nd a later echo in the statement in 21:32 that ‘the tax collectors and prostitutes believed [John]’. Despite their evident difference, John and Jesus are to be seen as in solidarity both in what they stand for and in how they are rejected. 11:19 On Jesus’ self-reference as ‘the Son of Man’ see the comments at 8:20. ‘Eating and drinking’ is a conscious verbal

opposite to the ‘neither eating nor drinking’ of 11:18, but only in part can we draw its meaning from this opposition. Certainly the distance of Jesus from the piety practices of the disciples of John is partly in view (9:14), but the wedding imagery from the same incident is also relevant (v. 15), as is the eating with tax collectors and sinners of the previous episode (vv. 10-13). Whereas John’s asceticism was interpreted as and exaggerated into self-abuse, Jesus’ positive engagement with unsavoury people allowed his enjoyment of food and drink in a communal context and his celebratory posture to be interpreted as and exaggerated into gross excess, perhaps even the gross excess of the rebellious son who deserves only to be stoned (Dt. 21:20-21). In the diction of the critics, ‘friend of tax collectors and sinners’ implies affirmation of the behaviour of these categories of people, but for the rather different Matthean understanding of Jesus’ association with such people see the discussion at 9:10. Since the nal sentence of 11:19 clearly expresses a contrast, the opening καί (lit. ‘and’) is translated ‘and yet’. e idea that Jesus is identi ed as Wisdom incarnate has become a popular reading of this text, but this is surely wrong. Aer the careful interweaving of John and Jesus that has occurred in vv. 16-19, Jesus can hardly be set apart here. It is true that ‘her deeds’ takes us back to the ‘deeds of the Christ’ in v. 2,54 but the journey in between now encourages us to see the activity of John as also to be included within the scope of the deeds of wisdom. e personi cation of wisdom here is in line with OT and intertestamental Jewish wisdom tradition.55 In the imagery, John and Jesus are best seen as envoys of Wisdom. ἐδικαιώθη then refers to the vindication of Wisdom over against those who make the accusations of vv. 18-19. e process of vindication is perhaps best illustrated by returning to vv. 2-6: for those prepared to see, what is going on points transparently to its

signi cance.56 (In the Lk. 7:35 parallel, Wisdom is vindicated, rather, by the impact of the ministries of John and Jesus on those who see that God’s marvellous purposes are here being worked out.) B. Rejected and Accepted by; Hidden from and Revealed to (11:20-30) 1. Reproaching Privileged Towns (11:20-24) 20en ahe

began to reproach the towns in which most of his mighty works happened, because they did not repent. 21‘Woe to you, Chorazin! bWoe to you,b Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which happened in you had happened in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long agoc in sackcloth and ashes. 22In fact, I say to you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23And you, Capernaum, d[do you think] you will be exalted to heaven?d [No,] you will ebe brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works which happened in you had happened in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24In fact, I say to you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ιησους (‘Jesus’) is found in C K L N W Θ f1, 13 565 579 892 etc. g1 h vgmss sy samss, which reinforces the sense of a fresh start that the other opening words suggest. b-b. Abbreviated to και (‘and’) in D it. c. In uenced by Lk. 10:13, καθημενοι (‘sitting’) is added by C 33 etc. (Δ f1 892 1424 etc. syh). d-d. η εως (του) ουρανου υψωθεισα (or υψωθης) (‘who are exalted to heaven’) is read by Δ Γ f13 33 700 etc. f g1 h q sys, p, h, probably from a scribal

mishearing, but producing a well-balanced statement. e. καταβηση (‘go down’) in B D W etc. latt sys, c sa. In Lk. 10:15 the witness is also split. Either one is original in each place, or one has displaced the other on the basis of the LXX reading of Is. 14:5. Bibliography Green, H. B., Poet, 101-4. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 259-64. • Oberlinner, L., Todeserwartung, 86-93. • Pixner, B., ‘Searching for the New Testament Site of Bethsaida’, BA 48 (1985), 207-16. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 221-30. • Strickert, F., Bethsaida: Home of the Apostles (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1998). • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 47-52. See further at 11:2-6.

e immediate reason for locating this piece here is its link with the rejecting stance of ‘this generation’ in vv. 16-19: in some speci c instances Jesus anticipates the dreadful outcome of such a stance; here are concrete cases of Jesus acting out the children’s game of vv. 16-17. e three small units vv. 20-24, 25-27, and 28-30 are put together as a set (‘rejected and accepted by; hidden from and revealed to’), but together they provide a ‘part 2’ to the section that began at 11:2 (see in 11:2-6). V. 20 appears to have been secondarily formed to serve as an introduction to the material in vv. 21-24; its language is largely borrowed from the material it introduces. Luke parallels Mt. 11:21-24 in 10:12-15 (part of the mission discourse). Matthew has relocated the materials, provided an independent introduction, and relocated Lk. 10:12 to the end in the interests of developing the parallelism between the treatment of Chorazin and Bethsaida and the treatment of Capernaum.57

11:20 ‘en he began’ joins this episode with the preceding: the mock judgment of the children’s game is now played out in all

seriousness. Capernaum, as the place where Jesus made his home (4:13) and from which his call to repentance in view of the coming kingdom rst went out (v. 17), has an obvious claim to being a place where many of Jesus’ mighty works58 may have taken place. e de nite article with δυνάμεις (‘mighty works’) stands against giving πλεῖσται an elative sense (‘numerous mighty works’), and thus soening the difficulties attendant on having Matthew locate most of Jesus’ mighty works in these towns (but ‘most’ does not need to mean more than that these towns had more mighty works per town than did any other town). Luz aptly speaks of the placing of this incident as ‘“narratologically” false’.59 On the likelihood that this difficulty arises in part from the Gospel writers’ having to struggle with an information gap between the accounts of positive response on the one hand, and isolated pieces like 11:20-24 and the fact of loss of public support at the time of the cruci xion on the other hand, see the discussion at vv. 16-17. But we are also surprised here by the importance of Chorazin and Bethsaida, which are otherwise unmentioned in Matthew. We are le to imagine them as tucked away in general statements (e.g., 4:23; 9:35). Most miracle accounts in the Gospel tradition are not rmly linked to a location, and locations are at times manipulated for literary reasons. Perhaps Matthew inadvertently raises the pro le of Chorazin and Bethsaida more here than he really intends. Within the mission-discourse context the towns needed only to be suitable examples.60 Since, however, Matthew has separated the material from its setting in the mission charge, he needs an explanation as to why these towns are highlighted for special mention. Given a Capernaum base for a considerable part of Jesus’ ministry, and that these towns are reasonably close by, it is reasonable to see them as particularly bene ting from Jesus’ ministry, on the basis that they t

geographically within the orbit of a Capernaum-based ministry. e only distinguishing feature that Matthew can propose is a quantitative one related to exposure to Jesus’ mighty works. 11:21 e form is that of a prophetic lamentation. In the OT these are mostly directed to Gentile peoples and include, in particular, lamentations addressed to Tyre and Sidon;61 so the address to Jewish towns is the more striking. In the present Matthean setting those addressed are absent, but so would it have been in OT prophetic lamentations. οὐαί (‘woe’) is used in the LXX to translate various Hebrew interjections, but is rare in other Greek. It may ultimately be a Latinism. Woes are for those whose situation is miserable (whether they realise it or not). ‘Woe to you’ is used similarly in Nu. 21:29; Je. 13:27. e location of Chorazin is not de nitely known, but it is probably to be identi ed with Kerazeh, which is about two and half miles from Capernaum. Bethsaida was just inside Gaulanitis, close to the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee and about three miles from Capernaum. Matthew has no further reference to Bethsaida, but it does play a modest role in the other Gospels.62 e pairing of the towns prepares for the role of Tyre and Sidon as paired towns. Sackcloth is a rough cloth made of goats’ hair and worn over the naked body in token of mourning or penitence. In the Greek world the meaning of the word is wider (coarse hair cloth for bags and sacks), but the penitential use of the material was known.63 e link with ashes is found in several OT texts.64 One covered oneself with sackcloth and either dusted oneself down with or sat in the ashes. Important towns on the Mediterranean coast, and not too far apart, Tyre and Sidon were traditionally paired.65 Implicitly the woe is a claim about the signi cance of Jesus’ ministry. Opportunity and privilege bring responsibility. ‘e text[, however,] shows no awareness of the question at once posed to the

concerns of a theodicy of why, in the economy of God, the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon should have been denied such an opportunity for repentance.’66 But perhaps Mt. 11:22 offers the foundations for the beginnings of an answer. 11:22 e opening πλήν (normally marking an intense contrast) is here used as a strong ascensive,67 with a similar function to the ‘amen’ in Mt. 10:15 (which see for discussion of ‘more bearable … in the day of judgment’). ‘I say to you’, found in Lk. 10:12 and Mt. 11:24 but not in Lk. 10:14 (the parallel to Mt. 11:22), is added here for the sake of the parallelism. Talk of the better position of Tyre and Sidon is not particularly to offer hope to Tyre and Sidon, but rather to identify the future situation of the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida as worse than that of cities clearly identi ed in Scripture as ripe for judgment (see texts at n. 61). 11:23 e words addressed to Capernaum do not strictly have a woe form. In place of the woe and in a slightly later position come the considerably lengthier rhetorical question and its answer. Matthew records no decisive breach with Capernaum. 13:54-58 come close if Matthew thinks in terms of a Capernaum location for this episode (which he probably does not), but Matthew has Jesus back in Capernaum in 17:24. e language dealing with the pride and coming fall of Capernaum echoes the oracle against the king of Babylon in Is. 14:4b-21 (esp. v. 13, ‘I will ascend to heaven’; v. 15, ‘you will be brought down [LXX ‘go down’] to Hades’). e various speculations about what the basis was for Capernaum’s pride are misplaced: the concern is rhetorical; the optimistic expectations of Capernaum are only a foil for the coming disaster which Jesus announces. e Greek term ‘Hades’ is properly the name of the god of the underworld, the place of the dead, but through LXX usage it gains fresh meaning. Hades in the LXX represents Sheol of the MT.

Sheol was the sphere of the lingering and shadowy continuation of existence of the dead. Sometimes it carries overtones of judgment since the proud and mighty get there by being stripped of their power and humbled in death. As belief in resurrection became important in Judaism, there were corresponding adjustments to the understanding of Hades and Sheol. e explanation in Mt. 11:23 has no counterpart in Luke. It is modelled on the parallel in v. 21, but where v. 21 speaks of repentance for Tyre and Sidon, v. 23 speaks of the survival of the city of Sodom which would have resulted from an experience of a ministry in their midst like that of Jesus.68 ‘Until this day’ is found again in 27:8 (but using ἕως rather than μέχρι for ‘until’); 28:15. Here it is a counterpart to ‘long ago’ in v. 21. 11:24 Aside from ‘land of Sodom’ causing the use of the singular for ‘you’, the form is identical to the parallel in v. 22.69 Despite the city’s having been totally destroyed, the people of Sodom are still available to be called to judgment. e judgment on Sodom in history was expected to be parallelled by its fate at the nal judgment. Where does that leave Capernaum? 2. e Good Pleasure of the Father and the Choice of the Son (11:25-27) 25At

that time Jesus said in response, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from wise and understanding people and revealed them to infants. 26Yes, Father, for in this way [something which was your] good pleasure happened in front of you. 27Everything has been passed on to me by amy Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal [him].’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Omitted by ‫ *א‬etc. sams bo, giving ‘the Father’. Bibliography Allison, D. C., ‘Two Notes on a Key Text: Matthew 11:25-30’, JTS 39 (1988), 477-85. • Boring, M. E., ‘A Proposed Reconstruction of Q 10:23-24’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 456-71. • Deutsch, C. M., Hidden Wisdom and the Easy Yoke: Wisdom, Torah and Discipleship in Matthew 11.25-30 (JSNTSup 18. Sheffield: JSOT, 1987). • Deutsch, C. M., Lady Wisdom, 54-60, 117-19. • Frankemölle, H., ‘Die Offenbarung an die Unmündigen: Pragmatische Impulse aus Mt 11,25f ’, in Biblische Handlungsanweisungen: Beispiele pragmatischer Exegese (Mainz: Grünewald, 1983), 80-108. • Gench, F. T., Wisdom, 91-136. • Green, H. B., Poet, 104-26. • Grimm, W., Jesus und das Danielbuch, I: Jesu Einspruch gegen das Offenbarungssystem Daniels: Mt. 11,25-27; Lk. 17,20-21 (ANTJ 6. Bern/Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1984), 169. • Henaut, B. W., ‘Matthew 11:27: e underbolt in Corinth?’ TJT 3 (1987), 282-300. • Hoffmann, P., Studien, 102-42. • Klijn, A. F. J., ‘Matthew 11.25/Luke 10.21’, in Textual Criticism, ed. E. J. Epp and G. D. Fee, 1-14. • Légasse, S., ‘Le logion sur le Fils révélateur (Mt., IX,27 par. Lc., X,22). Essai d’analyse prérédactionnelle’, in La notion biblique de Dieu, ed. J. Coppens (BETL 41, 2d edn. Gembloux: Duculot, 1985), 245-74. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 109-21. • Nielsen, H. K., Heilung, 51-57. • Nützel, J. M., Jesus als Offenbarer Gottes nach den lukanischen Schrien (FB 39. Würzburg: Echter, 1980), 139-75. • Pryor, J. W., ‘e Great anksgiving and the Fourth Gospel’, BZ 35 (1991), 157-79. • Richardson, P., ‘e underbolt in Q and the Wise Man in Corinth’, in From Jesus to Paul. FS F. W. Beare, ed. P. Richardson and J. C. Hurd (Waterloo: Laurier University, 1984), 91-111. • Saabe, M., ‘Can Mt 11,25-7 and Lk 10,21-22 Be Called a Johannine Logion?’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 263-71. • Scaria, K. J., ‘Jesus’ Prayer and Christian Prayer’, Biblebhashyam 7 (1981), 160-85. • Wanke, J., Kommentarworte, 4551. See further at 11:2-6.

e link with the rejecting stance of ‘this generation’ evident for Mt. 11:20-25 continues in vv. 25-27, but it is balanced by the positive thread that runs from those who are fortunate in v. 6 through those who are willing to accept in v. 14. Alongside and beyond the active choice and personal responsibility of those who have spurned the message (vv. 20-25) stand the decision of God about the people to whom what is really going on will be revealed and from whom it will be concealed, and the choice of the Son of those to whom he will reveal the Father. e Lukan parallel, 10:21-22, is separated from the parallel to Mt. 11:20-24 by Luke’s account of the return of the Seventy. ough each Evangelist provides a distinctive introduction, the wording is otherwise very close.70

11:25 Both ‘at that time’71 and ‘in response’72 tie vv. 25-27 with preceding materials, indicating that a line of thought continues. e use of ἐξομολογεῖν to mean ‘thank’ is a Septuagintalism. With the verb in the future, the phrase here is used frequently in the LXX of the thanksgiving psalms. ough addressed to God, this is a public thanksgiving. By itself ‘Father, Lord of heaven and earth’ falls within the orbit of contemporary Jewish sensibilities about God (cf. 2 Macc. 6:3, 8), but the link with v. 26, where ‘Father’ stands alone and a uniqueness of mutual knowledge is affirmed between the Son and the Father, suggests that something more is already intended here. ‘Lord of heaven and earth’ is exactly parallelled in Tob. 7:17 and 1QapGn 22:16, 21. Here the phrase points forward to the sovereign disposition of insight which is about to be spoken of. ough God as revealer is much spoken of, selective revelation by God is not a standard Jewish theme. Certainly God chose to reveal himself to Israel in Egypt (e.g., 1 Sa. 2:27) and to reveal his Law to Israel at Sinai (e.g., Ps. 147:19-20); and God makes things

known to his prophets, whose role it is to speak for him (e.g., 1 Sa. 3:7; Am. 3:7; cf. Dn. 2:30). Perhaps closest to what we have in Matthew is the role of God as revealer of the paths of life to those who look to him (e.g., Pss. 16:11; 25:4).73 e imprecise ‘these things’ is best taken as pointing to the signi cance of what in the purposes of God is happening in and through the ministry of Jesus (and of John the Baptist). ‘Wise’ and ‘understanding’ would seem to be a natural pair, but in biblical materials they are joined as here only in Pr. 16:21 (not parallelled in the MT) and, as part of a longer list, in Dt. 1:13, 15.74 e absence of children from the Matthean story thus far and the contrast established between ‘infants’ and ‘wise and understanding people’ suggest that ‘infants’ might be being used metaphorically. e LXX use of νήπιος to translate pty, which can mean ‘simple’ as well as ‘infant’, has expanded the available scope of νήπιος.75 e lack of natural wisdom of the pty/νήπιος is clear in various texts.76 e pty/νήπιος is not necessarily defective; the reference need only be to an ordinary person, with the limitations of an ordinary person.77 Certainly for Matthew the imagery of the child is present since 21:15-16 take up the perspective of 11:25 in connection with children. at wise and understanding people do not necessarily understand what is going on points to insight in this context as something that must be divinely bestowed and cannot be achieved at the merely human level.78 To be wise and understanding is not negative here; nor are we to understand that all wise and understanding people are automatically excluded from insight. Similarly, to be an infant is not actually commended. e point is that, while infants are not normally able to understand matters of any complexity, here there are infants who are supernaturally endowed with insight. Again, the claim is not that all infants

received the revelation. e sentiment cuts across human valuations, but does not yet invert them. In a context where human wisdom does not subordinate itself to the revelation of divine wisdom the thought can easily develop into something that is more hostile to human wisdom.79 Here, however, no basis for the granting or withholding of insight is declared. 11:26 ναί (‘yes’) may represent an ‘amen’ in the source form. In any case, it functions as an expression of affirmation, reiterating the content of the Father’s action in v. 25. e verse is regularly identi ed as strongly Semitic and is widely considered to re ect clearly the wording of an Aramaic original. ‘Father’ now stands alone, which smooths the transition to v. 27, where the focus will be on the unique mutual knowledge of Father and Son. e role of ὅτι is to indicate the supportive role of the following clause:80 what has happened is indeed the implementation of the will of God. εὐδοκία (‘good pleasure’) is cognate to the verb translated in 3:17 as ‘come to delight’. See the discussion there. e meaning combines notions of decision and approval. e imagery is probably of what gives God satisfaction happening before him: ‘In this way [something which was your] good pleasure happened in front of you’. Any sense that there has been a miscarriage in the purposes of God is robustly contradicted; God is affirmed as the prime mover in the unfolding events. 11:27 is verse no longer addresses the Father but speaks about him to a third party audience, and the content becomes decidedly didactic. e shared concern about revelation draws together vv. 25-26 and v. 27, but they were not originally conceived in relation to each other. To the revealing role of the Father in vv. 25-26 corresponds the revealing role of the Son here. To the imprecise ‘these things’ of v. 25 corresponds knowledge of the Father here.

‘Everything’ (πάντα — lit. ‘all things’) here is no more precise than ‘these things’ of v. 25. e sense is oen taken as related either to the transmission of knowledge or to the granting of full authority to Jesus.81 But one need not choose between these, once the signi cance of the father-son relationship is allowed to impinge. e emphasis is, rather, on the privileged status of the one who has received from God all that which it is his to dispose … : God has treated him as Son and heir, and has handed on the inheritance; and it is the intimacy of relationship, which lies at the basis of this handing over, that is taken up in the following clauses.82

Out of the solidarity of the Father with his Son and heir comes the capacity of the Son to make the Father known. In Matthew ἐπιγινώσκει is used where Lk. 10:22 has the simple γινώσκει. It is possible that the ἐπι pre x acts as an intensi er (so: ‘knows through and through’), but the verbs are used interchangeably, so the translation preferred above is ‘knows’. e mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son has been understood in quite a range of ways.83 In the Hellenistic world a mystical sense of mutual awareness and oneness of being has been postulated. But this is not the Jewish world of our text. Appeal is oen made to the Jewish wisdom tradition because personi ed Wisdom can be spoken of as God’s son. But none of the speci c elements of thought in Mt. 11:27 can be parallelled for Wisdom, and the sonship of Wisdom is expressed with πρωτόγονος (‘ rst-born’) and not the relational language of ‘father’ and ‘son’. Looking to the range of meanings of the OT ydʿ which may well stand behind the ἐπιγινώσκει (‘knows’) of our text, scholars have suggested that the Father’s knowing of the Son indicates choice and legitimation (i.e., election). But the strict parallelism of the mutual knowledge is broken when no corresponding sense for the Son’s knowledge of the

Father is possible. e exclusivity of the mutual knowledge of Father and Son (at least initially) has been correlated with an apocalyptic sense that heavenly mysteries are the exclusive prerogative of heavenly beings, or with the inaccessibility to humans of the mysteries of Wisdom. But the note of exclusivity is carried not by any sense that such knowledge is too loy, but rather by something much closer to an image of the privacy of an intimate family relationship. By far the closest parallel in the OT to the mutual knowledge of the Father and Son is offered by Moses’ relationship to God as pictured in Ex. 33:12-13: the relationship with God out of which Moses seeks to ful l his role is to consist in both being known by God and knowing God. A background in uence from Jewish understanding of Moses’ special relationship with God is certainly possible, but the speci c father/son relationship remains distinctive, as does the emphasis on the will of the Son. It may be important not to press the exclusivity of the mutual knowledge. e image of the special relationship between a father and his son and heir marks out a space of particular privileged mutual knowledge, but should not be taken to mean that knowledge of either father or son is totally lacking outside that relationship. No one else, however, has a relationship in which ‘everything has been passed on’. e Father’s knowledge of the Son is actually a redundant element for the goal of the verse. Its purpose is to help mark the intimate nature of the relationship between Father and Son out of which the Son is able to make the Father known. It is not unlikely that originally the de nite articles with ‘son’ and ‘father’ in the statement about mutual knowledge were generic: ‘no one knows a son except a father…’.84 But in our present text this is certainly no longer the case. e titular uses of ‘the Father’ and ‘the Son’ are striking. ey are always paired by Matthew, and will be used again

in 24:36; 28:19. Jesus has been identi ed as the Son of God from 3:17 (see discussion there), most recently at 8:29. God has been identi ed as Father from 5:16 (see discussion at 6:9; 7:21). For the nal clause we partly move outside the imagery of mutual knowledge within the family and take up again the revelational language of v. 26; but now the subject is the revealing of God (the Father). To know God is to know his ways and his judgments and to experience him at work. What is expressed here in knowledge-of-God language is closely related to what is elsewhere expressed in kingdom-of-heaven/God language. e ultimate signi cance of the will of the Son is being set on a par with that of the will of the Father in vv. 25-26.85 As the verses come together, should we understand the relationship of the two activities of willing as the independent exercise of two identical wills?86 3. ‘Come to Me, All Who Are Weary …’ (11:28-30) 28Come

to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn afrom me,a for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from ‫ *א‬etc. Bibliography Bacchiocchi, S., ‘Matthew 11.28-30: Jesus’ Rest and the Sabbath’, AUSS 22 (1984), 289-316. • Broer, I., Die Seligpreisungen der Bergpredigt: Studien zu ihren Überlieferung und Interpretation (BBB 61. Königstein/Bonn: Hanstein, 1986), 84-87. • Charette, B., ‘“To Proclaim Liberty to the Captives”: Matthew

11.28-30 in the Light of OT Prophetic Expectation’, NTS 38 (1992), 290-97. • Conick, A. D. de, ‘e Yoke Saying in the Gospel of omas 90’, VC 44 (1990), 280-94. • Jefford, C. N., ‘Bearing a Yoke: A Tradition of Wisdom behind omas 90’, Forum 10.1-2 (1994), 109-28. • Kollmann, B., Wundertäter, 189-95. • Kynes, W. L., Christology of Solidarity, 85-100. • Laansma, J., ‘I Will Give You Rest’: e Rest Motif in the New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3–4 (WUNT 2/98. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997). • Luke, K., ‘e Syriac Text of Matthew 11:29b and John 1:32-33’, Biblebhashyam 16 (1990), 250-67. • Motte, A. R., ‘La structure du logion de Matthieu 11.28-30’, RB 88 (1981), 226-33. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Matthew as Creative Interpreter of the Sayings of Jesus’, in A Gospel, 326-45, esp. 340-42. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Matthew 11.28-30: Comfortable Words?’ A Gospel, 364-77. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Matthew 11.28-30: Comfortable Words?’ ExpTim 94 (1982), 3-9. • Talbot, M., ‘Heureux’, 40-133. See further at 11:2-6, 25-27.

Mt. 11:25-27 has dealt with both the revealing and the concealing activity of the Father and the Son. Where the failure of response in vv. 20-24 corresponds to the concealing activity, the fresh invitation in vv. 28-30 is probably intended to correspond to the revealing activity. e claim is that it is Jesus who delivers on Wisdom’s promises and offers rest and a gentle yoke. Various features of the unit suggest that it is likely to be formally structured in a careful manner: there are paired words and phrases;87 there is repetition of key elements;88 and there is an evident balancing and linking of clauses.89 But the successful structuring proposals that have been offered all structure something different from the present text.90 Most agree that it is likely that Matthew has disturbed the structure by his own development of the inherited tradition. On the basis of Matthean interests and techniques, maximally, the whole of v. 29 might represent development.91 Or, less drastically, the development may be restricted to the double ὅτι (‘for/because/that’) clause in v. 29.

Reconstructions generally keep ‘and you will nd rest for yourselves’ from v. 29 for the sake of the parallelism with the nal clause of Mt. 11:28, but as a quotation from Je. 6:16 it represents an obvious kind of gloss for the ‘rest’ clause of Mt. 11:28. e other parallelism within the unit achieves synthetic development; here we have close paraphrase (admittedly with added interest because of the OT link). e maximal excision leaves a text in which the doubling in the opening clause is matched by the doubling in the nal clause, with ‘and I will give you rest’ in the central place of emphasis. e less drastic excision gives a text in which the imperatival clause in v. 28 with its double description of those addressed is matched by the doubling of verbs for the imperatival section of v. 29; and the promise clause at the end of v. 28 is supported and expanded in the γάρ (‘for’) clause in v. 30, which, following from the earlier doubling, makes use of two forms of doubling, built up chiastically from the use of ‘burdened’ in v. 28 and ‘yoke’ in v. 29. e place of emphasis for this second form would be v. 30. Since the evidence for Matthean interest in the opening double clause of v. 29 is modest, it is not clear which source form is the more likely. Perhaps the difficulty with the image of taking the yoke on oneself (see below) tips the scales in favour of the more radical excision. Such direct statements as we have in Mt. 11:28-30 are normally denied to the historical Jesus, but there is certainly more of a christological claim in the core historical materials than is oen allowed. ere is a formal similarity to the call of the shermen (Mt. 4:19), though the generality here is distinctive. As appears to be the case with some of the Johannine materials, it is possible that we have here a (possibly early church?) verbal formulation of what was more enacted than verbalised by the historical Jesus.

11:28 e call to come to Jesus partly echoes the call of the disciples of 4:19; cf. 9:9,92 but it is a coming to rather than a coming aer. What is implied is developed in v. 29. ‘Come to me’ language belongs on the lips of personi ed Wisdom or of a teacher of wisdom.93 But here, for Matthew, the thought of the Son as revealer is also carried forward. It is with him that ultimate wisdom is to be

found. At some level this probably makes Jesus ‘Wisdom incarnate’, but while Matthew exploits the wisdom imagery, he is not speci cally investing in a wisdom christology.94 Who are the ‘weary and burdened’?95 e reference is not very likely to be to disciples, stressed by the demands of discipleship. ough in Matthew the demands of discipleship are extreme, to identify the disciples as speci cally addressed here would produce the convoluted thought that disciples are to come to Jesus to nd relief, in a fresh round of learning and taking on the yoke, from pressure created by what has already been taken on from Jesus.96 Alternatively, ‘weary and burdened’ could characterise those in favour of whom the Son exercises the choice identi ed in v. 27 — a kind of priority for the poor. is has more to commend it, especially if ‘weary and burdened’ can evoke the people in favour of whom the beatitudes of 5:3-10 are spoken: God’s people chastened by the humiliation of exile and beyond and ready to look to God for help. But perhaps there is no close link with the choice aspect of v. 27 and nothing more is being focussed on than the neediness of God’s people, together and in all their individual circumstances.97 ‘I will give you rest (ἀναπαύσω)’ implies either support in the task of bearing the load or more likely the removal of the burdens (but implicitly in v. 29 and explicitly in v. 30 this becomes replacement with an easier burden). e rest on offer is presumably intended to be immediately available. In the LXX the use of the ἀναπαυ- root is closely related to ideas of peace and security and, more broadly, to fundamental human well-being. ough the root is used regularly in relation to the sabbath, it is unlikely that an idea of eschatological sabbath rest is to be invoked.98 e concrete form of Jesus’ ministry in Matthew suggests that we should think broadly of relief brought by Jesus to people from the various kinds of pressures under which they labour. e wisdom allusion is likely to

continue, with an echo of Sir. 51:27, where the wisdom teacher testi es to his own experience of drawing near to Wisdom: ‘See… that I have laboured but little and found for myself much rest (ἀνάπαυσιν)’.99 11:29 ough a yoke normally linked two animals together for work, the idea of pairing plays no role in the extensive metaphorical use of ‘yoke’ in the OT and Apocrypha.100 A yoke is seen rather as a means of placing the animal in service: burden, obedience, subordination, and servitude are in view. We have here in Matthew the unusual imagery of an animal placing a yoke on itself (ἄρατε is literally ‘li up’).101 e imperatival structure required to parallel v. 28 means that the initiative must lie with those addressed, but in comparable Jewish sources where human initiative is involved the animal imagery is respected by using qbl (‘accept, receive, choose’).102 e unusual imagery in Matthew may count in favour of identifying this material as a secondary development (to move directly from v. 28 to v. 30 would allow Jesus to be the one who placed the yoke). Presumably one comes to the person who has the yoke in order to put it on. e addition of ‘and learn from me’ shapes the image to place the emphasis on obedience to instruction. e challenge to learn has appeared in 9:13 and will come again in 24:32. Its correlates are the description of Jesus as a teacher and his extensive engagement in teaching. e allusion to Sir. 51 is likely to continue: v. 26 has ‘put your neck under her103 [i.e., Wisdom’s] yoke, and let your souls receive instruction’.104 It is Jesus who delivers on Wisdom’s promises. e ὅτι could introduce a supporting reason for learning from Jesus (so: ‘because/for’), or it could identify what is to be learnt (so: ‘that’). But since the learning is linked to the yoke and thus to the

content of the servitude intended, learning that Jesus is ‘gentle and humble in heart’ is hardly tting. e ὅτι clause is motivational: the demands imposed by this yoke will bring relief to the weary and burdened because they are imposed by one who is ‘gentle (πραΰς) and humble in heart’. πραΰς is a difficult word to translate. It can simply describe the person whose circumstances are humble. In Greek ethical discussion, however, the πραΰς is the one who manifests a wellregulated mastery of his anger (see discussion at 5:5). And the description of Moses as ‘very humble (πραΰς), more so than anyone else on the face of the earth’ identi es him as one who was free of the self-importance of those who are focussed on their own interests. Moderation and other-centredness t the context in Mt. 11:29. Matthew’s interest in Jesus as πραΰς is re ected in his use in a ful lment citation in Mt. 21:4-5 of Zc. 9:9 with its identi cation of the coming king as πραΰς. Matthew does not use ταπεινός elsewhere. e word normally designates a person who is in or has been reduced to a lowly position. But like πραΰς, it also has an ethical use. An ethical use is signalled here by the addition of τῇ καρδίᾳ (‘in heart’), which performs much the same role as τῷ πνεύματι (‘in spirit’) in Mt. 5:3. e one who is ταπεινός τῇ καρδία is unassuming and demonstrates humility.105 e link with πραΰς is obvious.106 e verse concludes with a quotation from Je. 6:16. Matthew has a text that agrees with the LXX in verb form and in the use of the plural for ψυχαῖς (‘selves’),107 but with the MT for ‘rest’ (the LXX has ἁγνισμόν [‘sancti cation’]). e value to Matthew of the link with Je. 6:16 is that it connects the present offer of peace with God’s offer of peace which, when rejected, led to the Exile. e inclusion of Mt. 11:29, especially if Matthew is responsible for this verse, strengthens the link with the following material to

12:21: the disciples have taken the yoke and are permitted to satisfy their hunger on the sabbath; the Pharisees are critical of this only because they have yet to learn what Jesus drew their attention to already in 9:13 and will remind them of again in 12:7; in Jesus’ regime ‘it is lawful to do good on the sabbath’, and so the man with the withered hand is healed (vv. 10-13); Jesus is gentle and humble in heart, so ‘he will not wrangle’ and ‘he will not break a bruised reed’ (vv. 19-20). 11:30 We are now told why the yoke of Jesus is to be preferred to that under which people are presently labouring. It is not clear precisely what is meant by saying that the yoke is χρηστός. χρηστός is a broad word and means anything from ‘useful’ and ‘suitable’ to ‘good’ and ‘kind’. e reference is probably to a welldesigned yoke which distributed the load comfortably, for the weariness of load bearing can be considerably reduced by a welldesigned yoke. However, a yoke which was the means of harnessing the animal to a heavy burden was, by a kind of metonymy, spoken of as a heavy yoke.108 So an alternative metonymy might allow us to understand a yoke that is χρηστός as the kind of burden that might be imposed by an owner who is kind.109 From the yoke we turn to the load itself. e weary and burdened of v. 28 are offered a substitute burden that is light. e text leaves totally unexplained the sense in which coming to Jesus results in carrying a lighter and more comfortable load. At the most general level it clearly reiterates here the claim that Jesus brings good news (see, e.g., the discussion at 4:23 of ‘gospel of the kingdom’). It is unlikely that any of the precise proposals offered in the scholarship represents the express intention of the Matthean text.110 Perhaps we are intended to sense the paradox in being told by a man who makes such stringent demands on his disciples that

the burden he imposes is light! e paradox is to be resolved in the experience of the Christian life.111

1. Each unit begins with a question (Mt. 11:3, 7, 16). e ‘deeds of the Christ’ in v. 2 nds an echo in the ‘deeds of [wisdom]’ in v. 19. 2. For a discussion of the differences in language between Mt. 11:2-6 and Lk. 7:18-23, see Nolland, Luke 1:327-331. 3. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:244-45. Cf. also Nolland, Luke, 1:32627. 4. John’s disciples have been mentioned in Mt. 9:14, but not with their master. ‘John’, ‘having heard’, and the idea of imprisonment provide the links. ere is nothing corresponding in the Lukan parallel. 5. e time frame in Mark is less clear. John shows an awareness of John the Baptist’s arrest (3:24), but does not mark his execution. 6. If we may judge from the fact that the disciples of John did not automatically switch their allegiance to Jesus, then both John and Matthew make John the Baptist’s witness to Jesus/knowledge of Jesus’ identity more precise than it is historically likely to have been (Mt. 3:14; Jn. 1:33). Since Matthew makes no attempt to sustain consistently the idea that John had such a well-formed sense of Jesus’ identity, it seems likely that Mt. 3:14 is for him only a convenient way of dealing with a matter of importance to himself and his readers (but see discussion at 11:3). 7. Cf. Yamasaki, John the Baptist, 107. 8. ere may be a piece of artistic play in the fact that the beginning and end of the rst two pairs take up in reverse order the hearing and seeing of the previous clause. 9. Is. 61:1 LXX also has ‘sight to the blind’, and aer 29:18 comes ‘the poor will nd joy’ in v. 19. Is. 35:5-6 has ‘the eyes of the blind will be opened’, ‘the ears of the deaf will hear’ (MT ‘be unstopped’), ‘the lame shall leap’. Cf. also 42:7, 18. e relationship to the Isaiah texts is strikingly similar to that found in 4Q521 2:1-12. In 4Q521 2:8 ‘sight to the blind’ comes from Ps. 146:8. So it is possible that Ps. 146:7-8 also played a part in the tradition

being appealed to here in Matthew, but this is not visible in our present text. Kvalbein attempts to show that 4Q521 2:1-12 use these texts not literally, but as merely poetic images for the end-time renewal of the people of God (‘Die Wunder’, 111-25). But while one should not be woodenly literal, ‘marvellous acts such as have not existed’ (line 11) points to concrete expectations of a more literal kind. 10. e cleansing of lepers has no Isaianic background (only 2 Ki. 5 in the OT). Behind its presence in the list is the particular impact that such healing made (cf. at Mt. 8:2). 11. e opening καί (‘and’), the presence of the copula ἐστίν (‘is’), and the singular inde nite construction ὃς ἐάν (‘whoever’) are all unusual features in a beatitude. For the use of σκανδαλίζειν (‘cause offence’) with ἐν (‘in/at’) cf. Sir. 9:5; 23:8; 32:15, and Ps. 30:11 (Aquila). e same idiom is repeated at Mt. 13:57. 12. For more on the relationship between the Matthean and Lukan materials and on original forms and historicity, see Nolland, Luke, 1:334-38; 2:814-15, 821. 13. Curiously Jesus is freshly introduced. 14. e textual uncertainty of the word order in Mt. 11:8, 9 (see ‘Textual Notes’ above) deprives us of certainty about the one feature of the text which could have given clear direction. ere is a third possibility if the syntax is Semitic: ‘Could it be that you went out into the wilderness to see …?’ (see Beyer, Semitische Syntax, 100 n. 7). 15. E.g., eissen, Gospels in Context, 26: ‘e former would be asking about something that is actually found in the Jordan desert, and the latter about the sort of person who is certainly not to be found there’. 16. e contrasting ἀλλά (lit. ‘but’, but translated ‘so then’) responds to the implied negation. 17. Some sense that God was freshly at work (possibly in judgment) is no doubt involved. Prediction of the (possibly eschatological) future, sociopolitical and ethical challenge, and (in Jesus’ case) miraculous healings are possible elements. In Jos., Ant. 20.97, eudas identi es himself as a prophet in connection with the expectation that the Jordan would be parted for him and the masses who followed him.

18. See Mt. 21:11, 46 (cf. 16:14), where the crowds are content to think of Jesus as a prophet. 19. CD 1:13 is closest: ‘is is the time about which it has been written, “…”’. 20. e MT has ‘your messenger’; Mal. 3:1 MT lacks an equivalent to the emphatic ‘I’ (ἐγώ) and has no equivalent to ‘ahead of you’ (lit. ‘before your face’). Mal. 3:1 LXX has the emphatic ‘I’ but uses a different word for ‘send’. 21. Also, a relative clause replaces a coordinate clause, and the MT’s pinnāh is rendered with κατασκευάσει (‘prepare’) rather than with the ἐπιβλέψεται (‘examine’) of the LXX. 22. An alternative possibility is that God is addressing Israel, as in Ex. 23:20, and that the way is one of restoration for Israel, probably with new Exodus imagery. But this involves almost complete loss of contact with the original thrust of the Mal. 3:1 language. It also makes the link between Mt. 11:10 and 3:3 (where the way prepared is best taken as that for Jesus) less straightforward. 23. e two verses are also linked in (later) Jewish tradition (Str-B, 1:579), and Mal. 3:1 may even represent a deliberate echo of Ex. 23:20. 24. E.g., Job 14:1; 15:14; 25:4; 1QS 11:21; 1QH 13:14. 25. Mt. 17:13 is the exception, but here John the disciple has been mentioned by name as part of the group involved in the incident. 26. But, naturally enough, ‘John’ is used when addressing the disciples of John (Mt. 11:4), and he is simply ‘John’ in 21:25, where the phrase is ‘the baptism of John’. 27. Apparently over difficulties about John and the kingdom, Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:251-52, take the reference as to the future kingdom (as does Verseput, Rejection, 85-90), but the context is all about the interplay between John’s ministry and the developed situation represented by Jesus. 28. Matthew mostly uses ‘from’ inclusively (Trilling, ‘Täufertradition’, 277-78). 29. But Häfner, ‘Gewalt?’, 30-32, is right to point out that the evidence from usage in the period is extremely sparse.

30. is view has the virtue of pairing well with taking βιάζεται as middle, but it is difficult to integrate into the immediate Matthean context. 31. Llewelyn, ‘Forcible Acquisition’, 157-59, offers the strongest counterargument, pointing to the use of the coordinating καί (lit. ‘and’) and stressing that it is the presence of ἁρπάζουσιν (tr. above as ‘grab at’) which indicates actual violence, when uses of the βια- root alone may only connote action against the will of an original owner. Llewelyn’s view, however, which proposes an original connection between the saying and the parable of the wicked tenants, offers no help with reading Mt. 11:12 in its present context. 32. Luz, Matthäus, 2:176-77, objects that the middle of the verb is never used positively, but in Matthew the positive force is in the context and not in the verb, which contributes only the imagery of that which is strong making its way successfully. Contra Luz, Ex. 19:24 is a good parallel. 33. E.g., Mt. 5:10, 11-12; 9:3, 34; 10:16-23, 34-39. 34. But given what is coming — i.e., John as (also?) a gure of ful lment — John may again be excluded. If so, καί at the beginning of Mt. 11:14 is not contrastive as in the translation above. 35. Cf. Mt. 13:43; 25:29 (variant); Mk. 4:9; 7:16 (variant); Lk. 8:8; 12:21 (variant); 14:35; Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 13:9. 36. See Is. 6:9; Je. 5:21; Ez. 12:2. 37. For more detail and on tracing the material here to the historical Jesus, see Nolland, Luke, 1:340-47. 38. See Mt. 13:24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47; 18:23; 20:1; 22:2; 25:1. In each of these cases the comparison is with the kingdom of heaven. In 13:53 the comparison is with a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven. 39. Sometimes the attempt is made to see ‘this generation’ as referring narrowly to the leadership groups with whom Jesus came into con ict, but this does not represent the natural sense of the words and could only be given any credence to the degree that we see the leaders as, in their leadership capacity, speaking for the people and therefore as genuinely speaking for the people insofar as their view will ultimately form the people’s considered response and ultimate evaluation of Jesus. 40. ere is the anticipation of more: the bridegroom being taken away in Mt. 9:15, and the persecution awaiting the disciples as they ful l their

mission in chap. 10. 41. E.g., in Mt. 13:45 the kingdom of heaven is not like a merchant, but rather the comparison focuses on the pearl; in 25:21 the likeness is not with the ten virgins but with the wedding. 42. ἐκόψασθε is literally ‘beat the breast’, but it is used more generally of expressive mourning. It is a more dramatic term than ἐκλαύσατε (‘weep’) used in the Lk. 7:32 parallel. 43. is seems less likely for Matthew’s text with its use of τοῖς ἑτέροις (‘the others’) than for Lk. 7:32 with its use of ἀλλήλοις (‘one another’). 44. A more general form of this view would take the refrain as an accusation of failure to t in. 45. Nolland, Luke, 1:343-44. 46. Cotter, ‘Children in the Marketplace’, 295-304; ‘Children Sitting’, 6768. 47. In terms of sequence it would have been better if the two lines of the refrain were reversed, but if we are dealing with a xed form, then the sequence is already given. 48. See Black, Aramaic Approach, 161, for retroversion into Aramaic. Comparison can also be made with Ec. 3:4; Hdt. 1.141; La. Rab. Proem 12; and various texts from Aesop’s Fables (see Cotter, ‘Children Sitting’, 69). Matthew’s generalising plural ‘marketplaces’ (Luke has the singular) ts well the recognition here of a xed form. 49. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:263. 50. 1 Cor. 10:7 may be the exception, but in this case the connotation is likely to be borrowed from the context of Ex. 32:6, which is being quoted, and in any case the imagery is probably of a pagan religious feast rather than of carefree excess. 51. Cotter, ‘Children Sitting’, 74-75, has argued that such an accusation against John is not historically credible. 52. Jos., Ant. 18.116-19. 53. Mt. 14:1-12; 21:25, 32. 54. e aorist tense of ἐδικαιώθη is best seen as gnomic.

55. Pr. 1:20-33; 8:1–9:6; Sir. 1 and 24; Wis. 7:22–11:1; Bar. 3 and 4; 2 Esdr. 5:10; 2 Bar. 48; 1 Enoch 42; cf. 11QPsa 18. 56. Mt. 11:14 implies something similar about John. 57. For further details and defence of the essential historicity of the materials, see Nolland, Luke, 2:555-57. 58. δυνάμεις, so no verbal link with the ‘works’ (ἔργα) of 11:2, 19. 59. Luz, Matthäus, 2:193. 60. We may be justi ed in imagining that Jesus did address such words quite concretely to unresponsive towns in the context of a departure along the lines of the stipulations in Lk. 10:11 (cf. Mt. 10:14). 61. See Is. 23; Ez. 28:2-19, 20-23; cf. Je. 47:4; Zc. 9:2. 62. See Mk. 6:45; 8:22; Lk. 9:10; 10:13; Jn. 1:44; 12:21. 63. E.g. Plut., Superst. 7.168D. 64. Est. 4:3; Is. 58:5; Dn. 9:3; Jon. 3:6. 65. E.g., Je. 47:4; Joel 3:4; Zc. 9:2; Jdt. 2:28; 1 Macc. 5:15; Mt. 15:21; Mk. 3:8; Lk. 6:17. 66. Nolland, Luke, 2:556. 67. See Schenke, Sprache, 411-12. 68. In line with the pattern and variation approach used by Matthew, the verb tense for ‘happened’ shis from aorist middle to aorist passive (no change of meaning) between 11:21 and v. 23 (v. 23 has the form found in Luke’s parallel to v. 21). 69. In Mt. 11:24 Matthew is making a second use of materials already included at 10:15. ere he has ‘land of Sodom and Gomorrah’. 70. For detailed discussion of source forms and thought in support of essential historicity (Mt. 11:27 in its present form is less securely linked with the historical Jesus than is vv. 25-26), see Nolland, Luke, 2:570-75. 71. Used again at Mt. 12:1; 14:1. 72. ἀποκριθείς (lit. ‘answered’) is used more broadly in Semitically in uenced Greek to indicate response to a situation either indicated or implied in the context.

73. From Qumran cf. 1QH 9 (= 1):21: ‘ese things I know through your knowledge, for you opened my ears to wondrous mysteries’. 74. ere are other texts in which the terms function in synonymous parallelism. 75. pty can also mean ‘fool’, but νήπιος is never the translation equivalent in such cases. 76. See Pss. 19:7(18:8); 119(118):130; Wis. 12:24; cf. Pr. 1:32; Wis. 10:21. 77. See Ps. 116(114):6 and esp. the Qumran texts 1QH 10(= 2):9; 11QPsa 18:2-4; 4Q169 3:5. e Qumran community also used the term with reference to the pious of the community (see 1QpHab 12:4; 4QpIsa 2:5-6), but that is unlikely to be pertinent here. 78. Cf. Job 28:12-13, 20-22; Mt. 16:17. 79. is is happening in 1 Cor. 1:18-31; 2:6-13; 3:18-20; cf. Job 5:13; Is. 29:14; Sir. 3:19 (v.l.). 80. Verseput, Rejection, 138, takes the ὅτι to mean ‘that’ and construes the sense as: ‘I thank you that you were pleased to reveal to babes’. 81. Sometimes nding allusion to Dn. 7:14; cf. 2:37-38. 82. Nolland, Luke, 2:573. 83. For further detail see Nolland, Luke, 2:573-74. 84. at with our present text we end up with the Son remaining unknown counts in favour of an originally nontitular use of generic ‘son’ and ‘father’ in the image of mutual knowledge and in favour of Jeremias’s suggestion (eology, 58) that the lack of a reciprocal pronoun in Aramaic played some role in the double formulation. 85. In concrete terms this has been anticipated in Mt. 8:2-3. 86. In a context that emphasises the humanity of Jesus, Jesus will assert the ultimate supremacy of the will of the Father in 26:39. 87. ‘Weary and burdened’, ‘gentle and humble in heart’, ‘take my yoke and learn from me’, ‘my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. 88. ‘Yoke’ in Mt. 11:29 and 30; the ϕορτι- root (‘burden’) in vv. 28 and 30; the ἀναπαυ- root (‘rest’) in vv. 28 and 29.

89. ere is synthetic parallelism, linkage of demand and promised consequence, linkage of demand and supporting explanation, etc. 90. Motte, ‘Structure’, 226-33, identi es an effective structure by arguing for an early dislocation of the text in which ‘for I am gentle and humble in heart’ has lost its place at the end of Mt. 11:28. Others argue for the structuring of a more original source form. 91. For the links see the comments at Mt. 11:29 below. 92. Note the shared use of δεῦτε (used otherwise in Matthew only in parables and of the angel’s words to the women at the tomb in Mt. 28:6) and the rst person singular pronoun. 93. Sir. 24:19 uses προσέλθετε πρός με (‘come to me’), and Wisdom is speaking; 51:23 uses ἐγγίσατε πρός με (‘draw near to me’), and the teacher of wisdom is speaking (the wisdom teacher challenges the reader to come to Wisdom in 6:18: πρόσελθε αὐτῇ [‘come to her’]; and in 6:26, ἐν πάσῃ ψυχῇ σου πρόσελθε αὐτῇ [‘come to her with all your soul’]). Outside a wisdom context, Ps. 34:5 (LXX 33:6) has προσέλθατε πρὸς αὐτόν (‘come to him [i.e., the Lord]’) as a challenge linked to personal testimony about God’s help. 94. His equivocation between seeing Jesus as wisdom and as an envoy/teacher of wisdom (Mt. 11:19, but also v. 28, as even Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom, 138, with her strong investment in Wisdom christology, recognises) suggests this. 95. κοπιῶντες can refer either to working hard or to the weariness that results from having worked hard. 96. While it is reasonable to think of the disciples as present, they have not played an active role since Mt. 10. 97. It is surely mistaken to draw in from Mt. 23:4 the burdens imposed by the scribes and Pharisees. at text looks back to 11:28-30 (Jesus relieves burdens; they impose burdens), but there is no indication that 11:28-30 presupposes awareness of the content of 23:4. 98. Against Bacchiocchi, ‘Rest and Sabbath’, 289-316; Sabbath, 263-70. e sabbath will feature in the immediately following units, but there Jesus is challenging standing views on the role of the regular weekly sabbath. 99. at in Is. 14:3; 32:17; cf. La. 1:3 ‘rest’ is to be looked for in God’s restoration of his people from exile is also of possible relevance. Verbally

close is God’s promise to Moses in Ex. 33:14: ‘I will give you rest’. 100. e word may well have been used also for the kind of collar which would be used to harness a single beast of burden to a load. 101. If it were not for the following ἐϕ᾿ ὑμᾶς (‘upon you’), ἄρατε τὸν ζυγόν μου could just as well mean ‘remove my yoke’ (see 1 Macc. 8:18, where ἆραι τὸν ζυγόν means ‘to cast off the yoke’; cf. 13:41, where the same idea is expressed in the passive). Removal of the yoke by dislodging or breaking it is consonant with the animal imagery and occurs frequently in biblical materials (e.g., Gn. 27:40; Ps. 2:3). 102. Sipre Dt. 323 has ‘receive/accept upon yourselves the yoke of Heaven’; m. Ber. 2:2 has ‘receive/accept upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven’ and ‘receive/accept upon himself the yoke of the commandments’. Behind the initiative proposed for the human gures here stands the implied initiative of God who offers the yoke. 103. ‘Her’ is present in the Hebrew, but not in the Greek. 104. Note the way in which Sir. 51:26 focusses on the initiative to be taken by the one challenged. 105. e phrase is found in Pr. Azar. 1:65; Odes 8:87 (both in the plural and standing alongside ὅσιοι [‘holy’]); and with τῷ πνεύματι in Ps 34(33):19. ere is also a negative ethical use in which ταπεινός means ‘subservient, abject’. 106. πραΰς and ταπεινός are linked together in Zp. 3:12 to describe God’s humbling human pride so that people who are humble and lowly may seek refuge in him. But this is somewhat different from what we have in Mt. 11:29. 107. See the discussion of ψυχή at Mt. 6:25. 108. E.g., 2 Ch. 10:4: ‘my father made your yoke heavy’; Is. 47:6: ‘you made your yoke exceedingly heavy’; Sir. 40:1: ‘a heavy yoke’; 1 Macc. 8:31: ‘he made your yoke heavy’. 109. On this understanding, however, the two images of Mt. 11:30 are in danger of being too similar. 110. Among the proposals are: being motivated by love makes the burden light; the presence of Jesus (or the Spirit) supports the load; the promise of eschatological reward makes the load of the present seem lighter;

Pharisaic demands are dispensed with; an interior refreshment from Jesus sustains in the burden bearing; relating to Jesus as the one who forgives us when we falter makes the burden bearing easier. 111. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:292.

X. CONFLICT WITH THE PHARISEES (12:150) A. ‘e Son of Man Is Lord of the Sabbath’ (12:1-8) 1At

that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of graina and to eat. 2When they saw b[this], the Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what it is not permitted to do on the sabbath!’ 3He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those with him, 4how he went into the house of God and cthey ate the dpresentation loaves, which it was not permitted for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5Or have you not read in the Law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and yet are guiltless? 6eI say to you that fsomething greaterf than the temple is here. 7If you had known what this is, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless.’ 8For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In uenced by Lk. 6:1, (c) syc add και ταις χερσιν αυτων ψωχειν (‘and to rub them in their hands’). b. In C D L Δ Θ f13 33 etc. it vgmss sys, c, p mae an object is provided: αυτους (‘them’). c. As in Mk. 2:26; Lk. 6:2, this verb is singular (‘he ate’) in 70 C D L W Θ f1, 13 33 892c 1006 1342 1506 etc. latt sy co. 892* reads ελαβεν (‘he took’). d. By a slip of the pen D has προσθεσεως, which would give ‘nourishing bread’ (lit. ‘bread of the nourishment’).

e. A linking γαρ (‘for’) is provided by D ff1 k sys, c. f-f. With Jesus in view, C L Δ 0233 f13 205 209 1424 1506 etc. lat replace the neuter form with the masculine. Bibliography Borg, M. J., Conflict, 145-62. • Casey, M., Aramaic Sources, 138-92. • Casey, P. M., ‘Culture and Historicity: e Plucking of the Grain (Mark 2.23-28)’, NTS 34 (1988), 1-23. • Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Mark 2.1–3.6: A Bridge between Jesus and Paul on the Question of the Law’, NTS 30 (1984), 395-415. • Génuyt, F., ‘Matthieu, chapitre 12,1-21’, SémiotBib 70 (1993), 41-54. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 307-16. • Harrington, D. J., ‘Sabbath Tensions: Matthew 12:1-14 and Other New Testament Texts’, in e Sabbath in Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. T. C. Eskenazi, D. J. Harrington, and W. H. Shea (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 45-56. • Hicks, J. M., ‘e Sabbath Controversy in Matthew: An Exegesis of Matthew 12:1-14’, RestQ 27 (1984), 79-91. • Klinghardt, M., Gesetz und Volk Gottes, 225-29. • Lybaek, L., ‘Matthew’s Use of Hosea 6:6 in the Context of the Sabbath Controversies’, in Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 491-99. • McIver, R. K., ‘e Sabbath in the Gospel of Matthew: A Paradigm for Understanding the Law in Matthew’, AUSS 33 (1995), 231-43. • Neirynck, F., ‘Jesus and the Sabbath: Some Observations on Mark II,27’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont, 227-70. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 94-107. • Robbins, V., ‘Plucking Grain on the Sabbath’, in Patterns, B. Mack and V. Robbins, 107-41. • Schottroff, L. and Stegemann, W., ‘e Sabbath Was Made for Man: e Interpretation of Mark 2:23-28’, in Lowly, ed. L. Schottroff and W. Stegemann, 118-28. • Schweizer, E., ‘Matthäus 12:1-8: Der Sabbat: Gebot und Geschenk’, in Glaube und Gerechtigkeit. FS R. Gyllenberg, ed. J. Kilunen et al. (Helsinki: Finnisch exegetische Gesellscha, 1983), 169-79. • Sigal, P., Halakah, 119-53. • Tuckett, C. M., Revival, 96-102. • Verseput, D. J., e Rejection of the Humble Messianic King: A Study of the Composition of Matthew 11–12 (Europäische Hochschulschrien 23/291. Frankfurt: Lang, 1986), 153-206. • Vouga, F., Jésus, 49-52. • Weiss, H., ‘e Sabbath in the Synoptic Gospels’, JSNT 38 (1990), 13-27. • Wong, W. K.-C., Interkulturelle, 77-82. • Wong, W. K.-C.,

‘e Matthean Understanding of the Sabbath: A Response to G. N. Stanton’, JSNT 44 (1991), 3-18. • Yang, Y.-E., Sabbath, 139-95. See further at 11:2-6.

Here we see the disciples operating under the yoke of Jesus, who declares them guiltless when they satisfy their hunger on the sabbath in a manner deemed contrary to the Law by the Pharisees. But with its fresh introduction of con ict with the Pharisees, this unit also looks forward: con ict with the Pharisees will be the unifying motif of chap. 12. As Jesus continues with ‘the deeds of the Christ’ (11:2), some will take no offence (v. 6) and experience the gentle yoke of Jesus (centrally the disciples who appear at the beginning and the end of the chapter), while others (and centrally the Pharisees) will be incensed, and for them judgment (as for Chorazin and Bethsaida in vv. 20-24) is in store. ere is thus a close knitting together of sections 11:1(2)-42 and 12:1-50, and the material may be better construed as part 1 and part 2 of a single section, or even as a chiasm centred on 12:1-8.1 Matthew now returns to Markan material (Mk. 2:23-28) and will be primarily in uenced by the Markan ordering to 12:32. Matthew has introduced vv. 5-7 and has dropped Mk. 2:27. Otherwise the main changes are: to drop Mark’s ‘in the time of Abiathar the high priest’ (1 Sa. 21:1 speaks of Ahimelech; Lk. 6:4 makes the same change); and to drop the role of the giving by David to those with him (to t the application better), instead associating them with the unlawfulness of the eating. Scholars oen deny the argument in Mt. 12:3-4 to the historical Jesus, but this is not necessary. Mk. 2:28 is likely to have originated as a Markan editorial comment.2

12:1 ‘At that time’ repeats from 11:25, indicating a continuity of thought (see discussion at 11:29 on the role of that verse in strengthening the link with the following materials).3 Perhaps surprisingly, this is the rst mention of the Jewish sabbath in

Matthew. e plural σάββατα can have a singular force (‘sabbath’), as here, following Mk. 2:23.4 ough it is the behaviour of the disciples which will come under scrutiny, it is Jesus who heads into the grain elds; and he will take responsibility for the subsequent action of the disciples. e disciples have not been mentioned since 11:1, but their presence is to be assumed for the intervening material. Attention to the disciples’ hunger anticipates the hunger of David and those with him in 12:3. We are probably meant to understand that the disciples are seriously hungry, not just peckish (cf. 15:32; 21:18), but there is clearly no stress on this. Matthew and Luke both make explicit the eating of the grain (as Luke clari es, the grains would rst have been separated and hulled by rubbing).5 12:2 Pharisees with a critical stance to Jesus have already been introduced at 9:11, 34;6 Matthew now takes this thread up again. Mark’s accusatory question becomes a direct accusation. Jesus’ responsibility for the actions of his disciples is assumed by his interlocutors. For the Pharisees the disciples’ action was a sabbath violation. e action as such was thoroughly acceptable since the law permitted the needy to glean and to eat their ll from the elds of others.7 But on the sabbath all work was to cease. In an agricultural economy this was a requirement that bore down heavily during ploughing time and harvest, so these activities are singled out for particular mention in the sabbath command of Ex. 34:21: ‘even in ploughing time and in harvest you shall rest’. It is likely that gleaning (i.e., gathering and taking away for oneself what has been le behind aer the harvest) would have been uniformly identi ed as work. e more difficult case was the limited access accorded to the needy already prior to harvest to what was growing in the elds.8 A principle here is that

consumption was to be on the spot; nothing was to be taken away to be stockpiled.9 Poor people became hungry on the sabbath as on other days. At stake was whether the plucking of grain by a hungry person on the sabbath, for immediate consumption, counted as prohibited work. Philo adopted an approach that took its guidance from linking the plants of the eld to the animals which are speci cally to be given rest on the sabbath (Ex. 20:10): ‘the holiday … extends also to every kind of trees and plants’ (Vita Mos. 2.22). But the needs of the poor are not in Philo’s eld of vision here as he glori es the sabbath. Since the sabbath was a day of celebration, food was important on that day. Was food preparation a violation of the sabbath? Fires were not to be lit on the sabbath, baking was not to be done, and water was not to be drawn. e principle seems to have been that everything that could be done on the sixth day must be. Otherwise, immediate food preparation did not constitute a violation of the sabbath (see Jub. 50:8-10, 12; m. Šab. 7:2).10 Along these lines a sympathetic viewpoint on the situation of the needy is likely to have treated their eating in the elds on the sabbath as not constituting work that would violate the sabbath. Such was not the view of Philo or of the Pharisees we meet in the Gospels. But it clearly is the view of Jesus. 12:3-4 Matthew tones down Mark’s ‘never’ (οὐδέποτε) to ‘not’ (οὐκ), narrows the focus from Mark’s ‘was in need and was hungry’ simply to ‘was hungry’ (the wider basis for David’s behaviour in his desperate situation actually detracts from the effectiveness of the argument here),11 and includes David’s companions in the eating by changing to the plural form for the verb ‘ate’. Davies and Allison observe that ‘in the synoptics Jesus, when addressing the crowds, says, “You have heard”. When the leaders are being spoken to, he says, “Have you not read?”’12 e presentation loaves were the

loaves set out before God week by week in the tabernacle or temple. e fresh bread was set out on the sabbath, and the old bread was to be consumed by the priests, and by them only.13 ere may be something provocative about how David’s behaviour is reported here: while the sense of the wording can be accommodated to the report in 1 Sa. 21:1-6, where the priest gives David the loaves, the Gospel wording can more readily be seen as imagining David as going himself into the inner part of the temple and taking the loaves from where they were displayed before the Lord. In any case, David and his companions are understood to have eaten holy bread which should have been consumed only by the priests. e unstated assumption shared by Jesus and his interlocutors is that David was justi ed in his behaviour. But how does the behaviour of David generalise to the behaviour of Jesus and his disciples? ere is no shortage of suggestions as to how the argument operates, but consensus has remained elusive. a. Is there an argument from the greater to the lesser? Under circumstances which our text does not bring into view beyond identifying David as hungry, David and those with him were justi ed (on the sabbath) in satisfying their hunger in a manner which is in clear violation of the Law. How much more are the disciples justi ed (in circumstances which our text does not bring into view beyond identifying them as hungry — this may be the only relevant circumstance) in satisfying their hunger on the sabbath in a manner which violates no law, but only a strict Pharisaic application of the Law? b. Or is there a strong implicit appeal to the special circumstances involved? David’s life was in danger; the disciples are envoys of the kingdom of God in the eschatological situation.

c. Or is David appealed to as an interpreter of the Law? e boundaries of application of the law of the presentation loaves, as David saw full well, recede in the face of pressing need; the boundaries of the application of the sabbath law recede in the face of the immediacy of human need. d. Or is Jesus claiming to be, like David and beyond David, the one who is entitled to arbitrate in the interpretation of the Law? e. Or is David viewed as ‘above’ the Law? David and, even more so, Jesus as the Christ (and those gathered to him) are free from the restraints of the Law because of their special places in the purposes of God. e list is not complete. Perhaps best is the appeal to David as an interpreter of the Law (‘a man aer God’s own heart who will do all [God’s] will’ [Acts 13:22]), and to understand that a christological claim is involved in which Jesus is seen as the antitype to David in this respect. Argumentation from the greater to the lesser is also likely to be involved. It is hard to be sure how effective the comparison would have proved for Pharisees with a fastidious approach to sabbath restrictions. It would certainly be effective in disturbing simple certainties about rigid application of the Law. But David was not just hungry; his life was in danger. Danger to life was believed to override the requirements of the sabbath already from the Maccabean period.14 At best the comparison creates a space in which apparently unlawful behaviour may be justi ed on other grounds. 12:5 Matthew is alone in offering a second comparison. It may be his own re ection. e introduction could be inspired by the confrontational address to come in 21:42: ‘Have you not read in the scriptures?’ He may draw the idea of comparing Jesus with the temple from the comparisons with Jonah and with Solomon which

he will use in 12:41, 42. e language ‘profane the sabbath’ is deliberately provocative, re ecting LXX phraseology which is used in descriptions of major covenant violations.15 What is referred to is presumably the requirement in Nu. 28:9-10 of speci c sabbath sacri ces. Again what is established is that the non-work requirement of the sabbath is not absolute. But the difficulty again is to determine the relevance of this to the situation of the disciples plucking the ears of grain. Once more at best the comparison creates a space in which apparently unlawful behaviour may be justi ed on other grounds. e following verse gives Matthew’s speci c attempt to bridge the gap between the temple sacri ce on the sabbath and the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples. 12:6 e angle that Matthew takes is to justify priestly behaviour on the grounds that the temple is more important than the sabbath: its needs take precedence. e angle is chosen for its christological potential: since Jesus is greater than the temple, then he must also be of more importance than the sabbath.16 e danger is of proving too much. We need to keep the statement here in close connection with the guiding thread throughout this account: the account is about justi ed violation of the normal non-work requirement of the sabbath. What Matthew asserts is that Jesus is of such importance that he can arbitrate as to which are the justi ed violations of the non-work requirement of the sabbath. Given Matthew’s favourable attitude to the Law, the point cannot be that Jesus’ presence obviates the need to keep the sabbath.17 12:7 e Markan appeal to the creation sequence (the sabbath was made for humanity) is replaced by a fresh appeal to Ho. 6:6.18 e introduction to the quotation partly echoes that for the previous use in 9:13 (‘what this is’) and partly parallels the introductions in 12:3, 5.19 e Ho. 6:6 call to mercy points to the need to understand the sabbath command itself in relation to the

sabbath intentions of the One who is himself gracious and merciful (see further at 9:13). ough the Pharisaic interlocutors seem not to know about this need for mercy, Jesus does, and accordingly he allows the disciples to relieve their hunger.20 In line with the prophetic perspective of the Sermon on the Mount (see at 5:17), here the Matthean Jesus clari es the Law from a prophetic perspective. Drawing support from Ho. 6:6, Jesus declares that needy people who pluck grain to eat on the sabbath are guiltless. 12:8 is verse was probably an editorial comment addressed to the reader in Mk. 2:28 and is likely still to be so here, though it may have been incorporated into the words of Jesus as in Lk. 6:5. With 12:8 taken as an editorial comment, the linking ‘for’ makes easier sense: ‘from what is reported in this account, you may conclude, dear reader, that Jesus exercises authority as Lord over the question of God’s intention for the sabbath’. It will be important that Jesus’ authority is, however, not seen as an arbitrary authority that fails to take account of the Law and the Prophets. Matthew introduces the designation ‘Son of Man’ for Jesus at 8:20 (see there). He is clearly a gure of authority in 9:6 (see there). e most recent usage is 11:19. Jesus has been identi ed as ‘Lord’ from 7:21 (see there). Elsewhere ‘Lord’ is a relational term and always expresses the signi cance of someone for another person. B. ‘It Is Permitted to Do Good on the Sabbath’ (12:9-14) 9aHe

went on from there and came into their synagogue. 10bere cwas a person therec with a withered hand. So they asked him, ‘Is it permitted to heal on the sabbath?’ — so that they might accuse him. 11He said to them, ‘Who dis the person among you who ewill have a sheep, and fif this [sheep] should fall into a ditch, he gwill not take hold of it and li it up? 12Of how much more value is a person than a sheep! So, it is permitted to do good on the sabbath.’

13en

he says to the person, ‘Stretch out your hand!’ And he stretched it out, and it was restored; [it became] whole hlike the other.h 14e Pharisees went out and took counsel together against him, so that they might destroy him.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ιησους (‘Jesus’) in C N Σ etc. c g1 h syp, marking more strongly the fresh beginning. b. An emphatic ιδου (lit. ‘behold’) is not translated. c-c. e text as translated lacks ‘was’ and ‘there’ (Matthew’s ιδου has displaced them), but these are supplied in various texts, probably under the in uence of Mk. 3:1. d. For English idiomatic reasons translating the future as a present. ere is a present tense in D Θ 33 565 892 1424 l 844 l 2211 etc. f (k) q. e verb is missing in C* L f13 etc. it. e. Present tense in D etc. it vgmss. f. e conditional is missing from D f13 700* etc. b ff2* sys, c sa bo, and of these D it sys, c (along with syp) lack ‘this’. g. Present tenses in D. h-h. Missing from ‫ א‬C2 892*, this could be an expansion. Bibliography Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Christ and the Power of Choice (Mark 3.1-6)’, Bib 65 (1984), 168-188. • Hendrickx, H., Miracle Stories, 149-67. • Klinghardt, M., Gesetz und Volk Gottes, 229-32. • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 200-212. • Lindemann, A., ‘Jesus und der Sabbat: Zum literarischen Character der Erzählung Mk 3,1-6’, in Text, ed. E. Schlarb and S. Maser, 122-35. • Lowe, M. and Flusser, D., ‘Evidence Corroborating a Modi ed Proto-Matthean Synoptic eory’, NTS 29 (1983), 25-47, esp. 30-33. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 107-16. • Sauer, J., ‘Traditionsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zu

Mk 3.1-6’, ZNW 73 (1982), 183-203. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 278318. • Vouga, F., Jésus, 53-67. • Yang, Y.-E., Sabbath, 195-214. See further at 12:1-8; 11:2-6.

Con ict over the nature of the sabbath continues: the Pharisees are incensed at Jesus’ agrant disregard of their sense of how this sacred day was to be honoured; the nature of his easy yoke is further illustrated. e Markan order continues. e main change from Mk. 3:1-6 is the replacement of vv. 4-5a with material that has a partial parallel in Lk. 14:5. Controversy over the keeping of the sabbath was clearly a feature of the ministry of Jesus, but transfer of motifs and development in the tradition mean that there are limits to our knowledge of the precise contours of this dispute. Nonetheless the basic authenticity of the materials here is not normally disputed.

12:9 Matthew again uses the idiom μεταβαίνειν ἐκεῖθεν (‘go on from there’) introduced in 11:1 (to come again in 15:29). It evokes Jesus’ itinerant patterns. ‘eir synagogue’ ensures continuity between Jesus’ conversation partners here and in 12:1-8 (the Pharisee can, therefore, be simply ‘they’ in v. 10).21 e synagogue setting is a public setting, especially on the sabbath, but otherwise it plays no role in Matthew’s account here. 12:10 ‘A withered hand’ is literally ‘a dried hand’.22 e nature of the problem is unclear. It is, however, of signi cance for the account that the condition will have been long-standing: this is no medical emergency. In the previous episode the probing of the Pharisees comes aer the event; here it comes before. Where Matthew changed a Markan question to a statement in 12:2, here the change moves in the opposite direction (cf. Mk. 3:2): what they were watching out for there becomes what they question Jesus

about here.23 e introduction of ἔξεστιν (‘it is permitted’) creates a further link with 12:1-8 (see v. 2; cf. v. 4), but it also helps to frame the account (cf. v. 12) and focus it sharply on the question of what is permitted on the sabbath.24 Matthew will again introduce a question with εἰ (lit. ‘if ’) in 19:3. He is in uenced here by the use of ‘if ’ in his Markan source, but the idiom is Septuagintal (e.g., Gn. 17:17), so it probably re ects Matthew’s own Jewish Greek. ough provoked by the presence of the disabled person, the question is general in form. e motivation indicated — ‘so that they might accuse him’ — points to radical alienation: the Pharisees want a ‘wrong’ answer from Jesus. For the Pharisees, what would have been the right answer? In the discussion at 12:4 we saw that there was wide Jewish agreement that when there was danger to life they would have viewed the requirements of the sabbath could be set aside. is would imply that they would have viewed life-saving healing on the sabbath with favour. But such was not the situation of the person with the withered hand.25 For the Pharisees to comply with sabbath regulations was more important than healing the person with the withered hand (he could seek healing on another day).26 12:11 In line with the general form he has given to the question posed, Matthew defers Mark’s reintroduction at this point of the disabled person.27 e counterquestion found in Mk. 3:4 is displaced by another drawn from a separate tradition (cf. Lk. 14:5).28 e postulated situation is spoken of with a series of future tenses, with a move to the subjunctive for the conditional clause. e future tenses invite the hearers to contemplate people coming to be in this general situation if they are not so already, and then facing the possibility of their sheep falling into a ditch. e construction is Semitic and reminiscent of that in 7:9. It is unclear whether

πρόβατον ἕν is intended to mean ‘one sheep’ (heightening the signi cance of the sheep) or is simply a Semitism meaning ‘a sheep’. e use of οὐχί for the negative suggests a comfortable assumption that the hearers will expect everyone in such a situation to retrieve the sheep. We are probably to understand that the animal is to be thought of as trapped and therefore distressed rather than as in a situation which is considered to be immediately life threatening. A more severe view than that assumed by Jesus to be general is found in CD 11:13-14. Otherwise we are ill informed as to Jewish views in the period. In m. Šab. 18:3 a measure of compassion is to be shown to a dam giving birth on the sabbath (matched, giving a certain parallelism with the argument made by Jesus, by considerably greater allowance for a woman giving birth on the sabbath). Despite being addressed to Pharisees, Jesus’ argument is intended to operate at the visceral level of imagination and experience and not at the level of scholarly analysis.29 e use of the question form is merely rhetorical, so there is no challenge to provide an answer (contrast the end of Mk. 3:4).30 In Mt. 12:12 the question form will become exclamatory. 12:12 οὖν seems to mark the next step in the argument; it is best le untranslated.31 e comparison between the value of a person and a sheep is similar to the comparison with birds in 6:26; 10:31.32 e place of humanity in the creation accounts of Gn. 1–2 is likely to be ultimately re ected (and cf. Ps. 8). On a ‘how much more’ basis the natural appropriateness of thoughtfulness on the sabbath to an animal in need points to the fact that compassion for people in their needs marks out a sphere of appropriate sabbath behaviour.

e generality of expression in ‘it is permitted to do good on the sabbath’ is borrowed from Mark (3:4), where it occurs in question form as part of a double set of alternatives.33 In Matthew the statement cannot mean that the goodness of any activity justi es its taking place on the sabbath. Shorn of the Markan contrasts and with the adverb καλῶς in place of Mark’s adjective ἀγαθόν, the sense becomes something like: ‘so, to act well or appropriately on the sabbath is (surely) allowed’. is nal statement is, therefore, probably not actually intended to add anything to the argument. What has already been demonstrated is that certain kinds of activity are appropriate on the sabbath: the normal non-work requirement is not absolute. e conclusion simply claims a place for such activity. 12:13 e account is one of Jesus dealing primarily with his Pharisaic opponents and only secondarily with the person with the withered hand. Now for the rst time in the account Jesus relates to the needy person. Matthew marks a special emphasis at this point by introducing it with τότε (‘then’) and a historic present (‘he says’). As in 9:6, the mode of cure is to direct the person to behaviour that presupposes healing. In the very act of reaching out, the hand becomes capable of stretching out in a manner not earlier possible. ‘e other’ is a Matthean touch (cf. 5:39; 27:42, 61). When Jesus encounters such a person, healing is an appropriate action for the sabbath. 12:14 Here Matthew drops Mark’s ‘with the Herodians’ (the Herod in question will not be introduced until 14:1),34 but they will survive as in cahoots with the plotting of the Pharisees in 22:16. Despite the heavy penalty attached to sabbath breaking in the Law (e.g., Ex. 31:14), the Pharisees’ plotting to destroy Jesus seems inadequately motivated, given the general uncertainty about where to draw precise boundaries as to what constituted unjusti ed work

on the sabbath and given Jesus’ own claim that no sabbath breaking was occurring. What is likely to have proved most provocative is that Jesus was placing in question the right which Pharisees claimed to de ne for ordinary Jews what constituted best practice. Jesus as teacher rather than Jesus as healer was the problem. Matthew may well trade on the imprecision of ἀπολέσωσιν: people may be ‘destroyed’ in various ways. Sabbath violation plays no role in the trial of Jesus, but the desire to destroy Jesus will reach its culmination in Jerusalem and will be successful. C. e Triumph of the Gentle and Other-Centred Servant of God (12:15-21) aware of this, departed from there. Great acrowds followed him, and he healed them ball. 16And he sternly orderedb them not to make him known. 17[is was] so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, 15Jesus,

is my servant cwhom I have chosen, My beloved in whom my soul has come to delight. I will place my Spirit upon him, And he will announce justice to the nations. 19He will not quarrel or shout out, Nor will anyone hear his voice in the public squares. 18Here

20dA

crushed reedd he will not break, And a smouldering wick he will not extinguish, Until he successfully brings forth justice. 21And in his name the nations will hope.

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. Missing from ‫ א‬B etc. lat. Failing to note the link with 4:25; 8:1, a scribe probably considered πολλοι (‘many’) more appropriate than οχλοι πολλοι (lit. ‘many crowds’) as a follow-on from the synagogue setting of 12:9-14. N* has ‘crowds’, but without ‘many’. b-b. παντας δε ους εθεραπευσεν επεπληξεν (‘and all whom he healed he reproved’) in D (f1) it, to which W adds (con ating) αυτοις και επετιμησεν (‘them and sternly ordered’). e effect is to move the ‘all’ into a different clause where it no longer implies healing of everybody (sick or not). Θ drops παντας (‘all’) to the same end. c. Various texts tighten the parallelism between ‘whom’ here and ‘in whom’ in the following line by changing the one place or the other. For the second ‘whom’ D f1 33 1424 bring the language into line with that in 3:17. d-d. Missing from D*, which presumably leads to taking ‘his voice’ as the object of the following rather than the previous verb. No clear sense emerges. Bibliography Beaton, R., Isaiah’s Christ. • Beaton, R., ‘Messiah and Justice: A Key to Matthew’s Use of Isaiah 42.1-4?’ JSNT 75 (1999), 5-23. • Boismard, M.-É., ‘Réponse aux deux autres hypothèses, 1: La théorie des deux sources: Mc 3:7-12 et parallèles’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 259-65. • Doyle, B. R., ‘A Concern of the Evangelist: Pharisees in Matthew 12’, ABR 34 (1986), 1734. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Quotation from Isaiah 42:1-4 in Matthew 12:1821: Its Relationship with the Matthean Context’, Bijdragen 59 (1998), 251-66. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Quotation from Isaiah 42,1-4 in Matthew 12,18-21: Its Textual Form’, ETL 75 (1999), 32-52. • Neyrey, J. N., ‘e ematic Use of Isa 42.1-4 in Matthew 12’, Bib 63 (1982), 457-73. • Schnackenburg, R., ‘“Siehe da mein Knecht, den ich erwählt have…” (Mt 12,18): Zur Heiltätigkeit Jesu im Matthäusevangelium’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 203-38. • Tassin, C., ‘Matthieu “targumiste?”: L’exemple de Mt 12,18 (= Is 42,1)’, EstBíb 48 (1990), 199-214. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 159-85. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 189-93. • Yang, Y.-E., Sabbath, 214-21. See further at 11:2-6; 12:1-8.

A minimally developed scene provides a setting for the quotation from Is. 42:1-4 which is the next in Matthew’s set of formula quotations, but the citation offers a much wider characterisation of the ministry of Jesus and has particular links back to 11:29, which allow it to function as one of the clasps between chaps. 11 and 12 and to con rm the link between the sabbath episodes in 12:1-14 and the yoke of Jesus in 11:28-30. Matthew continues with the Markan sequence, but draws only selectively from Mk. 3:7-12 (‘Jesus’, ‘departed’, ‘followed’, ‘healed’, ‘sternly ordered them not to make him known’ are from Mark), adapting it to his own ends and attaching at this point the next in his sequence of formula citations.

12:15 Matthew creates a speci c connection between Jesus’ awareness of the plotting of the Pharisees and his withdrawal.35 He identi es this as a prudent withdrawal from an area of danger, as in 4:12. Matthew is fond of using ἐκεῖθεν (‘from there’) for Jesus’ movement; it underlines the itinerant nature of his ministry.36 e following of the crowds echoes 4:25; 8:1 (see at 4:25). It is not clear where we are to imagine the crowds as coming from.37 In line with 4:25, their presence is probably intended to mark Jesus’ continuing popularity with the people, as a contrast now to the attitude of the Pharisees. Matthew’s ‘all’ echoes his regular use of πᾶς (‘all/every’) to indicate the comprehensiveness of Jesus’ healing activity.38 Here, however, the abbreviated expression suggests (probably unintentionally) crowds composed entirely of those in need of healing.39 But Matthew is not really interested at this point in the healing, but rather in the opportunity that the healing provides to show Jesus as anything but a self-publicist. 12:16 e language stays close to Mark’s here.40 Matthew makes nothing of the ‘messianic secret’ which is so important in Mark, but already at 9:30 he has introduced the idea that Jesus seeks

to avoid having his healings function like publicity stunts, intended for self-promotion. Jesus insists here that those healed not become his publicists. He was not secretive, but the creation of a suitable public image for himself was not among his concerns. e strong language (ἐπετίμησεν; lit. ‘he rebuked’) suggests that the crowds are to be viewed as already intent on creating publicity; Jesus is concerned to de ect them from this path. He is not aer a power base in public opinion to protect him from the hostility of the Pharisees. 12:17 Matthew adds here a formula quotation, the seventh of the set of ten beginning at 1:22 (see there). It is the third of three which are identi ed as coming from Isaiah (see at 4:14; 8:17) with identical formulas for all three except that the middle one begins with ὅπως rather than ἵνα (both mean ‘so that’). 12:18 e quotation here of Is. 42:1-4 is the longest of the formula quotations and the one with the least obvious and, at least proportionately, least extensive linkage with its immediate context. e setting provided in vv. 15-16 seems to be little more than an ‘excuse’ for placing the quotation at this point in the narrative. In some important sense Matthew sees the quotation as offering a cameo of the ministry of Jesus and thinks that now, just over a third of the way through his story, is a suitable time to make use of it. Because various elements of the quotation join with wider features of Matthew’s story, it is unclear what determined the present location, beyond the linking and bracketing effect created by the connection with 11:29. As with other formula quotations, the text form is closer to the MT than the LXX, but with LXX features at points.41 παῖς can mean ‘child’, but since παῖς μου never means ‘my child’ in the LXX, but always ‘my servant’, that is most likely here. A tie with the ‘son’ language of 3:17 (to be echoed at 17:5) will, however,

be provided by ‘my beloved’, which is a possible but not-at-all-literal rendering of bḥyry (‘my chosen’), and by the choice of εὐδόκησεν (‘has come to delight’ — the verb used in 3:17) to render rṣth.42 see the discussion at 3:17. is is the servant who is also the Son.43 ἡρέτισα (‘I have chosen’) is an unusual rendering, both as a verb and in tense, for the imperfect of tmk (‘take hold of ’), which is normally taken to refer in Is. 42:1 to God’s ongoing support of the servant.44 e choice is probably determined here by Matthew’s sense that the quotation deals with a three-stage process: God’s choice and identi cation of the servant; God’s anointing of him for his task; and the servant’s completion of the task. In Matthew’s telling the baptism account is the focus for the rst two stages, while the rest of Matthew’s narrative is encapsulated in the third stage. One’s ψυχή is one’s life or one’s self: the essential person. When used as a subject it marks emphasis, and there seems to be no better way of rendering it than with the traditional translation, ‘soul’. Here a fulsomeness is involved that provides poetic variation and emphasis. e change of tense with θήσω (‘I will place’) matches neither the MT nor the LXX, which continue the perfect/aorist of the previous verb. e change marks the movement to the next of the stages identi ed above.45 e verb choice is not close to either the MT or the LXX,46 but re ects well the physical imagery of the descent of the Spirit in Mt. 3:16. e Spirit equips the servant for his role, which is rst summarised brie y in the nal clause of 12:18 and then spelt out in further detail in vv. 19-21. In Mt. 12 the signi cance of bearing the Spirit emerges in v. 28. ἀπαγγελεῖ (‘he will announce/proclaim’) follows neither the MT nor the LXX, which agree in having the servant ‘bring forth’ (ἐξοίσει, ywṣyʾ). In uence from the targumic tradition has been

suggested.47 Also possible is an in uence from the role of announcement more broadly in the materials of Deutero-Isaiah. But perhaps most likely is an in uence from the role of proclamation in the ministry of Jesus (admittedly Matthew does not use this verb of Jesus, but he does use it of proclamation of what has happened with and to Jesus48). In Matthew’s perspective the heralding that Jesus engages in already sets in motion the process that brings what is heralded. In what sense does Matthew take κρίσιν here? As indicated at 5:21, the word κρίσις refers primarily to the activity of judging, and then derivatively to the bringing of justice, to the body that makes judgments (a court), to the sentence of condemnation, or even to the punishment resulting. A focus on condemnation must be excluded on the basis of the language of hope in 12:21. Perhaps best is the establishment of a just order under God in place of the manifest injustices of the present life (cf. the discussion of ‘righteousness’ at 5:6). is should be seen as implying the judgment of God (as taken up in 12:36, 41, 42), but as setting this within a larger positive vision. On Matthew’s use of ἔθνη (‘nations/Gentiles’) see the comments at 4:15. A vision that is wider than ethnic Israel is involved, but not one that is intended to exclude ethnic Israel (so: ‘nations’, not ‘Gentiles’, here). 12:19 It is this verse that justi es Matthew’s location of the quotation. Jesus’ handling of the hostility of the Pharisees illustrates the fact that he is not strident or disputatious; his approach is not aggressive or self-assertive. ἐρίζειν means to quarrel or wrangle.49 κραυγάζειν means simply ‘to call out’, but in the context here it must have overtones of verbal violence.50 Matthew clearly does not intend to insist that Jesus never disagreed with others or disputed their opinions. Attitude and approach are in view. Neyrey is, however, too restrictive in wanting to limit the reference to Jesus’ refusal to

engage in forensic debate with his enemies over his credentials and identity.51 e active verb of the nal clause replaces the passive of the LXX and the hiphil (causative) of the MT. ough ἀκούσει could mean ‘will pay attention to’, the object ‘his voice’ ts better with ‘will hear’, and only ‘will hear’ produces an appropriate parallelism between the two clauses of v. 19.52 Our text is less literal than the LXX in translating bḥṣ (‘in the outside’) as ἐν ταῖς πλατείαις (‘in the public squares’). Matthew’s only other use of πλατείαι is in 6:5, of which there may be a modest echo here (see there for the translation of πλατείαι). Again, the language cannot be applied literally to Jesus, but the claim is certainly being made that Jesus is not behaving like a rabble-rouser, stirring up people with his demagogy. 12:20 e destructive potential of the ‘noisy’ approach from which distance has been created in v. 19 is now addressed. Presumably a crushed reed has lost the strength of its rigid structure and so easily sustains further damage. A crushed reed is a rather valueless item, but here it is being valued and preserved from further damage. A smoking wick is a wick that is not doing its job properly. e only practical response to such a situation is to extinguish the wick and to put a replacement wick into the oil lamp. Again, what is normally thought to be beyond valuing is preserved from its expected fate. What are these images to be applied to? In the context of Deutero-Isaiah the application would seem to be to the exiles as displaced and devalued people. In Matthew the shortest bridge is to the tax collectors and sinners, valued by Jesus but marginalised in their own community (9:10-13). Aer 12:1-8, the poor in their neediness may also be in view (and perhaps even the sick in their suffering aer vv. 9-14).

e nal clause of v. 20 is formed by con ating elements of the nal clause from Is. 42:3 and the second clause from v. 4. ese are somewhat parallel, and each contains mšpṭ/κρίσιν (‘justice’). In the process a clause in between about the situation of the servant himself is lost.53 At rst sight εἰς νῖκος (lit. ‘to victory’) seems to introduce the kind of aggressive note that has been so carefully avoided in the text thus far, but Kra is surely right that here εἰς νῖκος means ‘successfully’.54 By gentle perseverance the servant will successfully bring forth the justice which it has been his role to announce (v. 18). 12:21 e recurrence of ‘nations’ (here)55 and ‘justice’ (in the last clause of v. 20) brings closure by taking us back to the nal clause of v. 19 where the role of the servant was rst identi ed. ere have already been minor intimations of the potential signi cance of Jesus for those beyond the bounds of the historic people of God,56 but v. 18 and the present verse take us much further. at the action of God was signi cant for all humanity in terms of judgment was a commonplace of Jewish theology, but that the God of Israel might be the hope of nations (beyond the Jewish) went far beyond normal Jewish thought. e claim is being made that the action of God now initiated through the Isaianic servant has goals as wide as humanity. e universal mission to invite people to participate in this hope is anticipated in 24:14 and established in 28:19-20 (the ‘name’ language used in 12:21 to express allegiance to Jesus recurs in 28:1957). e language of hope is suggestive of a process underway, which ts well with the way the kingdom of God is conceived in Matthew. Matthew may well intend his readers to link hope in the servant’s name here with the signi cance of the names Jesus and Emmanuel in 1:21, 23.58

D. By Beelzebul or by the Spirit of God? (12:22-29) 22en aa

person who was blind and [deaf and] mute, who was possessed by a demon, was broughta to him, and he healed bhim, so that the [one who had been] mutec spoke and saw. 23All the crowds were astonished and said, ‘Can this be the Son of David? 24But when the Pharisees heard [this], they said, ‘is [fellow] casts out demons only by Beelzebouldthe ruler of the demons’. 25eSeeing their thoughts, fhe said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and every town or house divided against itself will not stand. 26And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How, then, will his kingdom stand? 27If I cast out demons by Beelzeboul, by whom do your sons cast them out? erefore they will be your judges. 28But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29Or how can one enter the house of a strong person and plunder gthe person’sg goods if one does not first tie up the strong person? en one will [be able to] plunder gthe person’sg house.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Formulated in the active (‘they brought a person’) rather than in the passive in B 1424 etc. sy(s, c, p) (co). b. Taking ‘blind’ and ‘mute’ as referring to separate people, ‫ *א‬corrects to the plural. c. For consistency και τυϕλον (‘and blind’) is added (from earlier) in L W Δ Θ 0233 f1, 13 700 etc. syp. e order is reversed in C 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. q. e problem is solved in lat by omitting κωϕος (‘the [one who had been] mute’). d. e rst λ is missing from the spelling in ‫ א‬B. ‘Beelzebub’ is found in c (ff1) vg sys, c, p. e readings are much the same in v. 27. e. ειδως (‘knowing’) in ‫*א‬, 2 B C L W Θ f1, 13 1006 1342 1506 etc. (lat) syp, h sa mae, an understandable ‘correction’ from ιδων (‘seeing’). A move in the other direction seems less likely.

f. Quite a number of texts add a clarifying Ιησους (‘Jesus’). g-g. Possessive pronoun in Greek. Bibliography Barnett, P. W., ‘e Jewish Sign-Prophets — A.D. 40-70: eir Intentions and Origin’, NTS 27 (1980-81), 679-97. • Boring, M. E., ‘e Synoptic Problem, “Minor” Agreements and the Beelzebul Pericope’, in e Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck, 587-620. • Cangh, J. M. van, ‘“Par l’Esprit de Dieu — par le doigt de Dieu”: Mt 12,28 par. Lc 11,20’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 337-42. • Caragounis, C. C., ‘Kingdom of God, Son of Man and Jesus’ SelfUnderstanding: Part I’, TynB 40 (1989), 3-23. • Caragounis, C. C., ‘Kingdom of God, Son of Man and Jesus’ Self-Understanding: Part II’, TynB 40 (1989), 223-38. • Casey, M., Aramaic Approach, 146-84. • Chilton, B., ‘A Comparative Study of Synoptic Development: e Dispute between Cain and Abel in the Palestinian Targums and the Beelzebul Controversy in the Gospels’, JBL 101 (1982), 553-62. • Chilton, B. D., ‘A Comparative Study of Synoptic Development: e Dispute between Cain and Abel in the Palestinian Targums and the Beelzebul Controversy in the Gospels’, in Targumic Approaches, 137-49. • Craig, K. M. and Kristjansson, M. A., ‘Women Reading as Men/Women Reading as Women: A Structural Analysis for the Historical Project’, Semeia 51 (1990), 119-36. • Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Matthew 12:28/Luke 11:20 — A Word of Jesus’, in Eschatology and the New Testament. FS G. R. Beasley-Murray, ed. W. H. Gloer (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 29-49. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 346-72. • Fuchs, A., Die Entwicklung der Beelzebulkontroverse bei den Synoptikern: Traditionsgeschichtliche und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung von Mk 3,22-27 und Parallelen, verbunden mit der Rückfrage nach Jesus (SNTU B/5. Linz, 1980). • Garrett, S. R., Demise, 43-46. • Gerrish, B. A., ‘For and against’, ChrCent 116 (1999), 1232-33. • Green, H. B., ‘Matthew 12,22-50 and Parallels: An Alternative to Matthean Con ation’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 157-76. • Guijarro, S., ‘e Politics of Exorcism: Jesus’ Reaction to Negative Labels in the Beelzebul Controversy’, BTB 29 (1999), 118-29. • Hiers, R. H., Jesus and the Future (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 62-71. •

Humphries, M. L., Christian Origins and the Language of the Kingdom of God (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1999). • Kirchschläger, W., Exorzistisches Wirken, 229-36. • Kloppenborg, J. S., ‘Q 11:14-26: Work Sheets for Reconstruction’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 127-32. • Kloppenborg, J. S., ‘A Synopsis for Q’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 127-32. • Kollmann, B., Wundertäter, 17479. • Luz, U., ‘Q 10:2-16; 11:14-23’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 101-2. • Marcus, J., ‘e Beelzebul Controversy and the Eschatologies of Jesus’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 247-77. • Mearns, C., ‘Realized Eschatology in Q? A Consideration of the Sayings of Luke 7.22, 11.20 and 16.16’, SJT 40 (1987), 189-210. • Meurer, H.-J., Gleichnisse, 581-600. • Meynet, R., ‘Qui donc est “le plus fort”? Analyse rhétorique de Mc 3,22-30; Mt 12,22-37; Luc 11,14-26’, RB 90 (1983), 334-50. • Neirynck, F., ‘Mt 12,25a/Lc 11,17a et la rédaction des évangiles’, in Evangelica II, 481-492. • Nielsen, H. K., Heilung, 28-45. • Oakman, D. E., ‘Rulers’ Houses, ieves, and Usurpers: e Beelzebul Pericope’, Forum 4.3 (1988), 109-23. • Räisänen, H., ‘Exorcisms and the Kingdom: Is Q 11:20 a Saying of the Historical Jesus?’, in Symbols and Strata, ed. R. Uro, 119-42. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 116-33. • Robbins, V. K., ‘Rhetorical Composition and the Beelzebul Controversy’, in Patterns, B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, 161-93. • Robinson, J. M., ‘e Mission and Beelzebul: Pap. Q 10:2-16; 11:14-23’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 97-99. • Rolland, P., ‘Jésus connaissait leurs pensées’, ETL 62 (1986), 118-21. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 1:127-53. • Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich — Jesu Geschick, 104-8. • Shirock, R., ‘Whose Exorcists Are ey? e Referents of οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν at Matthew 12.27/Luke 11.19’, JSNT 46 (1992), 41-51. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 123-47. • Syx, R., ‘Jesus and the Unclean Spirit: e Literary Relation between Mark and Q in the Beelzebul Controversy (Mark 3:20-30 par)’, LS 17 (1992), 166-80. • omas, J. C., ‘e Kingdom of God in the Gospel according to Matthew’, NTS 39 (1993), 136-46. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 258-77. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 40-93. • Wall, R. W., ‘“e Finger of God”: Deuteronomy 9.10 and Luke 11.20’, NTS 33 (1987), 144-50. • White, L. M., ‘Scaling the Strongman’s “Court” (Luke 11:21)’, Forum 3.3 (1987), 3-28. • Wouters, A., Willen, 86-93. • Wright, N. T., Victory, 451-54. See further at 4:17; 11:2-6; 12:1-8.

If Jesus is the one to ful l Is. 42:1-4, as maintained in Mt. 12:15-21, then his actions are empowered by the Spirit. But Jesus’ Pharisaic interlocutors propose the alternative that he is in league with Beelzeboul, a view which has already been brie y anticipated in 9:32-35. Jesus challenges the cogency of this alternative. ere is a close parallel to Mt. 12:22-30 in Lk. 11:14-23 and a partial parallel in Mk. 3:22-27. Matthew stays with the Markan order, but jumps over the call of the Twelve (he has already given his equivalent) and the scene that initiates the visit of Jesus’ family (Matthew feels no need to explain or prepare for the arrival of Jesus’ family in 12:46) and makes use of the more extended material of the source shared with Luke. Except for Lk. 11:16 (drawn in from another source), the nal clauses of v. 17 (cryptically abbreviated by Luke), the nal clause of v. 18 (a Lukan clari cation of the argument), ‘ nger of God’, not ‘Spirit of God’, in v. 20 (Luke is probably responsible for the difference) and vv. 21-22 (heavily reformulated by Luke), Luke follows the non-Markan source form closely. Matthew is in uenced by both source forms; his own main contribution is to give words to the astonished crowds in 12:23. e material is unlikely to be an original unity, but with different levels of con dence (less con dence for Mt. 12:25-27) it is likely that they all re ect the historical ministry of Jesus (but the minimal account of the exorcism itself is likely to have been secondarily formed as an introduction).59

12:22 With the opening τότε (‘then’) Matthew intends to suggest a owing narrative continuity. But this is not without difficulties: a continuation of the healing scene of 12:15 is naturally to be assumed, but this allows no space for the reappearance of the Pharisees aer the withdrawal of that verse; aer the healing of all in v. 15 (which, as is clear in 4:24, would naturally be taken as including exorcisms) a sharp focus on a single exorcism comes rather unnaturally.60 e difficulty comes because Matthew feels free to mould his sources only lightly in the direction of narrative coherence. e bringing of the demoniac (not in the source) is to

echo 9:32-33, and this demoniac is blind (not so in the source) probably to link with 9:27-31. On the translation of κωϕός as ‘[deaf and] mute’ see the discussion at 9:32. e combined affliction of being blind, deaf, and mute represents an extreme of human isolation, but not a state that is beyond the reach of Jesus. ‘And he healed’ is repeated from 12:15. Matthew creates a minor chiasm by taking the two disabilities in reverse order. 12:23 ‘All the crowds’ picks up on the ‘great crowds’ of v. 15. For variation Matthew uses ἐξίσταντο for ‘were astonished’ here (only here) rather than the ἐθαύμασαν of 9:33 and of the source. ‘Son of David’ was introduced as a messianic title at 9:27 (see there); its introduction here reinforces the link with 9:27-31 and takes up the thread of messianic identity from 11:2. As with the message sent from John, the christological possibility is raised as a question. More generally, the speaking role given to the astonished crowds adds to the connection with 9:32-34. 12:24 Anonymous voices in the source (cf. Lk. 11:15) have become Pharisees in Matthew (see discussion at 9:34). What they are to say becomes a rejoinder to the crowds by means of the addition of ἀκούσαντες (‘when they heard [this]’). e use of οὗτος (distinctive to Matthew) is dismissive: ‘this [fellow]’. Matthew’s εἰ μή (lit. ‘except’, translated ‘only’) also represents an intensi cation.61 On the name Beelzeboul see the comments at 10:25, where the present material has also been anticipated. On the Pharisaic accusation more generally see the discussion at 9:34. 12:25 ough the text is uncertain (see above), it is likely that Matthew, to accentuate the link, repeats the phrasing of 9:4: ‘seeing their thoughts’.62 Because Matthew has made the words of the Pharisees a public rejoinder to the crowds, we must, rather arti cially, think of Jesus as being out of earshot. e introduction of kingdom language prepares for Jesus’ assertion in 12:28. e

image here is of civil war within a kingdom and the desolation brought by it. It is also of something highly undesirable to the existing leadership. Parallel images of a divided town (probably a self-governing city-state is in mind)63 and a divided household (probably a domestic household, but possibly a royal house in the context of a disputed succession) are also offered. 12:26 Matthew creatively merges features of Lk. 11:18 and Mk. 3:26. e switch in language from Beelzeboul to Satan allows for a link back to the temptation narrative in 4:1-11. Matthew repeats ‘casts out’ from Mt. 12:24 and hyperbolically heightens the sense of contradiction with ‘Satan casts out Satan’. Civil wars do occur; but it is hard to see how one could be deliberately arranged for by the ruler of the demons, for whom it could only mean the ravaging of his kingdom and the undermining of his rule. Rulers do not act in such a way! e argument has cogency only if the act of exorcism involved here is manifestly against the interests of the rule of Satan and not merely some sort of stratagem or charade (cf. at 9:34). 12:27 e appeal to exorcisms undertaken by ‘your sons’ is intended to point up the fact that both Jesus and his antagonists recognise release from demon possession as a thoroughly worthwhile achievement.64 e proposal being made as to how Jesus does it could not be extended to other exorcists without considerable embarrassment. To seek to blacken Jesus’ name in this way is to cast doubt on all other Jewish exorcists. A link with eschatological judgment on the pattern of 12:41-42 is unlikely, as is the proposal by Shirock that ‘your sons’ refers to disciples of Jesus engaged in exorcisms.65 It is the existence of the other exorcists as positively appreciated in their culture which enables them, simply by existing, to show up (judge) the Pharisees for the evasion involved in their explanation of Jesus’ powers.

12:28 It is very unlikely that vv. 27 and 28 originally stood together. V. 27 makes best sense as concerned only with the negative half of the equation: the Pharisees cannot credibly say that the Jewish exorcists are empowered by Beelzeboul. e juxtaposition of vv. 27and 28 creates, however (probably inadvertently), a formal parallel between ἐν τίνι (‘by whom?’) and ἐν πνεύματι θεοῦ (‘by the Spirit of God’), which naturally suggests that the proper answer to ‘by whom?’ is not just ‘certainly not by Beelzeboul’ but more precisely ‘by the Spirit of God’. But such an answer would undercut the claim of v. 28 that Jesus’ exorcisms are to be distinctively linked with the coming of the kingdom of God. Since Jesus’ exorcising activity was probably perceived as in quite a different league from that of others (other exorcists used elaborate means of various kinds, but in the case of Jesus a simple directive was enough) this unfortunate effect of the juxtaposition was likely not to have been noticed: v. 28 was linked with v. 27 without any perception of a likely in uence on reader perception of the proper answer to the question of v. 27. e text, then, seems to work with a view that other exorcisms are like those of Jesus insofar as the outcome of the activity, which must be evaluated positively, but unlike those of Jesus inasmuch as Jesus’ exorcisms exhibited a distinctive power. Reference to the role of the Spirit links with the bestowing of the Spirit in v. 18: exorcisms are part of the Spirit-empowered ministry of the servant of Is. 42:1-4. Reference to the Spirit points further to a claim here by Jesus that his exorcisms are instances of the manifest presence of the activity of God. Regularly in the OT the Spirit is experienced in concrete and dramatic terms; something similar seems to be involved in the case of the exorcisms of Jesus. e presence of the Spirit is understood to be a self-evident foreground reality, not merely a background reality accessed through layers of interpretation (see further at Mt. 12:31-32). Not the exorcisms as

such but the manifest presence of the Spirit in the exorcisms has signi cance in relation to the coming of the kingdom of God. Matthew’s emphatic ‘I’ (ἐγώ) may be christological, but it probably marks only the contrast with ‘your sons’.66 us far Matthew has used ‘kingdom of heaven’, but here the parallel expression ‘Spirit of God’ encourages the preservation of the source form ‘kingdom of God’,67 as perhaps do the references to Beelzeboul/Satan as the alternative point of reference. For general discussion of kingdom of heaven/God see the remarks at 4:17. Earlier scholarship invested heavily in the question of the relationship between the use here of ἔϕθασεν (tr. above ‘has come’) and the use of ἤγγικεν (‘has drawn near’) in 4:17. Each has been pulled into the orbit of the other, and ἔϕθασεν in particular has been made to bear the weight of theological concerns that have far exceeded its semantic capabilities. An older meaning of ϕθάνειν survives in 1 es. 4:15, where the verb means ‘precede’; otherwise it uniformly means ‘come/arrive’ in the NT. By building on the older meaning and appealing to a putative Semitic original, a sense along the lines of ‘making its effects felt ahead of time’ has been claimed. But ϕθάνειν has never meant this; it does not even mean ‘arrive early’, and without an explicit or implicit comparison with the time of arrival of another it cannot even get as close as ‘arrive earlier’.68 With a following ἐπί it must mean ‘come upon’. ere is, however, also the question of the force of the aorist tense. By analogy with the uses of past tenses for future events in OT prophecy, a future force has been claimed here. Alternatively, a future reference has been claimed on the basis of the identi cation of futuristic aorists in the NT and beyond.69 But while a future force for an aorist is perfectly possible in NT Greek, nothing in the verse or the immediate context offers any encouragement in this direction. On the contrary, the interest is in the nature of what has

already happened or is happening. Jesus says in effect of his exorcisms, ‘What you can see here is God’s rule come into effect’. As something that has come upon, among others, Jesus’ Pharisaic interlocutors, the kingdom of God represents a challenge: the need is to come to terms with what is now happening as God moves in power to establish his kingdom. Matthew is happy to juxtapose a claim for the presence of the kingdom with the expectation of the future coming of the kingdom. Matthew’s Jesus both announces the present coming of the kingdom of God and anticipates its future apocalyptic manifestation. Caird has drawn attention to the same sort of juxtaposition of present ful lment and future consummation in the OT, which functions powerfully to set present experience into the larger context of the purposes of God in history.70 ‘ere is an important element of paradox in the claim that, while the larger world goes on much as before, nevertheless the new world order of God’s eschatological rule has now arrived in and through the activity of Jesus.’71 Without the prospect of eschatological consummation yet to come a disappointing diminution of expectations would be involved in the claim that the kingdom has arrived with the ministry of Jesus. 12:29 Where in vv. 25-26 the imagery was of a breakdown into competing factions (this is not what we see), here the imagery is of a taking over of control (this is what has happened). e opening ἤ (‘or’) suggests that what is to come is intended to support or reexpress from another angle the statement of v. 28.72 e use of a question form with πῶς (‘how’) matches the same construction in v. 26.73 Kingdom language gives way to imagery involving a householder’s control of a well-secured house (cf. the move from kingdom to town to house in v. 25).74 Immediately visible are Jesus’ exorcisms, which are viewed as despoiling incursions into the sphere of the ruler of the demons. What makes this possible? How

is it that Jesus can so effortlessly ‘plunder’? Why is there no resistance? e starting point for the thought here is an image of the world, or at least dimensions of the world, as securely in the possession of Satan. In one respect or another it may be possible to wrest this or that piece from his control, but the basic situation is like that of a well-secured house protected by a strong householder. But now we see an intruder making his way into the house, meeting no resistance and able to despoil at will.75 is can be possible only if the strong householder has rst been disabled (‘tied up’ is the imagery used).76 Matthew is unlikely to think in terms of a general binding of Satan, rendering him totally inactive (cf. 13:39; 16:23; 26:41), but he does think in terms of Satan having being rendered powerless to interfere with Jesus’ incursion into his territory. If we are to locate the ‘binding’ of Satan in any precise way, then it must be seen as taking place in Jesus’ success in resisting the temptations of Satan in 4:1-11.77 But the binding may be intended to be understood as having been achieved in the heavenly realm rather than in the earthly realm. e imagery of 12:29 provides a means of arguing from the speci c to the general: Jesus’ effortless exorcisms point to a bound Satan, that is, to the reality of a new state of power realities, the coming of the kingdom of God. E. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit Will Not Be Forgiven (12:30-37) 30e

one who is not with me is against me, and the one who does not gather with me scatters.a 31erefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgivenb to people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.c 32Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man — it willd be

forgiven to them, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit — it will not be forgiven to them, either in this age or in the [age] to come. 33Either make the tree good and [it will make] its fruit good, or make the tree bad and [it will make] its fruit bad. For the tree is known from its fruit. 34Offspring of vipers! How can you speak good, being evil? For [it is] out of the abundance of the heart [that] the mouth speaks.e 35fe good person brings fgood things out of fthe good treasure [which he or she has],g and the evil person brings fevil things out of the evil treasure [which he or she has].g 36I say to you, that every idle word which people speak — they will give an account for it on [the] day of judgment. 37For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ‫ א‬33 etc. syhmg bo add a rather senseless με (‘me’), probably to balance the second ‘me’ in the rst half. b. B f1 etc. sa mae add υμιν (‘to you’). Perhaps it means ‘by you’, moving the realm of forgiveness from the divine to the human. c. τοις ανθρωποις (‘to people’) is added to complete the parallelism by C D L W Θ f13 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. it syp, h. d. B* adds a negative, destroying the structure but protecting the signi cance of the Son of Man. e. D* d add αγαθα (‘good things’), catching only one side of the thought. f. ere is a degree of instability about the presence or absence of the de nite article at these points, but the meaning is not signi cantly affected. g. Under the in uence of Lk. 6:45, L (f1) 33 1342 etc. vgms sys, c add της καρδιας αυτου (‘of his or her heart’). Bibliography Aune, D. E., Prophecy, 240-42. • Flusser, D., ‘Die Sünde gegen den heiligen Geist’, in Wie gut sind deine Zelte, Jaakow. FS R. Mayer, ed. E. L. Ehrlich et al.

(Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1986), 139-44. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die Sünde wider den Heiligen Geist. Mk 3,28-30 par Mt 12,31-37 par Lk 12,10’, SNTU 19 (1994), 113-30. • Nwachukwu, F. and Manus, C. U., ‘Forgiveness and NonForgiveness in Matthew 12:31-32: Exegesis against the Background of Early Jewish and African ought Forms’, ATJ 21 (1992), 57-77. • O’Neill, J. C., ‘e Unforgivable Sin’, JSNT 19 (1983), 37-42. • Schwarz, G., Jesus sprach, 270-73. • Wrege, T. H., ‘Zur Rolle des Geisteswortes in frühchristlichen Traditionen (Lc 12,10 parr)’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 373-77. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 275-82. For 12:33-37 Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Every “idle” word that men speak (Mt 12,36)’, EstBíb 56 (1998), 261-65. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 276-89. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘“An ihren Fruchten sollt ihr sie erkennen”: Die Legitimitätsfrage in der Matthäischen Christologie’, EvT 42 (1982), 113-26. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 313-25. See further at 7:15-20; 11:2-6; 12:1-8.

e present unit is a comment by Jesus on the perversity of attributing his exorcisms to the power of Beelzeboul. What one says shows what one really is. Mt. 12:30 comes from the longer version of the Beezeboul controversy, but for vv. 31-32 Matthew goes back to the Markan sequence (Mk. 3:28-30), enriching it from a second source parallelled in Lk. 12:10.78 For Mt. 12:3337 Matthew draws on materials also used in 7:17-20 and partly parallelled in Lk. 6:43-45. He probably draws in further traditional material, but is responsible for the present shaping and adaptation to the context.

12:30 In v. 29 Jesus is the one pressing his advantage in a situation in which Satan, the one who would stand opposed to his intentions, has been effectively neutralised. Total mutual antagonism is presupposed, and Jesus is pictured as having a wellde ned, aggressive intention. Against this background the call is for

the kind of loyalty that is involved in taking sides in a military con ict (cf. Jos. 5:13). is verse calls for a clear declaration of loyalty; there is no place for neutrality. e discipleship materials in the Gospel provide the speci c content for what being with Jesus might entail. But what is the despoiling that Jesus is engaged in in Mt. 12:29? Here this is taken up with images of gathering and scattering, which have to do with the gathering of the scattered ock of Israel.79 In joining him one becomes part of the gathering process (cf. Mt. 9:3638);80 in failing to do so, one contributes yet further to the tragic scattering that has been Israel’s bitter experience. Jesus despoils Satan to gather the ock to himself. 12:31 Matthew uses διὰ τοῦτο (‘therefore’) to bind the following material with v. 30, and behind that with the whole discussion from v. 24.81 e fresh introduction of speech, ‘I say to you’, gives further emphasis to the challenge that drives home the signi cance of the previous material. e possibility of forgiveness for people82 is fundamental to what Jesus came to do (see at 9:2, 3, 5, 6, 8), but here that possibility provides only the concessive part of the statement being made in the verse (‘although …’).83 e focus is on the second clause, which identi es an unforgivable sin.84 Among the whole range of kinds of sin and blasphemy that human beings get caught up in none is so bad as to preclude forgiveness except what is called blasphemy against the Spirit (ἡ τοῦ πνεύματος βλασϕημία). What is intended by this expression? We have noted at 9:3 the relative looseness of NT usage of blasphemy language. But here, as in 9:3, the connection with God is important,85 as is the idea that an insult to God’s honour is involved. e notion of blasphemy here needs to be related back to the idea in

12:28 that the exorcisms of Jesus exhibit the manifest presence of God by his Spirit. When God makes himself present in such a concrete and dramatic manner, then to call this the work of Beelzeboul constitutes an extreme form of blasphemy. But why is it unforgivable? Matthew sets up the large shape of what Jesus is about as a ‘forgiveness project’ through the framing role of the key forgiveness texts in 1:21; 26:28. Both in relation to the origin of Jesus (1:18, 20) and in relation to his execution of his role (3:11, 16; 12:18), the presence of the Spirit is key. Presumably what makes the blasphemy of attributing to Beezeboul the work of the Spirit in Jesus unforgivable is that it excludes people from participating in what God is doing in Jesus, and thus from the ‘forgiveness project’. No doubt such blasphemy remains unforgivable only as long as it is sustained.86 It too may be repented of. 12:32 With some assistance from a second source (cf. Lk. 12:10) Matthew creates synonymous parallelism with v. 31 by restating its thrust in another way. e language of blasphemy gives way to the language of speaking against; speaking against the Son of Man becomes an extreme example of forgivable sin; and reference to this age and the coming age underlines the complete unforgivability of speaking against the Holy Spirit and provides an end weighting for the two-verse unit.87 e forgivability of speaking against the Son of Man suggests an awareness that not every aspect of Jesus’ ministry was as transparently the place of immediate action of the Spirit of God as were his exorcisms.88 e distinction between the two ages in relation to forgiveness probably re ects a Jewish view that God may temporarily withhold forgiveness from his people in discipline and judgment.89

12:33 By their claim that Jesus’ exorcisms are by the power of Beelzeboul, Jesus’ Pharisaic interlocutors have identi ed themselves as evil. But in a rst-century Jewish context ‘Pharisee’ and ‘evil’ do not go easily together. e present verse is designed to give support to the procedure by which the Pharisees have been evaluated on the basis of their response to the situation that confronted them. e true nature of one’s identity is not given by the group to which one belongs, but is instead to be read out of one’s actual behaviour. Most likely τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ καλόν (‘its fruit good’) is to be taken as the object of an implied second verb, giving: ‘ and it [i.e., the good tree] will make its fruit good’.90 e image comes from the role of breeding and cultivation: get the tree right and the fruit will be right!91 If the fruit is not right, then it is clear that the tree is not right. A parallel negative statement follows the positive statement of the principle. ough the formulation is somewhat different, the point is much the same at 7:17-18. A nal supporting clause (which is a slight variant of 7:20) explains that it is from the fruit that the quality of a tree is nally to be discerned. Despite their pretensions to religious righteousness, these Pharisees have given themselves away by their reaction to what they have experienced. 12:34 To this point the application to the Pharisees has been clear enough, but now this becomes explicit as they are directly addressed. Matthew repeats here on the lips of Jesus invective which John the Baptist had used in 3:7 (see there) against Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him for baptism. e language of speaking is taken up from 12:32 (but with λαλεῖν rather than λέγειν) and will provide the focus through to v. 37 (ῥῆμα, λόγος, and λαλεῖν are used in vv. 36-37). e formulation ‘how can you’ owes something to the use of ‘how can one’ in v. 29. ere is a vocabulary shi from the σαπρός of the ‘bad’ tree and fruit to the more morally loaded word for evil, πονηρός (cf. the use in 7:17 of σαπρός for the bad tree

and πονηρός for the bad fruit). e nal supporting clause comes almost verbatim from a source (cf. Lk. 6:45, end) and asserts the link between words and heart which underlies the emphasis here on what one says: words betray what the heart is full of!92 12:35 e imagery now moves from heart to treasure. e parallel in Lk. 6:45 has ‘the good treasure of the heart’, but Matthew’s point might be slightly different. e point is probably that one’s actions (here one’s words) reveal what one most deeply values; they are what one brings out from one’s treasure trove to give to others.93 e text may owe something to the material in 6:19-21, where what one treasures identi es the orientation of the heart. As in 12:33, there are parallel positive and negative formulations. 12:36 As with vv. 31-32, the fresh introduction of speech gives added emphasis to the concluding comments in vv. 36-37. Only Matthew preserves these materials, but the surprising use of ἀργός stands in favour of the material being traditional. ἀργός means idle, unemployed, lazy, useless, or unproductive.94 Something said could be useless or unproductive, but hardly idle (despite the translations), unemployed, or lazy. Possibly what is meant is a word of the kind that is produced by an idle or lazy person.95 Whatever the phrase means, it does not lend itself easily to describing the Pharisaic verdict on Jesus’ exorcisms. What they have said may be considered unproductive or useless or it may thought to be coming from people who, despite their very public religious commitment, are idle or lazy in matters which are fundamental in relating to God. But it takes quite a jump to get from their word to the general principle offered in v. 36. So Matthew is hardly likely to be writing freely here. e choice of ῥῆμα for ‘word’ allows for λόγος to take a more specialized meaning here: ‘account’. ἀποδίδοναι λόγον (lit. ‘hand over a word’) is an

idiom from business accounting, perhaps representing the responsibility of a steward to the owner of a business or estate (cf. Lk. 16:2). Matthew has used ‘day of judgment’ language in 10:15 (see there); 11:22, 24. 12:37 e point this verse makes is that words matter profoundly, a view taken up in Jas. 3:1-12. e language may be proverbial. e change from the second person plural of the opening of v. 36 and the third person plural of its body to the second person singular here suggests use of traditional material.96 Words spoken provide a proper basis for the judgment to be made precisely because they are a faithful index of the nature of the real person (the heart of v. 34; the treasure of v. 35). F. ose to Be Condemned Seek a Sign (12:38-42) of the scribes aand Phariseesa said to him in response, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from you’. 39In reply he said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign; no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. 40For, just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights, sob the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. 41Ninevite men will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and see, something more than Jonah is here. 42e queen of the South will be raised up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something more than Solomon is here.’ 38Some

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from B etc. To this point Matthew has used ‘scribes and Pharisees’ only in 5:20; ‘some of the scribes and Pharisees’ is unique to 12:38. Aer the earlier references to Pharisees in the chapter a switch to scribes

would make easier sense than what we nd does: a scribe has probably ‘corrected’. b. D L W 1342 1424 2542 etc. it syc bo add (cf. Lk. 11:30) και (‘also’), underlining the parallel. Bibliography Adam, A. K. M., ‘e Sign of Jonah: A Fish-Eye View’, Semeia 51 (1990), 177-91. • Barnett, P. W., ‘e Jewish Sign-Prophets — A.D. 40-70: eir Intentions and Origin’, NTS 27 (1980-81), 679-97. • Bayer, H. F., Jesus’ Predictions, 110-45. • Bittner, W., Jesu Zeichen im Johannesevangelium (WUNT 2/26. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1987), 28-74. • Bowman, J., ‘Jonah and Jesus’, AbrN 25 (1987), 1-12. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘e Law and the Prophets in Q’, in Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 95-109. • Chow, S., e Sign of Jonah Reconsidered: A Study of Its Meaning in the Gospel Traditions (ConB/NTS 27. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995). • Chow, S., ‘e Sign of Jonah Reconsidered: Matthew 12:38-42 and Luke 11:29-32’, eology and Life 15-16 (1993), 53-60. • Correns, D., ‘Jona und Salomo’, in Wort, ed. W. Haubeck and M. Bachmann, 86-94. • Fuchs, A., ‘Das Zeichen des Jona: Vom Rückfall’, SNTU 19 (1994), 131-60. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 275-90. • Gibson, J. B., Temptations, 119-211. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 79-98. • Hooker, M. D., Sign, 18-34. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 129-32. • Landes, G. M., ‘Matthew 12.40 as an Interpretation of “e Sign of Jonah” against Its Biblical Background’, in e Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth, ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 665-84. • Lövestam, E., ‘is Generation,’ 21-37. • Merrill, E. H., ‘e Sign of Jonah’, JETS 23 (1980), 123-29. • Mora, V., Le signe de Jonas (Lire la Bible 63. Paris: Cerf, 1983). • Murray, G., ‘e Sign of Jonah’, DR 107 (1989), 224-25. • Peifer, C. J., ‘Jonah and Jesus: e Prophet as Sign’, BiTod 21 (1983), 377-83. • Perkins, L., ‘Greater than Solomon (Matt 12:42)’, TJ 19 (1998), 20717. • Reed, J. L., ‘e Sign of Jonah (Q 11:29-32) and Other Epic Traditions in Q’, in Reimagining, ed. E. Castelli and H. Taussig, 130-43. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 206-21. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 133-41. • Standaert, B., ‘Jezus en Jona’, Heiligung 32 (1982), 21-31. • Swetnam, J., ‘No Sign of Jonah’,

Bib 66 (1985), 126-30. • Swetnam, J., ‘Some Signs of Jonah’, Bib 68 (1987), 74-79. • Zeller, D., ‘Entrückung zur Ankun als Menschensohn (Lk 13,34f; 11,29f)’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 513-30. See further at 11:2-6; 12:1-8.

Aer the insistent linking of Jesus with Beelzeboul in 12:24, the request for a sign sounds like a major concession. But Jesus does not consider it so, pointing to the failure to respond to what was already there. e sign of Jonah, yet to come, will be for these people only a sign of judgment. is unit forms a bracket with vv. 1-8, rounding off the set of units reporting interaction with Pharisees,97 but it also serves to move the focus from the Pharisees as a distinct group within the people to the Pharisees as representative instances of ‘this generation’ more broadly. Having made extensive use of his second source for 12:22-30, Matthew comes back to it here (cf. Lk. 11:29-32), but he is also in uenced by a partial parallel in Mk. 8:11-12 (Matthew will make use of these materials again in 16:1, 4). He will continue to draw from the second source in 12:43-45 (par. Lk. 11:24-26), and is likely to be responsible for bringing the materials of 12:38-42 forward (in Matthew’s form this consolidates the material on Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees and allows vv. 38-42 and vv. 1-8 to function as a bracket). e order of the two examples in vv. 41-42 is inverted in Luke, with Matthew likely to be the one who has preserved the original order. Matthew’s distinctive v. 40 is likely to be an interpretive development of something like Lk. 11:30.98

12:38 Matthew’s distinctive use of ἀπεκρίθησαν (‘in response’ — lit. ‘answered’) makes the proposal a concession in the light of Jesus’ challenging words in vv. 30-37.99 Just as in 12:1 Matthew picked up the thread of dispute with the Pharisees from 9:11, 34, now ‘some of the scribes’ are united with them, picking up the thread from 9:3.100 Since the article is shared, Matthew probably

thinks of scribes of Pharisaic persuasion. He sees the legally learned as appropriate spokespersons for the request being made. ey address Jesus, as one on a similar level with themselves, as ‘teacher’ (see discussion of a scribe’s use of this address at 8:19). e request is that Jesus should con rm his own credibility in some miraculous way.101 Deut 13:1-2 re ects the assumption that a prophet might be validated by means of a miraculous sign; we might think of such things as the turning back of the sun (2 Kgs 20:8-11), the collapse of the walls of Jerusalem (Josephus, Ant. 20.168-72; War 2.161-63); in John 6:30-31, the wilderness manna is seen as just such a sign, authenticating Moses.102

ere is a ne irony here because Jesus’ exorcisms, as acts which are manifestly against the interests of Satan, are not subject to the ambiguity intrinsic to any sign that is simply a display of power (which is precisely the point of Dt. 13:1-5). 12:39-40 Jesus’ response shatters any sense that there has been a positive turn of events. In the NT ‘adulterous’ is distinctive to Matthew’s form of these materials. ‘An adulterous generation’ is restricted to the parallel in 16:4 and Mk. 8:38 (which has ‘this adulterous and sinful generation’). Jerusalem is compared with an adulterous woman in Ez. 16:38, and Israel and Judah in 23:45, while in the LXX of Ho. 3:1 the woman whom Hosea is instructed to love (as an analogue to Israel) is described as ‘evil and adulterous’ as in Matthew’s phrase.103 e generation is being likened to those sent into exile. ‘Generation’ here alludes back to 11:16 (see discussion there of ‘this generation’ as the generation privileged to experience the initiative of God in salvation and judgment) and will be picked up with ‘this generation’ in Mt. 12:41-42, 45. e Pharisaic scribes here take on a representative role, speaking for their generation in its unbelief.

Why is seeking a sign thought to characterise an evil and adulterous generation? It can hardly be that such a request is always and everywhere considered to be an evil. e difficulty must be the request in the context of Jesus’ ministry as readily available for scrutiny. Given what is visibly present, such a request amounts to nothing more than evasion. Under these circumstances the request is denied, or at least mostly denied. Aer the language of refusal comes ‘εἰ μή the sign of Jonah the prophet’, where εἰ μή could mean ‘except’ or it could mean ‘only’. Since the εἰ μή clause reuses the word ‘sign’, it is probably best to treat the clause as an exception clause but to recognise that this exception (whatever it is) concedes what is not at all the kind of sign that the request had in mind. (In fact, in the present context there is very little difference of meaning between εἰ μή as ‘except’ and εἰ μή as ‘only’.) What then is the ‘sign of Jonah’? Since the suggestions are legion, a certain answer is not possible. Grammatically it could be (a) (something which is analogous to) a known sign used by Jonah (but no such sign has been identi ed), (b) a known sign given to Jonah (the large sea creature, the shade-giving plant, and the worm are the only obvious candidates), (c) a sign which Jonah was in some way recognised to be, or (d), with Jonah taken adjectivally, a recognised Jonah sign (but this would require an established use of sign language in connection with Jonah, and no evidence for this is forthcoming104). Luke opts for the third of these (see Lk. 11:30; faced with rejection of his ministry, Jesus functions as a preacher of judgment).105 For Matthew, 12:40 might seem to take us at once to the second of these options. But the sign proposed by Jesus is to be a sign for the ‘evil and adulterous generation’ and not a sign for the Son of Man himself. So the t actually turns out to be poor. It is perhaps best to see Matthew as not so much moving away from the

Lukan thrust (Luke is probably close to the source form), but as building on it.106 e time in the belly of the sea monster functioned to con rm Jonah (ahead of the actual exercise of his ministry) in his role as a preacher of judgment; the three days in the earth will function to con rm Jesus (at the end of his ministry) as one who has had to declare judgment, inasmuch as his ministry met with rejection, a rejection which culminated in his death. Jesus functions as one who marks in the unfolding of his own ministry, and nally and especially in his death, the rejection by his own generation of the ways of God and the prospect of judgment that subsequently hangs over it.107 ἦν Ιωνας ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας (‘Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights’) quotes exactly the LXX of Jon. 2:1. In the case of the Son of Man, ‘the heart of the earth’ takes the place of ‘the belly of the sea monster’. Both represent liminal states connected with death. Matthew repeats ‘three days and three nights’ in connection with Jesus’ death despite its lack of a precise literal t; the t is close enough for the comparison being made. Matthew has ‘Son of Man’ from his source, but his use of it here for the death of Jesus anticipates the role of this phrase in the Passion predictions to come.108 But unlike the Passion predictions, which are directed towards the disciples, the saying here is set in the context of Jesus as a preacher of judgment. 12:41 e request for a sign is in Matthew’s eyes a sign of failure to repent, and he now comments on this failure to repent. e comparisons with the situation of people from the past and the judgment (day) setting are reminiscent of 10:15; 11:20-24 (see discussion there), but here the issue is not the respective fates but the role of the contrasting examples as damning evidence against

the present generation.109 Aer 12:39-40 there is a natural transition to the situation of the Ninevites. e use of ἄνδρες (‘men’) rather than ἄνθρωποι (‘people’) is a linguistic re ection of the male domination of public life in the ancient world (it comes from the LXX of Jon. 3:5). ‘Will rise up’ (ἀναστήσονται) could re ect the imagery of standing up to give evidence in court (cf. Is. 54:17: ‘every tongue that rises up against you in judgment’), but the linked ‘with this generation’ points rather to the general resurrection of the dead for the day of judgment.110 e language of repentance is not found in Jonah (except of God!), but in Matthew’s language the response of the Ninevites is clearly this (the language provides a further link to Mt. 11:21). To Jonah’s surprise (and consternation) the Ninevites repented at his preaching. e unspoken point is that Jesus’ generation has not repented at his preaching, and this despite the fact that (as in Mt. 12:6 — see discussion there) they are experiencing something greater than what was available to the Ninevites. 12:42 A close parallelism between the two examples is sustained. Other than the necessary difference of speci c content the only difference is the move from ἀναστήσονται to ἐγερθήσεται. Both verbs can mean ‘will rise up’, but in the present context the passive form of the second invites the sense ‘will be raised up [by God]’. e queen of the South is the queen of Sheba, a kingdom of Semitic peoples in southwest Arabia.111 Her visit to Solomon is reported in 1 Ki. 10:1-13; 2 Ch. 9:1-12. ‘Ends of the earth’ is hyperbolic and re ects OT idiom.112 Mt. 11:19, 28 establish a wisdom connection for Jesus. e two examples nicely balance a prophetic gure and a royal gure, a gure who went to his hearers with one who was visited by one from afar, and possibly the negative judgment preaching of Jonah and the positive availability of wisdom with Solomon. Jesus

and his ministry correspond to all of these in a that-much-more manner. Aer 8:11-12, the Gentile identity of the Ninevites and the queen of the South should probably be taken as a quiet pointer to the place for non-Jewish people in the future that Jesus’ ministry is forging, as by and large this generation of Jews abandon the place that is naturally theirs. G. ‘e Last State … Becomes Worse than the First’ (12:4345) an unclean spirit departs from aa person, it passes through waterless places seeking a resting place, and does not find [one]. 44en it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I departed’. And it comes and finds b[it] empty,c swept, and decorated. 45en it goes and takes along with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and take up residence there. e last stated of that person becomes worse than the first. So it will be with this generation as well. 43When

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ere is a generic de nite article in the Greek. b. D (syhmg) specify τον οικον (‘the house’). e more general αυτον (‘it’) is found in C ff2 h vgcl mae. c. ‫ א‬c* 1424 1506 etc. it provide a linking και (‘and’). d. αυτου (‘of himself ’?) is added in D* sy (boms), probably for emphasis, but is perhaps just a mistake (the previous neuter plural adjective had the visually similar εαυτου aer it). Bibliography Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 270-73. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 126-55, 427-55. • Onuki, T., ‘Tollwut in Q? Ein Versuch über Mt 12.43-5/Lk

11.24-6’, NTS 46 (2000), 358-74. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 94-102. • Wright, N. T., Victory, 455-56. See further at 11:2-6; 12:1-8, 38-42.

For many of Jesus’ contemporaries his healings and exorcisms are like a windfall. But if his ministry is met with failure to repent and to engage with the coming of the kingdom of God, the windfall will be short-lived; instead disaster looms. Matthew now makes use of material he shares with Lk. 11:24-26, having reversed the source order between this and Mt. 12:38-42 (par. Lk. 11:29-32 — vv. 27-28 have been added in between by Luke). e source form is closely followed, the most signi cant change being the addition of σχολάζοντα (‘empty’) in Mt. 12:44. ough the parable is clearly designed to lay bare the phenomenon of false hope, its original application by the historical Jesus is irrecoverable.

12:43 e application at the end makes clear that we have a parable here and not a comment on evil spirits or exorcism as such. e little story appears to be about temporary or apparent bene t turning to disaster. In Mt. 12 the only obvious bene ts in view are Jesus’ healings and exorcisms.113 Elsewhere Matthew uses ‘unclean spirit’ to refer to demons only in 10:1. Scholars oen give a passive force to ἐξέλθῃ (lit. ‘departs’) (so: ‘is made to depart’), but the balancing language of return in 12:44 stands against this. e reason for the departure remains out of sight and is not signi cant for the immediate dynamic of the story.114 From the point of view of application it is the departure which is the windfall; the cause of departure is not re ected on. is may be a fair image of how the obvious bene ts of Jesus’ compassionate ministry were experienced by many. ‘No good parallel has been cited for the journeying in waterless places, but the imagery is probably based on the idea that the demons will move

naturally in realms where conditions are antithetical to human wellbeing, and devoid of the blessing of God’.115 We should probably understand that the demon unsuccessfully seeks transitaccommodation. It is of no interest to the ow of the story why this should be so. is is simply a suitable turn of events for turning the demon back on its tracks. 12:44 e new plan is announced in a brief soliloquy. Whatever initially set the demon off on its travels, it constitutes no barrier to a return now.116 Matthew is probably responsible for adding ‘empty’ to the traditional form of this story. On the surface this is no more than an obvious necessary condition for the demon’s resumption of residence: the previous residence is still available. But at the level of application Matthew goes to the heart of the matter here. Nothing of all that Jesus’ ministry is offering has found a place to lodge here. Instead there are the kinds of improvements that are made between tenants and which prepare a house for fresh occupancy: the house has been cleaned and freshly decorated. e changes in the house have no particular signi cance beyond the story world; they simply guarantee that the demon will carry through with its intention to move back in and motivate it to look for ‘ at mates’. 12:45 e improved accommodation is now t for a whole demonic commune. And the demon has no difficulty in assembling one. e number ‘seven’ probably denotes a whole set. Presumably the measure of evil of a demon is its capacity to in ict evil on its host. e nal outcome is a massive escalation of the problems of the one who was the place of residence of the unclean spirit at rst. It is clear that this is a parable and not teaching about exorcism (e.g., the threat of repossession aer exorcism; the long-term ineffectiveness of Jewish exorcism; the need for a positive substitute for displaced demons). Matthew provides a nal sentence to focus

the application on ‘this evil generation’. e words recall language from v. 39 (cf. vv. 41, 42) and indicate that this is a parable about those who are refusing to embrace what Jesus brings. ey may have appreciated its immediate bene ts but have kept themselves safely distant from its deeper challenges and larger signi cance. eir houses may have been tidied, but they remain empty; so an awful fate awaits them. Outside the story world it is not clear what the awful fate is that Matthew has in mind. It may be the judgment threatened in vv. 41-42, it may be judgment in history as anticipated in Mt. 24, or it may be something that is expected to operate more locally at the communal and personal level. Precision is not intended; warning is. H. ‘Who Is My Mother, and Who Are My Brothers and Sisters?’ (12:46-50) he was astill speaking to the crowds, his mother and brothers and sisters were standing outside, bseeking to speak to him.b 47cSomebodyd said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are standing outside seeking to speak to you’.c 48He said in response eto the one who was speaking to him,e ‘Who is my mother, and who are fmy brothers and sisters?’ 49en, stretching out his hand over his disciples, he said, ‘My mother and my brothers and sisters! 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven — this one isg my brother and sister and mother.’ 46While

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from D L Z 892 syp, probably a ‘correction’, since from v. 38 Jesus has been speaking to ‘some of the scribes and Pharisees’. b-b. Missing from ‫*א‬. Since v. 47 is also missing from ‫*א‬, an omission here is hard to account for. Perhaps the piece was inserted by a scribe as a

back-formation from v. 47, to complete the narrative logic. (If so, the ‫*א‬ reading in vv. 46-47 re ects a deliberate preference for the shorter reading.) c-c. Missing from ‫ *א‬B L Γ ff1 k sys, c sa, probably an accidental omission caused by the similarity of the latter part to much of v. 46. d. Presumably on the basis of the proximity of the disciples in v. 49, ‫א‬1 (892) etc. (bo) add των μαθητων αυτου, giving ‘a certain one of his disciples’. e-e. Missing from W (Z lacks ‘to him’). e precision offered by the phrase serves to somewhat spare the family. f. Missing from B*, giving ‘the brothers and sisters’ (but with ‘my’ implied). g. An added και here in Θ f13 700 1424 etc. lat underlines the idea that the person is brother, sister, and mother rolled into one. Bibliography Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 178-91. • Bovon, F., ‘Parabole d’Évangile, parabole du Royaume’, RTP 122 (1990), 33-41. • Khiok-Khng, Y., ‘e Mother and Brothers of Jesus (Lk 8:19-21; Mk 3:31-35; Mt 12:46-50)’, AsiaJT 6 (1992), 311-17. • LaVerdiere, E., ‘His Mother Mary’, Emman 93 (1987), 191-97. • Roh, T., Familia dei, 165-68. • Sherwood, S. K., ‘Jesus’ True Relatives’, EphMar 43 (1993), 91-99. • Smith, M. H., ‘Kinship Is Relative: Mark 3:31-35 and Parallels’, Forum 6.1 (1990), 80-94. See further at 11:2-67; 12:1-8.

e chapter climaxes with a challenge to the crowds to distance themselves from the Pharisaic stance which they have been witnessing and unite with the disciples of Jesus in doing the will of his Father, the content of which it is the burden of Jesus’ ministry to make clear. e mention of Jesus’ birth family allows 12:46-50 to function, along with 13:54-58, as a frame around the parables collection of 13:1-53.

Matthew returns now to the Markan order which he le aer 12:32. e parallels are Mk. 3:31-35; Lk. 8:19-21. Only a single source is evident. ere is some likelihood that Mk. 3:31-34 and v. 35 have separate origins,117 but both t the historical Jesus. In minor ways Matthew has reworked the account throughout, but with little change of central thrust. Most signi cantly, the disciples are singled out from the crowds as Jesus’ family: they do the will of Jesus’ Father.

12:46 Matthew creates the opening link: ‘while he was still speaking to the crowds’ (cf. 9:18; 17:5).118 is is not actually what the Matthean Jesus has been speci cally doing since the last mention of the crowds in v. 23, but they are presumed to be present throughout and retrospectively can be seen as the audience for vv. 33-37 and 43-45 (the latter especially aer the movement of focus from the Pharisees to ‘this generation’ in vv. 38-42). Nothing in Matthew prepares for the arrival of Jesus’ family (contrast Mk. 3:21); he simply marks the surprising development with an emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’, but untranslated above).119 Given the careful repetitions that will mark Matthew’s account (see below), a single ‘his’ rather than the two occurrences found in Mk. 3:31 must be to match the single ‘my’ in Mt. 12:50. Even aer their arrival the family is not integrated into the narrative: their bid to speak to Jesus is le hanging in the air, being treated as nothing more than an opportunity for Jesus to make his point. Jesus’ mother has been identi ed and has played a role in the infancy materials (chaps. 1–2), but we know nothing of brothers (and sisters) thus far (13:55 will offer more). Since, when the syntax in 12:50 requires the singular, Matthew changes to ἀδελϕὸς καὶ ἀδελϕή (‘brother and sister’), he is likely to intend ἀδελϕοί (lit. ‘brothers’) to cover both brothers and sisters.120 e natural reference of ἀδελϕοί is to other children of Mary, but the word can be used with quite a variety of senses. e matter is of no

importance to Matthew. e absence of Joseph may imply his prior death, but it need not. ἔξω (‘outside’) can be given no proper sense in Matthew; it is le over from the house setting of the Markan account (see 3:20), which Matthew fails to mention. (Having slipped inarticulately into a house setting here, Matthew carries the setting forward into 13:1, where at the point of transition Jesus is said to leave the house.) Matthew drops the sending in of a messenger from Mk. 3:31 (this allows for a close parallelism between Mt. 12:46 and 47) and switches from a seeking of Jesus to a desire to speak with him (probably intended as a more positive posture, but not making use of what is speci cally part of Matthew’s language of discipleship121). 12:47 Matthew sensibly has a single anonymous person rather than the whole crowd (as in Mk. 3:32) report on the family’s presence. e language of the report repeats almost exactly the language of the narrative in Mt. 12:46 (there is a necessary move from third to rst person possessive pronouns in connection with Jesus and a change of tense to speak of a present state of affairs; otherwise only a single change of word order and the addition of an extra possessive pronoun separate the forms).122 12:48 For no obvious reason (beyond completing the logic of what is entailed in an answer) Matthew adds that the response is ‘to the one who was speaking to him’ (τῷ λέγοντι αὐτῷ), perhaps to increase the sonorous repetitiveness of this particular narrative.123 Matthew improves Mark’s syntax with a separate ‘who [pl.]’ (τίνες) for the ‘brothers and sisters’. e question asked is rhetorical. V. 46 has used third person pronouns, v. 47 second person pronouns, now v. 48 uses rst person pronouns, and these will continue in vv. 49 and 50.

12:49 ‘Stretching out his hand’ is a Matthean touch, here a rhetorical gesture more than a means of action as elsewhere in Matthew.124 Mark’s ‘those seated in a circle around him’ becomes ‘the disciples’.125 Linked with Matthew’s introduction of ‘the crowds’ in v. 46, this change sets up already the contrast between the disciples and the crowds which is important in chap. 13. Despite representing the disciples sometimes as people of little faith126 and oen as in need of correction,127 and despite the collapse of their discipleship as the cross approaches, for the most part Matthew sees the disciples as those who have positively taken up the challenge of Jesus and joined themselves with him. e loyalties and bonds of the natural family are relativized by the claim of God (cf. 8:21; 10:34-37) made tangible in the link with Jesus.128 It is unclear whether Matthew intends his readers to deduce from the (shared) family relationship with Jesus a family relationship of disciples with one another. Certainly in 18:15, 21, 35 (cf. 23:8) the members of the church are viewed as brothers and sisters together, something which takes up and adapts a Jewish understanding of membership in the community of God’s people (see at 5:22). 12:50 e present verse clari es the basis on which Jesus has identi ed his disciples as family, but it also opens up this possibility to others. Mark’s ‘will of God’ becomes ‘will of my Father in heaven’, echoing the language of 7:21 and perhaps thereby implicitly reintroducing reference to the kingdom. Jesus is here indicating that, at least in a derivative way, the sense of family relationship in which, according to 11:27, he is linked to the Father extends to others as well. e presence of mother in the list indicates, however, that Matthew does not think in terms of a pattern in which being a sibling of Jesus means sharing his relationship to God as Father.

Nonetheless, the absence of a father from the list of family members not only follows from the composition of the family group that came to speak with Jesus, but is likely to reserve the position of father for God alone (cf. 23:9).129 In the language of extravagance used by Jesus the person is not a brother, sister, or mother (whichever is appropriate to age and gender), but all three at once. e point is that those who do the will of the Father are ‘everything’ to Jesus. e inverted order, with ‘mother’ at the end, creates a minor chiasm to frame the pericope.

1. If Matthew intends a chiasmic pattern, then the chiasm will have: the sabbath materials of 12:1-14 in the centre; the characterisations of Jesus in 11:25-30 and 12:15-21 around this; the reproach of the cities in 11:20-24 and of the Pharisees in 12:22-37 as the next pair; the characterisations of ‘this (evil) generation’ in 11:16-19 and 12:38-42 next; 11:7-15 and 12:43-45 aer that, with both seen as warning against trying to embrace John’s ministry without its logical completion in that of Jesus; and nally the coming of John’s disciples to Jesus in 11:2-6 matched with the coming of Jesus’ family to him in 12:46-50. ough there are generally correspondences between the matched sections that go beyond the headline similarity, I have not developed the possibility of this chiasm because I have not been able to identify speci c editorial changes on the part of Matthew to develop these links. ere are also links between sections that do not align with the possible chiasm, but these are not decisive because Matthew is prone to providing links that do not match his main structuring patterns. e likelihood that in 14:1–16:16 there is an extended chiasm, but one in which Matthew does not have a heavy investment, increases the likelihood that a chiasm is intended in 11:1(2)–12:50. If a chiasm is intended by Matthew, then 12:43-45 will be about seeking to stop short with John’s ministry and not go on to its logical completion in that of Jesus. In the commentary below 12:43-45 is, instead, explained as a warning to Jesus’ contemporaries against treating his healings and exorcisms

as a windfall, and failing to repent and to engage with the coming of the kingdom of God. Other materials in chaps. 11–12 would gain a sharper focus in relation to the chiasm, but are not so materially affected by whether a chiasm is intended or not. 2. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:253-54. 3. e chronological linking is actually slightly awkward, since it could be taken quite naturally to imply that the visit from John’s disciples took place on a sabbath, which stands in tension with Matthew’s evident sensitivity to sabbath observance. 4. Outside the NT see 1 Macc. 2:38. More oen the plural has generic force as in Mt. 12:5, 10, 11, 12. Plural for singular may be ultimately based on the a ending (thus like the nominative plural form of the Greek) of the Aramaic emphatic singular form for sabbath. 5. Both Matthew and Luke also drop Mark’s awkward ὁδὸν ποιεῖν (lit. ‘make a way’). 6. Matthew’s addition of ‘seeing’ in 12:2 may be to strengthen the link with 9:11. A link with the following episode (9:14-17) is provided by the shared interest in the responsibility of Jesus for the behaviour of his disciples. 7. e relevant texts from the Law are Dt. 23:25-26 (ET 24-25); Lv. 19:910. Evidence of application and regulation can be found in 4Q159 frg. 1 2:25; Jos., Ant. 4.231-39; m. Peʾa passim. 8. In m. B. M. 7:2 the provisions of Dt. 23:25-26 are applied to labourers employed to work in the elds where the crops are growing. is has been taken to indicate a limitation of Dt. 23:25-26 to eld-workers. More likely it represents a regulation in the case of eld-workers precisely because such workers with their constant immediacy of access to the produce might be thought to be in danger of abusing the privilege of Dt. 23:25-26. In any case, the Gospel text clearly belongs in a setting where there was no such restriction to eld-workers. 9. In the case of grain this may not have been strictly true: the speci ed restriction was to what could be plucked by hand; no tool was permitted. But in practical terms this amounted to restricting access to immediate or near immediate consumption. See Dt. 23:25-26 (ET 24-25). e text is

damaged, but 4Q159 frg. 1 2:5 may re ect such restriction: ‘[he] is not to bring it to his house to store it’. 10. e difficulty of determining boundaries is well illustrated by disagreement as to whether scraping honey from a beehive (presumably for immediate use) on the sabbath was an offense (m. Šebi. 10:7; m. ʿUq. 3:10). 11. Lk. 6:3 has similar changes. 12. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:313-14. 13. Ex. 4:23; 25:30; 26:13; 39:36; Lv. 24:5-9; Nu. 4:7; 1 Ki. 7:48; 1 Ch. 9:32; 2 Ch. 4:19. 14. See 1 Macc. 2:29-41; m. Yoma 8:6. Other emergency situations, such as the threat of a spreading re, were understood to justify certain acts on the sabbath which would normally be precluded as work (see m. Šab. 16:1-5; 18:3). 15. See Is. 56:2, 6; Ez. 20:13; 1 Macc. 1:43, 45; 2:34. 16. e neuter ‘something’ makes possible other points of comparison. Suggestions include the kingdom of God, love, the call to provide for human life as the appropriate response to the love command (or the call for mercy in Mt. 12:7), Jesus’ interpretation of the Law, the new community which replaces the temple, Jesus as the fresh location of the indwelling of God, and the ‘priestly’ ministry of the disciples. e most attractive of the views that refer the neuter to something other than Jesus is that which identi es the reference as the mercy called for in v. 7 and construes the argument of vv. 5-7 along these lines: temple sacri ce is more important than the sabbath; mercy is more important than temple sacri ce; therefore mercy is more important than the sabbath. But this view pays too little attention to the emphatic ὧδε (‘here’) in v. 6, would work better if the language of sacri ce rather than that of temple had been used in vv. 5-6, and links v. 7 too closely to vv. 5-6, where it is better seen as relating back to the whole of the preceding development as a nal and clinching argument. 17. e temple justi ed breach of normal sabbath requirements only under quite speci c circumstances. 18. Mk. 2:27 is also dropped in Lk. 6:5. e thought sequence is difficult to unravel.

19. ‘Read’ (ἀνέγνωτε) in Mt. 12:5 is cognate with ‘known’ (ἐγνώκειτε) in v. 7. 20. Carson, ‘Jesus and the Sabbath’, 67. 21. Matthew is fond of the phrase and uses it from Mt. 4:23 (see there). 22. A withered hand is a temporary divine judgment in 1 Ki. 13:4 (restored in v. 6). is text (but not the LXX language) may provide a partial model for the present sabbath account (the account of the withering of Simeon’s hand in Test. Sim. 2:12-13 may also owe something to 1 Ki. 13:4). 23. Lk. 14:3 also has a question form using ἔξεστιν (‘it is/is it permitted’) and is also likely to have been inspired by Mk. 3:2, 4. But Luke’s question is asked by Jesus. 24. An ABCB′A′ pattern is created for the main body of the pericope, with the sequence: disabled person, what is permitted on the sabbath, core argument, what is permitted on the sabbath, disabled person. If we match Jesus’ going into the synagogue with the Pharisees going out, then an extra outer layer is added to the chiasm. 25. M. Šab. forbids setting a broken limb on the sabbath or relieving a dislocated hand or foot by pouring cold water over it. But in the later Ec. Rab. 9:7 an act of mercy to a leper justi es a consequent unavoidable sabbath violation. 26. In terms, however, of the traditional categories of work which were gradually to emerge in Jewish legal discussion, healing by word alone should escape censure. But such distinctions were foreign to Jesus and his early followers. What was at stake here operated at another level. 27. Matthew may not have felt comfortable with the idea of the man being ‘put on display’ since even later he has no equivalent to Mark’s words here. 28. Lk. 14:5 has an ass (possibly son) or an ox falling into a well. 29. For the place of compassion to animals in Jewish thought see Pr. 12:10. 30. Matthew does not reproduce Mark’s reference to Jesus’ anger or to hardness of heart (Mk. 1:43; 6:52; 8:17).

31. e usage here is related to the use of οὖν to indicate a transition to something new, but it lacks the fresh statement of action that regularly accompanies this use (e.g., Jn. 1:22; 2:18; 3:25). e alternative is to nd an emphatic use here and to translate ‘surely’. 32. Since Lk. 14:5 lacks any explicit comparison, the present formulation may well be Matthew’s. 33. For discussion of how the Markan (= Lukan) form of the argument works see Nolland, Luke, 1:261. 34. Luke drops the Herodians entirely. 35. Matthew will use γνούς (lit. ‘knowing’) again in 16:8; 22:18; 26:10, in connection with speci c motivations for actions of Jesus. 36. Already Mt. 9:9, 27; 11:1; 12:9. 37. e effusive language is probably meant to create an echo of Mt. 4:25; 8:1, but Matthew actually thinks (more modestly) of people who witnessed the healing in the synagogue (or heard about it in the aermath). 38. Mt. 4:23, 24; 8:16; 9:35; 10:1. 39. Matthew may have stumbled here by instinctively changing the ‘many’ of the parallel in Mk. 3:10 to ‘all’ in order to assure his readers that no unhealed sick person remained undealt with by Jesus. 40. Mark’s emphatic πολλά (probably meaning ‘repeatedly’) is dropped, and the main verb is now aorist and not imperfect. 41. In Mt. 12:18 the only agreements are where the Greek of the LXX is the obvious Greek equivalent to the MT (the wording agreements are: ὁ παῖς μου, μου, ἡ ψυχή μου, τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν, κρίσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν). LXX in uence has been claimed for παῖς (‘servant’), where δοῦλος (‘slave’) might render ʿbd more literally, but παῖς is just as natural a rendering for ʿbd (in the LXX ʿbd is translated παῖς about as oen as it is translated δοῦλος). In v. 19 agreement with the LXX is more restricted again (exact wording agreements are: οὐ(κ), οὐδέ, οὐδέ, αὐτοῦ; plus τὴν ϕωνήν, but in the accusative rather than the nominative, and ἀκούειν in the active future rather than the passive future) and provides no basis for claiming in uence. In v. 20 we seem to have another independent translation of the MT (agreements with the LXX are: κάλαμον, οὐ, καὶ λίνον, οὐ σβέσει, ἕως ἄν, εἰς,

κρίσιν). For v. 21 the reading is almost exactly that of the LXX (only an ἐπί is missing) and differs signi cantly from the MT, which has ‘and the coastlands [will] wait for/hope in his instruction’. It is unclear whether a different Hebrew text underlies the LXX at this point or whether there has been a corruption in the transmission of the Greek (ὄνομα [‘name’] and νόμος [‘law/instruction’] are sufficiently close in Greek to be suggestive of inner Greek corruption). 42. e LXX has προσεδέξατο (‘accepted, welcomed’). 43. Despite the quotation from Is. 53:4 in Mt. 8:17, we cannot tell whether Matthew’s use of Is. 40:1-4 should point us to his engagement with other servant texts in Isaiah. Engagement is likely but not demonstrable. 44. αἰρετίζειν never renders tmk in the LXX. 45. In Mt. 3:16-17 the Spirit actually comes before the announcement by the divine voice. 46. LXX uses διδόναι (‘give’), the standard and literal rendering of MT ntn. e LXX of Is. 63:11 uses τιθέναι (‘place’) in connection with the Spirit. 47. e targum has yhly (‘he will reveal’). 48. Mt. 8:33; 11:4; 28:8, 10, 11. 49. In the LXX the verb mostly renders the root mrh, which connects with rebellion and bitterness. e Hebrew in Is. 42:2 means simply ‘cry out’, but in the context it gains overtones of aggressive assertiveness. 50. e MT has yśʾ, which means ‘li up [one’s voice]’, but in the context something rather more like shouting is in view. 51. Neyrey, ‘ematic Use’, 468-70. 52. Neyrey, ‘ematic Use’, 461, wants to take the sense to be ‘pays attention to’ (he translates: ‘will listen to’). 53. e MT translates: ‘he shall not be dimmed and not be crushed’; the LXX translates: ‘he shall shine out and not be oppressed’. In the Hebrew paronomasia as well as similarity of sense links the experience of the servant with that of the reed and the wick. 54. Kra, ‘Εἰς νῖκος’, 153-56. Cf. 2 Kgdms. 2:26; Je. 3:5; La. 5:20; Am. 1:11; 8:7. ere is a likely allusion to Is. 42:3-4 in 1QHa 12:25(= 4:25), which

has lnṣḥ, equivalent to Matthew’s εἰς νῖκος, but the nature of the use in the Qumran texts makes it more likely that the agreement is fortuitous than that it points to a shared textual form or interpretive tradition. 55. It is unclear whether there is any signi cance in the absence of the de nite article before ‘nations’ here (note its presence in Mt. 12:18). Its absence could put the emphasis on the scale of response to the servant and leave room for some not to nd the servant to be a gure of hope for them. 56. See Mt. 2:1-12; 8:5-13; 10:18. 57. ‘Name’ language is also used with the person of Jesus in Mt. 1:20, 23; 7:22; 10:22; 18:5, 20; 19:29; 24:5, 9. But of these only in 18:20 is the focus on one’s orientation to Jesus at all comparable with 12:21 and 28:19. 58. Cf. Beaton, Isaiah’s Christ, 153. 59. On source forms and historicity see further Nolland, Luke, 2:635-42. 60. Matthew’s accentuation of the severity of the demoniac’s affliction (noted below) may be in part to help with this difficulty. 61. Matthew introduces the same idiom (probably Semitic; see BDF § 376; it occurs in the LXX at 4 Kgdms. 6:22) in 15:24 and possibly 14:17. 62. Matthew uses ἐνθυμήσεις (‘thoughts’) only in these two texts. 63. Matthew could be responsible for the image of a town, to make the number up to three. Lk. 11:17 and Mk. 3:25 have only the household. 64. ‘Your sons’ is not literal. e sense is ‘those belonging to the same sphere’. ere is probably no need to be so precise as to insist on Pharisaic exorcists. 65. Shirock, ‘Whose Exorcists’, 41-51. According to Shirock, ‘Jesus is saying, in essence, “ese disciples of mine are your kinsmen. Are you willing, in the face of their widespread success, to accuse all thirteen … of us of being possessed by Beelzebul?’ (p. 50). Shirock equates the judging function with that in Mt. 19:28. Shirock’s view offers no adequate sense of διὰ τοῦτο (‘for this reason’) and attributes a rather naively optimistic argument to Jesus. 66. e focus is on the presence of the Spirit rather than on the identity of Jesus.

67. Cf. Lk. 11:20. Matthew will use ‘kingdom of God’ again in 21:31 and 43, where there is a parabolically represented God gure in the context, and in 19:24, where it appears to give literary variation aer the use of ‘kingdom of heaven’ in v. 23 (but the same has not happened in 18:3, 4, where there is a similar repetition but no preserved parallel using ‘kingdom of God’). As indicated at 4:17, occasional claims for a distinctive meaning or signi cance for Matthew’s uses of ‘kingdom of God’ have not been found persuasive. 68. In the LXX it means ‘get up before [the sun]’ in Wis. 16:28 and ‘arrive rst’ in Sir. 33:17. 69. See Caragounis, ‘Kingdom of God: I’, 20-23, whose discussion ranges from modern Greek to ancient Greek and who identi es futuristic aorists in Jn. 15:6, 8 and several times in Dn. 4–7 (Θ), and futuristic uses of the aorist of ϕθάνειν in particular in 1 es. 2:16 and several times in Dn. 4 (Θ). 70. Caird, Language, 199-271. 71. Nolland, Luke, 2:641. 72. In Mk. 3:27 the link is with ἀλλ᾿ (‘but’). In Mark it is back to his equivalent to Mt. 12:26. 73. Mk. 3:27 has a negative statement rather than Matthew’s question form. e sequence in Mt. 12:26 of an ‘if ’ clause followed by a question with πῶς (‘how’) is reversed in v. 29, which is possibly intended to create a minor chiasm around vv. 27-28. 74. e de nite article in the Greek has been taken as generic: ‘a strong person’. Imagery of the security of what is in the possession of the powerful is found in Is. 49:24; Pss. Sol. 5:4. But no dependence is likely. 75. e move from the simple ἁρπάσει to the compound verb διαρπάσει may denote intensi cation: the plundering which could not be done at all while the householder was free to guard his property can be done thoroughly once the householder is tied up. 76. Luz, Matthäus, 2:261, may be right that the binding imagery is echoing a tradition of the binding of the evil power. In dealing with the destruction and renewal of the earth by means of the Genesis ood, 1 Enoch 10:4-7 has ‘bind Azazel hand and foot’ and goes on to give the directive, ‘Give life to the earth which the angels have corrupted’. Jub. 48:15, 19 refer to occasions during the departure from Egypt in which Prince Mastema was

temporarily bound for the sake of the children of Israel. Test. Levi 18:12 has the expectation that ‘Beliar shall be bound’ and consequently people will be given ‘the authority to trample on the wicked spirits’. In Rev. 20:2-3 Satan is temporarily bound. 77. If Mt. 4:1-11 represents the binding of Satan for the ministry of Jesus, then it might be possible to see the agony in the garden in 26:36-46 as the binding of Satan for the Passion of Jesus. 78. On source forms (something like the Markan form is likely to be earlier) and historicity (historicity is likely, despite scholarly reservations about the Spirit half) see Nolland, Luke, 2:675-76. 79. Cf. Ez. 28:25; 29:13; and chap. 34, esp. vv. 13, 21. 80. If scattering were not the antithesis, the imagery of harvest as in Mt. 9:37-38 might have been involved. 81. ough quite fond of the word, Matthew drops Mark’s ‘amen’. 82. e Greek has a de nite article which is best taken as generic (also in Mt. 12:36). 83. Automatic or blanket forgiveness is not in view. 84. Comparison with the source form in Mk. 3:28-29 shows that Matthew has signi cantly tightened up the negative/positive parallelism between the two clauses (singular subjects for both clauses, with the noun ‘blasphemy’ in both; an extra relative clause attached to a noun in the rst clause dropped; common verb and verb mood for both clauses; loss of the asymmetric ‘forever’ — which is saved for the restatement in Mt. 12:32, where it is expanded to provide an end weighting to the whole two-verse unit). In v. 31 Matthew has probably replaced Mark’s τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων (‘the sons of humanity/people’) with the simpler τοῖς ἀνθρώποις (‘people’ — the article is generic) to avoid the confusion that might result from linking ‘the sons of humanity’ with ‘the Son of Man [i.e., the Son of Humanity]’ (τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) in v. 32. Mark’s τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων may betray the origin of the second source form with its reference to the Son of Humanity. 85. Contrast the use of the plural βλασϕημίαι in Mt. 15:19, where the meaning is ‘acts of slander’.

86. e nearest OT parallel is Is. 63:10, which speaks of the grieving of the Holy Spirit in the rebellion against Moses following the exodus from Egypt. Consequently God becomes their enemy. But this is not the end of the story. In CD 5:11-12 those who question the statutes of God’s covenant are said to de le God’s Holy Spirit. In 1 Enoch 67:10 to ‘believe in the debauchery of their bodies’ is parallel to ‘deny the spirit of the Lord’. 87. Again, Matthew has tightened the negative/positive parallelism (each opening clause begins with ὃς (ἐ)άν [‘whoever’] and shares the verb εἴπῃ [‘says’] — the main verb ‘will be forgiven’ was already common, and ‘the Son of Man’ and ‘the Holy Spirit’ were already introduced in parallel manners). 88. In Matthew’s usage ‘the Son of Man’ is clearly titular (for the term see at 8:20), but in the earlier tradition there is likely to have been reference in Aramaic idiom to humanity (cf. n. 84). In Matthew’s immediate source, however, the titular sense has become established (cf. Lk. 12:10), but since we have no certain context for the saying in the source, its earlier force remains somewhat obscure (the meaning in the context of Lk. 12:10 is signi cantly different from that in Matthew’s context). 89. e two ages are also juxtaposed in Mk. 10:30; Lk. 20:34-35; Eph. 1:21. Schlatter, Matthäus, 409, cites a later Hebrew parallel in which the double form is also used for emphatic negation. 90. e suggestion of Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:349, to expand as ‘make the tree good and its fruit (will be) good’ runs aground on the accusative forms for the article, ‘fruit’ and ‘good’. 91. Cf. Sir. 27:6: ‘Its fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so a person’s speech discloses the cultivation of the mind’. 92. ‘e mouth speaks’ is Jewish idiom; cf. Gn. 45:12; Is. 1:20; Dn. 7:8; etc. e correlation of heart and mouth is also found in Test. Naph. 2:6: ‘as his heart, so is also his mouth’. 93. ἐκβάλλει, translated ‘brings out’ above, is literally ‘throws out’. e verb in Matthew is used mostly for the expulsion of demons, but also of other kinds of violent removals and occasionally of nonviolent removal. e imagery is of disposal and not of display. 94. In the present context ‘careless’ or ‘thoughtless’ have also been suggested, but there seems to be no evidence of such a meaning for ἀργός.

95. Aristoph., Frogs, 949-50, has τὸ δ᾿ ἐπὶ σεμνοῖσιν λόγοισι καὶ σκαριϕησμοῖσι λήρων διατριβὴν ἀργὸν ποιεῖσθαι (‘but to spend time idly in stately words and scratching up of nonsenses’). 96. ough it is certainly possible that a fresh formulation in wisdom style could take this form. 97. ‘Pharisees’, the language of seeing, ‘something greater/more here’ (with μεῖζον and πλεῖον respectively), and ‘Son of Man’ are repeated, all but the last on the basis of Matthean adaptation. 98. Nolland, Luke, 2:650-51. 99. Matthew returns to this idiom in parabolic material in 25:9, 37, 44, 45. 100. Mk. 8:11 has ‘the Pharisees’; Lk. 11:16, the vague ‘others’ (ἕτεροι). 101. Matthew drops ‘from heaven’, found in 16:1; Mk. 8:11; Lk. 11:16, perhaps to avoid directly involving appeal to God in the request, but there is little signi cant change of meaning. 102. Nolland, Luke, 2:637. 103. e LXX has read the Hebrew rʿ as the adjective ‘evil’ rather than the noun ‘neighbour/companion/friend’ of the MT. 104. On the basis of Liv. Proph. 10:10-11, where Jonah is said to have given a portent (meaning that he identi ed the signi cance of a portent — actually two — to come in the future) and a reference in the homily De Jona (cited from F. Siegert, Drei hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten I [WUNT 20. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1980], 25), where Jonah’s rescue makes him a sign of rebirth, Hooker, Signs, 22, claims ‘that the notion of the “sign of Jonah” may have been one that was already known to Jesus’ contemporaries’. But there is nothing in common between the two usages, and no indication in either that a standing notion of the sign of Jonah is being drawn on. 105. Others understand Jonah to be a sign to the Israelites of God’s compassion for Gentiles or take Jonah’s experience with the sea monster as functioning as a sign to the Ninevites, or consider the reference to be to Jonah bringing the Ninevites to repentance as John the Baptist did the common people (ignoring Mt. 12:40; Lk. 11:30 as later developments), or even think of Jonah as coming to the Ninevites via ‘resurrection’, allowing

the sign of the Son of Man to be connected to his parousia, or view Jonah as in the netherworld acclaiming the divine liberation from death and think that Jesus was destined to do the same in his period in the netherworld. 106. Matthew’s addition of ‘the prophet’ adds modest support to this, standing in favour as it does of a link between the sign and the prophetic role of Jonah. 107. Both for Jonah and Jesus the terminus to the state of interment implies something beyond, but it is a mistake to draw resurrection as divine vindication into the understanding of the sign. e material focuses instead on the interment as such. 108. In the rst of these (Mt. 16:21) the link is weakened because Matthew has brought the phrase back earlier (to v. 13), but in 17:22 (and cf. vv. 9, 12) and 20:18 (and cf. v. 28) the link remains immediate, and Matthew has an extra Passion prediction at 26:2 (and cf. vv. 24, 45), which also exhibits the link. see the discussion at 17:22. 109. Luz, Matthäus, 2:280, points to Dn. 7:22 (LXX); Wis. 3:8, and 1 Enoch 95:3 and nds here the motif of the righteous judging the world. But the speci c behaviour contrasts, along with the use of μετά (‘with’), suggest rather that the Ninevites and the queen condemn by contrasting example, not by being given a particular judicial role. 110. e cognate noun ἀνάστασις is used of the general resurrection in Mt. 22:23, 28, 30, 31. 111. ‘Queen of the South’ is not an OT designation, but its use in Test. Sol. 19:3; 21:1 may indicate its currency in Jewish tradition (Christian content in the Testament of Solomon makes this uncertain, but there is no evident link with the Gospel texts in Test. Sol. 19:3; 21:1). 112. See Pss. 2:8; 22:28; 59:13; etc. 113. Since Pharisaism was a renewal movement within Judaism, an alternative linkage could be to Pharisaic renewal. To paraphrase, ‘You think you have gotten rid of your demon, but let me tell you that much worse is coming’. Since this approach requires more to be drawn into the narrative world than a link with the ministry of Jesus, it remains less likely. e other possibility has already been noted at 12:1-8: if chaps. 11–12 are to be understood as chiastically arranged, then 12:43-45 will be about seeking to

stop short with John’s ministry and not go on to its logical completion in that of Jesus. 114. In Lk. 11:14 the same verb is used of the departure of a demon in the context of an exorcism by Jesus. 115. Nolland, Luke, 2:645. 2 Pet. 2:17-20 with its image of ‘waterless springs’ probably re ects the present parable (note the echo of the penultimate clause of Mt. 12:45 in v. 20). In Is. 44:3 water on the thirsty ground is an image for the presence and blessing of God. In Jos., Ant. 15.200, similar language, τὴν ἄνυδρον διερχομένοις (lit. ‘passing through the waterless place’), is used of crossing a desert. On the basis of a use of ὑδροϕοβία (lit. ‘fear of water’) to mean rabies, Onuki, ‘Tollwut’, 358-74, has suggested that the expelled spirit in Mt. 12:43-45 is imagined as being like a rabid dog. is seems less likely. 116. In the exorcism of Mk. 9:25 the possibility of return is speci cally excluded (cf. Jos., Ant. 8.47). 117. But see Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:364, for the view that v. 35 depends on the presence of Jesus’ natural family for its impact. 118. In Mark it is the crowd of 3:20, mentioned again in v. 32, which is present for the episode. 119. Mark has this in 3:32, where the report is given to Jesus of the family’s presence. Matthew uses the word in both places, and in 12:49 he conforms Mark’s ἴδε to ἰδού to make a third use. 120. In Mark sisters are not separately mentioned in 3:31, but they may be in v. 32 (the textual support is modest, but it is hard to explain a scribal insertion in v. 32 with no adjustment in vv. 31, 33, 34). 121. Aer Mk. 3:21, the seeking in vv. 31-32 involves a desire to constrain him. 122. ‘Mother’ and ‘brothers’ will have separate possessive pronouns attached in Mt. 12:47, 48, and 49, but share a pronoun in vv. 46 and 50 (where ‘brother and sister’ takes the place of — a gender-inclusive use of — ‘brothers’). 123. λαλεῖν is used for the opening statement about Jesus teaching the crowds and for what the family is seeking; λέγειν is used for the interactions between Jesus and the man who speaks to him.

124. Cf. Mt. 8:3; 12:13; 14:31; 26:51. Matthew keeps none of Mark’s six uses of περιβλέπειν (‘look around’). 125. e identi cation of the disciples as brothers to Jesus is captured in the relationship between the language of the angel in Mt. 28:7 and that of the risen Jesus in v. 10. 126. Mt. 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20. 127. Mt. 8:21; 14:15-16, 26-27; 16:5-12, 22-23; etc. 128. Because of the way in which gender (and age) are ignored in Mt. 12:50, we cannot de nitely deduce the presence of women among the disciples from the presence of ‘mother’ here. 129. Cf. the corresponding lack of ‘fathers’ in Mk. 10:30 (aer the presence of ‘father’ in v. 29).

XI. PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM (13:1-53) A. Speaking to the Crowds in Parables (13:1-3a) that day Jesus went out aof the housea and sat down beside the sea, 2and great crowds were gathered to him. So he got into ba boat and sat down, and all the crowd was standing on the shore. 3He told them many things in parables, saying … 1On

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Omitted from D it sys, probably because the house has not been mentioned in 12:46-50. b. το is added to give ‘the boat’ in D K Γ Δ f13 563 579 etc., perhaps to link with the de nite uses in 4:21, 22; 8:23, 24, on the ground that the boat is that of some of the disciple shermen. Bibliography Bailey, M. L., ‘e Doctrine of the Kingdom in Matthew 13’, BSac 156 (1999), 443-51. • Blomberg, C., Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990). • Borsch, F. H., Many ings in Parables: Extravagant Stories of the New Community (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). • Burchard, C., ‘Senorn, Sauerteig, Schatz und Perle in Matthäus 13’, SNTU 13 (1988), 535. • Carlston, C. E., ‘Parable and Allegory Revisited: An Interpretive Review’, CBQ 43 (1981), 228-42. • Carson, D. A., ‘e ὅμοιος Word-Group as Introduction to Some Matthean Parables’, NTS 31 (1985), 277-82. • Carter, W., ‘e Parables of Matthew 13:1-52 as Embedded Narratives’, in Parables, W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 36-63. • Carter, W., ‘Challenging by Con rming, Renewing by Repeating: e Parables of “the Reign of the

Heavens” in Matthew 13 as Embedded Narratives’, SBLSP 34 (1995), 399424. • Cazeau, J., ‘La parabole attire la parabole ou le problème des sequences de paraboles (Philon et Matthieu ch. 13)’, in Paraboles, ed. J. Delorme, 403-24. • Cousland, J. R. C., Crowds, 241-60. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 85-118. • Dautzenberg, G., ‘Mt 4,1-34 als Belehrung über das Reich Gottes: Beobachtungen zum Gleichniskapitel’, BZ 34 (1990), 38-62. • Donahue, J. R., Gospel. • Drury, J., Parables. • Funk, R. W., Parables. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘Illuminating the Kingdom: Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels’, in Oral, ed. H. Wansbrough (JSNTSup 64. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 266-309. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘e Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels: A Comparison with the Narrative Meshalim in the Old Testament’, NTS 34 (1988), 339-63. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘If We Do Not Cut the Parables Out of eir Frames’, NTS 37 (1991), 321-35. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Matthew’s Parables of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:1-52)’, in Parables, ed. R. N. Longenecker, 102-24. • Harnisch, W., Gleichniserzählungen. • Harrington, D., ‘e Mixed Reception of the Gospels: Interpreting the Parables in Matt 13:1-52’, in Of Scribes and Scrolls, ed. H. Harridge, J. Collins, and T. Tobins (College eological Society Resources in Religion 5. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 195-201. • Heil, J. P., ‘Narrative Progression of the Parables Discourse in Matthew 13:1-52’, in Parables, W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 64-95. • Henaut, B. W., Oral Tradition and the Gospels: e Problem of Mark 4 (JSNTSup 82. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993). • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 282-358. • Kistemaker, S. J., Parables. • Krämer, M., ‘Die Parabelrede in den synoptischen Evangelien: Eine überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der parallelen Stellen Mt 13,1-53; Mk 4,1-34; Lk 8,4-18’, in eologie und Leben. FS G. Söll, ed. A. Bodem and A. M. Kothgasser (Rome: LAS, 1983), 31-53. • Lambrecht, J., Astonished. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 149-79. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 121-42. • Mack, B. L., ‘Teaching in Parables: Elaboration in Mark 4:1-34’, in Patterns, B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, 14360. • Martin, F., ‘Parler: Matthieu 13’, SémiotBib 52 (1988), 17-33. • Mora, V., Création, 155-62. • Newman, B. M., ‘To Teach or Not to Teach (A Comment on Matthew 13:1-3)’, BT 34 (1983), 139-43. • Payne, P. B., ‘e Authenticity of the Parables of Jesus’, in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and D.

Wenham, 2:329-44. • Phillips, G. A., ‘History and Text: e Reader in Context in Matthew’s Parables Discourse’, Semeia 31 (1985), 111-37. • Plessis, J. G. du, ‘Pragmatic Meaning in Matthew 13:1-23’, Neot 21 (1987), 33-56. • Scott, B. B., Hear en the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). • Sider, J. W., ‘Rediscovering the Parables: e Logic of the Jeremias Tradition’, JBL 102 (1983), 61-83. • Sider, J. W., ‘Proportional Analogy in the Gospel Parables’, NTS 31 (1985), 1-23. • Stein, R. H., Parables. • Tolbert, M. A., Perspectives. • Weder, H., Gleichnisse. • Wenham, D., e Parables of Jesus: Pictures of Revolution (e Jesus Library. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989). • Wenham, D., ‘e Structure of Matthew XIII’, NTS 25 (1978-79), 516-22. See further at 12:46-50.

A change of scene broadens the canvas and provides the setting for Matthew’s rst collection of parables of Jesus. Clearly the material of the section is heavily structured, but there is no scholarly agreement on the precise structure. Prominent in the Matthean structure are three parables in sequence, each introduced as ‘another parable’,1 and three in sequence each introduced with ‘the kingdom of heaven is like’.2 Also, three parables are provided with interpretations (in the rst two cases the interpretation is separated from the parable, but not in the third).3 ere are also two re ections on the use of parables as ful lment of prophecy (vv. 10-17, 34-35), and vv. 51-52 might be counted as a third re ection on the signi cance of Jesus’ use of parables.4 A further feature of potential structural signi cance is the move between attention to the crowds and attention to the disciples: aer addressing the rst parable to the crowds, Jesus focusses on the disciples as he explains to them the role of parables in his public teaching and the opening parable itself; then the linked set of three parables (each ‘another parable’) to the crowds gives way, aer a comment to the readers on the role of parables in Jesus’ public teaching, to a focus on the disciples, as Jesus explains the rst of the linked set of parables; nally, he addresses the disciples themselves in the three linked the-kingdom-of-heaven-is-like parables, the last with an

explanation attached, and he challenges them about their understanding and future use of what he has been teaching. e best of the formal structurings seems to be something like that adapted by Davies and Allison,5 from Gaechter.6 e three major units are 13:1-23 (I would prefer to start from v. 3b, especially since v. 53 has been le out of the structure), beginning and ending with the parable of the sower; vv. 24-43, beginning and ending with the parable of the tares; and vv. 44-52, beginning and ending with imagery of treasure.

However the formal structure is to be best represented, the movement from crowds to disciples is fundamental to the dynamic of the materials:7 the parables have value ultimately only for those who are or will become disciples. In 13:53 the present section will be marked as providing one of the ve main discourses of Jesus, which Matthew intends to be linked. ey share a common formula conclusion (see at 7:29). Matthew follows the Markan sequence to v. 23 (apart from the insertion of vv. 16-17 and the bringing forward of Mk. 4:25 to v. 12) but then goes his own way, using Markan material for only vv. 31-32, 34. Matthew here reproduces the main substance of Mk. 4:1-2, but with considerable editorial adaptation.

13:1 ‘On that day’ (ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ)8 provides continuity from the previous scene and reinforces the double role of 12:46-50 as the climax to chap. 12 and the introduction to the parables chapter: the doing of the will of Jesus’ Father in heaven is foundational for that kingdom of heaven on which the parables chapter is focussed. As oen, Matthew marks the movement of Jesus from one scene of action to another. e close chronological link which he has established with 12:46-50 leads to the mention of the house which has been implied but not speci ed as the setting of those verses (see at 12:46). e sitting posture is that of the teacher

as in 5:1 (see there).9 A Capernaum home base for Jesus means that he plays out a considerable part of his ministry in and around the Sea of Galilee. 13:2 To justify the coming move to the boat, Matthew will need more than the (accompanying) crowds from the previous scene (12:46). ‘Great crowds’ (ὄχλοι πολλοί), which he has already employed from 4:25 (see there), serves the purpose. Mark’s ὄχλος πλεῖστος (‘greatest crowd of all’) would have worked as well, but Matthew keeps this phrase back for the climactic moment of the ‘triumphal entry’ (21:8). Matthew uses the passive verb form rather than Mark’s active form for ‘gathered’ (συνήχθησαν), perhaps pointing to the drawing power of Jesus’ presence.10 e motivation for the move to the boat is not speci ed, but it is best taken as having to do with the practicalities of speaking to a large crowd.11 Whereas Mark establishes the contrast between Jesus and the crowds with ‘on the sea’ and ‘facing (πρός) the sea’, Matthew allows a contrast between sitting and standing to mark the relationship. For Mark’s colourless use of γῆ (lit. ‘land/earth/world’) Matthew uses αἰγιαλός (‘shore’), which he will employ in one of the coming parables (v. 48). Aer ‘great crowds’ earlier in the verse Matthew reverts to the Markan ‘all the crowd’ (not otherwise found in Matthew). 13:3a Matthew drops Mark’s reference to Jesus as teaching here. He never actually uses the language of teaching for the parables, but this may have no particular signi cance since he drops many of Mark’s references to teaching. Along with the renewed reference to the crowds (and parables) in v. 34, the plural ‘parables’ here shows that, despite Matthew’s failure to mark the restoration of the focus to the scene of public teaching for vv. 24-33, these verses are to be understood as addressed to the same crowds. ‘Many things’ allows for a range of concerns in the parables of Jesus, which scholars

occasionally do not allow to the historical Jesus. e phrase warns us against imposing too tight a unity of conception on the parables gathered into this chapter. e Greek word παραβολή is used with a range of meanings, but in the Synoptic Gospels the word always conveys the idea that what is being said is not to be taken literally but needs to be related secondarily to another (or occasionally a wider) sphere of signi cance.12 Eleven of Matthew’s sixteen uses of the term are found in this chapter.13 B. Set 1 (13:3b-23) 1. e Parable of the One Who Sowed (13:3b-9) e one who sows went out to sowa. 4As he sowed, some [lots of seed] fell along the path, and the birdsb came and devoured them. 5Others fell on rocky [areas], where they did not have much soil; they sprouted at once because they had no depth of soil. 6When the sun came up they were scorched, and because they had no croot[s] they withered up. 7Others fell among the thornbushes, and the thornbushes grew up and choked them. 8Others fell on the good soil and produced fruit, this [lot] a hundredfold, that [lot] sixtyfold, the other [lot] thirtyfold. 9Let the one who has earsd hear! 3bLook!

TEXTUAL NOTES a. τον σπορον αυτου (‘his seed’) is added by 579 etc. b ff1 h vgs (sys), in uenced by Lk. 8:5. b. του ουρανου (‘of heaven’) is added by K Θ f13 565 1241 1424 etc. b ff1 h vgcl syc, h sa mae bomss, in uenced by Lk. 8:5. c. βαθος ριζης (‘depth of root’) in Θ f13 etc., in uenced by ‘depth of soil’ in v. 5.

d. ακουειν (‘to hear’) is added in ‫א‬2 C D W Z Θ f1, 13 33 etc. lat syc, p, h co, following Mk. 4:9; Lk. 8:8. Bibliography Bailey, M. L., ‘e Parable of the Sower and the Soils’, BSac 155 (1998), 17288. • Bernardi, J., ‘“Cent, soixante et trente”: Matthieu 13,8’, RB 98 (1991), 398-402. • Dumezil, G., ‘La parabole du semeur et la parabole de l’allumeur de feu’, in Antiquité païenne et chrétienne: vingt-cinq études. FS A.-J. Festugière, ed. E. Lucchesi and H. D. Saffrey (Cahiers d’orientalisme 10. Genève: Cramer, 1984), 107-12. • Evans, C. A., ‘On the Isaianic Background of the Sower Parable’, CBQ 47 (1985), 464-68. • Garnet, P., ‘e Parable of the Sower: How the Multitudes Understood It’, in Spirit within Structure. FS G. Johnston, ed. E. J. Furcha (PTMS, n.s. 3. Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1983), 39-54. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 181-202. • Knowles, M. P., ‘Abram and the Birds in Jubilees 11: A Subtext for the Parable of the Sower?’ NTS 41 (1995), 145-51. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 350-414. • Loh nk, G., ‘Das Gleichnis vom Sämann’, BZ 30 (1986), 36-69. • Lowe, M. and Flusser, D., ‘Evidence Corroborating a Modi ed Proto-Matthean Synoptic eory’, NTS 29 (1983), 25-47, esp. 35-40. • McIver, R. K., ‘One Hundred-Fold Yield — Miraculous or Mundane? Matthew 13.8, 23; Mark 4.8, 20; Luke 8.8’, NTS 40 (1994), 606-8. • Mell, U., Die Zeit der Gottesherrscha: Zur Allegorie und zum Gleichnis von Markus 4,1-9 (BWANT 144. Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne: Kohlhammer, 1998). • Payne, P. B., ‘e Authenticity of the Parable of the Sower and Its Interpretation’, in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham, 1:163-207. • Payne, P. B., ‘e Seeming Inconsistency of the Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower’, NTS 26 (1980), 564-68. • Peters, D., ‘Vulnerable Promise from the Land (Mark 4:3b-8)’, in Parables, ed. V. G. Shillington, 69-84. • Ramaroson, L., ‘“Parole-semence” ou “Peuple-semance” dans la parabole du Semeur?’ ScEs 40 (1988), 91-101. • Ramaroson, L., ‘Jésus semeur de parole et de peuple en Mc 4,3-9 et par’, ScEs 47 (1995), 287-94. • Suess, G. E. M., ‘Enemies of the Harvest’, JerPersp 53 (1997), 18-23. See further at 13:1-3a.

is parable with its imagery of successful and unsuccessful sowing has a privileged place in the parables chapter. It has the lead position among the four parables to be addressed to the crowds, provides the sowing image which will be common to the rst three of these four parables, is one of the two of these parables to be provided with a private explanation to the disciples, and, with its explanation, frames the explanatory materials in vv. 10-17 as to why (unexplained) parables are being addressed to the crowds. e Markan sequence continues (cf. Mk. 4:3-9). Matthew has edited and slightly abbreviated the Markan parable. I have argued elsewhere that the framing exhortations to hear are not likely to be original; that the rockyground section shows signs of development; and that ‘and did not give fruit’ could be an expansion.14

13:3b I have not normally translated ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’), but here it invites imaginative visualisation of the scene to be painted, so ‘look’ seems appropriate. In the parable the sower is mentioned only here and at the beginning of v. 4. It is not at once evident whether he is an important gure or not. Does his sowing betray a speci c strategy, or does he sow as anyone sowing would? In line with typical ancient practice we are to imagine the seed being scattered by hand from a bag slung over the shoulder. e question of what margin of accuracy could reasonably be expected of such a sowing method will be of some importance below for exploring the dynamic of the story. e typical sower in rst-century Palestine was a subsistence farmer with a limited plot of land at his disposal. 13:4 e seed being sown is never speci cally introduced into the story, but implicit reference to it (in the mention of sowing) is picked up here by the use of the neuter plural relative pronoun (rendered ‘some [lots of seed]’ above) in a μὲν/δέ construction.15 παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν with its use of παρά plus accusative can hardly mean

‘on the path’. With ‘beside the path’ the reason for vulnerability to the birds would not be given. e sense must be ‘along the path’. On the path the seed is particularly vulnerable to the birds because each grain is clearly visible; it cannot slip into the unevennesses and the broken texture of the normal soil in the eld. Sowing along the path has at times been explained as based on a practice of ploughing only aer sowing (so the path will be restored to the eld). But this does not reckon with the persistence of traditional rights of way and imposes a particular ploughing practice on the story, whereas in fact ploughing practices were much more varied. ‘Seed was certainly plowed in, but it could be sown in soil that had been prepared or not, depending on the time of year, the rainfall, and variations in local practice.’16 In the case of a welltrodden path, a single ploughing as part of the ploughing in of the seed would not make it much more hospitable to the seed. e sower wasted the seed by allowing it to fall along the path, and would know that he had done so. A question of considerable importance for the dynamic of the story is that of whether we are to imagine here (and in the other case of miscarriage to follow) the loss of seed as a marginal phenomenon or as involving a substantial loss of seed. Has the farmer made maximum use of his small plot by sowing hard up against the path and therefore inevitably dropped some grains on the path? Or has he been less than frugal with his precious seed grain and scattered with careless abandon? It is to the cumulative effect of the three cases of loss that we must look for the answer to this question. e story will go on to give prominence to the cases of miscarriage and lacks any marker that most of the seed is successfully directed onto good soil. As one case of failure gives way to the next, the impression builds up that the sowing procedure of

this farmer is not typical; he is doing what a poor peasant farmer would never dare do. Surely he is heading for disaster! In reality loss of seed to birds will not be entirely restricted to seed that falls on the path, but the story in its schematic manner deals only with prominent phenomena. On the path the birds have unrestricted access to the seed. 13:5-6 e disproportionate development in the case of the rocky ground is likely not to be original, but Matthew has not abbreviated (contrast Lk. 8:6). An original ‘and when the sun came up it was scorched’ was probably considered too elliptical and thus expanded. e expansion causes yet more emphasis to fall on the cases of failure. In view is not bare rock, but parts of the eld in which the depth of soil over rocky outcrops is insufficient for successful crop growing. In such cases the ploughing in cannot get the seed to a suitable depth. e rst effect is unusually rapid germination,17 caused either by greater retention of moisture above the rock shelf as long as the weather remains cooler, or perhaps more likely by a higher temperature in the soil closer to the surface (the seedling also reaches the surface more rapidly if it has less soil to penetrate in order to do so). ‘When the sun came up’ takes us to the time of the newly emerged tender plants’ rst direct encounter with the hot Palestinian sun. ese plants have broken through the surface too soon and are scorched by the beating sun. But not only that, their root structures have problems as well: because they have reached the surface rapidly, there has been insufficient time for a proper root structure to grow, and, in any case, there is no depth of soil for the root system to spread out into. As the plants lose moisture to the heat of the sun, their root systems are inadequate to draw in

sufficient fresh moisture. e plants soon lose the battle and wither up. Again there is the question of what the farmer is doing. It is probably reasonable to assume that he knows his land and has not been caught off guard by the invisibility of the rock shelf a few inches beneath the surface. So once again there is the choice between a marginal phenomenon (he sows as close to the rock patches as possible and inevitably overreaches slightly to ensure no waste of usable parts of the eld) or carelessly sowing. e latter is the more likely. With this second case of failure a further feature in the telling of the story emerges. On the path the loss of seed is so close to immediate that there is no point in addressing the question of how time is handled in the story. But this second case of miscarriage takes us beyond the time of sowing. Before going on with the story of the sowing, the narrative tracks the fate of those lots of seed that have landed on the rocky ground. is pattern will continue with the mention of each of the subsequent lots of seed. And it is surely part of the pattern that in each case the lots of seed make it further along the journey of life than the previous lots did (no germination; germination but not much more; growth, but eventual choking by the thornbushes; growth to maturity). 13:7 e third case of loss is expressed fairly elliptically. e old explanation, that sowing among grown thornbushes did not matter because they would be ploughed in, is not very wise horticulturally since the thornbushes would predictably seed a fresh generation unless special measures had been taken earlier in their life cycle (i.e., removal before seeding — but then they would not be there to be sown among). e imagery could be of seedling thornbushes in areas so infested that the farmer would not bother to plough there (or if he did, a fresh sprouting of seedling

thornbushes was soon to follow), or better of developed thornbushes which are indeed ploughed in but predictably replaced by a fresh generation to grow up with the seed that has been sown. e germination and initial growth of these lots of seed are only implied. e place of focus is on the growth of the thornbushes, which are ultimately to choke the life out of these sets of growing plants. Again one must ask the question of marginal phenomenon or deliberate carelessness. Here, too, the latter is more likely. 13:8 Aer the rst set Matthew has introduced each of the subsequent sets of seed with ἄλλα δὲ ἔπεσεν ἐπί (lit. ‘but other [lots] fell upon’). Exactly the same pattern of introduction is kept for the nal set.18 ere is no suggestion that any more of the seed has met this fate than had met the fates already addressed. is makes it likely that any such difference plays no role in the story; therefore, we are not being invited to look at the cases of failure as marginal phenomena.19 e story could hardly avoid including some seed on good soil, but its dri thus far seems well designed to lull the hearers into an expectation that they are hearing a disaster story, perhaps a cautionary tale. With such careless practices the fruit of the good soil cannot be expected to make up for the wasteful extravagance. ἐδίδου καρπόν (lit. ‘were giving fruit’) points to the process of development of the grain to maturity. e grain is there to be harvested, but the harvest as such takes us beyond the bounds of the story. Matthew inverts the sequence of the statements of the scales of fruitfulness, starting from the highest gure, probably to create a chiasm between the three statements of fruitfulness and the three kinds of failure where in each case the seed gets further than in the preceding case. e threefold statement of fruitfulness is clearly some kind of punch line. But how exactly does it function? e number sequence

is neither an arithmetical (30, 60, 90) nor a geometrical (30, 60, 120) progression. It is probably best seen as a slight distortion of an arithmetical progression in the interests of a round number that reaches just that little bit further than 90. e statement could be seen as highlighting the fruitfulness of particular plants (all the seed in the good soil produced fruit, and some of it was splendidly fruitful — thirty-, sixty-, and a hundredfold). e emphasis then would be on the differentiation of the good soil from the soils that interfered with the normal development of the seed. e artistry is, however, more satisfying if the three statements of fruitfulness stand (at least schematically) for the fate of all the seed in the good soil.20 So this is to be preferred. Since ears of wheat with thirty grains each seems about right, Loh nk has argued that the three gures represent respectively plants that have produced one, two, or three ears, and has documented in ancient sources discussion about the production of multiple heads of grain.21 On this basis the statement is that in the good soil the plants produced full ears of wheat, and that many even produced multiple heads of grain. Attending in this way to the fate of individual seeds, Loh nk thinks that he has demonstrated that we are dealing with a solid crop, but nothing outstanding. Loh nk’s focus on individual seeds and their fruitfulness, however, masks the question of the overall fruitfulness of the crop. For while a farmer might take an interest in the success of speci c plants, the focus of his concern is inevitably on the whole effect of his farming efforts. What return is he getting for his outlay of seed? e difference between these two is what he has to live on and to meet his obligations. e reality is that even in the best of soil the germination rate is relatively low and there is considerable loss to pests of various kinds. ese are facts of farming that have no place in the schematic form this story takes, but they will undercut the

impact of the story if we are invited to attend to the fruitfulness of individual grains with no sense of what has happened overall. Loh nk may be right about the signi cance of the multiple heads, but what he has failed to notice is that for the contrasts in which the story is invested there needs to be the implication of a 100 percent germination rate in all the good soil. is undermines the basis of his conclusion about the normality of the yield. Judgments about average ancient yield gures are rather varied, but typical yields seem to have ranged from about vefold to eenfold,22 the range representing variations of climate, location, season, and quality of soil. Under very special circumstances these gures could be dramatically exceeded: Gn. 24:12 has a yield gure of a hundredfold (‘and God blessed him’); Marcus Terentius Varro, who ourished in the second century B.C., gives yield gures of a hundredfold for several sites, including the neighbourhood of Gadara (southeast of the Sea of Galilee).23 Our story seems, then, to be offering yield gures which are extraordinary but not in the realms of fantasy. What is, I think, of central importance is that we have yield gures for the seed in the good soil which are so high that they cause the heavy losses documented for the three cases of failure to pale into insigni cance. Up to this point the story has set us up to expect failure. e situation developing through the three previous scenarios seems irrecoverable, but has turned out not to be so. e listeners are invited to make a last-minute revision to their construal of the earlier parts of the story. e one who looked like a stupid farmer heading for disaster turns out to be a farmer who apparently knew something that the hearers of the story did not know. What is it that has rescued him from the jaws of failure? It can be nothing other than the fecundity of the seed he sows! e seed that has never actually been formally introduced turns out by

this end twist of the story to be the most important feature of the set of scenes being painted. Looking back from the end, the central dynamic of the story is provided by the carefree sowing of a farmer who, because of the extraordinary potential of the seed he has, has no need to be parsimonious with his precious seed grain. us far we have explored only the imagery, the artistry, and the inner dynamic of the story. Bultmann declared the original meaning of the parable to have been irretrievably lost.24 e multiplication of interpretations might encourage us to sympathise with his scepticism.25 If, however, we have rightly identi ed the drama of the story, then there is a solid base on which to look for a meaning that serves both an original and a Gospel context. Sowing is a natural image for the giving of life by God,26 or the renewal of the life of God’s people.27 It can be the Law which God sows and which is to bear fruit.28 e parable image is different but ts with this set of images (esp. the last). ere can be little doubt that the sowing of the seed represents the ministry of Jesus (and ultimately its continuation through the disciples). Other renewal groups, convinced that they had the truth, were inclined to a greater or lesser extent to withdraw into holy remnants. Jesus, noted for a similar and even greater con dence that he had the truth from God, sowed extravagantly, acting as a friend and teacher to all sorts of people, not at all worried that people might waste his efforts and convinced that God would see to the bounty of the crop. e parable expresses Jesus’ own relaxed con dence that God is working the renewal of his people through him (Jesus), but the challenge of the parable for others is for the conviction to dawn that the secret that kept the practice of the farmer in the parable from being disastrous is totally analogous to what provides the dynamic of Jesus’ own ministry. Of course, from this perspective, the story also holds up a mirror to those who make a variety of responses to

his message. In the Matthean context the negative use of the language of ‘this [evil] generation’ in chaps. 11 and 12 and the coming emphatic contrast between the disciples and the crowds in 13:10-17 throw the emphasis onto what the crowds have not perceived. 13:9 e nal challenge repeats words which have already been used at 11:15 (see discussion there). e crowds may be characterised as undiscerning, but the Matthean Jesus is always eager to invite people to open themselves up to new insight. 2. Why Parables for the Crowds? (13:10-17) 10e

disciples came and said to him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ 11He said to them in response, ‘Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to these it has not been given. 12For whoever has — [more] will be given to them, and they will have in abundance; but whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken away from them. 13e reason aI speak to thema in parables is bthat seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, and they do not understand.b 14cWith them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says, dYou

will hear and hear and will certainly not understand,

and you will see and see and certainly not eperceive. 15For the heart of this people grew fat, and they heard with heavy fears, and they shut their eyes up, so that they might not perceive with the eyes, and hear with the ears, and understand with the heart, and turn — and I would heal them.

16Fortunate are your eyes because they see, and gyour ears because they hear. 17hFor, amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see

what you see and idid not seei [these things], and to hear what you hear and did not hear [these things].

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. L etc. c have dropped ‘to them’; D(c) makes the verse an editorial comment by rendering in the third person: ‘he speaks to them’. b-b. Various texts have been in uenced by Mk. 4:12 and substitute the seeing and hearing statements found there (sometimes with the following clause, but never with the nal clause of the verse). c. τοτε (‘then’) is added in f1 a. In D 1424 etc. it a future form is also substituted for the following verb. d. D it mae have added from Is. 6:9 πορευθητι και ειπε τω λαω τουτω (‘go and say to this people’). e. e Greek ιδητε can also denote physical sight. f. Under the in uence of the LXX, αυτων (‘their’) is added to ears in ‫ א‬C 33 892 1241 etc. it vgmss sys, c, p. g. Missing from B 1424 etc. it, giving lit. ‘the ears’. It could be a scribal addition to improve the parallelism. h. e linking ‘for’ is missing from ‫ א‬1241 etc. it sams bopt; the combination ‘for, amen’ may not have seemed very natural. i-i. ηδυνηθησαν ιδειν (‘were not able to see’) in D. Bibliography Boring, M. E., ‘A Proposed Reconstruction of Q 10:23-24’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 456-71. • Evans, C. A., To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9-10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation (JSOTSup 64. Sheffield: JSOT, 1989). • Fusco, V., ‘L’accord mineur Mt 13,11a/Lc 8,10a contre Mc 4,11a’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 355-61. • Gryson, R., ‘La vieille-latine, témoin privilégié du texte du

Nouveau Testament: L’exemple de Matthieu 13,13-15’, RTL 19 (1988), 41332. • Kagarise, R. J., ‘Divine Sovereignty, Human Responsibility, and Jesus’ Parables: e Structure and Meaning of Matthew 13:10-17’, EvJ 19 (2001), 29-41. • New, D. S., ‘e Occurrence of αὐτῶν in Matthew 13.15 and the Process of Text Assimilation’, NTS 37 (1991), 478-80. • Parker, D. G., Living Text, 103-12. See further at 13:1-3a, 3b-9.

e disciples recognise Jesus’ move to addressing the crowds in parables as a departure. eir query yields the information that Jesus teaches the crowds in parables to mark them as yet outsiders to what God is currently doing. e disciples themselves, by contrast, stand in the privileged position of having been granted insight by God himself. For 13:10-17 Matthew has knit together various sources. Beyond Mk. 4:1012 he seems to have had a second parallel source covering some of the same ground (cf. Lk. 8:9-10, where the same sources are combined in a rather different manner29); the material of Mk. 4:25 has been brought forward to Mt. 13:12 (related material will be used in 25:29); vv. 16-17 have been adapted from a source shared with Lk. 10:23-34; the explicit citation of Isaiah in vv. 14-15 (based on the allusion in v. 13) is likely to be Matthew’s own contribution.

13:10 e contrast between the disciples and the crowds here has been anticipated in 12:46-50.30 e disciples come to Jesus as they did in 5:1: they are eager to learn from him.31 Unlike Mk. 4:10, Matthew does not speci cally create a scene which is private to Jesus and the disciples, but we must assume such privacy (the privacy from v. 36, for the next explanation of a parable, is quite explicit).32 Speaking to the crowds in parables is represented as a new move, and the disciples ask for an explanation of this strategy.33

13:11 Matthew’s fulsome ἀποκριθείς (giving, lit., ‘having answered, he said’) may be to add to the links with 12:46-50 (see v. 48). ὅτι here is probably already causal (‘because’), as in 13:13, rather than simply a mark of direct speech. With different language, the appeal is to the same sovereign, divine insight into what is happening in and through the ministry of Jesus as was found in 11:25-26 (see there). Here it is the disciples who are identi ed as the privileged ones (cf. 16:17), and the content of what has been revealed to them is ‘to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’. e closest reference is Dn. 2:28, 44, where God is seen as the revealer of the mysteries of the end of days concerning the coming kingdom that shall never be destroyed.34 e use of μυστήρια (‘mysteries’) points not simply to what had previously not been revealed (secrets), but also to the mysterious and not independently knowable nature of what has now been made known. What has been given to the disciples has been withheld from the crowds. ese contrasting states are presumably assumed from the disciples’ attachment to Jesus (cf. 12:49-50) and the crowds’ failure to move beyond curiosity, being impressed and wanting to bene t from Jesus’ ministry;35 they have not repented (cf. 11:20-24). In 12:38 their call for a sign reveals their failure to perceive what is before the eyes of all in the ministry of Jesus. e paradox is that it is tangibly and visibly there in the ministry of Jesus, but remains opaque to most, in part because of its very nature (‘mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’). e nature of what is to be added to achieve abundance36 remains out of view, but in the larger Matthean story the disciples go on to learn more (e.g., 14:33; 16:16-17). 13:12 is verse (brought forward by Matthew from its Markan position), with its opening ‘for’ (γάρ), explains why the point made in v. 11 can stand as the basis for the present strategy of

using parables with the crowds. e saying has a rather proverbial ring to it, and another version of it will be used in 25:29 (in both the emphasis on abundance is distinctive to Matthew). e one who ‘has’ will be the one to whom the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have been revealed. e one who ‘does not have’ will be the one who has experienced the ministry of Jesus without becoming aware in any signi cant sense of what is happening in relation to the kingdom of heaven. e use of parables with such people makes a public statement that they remain outsiders to what God is currently doing. In the language of the present verse, something is being ‘taken away from’ them. Jesus no longer addresses them with directness about matters concerning the kingdom of heaven. 13:13 e answer in vv. 11-12 is now repeated in other language. A fresh beginning, echoing the language of v. 10, is provided by the introductory ‘because of this I speak to them in parables, because’,37 which has a slightly awkward, but not unparalleled, double reference to causality (in Greek the rst ‘because’ is διὰ τοῦτο and the second ὅτι).38 Where the rst form of the answer placed the main focus on the privilege of those to whom insight has been given, the second form of answer deals only with those who lack insight. e two answers together are arranged in a minor chiasm: (A) those who show that the mysteries have not been made known to them (B) have taken away from them direct communication about the kingdom of God; (B′) those are now addressed in parables (A′) are those who have failed to show insight into what they have seen and heard. Probably inspired by the second source (cf. Lk. 8:10b), Matthew abbreviates Mark’s allusion here to Is. 6:9 because he intends to provide an extended quotation in vv. 14-15. In the allusion Matthew carries through consistently a structural change that is evident for part of the second source.

In Is. 6:9 the double use of the verbs for seeing and hearing marks intensi cation. e lack of effectiveness of these efforts is indicated in each case by a following negated perception verb. e Gospel allusions abbreviate.39 In Lk. 8:10 the perception verb has been dropped from aer the references to seeing, and the second reference to seeing takes on this role by gaining a negative.40 But in the case of hearing the second use of the hearing verb is dropped and the negated perception verb is retained. Matthew enhances the parallelism of the Lukan structure by including a negated hearing statement. But he also believes that he needs to include a negated perception verb to provide end resolution aer the riddling quality of these parallel statements with their respective affirmation and negation of the seeing and hearing.

From this point the idea of understanding provides an important thread to the end of the chapter.41 All the Gospel allusions have reversed the order of seeing and hearing to an order which is more natural outside the speci c context in Is. 6:9. In Matthew’s case this inversion of order allows for yet another minor chiasm linking the allusion here to the citation to follow (where the Is. 6:9 order is retained). 13:14 On the relationship of the citation formula here to the set of ten citation formulae used by Matthew and on citations from Isaiah see at 8:17, and on the citation set see at 1:22. e distinctive features of this citation formula make it unlikely that Matthew intends it to be part of the set.42 Matthew may have decided to leave it out of the set because it lacked the degree of christological focus that is a uniting feature of the citations he has marked in this way (it is the crowds’ lack of perception, not Jesus’ use of parables, which ful ls scripture here). ough there is no textual support for the omission, vv. 14-15 have oen been suspected of being an early interpolation. e strikingly different introduction has been appealed to, as has the

exact use of the LXX for an extended quotation (except perhaps for the loss of one use of ‘their’), a phenomenon not found elsewhere in Matthew.43 e ow of Matthew’s text is sometimes judged to be easier without the verses. But given the lack of any textual support for the omission, since nothing here stands in tension with Matthew, and since his work is characterised by extensive clear appeal to scriptural ful lment, it seems better to retain the text. Structurally vv. 14-15 represent a development from v. 13 in a manner somewhat parallel to the way in which v. 17 is a development from v. 16. e inclusion gives added prominence to the signi cance for Matthew of the widespread insensitivity of Jesus’ own people to what was taking place in his ministry. e element of blame implicit in v. 15 also prepares for this note in the explanation of the Sower in vv. 18-23.44 13:15 e rst three images here point to the disabled state that underlies the inability to perceive through hearing and sight, which has been spoken about in the previous verse.45 Hearing and seeing have already been in view, but the new area added for exploration is the heart. e rst image is of a heart that has grown fat. is has clearly become a metaphor for a sensibility that has been coarsened.46 Similarly, the second image applies the idea of heaviness to hearing.47 It would be nice to think that the third image made a neat set with the other two, and perhaps it does. καμμύειν, with or without a separate word for eyes, means ‘close the eyes/doze/fall asleep’.48 e idea could be of eyes that cannot see because they have become heavy with sleep. In any case, the attempt to see through shut eyes points to a loss of perceptual sensitivity even more acute than that in the previous images. e second and third images with their concern about ears and eyes take up the role of hearing and seeing in v. 14.

It is not clear whether we should nd purpose or result in μήποτε (‘so that … not’), but purpose ts more directly the responsibility implied in the opening images and is more secure in Greek syntax. In any case, the difference of meaning is slight in the present context. e images of eyes, ears, and hearts return in reverse order to create a small chiasm with v. 15a. Language from vv. 14 and 15a is merged in v. 15b. e verb chosen to express the seeing (ὁρᾶν) is not that used in v. 14 for the seeing that failed to produce perception, but is rather the positive counterpart to the use of the same verb in ‘and will certainly not perceive’. e perception verb (συνιέναι) which in v. 14 is linked with hearing is now linked with the heart (helping with the mapping of the two elements of v. 14 onto the three of v. 15a and b). Matthew does not use ἐπιστρέϕειν (‘turn’) as a technical term for repentance, but repentance is in view (see at 3:2). e nal clause breaks away from subjunctive forms and uses a future verb. is, together with the move to the rst person, suggests a break in the syntax at this point. e future verb would seem to have a tendential force (what one would wish to do). e imagery of healing may be quite independent, or it may refer back speci cally to the incapacities highlighted in v. 15a. Matthew uses the verb here of physical healing in 8:8, 13; 15:28. It is probably best to understand that the desire to heal remains despite the obduracy. In Matthew the move to speaking in uninterpreted parables is oen taken as representing a giving up on the crowds, but this is surely to over-interpret. Jesus will continue to have a relationship with the crowds, and they will continue to have a positive regard for him.49 While the move to parables makes its public statement about the crowds as, as yet, remaining outsiders to what God is doing, it does not shut them up to remaining so. e desire to heal continues, and the parables in their own way continue to invite

transition from outside to inside (perhaps provided with a pattern for making the transition in the questions asked by the disciples). e formula citation to come in 13:35 will link the parables with communication rather than with deliberate obfuscation. 13:16 e language of this saying of Jesus has been modi ed from a form more like that in Lk. 10:23 to suit the present context and to create stronger ties with the language of Mt. 13:13-15. Since both Evangelists adapt to their context, it is unclear whether Luke has suppressed a hearing clause or whether Matthew creates the hearing clause to match the seeing clause and sets these clauses in the order used in v. 13.50 In any case, v. 16 is offered as a positive counterpart to v. 13 (the order of seeing and then hearing is also the same in 13:15b, but there are three clauses there, rather than the two parallelled here; and the causal ὅτι here also connects with v. 13, as does the choice of the verb βλέπειν of v. 13 rather than the ὁρᾶν of v. 15b for ‘see’). Where in Lk. 10:21 the focus is on what was available to be experienced, in Mt. 13:16 the focus is on having the perceptiveness to identify correctly what is available to be experienced. Eyes that see and ears that hear are precisely what have been lacking in v. 13. As noted at 5:3-10, beatitudes regularly verge on the congratulatory: the category of persons is singled out and their good fortune proclaimed. In this case the disciples are represented by their eyes and ears. ey are in a happy state: they are not publicly identi ed as outsiders to what God is doing by being addressed only in parables; instead they are treated as intimate insiders to God’s action. 13:17 Matthew adds an ‘amen’ to the form found in Lk. 10:24 to create another emphatic ‘For, amen, I say to you’ (see at 5:18). Luke’s pairing of ‘prophets’ and ‘kings’ becomes ‘prophets’ and ‘righteous people’ (δίκαιοι). Matthew uses the δικαι- root twentytwo times, and both in the singular and the plural the ‘righteous

person’ is an important category for him.51 Here the reference is to godly people of the past. Otherwise Matthew reproduces the source form with only verbal changes of minor signi cance. Back behind the privilege of accurate perception, with the usefulness of perception depending on it, lies the occurrence in the present of the extraordinary thing that God is now engaged in. e idea that prophets and righteous people of the past longed to see and hear what is now taking place is of a piece with the emphasis on ful lment of prophecy in Matthew, which implies a forwardlooking quality to OT faith.52 e way the disciples’ experience is spoken of in vv. 16-17 has a signi cant parallel in 11:2-6, where seeing and hearing are also important (v. 4 — the order is the reverse of that in 13:16-17). 3. Explanation of the Parable of the One Who Sowed (13:18-23) 18You,

then, hear the parable of the one who sowed. 19In the case of everyone who hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand, the evil one comes and snatches away awhat has been sowna in their heart — this is what was sown along the path. 20What was sown on the rocky [areas] — this is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. 21But she or he does not have a root in themselves, but is temporary; when there is oppression or persecution because of the word, they are immediately caused to stumble. 22What was sown among the thornbushes — this is the one who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the allure of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 23What was sown on the good soil — this is the one who hears the word and understands, bwho bears fruit and produces: this [lot] a hundredfold, that [lot] sixtyfold, the other [lot] thirtyfold.

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. τον λογον εσπαρμενον (‘the word which has been sown’) in syp mae; το σπειρομενον (‘what is sown’) in D W. b. ere is an emphatic δη here which has not been translated; D it have τοτε, giving ‘then they [sing.] bear’; και is found in lat syc, p mae, giving ‘and he or she’. Bibliography Joosten, J., ‘e Text of Matthew 13.21a and Parallels in the Syriac Tradition’, NTS 37 (1991), 153-59. • Limbeck, M., ‘“… das Wort hört und versteht …” (Mt 13,23): Zur Verkündigung des Matthäus-Evangeliums (I)’, BLit 65 (1992), 236-39. See further at 13:1-3a, 3b-9, 10-17.

e privileged disciples not only hear the parable (with some insight?), but are led by Jesus into a deeper understanding by his provision of a replacement narrative which explicates the parable. e word of the kingdom will bear abundant fruit and thus vindicate the sower, but the challenge is to hear with an understanding which, in the face of religious persecution and the snares of life, is not destroyed, on the one hand, by failure to go deep or, on the other hand, by the cultivation of competing loyalties. Despite minor agreements with Lk. 8:11-15, it is unlikely that Matthew used a second source here. e rewriting of Mk. 4:13-20 has, however, been extensive, and the resulting text may re ect, as Gerhardsson has proposed,53 a pattern of Jewish exegesis of the Shema (Gerhardsson takes this as favouring the Matthean as the more original form). e con dence of earlier scholars that nothing of the explanation goes back to the historical Jesus has given way to a split judgment. ough the different Gospel writers re ect signi cant development in the explanation, a good case can be made for Jesus’ having offered an explanation of this and certain other parables.54

13:18 e emphatic ‘you’ (ὑμεῖς) picks up on the uses of ‘your’ in v. 16: the present hearing is an instance of the privilege pointed to in that verse. ough Matthew makes nothing further of it in the unfolding explanation, the identi cation of the parable as ‘the parable of the one who sowed’ indicates the importance to him of the sower.55 13:19 Matthew’s interpretation of the parable largely takes the form of a replacement narrative in which Jesus speaks plainly about various outcomes of hearing the word of the kingdom. Aer the topic announcement in v. 18 the narrative begins immediately, without any preliminary cross reference to the parable. e rst three instances point to a hearing which is not a (proper) hearing, as in v. 13. Matthew adds ‘of the kingdom’ to Mark’s ‘the word’ in order to establish a link with his language of proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom in 4:23; 9:35; 24:14. e activity is intended to embrace both the preaching of Jesus and that of the early church. ‘And does not understand’ is a Matthean contribution. He is repeating the verb used in 13:13, 14, 15. Where there is no understanding, there is no beginning. Presumably Matthew will allow that some understanding has taken place in the subsequent instances. e absolute contrast will be between the failure to understand here and success in understanding in the nal scene. Each of the Evangelists refers to Satan in a different way (Mark has ‘Satan’; Luke has ‘the devil’; Matthew has ‘the evil one’); Matthew freely uses all three, but here ‘the evil one’ is linked with v. 38 (probably Matthew’s only other use).56 Matthew’s choice of ἁρπάζει (‘snatches away’) rather than Mark’s αἴρει (‘takes away’) may be to establish a connection with 11:12 (where the verb has been translated ‘grab at’).

Matthew’s one concession to the immediate imagery of the parable is τὸ ἐσπαρμένον (‘what has been sown’).57 But now the place of sowing is the heart.58 e addition of heart here is likely to be a taking up of the role of the heart in 13:15. If there is a correlation with the Shema (see n. 53 and the main text at that point), then the introduction of heart here marks the challenge in Dt. 6:5 to ‘love Yahweh your God with all your heart’.59 Matthew will speak of what is happening with the heart fourteen times. At the end of the rst section of his replacement narrative Matthew provides a cross reference to the parable. e active role of the sower is emphasised with the choice of ‘what was sown’, where the parable itself has the language ‘some fell’. 13:20 Leaving behind his initial strategy, Matthew will, for the remaining three sections, place the cross reference to the parable at the beginning. In place of οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ … σπαρείς (‘this is what was sown …’), these sections have ὁ δὲ … σπαρείς (‘what was sown…’), with the οὗτός ἐστιν (‘this is’) now used to introduce the new section of the replacement narrative (followed in each case by ‘the one who hears the word’60). Where the parable has used collective language, ‘everyone who’ in v. 19 already marked a focussing in the interpretation on each individual. From v. 20 onwards that individuating becomes so sharp that Matthew speaks as though there were only one person in each category.61 is is in keeping with the need of each individual to consider his or her own case. ough ‘at once’ is repeated from the parable, it is not necessarily to be taken as a sign of a shallowness in the joy of reception. Joy is the right response (cf. v. 44; 2:10); so its mention heightens the pathos of the subsequent failure. 13:21 In this second scene Matthew’s concession to the speci c imagery of the parable is found in the use of language for

not having a root. e signi cance of the root system for health and vitality is widely used in imagery.62 ‘Root in themselves’ is difficult (Luke drops ‘in themselves’). For Matthew it probably corresponds to ‘in their heart’ in v. 19. If so, the parallelism adds some support to the possibility of a link with the Shema. In Dt. 6:5 the second element in the tripartite call to love is to love with the npš/ψυχή. ese words are traditionally translated ‘soul’, but they refer broadly to the self or its life (see discussion at Mt. 6:25). In the replacement narrative various dimensions of the self have taken the place of the soil. at which is not well rooted lacks permanence; it is there for only a limited time63 and is therefore only a temporary phenomenon.64 What is temporary is the delicate plant of the new life begun with joy. θλῖψις is trouble that puts one under pressure. As discussed at 7:14, Matthew uses the term for ‘suffering’ that is related either to persecution or to the eschatological turmoil to precede the end (here the former). In view are not the troubles of life, but persecution for being identi ed with what is happening with Jesus.65 e immediacy of response to the word is matched by the immediacy of the collapse under persecution for the word. Jesus heralds such a collapse, temporarily, on the part of the disciples as the Passion approaches (26:31), and a much more widespread falling away as pressures build to the eschatological climax (24:910). Christian readers are to engage with this parable not only as relating to the crowds who have failed to receive the message but also as relating to their own situations. 13:22 e pattern developed in the second scene is repeated. is time the problem is not the ‘soil’, but what is allowed to ‘grow’ there alongside the word. Here Matthew’s concession to the imagery of the parable is to speak of the choking of the word. He has also taken over from Mark’s interpretation in Mk. 4:19 ‘and it becomes

unfruitful’, but where this was part of Mark’s parable, it is not actually part of Matthew’s. Nonetheless, it does represent a further concession to the imagery of the parable. e worry of the world was addressed in 6:25-34 (and cf. 10:19) as something not to be countenanced. en, too, under the language of mammon, the desire for wealth was identi ed as incompatible with true allegiance to God in 6:24. In addition with the imagery of treasure a focus on treasure in heaven rather than on earth was demanded in 6:19. e third demand of the Shema is to love God with one’s whole mʾd/δυνάμις (‘strength’). But in part of the Gospel tradition (Mk. 12:30; Lk. 10:27) the threefold demand has become a fourfold demand, with ‘mind’ (διάνοια) and ‘strength’ (ἰσχύς) in third and fourth positions (in either order).66 is reverts to three in Mt. 22:37, but with ‘mind’ rather than ‘strength’ as found in Dt. 6:5. Since in rabbinic discussion loving God with one’s strength was related to the use of wealth67 and since the worry and desire that Matthew speaks about in 13:22 relate to the state of one’s mind, there could well be a link with the third element of the Shema, whether in the traditional form using ‘strength’ or the Gospel form using ‘mind’. With the nal ‘and becomes unfruitful’ the reader is reminded that the intended goal in each case is to bear fruit. As with the previous scene, the application cannot be restricted to those who remain outside the Christian church. 13:23 e pattern of the previous two scenes is repeated, but it is bracketed with the rst scene by linking understanding with hearing. Here is the fully positive counterpart to that rst form of failure. As we have seen, more of the imagery of the parable recurs in Matthew’s account of the third case of failure. For this last scene, apart from identifying being sown in the good soil with hearing the

word and understanding, Matthew virtually repeats the language of the parable.68 He has nothing very speci c in mind for fruit bearing; rather, he includes everything that belongs to the proper outcome of the Christian life.69 e move to the neuter for the nal threefold statement (repeating the words of the parable) and even the threefold statement itself break away from the focus on a single individual that has characterised the main part of the replacement narrative. For the climax we are taken back to the collective vision of the parable itself. Despite all the challenge to individuals along the way, the nal focus on the splendid outcome is secured. Once given its opportunity, this seed which is the word of the kingdom will show itself splendidly fruitful. C. Set 2 (13:24-43) 1. e Parable of the Zizania among the Wheat (13:24-30) 24He

put another parable before them, saying, ‘e kingdom of heaven is like [a situation in which] a person sowed good seed in his field. 25But while people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed azizania among the wheat and went off. 26When the plants came up and produced fruit, then the zizania balso became evident. 27e slaves of the landowner came and said to him, “Sir, you sowed good seed in your field, didn’t you? How then does it have zizania?” 28He said to them, “An enemy has done this”. en the cslaves dsay to him, “Do you want us to go off and collect them?” 29But he ereplies, “No! Otherwise, in collecting the zizania, you might root out the wheat at the same time. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the harvesters, ‘Collect the zizania first and bind fthem intof bundles to be burned, and gather the wheat together into my granary.’”’

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. ζιζανια is transliterated and not translated. ζιζανιον is the name of a plant that looks super cially like wheat. See below for options. b. Missing from D W Θ f13 1424 etc. it vgmss sys, c sa mae bomss. A scribe probably failed to see the point of the και. c. Missing from B 1424 etc. h co, giving ‘they say’; this could be an added clari cation. etc.

d. e colloquial historic present is corrected to the aorist in L W Θ f1, 13

e. Similarly, the colloquial historic present is corrected to the imperfect in L N W Θ 0233 0281 f etc., with αυτοις (‘to them’) (also) added in D N Θ 33 1424 etc. f-f. εις (‘into’) is missing from L Δ f1 (33) 700 1241 1424 etc. it vgst, giving ‘bind them as bundles’. D lacks both words, giving ‘bind bundles’. Bibliography Bacq, P. and Ribadeau Dumas, O., ‘Reading a Parable: e Good Wheat and the Tares (Mt 13)’, LVit 39 (1984), 181-94. • Bailey, M. L., ‘e Parable of the Tares’, BSac 155 (1998), 266-79. • Erlemann, K., BildGottes, 56-75. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 292-303. • Kerr, A. J., ‘Matthew 13:25: Sowing zizania among Another’s Wheat: Realistic or Arti cial?’ JTS 48 (1997), 1089. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 179-225. • Luz, U., ‘Vom Taumelloch im Weizenfeld’, in Vom Urchristentum, ed. H. Frankemölle and K. Kertelge, 15471. • McIver, R. K., ‘e Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat (Matt 13:24-30. 36-43) and the Relationship between the Kingdom and the Church as Portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew’, JBL 114 (1995), 643-59. • Riches, J. K., Conflicting, 240-43. • Steinmetz, F.-J., ‘“Unkraut unter dem Weizen” (Mt 13,24-30): Ein aktuelles, aber nichtssagendes Gleichnis?’ GuL 66 (1993), 1-9. • Strelan, R. E., ‘A Ripping Yarn: Matthew 13:24’, LutheolJourn 30 (1996), 22-29. • Tripp, D. H., ‘Zizania (Matthew 13:25): Realistic, If Also Figurative’, JTS 50 (1999), 628. • Wong, K.-C., Interkulturelle, 155-77. See further at 13:1-3a.

is second parable addressed to the crowds intends to illuminate something of how things are with the kingdom of God. Jesus again uses sowing imagery, but this time he juxtaposed two very different acts of sowing. is parable too offers its own illumination as to why many remain unresponsive to the ministry of Jesus: though the people of God in name, they are not genuinely so. e explanation for this parable is kept back until vv. 36-43, so that the parable and the explanation can frame a subsection of the discourse. Matthew has already used Mk. 4:25 in 13:12, and has earlier used material related to the rest of the elements in the Markan block, 4:21-25, so he passes it over at this point. e distinctive Matthean parable at this point takes the place of Mk. 4:26-29. e origins of this parable remain obscure. Some have sought a more coherent original by identifying as expansion either the material about the role of the enemy (something like Mt. 13:25, 27bc, 28a) or the material related to the slaves’ question about whether the zizania should be removed immediately (something like vv. 28-30a), or both (the originality of v. 30 has also been questioned). It is striking that a large set of features of the parable at Mk. 4:26-29 are also found in this Matthean parable (vocabulary in common is ‘kingdom’, ‘person’, ‘sleep’, ‘came up’, ‘plants’, ‘wheat’, ‘fruit’, ‘harvest’; and both parables begin with an image of sowing). is has provoked the suggestion that Mt. 13:24-30 is a retelling of the tradition behind Mk. 4:26-29 against a fresh background. ough the story as we have it is considerably more coherent than is oen supposed, a complex origin is likely, but little about this origin can be affirmed with any con dence. Some sort of merging is likely to have happened. e complex relationship between the parable and its interpretation (explored at Mt. 13:36-43) makes it likely that Matthew is not the originator of the parable. e story as we have it is much more immediately allegorical than most of the Gospel parables (see comments at Mt. 13:30), but, as I have already said, it has a more coherent story line than is oen allowed.

13:24 Matthew’s failure to indicate clearly that Jesus is freshly addressing the crowds at this point (‘them’ are the crowds; see v. 36)

matches a similar lapse in Mk. 4 (see vv. 33-34). is is the rst of three parables to be introduced as ‘another parable’ (the rst two also share ‘put before them’, which in the third becomes ‘spoke to them’). Fittingly, in relation to a starting point in the parable of the one who sowed, each of the ‘other’ parables also involves some kind of sowing. 13:24 uses the aorist participle for the activity of sowing, as does v. 18, providing a stronger link between the rst two cases of sowing. As a set, each of the three added parables also refers to the kingdom of heaven and involves a comparison using the ὁμοιο root.70 With ‘the word of the kingdom’ in 13:19 a link with the kingdom has already been provided for the parable of the one who sowed. Passive uses of ὁμοιοῦν in the NT mean not ‘be compared with/likened to’, as might be expected from the normal active meaning, but ‘be or become like’.71 Here the choice of the aorist suggests that the reference is to a situation that has developed or something that has happened, but given the constraints of English idiom it remains idiomatically better to translate as ‘is like’ (as above). As discussed at 11:16-17, the syntax in such comparison statements is loose, and the point of comparison is not necessarily with the immediately attached element (in this case the person who has sown). Where the likeness is to be located must be deduced from the whole narrative. ‘Good seed’ here so soon aer ‘good soil’ in v. 23 might suggest that something is now being said under the imagery of varying seeds which is comparable to or at least related to what has already been said under the imagery of varying soils. It would not normally need to be said that a farmer chose good seed to sow; the explicit indication anticipates some coming problem. 13:25 e time when people sleep provides opportunity to be unnoticed in illicit activity. e gure of ‘his enemy’ suggests that

standing feud is involved.72 e idea of a second sowing is conveyed by the ἐπι pre x added for this second use of ‘sow’. Probably we are to imagine this second sowing as taking place between the sowing and the ploughing in of the wheat. ζιζάνια is found only here in the NT. e plant intended has not de nitely been identi ed, but the qualities relevant to the story are evident enough: prior to the grain appearing the plant is hard to distinguish from wheat, but from that point on the difference is clear; the wheat harvest would not be of an acceptable quality without the separation of the heads produced by the ζιζάνια. If ζιζάνια is a Semitic loanword, then the sense may be related to the root znh, meaning to be degenerate or degraded (and used largely in connection with in delity and prostitution). In line with this, ζιζάνια is oen understood to refer to some form of degenerate wheat. But since a plant that looked like wheat could easily have been thought of as degenerate wheat, one cannot take genetic connection too seriously. Bearded darnel is perhaps the most likely suggestion. is weed looks rather like wheat when young, but matures to have a black seed and plays host to a fungus that can be quite toxic to humans. e verse starts and ends with the features that mark the invisibility of the act: the enemy acts while others sleep and aer a busy night does not stay around to be seen aerwards. 13:26 e narrative moves quickly from the initial sprouting to the appearance of the grain (contrast the previous parable). ‘Plants’ translates χόρτος, which mostly means ‘grass’ and suggests here the fresh growth of the newly sprouted plants. Ringing the changes, Matthew chooses a third form of language here for ‘produced fruit’.73 ἐϕάνη (‘appeared’) means here not just that the zizania came up as the wheat had done, but rather that it identi ed itself visibly by the form it had gained by the time the heads of grain had appeared.

13:27 At this point in the story it becomes evident that the farmer here is not the subsistence farmer with his modest plot probably to be envisaged in the earlier parable. ough v. 24 has said that the person ‘sowed good seed in his eld’, aer this verse we can no longer be sure that the work of sowing was not actually done by the slaves. οἰκοδεσπότης is here ‘landowner’, as in 20:1, 11; 21:33 (but, in keeping with the imagery of the word, the ownership of the land is incidental to having ultimate responsibility for it and for those who work it), and not ‘master of the house’, as in 10:25; 24:43; but in an agricultural economy the two tend to belong together. e question asked by the slaves is oen considered odd or at least redundant. e likelihood that the slaves did the actual sowing with seed provided by the landowner helps here with the dynamic. But in any case seed quality is always an issue in crop farming. Seed grain could either be bought or retained from one’s own harvest. If the latter, it should have been carefully chosen and scrutinised in relation to its intended use. If the former, then the reputation and reliability of the supplier will be important. e landowner is being asked whether he or his supplier had exercised adequate quality control for this particular batch of seed. Presumably the presence of some zizania would not have occasioned surprise, but the second sowing would produce a remarkably large amount. A question about seed quality is quite to the point.74 13:28 e landowner is con dent that he knows what has happened. is is just the sort of thing that a particular hostile neighbour would do! His con dence is presumably based on previous experience of provocation from this quarter. So what is to be done? e slaves offer a very sensible suggestion. ey propose dealing with the problem right away. is may well have been normal practice; it would mean that the wheat would not need to continue to compete for light and nutrition.

13:29 But there are disadvantages to this suggestion, perhaps more so when the invasion of zizania is so extensive. e wheat will be disturbed. Pulling out the zizania will inevitably lead to the uprooting of some of the wheat as well. 13:30 e landowner prefers a less intrusive policy. Let things run their course for the present. Everything will need to be gathered up at harvest time; that will be the point for dealing with the zizania. e slaves introduced in v. 27 are not identical to the harvesters now spoken about. e slaves will be involved, but at harvest time extra labour is needed if the crop is be brought in rapidly and so without loss to the elements and to predators. e direction to deal rst with the zizania is striking. One would more naturally think of removing the heads of wheat and leaving the zizania to be handled later, along with the wheat stalks. But in the story the zizania are to be removed with as much urgency as is consistent with the protection of all the wheat. is is the landowner’s equivalent to the eagerness to act which his slaves exhibited in v. 28 (there is deliberate parallelism of expression). e presence of the zizania is an offence as well as a practical problem. With the contamination out of the way the eld with good wheat is restored, and the story can end with the outcome intended in the initial sowing activity. At harvest time everything is dried out, so that the idea of being consumed by re nds a natural t. Probably the bundles would have been used as fuel for res, but the story has no investment in this side bene t. e contrasting fates and especially ‘gather the wheat together into my granary’ provide a strong echo of 3:12. As with the previous parable, we have rst explored the imagery, the artistry, and the inner dynamic of the story. But clearly this is a story that trades in stock metaphors. And, eventually, we will need to pay attention to the fact that vv. 36-43 offer an interpretation to

the disciples. First the stock metaphors. e imagery of sowing has been explored at v. 8. Of particular interest here are Ho. 2:23 and 2 Esdr. 8:41-45, where the people of God are what God sows.75 God’s planting is of the best quality. e natural reference is to God’s establishing (or reestablishing) his people. What is not immediately clear is the relationship of this sowing to the activity of God in the ministry of Jesus. In Jewish texts ‘enemy’ is oen a designation for Satan,76 who is also the natural antagonist to God in the present parable. e sowing of good and evil functions in a somewhat related way in 2 Esdr. 4:28-29, which also shows concern about the timing of the reaping of the evil.77 Fruit bearing is a universal image last encountered in Mt. 13:23 (see there); here bearing the right fruit is a natural outcome of being the right kind of plant. e οἰκοδεσπότης (‘master of a household/landowner’) is already a gure for God from the action of the story, and, especially with the juxtaposition of ‘slaves’, ts into a wider pattern of Jewish images of God as master and Lord (in Matthew cf. 10:24, where the reference is to Jesus, who takes on divine functions). ough it need mean only ‘sir’ (and is so translated above), κύριε as the mode of address to the householder ts in here. Harvest is a well-established image both for judgment78 and for the ultimate gathering of Israel (e.g., Is. 27:12-13), and our parable exploits both the positive and the negative possibilities.79 e harvesters take their signi cance from the harvest imagery; it is no accident that the story gives them a separate identity from that of the masters’ slaves. Images of re and of the granary have already been juxtaposed in 3:12, along with the respective evocation of consuming judgment and ultimate security. God sows his people, but Satan is also active, sowing those who seem to be part of the people of God but will prove to be so only falsely. ough Satan’s interference is an affront to God, he will not act decisively yet to root out the problem: the plants growing from

the good seed must not be disturbed; they must be given every opportunity to bring their fruit to maturity. But God will not inde nitely tolerate the alien planting. His purpose for his people will be brought to culmination, and what has been sown by Satan is to be rooted out and destroyed. It would be possible to read the parable as focussed simply on the historical formation and periodic renewal of God’s people, who now show themselves to be a mixture of those who are in truth God’s people, in process of bearing fruit for him, and those who at rst appear to be part of his people but are really aligned with Satan and are in the process of bearing quite a different kind of fruit. But quite apart from the link to the Son of Man provided in the explanation (v. 37), the place of the parable on the lips of Jesus, the connection with the kingdom of heaven, and the tie with the other parables make it necessary to see the parable as having some vital relation to what is happening in the ministry of Jesus. It seems likely, therefore, that Matthew sees the activity of Jesus as a renewal and extension of the historic activity of God in establishing (and reestablishing) his people.80 If this is so, then we may not be expected to look speci cally for a fresh activity of Satan running alongside the activity of Jesus. It is probably enough to see mirrored here Jesus’ evaluation of the state of his people as he was experiencing it during his ministry (and as the Matthean community continued to experience it).81 e imagery of two kinds of plantings seems deterministic, but clearly it is important that the categorisation is based on outcomes and is not intended to be predictive. Matthew does not have human responsibility in view here, but he intends nothing which is inconsistent with it; this parable comes aer the parable of the one who sows.

Over against the urgent press towards resolution in terms of the removal of evil which characterises John the Baptist in Mt. 3, we have here a preference for focussing on the present as an opportunity for growth to maturity and a stronger interest in protecting the maturing good seed than in destroying the growing bad seed. It remains unclear what concrete future expectations should be linked with the image of harvest, either in its threatening mode or in its correlation with ultimate security. e possibility that collecting the zizania prematurely might endanger the wheat would seem to connect well with the kind of judgments through natural and political forces that marked the history of Israel. ese forces will feature in the description of the move to the ‘harvest’ climax in Mt. 24.82 It also remains unclear what speci c form the proposed (but rejected) offer to collect the zizania right away might be imagined to take. e Qumran community removed others from the people of Israel by the way they de ned membership in Israel: they were the faithful remnant; others were apostate. Perhaps something analogous is in mind here. We will defer a discussion of the relationship between parable and Gospel interpretation to 13:36-43. 2. e Parable of the Mustard Seed (13:31-32) 31He aput

another parable beforea them, saying, ‘e kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with] a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field, 32which bis smaller than all the [other] seeds, but when it is grown is larger than the [other] cplants that belong to the vegetable gardenc and becomesb a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its branches.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. D L* N Θ f13 1424 etc. it (sys, c) have ελαλησεν, giving ‘he spoke another parable to’, conforming to the pattern of v. 33. b-b. e present tenses in the Greek throughout this section are kept visible in this translation, but they are probably narrative presents representing action in the (past) time of the story. In the interpretation below they will be understood as representing past time. c-c. An expansive translation of Gk. λαχανα, which is generally translated ‘vegetables’ but is applicable to anything that might be grown in a vegetable garden (e.g., herbs would be included, but not wheat, olives, or fruit trees). λαχανα were of course also grown commercially. Bibliography Bailey, M. L., ‘e Parable of the Mustard Seed’, BSac 155 (1998), 449-59. • Cotter, W. J., ‘e Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven: eir Function in the Earliest Stratum of Q’, TJT 8 (1992), 38-51. • Crook, Z. A., ‘e Synoptic Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven: A Test-Case for the Two-Document, Two-Gospel, and Farrar-Goulder Hypothesis’, JSNT 78 (2000), 23-48. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Mustard Seed and the Leaven in Q, the Synoptics, and omas’, in SBLSP 28 (1989), 216-36. • Friedrichsen, T. A., ‘“Minor” and “Major” Matthew-Luke Agreements against Mk 4,30-32’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 649-76. • Friedrichsen, T. A., ‘Alternative Synoptic eories on Mk 4,30-32’, in Synoptic Gospels, ed. C. Focant, 427-50. • Granata, G., ‘Some More Information about Mustard and the Gospel’, BeO 25 (1983), 105-6. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 393-403. • Kogler, F., Das Doppelgleichnis vom Senorn und vom Sauerteig in seiner traditionsgeschichtlichen Entwicklung: Zur Reich-Gottes-Vorstellung Jesu und ihren Aktualisierung in der Urkirche (FB 59. Würzburg: Echter, 1988). • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 174-200, 470-90. • Laufen, R., ‘Βασιλεία und ἐκκλησία: Eine traditions- und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung des Gleichnisses vom Senorn’, in Begegnung mit dem Wort. FS H. Zimmermann, ed. J. Zmijewski and E. Nellessen (BBB 53. Bonn: Hanstein,

1980), 105-40. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 276-335. • Loh nk, G., ‘Senorn und Weltenbaum (Mk 4,30-32 Parr): Zum Verhältnis von Natur und Gesellscha bei Jesus’, in ‘… Bäume braucht man doch’! Das Symbol des Baumes zwischen Hoffnung und Zerstörung, ed. H. Schweizer (Sigmaringen: orbecke, 1986), 109-26. • Meurer, H.-J., Gleichnisse, 619-41. • Rau, E., Vollmacht, 107-71. • Sproule, J. A., ‘e Problem of the Mustard Seed’, GTJ 1 (1980), 37-42. See further at 13:1-3a.

is is the second of three parables addressed to the crowds as a supplement to the parable of the one who sowed (13:3-9). Each is introduced as ‘another parable’ and involves likening something about the kingdom of God to some situation or other. Here the dramatic development of a tiny mustard seed images the signi cance of Jesus’ ministry in relation to the kingdom of God. Matthew continues to be in uenced by the Markan sequence (see Mk. 4:3032), but for this parable he has a second source which also contains the following Matthean parable, one not found in Mark (see Lk. 13:18-21). Matthew has drawn features from both forms.83

13:31 e opening clause is identical with that in v. 24. e likeness with the kingdom of heaven is now expressed with ὁμοία ἐστιν (‘is like’). Again it is important to allow the syntax to be construed loosely: ‘like [what happened with] a mustard seed’ (cf. at v. 24). For the sake of balance with the ‘woman’ of v. 33, ἄνθρωπος here is likely to be ‘man’ as in 10:35 and not the more normal ‘person’. Where the plurality of seeds has been important in the previous two parables because of the correlation between seeds and people, here the individuality of those who hear the message of the kingdom disappears from sight and only the kingdom itself is in view: this man sows a single seed. Since one would not normally consider sowing a single mustard seed, the singleness of the sowing

is already an allegorical feature of the account. Matthew (only) has the seed sown ‘in his eld’ for the sake of continuity with the eld of the previous parable (vv. 24, 27; and in the explanation, vv. 36, 38).84 13:32 ‘Smaller than all the [other] seeds’85 may involve some artistic licence, but there is evidence in Jewish tradition that the smallness of the mustard seed had made an impact on the Jewish imagination,86 and other ancients made similar statements about the size of the mustard seed.87 Perhaps the claim is: ‘smaller than all the (other) seeds used for growing seed crops and vegetables’. Given, however, that a speci c occasion of sowing is in view, a better possibility is that the smallness relates speci cally to a particularly chosen seed, not to mustard seeds in general. e advantage of such an approach is that it can allow the dramatic contrast which regularly exists between the small mustard seed and the large mustard bush to be taken up, but made use of in an exaggerated form. μεῖζον τῶν λαχάνων is either ‘largest of the plants belonging to the vegetable garden’88 or ‘larger than the [other?] plants belonging to the vegetable garden’. e following ‘and becomes a tree’ favours the latter. Reports on the size of mustard bushes suggest a normal range of two to six feet, depending on the variety, with oversized plants of large varieties perhaps becoming as tall as nine feet. It is likely, however, to be only the particular mustard seed sown on this particular occasion that goes a stage further and becomes a tree (but see n. 86). Of people κατασκηνοῦν means ‘dwell’, but for birds the verb refers to nesting because it is in the nesting period that birds have a ‘dwelling’.89 A good-sized mustard plant might be large enough for nesting birds, but given that the plant is an annual and comes to maturity at varying times, it is unlikely actually to attract nesting.90

e image of solidity and permanence suggested by the presence of the nests probably belongs with the treelike quality of this particular mustard plant. e biblical allusion here could be to either Dn. 4:12, 21 (MT 4:9, 18) or Ez. 17:22-23; 31:5-6.91 e language is closest to that of Dn. 4:21 (eod.). In a kingdom-of-heaven context the image of the power and scope of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule is tting, but so is the image of the mighty cedar from a small shoot in Ez. 17:22-23 (as a promise of the restoration of monarchy aer the Babylonian judgment). In any case, the emphasis is on what is provided for the birds in the way of security.92 e resultant ‘tree’ is not being compared with any other trees, but only with the tiny seed from which it originated. is is the rst parable in Mt. 13 which is not given an explanation. Presumably Matthew considers it understandable in relation to those which are explained. As in the earlier sowing parables, Jesus himself must be the sower. e emphasis on smallness is a new motif, but it has been prepared for by the possibility that has been raised of being scandalised by Jesus’ claims (11:6; see discussion there and on the kingdom of God at 12:28), and even by the unsuccessful cases in the rst parable of chap. 13 and the double sowing of the second parable. e central dynamic of the parable involves the claim that, as with a mustard seed, but even more so, the smallness of what has now been sown leads inexorably to the unstinting fullness of an oversized mature plant. ere is an impressiveness to the nal outcome that might be thought to be lacking in the modest scale of the beginnings; but the beginning already guarantees and in some sense generates the outcome. Matthew appeals to the mysterious forces of life which in the good purpose of God are contained within the seed. Planting sets a dynamic in motion that has its natural outcome in the mature

plant. As God can be trusted with the potential in a planted seed, so he can be trusted with the potential set loose by the ministry of Jesus. What is happening in Jesus’ presence makes certain the future (full) coming of the kingdom, precisely because the life of that future kingdom is already making itself manifest. Because the parable invests only in the beginning point and the end, nothing here throws light on the nature of the intermediate development that is thought to connect the beginning and the end. e connection is asserted rather than illuminated. At one level chap. 24 provides Matthew’s version of the chain of events that will lead from here to there. But the parable is about con dence rather than process. e challenge to faith is very similar to that of 12:28. 3. e Parable of the Leaven (13:33) 33aHe

spoke another parable to them:a ‘e kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with] leaven which a woman took and hid in three sata of flour, until the whole was leavened’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. With in uence from the pattern of vv. 24, 31, λεγων (‘saying’) is added in ‫ א‬L* Θ f13 etc. h (l) q vgmss sams mae. παραθηκεν αυτοις λεγων (‘he put [another parable] before them, saying’) in C 1241 etc. samss conforms the reading entirely to vv. 24 and 31. D (k) sys, c omit the phrase. Bibliography Bailey, M. L., ‘e Parable of the Leavening Process’, BSac 156 (1999), 61-71. • Ford, R. Q., ‘Body Language: Jesus’ Parables of the Woman with the Yeast, the Woman with the Jar, and the Man with the Sword’, Int 56 (2002), 295306. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 403-9. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 335-49. •

Ringe, S. H., ‘Matthäus 13:33: Das Brot geht auf ’, in Feministisch gelesen I, ed. E. R. Schmidt, K. Korenhof, and R. Jost (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1988), 156-62. • Schottroff, L., Sisters, 79-90. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Verbarg es in drei Sea Mehl”? (Matthäus 13,33/Lukas 13,20.21)’, BibNot 86 (1997), 60-62. See further at 13:1-3a, 31-32.

is is the third and last of the parables addressed to the crowds as a supplement to the parable of the one who sowed (13:3-9). As with the earlier ones, this is introduced as ‘another parable’ and involves likening something about the kingdom of God to some situation or other. Here the likeness is found in the potency of some very effective leaven to totally transform a huge lump of dough, despite being quite invisible to the casual observer. Matthew now gives the short parable which was paired with the parable of the mustard seed in Matthew’s second source (cf. Lk. 13:20-21). He adapts the introduction for the sake of his own artistry and structuring, but otherwise he repeats the parable verbatim.

13:33 For this third and nal parable in the set Matthew varies slightly the opening clause which was repeated identically from v. 24 in v. 31 (‘put before them, saying’ becomes ‘spoke to them’), but now he repeats the likeness formulation from v. 31 (‘e kingdom of heaven is like … which … took’), which had been different in v. 24. ζύμη (‘leaven’) was the form in which yeast was used in the ancient world in bread making. e leaven was a piece of old fermented dough which was stored in fermenting juices until mixed in with the fresh batch of dough. Since Matthew has placed this parable within a set of parables which are devoted to the planting of seed, he clearly sees the introduction of the yeast as being at least analogous to the sowing of seed. Ancients did not know that yeast was a unicellular fungus that reproduced by budding and by the production of spores, but they were aware that

something in the leaven they used was alive and that it reproduced and multiplied. Whereas the man of vv. 31-32 worked in the eld, the woman of v. 33 works in a domestic setting. Of all the steps in bread making only the introduction of the leaven is of interest here. Why is the action with the yeast expressed as ἐνέκρυψεν εἰς (‘hid in’)? In Lk. 13:21, where the hiding is matched by a careless throwing of the mustard seed (v. 19), the implication might well be that the woman did not bother to mix the leaven into the dough.93 But in Matthew the point may only be that the introduction of the small amount of leaven made no visible difference to the mass of dough (analogous to the smallness of the mustard seed). Apparently insigni cant since its presence in the dough is invisible, it nonetheless has totally transformed the dough in a manner that will gradually become evident.94 What is the signi cance of the quantity of our? According to Josephus, a σάτον is one and a half times the Latin modius, and so the ‘three sata’ is about eight and a half (Imperial) gallons or thirtyeight litres, which would represent about y pounds of our. is is probably more than the ephah associated with grand hospitality in Gn. 18:6; Jdg. 6:19 and with festive eating at the temple in 1 Sa. 1:24.95 e quantity of the woman’s our corresponds to the size of the ‘tree’ that grew from the mustard seed. While not wildly out of reach, the quantity represents an exaggeration of the maximum amount a woman might ever be expected to handle for her family and guests. With such a large amount of dough, total success was achieved when the whole was leavened.96 As with the previous parable, no explanation is provided. Like the man’s sowing in the earlier parables, the woman’s action with the leaven must correspond to what is happening in Jesus’ ministry. e emphasis on smallness introduced in the previous parable is

implicitly repeated in terms of the hidden presence of the leaven.97 Again, as with the previous parable, the nal outcome is inevitable once the initial action has been undertaken. Matthew appeals is yet again to the mysterious forces of life which in the good purpose of God are contained within ‘natural’ processes. e capacity of a small amount of yeast to affect a large quantity of dough is intrinsically impressive, but as with the mustard plant, an extreme case is again presented: here there is no question of the fermentation running out of steam because the mix is not right or the temperature has varied too much; and here the quantity of dough is unusually large. e kingdom of heaven is like the action of leaven, but more so. With minor variation we reach the same conclusion as with the previous parable: God can be trusted regarding the potential in a lump of leaven; how much more can he be trusted concerning the potential set loose by the ministry of Jesus! What is happening in Jesus’ presence makes certain the future (full) coming of the kingdom, precisely because the life of that future kingdom is already making itself manifest. As with the previous parable, Matthew does not have process in view, only the guaranteed link between the beginning and the end. 4. Jesus’ Parables Speak What Has Been Long Hidden (13:34-35) 34Jesus

told all these things to the crowds in parables, and without a parable he told them anothing, 35so that what was spoken through the prophetb might be fulfilled: I will open my mouth in parables; I will pour forth what has been hidden since [the] foundation c[of the world].

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In uenced by Mk. 4:34, ‫א‬2 D L Θ 0233 f giving ‘did not speak to them’.

33

33 etc. lat bo have ουκ,

b. Ησαιου (‘Isaiah’) is added by ‫ *א‬Θ f1, 13 33 etc., perhaps in uenced from Mt. 13:14. c. κοσμου (‘of [the] world’) is included by ‫*א‬, 2 C D L W Θ 0233 f13 33 etc. lat syp, h co. Both addition and accidental loss are credible. Bibliography Menken, M. J. J., ‘Isaiah and the “Hidden ings”: e Quotation from Psalm 78:2 in Mathew 13:35’, in e Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World, ed. L. V. Rutgers et al. (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and eology 22. Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 61-77. See further at 13:1-3a.

In readiness for the transition from crowds to disciples, Matthew offers a summary statement and identi es the use of parables as yet another way in which Jesus ful ls scripture. Deep mysteries are revealed in an enigmatic packaging. Mt. 13:34 abbreviates and adapts Mk. 4:33-34; Mt. 13:35 is Matthew’s own contribution.

13:34 Where Mk. 4:33a generalises, Mt. 13:34 summarises. e present verse makes it nally clear that vv. 24-33 have been addressed to the crowds and not to the disciples (and cf. v. 36). ‘In parables’ echoes the language of v. 10,98 and, with the remainder of the verse, calls to mind the explanation in vv. 10-15 of why the crowds get only parables.99 For the second half of the verse Matthew closely follows Mk. 4:34, but he displaces the second clause there

with his change of scene and explanation of the parable of the zizania in vv. 36-43. Note the minor chiasm created in Greek by the inversion of the order of the verb and the reference to parables between the two clauses of v. 34. 13:35 Despite the echo of vv. 10-15 in v. 34, the revelatory signi cance of the parables of Jesus is claimed as scriptural ful lment here, not the differential treatment of crowds and disciples. Matthew adds here the eighth of the ten formula citations that are scattered through the Gospel (see generally at 1:22). is is the rst variant of the formula in which ‘through the prophet’ is not supplemented by the phrase ‘by the Lord’ or the name of the prophet. is may re ect the fact that the quotation is from a psalm and not from a book linked to a named prophet (though the psalm does carry the heading ‘a maskil of Asaph’).100 e form of the citation from Ps. 78 (LXX 77):2 again re ects Matthew’s multilingual competence. For the rst clause the wording is identical to that of the LXX, but for the second clause he seems to have offered an independent rendering of the Hebrew. In the rst clause the plural παραβολαῖς (‘parables’) of the LXX text suits Matthew’s needs better than the singular mšl (‘saying/riddle/proverb/wisdom saying/taunt’). Possibly Matthew hopes that his readers will think of the opening words of Mt. 5:2 (‘he opened his mouth’) when they read ‘I will open my mouth’. In the second clause Matthew’s ἐρεύξομαι stays closer to the imagery of the Hebrew ʾbyʿh since both words are used derivatively of the utterance of speech, with ἐρεύξομαι originally meaning ‘I will belch out’ and ʾbyʿh meaning ‘I will pour forth’. e LXX rendering of ḥydt as προβλήματα is not particularly apt: ḥydt means ‘riddles/enigmatic or ambiguous sayings’, while προβλήματα probably means ‘problems’ in the present context.101 Matthew’s κεκρυμμένα catches well the potential opacity of ḥydt, and ts with

his understanding of how the parables remain opaque to the crowds. Both the LXX’s ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς (‘from [the] beginning’) and Matthew’s ἀπὸ καταβολῆς (‘from [the] foundation [of the world]’) are reasonable renderings of the MT’s mny-qdm (‘from antiquity’). What is not clear is how Matthew intended ἀπὸ καταβολῆς to be tted into the clause. In the psalm the reference is to the chain of transmission by which the sayings which preserved the knowledge of the glorious deeds of the Lord in a riddling poetic form were passed on.102 But though the parables Matthew has in mind have been freshly coined, the hiddenness must have a long history. Either Matthew allows ‘parables’ in the rst clause to carry the entire burden of pointing to the opacity of Jesus’ parables and uses ‘things hidden’ to refer instead to the long-standing unavailability to human understanding of the realities of which Jesus now speaks103 or, probably better and as partly assumed above, he allows ‘things hidden’ to perform a double role: the parable form means that Jesus’ exposition of what has previously been unavailable to human understanding still has a potential opacity to it. Either way, for Matthew the quotation points both to the enigmatic parabolic form of Jesus’ speech and to the insight contained in parables, an insight previously quite unavailable.104 5. Explanation of the Parable of the Zizania in the Field (13:3643) 36en ahe

le the crowds and came into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the zizania in the field’. 37He said in response, ‘e one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38the field is the world; the good seed — these are the sons of the kingdom; the zizania are the bsons of evil; 39the enemy who sowed them is the devil. ce harvest is the completion of the age; the harvesters are angels.

40‘Just

as, then, the zizania are collected and burnt in a fire, so it will be at the completion of dthe age. 41e Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all the causes of stumbling and those who produce lawlessness, 42and they will throw them into the fiery furnace; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43en the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom hof their Father.h Let the one who has earse hear!’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ιησους (‘Jesus’) in C L W Θ 0233 f13 33 etc. f h q sy(p), h, reinforcing the sense of a fresh beginning. b. e phrase could have been rendered ‘children of evil’, except for the need to mark the degree of parallelism with ‘sons of the kingdom’ (for which see the note at 8:12). c. e article is, rather oddly, missing from ‫*א‬, leaving the connecting δε (lit. ‘but/and’) in the wrong place. d. τουτου (‘this’) in C L W Θ 0106 0233 0242 0250 f1, 13 33etc. f h q syp, h sams bo, conforming the idiom to that in the use of ‘this age’ in 12:32. e. ακουειν (‘to hear’) is added by ‫א‬2 C D L W 0106 0233 0250 f1, 13 33 etc. it vgcl sy co, following the wording found in Mk. 4:9; Lk. 8:8. Bibliography Geist, H., Menschensohn, 74-104. • Sim, D. C., ‘Angels of Eschatological Punishment in the Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Traditions and in the Gospel of Matthew’, HTS 55 (1999), 693-718. See further at 13:1-3a, 24-30.

13:36-43 bring closure to the immediate set of units (vv. 24-43), which includes the three parables which are each identi ed as ‘another parable’ and in which likeness to the kingdom of heaven is identi ed, as well as the nal comment on the use of parables. It

also concludes to the account of the parables ministry to the crowds as a whole by reporting Jesus’ departure from them. e explanation focuses sharply on eschatological destinies. Because the explanation is articulated in a thoroughly Matthean manner and includes extensive cross links to other material in Matthew, it is quite unclear whether any explanation of the parable came to Matthew in the tradition. e complex relationship between a parable and its explanation suggests that at least to some degree each has a life of its own (but with the explanation obviously dependent on the parable). is suggests a preMatthean form for the parable but not necessarily for the explanation.

13:36 e change of setting provides a closing bracket by echoing 13:1-2: Matthew’s report of the encounter with the crowds is nished.105 As in v. 10, the disciples question Jesus; but now aer the explanation of the parable of the one who sowed, given them in vv. 18-23, they think of asking for an explanation.106 διασαϕεῖν means ‘make quite clear’ and can be related to explanations or reports. In the NT it is found only here and in 18:31. In 13:18 it is Jesus who gives a descriptive title to the parable; for variety Matthew now has the disciples do this. ough Matthew places the title on the lips of those who have yet to receive an explanation, the title functions to provide preliminary orientation for his readers’ attention. e focus will be on the zizania (on these weeds see at v. 25). 13:37 e introduction to Jesus’ answer repeats words which have the same role in v. 10.107 e parable explanation divides quite sharply into two parts. In the rst part, vv. 37-39, a series of equations are offered for elements in the parable. e second part is introduced by v. 40, which takes from the parable the action of collecting and burning the zizania and declares it to be just like (‘just as … so’) its counterpart at the end of the age. Vv. 41-43 then

provide a replacement narrative for this part of the parable (which also includes reference to the fate of those who are the counterpart to the wheat). e rst equation is between the one who sows the good seed and the Son of Man. e present activity of the Son of Man is in view here, as in 8:20; 9:6; 11:19; 12:8. Here he exercises a prerogative of God, as in 9:6; 12:8. But Matthew is likely to have chosen the Son-of-Man language primarily for the sake of the eschatological role to come in 13:41-42. An eschatological role for the Son of Man has emerged at 10:23 (see there), with evident allusion to Dn. 7:13. at allusion will continue here, but now the aspect of the dominion of the Son of Man which comes to the fore is not rescue as in 10:23 but the rooting out of evil. 13:38 e eld is the whole world and not simply Israel because, no matter how important Israel is to God’s purposes, as Lord of all creation he acts on a worldwide canvas. is verse suggests material in 2 Esdras where the world, eld, and sowing are drawn together in a related manner.108 e good seed is identi ed as the sons of the kingdom. is is a useful designation because it provides a bridge between the historic people of God (as the natural heirs of the kingdom — see Mt. 8:12, where the phrase is also used) and the actualisation of kingdom membership that is taking place with the coming of Jesus.109 e zizania are the sons τοῦ πονηροῦ. While τοῦ πονηροῦ could mean ‘of the Evil One’, it is more likely to be ‘of evil’ here because, coming immediately before the introduction of the role of the devil, the sense ‘of the Evil One’ would make anticlimactic the signi cance of the following equation. e idea is that their behaviour is characterised by evil (cf. the language of v. 41). 13:39 As with the sower of the good seed, the enemy is introduced in relation to his role of sowing. His introduction comes

one step later than the sequence in the parable (otherwise followed), presumably to create a minor chiasm: sower of the good seed; ( eld); good seed; bad seed; sower of the bad seed. ere may be signi cance in the choice of an aorist verb for the devil’s sowing and a present for the Son of Man’s sowing. e difference would t with an interest in unresponsiveness to the ministry of Jesus being explained in terms of many in Israel being the devil’s sowing rather than God’s. e devil is introduced into Matthew’s narrative at 4:1 (see there). e introduction of the devil completes Matthew’s foundational set of equations.110 e intermediate period in the parable, 13:26-29(30a), drops from sight as we are taken to the harvest of v. 30 for the next equation. Of the Gospel writers only Matthew uses the phrase συντέλεια (τοῦ) αἰῶνος (‘completion of the age’).111 It is frequent in Jewish apocalyptic literature (oen with ‘ages’), in which the sequence of ages plays a signi cant role.112 e identi cation of the harvesters as angels is no surprise, given their eschatological role in Matthew, generally in connection with the Son of Man.113 What is more surprising is their identi cation in v. 41 as the Son of Humanity’s angels. In this respect, too, the Son of Man will act as God. No equation is offered or needed for the collecting and the burning, and the binding into bundles is allowed to drop from sight (cf. v. 40). Nor is any equation offered for the gathering of the wheat. 13:40 is verse offers the thesis statement for the replacement narrative of vv. 41-43. e focus of interest is on the fate of the zizania. e imperative form in the actual parable at v. 30 has given way to a present indicative to describe the execution of the directive, and the detail of binding into bundles is dropped. e πυρί (‘in a re’) which has been added to the use of κατακαίειν

(‘burn [up]’) provides a link with v. 42. ‘End of the age’ is taken up from v. 39. What corresponds to the action of the parable remains future, so there is a move from the present tenses for the evocation of the action of the parable to future tenses for what comes at the end of the age. 13:41 Now the replacement narrative proper begins. In line with v. 40 it uses future verbs for the action to come. e activity of sending gets us closer to the telling of v. 30 aer the more abbreviated form in v. 40. On the Son of Man sending his angels, see at v. 39. e new feature here is that the collecting will be ‘out of his kingdom’. It is probably a mistake to join this too closely with ‘sons of the kingdom’ in v. 38. For a Son of Man who has a kingdom the background is clearly Dn. 7:13-14. e kingdom of the Son of Man will be referred to again in 16:28 as something in the future, and (with kingdom language) a future kingly role is anticipated for Jesus in 20:21; 25:34.114 It is probably best to see the rooting out of evil as part of what the Son of Man does to establish his rule, in which case ‘his kingdom’ should be equated neither with the eld nor with the church. ‘e sons of evil’ of v. 38 is expanded to πάντα τὰ σκάνδαλα καὶ τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν.115 e neuter form of the rst phrase (‘all the causes of stumbling’) suggests that the impact of such people on others is in view here rather than the people themselves, but the masculine second phrase gives these people a personal identity. ‘Causes of stumbling’ is connected with ‘the world’ again in 18:7 (and cf. 16:23). Concern with the impact on others is a slightly unexpected note for this parable, but it does provide a link with the rst parable and its explanation. τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν is ‘those who produce lawlessness’ on the pattern of ‘produced fruit’ in

the parable (13:26). e signi cance for the future of the practice of lawlessness has already been addressed at 7:23; cf. 23:28; 24:12. 13:42 For the ery fate Matthew borrows language from Dn. 3:6.116 is may be to strengthen the allusion to Daniel in the previous verse. It also suggests that this ery fate is partly to be seen as a turning of the tables on those who have oppressed God’s people. e borrowing from Dn. 3:6, along with the following clause in Matthew, also provides the most expansive of an extensive set of links between the explanation of the second parable and the explanation in vv. 49-50 of the parable in Mt. 13:47-48 (see v. 50, which is identical to v. 42).117 ‘ere will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ is repeated from 8:12, and Matthew will make further use of it (see at 8:12). 13:43 us far in the explanation, and especially in the development to this point of the replacement narrative, nothing has properly prepared us for this nal element. But the parable strongly juxtaposes two contrasted cases, and among the equations offered in vv. 37-39 is ‘the good seed — these are the sons of the kingdom’. Giving up entirely on the image of the gathering of wheat into the granary, the verse speaks instead of ‘the righteous shining forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father’.118 is might be thought of as an eschatological counterpart to 5:14-16. In the case of Jesus himself this eschatological shining is to be anticipated at the trans guration (17:2). Another allusion to Daniel is possible (Dan. 12:3119). ‘Kingdom of their Father’ is unparalleled, but Mt. 6:9-10 is not far from it with its juxtaposition of ‘our Father’ and ‘your kingdom come’. If the kingdom of the Son of Man is to be distinguished from ‘the kingdom of their Father’, then the distinction is best seen as between the dynamic which sets in place the nal kingdom and the

settled state of the nal kingdom. But Matthew’s uses of ‘kingdom of heaven’ and ‘kingdom of God’ do not match the role given here to ‘the kingdom of their Father’. e nal clause of 13:43 provides a cross link with the rst parable of the chapter by repeating the words of v. 9, which in turn was a repeat of words from 11:15 (see there). Just as the crowds have been challenged to open themselves to new insights, now the disciples are so challenged. For the disciples the call would appear to be primarily to patient endurance of the present situation in view of the nal outcome. When the parable and the explanation are juxtaposed, it becomes clear that the parable has a life of its own apart from the interpretation. To some degree they each make points that the other misses. e ‘interpretation’ is both more and less than an interpretation. ough quite allegorical, the parable is much more a parable than might at rst appear, and it is certainly not simply an encoding, making use of the ciphers to be supplied by the explanation. D. Set 3 (13:44-52) 1. e Parable of the Treasure Hidden in the Field (13:44) 44ae

kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with] a treasure hidden in a field which a person found and hid; and because of btheir joy they go and sell call that they have and buy that field.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. C L W Θ 0106 0233 0250 f1, 13 33 etc. f h q syp, h already have the παλιν (‘again’) which will introduce each of the following two parables.

b. As noted in the Author’s Preface, I sometimes use plural pronouns to avoid sexism. c. Omitted by B etc. bo, probably as pleonastic with οσα (lit. ‘as many/much as’). Bibliography Bailey, M. L., ‘e Parable of the Hidden Treasure and of the Pearl Merchant’, BSac 156 (1999), 175-89. • Erniakulathil, J., ‘e Form and Genre of Mt 13,44-46’, Biblebhashyam 25 (1999), 307-26. • Gibbs, J. A., ‘Parables of Atonement and Assurance: Matthew 13:44-46’, CTQ 51 (1987), 19-43. • Hedrick, C. W., ‘e Treasure Parable in Matthew and omas’, Forum 2.2 (1986), 41-56. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 409-16. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 225-43. • Meyer, P. W., ‘Context as a Bearer of Meaning in Matthew’, USQR 42 (1988), 69-72. • Nagel, D. von, ‘Das Gleichnis vom Schatz im Acker und von der kostbaren Perle’, EuA 75 (1999), 234-38. • Scott, B. B., ‘Lost Junk, Found Treasure’, BiTod 26 (1988), 31-34. • Sider, J. W., ‘Interpreting the Hid Treasure’, CSR 13 (1984), 360-72. See further at 13:1-3a.

is is the rst of three nal parables in the section, addressed only to the disciples. Only the third will be provided with an explanation. e parable brings together notions of good fortune and demanding action in attaining the kingdom of heaven. ough Matthew alone of the Synoptic Gospels preserves this parable, few have doubted that it should be traced back to the historical Jesus.

13:44 Without the opening clause and apart from the ‘again’ which joins the second and third parables to the rst, the introduction to this and the following two parables is identical to that found in vv. 31 and 33 (and cf. v. 24).120 Matthew clearly intends some structural correspondence between the nal two sets of three parables. A minor structural chiasm marks the sequencing

of the respective sets of three parables: in the rst set the closely parallelled pair (mustard seed, leaven) comes aer the less closely linked parable (zizania in the eld), which is the one provided with an interpretation; in the second set the closely parallelled pair (treasure, pearl) comes before the less closely linked parable ( shnet), which is the one provided with an interpretation. ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ (lit. ‘in the eld’) provides a link back to vv. 24 and 31. In both of those cases the eld already belonged to the key gure in the parable, but by the end of the brief narrative the same will be true in the present parable. e phrase provides a bridge from the agricultural parables which have dominated the chapter to this point. It is unclear how the de nite article should be taken. If it is not generic (perhaps the most likely explanation), then the person we meet in the parable must already have some link with this eld (e.g., he is a farmworker working for his master in this eld). e language of treasure has already been exploited at 6:1921; 12:35 and will appear again in 13:52; 19:21. To speak of treasure is to evoke ideas of what is valued or valuable and, in appropriate contexts, to introduce questions about the possibility of personal betterment. e practice of hiding one’s valuables in times of turmoil and danger must be universal, and the practice of telling romantic tales about the discovery of such treasures must be just as widespread.121 e nding of a hidden treasure has had the same potential to capture the popular imagination that lottery has had in Britain and the United States. We are no doubt to assume that any possible link with the original owner of the treasure has long been lost from sight.122 is is a treasure trove, but it is doubtful whether well-formulated laws dealing with treasure troves existed in the rst century and even more doubtful whether such laws had much practical effectiveness.123

It is clear from the nder’s actions that if he or she knew of the treasure’s existence, the existing owner of the eld would want to lay claim to it. But in our story the owner does not know that the treasure exists. It would seem that the basis of a claim by the owner of the eld to the treasure would need to be that he or she knew that the treasure was there (perhaps he had hidden it there; certainly he had already laid claim to it) and that the nder was therefore stealing it. Since such a claim would be hard to refute, the ensuing dispute would set possession on the one hand (clearly important in m. B. M. 1–2 — see n. 123) against the word of the person in whose eld the treasure had been on the other hand. It is unclear what the outcome would be. In our story the nder is at least worried that in the ensuing con ict the verdict might (unjustly) favour the owner of the eld. If the nder had found the treasure, then there was a real, even if small, chance that someone else might stumble upon it. We can only imagine how the treasure was found: perhaps erosion had exposed what had previously been hidden. e nder does not take the treasure. It may be too large to be readily movable, but more likely the owner of the eld might make a claim once the story of the nding of the treasure got out. Rather than attempting to gain immediate possession of the treasure, the nder makes sure that the treasure is invisible to other visitors to the site: he restores it to its original hidden state. e nder may not yet have possession of the treasure, but is galvanised into action by the joy of the prospect of possession. What will secure uncontested ownership of the treasure trove? Ownership of the eld!124 But, for this person, ownership of the eld does not come easily. It involves a total reordering of priorities, since to achieve ownership the nder must rst liquidate all of his or her assets. Everything must be focussed on the single goal of

owning the eld in which the treasure is to be found. Nothing less will suffice. e eld is purchased and, though the story leaves this to be implied, the treasure is secured. So what does the story relate to the kingdom of heaven? e value to the individual of discovering the kingdom of heaven is clearly important. is is of a piece with the good fortune declared in Mt. 5:3 for those to whom possession of the kingdom is granted (and in the more immediate context cf. 13:16-17). e ‘ nding’ is not viewed as the outcome of particular effort or ability, but rather as a piece of extraordinarily good fortune. at such nding is not for everyone, but is a special privilege, has been made clear by 13:10-17, which can also illuminate the hiddenness of the treasure (and cf. v. 35). Joy has been identi ed as the appropriate response to what is happening through Jesus in 2:10; 13:20. But demand is implicit in the uncovered treasure: the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of heaven (4:23) implies a need for repentance (v. 17); unless one’s righteousness is abundant, then one will never enter the kingdom of heaven (5:20); it is faith that accesses the concrete signi cance of Jesus’ presence (8:10; 9:2, 22, 29); one must acknowledge Jesus before others if one is to be acknowledged by him before his Father in heaven (10:32); only those who take up their cross and follow Jesus are to be counted worthy of him (v. 38); the challenge in 19:21 is to ‘sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’. 2. e Parable of the Very Valuable Pearl (13:45-46) 45Again, the kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with] a aperson [who was]a a merchant seeking fine pearls. 46bFinding cone very valuable pearl, dthey

went off and sold everything that they had and bought it.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Dropped by ‫ *א‬B Γ 1424 etc. as redundant. b. ος ευρων (‘who nding’) in C W 0106 0250 f13 etc. f (q) syh, which parallels the equivalent aspect of v. 44 more closely. c. Omitted by D Θ etc. it syc, it is slightly awkward in the story in the Greek, coming into its own only in the identi cation of the pearl with the kingdom of God (see below). d. Using the plural pronoun to avoid sexism. Bibliography Ernst, M., ‘“… verkaue alles, was er besass, und kaue die Perle” (Mt 13,46): Der ἔμπορος im Neuen Testament und in dokumentarischen Papyri’, ProtoBib 6 (1997), 31-46. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 416-23. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 244-57. See further at 13:1-3a, 44.

e very close parallelism between this and the previous parable is signi cantly disturbed only by the person looking for pearls taking the place of the hidden treasure in the opening comparison.125 To the notions of good fortune and demanding action in attaining the kingdom of heaven, shared with the previous parable, is thereby added that of diligent seeking. ere is a reasonable likelihood that this and the preceding parable came to Matthew as a pair, but con dence is not possible.

13:45 As with the following parable, a linking πάλιν (‘again’) connects. Otherwise the opening repeats that of v. 44 (‘the kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with]’ — see further at v. 44). e opening image is that of a merchant: one who buys in one place and sells, generally, in another. An effective merchant will have a shrewd

eye for value; his success is based on good judgment at both the supply and the retail end of the market. is merchant is busy searching among the suppliers for suitable products. As here, the greatest potential for having a large margin between purchase price and sale price will be in luxury goods. is merchant is aer pearls, which were more highly valued in the ancient world than now (perhaps we should change the image to diamonds).126 And this merchant operates at the quality end of the market: he is aer ne pearls. 13:46 Since pearls come in a great range of qualities and sizes, by far the highest value will attach to the best of the pearls. e merchant nds a pearl which is so outstanding that the wealthiest of buyers will vie for its ownership.127 For him this will be the business deal of a lifetime! But to buy such a pearl will stretch his resources to the limit: only by liquidating all his assets can he raise the capital to close the deal.128 e opportunity is too good to lose: he acts decisively and secures the pearl. e kingdom has already been identi ed as something to be sought in 6:33. e high value of pearls allows for an equivalent image for the treasure of 13:44. ough the alertness and active searching of the merchant are important here, there is still a sense of good fortune equivalent to that involved in the discovery of the treasure in the eld. Joy is not identi ed as a motivation here, but can be considered to be implied on the basis of the parallelism with the previous parable.129 e role of the liquidation of assets is very similar in the two parables.130 And both end with a purchase that implies the successful acquisition of wealth. 3. e Parable of the Fishing Net, with Interpretation (13:47-50)

47Again,

the kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with] a fishing net that was thrown into the sea and gathered [fish] of every kind, 48awhich, when it was full, they drewb up onto the shore, and sat down and collected the cgood into dbaskets, but the bad they threw out. 49So it will be at the consummation of the eage. e angels will come out and separate the evil from the midst of the righteous, 50and they will throw them into the fiery furnace; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. D Θ 1424 etc. it have οτε δε (‘when’), giving a fresh start as in v. 46. e better-attested reading is like the corresponding part of v. 44. b. P Δ 1424 etc. it add αυτην (‘it’), which could just possibly be original as producing a syntax pattern (in P Δ) found in Semitic Greek. c. D 700 it (sys, c) have καλλιστα (‘best’), which quite changes the thrust of the parable. d. Instead of αγγη (‘baskets’) C (D) L W f13 etc. have the more general αγγεια (‘containers’); 33 has the singular αγγειον (‘container’). e. κοσμου (‘world’) in D, but Matthew does not use κοσμος elsewhere in this way. Bibliography Archbald, P., ‘Interpretation of the Parable of the Dragnet (Matthew 13:4750)’, VoxRef 48 (1987), 3-14. • Baarda, T., ‘Philoxenus and the Parable of the Fisherman: Concerning the Diatessaron Text of Mt 13,47-50’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1403-24. • Baarda, T., ‘“Choose” or “Collected”: Concerning an Aramaism in Logion 8 of the Gospel of omas and the Question of Independence’, HTR 84 (1991), 373-97. • Bailey, M. L., ‘e Parables of the Dragnet and of the Householder’, BSac 156 (1999), 282-96. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 303-9. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 258-75. • Morrice, W. G., ‘e Parable of the Dragnet and the Gospel of omas’, ExpTim 95 (1983-84), 269-73.

See further at 13:1-3a, 24-30, 44.

e third parable in the small set is not so closely parallelled with the other two, but begins with the same language of comparison as v. 45 does.131 ematically and in vocabulary there are strong links between the interpretation in vv. 49-50 and the interpretation in vv. 36-43 (see further at v. 42), and echoes of vv. 1-2 in vv. 47-48132 signal Matthew’s intention to begin rounding off the major section, 13:1-53. e message is very similar to that in vv. 36-43, but rather narrower in its focus on the fate of the wicked. e parable seems to have some relationship to that in Mt. 13:24-30, a relationship that is reasonably likely to predate Matthew. e present wording may owe a considerable amount to Matthew. As was the case with the parable of the zizania, the interpretation is much more likely to be a Matthean development.

13:47 e opening repeats that of v. 45 (‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with]’). A σαγήνη was a large shing net that was dragged between two boats or dropped offshore by boat and then dragged to shore with ropes.133 With oats at the top and weights at the bottom, it blocked the passage of anything larger than the gauge of the netting. It could be located in relation to sightings of shoals of sh or known feeding areas, but it was otherwise totally indiscriminate in what it gathered up. e ‘haul’ could include junk and weeds as well as a wide range of sea life. e wording is general enough to cover this, but is hard to reproduce in English (so the intruded ‘[ sh]’ in the translation above). 13:48 e parable emphasises the fate of the catch and not the role of the shermen, who are introduced simply as an anonymous ‘they’. Fishermen would certainly have viewed their work as a kind of harvesting of the sea. e sea is like the farmer’s

eld; in the imagery of the parable the lling of the net plays a role somewhat analogous to the maturing of the crop; the hauling in of the net is like the harvest; the baskets correspond to the granary. ἀναβιβάσαντες (translated above as ‘drew it up’) provides an image of the net being caused to come up out of the water.134 συνέλεξαν is translated ‘collected’ to mark the continuity with the ve uses of this verb in the parable of the zizania in the eld.135 But here the natural sequence prevails: gathering the good before disposing of the bad.136 καλός for ‘good’ and σαπρός for ‘bad’ are used similarly as a contrasting pair in 12:33 for the fruit of good and bad trees. Sorting by the seaside in order to throw back what is not wanted and the use of baskets are realistic touches. e sitting is best pictured as squatting to get down to the level of the net without constantly bending one’s back. A sherman’s concept of good and bad will be entirely in terms of what he can use or sell. ough the parable is told as an account of a particular instance of shing, there is nothing at all distinctive or unrealistic about the action: a mixed haul is natural, and so is the sorting. No certain interpretation can be attributed to the parable without the following interpretation, but the parable does make a small-scale natural pair to that of the zizania among the wheat. No sherman would feel propelled to premature action by the fact that both what he wants and what has no value for him are accumulating in the net. e only sensible time for sorting comes aer the net has been dragged to the shore. e application to the mixed state of the people of God as encountered by Jesus seems natural (cf. discussion at v. 30). 13:49 As was the case in vv. 36-43, only some aspects of the parable are taken up in interpretation (here only the nal two clauses of v. 48). e rst clause of v. 49 repeats the last clause of v. 40. And except for the fact that the initiative of the Son of Man is not mentioned, the remainder of the verse repeats the substance of

v. 41 (the angels come out rather than being sent out; they separate [cf. the use of this verb in 25:32] rather than gather; kingdom language is not used now — ‘from [i.e., out of] the midst of the righteous’ occupies the slot of ‘out of his kingdom’;137 the bad are simply ‘the evil’ [cf. ‘sons of evil’ in v. 38’] and not the more elaborate ‘all the causes of stumbling and those who produce lawlessness’). Note that the natural order used in the parable has now been reversed to align with vv. 41-43. Also, the identi cation of the angels contrasts with the failure to mention shermen in the actual parable. 13:50 is verse repeats exactly the wording of v. 42. Here there is quite a long bridge to cross from throwing the useless back into the sea and disposal in an oven. Apart from ‘the righteous’ already used in v. 49, there is nothing to correspond to v. 43. 4. Conclusion: e Parable of the Landowner with a Treasure (13:51-52) 51a[Jesus

said], ‘Did you understand all these things?’ ey [i.e., the disciples] say to him, ‘Yes!’b 52He csaid to them, ‘Because of this, everyone discipled [to be] a scribe dfor the kingdom of heaven is like a person [who is a] landowner who brings out from their treasure new [things] and old [things].’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. A fresh introduction, λεγει αυτοις ο Ιησους (‘Jesus says to them’), is supplied in C L W Θ 0233 f1, 33 33 etc. (a) f h q (vgmss) sy(c, p), h (mae) bomss. b. Supplemented with κυριε (‘Lord’) in C L W 0233 33 etc. it syp, h co. c. e historic present of the previous verb is continued here by B1 D 892 1424 etc. lat syp.

d. Translating the simple dative. D 579 700 etc. add εν (lit. ‘in’); L Γ Δ (0233) 892c etc. g1 have εις with the accusative (lit. ‘into’). Bibliography Betz, O., ‘Neues und Altes im Geschichtshandeln Gottes: Bemerkungen zu Matthäus 13.51f ’, in Messias Israels, 285-300. • deSilva, D. A., ‘“Scribes Trained for the Kingdom”’, AshTB 29 (1997), 1-6. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 40-53. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 189-211. • Orton, D. E., Scribe, 137-76. • Schnackenburg, R., ‘“Jeder Schrigelehrte, der ein Jünger des Himmelreichs geworden ist” (Mt 13,52)’, in Wissenscha und Kirche. FS E. Lohse, ed. K. Aland and S. Meurer (Texte und Arbeiten zur Bibel 4. Bielefeld: Luther, 1989), 57-69. See further at 13:1-3a, 36-43, 47-50.

We now have the nal comments from Jesus aer the extended set of kingdom parables. Having understood Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of heaven, the disciples can function like scribes and instruct others. e material is distinctive to Matthew and substantially echoes material earlier in the chapter. Indeed, so many of the words in vv. 51-52 are found in earlier material in the chapter that the impression is largely of a pastiche of earlier materials.138 e verses are likely to be a Matthean formulation, but in uence from 12:35 is evident.

13:51 ere are six new words in vv. 51-52: ‘yes’, ‘scribe’, ‘discipled’, ‘thrusts out’, ‘new’, ‘old’;139 these must take the lead in directing us to the distinctive contribution to be made by these verses. e understanding being checked on is a positive counterpart to the lack of understanding marked in vv. 13, 14, 15, and 19, and corresponds to the understanding which bears fruit in v. 23. ‘All

these things’ echoes the language of v. 34, where the phrase refers to the parables addressed to the crowds; here the sense must be widened to include the explanations and the parables addressed only to the disciples. at the disciples are able to answer in the affirmative corresponds to the privilege given them in v. 11 of being allowed to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. 13:52 ough Matthew has failed to express himself clearly, ‘because of this’ must mean ‘because things are with the kingdom of heaven as I have been telling you’.140 8:19 may be retrospectively described as reporting an attempt on the part of Jesus to disciple a scribe for the kingdom of heaven. But perhaps here we are dealing with making scribes rather than discipling those who are already scribes. πᾶς is normally linked adjectivally to γραμματεύς (giving, ‘every scribe’). e process of being discipled is, however, so closely linked conceptually with the notion of the scribe as the trained scholar that it may be better to take πᾶς separately (‘everyone’) and to link γραμματεύς via the verb (‘discipled [to be] a scribe’). In any case, here the disciples are allowed to occupy the role of scribes. As noted at 2:4, scribes functioned as scholars of the law and as teachers, and also had a role in the administration of justice. In Matthew’s story the disciples are being established as repositories of Jesus’ teaching in order to prepare them for the teaching role of 28:19.141 A judicial role will also become theirs (16:19; 18:18; 19:28). e use of μαθητεύειν (‘to disciple’) with the disciples here will, once 28:19 is reached (and cf. 27:57), relativize the uniqueness of the position of the Twelve by establishing an important equivalence between what has happened with the Twelve and what they in turn will be able to pass on to others (on discipleship see further at 4:20; 5:1). ‘Kingdom of heaven’ and ‘is like’, while not repeating the pattern, echo the language which has introduced many of the

parables of the chapter:142 here, too, there is a parable, but not immediately a parable indicating what the kingdom of heaven is like. οἰκοδεσπότης has been translated above as ‘landowner’ since there is probably a deliberate taking up of language used in v. 27, but mediated to the present verse via the landowner status gained by the person in v. 44 in order to secure his or her treasure. Our scribe, like the gure of v. 44, also has a treasure; he or she has the treasure which they gained when they sold all and became landowners.143 What does the scribe do with the treasure? ἐκβάλλει is literally ‘throws out’ but is translated ‘brings out’ as in the related image in 12:35 (see discussion there). e imagery is of disposal, not of display. is scribe is a discipling disciple: the treasure he has gained is a treasure he passes out to others. e sense of the newness of what Jesus brings is pervasive in Matthew, but the language of newness likely takes us back to 9:17 (new wineskins for new wine). Jesus’ full preservation of the old is the burden of 5:17-19 (not to abolish the Law or the Prophets) and is what 9:17 ends with.144 It is Matthew’s conviction that solid possession and proper use of the old are tied up with the gaining of the new in the treasure of the kingdom of heaven. e priority given to the new is re ected in the unnatural sequencing in which ‘new’ is placed before ‘old’.145 Since the image is of a landowner with a treasure dealing out new and old, a traditional link between scribes and handling the new and old is not to be looked for. In any case, in Jewish tradition scribes are linked with the new and not with the old.146 E. Parables Completed, Jesus Moves On (13:53)

53It

so happened that when Jesus had finished these parables, he le there.

TEXTUAL NOTES ere are no signi cant textual variations. Bibliography See at 13:1-3a, 44.

Matthew again marks the transition at the end of a major teaching block with a departure statement. No tradition base is evident for 13:53.

13:53 ‘It so happened that when Jesus had nished’ repeats language that Matthew has already used in 7:28–8:1 and 11:1 to mark the conclusion of major blocks of teaching in the Gospel. e language will serve the same role in 19:1; 26:1. ‘ese parables’ picks up on the main focus of the block.147 A departure statement is also found in all but 26:1 of these formulaic conclusions.148 e contexts and the absence at 26:1 suggest that Matthew is pointing to the itinerant nature of Jesus’ ministry (by 26:1 the pattern of itineration has reached its conclusion). Here ἐκεῖθεν (lit. ‘from there’) is called upon, perhaps slightly awkwardly, to embrace both location in the house of the private instruction of the disciples and the lakeside setting of the instruction of the crowds.

1. Mt. 13:24-30 (zizania in the eld), 31-32 (mustard seed), 33 (yeast). Further features in the introductions to these parables also link them together.

2. Mt. 13:44 (treasure in the eld), 45-46 (precious pearl), 47-48 ( shing net). e second and third of these are further connected to the rst with an opening πάλιν (‘again’). ere is also a clear echo of the ‘kingdom of God is like’ formula in v. 52 with ‘everyone discipled [to be] a scribe for the kingdom of God is like’. 3. Mt. 13:3-9 (sower) with vv. 18-23; vv. 24-30 (zizania in the eld) with vv. 36-43; vv. 47-48 ( shing net) with vv. 49-50. 4. Beyond the absence of the citation of Scripture as being ful lled, against setting this third in parallel with the other two stands its focus on the signi cance of the parables for the disciples rather than for the crowds; it is, further, oriented to the content of the teaching offered and not to its parabolic form (‘in parables’ is missing). But in the end Mt. 13:51-52 probably does function as something of a parallel to the other two passages (the disciples have explained to them the rationale for using parables with the crowds, whose failure to perceive, which lies behind the use of parables, is in accord with Scripture; the readers are encouraged to see the use of parables for the crowds as ful lling Scripture — but now it is the use of parables and not the failure to perceive of the crowds which ful ls Scripture; nally, the disciples are challenged about the signi cance of the teaching given by Jesus — in parables — for themselves). 5. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:370-71. 6. Gaechter, Kunst, 14-15. 7. For this reason it is tempting to give Mt. 13:36 structural signi cance, closing off as it does what was begun in vv. 1-2 (withdrawal from the crowds and return to the house). But Matthew needs something like v. 36 to make clear that the parables of vv. 44-50 are addressed to the disciples alone, and he provides a whole range of cross-connections, not all of which can be tted into any structure (e.g., the repetition in v. 43 of the refrain from v. 9). 8. e phrase is found only here, but Matthew uses ‘at that time’ (ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ) in 11:25; 12:1; 14:1. 9. Here Matthew uses Mark’s verb (more exactly, Mk. 4:1 has Jesus beginning to teach by the sea and only mentions the sitting posture when Jesus relocates to the boat, but Matthew takes Mark’s ‘he began to teach’ as an aborted attempt and so speaks only of the teaching posture). Matthew’s

imperfect for ἐκάθητο (‘sat down’) and aorist for συνήχθησαν (‘were gathered’) indicate that he sees the period of sitting down as establishing a time frame within which the coming together of the crowds happened. e use of καθίζειν/καθήναι in the sense ‘settle oneself ’, pointed to by Mora, Création, 52 n. 7, may play a role here (see Gn. 8:3; 19:30; 22:5; Jdg. 5:16; 1 Sa. 23:14; etc.). 10. Jesus is the one who gathers in Mt. 12:30. At times, however, there is little difference of meaning between the active and the passive forms of this verb. 11. Mk. 4:1 may also express a concern for Jesus’ physical safety (aer 3:9), but Matthew makes no use of Mk. 3:9. e longest run of exact verbal agreement with Mark in this section deals with the movement to the boat: ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς πλοῖον ἐμβάντα καθῆσθαι. 12. For a brief survey of modern parables research see Nolland, Luke, 1:xliii-xlviii. 13. Outside Mt. 10 the word is used in 15:15; 21:33, 45; 22:1; 24:32. 14. Nolland, Luke 1:371. 15. Cf. BDF §250. ‘Lots of ’ in the translation above is to accommodate the move to the singular in the latter part of Mt. 13:8. 16. Nolland, Luke, 1:372. 17. See Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte, 2:16; Haugg, ‘Ackergleichnis’, 179. 18. In Mark the pattern varies a little more. In particular Mark moves from the singular for the earlier sets (‘another lot’) to the plural for the nal set (‘other lots’). Combined with the tripartite division into thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold, this suggests the setting over against each other of three cases of failure and three of success. 19. is is not to insist that equal quantities meet the respective fates. Rather, it is to suggest that notions of quantity play no role in the story until we reach the final fruitfulness statement. 20. Matthew’s chiasm also favours the view that all the seed is covered by the three statements of failure and the three categories of success. 21. Loh nk, ‘Gleichnis’, 52-57.

22. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte, 3:153-54, 164, suggests a range of seven- to eenfold. Jeremias, Parables, 150 n. 150, suggests that a good harvest may yield up to tenfold. McIver, ‘One Hundred-Fold’, 607, cites ancient and medieval yield gures in the range three- to vefold. Modern subsistence farming in drier climates offers some points of comparison. McIver (p. 607) calculates yield gures of seven- to elevenfold for the use of traditional cropping systems in the present. 23. Varro, De re rustica 1.44.2. 24. Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 199-200. 25. Options include the following. (a) is is a word of encouragement to the disciples in their work of preaching. Despite all the failures, they are encouraged to see that there is also success, and that the success adds up to a tremendously rich harvest. (b) e parable proclaims that, despite present failure and disappointment, God’s kingdom will surely come. Jesus announces a kingdom whose coming is certain. Despite appearances, the harvest will come. (c) e reality of some unfruitful patches in the eld should not blind us to the fact that there is a bumper crop to be harvested. (d) e parable is to drive home the point that in this world the word of God is not generally welcomed. (e) is parable is about rightly hearing the word of God. e different soils are the signi cant feature. (f) e various failures correspond to the various ways in which we can fail to love God: the call is to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength. (g) e primary thrust of the parable is that the kingdom of God is breaking into the world as seed which is sown upon the ground. e kingdom is present through the various phases of development, culminating in the splendid harvest. (h) Despite all difficulties, life proves fruitful for those who will take the risk of really getting engaged. (i) ree phases of tragedy are followed by one of vindication. is is an apocalyptic pattern and points to the claim that we are now moving into the nal and climactic phase of the history of God’s dealings with his people. (j) e gap created by the failure to identify the sower points to the identity to be supplied as of central importance. e sower = God, Christ, and the Christian preacher. (k) As a plot synopsis the parable comments on the role of con ict in the larger story. 26. In 2 Esdr. 8:41 being ‘sown in the world’ is compared to the farmer’s sowing, and the point is made that ‘not all that have been sown will come

up’. 27. In Ho. 2:23, being sown is an image of being reestablished in the land; in Je. 31:27 God sows Israel with the seed of humans and of animals (cf. Ez. 36:9). 28. 2 Esdr. 9:31: ‘I sow my Law in you, and it shall bring forth fruit in you’ (cf. 8:6). Note also the continuing discussion in 9:32-37, which deal with the possibility of unfruitfulness and contrast the reality in which the seed perishes with the sowing of the Law where unfruitful people in whom the Law has been sown will perish, while the Law remains forever. Nu. Rab. 14:4 is suggestive with, ‘Make your ear like a grain-receiver [for the rabbinic tradition of discussion of the Law]’, but the imagery is not of sowing but of grain storage or milling. 29. See the discussion in Nolland, Luke, 1:377-78. 30. Mk. 4:10 has ‘those about him with the Twelve’, but since Lk. 8:9 also has ‘the disciples’, this language may be from the second source. 31. In Mt. 8–9 the action is regularly forwarded by people coming to Jesus, but in those chapters it is never the disciples coming. 32. Does Matthew temporarily lose sight of the Sea of Galilee setting? Perhaps we are to imagine movement in the shing boat and interchange between Jesus and the disciples which is kept out of earshot of the crowds. 33. In Mk. 4:10 the question is vaguely τὰς παραβολάς (‘[about] the parables’); in Lk. 8:9 it is τίς αὕτη εἴη ἡ παραβολή (‘what this parable might be’). 34. Cf. the use of rāzê ʾēl (‘secrets of God’) in the Qumran documents, and esp. in 1QpHab 7:4-5, 8, which speaks of ‘the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God has disclosed all the mysteries’, and goes on to declare that ‘the mysteries of God are wonderful’. 35. e characterisation of ‘this generation’ in Mt. 11:16-19 hardly yet ts the crowds as they have appeared in Matthew’s story. However, the failure of the people of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida is highlighted in vv. 20-24 and may well be considered pertinent to the crowds gathered by the nearby lakeside in chap. 13 (on this basis Matthew can likely take the orientation of the scribes and Pharisees in 12:38 to characterise ‘[this] [evil] generation’, as mentioned in vv. 39, 41, 42, 45).

36. καὶ περισσευθήσεται (‘and they will be made to have an abundance’) is not found in Mk. 4:25 or Lk. 8:18 and is likely to be a Matthean accent. 37. e translation above is less literal: ‘the reason I speak to them in parables is that’. 38. e same construction is found in Jn. 10:17; 12:18 and, with the order of διὰ τοῦτο and ὅτι reversed, 15:19. Understanding the syntax this way provides a better logical sequence to the thought than the alternative in which διὰ τοῦτο links backwards (normally translated ‘therefore’) and the causal ὅτι clause adds precision by providing further explanation (see Mt. 24:44; Jn. 5:16, 18; 8:47; 12:39; 1 Jn. 3:1; Rev. 18:8). 39. e abbreviation in Mk. 4:12 involves loss of material from Is. 6:10. 40. e process is probably aided by the use at this point in the LXX of ὁρᾶν for the perception verb, a verb whose sense ranges from the visual to the perceptual. 41. Mt. 13:14, 15, 19, 23, 51. See also 15:10; 16:12; 17:13. 42. Matthew does not use ἀναπληροῦν (‘ful l’) or προϕητεία (‘prophecy’) elsewhere, nor does he have prophecy ful lled with respect to a set of people. 43. Exact agreement with Acts 28:26-27 has led some to argue that Acts is the actual source. 44. For further considerations in favour of retaining this text, see Luz, Matthäus, 2:301-2. 45. In the Hebrew the verbs in Is. 6:10 are imperative and point to the prophet’s task, whereas the LXX uses aorists and sees an existing state of affairs for which the people themselves are responsible. 46. Cf. the imagery of Dt. 32:15. 47. βαρέως may be an adverbial form meaning ‘with difficulty’, but with imagery derived from the idea of a burden or weight, or it may be the genitive of the noun βάρος (‘weight/burden’) used adjectivally of the ears. 48. In the Hebrew there is a use of the rare verb šʿ, which is probably found only in Is. 6:10; 29:9 (and possibly 32:3). e verb seems to mean ‘stick shut’ and in the hiphil form of 6:10, ‘cause to stick shut’. In 29:9 a

hithpalpel form is used, but nonetheless this seems to be related to the ‘spirit of deep sleep’. ‘Closed your eyes’ in v. 10 is suggestive for 6:10. 49. See Mt. 14:5, 13-23; 15:10, 30-39; 19:2; 20:29-31; 21:8-11, 46; 22:33; 23:1. e situation turns dramatically in 27:20, 24, perhaps prepared for in 26:47, 55. 50. Since both in Matthew and Luke the following verse has both seeing and hearing, the innovation is more likely to be Luke’s. 51. Starting from Mt. 1:19, ‘Righteous persons’ are also paired with ‘prophets’ in 23:29, where the reference is again to signi cant people of faith from the past. 52. Pss. Sol. 17:50; 18:7 contain beatitudes using the language of sight and expressed in favour of those who will live in the days when God acts for his people. e future orientation of OT faith is asserted in Heb. 11:13; 1 Pet. 1:10. 53. Gerhardsson, ‘e Sower and Its Interpretation’, 165-93. 54. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:382-83. 55. e critical tone of Mk. 4:13 has quite disappeared. Matthew largely avoids Mark’s mixing of story and explanation and so drops Mk. 4:14: ‘e one who sows sows the word’. 56. A link between Satan and birds is found in Jub. 11:11 — the name ‘Mastema’ is used; Apoc. Abr. 13 — the name ‘Azazel’ is used; b. Sanh. 107a — the name ‘Satan’ is used. 57. e passive verb (active in the parable itself) anticipates the use of the passive at the end of the verse. 58. is is a point of minor agreement between Matthew and Luke: Matthew has ‘sown in the heart’; Luke has ‘takes away the word from their hearts’. 59. In favour of the correlation is that the Dt. 6:5 sequence of heart, soul, and mind is matched in Matthew’s narrative about the three kinds of failure (see further below). 60. e kingdom link, once established with ‘the word of the kingdom’ in Mt. 13:19, is not repeated.

61. But this is a literary arti ce. e force of ‘everyone’ in Mt. 13:19 must be allowed to carry forward. ere is a move to plurality in v. 23 (see there). 62. See, e.g., Job 29:19, where roots spread out to the waters; Wis. 4:3, where there is no depth of root; Sir. 40:5, where there are unhealthy roots on sheer rock. 63. Cf. Je. 17:8; Wis. 4:3; Sir. 23:25. 64. πρόσκαιρος (‘temporary’) is sometimes taken as marking a contrast (‘this-worldly’) to the eternal (αἰώνιος) or the age to come. But since it is persecution that marks the end point and not failure to pass scrutiny at the last judgment, this seems unlikely to me. 65. For discussions of persecution see Mt. 5:10, 11, 12, 44; 10:23; 23:34. 66. e matter is complicated further by the paraphrasing response of the scribe in Mk. 12:33, which gives the list as ‘heart’, ‘understanding’ (σύνεσις), and ‘strength’ (ἰσχύς). 67. Gerhardsson, ‘e Sower and Its Interpretation’, 169, 177. 68. καὶ ἐδίδου καρπόν (‘produced fruit’) becomes ὃς δὴ καρποϕορεῖ καὶ ποιεῖ (‘who bears fruit and produces’). 69. His understanding will be informed by the earlier discussion of good fruit. See Mt. 3:8, 10; 7:16-20; 12:33. A broad image of fruitfulness, or, to be more precise, its failure, will come in 21:19. 70. e three are also linked in the manner in which they introduce the key gure: ἄνθρωπος (‘person’, but occasionally ‘man’) in the rst two and γυνή (‘woman’) in the third. ἀγρός (‘ eld’) is common to the rst two parables. 71. See Carson, ‘ὅμοιος Word-Group’, 278-79. 72. e complaint is sometimes lodged against this parable that an enemy might burn or steal crops or sow salt in the soil, but hardly sow weeds. But this is to use images of enmity related to wartime hostilities. e appropriate images here must come from feuds among neighbours. e goal is rather to provoke than to destroy. Kerr, ‘Matthew 13:25’, 108-9, has drawn attention to a reference in Digest 9.2.27.14 (the Digest is a summary and codi cation of Roman law, published in A.D. 533 but including much earlier material) to sowing lolium (‘darnel/tares’) or wild oats in another man’s crops and spoiling them.

73. Mt. 13:8 has ἐδίδου καρπόν (lit. ‘gave fruit’); v. 23 has καρποϕορεῖ καὶ ποιεῖ (lit. ‘bears fruit and makes’); v. 26 has καρπὸν ἐποίησεν (lit. ‘made fruit’). For the negative v. 22 has yet another idiom: ἄκαρπος γίνεται (‘becomes unfruiful’). 74. e nal question must not be taken too literally (lit. ‘Whence then does it have zizania?’). In the context it is asking not about the presence of any zizania, but about the presence of so much zizania. 75. In 2 Esdr. 8 Ezra pleads for a widening of God’s mercies; possibly, in the context of the creational imagery used, the sense of ‘your people’ in v. 45 has been widened from the covenant people to all humanity. 76. Adam and Eve (Greek) 2:4; 7:2; 25:4; 28:3; 3 Bar. 13:2; Test. Dan 6:3; Test. Job 47:10. 77. 2 Esdr. 4:28-29: ‘For the evil about which you ask me has been sown, but the harvest of it has not yet come. If therefore that which has been sown is not reaped, and if the place where the evil has been sown does not pass away, the eld where the good has been sown will not come’. 78. See Is. 63:1-6; Je. 25:30-31; Joel 3:13; Mi. 4:11-13. 79. e gathering of the zizania rst might re ect a judgment-day sequence, but such a sequencing is not consistent in Jewish and early Christian tradition, and the sequence has its own narrative justi cation in the parable. 80. In the larger Matthean frame this will include the extension of Jesus’ ministry in that of the disciples, and speci cally in the call of Gentiles into the people of God. 81. is is not to suggest that we view Satan as inactive during the ministry of Jesus, but only that such plays no speci c role in the parable. If a formal parallelism is needed, then one could speak of Satan’s renewal of his sowing in the wake of Jesus’ renewal of God’s sowing. 82. e use of ἐπισυνάγειν in Mt. 24:31 for the gathering together of the elect as in 13:30 for the gathering of the wheat is suggestive. 83. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:722-23. 84. Matthew also prefers σπείρειν (‘sow’) to the βάλλειν (‘throw’) of his non-Markan source for the sake of the connection with the earlier parable

(see Mt. 13:24, 27 and, in the explanation, vv. 31, 37). e use of ανθρωπος (‘person/man’) may also provide a link with v. 24. 85. μικρότερόν ἐστιν πάντων τῶν σπερμάτων could be translated ‘smaller than all the [other] seeds’ or, taking the comparative as standing for a superlative, ‘smallest of all the seeds’. e meaning is not affected, but since ‘larger than the plants that belong to the vegetable garden’ is the rendering to be preferred for μεῖζον τῶν λαχάνων, the chosen translation makes for a better balance. 86. See m. Nid. 5:2; m. Ṭeh. 8:8. 87. See Antigonus of Carystus 91; Diod. Sic. 1.35.2. e size of a mustard seed would be not much more than a millimetre in diameter. 88. Taking the comparative μεῖζον as a superlative. eophr., Hist. Plant. 7.1.2-3, includes mustard among the λάχανα (and uses ‘tree’ of some of the λάχανα), but the classi cation of mustard in m. Kil. 3:2 as ‘a kind of seed [i.e., akin to grain crops]’ and not as ‘a kind of vegetable’ throws doubts on whether eophrastus’s classi cation would stand in a Jewish context. It seems likely, however, that mustard was grown not only as a farming crop but also on a smaller scale for individual family use, even if the demand of m. Kil. 3:2 required the use of a separate garden plot for the mustard (but see m. Kil. 2:8 for the use of mustard to ank a eld of vegetables). Because the leaves could be eaten as a salad vegetable, the mustard plant tended to be seen sometimes as a seed crop and sometimes as a vegetable. 89. e verb is at times taken to mean ‘perch’ when used for birds. Unless the birds are viewed as territorial and as establishing their base (living) in this particular tree, such a meaning is unlikely given the evident imagery of the verb: σκηνή as ‘tent’, then generalised to ‘[place of] lodging’; κατα as an intensi er suggesting settled residence. e cognate κατασκήνωσις means a place to live or the activity of taking up residence. 90. People have observed nesting in large mustard plants in Palestine in modern times. 91. And cf. Ps. 104 (LXX 103):12. 92. If Matthew were to have wanted a link between the birds of the air and the Gentiles, then he would have been advised to make use of the ‘all the

birds of the air’ of Ez. 17:23; 31:6 or to borrow the ‘all’ from a previous related clause in Dn. 4:12, 21. 93. In both Matthew and Luke the parable simply speaks of the our, but we must understand that at some point it is moistened and formed into a dough mix. 94. Whatever its merits in the context of the Q source, Cotter’s proposal (‘Mustard Seed’, 44-48) that the hiddenness has to do with the way early Christians felt the need to operate secretly and to avoid public scrutiny of their mission efforts does not t the Matthean frame (see discussion at Mt. 10:26-27). 95. ere were no stable standards for ancient measures, and over an extended period of time measures could change considerably. An ephah is estimated as between ten and twenty litres. 96. Cf. what is probably a proverbial saying in 1 Co. 5:6: ‘A little leaven leavens the whole lump’. It is possible that such a proverb inspired the present parable. 97. In Mt. 13:35 Jesus’ parables are said to declare things that are hidden, and in v. 44 there will be a treasure hidden in a eld. Also, the process of seeing and not seeing dealt with in vv. 10-15 points to a hiddenness about the signi cance of what Jesus is doing. 98. ‘In parables’ also prepares for the use of the same phrase in the quotation from Ps. 78:2. 99. Matthew drops the ‘as they were able to hear’ found in Mk. 4:33, which would have obscured the echo of vv. 10-15 and disturbed the parallelism Matthew intends for the two halves of 13:34. 100. e next formula quotation in Mt. 21:4 has the same distinctive feature, where a composite quotation has been used. Otherwise the nearest is 2:23, where the generalising ‘through the prophets’ is used in relation to what may be a deliberate merging of biblical traditions. e use of ὅπως to introduce the purpose clause in 13:35 is matched in the formula quotations only at 2:23; 8:17. 101. Originally πρόβλημα meant that which projects. It comes to be used of anything which screens, shields, or protects and even of an excuse, a (proposed) task, or a problem.

102. e riddling form was likely thought to have a certain inner correspondence with the mystery of the working of God which was being spoken about. 103. is is close to what we nd in the apocalyptic thought world in which the hidden secrets of God are preserved for the future (and revealed to the seer of the apocalypse). A tting correspondence is probably to be sensed between the use of the parables and the mysterious nature of what has remained hidden for all this time (cf. n. 104). 104. If we ignore the parallelism of the two clauses of the quotation, then the rst clause can refer to Jesus’ parables to the crowds and the second clause to Jesus’ revelation to the disciples (without the role of parables being speci cally in sight), but this seems less likely. 105. ‘Came into the house’ has its counterpart in ‘went out of the house’; ‘crowds’ are mentioned in both places; perhaps the coming of the disciples to Jesus corresponds to the crowds being gathered to Jesus. 106. It is not unlikely that Mark’s vague ‘about the disciples’ in 4:10 inspires Matthew’s language for both questions. ‘e disciples came to him and said’ repeats with modest paraphrase the language of Mt. 13:10 (the role of the nite verb and participle are interchanged, and one verb changes tense). 107. Probably without the use of ‘them’ (see ‘Textual Note’ above). 108. ere is even the sowing of good and evil (seed). See 2 Esdr. 4:2829: ‘For the evil about which you ask me has been sown, but the harvest of it has not yet come. If therefore that which has been sown is not reaped, and if the place where the evil has been sown does not pass away, the eld (ager) where the good has been sown will not come’; 8:41: ‘those who have been sown in the world (in saeculo) will not all be saved’; cf. 9:17-18. 109. at the link with Mt. 8:12 is deliberate is con rmed by the use in 13:42 of ‘ere will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ from the same verse. 110. Matthew formally separates the nal two equations by placing ἐστιν/εἰσιν (‘is/are’) at the ends of the two clauses involved. 111. Mt. 13:39, 40, 49; 24:3; 28:20. Elsewhere in the NT the word appears only in Heb. 9:26, where the plural ‘ages’ is found.

112. See 2 Esdr. 7:113; As. Mos. 12:4; Test. Ben. 11:3; Test. Levi 10:2; cf. 2 Bar. 13:3; 19:5; 21:8; 27:15; 1 Enoch 16:1. e thought in 2 Esdr. 7:113 is quite close. 113. Mt. 13:39, 41, 49; 16:27; 24:31; 25:31. 114. e Davidic link for Jesus is also used to affirm a royal identity for him, but this has no clear future orientation. 115. An echo of the LXX of Ps. 140:9b is likely: ἀπὸ σκανδάλων τῶν ἐργαζομένων τὴν ἀνομίαν (‘from the causes of stumbling of those who practice lawlessness’). 116. Dn. 3:6 has ἐμβαλοῦσιν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν κάμινον τοῦ πυρὸς; Mt. 13:42 has βαλοῦσιν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν κάμινον τοῦ πυρός. 117. Other links are: the use of οὕτως ἔσται ἐν τῇ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος (‘so it will be at the completion of the age’) in Mt. 13:40, 49; the role of ‘the angels’ in vv. 41, 49; the reference to evil in vv. 38 (cf. 41), 49; ‘the righteous’ in vv. 43, 49; the shared notion of separation; the agreement in the treatment of the case of the evil before the case of the good. e reference to the parable in vv. 47-48 adds the use of καλός (‘good’) in vv. 37-38, 48 and use of συλλέγειν (‘gather’) in vv. 41, 48. 118. It is just possible that the idea of a gathered mass of golden grains of wheat has suggested the image of shining like the sun. 119. Dn. 12:3 (eod.) uses the same verb for shine forth and shares the plural of ὁ δίκαιος (‘the righteous’). Cf. also 2 Esdr. 7:97: ‘their face is to shine like the sun’. 120. In each case ‘the kingdom of heaven is like [what happened with]’. 121. Crossan, Finding, reports and analyses quite a collection of ancient tales about the nding of treasure. 122. e treasure is presumably there precisely because nobody knows of its existence (and the treasure is to be presumed to be of such a nature as not to point to the identity of its original owner). 123. e discussion of lost property in m. B. M. 1–2 gives ownership to the nder where an original owner cannot be proved and where the nder is not deemed to be acting on behalf of another. Locations are important where they may imply a presumption of ownership, but such is not the case

with elds. Horace, Sat. 2.6.10-13, cites a story of a man buying the eld in which he used to work on hire from the proceeds of a treasure that he found. G. F. Hill, Treasure Trove: e Law and Practice of Antiquity (London: Milford, 1933), 8-11, cites Paulus, Digesten 41.2.3.3, for Roman law that hidden treasure might not be claimed by a previous owner but was the property of the one who purchased the eld and subsequently found the treasure hidden within it. A Hadrianic law referred to by Hill (p. 27) allows only half to the nder of the treasure (the rest to the state). 124. In Philostr., VA 6.39, transfer of the eld secures ownership of the treasure for the new owner. However, in a story cited in Str-B, 1:674, from y. B. M. 2.8c.39 a previous owner takes the new owner to law in connection with a treasure found in a eld (and cf. Philostr., VA 2.39). 125. A range of minor syntax and vocabulary differences keep the parallelism from being rigid. 126. In a tale in b. Šab. 119a (discussed by N. J. Cohen in ‘Structural Analysis of a Talmudic Story: Joseph-Who-Honors-the-Sabbaths’, JQR 72 [1982], 161-77) a Gentile who owned much property sells it all to buy a single pearl, whose ownership subsequently passes to a Jew (who nds it in a sh) who sells it for thirteen roomfuls of gold denarii. 127. e ‘one pearl’ of the story gains signi cance only from the equation to be made between the pearl and the kingdom of heaven, which by de nition must be a single entity. 128. We have gone upmarket from the previous parable: where in the previous parable the value of a eld has stretched the nder of the treasure to the limit, the present gure has enough capital to trade in valuable pearls, and it takes an outstanding pearl to stretch him to the limits. 129. Its absence may be deliberate to balance the presence of seeking as an extra feature. 130. e narrative historic presents used in the earlier parable become a perfect tense (for ‘sold’ — using πιπράσκειν rather than the πωλεῖν of Mt. 13:44), an imperfect (for ‘had’), and an aorist (for ‘bought’). e perfect tense marks the decisive turning point in the narrative (admittedly the perfect of πιπράσκειν also functioned for the aorist, which appears never to

have been developed as πιπράσκειν took over from περνάναι, which had used πεπρακέναι for its perfect). 131. On the structure see further at Mt. 13:44. 132. Shared vocabulary: ‘sea’, ‘on the shore’, ‘gathered’. 133. e word is found only here in the NT. 134. e verb is found only here in the NT. 135. Mt. 13:28, 29, 30, 40, 41. 136. And so the verb is now used for the collection of the good. 137. ‘e righteous’ corresponds to an element of Mt. 13:43; ‘out of the midst’ is a reversal of ‘in among [i.e., in the midst]’ of v. 25. 138. See Mt. 9:27 for a similar phenomenon in Mt. 9:27-31. e Greek words repeated in 13:51-52 are (συνιέναι), ταῦτα πάντα, λέγειν αὐτῷ, ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, διὰ τοῦτο, πᾶς, τῇ βασιλείᾳ, τῶν οὐρανῶν, ὅμοιος, ἐστιν, ἀνθρώπῳ, (οἰκοδεσπότῃ), ὅστις, ἐκ, τοῦ, (θησαυροῦ), αὐτοῦ, καί (words are bracketed to indicate a difference in case or verb tense or person). Clearly no signi cance can be attributed to the repetition of minor words. 139. e Greek words are ναί, γραμματεύς, μαθητευθείς, ἐκβάλλει, καινά, and παλαιά. 140. e linkage intended by Matthew’s other uses of διὰ τοῦτο (‘because of this/therefore’) is not always transparent. See, e.g., the discussion of the linkage intended at 6:25 (6:25-34, note to opening paragraph). 141. ere is little doubt that Matthew saw his own task in writing the Gospel as a ful lment of such a scribal role. 142. Mt. 13:31, 33, 44, 45, 47, and cf. 24. 143. With οἰκοδεσπότης taken as ‘householder’, Mt. 24:45 is oen looked to for illumination: the householder distributes the household resources as necessary. is approach requires that we take θησαυρός, not as treasure (as clearly required in 13:44), but as ‘storage container’. ‘New’ and ‘old’ t less well with such an image (where they must refer to various resources available from the store, but must be seen as determined already in the image by the application) than with the imagery of a treasure trove (the contents of which can be readily imagined to have accumulated over an extended period of time).

144. ‘New’ and ‘old’ are sometimes related to Jesus’ parables and to fresh parables coined aer the likeness of his (cf. Sir. 21:15: ‘When an intelligent person hears a wise saying, they [sing.] praise it and add to it’), but despite the importance of parables to Matthew, there is little in his Gospel to encourage such a reading. Another suggestion involves taking the old as the parables and the new as contemporizing exposition of the parables, such as is found in the interpretations provided in Mt. 13. But this is also rather arbitrary. 145. Cf. the similar role of unnatural sequence in Mt. 22:10; 25:2; and possibly 5:45. 146. Scribes are associated with creating a new thing in m. Teb. Y. 4:6, and m. Yad. 4:3 draws a distinction between the old that comes from the prophets and the new that comes from the elders (cf. b. ʿErub. 21b, where the old are the commandments based on Torah and the new are those from the scribes). 147. Otherwise Matthew tends to be less precise about what precedes: ‘these words’ in 7:28 (the context adds more); ‘instructing his twelve disciples’ in 11:1; ‘these words’ in 19:1; ‘all these words’ in 26:1. 148. Mt. 8:1: ‘came down from (καταβάντος ἀπό) the mountain’; 11:1: ‘went on from there (μετέβη ἐκεῖθεν)’; 13:53: ‘le there (μετῆρεν ἐκεῖθεν)’; 19:1: ‘le (μετῆρεν ἀπό) Galilee’.

XII. JESUS INTERPRETED, BUT ALSO REJECTED (13:53[54]–16:20) A. Jesus Meets Unbelief in His Hometown (13:54-58) 54[Jesus]

came to his hometown and was teaching them in their synagogue. e result was that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this fellow [get] athis wisdom from, and the mighty works? 55Isn’t he the son of bthe carpenterb? Isn’t his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James and cJoseph and Simon and Judas? 56Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where did this fellow [get] all these things from?’ 57And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in dthe hometown/homeland and in his house.’ 58And he did not do many mighty works there because of their eunbelief.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. πασα (‘all’), added in D 892 pc sys mae, is likely to be a reverential heightening. b-b. του Ιωσηϕ (‘Joseph’) in sys, which is combined with the standard reading in it vgmss syc. c. Careless copying has led to Ιωαννης (‘John’) here in ‫*א‬vid D E G 579 1424 etc. vgmss, giving the better-known apostolic pairing ‘James and John’. d. e separate αυτου (‘his’) for homeland, of Mk. 6:4, is included by L W f1 0106 1342 1506 etc. (co); in uence from Jn. 4:44 is likely for the ιδια (‘his own’) of ‫ א‬Z f13 892 etc.; both variants are combined in C etc. e. Plural in D 892 k, presumably to indicate the unbelief of each. Bibliography

Aarde, A. G. van, ‘Matthew’s Portrayal of the Disciples and the Structure of Mt 13,53–17,27’, Neot 16 (1982), 21-34. • Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 178-91. • Crossan, J. D., In Fragments, 281-85. • Delorme, J., ‘Jésus mésestimé et impuissant dans sa patrie (Marc 6,1-6)’, NRT 121 (1999), 3-22. • Ilan, T., ‘“Man Born of Woman …” (Job 14:1): e Phenomenon of Men Bearing Metronymes at the Time of Jesus’, NovT 34 (1992), 23-45. • LaVerdiere, E., ‘His Mother Mary’, Emman 93 (1987), 191-97. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 146-54. • Verseput, D. J., ‘e Faith of the Reader and the Narrative of Matthew 13.53–16.20’, JSNT 46 (1992), 3-24. See further at 13:1-3a.

Mt. 13:54-58 functions in two ways: with 12:46-50, as framing for 13:1-53 and by itself as the beginning of a fresh section, which will run to 16:20. It offers the rst of a series of explanations of Jesus which will reach a rst climax in 14:33 and a second in 16:16; it also introduces what will be a continuing sub-theme of rejection. 13:5458 functions as a theme-setting piece, aer which the section will come in three parts: 14:1-36; 15:1-20; 15:21–16:20. Jesus’ origins are not deemed tting for one with such power and wisdom: he must have these from collusion with the devil. His fate as a rejected prophet in his hometown anticipates what will be played out on a larger canvas later. Matthew has already used the materials of Mk. 4:35–5:43 (see Mt. 8:23-34; 9:18-26), so aer his own development of the Markan parables section he returns to the Markan sequence, using the next Markan material from Mk. 6:1-6a. Matthew abbreviates. e main changes are: the disciples are allowed to drop from sight; the questions are generally shortened but supplemented with a summarising repetition at the end (partly borrowed from unused wording) of the opening key question; ‘the carpenter’ becomes ‘the son of the carpenter’; the tension between Mark’s ‘he could do no mighty work there’ and the following exception clause reporting the healing of a few people is resolved into ‘he did not do many mighty works there’ (without report of speci c healings). No source beyond Mark is evident, but

independent knowledge about Jesus’ family may have prompted the change in the sequence of Simon and Judas (sequencing according to age?). Lk. 4:16-30 re ects the existence of a second source form of an account of Jesus’ ministry in his hometown.1

13:54 Where does Matthew locate the πατρίς (‘hometown’, ‘homeland’) of Jesus? Certainly not where he was born (2:1). Possibly in Nazareth (2:23), but also possibly in Capernaum (4:13; 9:1).2 Since the presence of Jesus’ wider family in the πατρίς is required in 13:55-56, a Capernaum πατρίς would require that the wider family (including a still-living Joseph?) be viewed as having moved with (or aer) Jesus’ move to Capernaum at 4:13. A Capernaum πατρίς would allow the present episode to stand in continuity with the complaint and threat of 11:23-24. It allows ‘from there’ in 14:13 to refer to the seaside Capernaum rather than the land-locked Nazareth, and thus ts the departure by boat of that verse. Matthew drops Mark’s ‘when the sabbath came’ and thereby reduces the scale of the visit to a single sabbath preaching opportunity. ‘Teaching … in their synagogue’ echoes the language of the summary statements in 4:23; 9:35 (and cf. 11:1): Jesus’ itinerant ministry continues.3 Matthew simpli es the response statement by treating it as general to those present in the synagogue.4 He may already have his eye on the wording of the proverb to come in 13:57, which implies a total failure to honour Jesus in his hometown. e astonishment at Jesus’ teaching here is best linked with that of the crowds in 7:28; 22:33,5 where the positive impact of the teaching is stressed. Matthew produces a simple two-pronged question out of Mark’s inelegant and rather complicated formulation. e Pharisees have

already raised the question of where it all comes from in 9:34; 12:23, and answered in terms of power from the evil one.6 ‘Wisdom’ must point to that about Jesus’ teaching which is transparently insightful. Wisdom has been associated with Jesus already in 11:19; 12:42. No ‘mighty works’ have been reported here, but perhaps we are to understand from the pattern established in 4:23; 9:35 that teaching had been accompanied by healing here too. A general reference to previous mighty works is also possible, and a back reference to the mighty works of 11:23 may be intended.7 13:55 ose in the synagogue pursue their line of questioning about the origins of Jesus’ wisdom and mighty works by asking rhetorical questions about his family origins. ere are three questions about Jesus’ family: the rst concerning his father (identi ed by trade); the second dealing with his mother (identi ed by name) and his brothers (also identi ed by name); and the third dealing with his sisters (the only ones clearly claimed to be still present in the town).8 Matthew may have considered it rather odd to identify Jesus at this stage of his story as ‘the carpenter’ (as Mk. 6:3) since he has long since clearly not been functioning as a carpenter.9 Given the common patrilineal passing of occupations, it probably seemed evident to Matthew from the Markan text that Jesus had earlier worked at carpentry for the very reason that Joseph was a carpenter. A carpenter (τέκτων) was typically a woodworking crasman who built furniture and utensils, doors and doorframes, and prepared roo ng beams; he may at times have doubled as a brick mason.10 Having borrowed ‘the son of ’ for the question about the father from the Markan formulation concerning Mary, and prompted by the list of names that he is about to give, Matthew now adds ‘called’ and inverts the manner in which the relationships are introduced.11

No names were used in 12:46-50, but the brothers (and probably sisters) of Jesus are introduced. For the name Mary we reach back to the infancy materials. e names of the brothers play no greater role than to concretely earth Jesus into his human family of origin.12 ough of importance for some Christian traditions, the exact biological relationships involved have no particular importance for Matthew’s story.13 13:56 Mark’s emphasis on the presence of Jesus’ sisters is strengthened by the addition of ‘all’.14 Since large families would have been quite common, the number of siblings attributed to Jesus is quite reasonable. e fresh, generalised ‘where … from (πόθεν)’ question creates a minor chiasm around the questions about Jesus’ family and makes it clear that the information about his family is seen as having, in the minds of the questioners, a vital in uence on how the ‘where… from’ question is to be answered.15 Why is it such a problem that Jesus is from a hometown background? Perhaps the role of family honour in ancient societies throws some light: Jesus would not have had a lot of inherited honour as a member of a family of modest means in a carpenter’s household;16 in a strongly hierarchical society Jesus did not come from an appropriate stratum for a person of major importance.17 e person who seemed to have found a short-cut to power and signi cance could readily be accused of engagement in the black arts (collusion with the devil). 13:57 ‘And they took offence at him’ provides a negative counterpoint to 11:6: these people cannot be declared fortunate. e Pharisees will be reported as taking offence at Jesus in 15:12. Where the Matthean and Markan forms of the proverbial saying used by Jesus set the dishonouring of a prophet at home against the background of being honoured elsewhere, the Lukan form focusses narrowly on the failure to be honoured at home (as does Jn. 4:44).18

Does Matthew drop Mark’s ‘among his own relatives’ as a near repetition of ‘in his house (οἰκίᾳ)’,19 or to remove any suggestion that the members of Jesus’ family are directly involved in taking offence at Jesus — in which case οἰκία will have a meaning similar to πατρίς and Matthew will have created his own synonymous parallelism? ough the latter would t the loss of Mk. 3:21, the unusual meaning for οἰκία required and the resulting artistically rather at repetition produced suggest that we should favour the former.20 e kind of contempt for the familiar which Jesus’ proverb appeals to is a widespread phenomenon in human affairs. Beyond what has already been suggested above, such a contempt for the familiar is also likely to be involved in the rhetorical questions of 13:55-56. A prophetic identity for Jesus does not have the signi cance for Matthew that it does for Luke. For the most part ‘prophet’ used of Jesus is a designation that re ects something of his signi cance and impact but falls short of marking a proper recognition of his identity.21 Matthew does, however, connect Jesus with a prophetic identity in 12:39, where Jesus is like Jonah as a prophet of judgment who marks in the unfolding of his own ministry, and nally and especially in his death, the rejection by his own generation of the ways of God (see discussion there). It is likely that something of this is in mind here in 13:57, especially since, in 14:1-12 to follow, John the Baptist dies at the hands of the governing authority, though one whom the crowd regarded as a prophet — a narrative which is clearly intended to foreshadow the parallel situation to develop with regard to Jesus.22 is in turn raises the question of whether even the term πατρίς has been chosen for its double sense (‘hometown’ or ‘homeland’) in order to mark the event in Jesus’ hometown as a foreshadowing of what is to come, at the national level, in Jerusalem.

13:58 e editing of Mark makes it clear that Jesus is no victim of circumstances (not: ‘he was not able to’, but rather ‘he did not [i.e., he chose not to]’). Nor is Jesus any longer surprised at the unbelief. Jesus’ miracle-working power was still evident (it has been commented on in v. 54), but Jesus limits its scope in the face of unbelief. Chaps. 8–9 emphasise the importance of faith for Jesus’ ministry of healing (see discussion at 8:10),23 and the note will be struck again in 15:28.

Part 1 (14:1-36) 1. Herod’s Opinion of Jesus (14:1-2) 1At

that time Herod the tetrarch heard about Jesus’fame, 2and he said to his servants, ‘ais is John the Baptistb. He has been raised from the dead, and because of this these powers are at work in him.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. D etc. b f h vgmss have an opening μητι which transforms the statement into a question. b. ον εγω απεκεϕαλισα (‘whom I beheaded’) is added by D etc. a b ff1 h vgmss, borrowed from the end of Mk. 6:16. Bibliography Aus, R., Water into Wine and the Beheading of John the Baptist (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988). • Corley, K. E., Private Women, 158-60. • Fortin, A., ‘L’esprit du don: Sémiotique de l’excès. Mt. 14,1 à 15,39’, SémiotBib 99 (2000), 23-32. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 288-305. • Hartmann, M., Der Tod Johannes des Täufers: Eine exegetische und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Studie auf dem Hintergrund narrativer, intertextueller und kulturanthropologischer Zugänge (SBB 45. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001). • Lowe, M. and Flusser, D., ‘Evidence Corroborating a Modi ed Proto-Matthean Synoptic eory’, NTS 29 (1983), 25-47, esp. 33-35. • Manns, F., ‘Marc 6.21-29 à la lumière des dernières fouilles du Machéronte’, SBFLA 31 (1981), 287-90. • Meier, J. P., ‘John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel’, JBL 99 (1980), 383-405. • Neirynck, F., ‘Marc 6,14-16 et par’, ETL 65 (1989), 105-9. • Riesner, R., ‘Johannes der Täufer auf Machärus’, BK 39 (1984), 176. • Rolland, P., ‘La question synoptique demande-t-elle une réponse compliquée?’ Bib 70 (1989), 217-23.

• Rolland, P., ‘La véritable préhistorie de Marc (Mc 6,30-34 et parallèles)’, RB 103 (1996), 244-56. • Schenk, W., ‘Gefangenscha und Tod des Täufers: Erwägungen zur Chronologie und ihren Consequenzen’, NTS 29 (1983), 453-83. • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 81-97. • Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist, 129-32. See also at 13:54-58.

e subsectioning of 14:1–16:20 is clearest for the verses in 15:1-20, which obviously belong together. Matthew probably intends a slightly rough chiasm with 15:1-20 in the centre: to Herod’s opinion of Jesus (14:1-2, with vv. 3-12 appended) corresponds Peter’s (16:1320, prefaced with vv. 1-12, on how the Pharisees and the Sadducees are in no position to provide a correct understanding of Jesus24); to the rst healing and feeding of the crowds in 14:13-21 corresponds the second in 15:29-39; to the healings in 14:34-36 corresponds the healing of the daughter of the Canaanite woman in 15:21-28. 14:2233, with its anticipation in v. 33 of the climax of the section in 16:16, has no place in the chiasm, but it can be given one if meeting the needs of the disciples in 14:22-33 and their response is made the counterpart to meeting the needs of the crowds and their response in 15:29-31.25 Aer the evaluation of Jesus offered by those in the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown, Herod forges his explanation of Jesus’ identity and power out of his own troubled experience with John the Baptist. Matthew has already used the material of Mk. 6:6b-13 (see Mt. 9:35; 10:1, 711, 14), so he passes on to the next Markan material of Mk. 6:14-16. Despite some minor agreements with Lk. 9:7-9, there is little likelihood of a source beyond the Markan one.

14:1 As in 11:25; 12:1, ‘at that time’ indicates the need to identify thematic continuity with what precedes:26 Matthew would have us see here another attempt to answer the πόθεν (‘where …

from’) question posed by those in Jesus’ hometown. A previous Herod has featured in the infancy materials;27 the present Herod is distinguished from him as ‘the tetrarch’ (the parallel in Mk. 6:14 uses ‘king’, which is technically inaccurate for this Herod; Matthew will lapse into this usage in 14:9). On the death of the Herod of the infancy materials the realm was divided and the present Herod, Antipas (one of the previous Herod’s sons), became ruler over Galilee and Perea. He ruled by the wish of his father and as con rmed by Emperor Augustus. None of the rulers of the divided territory was allowed by Rome to term himself king. Instead the title ‘tetrarch’ was used. is is literally ‘ruler of a quarter’, but it was used in the NT period more generally for the role of minor princes. τὴν ἀκοὴν Ἰησοῦ is literally ‘the report of Jesus’, but in line with the sense of the related phrase in 4:24, it is translated above as ‘Jesus’ fame’. 14:2 Whereas the other Gospels provide no audience, Matthew identi es the logical hearers for Herod’s words: the servants who attend him. Mark relates Herod’s opinion to a wider interest in the possibility that Jesus might be John the Baptist. But while Matthew will allow the wider currency of this view later (16:14), here he is preparing for the following ( ashback) account of Herod’s role in John’s death, and so it suits him better to keep the wider public out of the picture: Herod needs to consider in quite personal terms the signi cance of what he had previously done. Matthew resolves the single complex Markan statement28 into two parallel statements: a statement of identity (‘is is John the Baptist’) and a statement explaining Jesus’ powers (‘He has been raised from the dead, and because of this these powers [αἱ δυνάμεις, picking up on the same expression — there translated ‘mighty works’ — in 13:54 and cf. v. 58] are at work in him’). Where the second statement links strongly back to 13:54-58, the rst prepares

the ground for other answers to the question of Jesus’ identity in the future.29 ere are no reported instances in Jewish or Hellenistic sources of a belief that being raised from the dead can confer supernatural powers, but it is an idea which is not intrinsically unlikely to be found in popular imagination. In Herod’s case a troubled conscience is also likely to be involved. While the reader is to consider Herod’s answer inadequate, it is, unlike the answer implicit in 13:54-58, an answer that begins to point in a helpful direction: it rightly nds continuity between John and Jesus, and it links Jesus with the idea of resurrection, a link which will ultimately have profound importance for Matthew’s story. But the reader knows better than Herod since she or he is informed about Jesus’ origins and about the earlier interaction between Jesus and John. [Appendage] e Death of John the Baptist (14:3-12) Herod ahad taken John, bound bhim, cand put [him]c in prison because of Herodias, the wife of dPhilip, his brother. 4For John had been saying to him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5Herod wanted to kill him, but he feared the crowd because they considered him to be a prophet. 3For

Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of eHerodias danced in their midst and pleased Herod, 7so that he promised on oath to give her whatever she might ask. 8Directed by her mother, she says, ‘Give me here fon a platterf the head of John the Baptist’. 9ough the king was distressed,g because of his oaths and those reclining [at dinner] with him he commanded [it] to be given. 10He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, 11and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl; and she brought [it] to her mother. 12en the John’s disciples came and took the hcorpsei and buried him;j and they went and told Jesus. 6When

TEXTUAL NOTES a. τοτε (‘at that time’) in B Θ f13 700 l 2211 etc. sa mae coordinates the timing of vv. 1-2 and v. 12. b. Missing from ‫ *א‬B 700 l 2211 etc. ff1 h q bomss, but in any case implied by the context. c-c. Missing from D etc. a e k, under the in uence of Mk. 6:17. d. Missing from D lat, perhaps to eliminate a difficulty from the text (see below). e. D has αυτου Ηρωδιας, in uenced from Mk. 6:22 and giving ‘his daughter Herodias’. f-f. Missing from D, this would make sense as an expansion, but in the absence of other support, careless copying is the more likely explanation. g. An added δε (lit. ‘and/but’) in ‫ א‬C (L) etc. lat sy co avoids the possibility of reading the text as linking the grieving with the oaths and the guests. h. W 0106 etc. syh sa mae bomss have the less harsh σωμα (‘body’). i. ‫*א‬, 2 D L 565 etc. it vgcl sys, c, p add αυτου, giving ‘his corpse’. j. αυτο (‘it’) in ‫א‬1 C D L W Θ f1, 13 etc. lat bo, probably to t better with ‘corpse’. Bibliography Bach, A., ‘Calling the Shots: Directing Salomé’s Dance of Death’, Semeia 74 (1996), 103-26. • Dannemann, I., Aus dem Rahmen, 125-94. • Donaldson, T. L., ‘“For Herod had arrested John” (Matt. 14:3): Making Sense of an Unresolved Flashback’, SR 28 (1999), 35-48. • Flusser, D., ‘A New Portrait of Salome’, JerPersp 55 (1999), 18-23. • Lawrence, L. J., ‘“Fearing Within”: “e Herods” of Matthew’s Gospel’, eology in Scotland (St Andrews) 8 (2001), 39-52. See also at 13:54-58; 14:1-2.

As an appendage to Mt. 14:1-2, vv. 3-12 report Herod’s role in the execution of John the Baptist. e evident interest here in the parallels with the coming fate of Jesus picks up on Jesus’ rejection in his hometown in 13:54-58, and especially on this as anticipating the larger-scale rejection to come. Matthew continues the Markan sequence (cf. Mk. 6:17-29), but abbreviates heavily. e ‘rumour (or legend) of court intrigue’ form of the Markan materials, difficulties in harmonising with Josephus (see below), claimed historical improbability (see below), the evident parallels with the unfolding of the fate of Jesus (see below), and in uence from the OT and wider Jewish tradition have been taken to count signi cantly against the historical credibility of the story.

ere is little doubt that ‘up to half of my kingdom’ in Mk. 6:23 is an allusion to Esther (see 5:3, 6; 7:2), which makes it possible that the girl pleasing the king in Mk. 6:22 should be related to Est. 2:9. It may be only a fortuitous similarity that in Tg. Est. I 1:19; Est. Rab. 4:9 on 1:19 there is a gloss to Est. 1:19 that contemplates the cutting off of the head of Vashti, the discredited wife (the latter even has the head on a platter), but the tradition could be early enough to be echoed in the Gospel account. e Gospel story has clearly not been spun out of these allusions, which merely build on the intrinsic similarity of story line (celebratory banquets, the in uence of women, extravagant promises, executions) to establish a speci c link with earlier court intrigue. e other matters are dealt with below: they pose no major difficulties. e ‘rumour of court intrigue’ form does, however, mean that con dence in this account cannot be put on the same level as for the main body of Gospel tradition. 14:3 Jesus has learnt of John the Baptist’s arrest in 4:12 and has interacted with disciples of the Baptist in 8:14-17 and with disciples sent from John in prison in 11:2-6. Now we are to learn of

John’s death, necessary background for the intelligibility of Herod’s proposal in 14:2. Given that Matthew fails to distinguish in v. 13 between the timing of Herod’s expression of opinion about Jesus and of his execution of John, it may be that, at least for the purposes of his telling of the story, Matthew would have us imagine that from Herod’s perspective Jesus ‘pops up’ right aer Herod has done away with John. Herod’s role in the arrest of 4:12 and the reason for the arrest are now revealed. As with 4:12, the language (‘taken’, ‘bound’) will be echoed in the coming account of Jesus’ own fate.30 ere is some difficulty with the names involved here. According to Josephus, Herodias was married not to Philip the Tetrarch (mentioned in Lk. 3:1), but to a son of Herod (by Mariamne II) whom Josephus identi es only as Herod; Philip the Tetrarch married Herodias’s daughter Salome (the daughter of our account?).31 Either there has been some confusion, or the son of Herod by Mariamne was a Herod Philip (note the use in our present account of Herod for Antipas, a practice mirrored consistently in Josephus, with the exception of one text32 where he is ‘Herod the one called Antipas’), and it is this Herod that our text refers to as Philip, in order to distinguish him from the half-brother who is here called ‘Herod’. e cryptic ‘because of the wife of his brother Philip’ will become clearer from v. 4.33 Josephus reports Antipas’s usurpation of the wife of his half-brother and implies the scandal of the marriage by noting the blood relationship between the two Herods.34 14:4 John was critical of the new marriage as violating OT law. It was not just the fact of divorce, but that the speci c provisions of Lv. 18:16; 20:21 were being violated. What Herod had done was considered to be a form of incest within the family. Josephus offers as the speci c reason for Herod’s decision to execute John the likelihood that John’s great popularity would lead to

sedition. However, Josephus reports Herod’s execution of John the Baptist35 immediately aer dealing with the aermath of Antipas’s plans to oust his existing wife in favour of Herodias36 and bridges between the accounts with the idea that the massive defeat of Herod’s army at the hands of his spurned wife’s father was divine retribution for his treatment of John.37 e Gospel account of John’s criticism of the marriage offers a natural explanation for the close linking in Josephus: persuading too many people that Herod’s marriage was incestuous would have seemed quite seditious to Herod; and divine retribution for the treatment of John would at the same time be retribution in relation to what John had been complaining about. e imperfect ἔλεγεν (‘had been telling him’) suggests that John had been maintaining a steady pressure of protest. 14:5 Matthew’s abbreviation of the Markan account becomes more severe from this point on. Mark’s ambivalent Herod (who imprisons John but respects him and wants to keep him alive) is simpli ed into a Herod who wants to kill John and is inhibited only by his fear of popular reaction. Matthew transfers Mark’s report of Herodias’s desire to kill John to Herod, and, where Mark has Herod fear John, Matthew has him fear the crowd. He borrows this motif from Mk. 11:32 and will reproduce it in its Markan context at 21:26. But he is likely to use it here in preparation for its parallel use with Jesus at 21:46.38 Jesus has already affirmed the prophetic identity of John in 11:9.39 14:6 Severe abbreviation continues.40 e use of the dative in γενεσίοις γενομένοις is unusual: a genitive absolute might have been expected, but Matthew appears to have combined Mark’s use of γενεσίοις in a dative of time expression with the verb drawn from Mark’s previous time phrase, γενομένης ἡμέρας (‘a day came’).

γενέσια is used in Hellenistic Greek to mean both ‘birthday’ and ‘birthday celebration’. Here it seems to mean the former, but perhaps also to imply the latter. Matthew adds ἐν τῷ μέσῳ (lit. ‘in the midst/middle’) to signal the group context within which the daughter danced, but because of the omissions from the Markan account, the phrase sits a little oddly in Matthew’s narrative (a reclining group is mentioned belatedly in v. 9, but not here as those also pleased by the dancing, as in Mk. 6:22).41 Such dancing has frequently been labelled as not historically credible for a Jewish ‘princess’, but within the family of Herod the Great the level of delity to Jewish culture implied cannot be claimed with any con dence. In any case (presumably because of the extravagance of the promise to be made by Herod), commentators normally assume that we are being invited to think of seductive dancing before half-drunk men. But this is to jump to conclusions: inebriation may well account for Herod’s recklessness, but dancing need not be erotic to give delight and to stir gratitude. 14:7 Simplifying and compressing, Matthew reports Herod’s oath as brie y as possible.42 His use of ὁμολογεῖν to mean ‘promise’ is not fully parallelled in the NT, but it is matched in Josephus and is somewhat related to an LXX usage of the cognate noun.43 e oath is breathtaking in its open-endedness, perhaps comparable only to the oath of Jephthah in Jdg. 11:30.44 It is perhaps best seen as a grandiose gesture made without too much thought, but with a background assumption that there would be unspoken constraints imposed by prudence, family loyalty, and culture. 14:8 All the storytelling detail of Mk. 6:24-25 is dropped (the comings and goings of the consultation with the mother, the repetition with variation by the daughter of what the mother has directed her to say). ‘Directed by her mother’ suffices for

explanation (προβιβασθεῖσα means ‘lead or push forward’ and in the present context could be oriented to the mother’s encouragement or to her instruction of her daughter; the translation covers both). e mother’s motivation is clear enough, but is not prepared for as by Mk. 6:19. Since the wish language has been dropped from v. 7, the request also drops it and gains a blunt imperative form.45 e idea of the platter is no doubt suggested by the platters on which the food of the banquet has been sitting (inadvertently, through his abbreviation, Matthew has failed to mention the banquet). e head could be seen as a trophy of war, as in Jos., Ant. 18.115;46 it is certainly a tangible proof of death. Executions in the context of banqueting emerge as an image of cruelty in Jos., Ant. 13.380. 14:9 Where in Mark the distress of Antipas has to do with his respect for John, in Matthew it can be related as well to his anticipation of the impact on the public of his sending John to his death in this manner (though even the Matthean Antipas may have found the prospect disturbing). Aer the correction to ‘tetrarch’ in v. 1, Matthew allows ‘king’ to stand here. Oaths bind one solemnly to obligations which in this case are reinforced by the loss of face that would have been involved in renouncing the oath before one’s guests at dinner (fellow recliners at table are now at last mentioned). Matthew’s change from ‘he did not wish to deny her’ to ‘he commanded it to be given’ prepares for the following abbreviation. 14:10 e participle πέμψας (‘having sent’) covers the Markan narrative development dealing with the delegation of the task.47 Matthew rejoins the Markan wording with ἀπεκεϕάλισαν, which in Mark means ‘beheaded’ but in Matthew is to be understood causatively and means ‘had [him] beheaded’. e OT and Apocrypha fairly frequently talk about the removal of heads.48

14:11 Matthew changes the opening two verbs to the passive to provide a smooth bridge aer the deletions of the previous verse,49 drops a few unnecessary words,50 and avoids the repetition soon aerwards of the verb ‘give’ by changing the second use to ‘brought’ (reverting again to the rst verb of the sentence). e mother has her revenge for John’s criticism of her marriage. 14:12 e abbreviation continues to the end, with all strictly unnecessary words omitted.51 e disciples of John have featured in 9:14; 11:2. ey had access to their master in prison while he was alive, and they are granted the body when he is dead. e same courtesy will be extended to a disciple of Jesus in 27:58. Are we to think of John’s body as buried headless? ‘en … they went and told Jesus’ is Matthew’s addition, binding the account into the ow of Matthew’s story of Jesus. Matthew makes yet another connection between John and Jesus; and he refreshes and extends the link between the disciples of John and Jesus established at 11:2-6. 2. Jesus Heals and Feeds the Five ousand (14:13-21) he heard [this], Jesus withdrew from there ain a boata to a wilderness place alone. But the crowds, hearing [about it], followed him on foot from the towns. 14So, when he got out [of the boat], he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 13When

it became late, bthe disciples came to him and said, ‘e place is wilderness, and the hour [for the evening meal] has already passed. Dismiss the crowds, so that they may go off into the villagesc and buy food for themselves.’ 16But dJesus said to them, ‘ey don’t need to go away. You give them [something] to eat.’ 17ey say to him, ‘We have nothing here except five [loaves of] bread and two fish’. 18He said, ‘Bring them here to me’. 19een he directed thate the fcrowds be seated on the grass, took the five [loaves of] bread and the two fish, looked up to heaven and said the blessing, and broke and 15When

gave the bread to the disciples, and the disciples to the crowds. 20All ate and were satisfied; and they took up what was le over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides gwomen and children.g

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. e role of the boat is missing from Γ etc. sys, c. b. Like Mk. 6:35, C D L W Θ 0106vid f1, 13 etc. lat sy have αυτου (‘his’). c. C* Θ 33 700 1241 etc. syhmg sams, following Mk. 6:36, add κυκλω (‘round about’). d. e name is missing from ‫ *א‬D Zvid 579 1424 etc. e k sys, c, p sa bo. It may have been added as a clari cation. e-e. B* etc. have the imperative form κελευσατε, which gives ‘and direct the crowds …’ f. Singular in D 892 lat mae bomss. g-g. e reversal of the order of ‘women’ and ‘children’ in D Θ f1 it is striking, but given the limited textual support, is not likely to be original. Bibliography Bammel, E., ‘e Feeding of the Multitude’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 211-40. • Barnett, P. W., ‘e Feeding of the Multitude in Mark 6/John 6’, in Miracles, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, 273-93. • Billy, J., ‘Feeding the Multitude: Confronting the Mystery of Jesus’, Emman 108 (2002), 68-78. • Boismard, M.-É., ‘Introduction au premier récit de la multiplication des pains’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 244-53. • Bolyki, J., Tischgemeinscha, 89-102. • Corley, K. E., Private Women, 160-64. • Donfried, K. P., ‘e Feeding Narratives and the Marcan Community’, in Kirche. FS G. Bornkamm, ed. D. Lührmann and G. Strecker (Tübingen: Mohr, 1980), 95-104. • Fossion, A., ‘“Donnez-leur vous-mêmes à manger”: Lecture de Mt 14,13-21’, LVit 50 (1995), 7-18. • Fowler, R. M., Loaves and

Fishes (SBLDS 54. Chico: Scholars, 1981). • Fuchs, A., ‘Die AgreementRedaktion von Mk 6,33-44 par Mt 14,13-21 par Lk 9,10b-17: Ein vorläu ger Entwurf ’, SNTU 22 (1997), 181-203. • Fuliga, J. B., ‘e Man Who Refused to Be King (Matthew 14:13-21)’, AsiaJT 11 (1997), 140-53. • Grant, R. M., e Problem of Miraculous Feedings in the Greco-Roman World (Berkeley: University of California, 1982). • Grassi, J. A., Loaves and Fishes: e Gospel Feeding Narratives (Zacchaeus Studies: New Testament. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991). • Grelot, P., Évangiles et histoire (Introduction à la Bible. Nouvelle édition. Le Nouveau Testament 6. Paris: Desclée, 1986), 160-86. • Heither, T., ‘Die Wunder Jesu in der Auslegung der Kirchenväter, 2: Teil’, EuA 75 (1999), 383-95. • Körtner, H. J., ‘Das Fischmotiv im Speisungswunder’, ZNW 75 (1984), 24-35. • Magne, J., ‘Les récits de la multiplication des pains à la lumière de la solution nouvelle du problème synoptique proposée par Philippe Rolland’, EL 106 (1992), 477-525. • Magne, J. M., ‘Le processus de judaïsation au témoignage des récritures du récit de la multiplication des pains’, AugR 28 (1988), 273-83. • Masuda, S., ‘e Good News of the Miracle of the Bread’, NTS 28 (1982), 191-219. • Neirynck, F., ‘Response to the Multiple Stage Hypothesis, I: e Introduction to the Feeding Story’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 81-93. • Neirynck, F., ‘e Matthew-Luke Agreements in Mt 14,13-14/Lk 9,10-11 (par. Mk 6,30-34): e Two-Source eory beyond the Impasse’, ETL 60 (1984), 25-44. • Neugebauer, F., ‘Die wunderbare Speisung (Mk 6.30-44 parr) und Jesu Identität’, KD 32 (1986), 254-77. • Nun, M., ‘e “Desert” of Bethsaida’, JerPersp 53 (1997), 16-17. • Oyen, G. van, e Interpretation of the Feeding Miracles in the Gospel of Mark (Collectanea Biblica et Religiosa Antiqua 4. Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 1999). • Pettem, M., ‘Le premier récit de la multiplication des pains et le problème synoptique’, SR 14 (1985), 73-83. • Pixner, B., ‘e Miracle Church at Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee’, BA 48 (1985), 196-206. • Potterie, I. de la, ‘Le sens primitif de la multiplication des pains’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont, 303-29. • Potterie, I. de la, ‘e Multiplication of the Loaves in the Life of Jesus’, Communio 16 (1989), 499516. • Ruckstuhl, E., ‘Die Speisung des Volkes durch Jesus und die Seeüberfahrt der Jünger nach Joh 6,1-25 im Vergleich zu den synoptischen Parallelen’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck et al., 3:2001-19. • Schenke,

L., Die wunderbare Brotvermehrung (Würzburg: Echter, 1983). • Seethaler, A., ‘Die Brotvermehrung — Ein Kirchenspiegel?’ BZ 34 (1990), 108-12. • Stegner, W. R., Narrative, 53-81. See also at 13:54-58; 14:1-2.

e feeding miracle is framed by material that is centrally interested in the identity of Jesus and so is to be read primarily in terms of its contribution to christology. e Emmanuel perspective of Mt. 1:23 is evident: here in the ministry of Jesus God is with us. Matthew continues the Markan sequence, but with the earlier location of his parallel to Mk. 6:1-6, he cannot make use of Mk. 6:30, and joins his texts in his own way. Despite quite a number of minor agreements between Mt. 14:13-21 and Lk. 9:10-17, the redactional t of most of the agreements in the respective Gospels means that there is insufficient basis for de nitely postulating a source beyond Mk. 6:32-44. is is, however, one of those places where a Johannine parallel exists for Synoptic material (Jn. 6:1-14), and a series of overlapping agreements between Matthew, Luke, and John suggest that there may be in uence here from an (oral) tradition variant (and thus a source explanation for some of the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke). But the vexed question of Johannine sources means that con dence is not possible. e existence of a Johannine parallel in this particular case opens up possible source perspectives that would otherwise remain invisible. So at a more general level there is a warning to be heeded here: one must allow for the possibility of source in uence on differences for which we can give a satisfactory redactional account. Matthew and Mark both report two occasions of miraculous feedings of crowds (the extra accounts are Mt. 15:32-39; Mk. 8:1-10). While a case can be made that both accounts are pre-Markan, scholarship is virtually unanimous that they are variants of a single report. A de nite judgment on this matter is complicated by the degree of symbolism in the existing accounts. e same difficulty stands in the way of making any straightforward judgment about historicity. Nonetheless, it is nally unlikely that the core content of Jesus’ feeding of a large number of people with a very small quantity of food has been spun out of the symbolism or created

merely as a vehicle for expressing the early church’s understanding of the signi cance of Jesus.52

14:13 In both of the earlier places where ‘heard’ is followed by ‘withdrew’ (2:22; 4:1253), a potential danger is met by withdrawal. is makes it likely that the same is true here.54 At the same time the use of ‘from there’ with ‘withdrew’ links with a pattern in Matthew in which a verb for moving on is used to point to the itinerant nature of Jesus’ ministry.55 If Jesus is to be understood as hearing the news while still where the action of 13:54-58 took place, then the boat journey counts strongly in favour of a Capernaum hometown in v. 53. ‘Told’ in 14:12 and ‘heard’ in v. 13 must belong together, so what Jesus heard must be what was said by the disciples of John. In line with this, it will be the news of the execution of John that signals danger to Jesus, not Herod’s opinion that he is John come back to life (which could be viewed as offering some protection from a threat from Herod). Matthew seems, therefore, to carry straight on in v. 13 from his ashback in vv. 3-12. Should we accuse him of inadvertently continuing his story from a ashback without making the transition back into the narrative time from which he departed for the ashback? is is certainly possible, but if Matthew envisages the expression of opinion as taking place in the near aermath of the execution, then we may not need to make the accusation. Rather, in Matthew’s thinking, the activity of vv. 1-2 and of v. 12 occupy roughly the same block of time, so to continue from v. 12 is at the same time to continue from v. 2. In Matthew’s narrative Jesus has been on a journey by boat already on two occasions (on a third occasion he teaches from a boat) and will take two further journeys by boat.56 e rst two are parallelled as journey and return journey; the coming two are

parallelled in terms of their christological role; the present journey is matched by the return journey of the disciples without Jesus in v. 22, which is transformed into a journey with Jesus by v. 32, and whose christological role emerges clearly in v. 33. us far ἔρημος has been associated with John the Baptist and with the temptations of Jesus, but that has been ὁ ἔρημος (‘the wilderness’). Here the associations are more limited, concerned only with being away from where people are normally to be found (see at 3:1 for wider associations); thus the article is missing. Jesus’ intended goal is to isolate himself for a period,57 but what transpires is quite different. In line with a frequent preference, Matthew chooses ‘the crowds’ to introduce those who will intrude on Jesus’ solitude. Having used ‘heard’ for Herod and now with Jesus to indicate the basis for subsequent action, Matthew does so a third time in relation to the crowds: they are able to follow to where the boat has gone because word has gotten around.58 Matthew’s ‘followed him’ actually ts better with Mark’s ‘they saw him going’ than with Matthew’s own ‘they heard’. Matthew says that the crowds followed Jesus on six other occasions.59 e slightly awkward t here tends to con rm what was suggested at 4:25, that Matthew is likely to have chosen the language of following to suggest that, in the attention they are paying to Jesus, the crowds are headed in the direction of that following which would make true disciples of them. e role of ‘from the towns’ is to provide a wide enough base for the number of people to be reported in v. 21.60 14:14 e Markan text is reproduced to ‘compassion on them’.61 But Matthew has already used Mark’s ‘he saw a great crowd and had compassion on them because they were like sheep who do not have a shepherd’ at 9:36 (see discussion there) and decides to

abbreviate this time. For the moment, the desire for privacy must be set aside. Since the crowd is there before Jesus, it must be right for him to engage with them; and what he sees draws forth his compassion. In Mark his compassionate response is to teach. In Matthew his response becomes healing, which is much more obviously a mark of compassion than teaching is (Lk. 9:11 has both). Normally teaching and healing belong together for Matthew (e.g., 4:23; 9:35), but in relation to ‘the crowds’ Matthew begins in 12:15 a thread of references to Jesus healing the crowds,62 with no associated reference to teaching (and mostly with a reference to the crowds following Jesus).63 e thread continues in 15:29-30 (‘came to’ rather than ‘followed’ Jesus) and 19:1-2. e rst of the texts is a withdrawal text, as is Mt. 14:13-14; the other texts all involve Jesus moving on in his itinerant journey, and all but 19:1-2 (which has ‘from Galilee’) have the ‘from there’ commented on above. 14:15 Only cosmetic changes differentiate Matthew’s text for the rst half-verse here from Mk. 6:35.64 ὀψίας γενομένης stands for ὀψίας ὥρας γενομένης (lit. ‘a late hour having come’) or ὀψίας τῆς ὥρας γενομένης (lit. ‘the hour having become late’). No precise time is in view. Matthew’s second time expression here includes ὥρα, but is missing a following genitive expression which would clarify which hour has passed. e hour for the evening meal is probably in view. In the second half of the verse Matthew again reproduces the substance of Mk. 6:36, with only minor changes.65 e disciples’ suggestion has good sense to it, though it is doubtful whether many of the people would be carrying money. Once the time had slipped away in the excitement of what was going on, there did not seem to be a good way of retrieving the situation, but there is no sense of a crisis being involved: to go home hungry would seem to be a small price to pay for the opportunity of participating in what had

happened.66 To send the crowds away, as suggested by the disciples, would achieve the isolation which had been sought in Mt. 14:13-14. But instead Jesus challenges the disciples themselves to show compassion to the crowds, as Jesus has been doing. 14:16 Matthew links Jesus’ response more closely to what the disciples have said by adding, ‘ey need not to go away’. Otherwise Matthew abbreviates by entirely dropping the initial response of the disciples and Jesus’ response to that (Mk. 6:37-38).67 is causes the focus to remain more sharply on Jesus and avoids any impression that he is feeling his way (Mk. 6:38: ‘How many loaves of bread do you have? Go and see’). Two feeding miracles are associated with Elisha in 2 Ki. 4:38-41 and 42-44. ‘You give them [something] to eat’ is probably intended to echo Elisha’s words, ‘Give it to the people, and let them eat’ (said in relation to an inadequate supply of food, but not so inadequate as here). If so, then it is correct to note that ‘they ate and had some le’ in 2 Ki. 4:44 has its heightened counterpart in ‘All ate and were satis ed; and they took up what was le over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets’ in Mt. 14:20; the ‘hundred people’ of 2 Ki. 4:43 has its heightened counterpart in ‘about ve thousand men, besides women and children’ of Mt. 14:21; and the ‘twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain’ of 2 Ki. 4:42 has its counterpart in the much less adequate ‘ ve [loaves of] bread and two sh’ of Mt. 14:17. 14:17 With the omission of the complaint that 200 denarii worth of bread would not suffice (a weakening of the link with 2 Ki. 4:43, but with its present role Mt. 14:17 can still provide it), the material here changes its role: it now functions as a statement by the disciples that they cannot do what Jesus has asked because they lack sufficient resources. Matthew’s addition of ‘we have nothing here except’ provides the adjustment needed for this change of role.68 e size of the loaves is normally viewed from the perspective of Jn.

6:9, where their possession by a small boy suggests quite small loaves. But Matthew has no investment in the size of the loaves (or of the sh): loaves and sh of any conceivable size can offer nothing to such a crowd. Bread and sh would have provided the staples of the basic diet of those living near the Sea of Galilee.69 e numbers have no obvious signi cance, but there may be a correlation between ‘ ve’ here and the ‘ ve thousand’ of v. 21. 14:18 Matthew lls a logical gap in Mark’s telling by adding this verse. e crowds will be fed with what the disciples have (it is they who have been directed to feed the crowd), but this must rst be placed in the hands of Jesus. 14:19 Matthew abbreviates the arrangement of the crowd (but adds ‘crowds’ again, as in vv. 13, 15): the switch to the passive ἀνακλιθῆναι (probably a true passive: ‘to be seated [by the disciples]’) allows ‘them’ to be dropped from Mark’s ‘ordered them [i.e., the disciples]’;70 the grass is no longer ‘green’; all of Mark’s arrangements beyond the sheer fact of being seated are dropped. ἀνακλίνειν is taken to mean ‘sit’, but since it literally means ‘lie’, it is possible that the reclining position for celebratory meals is being evoked. Obedience to Jesus’ directive here and in relation to the bringing of the bread is presumed, and the story continues with Jesus taking possession of the food. Matthew reduces the intensive form, κατέκλασεν, for ‘broke’ to the simple κλάσας;71 moves the second mention of the loaves of bread from aer ‘broke’ to aer ‘gave’ (this makes it easier to avoid repetition in narrating the disciples’ role); replaces Mark’s purpose clause for the disciples’ role with the simpler ‘and the disciples to the crowds’ (again Matthew adds ‘the crowds’); and drops any further reference to the sh.72

Setting aside ‘looked up’, the sequence of verbs ‘took’, ‘blessed’, ‘broke’, and ‘gave’ is that of the Last Supper (Mt. 26:26).73 All the individual elements are of course also part of a normal Jewish meal pattern,74 but in any Jewish text reporting a meal they will be largely assumed and never formally reported as a set. ey are reported here as a set because of the parallel with Eucharistic practice. e sh t awkwardly into this parallelism, a fact probably already re ected by Mark’s more abbreviated handling of the sh: ‘and he divided the two sh among [them] all’ (anything more might detract from the link with the Eucharist). Matthew’s further downplaying of the role of the sh is likely to be similarly motivated. e link between the feeding and the Last Supper is at the same time important and obscure. It has been used to jump quickly to quite a range of conclusions.75 But what is the Matthean intention here for such a connection? e same tie is clearly evident in the other Gospels as well.76 In Mark already the two feedings are important in relation to developments leading to the confession of 8:29. Luke takes up this approach and develops it by placing the confession immediately aer the feeding account (9:12-17, 18-20). e feeding plays some crucial role in the development of Peter’s perception that Jesus is the Christ. Luke also establishes a link with the Emmaus story, where in 24:35 we have, ‘He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread’. Matthew also seems to take up the Markan connection between the feedings and the confession. He works with essentially the Markan sequence, but strengthens the focus in this part of the Gospel on the question of Jesus’ identity.77 So we might expect that the feeding is making a contribution to a proper understanding of Jesus’ identity, that in some way, as in Lk. 24:35, Jesus is being made known in the breaking of the bread.

What remains unclari ed, however, is the particular contribution that the episode is being called upon to make to an understanding of Jesus’ identity. What is Jesus understood to be made known as? e ‘how much more’ comparison with Elisha (see at 14:16) offers something towards clarifying the contribution, but that seems to be a fairly minor note in the account. Encounter with unstinting compassion is also a signi cant note here. It would be nice to be able to link this episode with the image of David as a shepherd in Ez. 34:23, but despite the shared motifs of feeding and lying down to feed (vv. 14, 15), and just possibly that of healing (v. 16), ties are lacking at the crucial point. One could appeal to eschatological Moses imagery on the basis of links with the manna in the wilderness,78 but Matthew appears to have done nothing to exploit the obvious potential for such a link.79 e juxtaposition with the following nature miracles on the sea may be of importance. With its connection to the earlier nature miracle on the sea of 8:2327, 14:22-33 will call upon the reader to perceive again that the effective control which God exercises over his world now nds concrete expression in the activity of Jesus (see at 8:27) and to articulate this in a ‘Son of God’ confession. A reminder of the Emmanuel language of 1:23 seems appropriate. At the end of the day Matthew leaves the matter rather open-ended, but he wants to insist that, in relation to appreciating who Jesus is, the feeding has a kindred signi cance to the Last Supper and via that to the church’s Eucharist. e formulaic identi cation of the steps involved hides from sight the particular features of the occasion. Does Jesus take up all the bread at once? Does he hold the sh and the bread at the same time? Are the sh to be imagined as broken like the bread? Jesus plays the role of host by taking the bread into his hands, saying the grace, and breaking the bread in readiness for

distribution.80 Looking up to heaven is a posture for prayer (here the blessing of God for his provision of the food).81 ‘e disciples to the crowds’ marks the disciples’ ful lment of Jesus’ challenge to them in 14:16: ‘You give them [something] to eat’. Only in immediate connection with Jesus can the disciples ful l his challenge. 14:20 Matthew follows the Markan wording closely, except that he avoids the awkwardness of Mark’s way of speaking of the twelve baskets full of fragments (from the bread)82 and drops Mark’s mention of leover sh (see above for the suggestion that this latter may be related to the Last Supper, but it could have disappeared simply as being awkward). As noted above, there is an echo of 2 Ki. 4:44. e use of χορτάζειν (‘satisfy’) here and in the beatitude of Mt. 5:6 is no more than a coincidence of language. e number twelve is probably symbolic: food for all Israel. It will be the disciples and not the crowds who gather the leovers. Are we to imagine that the baskets are from the boat and would normally have been used for sh?83 Schenke rightly sees the gathering of the fragments as pointing into the future: if ve loaves of bread and two sh can go so far, what can be done with twelve baskets of food?84 14:21 Matthew adds the language of approximation to Mark’s ‘ ve thousand men’ (cf. Mt. 8:9) and completes the logic of Mark’s use of ‘men’ (ἄνδρες): the ve thousand does not include the women and children who were present. e addition is a claim that Jesus and his ministry are as signi cant for women and children as for men85 rather than a statement about proportionate involvement of women and children in this particular experience.86 e crowds are of course to be understood as being aware that they have been provided generously with food: they have experienced compassion at the hands of Jesus and his disciples. But their response is not

reported, and it is unclear whether we are even to think of the crowds as being aware that a multiplication of food has taken place. What is of importance is that the disciples and, beyond them, the readers of the Gospel are aware of what has happened.87 3. Jesus Came Walking on the Sea (14:22-33) 22aImmediately

he made bthe disciples get into cthe boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23And when he had dismissed the crowds, he went up a mountain alone to pray. When it became late, he was there by himself. 24e boat dwas ealready many stadia away from the land,d being battered by the waves. For the wind was contrary. 25In the fourth watch of the night he fcame to them walking on the sea. 26ge disciples,g seeing him hon the sea walking,h were terrified and said, ‘is is a ghost’. And they cried out in fear. 27Immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart, it is I! Do not be afraid’. 28Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters’. 29He said, ‘Come’. And getting down from the boat, Peter walked on the waters iand camei to Jesus. 30But seeing the wind,j he became frightened and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me’. 31Immediately Jesus stretched out [his] hand and took hold of him. And he says to him, ‘[You of] little faith, why did you doubt?’ 32en they kgotk into the boat, and the wind ceased. 33osel in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from ‫ *א‬C* 892* (ff1) sy appropriateness.

s, c,

perhaps as lacking narrative

b. Probably in uenced by Mk. 6:45, B K P Θ f13 565 579 892 1424 etc. it vgmss sy add αυτου, giving ‘his disciples’. c. e article is missing from B Σ f1 33 565 700 892 etc. boms mae.

d-d. Probably in uenced by Mk. 6:47, ‫ א‬C (D) L 073 0106 1424 f1 33 etc. (lat) sy have ηδη μεσον της θαλασσης ην (‘was already in the middle of the sea’) — sometimes with ην before μεσον. e text used above has the support of not a lot more than B f13 sa (bo) and may not be original. e. Missing from D etc. lat syc, p co. f. απηλθεν (‘departed’) in C*vid D K L P W Γ Δ 0106 etc. syh samss, making the fourth watch the time of departure rather than the time of arrival. g-g. Missing from ‫ *א‬Θ 073 f1 700 1241 1424 etc. lat sa bopt (cf. Mk. 6:49). h-h. Missing from ‫ *א‬D 073 892 etc. ff1 syc sa bo, but located at the centre point of the account (see below), the phrase is likely to be original. i-i. ελθειν (‘to come’) in ‫א‬1 C2 D L W Θ 073 0106 f1, 13 33 etc. latt syp, h mae bo; ‫ *א‬combines the readings, giving ελθειν· ηλθεν ουν (‘to come; he came then’). j. ισχυρον (‘strong’) is added in B1 C D L (+ σϕοδρα [‘exceedingly’] W) Θ 0106 f1, 13 etc. latt sy (mae), giving ‘the wind [was] strong’. is may be original, but it may be concerned to present Peter in a more sympathetic light. k-k. εμβαντων (‘got [in]’) is found in C L W 0106 f1 etc., conforming the verb to that used in v. 22; in 1241 (it vgs) sy samss mae bo the singular is used in the dative and with the dative pronoun (presumably of Peter, following v. 31, where he is represented by the dative pronoun). l. (προσ)ελθοντες (‘coming [to]) is added by D L W Θ f13 0106 33 1424 etc. lat sys, c, p, h. is makes good sense in connection with the singular reading reported in the previous note: Jesus is still not in the boat. But it could refer to the disciples coming up to Jesus in the boat, in which case it is likely to be in uenced by 13:10. Bibliography

Carlisle, C. R., ‘Jesus’ Walking on the Water: A Note on Matthew 14.22-33’, NTS 31 (1985), 151-55. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Why and How Jesus Walked on the Sea’, NovT 23 (1981), 330-48. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Der Wasserwandel in christlicher und buddhistischer Perspektive’, ZRGG 41 (1989), 193-214. • Dettwiler, A., ‘La conception matthéenne de la foi (à l’example de Matthieu 14/22-33)’, ETR 73 (1998), 333-47. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 54-63. • Heil, J. P., Jesus Walking on the Sea: Meaning and Gospel Functions of Matt 14:2233, Mark 6:45-52 and John 6:15b-21 (AnBib 87. Rome: Ponti cal Biblical Institute, 1981). • Hill, D. F., ‘e Walking on the Water’, ExpTim 99 (1988), 267-69. • Klatt, J. D., Jesu und Buddhas Wasserwandel: Walking on the Water of Jesus and of the Buddha: A Presentation of the Case in English, With a Critical Discussion of the Opinion of J. Duncan Derrett in German (Göttingen: Klatt, 1990). • Klein, H., ‘Christologie und Anthropologie in den Petruslegenden des Matthäischen Sonderguts’, in Anfänge, ed. G. Breytenbach and H. Paulsen, 209-20. • Kruse, H., ‘Jesu Seefahrten und die Stellung von Joh. 6’, NTS 30 (1984), 508-30. • Lapide, P., ‘A Jewish Exegesis of the Walking on the Water’, Concil 138 (1980), 35-40. • Latourelle, R., e Miracles of Jesus and the eology of Miracles, tr. M. J. O’Connell (New York: Paulist, 1988), 139-48. • Madden, P. J., Jesus’ Walking on the Sea: An Investigation of the Origin of the Narrative Account (BZNW 81. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1997). • Malina, B. J., ‘Assessing the Historicity of Jesus’ Walking on the Sea: Insights from Cross-Cultural Social Psychology’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 351-71. • Minde, H. J. van der, ‘Die Überquerung des Jordan oder die Rettung vor den Wassern: Jos. 3,1-17 und Mt 14:22-33’, IKZ 85 (1995), 34-51. • Mora, V., Création, 163-73. • Pilch, J. J., ‘Walking on the Sea’, BiTod 36 (1998), 117-23. • Smit Sibinga, J., ‘Matthew 14.22-33: Text and Composition’, in Textual Criticism, ed. E. J. Epp and G. D. Fee, 15-33. • immes, P. L., Studies in the Biblical Sea-Storm Type-Scene: Convention and Invention (San Francisco: Mellen Research University, 1992), esp. 91-94, 154-78. • Veerkamp, T., ‘Gespenster von Jesus’, TK 23 (2000), 18-31. • Walsh, J. E., ‘Peter and the Ghost’, HPR 93 (1993), 2428. See further at 13:54-58; 14:1-2, 13-21.

An interest in ‘explanations of Jesus’ has been evident since 13:5458, and continues here. e difference is that this time there is neither the inarticulateness of 14:13-21 (for the disciples the experience of the feeding is a building block towards their explanation of Jesus rather than a point of arrival), nor the false answers of 13:54-58; 14:1-2. Aer a false start the disciples here gain a burning conviction that they must worship Jesus as the Son of God. e private prayer of Jesus at the beginning comes as something of a puzzle, but as Matthew’s story continues it will become clear that Jesus’ coming Passion is already being quietly signalled, and thus this piece links with the subtheme of Jesus’ coming rejection, which was also introduced at 13:54-58. A concentric structure seems likely, with vv. 22-23 corresponding to vv. 31-33 as separation and reunion, v. 24 to v. 30 as situations of danger and danger again, and vv. 25-26 to vv. 28-29 as rst miracle and second miracle. V. 27 is in the centre.88 e Markan sequence continues with material parallel to Mk. 6:45-52. Jn. 6:16-21 also has a version of these materials, but there are not signi cant enough links with Matthew’s version (only the use of ‘stadia’ in Mt. 14:24 — but uncertain in the text — and Jn. 6:19 and the use of the root ϕοβ- [‘fear’] in Mt. 14:26 and Jn. 6:19) to suggest a possible second source for Matthew (but that both Mark and Matthew report an unexplained urgent sending off of the disciples opens up the possibility that they may be aware of something of the context offered by Jn. 6:15). ere is signi cant scholarly scepticism about the historicity of Jesus’ walking on the water. As understandable as this is, it comes essentially from larger scholarly values rather than from suspicious features of the material itself. e idea of walking on water is one that presents itself easily to human imagination (a body of water is such a powerful barrier to human progress, yet its surface presents, generally, an appearance of stability and solidity and it holds up boats quite adequately), so it is not surprising that there are plenty of ancient stories of people or gods walking on water. To be able to

pass over water is a divine quality, which when found in humans identi es them as having some kind of kinship with the gods or as gaining access by magic to the power of the gods.89 ere are no stories of Jewish provenance. For our story the OT links explored below are of greater signi cance. For 14:28-31, where Peter comes to prominence, Matthew stands alone. is time the elaborate pattern of repetition of motifs (explored below) could well be treated as placing this material under suspicion of being a Matthean development. ere is no sure way of distinguishing between free Matthean composition and Matthean artistic and theological elaboration of a traditional piece. e partial similarity with Peter coming to Jesus through the water from the boat in Jn. 21:7 is suggestive of some tradition base. Perhaps Matthew has created a symbolic narrative drawing together fragments of tradition and extrapolations from other traditional material on the place of Peter (cf. discussion at 9:27 of the formation of that pericope). A Buddhist text (Jataka 190) tells of a lay brother who on his way to see a master is deep in thought about the Buddha. He arrives at the edge of a river and absentmindedly walks onto the water. But reaching the middle, he becomes aware of the turbulence of the water, his concentration of thought on the Buddha wavers, and he begins to sink. Only a redoubling of his efforts to focus thought on the Buddha keeps him from sinking and enables him to gain the opposite shore. e striking surface similarity of the stories masks a quite different world of deeper values.

14:22 is verse follows closely the wording of Mk. 6:45, the only real changes being to drop the destination (Mark’s Bethsaida is difficult, given that, according to 6:53 and followed by Mt. 14:34, the boat nally lands at Gennesaret) and to change Mark’s ‘the crowd’ to Matthew’s favoured ‘the crowds’.90 ἠνάγκασεν (‘forced/compelled/urged/insisted’) is a strong term not used elsewhere of Jesus (cf. its use in a parable in Lk. 14:23: ‘compel the people to come in’). It has no narrative justi cation in Matthew or Mark.91 But that it ts the demanding situation reported in Jn. 6:14-15 (where the word is not used) is an element

in the case for considering that a separate source with compatible underlying tradition is behind the Johannine version. Matthew may well allow the word to stand because he is aware of more, but decides not to use it for his own story. e embarking here corresponds to the disembarking in Mt. 14:14, but there the focus was sharply on Jesus. at Jesus planned to catch up with his disciples is indicated by his use of ‘go ahead’,92 but we can only conjecture how the disciples might have expected this to happen. With the loss of ‘Bethsaida’ from the phrase ‘to the other side (εἰς τὸ πέραν) to Bethsaida’ the force of εἰς τὸ πέραν becomes vague (lit. ‘to the across’), but it is probably not possible to give it a meaning that can make geographical sense of a journey to Gennesaret from any place in the Matthean frame from which it can be imagined to have started from (see further at v. 34). εἰς τὸ πέραν helps to link this journey by boat to a previous boat journey away from the crowds (8:18). e report of the dismissal picks up on that asked for by the disciples in v. 15, but now the crowds are being sent away no longer hungry. 14:23 e Markan language has changed more here, the main changes emphasising Jesus being alone (‘alone’ and ‘he was there alone’ are both additions — the latter adapted from the following verse in Mark).93 e connection to Mt. 5:1 in ‘he went up a mountain’ is clear, but what the link is meant to achieve is not. But see at 5:1 for the way in which widespread ancient traditions of sacralisation of mountains mean that a mountain setting underlines the importance of the event taking place there. e link may have no further signi cance. Matthew concentrates uses of προσεύχεσθαι (‘pray’) of Jesus in 26:36-42, in Gethsemane, the only other place where Jesus prays alone.94 Is the substance of Jesus’ prayer introduced as a puzzle here, to be clari ed in his coming Passion? e christological focus of the material from 13:54 to 16:20 prepares

for the beginning of the Passion predictions at 16:21 (note already the intimations of the Passion in 13:54-58 and 14:1-12). ‘When it became late’ echoes language from 14:15, probably to link the two episodes yet more closely (see n. 93 for the likely similar role of ‘the crowds’ in vv. 22-23). e repetition is a little awkward chronologically, but perhaps now the time is late, not in relation to the evening meal, but in relation to the time when people normally settled down for the night.95 κατ᾿ ἰδίαν (‘alone’) is another phrase repeated from the previous episode (v. 13). 14:24 Again there is more signi cant verbal change from Mark. e main effect of the changes is to move the focus from the disciples to the boat (cf. 8:24) and to make the whole a description of what was the case, where in Mark it is in part a description of what Jesus saw.96 It may also be signi cant that ‘was in the middle of the sea’ becomes ‘was many stadia away from the land’ (but the reading is uncertain — see ‘Textual Notes’ above): ‘many’ is quite imprecise, but since the centre of the sea would have been between about twenty-two and forty stadia — a stadion was about 600 feet — from the shore (depending on direction),97 the language may have been chosen to allow for all the journeying to be in the northwestern segment of the sea (but ‘in the middle’ may already be being used more loosely of being about halfway along the trajectory of the journey). e distance of the boat from where Jesus was should be seen rst in relation to Jesus’ intention of catching up with the disciples (they have gotten far ahead of him now), but then in relation to the distressed situation of the boat (the boat could not easily be brought to shore for safety). In addition to being part of the change of focus from the disciples to the boat, the change from Mark’s ‘straining (βασανιζομένους) in the rowing’ to ‘battered (βασανιζόμενον) by the waves’ heightens the sense of danger and provides an echo of

the previous experience of a storm on the sea in 8:23-27. But the use of βασανίζειν (lit. ‘torture’) may suggest that human suffering is not far from sight: readers are invited to think in terms of their own experiences of being buffeted by life. With the loss of αὐτοῖς from Mark’s phrase ἐναντίος αὐτοῖς (‘against them’), ἐναντίος must take a slightly different sense. It is not now that the disciples must row against a headwind but rather that, in a sense not de ned by the phrase itself, the wind was contrary (the wind had produced the waves). 14:25 Apart from the omission of καὶ ἤθελεν παρελθεῖν αὐτούς (lit. ‘and he was wishing to pass them’), which modern scholarship has also struggled to understand, Matthew’s changes from Mark are only stylistic.98 e fourth watch of the night is approximately 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. We are probably to understand that Jesus spent most of the night in prayer before coming to the disciples (not that walking the many stadia across the water took up the time). As the last watch of the night, the fourth watch may involve the symbolism of likening Jesus’ approach to that of the dawn. As in 8:27 the action of Jesus is intended to create echoes for the reader of OT texts in which the action is distinctly that of God.99 e coming of Jesus across the sea is in response to the neediness of the disciples in the boat (it is also how he catches up with them), but an interlude is to be opened up between Jesus’ arrival and his dealing with the problem of the storm. 14:26 Matthew’s contribution here is to add ‘the disciples’, to change ‘it is a ghost’ from opinion to speech (ἔδοξαν [‘they thought’] becomes λέγοντες [‘saying’]), and to reduce Mark’s two ‘seeing’ statements to one by drawing ἐταράχθησαν (‘they were terri ed’) back into the rst and dropping the remainder of Mark’s second statement. In minor compensation ἀπὸ τοῦ ϕόβου (‘from fear’) is added to underline further the sense of terror. at the

disciples can see Jesus suggests the end rather than the beginning of the fourth watch. In the NT ϕαντασμά appears only here and in the Markan parallel, and in the LXX only at Wis. 17:14 (ET v. 15). It means ‘apparition’ or ‘ghost’ (in the Wisdom text NRSV translates ‘spectres’). rough the spray and in the gloom of early dawn the approaching gure could well look rather surreal; and walking on the water may seem to t better with a oating spirit than a eshand-blood human gure. An apparition that looked like Jesus, coming towards the disciples as their lives were under threat from the sea, might seem to be a perverse counterpart to Jesus, a ruler of the waves who, in a parody of the role taken by Jesus in 8:26-27, would orchestrate the waves to bring to success their destructive purposes.100 ough the elements of a theophany are present, the prominence given to misunderstanding means that the fear of the disciples can be seen only as appropriate fear in the face of a theophany to the extent that their fear is a reaction to the supernatural, which they have sensed the presence of but misunderstood. 14:27 e Matthean changes are only stylistic.101 Jesus’ response is immediate: his presence has provoked a crisis, and he moves to deal with it at once. In 9:2, 22 already, Jesus has called on people in need to take heart, and gone on to deal with their needs. We can expect the same here. While an echo of the divine selfnaming of the OT is possible,102 in the context the emphatic ἐγώ (‘I’) in ἐγώ εἰμι (lit. ‘I am’) is sufficiently accounted for by the need for Jesus to identify himself as himself, over against the possibility that the disciples are encountering a parodying spirit (but perhaps ἐγώ εἰμι takes both roles simultaneously). Jesus will again seek to dispel fear at his presence in 17:7; 28:10, and the angel in 28:5 will

act similarly. e reassuring ‘Do not be afraid’ is part of the pattern of a divine visitation.103 14:28 For vv. 28-31 Matthew is alone. is is the rst time that he brings Peter to the fore in his story, though such a role has been prepared for in 4:18 (Peter is one of the rst pair called to discipleship); 8:14 (for no other disciple is a house mentioned, and family members are identi ed otherwise only for James and John); 10:2 (Peter comes rst in the list). Peter addresses Jesus here as Lord, as the disciples do in 8:25. With its emphatic σύ (‘you’), σὺ εἶ (lit. ‘you are’) echoes Jesus’ ἐγώ εἰμι (lit. ‘I am’). κελεύειν may have been chosen as the command verb to provide an extra link with the earlier stilling of the storm (here to 8:18). Does ‘come to you’ pick up on the language of Jesus’ call in 11:28?104 If there is an echo, then the contrast between the situation in the boat and what Jesus offers ts well. ‘On the waters’ picks up on Jesus ‘walking on the sea’ in v. 25, but with a change from ‘sea’ to ‘waters’ both here and in v. 29. Heil suggests plausibly that the change re ects the relationship between the extended distance covered by Jesus and the much smaller body of water separating Peter from Jesus at the moment of the request.105 Instead of being a victim of the anticipated action of the parodying spirit, Peter asks to participate in Jesus’ mastery over the turbulent waters. 14:29 e response takes up the keyword of the request: ‘Come’. We are to imagine Peter lowering himself over the side of the boat. ough Peter has made the request to be summoned, to act on the call makes its own fresh demands on him. e language of Peter’s request is closely echoed in the report of his coming across the water to Jesus, but this time Matthew employs the verb used for Jesus’ walking on the sea. 14:30 One does not actually see wind, but the language stands for seeing what makes one aware of the wind. e enormity

of the step that Peter has taken strikes him, and fear revives. His attention is once again caught by the threat posed by the wind and waves. His fear functions as a self-ful lling prophecy, and he begins to sink (cf. the way in which the boat began to be engulfed in 8:24). Peter cries out, as they all did in v. 26, but this time it is not simply an expression of fear: he takes up in individual terms the appeal made collectively in 8:25 (‘Lord, save [us]/me’). In Peter’s context the appeal matches that of Ps. 69:1-3. 14:31 As in 14:27, the response of Jesus is immediate. ‘Stretched out his hand’ comes from the repertoire of Jesus’ modes of saving intervention (cf. 8:3). is is Matthew’s only use of ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαι;106 here it means ‘take hold of ’ and probably intends to suggest that Jesus is holding onto one of Peter’s hands in such a way as to keep him from sinking out of sight in the sea. An echo of Ps. 18:15-16 is just possible. Once Jesus has secured Peter against the immediate threat of sinking beneath the waves, he asks his challenging question. It repeats the substance of the question put to the disciples in 8:26 (see there), but the focus has moved from cowardice to doubt. e verb used, διστάζειν (‘to doubt’), will appear again at Mt. 28:17, which suggests that the doubt in view is not swept away by the resurrection but will continue to be an issue in the ongoing life of the church. 14:32 Matthew now rejoins his Markan source, but he has two who need to get into the boat and he drops the idea of Jesus getting in to be ‘with them [the disciples]’.107 e getting up into the boat here corresponds to Peter’s getting down in v. 29. e scene of 8:26 in which Jesus rebuked the winds and sea does not need to be repeated: the forces of nature know their master, and the reader already knows about this. Matthew simply correlates the coming on board with the total dropping of the wind (this would have been

another immediate verbal link with 8:26, but Matthew abbreviated this piece from his parallel to Mk. 4:39). 14:33 Where Mark records the response as astonishment (which, as indicated by the following explanation in terms of not understanding the matters of the loaves of bread and of hearts being hardened, is clearly related to not understanding), Matthew offers his own version of the reaction of the disciples to what they have experienced here. e response here builds on the question posed in 8:27, where the wording of the question has le no doubt for the reader that Jesus acts as God acts (see there). e disciples are now conscious that they are in the presence of God, and they worship. e verb for worship here, προσκυνεῖν, is, as we have seen at 2:2, used repeatedly of Jesus from infancy onwards in a manner which seems designed to blur, in the case of response to Jesus, the distinction between deferential respect and religious worship. Here, in relation to the elements of theophany that have marked the episode, it is clearly the latter, and I have re ected this by translating ‘worshipped’ where elsewhere the translation has been ‘did obeisance’. e form the worship takes is that of a confession of faith: ‘Truly, you are the Son of God’. e worship of the disciples pre gures the worship of the church. ere those who discover, in their experience of being rescued by Jesus, that in Jesus they encounter God, worship God, and Jesus as the Son of God. For Matthew ‘Son of God’ has a varied and expanding sense. As indicated at 3:17, it is sonship as status and relationship which ties together the different strands involved in Matthew’s identi cation of Jesus as the Son of God. At 8:29 an element of supernatural identity becomes clear for this. And at 11:27 a capacity to transmit knowledge of the Father (out of the intimacy of a unique father-son relationship) and to exercise the Father’s authority comes into focus.

Now the language of worship takes us a step further in our exploration.108 e closest language parallel will come in 27:54, when at the point of Jesus’ death the centurion and those with him will say, ‘Truly this [fellow] was the Son of God’. But Matthew will also resume the confession of 14:33 in Peter’s confession at 16:16. 4. General Healing in Gennesaret (14:34-36) they had crossed over, they came ato land at bGennesaret.a 35And when the men of that place recognised him, they sent [word] into all that surrounding district and [had] all those who were sick brought, 36and they appealed cto himc that they might only touch the tassel of his coat. And as many as touched [it] were made completely well. 34When

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. With the omission of εις this becomes ‘to the land of Gennesaret’ in C (L) N f(1), 13 1424 etc. e (lat). b. Γεννησαρ (‘Gennesar’) in D* 700 lat sys, c, p; Γεννησαρατ (‘Gennesarat’) in Dc; Γεννησαρεθ (‘Gennesareth’) in (L) Θ f13 q (sa bo). c-c. Missing from B* 892 etc. q. Given Matthew’s abbreviation of the account, this reading could be original. Bibliography See at 13:54-58; 14:1-2.

Mt. 14:34 brings closure to 14:22-33 but also provides the beginning of the present small unit. From this point the use of the boat, prominent from 14:13, will drop from sight until 15:39. e role of the present unit is to refresh the large-scale healing motif: there is continuity with 14:14, but the concern is also to make a stronger

link back to the foundational description in 4:23-25 and its echo in 8:16. e Markan sequence continues with an abbreviated form of Mk. 6:53-56.

14:34 With some change of word order, the Markan language is repeated, but with lack of mention of the mooring. e language of crossing over and coming to echoes 9:1. Since 9:1 reports the return journey aer that involving the stilling of the storm, the echo probably serves to reinforce the link between the two christologically signi cant journeys. A measure of verbal similarity between Gennesaret here and Gerasenes in 8:28 may be useful to Matthew in a similar way. Gennesaret (Γεννησαρέτ), which outside the NT is Γεννησάρ (‘Gennesar’) in Greek and mostly Ginnosar in Jewish sources,109 refers to a fertile plain of approximately three and a half by one and a half miles on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, a little more than two miles south of Capernaum. e signi cance of the district was such that ‘Lake Gennesaret’ was one of the names given to the Sea of Galilee (Lk. 5:1).110 ere is, however, a likelihood that the name could also have been used of the town (located in the valley) which replaced ancient Chinnereth111 and was about a third of a mile south of the ancient site, and that the name of the valley derives from that of the town. Apart from Nazareth, Gennesaret is the most southerly region in Galilee linked by Matthew to the ministry of Jesus (but the location of Magadan in 15:39 is not known). 14:35 With the loss of reference to the mooring goes Mark’s loss of mention of the disembarking. Matthew abbreviates and recasts Mk. 6:54-56a. Mark envisages an extended period of ministry which he reports in general terms; Matthew is content to report a single occasion of ministry.112 Mark’s general ‘they’

becomes ‘the men of that place’113 (presumably Matthew expects leadership to be exercised by the men). Matthew again drops one of Mark’s uses of ‘immediately’; so recognition of Jesus is no longer claimed as immediate (as in Mk. 6:54). In Mark the language of recognition provides an echo of 6:33, where it prepares the crowd for the feeding of the ve thousand; Matthew’s changes at 14:13 mean that this link is (inadvertently?) lost. We are le to imagine how the people were able to recognise Jesus (presumably some had seen him before). Matthew’s ‘men’ did not themselves rush about (as in Mk. 6:55) but ‘sent [word/messengers]’. Aer ‘that place’, ‘surrounding region’ (περίχωρον) ts better than Mark’s ‘region’ (χώραν).114 καὶ προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ πάντας τοῦς κακῶς ἔχοντας (‘and they [had] brought to him all those who were sick’115) repeats exactly a part of Mt. 4:24, which has been closely echoed already in 8:16: Matthew wants to highlight the way in which this pattern of ministry is repeated from place to place. Matthew also drops Mark’s uses of κράββατος (of a mat on which the sick could be carried) from 9:1-8, but here the loss allows for the bringing of people who were sick but not immobile (note Matthew’s addition of ‘all’ to Mark’s ‘those who were sick’). 14:36 e language is close to that in Mk. 6:56.116 e centurion of 8:5 also ‘appealed’ (using παρακαλεῖν as here) to Jesus. Matthew retains Mark’s interest in echoing the language of the woman with the persistent haemorrhages in Mt. 9:21 (cf. Mk. 5:25):117 the view that contact with Jesus’ clothing can bring healing may be thought to have been strengthened by reports of the woman’s experience; in any case, this increase in con dence will certainly be there for readers of the Gospel; and the reader is invited to expand the present account imaginatively in the light of the earlier healing.

C. Part 2 (15:1-20) 1. What Is It at Really Defiles? (15:1-11) 1en aPharisees

and scribes come to Jesus from Jerusalem and say, 2‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not washb their hands when they eat food.’ 3He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God csaid, “Honour father and mother”, and “the one who speaks evil of father and mother must surely die”. 5But you say, “Whoever says to father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have gained from me is an offering [to God]’d 6eneed not honour their fatherf”. And [in this way] you make void the gword of God for the sake of your tradition. 7Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you when he said, 8his

peopleh honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9in vain do they worship me, teaching teachings which are [but] human commands.’ he called the crowd and said to them, ‘Hear and understand: 11noti what comes into the mouth jdefiles the person, but what goes out of the mouth — kthis jdefiles the person. 10en

TEXTUAL NOTES a. A de nite article is supplied in C L W 0106 33 etc. (cf. Mk. 7:1). e order of ‘Pharisees and scribes’ is reversed to the more usual ‘scribes and Pharisees’ in C L W 0106 etc. lat sys, c, h mae boms. b. Omitted by C3 D L f13 etc., in conformity with the usage in v. 5 (and in agreement with the Markan parallel).

c. ενετειλατο λεγων (‘commanded saying’) in ‫*א‬, 2 C L W 0106 33 etc. f syh, probably to highlight the commandment as one of the Ten. d. Apparently not understanding the custom, ‫ *א‬completes with ουδεν εστιν (‘is nothing’), giving the sense, ‘e gi you would have gained from me is nothing’. e. An opening και is added in K L N W Δ 0106 f13 1424 etc. lat sys, p, h. It must be intended as emphatic. f. Completed with η την μητερα αυτου (‘or their mother’) or similar in C L W Θ Φ 073 0106 33 565 579 700 892 1241 f1 etc. aur (b) c q f ff1 ff2 g1 l vg sys, p, h mae bo. g. νομον (‘law’) in ‫*א‬, 2 C 073 f13 etc.; εντολην (‘commandment’) in L W 0106 f1 33 etc. lat syh. Each of the readings could have produced the others, so the weight of the textual evidence is to be followed. h-h. With extra material from Is. 29:13, εγγιζει μοι ο λαος ουτος τω στοματι αυτων και (‘this people draws near to me with their mouth and’) in C W 0106 (f1)etc. fq syh. i. παν is added by D, giving ‘not everything that comes’ and weakening the statement. j. D has κοινωνει (‘shares’) in both of these places, which allows of no proper sense but has simply confused the verbs. k. e disruptive τουτο (‘this’) is dropped by 1241 etc. a aur e ff1 sa. e clause from here to the end of the verse is missing from f1 bomss (it can be understood as implied from the previous clause). Bibliography Bailey, J. N., ‘Vowing Away the Fih Commandment: Matthew 15:3-6/Mark 7:9-13’, RestQ 42 (2000), 193-209. • Baraclough, R., ‘Being Pharisaic Christians: A Study of Mark 7:10b and Matthew 15:4b’, IBS 22 (2000), 2-25. • Baumgarten, A. I., ‘Korban and the Pharisaic Paradosis’, JANESCU 16 (1984), 5-17. • Baumgarten, A. I., ‘e Pharisaic Paradosis’, HTR 80 (1987), 63-78. • Booth, R. P., Jesus and the Laws of Purity (JSNTSup 13. Sheffield:

JSOT, 1986). • Broer, I., Freiheit, 114-22. • Chilton, B. D., A Feast of Meanings, 13-45. • Collins, R. F., ‘Matthew’s ἐντολαί. Towards an Understanding of the Commandments in the First Gospel’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1325-48, esp. 1331-36. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 25055. • Dobbeler, S. von, ‘Auf der Grenze: Ethos und Identität der matthäischen Gemeinde nach Mt 15,1-20’, BZ 45 (2001), 55-78. • Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Jesus and Ritual Purity’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 251-76. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 217-48. • Fitzpatrick, M., ‘From Ritual Observance to Ethics: e Argument of Mark 7.1-23’, ABR 35 (1987), 22-27. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 15’, SémiotBib 75 (1994), 29-36. • Hübner, H., Gesetz, 176-82. • Hultgren, A. J., Adversaries, 115-19. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 368-71. • Krämer, H., ‘Eine Anmerkung zum Verständnis von Mt 15.6a’, WD 16 (1981), 67-70. • Lie, Tan Giok, ‘Analysis of Jesus’ Teaching Episode within the Framework of the Seven Components of Teaching: Con ict over the Tradition of Ceremonial De lement (Matt 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23)’, Stulos (Bandung) 3 (1995), 83-94. • Lührmann, D., ‘… womit er alle Speisen für rein erklärte (Mk 7.19)’, WD 16 (1981), 71-92. • Malina, B. J., ‘A Con ict Approach to Mark 7’, Forum 4.3 (1988), 3-30. • Marcus, J., ‘Scripture and Tradition in Mark 7’, in Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 177-95. • Murray, G., ‘What De les a Man?’ DR 106 (1988), 297-98. • Neyrey, J., ‘A Symbolic Approach to Mark 7’, Forum 4.3 (1988), 63-91. • Poirier, J. C., ‘Why Did the Pharisees Wash their Hands?’ JJS 47 (1996), 217-33. • Räisänen, H., ‘Zur Herkun von Markus 7.15’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 477-84. • Räisänen, H., ‘Jesus and the Food Laws: Re ections on Mark 7.15’, JSNT 16 (1982), 79-100. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 154-66. • Ronen, Y., ‘Mark 7:1-23 — “Traditions of the Elders”’, Immanuel 12 (1981), 44-54. • Salyer, G., ‘Rhetoric, Purity, and Play: Aspects of Mark 7:1-23’, Semeia 64 (1993), 13969. • Sigal, P., ‘Aspects of Mark Pointing to Matthean Priority’, in Studies, ed. W. R. Farmer, 185-208, esp. 195-205. • Slusser, M., ‘e Corban Passages in Patristic Exegesis’, in Diakonia. FS R. T. Meyer, ed. T. Halton and J. P. Williman (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1986), 101-7. • Smend, R. and Luz, U., Gesetz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1981). • Svartvik, J., Mark and Mission: Mk 7:1-23 in Its Narrative and Historical Contexts (ConBNT 32. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2000). • urston, A.,

Knowing Her Place, 25-32. • Vouga, F., Jésus et la loi, 68-88. • Wong, K.-C., Interkulturelle, 82-86.

Since the Markan materials at this point offer nothing to the dominant christological theme of Matthew’s section, he will use vv. 12-14 to follow, which he adds to the Markan material, in order to link vv. 1-20 more clearly to the rejection subtheme introduced at 13:54-58. ere is a sharp parting of the ways between the Pharisaic vision of extending the boundaries of obedience to God through a focus on ritual purity and Jesus’ own focus on an abundant righteousness whose wellsprings come from within. e Sadducees will join the Pharisees in 16:1-12 as people with a programme antithetical to that of Jesus. e Markan sequence continues with Matthew’s equivalent to Mk. 7:1-15. Despite an attempt to defend the Matthean form as more original (it is more Jewish and perhaps closer to the views of the historical Jesus), redaction of the Markan materials adequately accounts for all the distinctive Matthean features. ere is no scholarly consensus on Markan sources or issues of historicity of the various elements. e core material is found in Mk. 7:5, 15. As long as v. 15 is understood in a relative sense (what comes out de les more than what goes in), there is no reason not to trace it to the historical Jesus (the contrast understood in an absolute sense can hardly be reconciled with Acts 10:14; 11:3). Despite the dating difficulties posed by the need to work from later sources, the interchange is, in the discussion below, given a credible setting in the conscientious forefront of the emergent Pharisaism of Jesus’ time. e material in vv. 9-13 could easily have been separately transmitted. It has all the marks of an inner Jewish argument, and though a development in the early period of the church cannot be ruled out, it ts satisfactorily into the ethical stance of the Jesus of Mt. 5 (but note the attention that Marcus has drawn to the way in which an analogous criticism could have been directed against the Jesus movement for the antifamily strand in its radical

kingdom ethic [see Mk. 1:19-20; 3:31-35; 10:29; Mt. 8:21-22; Lk. 14:26; etc.]118). e material of vv. 6-8 requires some context for transmission. ough it ts well here, there is nothing that strongly anchors it to the present context. e discussion below suggests that a variant Hebrew text underlies the in uence of the LXX on the present wording. e material need not, therefore, have been rst formulated in Greek.

15:1 Matthew’s use of τότε προσέρχονται (‘then [they] come’) strengthens the link with 9:14-17119 by repeating its opening words; there is also a question there which, beginning with διὰ τί (‘why’), asked why the disciples of Jesus fail to engage in a particular piety practice. Perhaps the tie is concerned to help the reader see the material in 15:1-20 as not simply criticism of the scribes and Pharisees, but as concerned to point to Jesus’ agenda for change in connection with the coming of the kingdom of God: the new wine in fresh wineskins implicitly pointed to here is the abundant righteousness called for in 5:20, which is to be greater than that achieved by the scribes and Pharisees.120 e last time Matthew mentioned contact between Jesus and anyone from Jerusalem was 4:25, where people from Jerusalem are included among the great crowds that followed him. e visitors from Jerusalem in chap. 15 anticipate the orientation to the coming Passion in Jerusalem which will emerge at 16:21 and, in connection with the hostile stance against Jesus of 15:12, champion the motif of the rejected prophet that emerged in 13:54-58 and 14:1-12. 15:2 Matthew abbreviates by dropping both the description in Mk. 7:2 of a scene in which the visitors see some of the disciples eating with unwashed hands and Mark’s explanation in vv. 2-4 of what he understands to be Pharisaic and broader Jewish practice. Mark’s explanation is suspected of being slightly muddled: he treats as uniform Jewish practice what may in part, in the time of Jesus,

have been only the practice of the particularly conscientious Pharisees who banded together as ḥaberîm121 in commitment to higher standards than speci ed in the Law in relation to tithes and purity.122 e omission of Mk. 7:2-4 means that Matthew has no need of Mark’s fresh introduction in v. 5 of the Pharisees and the scribes: Matthew’s has his visitors simply ‘come, saying’. e Pharisees have questioned the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples already in 12:2. Matthew adds force to the question by using the positive language of transgression (‘break’) in place of Mark’s negative language of failure (‘not live according to’). e problem practice is rst identi ed in terms of its signi cance as the breaking of the tradition of the elders, and only then is the speci c act in question described. Tradition (Gk. παράδοσις) was very important in all ancient societies, and in none more so than the Jewish. e path of transmission of tradition — here biblical tradition — to the point of present reception is re ected in the language of 5:21 (see there). But the Pharisees also had traditions interpreting and going beyond the Scriptures, to which they attributed great antiquity and binding authority upon all Jews.123 As far as one can tell, though some core elements of this Pharisaic tradition were clear enough, there was never any xed body of agreed and consistent Pharisaic tradition: the tradition was held within an ongoing and somewhat open-ended discussion. Out of this tradition, Pharisaic practice would emerge and Pharisaic scribes would provide judgments for the people, and the people either would or would not take practical notice of these judgments. ough the Pharisees theoretically considered their tradition to be binding on all, they cannot have realistically expected a high level of general compliance, and they were systematically opposed by the alternative views of the Sadducees124 and presumably partly

opposed by the views of the wider movement of Essenes of which the Qumran community was a part.125 e complaint levelled at Jesus is likely to have gained its intensity from a recognition that he, in the same way as the Pharisees saw themselves, represented a focus of renewal within Judaism, and indeed one which in many respects had a kinship with their own. How is it that he could not see the urgency of their priorities? What can it mean that the traditions are ‘the tradition of the elders (τῶν πρεσβυτέρων)’? Elsewhere for Matthew ‘elders’ will mean senior gures in the Jerusalem leadership who will work to have Jesus destroyed ( rst in 16:21). But ‘the elders’ cannot bear quite that meaning here. e phrase ‘tradition of the elders’ has been parallelled only in Jos., Ant. 10.51, where it refers to the tradition invoked by the senior gures who helped to guide the young King Josiah.126 e Matthean phrase could mean the tradition invoked by senior gures (of the Pharisaic movement) within Judaism. But the reference to tradition may take us in another direction. In Heb. 11:2 πρεσβύτεροι means ‘people of the past’. Speci cally the reference is to those who were faithful to God through the generations (Heb. 11:4-40 mentions people from Abel to David by name, along with the prophets and unspeci ed women). e use in the question of Mt. 15:2 may be similar, intending to link the tradition appealed to to a transmission history embracing many past generations of faithful Jews.127 Something of the traditional respect for age and antiquity would be attached to the use. It is no accident that when the Matthean Jesus takes up in response the language of the question, the phrase will become ‘your tradition’ (vv. 3, 6). What the questioners are in fact protesting is that the disciples ‘do not wash their hands when they eat food/bread (ἄρτος, which is

literally bread, but can be used either of food in general or of bread speci cally)’.128 Not from the question itself, but from the part of the response in v. 11, it is clear that the frame of reference for the concern is that of ritual purity. So, how could eating food without washing one’s hands have a bearing on ritual purity? Excursus: e Washing of Hands in Jewish Ritual Purity Before we turn speci cally to the question of how eating with unwashed hands was understood to affect ritual purity, it will be helpful to provide a brief general introduction to Jewish ritual purity. ere are four key ideas. e rst is that the whole ritual system involved is ultimately concerned with marking out the holiness of God over against the lack of holiness which constantly threatens to contaminate humans. e second is that ritual impurity occurs in various grades of reduced seriousness. e third is that the system both identi es states of ritual uncleanness and makes provision for their puri cation. e fourth is that ritual impurity is ‘catching’, but on a less-and-less serious scale; typically the transferred ritual uncleanness is one step less serious than its source. is means that, as seriously as it is taken, ritual contamination is always readily containable and able to be eradicated. e removal of ritual impurity generally involved bathing, not hand washing. e only place in the OT where there is a role for the washing of the hands in relation to ritual purity is Lv. 15:11: in the case of a man with a discharge (probably from his penis; the Hebrew has the euphemism ‘ esh’, which could have a wider reference), ritual uncleanness is conveyed to others by direct or indirect contact (e.g., contact with any place where the man has sat), but rinsing the hands with water blocks the transfer of uncleanness by the touch of the hands. In all other cases the whole body is affected by uncleanness, with no question of separate attention to the hands, and the appropriate cleansing rituals involve the bathing of the whole body. Otherwise there is the provision for the washing of the feet and hands of the priest before entry into the temple;129 the ritual of the elders of a town washing their hands over the body of a slaughtered heifer as a protestation of innocence and a plea for the removal of bloodguilt in the case of an

unsolved murder (Dt. 21:6, 7); and the related washing of the hands in innocence in Pss. 26:6; 73:13.130 However, at a later period ritual uncleanness of the hands was clearly considered separately from ritual uncleanness of the whole body, and uncleanness of the hands and procedures for their ritual puri cation have their own tractate in the Mishnah (m. Yadayim). Booth tracks the likely stages of this development, from washing in the case of contact with known causes of de lement, to a presumption of de lement (b. Šab. 14a explains that the hands are ‘ dgety’), to a conviction that the hands are by de nition de led unless recently washed.131 Arguments, however, in relation to the timing of this development remain indecisive.132As a rst step towards answering our question (how could eating food without washing the hands have a bearing on ritual purity?), we identify as important, therefore, the currency already of the view that, separate from the body, the hands could be ritually impure (and that this impurity could be dealt with by washing). In Jewish thought ritual uncleanness was, however, in no way sinful, except in the case of modes of contracting uncleanness that were speci cally forbidden (e.g., Lv. 12:43). Unless one needed to do something for which ritual cleanliness mattered (like visiting the temple or eating food connected with sacri ce), being in a state of ritual uncleanness was a matter of little import. Other than in a case of uncleanness for which a cleansing ritual was stipulated for a certain time and/or the state of uncleanness was of a high level with the subsequent implications of transfer to others, one could presumably stay in a state of uncleanness for a considerable length of time. As far as one can tell, the Jews viewed uncleanness of the hands similarly: it mattered essentially only in relation to what one might do with the hands (though it is possible that we should be on the lookout for developments towards an intrinsic valuation of the state of ritual purity as something desirable). In fact, the concern of those who questioned Jesus was not with the ritual puri cation of hands as such. e question assumes impurity of the hands, but this becomes a concern only in the context of eating. To be guided again by the answer of Jesus, the implied view of the question is that unclean hands will affect the food (i.e., render it ritually unclean), and this

unclean food will in turn cause the person eating it to become ritually unclean (this time the whole body, and not the hands only). Now that we have seen how hands could be viewed as separately unclean, what remains to be addressed of our question (how could eating food without washing the hands have a bearing on ritual purity?) is the effect on the food of contact with unclean hands, and the effect on the person of the eating of contaminated food. So, under what circumstances did one need to worry about the state of ritual cleanness of the hands? In particular, how would unclean hands have been understood to de le the food one ate? In most cases of uncleanness the hands would be participating in an uncleanness of the whole body and no separate consideration was needed. What is of interest here can only be cases where the body as a whole was considered ritually clean, but the hands not so.133 How much transfer is there in Jewish thinking here between the effect of an unclean body and the effect of unclean hands?134 It seems altogether unlikely that separately unclean hands could have a greater effect than hands which were unclean as part of the uncleanness of the total body. While uncleanness of the body, and therefore most likely uncleanness of the hands, precluded one from eating any kind of holy food (e.g., the Passover meal; see, e.g., Nu. 9:6), it is clear from Dt. 12:15, 22; 15:22 that access to ordinary food was not restricted to those who were ritually clean.135 e question of whether one’s state of uncleanness transferred to the food one (touched as one) ate did not seem to have arisen. Certainly the act of eating the food had no effect on one’s state of purity. However, once we have a situation in which the hands can become separately impure, then it is possible for the question of transfer of uncleanness to the food one is about to eat to be seen in quite a different light. ere is no surviving evidence apart from our Gospel texts of consideration of this precise question, but the likely results of such a reconsideration can be construed from early materials on the capacity of the hands to de le food. e earliest surviving evidence comes from m. Zab. 5:12 in connection with the handling of terumah. Terumah was a term used of produce and esh set apart, in various categories, for consumption by the priests. From the point of being set aside, terumah had a particular sanctity which, according to m. Zab. 5:12, could be rendered invalid in a number of

ways. e one that is of interest here is contact with hands that have not been recently washed.136 Here at least one type of food is affected by contact with unclean hands. e particular sanctity of terumah means that it is likely to have been considered more susceptible to uncleanness than ordinary food. But the application becomes wider at m. Para 8:7, where the judgment is reported that whatever renders terumah invalid also conveys a level of uncleanness to liquids that will transfer uncleanness to whatever the liquids come into contact with.137 e practice of dipping bread at meals makes it likely that even a meal primarily of bread could be affected by such a transfer of uncleanness. In the circles from which the thinking re ected in m. Zab. 5:12; m. Para 8:7 developed, it seems that the unwashed hands would have been thought to convey impurity to the food to be eaten.138 What remains to be considered is the effect of consuming such food. If one’s unclean hands rendered one’s food unclean, did the consumption of this food result in one being rendered ritually unclean? e idea of becoming unclean through the consumption of unclean food does not normally surface since unclean food was not to be eaten (Lv. 11:34 in context). But becoming unclean through the consumption of unclean food is attested in Lv. 11:39-40; 17:15 with reference to eating meat from an animal that has died (rather than being killed for meat). In the Leviticus texts the consumption of such meat is not discouraged; and it is not considered wrong, or even necessarily undesirable, to become unclean in this way; to do so simply carries with it ritual obligations.139 e continuation and expansion of this limited OT notion of becoming unclean through the consumption of unclean food are evidenced at least for a period a little later than that of Jesus for terumah. Zab. 5:12, discussed above, also identi es contact with a person who has eaten ritually unclean food as something which rendered the terumah invalid. Clearly there is a notion here of resultant uncleanness from the consumption of unclean food. is appears to be a category of uncleanness different from the uncleanness that might be conveyed through physical contact with unclean food. Uncleanness resulting from the consumption of unclean food is thought to render one un t for handling terumah. But quite a number of things

rendered one un t for handling terumah, and only if one needed to handle terumah did these things matter. We now know how eating food with unwashed hands could have a bearing on ritual purity. is takes us to the question of what signi cance to give to the uncleanness that resulted from eating unclean food in this particular way. Lv. 11:39-40; 17:15 do not encourage avoidance of the uncleanness that comes from eating meat from an animal that dies.140 By contrast, 11:41-45 insists in the strongest possible way that one avoid the uncleanness that comes from eating meat from forbidden creatures. e situation envisaged in Mt. 15:2 would seem to be much more akin to the former example than to the latter. ose who question Jesus, however, clearly believe that to be rendered ritually unclean by eating ritually unclean food is not what a person who is zealous for God will want to do. Such behaviour may not be being identi ed as positively sinful (but it may be); it is certainly being identi ed as second class before God. Quite apart from the speci c understanding that has emerged of being rendered ritually unclean by consuming food that has become unclean through contact with the uncleanness of one’s own hands, it is easy to see how a zeal for God could lead to the logic of the impurity system being extended: if ritual purity is important for certain holy occasions of ritual encounter with God, then surely God is being more honoured if this state of ritual purity is maintained more generally; if the priest needs to be in a state of ritual purity for carrying out his duties, then surely everyone must show greater piety if they would emulate his state of purity. Such a development is best documented for the Qumran community, with its frequent bathing practice, and for those Pharisees who were ḥaberîm,141 but in varying degrees it was certainly more widespread.142

ose who questioned Jesus based their concerns on a series of assumptions, explored in the excursus above. First, they believed that the hands were subject to their own distinctive ritual de lement and were to be regarded as de led unless very recently washed. Second, they believed that this ritual de lement was such that it transferred to food that one touched in order to eat (probably

assuming that there would be contact between the bread to be eaten and a liquid). ird, they believed that the food thus de led would in turn de le the person eating. Finally, they regarded the resulting de lement of the person as not what seriously pious people would entertain for themselves. What was the perspective of the Matthean Jesus on this matter? 15:3 Matthew reverses the Markan sequence by dealing with the relationship between Pharisaic and scribal tradition and the commandment of God before making use of the quotation from Is. 29:13 (no doubt it made better sense to him to apply the prophecy aer dealing concretely with Jesus’ speci c criticism of Pharisaic and scribal behaviour). e rst response of Jesus can hardly be said to address the question. Instead, he moulds a counterquestion aer the pattern of the question of the Pharisees and scribes.143 ere are two key points here. First there is the reexpression of what the Pharisees and scribes called ‘the tradition of the elders’ as simply ‘your tradition’: Jesus does not allow the dignity claimed for the tradition. Second, he creates an antithesis between ‘the commandment of God’ and (at least certain aspects of) ‘your tradition’. It will become clear in v. 4 that the aspect of ‘their tradition’ which Jesus takes up as being in de ance of the commandment of God is not that which the Pharisees and scribes have themselves brought forward in v. 2. Before he addresses the speci c concern of those who question the behaviour of his disciples, Jesus will make an attack on the general credibility of those who are challenging him. 15:4 Since Jesus has talked of it as the commandment of God in v. 3, Mark’s language ‘Moses said’ becomes ‘God said’. Otherwise Matthew only economises by dropping the personal pronouns linked with ‘father’ and ‘mother’. e speci c commandment of God that Jesus has in mind is honouring one’s father and mother

(Ex. 20:12; Dt. 5:16). Its signi cance is underlined by reference to the sanctions speci ed in Ex. 21:17144 (this verb follows the LXX of 21:16 closely, apart from the omission of pronouns linked with ‘father’ and ‘mother’). 15:5-6 ese verses give the substance of the Markan source but do not follow Mark quite so closely, the major changes being the omission of the Semitic term ‘korban’ (Mk. 7: 11 has ‘korban, which is an offering [to God]’) and the dropping of Mark’s generalising ‘and you do many things like this’.145 Matthew establishes a contrast between what ‘God said’ and what ‘you say’.146 He reports the tradition involved here in such brief compass as to be unintelligible to anyone who was not already aware of it. Matthew assumes his readers will understand, even without Mark’s clue from the use of ‘korban’. Mark’s ‘korban’ (κορβᾶν) is a transliteration into Greek of the Hebrew qrbn, which in the LXX is uniformly translated as δῶρον (‘offering/gi’) and has to do with offerings to God. If it were taken at face value, a natural sense for δῶρον ὃ ἐὰν ἐξ ἐμοῦ ὠϕελήθης (‘whatever you would have gained from me is an offering [to God]’) might be that the normal obligation to provide for aging parents is displaced by giving to God (i.e., to the temple) the resource that would have been used in this way. is is certainly possible. People who wanted to get back at their parents might feel that to lose the money to the temple was a small price to pay to enable them to reduce aging parents to destitution at their time of need. From the Mishnaic tractate Nedarim it is clear, however, that korban was in regular use as a vow formula, and while sometimes dedications of offerings to God were intended, as oen as not the giving to God was not an actual gi but rather a notional forfeit due to God, payable on failure to ful l the vow made. In the cases where a bene t was being denied oneself or another, the force was oen, ‘May it go to God in preference to any bene t from it reaching

me/you’.147 In this context, we should understand that one’s obligation to one’s parents is being evaded by an oath which actually makes no demands at all upon the person. In any case, a legal device involving a vow allows people to sidestep the obligation to care for their parents in their declining years. A Pharisaic tradition directly encouraging the sidestepping of obligations to one’s parents by means of the use of korban vows is highly unlikely. But what is entirely credible is that there was a Pharisaic tradition which elevated the signi cance of vows above that of other duties and in this way opened up the possibility of just such sidestepping. Vows are a very important matter in the OT. We read, for example, in Nu. 30:2, ‘When a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth’ (cf. Dt. 23:23). A father or a husband could cancel the vow of a daughter or wife when it rst came to his knowledge (Nu. 30:314), but otherwise one was to faithfully ful l one’s vows. e developing rabbinic tradition made considerable allowance for illconsidered vows, but the kind of priority given to vows of which Jesus is critical here seems to be still visible in the Mishnaic tradition. M. Ned. 3:4 discusses the use of false vows (and oaths) to murderers, robbers, or tax collectors, speci cally in connection with ownership of what is in danger of being improperly seized. It expresses different views but sympathises especially with vows insisted on by the predators. e School of Shammai allows only for forced oaths, but holds that the terms of the vow need not be met. e School of Hillel allows the victim to take the initiative in making a vow or even offering an oath, but requires that the terms of the vow or oath actually be met. e particular vow offered in illustration is ‘Konam [= korban] be any bene t my wife and children have of me’. For the School of Shammai, if, in the interests of creating the right impression on the predators, the person who was asked to say ‘Konam be any bene t my

wife has of me’ adds the phrase ‘and children’, then the vow is binding with respect to the children. For the School of Hillel the vow is binding in any case.

Matthew follows Mark in taking up the reference to the commandment with the phrase ‘the word of God’ (only here in Matthew). Addressed to Pharisees and scribes with their strong orientation to scripture, ‘you make void the word of God’ is a particularly cutting accusation. Jesus’ rst response says in effect: ‘You complain that my disciples break the tradition of the elders, but I want to complain against you that for the sake of your own tradition you set aside the clear commandment of the word of God’. 15:7 Speci c accusation now gives way to general. Matthew makes ‘hypocrites’ into a form of address (Mark has ‘concerning you hypocrites’) but otherwise stays close to Mark.148 On ‘hypocrite’ see the comments at 6:2. is is the rst time that Jesus addresses people as hypocrites (the singular in 7:5 is not genuine address). He will address a group of disciples of the Pharisees and Herodians as hypocrites in 22:18 (distinctive to Matthew), and in chap. 23 he will address the scribes and Pharisees six times as hypocrites (cf. Lk. 12:56; 13:15). Matthew does not elsewhere use ‘prophesied’ in a citation of Scripture, but ful lment language is pervasive with a related sense (but Matthew reserves ‘ful lled’ for use in the story of Jesus). A natural reading of Is. 29:13, which is about to be quoted, would apply it to Isaiah’s contemporaries, but its preservation in Scripture already suggests an interest in relating it to others as well. 15:8 For this verse the differences of Is. 29:13 from the LXX are quite minor,149 but the LXX closely mirrors the MT. e only change from Mk. 7:6 is a minor reversal of word order to bring it into line with LXX (and MT) word order. e discrepancy between lips and heart does not straightforwardly correlate with the

complaint about korban vows, but the failure to give priority to the Ten Commandments may be considered indicative of a heart out of tune with God. 15:9 is verse also the follows LXX closely, the only difference being a minor change of construction involving the loss of καί and the repositioning of one word (see n. 150 for the possibility that this change results from a correction of the LXX in light of a Hebrew text which is closer to the MT). is time, however, the LXX re ects a different Hebrew text,150 and this difference of text is crucial for the present use. e text is identical to that in Mk. 7:7. ‘Worship me’ reiterates ‘honour me with their lips’ from the previous verse. Pharisaic investment in the worship of God is undeniable; indeed, it is a distinguishing characteristic. But inasmuch as it is wrongly directed, it does not achieve its proper end. ‘Human commandments’ relates to several elements of what precedes: it represents a contrasting evaluation of what Mt. 15:2 calls ‘the tradition of the elders’ and which Jesus prefers to call ‘your tradition’ in vv. 3, 6; it also stands in antithesis to ‘the commandment of God’ in v. 3 and ‘the word of God’ in v. 6. e striking thing about vv. 7-9 is that they reject worship as spurious on the basis of the ethic which is being promulgated: those who commend what God does not commend and fail to commend what he does commend are unable to offer acceptable worship to God. 15:10 Mk. 7:14 is abbreviated: Matthew drops ‘again’ (there is no previous calling of the crowds to link back to); he considers Mark’s ‘me all’ as unnecessarily fulsome and prefers to join ‘hear’ and ‘understand’ as a simple pair (there is a call to avoid the failure of hearing leading to understanding which has marked the crowds in Mt. 13:13, 14, 15). e crowd is probably from the region of Gennesaret (see 14:34-36), but Matthew is unlikely to have any

investment in location at this point. e echo of the use of the hear and understand language in 13:13-15 (and note the indication in 15:15 that v. 11 is thought to be a parable, like those of chap. 13) suggests that the reader is being encouraged to think of a crowd like that of chap. 13. 15:11 Matthew has considerably reformulated Mk. 7:15. e main changes are: Matthew drops Mark’s ‘there is nothing … which’ construction, preferring simply to negate the verb and use an article with the participle to create the subject (the change makes it easier to take the contrast as expressing a comparative evaluation); he drops Mark’s ‘from outside’ (ἔξωθεν — it lacks a balancing counterpart in the second half); in its place he marks direction with ‘into the mouth’ and a balancing ‘out of the mouth’, which displaces Mark’s ‘out of the person’ (Matthew makes the application to food and speech [the Pharisaic use of vows] more direct; inadvertently he has reduced the obscurity which is part of the basis for calling v. 11 a parable in v. 15 and which would keep v. 11 in line with his understanding of parables to the crowds in chap. 13); Mark’s plural form for ‘the things that go out of ’ (τὰ ἐκπορευόμενα) is reduced to a singular (to balance the singular used for ‘what comes into’ [τὸ εἰσερχόμενον]).151 To point to the process of becoming de led, κοινοῦν takes the place of what would be μιαίειν in the LXX. In the LXX κοινοῦν is found only in 4 Macc. 7:6. Beyond Mt. 15 and Mk. 7 it is found in the NT only in Acts and Hebrews.152 κοινοῦν is formed from κοινός, which means common, but it is used in the context of cultic matters to distinguish between what has the purity necessary for the cult and what is only ordinary and therefore de led in relation to the need for cultic purity. For all the texts using κοινοῦν the starting frame of reference is ritual de lement; in the case of κοινός the bounds (but not the imagery) of the Jewish cult are le behind in

Heb. 10:29, where the ‘blood of the [new] covenant’ is being considered/treated as ‘profane’ (κοινός). Something similar is happening here in the relationship between the two halves of the verse. e same movement of meaning is evident for μιαίειν in the LXX (e.g., Je. 3:2; Ez. 36:37).153 As we have partly seen above, the idea that one might be rendered ritually impure on the basis of what one has eaten is extremely rare in the OT. In the case of the consumption of forbidden foods the resulting uncleanness is not just a ritual impurity to be ritually removed but rather an abomination. In the single straightforward case, that of eating from an animal that has died (Lv. 11:39-40; 17:15-16), a speci c ritual restoration is stipulated; but even this case is disallowed by Ex. 22:31; Dt. 14:21. e prospect of becoming ritually impure loomed large in the life of the Jew whose life was regulated by the OT, but becoming unclean through eating was not anticipated.154 Nonetheless, Matthew probably understood the contrasting statements in a relative and not an absolute manner. Already in Mark it is possible to understand the negative statement followed by ἀλλά (‘but’) with a positive contrasting statement in a relative sense: ‘nothing which is outside…as much as what goes out…’. e rhetoric can be that of absolute contrast, but the sense behind the rhetoric can be relative. Similar rhetorical patterns are found in Mk. 9:37 (‘does not receive me, but the one who sent me’) and 13:11 (‘it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit’). Whether Mark took 7:15 in this way is uncertain because of the ‘cleansing all foods’ that he includes at v. 19.155 e similarity to such prophetic texts as Ho. 6:6 is evident,156 and this would not be lost on Matthew, who uses the verse at 9:13; 12:7 and understands what is expressed in the rhetoric of Ho. 6:6 as an absolute contrast intended relatively. Certainly in the ministry of the historical Jesus only a relative contrast is

credible, and Matthew’s Jewish sensibilities would have made him sensitive to this. 2 Ch. 30:18-20 places setting one’s heart to seek God above ritual purity but without any intention of denying the signi cance of the latter. Both Jesus with his disciples and the renewal forces within Pharisaism sought to operate on the cutting edge of contemporary piety. ey were both invested in pushing back the boundaries of the realm within which Jewish people typically identi ed the requirements of their obedience to God. Both sought greater purity for the people of God, but they were pushing for this in different directions. e agenda of Jesus is well articulated in Mt. 5; the Pharisaic agenda is well captured here in Mt. 15, with its focus on extending the bounds of ritual purity. ough Neusner’s speci c focus on Pharisaic adoption for themselves of the temple purity required of a priest needs correction, he captures something important about Pharisaism of the period before A.D. 70 when he says, ‘e dominant trait … was, as depicted both in the rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees and in the gospels, concern for matters of rite, in particular, eating one’s meals in a state of ritual purity as if one were a temple priest’.157 As far as Jesus was concerned, so much de lement in people’s lives was created by the inner life and moral choices that lay behind their words and deeds that to focus one’s energies instead on extending the boundaries of ritual purity was to ddle while Rome burnt. Not what people encounter externally but what they generate from within constitutes the major purity issue. is apparent rejection of issues of ritual purity, in the face of more pressing issues, is akin to the prophetic protest of belittling sacri ce in the face of profound ungodliness of a moral, social or idolatrous kind.158

2. e Pharisees Who Are Blind Guides Took Offence (15:12-14) 12en

the disciples came, and they say to him, ‘Did you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard [your] word[s]?’ 13He answered them, ‘Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted. 14Let athem [be]! ey are blind guides.b cIf a blind [person] guides a blind [person]c, both will fall into a ditch.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. τους τυϕλους (‘the blind’) in D. b. τυϕλων (‘of the blind’) is added in ‫א‬1 C L W Z Θ 0106 f1, 13 33 579 700 892 1241 1424 etc. lat syp, h; it displaces τυϕλοι (‘blind’) in K etc. sys, c. e presence of both τυϕλοι and τυϕλων may be the result of attempting to match the double use of ‘blind’ in the proverbial statement that follows. But the longer reading could be original. c-c. In Θ f13 mae the shape of the syntax is quite different, with εαν οδηγη (‘if [he/she] guides’) displaced by οδηγων σϕαλησεται και, giving ‘A blind [person] guiding a blind [person] will slip/stumble/fall and’. e correction may have been prompted by the displacement of the subject and the object from their clause in the Greek. Bibliography Ebner, M., Jesus, 316-45. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 189-92. See also at 15:1-11.

15:12-14 are Matthew’s key for linking 15:1-20 with the thematic developments he is pursuing through this section. Nothing in 15:120 allows for a tie with the major christological focus, but the materials are more amenable to being linked into the rejection subtheme. Two points are made: the Pharisees as plants not planted by God will be uprooted; and they are not to be looked to for

guidance. e second point provides a more speci c link to Jesus’ warning against the teaching of the Pharisees (and Sadducees) in 16:5-12. While various traditional pieces nd an echo here, the piece appears to be a Matthean formulation, built around an adapted use of a piece of tradition found also in Lk. 6:39.

15:12 Matthew dispenses with Mark’s retreat to the house from the crowd, instead marking the change of scene with the coming of the disciples to Jesus. ere is a close echo of the coming of the Pharisees and scribes in v. 1: the Pharisees have come and spoken about the disciples; the disciples will come and speak about the Pharisees.159 Matthew keeps back the second half of Mk. 7:17 (apart from ‘the disciples’) for aer the conversation about the Pharisees. at the Pharisees took offence provides an echo of Mt. 13:57 and allows Matthew to link 15:1-20 with the rejection theme introduced in 13:54-58. Earlier the Pharisees have made critical judgments of Jesus at 9:34; 12:14, 24. 15:13 For the thought cf. 3:10,160 which is also spoken in relation to the Pharisees (and Sadducees).161 e imagery is that of the removal of weeds or other self-sown plants. ere may be an echo of the zizania in the eld of 13:24-30. Is. 60:21 says of God’s people, ‘ey are the shoot that I planted, the work of my hands’ (cf. 61:3, ‘the planting of the Lord’),162 but Matthew asserts that this is not true of Jesus’ Pharisaic antagonists. God has been ‘your heavenly Father’163 and ‘my Father in heaven’164 a number of times. ‘My heavenly Father’ is restricted to 15:13; 18:35 (another judgment text). 15:14 Matthew adapts a piece that more originally belonged with Sermon on the Mount materials (cf. Lk. 6:39): what was earlier

formulated only at the level of general principle is now pointedly applied to these Pharisees and scribes. e idea of the blind leading the blind is proverbial.165 e question of whose lead to follow is a pressing one for ordinary people who inevitably follow the trail of some set of leaders or other. e challenge of the proverb is to choose wisely those whose lead one is prepared to follow. In Lk. 6:39 the proverb comes in the form of a double question; Matthew, more directly, has an ‘if ’ clause and a ‘then’ clause.166 rough the mediation of the assertion ‘they are blind guides’,167 the proverb supports the directive of Jesus to ‘Let them [be]’. e direction in which these Pharisees would lead is to be disregarded as sure to end in a ditch. Matthew’s insertion of v. 14 prepares for Jesus’ warning against the teaching of the Pharisees (and the Sadducees) in 16:512. Matthew will take up the scribes and Pharisees as blind guides in relation to speci c matters in 23:16-22, 25-26. e pit is more likely to be a non-speci c image of disaster here168 than a speci c image of Sheol as ‘the Pit’,169 but both are possible. 3. Explanation of the ‘Parable’ of What Goes In and What Comes Out (15:15-20) responded to him, ‘Explain athe parable to us’. 16He said, ‘Are you still also without understanding? 17Do you bnot realise that everything that goes into the mouth makes its way into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? 18e things that go out of the mouth ccome out of the heart, and those defile the person. 19For out of the heartc come evil inclinations [and then] acts of murder, adultery, fornication, the, false witness, slander. 20ese are the things that defile the person; to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the person.’ 15Peter

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. ταυτην (‘this’) in C D L W Θ 0106 0281 (f13) 33 etc. lat sy mae could be original since a scribe could well have dropped it to avoid the impression that the material of v. 14 is being commented on. b. ουπω (‘not yet’) in ‫ א‬C L W 0106 0281 f1 etc. f q syh bo, while it follows nicely from ακμην (‘still’) in v. 16, invests a level of signi cance in v. 17 that is probably not warranted in the thought sequence. c-c. Only the rst ‘out of the heart’ survives of this in ‫ *א‬W 33vid boms. e scribe’s eye has jumped from the rst to the second. Bibliography See at 15:1-11.

Mt. 15:15-20 rounds off the integrated materials of vv. 1-20 by offering an explanation of the ‘parable’ in v. 11 and a nal judgment by Jesus on the purity claims implicit in v. 2. In place of the Pharisaic vision of a track of ritual uncleanness that runs from hands (to food) to mouth to person, Jesus offers a track of moral uncleanness to worry about that runs from heart to mouth to person. Matthew rejoins Mark (7:17b-23) aer the extra material used in 15:12-14. In the Gospels some of the explanation of parables offered by Jesus can with more credibility than others be reasonably traced back to the historical Jesus (note the reservations expressed earlier about the explanation in 13:36-43). With respect to 15:15-20 it would be easier to attribute the Matthean form than the Markan to the historical Jesus. In particular the declaration of all foods clean in Mk. 7:19 and the statement in v. 18 that ‘whatever goes into a person from outside cannot de le’ (the latter both in itself and as based on the fact of the passage of food through the stomach and on to the latrine) are hard to match with the historical Jesus. Matthew may have had a parallel second (oral?) tradition, but there is little to offer con dence about this. I note only the surprising use of ϕράζειν (‘ask’) in v. 15 and ἀκμήν (‘still’) in v. 16, which are not found elsewhere in Matthew or even in the rest of the NT,

and χωρεῖν (‘makes its way’) in v. 17, which in the sense found here is restricted to 2 Pet. 3:9, and that since there is a tradition base behind the extra Peter materials in 16:16-20, it may point to the elevation of Peter in 15:15. But this all adds up to a scanty basis on which to build. e fundamental importance of the claim to explanation is that the disciples did not receive the obscure parabolic sayings of Jesus in a vacuum: they could be related to his other teaching, his person, and his actions, and one can hardly imagine that he refused to talk about his parables. e scale of survival of speci c explanatory material is another matter altogether.

15:15 Having used the approach of the disciples for another purpose (with the insertion of vv. 12-14), Matthew needs a fresh introduction to move the story on. And since he brought Peter to the fore in his story for the rst time at 14:28 (see there), he has an opportunity here to carry this thread forward before giving Peter the major role in 16:16-19. So he has Peter ask the question attributed to the disciples together in Mk. 7:17. ἄποκριθεις … εἶπεν (‘[he] answered’ earlier, but ‘[he] responded’ here) occurs a third time (cf. Mt. 15:3, 13).170 e construction here is not such a close match as the previous two to each other, but it creates the impression of a set of responses to a developing situation. Mark’s cryptic ‘the parable’ as what the disciples asked becomes ‘Explain (ϕράσον) the parable to us’, the only NT use of ϕράζειν. ‘To us’ marks the involvement of all the disciples despite Matthew’s highlighting of Peter. As discussed at 13:3a, to describe something as a parable is to indicate that it is not to be taken literally but needs to be secondarily related to another (or occasionally a wider) sphere of signi cance. 15:16 For the substance throughout and exactly for the nal four Greek words Matthew follows Mk. 7:18. In Matthew ὁ δὲ εἶπεν always introduces Jesus as the speaker.171 Mark’s οὕτως (‘in this way’) becomes ἀκμήν (‘still’),172 soening the comparison with the

Pharisees and scribes and, along with the coming explanation (vv. 17-20), pointing to the temporary nature of the disciples’ failure to understand (cf. the movement to full understanding in chap. 13 coming to its goal in v. 51). e use of ἀσύνετος (‘without understanding’) follows up on the allusion in 15:10 to the motif of understanding and not understanding as explored in chap. 13 and is thus a reminder of the supreme importance of understanding the thrust of Jesus’ teaching. 15:17 While Matthew repeats much of the Markan language, the changes are quite important. e initial key is the loss of ‘is not able to de le him [or her] because it does not enter into the heart’. is would be to put the matter too strongly for Matthew. In the lapidary language of the ‘parable’ Jesus could use for rhetorical effect a contrast pattern of not one thing but the other. But now that he is explaining, such absoluteness must be given up. e quasianatomical distinction between heart and stomach remains important as pointing to the priority of the one over the other, but Mark’s ‘is not able to de le … because’ seems to say too much. e loss of καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα (lit. ‘cleansing all the foods’) at the end of the verse con rms the dri of Matthew’s thinking here. In line with the changes at v. 11, Mark’s ‘from outside’ goes and ‘into the mouth’ replaces ‘into the person’.173 Matthew retrieves the orphaned ‘into the stomach’ (dropping the ‘but’ that preceded it in Mark) and compensates for the loss of a principal verb by adding χωρεῖ (‘makes its way’).174 In Matthew’s hands v. 17 is largely a foil for vv. 18-19 to follow: our link with the food we eat does not affect us in a central way (enters the stomach) and does not last (is expelled into the latrine). 15:18 Mark’s fresh introduction of speech (ἔλεγεν ὅτι) is dropped, and Matthew moves to the plural for τὰ ἐκπορευόμενα (‘the things that go out’) and for the resumptive ἐκεῖνα (‘those’) in

anticipation of the list that is coming.175 In line with vv. 11 and 17, Matthew has ‘out of the mouth’ for Mark’s ‘out of the person’. As a bridge to v. 19 Matthew adds ἐκ τῆς καρδίας ἐξέρχεται καί (‘come out of the heart and’), creating an extra clause. ἐκπορευόμενα (‘go out’) and ἐξέρχεται (‘come out’) look in opposite directions: things can ‘go out of the mouth’ because they rst ‘come out of the heart’ (to the mouth). e juxtaposition of ‘mouth’ and ‘heart’ creates a cross link to 12:34 (‘out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’). e same close correlation of ‘mouth’ and ‘heart’ is evident in Rom. 10:8-10; 2 Cor. 6:11. e link with the heart is the new thing compared to Mt. 15:11.176 Matthew has already multiply signalled the importance of the heart,177 most recently in the citation of Is. 29:13 in v. 8. As discussed at 5:8, the ‘heart’ locates the core identity of a person, that place from which one feels and thinks and determines one’s actions. What involves the heart is selfevidently of much greater signi cance than what involves only the stomach. A discussion of how the de lement is understood to work is reserved for v. 20, aer the list of actual offences has been considered. 15:19 Matthew drops ἔσωθεν (‘from within’) as he has earlier dropped ἔξωθεν (‘from outside’). He does not reproduce Mark’s clear signalling for the use of οἱ διαλογισμοὶ οἱ κακοί (‘evil inclinations’) as an introductory umbrella category. Matthew drops the articles178 and moves the verb, so that ‘evil inclinations’ could now be just the rst item of a list. Given, however, that the following items are all concrete acts, it is probably best still to treat ‘evil inclinations’ as separate, perhaps ‘evil inclinations [and then out of these] acts of murder …’. Taking ‘evil inclinations’ separately, Matthew has rearranged the Markan list as follows. ‘Acts of murder’ is promoted to rst place (third in Mark) and ‘acts of adultery’ to second (fourth in Mark),

while ‘acts of sexual immorality’ is moved back to third ( rst in Mark). is gives Matthew the order of the rst set of three antitheses in 5:21-32179 (which tends to con rm the likelihood that ‘evil inclinations’ is preliminary to the list). en, ‘acts of the’ is placed fourth (second in Mark), ‘acts of false witness’ h (not in Mark), and ‘acts of slander’180 sixth (tenth in Mark, but in the singular). From Mark’s list, ‘acts of avarice’, ‘deceit’, ‘licentiousness’, ‘an evil eye’, ‘pride’, and ‘folly’ are dropped. Matthew sticks with matters which in Jewish terms would not only be immoral but also criminal, and all his items relate to the Ten Commandments. Two — positions two and three — relate to the adultery commandment, and two — positions ve and six — relate to the false witness commandment (thus two sets of three). is means that he deals with the four Commandments from murder to false witness in the order of the Ten Commandments (honouring of parents, which comes before murder, has been addressed in vv. 3-6). In v. 19 Matthew nally gives up on ‘out of the mouth’, which he has intruded into vv. 11, 17, and 18: only two of the six items on the list can readily be viewed as ‘going out of the mouth’. e others are just as much generated from within, but the mouth is not a necessary mediating organ. 15:20 Matthew drops Mark’s πάντα (‘all’), τὰ πονηρά (‘the evil [things]), and ἐκπορεύεται (‘going out’) as unnecessary, and ἔσωθεν (‘from within’) as in the previous verse. So how does this de lement — the de lement that has been set over against possible de lement from food — work? e discussion at 15:11 has shown how using impure language in relation to immorality has a solid foundation in the OT. Despite the emphasis on the contrast between coming out of and going into, here concrete deeds of evil (in the world ‘out there’) are treated as de ling, not the state of the heart as such. Or at least it is the deeds

which are immediately de ling. Matthew’s rst reference to the heart is to those who are ‘pure in heart’ (5:8). In 15:18 Matthew seems to be following the trail of the transfer of uncleanness from the heart and through the mouth (heading out). is is no doubt meant to be the inverse of the track implicitly identi ed by the Pharisees and scribes as from the hands (to the food) and through the mouth (heading in). Matthew has now provided an image in which the idea of the heart as being pure or impure is linked with that of becoming impure through immoral deeds: people become impure from their immoral deeds as the impurity of the heart ows out (oen via the mouth) to produce the deeds. Presumably the unstated assumption here is that one is in impurity-producing contact with one’s own deeds. Over against the trio of hands, food (via the mouth), and the whole person, related to ritual impurity, is set the trio of heart, deeds (oen via the mouth), and the whole person, related to moral impurity. Starting from de led hands, the Pharisees and scribes thought that the last state was worse than the rst if food was consumed without washing the hands. Starting from a de led heart, the Matthean Jesus suggests that the last state is worse than the rst if the heart, not rst puri ed, is given free rein (in part through the mouth) to allow evil inclinations to mature into violations of the Ten Commandments. From this point we can look back to v. 17 and see more clearly that the role of the contrast of stomach and heart is to make the point that what reaches only the stomach cannot affect the purity of the heart, which is a matter of much more profound importance than is the ritual purity of the body. Now at the very end Matthew creates a direct comment (not in Mark) on the concern of v. 2. He has forcefully set relative priorities between matters relating to ritual purity and matters relating to

moral purity. But what does Jesus think of the speci c matter raised? Quite apart from whether it was a small or a large matter, a practice in disregard of the highest standards of piety or not, were the disciples becoming ritually unclean when they ate with unwashed hands? e answer is a straightforward ‘No’. What the Pharisees and scribes appeal to in v. 2 is implicitly identi ed in v. 3 as based on tradition and not on the commandment of God. And v. 11 has made clear that, in the desire to push back the boundaries of the realm within which Jewish people typically identi ed the requirements of their obedience to God, the Pharisees and scribes were moving in the wrong direction. ey were developing the wrong kinds of traditions. Without in any way intending to disturb the validity of OT concerns with ritual purity, Jesus judges that eating with unwashed hands does not de le.

D. Part 3 (15:21–16:20) 1. Jesus Heals a Canaanite Woman’s Daughter (15:21-28) 21Jesus

went away from there and withdrew to the districts of Tyre and Sidon. 22A woman, a Canaanite, came out from the region and abegan to cry out,a, b saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David. My daughter is possessed badly by a demon.’ 23He did not answer her a word. And his disciples came to him and began to press him, saying, ‘Dismiss her, for she keeps crying out aer us.’ 24[At last] he answered, ‘I was sent only to cthe lost sheep of the house of Israel’. 25She came and dbegan to do obeisance to him,d saying, ‘Lord, help me’. 26He answered, ‘It is not egood to take the children’s bread and throw [it] to the dogs’. 27She said, ‘Yes, Lord, fto be sure,f and the dogs eat from the scraps that fall from the table of their masters’. 28en gJesus answered, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it happen for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed from that [very] hour.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. ‫ *א‬Z 0281 f13 579 1241 etc. have the aorist rather than the imperfect, which would be more natural if it were not for the continuity implied by the disciples’ words in v. 23. e alternative reading could be original. Using the stronger κραυγαζειν rather than κραζειν, C L W 0106 etc. also have the aorist. b. αυτω (‘to him’) is added in K L W Γ Δ 0106 (f1) 565 etc. (lat) syh, with οπισω αυτου (‘aer him’) in D (which anticipates the disciples’ words in v. 23). c. ταυτα (‘these’) in D sys, c, h. d-d. Aorist rather than imperfect in ‫א‬2 C L W 0106 etc. lat mae bo. e. εξεστιν in D it sys, c, giving ‘it is not lawful’.

f-f. Representing γαρ, which is missing from B e sys, p sa boms (as in Mk. 7:28). g. e name is missing from D Γ etc. sys, c samss. Bibliography Aurelius, E., ‘Gottesvolk und Aussenseiter: Eine geheime Beziehung Lukas– Matthäus’, NTS 47 (2001), 428-41. • Baudoz, J.-F., Les miettes de la table: Étude synoptique et socio-religieuse de Mt 15,21-29 et de Mc 7,24-30 (ÉBib nouvelle série 27. Paris: Gabalda, 1995). • Berlis, A., ‘Die Syrophönizierin und Jesus: Die Geschichte einer Annäherung (Mk. 7,24-30)’, IKZ 85 (1995), 16-28. • Brandt, P.-Y., ‘De l’usage de la frontière dans le rencontre Jésus et la Syrophénicienne (Mc 7/24-30)’, ETR 74 (1999), 173-88. • Corley, K. E., Private Women, 165-69. • Dahlen, R. W., ‘e Savior and the Dog: An Exercise in Hearing’, WW 17 (1997), 269-77. • Dannemann, I., Aus dem Rahmen, 77-124. • Dermience, A., ‘La pericope de la Cananéenne (Mt 15,21-28): Rédaction et éologie’, ETL 58 (1982), 25-49. • Derrett, J. D. M., Studies, 1:143-69. • Donaldson, T. L., Mountain, 132-34. • Downing, F. G., ‘e Woman from Syrophoenicia and Her Doggedness: Mark 7.24-31 (Matthew 15.21-28)’, in Women in the Biblical Tradition, ed. G. Brooke (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 1992), 129-40. • Dube Shomanah, M. W., ‘Divining Texts for International Relations: Matt. 15:21-28’, in Transformative, ed. I. R. Kitzberger, 315-28. • Dube, M. W., ‘Readings of Semoya: Batswana Women’s Interpretation of Matt 15:21-28’, Semeia 73 (1996), 111-129. • Duon, F., ‘e Syrophoenician Woman and Her Dogs’, ExpTim 100 (1989), 417. • Feldmeier, R., ‘Die Syrophönizierin (Mk 7:24-30) — Jesu “verlorenes” Streitgespräch?’ in Die Heiden: Juden, Christen und das Problem des Fremden, ed. R. Feldmeier and U. Heckel (WUNT 70. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1994), 211-27. • Focant, C., ‘Mc 7.24-31 par. Mt 15,21-29: Critique des sources et/ou étude narrative’, in Synoptic Gospels, ed. C. Focant, 39-75. • Graue, J. M., ‘A Problem … or a Moonbeam? Sermon Study on Matthew 15:21-28’, LutheolJourn 30 (1996), 75-80. • Guardiola-Sáenz, L. A., ‘Borderless Women and Borderless Texts: A Cultural Reading of Matthew 15:21-28’, Semeia 78 (1997), 69-81. • Gundry-Volf, J., ‘Spirit, Mercy,

and the Other’, TToday 51 (1995), 508-23. • Jackson, G., ‘Have Mercy on Me’: e Story of the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15.21-28 (JSNTSup 228; Copenhagen International Seminar 10. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002). • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic, 131-64. • Levine, A.-J., ‘Matthew’s Advice to a Divided Readership’, in Matthew, ed. D. E. Aune, 22-41. • Leyrer, D. P., ‘Matthew 15:27 — e Canaanite Woman’s Great Faith’, Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 96 (1999), 218-19. • Love, S. L., ‘Jesus, Healer of the Canaanite Woman’s Daughter in Matthew’s Gospel: A Social-Scienti c Inquiry’, BTB 32 (2002), 11-20. • Meier, J. P., ‘Matthew 15:21-28’, Int 40 (1986), 397-402. • Michaud, J.-P. and Daviau, P.-T., ‘Jésus au-delà des frontières de Tyr: Analyse de Marc 7,24-31’, in De Jésus et des femmes: Lectures sémiotiques: Suivres d’un entretien avec A. J. Greimas, A. Chené et al. (Recherches, nouvelle série 14. Montréal/Paris: Bellarmin/Cerf, 1987), 35-57. • Monro, A., ‘Alterity and the Canaanite Woman: A Postmodern Feminist eological Re ection on Political Action’, Colloquium 26 (1994), 32-43. • Mussies, G., ‘Jesus and “Sidon” in Matthew 15/Mark 7’, Bijdragen 58 (1997), 264-78. • Neyrey, J. H., ‘Decision Making in the Early Church: e Case of the Canaanite Woman (Mt 15:21-28)’, ScEs 33 (1981), 373-78. • O’Day, G. R., ‘Surprised by Faith: Jesus and the Canaanite Woman’, Listening 24 (1989), 290-301. • Patte, D., ‘e Canaanite Woman and Jesus: Surprising Models of Discipleship (Matt. 15:21-28)’, in Transformative, ed. I. R. Kitzberger, 33-53. • Pokorný, P., ‘From a Puppy to the Child: Some Problems of Contemporary Biblical Exegesis Demonstrated from Mark 7.24-30/Matt 15.21-28’, NTS 41 (1995), 321-37. • Riches, J. K., Conflicting, 244-46. • Ringe, S. H., ‘A Gentile Woman’s Story’, in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. L. M. Russell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 65-72. • Russell, E. A., ‘e Canaanite Woman and the Gospels (Mt 15.21-8; cf. Mk 7.24-30)’, in Studia Biblica, ed. E. A. Livingstone, 163-200. • Schwarz, G., ‘ΣΥΡΟΦΟΙΝΙΚΙΣΣΑ — ΧΑΝΑΝΑΙΑ (Markus 7.26/Matthäus 15.22)’, NTS 30 (1984), 626-28. • Scott, J. J., ‘Gentiles and the Ministry of Jesus: Further Observations on Matt 10:5-6; 15:21-28’, JETS 33 (1990), 161-69. • Scott, J. M. C., ‘Matthew 15.21-28: A Test-Case for Jesus’ Manners’, JSNT 63 (1996), 21-44. • Steinmetz, F.-J., ‘Jesus bei den Heiden: Aktuelle Überlegungen zur Heilung der Syrophönizierin’, GuL 55 (1982), 177-84. • Stock, A., ‘Jesus and the Lady from Tyre’, Emman 93

(1987), 336-39, 358. • Strube, S. A., ‘Wegen dieses Wortes …’, Feministische und nichtfeministische Exegese im Vergleich am Beispiel der Auslegung zu Mk 7,24-30 (eologische Frauenforschung in Europa 3. Münster: Lit, 2000). • ériault, J.-Y., ‘Le maître maîtrisé! Matthieu 15, 21-28’, in De Jésus et des femmes: Lectures sémiotiques: Suivres d’un entretien avec A. J. Greimas, A. Chené, et al. (Recherches, nouvelle série 14. Montreal/Paris: Bellarmin/Cerf, 1987), 19-34. • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 61-80. • eissen, G., ‘Lokal- und Sozialkolorit in der Geschichte von der syrophönikischen Frau (Mk 7.24-30)’, ZNW 75 (1984), 202-25. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 187-211. • Trunk, D., Heiler, 140-55. • Tsirkin, J. B., ‘Canaan: Phoenicia: Sidon’, AulaOr 19 (2001), 171-279. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 102-18, 217-47. • Woschitz, K. M., ‘Erzähler Glaube: Die Geschichte vom starken Glauben als Geschichte Gottes mit Juden und Heiden’, ZKT 107 (1985), 31932.

In line with the dominant theme throughout this section, Matthew accentuates the christological dimension of this Markan pericope. e explanation of Jesus that emerges here is of a rmly Jewish ‘Son of David’, whose status as Lord is nonetheless recognised in worshipful reverence by even a Canaanite woman. He is ercely protective of Jewish privileges with God, but, to adapt words formulated with respect to the centurion of 8:5-13, when such faith as that of the Canaanite woman is met with in a Gentile, the logic of excluding such a one from help on the basis of Jesus’ exclusive call to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel loses its cogency: to help such a one takes nothing away from Israel. In the chiastic structuring of 14:1–16:20 discussed at 14:1-2, 15:21-28 is the counterpart to 14:34-36 (both healing scenes). Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his equivalent to Mk. 7:24-30. Despite signi cant differences, there is no need to appeal to any further source to explain Mt. 15:21-28, but, as so oen, there is always the possibility that Matthew edits in part under the in uence of other uses of reports of this episode. Matthew is also quite ready to mould fragments of tradition

together, and such could stand behind v. 24 (but if it were to have been transmitted alone, it might only mean that Jesus was sent to the lost sheep rather than to the righteous of Israel). e view that the episode is a layered history of debates in the early church over the admission of Gentiles founders on the failure of the account to resolve such issues. While interesting to the early church from more than one angle, the account is not well designed to serve a well-focussed function there. It is likely to have its basic shape from historical memory.

15:21 Not much of the Markan wording from 7:24 survives.181 As discussed at 14:13, the use of ‘from there’ with ‘withdrew’ ts with a pattern in Matthew in which a verb for moving on is used to point to the itinerant nature of Jesus’ ministry. Here is yet another place for Jesus to take himself, awaiting what God has in store for him there. It is also possible, given that what Jesus hears about in v. 12 may serve as a renewal of the threat of 12:14, that another pattern is also involved, one of withdrawal in the face of a potential danger. e pattern normally involves ‘heard’ being followed by ‘withdrew’,182 but the range is probably widened by Mt. 12:15, which has Jesus withdraw when he becomes aware of a conspiracy to destroy him. If so, 15:21 is likely to belong as well. By τὰ μέρη (lit. ‘the parts’) is probably meant the rural territory controlled by the cities (cf. at 16:15 in connection with Caesarea Philippi). Matthew’s addition of ‘and Sidon’183 provides an echo of 11:21: the Canaanite woman here provides something of a contemporary illustration of the point made there (but with no need of preceding mighty works). e scriptural pairing (see at 11:21) also prepares for Matthew’ s introduction of ‘Canaanite’ in the following verse. 15:22 Again little of Mark survives.184 e emphatic καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’) introduces the woman.185 ‘Canaanite’ displaces Mark’s ‘a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth’ (introduced later in

7:26). e choice of ‘Canaanite’ is archaising, designed to evoke scriptural images of the original inhabitants of Palestine as objects of scorn and enemies of Israel.186 ἐξελθοῦσα (lit. ‘coming out’) has probably been chosen as a counterpart to the masculine equivalent, ἐξελθών, used of Jesus in v. 21. is makes it likely that we should read ‘coming out from that region’ (with ‘from there’ in v. 21 parallelling ‘from that region’ here), rather than ‘woman … from that region, coming out’.187 As Jesus comes into the region, she comes out to meet him. ‘Coming out’ followed by ‘cried out, saying’ likely echoes Jesus’ encounter with the Gerasene demoniacs:188 this will now be the third occasion on which Jesus’ ministry impacts Gentiles.189 But there is a yet stronger link with 9:27, where the two blind Jews ‘cry out and say, “Have mercy on us, Son of David”’.190 As with the blind people, the woman’s call for mercy echoes the language of the Psalms, and her confession of faith is a recognition of the saving intervention of the God of Israel through his messiah. is Gentile woman is exhibiting an exemplary Jewish faith, and we will see more. On the address ‘Lord’ see at 7:21; 8:2. is is the rst time Matthew reports a woman as addressing Jesus. Otherwise only the mother of the sons of Zebedee is reported as doing so (20:20-21). Jesus has addressed the needs of people speci cally identi ed as women in 8:14-15; 9:20-22 (and cf. 14:21). Where Mark introduces the situation of the woman in narrative, Matthew makes the language here part of her appeal. Mark’s expression ‘unclean spirit’ survives in Matthew only in the generalising statement in 10:1 and in 12:43 in a parable.191 He prefers the δαιμον- root (sixteen uses). e use of κακῶς (‘badly’) for possession is distinctive: ‘possessed badly by a demon’.192 15:23 ere is no equivalent in Mark. For the idiom ‘he did not answer her a word’ cf. 1 Ki. 18:21; Is. 36:21. e motif of delay

may already be implicit in Mt. 9:28 in relation to the two blind people, but there is no real parallel to this nonresponse by Jesus.193 ‘Only say the word’ in 8:8 provides, in its own way, a comparable moment of suspense in the case of the centurion — he is then le dangling until 8:13. e failure to respond underlines the seriousness from within a Jewish framework of what the woman is calling Jesus to do. We are to understand that it is not at once clear what he ought to do. e disciples entertain no comparable doubts. eir coming to Jesus is modelled on that in 14:15, where they also advise Jesus to send people away.194 ‘Keeps crying out aer us’ is likely to be inspired by the ‘cried out all the more’ of the blind people, to come in 20:31 (cf. Mk. 10:48). Indeed, ‘aer us’ ts the travelling crowd of 20:29 better than it does in 15:23, where the continuing movement of the disciple band is to be imagined only on the basis of this phrase. 15:24 Again, there is no Markan equivalent. Jesus’ response, though provoked by the intrusion of the disciples, is addressed to the woman (addressed to the disciples it would tend to con rm their advice, but the link between v. 23 and 14:15 requires us to regard the intrusion negatively). e restricted scope for the ministry of Jesus asserted in 15:24 is likely to be true to the historical Jesus, but the formulation here is likely to be Matthew’s.195 at said, it is only a context like the present one that would make such a saying credible on the lips of the historical Jesus (otherwise such a restriction would be assumed, not articulated). On the phrase ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ see the comments at 10:6. Elsewhere Jesus is ‘sent’ only in 21:37 in the gure of the son in the parable of the wicked tenants (and cf. 23:37). But there is some relationship with the sayings in which Jesus says he ‘came’.196 15:25 Matthew now rejoins Mark, but the renewed verbal plea is Matthean.197 προσκυνεῖν has been translated above ‘do

obeisance’ (as for the Magi in 2:2), but aer 14:33 the fuller Christian sense, ‘worship’, cannot be far from sight (see discussion at 2:2). e address ‘Lord, Son of David’ is abbreviated to ‘Lord’, and the request for help is represented more simply, but with profound pathos, as ‘help me’.198 15:26 Matthew has used Mk. 7:26 already in v. 22, so he now makes use of Mk. 7:27. Matthew repeats from Mt. 15:24 the introductory, ‘he answered’ (ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν).199 e response becomes, apparently, more absolute with the loss of ‘let the children be fed rst’ from Mk. 7:27. Otherwise (apart from the loss of a linking ‘for’ [γάρ] which loses its role), Matthew reproduces the Markan language.200 is is a harsh statement of Jewish privilege. For ‘the children’ as Israelites cf. Mt. 3:9. e imagery has a solid OT pedigree.201 ‘e children’s food/bread (ἄρτον)’ embraces all the needs of Israel, but an echo of the feeding in 14:13-20 is likely, as well as an anticipation of that coming in 15:32-39. Here (but also pervasively through Matthew’s story) the children are being given bread. e imagery of dogs in the OT is mostly that of scavenging and sometimes predatory wild dogs (see at 7:6), but it also refers to dogs with owners, most likely all working dogs,202 and not pets in the modern sense. ey had a minor place in the extended household and needed to be fed.203 e imagery of 15:26 could involve throwing the children’s food out to the wild dogs, but the imagery is more compact and the transition to v. 27 easier if the reference is to dogs with owners: the dogs will get something, but food for the children has a much higher priority.204 Dogs are thought of as lowly creatures,205 and ‘dog’ easily becomes an image of what is inferior and even contemptible.206 If ‘the children’ here are Israelites, then ‘the dogs’ must be those who are not part of the people of God (but

‘dogs’ is not used as a standard Jewish image of Gentiles, as oen maintained207). e application of the image would seem to be predicated on an awareness that Jesus’ own capacity was limited.208 is perspective cannot be glimpsed very oen in the Gospel material, where there is a much greater investment in identifying the huge scale of Jesus’ achievement. Jesus’ limited capacity is perhaps largely kept from any sense of relevance by the conviction that Jesus achieved all that God intended for him. As with all forms of particularism, the affirmation of Jewish privilege here sits uncomfortably with postmodern sensibilities (or even modern sensibilities!). e woman is not being treated with dignity. We would be deeply offended if a doctor refused to treat a child because the mother was of the wrong race or religion. e biblical tradition, however, while not without sensitivity to such concerns, is committed to a metanarrative that inevitably involves particularity. We do not have to face the full impact of particularity in this story because it has a happy ending. But the initial failure to answer in v. 23 implies that, had the action developed a little differently, there would not have been a happy ending.209 Important questions of theodicy surface here. 15:27 e changes from Mk. 7:28 are not major, but they do shi the focus signi cantly. Since it is the woman who initiates the contact, Matthew restricts the use of ἀποκρίνεσθαι (‘answer/respond’) to Jesus.210 Matthew makes the woman’s affirmation of the sentiment of 15:26 explicit by adding, ‘Yes’. For the third time in Matthew the woman addresses Jesus as ‘Lord’. e force of the γάρ (normally ‘for’) added by Matthew is unusual. In a reply it would normally be a mode of affirmation of what had just been said (‘to be sure/just so’), giving a supporting reason.211 But

here, following a linking καί (‘and’), it introduces what is to be seen as an implication drawn out from what has been affirmed (‘to be sure, and [precisely because it is so]’). Mark’s dogs are ‘under the table’, but Matthew prefers to have the scraps — if ἄρτον in v. 26 is narrowly bread, then ψυχίων will be ‘crumbs’, but if the sense is broader, ψυχίων is best taken as ‘scraps’ (which works better overall) — ‘falling from the table’; and where Mark has ‘the children’s [scraps]’, Matthew has ‘[the table] of their masters (τῶν κυρίων)’. e changes take the imagery even further away from any playing off of children against dogs and make this a matter between dogs and their masters: masters allow dogs the scraps that fall from the meal table.212 e woman accepts that she has no claim to be put on a par with the Jewish people in bene ting from God’s present intervention for the sake of his people, but even the dogs get scraps, and that is all she asks for. is is likely to seem very demeaning to present sensibilities, but not to Matthew and not to the Jewish tradition more broadly. In the biblical materials they saw Gentiles, when bene ciaries of God’s activity, as fringe bene ciaries.213 Mt. 28:19 breaks through, not the sense of Jewish privilege, but the marginality of Gentile involvement. e existence of such Gentiles as this woman prepares the way, but despite the popularity of the view that this is a story about how Jesus changes his mind, the present episode can in no way be represented as this breakthrough. Jesus does not change his mind at all (vv. 24, 26 are in no way retracted, even by implication); what becomes clear to him is what is appropriate in the case of this particular woman. 15:28 Jesus’ response to the woman’s initiative here reaches its culmination and conclusion. ough the substance remains, hardly any of the Markan wording survives.214 Matthew introduces Jesus’ words with the fourth use of ἀποκρίνεσθαι (‘answer/respond’),

which he has added to the Markan account. Jesus’ name has not been used since the opening of the episode in v. 21; Matthew now reintroduces it as the episode moves to closure. e use of ὦ (lit. ‘O’, but not translated above) before ‘woman’ adds intensity to the address.215 Matthew’s rst reference to faith has also been to the faith of a Gentile (the centurion in 8:5-13), where faith is similarly quali ed (‘such faith’ in 8:10; ‘great … faith’ in 15:28).216 is is the only positive reference to faith outside chaps. 8–9. A contrast may be intended with the ‘little faith’ of Peter noted in 14:31. In what is the woman’s great faith displayed? At 9:22 we de ned faith as ‘that state of awareness, receptivity, and readiness for appropriate action which opens one to the working of the powers of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus’. at is true here, but here there is also the thoroughly ‘Jewish’ perspective that the woman brings to her quest. ough not a Jew, this woman exhibits a proper Jewish faith.217 e tie with the faith of the centurion is strengthened by the echo of 8:13, which is closely followed for ‘“Let it happen for you …”. And her daughter was healed from that very hour.’218 ‘As you wish’ takes the place of Mark’s ‘the demon has come out of your daughter’:219 Matthew focusses on the woman’s faith (to which Jesus responds), not on the healing which results. 2. Jesus Heals Many and Impresses the Crowds (15:29-31) 29Jesus

went on from there and came beside the sea of Galilee; and he went up a mountain and sat down there. 30Great crowds came to him, having with them alame, blind, maimed, mutea, and many other [people who were afflicted]. ey cast them at his feet, and he healed them.b 31e result was

that the ccrowd were amazed when they saw mute [people] dspeaking, emaimed whole,e the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they fglorified the God of Israel.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. ese terms come in various orders. e middle two are interchanged in B 0281 etc. samss mae. is produces more natural pairings. e nal two exchange places in P Γ Θ f1, 13 700 etc. f syc, p samss bo, which produces a pattern of one pair around another pair. e fourth comes back to the second position in C K 565 etc. and to the rst position in L W Δ etc.l q vgst, ww syh, both of which produce again the more natural pairings, as does the change in 33 892 1241 etc. aur (ff1) vgcl in which the fourth comes back to the rst position and the rst is moved to the third position. e fourth is missing from D etc. e strongest single reason for the reading adopted is that with its order there is a chiasm: the categories of illness are taken up in reverse order in v. 31. b. παντας (‘all’) is added in D etc. it samss boms. c. Plural, for greater consistency, in B L W etc. lat syc, bomss.

p, h

samss mae

d. ακουοντες (‘hearing’) is found in B Φ etc. e syhmg, conforming it with Mt. 11:5. Both readings are combined in N O Σ. e-e. Missing from ‫ א‬f1 700* 892 etc. lat sys, c bo. Given the repetition of the set from v. 30 in v. 31 otherwise, this is an accidental loss. f. e verb is imperfect in ‫ א‬L M f1 33 579 1241 1424 etc. lat bo. Since there have been inceptive imperfects in vv. 21 and 25, this reading is possible. Bibliography Cousland, J. R. C., ‘e Feeding of the Four ousand Gentiles in Matthew? Matthew 15:29-39 as a Test Case’, NovT 41 (1999), 1-23. • Donaldson, T. L.,

Mountain, 122-35. • Mora, V., Création, 49-57, 175-82. • Schottroff, L., ‘Das geschundene Volk und die Arbeit in der Ernte: Gottes Volk nach dem Matthäusevangelium’, in Mitarbeier der Schöpfung: Bibel und Arbeitswelt, ed. L. and W. Schottroff (Munich: Kaiser, 1983), 149-206, esp. 151-57. • urston, A., Knowing Her Place, 33-42. See also at 14:13-21.

Matthew takes the opportunity to echo many motifs from earlier accounts in 15:29-31 (with a special interest in their christological implications). In view of the chiastic structuring of 14:1–16:20 discussed at 14:1-2, 15:29-31 seems to be the counterpart to 14:2233 (the meeting of the respective needs and the strong positive response are in common). Matthew continues with the Markan sequence, and his only obvious source, beyond those for the various echoes, is Mk. 7:31-37. e commonality between Jn. 6:3 and the distinctive mountain setting of Mt. 15:29 does, however, raise the possibility of a second source. But some interpreters would nd here evidence for Johannine use of Matthew, and it is not difficult to nd redactional reasons for the material.

15:29 Matthew drops the actual healing reported in Mk. 7:3137, but his own material in 15:29-31 shows dependence on features drawn from that text. As in Mk. 7:31, Jesus now comes to ‘the Sea of Galilee’; otherwise Mt. 15:29 is quite different.220 Starting from a minimal Markan skeleton, Matthew appears to have taken the opportunity to formulate an account that draws together phrases and motifs from quite a range of earlier material.221 Presumably this serves to refresh the memory of the reader, to provide a point of integration for disparate materials, and to create the sense that Jesus kept on doing the various things which have been reported earlier. ‘Went on from there and came (μεταβὰς ἐκεῖθεν ἦλθεν)’ echoes Mt. 12:9222 and links to a pattern in Matthew in which a verb for

moving on is used with ‘from there’ to point to the continuing itinerant nature of Jesus’ ministry (see at 14:13). As noted, Mark already had ‘the Sea of Galilee’, but Matthew uses the full phrase, ‘beside (παρά + acc.) the Sea of Galilee’, in only one other place: it takes us back to the call of the shermen (4:18-22), which is the rst episode that Matthew reports of Jesus’ ministry. e only other place where Matthew uses ‘beside the sea’ (without ‘of Galilee’) is 13:1,223 and it also has the ‘sat down’ (ἐκάθητο) of Mt. 15:29 and, in the following verse, the ‘great crowds’ (ὄχλοι πολλοί) of 15:30. e setting evokes the scene of the crowds gathered to Jesus for the parables chapter. ere may even be another relevant thread for ‘beside the sea’. In Mk. 2:13 Jesus ‘came out (ἐξῆλθεν) … beside the sea, and … the crowd came to him (ἤρχεται πρὸς αὐτόν)’. Matthew drops this at 9:9, but perhaps he has not forgotten it. ere are the obvious verbal links with 15:29-30 (‘came [ἦλθεν] beside the sea … the crowds came to him [προσῆλθον αὐτῷ ὄχλοι]’), but perhaps more importantly Mark had used this verse to echo the call of the shermen at the point where he places the call of Levi. Matthew may well have been in uenced by Mark’s technique here. ‘Went up a mountain’ is something that has happened earlier at 5:1, where the crowds are again mentioned and Jesus also sits,224 and in 14:23 where Jesus goes up a mountain to nd solitude. e echo is clearly of 5:1, and thus of the Sermon on the Mount.225 15:30 We have already noted the use of ‘great crowds’ in 13:2; the only other places where Matthew has it are in 4:25, 12:15, and 19:2, yet to come, where in each case ‘and he healed them’ is found in the immediate context, and in 8:1, which also has a mountain. e reader is reminded that with ‘great crowds’ Jesus either teaches or heals.226 In either case he is addressing their needs. e motif of coming to Jesus is particularly concentrated in chaps. 8–9, but it is

pervasive; people individually, in smaller groups, or as huge crowds came to Jesus. ough not in the same language as here, the idea of a crowd having sick people with them is present in 4:24; 14:14, 35, and must be assumed to complete the logic of the cryptic words of 12:15. e list of afflictions, while echoing in a broad sense other lists and other mentions of some of the speci c maladies, has a speci c link only to 11:5, with which it shares mention of the lame, the blind, and the κωϕούς (probably intended by Matthew to cover, as a single affliction, both deafness and muteness — see discussion at 9:32). is tie to 11:5 is made even stronger in 15:31, where the pattern in 11:4-5 of seeing the κωϕοῦς hear/speak, the lame walk, and the blind see is also found. e reader is reminded that in Jesus’ healings the time for the ful lment of the Isaianic promises has dawned. e absence of the Mt. 11:5 reference to the dead and to lepers is understandable, given the present setting, and good news to the poor does not t the healing focus Matthew has chosen for this text. But what of the presence in Mt. 15:30-31 of the ‘maimed’ (κυλλούς)? Does it just make a good aural pair in Greek with χωλούς (‘lame’), much as τυϕλούς makes a good conceptual pair with κωϕούς (deaf/mute)?227 Does Matthew think back to a speci c case of the maimed being made whole, to Mt. 12:13, the only other place where ὑγιές (‘whole’) of 15:31 occurs? Or has a further OT allusion been brought in? In Zc. 11:16 the disastrous shepherd is described as one who ‘does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy’. In Mt. 15:32 to come, the compassion language will recall for the reader the shepherd language of 9:36, recently refreshed by 15:24.228 Only ‘heal’ and ‘maimed’ from Zc. 11:16 are present in Mt. 15:30-31,229 but two of the other phrases in Zechariah are of uncertain meaning

in the Hebrew (‘seek the wandering’;230 ‘nourish the healthy’231). ‘Care for the perishing’ (along with ‘seek the wandering’, if that is what is intended) ts well with the three Matthean uses of ἀπολλύναι, 8:25; 10:6; 15:24 (the last two with sheep imagery), all used in connection with perishing or being lost, while ‘nourish the healthy’, if that is what is intended, ts the feeding which is immediately to follow the healings. And Matthew will make use of the related Zc. 13:7 for Jesus as shepherd in 26:31. e allusion to Zc. 11:16 points to the provision in Jesus of a thoroughly adequate shepherd for God’s people. Aer the listed items that make the speci c points Matthew is interested in here, he extends the list inde nitely with ‘and many others’, that is, many whose afflictions were of other kinds. ῥίπτειν (lit. ‘throw’) is an odd verb to choose to indicate the placing of the afflicted before Jesus. It is used in connection with the needy sheep of 9:36 (see discussion there), which is likely to be why it is used here.232 ‘At the feet’ is not found elsewhere in Matthew, but is found four times in Luke.233 In Mark being at (πρός rather than Matthew’s παρά) the feet of Jesus denotes submission to him (Mk. 5:22; 7:25), but Matthew does not take up this feature. It may, however, have coloured the present choice of language.234 ‘And he healed them’ is discussed above; it always belongs with ‘great crowds’, except in 21:14. 15:31 is verse has largely been discussed with v. 30. e use of the singular this time for ‘the crowd’ (and without ‘great’) is probably a memory of Mk. 7:33.235 θαυμάσαι (‘marvelled’) replaces the ὑπερπερισσῶς ἐξεπλήσσοντο (‘were astounded beyond measure’) of Mk. 7:37.236 e categories of illness of Mt. 15:30 are now taken up in reverse order, creating another minor chiasm. Mark’s ‘saying, “he has done all things well”’, now becomes ‘they

glori ed the God of Israel’. Some echo of 9:8 is likely, where ‘the crowds… glori ed God, who had given such authority to humans’. But the phrase here in 15:31, ‘the God of Israel’, has a focus on Israel not evident in the earlier text. e phrase ‘the God of Israel’ is oen assumed to be more tting on Gentile lips than on Jewish ones. It has, however, recently been carefully studied by Cousland,237 who argues convincingly that it is (not just in Matthew, but also in Luke) an internal Jewish usage evoking salvation history, with its focus on God’s involvement with Israel as well as Israel’s cultic response to this. Matthew’s use, Cousland argues (p. 19), ‘is a deliberate Hebraism included in the gospel narrative to suggest that Jesus’ healings and feeding are seen by the multitudes as an aspect of Yahweh’s covenantal care for them.’ Since Matthew has ‘Israel’ twelve times to Mark’s two, this is normally and rightly seen as part of the Jewishness of the work. Apart from the present verse the narrator uses the term only in 2:21, where it is immediately picked up from the words of the angel. Otherwise the term is always on the lips of Jesus, in a quotation of Scripture, or on the lips of a Jewish character in the story. Of particular relevance is 9:33 (also distinctive to Matthew), where ‘the crowds marvelled (θαυμάζειν, as in 15:31), saying, “Nothing like this has ever happened in Israel”’. ere has been a unique development in salvation history. As we have seen, this is already the point of the connection between 15:3031 and 11:5. 3. Jesus Feeds the Four ousand (15:32-39) 32Jesus

called his disciples and said, ‘I have compassion on the crowd because they have stayed with me athree days balready and have nothing to eat; and I don’t want to dismiss them hungry, cjust in case they give out on the wayc’. 33e disciples say to him, ‘From where are we to get enough bread in

the wilderness to satisfy so large a crowd?’ 34And Jesus says to them, ‘How many [loaves of] bread do you have?’ ey said, ‘Seven, and a few little fish’. 35So, dhaving commandedd the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36ehe tooke the seven loaves and the fish fand, having given thanks [to God], he broke [them] and fbegan to giveg [them] to hthe disciples, and the disciples to the icrowds. 37All ate and were satisfied; and they took up what was le over of the broken pieces, seven full baskets. 38And those who ate were jfour thousand men, besides kwomen and children.k 39en he dismissed the crowds, stepped into the boat, and came into the region of lMagadan.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e time expression is in the nominative, which is unusual. ‫ א‬Q f13 1241 1424 etc. correct to the accusative; D adds εισιν και, which justi es the nominative and gives, ‘ere have already been three days, and they stay with me’. b. Missing from B etc. l, it plays only an emphasising role. c-c. Omitted in D*, perhaps from homoioteleuton. d-d. εκελευσε (‘he directed’), with the then necessary και (‘and’) before the next verb, is substituted in C L W 700 (892c) etc. lat sy. e verb is that in 14:18, but there the participle is used. e-e. λαβων (‘having taken’) in C L W etc. lat syh, as in 14:19. f. Missing from C2 L* W etc. f ff1 syh, as in 14:19. g-g. Aorist εδωκεν (‘gave’) in C L W f1 etc., as in 14:19. h. αυτου (‘his’) is added in C L W etc. lat sy, as in Mk. 8:6. i. Singular in C D W Θ etc. lat syh samss mae, as in Mk. 8:6. j. e approximating ως or ωσει (‘about’) is added in ‫ א‬B Θ f13 33 579 1241 etc. ως is found in Mk. 8:6, and ωσει in Mt. 14:21. But given the quite different texts involved here, one or the other form might be original.

k-k. e order of ‘women’ and ‘children’ is reversed in ‫ א‬D (Θ f1) 579 lat syc sa bo (cf. at 14:21). l. Μαγδαλα (‘Magdala’) in L Θ f1, 13 etc. syh; Μαγδαλαν (‘Magdalan’) in C N W 33 565 579 etc. q mae (bo); Μαγεδαν (‘Magedan’) in ‫א‬2 lat (sa). Bibliography Seybold, K., ‘Dalmanutha (Mk 8,10)’, ZDPV 116 (2000), 42-48. See also at 15:29-31 and at 14:13-21.

is second feeding account reiterates the substance of the earlier feeding in 14:15-21, again with an interest in its christological focus. In the chiastic structuring of 14:1–16:20 discussed at 14:1-2, 15:3239 is the counterpart to the earlier feeding. On questions of transmission and historicity see the comments at 14:13-21.

15:32 By omitting Mark’s transitional material, Matthew makes it quite clear that Jesus is dealing with the same crowd on the same occasion.238 Otherwise he follows Mark fairly closely in this verse.239 e account of this feeding is largely an abbreviated variant of the account of the feeding of the ve thousand. Despite the greater detail and some fresh development, this is in many ways more of the same technique we have seen in vv. 29-31.240 is time the disciples are called rather than coming of their own accord, and this time Jesus, not the disciples, draws attention to the problem. e motif of compassion, which in the earlier account was linked with the healing (14:14), is now linked with the feeding. ‘ree days’ is a new feature.241 It invites questions about why the people have needed to stay so long (already an issue in 14:15, but more so here) and how they have managed thus far. ey must be imagined as having lived rough for the three days and perhaps as having

totally foregone food in the fervour of the occasion.242 In Mark τί ϕάγωσιν (lit. ‘what they might eat’) is repeated from the earlier feeding account (on the lips of the disciples the rst time), but with Matthew’s reformulation in 14:15 the link is lost. However, the echo in ‘I do not want to dismiss them’ of the disciples’ suggestion in the earlier account is evident.243 Jesus is worried that in the anticlimax of making the journey home the food deprivation will take its toll. More is at stake than in the earlier feeding, which envisages only the missing of an evening meal. 15:33 Since the disciples’ comment is not an answer, Matthew replaces ἀπεκρίθησαν (‘answered’) with λέγουσιν (‘say’)244 and drops ‘his’ from ‘his disciples’. He also reformulates the disciples’ question. Since Jesus has already rejected the option of sending the crowds away, food has to be obtained from somewhere. Matthew gives up Mark’s impersonal πόθεν … δυνήσεταί τις (lit. ‘from where will one be able’) in favour of the more personal πόθεν ἡμῖν (lit. ‘from where to us’). e last time Jesus had had such an idea he had said to the disciples, ‘You give them [something] to eat’ (14:16). e nature of the problem is further emphasised by Matthew’s introduction of two coordinated uses of τοσοῦτος (‘so much/so large/so many’):245 given so large a crowd, the problem is to produce a correspondingly large quantity of bread. Matthew keeps Mark’s word for ‘wilderness’ (ἐρημία), which in the Gospels is found only here and in Mk. 8:4; the sense is no different from that of the cognate ἔρημος in 14:15 (which is also on the lips of the disciples). e use of ‘satisfy’ (χορτάζειν) reminds the reader of the outcome for the previous hungry crowd (14:20); the situation this time will be the same by 15:37. What are we to make of the disciples asking this question so soon aer their experience in 14:13-21 of what happened with another hungry crowd? It is hard to be sure. But where in Mark the

critical edge of the reporting is obvious, in Matthew the role of the question may be only as a rhetorical device, designed to focus the reader on the scale of the miracle to come. Certainly the disciples consider the need as beyond their own capacity. e appropriateness of another feeding miracle is evident to the reader, who is instructed by the way in which the reports have been shaped to match each other. But we probably need to avoid thinking that in the face of hunger Jesus regularly produced food in a miraculous manner: the disciples’ experience of being with Jesus will have been that arrangements for acquiring food for the group were not at all supernatural. Criticism is, however, still a possibility. 15:34 Mark’s ‘he asked (ἠρώτα — the imperfect) them’ becomes ‘Jesus says to them’: Matthew matches the pattern he used in v. 33.246 Matthew mentions here the sh which turn up belatedly in Mark (8:7), though the question has been only about bread. In Mark this question has its close counterpart in the earlier feeding,247 but Matthew drops the earlier question. In Mt. 14:17, however, the disciples have offered spontaneously the counterpart to what becomes the answer to the question here: ‘Seven [loaves of bread], and a few little sh’ corresponds to ‘ ve loaves [of bread] and two sh’. ἰχθύδιον is a diminutive form: ‘little sh’. Its use emphasises the discrepancy between resource and need. As in the earlier feeding, the resource that the disciples have is foundational for what is to be achieved. Compared to their role in the earlier feeding, the disciples are given a lower pro le, but that is a matter of abbreviation: their role is assumed. 15:35 Matthew closely follows Mark.248 e instrumentality of the disciples is not marked as it was in 14:19 (they are not told to bring the bread, nor are we told that they were to arrange the seating). is time Matthew keeps Mark’s verb for ‘sit down’ (ἀναπεσεῖν), where in 14:19 he substituted ἀνακλιθῆναι, probably

there for syntactical reasons in relation to the role envisaged for the disciples. 15:36 For this verse Matthew has drawn nearly as much on 14:19 as on Mk. 8:6. e change to a participle in Mt. 15:35 necessitates a nite verb for ‘took’ (against both Mt. 14:19 and Mk. 8:6). Again Matthew adds the sh, but now ‘the sh’ — closer to ‘the two sh’ of Mt. 14:19. ‘Having given thanks, he broke and began to give to the disciples’ is identical to Mk. 8:6.249 But apart from a nite verb for a participle (for ‘broke’) and a tense change (imperfect rather than aorist for ‘give’), only εὐχαριστήσας (participle: ‘having given thanks’) for εὐλόγησεν ( nite verb: ‘he said the blessing’) separates this from the wording in Mt. 14:19. And this is not a signi cant difference since ‘say the blessing’ is only a Semitic idiom for ‘give thanks [to God for food]’.250 In Matthew’s account of the Last Supper ‘say the blessing’ will be used of the bread and ‘give thanks’ will be used of the cup (26:26). Mt. 14:19 is closer to the wording of the Last Supper than 15:36 is: the cross reference is in the rst instance to 14:19. ‘e disciples to the crowds’ is identical to 14:19.251 e instrumental role of the disciples is now fully visible again. Having introduced the sh earlier, Matthew can dispense with Mk. 8:7 (and thereby misses the opportunity to match in his account, as Mark does, the correlation with the Last Supper — where two different verbs are used with reference to the respective graces over the bread and over the cup). 15:37 Again Matthew is as much in uenced by the earlier feeding account (14:20) as by the Markan parallel here (8:8). ‘All’ is added to match Mt. 14:20. Mark’s περισεύματα (‘the leovers’) becomes τὸ περισσεῦον (‘what was le over’), and πλήρεις (‘full’) is added to ‘baskets’ for the same reason.252 Before, ve loaves have fed ve thousand; this time seven loaves produce seven baskets of leover broken pieces. Scholars have sometimes given signi cance

to the difference in words (as in Mark) for ‘basket’ in 14:20 and 15:37 (κόϕινος; σπυρίς). But both words seem to be quite general ones for ‘basket’.253 e question what kind of baskets should be imagined is connected with the question where they are to be thought of as coming from. Since a boat is near in v. 39, the suggestion made at 14:20, that the baskets may come from the ( shing) boat, is also relevant here. 15:38 To report the numbers involved, Matthew repeats only ‘were … four thousand’ from his source. Otherwise he bases himself instead on the parallel in 14:21 (however, he does not repeat the language of approximation, and ‘men’ comes later in the word order). 15:39 For the dismissal and the transitional piece that takes Jesus to his next point of encounter, Matthew stays closer to the shape of Mk. 8:9, which already has a goodly number of features to echo Mt. 14:22 (and cf. v. 34);254 however, ‘the crowds’ replaces ‘them’ (to come closer to 14:22), ‘with the disciples’ is dropped (Matthew will bring them into focus separately at 16:5), and the destination is Magadan,255 not Mark’s Dalmanutha (since the location of neither is known, it is not possible to makes suggestions about the motivation for this change).256 ‘e boat’ (rather than ‘a boat’) has no narrative justi cation at this point, but serves as an extra point of parallelism with 14:22.

4. Sign Seekers, Unable to Interpret ‘the Signs of the Times’ (16:14) 1en

the Pharisees and [some] Sadducees came to [him] to test [him] and asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2In response he said to them, ‘aWhen evening comes, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red”. 3And in the morning, “It will be stormy today, for the bsky is red and dark”. You know how to judge the appearance of the sky, but you are not able to [judge] the signs of the times.a 4An evil cand adulterousc generation seeks a sign; no sign shall be given to it, except the sign of Jonahd.’ en he le them and went away.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from ‫ א‬B X Γ f13 etc. sys, c sa mae bopt arm. is could be a later expansion, but since it does not come from Lk. 12:54-56, it keeps Mt. 16:1-4 from being a colourless summary repeat of 13:38-39; and since it includes a plural use of καιρός, which in the Gospels is otherwise found only in Mt. 21:41, it is best seen as authentic. Perhaps the weather images were incomprehensible to a scribe, or he was tripped up by the γεν- beginning shared by the second word of the omitted section and the beginning of the continuation. b. αηρ (‘air’) in D. c-c. Missing from D it. d. του προϕητου (‘the prophet’) is added from 12:39 in C W Θ f1, 13 33 etc. it vgcl sy mae bo. Bibliography Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 16,1-20’, SémiotBib 78 (1995), 35-46. • Hirunima, T., ‘Matthew 16,2b-3’, in New Testament, ed. E. J. Epp and G. D. Fee, 35-45. •

März, C.-P., ‘Lk 12,54b-56 par Mt 16,2b.3 und die akoluthie der Redequelle’, SNTU 11 (1986), 83-96. • Perrin, L., ‘Interpréter, c’est recevoir un “plus”: la révélation et la liation: Une lecture de Mt 16,1-20’, SémiotBib 55 (1989), 1928. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 166-72. • Sellew, P., ‘Reconstruction of Q 12:33-59’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 617-68. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 250-58. See further at 12:38-42.

e main role of 16:1-4 is as an introduction to vv. 5-12. In the chiastic arrangement of 14:1–16:20, discussed at 14:1-2, 16:1-12 seem to be pre xed to vv. 13-20, much as 14:3-12 are appended to vv. 1-2. e concerns of 12:38-42 are reex-pressed in a variant form, which both abbreviates and adds fresh notes. Coupled now with the Sadducees, the Pharisees speak as representatives of an ‘evil and adulterous generation’ which will not bring to bear on what is happening in front of them the powers of discernment so readily applied to everyday matters. Matthew continues to follow the Markan sequence (cf. Mk. 8:11-13), but he also draws in a second tradition for 16:2b-3 (if original) which is parallelled, but with considerable differences, in Lk. 12:54-56. Matthew is also in uenced by material parallelled in Lk. 11:29. He has already used the Lk. 11:29(-32) and Mk. 8:11-12 material in 12:38-39; and his rendering in 12:3839 has in uenced how he handles the same materials now in 16:1-4. See also the discussion at 12:38-42.

16:1 Matthew gives up the Markan idea of a trip out to see Jesus (ἐξῆλθον) in favour of a link with the many instances he reports of people coming to Jesus (with προσέρχεσθαι). By introducing Mark’s reference to tempting/testing (πειράζοντες) earlier, Matthew creates a speci c link with the coming to Jesus of the tempter in 4:3, thus suggesting an alignment.

e meaning of πειράζειν moves between ‘tempt’ and ‘test’, and both nuances may be present at once (see at 4:1). e idea of testing involved is oriented not so much towards discovery on the part of the one conducting the test, as towards the showing up of the one tested for what he or she is: the interest is in what is exposed when pressure is applied. In 16:1 this kind of testing, rather than tempting as such, is in view. e test intended probably involves not so much whether Jesus can succeed in providing the requested sign as how he will deal with the challenge of this request. e Pharisees (and scribes) have previously come to Jesus in 15:1; this time it is the Pharisees and Sadducees (the latter, added by Matthew, is a combination he has already used in 3:7 — see there — and will carry forward from here in 16:6, 11, 12). e de nite article before ‘Pharisees’ may be to identify the Pharisaic contingent of the present group with those in 15:1. e Pharisees have previously asked a question of Jesus that was designed to put him in a bad light in 12:10 (ἐπηρώτησαν as here). e request here is to be seen as a renewal of that in 12:38, allowing the reader to predict already the main lines of the outcome. e direct speech of 12:38 gives way to indirect; ‘we wish to see’ becomes ‘to show them’; and this time the sign is ‘from heaven’ (as in Mk. 8:11). It is unclear exactly what would count as a sign from heaven. Possibly Matthew’s preference for ἀπό rather than ἐκ (as in Mk. 8:38) for ‘from’ is to avoid ‘from heaven’ being read as a periphrasis for ‘from God’. But even if this is the case, then either a sign emerging from the heavens or a sign coming from the realm of God might be intended. It should not be lost on the reader that both the voice from the cloud in Mt. 17:5 and the voice from heaven in 3:17 (‘heaven’ is singular in 16:1 and plural in 3:17) might be appropriate candidates for such a sign.257

16:2-3 e language introducing the response is exactly that of 12:39,258 and aer the oblique response in 16:2-3 the more pointed response in v. 4 will repeat exactly that in 12:39, except that the nal words, ‘the prophet’, are missing and there is nothing corresponding to v. 40. Luke’s illustrations of weather prediction in the parallel in 12:54-55 are different from what is found here in Matthew.259 e Lukan images t a Palestinian context where a cloud in the west comes off the Mediterranean and carries moisture with it; wind from the south comes from the hot desert. Matthew’s sequence, evening and then morning, corresponds to the Jewish pattern of beginning the day in the evening. e Matthean images must correspond to some received folk wisdom, but as far as I am aware, neither the link between a red,260 evening sky (presumably looking west) and fair weather,261 nor that between a red morning sky (presumably looking east) and stormy weather,262 has been given a satisfactory explanation.263 e added στυγνάζων (‘being gloomy/dark/sad’)264 in the latter illustration helps, with its suggestion of the darkness of clouds heavy with water; and perhaps this must carry the main weight265 (if in the evening no darkness is showing in the clouds, then the light cloud responsible for the sunset will not build up enough overnight to do anything other than burn off in the new day). Jesus talks about weather prediction to draw a contrast. As with some of the parables, there is a challenge to apply in the spiritual realm the degree of wisdom regularly practised in the affairs of ordinary life. Here Matthew’s content is closer to Luke (see Lk. 12:56), but the language is signi cantly different.266 Over against the request for a ‘sign from heaven’ Jesus sets on the one hand his interlocutors’ success in recognising the signi cance of one category

of ‘signs from heaven’ and on the other hand their failure to see that Jesus’ ministry (and the linked ministry of John) are shot through with clues as to the signi cance of the times through which that generation was living.267 e use of ‘times’ (καιρῶν) probably owes something to its use an apocalyptic timetable:268 these are times pregnant with signi cance. As far as Jesus is concerned, the request is otiose and is being made for reasons that have nothing to commend them. 16:4 e wording of the response now joins that of 12:39 (see discussion there — the shorter form here is intended to evoke the fuller form of 12:39-40). As in Mk. 8:13, the scene concludes with Jesus’ departure.269 Since it is the Pharisees and Sadducees who originally came to Jesus, this is a movement of Jesus provoked by his visitors. Jesus will next encounter the Pharisees in 19:3 and the Sadducees in 22:23. e same verb (καταλείπειν) will mark Jesus’ movement away from critical attention in 21:17 (chief priests and scribes). 5. ‘Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’ (16:5-12) 5When

the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring bread. 6Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’. 7ey began to discuss among themselves, saying, a‘We didn’t bring bread’.a 8Knowing [what they were talking about], Jesus said, ‘Why do you discuss among yourselves, [you people of] little faith, that you bdon’t have bread? 9Don’t you understand yet? And don’t you remember the five [loaves of] bread for the five thousand, and how many baskets you took [up]? 10Or the seven [loaves of] bread for the four thousand, and how many baskets you took [up]? 11How is it that you do not understand that I didn’t speak to you about cbread? dBeware of the leaven of the ePharisees and

Sadducees. 12en they understood that he had not said to beware of the leaven of fbread, but of the teaching of the gPharisees and Sadducees.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Or, ‘[is is] because we didn’t bring bread’. 7.

b. C L W f1 33 etc. f sy sa have ελαβετε (‘[didn’t] bring’) to conform to v.

c. ‘Bread’ and ‘[loaves of] bread’ represent the plural throughout, but D W Γ Δ etc. lat syp, h bopt have the singular αρτου here. Williams, ‘Bread’, 33133, notes that Syriac tends to render a Greek plural with a singular; so the Syriac singulars here do not necessarily point to singulars in the underlying Greek text. d. e in nitive προσεχειν replaces the imperative in Dc W etc. syh, giving ‘…it was not about bread that I said to you to beware of …?’ (D lacks ειπον υμιν [‘I said to you’]). e in nitive and imperative readings are combined in C2 33 (892) 1241 etc. (q), giving ‘… I didn’t tell you to beware of bread? Beware of …’. Not using the in nitive, but keeping the nal clause in the question, D* f 1424 etc. lat sy bo (but with ειπον υμιν [‘I said to you’] missing from D a b ff2) construe the sense as ‘I didn’t say, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” about bread’. ere is a slight chance that this construal represents the original sense. e. e order ‘Pharisees’ and ‘Sadducees’ is reversed in 047 etc. g1 mae, probably no more than an accidental inversion. f. Cf. note e. C W etc. c f q syp, h sams bomss have the singular here. ‘Bread’ is missing from D Θ f13 565 etc. a b ff2sys, probably because there is some awkwardness in the compressed language of the phrase ‘leaven of bread’. ‫( *א‬33) 579 ff1 syc deal with the awkwardness by substituting των Φαρισαιων και Σαδδουκαιων (‘of the Pharisees and Sadducees’), but this produces a formal contradiction with the previous verse (and v. 6). g. e order ‘Pharisees’ and ‘Sadducees’ is reversed in B 0281vid, probably as with note e, but given Matthew’s fondness for chiasms, the

reading here could just possibly be original. Bibliography Beck, N. A., ‘Reclaiming a Biblical Text: e Mark 8:14-21 Discussion about the Bread in the Boat’, CBQ 43 (1981), 49-56. • Countryman, W., ‘How Many Baskets Full? Mark 8:14-21 and the Value of the Miracles in Mark’, CBQ 47 (1985), 643-55. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 64-77. • Newman, R. C., ‘Breadmaking with Jesus’, JETS 40 (1997), 1-11. • Williams, P. J., ‘Bread and the Peshitta in Matthew 16:11-12 and 12:4’, NovT 43 (2001), 331-33.

Mt. 16:5-12 is linked closely with vv. 1-4 and warns about the potential for pernicious effects of the point of view adopted by the Pharisees and Sadducees over against Jesus. rough its appeal back to the two feedings, the pericope links with the christological theme of those feedings and thus into the christological focus of the larger section 13:53–16:20. Especially with its tie to 16:1-4 the subtheme of the larger section, the rejection of Jesus, is also plainly evident. Matthew continues with the Markan sequence (cf. Mk. 8:14-21) and, though Lk. 12:1 re ects a version of Mt. 16:6 which is likely to have reached Luke along another track than Mk. 8:15, there is no indication of any source in uence on Matthew beyond his Markan source (it is true that Mt. 16:6 and Lk. 12:1 agree in using προσέχετε [‘beware/take care’]). Because of the strong cross-dependencies with the earlier Markan material of Mk. 8:14-21, it is only for v. 15 that we can have any certainty of a pre-Markan tradition. Nonetheless the difficulties faced by the interpreter in reading Mk. 8:14-21 as a uni ed text suggest the combination of traditional materials.

16:5 Where in Mark the interchange here between Jesus and the disciples takes place in the boat, Matthew places it on shore at the end of the journey.270 Having dropped the disciples from the boat journey statement in 15:39, he freshly introduces them here. at Matthew deals separately here with the movement of Jesus

(16:4; 15:39) and of the disciples (16:5) is curious.271 Are we to understand that Jesus and the disciples travel separately aer the second feeding and that only now they meet again?272 If so, the suggestion of separate travel may be in the interests of freshly evoking the circumstances of the separate travel arrangements of 14:22-25 (also following a feeding).273 But perhaps Matthew’s syntax has been a little slack, and he intends to include Jesus in ἐλθόντες (lit. ‘having come’), though not in the main verb (‘the disciples had forgotten’).274 If so, his movement of ‘disciples’ from 15:39 to 16:5 will have been in the interests of differentiating 16:1-4, as an episode involving Jesus and his antagonists, from vv. 5-12, as an episode involving Jesus and his disciples. e bread which was obviously available and which the disciples had forgotten to bring is some of the bread gathered up aer the feeding. e connection is the stronger for Matthew’s having dropped Mark’s ‘except for one loaf ’ (8:14)275 and counts slightly in favour of separate travel for the disciples (this would allow the link to be more direct). 16:6 e sharp focus on the disciples produced by Matthew’s editing in v. 5 means that he feels the need now to reintroduce Jesus by name. e presence of Jesus is based either on the disciples’ having crossed the lake precisely in order to rejoin Jesus or on the need to understand the departure of Jesus in v. 4 and the journey of the disciples in v. 5 as the same event. Mark’s διεστέλλετο (‘he began to sternly order’ — 8:15) is too strong for Matthew;276 ‘said to them’ is enough. Matthew drops all but one (Mk. 13:5; Mt. 24:4) of Mark’s imperative uses of βλέπετε (lit. ‘see’), preferring προσέχετε (‘beware/take care’). Here the choice of προσέχετε makes a pair that avoids the repetitiveness of Mark’s use of two words for ‘see’ (ὁρᾶτε, βλέπετε).

e reader, like the disciples in the following verse, is initially inclined to join the talk of leaven with the comment in v. 5: the process of making bread begins when the leaven is mixed with the our, along with whatever extra moisture is needed (see at 13:33). But the Pharisees and Sadducees will not have been very obvious sources for bread-making materials. Matthew has prepared for the pairing here in 16:1 (see there).277 However great the antagonisms were that existed between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, what Jesus is warning against is something they share in common.278 e link with 16:1 suggests that it is the approach shown by the Pharisees and Sadducees in vv. 1-4 which will point us towards the identity of the leaven in v. 6. e imagery of leaven is of something proportionately small and therefore able to be thought of as apparently of minor signi cance — so much so that in the early stages its presence in the dough is invisible — which nonetheless over time totally transforms the situation in a manner that will only gradually become evident. is is the negative counterpart to the kingdom as leaven in 13:33. 16:7 Because Matthew tends to avoid ἀλλήλους (‘one another’),279 as found in Mk. 8:16, and prefers ἑαυτούς for both ‘themselves’ and ‘one another’, it is not entirely clear which sense Matthew intends here.280 e use of διαλογίζεσθαι does not help much since it can mean both ‘ponder’ and ‘discuss’. However, the one other case where διαλογίζεσθαι and ἑαυτούς come together in Matthew (21:25), which shares the extended phrase οἱ δὲ διελογίζοντο ἐν ἑαυτοῖς λέγοντες with 16:7, is to be understood interactively (see n. 280). So that is probably to be preferred here also.281 For Mark’s ‘have [bread]’ (ἔχετε), Matthew prefers to repeat the verb of v. 5. e suggestion above of separate travel for Jesus and the disciples would prepare for the talking at cross purposes that

characterises Mt. 16:6-7: Jesus is picking up on his experience in vv. 1-4, not shared by the disciples; the disciples are picking up on their own experience of not bringing and therefore not having bread, to which Jesus has not been a party. 16:8 Whereas Mark can report this whole account without mention of Jesus’ name, Matthew introduces it here for a second time. Perhaps this is to accentuate the signi cance of these words of Jesus. Because of changes at 9:4, Matthew does not have the same broad echo of the interaction of Jesus with the scribes which Mk. 8:16-17 does (cf. 2:8). But Jesus’ discernment and critical intervention surface here as they have in Mt. 9:4; 12:25. Matthew increases the parallel with v. 7 by repeating ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (‘among yourselves’). He makes of this another ‘[you people of] little faith’ statement by adding ὀλιγόπιστοι, thus providing links back to the (doubted) promise of God’s provision of clothing in 6:31, to the cowardice of the disciples when they lost sight in the storm of the reality of the power and presence of their Lord in 8:26, and to the doubting of Peter that caused him to sink into the waves in 14:31. e focus here on lack of bread belongs with this set of inappropriate responses precisely because it also evidences a lack of con dence in God’s provision and care, as now focussed in Jesus. At one level the disciples’ mistake is innocent enough, but at a deeper level it is a sign of continuing misaligned perspectives. 16:9-10 e echoing in Mk. 8:17-18 of the words of Isaiah used at 4:12 (cf. Mt. 13:13-15) is altogether too much for Matthew, who is rather more gentle with the disciples (cf. the loss at Mt. 13:18 of a parallel to Mk. 4:13). So Matthew abbreviates, jumping from Mark’s opening ‘Do you not understand yet?’ straight on to ‘and do you not remember?’282 Matthew continues to abbreviate as he moves away from the dialogue pattern of Mk. 8:19-21 to a set of briefer rhetorical questions. ‘When I broke’ is dropped, and the

Matthean disciples are invited to remember the number of loaves, the size of the crowd, and the amount le over.283 e imagery is of over owing provision from minuscule resources for large numbers of people. Following Mark, the feedings are distinguished by the numbers of loaves, the size of the crowds, and the kinds of receptacles used for the leovers (the number of full receptacles is all that is le to be supplied by the hearers). Losing track of the impulse that guided him there, Matthew does not repeat the ‘besides women and children’ which he added in 14:21; 15:38. 16:11 With such concrete experiences available to them of over owing provision from Jesus, the disciples should not have focussed on lack of food when he spoke to them about leaven. Matthew displaces Mark’s closing ‘Do you not yet comprehend?’ (repeating in summary form the earlier ‘Do you not yet understand or comprehend?’) with a more elaborate climax. He prefers the verb he chose for v. 9 to introduce a clear statement by Jesus that he had not been speaking about bread, expressed in the form of a challenging question: ‘How is it that you do not understand that I didn’t speak to you about bread?’ With this misunderstanding thus eliminated, the Matthean Jesus repeats his initial statement from v. 6,284 creating something of an inclusio. 16:12 To reassure his readers that Jesus’ strategy has been successful (and to make sure that his readers also get the point clearly), Matthew adds an editorial comment to indicate the understanding nally achieved by the disciples. As in the development leading to 13:51, Jesus’ clear explanation contributes to a nal clear understanding, but here the journey to understanding has been more difficult. Another journey to understanding will be described in 17:9-13. Matthew expresses the disciples’ insight by means of the equation ‘leaven’ = ‘teaching’; this

has an evident similarity to the mode of explanation used in 13:3739. ere is a formal tension between the dismissal of the teaching of the Pharisees (and Sadducees) here and a more positive attitude to the didactic role of the Pharisees (and scribes) in 23:2-3.285 But the focus of what is in view in 16:5-12 is given by vv. 1-4, which have in view speci cally that about the beliefs of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees which sets them over against Jesus. Behind that we may reach back to the Pharisaic teaching criticised in 15:3-6. And perhaps we may reach forward to the role in 27:20 of the chief priests and elders (not directly equated with the Sadducees and Pharisees, but likely to represent strongly overlapping categories) in persuading the crowds to provide popular support for the execution of Jesus. Leaven is a good image for the surprising effectiveness of this effort in persuasion over against the background of the consistently positive attitude of the crowds to Jesus up to this point. For a long time, apparently to no effect, the Jewish leaders have been working to undermine Jesus in the eyes of the people, but in the end the leaven takes effect, and the Jewish people shout, ‘Crucify him!’ and ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’ (27:22-23, 25). 6. ‘Simon Peter Said, “You Are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”’ (16:13-20) 13Jesus

came into the district of Caesarea Philippi and began to ask his disciples, ‘Who do people say thata bthe Son of Manb is?’ 14ey said, ‘cSome, “John the Baptist”; others, “Elijah”; others, “Jeremiah or [another] one of the prophets”’. 15He says to them, ‘And you — who do you say that I am?’ 16Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the dliving God’. 17Jesus answered him, ‘Fortunate are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood

has not revealed [this] to you, but my Father in heaven. 18And I say to you, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it. 19I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”’ 20en he eordered the disciples that they tell no one that fhe was the Christ.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. C D L W Θ f1, 13 33 etc. it vgmss sy(s, c) add με (‘me’), giving ‘I [the Son of Man] am’, a natural ‘clari cation’ on the part of a scribe. b-b. e article is missing from D. Probably a scribe is concerned to avoid any impression that John the Baptist or the other gures are being identi ed as ‘the Son of Man’. c. Missing from D W it. d. σωζοντος (‘saving’) in D*; nothing in 1. e. επετιμησεν (lit. ‘rebuked’) in B* D e syc, as in Mk. 8:30. f. ουτος (‘this’) in D Θ q, presumably linking back to the ‘Son of Man’ language in v. 13; Ιησους (‘Jesus’) in ‫א‬2 C (D) W etc. lat syh sams mae bo, probably in uenced by the language of Christian confession (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3). Bibliography Anderson, B. W., ‘e Messiah as the “Son of God” in the Old Testament’, in Christological Perspectives. FS H. K. McArthur, ed. R. F. Berkey and S. A. Edwards (New York: Pilgrim, 1982), 157-69. • Bubar, W. W., ‘Killing Two Birds with One Stone: e Utter De(con)struction of Matthew and His Church’, BibInt 3 (1995), 144-57. • Cangh, J.-M. van and Esbroeck, M. van, ‘La primauté de Pierre (Mt 16.16-19) et son contexte judaïstique’, RTL 11 (1980), 310-24. • Chilton, B. D., ‘Shebna, Eliakim, and the Promise to Peter’, in Targumic Approaches, 63-80. • Claudel, G., La confession de Pierre: Trajectoire d’une péricope évangélique (Ébib, n.s. 10. Paris: Gabalda, 1988). • Fornberg, T., ‘Peter — e High Priest of the New Covenant?’ EAJT 4

(1986), 113-21. • Frankemölle, H., Jahwebund, 155-58, 220-47. • Galot, J., ‘La première profession de foi chrétienne’, EV 97 (1987), 593-99. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 127-62. • Gibson, J. B., Temptations, 212-37. • Goppelt, L., eology, 1:169-72. • Grelot, P., ‘L’origine de Matthieu 16,16-19’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 91-106. • Heil, J. P., Jesus Walking on the Sea: Meaning and Gospel Functions of Matt 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52 and John 6:15b-21 (AnBib 87. Rome: Ponti cal Biblical Institute, 1981), 103-11. • Hengel, M., ‘Jesus, the Messiah of Israel: e Debate about the “Messianic Mission” of Jesus’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 323-49. • Hengel, M., ‘Jesus, the Messiah of Israel: e Debate about the “Messianic Mission” of Jesus’, in Crisis in Christology: Essays in Quest of Resolution, ed. W. R. Farmer (Livonia, MI: Dove, 1995), 217-40. • Klein, H., ‘Das Bekenntnis des Petrus und die Anfänge des Christusglaubens im Urchristentum’, EvT 47 (1987), 176-92. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 81-95. • Kynes, W. L., Christology of Solidarity, 101-17. • Lambrecht, J., ‘“Du bist Petrus”: Mt 16.16-19 und das Papsttum’, SNTU 11 (1986), 5-32. • Manns, F., ‘La Halakah dans l’évangile de Matthieu: Note sure Mt. 16.16-19’, BO 5 (1983), 129-35. • Menken, M., ‘e References to Jeremiah in the Gospel according to Matthew’, ETL 60 (1984), 5-25. • Pesch, R., Simon-Petrus: Geschichte und geschichtliche Bedeutung des ersten Jüngers Jesu Christi (Päpste und Papsttum 15. Stuttgart: Hierselmann, 1980). • Refoulé, F., ‘Le parallèle Matthieu 16/16-17 — Galates 1/15-16 réexaminé’, ETR 67 (1992), 161-75. • Refoulé, F., ‘Review of G. Claudel, La confession de Pierre’, RB 99 (1992), 261-87. • Schenk, W., ‘Das “Matthäusevangelium” als Petrusevangelium’, BZ 27 (1983), 58-80. • Schillebeeckx, E., ‘Problemen rond “Petrus de Steenrots” (Mt 16,16-20)’, in Toekomst voor de Kerk? FS F. Jaarsma (Kampen: Kok, 1985), 91-104. • Schnackenburg, R., ‘Petrus im Matthäusevangelium’, in À cause de l’Évangile, ed. F. Refoulé, 107-25, esp. 120-24. • Viviano, B. T., ‘Peter as the MouthPiece of Jesus (Mt 16:13-20)’, Scripture in Church 29 (1999), 373-82. • Viviano, B. T., ‘Peter as Jesus’ Mouth: Matthew 16:13-20 in the Light of Exodus 4:10-17 and Other Models’, SBLSP 39 (2000), 226-52. • Winkle, R. E., ‘e Jeremiah Model for Jesus in the Temple’, AUSS 24 (1986), 155-72. • Wright, B. G., III, ‘A Previously Unnoticed Greek Variant of Matt 16.14’, JBL 105 (1986), 694-97.

For 16:17(ff.) Baumann, R., Was Christus dem Petrus verheisst: Eine Entdeckung im Urtext von Matthäus 16 (Stein am Rhein: Christiana, 1988). • Baumann, R., ‘La primauté et l’humilité de Pierre: Leur attestation en Mt 16,17-19, dans l’Evangile de Marc et dans la Première Epître de Pierre’, NovVet 66 (1991), 324. • Galot, J., ‘Le pouvoir donné à Pierre’, EV 98 (1988), 33-40. • Grappe, C., D’un Temple à l’autre: Pierre et l’Église primitive de Jérusalem (Études d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 71. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992), 87-115. • Grappe, C., ‘Mt 16,17-19 et le récit de la Passion’, RHPR 72 (1992), 33-40. • Green, H. B., Poet, 126-41. • Luz, U., ‘Das Primatwort Matthäus 16.17-19 aus wirkungsgeschichtlicher Sicht’, NTS 37 (1991), 415-33. • Mathew, P. K., ‘Authority and Discipline: Matt. 16.17 and 18.15-18 and the Exercise of Authority and Discipline in the Matthean Community’, CV 18 (1985), 119-25. • Nickelsburg, G. W. E., ‘Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee’, JBL 100 (1981), 575600. • Robinson, B. P., ‘Peter and His Successors: Tradition and Redaction in Matthew 16:17-19’, JSNT 21 (1984), 85-104. • Vögtle, A., ‘Das Problem der Herkun von “Matthew 16,17-19”’, in Offenbarungsgeschehen und Wirkungsgeschichte: Neutestamentliche Beiträge (Freiburg: Herder, 1985), 109-40. • Wall, R. W., ‘Peter, “Son” of Jonah: e Conversion of Cornelius in the Context of Canon’, JSNT 29 (1987), 73-88. • Wilkins, M. J., Concept of Disciple, 185-98. • Wrege, H.-T., Sondergut, 72-84. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 245-50. For 16:18(f.) Basser, H. W., ‘Marcus’s “Gates”: A Response’, CBQ 52 (1990), 307-8. • Bivin, D., ‘Matthew 16:18: e Petros-petra Wordplay — Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew?’ JerPersp 46-47 (1994), 32-38. • Brown, C., ‘e Gates of Hell and the Church’, in Church, Word, and Spirit. FS G. W. Bromiley, ed. J. E. Bradley and R. A. Muller (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 14-43. • Brown, C., ‘e Gates of Hell: An Alternative Approach’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 357-67. • Buzzetti, C., ‘“You are a Rock, Peter …” in Italy’, BT 34 (1983), 308-11. • Caragounis, C. C., Peter and the Rock (BZNT 58. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1990). • Chevallier, M.-A., ‘“Tu es Pierre, tu es le nouvel Abraham” (Mt 16/18)’, ETR

57 (1982), 375-87. • Chevallier, M.-A., ‘A propos de “Tu es Pierre, tu es le nouvel Abraham” (ETR 57, 1982, pp. 395ss)’, ETR 58 (1983), 354. • Chilton, B., ‘Shebna, Eliakim and the Promise to Peter’, in Social World, ed. J. Neusner et al., 311-26. • Crawford, L., ‘Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre …’, CCER 33 (1985), 13-16. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘“ou Art the Stone, and upon is Stone…”’, DR 106 (1988), 276-85. • Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘Aramaic Kephaʾ and Peter’s Name in the New Testament’, in To Advance the Gospel (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 112-24. • Gero, S., ‘e Gates or the Bars of Hades? A Note on Matthew 16.18’, NTS 27 (1981), 411-14. • Grelot, P., ‘“Sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon Église” (Mt 16, 18b)’, NRT 109 (1987), 641-59. • Hommel, H., ‘Die Tore des Hades’, ZNW 80 (1989), 124-25. • Iersel, B. van, ‘Matteüs 16,18: Simōn, Petros, petra, prōtos: Re ectie op woordspelingen rond Simon, de steenrots’, Tijdschri voor eologie 25 (1985), 402-9. • Lewis, J. P., ‘“e Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail against It” (Matt 16:18): A Study of the History of Interpretation’, JETS 38 (1995), 349-67. • Lülsdorff, R., ‘Vom Stein zum Felsen: Anmerkungen zur biblischen Begründung des Petrusamtes nach Mt 16,18’, Catholica 44 (1990), 274-83. • Luke, K., ‘e Bars of Sheol’, Biblebhashyam 24 (1998), 114-28. • Luz, U., ‘e Primacy Text (Mt. 16:18)’, PrinceSemBull 12 (1991), 41-55. • Mantey, J. R., ‘Distorted Translations in John 20:23; Matthew 16:18-19 and 18:18’, RevExp 78 (1981), 409-16. • Marcus, J., ‘e Gates of Hades and the Keys of the Kingdom (Matt 16:18-19)’, CBQ 50 (1988), 443-55. • Stock, A., ‘Is Matthew’s Presentation of Peter Ironic?’ BTB 17 (1987), 64-69. For 16:19 Balch, D. L., ‘e Greek Political Topos Περὶ νόμων and Matthew 5:17, 19, and 16:19’, in Social History, ed. D. L. Balch, 68-84. • Basser, H. W., ‘Derrett’s “Binding” Reopened’, JBL 104 (1985), 297-300. • Claudel, G., ‘Jean 20,23 et ses parallèles matthéens’, RSR 69 (1995), 71-86. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Binding and Loosing (Matt 16.19; 18.18; Jn 29[sic].23’, JBL 102 (1983), 112-17. • Duling, D. C., ‘“Binding and Loosing”: Matthew 16:19; Matthew 18:18; John 20:23’, Forum 3.4 (1987), 3-32. • Hiers, R. H., ‘“Binding and Loosing”: e Matthean Authorizations’, JBL 104 (1985), 233-50. • Korting, G., ‘Binden oder lösen: Zu Verstockungs- und Befreiungstheologie in Mt 16,19;

18,18.21-35 und Joh 15,1-17; 20:23)’, SNTU 14 (1989), 39-91. • Porter, S. E., ‘Vague Verbs, Periphrastics, and Matt 16:19’, FilolNT 1 (1988), 155-73. • Schnackenburg, R., ‘Das Vollmachtwort vom Binden und Lösen, traditionsgeschichtlich gesehen’, in Kontinuität und Einheit. FS F. Mussner, ed. P.-G. Müller and W. Stenger (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 141-57.

e christological thrust of the section running from 13:54 reaches a climax and conclusion here.286 Jesus elicits a confession from the disciples; it is Peter who leads the way in articulating the confession. He has come to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. On Peter, whose name bespeaks his destiny, Jesus pronounces a beatitude that introduces a commission for his future role. e work of God lies behind the confession, and Peter as confessor will be privileged to be the foundation rock on which Jesus will build his church, a church that will rescue people from the jaws of Hades. Peter will have from Jesus the keys to open for people the kingdom of heaven, and he will be able to direct people into the way of abundant righteousness to which Jesus calls. Matthew passes over Mk. 8:22-26, which he will not use (it disturbs Matthew’s focus on Jesus’ engagement with the disciples, intrudes a location which disturbs Matthew’s structuring of the movements of Jesus and the disciples, and implicitly makes use of a metaphor of staged development of insight which ts poorly with Mt. 16:12, 17-19), but continues otherwise to follow the Markan order. For Mt. 16:13-16, 20 nothing more than the Markan source can be con dently identi ed. is raises questions about the origins of vv. 17-19 which are not easy to answer. None of the verses is likely to be simply Matthean redaction, but no certainty is possible about the boundaries of the Matthean contribution (see further below in discussion of the individual verses). Despite frequent scholarly doubt, the case for a prePassion conviction among the disciples that Jesus was the messiah is reasonably strong, especially once it is realised that the variety of Jewish eschatological thought in Jesus’ day and the way in which views were linked and merged mean that to confess Jesus as Christ points in the rst instance

only to an expectation that in this one the hopes associated with the Davidic dynasty were to become a reality, but le the question of the actual mode of implementation quite unresolved.287

16:13 It is to the departure statement of v. 4 that the coming here looks back (vv. 5-12 have reported an interlude on the way).288 Changes at both 15:21 and here join the two, with [ἐξ]ελθών … ὁ Ἰησοῦς … εἰς τὰ μέρη (lit. ‘coming [out] … Jesus … into the parts’) in common, perhaps because the woman also recognises Jesus’ messiahship and perhaps because these are (the only) two occasions on which Jesus moves north outside Galilee (Tyre and Caesarea are at nearly the same latitude — Tyre on the coast and Caesarea well inland, near the source of the Jordan). On ‘district’ (translating the plural), see at 15:21. Various attempts have been made to make something special out of either the Gentile religious associations of the place (the earlier — and still used — name of the town was Paneas, and there was a cave shrine to the god Pan there) or of the signi cance of the name Caesarea Philippi (the town was given to Herod the Great in 20 B.C. by Augustus, whom Herod honoured there with a temple; Herod’s son Philip, on the death of Augustus, honoured the town by enlarging it and renaming it with a name which connected Augustus and himself, as well as distinguishing this Caesarea from Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast).289 But the link with Caesarea Philippi is more likely to be a simple historical memory marking the fact that this occasion was in some way an important watershed for the disciples. For the rest of the verse Matthew stays quite close to Mk. 8:27, except that με (‘me’) becomes τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἄνθρωπου (‘the Son of Man’). Where Mark keeps back ‘the Son of Man’ on the lips of Jesus for the rst Passion prediction in 8:31, in Matthew the phrase has by now been well established as a manner in which Jesus speaks

about himself as a Somebody of recognised signi cance.290 Its introduction here, rather than in 16:21 (Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 8:31), avoids the impression, possible in Mark, that Jesus is equivocal about being called the Christ and moves the reference category to ‘Son of Man’: for Matthew it will be precisely as the Christ that Jesus will suffer. Matthew does not want to have a primary tie between ‘Son of Man’ language and Jesus’ Passion. οἱ ἄνθρωποι is generic (‘people’, not ‘the people’), as already in 7:12; 12:36. Jesus does not ask to obtain information from the disciples, but to build a platform from which to call forth the confession that will be voiced by Peter. 16:14 ough the disciples are for the most part portrayed only in their connection with Jesus, we should not think of this link as separating them from others. Here they are well aware of the range of popular opinion. Matthew uses a οἱ μέν construction (introducing a contrast of ‘some’ with ‘others’) which weakens the primacy given in Mk. 8:28 to the identi cation of Jesus with John the Baptist.291 To Herod Antipas is attributed this opinion about Jesus in 14:2, which lls out the logic of this position further and in particular identi es Jesus’ powers as those of a person raised from the dead (see further at 14:2). e return here of a motif from early in the large section contributes to the identi cation of 14:1-2 and 16:13-20 as paired units in the chiasmic arrangement of the section (see at 14:1-2). e second opinion identi es Jesus as Elijah. A place for a future role for Elijah was created by Elijah’s ascent into heaven in 2 Ki. 2:11. is becomes a concrete expectation in Mal. 3:21 (ET 4:5); cf. 3:1; Sir. 48:10. is expectation, combined with the memory of the impact of Elijah, as celebrated in Sir. 48:1-9, with its focus on the prospect of judgment and miracles of nature and healing, makes sense of an identi cation of Jesus as Elijah. As with the

identi cation with a resurrected John, this identi cation points in a positive manner to many important features of the ministry of Jesus: it is moving in the right direction. But Matthew has already identi ed John the Baptist as undertaking the role of the returning Elijah (see at 11:13-15), and will clearly distinguish Elijah from Jesus at 17:3. A change of construction marks off the nal double opinion from the previous two.292 e rst part of the double opinion is distinctive to Matthew: the identi cation of Jesus as Jeremiah. e possibility that Jeremiah might return is to be joined with the traditions re ected in 2 Macc. 15:11-16, where, in a vision, Jeremiah is a helper, and in 2 Esdr. 2:18, where Isaiah and Jeremiah are sent to help. Since the other half of this opinion is ‘or [another] one of the prophets’,293 Matthew is creating prominence only for Jeremiah among the prophets. is is no doubt because he is aware of the genuine similarities between Jeremiah and Jesus. We cannot be sure which similarities particularly struck Matthew. Jeremiah was certainly a prophet who experienced suffering and rejection.294 He was also a prophet who was called upon to speak against the temple in Jerusalem, and though this feature has yet to emerge in Matthew, it will become important.295 Also to be noted are the places where the Matthean Jesus echoes sayings of Jeremiah.296 On the identi cation of Jesus as a prophet, see at 13:57. Whereas the mode of availability of John the Baptist (resurrection) and Elijah (return to the earth subsequent to translation to heaven) is clear, the mode of availability of Jeremiah or others of the prophets is not. In Jewish and Christian thought the major mode of availability for the future beyond death is via resurrection. In the OT the shadowy world of the dead is the graveyard of all hopes and activities. But in 1 Sa. 28 Samuel is called up by the witch of Endor, an action which, however improper,

demonstrates that under certain circumstances the silence of the grave can be disturbed. Perhaps the very hope of resurrection attracted attention in Jewish re ection to the question of the ‘intermediate state’. No single answer emerged. More Hellenistic strands of Jewish tradition con dently asserted the survival of the righteous beyond death,297 but this should not be simply identi ed with belief in the immortality of the soul. Josephus thinks in terms of an immortal soul (War 3.374) and attributes this view to the Pharisees (2.163; 3.374).298 Lk. 16:22 likely re ects the view that some privileged individuals (including Abraham and the poor man of the parable) were translated to heaven, like Elijah, but aer their deaths.299 And it may be that Lk. 20:38 goes further, with an allusion to 4 Macc. 7:19, and makes use of the view that ‘God has taken the righteous dead [alive] to his own realm, where they await their resurrection future … and perhaps, conversely, has deposited the unrighteous dead in Sheol in anticipatory suffering, awaiting the day of nal judgment’.300 16:15 By changing the verb from ‘asked’ to ‘says’, by dropping Mark’s emphatic ‘he’ (αὐτός), and by introducing asyndeton, Matthew makes it clearer that this is not a second question but where the earlier question was leading from the beginning. e syntax of the question form in v. 13 is repeated, but this time an emphatic ‘you’ takes the place of ‘people’ and moves to the also emphatic opening position, and the substituted ‘the Son of Man’ is not used. e pressing of the question here in relation to what the disciples themselves think opens up the possibility of a decisive difference between the level of insight involved in the range of popular opinion and the understanding to which Jesus calls the disciples to rise. What is the basis on which the disciples are called to intuit the answer? e focus of the whole section 13:54–16:20 has been christological, but the role of the immediately preceding 16:5-

12, with its link back to the feeding miracles, is likely to be central.301 Within 16:5-12 itself the christological dimension is clearly important, but it lacks any development: the christology functions only negatively. Matthew may well be looking to vv. 13-20 to develop the christological dimension of vv. 5-12. 16:16 Having brought Peter to the fore for the rst time in 14:28 and followed it up by giving Peter the role of spokesperson in 15:15, here for the third time in the section Matthew has ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ Σίμον Πέτρος εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered Simon Peter said’).302 e questions have been addressed to the disciples collectively, and in v. 14 the answer to the rst is attributed to them collectively, but now Peter speaks. One would expect that, as in 15:15, he speaks for the group. Certainly he is not to be set over against the others. However, the personal focus on Peter in 16:17-19 makes of him more than just a spokesperson. Perhaps it is part of Peter’s leadership role to lead the way in faith as well. In any case, certainly by v. 20 the disciples are jointly possessors of Peter’s insight into Jesus’ role and identity. Matthew adds the name ‘Simon’ to give the double name ‘Simon Peter’.303 e addition of ‘Simon’ prepares for its use in 16:17.304 On Matthew’s use of the two names see at 4:18. ough Jesus’ messianic identity has been recognised with the language ‘Son of David’ in 9:27; 15:22 (and questioningly in 12:23),305 this is the rst and only confession of Jesus as ‘the Christ’ in the Gospel. For his readers, Matthew has identi ed Jesus as the Christ of royal messianism in the opening chapter.306 In 2:4 the Magi implicitly identify as the Jewish Christ the infant they seek. Matthew himself speaks about ‘the works of the Christ’ in 11:2. Beyond the present passage, 22:41-46 will discuss how the Christ can be David’s son; ‘the Christ’ has implicit self-reference on the

part of Jesus in 23:10 (as instructor) and in 24:5, 23 (in relation to false Christs); and nally, in the Passion narrative, there is interest on the part of the high priest, the Jewish council, and Pilate in the connection of Jesus with the Christ in 26:63, 68; 27:17, 22. χριστός in broader Greek normally means ‘used for rubbing on’ and is quite rare.307 at it could also be applied to that which received the substance rubbed on is evident from Jos., Ant. 8.137, where χριστὸν ἦν means something like ‘was painted’.308 It is this passive option from which the distinctive Jewish and Christian uses develop. In the LXX χριστός is a translation of the Hebrew noun mšyḥ. mšyḥ is formed from the verb mšḥ (‘spread a liquid over, anoint’) and means ‘anointed one’.309 It is used in apposition with hkhn (‘the priest’) in the phrase hkhn hmšyḥ, giving literally ‘the [high] priest, the anointed one’.310 It is used in the construct state and followed by yhwh (‘Yahweh’) to mean ‘Yahweh’s anointed one’,311 always referring to the king of Israel/Judah.312 And it is used with rst, second, and third person possessive pronouns, giving effectively ‘[God’s] anointed one’ and referring in all cases but one to the king of Israel/Judah (in Is. 45:1 Cyrus is ‘his [i.e., God’s] anointed’).313 e predominant use is in relation to the royal house, with the term hmšyḥ referring to a literal anointing with oil but more importantly marking God’s choice of this person and oen involving the aspirations associated with the Davidic dynasty.314 Related uses of the verb for the most part only reinforce the connection with the anointing of kings.315 1 Ch. 16:22; Ps. 105:15 read, ‘Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm’. ‘My anointed ones’ here seems to be used with reference to the patriarchs as those who are otherwise called ‘my prophets’. e common element seems to be consecration to some particular purpose by God (as with the high priest). 1 Ki. 19:16 may add something here by setting in parallel with the directive to Elijah to anoint two kings a call to anoint ‘Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place’.316 at Elisha is, in some respects, to have a function that is parallel to that of the two anointed kings is indicated in v. 17: ‘Whoever escapes from the sword of

Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill’. So we cannot make too much of a prophetic anointing here — it may be no more than a way of pointing to the parallel in function between the three gures in the speci c purposes of God at that point. Is. 61:1 does, however, seem to involve the anointing of a prophetic gure, but probably not literally with oil: ‘e spirit of my Lord Yahweh is upon me, because Yahweh has anointed me’.317 e LXX basically reproduces the original pattern, with χριστός (‘anointed [one]’) used to render mšyḥ and the related verb χρίειν used for the Hebrew verb.318 While, therefore, against this background there must be a strong expectation that χριστός will be intended as a royal designation, the OT does not use χριστός for a messianic gure. e nearest thing is a link between χριστός and aspirations associated with the Davidic monarchy more generally. e roots for the NT use of χριστός are, however, also to be found in OT hopes for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy aer the sixth-century-B.C. Exile, in light of belief in God’s abiding covenant with the Davidic line.319 Roots are also to be found in the rather extravagant language associated in the royal psalms with the celebration of God’s provision of the king for his people.320 e ideal remained to a large extent unful lled, and therefore open to the possibility of a speci c future ful lment. ese various roots come to be exploited in connection with the use of χριστός/mšyḥ well before the Christian era. e earliest surviving pre-Christian ‘messianic’ uses of χριστός/mšyḥ are in the Psalms of Solomon and the Qumran documents. In Pss. Sol. 17:21-46 there is the expectation that a son of David will be raised up to be king; he will comprehensively restore the fortunes of Israel. V. 32 says that ‘their king shall be Christ [the] Lord (χριστὸς κύριος)’. is could be a Christian scribe’s error for χριστὸς κυρίου (‘[the] Lord’s anointed [one]’). Either way there is a reference to an expected messianic deliverer. Pss. Sol. 18 also refers to a coming messianic deliverer.321 His coming will bring a day of mercy and blessing, and people will be under the rod of his discipline. In 1QS 9:11 existing community directives are to be followed ‘until the prophet comes, and [the] anointed one of Aaron and Israel’, giving three

gures to be expected, only two of whom are identi ed as anointed ones.322 CD 19:10-11 has the singular ‘[the] anointed one of Aaron and Israel’,323 but since there clearly was an expectation of a Davidic gure of promise,324 interpreters have either claimed that the language is consistent with two gures of promise (= ‘an anointed one of Aaron and an anointed one of Israel’) or been content to take the reference as to the ‘senior’ messianic gure at Qumran, who was clearly the priestly gure. In 1QSa (1Q28a) 2:12 ‘the anointed one’ is introduced and identi ed with ‘the anointed one of Israel’ in 1:14, 20. He is somewhat subordinated to the chief priest in the patterns dictated in 11:12-21, but the chief priest is not called an ‘anointed one’. In 4QpGena (4Q252) 5:3 ‘[the] anointed one of righteousness’ is identi ed with ‘the branch of David’.325 Partly because of the fragmented state of the text, it is unclear how to relate ‘the anointed of the spirit’ in 11QMelch (11Q13) 2:18 to the other gures in whom Qumran eschatological hope is vested. e gure in 11QMelch (11Q13) 2:5-25 is identi ed as Melchizedek, but also as the messenger of Is. 52:7, while the connection between anointing and spirit will echo Is. 61:1, and a probable reference to Daniel (only dn is preserved of the full name dnyʾl) suggests a link as well to ‘of an anointed one, a prince’ in Dn. 9:25. While the dating is unclear, the use of ‘his [i.e., God’s] anointed’ as one way of speaking of the redeemer gure of 1 Enoch is to be noted.326 In 2 Baruch a messianic gure is called ‘my anointed one’, ‘my servant the anointed one’, and ‘the anointed one’.327 2 Esdras speaks of ‘my [i.e., God’s] son, the anointed one’ (7:28, 29) and ‘the anointed one … who will arise from the posterity of David’ (12:32). Dating problems also make appeal to the Targums difficult, but the addition into the Tg. Onqelos and Tg. PseudoJonathan texts of Nu. 24:17 of ‘the anointed one’ may well re ect an old interpretive tradition. In many ways the strongest evidence for a lively rst-century Jewish interest in the coming of ‘the anointed one’ consists of the strong early Christian interest in seeking to persuade Jews that Jesus was he. In later rabbinic sources references to ‘the anointed one’ are pervasive.

It is against the background of this variegated and developing pattern of aspirations and hopes that Peter confesses Jesus as ‘the Christ’. Jesus is identi ed as the royal gure of Davidic descent through whom God will restore the fortunes of his people as long promised. Whereas Mk. 8:29 has simply ‘You are the Christ’, in Matthew Peter’s confession is expanded with ‘the Son of the living God’. is has an immediate link with the confession of Mt. 14:33 (see there). It will be important for Matthew that the confession of 16:16 not be on a lower level than the earlier one.328 Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ is of a Christ who is to be worshipped as one in whom God is immediately encountered. Matthew’s language in 16:16 has its closest parallel in the high priest’s words in 26:63: ‘I put you under solemn oath before the living God to tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God’. e high priest asks about what is already available to be known to those on the inside track. Matthew also interrelates ‘king of the Jews/Israel’ (as a substitute for ‘Christ’) and ‘Son of God’ in 27:37, 40, 42, and 43 (contrast Mk. 15:30, 32). To refer to God as the ‘living God’ is to point to him as one to be reckoned with, who has all the powers of deity to bring to bear on the situation.329 16:17 e other Gospels have no parallel to Mt. 16:17-19. e origin of these verses is hotly disputed. For v. 17, on the one hand, a development from 11:25-27 and 13:16 (together in Lk. 10:21-23, and therefore likely to have been together in Matthew’s source) is quite credible: perhaps Matthew has created a bridge from these traditions to link together the confession of 16:16 and the ‘commissioning’ of vv. 18-19 (see below). On the other hand, ‘Simon Bar-Jonah’ and ‘ esh and blood’ are distinctive and may well point to a source tradition. Perhaps a middle ground is best: the material in vv. 18-19 was introduced with a beatitude (with

something like ‘Fortunate are you, Simon Bar-Jonah’),330 which Matthew has expanded with the ὅτι (‘because’) clause, thus rooting the commissioning of vv. 18-19 in the revelatory act of God which stands behind the confession of v. 16.331 Matthew is likely to have ‘ esh and blood’ not from a source, but from a broader tradition about divine revelation, also echoed in Gal. 1:16, that sets over against each other divine revelation as a source of knowledge and what may be known by mere esh and blood.332 Matthew has imposed a tripartite symmetrical structure on the materials of Jesus’ statement in Mt. 16:17-19. ere are three sentences, each containing three clauses. e opening clause of each sentence announces a theme, which is developed in the following clauses, which in each case make up an antithetical pair.333 e introduction to Jesus’ speech mirrors that to Peter’s in Mt. 16:16:334 an answer begets an answer. Beatitudes are declared on people who by dint of good fortune nd themselves to be in a happy or privileged situation (see at 5:3-10; 13:16). Peter is addressed as Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ (‘Simon Bar-Jonah’), that is, as Simon son of Jonah’ (bar is Aramaic for ‘son’). In Jn. 1:42; 21:15-17 the name is ‘Simon son of John’. e transliteration of Semitic names into Greek was quite unstable. ywḥnn is most likely to be what stands behind Ἰωάννου (‘of John’). Behind ιωνα (‘of Jonah’) stands ywnh. is is rendered by various texts of the LXX as Ἰωαναν, Ἰωναν, Ἰωνας, and Ἰωνα, the last three of which are forms of ‘Jonah’. Given the similarity in the Greek, it is likely that some came to think of ‘Jonah’ as only a variant spelling or shortened form for ‘John’. Given the preservation of the Aramaic element in Matthew’s form, it has a slightly stronger claim to accuracy than the form in the Gospel of John.

‘Revealed’, ‘Father’, and ‘Son’ from Mt. 16:16 cluster to provide an echo of 11:25-27, where the failure of the wise and understanding to receive the revelation functions in somewhat the same way as the failure of ‘ esh and blood’ to reveal does here (see discussion at 11:25).335 Here is a speci c and important instance of the revelation to infants celebrated at 11:25-27. Where in 11:27 the emphasis was on the Son revealing the Father, here the emphasis is on the Father revealing the Son. But in 11:25 the larger picture is of the revealing activity of the Father, and what has been revealed about Jesus in 16:16 is that his presence and activity intimately reveal the presence and activity of the Father: the speci c christological confession could be reexpressed in the Emmanuel language of 1:23. God as revealer of what is otherwise hidden from humanity is at home in both wisdom thought and apocalyptic texts in which God reveals his larger purposes and intentions.336 e latter is the more apt connection here. ‘My Father in heaven’ is Matthean diction, coming seven times on the lips of Jesus in Matthew (see at 7:21). In Mark the confession of Peter is followed by the rather harsh and abrupt language of Mk. 8:30. is threatens to leave the reader confused about how Jesus evaluates the confession made. Matthew will offer a version of Mk. 8:30 in Mt. 16:20, but at this point v. 17 serves to con rm Peter unambiguously in his confession: it is based on God-given insight; it is not merely a variant on the opinions of the people. But v. 17 is also foundational for vv. 18-19: it is Peter as the one who has gained by revelation from the Father an awareness of Jesus’ identity as Christ and Son of God who is called to the task now to be outlined. 16:18 e opening part of the verse seems designed to mirror features of vv. 15-16: κἀγώ (‘I also’), with its use of the emphatic pronoun, echoes the similar use of ὑμεῖς (‘you’) in the question of v.

15, while the use of ‘also’ relates back to the statement made by Peter in v. 16, and presents Jesus’ saying as a connected (and responsive) act of ‘saying’; the use of λέγω (‘I say’) echoes the corresponding use of the verb in the question of v. 15; the whole clause σὺ εἶ Πέτρος (‘you are Peter’) mirrors σὺ εἶ ὁ Χριστός (‘you are the Christ’) of Peter’s confession in v. 16 (a reference to the name ‘Peter’ is an inalienable part of the material, but something like ‘you shall be called/named Peter’ would be possible). e mirroring looks designed to strengthen further the link between vv. 18-19 and v. 16. ough it does not touch any of the key features, this Matthean editing points up the difficulty of determining the wording of a preMatthean form of v. 18. e awkwardness of ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ (‘on this rock’) outside the Matthean development (see further below) suggests that Matthew may have intervened at this point also. Did his source read ἐπὶ σοι (‘on you’), or ἐπὶ σοι ὡς (ἐπὶ) πέτρᾳ (‘on you, as [on] a rock’) or something else? Difficulty with tracing v. 18 in any form back to the historical Jesus has focussed on the phrase ‘my church’. It is doubtful whether Jesus anticipated the emergence of the church as an entity separate from Israel. He is also unlikely to have identi ed with the separatist mind-set that appears to have characterised the Qumran community. But ‘Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom and of coming judgment, his links with John the Baptist (who was concerned with the salvation of a [repentant and baptized] remnant), his experience of rejection by some, and a realization that a preserved remnant of Israel can actually coexist with a universalist salvi c mission combine to make it not unlikely that Jesus did think in terms of the salvation of a remnant’.337 Jesus’ own messianic consciousness, the pervasive indications of the importance of the link to Jesus of those who would engage with

what he represents, the symbolism involved in his choice of the Twelve (see at 10:1), and the shing metaphor used to describe their role (see at 4:19) combine to suggest that the programme is for a renewed Israel to be in some sense gathered around Jesus. As we shall see further below, ‘my church’ is striking but, shorn possibly of the ‘my’, is not a foreign body in relation to the historical Jesus. As noted earlier (at 4:18), Matthew is the only Gospel not to specify that Jesus himself gave the name Peter to Simon. But it is precisely this information that strengthens con dence that early tradition lies behind 16:18. at the Gospel writers themselves regularly speak of ‘Peter’, but set ‘Simon’ on the lips of Jesus,338 suggests that Jesus gave the name ‘Peter’ to Simon not as an affectionate nickname nor even in the rst instance as an alternative name, but rather as a means of marking destiny in some manner. ‘Peter’ is not used to address Simon during Jesus’ ministry, but it becomes the name by which he is called when this destiny is being worked out in the early life of the church. Mt. 16:18 gives concrete expression to the form of destiny to which Jesus has appointed Simon Peter; it interprets the impulse that lay behind the giving of the name ‘Peter’. ere can be little doubt that the historical Jesus, at some level, interpreted the giving of the name, but we must also allow for the possibility of some development in the tradition. For a long time the received wisdom has been that neither the Greek Πέτρος (‘Peter’) nor the corresponding kypʾ (normally rendered ‘Kephas’ in English, on the basis of the Greek transliteration used in the NT) had become names prior to the NT period. Fitzmyer has drawn attention to a use of kypʾ as a name in a fourth-century-B.C. document from Elephantine,339 but this has been generally treated as an eccentric exception. Caragounis has taken the discussion further. He has been able to set alongside the Elephantine evidence a pattern of uses of Πέτρος and related names

that makes it virtually certain that kpʾ/Πέτρος was already in use as a name in the NT period.340 Whatever associations may have been involved for Jesus, the name as given would not have stood out as a fresh coinage. e most controversial aspect of the interpretation of Mt. 16:18 has to do with the relationship between Πέτρος (‘Peter’) and ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ (‘this rock’). e Greek clearly has a wordplay between Πέτρος and πέτρα, so it is likely that something similar was already present or implied in an underlying Aramaic original.341 ere is no straightforward antecedent for ταύτῃ (‘this’) since πέτρα (‘rock’) has not been used previously. e construction must be understood according to sense, which opens up the possibility of various construals. Is ‘this rock’ Peter or Peter’s confession of faith, or is the reference to Jesus himself as now identi ed in the Petrine confession? e likelihood of these various construals may be affected by the relationship between the meanings of πέτρος (when not used as a name) and πέτρα. Both terms exhibit signi cant exibility of meaning. Originally πέτρα was used of a solid mass of rock and πέτρος of a (free-standing) rock/stone, but occasional early interchangeability has been documented. Over time the interchangeability became more pronounced. πέτρος eventually fell into disuse, with πέτρα taking the sense ‘stone’ and βράχος being used for ‘rock’. e LXX and NT usages belong to the transition period.342 As far as Mt. 16:18 is concerned, this means that while there is no necessary difference of meaning between the two words, the very fact of the choice of different words suggests that in this case some difference of meaning is intended (πέτρος in both places would have served better for the sense: ‘You are Peter, and on this

rock/stone [which you are] I will build my church’). At the same time the two words can hardly be understood as marking a clear contrast (e.g., ‘you are Peter = [little stone], but it is on this [much greater solid] rock that I will build my church’). e wordplay, particularly when based on a name given by Jesus, lacks meaning unless the name points towards the identity of ‘this rock’. e change of words encourages the linking of ταύτῃ (‘this’) not to the immediately preceding Πέτρος (‘Peter’), but back via v. 17 to the confession of v. 16. is confession will, however, be ‘this rock’ precisely as Peter’s confession since this is what gives substance to the wordplay. Or it may be that we should express this by saying that Peter is ‘this rock’ not in general but precisely in the act of confessing Jesus as the Christ. As the recipient of what has been revealed by the Father, and as he here takes the lead in the profession of the faith, and later in the propagation of the faith, Peter becomes the foundation stone for the church. e question of the meaning of the play on the name ‘Peter’ in v. 18 must be addressed somewhat separately in relation to Matthew’s source. In the absence of a link back to vv. 16-17 the matter presents somewhat differently. Behind Πέτρος clearly stands kypʾ,343 but in Aramaic, as far as we know, no etymologically linked second word is available to take the place of πέτρα. e source proposals offered above allow that we may not need a word, or if we have one, a repetition of kypʾ would serve quite well. In either case, the source form has nothing earlier to which to link the Matthean ταύτῃ (‘this’) and it becomes an awkward piece of diction — in speech directed to Peter — if it must refer back to the immediately preceding use of Πέτρος. It is best treated as a piece of Matthean linkage. It is unclear whether the source material involved the naming of Simon as Peter at this point, or whether the previous giving of the name is assumed. Either way Simon is granted the

privilege (‘Fortunate are you, Simon Bar-Jonah’) of playing a foundational role in the building of the church; Jesus’ words call him to this role. e attempt to draw from Mt. 16:18 conclusions as to whether Peter has successors is doomed to failure. e answer must be: in some respects yes and in some respects no. It is to press the imagery too hard to assign an exclusive foundational role to Peter. Peter has the privilege of being named in this role, but others participated with him in all that he did and was. In addition, in every new situation there will be those who play a foundational role for Jesus’ building of his church. But sharing the role produces too many partners and successors. On the other hand, the apostles are clearly called upon to play an unrepeatable role, and Peter clearly has some kind of primacy among them. Here there is a genuine claim to exclusivity, but not one that allows any speci c place for a successor. But this is not to say that this tradition about Peter should not have inspired the church to focus its delity to the foundations of the faith in terms of a Peter gure from generation to generation. Once we sever the link between vv. 18-19 and the confession of v. 16, can we say anything about when these words might have been said? e Gospels portray the calling of the Twelve as something that emerges into clarity only through stages: Jesus calls the shermen in 4:18-22 to sh for people, but though they leave everything to follow Jesus they seem to do nothing that could be called shing for people until Jesus empowers them and gives them speci c mission instructions in chap. 10;344 it is not until 28:16-20, however, that the ultimate shape and scope of their calling become clear. It has oen been suggested that 16:18-19 (with v. 17 and therefore normally assumed to be a response to some form of confession by Peter) originally belonged in a postresurrection context. e link with Jn. 21:15-17 stands in favour of this; and the

objection that confession plays no role in the postresurrection appearances (but see Jn. 20:28) loses its force if Mt. 16:18-19 have no original connection with v. 16 and most of v. 17. However the link with Lk. 22:32 identi es another stage in the ministry of Jesus which offers a possible setting for the material. Perhaps all that can be said is that the level of precision suggests a later setting rather than an earlier one. If there has been a measure of development in the material, the task of dating is made yet more difficult. Does this material have any relationship to ‘stone’ texts in the OT and in the wider Jewish tradition? In Is. 51:1-2 Abraham and Sarah are probably identi ed as ‘the rock from which you were hewn’.345 ough the late Jewish text Midr. Yal. Šimʾoni 1:766 explains this in terms of God considering (the prospect of) Abraham an adequate foundation rock for the creation (construction) of the world, the imagery in Is. 51 is of Abraham as a quarry and not as a foundation.346 e OT stone texts that clearly have an in uence in the NT are Ps. 118:22; Is. 8:14; 28:16. Ps. 118:22 will be applied to Jesus himself in Mt. 21:42. It is unclear whether the image is of a cornerstone which is part of the foundation or of a keystone locking into place the other stones of an arch. e rejection motif has no connections with 16:18. In Is. 8:14 the ‘solidity’ of God functions as both sanctuary and as a block of stone that can seriously damage any who knock against it. e text is applied to the messiah in b. Sanh. 38a. e image of a foundation is not present. Is. 28:16 is more promising. In a situation where the leaders in Jerusalem nd security in their lies, God will by contrast provide a genuine place of security as he lays ‘in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation’. e overwhelming scourge to come will overturn the pretensions of those who trust in a false security. e psalmist in 1QH 14(= 6):24-26 echoes Is. 28:16

as he looks to God for shelter as his soul nears ‘the gates of death’.347 No particular foundation stone is in view, but the conviction is that God provides it. What is built on this foundation is probably the Qumran community. 1QH 15(= 7):8-9 is related, but the link to Is. 28:16 is more muted and what is built seems to be the role of the psalmist as God’s instrument.348 In 1QS 8:5-8 the link to Is. 28:16 is again found, and here the council of the Qumran community is to become ‘the foundation of the holy of holies for Aaron’.349 e imagery here appears to be of the Qumran community as the (most holy part of the) temple of God. is is quite close to what we nd in Mt. 16:18, and raises the question of whether temple imagery might be in the background of the Matthean text. e attraction of nding temple imagery implicitly present is that it allows for a range of features of Mt. 16:18-19 to be integrated in a symbolic scheme involving ‘the cosmic rock’. In this scheme the cosmic rock is the centre of the universe. As the place from which the creation of the whole world began (the rock of Is. 28:16 was so understood), it is the meeting point between heaven, earth, and the underworld. Moreover, it is the key to the arch that suspends the world above the primordial ood. is is the rock which Jacob used as a pillow (Gn. 28:22). It is to be found in Jerusalem in the Holy of Holies, and was incorporated into the ritual of the Day of Atonement (m. Yoma 5:3). Indeed, it is the foundation on which the temple is built.350 Such a scheme can draw together the rock, ‘my church’ as the new temple, the gates of Hades, and the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Unfortunately, the Jewish form of this symbolic scheme can be pieced together only from later Jewish sources, most quite late, and it remains uncertain whether and in what form one should appeal to it in relation to Mt. 16:18-19. ough the building imagery is suggestive, it remains uncertain whether a temple imagery should be discerned behind ‘my church’.

e use of ‘I will build’ con rms the foundation imagery intended in ‘on this rock’ and indicates that ‘my church’ is being viewed under the image of a building. e combination of ‘rock’ and ‘I will build’ makes a connection with 7:24 likely: the recognition of the signi cance of Jesus which ts Peter to play a foundational role points back to the yet deeper foundational role of the instruction offered by Jesus (cf. 28:19). e use of ‘I will build’ also reserves for Jesus the position of prime mover in what is to happen on the basis of the role to which Peter is called: though the foundational role of Peter is important, it is Jesus who will build the church. A reference to the building activity of Jesus is found again in the testimony of the false witnesses in 26:61: ‘is [fellow] said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God, and aer three days I will build [another]”’ (cf. 27:40). It seems as though we are meant to take this as a version of something Jesus did actually say (cf. Jn. 2:19), but it is hard to take the discussion further with any con dence. It is certainly possible that the church of Mt. 16:18 is what we are to understand as Matthew’s intention in 26:61. Also to be mentioned here is that 2 Sa. 7:4-17, read in a messianic way, makes the building of the temple a messianic task. e image of building is applied to ‘virgin Israel’ in Je. 31:4, to Judah and Israel in 33:7, and to the remnant le in Judah aer the Babylonian conquest in 42:10. In 4QpPsa (4Q171) 3:15-16 the task of theTeacher of Righteousness is ‘to build for him [i.e., God] the congregation of [using ʿdh] [his chosen ones]’.351 Apart from a coming reference in Mt. 18:17, the present reference to ‘church’ (ἐκκλησία) is the only one in the Gospels. e two words regularly used in the OT for the congregation of Israel in the Exodus period are ʿdh and qhl. ʿdh is mostly translated συναγωγή (in the NT ‘synagogue’) and never ἐκκλησία, and qhl is mostly translated ἐκκλησία, but also quite oen συναγωγή. Both

words involve the notion of a gathered group.352 At Qumran both words are used of the Qumran community, probably with reference to seeing themselves as the counterpart to the Exodus congregation of Israel.353 e use of ἐκκλησία in Mt. 16:18 is likely to be seen in the light of this background. In view is the gathering together of a restored Israel. at the image is meant to embrace as well the notion of the community as a temple is possible but remains less certain. ‘I will build the church [or God’s/the Lord’s church]’ might have been expected rather than ‘my church’.354 Despite there being much more explicit and implicit self-reference on the part of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospel tradition than is at times allowed for, there must be a reasonable suspicion that Matthew has intervened to offer another pointer to his own high christology.355 roughout the NT the church is predominantly the church of God. e only real exception is Ro. 16:16, with ‘all the churches of Christ’, where the sense may be only ‘all the Christian churches’.356 For Matthew the church can be Jesus’ church because Jesus’ presence effects the presence of God: the church is God’s church through being Jesus’ church. Although it has not received as much attention as the earlier part of the verse, πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς (‘[the] gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it’) has thrown up a wide range of interpretations, quite a few involving highly conjectural textual emendation.357 ere is the question whether αὐτῆς (‘it’) refers back to ‘this rock’ (supported by those who take the reference to be immediately applicable to Peter) or ‘my church’, but perhaps the main difficulty for interpreters has been posed by the perception that the verb κατισχύσουσιν (normally translated ‘prevail over’) and the phrase πύλαι ᾅδου (‘gates of Hades’) tend to pull the meaning in opposite directions, so that only one or the other can be given its

most natural sense. It has also proved difficult to move from imagery to that to which the imagery is to be applied. We have discussed ‘Hades’ brie y at Mt. 11:23: it is the LXX translation of ‘Sheol’ and is used of the place to which the dead go down. e imagery of gates at the entrance to the underworld or realm of the dead was widespread in the ancient world.358 As might be expected, the imagery is used for entry to or exit from the underworld: the opening of the gates or even proximity to the gates may be an unwelcome indication that death is threatening; the closing of the gates may suggest the irreversibility, for the most part, of the claim of death; the gates stand as a barrier between those on either side; sometimes there is an interest in what may persuade the gatekeeper(s) to open the gates. κατισχύειν is a common verb in the LXX (more than ninety times). It is used in quite a range of constructions and with a surprising variety of meanings (see the full list of constructions and meanings, with exemplary texts, in the footnote).359 Possible ts for Mt. 16:18 are ‘be stronger than’, ‘make themselves strong against’, ‘gain power over’, ‘prevail over’.360 e main question is whether to view the gates as initiating the action or as recipients of/respondents to the action. e latter makes for a more natural image, but the former is possible, especially in relation to Hades’ opening its gates to lay claim to a person. Which is more likely in the Matthean context? Do we have an image of the church under divine protection or of the church militant? If the gates of Hades are to be located, in the imagery, in the sea (as in 1QHa 14(= 6):22-24, quoted in n. 358), then we could take the link with Mt. 14:22-33 and via that with 8:23-27 in favour of seeing the gates of Hades as the aggressor. Viewing the rock of 16:16 as the

cosmic rock (discussed above) might also support this line of thinking by introducing into the frame the primordial ood, possibly to be equated with Hades. e difficulty here, however, is that in cosmic rock mythology the rock itself rather takes the place of a gateway to the underworld. e alternative, which makes the church the aggressor, requires no appeal to what is not certainly present in the text. Arguably it offers a better (contrasting) pair for possession of ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven’: the church can batter down the gates of Hades and can (in the person of Peter) open the gates of the kingdom of heaven; on this understanding, the church, once founded on the rock, has the vision set before it of rescuing people from the grip of Hades and opening up for them a future in the kingdom of heaven. ough scholars have recognised the difficulty with ‘the gates of Hades’ as an image of an aggressor, most of them have felt obliged to take the image this way because of what they have understood to be the semantic possibilities of κατισχύειν. It seems to me that the range of LXX usage removes this obstacle and allows ‘the gates’ to have a more natural function.361 As mentioned, the move from imagery to that to which the imagery is to be applied offers its own difficulties. Because of the link between Hades and death a connection is oen drawn with resurrection from the dead, but while in Jesus’ case this is to become important as soon as Mt. 16:21, it does seem out of context in vv. 16-19. It may be that the echo of vv. 18-19 in 23:13-15 offers some assistance. 23:13 refers to locking people out of the kingdom of heaven rather than use of the keys to allow entry; in v. 15 the outcome is to make people children of Gehenna rather than liberating them from Hades. For Matthew, Gehenna and Hades are near equivalents (Hades has overtones only of judgment, whereas

Gehenna focusses sharply on God’s judgment — see the discussion of Gehenna at 5:22). It appears that the image of people as already trapped behind the gates of Hades is being used of people presently destined for Gehenna. An alternative might be to see the people as located near the gates of Hades: the open gates would then be imaged as able to draw people towards themselves and suck them into Hades. is alternative would in turn allow the gates of Hades, in a certain limited respect, to be taking the initiative (see discussion above of κατισχύειν). Either way, through the outreach of the church Hades will be forced to give up its claim on such people. 16:19 It is unclear whether v. 19, in full or in part, formed an original unity with v. 18 or represents separate tradition which has been linked here either by Matthew or before him. e level of parallel and contrast between the nal clause of v. 18 and the rst of v. 19 makes original unity a reasonable likelihood.362 But given the parallels in Mt. 18:18; Jn. 20:23 and the quite new imagery, the binding and loosing clauses are likely to have a separate tradition history.363 It seems best to understand that what Jesus announces in v. 18 will be achieved here through giving the keys to Peter: this is how he will function as a rock, and it will be through his possession of the keys that the church will be put in a position of being able to rescue people from the grip of Hades. e kingdom of heaven is being imaged as a city which is entered through a city gate, the key to which is to be placed in the possession of Peter. How does the manner in which the kingdom of God/heaven is engaged with here relate to its role elsewhere in Matthew, and in particular to the kingdom as both a present and a future reality (see discussion at Mt. 12:28)? It is unlikely that we should be asked to choose between the two: for those for whom Peter has used the

keys, engagement with the kingdom as present will be the prelude for entry into the kingdom as future. e same merging of horizons is already the case with what is happening with ‘the gates of Hades’ in v. 18. e present keys imagery has as its starting point the need for the gates of the kingdom of heaven to be opened if people are to nd entry. In Matthew the imagery of entering the kingdom as a goal rst surfaces in 5:19-20 and then runs like a thread through the Gospel.364 e contrasting image of the kingdom of heaven being shut against people will come at the end of the thread in 23:13. Peter has the keys in order to be able to let people into the kingdom of heaven.365 Despite the fact that Is. 22:22 clearly intrigued Jews and early Christians,366 it is unlikely that ‘the key of the house of David’ lies behind Peter’s keys. e ties are too tenuous, especially when a link between the clauses about binding and loosing and the clauses about opening and closing of Is. 22:22 proves untenable (see below). It is also unlikely that there is any connection with traditions speaking of the keys of the temple or sanctuary.367 Nor will there be any connection with the keys of Death and Hades in Rev. 1:18, nor with the key of the bottomless pit in 9:1; 20:1. Peter’s role is akin to that of the archangel Michael in 3 Bar. 11:2 (cf. 4 Bar. 9:5).368 ere is a real possibility that Matthew is highlighting the signi cance of what is to happen through Peter by attributing to him a role normally reserved in Jewish tradition for the archangel (and, perhaps in this context, the archangel at the close of the present age). us far in Matthew’s story what gets people into the kingdom of heaven is their response to what Jesus is, brings, announces, and teaches. In the move from image to application, Peter’s keys must be

understood against this background. Both authority and power are involved, but Peter is not being set up as an ecclesiastical power gure on whose personal decision hang people’s fates. Peter’s possession of the keys primarily involves him in pointing to Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God and relaying what he has learned from him. In Matthew’s story Peter is now in a position to be given keys because he has come to the place of insight and confession represented in Mt. 16:16. e imagery of keys to a city gives way to that of binding up and releasing. But neither the precise nature of the imagery nor the manner of its application is at once clear. As with the gates of Hades, there are many suggestions. Davies and Allison are able to list thirteen.369 Questions of meaning and of source history are inevitably related: if the material here has a separate source history, as suggested above, then it is more likely that binding and loosing are being offered as an important but merely illustrative consequence of possession of the keys rather than as a clarifying de nition of the imagery of possession of the keys. What kind of image are we dealing with in this language of binding (δεῖν) and loosing (λύειν)? From what sphere of thought or action has the imagery been drawn? It could prove helpful to look at the range of ways in which the language of binding and loosing has been used in the larger context of the ancient world in which Matthew’s Gospel was produced. In the context of the work of Satan, evil spirits, and exorcism, binding is what the evil spirits or Satan does to people (Lk. 13:16), but also the disempowering of the demon (Tob. 3:17; 8:3) and the larger-scale corralling of the forces of evil or of speci c leaders among them.370 Loosing is releasing people from the affliction imposed by the forces of evil (Lk. 13:16) or breaking loose the hold of the evil spirit (Tob. 3:17 [S text]). Lk. 13:16 offers the pairing of binding and loosing of a woman, with Satan as the one

binding and Jesus as the one loosing (probably not in terms of possession and exorcism). With δεσμεῖν for ‘bind’ rather than Matthew’s δεῖν, Josephus applies binding and loosing to the realm of power politics, speaking of ‘administrators … [able] both to drive away and to bring back whom they will, both to loose and to bind’.371 e reference is probably to imprisonment and release, but it could be somewhat broader. Job 38:31 also offers (in the Hebrew text using the piel of ptḥ and the hiphil of qšr) an image of binding and loosing: ‘Can you bind the chains of Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?’372 Here the binding is the activity of God in creating the arrangement of the Pleiades star cluster, and the loosing would be the disassembling of the con guration of the constellation, Orion; binding and loosing are setting in place and dismantling. Beyond the Hebrew roots used in Job 38:31, other obvious Semitic equivalents for Matthew’s language are ʾsr for ‘bind’ and šrʾ/šrh/šry or the hiphil of ntr for ‘loose’. e hiphil of ntr and ʾsr are used as a word pair in b. Šab. 4a in relation to what is permitted and forbidden behaviour (in the context of rabbinic judgment). In b. Šab. 81b ʾsr and šrʾ are used for binding and releasing from the power of magic spells.373 In b. M. Qaṭ 16a ʾsr and šry are used for imposing and releasing from a ban of exclusion from the community (but not in a manner that the verbs would suggest application to a ban without a ban being clearly mentioned in the near context). In the Palestinian Targums, for example, Gn. 4:7, where the subject is sin, there is also the pairing of (the passive participle of) nṭr (be guarded/observed/retained) and šry, where šry is linked with wštbq (‘and will be forgiven/will leave’). Beyond the link with Jn. 20:23, here a contrast of ‘in this world’ and ‘in the world to come/for the day of judgment’ offers a possible point of connection with Mt. 16:19.374

Of these different spheres which have employed the language of binding and loosing the two that need to be kept in mind as we continue our exploration are those that apply the language to

permitted and forbidden behaviour and to the retaining and forgiving of sin. Setting aside now for a moment the speci c language of binding and loosing, a possibility that needs to be considered is that we are dealing with an echo of Is. 22:22: we have noted the similarity between Peter’s keys and the key to the house of David above, but in what follows there is also the shared feature of antithetical pairs developed in a rather analogous manner (‘he will open, and no one will shut, and he will shut, and no one will open’ vs. ‘whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’), and beyond that the use of ptḥ for ‘open’, which, as we have seen, can (in the piel, though that is not what is found in Is. 22:22) mean ‘loose’. But if there is a connection, why the change of imagery? e suggestion that has been made is that in Jewish tradition Is. 22:22 had already been used in relation to the authority of Jewish teachers, and that applied in this way, a move to binding and loosing imagery is natural enough (cf. the use of binding and loosing imagery for rabbinic judgments on what is permitted and forbidden behaviour in b. Šab. 4a, discussed above). e Jewish materials involved are hard to interpret with any con dence. e start of the thread seems to be a phrase in 2 Ki. 24:16, whḥrš whmsgr (using the Hebrew roots ḥrš and sgr), which means something like ‘and the artisans and the smiths’ (both words are singular, but in the context the sense is clearly collective) but was applied to Jewish teachers, presumably with reference to their skill in teaching. e root ḥrš can mean ‘plough’ and, with another pointing, ‘be silent, speechless, deaf ’, while the root sgr means ‘shut, close’. is may suffice to explain what is perhaps the earliest form of the Jewish interpretive tradition here: hḥrš is explained as ‘one speaks and all are quiet’ — but since the ḥrš root is not repeated, we have to guess that this is (by wordplay) the quietness of the one deprived of speech; msgr is

explained as ‘they all sit before him and learn from him’ (S. ʿOlam Rab. 25) — but we have to guess that the link with sgr is that the teaching is so incisive as to close off further debate. Sipre Dt. 32:25 (Piska 321) adds to this ‘one opens (wptḥ) and another closes (wsgr), to ful l that which is said: “And he shall open (ptḥ) and not [or no one shall] shut (wsgr), and he shall shut (sgr) but not [or no one shall] open (wptḥ) [Is. 22:22]”’. e addition adds a rmer explanation for msgr: this will be the teacher who brings the discussion to its conclusion at the end.375 In b. Sanh. 38a there is a further or perhaps a slightly different development of the interpretation of 2 Ki. 24:16: hḥrš is explained as ‘when they open up (wptḥyn) [a learned discussion] all become as though mute (ḥrš)’ — now the play on the different root meanings has become explicit, but it is likely that a fresh link to Is. 28:24 is implicit, drawn on to establish an equivalence between ḥrš and ptḥ;376 msgr is explained as ‘when they close (wsgryn) [a learned discussion] in halacha,377 no one again opens [it] up (wptḥyn)’ — now it is the link to Is. 22:22 that is le to be implicit, as the source of the language of opening and closing. Finally, in the later sources, Tanḥuma Noah 3 and Otẓar HaGeonim LeMasekhet Sanhedrin,378 there is further development: hḥrš is explained as ‘when one permits (mtyr) all are quiet’; msgr is explained as ‘when one of them shuts/closes (wsgr) matters of purity and impurity there is none in the world who can open (wptḥ)— which is to declare pure —, to ful l that which is said: “And he shall open (wpḥ) and not [or no one shall] shut (wsgr) and he shall shut (sgr) but not [or no one shall] open (pwtḥ) [Is. 22:22]”’. sgr (‘shut/close’) and ptḥ (‘open’) are now applied speci cally to declaring things impure or pure, respectively. Only this last has any real potential for illuminating the language of Mt. 16:19, but it labours under an excess of difficulties: not only the sources but also the track of development suggest that this is a late tradition; purity and impurity are quite a distance from what could conceivably be in view in Mt. 16:19; and the language of binding and loosing is not present either in these speci c texts nor in any of their precursors in the interpretive development.

Nothing in this complex and interesting interpretive history would help to explain the move from the language of opening and shutting to that of binding and loosing (an inversion of the sequence must be explained as well, since opening corresponds to loosing, not to binding). So, in the absence of any support for a move from the language of opening and shutting to that of binding and loosing, despite the initial promise of a link between Mt. 16:19 and Is. 22:22 the search must in the end be abandoned.379 Does ‘bound/loosed in heaven’ provide any help for clarifying the imagery of binding and loosing? is is clearly not about people being in heaven in the future (see at 5:12). It is rather about the divine validation of the binding and loosing that take place on earth. ‘In heaven’ is a periphrasis for ‘by God’, rather like ‘of heaven’ in ‘the kingdom of heaven’.380 But how is this divine validation seen as taking place? ere is rst a question of timing. e periphrastic future perfect passives used here have been claimed to mean ‘will be [what] has already been bound/loosed [by God]’.381 ey have also been claimed to mean ‘will be bound/loosed once for all’.382 But both views give too much signi cance to the perfect participles: these certainly refer to states of affairs, but these states of affairs do not need to have existed prior to Peter’s actions, nor do the perfect participles necessarily x the state of affairs inde nitely.383 e choice of the perfect participles is best explained as motivated by the desire to represent coordinated action: ‘What you bind/loose on earth will have been [at that precise moment also] bound by God’.384 In relation to what kind of actions does such a coordination make the best sense? It hardly ts exorcism or the power of spells. Nor does it t the exercise of political or any other clearly manifest power. It would, however, t with declarations as to permitted or

forbidden behaviour or with imposition and liing of a ban of exclusion from the community of faith. In these contexts the claim to binding/loosing in heaven is a claim that these declarations are in effect instances of performative speech, in which the one speaking speaks on behalf of God himself and puts his will into effect. e coordination marked by the perfect participles would also t the declaration of and the withholding of forgiveness found in Jn. 20:23. Two further features of our text may have a bearing on understanding the imagery. First there is the use of the neuter ὃ ἐάν (‘whatever’) rather than the masculine ὃς ἐάν (‘whoever’). Neuter forms are occasionally used for generality or abstraction,385 but it is more likely that something rather than someone is being bound or loosed. e nal feature to be noted is the sequence in which binding and loosing come. It is the reverse sequence to that of the corresponding ‘forgive’ and ‘retain’ in Jn. 20:23. If Mt. 16:19 were some sort of statement about bringing people salvation, then we might have expected the priority to be given to loosing, and the sequence, therefore, to be the reverse of what we nd. It seems, then, that the binding and loosing are about the regulation of behaviour. e imagery is similar to that found in b. Šab. 4a, where binding is used of a declaration that something is forbidden and loosing is used of what is permitted. e societal role of those who interpreted and applied the law may well be speci cally in view here (cf. Mt. 23:3): here is an alternative that is totally backed by God! But that may be to be too precise. As with the earlier images, here too we must move from the imagery to that to which the imagery is to be applied. To take it that Peter is here being appointed as the chief Christian rabbi is probably to confuse imagery and application. At least in the Matthean context, binding and loosing are a subset of using the

keys: they have to do with getting people into the kingdom of heaven. e heading that stands over the directives and prohibitions of the Sermon on the Mount is ‘Unless your righteousness is abundant — more than [that of] the scribes and Pharisees — you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven’ (5:20), and the nal challenge of the Gospel, with a strong link back to the Sermon on the Mount, includes ‘teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’. Peter’s role takes its place in just this setting. And because the Gospel tells the story of Peter (with considerable difficulty, and aer repeated efforts on the part of Jesus) coming nally to understand and appreciate all that Jesus was and brought, the con dent anticipation that he will prohibit and command in a manner that is backed by God is as much a statement about the successful outcome of Peter’s journey of discovery (not yet completed at this point of Matthew’s story, but having crossed a decisive watershed) as it is a statement about appointment to a privileged role. Peter’s capacity to speak for God is based on his success in learning from God, though of course even this success is rooted in the choice and good pleasure of God (see 16:17; 11:26). ough the need to address new situations is not to be ruled out, the thrust of the binding and loosing is a thoroughly conservative one: it is Peter’s role to see that all that Jesus taught is brought to bear on people’s lives; Peter binds and looses only as he has learned to do so from Jesus. e binding and loosing clauses will be repeated almost identically in 18:18, but with reference to all the disciples. e signi cance of this repetition will be discussed there. 16:20 Aer the extra material of vv. 17-19, v. 20 aligns once again with Mark (8:20). Matthew connects it with his favoured τότε (‘then’). Mark’s emotionally charged ἐπετίμησεν (lit. ‘he rebuked’)

becomes the strictly functional δεστείλατο (‘he ordered’).386 e disciples must be freshly introduced because of the intervening material focussing on Peter. Mark’s rather vague ‘talk about him to no one’ (which in Matthew could even be misunderstood as referring with ‘him’ to Peter) becomes the more precise ‘tell no one that he is the Christ’. e link is back to the more limited Markan form of the confession rather than to Matthew’s more elaborate ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. Perhaps Matthew is thinking that his report of Jesus’ self-affirmation as Son in 11:25-27 and his failure to report a call for silence aer demons address Jesus as ‘Son of the Most High’ in 8:7 or the confession of 14:33 hardly allow for such a call in 16:20, or perhaps he is thinking of the form of confession in his Markan source.387 Since Matthew has nothing of Mark’s ‘messianic secret’, he offers little guidance for interpreting the call to secrecy here.388 ere is, however, a related call in 17:9 which suggests that the prospect of the Passion has something to do with it: a Christ without a cross is not the kind of Christ that Jesus intends to be; Peter will kick against this unpalatable fact immediately (16:21-23). Matthew will explore a wrongly focussed understanding of Jesus as Christ in 20:20-28. It remains unclear why Matthew seems to consider ‘Son of David’389 safe in a way that ‘Christ’ is not. Perhaps the point is that ‘Christ’ is somehow an insider’s perspective on how Jewish messianic hope has come to its ful lment in Jesus, while ‘Son of David’ merely points to that hope as something to which Jesus may (or may not) be connected.390

1. G. Reim, ‘John iv.44 — Crux or Clue?’, 476-80, offers a largely convincing case that a form of this tradition in uenced the Gospel of John, but it is unclear whether this should be seen as a third line of transmission. 2. Lk. 4:16 clearly locates the episode in Nazareth. Mk. 6:1-6a does not name the location, but the reference to Nazareth in 1:9 creates a presumption in favour of Nazareth. 3. Matthew’s addition of ‘their’ enhances the link. 4. Mk. 6:2 has ‘many, as they heard’. 5. Cf. Mt. 15:31, which matches the use of a ὥστε construction here but uses θαυμάζειν for the amazement. 6. e origin of John’s authority will be discussed in Mt. 21:23-27 with the use of πόθεν (‘from where’) in v. 25. 7. us far Jesus’ healings have been spoken of only as δυνάμεις (‘mighty works’) in the block Mt. 11:20-24, which is a modest argument in favour of a Capernaum location for 13:54-58. 8. Mk. 6:54-55 has two rhetorical questions: the rst identi es Jesus by trade and as the son of Mary and brother of the same named brothers; the second claims that Jesus’ sisters are present in the town. e reference to Mary and not to Joseph has sometimes been taken as a slur on Mary, but Ilan, ‘Metronymes’, 23-45, has shown that such is not the case in extant cases of men being referred to in terms of their mothers. It is possible that the Markan language re ects the signi cance of Mary in the early church. 9. Later rabbis oen had a trade: Shammai was a carpenter (b. Šab. 31a). e apostle Paul combined a trade with his itinerant ministry (Acts 18:3; 20:34; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 es. 2:9). Nothing in the tradition, however, suggests that Jesus combined his ministry with working for a living (cf. Mt. 27:55; Mk. 15:41; Lk. 8:3). 10. e meaning of the term is, however, not precise since derivative senses developed involving rst crasmanship in other materials and then, no doubt initially metaphorically, skilled activity in anything from poetry to medicine. 11. ‘Mother called Mary’ instead of ‘son of Mary’; ‘his brothers [called] …’ instead of ‘brother of…’. e change means that ‘his brothers’ can now parallel the following ‘his sisters’. If Matthew had continued the Markan

pattern aer introducing ‘son of the carpenter’, he would have produced ‘son of the carpenter and (son of) of Mary’, which would have created a tension with his careful formulation in Mt. 1–2. Matthew also inverts the order of Judas and Joseph and prefers the LXX form Ἰωσήϕ (‘Joseph’) to the hellenised Ἰωσῆς (‘Joses’). 12. We know of James otherwise from Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Cor. 15:7; Gal. 1:19; 2:9; Jas. 1:1; Jude 1, and Jude from Jude 1. Cf. Jn. 7:5; 1 Cor. 9:5. 13. e coincidence of names (Mary as mother of a James and a Joseph) in Mt. 27:56 makes room for the possibility (remotely) that the sons in 13:55 are children of another Mary who was a close relative, but it certainly requires no such identi cation. 14. In compensation, and probably because it seemed redundant, Matthew drops Mark’s ‘here’. 15. πόθεν τούτῳ (‘where this fellow … from’) is repeated from Mt. 13:54; ταῦτα (‘these things’) was ‘le over’ from the reformulation of Mk. 6:2; πάντα (‘all’) adds emphasis, as πᾶσαι (‘all’) did earlier in the verse. e larger chiasm identi ed by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:451 (largely following van Segbroeck, ‘Jésus rejeté’, 184), is less certain. ey also link the uses of ‘hometown’ in vv. 54a and 57b and the amazement of v. 54b with the offence of v. 57a. e case for this larger chiasm could be strengthened slightly by noting the link between the synagogue location in v. 54a and the use of ‘there’ (referring to the synagogue location) in v. 58 (bundled with v. 57b). 16. Carpenters were artisans and not peasants and would therefore be among the relatively well-to-do of nonaristocratic society. 17. e fact of coming from a modest hometown would itself not help (cf. Jn. 1:46). It is less likely that the Johannine thought that the origins of the messiah will be unknown (7:27) plays any role here. 18. Jeremiah is not honoured by the people of Anathoth (11:21; 12:6; cf. 1:1), but neither is he more widely honoured in any consistent manner. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:461, cite parallel sentiments but not a proverb that Jesus could be quoting or modifying. 19. Mark probably thinks in terms of concentric circles.

20. ough the proverb makes its statements in a general form, it need not be the case that Matthew thereby indicts all the members of Jesus’ household of origin. 21. See Mt. 16:14; 21:11, 46. 22. See Mt. 16:14; 21:11, and esp. v. 46. 23. See Mt. 8:10, 13; 9:2, 22, 28, 29. 24. Both the appended material in Mt. 14:3-12 and the pre xed material in 16:1-12 provide the immediate background of the blocks to which they are attached (14:3-12 explain the death of John the Baptist as something in which Herod was vitally involved; 16:1-12 identify the foundation for the confession of v. 16 in the disciples and especially Peter, being enabled to distance themselves from the opinions of the Pharisees and Sadducees and to focus on what they have learned about Jesus in the two feedings). 25. is would go some way toward explaining why Matthew has provided such a development in 15:29-31 (cf. the briefest of notices of healing in 14:14). 26. Chronologically the link with Jesus’ visit to his hometown makes little sense: in Mark and Luke the account follows the mission of the Twelve, which would have created additional visibility for what Jesus was doing. 27. Mt. 2:3 (‘King Herod’), 7, 13, 16. 28. Mk. 6:14 has ‘John the Baptiser has been raised from the dead, and because of this these powers are at work in him’. For Mark this is a popular sentiment, endorsed by Herod in v. 16, at least in relation to the identity of Jesus. 29. See Mt. 14:33; 16:13-20 (and cf. 15:22). 30. Jesus is referred to as being taken in Mt. 26:4, 48, 50, 55, 57 and as being bound in 27:2. Matthew adds the verb ‘put’ (ἀπέθετο) to improve Mark’s rather odd ‘bound him in[to] prison’ (ἔδησεν αὐτὸν ἐν ϕυλακῇ). ἀποτιθέναι ἐν ϕυλακῇ is LXX idiom; see, e.g., Lv. 24:12; Nu. 15:34. 31. Jos., Ant. 18.136. 32. Jos., War 2.167. 33. As part of his general abbreviation of the account Matthew drops the clarifying ‘because he married her’ of Mk. 6:17.

34. Jos., Ant. 18.109-11; Josephus also shows sensitivity to this aspect of the Law in War 2.115-16; Ant. 17.341, and comes back to the case of Herodias in 18.136, noting that she ‘parted from a living husband’ to marry ‘her husband’s brother’ and that this was to ‘ out the way of our fathers’. 35. Jos., Ant. 18.116-19. 36. Jos., Ant. 18.111-15(6). 37. Jos., Ant. 18.116, reiterated in 18.119. 38. is also matches the use of κρατεῖν (‘take’) of the arrest in Mt. 14:3. Each of the texts has in common the fairly infrequent use of ἔχειν (here with ‘prophet’) to mean ‘consider [as]’. 39. In line with the other changes, Matthew drops from Mk. 6:20 ‘knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.’ 40. e twenty-two words of Mk. 6:21 are reduced to ‘but when Herod’s birthday came’, with a total loss of the ‘guest list’ or even of speci c mention of the banquet. Mark’s ‘leaders of Galilee’ suggests an imprisonment in Galilee for John (Herod, however, could have arranged for key gures to travel from Galilee), but Josephus (Ant. 18.119) locates the imprisonment at Machaerus, to the west of the northern part of the Dead Sea, which ts better the area in which John exercised his ministry. 41. e daughter may be named ‘Herodias’ (the same as her mother) in the best texts of Mk. 6:22 (τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ Ἡρῳδιάδος), but from Josephus (Ant. 18.136) we know that her name was Salome. On this reading Mk. 6:22 also labels the girl as the daughter of Herod (again not accurate). Does Matthew deliberately step around both of these difficulties, or should we prefer the other reading of Mk. 6:22 with αὐτῆς, as defended, e.g., by Hoehner, Herod, 151-54, and translate, ‘the daughter of Herodias herself ’? 42. Mk. 6:22-23 has, ‘e king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.”’ is becomes, with the loss of the double statement, ‘so that (ὅθεν) he promised on oath to give her whatever she might ask’.

43. Jos., Ant. 6.40, uses ὁμολογεῖν to mean ‘agree/consent/promise’. Closest in the NT is Acts 7:17, where ἐπαγγελίας ἧς ὡμολόγησεν means ‘promise which he made’. In the LXX the cognate ὁμολογία is used for a freewill offering or vow in Lv. 22:18; Dt. 12:17; Je. 51:25; Ez. 46:12; Am. 4:5. 44. Where, however, human sacri ce of a member of the household may be clearly in view. 45. e role of ἐξαυτῆς (‘at once’) in Mk. 6:25 is taken in Mt. 14:9 by ὧδε (‘here’). 46. It probably has no signi cance, but there is a curious correspondence between the desire in Jos., Ant. 18.115, for the head of Aretas, the father of the spurned former wife of Antipas, and the desire in the Gospel story for the head of John the Baptist: both gures were critical in a high-pro le manner of Antipas’s new marriage. 47. Mk. 6:27 has, ‘Immediately the king sent (ἀποστείλας) a soldier of the guard with orders to bring his head. He went and …’. 48. See Gn. 40:19; 1 Sa. 17:46, 51; 2 Sa. 4:7; 16:9; 20:22; 2 Ki. 6:32; Jdt. 13:1; 1 Macc. 1:17; 7:47; 2 Macc. 1:16. 49. It would be more difficult to treat Mark’s ἤνεγκεν (‘[the soldier] brought’) as causative (‘[Antipas] had [it] brought’). 50. ‘It [i.e., the head]’ (both times), ‘the girl’ (second time). 51. e transitional ‘when [the disciples] heard’ goes; ‘his’ is dropped from ‘the body’; ‘placed it in a tomb’ becomes the more economical ‘buried it’. 52. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:435-38. 53. Cf. Mt. 12:15, which has Jesus withdraw when he becomes aware of a conspiracy to destroy him. 54. In Mk. 6 the withdrawal is quite differently motivated: it is to be an opportunity for the disciples to rest (v. 31) aer their mission. 55. See Mt. 4:21; 9:9, 27; 11:1; 12:9, 15; 13:53; 15:21, 29; 19:15. προβάς, παράγων, παράγοντι, μετέβη, μεταβάς, ἀνεχώρησεν, μετῆρεν, ἐξελθών, and ἐπορεύθη are found. 56. Already there have been Mt. 8:23; 9:1; 13:2 (distinctive as not journeys); to come are 14:32; 15:39.

57. With Matthew’s introduction of the name ‘Jesus’ and switch to singular verbs, the formulation of the verse might suggest that Jesus goes off totally alone (κατ᾿ ἰδίαν), but from Mt. 14:15 clearly indicates that we are to understand the disciples to accompany Jesus. κατ᾿ ἰδίαν (‘alone’) is carried over from Mark and lacks a well-focussed sense. Does it reinforce the idea of withdrawal from danger or make space for mourning and re ecting on the death of John? e former ts the immediate context better but requires a less natural meaning for the phrase. e latter suits the phrase well but moves the focus away from the withdrawal-from-danger motivation from which Matthew began. 58. In Mk. 6:33 they ‘saw them going and recognised them’, which still leaves up in the air the question of how they knew where the journey was headed (but perhaps they are to be thought of as keeping the boat in sight and travelling along the edge of the lake). It also does not link well with the immediately following ‘and they hurried there by foot from all the towns’. 59. See Mt. 4:25; 8:1; 12:15; 19:2; 20:29 (crowd); 21:9. 60. Matthew probably cannot make sense of the ‘all’ in Mark’s ‘from all the towns’ (6:33). 61. Except that Mt. 14:14 probably has the dative aer ἐπί (‘on’) rather than the accusative of Mk. 6:34. 62. e use in Mt. 14:14 of ἄρρωστος (‘sick [person]’), which Matthew does not use elsewhere, is probably in uenced by Mk. 6:5 or 13, both of which use, as does Mt. 14:14, the plural of ἄρρωστος with θεραπεύειν (‘heal’). 63. e narrow focus on healing does not sit comfortably with the idea that the crowd remains ‘captive’ for an extended period (Mt. 14:15): apart from the desire to enjoy the spectacle, members of the crowd would be free to go home once their own needs for healing had been met. 64. Matthew does not like Mark’s use of ὥρα πολλή (lit. ‘a great hour’) to indicate the lateness of the hour, and he interchanges the role of the nite verb and the participle between ‘came’ and ‘said’. 65. ‘e crowds’ is repeated from Mt. 14:13; Matthew keeps only ‘the villages’ of Mark’s more complex ‘the surrounding countryside (ἀγρούς) and villages’; βρώματα (‘food’) replaces τί ϕάγωσιν (lit. ‘what they might eat’).

66. e situation is depicted as more extreme in Mt. 15:32. 67. Luke also dislocates at this point (9:13). But he, while agreeing with Matthew in dropping Jesus’ question about how much bread (and therefore also in giving a fresh role to the statement about the bread and sh at hand), relocates the statement of concern about buying enough bread so that it follows the statement about how much bread and sh are at hand. 68. οὐκ ἔχομεν ὧδε εἰ μή could also mean ‘we have here only’, in line with an idiom used by Matthew in 12:24 and 15:24. Here the sense is little different. 69. ere has been extensive discussion of the possible symbolism of the sh. Fish can be tenuously connected with the tradition of the exodus feeding with manna and quail (Exod 16; Num 11). e Israelites’ desire for the sh of Egypt provoked the sending of the substitute, quail meat (Num 11:4-5, and cf. v 22). An overliteral reading of Num 11:31 (“quail from the sea”) produced speculation about the marine origin of these quail (Wis 19:10-12). Sipre Num. 11:22 even has sh coming from the rock that accompanied the Israelites in the desert and from which the water owed. Fish can also be connected with the eschatological banquet via the expectation of eating the esh of Leviathan, or even perhaps of the two Leviathans (2 Apoc. Bar. 29.3-8; 4 Ezra 6.49-52; b. B. Bat. 74b–75a). A connection with any of these traditions is rather tenuous for any of the Gospel accounts. (Nolland, Luke, 1:442) 70. Matthew changes the verb from ἐπέταξεν (Mark has it four times, but Matthew does not use this verb) to κελεύσας (Matthew has seven uses of this verb). 71. Switching from the use of three coordinated nite verbs preceded by a participle to a double set of participle and nite verb constructions (Mark has one extra and Matthew two extra preceding participles, but it/they function(s) slightly separately — preparing for the action rather than being integrally part of the action). 72. Matthew also makes a tense change: Mark has an imperfect for the giving, perhaps pointing to time taken by the process; Matthew has an

aorist. 73. e links with the Last Supper also include ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης (‘when it got late’), the use of ἀνακλίνειν (‘recline at table/sit down’), ‘the disciples’ as (immediate) recipients of the food, and a reference to everyone eating. 74. See Boobyer, ‘Eucharistic Interpretation’, 162. 75. Most commonly the connection is taken as a direction to read the text as a comment on the Eucharist, or as an indication that the text is concerned to ground the later Eucharist, or to claim that Jesus celebrated a proto-Eucharist with this crowd. 76. e nature of the link in Jn. 6 is necessarily achieved in quite a different manner because of the lack of an Institution Narrative in Jn. 13–17. 77. e loss of the mission of the Twelve (Mk. 6:7-13), the abbreviation of the account of the death of John the Baptist in Mt. 14:2-12, and the addition of vv. 28-33 with their concluding confession, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God’, all sharpen the christological focus. 78. Clearly exploited in Jn. 6. 79. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:482-83, who otherwise make a good deal of Matthean typology, are uncertain about whether there is any interest in Mosaic motifs here. 80. e taking of both the bread and the sh (together?) does not quite t this pattern. In Matthew it follows from the directive in 14:18: ‘bring them here’. 81. See Job 22:26-27; Is. 38:14; Sus. 35; Jos., Ant. 11.64, 162; Philo, Vita cont. 66; Lk. 18:13; and cf. Joel 1:20. 82. Mk. 6:43 has κλάσματα δώδεκα κοϕίνων πληρώματα (lit. ‘broken pieces, fullnesses of twelve baskets’ — i.e., ‘broken pieces, twelve baskets full’). In Mt. 14:20 this becomes τὸ περισσεῦον τῶν κλασμάτων, δώδεκα κοϕίνους πλήρεις (‘what was le over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets’). 83. κόϕινος, the word for basket here, seems to be a rather general term for basket. Jos., War 395, has foot soldiers carrying a κόϕινος as part of their equipment (perhaps containing the three days’ supply of food that is

mentioned in the same context); Juvenal, 3:14; 6:542, in projecting an image of Jews as vagrants or semi-vagrants, has them equipped with a kophinus (holding all their worldly goods) and a truss of hay (for a palliasse). 84. Schenke, Brotvermehrung, 111. 85. An allusion to the method of counting (i.e., counting only the men) in Ex. 12:37 is unlikely; this is too indirect a manner in which to provide a parallel with the Exodus experience. 86. e demands of the travel involved in meeting Jesus on this occasion make it less likely that women and children would be proportionately represented. 87. e ‘gi miracle’ category proposed by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:480 (following eissen, Miracle Stories, 103-6), is not inappropriate, but it does not do justice to the role of the disciples. 88. e basic structure is proposed by Smit Sibinga, ‘Matthew 14:22-33’, 32-33, who supports the central position of v. 27 with word and syllable statistics. ‘Immediately’ is found in Mt. 14:22, 31; ‘get/got into the boat’ is in vv. 22, 32; the prayer of Jesus may correspond to the worship of the disciples. e wind is the source of danger in vv. 24, 30; ‘saw’ in v. 30 may relate to ‘saw’ in Mark’s parallel to v. 24 (but one is βλέπων and the other ἰδών). ere is a minor internal chiasm in vv. 25-26 with the order for ‘walking’ and ‘on the sea’ reversed between vv. 25 and 26 (which just might be strengthened by the possible alliteration linking τετάρτῃ ϕυλακῇ [‘fourth watch’] and ἐταράχθησαν … ϕάντασμα [‘they were terri ed … ghost’] — before and aer the chiastically arranged materials respectively); there is a corresponding internal chiasm in vv. 28-29, with ‘on the waters’ coming respectively aer and before ‘come/came to you/Jesus’ (nothing offers itself as a supporting alliteration unless it be a link in v. 29 between εἶπεν [‘he said’] and ιεπ and εν from περιεπάτησεν [‘walked’]). ‘Came to’ is found in vv. 25, 29; ‘walking/walked’ occurs in vv. 25 (and 26), 29; ‘on the sea/waters’ is found twice in vv. 25-26, 28-29 (if we include only one of the doubled elements — leaving the other to its role in the internal chiasms in vv. 25-26 and vv. 28-29 — then these three points of commonality can be seen as themselves ordered in a chiastic pattern).

89. See Luz, Matthäus, 2:407-8, 410, for a listing of texts and more detailed description. 90. Otherwise Matthew drops ‘his’ from ‘his disciples’ (cf. Mt. 13:15, 19), drops an emphatic αὐτός (‘himself ’) linked to the subject of ‘dismisses’, and uses ἕως οὗ + subjunctive (seventeen times in Matthew) rather than ἕως + indicative for the dismissal. 91. A difficulty compounded by the preceding εὐθέως (‘immediately’). 92. Jesus will go ahead of the disciples in Mt. 26:32; 28:7. 93. Other changes are: ἀποταξάμενος (‘separated from’) becomes ἀπολύσας (‘dismissed’), repeating the verb of Mt. 14:22 (this is in line with the observation of J. Smit Sibinga, ‘Matthew 14:22-33’, 18, among others, that one of Matthew’s narrative techniques is to create smooth development by means of overlapping); τοὺς ὄχλους (‘the crowds’) replaces a pronoun, in line with Matthew’s repetition of this language in vv. 13-21 (perhaps this helps to bind the adjacent pieces more closely together); ἀνέβη (‘went up’) is preferred to ἀπῆλθεν (‘departed from’), perhaps because it shares a root with ἐμβῆναι (‘get into’), used of the disciples, but certainly for the sake of the link with 5:1 (and cf. 15:29); and a linking καί (‘and’) becomes a δέ (‘and/but’). 94. ere are four uses of the verb of Jesus in Mt. 26:36-42. Otherwise only at 19:13 is there talk of Jesus praying. We also see Jesus at prayer in 11:25-26. 95. But it has already become clear from earlier parts of the Gospel that Matthew’s ‘chronology’ is more artistic and schematic than truly chronological. 96. Matthew does not use Mark’s ‘seeing them’, drops another use of ‘them [i.e., the disciples]’, and exchanges ἐν τῷ ἐλαύνειν (‘in the rowing’) for ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων (‘by the waves’). ere may be a practical reason for dropping ‘seeing’: it is the middle of the night. But if so, by Mt. 14:26 there is enough light to see, at least from a short distance. 97. In Jn. 6:19 the boat has gone twenty- ve or thirty stadia by the time Jesus arrives. 98. Since the fourth watch is already a three-hour block, Matthew drops Mark’s language of approximation (περί); the main verb changes from

historic present to aorist; ἐπί (‘on’) is used with the accusative rather than the dative (curiously there is no corresponding change in Mt. 14:26). 99. In the LXX, Job 9:8 speaks of God as ‘walking on the sea as if on dry ground’; cf. Ps. 77:19; Is. 43:16; Hab. 3:15; Sir. 24:5-6. 100. P. Berol. 5025:121-22 refers to a demon with power to tread on rivers and seas. 101. Matthew does not keep the ὁ δέ construction for changes of subject (instead he probably freshly introduces the name ‘Jesus’, but the text is uncertain); ‘with (μετά) them’ becomes ‘to them’ (while common enough in the LXX, λαλεῖν μετά is otherwise restricted in biblical materials to Eph. 4:25; Jn. 9:37; 14:30 and ve occurrences in Revelation); ‘and he says to them’ is reduced to ‘saying’. 102. See Ex. 3:14; Is. 41:4; 43:10; cf. 47:8, 10. In the LXX of these texts ἐγώ εἰμι (lit. ‘I am’) is either used absolutely or with a following ὁ ὤν (‘the one who is’). 103. E.g., Gn. 15:1; Jdg. 6:23; Dn. 10:12, 19; Tob. 12:17. 104. A different verb is used for ‘come’, but Matthew uses the two verbs interchangeably for following Jesus. See 4:19; 16:24. 105. Heil, Jesus Walking, 13 n. 9. 106. e links in vocabulary between Mt. 14:29-31 and Mk. 8:22-26 (not used by Matthew) are curious, but one should not make too much of them: ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαι (‘take hold of ’), χείρ (‘hand’), βλέπειν (‘see’), περιπατεῖν (‘walk’). 107. Matthew changes from two coordinated nite verbs to a participle and a nite verb. 108. Jesus is the Son (of God) in Mt. 2:15; 3:17; 4:3, 6; 8:29; 11:27; 16:16; 17:5; 24:36; 26:63; 27:40, 43, 54; 28:19; and cf. the parabolic language of 21:37, 38; 22:2. 109. Also Ginnesar, Genesar, Genosar. 110. ‘Lake of Gennesar’ in Jos., War 3.506. ‘e water of Gennesar’ in 1 Macc. 11:67 is presumably also the Sea of Galilee. 111. Cf. Schlatter, Matthäus, 473.

112. Matthew makes the adjustment by dropping the language of beginning and Mark’s ‘wherever they heard that he was. And wherever he went, into villages or towns or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces’ (6:55-56). Also, ‘carry about’ (περιϕέρειν) is displaced by ‘carried to/brought to him’ (using προσϕέρειν). 113. Perhaps intended to provide a further link with the feeding through verbal echoes of the use of ‘men’ and ‘place’ in Mt. 14:13, 15, 21. 114. But with the introduction of ‘that place’ the use of ‘that’ (carried over from Mk. 6:55) with ‘surrounding district’ is less felicitous: the surrounding district of that place is intended. 115. Aer the change from ‘ran about’ to ‘sent’, προσήνεγκαν is likely to have causative force: not ‘they brought’, but ‘they had [them] brought’. 116. κἄν (‘even if ’) becomes μόνον (‘only’), ἅψωνται (‘touch’) is brought forward, the ἄν (mark of inde niteness) aer ὅσοι (‘as many as’) is dropped, as is Mark’s αὐτοῦ (‘it’) aer ἥψαντο (‘touched’), and the stronger διεσώθησαν (‘were made completely well [aorist]’) replaces ἐσώζοντο (‘were made well [imperfect]’). 117. e changes from Mark in Mt. 9:21 and 14:36 are coordinated (with the exception of the use of the more intensive form for ‘were made completely well’ in 14:36), and Matthew adjusts the word order in 14:36 to bring it into line with that in 9:21. Earlier Matthew introduced ‘the tassel’ into 9:20 to prepare for this connection. 118. Marcus, ‘Scripture and Tradition’, 187-88. 119. In Matthew the phrase is found only in these two places. 120. If we disregard Mt. 12:38, where the reference seems to be, to some who were both scribes and Pharisees (τινες τῶν γραμματέων καὶ Φαρισαίων — Matthew’s change at 15:1 from οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καί τινες τῶν γραμματέων of Mk. 7:1 eliminates the similarity with Mt. 12:38), then 15:1 is the rst reference to the scribes and Pharisees since 5:20. e inversion of order may be to create a minor chiasm between 5:20 and 15:1. Matthew’s other uses of scribes and Pharisees are all concentrated in chap. 23. 121. e word means ‘associates’; they were linked together in associations. It is hard to discern from the surviving evidence how distinctive ḥaberîm were from other Pharisees.

122. Reconstructing Jewish practice in the time of Jesus is made extremely difficult by dating uncertainties in connection with the preserved traditions. It is likely that the washing of hands had already been gaining religious signi cance prior to the time of Jesus (see Aristeas 305-6, where the washing of hands before prayer is identi ed as a custom of all the Jews). But for eating the evidence for wider practice is later. ough there is no room for certainty, the study by Booth, Laws of Purity, offers a credible reconstruction of the stages of development. It is, however, quite likely that ordinary Jewish people tended to absorb as ideals and made some attempt to mimic (perhaps tfully, when they felt especially motived to express devotion) practices which they identi ed as representing the cutting edge of contemporary expressions of piety, and that therefore a wider currency of parts of ḥaberîm practice would be publicly visible. And though Booth is quite well aware of the way in which practices precede formal regulation, he does not make sufficient allowance for the likelihood that a logically coherent structure of purity regulation comes later than the traditional elements which are nally drawn into that uni ed theory. So, for example, it might be that the origin of the practice of washing hands before eating actually had to do with the washing of hands before prayer (as in Aristeas above). People washed their hands in connection with saying grace before the meal, and only later was a connection made between this practice and a theory that one’s hands could be rendered ritually unclean separately from the body (which is likely itself to have been secondarily generated out of an existing custom of hand washing). is distinction was later drawn into the developing Pharisaic ideal that those purity conditions appropriate for priests handling holy things or for people handling what was set apart as a tithe for the priests should be constantly met. e Gospel is concerned with ritual purity along the lines of Booth’s exploration, but only the connection with ritual purity is evident; in the interchange the Pharisaic signi cance of the practice is in view, which does not preclude a wider practice with a different or less precise signi cance. Finally, Booth’s discussion is too much determined by a later state of affairs for which he easily assumes that to be called tradition something needs to have emerged as a judgment out of proto-rabbinic discussion. In the earlier period it is more than likely that tradition, and even Pharisaic

tradition instated itself as tradition, came to be recognised as such in a more inchoate manner. (Booth recognises this likelihood in the movement from custom to law but fails to apply the same insight to the relationship between practice and tradition). 123. Jos., Ant. 13.297, says, ‘e Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations handed down by former generations and not recorded in the Laws of Moses’. 124. Jos., Ant. 13.297, speaks of the Sadducees as rejecting what the Pharisees had passed on. 125. For the Qumran community the preserved documents offer a basis for this to be worked out on an item-by-item basis. 126. In Jos., Ant. 10.51, the language is τῇ τῶν πρεσβύτερων … συμβουλίᾳ καὶ παραδόσει (‘the counsel and tradition of the elders’). 127. While the meaning is not the same, there would be a natural link between this sense for πρεσβύτεροι and that for the use of ἀρχαῖοι (‘old/of old’) in Mt. 5:21, 33. 128. Mk. 7:5 has ‘eat food/bread (τὸν ἄρτον) with unclean (κοιναῖς) hands’. 129. Ex. 30:19, 21; 40:31. 130. Clean hands are also an image of innocence in Pss. 18:20, 24; 24:4. e practice in Aristeas 305–6 of washing hands during prayer as an assertion that one had done no evil was presumably based on Pss. 26:6; 73:13. 131. See Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 161-73. 132. If Jn. 2:6 re ects early tradition, then it may be an important marker for the early emergence of widespread hand washing. e text does not specify what kind of ritual cleansing the large pots of water were intended for, but the requirement that ritual bathing must take place in a natural pool is likely to be early (see m. ʿEduy. 1:3; Miqwaʿot passim), which suggests that the water of Jn. 2:6 must be for hand washing. 133. Booth, Laws of Purity, 185-86, thinks that one must assume among Galileans a regular state of ritual de lement in connection with sexual activity (Lv. 15:16-18) because they would not have bothered to bathe unless

they were to be engaged in some activity requiring ritual purity. As likely as it might be that there was a degree of laxness among ordinary people, a conscientious reading of Lv. 15:16-18 would have produced a practice of bathing aer intercourse. Booth therefore seems to be making an unnecessary difficulty for himself here. 134. In m. Yad. 3:1 the question is asked, ‘How is it possible for the hands to suffer rst-grade uncleanness without [the] whole body also becoming unclean?’ but no answer is given. Otherwise this question does not seem to have attracted attention in surviving sources. 135. e same result may be deduced from the practical need for food of the person who remained impure for an extended period. See, e.g., Lv. 15:25. 136. e text simply says ‘the hands’, but there can be no doubt that ritual impurity of the hands as distinct from the body is intended. 137. ere is a violation here of the general principle that degrees of uncleanness decline in stages as they are transferred. e role of liquid in Lv. 11:38 in rendering seed more susceptible to transfer of uncleanness seems to have played an important role in re ection on the transfer of uncleanness. In particular the presence of liquid was believed to make possible the transfer of a higher level of uncleanness, and in some cases the resulting uncleanness was thought to be of an even higher level than that of the contaminating source. 138. In fact, we probably do not need the evidence of m. Zab. 5:12; m. Para. 8:7 to consider it likely that ritually unclean hands were thought to convey their uncleanness to food. e effect of ritual uncleanness is either to render un t for use or to communicate uncleanness. e former does not readily apply to hands (except inasmuch as it already implies the latter), while the latter relates as much to food as to anything else. 139. Presumably the same is true of the situation envisaged in Ho. 9:4, where the bread eaten by mourners is thought to de le (on the basis of the uncleanness of the dead body). 140. Perhaps it is the anomaly of the status of something which is unclean, but not forbidden as food, which leads to the difference at Dt. 14:21: ‘You shall not eat anything that dies of itself ’ (cf. Ex. 22:31). 141. See t. Dem. 2:11-12; b. Bek. 30b. But the dating is disputed.

142. Possibly there was a Pharisaic programme to extend the rules of priestly purity to laypeople, but at least for the period prior to the destruction of the temple this is probably to put the matter too systematically. In favour of such a programme see J. Neusner, ‘Mr. Sander’s Pharisees and Mine’, SJT 44 (1991), 73-95; D. R. de Lacey, ‘In Search of a Pharisee’, TynB 43 (1992), 353-72; R. Deines, Jüdische Steingefässe und pharisäische Frömmigkeit (WUNT 2/52. Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 268-74; H. H. Harringon, ‘Did the Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in a State of Ritual Purity?’, JSJ 26 (1995), 42-54. E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law, 131-254; Judaism, 438-40, is more reserved. 143. Both questions begin with διὰ τί (‘why’); Jesus’ question substitutes ‘you [i.e., the Pharisees and scribes]’ for ‘your disciples’; the principal verb in each case is ‘break’; Jesus’ question substitutes ‘the commandment of God’ for ‘the tradition of the elders’, and adds ‘for the sake of your tradition’. In both cases the supporting concrete information to follow is introduced with γάρ (‘for’). ough the basic substance is similar, this set of formal parallels is not found in Mk. 7. Matthew may have been inspired by the question and counterquestion material he will use in 21:23-27, though even here the questions lack the same degree of correlation. Matthew drops Mk. 7:9 as repetitive of v. 8. 144. Cf. Lv. 20:9; Dt. 27:16. 145. ἐὰν ἄνθρωπος (‘if a person’) is simpli ed to ὃς ἄν (‘whoever’); ‘you no longer allow him [or her] to do anything for’ becomes ‘he or she need not honour’ (οὐ μὴ τιμήσει — an emphatic negative construction with the future verb used modally, now probably a continuation of a Pharisaic ruling); the second use of ‘father’ gains a personal pronoun (‘their [sing.]’) and loses the following ‘or the mother’ as clearly enough implied from context; the making void of the word of God is further emphasised with a move from the participle to a coordinated nite verb; the role of the tradition is expressed with διά + accusative rather than the dative used by Mark; ‘which you have handed on’ is dropped as already clear from the context. 146. ere is probably a further parallelling in the contrast of ‘the one who speaks evil of father and mother must surely die’ and ‘whoever says to father or mother … need not honour his father’. Each refers to speaking evil,

and in each the contrasting statement of outcome makes use of an emphatic form (θανάτῳ used as a dative intensi er; the emphatic double negative οὐ μή). ‘Need not honour’ must also be contrasted with the ‘honour [father and mother]’ of the commandment. 147. is is the case, e.g., in m. Ned. 7:6 with the vow ‘Konam [a substitute form for korban] be these fruits to me!’ e Aramaic ossuary inscription discussed by Fitzmyer, ‘Aramaic Qorbān Inscription’, 60-65, is also relevant: ‘All that a man may nd to his pro t in this ossuary [is] korban to God from him who is within it’. 148. e order of ‘concerning you’ and ‘Isaiah’ is reversed, and λέγων (‘saying’) replaces Mark’s ὡς γέγραπται [ὅτι] (‘as it is written’). Since Matthew is quite comfortable with γέγραπται (nine uses of this exact form), he probably drops it as redundant aer ‘prophesied’. 149. In Mt. 15:8 ‘their’ is missing from ‘lips’ and a grammatically correct singular ‘honours’ replaces the plural according to sense aer ‘people’ in the LXX. Matthew, however, keeps the plural ‘their’ with heart, despite its also being a construction according to sense. Clearly Matthew is not adjusting the LXX to the Hebrew of the MT since he disallows the construction according to sense where the MT has it, and includes it where the MT does not. 150. e differences are mostly matters of pointing (wetōhū for watehî; miṣwôṭ for miṣwat), but a difference of consonantal text must lie behind καὶ διδασκαλίας (‘and teachings’), perhaps ûmelammedîm for melummādâ. e difference between the LXX and the Gospel text may be based on correction to a Hebrew text, closer to the consonantal text of the MT, lacking the û (‘and’) from the start of ûmelammedîm (or similar). 151. ‘Of the person’ (τοῦ ἀνθρώπου), which is dislodged with the omission of ‘from outside’ (ἔξωθεν) is redeployed as the object of ‘de les’ (κοινοῖ), which has replaced Mark’s more elaborate ‘is able to de le’ (δύναται κοινῶσαι); ‘are what de les’ (ἐστιν τα κοινοῦντα) becomes another ‘de les’ (κοινοῖ) — all of these changes also increase the symmetry of the parallelled statements. An emphatic τοῦτο (‘this’) is added to the second half as the counterpart to the negative οὐ (‘not’) of the rst half (Matthew may be in uenced by an emphatic use of ἐκεῖνο [‘that’] in Mk. 7:20).

152. See Acts 10:15; 11:9; 21:28; Heb. 9:13. 153. More broadly the language of impurity is used in relation to immoral behaviour in both the OT and the NT, the Qumran documents (e.g., 1QS 5:13-14), and Josephus (e.g., Ant. 18.117). 154. ere are 129 uses of μιαίειν (‘de le’) in the LXX, a good proportion having to do with ritual de lement, but only in Lv. 11:40, 43-44; 17:15 (discussed above) is the de lement connected with eating. 155. e Markan view was where at least the Pauline part of the early church ended up (Acts 10:15, 28; Rom. 14:14, 20; 1 Cor. 20:23; 1 Tim. 4:4; Tit. 1:15). 156. Ho. 6:6 is instructive. e rst half of the verse expresses as an absolute what is clearly intended as a relative; the second half of the construction changes to a relative (and thus guides the understanding of the rhetorical contrast in the rst half). Cf. also Ps. 40:6; Je. 7:22-23. Something like the prophetic perspective is found in Philo, Spec. leg. 3.209, ‘For the unjust and impious man is in the truest sense unclean’, but in Philo this is closely linked with his preference for allegorical exegesis of Scripture. Representing something of a Greek humanism, Menander, frg. 540, is similar, ‘All that brings de lement comes from within’. 157. Quoted from J. Neusner, ‘Judaism aer the Destruction of the Temple,’ in Israelite and Judaean History, ed. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller (London: SCM, 1977), 670, but Neusner has frequently repeated the view. In Judaism: e Evidence of Mishnah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 70, he soens ‘as if one were a temple priest’ to ‘in accord with cultic rules to begin with, applicable … to the Temple alone’. E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law, 242-54, though disagreeing with Neusner about the wholesale adoption of priestly purity rules, draws conclusions about the prominence of concerns for ritual purity which are just as telling. See also the comments at n. 142 above. 158. 1 Sa. 15:22; Is. 1:11; Je. 6:20; 14:12; Ho. 8:13; 9:4; Am. 5:22; etc. 159. Only a change of tense, a different position for ‘Jesus’/‘him’, and the inversion of roles of the nite verb and the participle separate the forms: τότε προσελθόντες … λέγουσιν αὐτῷ versus τότε προσέρχονται τῷ Ἰησοῦ

… λέγοντες. e parallelling will continue into Mt. 15:13, where the response of Jesus is introduced with ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν, as in v. 3. 160. e imagery of uprooting is found in Lk. 17:6, but in quite another connection. 161. E. Schürmann, Untersuchungen, 296, has argued persuasively that Mt. 15:13 depends on Mt. 7:16-21 = Lk. 6:43-44 (Mt. 15:14 is obviously a version of the material found in Lk. 6:39; Matthew has used his equivalent to Lk. 6:40 at 10:24-25). 162. Cf. also Je. 32:41. 163. Mt. 5:48; 6:14, 26, 32. ere are no later uses in Matthew. 164. Mt. 7:21; 10:32, 33; 12:50. Still to come are 16:17; 18:10, 19. 165. See W. Schrage, TDNT, 8:275, 286. 166. For rhetorical effect, both the subject (‘blind person’) and the object (‘blind person’) have been brought forward, outside their clause. 167. If ‘of the blind’ is original here (but it is probably not — see ‘Textual Notes’ above), it will point to ordinary Jews who take their lead from the Pharisees. In Matthew’s story the ordinary people will eventually be drawn by their leaders into committed opposition to Jesus (27:20-26). e imagery is taken from the everyday reality that blind people need guides. A link with a speci c Pharisaic claim to be guides to the blind is far from certain (cf. Rom. 2:19). 168. Cf. Ps. 7:15; Pr. 26:27; Is. 24:18; Je. 48:44; Pss. Sol. 14:3-4. 169. Cf. Job 33:18; Pss. 16:10; 30:9; Is. 38:18. 170. In Mk. 7:17 the disciples ‘asked’. 171. ere are ten uses. Mk. 7:18 has καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς (‘and he says to them’). 172. Only here in the NT. 173. A further minor change is that ἐκπορεύεται (‘goes out’) becomes ἐκβάλλεται. e change may be simply to avoid using the same verb as that used to speak about what comes out of the mouth in Mt. 15:18. It may also, however, be in the interests of using a stronger verb to underline the temporary nature of connection with food (ἐκβάλλεται should mean ‘is expelled’, but as with other words using the βαλλ- root, the force could be

weakened — NRSV translates ‘goes’, presumably taking the verb as middle rather than passive). 174. e use of χωρεῖν in this sense is found only here and in 2 Pet. 3:9 (‘come [to repentance]’). Matthew uses the verb also in 19:11-12, but with a different sense. 175. Mark’s plural in 7:15 (reduced to a singular by Matthew in 15:11) may be exerting some in uence. 176. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:535, aptly cite Philo, Fuga 79: ‘e treasuries of evil things are in ourselves’. 177. Mt. 5:8, 28; 6:21; 9:4; 11:29; 12:34; 13:15, 19; 15:8; yet to come, 18:35; 22:37. 178. Cf. Ez. 38:10; 1 Macc. 11:8 (singular in Je. 11:19: λογισμοὺς πονηρούς [‘evil thoughts’]). But perhaps, despite the plural, Matthew intends something like the ‘evil impulse’ of rabbinic discussion. 179. We will see below that there are two sets of three, as in Mt. 5:21-48. 180. ‘Acts of slander’ translates βλασϕημίαι. e singular has been translated ‘blasphemy’ in Mt. 12:31, and I have uniformly rendered the cognate verb as ‘blaspheme’. I noted at 9:3 the relative looseness of NT usage of language of blasphemy, but in the other reference a connection with God has encouraged me to keep the language of ‘blasphemy’. e plural and the absence of such a link here point to ‘acts of slander’ as the intended meaning. 181. Only ἐκεῖθεν (‘from there’), εἰς τά (‘to’), and Τύρου (‘Tyre’). e role of the house and the failed attempt to keep the presence of Jesus from being made known are entirely dropped. 182. Mt. 2:22; 4:12; 14:13. 183. Mark has ‘Sidon’ in 7:31. 184. Only γυνή (‘woman’). θυγάτριον (‘little daughter’) has lost its diminutive ending and become θυγάτηρ (‘daughter’ — Mark uses this for Jesus’ words in 7:29). Displaced from Mt. 15:21, τὰ ὅρια of Mk. 7:24 is used with ἀπό in the genitive (‘from the region’). 185. Matthew has it twenty-eight times. Combined with γυνή (‘woman’), it appears elsewhere only in 9:20, perhaps providing a link between these

two women. 186. Χαναναῖοι (‘Canaanites’) is used eighty-seven times in the LXX. e word appears in close connection with Sidon in Gn. 10:19 and with Tyre in 2 Sa. 24:7. It is unlikely that the use of χαναναῖοι and cognate terms for merchants is relevant here (Pr. 31:24; Zc. 1:7, 11; 14:21), a meaning that is the result of ethnic stereotyping (much as ‘Jews’, ‘Chinese’, and ‘Indians’ have functioned in certain cultural contexts). 187. But it is unlikely that Matthew has the arti ce of Jesus approaching but not entering the districts of Tyre and Sidon (to keep him from Gentile territory). is requires a rather unnatural reading of εἰς (‘to/into’) in 15:21. 188. e emphatic καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’) is also common, and in both cases there is an exorcism in a Gentile context. In both cases there is also a signi cant christological affirmation (‘Son of God’; ‘Lord, Son of David’). 189. e centurion of Mt. 8:5-13 is the other case; there the intercession is also on behalf of a minor with whom there is an affectionate family or family-like link. 190. e full form, ‘Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David’, will appear again at Mt. 20:30, 31, in an episode which has both inspired 9:27-31 and is likely to be responsible in part for the doubly made request in 15:21-28 (vv. 22, 25) and for the interference of the disciples (in 20:31 it is the crowd which interferes). e blind people of 9:27-31 address Jesus as ‘Lord’ in v. 28. 191. And cf. the use of ‘spirit’ of a demon in Mt. 8:16; 12:45. 192. Closest is Mt. 17:15, σεληνιάζεται καὶ κακῶς πάσχει (‘subject to epilepsy and suffers badly’); in v. 18 we discover that a demon is the cause. Despite the translation adopted above, multiple possession is possible in Mt. 15:22. 193. Mt. 27:14 is verbally close but plays a quite different role. 194. Mt. 15:23: προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ … λέγοντες· ἀπόλυσον; Mt. 14:15: προσῆλθον … οἱ μαθηταὶ λέγοντες· … ἀπόλυσον. e suggestion is sometimes made that ἀπόλυσον (translated above as ‘dismiss’) should be taken to mean ‘send her away [with what she wants]’, but the parallel with 14:15 is strongly against this.

195. οὐκ … εἰ μή, meaning ‘only’, is oen considered an Aramaism, but it is found in the LXX of 4 Kgdms. 6:22. Matthew introduces the idiom at 12:24 and 14:17. 196. See Mt. 5:17; 9:13; 10:34-35; 20:28; cf. 11:3; 21:9; 23:39; 24:30, 39, 42, 44; 25:31. 197. ἐλθοῦσα (‘came’) comes straight across from Mark, and προσεκύνει αὐτῷ (‘began to do obeisance to him’) is Matthean diction for Mark’s προσέπεσεν πρὸς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ (‘fell at his feet’). 198. An echo of the diction of the Psalms is again possible (see Pss. 43:27[MT 44:27; ET 44:26]; 69:6[MT 70:6; ET 70:5]; 78[MT/ET 79]:9; 108 [MT/ET 109]:26; 118[MT/ET 119]:86, 117), but these use the aorist verb, not the present as here. 199. Mk. 7:27 has, ‘and he said to her’ (καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτῇ). 200. With one change of word order. 201. See Dt. 14:1; Is. 1:2; cf. Ex. 4:22; Ho. 11:1. 202. Ex. 22:31 speaks of throwing meat to the dogs that cannot be eaten by people; Job 30:1 has ‘the dogs of my ock’; Ps. 68:23 has ‘your dogs’; Is. 56:10 has guard dogs (Israel’s sentinels are compared with dogs that cannot bark to give the alarm). 203. Philo, Praem. 89, recognises the affection of some dogs for their masters (A. L. Connolly, ‘66. κυνάριον’, in G. H. W. Horsley, New Documents, 4:155-57, includes texts dealing with dogs who were pets). In Tob. 6:2; 11:4 the role of the dog seems to be to protect the young man on his journey. 204. ough in this case the diminutive had largely lost its literal force, the use of the diminutive form κυνάριον for ‘dog’ here (contrast Mt. 7:6) favours reference to household dogs. 205. 1 Sa. 17:43; 24:14; 2 Sa. 9:8; 16:9; 2 Ki. 8:3; Job 30:1; Ec. 9:4. 206. See, e.g., m. Soṭa 9:15; Phil. 3:2; Rev. 22:15, where the dogs are respectively Israel as impious in the present generation, Judaising Christians, and sinners. 207. is is not to say that rabbinic discussion did not compare Gentiles to dogs (see Str-B, 1:724-25).

208. It may be implicit in withdrawal statements like that in Mt. 14:13 and is perhaps re ected in the tiredness of Jn. 4:6. 209. ough occasionally construed so, this is not a story of Jesus reaching out to the marginalised. 210. Mark has the word only here. In Matthew it occurs in 15:23, 24, 26, 28. 211. See BDF §452 (2). 212. Philostr., VA 1.19, ‘like dogs that eat what falls from the table’. In Jdg. 1:7 Adonibezek says, ‘Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table’. In Lk. 16:21 the poor man longed for ‘what fell from the rich man’s table’. 213. E.g., Is. 2:2-4; 14:1-2; 45:14; 60:10-14; Je. 16:19; Mi. 4:1-4; Zc. 2:11; 8:20-23; 14:16-19. ere is a wider vision in Is. 19:18-25; 49:6; 56:3-8; etc. 214. In common is only εἶπεν αὐτῇ (‘[he] said to her’), a use of καί (‘and’) linking the statement of Jesus with the subsequent development, and a use of ὁ θυγάτηρ (‘the daughter’), but in one case in the nominative and in the other in the genitive. 215. Matthew’s only other use of ὦ is in 17:17. It is found eighty-nine times in the LXX, in many cases with the vocative as in Mt. 15:28; 17:17. 216. Only in these two places and in Mt. 16:16-19 (in connection with Peter’s confession) does Jesus praise somebody for something they have said to him. 217. G. Jackson, ‘Have Mercy’, maintains that Matthew’s account is informed by traditions about Gentile women becoming converts to Judaism as proselytes. ough there are some similarities, the case is not strong, and even if such traditions are being echoed, the image of dogs eating the crumbs suggests, contra Jackson, that, despite her very Jewish faith, the Canaanite woman becomes a bene ciary of Jesus’ ministry not as a freshly made Jewess, but as a Gentile. 218. Mt. 8:13 has, ‘“… let it happen for you.” And his lad was healed in that very hour’. ‘Let it happen for you’ also represents an overlap with 9:29, for which other links to 15:21-28 have been noted. 219. Wish language is found in Mt. 20:32 (from Mk. 10:51) in connection with the healing of the two blind people, an episode which

Matthew has ‘pre-used’ in 9:27-31, and in which, as noted above, the woman’s words, ‘Have mercy on me/us, Lord, Son of David’, are also found. 220. Mark’s geographically difficult journey statement is dropped. 221. He used a similar strategy in Mt. 9:27-31. 222. e next closest match is μετέβη ἐκεῖθεν (‘went on from there’) in Mt. 11:1. 223. In the translation above of Mt. 15:29 ‘beside the sea’ is slightly awkward, but I have adopted it in order to retain the visibility of the use of the same phrase. 224. Compared with Mt. 15:30, the actions expressed by the nite verb and participle in 5:1 are interchanged and καθίζειν (not καθῆσθαι) is the verb for ‘sit down’. 225. e way in which the various elements in Mt. 15:29-31 link back to earlier materials in Matthew makes it less likely that they accumulate together to link up with an eschatological Mount Zion tradition, as sometimes claimed. 226. ‘And he healed them’ will appear again in Mt. 21:14 (and cf. 8:16; 14:14). 227. e sequencing is not incompatible, but it does not provide speci c support: lame, blind, maimed, mute in Mt. 15:30; mute, maimed, lame, blind in v. 31. e pattern is chiastic, with lame and blind kept together and in xed sequence. 228. e motif is also refreshed at Mt. 14:14, where the compassion language appears again. 229. e LXX of Zc. 11:16 has different Greek vocabulary: συντετριμμένον and ἰάσηται. 230. e MT of Zc. 11:16 has ‘seek the youth (hnʿr)’; the LXX has ‘seek the scattered (διεσκορπισμένον)’. 231. e MT of Zc. 11:16 has yklkl hnṣbh. hnṣbh appears to be the niphal sing. fem. participle of nṣb, a verb which means ‘stand/stand up/stand rm’. e qal participle can mean ‘one who is in charge’, so it is possible that the niphal might mean that which is under such a charge. e LXX has τὸ ὁλόκληρον, which means ‘the sound/whole/complete’. yklkl is the pilpel of

kwl, which means ‘clasp/contain/provide (food)/manage’. e LXX has κατευθύνῃ, which means ‘make straight/guide/direct’. 232. But ῥίπτειν πρὸ τῶν ποδῶν ἑαυτόν (‘throw/place oneself before the feet of ’) is a posture of entreaty in Jos., Ant. 2.159. It may be, therefore, that Matthew’s language suggests placing the afflicted in a posture of entreaty that they may not have been able to achieve unaided. 233. Lk. 7:38; 8:35, 41; 17:16. It is also found four times in Acts. 234. ough the speci cs are quite different, there may a link between placing people at the feet of Jesus here and touching the tassel of his coat in Mt. 14:36. 235. Matthew slips into a Markan singular for ‘crowd’ at 14:14. 236. ough Matthew is not averse to Mark’s verb (he keeps it in a related context in 13:54), he has changed to the present verb in 8:27 (admittedly from a verb for fear). e presence of the same verb in 9:33 as discussed below may be the key to Matthew’s change in 15:31. 237. Cousland, ‘Feeding’, 14-23. e quotation is from p. 19. 238. Mk. 8:1 has, ‘In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat’ (ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις πάλιν πολλοῦ ὄχλου ὄντος καὶ μὴ ἐχόντων τί ϕάγωσιν). 239. Changes are: Jesus is freshly introduced; ‘his’ is added in ‘his disciples’; ‘he says to them’ becomes ‘he said’; Mark’s ‘if (ἐάν) I send them away…they will’ pattern is replaced with ‘I do not want to send them away … just in case (μήποτε) they …’; Mark’s ‘to their house[s]’ and ‘and some of them have come from afar’ are dropped. 240. Matthean editing in the respective feeding accounts occasionally reduces, but predominantly increases, the similarity between the two accounts. 241. e time expression is in the nominative (as is Mk. 8:2), which is not very common; the accusative would be customary. 242. Water would have been available. 243. Mt. 14:15. e disciples’ desire to have the Canaanite woman sent away will also be echoed (15:23).

244. But Matthew does use Mark’s verb with the wider sense ‘respond’ (e.g., 11:25; 12:38). e chiasm is identi ed in the next note, but Matthew may be working towards one here. 245. In Mk. 8:4 the problem is simply how ‘to feed these [i.e., the crowd] with [loaves of] bread here in the wilderness’. Other changes from Mark are the dropping of the ὅτι to introduce direct speech and a preference for ἐν + dat. over ἐπί + gen. for ‘in the wilderness’. 246. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:571, have noted the minor a-b-b-a chiasm which results: the elements of the conversation between Jesus and the disciples in Mt. 15:32-34 are introduced respectively with ὁ δὲ εἶπεν — καὶ λέγουσιν — καὶ λέγει — οἱ δὲ εἶπαν. 247. Indeed, Matthew’s adding of ‘and a few small sh’ is inspired by the corresponding feature of Mk. 6:38. 248. Matthew subordinates the nite verb, rendering it as a participle, and changes the case aer ἐπί (‘on’) from gen. to acc. 249. Mk. 8:6 has αὐτοῦ at the end, giving ‘his disciples’. Neither Mt. 15:36 nor Mk. 8:6 has the ‘looked up to heaven’ of Mt. 14:19. 250. ere is probably no signi cance in the fact that εὐχαριστήσας is the verb form used of the bread in the Last Supper narrative in Lk. 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24 (abbreviation means that no verb is visible for the cup). 251. Mk. 8:6 has ‘to distribute [using a ἵνα construction], and they distributed [them] to the crowd’. 252. For no obvious reason the verb ‘took up’ is moved from the position it has in Mk. 8:8 and Mt. 14:20. 253. For κοϕίνος see the discussion at Mt. 14:20. Aristoph., Peace, line 1005, has σπυρίς in ‘basket of eels’ and Hdt., History, 5:16:4, uses σπυρίς of a basket lowered into the water to catch sh. But in Acts 9:25 the basket that lets Paul down from the city wall is a σπυρίς. e distinction in Mt. 16:9-10 has mainly to do with echoing language from the respective accounts, but it remains possible that within the generality of the use of the two words some distinction has been lost from sight (e.g., mode of construction, material used, shape, size — κόϕινος could be smaller). 254. Both accounts have the dismissal, the embarking, and the boat in common and use the same Greek terms (the arrival is reminiscent of Mt.

14:34, but the two have only ἦλθον [‘came’] in common). 255. Magadan is sometimes identi ed with Magdala. e evidence for the identi cation is suggestive but not decisive (Magadan is taken to be an acc. form of Magdala that has lost a syllable, either accidentally or in transliteration, on the analogy of the representation of Migdal-gad in the LXX of Jos. 15:37 as Μαγαδαγαδ — losing the ‘l’ and gaining the ‘a’ between adjacent consonants, as with Magadan; Magdala[n] is found in various manuscripts). e location, however, would t nicely. Magdala (if it is to be identi ed with Tarichaeae, on the basis of the name used in rabbinic sources) is on the Sea of Galilee, approximately as much further south of Gennesaret as Gennesaret is south of Capernaum. 256. Matthew has also interchanged the role of the principal verb and participle between ‘dismissed’ and ‘get into’ (as oen), dropped Mark’s ‘immediately’ (also oen), and used τὰ ὅρια, which he used in 15:22, rather than Mark’s τὰ μέρη for ‘the region’ (the opposite change was made in 15:21). 257. Cf. also the ‘sign of the Son of Man’ which ‘will appear in heaven’ in Mt. 24:30. 258. Mark’s ‘and he sighed deeply in his spirit’ is dropped, in line with Matthew’s general tendency to drop indications of Jesus’ emotions. 259. Since neither set is derived from the other, it is difficult to decide which might be the more original. Matthew’s ts more neatly with ‘the appearance of [the earth and] the sky’ (Mt. 16:3; Lk. 12:56), which may count in its favour. 260. πυρράζειν (‘to be red’) is not otherwise found until later centuries, but the related πυρ(ρ)ίζειν is found in the LXX. 261. εὐδία is found only here in the NT, but it is used in Sir. 3:15; Philo, Gig. 51; Jos., Ant. 14.157; etc. 262. χειμών normally means ‘winter’, but because of the correlation between winter and stormy weather it came also to mean ‘stormy/rainy weather’ (cf. Acts 27:20). 263. Keener, Matthew, 421, leans on Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social Science, 111, to claim a Palestinian milieu, but he does so without noticing

that they are inadvertently commenting on the Lukan text rather than the one which is quoted. 264. In its only other NT use στυγνάζειν means ‘be sad/gloomy’ (Mk. 10:22). 265. at the redness may be considered to be the generally stable element gains some support from the statement in b. B. B. 84a: ‘e sun is red at sunrise and sunset’. 266. Differences are: Matthew lacks ‘hypocrites’ and ‘the earth and’, and does not repeat his verb for ‘judge’; οἴδατε becomes γινώσκετε for ‘you know’; δοκιμάζειν (‘interpret/test’) becomes διακρίνειν (‘recognise/differentiate/judge’); ‘this [present] time’ becomes ‘the signs of the times’; the second οἴδατε becomes δύνασθε (‘you are able’); the contrast is now carried by a μὲν … δέ construction, with the second clause negated, instead of by a πῶς οὐκ (‘how … not’) question. 267. Perhaps under the in uence of the question form in Lk. 12:56, scholars have sometimes punctuated the nal clause of Mt. 16:3 as a question, but only a negative statement adequately prepares for v. 4 to follow. 268. E.g., Dn. 7:25; 9:27; 11:14; cf. Tob. 14:5. 269. Matthew changes the verb and holds back on the sea crossing in Mark in order to use it to set up the following episode (which needs to come aer a period of travel). 270. e aorist verb in ἀπῆλθεν εἰς τὸ πέραν (‘he departed to the other side’) in Mk. 8:13 could be read as indicating the completion of the journey before the interaction, but the arrival in Bethsaida statement in v. 22 suggests that the aorist be handled in another way (‘he set off ’), and this is con rmed by the ‘with them in the boat’ language in v. 14. 271. e formal oddnesses are that there is no departure statement to correspond to the arrival statement in Mt. 16:5 and that, given that it is the disciples who travel in v. 5, Jesus’ presence in v. 6 remains unexplained. 272. Luz, Matthäus, 447, understands the Matthean representation of the movements this way. 273. One might speak of the use of a minor chiasm, with Jesus and the disciples exchanging roles as to who le the scene rst.

274. In favour of this approach is the way in which the disciples are clearly out-of-sight travelling companions in Mt. 14:13, and so may well be in 15:39; 16:4. 275. It is likely that the one loaf of Mk. 8:14 is, in light of the references to come to the two feedings, a loaf that could have been multiplied in the manner of the earlier loaves if the situation had warranted it. 276. Matthew drops all of Mark’s uses but introduces one of his own at 16:20 (replacing Mark’s language of rebuke). 277. Mk. 8:15 has ‘the Pharisees’ and ‘Herod’. 278. Mk. 8:15 has a separate leaven for the Pharisees and for Herod. 279. Only in Mt. 24:10; 25:32. 280. at at Mt. 9:3 the activity is internal to individuals is suggested by ‘thoughts’ in v. 4; in 21:25, 38 the resulting concerted action in each case suggests an interactive element. 281. Matthew’s addition of the rather redundant λέγοντες (lit. ‘saying’) counts in the same direction. 282. Missing is ‘or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear?’ 283. In both cases Matthew also drops ‘full’ (of the baskets) and ‘broken pieces’ and switches the verbs from ἤρατε (‘did you take up’) to ἐλάβετε (lit. ‘did you take’). As already in Mk. 8:19-20, the role of the sh has dropped from sight. 284. Abbreviated to the extent of losing the opening ‘watch out and’. 285. But note the criticism of speci c Pharisaic teaching in Mt. 23:16-22. 286. A watershed is crossed with Mt. 16:21: ‘from that time Jesus began …’. But Matthew also invests heavily in providing bridges across the divide: Peter’s role is for the future; the Son of Man language bridges from v. 13 to vv. 27-28 (and cf. 17:13); the role of Peter in 16:22-23 represents a striking negative parallel to that in vv. 16-19 (the language of a diptych has been used); dealing immediately with the disciples continues across the watershed; ‘Son [of God]’ language will appear again soon in 17:5; reference to Elijah will appear again in vv. 3-4, 11-12 and to John the Baptist again in v. 13. Nonetheless, the chiasm perceived by Luz (Matthäus, 2:453), with

16:13-16 and vv. 24-28 as the outer frame surrounding vv. 16-19 and vv. 2223 and with vv. 20-22 as the centre is not convincing. Vv. 13-16 and 24-28 do not form a natural pair and, more importantly, the identi ed centre does not correspond to the appropriate weighting due to the respective blocks. 287. See further Nolland, Luke, 1:449-51. 288. So Mark’s ἐξῆλθεν (‘he went out’) in 8:27 no longer suits, and Matthew drops Mark’s reference to the disciples (Matthew may also have had considerations of economy in mind here: the disciples are about to be mentioned anyway — ‘to them’ is also dropped as an economy). Since we are now dealing in effect with an arrival statement, Mark’s ‘on the way’ is also dropped. 289. See Jos., War 1.404-6; 2.168; 3.509-15; Ant. 15.363-64. 290. See the initial discussion at Mt. 8:20. ‘e Son of Man’ has been used thus far in 8:20; 9:6; 10:23; 11:19; 12:8, 32, 40; 13:37, 41. 291. e answers are in the accusative since the full form of the syntax would repeat the relevant part of the question and link the answer to the use of the in nitive εἶναι. 292. Where Mk. 8:28 uses ἄλλοι (‘others’) again, Matthew switches to ἕτεροι (lit. ‘different [ones]’). 293. Mk. 8:28 carelessly slips into the nominative for this third prong of the answer. Matthew maintains consistency by changing to the accusative. 294. is feature is highlighted by Menken, ‘Jeremiah in Matthew’, 17-23. Note especially Je. 11:18–12:6; 15:10-21; 17:12-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-18; Sir. 49:7. 295. Winkle, ‘Jeremiah Model’, 155-72, argues for this link. Note especially Je. 6:6, 8; 7; 19:7-8; 25:18; 26; 32:28-29; 34:2 and Mt. 23:38; 24:2. 296. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:619, note Mt. 7:22, cf. Je. 14:14; 29:13-14; Mt. 11:29, cf. Je. 6:16; Mt. 21:13, cf. Je. 7:11; Mt. 23:34, cf. Je. 7:2526; Mt. 26:28, cf. Je. 31:31-34. 297. See Wis. 1:15; 3:4; 8:3; 15:3; 4 Macc. 7:19; 9:8; 14:5; 16:25; 17:18. 298. But there is some suspicion that this way of putting it represents an accommodation to Josephus’s Hellenistic readers. 299. See the discussion in Nolland, Luke, 2:829.

300. Nolland, Luke, 3:967. 301. Matthew’s dropping of the healing in Mk. 8:22-26 brings the materials into immediate connection. Clearly the link with Mt. 14:22-33 is also important, as marked by the expansion of the confession with ‘the Son of the living God’ to echo ‘the Son of God’ of 14:33 (see discussion at 16:16). 302. e only change from Mk. 8:29 here is the addition of δέ (lit. ‘and/but’) and the use of the aorist for ‘said’ in place of the historic present (Matthew also adds Σίμων [‘Simon’] at this point). 303. Only here in Matthew, but found also in Lk. 5:8; Jn. 1:40; 6:8, 68; 13:6, 9, 24, 36; 18:10, 15, 25; 20:2, 6; 21:2, 3, 7, 11, 15. 304. On the second occasion when Jesus addresses Peter as Simon (17:25) Matthew does not feel the same need to prepare, with Peter being referred to simply as Peter in v. 24. 305. To come are Mt. 20:30, 31; 21:9, 15. 306. Mt. 1:1, 16, 17, 18. 307. is usage is found in the LXX only in Lv. 21:10, 12 of ‘the anointing oil’ (τὸ ἔλαιον τὸ χριστόν). 308. e text continues, ‘and enlivened with colours and dyes’ (καὶ καταπεποικιλμένον χρώμασι καὶ βαϕαῖς). ough in a Jewish writer, the usage here is unlikely to be secondary to the distinctive Jewish uses of χριστός. I have not been able to locate any other related uses. 309. 2 Sa. 1:21 has an adjectival use, but this may well be a miscopy for mšwḥ, the passive participle (meaning ‘anointed’). 310. See Lv. 4:3, 5, 16. e role of a literal anointing with oil is clear from Ex. 29:7; 30:25; Lv. 8:12; 21:10, 12; cf. Sir. 45:15. 311. See 1 Sa. 24:7, 11; 26:9, 11, 16, 23; 2 Sa. 1:14, 16; 19:22; La. 4:20. 2 Sa. 23:1 uses the related mšyḥ ʾlhy yʿqb (‘[the] anointed of the God of Jacob’). 312. For the use of oil in the anointing of the king see 1 Sa. 10:1; 16:1, 13; 1 Ki. 1:39; 2 Ki. 9:3, 6; Ps. 89:20. 313. See 1 Sa. 2:10, 35; 12:3, 5; 16:6; 2 Sa. 22:51; 2 Ch. 6:42; Pss. 2:2; 18:51; 20:7; 28:8; 84:10; 89:39, 52; 132:10, 17; Hab. 3:13. 314. ere are also two uses in Daniel. 9:25 has mšyḥ ngyd (lit. ‘an anointed one, a prince’), which is followed up in v. 26 with mšyḥ (‘an

anointed one’). e reference is clearly to a royal gure, but the intended referent is disputed. 315. See Jdg. 9:8, 15, 16; 1 Sa. 10:1; 15:1, 17; 16:12, 13; 2 Sa. 2:4, 7; 3:39; 5:3, 17; 12:7; 19:10; 1 Ki. 1:34, 39, 45; 5:1; 19:15; 2 Ki. 9:3, 6, 12; 11:12; 23:30; 1 Ch. 11:3; 14:8; 29:22; 2 Ch. 22:7; 23:11; Pss. 45:7; 89:21. 1 Ki. 19:15-16 is notable in dealing with the anointing of Hazael as king over Aram. 1 Ch. 29:22 sets in parallel the anointing of Solomon as king and Zadok as priest. 316. A literal anointing is reported in the case of Jehu (2 Ki. 9:6), but not in the case of Hazael or Elisha. 317. ere is also in Dn. 9:24 ‘to anoint a most holy [place, thing or one]’. Cf. vv. 25, 26. 318. 2 Sa. 2:5 adds a royal use of χριστός; some textual confusion produces another in 2 Ch. 22:7; a reading of mšyḥ for the MT mh-śḥw in Am. 4:13 produces ‘announcing to the people his anointed one’, which probably refers to the divine choice of the king. La. 4:20 has χριστὸς κύριος (‘Christ [the] Lord’), which is, however, normally emended to χριστὸς κυρίου (‘[the] Lord’s anointed [one]’), in line with the Hebrew. e Apocrypha add a royal use in Sir. 46:19 and an adjectival use in connection with priests in 2 Macc. 1:10 (‘Aristobulus, who is of the family of the anointed priests’). 319. 2 Sa. 7; Pss. 20:7(ET v. 6); 84:10(ET v. 9); 89:19-51; Is. 9:1-6; 11:1-9; Je. 23:1-6; chap. 30, esp. v. 9; 33:14-26; Ez. 17; 34; Am. 9:11-15; Zc. 4:14; 6:914; 9:9-10; 12; cf. Mi. 5:1-3; Hg. 2:20-23. 320. See Pss. 2; 20; 21; 28; 45; 72; 89; 101; 110; 132; 144. 321. e heading for Pss. Sol. 18 (perhaps later) has ‘A psalm of Solomon about [the] Lord’s anointed [one]’; v. 5 has ‘his anointed one’; and v. 7 has ‘of [the] Lord’s anointed [one]’ — but the double genitive in the rst and last could also be read as ‘of Christ [the] Lord’. 322. An expectation of ‘the prophet’ is rooted in Dt. 18:18-19. In the NT such an expectation becomes visible in the Gospel of John especially. See Jn. 1:21, 25; 6:14; 7:40. An expectation of an anointed one of Aaron is the expectation of a priestly ruler and is most likely to be understood against the background of the postexilic and especially Maccabean role of the high priest in the absence of a Davidic ruler.

323. Cf. CD 12:23, which uses the participle instead of the noun for ‘[the] anointed [one] of Aaron’; 14:19, which is missing all but one of the letters of ‘[the] anointed [one]’ but probably read, ‘[the] anointed [one] of Aaron and Israel’; and 20:1, which has ‘an anointed one out of Aaron and Israel’. 324. See 4QFlor (4Q174) frgs. 1-3 10–13; 4QpIsaa (4Q161) frgs. 8-10 3:11-25; 4QpGena (4Q252) 5:3-4; cf. CD 7:18-21. 325. 1Q30 frg. 1 2 has is the phrase ‘the holy anointed one’, but there is no surviving context to clarify its reference. 326. See 1 Enoch 48:10 (echoing Ps. 2:2); 52:4. e text of chaps. 37–71 of 1 Enoch has been preserved only in Ethiopic and is oen thought to be the product of a later expansion. 327. 2 Bar. 29:3; 30:1; 39:7; 40:1; 70:9; 2; 72:2. 328. It may be more than fortuitous that in Mt. 14:33 ‘those in the boat’ (so: not immediately including Peter?) make the confession, while in 16:16 Peter makes the confession. 329. For OT use see Dt. 5:26; Jos. 3:10; 1 Sa. 17:26, 36; 2 Ki. 19:4, 16; Pss. 42:2; 84:2; Is. 37:4, 17; Je. 10:10; 23:36; Dn. 6:20, 26; Ho. 1:10. 330. Cf. the statement of favour in Jdg. 6:12 that introduces the call of Gideon, and the one in Lk. 1:30 that introduces the call of Mary. 331. Receiving revelation is marked as a privilege in beatitude or nearbeatitude language in 2 Esdr. 10:57; Jos. As. 16:14. Cf. Je. 1:12. 332. Cf. also 1 Co. 15:50; Sir. 17:30-32; Jn. 1:11-12. Dependence one way or the other between Mt. 16:17 and Gal. 1:16 is less unlikely: to base Mt. 16:17 on Gal. 1:16 (or the claim of Paul expressed there) makes Paul a reference point in a manner not credible within the larger Matthean frame; to base Gal. 1:(15-)16 on (the tradition behind) Mt. 16:17 has more in its favour, given the interplay with Peter in the context, but the comparison with Jeremiah (Je. 1:5) and/or the servant role of Israel in Is. 49:1, 6 is more germane to Paul’s core purpose here, and if there is a comparison to be made it is with the earlier apostles as a group (Gal. 1:17), not with Peter (who does not gain a speci c focus until 2:11— 1:18 mentions Peter alone, but not to consider him separately from the other apostles).

333. See, e.g., Robinson, ‘Peter’, 86. e structure has been widely recognised. 334. Mt. 16:17 has an added αὐτῷ (‘to him’). 335. ere is also some similarity between thanking God in Mt. 11:25 and declaring Peter fortunate in 16:17. 336. See Job 28:12-13, 20-22; Dn. 2:19, 22, 28, 29, 30, 47. 337. Nolland, Luke, 2:694. Cf. B. F. Meyer, ‘Jesus and the Remnant of Israel’, JBL 84 (1965), 123-30. 338. e one exception is Lk. 22:34, where Luke has added ‘Peter’ to his source with a view to balancing the use of ‘Simon’ in v. 31 (see Nolland, Luke, 3:1073). In Mk. 16:7 the young man at the tomb uses ‘Peter’. 339. Fitzmyer, ‘Aramaic Kephaʾ’, 112-24. 340. Caragounis, Peter and the Rock. e Latin Petra was used in preChristian times. Related Latin names were Petreius, Petro, and Petronius. In Greek Πετραῖος and Πετρώνιος were in use. Πέτρος is frequently attested in the early Christian centuries as a name in use outside Christian circles. Surviving uses are from as early as A.D. 100-101, which implies giving the name, say, thirty to forty years earlier. e work on the name Πέτρος is summarised on pp. 23-25. 341. e possibility considered above of a reading with ἐπί σοι (‘on you’) in Matthew’s source still requires a wordplay between the use of Πέτρος/kypʾ as a name and as a word for ‘rock’. 342. is summary concerning the word meanings is based on Caragounis, Peter the Rock, 116. 343. Like πέτρα, kypʾ gradually lost its original sense of ‘rock’ and came to mean ‘stone’. See Caragounis, Peter the Rock, 26-30, 116-17. 344. Even then, Matthew does not actually report their mission. see the discussion at 10:1. 345. Interpreters sometimes think that God is the rock here. 346. e presence of a transliteration into Hebrew script of the Greek πέτρα (‘rock’) in Midr. Yal. Šimʾoni 1:766 has suggested to many that this text has been constructed in conscious awareness of Mt. 16:18. It has also drawn on a tradition preserved in Ex. Rab. 15:7 in which the world will be

built on the patriarchs and where there is no link with Is. 51:1-2 (the texts appealed to are Nu. 23:9; 1 Sa. 2:8). 347. e key language is: ‘You place the foundation upon rock … and the plummet … tested stone for a strong building’ (note the use of ‘plummet’ in Is. 28:17). 348. Cf. 4QpPsa (4Q171) 3:15-16, which speaks of ‘the Teacher of [Righteousness, whom] God … installed … to build for him the congregation’. 349. It is the ‘precious cornerstone … whose foundations do not shake or tremble in their place’. 350. e classic articulations of this cosmic scheme are to be found in Jeremias, Golgotha, 51-68; Schmidt, Heilige Fels. Cf. Ringger, ‘Felsenwort’, 271-347. 351. In 1 Enoch 53:6 the messianic gure, ‘the Righteous and Elect One[,] will reveal the house of his congregation’. 352. In the case of the Greek terms, etymologically ἐκκλησία ought to point to the calling together of the group and συναγωγή to the gathering, but there is little evidence that this etymology still in uenced use in the NT period. 353. In 1QM 4:9-10 ʿdt ʾl (‘God’s congregation’) and qhl ʾl (‘God’s assembly’) both have a place in a list of epithets applied to the Qumran community at the time of the great battle. e two terms are again used in parallel in 1QSa (1Q28) 2:4. 354. In the Pentateuch the normal usage is ‘[the] church of [the] Lord’. But at Horeb it is ‘the church’ (Dt. 4:10; 9:10), and in Dt. 31:30 it is ‘all the church of Israel’. 355. e comparison with the use of kingdom language is suggestive. For Jesus the kingdom is regularly God’s. ere is exceptionally in Mt. 20:21 ‘your kingdom’ on the lips of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, but this is Matthean (cf. Mk. 10:37) and underlines the element of Davidic royal rule in Jewish messianic expectation. Lk. 23:42 is similar. Lk. 22:30 has ‘my kingdom’ on the lips of Jesus, which picks up on the royal rule (βασιλεία) that is granted Jesus by his Father in v. 29. But immediate reference to God

means that there is no substitution for God, and in v. 29 the Twelve are also granted royal rule. 356. Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 1:2; 10:32; 11:22; 15:9; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:13; 1 Tim. 3:5 have ‘church of God’ (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). 1 Cor. 11:16; 2 es. 1:4 have ‘churches of God’. Other texts link Christ closely with the church in various ways: Gal. 1:22 has ‘churches of Judea that are in Christ’; 1 es. 1:1 has ‘the church of the essalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (cf. 2 es. 1:1); 1 es. 2:14 has ‘the churches of God in Christ Jesus’; Eph. 1:2223 has ‘the church which is his body’ (cf. Col. 1:24); Eph. 5:23, ‘Christ is the head of the church’ (cf. Col. 1:18). As noted earlier, in 1 Enoch 53:6 the messianic gure, ‘the Righteous and Elect One[,] will reveal the house of his congregation’, but it is uncertain whether ‘his’ refers to God or to ‘the Righteous and Elect One’. 357. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 630-32, identify thirteen different views (and there are more), four of which involve textual emendation. 358. A. Cooper (‘Ps 24:7-10: Mythology and Exegesis’, JBL 102 [1983], 42, 45, 48-49) comments on Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, arguing that Ps. 24:7-10, in its use of gate imagery, is re ecting ancient mythology. For the Greeks see Homer, Od. 14.156; Diogenes Laertius 8.34-35. Job 38:17 has ‘the gates of death’ and ‘the gates of deep darkness’. In Is. 38:10 (LXX) Hezekiah, faced with the prospect of death says, ‘At the height of my days I will leave behind my remaining years at the gates of Hades’. 3 Macc. 5:51 speaks of people whose lives are under threat as ‘already standing at the gates of Hades’. In Wis. 16:13 God is said to ‘lead mortals down to the gates of Hades and back again’. In Pss. Sol. 16:2 the psalmist is ‘near the gates of Hades with [the] sinner’. In 1QH 11(= 3):16-18, when the seas rage, ‘Sh[eo]l [and A]bad[don] open; [al]l the arrows of the pit/grave (šḥt) make their voice heard while going down to the deep/abyss (thwm); and the gates of [Sheol] open [for all] the deeds of the serpent. And the doors of the pit/grave close upon the one expectant with injustice, and everlasting bolts upon all the spirits of the serpent’. Cf. 1QHa 14(= 6):22-24, where there is a similar image of threat from the sea and where ‘the gates of death’ is used. 359. Je. 15:18, ‘be stronger than/prevail over [with gen.]’; 1 Esdr. 5:49 (ET 50); Dn. 11:5, ‘be stronger than [with acc.]’; Dn. (eod.) 11:21, ‘gain

power over [with gen.]’; Wis. 7:30, ‘overcome or prevail over [with gen.]’; 4 Kgdms. 24:2, ‘prevail over [without object]’; 2 Ch. 8:3, ‘prevail over [with acc.]’; 2 Ch. 27:5, ‘prevail over [with ἐπί + acc.]’; Wis. 10:11, ‘oppress [with acc.]’; 1 Ch. 22:12, ‘make strong [with acc.]’; Gn. 49:24, ‘strengthen [with acc.]’; 2 Ch. 16:9, ‘strengthen [with ἐν]’; 1 Ch. 5:20, ‘be made strong against [with ἐπί + gen.]’; 1 Ch. 11:10, ‘be strong[?]’; Ex. 1:7, ‘become strong’; Zc. 8:13, ‘be/become strong’; Dn. 11:6, ‘retain strength’; 2 Ch. 22:9, ‘have strength (to rule)’; Wis. 17:5, ‘have strength to = be able to’; 2 Ch. 31:4, ‘become strong = devote oneself to’; 2 Ch. 17:1, ‘make oneself strong against [with ἐπί + acc.]’; 2 Ch. 26:7, ‘make strong against [with ἐπί + acc.]’; Ex. 7:13, ‘become hard’; 4 Kgdms. 14:5, ‘be rmly in one’s possession [with ἐν χειρί]’; Is. 22:4, ‘make efforts’; Je. 8:21, ‘take hold strongly of [with acc.]’; Dn. 12:3 (LXX), ‘give weight to [with acc.]’; 1 Ch. 21:6, ‘seem harsh[?]’. 360. With the exception of ‘make themselves strong against’ these senses are probably all to be found with a genitive object, as in Mt. 16:18. But since there are only three instances of a genitive object in the LXX (and see further Test. Dan. 5:2; Test. Jos. 6:7; Test. Reub. 4:11) and given the wide range of constructions with a common meaning, it may be fair to cast our net wider. 361. Cf. the role of the gates in 1QHa 13(= 6):27-28: ‘Its [ga]tes are armoured doors which do not permit entry, with unbreakable strong bars’. Confronted by the church, the gates of Hades will not prove to be so unassailable. 362. ‘e gates’ and ‘the keys’ have related functions; ‘Hades’ and the ‘kingdom of heaven’ form a suitable contrasting pair (cf. Mt. 11:23, where, however, ‘Hades’ and ‘heaven’ are contrasted); to the church’s drawing of people away from the gates of Hades corresponds Peter’s role with the keys. 363. Whether the narrow application to Peter or the broader application to the disciples in Mt. 18:18 is more original is undecidable, but the greater generality of the Matthean form makes it likely to be closer to the original than that in Jn. 20:23. 364. And see also Mt. (6:33); 7:21; 8:11-12; (11:11); 18:1-4; 19:23-24; 21:31.

365. Marcus’s suggestion (‘Gates’, 446-49), that the gates of (the kingdom of) heaven are opened with the keys to let the in uence of the kingdom of God loose on the earth, has against it the possession of the keys by a gure on the earth; the suggestion is in danger of merging the spatial use of the image of heaven (in contrast with the earth) and the spatial use of the image of the kingdom of God. 366. Rev. 3:7 paraphrases Is. 22:22. Sipre to Dt. 32:25 applies Is. 22:22 to rabbinic permission and prohibition of speci c actions. See the discussion and further texts in Basser, ‘Derrett’s “Binding”’, 297-99. 367. See 2 Bar. 10:18 (the priests are directed to take the keys of the sanctuary and throw them up to God in heaven); 4 Bar. 4:4 (Jeremiah takes the keys of the temple and throws them away). 368. 3 Bar. 11:2 has ‘Michael, the holder of the keys of the kingdom’ (‘kingdom of heaven’ in the Greek text, but not in the Slavonic). 369. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:635-39. 370. Mt. 12:29; Mk. 3:27; Rev. 20:2; 1 Bar. 10:4, 12; 69:28; 88:3; 90:23; Jub. 5:6. 371. Jos., War 1.111. 372. Job 38:31 uses the hiphil of qšr and the piel of ptḥ. 373. Following F. C. Conybeare, ‘Christian Demonology’ JQR 9 (1987), 444-70 (here 469), Duling, ‘Binding’, 11-12, notes the use of the Greek δεῖν and λύειν in a similar manner. 374. Pal. Tgs. Gn. 4:7 has, ‘If you [i.e., Cain] perform your deeds well in this world, it shall be loosed and will be forgiven/will leave (yštry wštbq) you in the world to come. But if you do not perform your deeds well in this world, your sin shall be guarded/observed/retained (nṭry) for the day of judgment’. e reading, e.g., in Tg. Ps.-J. (šbq is used but not šry) suggests that the double form is a later development, perhaps encouraged by a sense that šry and (the passive of) nṭr form the natural pairing, not šbq and (the passive of) nṭr. 375. Drawing in part on b. Sanh. 38a (relevant section discussed below), Basser, ‘Derrett’s “Binding”’, 298-99, applies the opening and closing to two styles of teaching: opening is said to be theoretical exposition of Torah that

lays out and explores alternatives; closing is promulgation of binding legal pronouncements. While the closing of the discussion certainly implies closure in b. Sanh. 38a, Basser’s speci c interpretation seems to go beyond the evidence. 376. It is likely that an interchangeability of ḥrš and ptḥ is established on the basis of the language in Is. 28:24: ‘Do those who plough (yḥrš) for sowing plough continually? Do they continually open (yptḥ) and harrow the ground?’ An echo of the b. Sanh. 38a form of the tradition is found in b. Ḥag. 14a, which has (actually in comment on the use of ḥrš in Is. 3:3, where a plural noun form means ‘magic/sorcery’) ‘when they open (wptḥyn) in the words of Torah all become mute’. 377. A form of this tradition in b. Giṭ. 88a lacks ‘in halacha’. 378. Cited aer Basser, ‘Derrett’s “Binding”’, 298, and following his textual judgment. 379. Emerton’s source proposal (‘Binding’, 329), guided by the use of κρατεῖν (lit. ‘take hold of ’) in Jn. 20:23, would have ʾḥd (‘shut or seize/hold’) for the use of sgr (‘shut’) in Is. 22:22. But, as he admits, ʾḥd is not naturally rendered with δεῖν (‘bind’), and in any case ʾḥd would offer only a modest foothold for building an explanation of the change of imagery. 380. In Mt. 16:17 ‘in heaven’ identi es the father spoken of by Jesus as a divine father. 381. Mantey, ‘Mistranslation’, 243-49; ‘Evidence’, 129-38. Mantey has been followed by a signi cant minority of scholars. 382. Cadbury, ‘Meaning’, 251-54. 383. See discussion in Porter, ‘Vague Verbs’, 158-62. 384. For similar constructions see Gn. 30:33; 43:9; 44:32. 385. E.g., Mt. 19:4; Mk. 10:6; Lk. 2:23; Gal. 3:28; Rev. 12:5. 386. Not otherwise used by Matthew, but Mark has it four times (5:43; 7:36; 8:15; 9:9), three of them in connection with injunctions to silence. 387. Note a similar phenomenon in Mt. 13:22, where the interpretation takes up a feature of the parable not found in Matthew’s version. 388. Mt. 8:4 and 9:30 have calls for secrecy, but for limited reasons that throw no light on 16:20.

389. ‘Son of David’ is used as a messianic title in Mt. 9:27; 15:22; 20:30, 31; 21:9, 15; and questioningly in 12:23. 390. In Mt. 23:10; 24:5 ‘the Christ’ is already on its way from being a titular representation of messianic hope to being a personal designation for Jesus.

XIII. ANTICIPATING A FUTURE THROUGH SUFFERING AND BEYOND (16:21–17:20) A. Unveiling a Future in Which Suffering Precedes Vindication (16:21-23) that time aJesus began to show his disciples that it was necessary for him to go off to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the belders and chief priests and scribes,c and be killed, and don the third day be raised.d 22And Peter took him aside and ebegan to rebuke him, saying,e ‘f[May God be] merciful to you [for suggesting it], Lordf; this will certainly not happen to you’. 23He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get away from me, Satan! You are a cause of stumbling for me because you are not concerned about the things of God but about human matters.’ 21From

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e name is missing from ‫א‬1 579 892 etc., but is expanded to Ιησους Χριστος (‘Jesus Christ’) in ‫ *א‬B* samss mae bo. e strong attestation may suggest that the latter is original, but the tendency to expand with names and titles used of Jesus makes it most likely that Ιησους is original. b. Probably in uenced by the prominence of the chief priests in the Passion narrative, ‘chief priests’ is brought to the head of the list in Θ 983 etc. c. του λαου (‘of the people’) is added in Θ f1, in uenced by the language of Mt. 2:4.

13

1424 mae, probably

d-d. e reading in Mk. 8:31 will be responsible for μετα τρεις ημερας αναστηναι (‘aer three days rise [again]’) in D (etc. it) bo. e-e. λεγει αυτω επιτιμων (lit. ‘says to him, rebuking’) in B etc. ere is a small likelihood that this is original and has been disturbed by in uence from Mk. 8:32. f-f. Or ‘Rest assured, Lord’! Bibliography Allison, D. C., End, 137-40. • Anderson, J. C., Web, 158-68. • Bayer, H. F., Jesus’Predictions. • Cavallin, H. C., ‘Tod und Auferstehung der Weisheitsleher’, SUNT A 5 (1980), 107-21. • Farmer, W. R., ‘e Passion Prediction Passages and the Synoptic Problem: A Test Case’, NTS 36 (1990), 558-70, esp. 559-60. • France, R. T., Divine Government, 64-76. • Friedrichsen, T. A., ‘Luke 9,22 — A Matthean Foreign Body?’ ETL 72 (1996), 398-407. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 127-62. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 16,2123’, SémiotBib 79 (1995), 35-46. • Goppelt, I., eology, 1:187-99. • Gundry, R. H., ‘e Refusal of Matthean Foreign Bodies to Be Exorcised from Luke 9,22: 10,25-28’, ETL 75 (1999), 104-22. • Neirynck, F., ‘Note on a Test Case: A Response to W. R. Farmer’, in Evangelica II, 49-58. • Neirynck, F., ‘Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο and the Structure of Matthew’, ETL 64 (1988), 21-59. • Oberlinner, L., Todeserwartung. • Perry, J. M., ‘e ree Days in the Synoptic Passion Predictions’, CBQ 48 (1986), 637-54. • Turner, G., ‘Jesus’s Prophecies of His Death and Resurrection: An Exercise in Hermeneutics’, ScrB 30 (2000), 15-22. e movement of Matthew’s story now turns towards Jerusalem. Until Jesus enters Jerusalem in 21:11, each of the sections will now begin with some statement that reminds the reader that Jesus’ goal is to be in Jerusalem (16:21; 17:22; 19:1; 20:17), and only in the case of 19:1 will this not include a Passion prediction. Jesus must suffer at the hands of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem before being vindicated by God. To imagine otherwise, as Peter did, is only Satanic temptation. Matthew continues to follow the Markan sequence. Despite some minor agreements between Mt. 16:21-23 and Lk. 9:21-22 (probably based on common Christian diction), it is unlikely that Matthew uses anything more

than his Markan source (Mk. 8:31-34). e historicity of the Passion predictions has been widely questioned. But while we can have no con dence in identifying a plurality of distinct Passion predictions (but a plurality — probably two forms — certainly predates our present Gospels), and while there has probably been expansion in the process of transmission, the case for Jesus’ having anticipated rejection that would lead to his death, and also subsequent vindication by God, remains strong.1 An original with the form ‘the ‘Son of Man [i.e., the Son of Humanity] will be delivered up to the sons of humanity, but aer three days he will rise up’, as suggested by Allison,2 is as likely as any. See further the discussion at Mt. 17:22-23.

16:21 ‘From that time Jesus began’ was used at 4:17 to mark the transition from the ministry of John the Baptist to that of Jesus (see discussion there).3 Now it is used to mark the transition from a period of ministry that has reached its culmination in Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, to a period in which orientation towards a fate of suffering for Jesus in Jerusalem comes into sharp focus: Jesus’ place in the kingdom of God he preached is as the Christ of the Davidic line, but it will be so as one for whom suffering precedes divine vindication. Mk. 8:31 has ‘teach’, but Matthew prefers the visual image of ‘show’,4 perhaps wanting to cast the net wider and include here the more indirect role of such passages as Mt. 20:20-28 (not just v. 28); 21:1-9, 33-42. Matthew’s introduction of ‘his disciples’ seems unnecessary aer ‘the disciples’ in 16:20. Perhaps the fresh introduction of both Jesus and the disciples underlines the sense of fresh beginning at this point. Disclosure to the disciples alone is of a piece with their place of privilege in 13:11-12 and elsewhere. Here Matthew offers more information to those who already have the christological insight of 16:16, 20. Mark’s ‘Son of Man’ has been used in v. 13 and is not repeated here: Matthew does not want to give the impression, possible in Mark, that ‘Son of Man’ is meant to

displace ‘Christ’, nor does he want a primary link to be made between ‘Son of Man’ and the Passion. e kind of necessity that stands behind δεῖ (‘it is necessary’) is not yet clearly visible, but it will gradually become so. e imagery of the bridegroom taken away of 9:15 has already heightened reader sensitivity to the destructive potential of the hostile currents as they emerge in Matthew’s story.5 In 12:40 the Son of Man is likened to Jonah as one who is to spend three days in the earth: he functions as one who marks in the unfolding of his own ministry, and nally and especially in his death, the rejection by his own generation of the ways of God and the prospect of judgment that hangs over it. But there is more than this in ‘it is necessary’. Given other features of the ministry of Jesus, one would expect the necessity to be located in the purposes of God. e use of δεῖ may well re ect the in uence of the language of apocalyptic (cf. Dn. 2:28, both LXX and eod.): a good deal of trauma was generally believed to be necessarily involved in the dawning of the apocalyptic future. Matthew’s readers could draw on a number of strands of Jewish tradition to help make sense of the suffering of one who was close to God, all of which are likely to have played some role in NT re ection on the suffering of Jesus, and all of which were likely to have been available to Jesus himself. e suffering of the righteous is extensively recognised in Job and the Psalms (e.g. 34:19; cf. 118:22); it is the lot of the suffering servant (Isa 52:13–53:12), who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; it is an important motif in Wisdom of Solomon (2:10-20; 3:1-9; 5:4-5); it becomes the basis of a martyr theology in 4 Macc 17:21-22 [cf. 6:28-29], where the death of the righteous makes atonement for the sins of the nation. Important for the Gospel tradition … is the tradition of the rejection of the prophets by those to whom they had been sent…. Note

also T. Moses 3:11, which speaks of Moses suffering many things in Egypt.6

‘To go off to (ἀπελθεῖν εἰς) Jerusalem’ is a Matthean addition:7 though a Jerusalem location is already likely to be implicit in the role of the chief priests (cf. 2:4), it is Matthew who identi es the trip to Jerusalem as part of what was necessary. Only from 20:17 will Jesus be clearly on his way to Jerusalem, but already in 17:22 there is a gathering in Galilee which is best explained as gathering in readiness for the trip to Jerusalem, and by 19:1 Jesus has come south and is in Judea. John the Baptist had proclaimed the kingdom in the south (3:1-2); aer John’s arrest Jesus had gone north and done the same (4:12-17); now he is to move south and suffer as John had (14:1-12). Matthew drops ‘and be rejected’ which Mk. 8:31 and Lk. 9:22 have aer ‘suffer many things’; he will use the language of rejection only in the comment on the parable of the let-out vineyard in 21:42. Since he is thinking narrowly of what happens in Jerusalem, the sequence ‘suffer many things and be rejected’ makes a poor t. e omission brings ‘suffer many things’ into immediate connection with ‘at the hands of (ἀπό8) the elders and chief priests and scribes’ and thus sharpens an already strong focus on the role of the Jewish leadership. On ‘chief priests’ and ‘scribes’ see the comments at 2:4, and on ‘elders’ see those at 15:2. Dropping the de nite articles before ‘chief priests’ and ‘scribes’ to make a single group out of ‘elders’, ‘chief priests’, and ‘scribes’ (‘the group composed of …’) suggests that the reference is speci cally to the place of their joint action, the Council, in Jesus’ fate.9 e same trio will be mentioned in 27:41 (‘the chief priests, with the scribes and elders [shared article for the nal two]’) and 26:57,10 but Matthew will also speak of (segments of) the Jerusalem leadership as ‘the chief priests and

scribes [shared article]’ in 2:4; 20:18; ‘the chief priests and scribes [separate articles]’ in 21:15; ‘the chief priests and elders of the people [shared article]’ in 26:47; ‘the chief priests and elders of the people [separate articles]’ in 26:3; 27:1; ‘the chief priests and elders [shared article]’ in 27:3, 12; ‘the chief priests and elders [separate articles]’ in 27:20; ‘[the chief priests] with the elders’ in 28:12; and ‘the chief priests and the whole Council’ in 26:59. In addition, the chief priests are connected with the Pharisees in 21:45; 27:62 (in both cases with separate articles).

ough ‘and be killed’ is not to be immediately linked with the Jewish leadership groups, it is to be seen as the nal outcome of ‘suffering many things’. Matthew and Luke both replace Mark’s καὶ μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀναστῆναι (‘and aer three days rise [again]’) with καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἐγερθῆναι (‘and on the third day be raised’), probably in uenced by the language of a common Christian confessional form (see 1 Cor. 15:4).11 In 12:40 Matthew was content with three-day language because it helped to make the tie with Jonah, but here he prefers the more accurate ‘on the third day’. A coupling with Ho. 6:2 is unlikely, given that the Markan form is earlier and that the change to the more precise form is quite adequately accounted for by the Passion events. Coming aer ‘and be killed’, ‘be raised’ (ἐγερθῆναι) must refer speci cally to resurrection, but it also intends a broader sense of vindication by God. e words may also echo psalms, such as 22, 31, 41, and 69, which deal with the move from suffering/rejection to restoration/vindication.12 16:22 Matthew nds no role for the opening clause of Mk. 8:32, about Jesus speaking plainly, and drops it. is economy gives him space to provide a form of words for Peter’s rebuke of Jesus. e focus returns to Peter, who is introduced with the name which in v. 18 has proved to be freighted with symbolism.13 προσλαβόμενος, though translated above as ‘took him aside’,

indicates the establishment of intimate contact with Jesus rather than separation from others as such. e use of ‘began’ here echoes that in v. 21. Does the artistry that sets up the parallelism point to the existence of competing visions of how the Christ should ful l his destined role? In Mark the language of rebuke (ἐπιτιμᾶν) has already been introduced with Jesus’ call to silence about his messianic identity; in Matthew its use here has no antecedent. e strength of the language prepares for the strength of Jesus’ response (though, as he has in v. 20, Matthew will drop the language of rebuke from Jesus’ response to Peter in v. 23). ἵλεως σοι re ects a frequent LXX idiom (thirty- ve times). e meaning can be ‘God is/will be kind to you [i.e., you may rest assured]’ or, more oen, ‘May God have mercy on you [i.e., forgive you]’.14 Is Peter reassuring Jesus on the basis of thinking that he knows better than Jesus the role and destiny of the Christ? Or is he going further and suggesting that Jesus is in need of divine forgiveness for suggesting that God would allow his Christ to experience such degradation? Peter addresses Jesus as ‘Lord’ ve times in all.15 In several of these instances Peter appears in a notwholly-positive light. e emphatic negative ‘will certainly not happen [lit. be]’ is expressed with οὐ μή plus the future indicative rather than the more usual aorist subjunctive (unavailable in the case of εἶναι). 16:23 For Matthew, Jesus’ response has nothing to do with the presence of the other disciples; so he drops Mark’s ‘seeing his disciples’. is leaves στραϕείς (‘turned’)16 without any de nite point of connection. Does Matthew imagine a scene in which Peter and Jesus are moving slightly away from the group, side by side, as Peter speaks, aer which Jesus turns to face him squarely to respond? As in v. 20, Matthew drops the language of rebuke. Unlike

Mk. 8:33, Mt. 16:23 adds an article to Peter’s name. Is this in relation to the symbolic signi cance of the name? For ‘Get away from me, Satan!’17 Matthew simply adopts the Markan language, but the coincidence of language with ‘Get away, Satan!’ in 4:11 (distinctive to Matthew) is not accidental: here is a renewal of the Satanic temptation faced there by Jesus. ‘You are a cause of stumbling to me’ is Matthew’s addition, pointing up the temptation posed by Peter’s words.18 e use of σκάνδαλον (‘cause of stumbling’) may have a further role. In Is. 8:14, one of the stone texts that has le its mark on the NT, God is ṣwr mkšwl (‘rock of stumbling’). Not in Is. 8:14, but in Ps. 119(MT/ET 118):165 the LXX renders mkšwl as σκάνδαλον, while ṣwr, when there is not paraphrase, is regularly rendered πέτρα (the word for ‘rock’ in Mt. 16:18) in the LXX.19 Does Matthew intend to imply that at this point the one who was to function as ‘the rock’ is instead functioning, in a parody of God’s role in Is. 8:14, as a ‘rock of stumbling’? Whether or not this is so, Mt. 16:22-23 clearly indicate that there is nothing automatic about the working out of the calling identi ed for Peter in vv. 18-19. Peter’s language has implicitly invoked God, but Jesus asserts that Peter’s thoughts are operating entirely at the human level and are not at all in correspondence with the mind and purpose of God. e idiom found in ϕρονεῖς τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ (lit. ‘think the [thoughts] of God’) is well parallelled in the LXX.20 Matthew intends a statement about loyalty and place of investment. B. Following Jesus Involves Giving Away Your Life to Gain It (16:24-28) 24en

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If someone wants to come aer me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. 25For whoever wants

to save their life will lose it; and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. 26For what does a person aprofit if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life. Or what will a person give as an exchange for their life? 27For the Son of Man is to come with bhis angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each according to their cactivity. 28Amen, I say to you, dsome of those standing hered will certainly not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In uence from Lk. 9:25 results in a reading of ωϕελειται (‘is bene ted’) in C D W etc. lat syh, giving ‘how is a person bene ted’. b. αγιων (‘holy’) in D* (C etc.) etc. b syp, giving ‘the holy angels’, as in Mk. 8:38. c. εργα (‘works’) in ‫ *א‬F f1 1424 etc. it vgcl sy co, in uenced by related traditional expressions (see the texts in n. 33 below). d-d. ωδε εστωτες in E F G H W (d) 1006 1342 etc. Bibliography Brower, K., ‘Mark 9.1: Seeing the Kingdom in Power’, JSNT 6 (1980), 17-26. • Chilton, B. D., ‘“Not to Taste Death”: A Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Usage’, in Studia Biblica, ed. E. A. Livingstone, 29-36. • Coppens, J., La relève apocalyptique du messianisme royal, III: Le Fils de l’homme néotestamentaire (BETL 55. Leuven: Peeters/University Press, 1981), 13-16. • Coulot, C., Jésus, 47-58. • Ebner, M., Jesus, 97-128. • Fridrichsen, A., ‘e Logion concerning “to carry one’s cross”: A Critical-exegetical Study’, in Exegetical Writings, 3345. • Gewalt, D., ‘I ess 4.15-17; 1 Kor 15.51 und Mk 9.1 — Zur Abgrenzung eines “Herrenwortes”’, LingBib 51 (1982), 105-13. • Giesen, H., ‘Mk 9.1 — Ein Wort Jesu über die nahe Parusie?’ TTZ 92 (1983), 134-48. • Lambrecht, J., ‘Q-In uence on Mark 8,34–9,1’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 277304. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 85-100. • Nardoni, E., ‘A Redactional Interpretation of Mark 9:1’, CBQ 43 (1981), 365-84. • Rebell, W., ‘“Sein

Leben verlieren” (Mark 8.35 parr) als Strukturmoment vor- und nachösterlichen Glaubens’, NTS 35 (1989), 202-18. • Sabourin, L., ‘Matthieu 10.23 et 16.28 dans la perspective apocalyptique’, ScEs 37 (1985), 353-64. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 323-71. • Schwarz, G., ‘Der Nachfolgespruch Markus 8.34b.c Parr. Emendation und Rückübersetzung’, NTS 33 (1987), 255-65. • Wenham, D. and Moses, A. D. A., ‘“ere Are Some Standing Here…”: Did ey Become the “Reputed Pillars” of the Jerusalem Church? Some Re ections on Mark 9.1, Galatians 2.9 and the Trans guration’, NovT 36 (1994), 146-63. • Wouters, A., Willen, 80-85. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 190-93. For the parallel in 10:37-39 see further at 10:24-42.

e fate of the suffering messiah is to be mirrored in that of the disciples. ey too are to follow a path of self-denial and suffering, and for them too there will be vindication and a share in the kingdom of the Son of Man. e Markan sequence continues. Cf. Mk. 8:34–9:1. No source is visible beyond the Markan source. For a discussion of earlier forms and historicity see the individual verses below.

16:24 Matthew attaches v. 24 to the previous verses with his favoured τότε (‘then’), as most recently in v. 20.21 He drops Mark’s calling of the crowd (8:34) and makes of Mark’s inclusion of the disciples (‘with the disciples’) an address ‘to the disciples’: Mt. 16:24-28 is to be read very closely with vv. 21-23. He freshly introduces both Jesus and the disciples, as in v. 21 (different from Mark in both cases). e only Matthean change in the saying in v. 24 is ὀπίσω ἐλθεῖν (‘come aer’) for ὀπίσω ἀκολουθεῖν (‘follow aer’). Matthew allows the Markan idiom in the related saying in 10:38 (admittedly in the equivalent to the apodosis), so the change is probably only stylistic: to avoid a double use of ἀκολουθεῖν in the verse.22

Compared to 10:38 (where the issue is of being worthy of Jesus), the present verse takes the form of providing direction for anyone who ‘wants to come aer’ Jesus. While there is an echo of the call of the shermen in 4:18-22 (cf. 9:9), here the focus is on a freely exercised choice to follow. Taking up one’s cross23 (10:38) is now prefaced with ‘let him or her deny themselves and’. e idiom here is unusual. ἀπαρνεῖσθαι normally means ‘renounce’ something, ‘refuse’ something, or ‘deny’, with typical objects being an assertion that has been made or (knowledge of, commitment to, or acquaintance with) a person. e suggestion that ‘deny oneself ’ is a back-formation from ‘deny Christ’ or something similar has much to commend it.24 e call for self-denial is not a blanket recommendation of all forms of selfdenial: freely choosing to take up one’s cross in order to follow Jesus is the form of self-denial intended. But what does it mean to take up one’s cross? Christian readers think immediately of the cross of Jesus, and the present placement of the saying aer the rst Passion prediction con rms the appropriateness of doing so. But this Passion prediction is not yet speaking of a cross; and before the cross ever became associated with Jesus, condemned criminals of all sorts in the Roman Empire had carried the cross bar to be used for their cruci xion to their place of execution.25 As discussed at 10:38, ‘place yourself on the ring line’, ‘put your neck in the noose,’ and ‘put your head on the chopping block’ would all be analogous to what is called for here. e call is so to behave that the anticipated outcome may naturally be the loss of one’s life. ere is a radical denial of self-interest and normal concern for one’s own well-being here. e concrete forms of behaviour anticipated remain totally unde ned. e only clue is that this is a following of Jesus. e life-threatening behaviour called for is, therefore, patterned on that of Jesus. e call is to join

Jesus as he behaves in ways which involve setting aside the claims of the inner drive to self-preservation and care for one’s own interests for the sake of a greater good. e relevant behaviour of Jesus will be that which takes him to his own cross, rejected by the leaders of his people. 16:25 Matthew corrects a future to an aorist subjunctive aer ὃς ἄν (‘whoever’), omits ‘and the gospel’ from aer ‘for my sake’, and changes ‘will save’ to ‘will nd’ (in uenced from 10:39), but otherwise he reproduces the wording of Mk. 8:35.26 e linking γάρ (‘for’) indicates that Mt. 16:25 is offered in support or explanation of v. 24: the ‘want to’ language is repeated from v. 24; the wish to save one’s life (ψύχη) is antithetical to taking up one’s cross; losing one’s life would be a natural outcome of having taken up one’s cross; ‘for my sake’ corresponds to following Jesus in v. 24. e language of saving and losing requires a context in which life is under threat. An external threat to Jesus and his disciples may generate this context, but more likely it is the very challenge of Jesus’ life-disregarding teaching (which of course carries with it a realistic recognition of the real threat to life posed by the hostility to be expected). Where the rst priority goes to saving one’s life, there will, paradoxically, be loss of life — not always literal loss. Where one holds lightly onto life for the sake of one’s commitment to Jesus, one may well lose one’s life — quite literally, but also possibly in terms of deprivation and constriction of life. To incur such loss, however, allows one to nd life — whether now or in the resurrection — in a much fuller and richer sense. See further the comments at 10:39. 16:26 A linking γάρ (‘for’) indicates that the cross bearing of v. 24 is still being supported and explained. Matthew has intervened in the wording of Mk. 8:36-37 in a considerable number of minor ways, but, with the exception of the change from a γάρ (‘for’) to an ἤ (‘or’) to join the nal clause, without any obvious change of

meaning.27 e double use of the phrase τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ (‘their life’) here matches its double use in v. 25. For the opening ‘Amen, I say to you’, much used in Matthew, see the discussion at 5:18. As Dautzenberg has shown, the traditional unit behind v. 26 is to be read with Ps. 49 and so is to be understood as a critique of the pursuit of and con dence in riches.28 In the present context the sense is broadened, but the imagery of commercial transactions remains evident, and relevance to possessions is not lost (cf. 6:1924). For the point to be made forcefully the entries on both the pro t and loss sides of the accounts are taken to an absolute extreme: the whole world; their life (the extremity also suits the literal extremity of the life-and-death claims of Mt. 16:24). e psalm connection encourages setting the forfeiting of life within the context of death, understood in relation to the judgment of God. To forfeit one’s life is to fall foul of the judgment of God. Matthew treats the nal clause as making a point to be coordinated with the previous point: it offers an alternative approach to making what is much the same point. e echo of Ps. 49:7-8 here is strong. Mt. 16:26 makes use of a question form, but the psalm is quite clear that the answer is ‘Nothing’. In the psalm the imagery is of those who trust in their wealth contemplating the possibility of buying God off so that they may escape the universal human fate of death. Some kind of possibility of escape from this universal fate is held out in v. 15 of the psalm: ‘God will ransom my life (npšy; τὴν ψυχήν μου) from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me’. But escape cannot be achieved by any kind or quantity of such resources as are at human disposal. Descent to the realm of the dead is in view, but, as oen with Sheol, there are overtones of this transition being a point at which one must face one’s ultimate answerability to God.

16:27 Matthew has signi cantly reformulated the traditional piece that he is using here (see Mk. 8:38-39). He has used another form of this tradition at 10:33, so here he shapes the material to the immediate concerns of the context. In Mk. 8:38-39 the point is this: of the one who is ashamed of Jesus now, the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in glory. Matthew moves the coming of the Son of Man to the beginning of the statement, and his role when he comes is not now to be that of one who is ashamed of certain people but that of one who rewards and punishes.29 Matthew’s reformulation is less successful than the Markan wording in making the transition here from the time when Jesus was exercising his ministry to a role connected with a future coming. In an early church context where the present ‘absence’ of Jesus is self-evident, the jump involved is not particularly visible (cf. at 10:23). (16:28 will bridge the gap between the present of Jesus’ ministry and the future coming of the Son of Man with a transition from ‘those standing here’ — marking the present moment — by means of ‘not taste death until’ — marking the movement of time into the future — to ‘they see the Son of Man coming’.) Matthew has Jesus use ‘Son of Man’ of himself rst in 8:20 (see there). He has thus far used this title for an eschatological role for Jesus in 10:23 and 13:41.30 At 10:23 we noted the link with Dn. 7:13 of a ‘Son of Man’ who comes. ‘His kingdom’ in Mt. 13:41 adds to this connection by echoing Dn. 7:14. Mt. 16:28 will combine these links in ‘the Son of Man coming in his kingdom’. e glory of God is the splendour associated with his perceptible presence.31 e coming of the Son of Man will involve a manifestation of the glory of God. is glory will probably echo the glory given to the one like a Son of Man in Dn. 7:14. In Mt. 16:27 the glory is thought of as properly belonging to God but as possessed derivatively by the Son of Man, but subsequent Matthean references to glory associated

with the Son of Man will no longer mark the derivative nature of the glory (19:28; 24:30; 25:31). Matthew does not seem to notice the difficulty of the idiom ‘the Father of the Son of Man’ and keeps Mark’s ‘of his Father’ (contrast Lk. 9:26). Mark’s ‘the holy angels’ has become ‘his angels’, which aer 13:41 is probably to be taken as ‘the Son of Man’s angels’ (cf. also 24:31) rather than ‘the Father’s angels’.32 e role of the angels is to make the Son of Man’s plans effective. In 6:4, 6, 18 (cf. 20:8) it is the Father who rewards. To reward each according to his or her works or deeds is a function regularly attributed to God.33 Here this function is taken on by the Son of Man. e singular πρᾶξιν (‘action/activity’) is unusual in this context:34 a plural or ἔργα (‘works’) might have been expected. Perhaps the point is to emphasise the shape of the whole which is created by one’s actions and not to focus on the individual actions seen as items to be cumulated and weighed. Despite the strong sense of answerability, there is nothing to threaten or to provoke terror here. e coming of the Son of Man is to be looked forward to eagerly. 16:28 Here too Matthew edits to integrate his material more fully into its context. Where Mk. 9:1 has ‘the kingdom of God come in power’ as what is going to be seen, Matthew has ‘the Son of Man coming in his kingdom’.35 His concern is partly to match Mt. 16:27. On the phrase, ‘Amen, I say to you’, much used by Matthew, see the comments at 5:18. e prospect of death has been introduced with the cross language of v. 24 and has continued like a thread through the subsequent verses. ‘Tasting death’ is a striking image, more likely to refer to the prospect of a violent death (a martyr’s death) than to reaching the end of one’s life span.36 As in 10:21-23, the real possibility of death is balanced by the prospect of the Son of Man coming in time to deliver from what threatens. e same pattern will recur in chap. 24. e idea of a kingdom for the Son of Man has

been introduced at 13:41 (see discussion there). ‘Coming in his kingdom’ must mean coming and ruling, coming to establish his rule. Both 10:23 and 16:28 mention a de nite time frame within which the coming of the Son of Man is expected to take place. Mt. 24:36 is more circumspect, but v. 34 seems to place the whole anticipated unfolding of events within the life span of the generation then living. What are we to make of this? How many of the group standing there in 16:28 would by Matthew’s reckoning still have been alive at the time when he was composing his Gospel? Probably some, but many would have died. Certainly the number would have dwindled to zero while Matthew’s Gospel was in the early decades of its use. is difficulty will be addressed more fully at chap. 24, but for the present let it suffice to say that for the prophetic timetable to be less foreshortened than ever anticipated by the prophet seems to be an almost regular feature of the ful lment of OT prophecy. Partial ful lment created the expectation of a future, more adequate ful lment. e experience to come in 17:1-8 is offered more as a foretaste than a ful lment, but it is possible to see it as a rst installment of a process of ful lment that may end up coming in more stages than ever originally anticipated. Within the frame of Matthew’s own story the linked events of the tearing apart of the curtain of the temple, the opening of the tombs, and the great earthquake (27:5155) might be suggestive. e resurrection and the nal commissioning also offer possibilities (28:1-20), as does the destruction of Jerusalem (24:2). But none of these is so clearly marked as to allow con dence that Matthew de nitely had it in mind at 16:28. e strongest language ties are actually with 20:21, where the mother of James and John anticipates Jesus ‘in his

kingdom’.37 In the discussion at 20:20-28 I will argue that Matthew intends a double entendre by means of which the Matthean Jesus links kingdom language with the cross. For Matthew the royal rule of Jesus is in a proleptic manner visible at the cross. e Passion context, in which the disciples fear for their own lives, can also provide a link with ‘will certainly not taste death’. If a connection of this kind is intended between 16:28 and 20:21, it is that much more likely that Matthew is also prepared to think of other events as preliminary ful lments of the words of 16:28. e effect of placing 16:27-28 aer vv. 24-26 (following Jesus in the way of the cross), and this in turn aer vv. 21-23 (Passion prediction), is to relocate the living out of vv. 24-26 from within the period of Jesus’ ministry to within the period between his resurrection (v. 21) and his coming in glory as the Son of Man (vv. 27-28). A speci c signi cance for this period is beginning to emerge. C. A Vision of Jesus’ Glory (17:1-9) 1aAer

six days Jesus takes with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and leads them up onto a very high mountain,b alone. 2And che was transformed in front of them, andc his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as dthe light.d 3en Moses and Elijah appeared to them, ein conversatione with him. 4In response, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. fIf you wish,f gI will make here three shelters, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ 5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them. And a voice out of the cloud said, ‘is is my beloved Son, in whom I have come to delight; listen to him.’ 6When the disciples heard [this], they fell on their face[s] and were exceedingly frightened. 7en Jesus came and, htouching them,h said, ‘Get up and don’t be frightened’. 8ey lied their eyes and saw no onei except Jesus jhimself, alone. 9As they were coming down

the mountain, Jesus directed them, saying, ‘Tell no one the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Under the in uence of Lk. 9:28, an opening εγενετο (‘it happened’) is added in D Θ etc. it vgmss. b. D has λιαν (‘exceedingly’), probably a careless visual mistake, possibly encouraged by the use of λιαν a little later in the Markan account (9:3). In D it quali es υψηλον (‘very high’). c. In D e (syp) Jesus is freshly introduced and the verb becomes a participle, subordinated to ‘shone’. d-d. D lat syc bo have χιων (‘snow’), accommodating to Mt. 28:3. e-e. Lit. ‘having a conversation’. f-f. ει (‘if ’) is missing from W Θ f1 33 sa bo. e sentence would then need to be punctuated as a question: ‘Do you wish …’? e whole phrase is missing from c (cf. Mk. 9:5; Lk. 9:33). g. Plural in C3 D L W Θ f1, 13 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. lat sy co, in line with Mk. 9:5; Lk. 9:33. h-h. ηψατο αυτων και (‘touched them and’) in D. is is found as well in C L W f1 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. q (syh), but these texts also subordinate the previous verb: omitting the linking και (‘and’) and reading προσηλθων ο Ιησους (‘Jesus, coming’). e latter change without the former is found in Θ f13 etc. i. Conforming to Mk. 9:8, C* etc. add ουκετι (lit. ‘no longer’, but here ‘any longer’). j. Missing from B2 C (D) L f1, 13 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc., but these have the article with the name to provide emphasis, as in Mk. 9:8. Bibliography

Basser, H. W., ‘e Jewish Roots of the Trans guration’, BRev 14.3 (1998), 30-35. • Bayer, H. F., Jesus’ Predictions, 166-69. • Best, T. F., ‘e Trans guration: A Select Bibliography’, JETS 24 (1981), 157-61. • Bray, G., ‘La trans guration’, RevRef 50.2 (1999), 85-91. • Chilton, B. D., ‘e Trans guration: Dominical Assurance and Apostolic Vision’, NTS 27 (1980), 115-24. • Danker, F. W., ‘God with Us: Hellenistic Christological Perspectives in Matthew’, CurTM 19 (1992), 433-39. • Del Agua, A., ‘e Narrative of the Trans guration as a Derashic Sceni cation of a Faith Confession (Mark 9.2-8 PAR)’, NTS 39 (1993), 340-54. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Peter and the Tabernacles (Mark 9,5-7)’, DR 108 (1990), 37-48. • Donaldson, T. L., Mountain, 136-56. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 78-85. • Evans, D., ‘Academic Scepticism, Spiritual Reality and Trans guration’, in Glory, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright, 175-86. • Fuliga, J. B., ‘e Temptation on the Mount of Trans guration’, AsiaJT 9 (1995), 331-40. • Galot, J., ‘Révélation du Christ et liturgie juive’, EV 98 (1988), 145-52. • Hall, S., ‘Synoptic Trans gurations: Mark 9,2-10 and Partners’, KTR 10 (1987), 4144. • Heil, J. P., e Transfiguration of Jesus: Narrative Meaning and Function of Mark 9:2-8, Matt 17:1-8 and Luke 9:28-36 (AnBib 144. Rome: Editrice Ponti co Istituto Biblico, 2000). • Heil, J. P., ‘A Note on “Elijah with Moses” in Mark 9,4’, Bib 80 (1999), 115. • Hollinghurst, C., ‘e Trans guration and the Church’s Worship’, Anvil 16 (1999), 107-13. • Hooker, M. D., ‘“What Doest ou Here, Elijah?” A Look at St Mark’s Account of the Trans guration’, in Glory, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright, 59-70. • Knight, H. F., ‘e Trans gured Face of Post-Shoah Faith: Critical Encounters with Root Experiences — Ex. 24:12-18 and Mt. 17:1-9’, Encounter 58 (1997), 12549. • McGuckin, J. A., e Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1986). • McGuckin, J. A., ‘Jesus Trans gured: A Question of Christology’, Clergy Review 69 (1984), 271-79. • Miller, R. J., ‘Historicizing the Trans-historical: e Trans guration Narrative: Mark 9:2-8, Matt 17:1-8, Luke 9:28-36’, Forum 10.3-4 (1994), 21948. • Miller, R. J., ‘Is ere Independent Attestation for the Trans guration in 2 Peter?’ NTS 42 (1996), 620-25. • Moiser, J., ‘Moses and Elijah’, ExpTim 96 (1985), 216-17. • Mora, V., Création, 59-70. • Moses, A. D. A., Matthew’s Transfiguration Story and Jewish-Christian Controversy (JSNTSup 122.

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996). • Murphy-O’Connor, J., ‘What Really Happened at the Trans guration?’ BRev 3.3 (1987), 8-21. • Neyrey, J. H., ‘e Apologetic Use of the Trans guration in 2 Peter 1.16-21’, CBQ 42 (1980), 504-19. • Niemand, C., Studien zu den Minor Agreements der synoptischen Verklärungsperikopen: Eine Untersuchung der literarischen Relevanz der gemeinsamen Abweichungen des Matthäus und Lukas von Markus 9,2-10 für die synoptische Frage (Europäische Hochschulschrien 23/352. Frankfurt/Bern/New York/Paris: Lang, 1989). • Otto, R. E., ‘e Fear Motivation in Peter’s Offer to Build Τρεῖς Σκηνάς’, WTJ 59 (1997), 101-12. • Pamment, M., ‘Moses and Elijah in the Story of the Trans guration’, ExpTim 92 (1981), 338-39. • Pasquier, J. M., ‘e Presence of Elijah in the New Testament’, SIDIC 17 (1984), 22-25. • Penner, J. A., ‘Revelation and Discipleship in Matthew’s Trans guration Account’, BSac 152 (1995), 20110. • Refoulé, F., ‘Jésus, nouveau Moïse, ou Pierre, nouveau Grand Prêtre? (Mt 17,1-9; Mc 9,2-10)’, RTL 24 (1993), 145-62. • Reid, B. E., e Transfiguration: A Source- and Redaction-Critical Study of Luke 9:28-36 (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 32. Paris: Gabalda, 1993). • Sabbe, M., ‘La rédaction du récit de la trans guration’, in Studia Neotestamentica: Collected Essays (BETL 98. Leuven: University Press, 1991), 65-104. • Schnellbächer, E. L., ‘καὶ μετὰ ἡμέρας ἕξ’, ZNW 71 (1980), 252-57. • Smith, M., ‘e Origin and History of the Trans guration Story’, USQR 36 (1980), 39-44. • Stegner, W. R., Narrative, 83-103. • Vales, F., ‘Go for Yourself ’, BiTod 29 (1991), 31011. • Zeller, D., ‘Bedeutung und religionsgeschichtlicher Hintergrund der Vewandlung Jesu (Markus 9:2-8)’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans.

For a select group of disciples the experience on the mountain offers con rmation of Jesus’ signi cance, challenge when hearing his words on suffering, and a preliminary ful lment in vision of the anticipated glory of the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom. e account is framed by 17:1 and 9. e three points of emphasis, beyond the emphasis at the beginning, are marked by untranslated uses of the emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’); they are the conversation

between the three exalted gures, the arrival of the enveloping cloud, and the voice from heaven. e Markan sequence continues. Cf. Mk. 9:2-10. Some striking minor agreements with Lk. 9:28-36 (details below) raise the question of a second source, but all can be given redactional explanations. e original unity of the account has been widely questioned but also adequately defended in relation to forms used in Jewish apocalytic and mystical texts. At times the account has been identi ed as a misplaced resurrection account, but this is most unlikely. It has also been identi ed as a literary formation from theological motifs without historical foundation. While, however, the present forms make clear the use of theological motifs, the core account uses circumstantial details in a manner that suggests that more than theology is involved, and the difficulties over the unity of the text suggest that more is involved than a narrative form of theology.38

17:1 Matthew begins his account much as Mark does. For once he keeps Mark’s historic present, probably considering that emphasis is appropriate here at the point which marks the correlation between 17:1-9 and 16:28. e loss of articles before the names of James and John (but not of Peter) is likely to highlight the continuing role of Peter from the preceding chapter; it also prepares for his distinct role later in this account.39 John is identi ed more precisely as ‘his [i.e., James’s] brother’, as in 4:21; 10:2. For Matthew ‘John’ is otherwise John the Baptist.40 ese three disciples form a group in Matthew only here and in 26:37 (using ‘the two sons of Zebedee’), but they are three of the four in 4:18-21 and three of the rst four in 10:2-4. eir role here mirrors and perhaps in part undergirds their signi cance in the leadership of the early church.41 As ‘the sons of Zebedee’, James and John play a further role in 20:20-28. Otherwise, apart from texts dealing with the roles played by Peter and Judas, 17:1 is the only place where a named set of

disciples has a distinctive part in Matthew (contrast Mark). e foundational nature of the experience here is thereby underlined. e chronological link, ‘aer six days’, is striking and is to be seen as pointing to a thematic attachment to the preceding section.42 Almost certainly Matthew thinks in terms of a rst, anticipatory ful lment of what is heralded for ‘some of those standing here’ in 16:28. In Matthew, Jesus rarely takes anyone aside, but, as already noted, he will take this same group apart in Gethsemane: these are two key moments for Matthew. Whereas in the Gethsemane account the narrative interest is primarily in the experience of Jesus and secondarily in the failure of the disciple band to satisfactorily engage with this experience, here there is no narrative interest in what Jesus experiences (contrast Lk. 9:29-31), and everything is focussed on what the chosen disciples are privileged to witness. ‘A high mountain’ may pick up on ‘a very high mountain’ in 4:8, preparing the reader for the ‘supernaturalism’ of what is to transpire (on the use of mountain language in Matthew see at 4:8). 17:2 For this verse Matthew initially follows Mark closely, using ‘and he was transformed in front of (ἔμπροσθεν) them’ and ‘his clothes became … white’; otherwise Matthew goes his own way. Whereas for Mark Jesus was transformed and his clothes changed colour to a dazzling white, for Matthew ‘he was transformed’ serves instead as a general statement which is then spelled out in terms of what happened to Jesus’ face and to his clothing. For vv. 2-3 the disciple group are passive witnesses (the action happens in front of them), but they gain an active role from v. 4 on. e shining of the face is a regular image of bene cence in the OT,43 but that is not pertinent here. Nor are most of the available alternatives.44 Outshining the sun provides an image of the glory of

God in 1 Enoch 15:20, but the image is used for the garments and not the face — though the point is made immediately aerwards (v. 21) that none of the angels was able to come and see the face of God. In a vision of heaven in 1 Enoch 71:1, ‘the sons of the holy angels’ appear in white garments, and ‘the light of their faces was like snow’. Similarly, Dn. 10:6 says of the angelic gure who appears to Daniel that ‘his face [was] like lightning’.45 2 Enoch 1:5 even has angelic gures whose ‘faces are/were like the shining sun’.46 But, despite the lack of a direct comparison with the sun, it is to the shining of Moses’ face in Ex. 34:29, 30, 35, where ‘the skin of his face shone’ aer being in the presence of God, that the shining of Jesus’ face in Mt. 17:2 has its strongest links. Only here is the transformation of Mt. 17:2 matched. 1 Enoch 38:4, where the earthly rulers ‘will not be able to behold the faces’ of the elect, ‘for the light of the Lord of the Spirits has shined upon[their] face[s]’, is likely to be a re ection on the Exodus texts.47 A related generalisation from the Exodus texts is involved in 2 Cor. 3. Matthew has added ‘like the sun’ to make the connection with 13:43 (‘the righteous will shine like the sun’) and its eschatological tone,48 and to introduce something of the link with heaven evoked by the traditional images of resplendent angelic messengers.49 For the clothing, Mark’s στίλβοντα λευκὰ λίαν (‘dazzling, exceedingly white’) becomes, partly in uenced by the preceding sun imagery, λευκὰ ὡς τὸ ϕῶς (‘white as the light’). Relevant comparisons are ‘Yahweh will be our everlasting light’ in Is. 60:19; wisdom as ‘a re ection of eternal light’ in Wis. 7:26; the ‘Ancient of Days’ in Dn. 7:9 whose ‘clothing was white as snow’; God compared to ‘the light when it is bright in the skies’ to make the point that ‘around God is awesome majesty’ in Job 37:21-22; and the heavenly horseman ‘clothed in white’ of 2 Macc. 11:8.50 In both Jesus’ face and clothing a glory emanating from God becomes visible to the

chosen disciples; it belongs to Jesus in the role that is his and will become publicly visible in the ful lment of all that is anticipated for the Son of Man in Mt. 16:27-28. 17:3 In contrast to Mk. 9:4, Matthew adds an emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’); changes ‘with Moses’ aer ‘Elijah’ to ‘Moses and’ before ‘Elijah’ (giving the natural historical sequence);51 subordinates ‘having a conversation with’ (συλλαλοῦντες) to ‘appeared’, giving ‘appeared…having a conversation with’ in place of ‘appeared … and were having a conversation with’; and, seeing no need for Mark’s fresh use of Jesus’ name, uses ‘with him’ (μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ).52 e emphatic ἰδού suggests that the transformation of Jesus is preparatory for the meeting with Moses and Elijah. e presence of both Moses and Elijah makes it less likely that in the Moses echoes of Mt. 17:2 Matthew intends to identify Jesus as in any sense a new Moses.53 Rather, he is one who shares a certain likeness to both Moses and Elijah, destined as he is to carry forward the purposes of God within which both Moses and Elijah have had important roles. Mt. 16:14 has hinted at a genuine likeness between Elijah and Jesus (but clearly rejected any equation), and comparisons with Moses occur at various points in Matthew’s story. What is symbolized by having Moses and Elijah appear in conversation with Jesus? Scholars have made a large number of suggestions.54 But because of the clear identi cation in Matthew of John the Baptist as occupying the eschatological role of Elijah and the strong Matthean affirmation that Jesus came to ful l the Law, the juxtaposition of Moses and Elijah in Mal. 3:23-24(ET 4:4-5) points to the role of Moses and Elijah as, most likely, respectively predecessor and precursor of Jesus. And despite Matthean reinforcement, this is not likely to be a distinctly Matthean way of

understanding the roles of these two gures.55 e conversation together points to the partnership of the three gures in the sweep of the purposes of God. 17:4 e move from passive witness to active engagement comes at this point. Again Matthew stays fairly close to Mark. e most signi cant changes are: ‘Lord’ in place of ‘Rabbi’ (‘Rabbi’ has negative overtones in Matthew;56 ‘Lord’ has already been used several times by Peter57); introduction of explicit deferring to the will of Jesus with ‘if you wish’; ‘I will make’ for Mark’s ‘let us make’ (probably having in mind the distinctive role that has emerged for Peter in chap. 16); and an extra ‘here’ aer ‘I will make’ underlining Peter’s interest in freezing this moment of glory.58 Peter expresses on behalf of the disciple group present a sense of the privilege of witnessing the scene before them. But how he gets from this to the proposal to build shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah remains unclear. A σκηνή is what provides a roof over your head. It is normally, but not exclusively, used for temporary accommodation and especially for tents. Several specialist uses have possible relevance here. First, σκηνή is used of the wilderness tabernacle (from Ex. 25:9 onwards) and therefore subsequently of the place where God dwells.59 Is temple imagery involved in Peter’s suggestion? e separate shelters for Moses and Elijah suggest that this is not the case. Second, σκηνή is used of the royal dwelling of David, promised to be restored (Am. 9:11; cf. Is. 16:5). Aer the confession of Mt. 16:16, the shelters could be intended to symbolise just this restoration, but again the separate shelters for Moses and Elijah are a problem. ird, σκηνή was used in various ways with dramatic staging. Does Peter think that he should in some way ‘frame the scene’? Fourth, σκηνή is used for the Feast of Booths, one of the three main Jewish festivals,

celebrated in the autumn. It had important associations with harvest, but the practice of living temporarily in makeshi shelters particularly recalled the Exodus, and the festival was an occasion of covenant renewal. Some form of eschatological ful lment of the festival came to be anticipated (cf. Ho. 12:9; Zc. 14:16-20). Perhaps Peter thinks of the glori ed three as tting participants already at this point in the eschatological ful lment of the feast. Here is a rst installment of the eschatological ful lment. Of this set, the last has most in its favour, but since both Mk. 9:6 and Lk. 9:33 discredit Peter’s words (perhaps as nonsensical), we should not invest too much in discerning an intelligible meaning. Perhaps the offer of shelters means nothing more than the desire to extend hospitality to the heavenly visitors (of whom Jesus has suddenly given every appearance of being one).60 Whatever he intends, Peter’s attempt to participate in what he sees is inappropriate. To pick up the language of v. 9, this is a vision by which to be informed rather than an event in which to participate. Possibly we are to understand that Peter has made the attachment between what he is witnessing and 16:28 too strong: he has mistaken foretaste for substance. He has witnessed a visionary con rmation of Jesus’ words in 16:28 and has rather mistaken the vision for the reality.61 17:5 Matthew drops Mk. 9:6, instead allowing the insubstantiality of Peter’s attempt to become involved to be interrupted by fresh action. Matthew repeats the substance of Mk. 9:7, but recasts it in various ways. He adds, ‘while he was still speaking’ to provide a clear interruption.62 He also marks the three emphasised points of his narrative with an added emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) — in v. 3 and to introduce both the cloud and the voice here in v. 5. For the rst addition here, ἰδού with a nite verb displaces Mark’s ἐγένετο (‘happened’) with a participle; for the

second, ἰδού with a participle (lit. ‘saying’) replaces ἐγένετο without a following verb.63 ‘A cloud’ now becomes ‘a bright cloud’, using ϕωτεινή to echo the use of ϕῶς (‘light’) in v. 2. An accusative replaces a dative for the object of ἐπισκιάζειν. is may be only stylistic (Lk. 9:34 has the same change), but it could mark the difference between a cloud overshadowing and a cloud enveloping. Finally, Matthew adds, ‘in whom I have come to delight’ to include all the words of the voice from heaven in 3:17.64 e cloud is the mode of God’s transportation and a sign of his partially hidden presence.65 e identity of ‘them’ is not speci ed, but is best taken as referring to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah and not also the disciple group.66 Taken this way, the enveloping cloud will keep Peter from approaching the exalted three (to build shelters), much as the enveloping cloud stopped Moses from entering the tabernacle in Ex. 40:35. As in Ex. 24:16, God speaks out of the cloud.67 e voice from the cloud repeats what the voice from heaven has said at Mt. 3:17 (see discussion there for the rich christological distillation involved), but now it is not the heavenly court that is addressed but a select group of disciples, and now ‘listen to him’ is added to the words spoken. ‘Listen to him’ is likely to echo the language of Dt. 18:15, adding a further Mosaic link to the scene. For Jesus, what comes next is not ‘the Son of Man coming in his kingdom’ (Mt. 16:28), but suffering, of which Jesus’ anticipation frames the trans guration account (16:21-25; 17:[9 implicitly], 12). e glory glimpsed in the trans guration scene is a precious reality not to be doubted, but as a manifest reality it belongs to the other side of suffering. 17:6 is verse has no counterpart in Mark, though Matthew did pass over Mark’s statement about the disciples’ fear at the trans guration scene (9:6).68 With the coming of the cloud Peter

recedes from prominence and the disciple group is treated together. To fall on one’s face can be a posture of worship (e.g., Gn. 17:3) and an acknowledgment of the activity of God,69 and that may be relevant, but here this posture of subservience is primarily connected with fear.70 Given the link to Dt. 18:15 in Mt. 17:5, there may be a connection with Dt. 18:16 here which refers back to the reaction of the people at Horeb to hearing the voice of Yahweh (see Ex. 21:18-21; Dt. 5:23-27). Verbally closest are Tob. 12:16, where Tobit and Tobias fall on their faces because they are afraid when the angel Raphael identi es himself, and Dn. 8:17, where Daniel becomes frightened (LXX and eod. use θορυβεῖν rather than Matthew’s ϕοβοῦσθαι) and falls on his face at the approach of an angelic interpreter. Matthew’s ἐϕοβήθησαν σϕόδρα (‘were exceedingly frightened’) is used in 1 Sa. 12:18 of a reaction to a manifestation of God (sending thunder and rain) and in the singular of reaction to threatening prophetic words in 2 Sa. 28:20.71 Matthew will use the phrase again in 27:54: in 17:6 the voice that declares this one to be the Son inspires fear; in 27:54 the events that inspire fear lead to the declaration that this one is the Son. 17:7 Again there is no Markan counterpart. People are always coming to Jesus, but in Matthew only here and in 28:18 (and cf. v. 9) does Jesus do the coming. Since in this narrative we typically see things though the eyes of the disciples present, it is not clear whether Jesus comes out of the cloud or whether the cloud and the visitors have already gone before he comes. e reference to the touch of Jesus links up with the thread of healing contacts initiated by Jesus: the touching of the leper (8:3), the fevered mother-in-law of Peter (v. 15), and the eyes of the blind (9:29; 20:34). Note also that the fevered mother-in-law of Peter is raised (8:15), the paralysed man is told to get up (9:6), the dead girl is raised (9:25), and the sailors who think they have seen a ghost are told not to fear

(14:27). ere is likely, however, to be a speci c echo of Dn. 10:9-12, which, as in the case of Daniel, contains the sequence of hearing (a voice), falling on one’s face, being touched, being raised, and being directed not to fear.72 e disciples have the role of Daniel, Jesus the role of the angelic gure. 17:8 Matthew now rejoins Mark but adapts considerably. Matthew’s disciples have been on their faces, so they must raise their eyes to see anything; Mark’s disciples look around. Matthew has no need of Mark’s ‘suddenly’ or ‘no longer’, and ‘with them’ is redundant aer the developments in v. 7.73 e cloud had temporarily closed off the scene of glory to the disciples, but now the scene has disappeared altogether.74 What the disciples are le with is the prophetic vision of glory and the challenge to listen to Jesus as the one affirmed by the heavenly voice. 17:9 e substance is Markan, but with a range of Matthean touches. ough he introduced it at 16:20, Matthew avoids Mark’s use of διαστέλλειν (‘order’),75 preferring ἐντέλλεσθαι (‘direct’).76 Perhaps because of the change of scene, Jesus is freshly introduced despite having just been named in 17:8. Direct speech replaces indirect speech, a fact which is highlighted by the addition of an introductory λέγων (‘saying’). Mark’s διηγήσωνται (‘relate’)77 becomes the simpler εἴπητε (‘tell’). ἃ εἶδον (‘what they saw’) becomes τὸ ὅραμα (‘the vision’), in line with the connection with apocalyptic visions explored above.78 Mark’s εἰ μὴ ὅταν (‘except when’) is improved to ἕως οὖ (‘until’). As in 16:21, there is a move from ἀναστῆναι to ἐγερθῆναι with reference to the resurrection (see there).79 In line with a tendency noted before (see, e.g., at Mt. 16:1112), Matthew drops entirely Mk. 9:10, with its focus on the failure of the disciples to understand. Matthew is headed here towards a point

where he can assert clear understanding on the part of the disciples (17:13). e language ‘until the Son of Man is raised from the dead’ echoes the language of the Passion prediction in 16:21, but for ‘Son of Man’ either we need to go to the Markan form of the Passion prediction or to reach back to Mt. 16:13 or (less likely) to vv. 27 or 28. Matthew now allows the tie between ‘Son of Man’ language and the Passion which he avoided at 16:21, but initially in connection with Jesus’ resurrection rather than his death and against the backdrop of the proleptic manifestation of his glory as the Son of Man in the trans guration. Soon aer, in 17:12, Matthew will allow an immediate connection between Son of Man language and the Passion of Jesus, which will be re ected in the remaining Passion predictions.80 e reason for secrecy until the resurrection is never speci cally clari ed, but it is clearly related to the secrecy of 16:20 (see discussion there). We have already noted some links between Mt. 17:1-9 and Mt. 28:16-20. But the list is fuller. In common are a limited number of disciples, a mountain setting chosen by Jesus, a seeing of Jesus that impacts the disciples, Jesus coming to them (which in Matthew is restricted to these texts), reference to Jesus ‘directing’ (ἐντέλλεσθαι) (also restricted in Matthew to these texts), the use of highlighting ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’), signi cant ties to Daniel, and interest in the resurrection (spoken of in Mt. 17:9 and lying behind the appearance in 28:16-20). It is not easy to be sure what to make of these links, but what is probably intended is that Mt. 28:16-20 represents a further stage in the progressive realisation of the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom. D. e Suffering of John the Baptist and of Jesus (17:10-13)

10ae

disciples asked him, ‘Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ 11He answered, ‘Elijah does indeed come,b cand he will restorec all things. 12But I tell you that Elijah already came, and they did not know him but did dwith him whatever they wished. eSo also the Son of Man is about to suffer by [means of] them.’e 13en the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. An added αυτου gives ‘his’ in B C D f13 1006 1342 1506 etc. f ff q sy mae bopt. e support for the longer form is greater than in many other places in Matthew that have the longer reading (I have not normally reported these). b. In line with Mk. 9:12, πρωτον (‘ rst’) is added in C (L) Z f13 700 1006 1342 1506 etc. f q syp, h. c-c. αποκαταστησαι (‘to restore’) in D it syc, p. d. e εν represented by ‘with’ is missing from ‫ א‬D F W f13 700 1006 1424 2542 etc. it syh samss bo. e-e. Displaced to aer Mt. 17:13 in D it. Bibliography Allison, D. C., ‘“Elijah must come rst”’, JBL 103 (1984), 256-58. • Black, M., ‘e eological Appropriation of the Old Testament by the New Testament’, SJT 39 (1986), 1-17. • Blomberg, C. L., ‘Elijah, Election, and the Use of Malachi in the New Testament’, CTR 2 (1987), 100-108. • Casey, M., Aramaic Sources, 111-37. • Faierstein, M. M., ‘Why Do the Scribes Say at Elijah Must Come First?’ JBL 100 (1981), 75-86. • Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘More about Elijah Coming First’, JBL 104 (1985), 295-96. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 17,1027’, SémiotBib 80 (1995), 51-58. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 306-20. • Marcus, J., ‘Mark 9,11-13: “As It Has Been Written”’, ZNW 80 (1989), 42-63. • Taylor, J.,

‘e Coming of Elijah, Mt 17,10-13 and Mk 9,11-13: e Development of the Texts’, RB 98 (1991), 107-19. • Yamasaki, G., John the Baptist, 133-36. See further at 17:1-9.

e journey down the mountain continues; the disciples’ question is provoked by their experience on the mountain. Elijah = John the Baptist indeed comes to restore, but, as with Jesus, his restoring role is not completed without suffering. Markan material continues in the Markan sequence. e main difficulty with the material is the complex interplay between the suffering of John and of the Son of Man. Away from the present context in Mark and in connection with the historical Jesus, it may be right, with Casey,81 to regard the Son of Man statement as a general statement about the human lot, now being applied speci cally by Jesus to the case of John the Baptist and only more remotely and derivatively to himself.

17:10 e fresh introduction of the disciples (not in Mk. 9:11) helps to separate vv. 10-13 from vv. 1-9 for its own separate emphasis.82 Only those disciples who have been with Jesus on the mountain are intended. e interest in Elijah is prepared for by his role in vv. 3-4. e scribes have been identi ed as experts in the Scriptures in 2:4-6 (cf. 23:2). e necessity involved is the need for scriptural prediction to be ful lled. According to Mal. 3:23 (LXX v. 22; ET 4:5), God ‘will send … Elijah before the great and terrible day of Yahweh’. ese disciples now realise that the glori cation of Jesus which they have experienced on the mountain was a previewing of a dimension of the eschatological day of Yahweh, to be understood in connection with Jesus’ words in 16:27-28. e combination of 16:27-28 with the experience of 17:1-9 leaves these disciples thinking that ‘the day of Yahweh’ is at hand.83 So what are they to make of what the scribes say about Mal. 3:23?

17:11 is verse has more substantial changes from Mk. 9:12. Matthew introduces his favoured ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered, he said’), dropping the speci ed indirect object. He does not, like Mark, repeat ‘ rst’ from v. 10. He resolves Mark’s participle and (present tense) verb construction, ἐλθὼν ἀποκαθιστάνει (lit. ‘having come, he restores’) into coordinated verbs, a present and a future, probably to allow for a two-phased role for Elijah. ‘Elijah does come’ affirms the signi cance given to the Malachi text by the scribes — it will soon become clear that the ministry of John is meant to ful l this expectation; ‘and he will restore all things’ echoes the following verse from Malachi, using the same form of the verb as in the LXX text but opening up the possibility of a space between a coming of Elijah, now in the past as Jesus speaks, and a successful restoring role for Elijah, still outstanding.84 Matthew defers reference to the Son of Man to aer v. 12a. 17:12 Matthew soens Mark’s ἀλλά (‘but’) to δέ (lit. ‘and/but’, but oen not translated) — he keeps the major contrast for later; brings ‘Elijah’ forward to a more emphatic position; replaces καὶ ἐλήλυθεν (‘has indeed come’) with ἤδη ἦλθεν (‘already came’) to open up a place for John’s death; adds οὐκ ἐπέγνωσαν αὐτὸν ἀλλά (‘did not know/recognise him, but’), perhaps to make a link with the restricted group who know the Son in 11:27 and to the parallel failure to recognise Jesus as the Christ which stands behind Jesus’ Passion; inserts an ἐν (lit. ‘in’) before αὐτῷ (‘him’), probably to broaden the sense from ‘to him’ to ‘with him’; changes Mark’s verb to aorist for ‘pleased’;85 and drops ‘just as it has been written concerning him’ to avoid the problem of what texts could be in view. Matthew’s Jesus has already spoken of ‘Elijah, the one who is to come’ in 11:14 and identi ed him with John the Baptist, as the disciples come to understand again here (17:13). e use of the inde nite ‘they’ allows for a clumping together of those who were

immediately responsible for John’s imprisonment and death, those who simply failed to realise his signi cance (e.g., 11:18; 21:23-27), and those who will be responsible for Jesus’ suffering (to be introduced in the second part of the verse). e activity against the kingdom of heaven probably involves ‘those who are violent’ (11:12). At this point Matthew uses the Son of Man materials passed over in 17:11, but only ‘Son of Man’ (but in a different case) and ‘suffer’ (but present in nitive rather than aorist subjunctive) survive of Mark’s language. Now for the rst time Matthew allows a connection between the Son of Man and suffering (see at 16:21). As was the case with Elijah, the reference to Scripture is dropped — Matthew would probably have felt more able to nd Scripture here, but the importance of the parallels between John and Jesus (developed primarily by Matthew in 11:16-19) is paramount. And ‘suffer many things and be treated with contempt’ is simpli ed to ‘is about to suffer’ — Matthew’s simpli cation is in part similar to 16:21. An added ὑπ᾿ αὐτῶν (lit. ‘by them’) echoes the passion prediction list of opponents in 16:21, but here the ὑπ᾿ of Mk. 8:31, corrected at Mt. 16:21 (when Mark’s intervening ἀποδοκιμασθῆναι [‘be rejected’] was dropped), is found — Matthew is working here from memory. As in the move from 16:13-20 to vv. 21-26 and again from 17:2-4 to v. 5, he refocuses attention from glory to suffering: the fulness of glory belongs beyond the ignominy of suffering. 17:13 As in 16:12, Matthew adds an editorial comment to indicate the understanding achieved by the disciples, an understanding that the reader can con rm by cross reference to 11:14. e repetition of the thrust of 11:14 underlines the importance to Matthew of the identi cation. No comment is offered on how these disciples relate to John’s role as a prototype for Jesus in

suffering. But that protoypical role is clearly the central point of the episode. E. Jesus Heals Where the Faithless Disciples Had Failed (17:14-18) 14When athey came to the crowd, a person him, 15and said, ‘bLord, have mercy on cmy son

came up to him, knelt before because he is an epileptic and dsuffers badly.d For he oen falls into the fire and eoen into the water. 16And I brought him to your disciples, but they were not able to heal him.’ 17Jesus responded, ‘What an unbelieving and perverse generation! Until when must I be with you? Until when must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ 18Jesus spoke sternly to him, and the demon departed from him; and the lad was healed from that [very] hour.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Singular in D lat (sys, c) bopt to narrow the focus to Jesus. b. Missing from ‫ א‬Z sys bopt but likely to be original. c. An extra μου (‘my’) in B* sys, c, p (there is one before and one aer ‘son’) makes no obvious sense. d-d. κακως εχει (‘is sick’) instead of κακως πασχει in ‫ א‬B L Zvid Θ 579 etc., which could be original, but the distinctiveness of κακως πασχει (only here in the NT and only at Wis. 18:19 in the LXX) stands in its favour. e. Missing in W (cf. Mk. 9:22). ενιοτε (‘sometimes’) in D Θ f1 etc. it mae. Bibliography Delorme, J., ‘Dualité, dissection critique et signi cation Mc 9,14-29’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1094-1104. • Delorme, J., ‘Signi cance d’un récit et comparaison synoptique (Marc 9,14-29 et parallèles)’, in Synoptic Gospels, ed. C. Focant, 531-47. • Frankemölle, H., Jahwebund, 21-27. • Kollmann, B.,

Wundertäter, 209-15. • Lövestam, E., ‘is Generation,’ 46-55. • Rolland, P., ‘Lecture par couches rédactionnelles de l’épisode de l’épileptique (Mc 9,14-29 et parallèles) in Synoptic Gospels, ed. C. Focant, 451-58. • Runacher, C., Croyants incréules: La guérison de l’épileptique, Marc 9,14-29 (LD 157. Paris: Cerf, 1994). • Trunk, D., Heiler, 155-82.

Away from the vision of glory on the mountain the situation is less than ideal. e le-behind disciples have failed to ful l their Mt. 10 mandate. In the failure of their faith they are like their contemporaries, who are repeating the pattern of unbelief of their ancestors in the Exodus period. But Jesus’ own capacity to help remains undiminished. e scale of abbreviation here is severe and is reminiscent of that for the exorcism in 8:28-34. e Markan material and order continues (see Mk. 9:14-27), but here the shared features between Mt. 17:14-18 and Lk. 9:37-43 make it likely that Matthew also had access to a simpler second source. e complexity and the difficulties of the Markan material, along with the likely existence of a second simpler form, suggest that the Markan material has undergone signi cant development. Mk. 9:19 and 23-24 are likely to be insertions, based respectively on a separated saying of Jesus and a pronouncement story. e insertions are likely to be responsible for v. 20’s being displaced from an original location between vv. 22 and 25, with subsequent change at the start of v. 25. e role of the scribes in v. 14 is likely to be Markan.86

17:14 Matthew radically simpli es, dropping all mention of the interaction with the scribes in Mk. 9:14 and the interaction of the crowd with Jesus in v. 16. is inadvertently leaves ‘the crowd’ unintroduced (though in Matthew they are never far away) and the reason why Jesus and his companions should be coming to the crowd unclear.87 In Mark they come to the disciples. But Matthew produces a much cleaner structure, leaving the disciples totally out of sight for the miracle story of 17:14-18 (they are spoken of in the

past tense in v. 16) and allowing them to be centre stage for the private teaching to follow in vv. 19-20. ‘Coming up’ to Jesus for help picks up on the clustering of the use of language of coming up (προσερχέσθαι) to Jesus for help in chaps. 8–9 (see at 8:2). Matthew uses γονυπετεῖν (‘kneel before’) only here and in the mock homage at 27:29, but uses the related προσκυνεῖν with προσερχέσθαι in connection with approaches to Jesus a number of times, including at 8:2 (see discussion there and at 2:2).88 17:15 Again Matthew edits radically, with only ‘my son’ common with Mk. 9:17. A person addresses Jesus as ‘Lord’, as suppliants have in a large number of texts, including again 8:2 (see there).89 e petition is introduced with ‘have mercy on’, as in a series of Matthean texts from 9:27 (see there).90 Only here in Matthew is there petition on behalf of a son. But 8:6 involves a petition on behalf of ‘my lad’ (παῖς) — most likely a well-loved servant — παῖς in v. 18 will refer to a well-loved servant and the son of 17:14-18. Twice Matthew has petition for a daughter (9:18; 15:22). σεληνιάζεται (‘subject to epilepsy’) is Matthew’s language. In the NT it is found only here and in 4:24 (see there). He decides that the boy is subject to epilepsy on the basis of the description in Mk. 9:18. With one exception, Matthew uses κακῶς (lit. ‘badly’) exclusively with reference to the sufferings of those cured by Jesus.91 e idiom is normally κακῶς ἔκειν (lit. ‘have badly’), but here it is the stronger κακῶς πάσχειν (‘suffer badly’), using a verb normally reserved for the sufferings of Jesus.92 In Matthew’s editing the role of the demonic spirit disappears from this stage of the telling of the story. For the second half of the verse Matthew reaches forward to the later explanation in Mk. 9:22. Omitting mention of the instrumental role of a demon, Matthew speaks of the boy falling

rather than of how the demon cast him.93 e destructive impulses of demons become the rapid onset of an epileptic t in dangerous settings. But while the role of the demon loses its prominence, it is not to be totally lost; it will surface in Mt. 17:18-19. 17:16 Because of earlier abbreviation Matthew needs reference to a speci c bringing of the boy to the disciples at this point. is displaces the Markan request to the disciples for an exorcism. Matthew employs the verb προσϕέρειν (‘bring’), which he has frequently used of people being brought to Jesus.94 For the rst time the disciples are concretely portrayed as actually placed in the role of deputising for Jesus (Jesus is away on the mountain). Such a role is anticipated in chap. 10 and is to be assumed to have taken place ‘offstage’. But it is for a case of failure that Matthew allows their role to be brought ‘onstage’. To emphasise, Matthew rewrites and expands the simple Markan statement of failure, οὐκ ἴσχυσαν (‘they could not’), into οὐκ ἠδυνήθησαν αὐτὸν θεραπεῦσαι (‘they were not able to heal him’).95 Contrast Mt. 8:2: ‘Lord, if you choose, you are able (δύνασαι) to cleanse me’. Previous disciple failure has been evident as recently as 16:22-23 and continues through to Peter’s failure in the courtyard of the high priest in 26:69-75. Given the erce reaction to come in v. 17, it is unlikely that any echo of Gehazi’s failure to restore the dead child in 2 Ki. 4, though at times claimed, is intended here. 17:17 Matthew now follows Mark much more closely. Aer the introduction (where Matthew, as oen, changes from historic present to aorist; adds emphasis in a different way by freshly introducing Jesus’ name; and drops the speci ed object of the verb), Matthew repeats the Markan wording except for the addition of ‘and perverse’ (shared with Lk. 9:41 and clinching the link with Dt. 32:5), the preference of μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν over πρὸς ὑμᾶς for ‘with you’ (unlikely to be to make this a threat of the removal of the presence

anticipated in Mt. 1:23) and μοι over πρός με for ‘to me’, and the addition of ὧδε (‘here’) (the last also shared with Lk. 9:41). Jesus’ erce words can be provoked only by the failure of the disciples. Here the disciples represent the present generation in its failure to respond to the ministry of Jesus, much as ‘some of the scribes and Pharisees’ do in Mt. 12:38-39. Whereas in 12:39 this generation is being likened by OT allusions to those sent into exile, here the allusion is to Dt. 32:5 (cf. v. 20) and the connection is with the failure of Israel in the Exodus period. ere is also a possible tie with Nu. 11:12, with Moses’ complaint about having to bear the people in the wilderness.96 For a discussion on the shortage of materials available to illustrate wider Jewish failure to respond to the ministry of Jesus see the comments at 11:16-17. e generation of Jesus’ day is also treated negatively in a range of other texts.97 To what does the repeated ‘until when’ language refer? In Luke the answer is clear because Lk. 9:31 includes a discussion of Jesus’ ‘exodus’ and Luke’s story ends with a well-prepared-for departure to glory in heaven. But Matthew ends his Gospel with a presence statement and has invested little in the idea that Jesus will depart. A future coming of the Son of Man who is to be identi ed with Jesus himself may imply a departure but does not have to.98 e sense of a ‘job nished’ achieved by the end of the Gospel99 may imply withdrawal and give an implicit answer to the ‘how much longer’ question. e form of presence spoken of in 18:20 and 28:20 is clearly different from the physical presence of Jesus during his ministry. Some kind of absence of Jesus is implied by the language of 18:5 (and even 10:40, but there it need be no more than Jesus being elsewhere in Palestine at the time) and is worked out parabolically in relation to help to the needy in 25:31-46. e parable of the waiting bridesmaids in vv. 1-13 and that of the servants entrusted with property while their master is absent on a

journey in vv. 14-30 both give signi cance to a period of absence of the one who guratively represents Jesus. e assertion in 26:29 probably implies withdrawal and not simply impending death and resurrection, but this can be disputed. We can detect a signi cant coming absence, but it achieves little focus in Matthew. His complaint made, Jesus turns his attention to the need for which his help has been sought. 17:18 Matthew does not use the development in Mk. 9:2025a (though he has used a fragment of v. 22 earlier). He moves immediately to the point where Jesus deals with the need. Since Matthew has not previously introduced the role of the demon and drops Mark’s ‘the unclean spirit’ at this point, he speaks the rebuke, or stern address, in the rst instance to the epileptic son (contra NRSV, NIV, etc.).100 Apart from the rebuke of the winds and the sea in 8:26, the Matthean Jesus rebukes/addresses sternly only people (and never demons).101 Matthew speaks only of the fact of the stern address, omitting Mark’s report of the words directed to the demon.102 Only at the point of departure is the presence of a demon nally identi ed. In the Matthean telling we are perhaps to understand that it is the word of rebuke/stern address that rst unmasks the presence of the demon. Matthew drops all the drama of Mark’s account of the departure and its aermath: he is content with ‘the demon departed from him’ (only ‘departed’ comes immediately from Mark) and the distinctive ‘the lad was healed from that [very] hour’.103 e possibility hinted at in the discussion of 17:17 above that Matthew may be treating the two petitions for a daughter and the two for a lad as a set of two pairs nds some support from this last Matthean addition: at 8:13 ‘His lad was healed [using ἰᾶσθαι] in that [very] hour’; at 9:22 the healing statement, ‘e woman was made well [using σῴζειν] from that [very] hour’, is coupled, not with the

dead daughter of the surrounding episode but with the embedded episode of the woman with the haemorrhages; at 15:28 ‘Her daughter was healed [using ἰᾶσθαι] from that [very] hour’; and now ‘e lad was healed [using θεραπεύειν] from that [very] hour’.104 F. With Faith Nothing Will Be Impossible (17:19-20) 19en

the disciples came to Jesus alone and said, ‘Why were we not able to cast it out?’ 20He asays to them, ‘Because of your blittle faith.b For, amen, I say to you, if you have faith [only the same size] as a mustard seed, you will [as occasion should demand] say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’c

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e historic present is replaced by the aorist in C L W 1006 1342 1506 etc. a f q vgcl syh. b-b. απιστιαν (‘unbelief ’) in C D L W 1006 1342 1506 etc. latt syp, h, in uenced by v. 17. c. In uenced by Mk. 9:29, τουτο δε το γενος ουκ εκπορευεται (εκβαλλ‫א‬2; εξερχ- 205 209 etc.) ει μη εν προσευχη και νηστεια (‘this kind does not come out [is not cast out; does not go out] except by prayer and fasting’) in ‫א‬2 C D L W f1, 13 892mg 1006 1342 1506 etc. lat (syp, h) (mae) bopt. Bibliography Carmignac, J., ‘Ah, si tu peux! … Tout est possible en faveur de celui qui croit (Mc 9, 23)’, in e New Testament Age. FS B. Reicke, ed W. C. Weinrich (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 83-86. • Dautzenberg, G., “Der Glaube in der Jesusüberlieferung’, in Anwalt des Menschen, ed. B. Jendorff and G. Schlalenberg (Giessener Schrien zur eologie und Religionspädagogik und deren Didaktik des Justus-Liebig-Universität 2.

Giessen: Fachbereichs Evangelische und Katholische eologie und deren Didaktik, 1983), 41-62. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Moving Mountains and Uprooting Trees (Mk 11:22; Mt 17:20; 21:21; Lk 17:6)’, BO 30 (1988), 231-44. • Hahn, F., ‘Jesu Wort vom bergeversetzenden Glauben’, ZNW 76 (1985), 149-69. • Klein, H., ‘Das Glaubensverständnis im Matthäusevangelium’, in Glaube im Neuen Testament. FS H. Binder, ed. F. Hahn and H. Klein (Biblisch-theologische Studien 7. Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1982), 29-42. • Schwarz, G., ‘πίστις ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως’, BibNot 25 (1984), 27-35. • Zmijewski, J., ‘Der Glaube und seine Macht: Einetraditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Mt. 17.20; 21.21; Mk 11.23; Lk 17.6’, in Begegnung mit dem Wort. FS H. Zimmermann, ed. J. Zmijewski and E. Nellessen (BBB 53. Bonn: Hanstein, 1980), 81-103. See further at 17:14-18.

e connection with 17:14-18 is close and somewhat like that between vv. 10-13 and 1-9: a question arises from the immediately preceding experience. Jesus challenges the disciples to move from little faith to faith of even the size of a mustard seed: with such faith nothing will be impossible. e sequence is Markan (cf. Mk. 9:28-29), but Matthew has substituted for the Markan answer from Jesus material parallelled in Lk. 17:6; Mk. 11:22-23, and has signi cant editing. ough certainty is not possible, the most original form is likely to have had the ‘sycamore’ of Lk. 17:6 rather than the ‘mountain’ of Mk. 11:23 and to have included the reference to the mustard seed of Lk. 17:6; Mt. 17:20 rather than the contrast between faith and doubt of Mk. 11:23; Mt. 21:21.105

17:19 Matthew, as oen, makes the transition to a fresh piece with τότε (‘then’);106 he marks the fresh beginning by reintroducing Jesus’ name and replaces Mark’s reference to his (i.e., Jesus’) entry ‘into a house’107 with a reference to the disciples ‘coming to Jesus alone’ (κατ᾿ ἰδίαν — the meaning is ‘privately’, but ‘alone’ catches

the echo of Mt. 17:1).108 e disciples came to Jesus and received teaching in 5:1, and they come to him with their questions at various points to have their understanding expanded.109 is time it is particularly the disciples who missed out on being alone with Jesus on the mountain (and who had their question answered on the journey down the mountain) who are involved. e (Markan) language describing the disciples’ failure echoes ‘they were not able’ from Mt. 17:16, but for ‘cast it out’ the echo is of Markan language rejected at v. 16 (see Mk. 9:18). e disciples are disturbed by their failure, presumably in light of Mt. 10. 17:20 Matthew marks the change of speaker with ὁ δέ and for emphasis switches to the present tense for the verb of saying. e immediate answer is Matthean: ‘because of your little faith (ὀλιγοπιστίαν)’. e language picks up on the use of ‘[you people of] little faith’ (ὀλιγόπιστε/ὀλογόπιστοι) addressed, in the singular, to Peter in his doubt at 14:31 and to the disciples collectively in their worry at 6:30, their cowardice at 8:26, and their distraction about bread in 16:8. But whereas in those texts the word points to failure on the part of the disciples to believe that they will be taken care of, here faith has proved inadequate for relaying God’s rescuing care to a demoniac. Matthew’s choice of ‘little faith’ here represents a re nement on 17:17, where the disciples, in being linked to the generation of their contemporaries, share their epithet: ‘unbelieving’. ough in their failure the disciples are like their contemporaries in their unbelief, in their case Matthew would prefer to speak of ‘little faith’: they have followed Jesus and are on a journey, which, despite all its ups and downs, is to be thought of as one of growing faith.110 Matthew adds a linking γάρ (‘for’) to the ‘amen, I say to you’ of Mk. 11:23. He is fond of the phrase and uses it to re ect the diction of the historical Jesus and to underline his self-con dent authority.

Apart from an ἐάν plus subjunctive in place of εἰ plus indicative, the ‘if ’ clause is identical to that in Lk. 17:6. But where Lk. 17:6 draws a contrast between having faith and exercising faith (‘what is needed is not more faith, but the exercise of whatever faith exists’), in Mt. 17:20 the ‘little faith’ conceded to the disciples is at this point so small that it makes faith as small as a mustard seed very grand by comparison.111 Jesus views the disciples’ faith as so minuscule that the association with the unbelieving generation in v. 17 is to be seen as quite natural. Despite the invidious comparison he makes with the disciples’ littleness of faith, the reason why ‘mustard seed’ faith can be so effective has to do not with the adequacy of faith but with the adequacy of God and the reality of what he is now putting into effect with Jesus.112 For the ‘then’ clause Matthew returns for his basic imagery to Mk. 11:23, but abbreviates and uses his own construction.113 e future ἐρεῖτε is lit. ‘you will say’, but ellipse is involved and something like ‘as occasion should demand’ needs to be intruded. In Matthew ‘this mountain’ is best taken as the mountain from which Jesus has so recently descended. It is doubtful whether the moving of the mountain in Matthew links at all with the participation in the powers of the new creation claimed by Hahn for Mark’s mountain-into-the-sea form.114 Matthew’s speci c image is probably of ‘sliding’ a mountain rather than of upending (perhaps toppling) it into the sea.115 e interest is, of course, not in moving mountains but in achieving what goes way beyond the exorcism that the disciples failed to achieve. us the generalising words at the end. Surely, ‘nothing will be impossible for you’ is intended to echo the proverbial OT language of nothing being too hard for God.116 e powers held out here are a participation in the boundless powers of God. is provides Matthew with a suitable

high point to end the section which began with the rst Passion prediction in 16:21-23.

1. See Nolland, Luke, 2:459-64. 2. Allison, End, 139. 3. e phrase is developed from Mark’s ‘and he began’. 4. Matthew has the verb from sources in 4:8; 8:4. 5. See Mt. 8:12, 34; 9:3, 11, 34; 10:16-18, 21-23, 24-25, 34-39; 11:16-19, 20-24; 12:2, 10, 14, 24, 34, 39-42, 43-45; 15:1-14; 16:1-4, 11-12. 6. Nolland, Luke, 2:465-66. 7. Cf. ‘We are going up to Jerusalem’ in Mk. 10:32 (the third Markan Passion prediction). 8. is is a point of minor agreement between Matthew and Luke, but where in Lk. 9:22 the change merely re ects interchangeable use of ὑπό and ἀπό to mean ‘by’, in Mt. 16:21 the change is forced by the need for a preposition that will link with ‘suffer many things’ (D has ὑπό and, curiously, has ἀπό in Mk. 8:31). 9. Lk. 9:22 does the same thing, which represents a more striking minor agreement than that commented on in the previous note. Matthew, however, uses the same technique to make a group out of at least two of ‘chief priests’, ‘scribes’, and ‘elders’ in 2:4; 20:18; 26:47; 27:3, 12, 41. 10. ‘To Caiaphas the high priest, in whose house the scribes and elders had gathered [separate articles]’. 11. e move from ἀναστῆναι to ἐγερθῆναι is little more than stylistic since both can mean ‘rise’ and, in the present context, both are likely to assume the role of God in restoration (to life). 12. If the original tradition lacked ‘and be killed’ and implied only death, then the reference to rising aer three days would not have been sharply focussed on resurrection (though even an implied death requires an implied restoration beyond death). 13. But as already noted at Mt. 4:18, ‘Peter’ is Matthew’s regular usage.

14. With rst person pronouns the idiom means ‘Far be it from me [or us]/God forbid [that]’. is sense is oen claimed for the second person form in Mt. 16:22. 15. See Mt. 14:28, 30; 17:4; 18:21. 16. Matthew reduces Mark’s ἐπιστραϕείς to στραϕείς (but not in D L Θ f13 565 1424 etc.), but without a change of meaning. 17. e translation does not fully render the imagery: the use of ὀπίσω (‘behind’) indicates that the separation called for involves retreat away from Jesus. Is the thought that Satan is always lurking somewhere behind one’s back and comes around to the front when he engages in tempting? 18. For the connection between the devil and causes of stumbling cf. Mt. 13:39, 41. 19. Dt. 32:13; Job 24:8; Pss. 78:20; 104(MT/ET 105):41; Pr. 30:19; Is. 48:21; 51:1 (here with στερεάν [‘solid’]). 20. Cf. Add. Est. 16:1 (LXX): τοῖς τὰ ἡμέτερα ϕρονοῦσι, which NRSV translates ‘to those who are loyal to our government; 1 Macc. 10:20: ϕρονεῖν τὰ ἡμῶν (NRSV: ‘to take our side’); 2 Macc. 14:8: ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀνηκόντων τῷ βασιλεῖ γνησίως ϕρονῶν (NRSV: ‘I am genuinely concerned for the interests of the king’); 2 Macc. 14:26: ἀλλότρια ϕρονεῖν τῶν πραγμάτων (NRSV: ‘was disloyal to the government’). 21. e saying in Mt. 16:24 has been preserved in two basic forms, the second in Mt. 10:38//Lk. 14:27. Whether it may be traced back to the historical Jesus has been hotly disputed, especially because of the use of ‘cross’. A strong case can be made for tracing back to the historical Jesus an original something like ‘the one who would follow me must take up their cross’. See Nolland, Luke, 2:476-77. 22. ere is a similar change in Lk. 9:23 to ὀπίσω ἔρχεσθαι (‘come aer’). 23. A different verb is used for ‘take up’, but with no evident change of meaning. 24. Luz, Matthäus, 2:491. 25. Plut., De sera num. vind. 9.554b: ‘Every criminal who is executed carries his own cross’.

26. Lk. 9:24 makes the same changes, but this is unlikely to indicate a second source. e rst change is a natural improvement in syntax, and the second is an obvious Markan expansion which widens the frame of reference beyond what is available in the immediate context. Luke never uses ‘gospel’, and Matthew, with one exception, preserves the word only in contexts where his favoured phrase ‘the gospel of the kingdom’ ts (the exception is 26:13, where Mark’s ‘the gospel’ becomes ‘this gospel’). Also, ‘the gospel’ was apparently absent from Matthew’s other source form for this tradition (see 10:39). On questions of the most original form and historicity see the discussion at 10:39. 27. Matthew exchanges Mark’s impersonal use of the present tense of ὠϕελεῖ (‘it pro ts’) for a future passive, allowing ἄνθρωπος to become the subject (‘a person will pro t’); an ἐάν (‘if ’) + subj. construction replaces Mark’s use of the in nitive κερδῆσαι (‘gain’); Matthew treats Mark’s in nitive ζημιωθῆναι (‘forfeit’) similarly; the linking καί (‘and’) becomes a δέ (‘and/but’) to mark the contrast; the logic of the link to the nal clause is adjusted with a move from γάρ (‘for’) to ἤ (‘or’); Mark’s subjunctive δοῖ (‘may give’) gives way to a future δώσει (‘will give’). Lk. 9:25 shares the move to the passive but prefers the present tense. 28. See Dautzenberg, Sein Leben, 71-75. e link with the psalm does not guarantee that the material goes back to the historical Jesus, but it does undercut the claim that a secular proverb has been secondarily incorporated into the Jesus materials. 29. Mark’s ‘and of my words’ (cf. the dropping of ‘and of the gospel’ in Mt. 16:25) and ‘in this adulterous and sinful generation’ (cf. the similar phrase in Mt. 12:39; 16:4) nd no place in Matthew’s reformulation. 30. Yet to come are Mt. 19:28; 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:31. 31. See Ex. 16:7, 10; 24:17; 40:34; Ps. 63:3; Is. 60:1; etc. 32. In the translation above I have rearranged the word order of the Greek to re ect this judgment. 33. Ps. 62:12 (LXX 61:13); Pr. 24:12 are the closest (cf. Ps. 28:4 [LXX 27:4]); and one or the other is likely to be echoed. But the language of Sir. 35:22; Test. Job 17:3; Ps.-Philo 3:10; Rom. 2:6; 2 Tim. 4:14; Rev. 2:23; 22:12

makes clear that the language had gained a currency of its own, with or without speci c allusion to the OT. See also 2 Cor. 11:15; 1 Pet. 1:17; Pss. Sol. 17:8-10 (cf. 9:5); 1 Clem. 34:3; 2 Clem. 11:6; Hermas, Sim. 6:3:6. 34. Matthew does not use the noun elsewhere. Cf. 1 Esdr. 1:23 (ET 25): ‘aer all this activity of Josiah’; v. 31 (ET 33): ‘what was done, item by item, of the activity of Josiah’; Job 24:5: ‘go out to their activity [i.e., their work]’; Sir. 38:24: ‘coming short with regard to activity [i.e., having leisure]’. 35. Otherwise Matthew drops the fresh introduction, ‘And he said to them’, relocates ὧδε (‘here’), which is oddly placed in Mk. 9:1 (giving a sense something like ‘there are some here of those standing [about]’), and, without change of meaning, replaces the perfect participle ἑστηκότων (‘standing’) with the second perfect form ἑστώτων. (For the rst two of these changes cf. Lk. 9:27.) For a discussion of the original sense (several options remain open, including anticipation of the breaking of the power of Rome, of God’s judgment in history on his people, and of some powerful authentication of Jesus’ ministry) and in support of its origin on the lips of Jesus see Nolland, Luke, 2:480-81. 36. Cf. Moses, Transfiguration, 95-96 (see the bibliography for Mt. 17:19). e image is also found in Jn. 8:52; Heb. 2:9. In the latter, violent death is not in view but the relationship between death and the judgment of God is likely to be. For related images see 1 Sa. 15:32: ‘the bitterness of death’, and the drinking of the cup in Ps. 75:8; Is. 51:17, 22; Je. 25:15; Ez. 23:33; Mt. 20:22-23; 26:27, 39; etc. 37. e only other place in Matthew where kingdom language is used with Jesus is 13:41, where ‘his kingdom’ refers back to the Son of Man. 38. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:490-96, and for a fuller list of views on the origin of the account, Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:685-93. 39. Syntactically the one article could cover each of the names on the list. But the highlighting of Peter remains more likely. In ‫ א‬D Θ 33 892 etc. an article is also found with ‘James’ (presumably ‘John’ was judged not to need the article because of the following ‘his brother’). Lk. 9:28 drops articles from all the names. 40. Otherwise only minor stylistic changes are made.

41. In Acts, John is particularly coupled with Peter in the leadership of the church (3:1, 3, 4, 11; 4:13, 19; 8:14; and cf. the order of names in 1:13). e early prominence of James is suggested by the order of names in 1:13 and by his execution in 12:2. Note also the giving of the name Boanerges in Mk. 3:17 (parallelling the giving of the name Peter), the role of Peter, James, and John in 5:37; 14:33, and the slipping to the end of Andrew’s name in the list of four in 13:3. 42. ‘Six days’ represents a preparatory period in Ex. 24:16; Jos. 6:3, 14; Est. 1:5 (LXX); cf. Jn. 12:1. 43. Mostly in connection with God. See Nu. 6:25; Pss. 4:7(ET 6); 31:17(ET 16); 44:4(ET 3); 67:2(ET 1); 80:4, 8, 20(ET 3, 7, 19); 89:16(ET 15); 119:135; Dn. 9:17. But of Job in Job 29:24 and of the king in Pr. 16:15. 44. In Ec. 8:1 the shining of one’s face is an image of well-being (cf. 1QHa 12[= 4]:5; 13[= 5]:32). Without reference to the face, being ‘bright (barh) as the sun’ is an image of female beauty in Ct. 6:10 (cf. Wis. 7:29, where wisdom is ‘more beautiful than the sun’; Jos. As. 18:9, where Asenath’s ‘face … was like the sun’); being ‘like the sun shining’ points in Sir. 50:7 to the magni cence of Simon son of Onias as high priest; what distinguishes God from idols in Ep. Jer. 1:66(ET v. 67) is that they cannot ‘shine like the sun or give light like the moon’ (cf. Odes 11:13); being ‘like the sun as it rises in its might’ is an image of blessedness in Jdg. 5:31. 45. Cf. the angelic gure in Jos. As. 14:9. 46. Similarly, in Apoc. Zeph. 6:11 there is a great angel ‘with his face shining like the rays of the sun in its glory’. 47. ‘You have brightened my face with your covenant’ in 1QHa 12[= 4]:5 may also echo the Exodus texts. More remotely, 2 Bar. 51:3 may also echo the transformation of Moses’ face: ‘eir splendour will then be glori ed by transformations, and the shape of their face will be changed into the light of their beauty’. ‘Made him [i.e., Moses] equal in glory to the holy ones’ in Sir. 45:2 may be a development from the transformed face. Cf. Ps.-Philo 12:1-2: ‘He [i.e., Moses] has been bathed with invisible light … and the light of his face surpassed the splendour of the sun and the moon’; Philo, Vita Mos. 2.70: ‘He [i.e., Moses] descended with a countenance far more beautiful than when he ascended … the dazzling brightness that ashed from him like the

rays of the sun’. ough the context is quite different, ‘transformed [using the same verb as in Mt. 17:2] into a prophet’ of Moses in 1:57 may be ultimately dependent on Ex. 34:29-35. 48. Rev. 1:16 is strikingly similar to Mt. 17:2, but the two are likely to be independent developments taking place against a similar background. In Rev. 1:16 the context suggests that elements from the vision of God are being merged with messianic attributes in a manner familiar from apocalyptic texts in which the one who acts as God’s special agent takes on divine qualities (presumably thought of as being derivative). A minor echo of the process in Rev. 1:16 is found in 10:1, where the gure whose ‘face was like the sun’ is ‘another mighty angel’. Hab. 3:3-4 has, ‘God came from Teman… [and] the brightness was like the sun’, but this is not related to a visual form. 49. e ease with which the association with the sun could be made can be seen from Ps.-Philo 12:1-2 and Philo, Vita Mos. 2.70, cited at n. 47 above. 50. Cf. also Dn. 10:5 (LXX), where ‘out of his middle light’ is part of the description of the terrifying gure who appears to Daniel in vv. 5-9. e Hebrew here has instead ‘with a belt of gold from Uphaz around his waist’. 51. Lk. 9:30 makes the same two changes. 52. ere is a syntactical need for a fresh use of the name in the following verse. Lk. 9:30 has a similar change. 53. Possibly the use of συλλαλεῖν (‘have a conversation with’) in Mt. 17:3 adds another link to Ex. 34:29, 30, 35, since v. 35 has one of only three uses of the verb in the LXX. 54. e peaceful eschatological role posited for Elijah is said to point Jesus away from the zealot ideal of messiahship; Elijah’s presence is said to indicate the proximity of the eschaton; Moses and Elijah are said to be suffering servants of God in the mould set for Jesus; Moses and Elijah are said to stand together as the two great prophets, both looking forward to ful lment in Jesus; Moses and Elijah are said to be present as former and reformer respectively of the people of God for whom Jesus now comes as saviour and renewer; Moses and Elijah are said to represent respectively the Law and the Prophets; Moses and Elijah are said to be contrasted with Jesus

as those who reach heaven by translation whereas Jesus must reach it through death and resurrection. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:498-99. 55. See, e.g., Ramsey, Glory of God, 114. 56. See Mt. 23:7, 8; 26:25, 49. 57. us far Mt. 14:28, 30; 16:22. To come Mt. 18:21. For a preliminary discussion of the use of ‘Lord’ in addressing Jesus see the comments at 7:21. 58. Otherwise an aorist ‘said’ replaces a historical present (as also Lk. 9:33) and a linking καί (‘and’) is suppressed with the introduction of ‘if you want’. 59. See 2 Ch. 24:6; 29:6; Ps. 42:4; Tob. 13:10(LXX v. 11); Wis. 9:8; Heb. 8:2, 5; 9:11; Rev. 15:5; 21:3. 60. e shelter that Jonah makes for himself in Jon. 4:5 to provide shade while he waits to see what will happen to Nineveh is called a σκηνή in the LXX. 61. ere have been attempts to make a strong link between the (Matthean) trans guration account and Dn. 7 (e.g., Moses, Transfiguration, passim) and thereby to identify Jesus as a Son-of-Man gure in Mt. 17. In light of Mt. 16:28 some association is likely, but it surfaces more as a genre link since the difference in role between the features common to Dn. 7 and Mt. 17 is notable. Both Dn. 7 and Mt. 17:1-9 are apocalyptic visions of a future that is announced and certain in the purposes of God. 62. Lk. 9:34 uses a similar genitive absolute construction to achieve the same end (Luke lacks ‘yet’ and provides ‘these things’ as the object of the verb). is is the most striking minor agreement between Matthew and Luke in this episode, though strictly only one word is common. e addition of ‘while he was still speaking’ to Mt. 17:5 provides a further link to the Gethsemane scene, where the same words occur in 26:47 (the transition verse to the account of the arrest). Matthew will establish a related connection below between 17:6 and 26:39. 63. Lk. 9:35 keeps the ἐγένετο construction but adds the participle. 64. e inclusion of ἰδού to introduce the voice also strengthens the link with Mt. 3:17 (see further below). 65. See Pss. 18:10-11; 104:3; Is. 19:1; and then Ps. 18:11; Ex. 19:16; etc.

66. Contrast Lk. 9:34, where the disciples are enveloped by the cloud. 67. ‘e Lord spoke to [Job] through the cloud’ in Test. Job 41:3. 68. Lk. 9:35 relates the disciples’ fear to the enveloping cloud. 69. E.g., Gn. 17:3; Nu. 16:45; Jdg. 13:20; 1 Ki. 18:39; 1 Ch. 21:16; 2 Ch. 7:3; Ez. 1:28; 3:23; 43:3; 44:4; Dn. 10:9. 70. Lv. 9:24 mentions worship with implicit fear. ere is a curious verbal link between ‘they fell on their faces’ in Mt. 17:6 and ‘he [Jesus] fell on his face’ in 26:39 of the Gethsemane account. Given the coincidence over the three named disciples involved, the verbal link noted above between ‘as he was still speaking’ in 17:5 and 26:47, and, if we expand the trans guration account to embrace 17:10-13, the culmination of each account in reference to the Passion of the Son of Man, we should probably consider the link deliberate. But its role is likely to be not so much to connect the behaviour of Jesus and of the three disciples as to enhance the connection between the two episodes at a higher level. 71. Otherwise it is used fairly oen in the LXX of fear inspired by quite a range of things. 72. Words that are common with the eod. text of Dn. 10:9-12 are ϕωνή, ἀκούειν, πρόσωπον, ἅπτειν, ἐγείρειν, and μὴ ϕοβεῖν. Cf. also the related Dn. 8:17-18. 73. Otherwise Matthew prefers εἰ μή (‘except’) for Mark’s ἀλλά (‘but’) and αὐτόν (‘himself ’) rather than Mark’s de nite article to add emphasis to the reference to Jesus. 74. e cloud has presumably also disappeared, but that is not what is in focus, as is clear from the emphasis on Jesus alone. e disappearance of Moses and Elijah also implies the restoration of Jesus to his normal appearance prior to transformation. 75. As he does each time, Mark uses this word. 76. Which he shares with Lk. 4:10 in Mt. 4:6 and with Mk. 10:3 in Mt. 19:7, and uses distinctively in 28:20, the only other place where Jesus is the subject. 77. Not used by Matthew.

78. Twenty-one of the thirty-eight uses of ὅραμα in the LXX are in Daniel, generally in relation to apocalyptic visions. 79. But many texts conform the reading in Mt. 17:9 to the Markan reading (‫ א‬C L [W] Z W f1, 13 33 892 106 1342 1506 etc.). e reading adopted is based on B D. 80. See Mt. 17:22; 20:18; 26:2. 81. Casey, Aramaic Sources, 126-29. 82. e change from imperfect to aorist for ‘asked’ also contributes to the separation. Otherwise Matthew improves Mk. 9:11 by replacing Mark’s use of ὅτι with the unusual sense ‘why’ with τί οὖν (‘why then’) and places ‘the scribes’ in a more emphatic position. 83. In Sir. 48:10 Elijah comes to undertake his work of restoration in order to ‘calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury’ (based on ‘so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse’ in Mal. 3:24[ET 4:6]). An alternative to a link between the disciples’ question and the relationship of Mt. 16:27-28 to the trans guration is a link with the talk of resurrection in 17:9, understood by the disciples as referring to an eschatological resurrection associated with the day of the Lord (or both links may be acting together). Cf. Fitzmyer, ‘More about Elijah’, 296. 84. It is hard to be sure what Mk. 9:12 envisages for Elijah, probably a very oddly conceived successful role in restoring. Casey, Aramaic Sources, 125-26, thinks in terms of a successful but circumscribed ministry by John. Marcus, ‘Mark 9,11-13’, 47, believes that the statement in Mk. 9:12a should be repunctuated as a question, in relation to which the following statement (in question form) raises difficulties for a positive answer. is is possible but less likely. ‘All things’ replaces what in Malachi is a reference to family reconciliation (and in the LXX reconciliation with neighbours). is change represents a more widely conceived sense of need for restoration. is broadening is already represented in the echoing of Mal. 3:23(ET 4:6) in Sir. 48:10. 85. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:715, have drawn attention to idioms similar to ἐποίησαν ὅσα ἠθέλησαν (‘did to him whatever they wished’) used

in Jewish texts for ungodly tyranny (Dn. 8:4; 11:3, 16; Jub. 2:29; Jos., Ant. 10.103). 86. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:506-8. 87. e rather similar abbreviation in Lk. 9:37 (but with quite different language) has the crowd initiating contact with Jesus. e role here of an otherwise unspeci ed ἄνθρωπος (‘person’ but occasionally ‘man’) is without parallel in Matthew and may have a source link with Luke’s use of ἀνήρ (‘man’). 88. Matt. 8:2; 9:18; 20:20; 28:9; and cf. 15:25. 89. us far Mt. 8:2, 6, 8, 25; 9:28; 14:30; 15:22, 25, 27. To come 20:30, 31, 33. 90. Mt. 9:27; 15:22; 20:30-31. 91. Mt. 4:24; 8:16; 9:12; 14:35; 15:22; 17:15. e exception is 21:41. 92. Of Jesus in Mt. 16:21; 17:12. Of Pilate’s wife in 27:19. 93. Otherwise Matthew provides the linking γάρ (‘for’), adds articles to ‘ re’ and ‘water’, reducing the latter to the singular to match the former, and replaces Mark’s καί (‘both’) with a second πολλάκις (‘oen’). 94. Mt. 4:24; 8:16; 9:2, 32; 12:22; 14:35. Matthew here borrows the language of Mk. 9:17, which says that the son had been brought to Jesus (presumably that was the intention, but Jesus had been absent). 95. Lk. 9:40 also has οὐκ ἠδυνήθησαν, but it is available in the rst person form from Mk. 9:28. 96. Or perhaps God’s complaint in Nu. 14:27. 97. Mt. 12:41, 42, 45; 16:4; 23:36; cf. 24:34. 98. It could relate to a transformed role for a transformed Jesus. 99. is is achieved partly by the orientation to the cross from Mt. 16:21, partly by the generosity of space given to the Passion phase and the sense of climax evident in these materials, and partly by what seems to be a ‘passing the baton’ dimension in 28:16-20. 100. ἐπιτιμᾶν has been translated ‘sternly order’ at Mt. 12:16. 101. Mt. 12:16; 16:22; 19:13; 20:31. 102. Mk. 9:25 has, ‘You spirit of loss of speech and deafness, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again’.

103. Lk. 9:42 has ‘he healed the lad’ but uses ἰᾶσθαι rather than Matthew’s θεραπεύειν for ‘heal’. 104. e only other episode involving a similar time expression is the coming of the disciples to Jesus ‘in that [very] hour’ in Mt. 18:1, but the role is very different. 105. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:836. 106. Most recently Mt. 16:24. 107. Omitted also in Matthew’s treatment of Mk. 2:1; 3:20-22; 7:17, 24; 10:10. 108. Otherwise Matthew introduces the question with εἶπον (‘said’) rather than Mark’s imperfect ἐπηρώτων (‘began to ask’), drops the pronominal object, and, as in Mt. 17:10, replaces Mark’s use of ὅτι with the unusual sense ‘why’ (this time with διὰ τί). 109. Mt. 13:10, 36; 18:1; 24:3. 110. Matthew makes it much more obvious that it is a journey of growing understanding than he does that it is one of growing faith, but the latter is probably thought to be implicit in or at least prepared for by the former. 111. Following G. Ebeling, Wort und Glaube (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1975), 1:234-35, F. Hahn, ‘Jesu Wort’, 159-60, argues against quanti cation of faith, suggesting that the comparison with the mustard seed is concerned with the unpretentiousness of faith as contrasted with its dramatic effects. Despite its theological attractiveness, this approach does not provide the best t with the Gospel contexts. 112. e form in Mk. 11:23, with its emphasis on not doubting and on believing that what one says will happen and with its omission of the comparison with a mustard seed, seems to have more of an interest in the psychology of faith (cf. ‘I believe; help my unbelief ’ in v. 24). 113. Only τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ (‘to this mountain’) survives of Mark’s exact language. 114. F. Hahn, ‘Jesu Wort’, 157-58, 166-67. 115. Found twice in Mt. 17:20, μεταβαίνειν (‘move’) is used six times by Matthew and elsewhere in the Synoptic Gospels only in Lk. 10:7

(unparallelled in Matthew). ἔνθεν (‘from here’) is found in the NT only here and in the unrelated Lk. 16:26. 116. See Gn. 18:14; Job 42:2; Je. 32:17, 27 (cf. Zc. 8:6; Wis. 16:5). In Dn. 4:9 (eod. uses the Matthean ἀδυνατεῖν) Belteshazzar, ‘endowed with a spirit of the holy gods [or of the Holy God]’ is like God in this respect, as is Elisha, ‘ lled with his [i.e., Elijah’s, but probably ultimately God’s] spirit’, in Sir. 48:13. ough the same OT echo is not evident there, Matthew is likely here to have been drawing in part on Mk. 9:23: ‘All things are possible for the one who believes’.

XIV. STATUS AND BEHAVIOUR IN THE ‘ROYAL FAMILY’ (17:22–18:35) A. Preparing for the Fateful Journey to Jerusalem (17:22-23) they were agathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘e Son of Man is about to be handed over into human hands. 23ey bwill kill him, and con the third dayc he dwill be raised’.d eAnd they were exceedingly distressed.e 22As

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e easier αναστρεϕομενων (‘staying’) is found in C (D) L W Θ f13 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. c (e) ff1 samss mae bo. b. e present tense αποκτεινουσιν in D would in any case have to be taken futuristically. c-c. μετα τρεις ημερας (‘aer three days’) in D it sys bo, as in Mk. 9:31. d-d. αναστησεται (‘will rise’) in B f13 205 209 892 1424 etc., as in Mk. 9:31. e-e. Missing from K etc., perhaps sparing the disciples. Bibliography Brodie, T., ‘Fish, Temple Tithe, and Remission: e God-based Generosity of Deuteronomy 14–15 as One Component of Matt 17:22–18:35’, RevistB 99 (1992), 697-718. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 317-19. • McClister, D., ‘“Where Two or ree Are Gathered Together”: Literary Structure as a Key to Meaning in Matt 17:22–20:19’, JETS 39 (1996), 549-58. See further at 16:21-23.

As with the section 16:21–17:20, the present section (which runs to 18:35 and is marked in 19:1 as including the fourth of the major discourses in Matthew, which are joined together by a shared formula at the end) begins with a Passion prediction: here and in the following sections to 21:11 each section will begin with a reminder to the reader of Jesus’ goal in Jerusalem. Jesus’ fate in Jerusalem becomes imminent as the group forms to make the pilgrim journey. e Markan sequence continues with Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 9:30-32. On questions of historicity see the comments at Mt. 16:21-23.

17:22 For a more general discussion of the Passion predictions see the discussion at 16:21-23; I will comment only on the distinctives of the present material here. As a setting for this second Passion prediction Matthew replaces Mark’s secretive ‘passing through Galilee’ (Mk. 9:30) with ‘gathering in Galilee’. By means of this rather clipped language, Matthew invites the reader to imagine a group assembling to make preparations for the trip to Jerusalem anticipated in 16:21.1 ough this is not yet evident in Matthew’s story, the group will be preparing to make a Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem. e last identi able location for Jesus and his disciples has been Caesarea Philippi. So possibly their own return to Galilee is involved here. But clearly Matthew envisages a larger group of travellers to Jerusalem, among them the group of women introduced retrospectively at 27:55-56. ough the gathering is speci cally for the journey to Jerusalem, it does provide a gathered group, beyond the Twelve, of those committed to Jesus, in relation to whom the teachings about church life in chap. 18 can be imagined. e group will begin the actual journey at 19:1. For the rest of the verse Matthew makes minor but signi cant changes from Mk. 9:31. Jesus is freshly introduced for the start of a

new Matthean section. e reference to ‘the disciples’ is dropped: Matthew now envisages a wider group. Mark’s extended period of teaching, ἐδίδασκεν καὶ ἔλεγεν (‘was teaching and saying’), gives way to a simple εἶπεν (‘said’). Mark’s timeless present, παραδίδοται (‘is handed over’) becomes μέλλει παραδίδοσθαι, which probably has the stronger sense ‘is about to be handed over’, pointing to what lies at the end of the trip to Jerusalem currently being arranged.2 Whereas the focus in 16:21 was on suffering, here it is on being ‘handed over’ (παραδίδοσθαι). It is difficult to be sure of the correct nuance to give to παραδίδοσθαι … here. e core idea is simply that of transmission, but the term can carry quite a range of associations. Possible here would be betrayal (as with Judas …), being given up to a hostile group by the group to which one belongs …, being constrained and transmitted in legal custody …, or the providential orchestration that, behind the scenes, allows one to gain power over another….3

Perhaps we can nd some guidance in making the choice from OT allusion that might be intended. A connection is oen made with Is. 53, where the verb here is used in the LXX text of vv. 6 and 12 (but not parallelled in the MT). e t with Dn. 7:25 is, however, closer and works with both the Greek texts and the MT.4 If this is the intended link, then here too Jesus, now as the Son of Man, is reenacting a key stage of the history of God’s people: he must himself undergo his own version of their humiliation.5 e link would suggest a focus not on the instrumentality of Judas or the Jewish leadership or people but rather on the larger necessities that stand under divine providence, and thus a focus not on the process of handing over but on the state resulting from being handed over. e likelihood that this is so is strengthened if a wordplay is intended between ἀνθρώπου in ‘Son of Man [i.e., Son of

Humanity]’ and ἀνθρώπων in ‘human hands’: the very gure who is intrinsically of great human signi cance is to be allowed by God to come under the power of the destructive will of humanity. ‘e elders and chief priests and scribes’ of Mt. 16:21 give way to the vague εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων (lit. ‘into hands of people’).6 is serves to cover a wider range of dimensions of the coming Passion, including possibly the role of Judas and even of the disciples and certainly that of the people and of Pilate. 17:23 Matthew drops the repetitive ἀποκτανθείς (lit. ‘having been killed’) and replaces ‘aer three days’ with ‘on the third day’, as in 16:21, and the verb for the resurrection from ἀνιστάναι to the passive of ἐγείρειν (here emphasising the action of God in contrast to the action of those to whom Jesus is handed over).7 In contrast to 16:21, the omission of the necessity language in 17:22 means a move from in nitive forms to nite verb forms here. Matthew also moves from passive to active forms with reference to the killing of Jesus, necessitating the introduction of a ‘they’, to be identi ed with those to whom Jesus is handed over in v. 21. Matthew also adds his own conclusion, substituted for Mk. 9:32. e Markan ignorance motif, especially when it shows the disciples stuck in their ignorance (‘they were afraid to ask him’), does not suit Matthew. Rather, he marks some kind of understanding by making use of the language of extreme distress. e particular language ἐλυπήθησαν σϕόδρα (‘they were exceedingly distressed’) will be repeated in a parable in 18:31.8 e same words will be used at 26:22 to mark distress at Jesus’ announcement to the disciples that one of them will be the betrayer. But understanding is not necessarily acceptance.

B. God Does Not Tax, but Provides for His Children (17:2427) 24When

they came into Capernaum, the collectors of the double drachmas came to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher pay athe double drachmas?’ 25He says, ‘Yes’. en, when bhe came into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, ‘What do you think, Simon? From cwhom do the kings of the earth take dues or tax? From their own sons or [those of] others?’ 26dHe said, ‘From [the sons of] others’. Jesus saidd to him, ‘en the sons [of the kings] are free.e 27But so that we might fnot cause offencef to them, go to [the] sea and throw a hook [in]. e fish that comes up first — li [it] up and open its mouth, and you will find a stater. Take that and give it to them for me and [for] yourself.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e article is missing from ‫ *א‬D etc. mae bo. A singular article in H W etc. sa indicates that these texts take διδραχμα (‘double drachmas’ above) as singular. b. εισελθοντα in ‫*א‬, 2 (D) 579 gives ‘they came’, as does οτε ηλθον in C (etc.). c. e singular form here in B H etc. suggests scribal inattention to the following material. d-d. ere is a range of variants here, probably induced by the unusual use of a gen. absolute without expressed subject to introduce direct speech. Signi cant translation differences result only from the addition of αυτω ο Πετρος in C L W f13 etc. (f) q syc, p, h (mae), giving ‘Peter says/said to him…’, and of αυτω in D sys, giving ‘He says/said to him …’. e. At this point 713, with some versional support, adds εϕη Σιμων· ναι. λεγει ο Ιησους· δος ουν και συ ως αλλοτριος αυτων (‘Simon said, “Yes”. Jesus says, “You, then, also give as an alien to them”’). Not original, but an interesting interpretive expansion.

f. e verb is present subjunctive in ‫ א‬L Z, giving ‘stop giving them offence’. Bibliography Aarde, A. G. van, ‘Resonance and Reception: Interpreting Mt 17:24-27 in Context’, Scriptura 29 (1989), 1-12. • Aarde, A. G. van, ‘A Silver Coin in the Mouth of a Fish (Matthew 17:24-27): A Miracle of Nature, Ecology, Economy and Politics of Holiness’, Neot 27.1 (1993), 1-25. • Bauckham, R., ‘e Coin in the Fish’s Mouth’, in Miracles, D. Wenham and C. L. Blomberg, 219-52. • Carter, W., ‘Paying the Tax to Rome as Subversive Praxis: Matthew 17.24-27’, JSNT 76 (1999), 3-31. • Chilton, B. D., ‘A Coin of ree Realms (Matthew 17.24-27)’, in ree Dimensions, ed. D. J. A. Clines et al., 269-82. • Cohen, N. J., ‘Structural Analysis of a Talmudic Story: Joseph-Who-Honorsthe-Sabbath’, JQR 72 (1982), 161-77. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 149-85. • Daube, D., ‘e Temple Tax’, in Appeasement or Resistance: And Other Essays on New Testament Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 39-58. • Dautzenberg, G., ‘Jesus und der Tempel: Beobachtungen zur Exegese der Perikope von Tempelsteuer (Mt 17,24-27)’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 223-38. • Garland, D., ‘Matthew’s Understanding of the Temple Tax (Matt 17:24-27)’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 190-209. • Horbury, W., ‘e Temple Tax’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 265-86. • Horsley, R. A., Spiral, 279-84. • Klein, H., ‘Christologie und Anthropologie in den Petruslegenden des Matthäischen Sonderguts’, in Anfänge, ed. G. Breytenbach and H. Paulsen, 209-20. • Mandell, S., ‘Who Paid the Temple Tax When the Jews Were under Roman Rule?’ HTR 77 (1984), 223-42. • Roh, T., Familia dei, 201-6. • Schwarz, G., ‘Ἀνοίξας τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ (Matthäus 17.27)’, NTS 38 (1992), 138-41. • Vollenweider, S., Freiheit als neue Schöpfung: Eine Untersuchung zur Eleutheria bei Paulus und in seiner Umwelt (FRLANT 147. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 171-77.

ough the section began at 17:22-23, the role of those verses was simply to sustain the thrust towards Jerusalem and the fate that awaited Jesus there. It is le to the present unit to provide the

thematic introduction for chap. 18. is ‘front piece’ invites the reader to view the coming material as concerned with status and behaviour in the ‘royal family’. Here the point is that God does not tax, but provides for his children. A visit to Capernaum at this point in the Markan sequence (9:33) gives Matthew the opportunity to insert a distinctive piece of tradition with a Capernaum setting. Whether Matthew uses a written form or an oral tradition remains disputed, but it is clear enough from the difference of focus and probably of sense between the material taken by itself and in its Matthean role that Matthew faithfully represents traditional material. ough Matthean touches are possible at various points, only τί σοι δοκεῖ (‘What do you think’) in 17:25 stands out as Matthean, with its use of an idiom which certainly in 22:17, 42; 26:66, most likely in 18:12, and probably in 21:28 (in the plural except for 22:17) is Matthean. Scholars have frequently tried to detach 17:27 from the parable-like material in vv. 25-26, but the t is excellent and the motivation for splitting the materials comes primarily from discomfort at what is seen as a miracle story in which Jesus does a miracle to meet his own needs. See the discussion at v. 27. e historicity of the episode is widely disputed, but strong cases for historicity (or at least that the circulation of such a story ts well within the time of the ministry of Jesus) have been offered by Horbury and by Bauckham’.9

17:24 e unidenti ed ‘they’ who come to Capernaum are best identi ed with the ‘they’ of v. 22 who were gathering in readiness for the trip to Jerusalem.10 Capernaum is the home of both Peter and Jesus (see at 8:14; 4:13) and therefore, as we shall see, the place where they would normally be expected to pay the temple tax. δίδραχμα is the plural form of δίδραχμον and literally means ‘a double drachma’. e drachma had been a unit of currency for centuries by the time of Jesus.11 Its value appears to have been roughly the same as that of the Roman denarius,12 which, as will emerge in 20:1-16, was a typical day’s wage for a labourer. To

appreciate the force of οἱ τὰ δίδραχμα λαμβάνοντες (lit. ‘those taking/receiving the double drachmas’), we need some information on the Jewish temple tax of the day. On the basis of the precedent of Ne. 10:32-33 (where the people committed themselves to an annual temple tax of one-third of a shekel) and the stipulation in Ex. 30:12-16 (originally a census levy to Yahweh, designated for the service of the tent of meeting, of half a shekel for each male over twenty, serving as a ransom to ward off the plague that the pride of conducting a census might otherwise bring) a custom had arisen, and was being defended in Jesus’ day as a requirement of the Law, of levying an annual temple tax on males over twenty to nance offerings in the temple made on behalf of the whole people. Provision was made for collecting the tax locally and sending the gathered monies on to Jerusalem.13 e collection period was about a month, leading up to Passover.14 e tax was used to provide offerings in the temple on behalf of the whole people.15 Clearly not everyone paid the tax. e priests considered themselves exempt (m. Šeq. 1:4), some Jews were simply lax,16 and not everyone agreed that such a tax was mandated by the Law.17 e level of the tax is discussed below. ough not a particularly heavy tax (two days’ wages for a labourer), it sat on top of the rest of the tax burden and would have been very difficult for the unemployed or beggars to raise. ere is, however, no evidence of any widespread dissatisfaction with the tax.18 ere is some difficulty about the amount of the tax.19 e normal scholarly assumption is that the levy was a half-shekel, in line with Ex. 30:12-16. e LXX identi es the δίδραχμον with the šql (shekel) of the Hebrew text (e.g., Gn. 23:15; Ex. 21:32) and the δραχμή (‘drachma’) with the bqʿ (beka), which is in turn identi ed as a half-shekel (e.g., Ex. 39:3). A one-beka-a-head tax is assumed in Mek. on Ex. 19:1 (cited in n. 16). is suggests that, on the basis

of Ex. 30:12-16, the taxation level should be one drachma = one beka = a half-shekel, not a double drachma. However, the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud always speak of the tax as ‘the shekel’; our Gospel account seems to assume a tax of a double drachma (the stater in Mt. 17:27 is worth two double drachmas); and Josephus speaks of ‘the double drachma’, equivalent to ‘the shekel’ of the rabbinic sources (Ant. 18.312). Philo (Rer. div. her. 186–89) manages to confuse the situation by speaking rst of ‘the consecrated double drachma’ (apparently in line with most other Jewish sources), but then apportioning only half (a drachma) to the ransom of Ex. 30:12-13. What he thinks of as being done with the other half is not as certain. It is unclear whether one keeps it or gives it away: in the allegorical signi cance which interests Philo the other drachma is le ‘to the unfree and slavish kind’ which is related to our lower nature. ‘e lot of dismissal’ which Philo links with the second drachma counts in favour of seeing the second drachma as also given away. If this is right, he may re ect a situation in which the levy was in fact a double drachma, only half of which, however, was to be related to the Ex. 30:12-16 justi cation. A quite popular suggestion for reconciling a half-shekel OT basis with a oneshekel tax is that a sanctuary shekel was twice the value of a normal shekel. e basis for this suggestion is found in b. Bek. 5a, where a discrepancy is created for understanding the numbers in Ex. 38 by an unstated assumption that the half-shekel for the tax is actually worth a shekel. e discrepancy is then resolved by making the claim that ‘the sacred maneh was double the common’ (the maneh here is a weight equivalent to sixty shekels). (ough not said, it is also necessary to postulate that the kikkar = talent of Ex. 38 would also need to be understood as double the normal value.) e idea of a double-valued shekel more likely arose at some point as an exegetical ction to reconcile the actual one-shekel tax with Ex. 30:12-16. What we have, then, in b. Bek. 5a is a knock-on effect of that. Probably the difference claimed in m. Ket. 5:9; m. Ḥul. 11:2 between the Galilean and Judean sela (= two shekels), with the Judean twice as heavy, is a by-product of the exegetical ction.

How a one-shekel tax came to be imposed remains unclear, but Philo’s words suggest that originally the justi cation for only half of it was to be related to Ex. 30:12-16. e original reason for and use made of the other half remains uncertain.

οἱ τὰ δίδραχμα λαμβάνοντες are, then, those locally responsible for receiving the double-drachma temple tax, in readiness for having it transported to the temple in Jerusalem. It appears to have become obligatory to pay the tax in Tyrian coinage, which normally meant making use of a money-changing facilities (cf. the tables of the money changers in Mt. 21:12), which were temporarily set up for the purpose.20 While this provided lucrative business for money changers, the rationale for the restriction is not clear; perhaps it was a quiet protest against the occupying power. e stater in 17:27 is to be taken as a Tyrian stater and not a Roman stater minted in Antioch; otherwise the stater, equivalent to two double drachmas, would not have covered the tax aer the exchange levy was subtracted. e question posed to Peter is likely to be more than curiosity. Given that not everyone agreed that the temple tax was a requirement of the Law, the task of extracting it from a good proportion of the population must have depended on reminders, challenges, and at least subtle social pressure.21 It would be one thing to be a ‘conscientious objector’ but quite another to hope to simply fall between the cracks. Given Jesus’ evident independence of thought, he might possibly have been a conscientious objector with respect to the tax. at the question intends to give Jesus the bene t of the doubt is indicated by the expectation of a positive answer (marked by the use of οὐ). Jesus is ‘your teacher’ as in 9:11, and Jesus is addressed as ‘teacher’ from 8:19 (see at these texts). 17:25-26 Peter gives a con dent ‘Yes’, an answer no doubt based on his con dence in Jesus’ loyalty to the temple. Are we to

understand that he has been with Jesus for more than a year and is aware of previous payment? Earlier in Matthew action comes aer entry ‘into the house’ several times,22 but only here and in 2:11 is Jesus not the one entering. προέϕθασεν is literally ‘came before’, but here it points to Jesus taking up the matter before Peter has had a chance to mention it. We are to register Jesus’ uncanny capacity to know what is going on with other people: Peter has the temple tax on his mind, and Jesus knows it (cf. 9:4; 12:25). ‘What do you think?’ will come ve further times, three of them on the lips of Jesus, and two introducing parables;23 it is an invitation to ponder. Jesus’ words in 17:25-26 are parable-like. Again Jesus addresses Peter as ‘Simon’, as in 16:17 (‘Simon, Bar-Jonah’), the only other place in Matthew, apart from the linked 16:18,24 where Jesus addresses Peter by name. τέλος is a broad word with quite a range of uses. In regard to taxes it is perhaps best translated ‘dues’, referring to payments one is obliged to make. e reference is mainly to taxes on the movement of goods and possibly land taxes, but the latter are perhaps best included in κῆνσος. e emphasis is on the state-mandated obligation to pay. κῆνσος transliterates the Latin census, and refers to a head tax (a poll tax) and probably as well to the property taxes determined by periodic provincial census. Between them the terms are meant to cover the broad range of civil taxes imposed at the national level. Peter gives the answer he has been set up to give.25 As generally with parables, the key to interpretation turns on rightly identifying the nature of the comparison being drawn. e move from the double-drachma temple levy to the dues or head tax levied by rulers would seem to turn on a comparison between ‘the kings of the earth’ and the king of heaven. But to whom are we to relate ‘their sons’? is depends in part on who they are in the parabolic imagery. e three main suggestions are: members of the

royal family (the literal ‘sons’); members of the higher echelons of government; and citizens as opposed to residents or peoples of occupied territories. I will consider them in reverse order. While citizens were oen at a tax advantage over non-citizens, they were certainly subject to tax, and though the king might claim to be their father, the notion of citizens as sons of the king is not found. ere is some evidence that a high government official in ancient Israel might be called ‘the son of the king’,26 but the instances are few, and there is no evidence for such a usage in the NT period. e reference is most naturally to the prerogatives of the royal family: taxes sustain the king and his royal family (and its government); they are not levied on the royal family. Contrasted with ‘from their sons’ is ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων. We are probably intended to complete the parallelism and understand that there has been an ellipse of ‘sons’: the contrast is between ‘their sons’ and ‘the [sons] of others’. ose without the royal blood are subject to taxation. So, for the application of the parable, who are the sons who are free of the temple tax? at depends on the right framework for identifying ‘sons of God’ here. Extracted from its Matthean context, quite possibly the most natural reference is to God’s people, Israel. ey are the ‘children’ of Mk. 7:27; they are the ‘sons of the kingdom’ of Mt. 8:12. Jesus’ call is for Israel to enter into its destiny as sons of God.27 If the sons are Israel, then Jesus is objecting to the relatively newly imposed tax as not treating God’s people with the freedom of sons. e imposed nature of the tax will not have seemed to him to have exempli ed the best traditions of freedom and joy in the matter of giving to the temple and thus to God.28 Indeed, Jesus’ point goes further: the king does not tax his own children; rather, he provides for them. Given the uniform demand of the tax from all, regardless of circumstances, Jesus may also have been troubled by the burden of the tax on the most destitute in the

community. Jesus’ difficulty in the speci c situation will have been, however, that to refuse to pay the tax himself or to encourage his disciples not to would send an unintended public message of disapproval of the temple (e.g., as was the case at Qumran). e unfolding of the story allows for the point to be made quietly without such misunderstanding. In Matthew’s Gospel, however, ‘the sons’ are likely to be identi ed in another manner. Matthew writes in a setting in which a signi cant gap has opened between (Jewish) Christians and Jews who, in Matthew’s view, have been misled by their leaders into becoming opponents of Christianity. For Matthew only the Christian Jews carry forward the destiny of Israel. us the privileges of Israel now belong only to Christians; the invitation remains open to others, but at least for now they have largely turned away from God’s future for Israel. In this context ‘sons’ is naturally to be seen as a designation for those who have responded to God’s fresh initiative in Jesus.29 e point about freedom and joy in relation to God will remain, as will the conviction that God provides for his children. But no longer is a serious practical point being made about the temple tax. Christian Jews by this point had probably become too distanced from the Jewish leadership to comment meaningfully on the temple tax: they would pay it so as ‘not to give offence’, but they were no longer in much of a position to contribute to the formation of the larger shape of Jewish life. (Aer A.D. 70 the Roman administration claimed the tax as a war indemnity,30 so the issue of the proper conduct of Jewish life dropped from sight.) Scholars oen claim implicit criticism by Jesus of the temple system or an indication that the temple has become anachronistic for Christians, but neither for the historical Jesus nor for the Matthean Jesus is anything like this in sight.

17:27 Matthew uses the σκανδαλ- root sixteen times. He links it with causing or receiving offence (as here) in 11:6; 13:57; 15:12. But in the other texts Jesus is a cause of offence. Otherwise the reference is to stumbling into sin or falling away. For his sectioning of material Matthew takes advantage of the verbal link between σκανδαλίζειν here and in 18:6, 7, 8, 9.31 ough in the one case not causing offence is the issue and in the other not causing to sin, the materials are joined together by the importance placed in each case on not being a σκάνδαλον (‘cause of offence or falling’). Since Jesus expects to cause offence by the important dimension of who he is and does (11:6; 15:12), the concern here must be to avoid offence based on misunderstanding. Jesus might believe that a temple tax is not the proper mechanism for the sons to express their freedom and joy in supporting the temple. But, as already noted, for him to refuse payment would be to send a quite different message: disapproval of the temple and refusal to participate in its corporate worship. e immediate identity of those who would suffer this misunderstanding (the rst ‘them’ of the verse) is the receivers of the tax (clearly the second ‘them’ of the verse), and not the kings. Since Capernaum is near the Sea of Galilee, the possibility of shing is immediately at hand. Elsewhere in the NT shing is always with boats and nets; only here do we have shing with a line and hook.32 But the limited catch involved ts shing with a line. e active form ἀναβάντα is literally ‘comes up’, but it is oen taken as standing for the passive and so taken to mean ‘being brought up’, that is, ‘caught’. It is probably better, however, to allow the force of the active and think in terms of the sh coming up from the depths to where the baited hook is dangling in the water. On this understanding the landing of the sh is passed over as implied, and attention moves at once to the directive to take up the rst sh

hooked in order to examine its mouth.33 We have discussed the stater as equivalent to two double drachmas at v. 24 above. Various attempts have been made to understand Jesus’ saying non-literally: the sh caught could be sold for a stater (but what sh would be worth four days’ wages?); we have a statement of inability to pay, even to avoid offence (a quite unnatural reading of the words); ‘the sh’ is a wealthy convert who can act as a patron (nothing prepares us for this, and it would introduce a cynical note otherwise unmatched into the Jesus material); the present form is a secondary misunderstanding of an earlier statement which more clearly meant one of the above (but even with postulated changes of wording the above senses have little to commend them). e miracle has caused difficulty when it has been seen as the one miracle story where Jesus performs a miracle for his own bene t. But this is a false difficulty. e extent of Jesus’ miracle is to foresee that the coin will be found in the sh’s mouth. is is striking enough, but it belongs with other instances of Jesus’ uncanny knowledge, including that discussed at v. 25 above. In any case, the stater is to be seen not as something that Jesus has conjured up miraculously, but as the Father’s provision to his sons. It is to be seen as a dramatic instance of precisely what Jesus has claimed is more generally true about how God deals with his own children.34 e limited interest of our narrative in the actual catching of the sh with a stater in its mouth is re ected in the failure to report Peter’s implementation of Jesus’ directives. It is simply assumed. Its main attention is restricted to God’s dealings with his sons and the concern not to cause offence. What are we to make of the provision for Peter and Jesus,35 and not for other disciples? It is of a piece with the privileged place given to Peter (sometimes alone and sometimes with a limited circle of others) elsewhere in the Gospels, and especially in Matthew. At

the practical level, by having the (other) disciples come to Jesus in 18:1, Matthew is probably making room for the other disciples not to have been there at the time (for reasons unspeci ed). Nothing here encourages the view that Peter is coupled with Jesus as the son of God in a manner not allowed for the other disciples. But he is the bene ciary of distinctive experiences. C. Becoming as Children to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven (18:1-5) that atime the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ 2So, bcalling ca child, he set dthe childd in their midst. 3And he said, ‘Amen, I say to you, if you do not turn and become like children, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Whoever, then, will humble themselves [to become] like this child — this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5And whoever receives one such child as though he or she were I, receives me.’ 1At

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Lit. ‘hour’. Θ f1 33 700 1424 1506 etc. it sys, c prefer the less precise ημερα (‘day’). b. Ιησους (‘Jesus’) is added in D W Θ f13 892mg 1006 1342 1506 etc. latt sy sa mae. c. εν (‘one’) in D e sys, c. d-d. Gk. αυτο (lit. ‘it’) in agreement with the neuter gender of παιδιον (‘child’). Bibliography For chap. 18

Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 18’, SémiotBib 82 (1996), 3-15. • Hermant, D., ‘Structure Littéraire du “Discours communautaire” de Matthieu 18’, RB 103 (1996), 76-90. • Kupp, D. D., Matthew’s Emmanuel, 176-200. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 231-60. • Maisch, I., ‘Christsein in Gemeinscha (Mt 18)’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 239-66. • Ramshaw, E. J., ‘Power and Forgiveness in Matthew 18’, WW 18 (1998), 397-404. For 18:1-5 Brown, R. N., ‘Jesus and Child as Model of Spirituality’, IBS 4 (1982), 178-92. • Crossan, J. D., ‘Kingdom and Children: A Study in the Aphoristic Tradition’, Semeia 29 (1983), 75-95. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Discipleship Discourse (Mark 9:33-50)’, CBQ 43 (1981), 57-75. • Hobbs, T. R., ‘Crossing Cultural Bridges: e Biblical World’, McMJT 1 (1990), 1-21. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 467-494. • Lindars, B., ‘John and the Synoptic Gospels: A Test Case’, NTS 27 (1981), 287-94. • Patte, D., ‘Jesus’ Pronouncement about Entering the Kingdom like a Child: A Structural Exegesis’, Semeia 29 (1983), 3-42. • Pryor, J. W., ‘John 3.3, 5: A Study in the Relation of John’s Gospel to the Synoptic Tradition’, JSNT 41 (1991), 71-95. • Robbins, V. K., ‘Pronouncement Stories and Jesus’ Blessing of the Children: A Rhetorical Approach’, Semeia 29 (1983), 43-74. • Schnackenburg, R., ‘Grosssein im Gottesreich: Zu Mt 18,1-5’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 269-82. • TaylorWingender, P., ‘Kids of the Kingdom (A Study of Matthew 18:1-5 and Its Context)’, Direction 17 (1988), 18-25. • Wenham, D., ‘A Note on Mark 9.3342/Matt 18.1-6/Luke 9.46-50’, JSNT 14 (1982), 113-18. • Wouters, A., Willen, 55-58.

Here Matthew takes up the concern with status and behaviour in the ‘royal family’, introduced in the discussion of the temple tax in 17:24-28, in relation to the image of a child. ough the Matthean section began at 17:22, it is in the present unit that the fourth of Matthew’s ve linked discourses begins (for discussion of the linking formula see at 7:29). Faithful disciples by choice treat themselves as on the same status level as a child. ey thus meet the conditions both for entry and being greatest in the kingdom. eir

own self-estimate shows in how they relate to children (and by extension to others of low status). Is the child welcomed as Jesus himself would be welcomed? If he or she is, then Jesus has been welcomed. Rejoining the Markan sequence, Matthew is primarily adapting the material of Mk. 9:33-37, but he also draws on material from Mk. 10:15 — or possibly a parallel tradition which he will omit from between Mt. 19:14 and 15) — and more modestly from material parallelled in Mt. 23:12; Lk. 18:14 (cf. 14:11). e historicity of the basic materials is not to be doubted, but the variations in the preserved forms make access to precise original senses uncertain.36

18:1 Virtually nothing of Mk. 9:33-34 survives Matthew’s editing: Matthew already has Jesus in Capernaum and in a house; a journey with the disciples has given way to the idea of assembling a larger group, and, in any case, the journeying motif is temporarily quiescent; he has transmuted the wrong-headed desire for status on Mk. 9:34 into a positively conceived desire for instruction on how to move forward. Only τίς μείζων (‘Who is greatest?’) survives. Matthew has dropped Mk. 9:35 completely: the opening material no longer ts with the way he has introduced the scene; he will use another version in 20:26-27 of the saying here and will incorporate some of its motifs in the development of 18:3-4. As with ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ (‘at that time’) earlier, ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ (lit. ‘in that hour’) marks thematic continuity in a section:37 the interest in status and behaviour in the ‘royal family’ continues.38 To ask their question the disciples need to come to Jesus because they were absent in 17:24-27. As oen in Matthew, they come to Jesus to learn.39 ἄρα (lit. ‘then’) can be inferential, but here that would require that we endue the other disciples with a knowledge of events in 17:24-27 not evident in the narrative. In questions ἄρα is

oen only a colloquial means of enlivening the language.40 μείζων is comparative (lit. ‘greater’), but stands for the superlative (‘greatest’), as already in Mk. 9:34. e addition of ‘in the kingdom of heaven’ ensures a thematic link with the discussions of standing in the kingdom in 5:19; 11:11. 18:2 Rather more of Mk. 9:36 survives: λαβών (‘taking’) becomes προσκαλεσάμενος (‘calling’), which makes it obvious that the child comes freely (perhaps this need arises because Matthew imagines a child rather than an infant; the dropping of Mark’s ἐναγκαλισάμενος, if it means ‘taking into his arms’ rather than ‘putting his arms around’, would favour this); the loss of ἐναγκαλισάμενος prepares for vv. 3-4 by downplaying Jesus’ interaction with the child. e word used for ‘child’, παιδίον, is a diminutive, but apart from generally indicating prepubescence, the diminutive offers no further precision about age.41 e child is set among the disciples, but it is not yet clear what this might mean: an explanation of the symbolism is needed. 18:3 Mark’s αὐτοῖς (‘to them’) aer ‘he said’ is absorbed as ὑμῖν (‘to you’) into the Matthean words of Jesus to follow. Matthew inserts his own materials now for vv. 3-4; the Markan thread will resume in v. 5. e opening ‘Amen, I say to you’ is a piece of Jesus’ diction Matthew favoured in reporting: what is coming is of particular signi cance (see at 5:18). e presence of the language here, however, is in uenced by the partially parallel material in Mk. 10:15. στραϕῆτε καὶ γένησθε ὡς τὰ παιδία (‘turn and become like children’) is distinctly Matthean, but it has an evident relationship to the language of receiving the kingdom as a child found in Mk. 10:15; Lk. 18:17. Probably Matthew has generalised the Mk. 10:15 material in light of other materials emphasising humility: one needs not only to receive like a child but to be like a child. e rest of the verse is like Mk. 10:15, apart from the change to second person

plural for ‘you will certainly not enter’ and the need for ‘into the kingdom of heaven’, where Mark has ‘into it’ (aer ‘kingdom of God’ in the previous clause’). e child has been placed in the midst of the disciples to symbolise what discipleship entails. Clearly the disciples here stand for the discipleship of all Christians. στρέϕειν (‘turn’) is not part of Matthew’s repentance vocabulary;42 but he couples a pressing need of choice for change with entry into the kingdom.43 e required reorientation is to ‘become like children’. at humility is the point of likeness will become explicit only in v. 4.44 ough the words of challenge are directed to the disciples, we are not to understand that they are being treated as not having yet undergone this vital reorientation (they have come in humility to Jesus to have their questions answered); sustaining the new orientation and becoming aware of its implications for life are, however, ongoing challenges. 18:4 us far Jesus’ response has been about entering the kingdom, not about ranking highly in it. But now the language moulds itself to the question as posed.45 e linking οὖν (‘then, therefore’) suggests that v. 3 has established the fundamental principle on which the answer is now to be based. In fact, the condition for entry turns out to be identical to the basis for greatness. e language of humbling oneself is likely to be based on traditional material that Matthew otherwise uses at 23:11: ‘Whoever will humble themselves will be exalted’.46 ‘Like this child’ provides the link with 18:3. e interest all along in the image of the child has been in the (necessary) humility of the child. e vital difference, however, between the child and what Jesus calls for is that for the child this is a natural state, but what the kingdom of God calls for is a deliberately chosen (‘turn and become’) stance of humility. It is a

form of self-denial that has its counterpart in the taking up the cross of 16:24. e challenge is to replace the assertion of one’s own importance with a deliberately chosen posture of subordination.47 It is worth saying that the call here has nothing in common with psychologically low self-esteem; but it has been rather tragically latched onto by people with low self-esteem. ough Matthew does not make the point here, the posture called for is the one modelled by Jesus himself, precisely in relation to an extremely high selfestimation (e.g., 20:28). We noted at 5:19 that ‘In practice those who will enter the kingdom … will all share the designation “great”’. When we compare vv. 3 and 4 we see that something very similar is going on here, except that the paradox is now more complete since each is ‘the greatest in the kingdom’.48 ere entry into the kingdom turned on committing oneself to the whole of the Law; here it turns on adopting childlike humility. Submission to God (his commandments) and submission to one another go together. 18:5 Matthew now rejoins the Markan stream (Mk. 9:37), but he dispenses with the second half of the verse, which takes the extra step of equating receiving Jesus with receiving the one who sent him. Matthew also reduces Mark’s plural to the singular for ‘one such child’: there is only one child in vv. 3-4. Otherwise Matthew follows Mark’s language closely.49 Frankemölle has noted that in Matthew’s discourse the use of ‘one’ here is the rst of a string of uses of the numbers one, two, and three which will contribute a thread of continuity to vv. 1-20.50 Interpreters have taken the thought sequence from vv. 4 to 5 in various ways, and sometimes have connected v. 5 to the following material instead. e meaning of ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι μου (lit. ‘on/upon my name’) is key here. Does it mean, ‘because he or she is my

disciple’, ‘for my sake’, ‘because you are my disciple’, ‘following my example’, or ‘as my representative’? Better than all of these in the context is ‘as though he or she were I’, a sense that I have elsewhere defended in the Lukan parallel but which also allows for the most coherent thought development here.51 e challenge is to treat the lowly gure of the child with the respect that would come naturally in relating to Jesus himself.52 In the present context the key to such a generous reception of the child is clearly disregard for one’s own superior status: having the attitude of one who has opted for humility and turned and become like a child. Since everyone in the kingdom bears the designation ‘the greatest’, there is nothing anomalous in receiving the child as one would receive Jesus. In the kingdom everything is levelled, both down and up (though clearly for Matthew this does not distract from the uniqueness of Jesus or his status as Lord). But more turns out to be involved. Matthew claims that in offering such a welcome to a child one is in a hidden way extending such hospitality to Jesus himself. e thought is somewhat like that in Heb. 13:2. A related idea is expressed at Mt. 10:40, but 25:35-40 will provide the closest parallel. e notion that in appropriately receiving a child one is receiving Jesus makes the best sense in an early church context where Jesus is no longer physically present. is will be one of the ways in which the ‘God with us’ language of 1:23 retains its signi cance in the early church. e challenge in 18:5 to value of the lowly prepares for what is to come in vv. 6-7. D. Avoiding Sin (18:6-9) 1. Woe to ose Who Cause Little Ones to Stumble (18:6-7)

6Whoever

causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble — it would be better for them that a donkey millstone be hung [from] aaround their neck and they be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7Woe to the world from the causes of stumbling! For b[there is] a necessity that causes of stumbling come, but woe to cthe person through whom the cause of stumbling comes.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. W Θ f1, 13 1506 etc. have εις (lit. ‘into’), and 700 has εν (lit. ‘in’). I have no idea what might be envisaged. D 565 1006 1424 etc. have επι (‘upon’). b. e εστιν (‘there is’) needed to complete the sense is added here by ‫א‬ D W f13 1006 1342 1506 etc. c. εκεινω (‘that’) in B (W) Θ f13 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. it vgcl samss. Bibliography Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Two “Harsh” Sayings of Christ Explained’, DR 103 (1985), 218-29, esp. 218-21. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘μύλος ὀνικός (Mk 9.42 par)’, ZNW 76 (1985), 284-85. • Schlosser, J., ‘Lk 17,2 und die Logienquelle’, SNTU 8 (1983), 70-78. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 200-210. See further at 18:1-5.

Causing to stumble functions as a contrast to the welcoming commended in 18:5, and the category broadens from children to ‘little ones’. Dire warnings are attached, even when the scale of the offence is sufficient only to disturb the faith of the weakest. An aspect of behaviour in the ‘royal family’ is addressed. Matthew drops Mk. 9:38-41 and moves straight to his equivalent to Mk. 9:42. He appears to have access to a second form of this material (cf. Lk. 17:1-2), which he draws on particularly for 18:7, but which is likely to have had some in uence also on his rendering of v. 6.

18:6 Differences from Mk. 9:42 are: συμϕερει (‘it would be better’) instead of καλόν ἐστιν … μᾶλλον (lit. ‘it is good … rather’) — there is a similar difference between Mt. 5:29, 30 and Mk. 9:43, 47;53 a ἵνα (‘that’) rather than an εἰ (‘if ’) clause to represent the preferred option — probably an in uence from the second source, as Lk. 17:2 has (a differently used) ἵνα clause; a millstone hanging (κρεμασθῇ) from (a cord placed?) around the neck (i.e., as a weight that drags down) rather than as a bizarre necklace placed (περίκειται) around the neck; καταποντισθῇ ἐν (‘drowned in’) rather than βέβληται εἰς (‘thrown into’); and ‘depths (πελάγει) of the sea’ rather than ‘the sea’. Matthew has introduced κρεμαννύναι (‘hang’) in 22:40 and καταποντίζεσθαι (‘be drowned’) in 14:30 and may be responsible for συμϕέρει (‘it would be better’). e changes have to do with style and verbal artistry rather than substance. Concern about being a cause of stumbling has featured in 13:41, and there is a thematic link with 17:27. ere is a recognition here that people are susceptible in damaging ways to the in uence of others. e phrase ‘one of these little ones’ has been used at 10:42 in a related way. If it were not for the previous use of the phrase, one would be inclined to take it in 18:6 as a reference to the child in the midst and similar children (but the coming uses in vv. 10 and 14 are not susceptible of such an explanation). In 10:42 the phrase is modi ed by ‘as a disciple’ (εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ), here by ‘who believes in me’.54 In both cases a disciple whose discipleship operates at a modest level is in view; and in both cases there is explicit or implicit contrast with more substantial ‘representatives of the kingdom’. In neither case is there a fully satisfactory explanation of the use of ‘these’, nor of its use in the additional occurrences of the phrase in 18:10, 14, which bracket the parable of the lost sheep. But just as the sentiment of v. 5 will nd an echo in 25:40, 45, so the

present use of ‘one of these little ones’ will nd an echo in ‘one of the least of these my brothers or sisters’ of the same verses. Is the function of ‘these’ to signal the exalted Jesus’ close interest in and attention to such people? is would sit well alongside the idea of his presence with them being such that what is done for them is done for him. e point is not that causing the fall of little ones is more signi cant than causing the fall of greater ones; rather, that it takes less to do it. But even such modest causes of stumbling matter to an extreme degree, and they matter so much because of the revaluation of the little ones in relation to the kingdom of heaven. μύλος ὀνικός is a millstone of the kind to which donkeys were fastened, thus a large millstone. e Matthean imagery of the preferred alternative has an ellipse: one moves from being weighed down to being drowned in the depths of the sea without mention of being taken out to sea for the drop. We are rst of all to imagine the struggle and agony of the drowning process, with the outcome guaranteed by the attached weight. Drowning in the sea was the fate of the demonised pigs in 8:32. One is le to imagine what the fate of those who cause a little one to stumble might be. 18:7 Matthew may well stay close to the wording of his source here since the differences from Lk. 17:1 are attributable to Luke, who restructures at this point.55 e verse serves to generalise the point made in v. 6. e distinct case of the little ones is le behind. ree points are made: rst, causes of stumbling do a lot of damage; second, they are, however, a necessary aspect of present conditions of life; and, third, the outcome for those who are the causes of the stumbling is dire. e Matthean Jesus has pronounced woes against unresponsive towns in 11:21 (see there), and will do so repeatedly against the scribes and Pharisees in chap. 23, against the betrayer in 26:24, and in a rather more sympathetic tone against pregnant and nursing

mothers caught up in the fearful developments anticipated in chap. 24. e woe makes a powerful but imprecise statement about the unhappy situation in which such categories of persons nd themselves (whether they know it or not). Action takes place in ‘the world’ also in 5:14; 13:38; 26:13. e necessity of things, which Matthew expresses here with ἀνάγκη, he elsewhere expresses with δεῖ (‘it is necessary’).56 Matthew uses σκάνδαλον (‘cause of stumbling’) here, as he has in 13:41 (plural with the article as here); 16:23. Generally considered, causes of stumbling are a necessary feature of life in the world, but each person who becomes one bears a heavy burden of responsibility for this. 2. ‘If Your Hand … Causes You to Stumble …’ (18:8-9) your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, acut it off a and throw it [away] from you. It is better to enter into life bmaimed or lameb than to have two chands or two feetc and to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9dAnd if d your eye causes you to stumble, take it out and throw it [away] from you. It is better to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the Gehenna e of fire.e 8If

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. ‫ *א‬anticipates the verb of the parallel in v. 9. b-b. e order of these terms is reversed in D L W Θ f1, 13 33 892 1006 1342 etc. e q syc, p, h co. is produces a minor chiasm but not an artistically pleasing one; it is probably only an accidental inversion. c-c. e order of these terms is reversed in D it (cf. note b-b). d-d. το αυτο ει και (‘[in] the same [way] if even’) in D.

e-e. Missing from D. Matthew uses Gehenna with and without ‘of re’. D has conformed the less common to the more common. Bibliography Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 210-23. See further at 5:27-30; 18:1-5, 6-7.

e motif of causes of stumbling continues, but the focus moves to the responsibility individuals need to take for their own sin: given how high the stakes are, any sacri ce is worth making to keep oneself back from a life of sin. Being part of the ‘royal family’ is what ultimately matters. Matthew continues the sequence of Markan material (cf. Mk. 9:43), which he compacts, primarily by combining the rst two of Mark’s three cases. e striking imagery and apparent disregard for the practicalities of life are features that encourage attribution to the historical Jesus. Matthew has used another form of these materials in 5:29-30 (see there).

18:8-9 For the most part these verses repeat the language of Mk. 9:43. e most signi cant differences are: ὁ πούς (‘the foot’) comes up from v. 45 to give ἢ ὁ πούς (‘or the foot’) — Matthew economizes by treating Mark’s rst two cases together; ἀπόκοψον αὐτήν (‘cut it away’) becomes ἔκκοψον αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ (lit. ‘cut it out and throw [it] from you’) — Matthew goes for a form of words which he can closely parallel in v. 9;57 ἢ χωλόν (‘or lame’) is added on the basis of Mk. 9:45; ἢ δύο πόδας (‘or two feet’) is added to complete the merging of Mark’s two cases (and in the process the articles are dropped); ἀπελθεῖν (‘to depart’) becomes βληθῆναι (‘to be thrown’) to increase the parallelism with v. 9, where Mark already has βληθῆναι; εἰς τὴν γέενναν (‘into Gehenna’) is dropped — Matthew sees no need to express the idea twice58 — and

ἄσβεστον (‘unquenchable’) is paraphrased as αἰώνιον (‘eternal’) — this gives εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον (‘into the eternal re’) found elsewhere in the NT only in 25:41, which may well have signi cance in relation to the discussion below of cross references.59 e changes in Mt. 18:9 from Mk. 9:47 generally parallel those above: ἔκβαλε αὐτόν (lit. ‘throw it out’) becomes ἔξελε αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ (lit. ‘take it out and throw [it] from you’); βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ (‘kingdom of God’) becomes ζωήν (‘life’) — that is what is in Mt. 18:8; the quote from Is. 66:24 in Mk. 9:48 is reduced to τοῦ πυρός, the key word kept in Mt. 18:8 — this gives εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός (‘into eternal re’) found elsewhere in the NT only in 5:22, which may, again, have signi cance in relation to the discussion below of cross references.60 A striking feature of 18:8-9 is the move to second person singular address. e materials in vv. 6-7 have been impersonally expressed in the third person singular, as also vv. 1-5 with the exception of v. 3, which uses second person plural forms. e two obvious reasons for the presence of vv. 8-9 at this point are continuation of the Markan sequence and the catchword link provided by the use of the σκανδαλ- (‘stumbling’) root (already in Mark). But what is the meaning of the sequence for Matthew? One can thematically unite vv. 6-7 and 8-9 by speaking of ‘internal and external stumbling blocks’, but this disturbs the capacity of vv. 6-7 to cohere with the coming materials in vv. 10-35, which all come together around the idea of dealing appropriately with the weak. e attempt to understand the body parts as members of the church61 would provide a tie with v. 17, but the sense remains just as disruptive in the immediate context, and is not at all an obvious way of taking the language. Making σκανδαλίζει take a causative sense (‘causes [you] to be a cause of stumbling to [others]’) produces an understanding that ts the context,62 but there is no evidence either

for the use of σκανδαλίζειν in such a causative sense or for an object with a verb used causatively to function as σε (‘you’) must be forced to. σκανδαλίζειν would also need to have a different sense in vv. 8-9 from that established in v. 6. Is it too much to suggest that Matthew’s overriding reason for keeping this material in its Markan sequence is to provide a further cross link to the rst of the major Matthean discourse blocks in chaps. 5–7, where the same tradition is represented in 5:29-30? A rst cross reference to chaps. 5–7 was noted at 18:1, where the Matthean addition of ‘in the kingdom of heaven’ ensured a connection with 5:19, a link that is carried on in 18:4. ere has been a cross reference to chap. 13 in the 18:7 (the use of τὰ σκάνδαλα [‘the causes of stumbling’] links to 13:41).63 ere have been cross references to chap. 10 in 18:5 (echo of receiving another to receive Jesus in 10:40) and in v. 6 (‘one of these little ones who believe in me’ parallels ‘one of these little ones as a disciple’ in 10:42). ere are also cross references to chaps. 24–25 to come in 18:5 (‘inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me’ in 25:40, 45 echoes ‘receives one such child as though he or she were me’) and in v. 6 (‘one of the least of these my brothers and sisters’ in 25:40, 45 echoes ‘one of these little ones who believes in me’). We have periodically noted how important for Matthew cross links between his materials are. 18:8-9 are another such cross link, sufficiently important for Matthew here that he allows material to stand that rather breaks the ow of thought. In its present context the presence of 18:8-9 reinforces the seriousness of the challenges issued (linking with the woes of v. 7 and the drowning image of v. 6) and underlines their radical nature. Perhaps it even draws the present discourse into the orbit of the

antithesis schema operating in chap. 5: Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter with his radical demands. e materials here, outside the context of sexual sin in relation to which they were set in 5:29-30 (and which had only the right eye and the right hand), gain a wider sense. Any sin to which hand, foot, or eye might lead is pertinent. And since these three represent the three primary ways in which we move out to encounter the world around us, the scope is quite comprehensive. e ear might have been added, but it does not t the imagery because cutting it off would not inhibit hearing in a major way. e tongue is not considered, probably because, as the speaking organ, it is not a means by which things make contact with us (though we initiate contact with it). Since feet, hands, and eyes mediate almost all our contact with the world, they could be labelled causes of stumbling in relation to almost any form of wrongdoing. e point ends up being the seriousness of sin and not the speci c role of these body parts. Sin is such a serious matter that any sacri ce is worth making to eliminate it. ese materials should not, however, be read as requiring sinless perfection (note the importance of forgiveness and restoration in the following materials). For further discussion see the comments at 5:29-30. E. Dealing with the Sinner (18:10-35) 1. ‘Goes in Search … Finds … Rejoices’ (18:10-14) that you do not despise one of these little ones.a For, I say to you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.b 12What do you think? If it happens that a person has a hundred sheep and one of them is led astray, will he not leave the ninety-ninec don the mountainsd and go in search of the one that has been led astray? 13If it happens that he finds it, 10See

amen, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine who have not been led astray. 14In the same way it is not something desired ein the presence ofe fyour Father in heaven that gone of these little ones should perish.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. D etc. it vgmss syc samss add των πιστευοντων εις εμε (‘who believe in me’) to conform to Mt. 18:6. b. ηλθεν γαρ ο υιος του ανθρωπου (+ ζητησαι και [Lmg] 579 892c etc. c syh bopt) σωσαι το απολωλος (‘for the Son of Man came [+ to seek and] to save the lost’) is added in D L W Θc 078vid etc. lat syc, p, h bopt, in uenced by Lk. 19:10.

for.

c. προβατα (‘sheep’) is added in B Θ f13 1424* etc. samss mae. d-d. Missing from ‫*א‬. Probably dropped as unnecessary and unprepared

e-e. e awkwardness of the Greek here has led to the dropping of εμπροσθεν (‘before/in the presence of ’) in ‫ א‬f13 etc. (sys, c) bo. f. Conformed to the μου (‘my’) of Mt. 18:10 by B N Γ Θ 078 0281 f13 33 579 700 892 1241 1424 etc. sys, h co. D* has ημων (‘our’). g. Most texts have the neuter here, continuing from the imagery of the sheep, but W Θ 078 f1, 13 etc. lat have the masculine. Bibliography Achtemeier, P. J., ‘It’s the Little ings at Count (Mark 14:17-21; Luke 4:113; Matthew 18:10-14)’, BA 46 (1983), 30-31. • Dupont, J., ‘Les implications christologiques de la parabole de la brebis perdue’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont, 331-50. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 46-63. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 273-80. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 37-52. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 414-30. • Perkins, P., Hearing, 29-33, 38, 47, 52. • Peterson, W. L., ‘e Parable of the Lost Sheep in the Gospel of omas and the Synoptics’, NovT 23 (1981), 128-47. • Roloff, J., ‘Das Kirchenverständnis des Matthäus im Spiegel seiner

Gleichnisse’, NTS 38 (1992), 337-56. • Trau, J. M., ‘e Lost Sheep: A Living Metaphor’, BiTod 28 (1990), 277-83. • Weder, H., Gleichnisse, 168-77. See further at 18:1-5.

We are to seek out and restore ‘little ones’ who have been led astray (i.e., have been caused to stumble). Each is of supreme value to the Father. e theme of behaviour within the ‘royal family’ continues. Matthean topping and tailing and editing of the parable have produced a chiastic pattern centred on the seeking and (hoped-for) nding of and rejoicing over the one that had been led astray: v. 10a parallels v. 14b, each with ‘one of these little ones’; v. 10b parallels v. 14a, each with ‘my/your Father in heaven’; v. 12a parallels v. 13d, each with reference to being led astray; v. 12b parallels v. 13c, each with ‘the ninety-nine’; the centre is vv. 12c-13a, with the sequence, go in search, nd, rejoice; and the pivotal point of the centre is the hope of nding.64 Matthew has ‘topped and tailed’ for the present context (with 18:10, 14) a parable that he shares with Lk. 15:3-7, but it is unlikely that Matthew and Luke have a common source for this parable.65 An equivalent to Lk. 15:5 is lacking in Matthew. It is uncertain whether it represents an addition at the point of linkage with the parable of the lost coin (as do vv. 6-7 — but v. 7 also re ects traditional material related to Mt. 18:13 and probably even to v. 14) or whether Matthew has dropped it as he abbreviates and partially restructures. e latter is more likely: an original with a form of Lk. 15:5 and a ‘he will rejoice’ statement (like that in Mt. 18:13, but without the opening ‘Amen, I say to you’) would have a mini-chiasm marked by the verb sequence εὕρῃ (‘he nds’) … εὑρών (‘ nding’)… χαίρων (‘rejoicing’)… χαίρει (‘he rejoices’) — on this understanding the ‘he will rejoice’ statement was originally part of the parable narrative, not an added comment.66 e main Matthean touches are likely to be τί ὑμῖν δοκεῖ (‘What do you think’) — see at 17:24; πλανηθῇ (‘is led astray’) and subsequent uses of this verb — this ts with the causing-to-stumble language (the in uence of Luke’s verb is

evident in its use in Mt. 18:14); the language expressing an open-ended outcome — this prepares for 18:15-21; ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν (‘amen, I say to you’) — Matthew is fond of the phrase (see at 5:18).

18:10 Matthew is responsible for ὁρᾶτε (‘see [that]’) in a challenge in 9:30; 24:6 as well. ‘ese little ones’ is taken up from v. 6. eir revalued status in relation to the kingdom of heaven continues to be the topic. Matthew has previously used καταϕρονεῖν (‘despise’) in 6:24. Given what follows, to despise the little ones here is to treat as of no real signi cance the loss to the Christian community of one of them who has been led astray. ough not as favoured or as emphatic as ‘For, amen, I say to you’, ‘For I say to you’ here and elsewhere emphasises the weightiness of what is coming.67 Compared to Mark, both Matthew and Luke have a heightened interest in the role of angels. But in the NT only here and in Acts 12:15 do we encounter the idea of angels of individuals. e idea is, however, rooted in Jewish tradition. e activity of angels on behalf of God’s people is found in the OT.68 In some pseudepigraphical texts the protection of angels might seem to be restricted to those of remarkable piety and righteousness69 or to be more effective in their case than in that of others.70 But in some Jewish texts angels are assigned to each person.71 Matthew’s point is probably that the little ones do not lack angels rather than that only the little ones have angels. It is unclear whether we should set these angels seeing the face of God against the background of traditions in which to be near to God was a privilege of higher angels.72 Probably the point made is not comparative but rather simply that the interests of these little ones is fully and without interruption represented in the near presence of God.73 Only Matthew has Jesus speak of God as ‘my Father in heaven’ (see at 7:21).74

18:12 Introduced by v. 10, the parable becomes one about dealing in some way with little ones. ‘What do you think?’ is a Matthean touch, issuing a challenge to ponder.75 ἐὰν γένηται (lit. ‘if it happens/is’) may be Matthean given Matthew’s two other uses of the phrase and the concentration of uses of ἐάν in chap. 18 (ten uses). To own a hundred sheep would be a mark of some wealth. But at whatever economic level one operates, one percent of one’s wealth is normally treated as signi cant. πλανηθῇ is aorist passive, but this usage of the passive may mean simply ‘go astray’/‘wander away’. It is best here, however, to give a full passive force (‘be led astray’) and link with the motif of causes of stumbling of vv. 6-7, 810.76 We can imagine the sheep being led off by the sight of a promising patch of grass or a pool of water (or anything else that comes to mind!). Since sheep grazing on unfenced hill country are in mind, it is unlikely that we are to imagine the ninety-nine simply le to their own devices, at least not for long; we may imagine the sheep being le in the temporary care of another shepherd who must divide his attention. In any case, the normal level of care is temporarily withdrawn in order to deal with the needs of the moment. ‘e point of the parable is the disproportionate investment of effort and concern directed towards the one sheep: … the one is temporarily of more importance than the ninety-nine’.77 With the seeking of the one that has been led astray we get to the heart of the parable. 18:13 e telling of the story started with ἐὰν γένηται; and at the pivot point of the centre the phrase returns. e rst use of the phrase is connected with the hundred sheep; the second use with the single sheep. Finding the sheep is not at all certain, but if it happens, then the response indicates (as has the leaving of the other sheep) that for the moment the lost and restored one is more important than the whole ock.

‘Amen, I say to you’ is a Matthean piece of emphasis — probably replacing an earlier ‘I say to you’ (cf. Lk. 15:7) which tends to transform the role of what follows from being properly part of the narrative to more of a comment on the narrative. On the one hand, this allows the comment here to lead naturally to the speci c application offered in v. 13. But on the other hand, to the degree that it is no longer part of the narrative proper, the narrative remains un nished. e material must function in both ways simultaneously. e ‘more than’ is based in part on the pathos of the situation from which the led-astray sheep has been rescued: the sheep had temporarily lost the place of safety under the care of the shepherd but has now regained it. e ‘more than’ will also be linked with the focus (occasioned by the disappearance) on the speci c value of the particular sheep. Matthew’s version deals only with the invested behaviour of the shepherd; Luke’s has a wider remit that includes participation of friends and neighbours in the joy of the shepherd (Lk. 15:6). e parable has some relationship to the imagery and language of Ez. 34:10-11, 13, 16,78 where God is the seeking shepherd. ose who act as the parable challenges to act are modelling themselves on the priorities that God himself has. In light of Mt. 9:36; 15:24, Matthew likely sees Jesus in a shepherd role as occupying a middle position between God as shepherd and Christians as shepherds to each other. 18:14 is verse provides the other half of the framing that Matthew has placed around the parable: now we see more speci cally how Matthew would have the parable applied to ‘the little ones’. ough θέλημα ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς (lit. ‘will before your Father in heaven’) in its present form is Matthean, at some shared point of ultimate origin it probably was

linked with χαρὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ (‘joy in heaven’) from Lk. 15:7. In addition, θέλημα ἔμπροσθεν (lit. ‘will before/in front of ’) is striking and in some ways reminiscent of εὐδοκία … ἔμπροσθέν σου (lit. ‘good pleasure … before/in front of you’) in Mt. 11:26.79 e language of Mt. 11:26 is widely recognised as Semitic, and the same is likely to be true here in 18:14.80 We should probably link the imagery back to that of v. 10, where the angels are gathered before God. e translation above, ‘something desired in the presence of your Father in heaven’, is intended to capture this connection. e mission to rescue little ones who have been led astray is motivated by the concerns of God and the angels gathered before him. Given the link to Ez. 34:10-11, 13, 16 noted above, the rescue effort is perhaps to be thought of as a participation in that of God himself as the good shepherd. 2. Challenging Sin with a Concern for Restoration (18:15-20) 15If ayour

brother or sister sins,b go and reprove them, between you and them, alone. If they listen, you have gained your brother or sister. 16If they do not listen, take along with you as well one or two [others], so that ‘every word may be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses’. 17If they refuse to listen to them, tell [it] to the church. And if they even refuse to listen to the church, let them be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. 18Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth cwill be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earthc will be loosed in heaven. 19Again, damen,

I say to you, if two of you on earth agree together about any matter, whatever eyou ask will be done for fyou by my Father in heaven. 20For gwhere two or three are gathered in my name, I am thereg in their midst.

TEXTUAL NOTES

19.

a. e second person forms are singular in vv. 15-17 but plural in vv. 18-

b. εις σε (‘against you’) is found in D L W Θ 078 f13 33 etc. latt sy mae bopt. It is sometimes taken as original, but it probably represents a backin uence from v. 21. c-c. is section is missing in D* n. e scribe’s eye has jumped from the rst occurrence of εσται (‘will be’) to the second. d. Missing from ‫ א‬D L (N W) Γ (Δ) f1 579 892 etc. lat syp, (h) bo. e combination of παλιν (‘again’) and αμην (‘amen’) overloads the opening of the sentence. So it is easy to see why a scribe might have omitted one of the words. On the other hand, the αμην before λεγω υμιν (‘I say to you’) in v. 18 may have induced a scribe to add it here. e. e verb is third person plural in the Greek. f. Greek has a third person form: ‘them’. g-g. A change from ου to ουχ and from εκει to παρ᾿ οις ουκ in D (g1) sys gives: ‘ere are not two or three gathered in my name with whom I am not in their midst’. Bibliography Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community, 99-107. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘Reproof and Reconciliation in the Q Community: A Study of the Tradition-history of Matthew 18.15-17, 21-22/Lk 17.3-4’, SNTU 8 (1983), 79-90. • Dobbeler, S. von, ‘Die Versammlung “auf meinen Namen hin” (Mt 18:20) as Identitätsund Differenzkriterium’, NovT 44 (2002), 209-30. • Duling, D. C., ‘Matthew 18:15-17: Con ict, Confrontation, and Con ict Resolution in a “Fictive Kinship” Association’, BTB 29 (1999), 4-22. • Duling, D. C., ‘Matthew 18:1517: Con ict, Confrontation, and Con ict Resolution in a “Fictive Kin” Association’, SBLSP 39 (2000), 253-95. • Hickling, C. J. A., ‘Con icting Motives in the Redaction of Matthew: Some Considerations on the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 18.15-20’, SE 7 (= TU 126) (1982), 247-60. • Kynes, W. L., Christology of Solidarity, 119-31. • Lona, H. E., ‘“In meinem Namen versammelt”: Mt 18,20 und liturgisches Handeln’, ALW 27 (1985),

373-404. • Pesch, R., ‘“Wo zwei oder drei versammelt sind auf meinen Namen hin …” (Mt 18,20): Zur Ekklesiologie eines Wortes Jesu’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 227-43. • P tzner, V. C., ‘Puri ed Community — Puri ed Sinner: Expulsion from the Community according to Matthew 18.15-18 and 1 Corinthians 5.1-5’, ABR 30 (1982), 34-55. • Sievers, J., ‘“Where Two or ree …”: e Rabbinic Concept of Shekhinah and Matthew 18:20’, SIDIC 17 (1984), 4-10. • Wouters, A., Willen, 348-67. • Ziesler, J. A., ‘Matthew and the Presence of Jesus’, EpR 11 (1984), 55-63, 90-97. See further at 16:13-20; 18:1-5.

Concern with restoring those who have been led astray continues. We are to work for the restoration of the sinner as unobtrusively as possible. An escalating involvement of others will mark the extent of the efforts called for, but it will also provide assurance about the rightness of the judgments involved. e gathered church can declare the mind of God with con dence. Its united prayers about such matters are certain to be answered by God through the presence of Jesus himself with those who gather in his name. ough Matthew was following the Markan sequence and re ecting his Markan source in 18:6-7, he also drew on a second form of the material, parallelled in Lk. 17:1-2. For 18:15-17 he now goes back to that source to draw material parallelled in Lk. 17:3. However, the Lukan and Matthean forms of these traditions were probably already different, so identifying the Matthean contribution is difficult. Whatever Matthew’s role, the staged sequence is likely to be secondary to the basic statement parallelled in Lk. 17:3. As part of the unit found in Lk. 17:3-4 it represents the kind of extremity of sentiment, difficult to correlate with the actual needs of life, which ts well with the historical Jesus. Matthew will hold back his parallel to Lk. 17:4 for Mt. 18:21-22.81 For 18:18 Matthew provides a variant form of 16:19. It is unclear whether he has adapted 16:19 or drawn on a variant form of the tradition — probably the latter. For 18:19 Matthew draws in a related tradition, which he alone preserves. e difficulty of some of the language in the present Matthean context suggests that Matthew has been a conservative

redactor of an existing piece (‘on earth’ and ‘my Father in heaven’ are the most likely Matthean contributions). V. 20 is largely a Matthean formulation, probably overwriting a saying that in some way linked Jesus’ name and presence (see below).

18:15 For the translation above, εἰς σέ (‘against you’) has been treated as secondary. More important than its absence from key MSS is the better development through the discourse that is possible with the shorter text.82 e focus will be personalised in v. 21, but for the moment it remains more general. A brother or sister who sins is equivalent to a ‘little one’ who has been caused to stumble (v. 6), or a ‘little one’ is likened to a sheep that has been led astray (vv. 10-14). e motif of behaviour in the ‘royal family’ through this discourse means that ‘brother or sister’ here should be taken as fellow disciple of Jesus as in 12:49-50, and not as fellow Israelite as in 5:22 and other passages. ough Matthew frequently uses the nouns ‘sin’ or ‘sinner’,83 this is his rst use of the verb. Except for v. 21, he will use the verb again only of Judas’s sin (27:4). Sinning is understood here as separating the perpetrator from the people of God. Matthew’s topic is sin for which there has been no repentance. ὕπαγε (lit. ‘depart/go off ’), a Matthean touch, harks back to the shepherd’s initiative in 18:12. It is hard to be sure, but ἔλεγξον (a verb not found elsewhere in Matthew) may be intended as a gentler word than Luke’s ἐπιτίμησον (‘rebuke’). Matthew may be in uenced by Lv. 19:17, where the LXX uses the same verb.84 e meaning of the verb ranges over ‘expose’, ‘convict’, convince’, ‘reprove’, and ‘discipline’. ‘Reprove’ is perhaps best here. Setting right other adults ts awkwardly into contemporary Western culture with its postmodern tendencies, but it plays an important part in the NT and ts comfortably into the larger Jewish frame.85

e privacy of the initial contact allows the sin to be dealt with without any need for wider awareness or for public shaming.86 Insofar as this is possible, the privacy of the initiative protects the dignity of the person, even at the point of serious sin. e matter is to be dealt with at the lowest possible effective level and the circle of knowledge restricted as much as possible. Here, ἀκούσῃ means ‘listen to/take notice of ’ rather than the more common ‘hear’.87 ‘Gained’ is the counterpart to the shepherd’s nding in v. 13:88 the person is restored to the community of brothers and sisters.89 18:16 e person may not, however, respond positively to the initiative taken by the individual who is aware of the problem. en others must be involved.90 e assumption is clearly that the offence is something of which others can easily become aware. e supporting parties will need to be able to be independently aware of the problem. Otherwise the appeal to multiple witnesses would not make any sense. e addition of ‘one or two’ gives the ‘two or three’ stipulated by Dt. 19:15 (cf. 17:6).91 e presence of the supporting parties ensures that the initiative is not a confused one, based on a misunderstanding, but is also concerned to enhance in the eyes of the one being approached the seriousness of what is at stake. Something nearly analogous to the legal system in Israel is being brought to bear (only nearly analogous because at this stage the matter remains a private initiative — only at the next stage will it become a public church matter — and because this is an initiative aimed at restoration rather than at justice or punishment). 18:17 e person may not, however, respond positively even to this enhanced initiative. Intensi cation is marked at this point by a change of verb from μὴ ἀκούσῃ (‘does not listen’) to παρακούσῃ (‘refuses to listen’). Containment is no longer possible; now the whole church must be involved. Now the weight of the whole

church community must be placed behind the initiative. Are we to imagine the whole church going en masse to visit the offender? Tilborg thinks of the action of the church as being rather like sentence being passed on an absent murderer,92 but personal contact remains important here. I have translated τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ above ‘to the church’, which leaves the problem of bringing the church and the offender together. But it could be ‘in the church’, with the offender understood as being present and keeping quiet about the offence. In any case, at the climactic point the whole church is drawn into the initiative to restore an erring brother or sister. It is no accident that Matthew’s second and only other use of ‘church’ comes immediately before the virtual repetition in v. 18 of 16:19, which is similarly sequenced in relation to Matthew’s rst use of ‘church’. At 16:19 the gathering together of a restored Israel was in view, and that will be the case here too. ough in practical terms the teaching of 18:15-17 will be worked out in relation to an individual Christian congregation which is one of many such congregations, the signi cance of the gathered group is to be understood in relation to a fresh gathering of a restored Israel. But what is one to do when the person remains hard-hearted in the face of the appeal of the whole church? Interestingly, aer the increasing involvement of others, at this point the perspective narrows again to the sinner and the person taking the rst initiative to restore the sinner (all along this individual has been the one charged to arrange the staged involvement of others). It is hard to see how others in the church could or should avoid taking a stance in relation to the sinner, but here such a stance is actually prescribed only for the one who had the initial awareness of the problem. e offender is to be to him or her as a Gentile and a tax collector. As in 5:47; 6:7, ὁ ἐθνικός (‘a Gentile’) is used in a typically

Jewish way, calling up Jewish negative stereotypical images.93 e negative use of the image is con rmed by the matching term ὁ τελώνης (‘a tax collector’), already paired with ‘Gentile’ in Mt. 5:4647 (see there). Clearly the offender is no longer to be considered a brother or sister. But how is one to behave towards one who has become a rank outsider? e kind of shunning to which Mt. 18:17 has frequently led cannot be sustained, given Jesus’ image as ‘friend of tax collectors and sinners’ (11:19 — see discussion there) and given the evangelistic concern for those of other nations which Matthew rmly endorses.94 e person is to be related to now as an outsider, but not as one who must permanently remain outside. e spirit to be adopted will be like that involved in the love of enemies, discussed in 5:43-48 (see there). 18:18 Emphatically introduced with the ‘Amen, I say to you’, favoured by Matthew,95 the present verse is a near repetition of 16:19, which has been discussed in detail earlier. e main difference is the move from singular to plural: from Peter to the whole church.96 We saw at 16:19 that the binding and loosing is best understood as having to do with the regulation of behaviour. It has to do with bringing to bear on the lives of those who would be disciples the signi cance of all that Jesus was and brought. Having been instructed by Jesus, the church is able to prohibit and command in a manner that is backed by God himself. In the context of the attempt to bring back an erring brother or sister, the speci c point will be that the church is able to con rm the standard of behaviour to which the erring one is being called to conform once more. e movement from individual reproof to the involvement of others and nally of the whole church ensures that severing a person from the fellowship of the church, where this needs to happen, is nally based on the most assured understanding of what God requires and therefore what God will give his backing

to. e one whom the church declares to be out of step with God is indeed out of step with God! Such a role may have been given foundationally to Peter, but he is not to be set over against the church in such a role since the only proper context for him to exercise such a role is in solidarity with the church which shares with him the experience of having learnt from Jesus and the consequent calling to speak with authority about what God requires. 18:19 Matthew incorporates here teaching that was originally formulated with wider concerns in mind, but which is now applied to the matter of an erring brother or sister. e use of πᾶς here to mean ‘any [matter] at all’ has its closest NT parallel in Mt. 19:3. e speci c idiom involving οὗ ἐάν in 18:19 does not seem to be closely parallelled elsewhere in the NT.97 e opening πάλιν (‘again’) sets up a measure of parallelism between the sayings in vv. 18 and 19, as does the fresh λέγω ὑμῖν (‘I say to you’), especially if, as is likely, the ἀμήν (‘amen’) is original.98 e immediate question to be asked is whether the ‘they’ who are the subject of αἰτήσωνται (‘ask’) and the ‘them’ (αὐτοῖς) whose request will be granted are the ‘two of you’ who agree together. e language could be taken to mean instead that others ask the two, who in turn agree that the matter is one to which God will respond (almost as though God will be guided by their judgment). Against this stands the better correlation between the asking clause and the response of God clause if God is immediately the one asked. Since a third person verb form is already used when the subject is ‘two of you’, the subsequent third person forms are best related back to the same ‘two of you’. Presumably the agreement between the two is meant to exclude inappropriate requests. With this quali cation, v. 19 represents a more expansive statement of the asking and receiving aspect of 7:7-

8.99 However, in the present context ‘two of you’ appears to be the minimal group to function as the ‘you’ of v. 18 and therefore as the ‘church’ of v. 17.100 e juxtaposition of ‘on earth’ and ‘in heaven’ repeats the pattern of v. 18.101 But in the present context what is envisaged as being asked for? Most likely the church is seeking guidance for exercising the role involved in vv. 17-18: behind the binding and loosing of v. 18 stands the praying of v. 19. ere can be a speaking on behalf of God himself and a putting of his will into effect in v. 18 precisely because of the successful praying of v. 19. In prayer the application of what has been received from Jesus to the speci c case in hand will become clear. It is unlikely that the agreement between the two is already an agreement about the guilt or innocence of the one brought to them by the development in vv. 15-17:102 it is an agreement about what is to be asked of God. If the agreement were in the rst instance an agreement about the right verdict, then agreement about what is to be asked gains a confused identity: at the same time agreement about guilt or innocence and agreement on a request to God to act in weal or woe in accord with the decision reached. e designation of God as ‘my Father’ provides a cross link with v. 10. 18:20 e present verse, linked with γάρ (‘for’), offers explanation and support for what has been maintained in v. 19. ere must be some suspicion that this is a Matthean formulation drawing together various threads of the tradition. e language of ‘two or three’ has been used in the immediate context in v. 16 (though its reference point is actually the ‘two’ of v. 19); συνάγειν (‘gather together’) is a rm favourite for Matthew (twenty-four uses); Jesus’ name is in one way or another of considerable importance to Matthew;103 though not using the ‘with you’ language that will be taken up in 28:20, ‘I am there in their midst’ is clearly to be related to ‘God [is] with us’ in 1:23, with which Jesus is to be

identi ed by way of the name ‘Emmanuel’. Only the use of ἐμόν for ‘my’ gives pause. Otherwise Matthew consistently uses μου for the possessive; nowhere else does he use ἐμός with a noun.104 Perhaps he has a saying here about the link between Jesus’ name and presence that he has largely overwritten in his own language. Matthew has a nice parallelism between the two clauses: to ‘where’ corresponds ‘there’; to ‘[they] are’ corresponds ‘I am’; to ‘two or three gathered’ corresponds ‘in the midst of them’. Located between the sets of corresponding elements is ‘in my name’.105 ‘Gathered in my name’ corresponds in part to ‘agree together’ in 18:19 (both use συν pre xes). εἰς τὸ ὄνομα (lit. ‘into the name’) in 28:20 expresses the conscious choice of identi cation with what has been involved in Matthew’s story: the action of the Father through the Son and by means of the Holy Spirit. Much the same is intended here, but it is expressed simply in terms of the focus on Jesus (‘my name’).106 A comprehensive commitment to Jesus and what he has brought, done, and stands for is intended. But the solidarity of being gathered together in this is also important. Mt. 1:23 anticipated that in Jesus’ life and ministry God’s presence would be manifested in some decisive manner; and the unfolding of Matthew’s story has clari ed from various angles the precise manner in which this presence of God was to be realised. But now, as in 18:5, we move from a horizon determined by the presence of Jesus to one determined by an early church context where Jesus is no longer physically present. Does ‘Emmanuel’ still remain true? Yes, it does. But its focus now is not the physical presence of Jesus but the group gathered in his name, because to such a group his abiding presence is promised. In this new way his presence continues to mediate the presence of God. Davies and Allison think in terms of ‘the community’s prayer becoming Jesus’ prayer’ and complete the logic with ‘and his prayer cannot but be

answered’.107 But Jesus’ presence is functioning here in precisely the opposite direction: since his presence mediates God’s presence, it surely brings with it the answer to prayer promised in 18:19. In the LXX of Nu. 35:34; Joel 2:27 εἰμι … ἐν μέσῳ (‘I am … in [the] midst’) is used by God to declare his presence.108 An echo is likely. What we have here is some relationship to rabbinic tradition about God’s presence being associated with the study of the Law, but the link is probably no more than an independent relationship to the background OT texts which take up the subject of the Divine Presence. ʾAb. 3:2 has: ‘If two sit together and words of the Law [are spoken] between them, the Divine Presence (hšqynh) rests between them’. 3:6 has: ‘If ten men sit together and occupy themselves in the Law, the Divine Presence (hšqynh) rests among them’. e number required is then reduced progressively to two and even one. 3. Forgive Your Brother or Sister from Your Heart (18:21-35) Peter came to ahim and said, ‘Lord, how many times shall my brother or sister sin against me and I forgive them? As many as seven times? 22Jesus says to him, ‘I do not say to you, as many as seven times, but as many as seventy times seven times’. 23In this connection, the kingdom of heaven is like [the situation of] a person, a king, who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. 24As he began to settle [them], a certain debtor [who owed] bten thousand talents was brought to him. 25As he could not pay, the master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he chad, and payment to be made. 26en dthe slave fell down and, did obeisance to him, saying, ‘Be patient with mee, and I will repay [it] all to you’. 27e master of fthat slave had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan. 21en

28gat

slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and he grabbed him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay, if

you owe anything!’ 29en his fellow slave fell down and entreated him, saying, ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you’. 30He did not want [that]. Instead, he went off and cast him into prison until he should pay what was owed. his fellow slaves, when they saw what hhad happened,h were exceedingly distressed, and went and explained to their master all that had happened. 32en his master summoned him and says to him, ‘Wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. 33Was it not necessary ifor you also to have mercy on your fellow slave, even as I have had mercy on jyou?’ 34And his master was angry and handed him over to the tormentors until he should pay kall that was owed. 35So also will my heavenly Father do to you if you do not, each one, forgive your brother or sister lfrom your heart. 31en

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ‘Him’ belongs with ‘said’ in the accepted text, but for translation I have linked it with ‘came to’ so as to express the force of the προς (‘to[wards]’) in προσελθων (‘come to’). ‫א‬2 L W Θ f1, 13 33 etc. aur (e) q syp, h have αυτω (‘him’) in the earlier position. It is missing from ‫ א‬sys. b. πολλων (‘many’) in ‫ *א‬co; εκατον (‘a hundred’) in c (see v. 28). c. e imperfect tense form ειχεν (‘had’), which ts the tense sequence better, is found in ‫ א‬D L W 0281 f13 33 etc., but Greek oen uses the tenses of direct speech in indirect speech. d. εκεινος is added in ‫א‬2 D L Δ Θ 0281 33 579 892 etc. lat sy mae bo, giving ‘that slave’ (cf. vv. 27, 28). co.

e. κυριε (‘Lord/Master’) is added in ‫ א‬L W 058 0281 f1, 13 33 etc. it syp, h

f. Missing from B Θ f1 etc. samss, giving ‘the slave’. e subject phrase is simpli ed to ο κυριος αυτου (‘his master’) in syc, and the subject is unspeci ed in sys. g. Missing from B etc., giving ‘the slave’.

h-h. In D L 892 etc. γινομενα (‘was happening’). i. An ουν (‘then’) in place of και σε (‘you also’) in p25 gives ‘… then, for you to …’. D Θ (lat) samss combine the two readings. j. ere appears to be a plural υμας (‘you’) in of the accepted text.

25

rather than the singular

k. Missing from D etc. sys. l. τα παραπτωματα αυτων (‘their trespasses’) is added in C W f13 33 etc. f h sy(p), h, probably in uenced by 6:14 (cf. v. 15; 11:25). Bibliography Boer, M. C. de, ‘Ten ousand Talents? Matthew’s Interpretation and Redaction of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt 18:23-35)’, CBQ 50 (1988), 214-32. • Broer, I., ‘Die Parabel vom Verzicht auf das Prinzip von Leistung und Gegenleistung (Mt 18, 23-35)’, in À cause de l’Évangile, ed. F. Refoulé, 145-64. • Buckley, T. W., Seventy. • Carter, W., ‘Resisting and Imitating the Empire: Imperial Paradigms in Two Matthean Parables’, Int 56 (2002), 260-72. • Erlemann, K., Bild Gottes, 76-92. • Glancy, J. A., ‘Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables’, JBL 119 (2000), 67-90. • Harnisch, W., Gleichniserzählungen, 253-71. • Heil, J. P., ‘Parable of the Unforgiving Forgiven Servant in Matthew 18:21-35’, in Parables, W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 96-123. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 21-33. • Hylen, S. E., ‘Forgiveness and Life in Community’, Int 54 (2000), 146-57. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 21126. • Keesmaat, S. C., ‘Strange Neighbors and Risky Care (Matthew 18:21-25; Luke 14:7-14; Luke 10:25-37)’, in Parables, ed. R. N. Longenecker, 263-85. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 53-68. • Merklein, H., ‘Der Prozess der Barmherzigkeit’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 201-7. • Meurer, H.-J., Gleichnisse, 710-19. • Oakman, D. E., ‘Jesus and Agrarian Palestine: e Factor of Debt’, SBLSP 24 (1985), 57-73. • Patte, D., ‘Bringing Out of the Gospel-Treasure What Is New and What Is Old: Two Parables in Matthew 18-23’, QRev 10 (1990), 79-108. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 46-51. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 273-81. • Scott, B. B., ‘e King’s Accounting: Matthew 18:23-34’, JBL 104 (1985), 429-42. • Via, D. O., Jr., ‘e Gospel of Matthew:

Hypocrisy as Self-Deception’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 508-16, esp. 515-17. • Weder, H., Gleichnisse, 210-18. See further at 18:1-5.

is nal unit in the section 17:22–18:35, which has dealt with status and behaviour in the ‘royal family’, turns to the need, in the light of God’s forgiveness, to forgive those who wrong us. e preservation of our own status as forgiven sinners turns on a willingness to ‘pass the favour on’. Matthew has drawn on the source parallelled in Lk. 17:1-4 for the opening verses of the units 18:6-9 (vv. 6-7) and vv. 15-20 (v. 15), and now again for the beginning of the unit vv. 21-35 (v. 22, from which the question in v. 20 seems to have been produced as a back-formation). e parable in vv. 23-34 is preserved only in Matthew. It has a minor affinity with the mini-parable in Lk. 7:41-42 and with that in 16:1-8, but Matthew’s can hardly have been derived from the others. Mt. 18:23a will be the Matthean introduction. Some have wanted to end the parable at Mt. 18:30 (thus: the contrasting behaviour of the rst creditor and the second creditor who had been a debtor are juxtaposed without comment). Broer has argued effectively against this option.109 e case for an original ending with v. 33 is much more substantial: the inclusion of v. 34 does tend to shi the focus of the parable and detract from the role of the master’s speech in vv. 32-33 as a natural high point; Matthean responsibility for v. 34 ts well with his general accentuation of the judgment theme.110 On the other hand, the ‘punishment ts the crime’ conclusion continues to work with the parallelism between the two cases of indebtedness that is a feature of the earlier narrative; the anger of v. 34 makes a good counterpoint to the compassion of v. 27; and v. 34 provides closure for the account in a manner not achieved by vv. 32-33 alone (since the master is a man of action throughout the body of the parable, it would be a surprise if at the end he settles for expressing his opinion). So v. 34 is likely to be original aer all. V. 31, however, may well be a Matthean expansion (see below).

18:21 In order to have appropriate material to introduce the parable in vv. 23-34, Matthew kept back (and supplements with the opening question) what in his source form followed from v. 15. At the start of the opening unit of this section, aer the prefaced 17:2223, there was a coming to Peter; now at the start of the nal unit Peter is the one who does the coming.111 He comes to Jesus as the disciples have come collectively in 18:1.112 Peter now addresses Jesus as ‘Lord’ for the fourth time since Matthew brought him to the fore in his story in 14:28.113 Matthew takes up again the language of sin, introduced to the section in 18:15 (using the verb for the rst time). But his focus is no longer on what can be done to restore the sinner. ree important differences de ne the focus of this new piece: attention is now on the person who has been wronged rather than the wrong or the wrongdoer;114 the possibility of needing to cope with the recurrence of sin is introduced; and the need to forgive is explicitly addressed (it was implicit in the emphasis on restoration dominant in vv. 10-14, 15-20). Apart from the word of address (‘Lord’), Peter’s words begin and end with the nicely balanced ποσάκις (lit. ‘how-many-fold’) and ἑπτάκις (lit. ‘sevenfold’). Matthew introduces ‘my brother or sister’ to provide continuity with the language of v. 15. e phrase is to be used again in v. 35, thus contributing to the framing role of vv. 2122 and 35 (cf. the framing around the parable of the lost sheep of vv. 10 and 14). Forgiveness was last spoken of in 12:31-32, but there the topic was the possibility of God forgiving. e need for people to forgive and the relationship between this and God’s forgiveness was addressed in 6:12, 14, 15 in connection with the Lord’s Prayer. It will become clear that this same interrelationship of human and divine forgiveness is the topic of the present unit, 18:21-35. ere

are further references to forgiveness in vv. 27, 32, 35 (in vv. 27, 32 in relation to forgiveness of debt). Matthew discusses forgiveness in relation to the verb, except for the nal instance in 26:28 where he will introduce ‘the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’. Peter proposes as a generous measure the possibility of forgiveness on as many as seven occasions. e difference from Lk. 17:4 reveals a heightening of the rhetoric: there seven times in a day is Jesus’ challenging goal (no doubt unlimited forgiveness is intended); here Peter already offers the seven times (admittedly not per day), but is to be countered with Jesus’ ‘seventy-seven times’, or, perhaps better, ‘seventy times seven times’. 18:22 Jesus is freshly introduced by name for the new unit.115 ‘I do not say to you … but’ is an extra rhetorical ourish (most likely Matthean). e LXX of Gn. 4:24 uses ἑβδομηκαντάκις ἑπτά (lit. ‘seventy-fold seven’) of Lamech’s vengeful spirit. Almost certainly a contrast is intended. Davies and Allison aptly quote Manson: ‘Just as in those old days there was no limit to hatred and vengeance, so among Christians there is to be no limit to mercy and forgiveness’.116 It is uncertain whether ἑβδομηκαντάκις ἑπτά in Mt. 18:22 means ‘seventy-seven times’ or ‘seventy times seven times’. e number in the MT of Gn. 4:24 is seventy-seven, but the early translations of Mt. 18:22 took the Greek phrase to mean ‘seventy times seven times’. Perhaps the LXX of Gn. 4:24 already intended to heighten the rhetoric by using the larger number. In any case, the number is designed to break through any notion that there are limits to forgiveness: one is to keep on forgiving far beyond the point where one has lost count of the wrongs. at this is not intended to encourage the passive acceptance of wrongs is clear from Mt. 18:15: the language of reproof and the key role given to

the response to reproof there help to de ne the appropriate manner of response. 18:23 Matthew offers a parable in support of the thrust of vv. 21-22. In his mind the huge debt forgiven in vv. 24-27 probably corresponds to the ‘seventy times seven times’. e introductory half-verse is likely to be Matthean.117 It echoes the introductions to the parables of the kingdom of God in chap. 13 (see at 13:24),118 and, with its identi cation of the key gure of the parable as a king, is given a speci c link with the parable to come in 22:2-14 (see there).119 e subsequent action of the parable does not depend on the role of a king but is in keeping with it. δούλος means slave, but there may exist an oriental usage meaning ‘official’120 to which some have appealed here. In 25:19 a similar settling of accounts will be occasioned by return from an extended period of absence. Here only the king’s wish for such a settlement is mentioned. Has something given him cause for concern, as in Lk. 16:1-2? Or is this settlement part of a periodic pattern? All that is clear is that a number of people (‘slaves’) have been given responsibility with considerable independence of operation for matters that involve nancial transactions and a need for a reckoning with the master. 18:24 e slaves are to be brought in sequence for the reckoning of accounts. It is unclear whether ‘was brought in’ is intended to imply the imposition of the master’s will (i.e., some form of constraint) or relates only to practical arrangements. Is the one who is hugely indebted placed rst because the master has been tipped off about the problem?121 e story never gets as far as dealing with the other slaves. In Matthew ὀφειλέτης (‘a debtor/one who is indebted’) is found only here and in the Lord’s Prayer (6:12); a cross link may be intended.122 μυρίων means ‘ten thousand’ but was also used to indicate an unspeci ed vast number (‘myriads’).

ταλάντον originally meant a balance, that is, a scale. It then came to mean anything weighed, and later a speci c weight of about thirty kilograms (there was variation from time to time and place to place). Finally, it also came to be used of money, indicating the value of that weight of gold, silver, or copper. It is normally assumed that silver talents are intended here. A talent, then, would be 6,000 denarii, or 3,000 double drachmas (as discussed at 17:24). 10,000 talents would pay for something like 200,000 man-years of labour. At the time when Herod’s realm was divided among his sons (4 B.C.), the annual tribute payments to be divided among the new rulers amounted to 900 talents.123 Matthew seems to be telling the story with fairy-tale-like exaggeration. As we will see, a smaller sum here would improve the narrative logic and is therefore likely to have been a feature of an earlier form of the story.124 Matthew’s exaggeration probably has one eye to the application of the parable (see below). 18:25 e idea of paying (ἀποδιδόναι) the debt runs as a leitmotif throughout the parable. It is mentioned in every verse except vv. 27 and 31-33 (where release from the need to pay the debt — or the refusal to grant such release — is in focus). We are probably meant to understand that the slave is not just a little short of what he owes, though this is not explicit. It would appear that something quite disastrous has happened in his nancial dealings, and for this he is considered responsible. From this point on in the story the one called ‘the king’ in v. 23 is spoken of as ὁ κύριος (lit. ‘the lord’), presumably as the master of the slaves involved (subsequent references all have a quali er: ‘lord of that slave’, ‘their lord’, ‘his lord’), though the role of the stock image of God as master may not be far from sight. As part of the storyteller’s ourish, the more imposing word for ‘sell’, πιπράσκειν, is used as in 13:46,125 which also has πάντα ὅσα

ἔχειν (‘all that one has’) as found here.126 e ancient world knew nothing of limited liability or humane laws of bankruptcy.127 In any case, the wife of a slave and his children (though probably not his goods) were most likely already owned by the master. Except for the small amount, presumably, to be retrieved for the slave’s goods, the master’s plan is actually to shore up his own nancial position by liquidating some of his own assets and at the same time to bear down punitively on the slave. Jeremias identi es the price range for slaves as about 500 to 2,000 denarii.128 e sale of the slave and his family would make no realistic contribution to meeting such a huge debt. e story at this point would work better with a debt of something more like 10,000 denarii. 18:26 e main thing that distinguishes this entreaty from the one that will come in v. 29 is the presence of προσεκύνει (‘did obeisance to’, but also ‘worshipped’ — see discussion at 2:2) here and παρέκαλει (‘entreated’) there. is could simply mark the difference of status between the master and a fellow slave, but again it might be a point at which application has intruded back into the parable. e slave of 18:26 can only plead for more time.129 In practical terms this is likely to amount to no more than a stay of execution: if he does not have the money now, the amount is so great that he is unlikely to have it within any conceivable time frame. e unrealistic plea even includes the brave word ‘all’. 18:27 e response of the master is evoked by the petition of the slave, but it is quite different from what has been requested.130 e compassion of the master is to be compared to the compassion showed by Jesus (see discussion of the word at 9:36). He acts in the interests of the slave and not in his own interests. Matthew’s huge gure for the debt accentuates the cost to the master of this compassion. It is unclear whether we have a hendiadys and the release is the same as the remission of the debt or whether the

release is from those who were there to implement the directive that the slave be sold. e verb used for the remission of the debt (not simply deferral as requested) is the same as that translated in v. 21 as ‘forgive’: in the story world this is the counterpart. e debt is called τὸ δάνειον here, which properly means ‘the loan’. Perhaps this throws a little more light on what the master’s slaves have been involved in. Has the master been providing venture capital for them, expecting his money and a share of the pro ts to be returned in due course? 18:28 e slave had gone into the meeting aware of a crushing burden of debt; he has come out of the meeting totally free of his burden. His life has been transformed; or has it? A situation immediately presents itself which will reveal the answer. Does the released slave seek out his fellow slave or simply come upon him? εὗρεν (‘found’) could connote either, but since the verb is used in v. 13 for a deliberate seeking out, that is more likely here. is also offers the best counterpart to the master’s initiative in the previous meeting.131 A forgiven debtor seeks out one who is indebted to him. e second debt is paltry in comparison with the rst. Even if the story originally had a debt of 10,000 denarii in v. 24, this second debt is no more than one percent of the other. e situation cries out for a generosity corresponding on a lower scale to that which has just been experienced. But from the beginning of the encounter the signs are not encouraging. e procedure in this second scene is less formal than in the earlier scene. e demand for repayment is pressed with physical violence: ‘he grabbed him and began to choke him’. εἴ τι (lit. ‘if a certain’) may stand for ὅτι (‘whatever’),132 but it may be better to think in terms of idiomatic colour and keep the conditional force: ‘if you owe anything’. 18:29 Apart from the necessary verbal adjustments concerning the identity of the parties involved, only ‘entreat’ in

place of ‘do obeisance to’ (discussed above) and the omission of the emphasising ‘all’ distinguish this verse from v. 26. e near verbal identity underlines the appropriateness of a parallel response. e golden rule of 7:12 comes to mind. 18:30 e opening words tell it all: ὁ δὲ οὖκ ἤθελεν (‘he did not want [that]’). Out of compassion the master had set aside what he wanted (the same verb is used for his intentions in v. 23); but nothing interferes with what this slave, as creditor, wants. As in v. 29, the slave does not have others to do his bidding as his master does. Similarly, the fellow slave is not at his disposal to sell — he belongs to another. But he does have a basis for assigning his fellow slave to a debtors’ prison. For a discussion of imprisonment in relation to a nancial obligation see the comments at 5:26. e narrative abbreviates by bypassing the legal steps involved; this highlights the responsibility of the slave who has pressed his claim on the other for the outcome. 18:31 If only alternative human options and their evaluation were involved, the parable might end with v. 30. But more is involved once we invoke Jesus’ vision of the coming kingdom of heaven (cf. v. 23). Consequences and outcomes matter a lot to Matthew. From v. 23 we are already aware of other slaves. Here they are given a double role: they exhibit the response to developments that the story is expecting from the hearer/reader; and they inform the master of what has happened. e language is notably Matthean.133 Has Matthew introduced this rather ‘chorus’ role, displacing something simpler like: ‘when he found out, the master summoned …’? 18:32 Notwithstanding the generous compassion that has been displayed, the master-slave relationship remains. e fellow slaves were distressed onlookers; they could do no more than take the problem to their master. But the master can do something about

the situation. He has the slave called.134 at we have now come to the heart of the parable is signalled by the use of the historic present, ‘he says’. He addresses him as ‘wicked slave’ (cf. 25:26) and draws attention to the generosity shown to him. πᾶσαν τὴν ὀϕειλὴν ἐκείνην picks up on the slave’s ‘all’ in v. 26 and rings the changes by referring to ‘the debt’ with a new word, the third word in the story built on the root ὀϕειλ-.135 To emphasise the continuity between the two appeals, ‘entreated’ is used with reference to the rst slave’s request for clemency, though in the telling of the story the word belongs to the fellow slave’s request. ough the measure taken by the rst slave may seem harsh in relation to the scale of the debt, nowhere in the story is this slave’s legal right to act as he has questioned. e wickedness belongs not so much to the act itself as to the act in the speci c context, the context to which the master draws attention. 18:33 ere are moral necessities that are not legal necessities. It had not been necessary for the master to show clemency (but he had), but aer the master’s clemency it was necessary for this slave to show clemency to his fellow slave. e language of having mercy calls to mind the places where Matthew reports people asking Jesus to have mercy on them.136 People sense their need for mercy, but they are not so ready to see the need to extend mercy. e development to come in the next verse will reinforce in a negative manner the beatitude in 5:7: ‘Good fortune … to the merciful! For they shall receive mercy.’ 18:34 In v. 27 the master was moved by compassion; now he is moved by anger. Whatever we might be inclined to think about the reversibility of the release granted in v. 27, the master no longer feels bound by his earlier decision. e situation has changed, and that deal is off. But the master does not revert to his rst plan, which in retrospect will look positively generous. e master’s

strategy is to go one better than what this slave has in icted on his fellow slave:137 he has been imprisoned until his debt is paid; this slave is now to be similarly imprisoned with the added note that his gaolers will make use of torture (ostensibly to motivate him and any who care for him to raise the money, but here the goal is primarily punitive).138 Is there an echo of the tormenting (same Greek root) anticipated in 8:29? e thinking of 7:1-2 comes to mind, where we noted that ‘the very act of judgment establishes a set of criteria to which the one judging must expect to answer’. e indebted slave has now found it to be so. Matthew will make his application to the present context in v. 35. But what can we make of the parable as a free-standing story? At some level this is clearly a morality tale: a certain kind of behaviour is to be avoided; to fail to do so is to court disastrous. But that does not take us far enough. e behaviour of the wicked slave is not so much identi ed as wicked in itself but as wicked in the wake of the incredible gi of mercy that has just been bestowed on him. And though the slave’s situation as creditor is a miniature of the master’s, the difference of level is a fundamental feature of the story (master versus slave; large debt versus small debt). We have noted at several points the likelihood that pointers to application have been built into the telling of the story. Matthew may have added to these, but some are intrinsic to the story. Via takes the story to be about the king’s forgiveness as a power for a new kind of life, an enablement of a matching merciful behaviour.139 But the idea of enablement has been brought to the parable rather than read out of it. Broer sees the parable as having general validity: ‘Every person … has received so much mercy that he also, when he is in the position of master, stands under the obligation to show mercy’.140 But this does not do justice to the very distinctive nature of the experience of the slave who is released

from his huge debt. Nor does it recognise the structural signi cance of the difference in level between the master and the slaves. Harnisch’s solution has the same difficulties: he makes the time axis decisive (taking the appeals for patience as his point of departure) and identi es the thrust as ‘the time of [the experience of] love matures as a time for [the expression of] love’.141 But we cannot leave God out of the picture. e compassion that, in connection with the coming of the kingdom, ows from God through the ministry of Jesus is the foundation on which this parable builds. It addresses itself to those who know that they have been released from a huge debt. It is concerned to illuminate for them a necessary consequence for community behaviour and even to suggest that under certain circumstances the release may be revocable. e parable comes from the opposite end to the Lord’s Prayer (6:12 and cf. vv. 14-15) at the intersection between the forgiveness of God and forgiving one another, but it interlinks the two just as rmly. Inasmuch as the parable treats the forgiveness of God as creating a new situation that entails fresh responsibilities, a more fundamental level of insight is involved.142 To make a series of direct identi cations (the master = God; the slaves = Christians; the debt = sin; etc.) is too simple, but to do so does correctly identify the major contours of the parable. 18:35 e application of a parable will also be introduced with οὕτως καί (‘so also’) in 24:33. ‘My Father in heaven’ from vv. 10, 14, 19 is resumed here as ‘my heavenly Father’. e verb ‘forgive’ is repeated from v. 21, and ‘my brother or sister’ from the same verse (and behind that v. 15) is resumed as ‘his brother or sister’.143 ough the language is quite different, ‘from your heart’ harks back to the extravagant language of ‘seventy times seven times’ in v. 22. V. 35 is both the other half of the frame around the parable and a tting climax to the whole section. e main thrust of the section

has been the challenge in the ‘royal family’ to embrace the vision of caring for the ‘little ones’. But divine sanctions represent a thread throughout the section (see vv. 3, 7, 8-9, 34) and t the needs of a concluding statement. Second person plural forms are used, but Matthew makes use of ἕκαστος (‘each’) to emphasise the need for each individual to forgive.144 Matthew does not elsewhere use ἀπό (‘from’) with καρδία (‘heart’), but he does use ἐκ (‘out of ’) in 12:34; 15:18, 19 with a quite similar meaning. As discussed at 5:8, the ‘heart’ locates the core identity of a person; so this is where forgiveness that runs deep must come from.

1. Giving συστρεϕομένων the most tting of its standard range of meanings. But McNeile, Matthew, 257, no doubt working from the use of the verb without a pre x to mean ‘be at large, go about’ and wishing to stay closer to Mk. 9:30, suggests ‘while they were moving about together’. is sense has not been documented for the compound verb. McNeil’s suggestion ts less well with Matthew’s other editorial changes (omitting ‘the disciples’, moving from imperfect to aorist, and introducing of ‘is about to’ [μέλλει]) and does not allow for the structurally signi cant relationship to 19:1 and to chap. 18. 2. Matthew also drops Mark’s use of ὅτι to mark the beginning of direct speech. e use of μέλλει παραδίδοσθαι and omission of ὅτι are also found in Lk. 9:44, but there is probably no source implication. 3. Nolland, Luke, 2:514 (written in connection with Lk. 9:44 but equally applicable here). 4. See esp. Caragounis, Son of Man, 199. 5. In Dn. 7:25 the saints of the Most High (the equivalent to the ‘one like a Son of Man/Humanity’ of the vision in v. 13) are to be handed over into the hands of the nal king of the kingdom represented by the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision of 7:1-14.

6. παραδιδόναι εἰς χεῖρας (lit. ‘hand over into hands’) is a very frequent LXX idiom. So there may well be LXX or other Semitic in uence on the language here. 7. A link with Dn. 7:25 in Mt. 17:22 raises the possibility that the reference to resurrection has some connection with Dn. 12:2. e LXX uses ἀναστήσονται, the plural of what is used in Mk. 9:31, while the eod. text uses ἐξεγερθήσονται, which, apart from the pre xed ἐξ (‘out of ’), is the plural of Matthew’s verb. 8. Matthew has seven of the nine Gospel uses of σϕόδρα (‘exceedingly’), and he has six of the eight Synoptic uses of λυπεῖν (‘distress’). 9. Horbury, ‘Temple Tax’, and Bauckham, ‘Coin’. 10. Mark’s unidenti ed ‘they’ at this point (9:33) will be the disciples. Matthew’s opening words could simply be an adaptation of Mk. 9:33, but the connection between Peter, Capernaum, and shing suggests that an original link with Capernaum is likely. 11. E.g., J. W. Betlyon, ‘Coinage’, ABD 1:1,080, has an illustration of a silver tetradrachma from Athens from ca. 460-450 B.C., noting that this coin was widely imitated throughout the eastern Mediterranean. 12. Cf. the day’s wage of a drachma in Tob. 5:5 with the denarius a day of Mt. 20:1-16. Betlyon, ‘Coinage’, reports (for the second-century-A.D. Jewish coinage revolt) a denarius made of 3.2 grams of silver and a tetradrachma containing 14 grams of silver, making the drachma a little more valuable than the denarius. 13. See m. Šeq. 2:1. 14. See Philo, Spec. leg. 1.77-78; Rer. div. her. 186–89; Jos., Ant. 16.160-73; 18.312-13; War 7.218; m. Šeq. 1:1, 3; b. B. B. 9a. 15. ese were thought to provide atonement for God’s people and to ensure his blessing. See t. Šeq. 1:6; Philo, Spec. leg. 1.77. 16. Horbury, ‘Temple Tax’, 281, cites, among other texts, words attributed to Rabban Johanan b. Zakkai in Mek. on Ex. 19:1: ‘You would not pay to God the beka a head; now you pay een shekels under your enemies’ rule’. 17. e statement in the Qumran document 4QOrdinancesa (4Q159) frg. 2 col. 2:6-7, ‘Concerning [ransom:] the money of the census which one

gives as ransom for his own person will be half a shekel…. Only once will he give it all his days’, seems to re ect a reaction to the annual practice, which is being rejected. 18. Philo, Spec. leg. 1.77, claims that the tax is given ‘cheerfully and gladly’, ‘with the utmost zeal’. 19. In ation, loss of weight in worn coins, and deliberate use of inferior metal (a copper layer between silver faces) all affected the value of coinage, but the difficulty here is of a more fundamental kind. 20. See m. Šeq. 2:1 for the money-changers’ tables, and t. Ket. 13:3 for the equation of OT and Tyrian currency. 21. M. Šeq. 2:1 contains a warning given two weeks before collecting began. e prominent location of the money-changing, appearing two weeks later, would be a further prod. M. Šeq. 2:3 speaks of the exacting of pledges. Something of the pressure imposed is evident from the claimed irreversibility from year to year of a father’s decision to make voluntary payment on behalf of an underage son (m. Šeq. 2:3). 22. Mt. 2:11; 8:14; 9:23, 28. 23. Mt. 18:12; 21:28; 22:17, 42; 26:66. e rst two introduce parables; 22:42 introduces a challenging question from Jesus; 22:17; 26:66 are on the lips of those who are hostile to Jesus. 24. Where Jesus uses the name Peter in speaking to him, but does not address him by that name. 25. His answer is introduced with the only use in the NT of a genitive absolute with a verb of speech introducing direct speech. e genitive absolute has an only implicit subject. (A urry of corrective activity is notable across a good range of MSS here.) 26. Possibly 1 Ki. 22:26; 2 Ch. 28:7; Je. 36:26; 38:6. R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1965), 119-20, offers as well two seals from Palestine. 27. See Mt. 5:9, 45. 28. See 1 Ch. 29:8-9: ‘e people rejoiced because these had given willingly, for with single mind they had offered freely to Yahweh’; cf. Ex. 35:20–36:7; 1 Ch. 29:17; Ezra 7:15.

29. See Mt. 5:9, 45; 13:38. e identi cation of the disciples as ‘the sons’ would also be possible for the historical Jesus since he certainly claimed special privilege and status for them (e.g., Mt. 11:25-27; 13:11; 19:28). But to make the point of their privilege, even hypothetically, in relation to the temple tax seems inadequately motivated, unless criticism of the temple tax as such is implied. 30. e language ‘war indemnity’ is that of Mandell, ‘Who Paid?’, 227. See Jos., Ant. 18.312-13; Dio Cass., Epit. 66.7:2; Suetonius, Dom. 12.2. 31. Other links are provided by a further comparison between God and a king in the nal unit of the section (18:23-35) and, corresponding to the image of sons in 17:25-26, the series of references to God as Father throughout chap. 18 (vv. 10, 14, 19, 35). 32. But in the LXX see 2 Ki. 19:28; Job 40:25; Is. 19:8; Ez. 32: Hab. 1:15. 33. ἆρον (‘li up, take up, pick up, take away, carry away’) could possibly be applied to retaining the sh caught. is sense would imply a practice of returning some caught sh to the sea (presumably smaller sh), probably with an interest in stock conservation. 34. See particularly Bauckham, ‘Coin’, 224-25, 233, 237, 243. As Bauckham points out, the folklore interest in nding valuable items in sh is based on the fact that (just as in the discovery of buried treasure), such events genuinely do happen, even if rarely. 35. e re exive use of σοῦ in ἀντὶ … σοῦ (‘for … yourself ’) is sometimes taken as a Semitism, but, as with modern English, Hellenistic Greek was becoming less careful about the distinction (cf. already for the third person plural in Mt. 17:25). 36. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:517-18. 37. See Mt. 11:25; 12:1; 14:1. Matthew will also use ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ in 8:13 (different word order); 10:19; 26:55. While the rst two of these have an internal role, 26:55 also marks thematic continuity. 38. Perceptions of the nature of the continuity depend on one’s understanding of Mt. 17:24-28 and on whether one takes the disciples’ question as a response to 17:24-28 (see below). 39. Mt. 5:1; 13:10, 36; 17:19; 18:21; 24:3; cf. 8:25; 9:14; 26:17.

40. It is therefore not represented in the translation above. See BDF §440:2. Colloquial English uses ‘so’ and ‘then’ similarly in questions. 41. It is not clear whether the child belongs to the household of the house where Jesus is staying or whether the background is the typically lessthan-private arrangements of life in a house in Palestine in this period. 42. Only in Jn. 12:40 does the verb express repentance. 43. e kingdom is associated with a future verb here in Mt. 18:3 and a present verb in v. 4. e kingdom is being thought of as primarily future, but not without in uence from the conviction identi ed at 11:11 that ‘in the presence of Jesus it is now possible to be in the sphere of the presence and working of the kingdom of heaven’. Cf. Schnackenburg, ‘Grosssein’, 275-77. 44. For materials on the humble status generally accorded to children in the ancient world see A. Oepke, TDNT 5:639-52. e statements implying low status should not be taken to mean that children were not related to affectionately or valued (especially in what they represented for the future). ere is, nonetheless, a striking difference from modern Western sentiments. A useful overview of ancient views on children is provided by Carter, Households, 95-113. 45. e nal clause repeats all the words of the question in Mt. 18:1 apart from the opening τίς ἄρα (‘Who [with ἄρα for emphasis]?’). 46. Par. Lk. 18:14; cf. 14:11. 47. While not to be excluded, humbling oneself before God is not what is primarily in view (contra Schnackenburg, ‘Grosssein’, 279); attitude and behaviour on the human plain are what is in focus. 48. e high status of those in the kingdom was also the thrust of Mt. 11:11. 49. e verb δέξηται (‘receives’) is brought forward to a more emphatic position and ἄν becomes ἐάν, without a change of meaning. 50. Frankemölle, Jahwebund, 28. ‘One’ is found in Mt. 18:5, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16; ‘two’ in vv. 8, 16, 19, 20; ‘three’ in vv. 16, 20. 51. See Nolland, Luke, 2:519-20; ‘Luke’s Readers’, 315-21. 52. ‘One such child’ is a child like the child of Mt. 18:2; only by (valid) extension can the text be related to one who has ‘become like children’.

53. e change is from καλόν ἐστιν … ἤ (lit. ‘it is good… that’) to συμϕερει (‘it would be better’). e Markan idiom is retained in Mt. 18:8, 9. 54. Only here and in the Markan parallel (but note the textual uncertainty in Mk. 9:42) is belief in Jesus directly spoken about. ough belief is connected with Jesus elsewhere, what is expressed is belief that rather than belief in. 55. See Nolland, Luke, 2:835. 56. Mt. 16:21; 17:10; 24:6; 26:54. 57. Matthew uses the masculine form αὐτόν (matched in v. 9) to refer to the hand or foot. In Greek ‘foot’ is masculine, and masculine forms take precedence (curiously the MSS U etc. aur have the feminine αὐτήν, perhaps in uenced by rst position of ‘hand’, which is feminine in Greek). 58. Matthew has to choose between keeping ‘Gehenna’ for the sake of its occurrence in 18:9 or keeping ‘ re’, which he will also use there. 59. Less signi cant changes are the use of εῖ + indicative rather than ἐάν + subj. for the ‘if ’ clause; a preference for the dat. σοι rather than Mark’s σε in the καλόν ἐστιν (lit. ‘it is good’) + in nitive construction; and word order changes. e differences from Mt. 5:30 result from a separate editing in a different context and will not be rehearsed here (nor will the differences of 18:9 from 5:31). 60. Other minor changes parallel those for Mt. 18:8, but there is less change of word order in this case. 61. So Via, ‘Church’, 271-86; Pesch, Seelsorger, 25-28; Kretzer, Herrscha, 250-53; Kupp, Matthew’s Emmanuel, 179. 62. Favoured by ompson, Advice, 111-17, following Dupont, Mariage, 214. 63. e parable material of Mt. 18:12-14 (and the parable-like material of 17:25-26) and/or the references to the kingdom of heaven in 18:1, 3, 4 may count as further links with chap. 13, but this is less certain. 64. is is developed from the chiastic pattern suggested by Gaechter, Kunst, 50-51. 65. See Nolland, Luke, 2:769. 66. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:769, 771-72.

67. See Mt. 3:9; 5:20; 23:39. 68. Gn. 48:16; Pss. 34:7; 91:11; cf. the role of the angel Raphael revealed in Tob. 12:12-15 (echoed in Test. Jacob 2:5). e idea is also expressed in Philo, Gig. 12. 69. 1 Enoch 100:5; Ps.-Philo 59:3; cf. Test. Job 44:10. 70. Jub. 35:17. 71. In b. Taʿan. 11a each person has two ministering angels. e late and Christian in uenced Test. Adam maintains in 4:1 that ‘One angel from [the] lowest order accompanies every single human being in the world for his or her protection’. 72. See Tob. 12:15; Lk. 1:19; Rev. 8:2. ere would then be a contrast with the situation envisaged in Test. Adam 4:1 (cited in the previous note). 73. Some commentators have identi ed ‘their angels’ as the spirits of the little ones aer death. is is less likely: it requires an unusual use of ‘angel’ (inspired by a particular understanding of Acts 12:15) and a futuristic sense for ‘they see’. 74. Mt. 7:21; 10:32, 33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:19. 75. Luke’s version gives a questioning form to the parable by beginning, ‘Which man of you?’ (Lk. 15:4). 76. In Lk. 15:4 the owner loses the sheep. 77. Nolland, Luke, 2:771. 78. Ez. 34:10-11, 13, 16 has sheep on the mountains (ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη, as in Mt. 18:12), seeking (mostly ἐκζητεῖν but once ζητεῖν, as in Mt. 18:12) the sheep, and sheep as lost/perishing (ἀπολλύναι, as in Mt. 18:14) or wandering/led astray (πλανᾶσθαι, as in Mt. 18:12-13). Cf. also Pss. 23; 119:176. 79. It is probably only fortuitous that in both cases there is a preceding οὕτως (lit. ‘thus’). 80. Jeremias, Parables, 39, points to the common targumic idiom, rʿwʾ (mn) qdm (lit. ‘will/pleasure [from] before’). See, e.g., Tg. Onq. Nu. 23:27; Tg. Is. 53:6, 10. 81. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:385-86.

82. is is not likely to be the product of scribal improvement since the level of attention to thought development required to discern this is not likely in scribal copying. 83. us far in Mt. 1:21; 3:6; 9:2, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13; 11:19; 12:31. 84. Lv. 19:17 also has ‘your brother or sister’. In uence from Lv. 19:17 is strongly evident in Test. Gad 6:3, which has much the same tone as Mt. 18:15-17 but without any sequence of increasing levels of publicity: ‘Love one another from the heart, therefore, and if anyone sins against you, speak to him in peace. Expel the venom of hatred, and do not harbour deceit in your heart. If anyone confesses and repents, forgive him. If anyone denies his guilt, do not be contentious with him …’. 85. See Gal. 6:1; 1 Tim. 5:20; 2 Tim. 4:2; Tit. 2:15; 3:10. Rabbinic sources appeal to Lv. 19:17; Pr. 24:25; 28:23. See, e.g., Sipra Lv. 19:17; y. Tam. 62a. 86. e same concern may be evident in 1QS 5:25–6:1, but since this feature does not seem to be matched in the somewhat parallel CD 9:2-8, the concern of 1QS 6:1 may be only unsupported public defamation. CD 9:1622 deals with the need in ‘a capital matter’ to denounce the person in his presence ‘to the Inspector’. Perhaps a distinction between less important and ‘capital matters’ is also involved in 1QS 5:25–6:1, where 1QS 5:25-26 seem to contemplate private reproach, while 1QS 6:1 allows for public denunciation with witnesses. In both 1QS 5:25–6:1 and CD 9:2-8 concern for restoration and not revenge is evident. See esp. 1QS 5:25: ‘Each should reproach his fellow in truth, in meekness, and in a compassionate love for the man’. e in uence of Lv. 19:17 is evident. Test. Gad 4:3 condemns spreading abroad the fact that a brother has made a false step. 87. In Matthew ἀκούειν includes an element of appropriate response in 10:14; 11:15; 13:9, 43; 17:5. Lk. 17:3 has μετανοήσῃ (‘repent’). 88. It is not necessarily Matthean, however, since the rest of the (preMatthean) development in 18:16-17 also has a community orientation. By contrast, the corresponding element in Lk. 17:3 is ‘forgive him or her’. 89. Lk. 17:3 has ‘forgive him’ or her, but Matthew is developing the theme of restoration here. He will allow the language of forgiveness a dominant place in the next unit at the beginning of which he will take up

material parallel to Lk. 17:4 (again there speci c mention of repentance will disappear). 90. ere is a certain formal similarity with a tradition recorded in y. Yoma 45c where a person seeking forgiveness from the one offended against is to bring others into the picture if their own private attempts at appeasement are unsuccessful. 91. Note the similar appeal to Dt. 17:6 in Jn. 8:17; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19. e Matthean language is very close to the LXX of Dt. 17:6 (slight abbreviation and change of verb form to t the ἵνα construction). 92. Tilborg, Jewish Leaders, 60. 93. As does the related τὰ ἔθνη (‘the Gentiles’) in Mt. 4:15; 6:32; 10:5; 20:19, 25. e de nite article with ἐθνικός in 18:17 is generic (thus: ‘a Gentile’). 94. See Mt. 10:18; 12:18, 21; 24:14; 28:19. 95. Most recently at Mt. 18:13. 96. For the opening ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν (‘amen, I say to you’) we must reach back to Mt. 16:18, where, however, there is κἀγὼ δέ for emphasis (with the expressed pronominal subject and the use of καί — here, ‘as well’) rather than ἀμήν (‘amen’). ὅσα ἐάν (lit. ‘as many things as’) takes the place of ὃ ἐάν (‘whatever’). ἐν οὐρανῷ takes the place of ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς for ‘in heaven’ (but ‫ א‬L 0281 33 etc. c f vgmss co have ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, while D2 has it the rst time but not the second and D has the converse). Otherwise there is only the change to plural verbs. Nothing about the language makes clear whether Matthew has adapted 16:19 for the present context or drawn on another form of the tradition. Perhaps the latter. 97. οὗ (translated with ἐάν as ‘whatever’) is attracted to the case of πράγματος (‘thing/matter’), despite this being its antecedent only in the most general of senses. e alternative is to treat ἐάν as marking the same inde niteness as that already marked by παντός (‘any’), and to translate ‘anything which you [would like to] request [from God]’. 98. ere is also a repetition of the pattern ἐάν + subj. clause followed by a clause in the future. 99. And cf. Mt. 7:11 and 21:22, yet to come. Jn. 15:7; 1 Jn. 3:22; 5:15 are also related.

100. e numerical agreement with the uses of ‘two’ in Mt. 18:16 is fortuitous. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:788, speculate about a possible original link between the ‘two’ in v. 19 and the ‘two by two’ for the sending out of missionaries in Mk. 6:7. 101. ough this time the plural is used for ‘heaven’ (οὐρανοῖς) where Mt. 18:18 had the singular. But see n. 96. 102. And even less likely that the imagery is that of a Jewish court of three members returning a majority verdict of two to one. For a Jewish court of three members see, e.g., m. Sanh. 1:1. 103. See Mt. 1:23-24 and then the various references that use ‘my name’: 10:22; 18:5; 19:29; 24:5, 9. 7:22 uses ‘your name’ in a related way; 28:19 has ‘the name of…the Son…’. e εἰς (lit. ‘into’) of Mt. 18:20 is matched only in 28:19; otherwise there are διά (‘because of ’), ἐπί (‘in’), and ἕνεκεν (‘for the sake of ’). 104. e οὗ … ἐκεῖ (‘where … there’) pattern is also not matched elsewhere in Matthew, but he does have ὅπου … ἐκεῖ (6:21; 24:28), which is fairly similar (but both come from sources). ὅπου is found in 18:20 in ‫ א‬Θ f1 1424 etc. 105. Noted by Kupp, Matthew’s Emmanuel, 180. 106. Compare the reference in b. ʾAb. 4:11 to ‘assembling together … for the sake of heaven’. 107. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:789. 108. Nu. 35:34: ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι κύριος κατασκηνῶν ἐν μέσῳ τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ (‘For I am [the] Lord, who dwells in the midst of the sons of Israel’); Joel 2:27: ἐπιγνώσεσθε ὅτι ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ Ισραηλ ἐγώ εἰμι (‘You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel’). Zc. 2:10-11 has a similar thought, but without the use of εἰμι (‘I am’) and expressed in terms of the future. Cf. also 11QTemple 46:12: ‘I dwell among them’. 109. Broer, ‘Verzicht’, 152-55. 110. See Broer, ‘Verzicht’, 156-57; Harnisch, Gleichniserzählungen, 25962 — Harnisch overstates the difficulties. 111. e need to come seems a little arti cial aer Mt. 18:1, with Jesus speaking without interruption through the intervening verses.

112. ere is a partially similar relationship between a coming of the disciples and an intervention of Peter in Mt. 15:12, 15 (see there); cf. 14:22, 28. 113. Also Mt. 16:22; 17:4. 114. Matthew has no equivalent to ‘if he turns and says to you, I repent’ in Lk. 17:4. 115. But Matthew is content with αὐτῷ (‘to him’) in Mt. 18:21. 116. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:793, citing Manson, Sayings, 212. 117. Matthew uses διὰ τοῦτο (‘therefore/because of this’ — translated above as ‘in this connection’) eight other times, of which at least six are redactional. He links the ὁμοι- (‘[be] like’) root with ‘the kingdom of heaven’ ten other times, three of which use the verb ὁμοιοῦν as found in Mt. 18:23 (two with precisely the same form). It is uncertain whether βασιλεῖ (‘a king’) is an original feature of the account. It may be one of a number of heightenings that Matthew has introduced into the parable; its presence certainly strengthens the tie with 22:2 noted below. Matthew has kings in parables also in 17:25; 25:34, 40. 118. e rst in Mt. 13:24 has in common with Mt. 18:23 ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ (‘the kingdom of heaven is like [the/a situation of/in which] a person’). 119. Mt. 22:2 has in common with Mt. 18:23 ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ βασιλεῖ ὅς] (‘the kingdom of heaven is like [the situation of] a person, a king, who’). 120. See 1 Kgdms. 29:3; 4 Kgdms. 5:6. It is uncertain whether this amounts to a usage or is simply a literal translation of the Hebrew ʿbd, which is generally rendered δούλος (‘slave’). Jos., Ant. 2:70, may have an instance of such a usage. e situation is confused by cases in which those who were in fact slaves held positions of major responsibility. 121. e beginning is spoken of in a genitive absolute construction, and the action is carried forward with an aorist indicative. e use of introductory participles is a dominant feature of sentences in the parable, missing only from the introduction in Mt. 18:23 and from v. 30, which marks the key turning point in the action of the parable.

122. e debtor is introduced as εἱς ὀφειλέτης (lit. ‘one debtor’), but aer the reference to making a beginning the meaning must be ‘a certain debtor’. is is probably a Semitism. 123. See Jos., Ant. 17.318-20. Admittedly Ant. 12.175-77 gives a picture of potentially larger tax revenues for about two centuries earlier. It asserts that the winning bid for the tax-farming rights for Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, and Samaria was 16,000 talents (twice the alternative bid). But this is an aberrant gure in relation to other ancient revenue gures (see R. Marcus, ed., Josephus, Vol. 7: Jewish Antiquities: Books XII-X1V (LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942), 92 n. c) and comes in a part of Josephus’s writing which has the marks of popular legend about it. 124. Since Lk. 19:13 has ‘mnas’ and the related Mt. 25:15 has ‘talents’, a similar change is possible here: a talent was sixty mnas. e amount would still be huge, but not so much in the realm of the fabulous. More realistic levels again would be achieved by substituting denarii for talents. is would give a debt level in which the sale of the man’s goods and of him and his family into slavery could possibly match the debt. e claim is sometimes made that since tax farmers at times handled huge amounts of money, we are dealing with a tax farmer here. But nothing else in the story takes us in this direction. 125. e more common word for ‘sell’ is πωλεῖν. 126. e related Mt. 13:46 has the exact phrase used in 18:25. 127. Biblical precedents for people being sold into slavery to meet nancial obligations include Ex. 22:2 (MT 21:37); 2 Ki. 4:1; Ne. 5:5; Is. 50:1. Cf. Jos., Ant. 16.3; m. Soṭa 3:8 (here women are exempt from being sold). e practice was prevalent in the wider Greco-Roman world. See, e.g., Diog. Laert. 4.46-58. 128. Jeremias, Parables, 211. 129. Just possibly the use of μακροθυμεῖν (‘be patient/longsuffering’) here is intended as an echo of the biblical use of the μακροθυμ- root for God. See Ex. 34:6; Nu. 14:18; Ne. 9:17; Pss. 7:12; 86:15; 102:8; 144:8; Joel 2:13; Jon. 4:2; Nah. 1:3; Rom. 2:4; 9:22; 1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 3:9, 15; cf. 1 Tim. 1:16.

130. Compare the difference between what the prodigal went to seek in Lk. 15:18-19 and what he received in vv. 20-24, 32. 131. e status difference means that the master has people brought to him, but the slave must himself seek them out. 132. See BDF §376. 133. λυπεῖν (‘grieve/be distressed’) and σϕόδρα (‘exceedingly’) are also combined in Mt. 17:23; 26:22 (both redactional). Other language here could also be Matthean: διασαϕεῖν (‘explain’) is found in the NT only here and in Mt. 13:36; (πάντα) τὰ γενόμενα (‘everything that [had] happened’) is also found in 27:54; 28:11, and elsewhere in the NT only in Lk. 23:48; 24:18. 134. προσκαλεσάμενος is causative here: the master does not personally go to issue the summons. 135. e others are ὀϕειλέτης (‘debtor’) in Mt. 18:23 and ὤϕειλεν (‘owed’) in v. 28. e debt itself was called τὸ δάνειον (‘the loan’) in v. 27. 136. us far: Mt. 9:27; 15:22; 17:15; to come: 20:30, 31. 137. ere is an evident parallelism between the descriptions in Mt. 18:30 and 34: ‘handed over to the torturers’ takes the place of ‘cast into prison’ and the ‘all’ that has earlier been linked to the rst slave’s debt is repeated, but in each case it is ‘until he should pay what was owed’. 138. ough Jewish justice involved corporal punishment, it did not use torture. But in wider circles torture was frequently in use in Jesus’ day and has a long history. For Herod the Great’s use of torture see Jos., War 1.548. Glancy, ‘Slaves’, 81, cites Erich Segal’s summary (Roman Laughter: e Comedy of Plautus [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968], 138) of the range of instruments of torture mentioned in the comedies of Plautus: Besides the countless references to the standard whipping instruments like virgae (rods) and stimuli (goads), Plautus mentions … iron chains, hot tar, burning clothes, restraining collars, the rack, the pillory, and the mill. To these we can add from T. P. Wiseman (Catullus and His World: A Reappraisal [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985], 5-6) and R. P. Saller (‘Corporal Punishment, Authority and Obedience in the Roman

Household’, in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome [ed. B. Rawson; Oxford: Clarendon, 1991], 144-65) ‘spiked whips, hot irons, torture and various means of execution’. 139. Via, ‘Hypocrisy’, 515-16. 140. Broer, ‘Parabel’, 159 (translation mine). 141. Harnisch, Gleichniserzählungen, 270. 142. De Boer, ‘Ten ousand’, 231, speaks of ‘a new world’ and suggests that ‘the parable makes this new world plausible, understandable, acceptable, and real’. 143. e NRSV unhelpfully varies the translation ὁ ἀδελϕός from ‘church member’ in Mt. 18:21 to ‘brother or sister’ in v. 35. 144. Since ἕκαστος is introduced into the ‘if ’ clause and not the ‘then’ clause, the words could be read as implying corporate answerability for the readiness to forgive of each individual. But this is not likely to be what Matthew intends. Note the individual outcomes in Mt. 16:27 (also using ἕκαστος).

XV. FAMILY AND POSSESSIONS IN VIEW OF THE KINGDOM (19:1–20:16) A. From Galilee to Judea (19:1-2) so happened that when Jesus had afinished these words, he le Galilee and came across the Jordan into the regions of Judea. 2And great crowds followed him, and he healed them bthere. 1It

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ελαλησεν (‘spoken’) in D it bomss b. Missing from

25

etc. h sys.

Bibliography Branden, A. van den, ‘Mt. 19,1-12 dans une perspective historique’, BeO 34 (1992), 65-82. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 19’, SémiotBib 83 (1996), 3-15. See also at 19:3-12.

e new section, as have the previous two (from 16:21; 17:22) and as will the next one (from 20:17), begins with a statement that reminds the reader of Jesus’ goal in Jerusalem. As with the previous pieces at the end of the major discourses, this is a transition piece joined both to the preceding and the following sections.1 Jesus now moves from Galilee to Judea. For the latter part of Mt. 19:1 Matthew draws on Mk. 10:1, substantially repeating the relevant part of its language. At this point he rejoins the

Markan sequence which he temporarily le aer Mt. 18:6-7. For 19:2 Matthew is inspired by the continuing words of Mk. 10:1, but he uses his own language and replaces a teaching role with a healing one.

19:1 Here, as in all ve of the major discourses of Jesus, the end is marked with the words καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘it so happened that when Jesus had nished’).2 For the departure statement Matthew reuses μετῆρεν, which he introduced in the transition piece at the end of the previous discourse (13:53). e reader knows from 16:21; 17:22 that Jesus is poised to head for Jerusalem and suffering. is leaving of Galilee is therefore freighted with additional signi cance. Where does Matthew imagine Jesus to have gone? Where Mark has εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου (‘into the regions of Judea and across the Jordan’),3 Matthew drops the linking καί (‘and’). Matthew always uses ὅριον (‘territory/region/environ/neighbourhood/vicinity’) in the plural, and it is not always clear what force to give to the choice of the plural. Here it probably suggests that Jesus moved from place to place, exercising his itinerant ministry in various places. Matthew is normally thought to have in mind areas in Perea on the east of the Jordan. at is, he is taken to refer to areas of Judea which are east of the Jordan. But while Luke can, in a Hellenistic manner, use ‘Judea’ to mean the whole of Jewish Palestine,4 Matthew does not otherwise re ect such a usage. It seemed likely at 4:15 that πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου (‘across the Jordan’) referred to land west rather than east of the Jordan. If we allow that to guide us here, then what we are to envisage is that Jesus has travelled south by way of Perea, comes across the Jordan into Judea, and moves around within Judea, or, perhaps more restrictedly, he crosses the Jordan and moves around in regions which are proximate to the Jordan.

19:2 ‘Great crowds followed him’ echoes the language of 4:25; 8:1 (already echoed in 12:15) to suggest that Jesus will be involved now in a pattern of popular ministry similar to that which characterised his time in the north. In fact, the following words, ‘and he healed them there’, make the verse virtually identical to part of Mt. 12:15 (the only difference is that ‘there’ replaces ‘all’). e focus on healing rather than on teaching identi es these crowds as freshly gathered Judean crowds rather than as made up of the group accompanying Jesus from Galilee (see at 17:22). ough the crowds do not become visible in the remaining episodes in this section since they are neither dismissed or moved away from, we are probably to understand their continuing presence as a backdrop to what is to happen in this section. B. Marriages and States of Celibacy Fit for the Kingdom (19:3-12) 3en aPharisees came to him, [and] to test him they said, ‘Is it permitted a bman to divorce his wife for any and every cause?’ 4He responded, ‘Have

for you not read that the cCreator, from the beginning, “made them male and female” 5and said, “For this reason a man leaves father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh”? 6So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. What then God has yoked togetherd a man should not separate.’ 7ey say to him, ‘Why [is it] then [that] Moses commanded [us] to give her a document of release and to divorce eher?’ 8fHe says to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but it has not been so from the beginning. 9And I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, gexcept for sexual impurity, and marries anotherg commits adultery.’h 10iHis disciples say jto him,j ‘If the situation of the man with the woman is like this, it is better not to marry’. 11He said to them, ‘Not all grasp kthis word — only those to whom it has been given [to understand]. 12lFor there are eunuchs who

were born from their mother’s womb like this; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by people; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to grasp [this] grasp [it]!’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. οι (‘the’) is added in ‫ א‬D etc. samss. Matthew does at times treat the Pharisees as if they were interacting with Jesus as a xed group, but a scribal move in this direction is more likely than in the opposite direction. b. ανθρωπω (‘person, man’) is replaced by ανδρι (‘man, husband’) in 1424c etc. (cf. Mk. 12:2) and omitted by ‫ *א‬B L G 579 (700) 1424* etc. It may represent a scribal improvement, but the syntax is difficult without it. c. Lit. ‘the one having created’. ποιησας (‘the one having made’) is found in ‫ א‬C D (L) W Z f13 etc. lat sy, anticipating the following verb. d. εις εν (‘into one’) is added in D it. e. Not found in ‫ א‬D L Z Θ f1 579 700 etc. lat. It may not be original. f. ο Ιησους (‘Jesus’) is added by ‫ א‬Φ etc. a b c mae, focussing attention on Jesus’ words in vv. 8-9. g-g. C* (N) etc. read ποιει αυτην μοιχευθηναι (‘causes her to have adultery committed against her’), repeating words from 5:32. B f1 ff1 bo agree, but precede this with the Mt. 5:32 form of the exception clause, παρεκτος λογου πορνειας (‘except [in relation to] a matter of sexual impurity’). D f13 33 etc. it (syc) sa mae use the Mt. 5:32 form of the exception clause but without the other change. h. In uence from Mt. 5:32 continues with και ο απολελυμενην γαμων (γαμησας B Z etc.) μοιχαται (‘and the one marrying a woman who has gained a divorce [for herself] commits adultery’) being added by B C* W Z Θ 078 f1, 13 33 etc. lat syp, h bo and much the same, but with a linking ωσαυτως (giving: ‘in the same way also’) and with γαμων brought earlier, by 25 mae. e longer reading here has had considerable support, but in uence from Mt. 5:32 remains more likely.

i. Missing from original. j-j. Missing from

71 vid 25

‫ א‬B Θ e ff1 g1 sams mae, this may well not be

‫*א‬.

k. Missing from B f1 892 etc. e boms, probably conforming to the absolute use of ‘the word’ for the gospel message (cf. 13:21). l. e linking γαρ (‘for’) is missing from ‫ *א‬1506 vgmss sams bomss, probably because its thrust had become opaque. Bibliography Allison, D. C., ‘Eunuchs Because of the Kingdom of Heaven’, TSFB 8/2 (1984), 2-5. • Allison, D. C., ‘Divorce, Celibacy and Joseph (Matthew 1.18-25 and 19.1-12)’, JSNT 49 (1993), 3-10. • Barni, L., ‘Il recente dibattito sul “logion” degli eunuchi (Mt 19,10-12)’, StudPat 34 (1987), 129-51. • Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 191-204. • Blomberg, C. L., ‘Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage and Celibacy: An Exegesis of Matthew 19:3-12’, TJ 11 (1990), 161-96. • Brown, P., e Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). • Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 102-18. • Carter, W., Households, 56-89. • Collier, G. D., ‘Rethinking Jesus on Divorce’, RestQ 37 (1995), 80-96. • Collins, R. F., Divorce in the New Testament (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1992). • Cornes, A., Divorce and Remarriage: Biblical Principles and Pastoral Practice (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), 209-23. • Côté, P.-R., ‘Les eunuques pour le royaume (Mt 19,12)’, ÉglT 17 (1986), 321-34. • Crouzel, H., ‘Quelques remarques concernant le texte patristique de Mt 19.9’, BLE 82 (1981), 83-92. • Deming, W., ‘Mark 9.42–10.12, Matthew 5:27-32, and B. Nid. 13b: A First-Century Discussion of Male Sexuality’, NTS 36 (1990), 130-41. • Dewey, A. J., ‘e Unkindest Cut of All?’ Forum 8.1-2 (1992), 11322. • Dinter, P. E., ‘Disabled for the Kingdom: Celibacy, Scripture and Tradition’, Commonweal 117 (1990), 571-77. • Duplacy, J., ‘Note sur les variantes et le texte original de Matthieu 19,9’, in Études de critique textuelle du Nouveau Testament, ed. J. Delobel (BETL 78. Leuven: Peeters/University Press, 1987), 387-412. • Farla, P., ‘e Two Shall Become One Flesh — Gen

1.27 and 2.24 in the New Testament Marriage Texts’, in Intertextuality, ed. S. Draisma, 67-82. • Feuillet, A., ‘L’indissolubilité du marriage et le monde féminin d’après la doctrine évangélique et quelques autres données bibliques parallèles’, ScrT 17 (1985), 415-61. • Gamba, G. G., ‘La “eunuchia” per il Regno dei Cieli: Annotazioni in margine a Matteo 19,10-12’, Salesianum 42 (1980), 243-87. • Gibson, J. B., Temptations, 256-87. • Guillemette, N., ‘Is Celibacy Better?’ Landas 10 (1996), 3-38. • Harvey, A. E., ‘Genesis versus Deuteronomy? Jesus on Marriage and Divorce’, in Gospels, ed. C. A. Evans and W. R. Stegner, 55-65. • Harvey, A. E., ‘Marriage, Sex and the Bible (I)’,  96 (1993), 364-72. • Herron, R. W., Jr., ‘Mark’s Jesus on Divorce: Mark 10:112 Reconsidered’, JETS 25 (1982), 273-81. • Heth, W. A., ‘A Critique of the Evangelical Protestant View of Divorce and Remarriage’, STAp 1.1 (1981), 23-31. • Heth, W. A., ‘Another Look at the Erasmian View of Divorce and Remarriage’, JETS 25 (1982), 263-72. • Heth, W. A., ‘e Meaning of Divorce in Matthew 19:3-9’, Churchman 98 (1984), 136-52. • Heth, W. A., ‘Unmarried “for the Sake of the Kingdom” (Matthew 19:12) in the Early Church’, GTJ 8 (1987), 55-88. • Horst, P. W. van der, ‘Celibacy in Early Judaism’, RB 109 (2002), 390-402. • Instone-Brewer, D., Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: e Social and Literary Context (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 133-88. • Instone-Brewer, D., ‘Jesus’ Old Testament Basis for Monogamy’, in Old Testament, ed. S. Moyise, 75-105. • Kaye, B., ‘“One Flesh” and Marriage’, Colloquium 22 (1990), 46-57. • Laney, J. C., ‘Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and the Issue of Divorce’, BSac 149 (1992), 3-15. • Lawton, R. B., ‘Genesis 2:24: Trite or Tragic’, JBL 105 (1986), 97-98. • Lipiński, E., ‘e Wife’s Right to Divorce in the Light of an Ancient NearEastern Tradition’, e Jewish Law Annual 4 (1981), 9-27. • Marucci, C., Clausole Matteane e critica testuale: In merito alla teori di H. Crouzel sul testo originale di Mt 19,9’, RivB 38 (1990), 301-25. • McArthur, H., ‘Celibacy in Judaism at the Time of Christian Beginnings’, AUSS 25 (1987), 163-81. • McKenzie, J. L., ‘Looking at What Jesus Said: A Bill of Divorce’, Commonweal (May 23, 1980), 301-5. • Osburn, C. D., ‘e Present Indicative of Matthew 19:9’, RestQ 24 (1981), 193-203. • Parker, D., ‘e Early Traditions of Jesus’ Sayings on Divorce’,  96 (1993), 372-83. • Piatelli, D., ‘e Marriage Contract and Bill of Divorce in Ancient Hebrew Law’, e Jewish Law

Annual 4 (1981), 66-78. • Porter, S. E. and Buchanan, P., ‘On the Logical Structure of Matt 19:9’, JETS 34 (1991), 335-39. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 180-82. • Sand, A., Reich Gottes und Eheverzicht im Evangelium nach Matthäus (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983). • Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism, 256-60. • omas, J., ‘Tout est grâce: Lecture de Matthieu 19,1-12’, Christus 29 (1982), 338-44. • Tosato, A., ‘On Genesis 2:24’, CBQ 52 (1990), 389-409. • Trainor, M., ‘Care for the Divorced and Remarried in the Light of Mark’s Divorce Text (Mk 10:1-12)’, AusCathRec 72 (1995), 211-24. • Via, D., e Ethics of Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 101-27. • Vouga, F., Jésus, 89-106. • Weiss, W., Vollmacht, 177-202. • Wenham, G. J., ‘e Syntax of Matthew 19.9’, JSNT 28 (1986), 17-23. See further at 19:1-2; 5:31-32.

Whereas the section 17:22–18:35 dealt with status and behaviour within the life of the church as the ‘royal’ family, 19:1–20:16 now deals with issues of family and possessions. Matthew explores the profound nature of the marriage bond in relation to the situation of easy divorce of Jesus’ day, but also raises the possibility that, for some, the yet higher commitment of the kingdom of heaven will demand that they forego the natural pleasures and responsibilities of marriage in favour of the unnaturalness of a eunuch-like existence. Matthew continues the Markan sequence, parallelling Mk. 10:2-12 in 19:3-9. e wording of v. 9 is also partly in uenced by the material in Mt. 5:32. For 19:10-12 Matthew draws on a separate tradition. e original unity of Mk. 10:2-9 has sometimes been questioned, but it has good coherence and a strong overall logical shape. All the parts make better sense in their present context than isolated from it. More difficult is the question of the attribution of this section to the historical Jesus. Dismissal of this possibility on the basis that Matthew depended on the LXX is specious (see below). But in the preserved materials Jesus does not oen engage in scriptural argumentation like this. is may, however, tell us more about the priorities of early church preservation than

about the procedures adopted by the historical Jesus. ere can be no doubt that he shared the orientation to Scripture of his context. An original unity of Mk. 10:5-9 with vv. 10-12 is more doubtful. e other preserved Gospel forms (see at Mt. 5:31-32), which have no parallel, suggest separate transmission. Nonetheless, Mk. 10:5-9 provide an effective window onto the kind of thinking that may have undergirded the judgments of vv. 11-12. So it is just possible that the separate transmission is itself secondary. e challenging perspective coheres well with other features of the ethical teaching of the historical Jesus. e core of Mt. 19:10-12 is v. 12, with vv. 10-11 likely to have been created to t v. 12 into the present context. Its wording is too enigmatic for it to be likely to be a church creation. Its harsh image matches other images with a shock value used by the historical Jesus. e nal clause of v. 12 may, however, be Matthean (see below). Abstracted from its present context, v. 12 could mean all sorts of things, but there is clearly an image of selfdeprivation for the sake of the kingdom of God.

19:3 e last time Pharisees were on stage in Matthew they also came to Jesus in order to test him (16:1; see discussion there).5 Again they hope to show Jesus up in some way, but again their purposes will be frustrated. Matthew has introduced a previous question by some Pharisees (12:10) with λέγοντες εἰ ἔξεστιν (‘saying, “Is it permitted?”’) and takes the opportunity to provide an echo here.6 Divorce may be the area chosen for discussion simply because it is an area that touches people’s lives deeply. e outcome for John the Baptist of speaking publicly about issues of marriage and divorce with reference to Herod Antipas had been disastrous (see at 14:3-12). Matthew’s most signi cant change from Mk. 10:2 is the addition of κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν (lit. ‘according to every cause’ — translated above ‘for any and every cause’7).8 is moves the starting focus from Mark’s ‘Is divorce lawful at all?’ to ‘Is divorce lawful on any and every ground the husband might see t to put forward?’

Given the exception clause to come in Mt. 19:9, it is the refocused question that the Matthean account nally addresses. ere were deeply entrenched differences of opinion on what constituted adequate grounds for divorce. ough the OT ideal was clearly enduring faithfulness to a marriage (Mal. 2:15-16; see below on the textual and interpretive difficulties of Mal. 2), in the OT divorce was clearly an accepted reality.9 ere are, however, very few texts having any bearing on the question of grounds for divorce. In the imagery of Je. 3:8 God has divorced Israel for repeated adultery. Dt. 21:10-14 deals with marrying an enslaved captive and then nding her unsatisfactory: the marriage may be broken up, but the woman must be released as a free woman in recognition of the dishonour done to her.10 In the context of Ezra’s work to restore Jewish faith and identity (Ezra 10:3) foreign wives are to be divorced (cf. Ne. 13:23-27). Otherwise there is only Dt. 24:1-4, to which Mt. 19:7 will refer and which is the main text for the expression of difference among rabbis about the proper grounds for divorce. e basis of divorce in Dt. 24:1 is ʿrwt dbr (lit. ‘nakedness of a matter’). But this could be understood quite restrictively by emphasising the rst term and relating ‘nakedness’ to sexual immorality, or it could be understood quite expansively by emphasising the second term, taking ‘matter’ to mean ‘any matter’ and ‘nakedness’ as metaphorical of anything shameful.11 In the time of Jesus there was in practice no legal protection of women from arbitrary divorce, though nancial consequences (primarily the release to the woman of the monies involved in the marriage settlement), social pressure, and sometimes moral scruple provided some constraint.12 Excursus: e Textual and Interpretive Difficulties in Mal. 2

ere are textual and interpretive difficulties in Mal. 2. e MT of Mal. 2:16 has śānēʾ (‘he hates’), which does not work syntactically or make good sense and has led to the suggestions that either the reading should be śānēʾtî (‘I hate’) or the following ʾāmar (‘says’) should be dropped, giving ‘He hates divorce, Yahweh the God of Israel’. Alternatively, without emendation of the consonantal text, sensible readings have been achieved by repointing śānēʾ as the participle śōnēʾ and the following šallaḥ as šallēaḥ or, better, as šillēaḥ (giving: ‘one who hates divorces’). e LXX use of the participle μισήσας (‘one who hates’) in the ‫ א‬B A Q texts offers support for the repointing proposal. A fragment of Malachi from Qumran (4Q12a 2:4) parallels the use of the conditional found in the LXX (‘if you [as] one who hates divorce…’) and the LXX use of the second person singular, but links this to ‘hate’, reading śnth (‘you [singular] hate’) rather than to ‘divorce’. Given the fragmentary nature of the Qumran text, it is hard to be sure how to construe the larger sense. Are we to take the immediately following šlḥ (as the MT) as ‘if you hate, divorce [as imperative]’ or ‘if you hate divorce [as noun equivalent]’? e signi cant change from the MT in the following words is yksw (lit. ‘they will cover’) rather than wksh (lit. ‘and it/he will cover’). But it remains unclear what is to be made of this. At the point where the MT has lbwšw (‘his clothing’) only the nal two letters remain, and they are indistinct. A conjectural construal of the Qumran text can be represented as follows: ‘If you hate divorce … they [i.e., wives — the masculine imperfect form serving for the feminine, as oen at Qumran] will cover your [reading nal k for the reported y] garment with violence’. e point would be that divorce must be retained as the ultimate sanction for the behaviour of wives. For the thought cf. Sir. 25:13-26. With the imperative the point could be much the same, but to complete the sense an ‘otherwise’ would need to be intruded between the two clauses. e Targum, the Vulgate, and the Greek MSS W L have ‘divorce’ as an imperative; and the Targum connects this with ‘if you [singular] hate’, as in the Qumran text. But of these texts only the Targum offers a text that consistently allows space for divorce (second person forms are carried through the verse and a negative added at the beginning of the following

clause). e syntax of the text in W L is broken and no clear sense can be construed, while in the Vulgate the approval which might seem to have been suggested by the imperative would seem to be immediately withdrawn by the suggestion in the following clause that wrong will have been done thereby. It seems that all the texts, apart from the Targum and probably the Qumran fragment, though in different ways, contemplate divorce as taking place, but then go on to condemn it. It is ultimately the difficulties of the (unpointed) MT reading that best account for all the other readings. However that reading should be precisely construed, it stands opposed to divorce. Most likely a ‘correction’ in Hebrew to the second person in the rst clause — perhaps on the basis of the unintelligibility of the Hebrew as construed in the MT pointing — opened the way for the range of variants now represented, as well as for an understanding of the text as more hospitable to divorce.13 e question has, however, been raised of whether the passage is about divorce at all, or whether, rather, the divorce of the wife of one’s youth is an image for in delity to the covenant with Yahweh. is approach takes its point of departure from the language of Mal. 2:11: ‘Judah…has married the daughter of a foreign god’. A double response is in order. First, even if the text were to be about in delity to God involving the worship of other gods, the imagery will have been chosen precisely because appropriate judgments about literal divorce are being applied in a transferred sense to in delity to Yahweh. Second, certain features of the text make it likely that divorce and not in delity to Yahweh is being addressed: (1) the metaphorical sense requires the awkwardness of making God both witness and wife in Mal. 2:14; (2) although there is some textual corruption in v. 15, the imagery of ‘godly offspring’ there ts better with the reproductive role of an actual marriage than a metaphorically referred-to covenant with Yahweh; and (3) in metaphor it is much more likely that God would be given the male role and not the female (cf. Is. 62:4-5; Ez. 16; Hosea, passim; etc.). I conclude that Mal. 2:16 is to be read as profoundly hostile to divorce.

19:4 Mk. 10:3 has Jesus at this point ask a question that brings Dt. 24:1-4 into the discussion; Matthew prefers to go straight

to the Genesis materials that lie at the heart of Jesus’ perspective here (he will have the Pharisees introduce the Deuteronomy text a little later without any prompting by Jesus).14 Matthew’s use of the introductory οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε (‘have you not read’) is to echo the language of a previous dispute with the Pharisees (Mt. 12:3, 5; see at vv. 3-4).15 Matthew’s ὅτι ὁ κτίσας ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς (‘that the Creator [lit. the one who created], from the beginning’) is an improvement on Mark’s ἀπὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως (‘from [the] beginning of creation’), which leaves God to be introduced as an unde ned ‘he’.16 e fragment of Gn. 1:27 quoted, ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς (‘male and female he made them’) matches the language of the LXX. e LXX follows the MT closely, except for the use of neuter forms for ‘male’ and ‘female’, which are a mark of abstraction: ‘male and female substance [so to speak]’ rather than ‘males and females’. Linked with the fragment from Gn. 1:27, ἀπ᾿ αρχῆς (‘from [the] beginning’) is likely to be intended to echo the opening phrase of Gn. 1:1 and to anchor the quotation from Gn. 1:27 in the rst creation account of Gn. 1. Clearly an appeal is to be made to foundational norms and ideals, but, coming from a section about (among other things) being fruitful and multiplying, the clip from Gn. 1:27 may set up a foundation for marriage, but it has no immediate link with the question of divorce.17 e focus will now move to Gn. 2:24. 19:5 Sensitive to the move from Gn. 1:27 to 2:24, Matthew intrudes καὶ εἶπεν (‘and he said’) between the quotations. In the Genesis context 2:24 is an editorial comment. So, presumably it is ‘[God] who said’ because what Scripture says, God says. For the quotation Matthew probably retains the Markan wording, except for minor abbreviation.18 Apart from a preference for the form ἕνεκα to the LXX (and Markan) ἕνεκεν, a missing αὐτοῦ (‘his’) aer μητέρα (‘mother’), and Matthew’s abbreviations, the language is that

of the LXX. e LXX differs from the MT only in the introduction of οἱ δύο (‘the two’), which lacks an equivalent in the Hebrew (discussed below). Apart from Gn. 2:25, whose role is to prepare for the fall narrative in chap. 3, the quote represents the nal piece of the pre-Fall creation materials. e overall effect of the linked quotes and the allusion to Gn. 1:1 is, thus, to call to mind the sweep of materials from Gn. 1–2 which are relevant to marriage. e linking together of Gn. 1:27 and 2:24 causes ἕνεκα τούτου (‘for this reason’) to refer back now to the creation of humankind as male and female in 1:27 rather than to the account of the separate creation of woman (for man) in 2:18-23 to which it was originally linked — but this does not represent any signi cant change of meaning. In three ways Gn. 2:24 marks the profound signi cance of the union made by a man and woman in marriage.19 First, the man leaves his parents.20 In Israelite culture the married couple in fact normally lived in or near the home of the man’s parents, not the woman’s. So the leaving is not literal. It is perhaps all the more signi cant for not being so. Wenham suggests for the MT the translation ‘forsakes’ (the Hebrew verb is ʿzb) and makes the point that ‘in traditional societies like Israel where honoring parents is the highest human obligation next to honoring God, this remark about forsaking them is very striking’.21 Aer leaving comes cleaving to the wife. e image clearly involves the sexual, but set over against the leaving of parents the physical union stands for a much more comprehensive union of lives. ere is a new bond now which relativizes the claims of natural family loyalties. Finally, the result of the union between a man and a woman is spoken of as the formation of one esh. e physicality of the sexual union is again taken up in this notion of becoming one esh. But a

larger psychosexual unity is intended. One esh is seen as a persistent state, not something localised in the act of copulation. Jesus will focus on one esh in the following verse. At this point Jesus’ re ection on divorce clearly takes place against the backdrop of a high view of the commitment of marriage and the signi cance of the union established in marriage between man and woman. It is possible that, centuries earlier, Mal. 2:15-16 already found a connection between opposition to divorce and the creation account. e text of v. 15 is corrupt, but the ‘one’ may well echo that of Gn. 2:24.22 Of what signi cance is the presence of ‘the two’ in the LXX and Gospel texts? It is normally treated as an addition, but could the development be in the opposite direction, with ‘the two’ actually re ecting the original reading of Gn. 2:24? ere can be little doubt that the LXX did not add the words but was translating a Hebrew text containing them, since their presence is attested by the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Samaritan Targum, the Fragmentary Targum, and Tgs. Pseudo-Jonathan and Neofiti.23 But this does not decide the direction of development. As an addition the words could provide a subtle insistence on monogamy,24 though in fact they do nothing more than make explicit what is already implicit: that two — a man and his wife — are involved. Rhetorically, it is hard to see how the original author would have missed the opportunity to contrast ‘the two’ and ‘one esh’ here, but a correcting editor could have made just this judgment. A Hebrew text including ‘the two’ would have had two adjacent short clauses each beginning with wyhw šnyhm. e one could have come from the other, or a corrector may have surmised that such had been the case and corrected accordingly. In the end it remains unclear whether ‘the two’ belongs to the original text of Gn. 2:24, but this

matters little because its presence or absence makes no clear difference to the meaning.25 19:6 Apart from the inversion of order of μία (‘one’) and σάρξ (‘ esh’) to match the order in v. 5, the wording is identical to that found in Mk. 10:8. Jesus’ initial comment focusses sharply on the language of ‘one esh’: ‘no longer two but one esh’ aligns divorce with the violence of something like mutilation, amputation, or dismemberment. e image then changes to that of two creatures yoked together by God. In marriage God makes of a man and woman a linked pair, partnered for the needs, responsibilities, and eventualities of life. Presumably God is the one who yokes because the union between man and woman described in Gn. 2:24 is seen to be based on the way God created men and women; it is a union which has the naturalness of a divinely appointed order of things. Certainly the state of being yoked together is understood as involving something that transcends the simple implementation of marriage vows. Jesus’ words set up an antithesis between God as the one who unites and the married man as the one who all too oen in the practice of Jesus’ day separates.26 19:7 Displaced from v. 4, Dt. 24:1-4 now comes into view. As noted above, in Jewish debate ‘for any and every cause’ was being defended by an interpretation of part of Dt. 24:1. But the appeal here is rather to the following clause, which deals with the document used to implement divorce. Jesus had been asked about the scope of grounds for divorce, but his response thus far has manifested a general hostility to divorce as such. As seen at 5:31, Jews of Jesus’ day read Dt. 24:1 as accepting the practice of divorce and as regularising it through the requirement that a document of dismissal be given to the divorced woman. What in Mk. 10:4 is a response to a question becomes in Matthew a development initiated by the Pharisaic interlocutors:

λέγουσιν αὐτῷ27 (‘they say to him’ — a matching ‘he says to them’ will come in Mt. 19:8). e status of what is said as a reaction to Jesus’ words is marked by οὖν (‘then’). With Μωϋσῆς (‘Moses’) brought into the emphatic position (probably for the sake of a contrast between Jesus and Moses rather than God and Moses), Matthew borrows τί ἐνετείλατο Μωϋσῆς (‘what/why did Moses command?’) from Jesus’ unused question in Mk. 10:3: the stronger verb displaces Mark’s ἐπετρεψεν (‘permitted’)28 and makes the point more forcefully that in divorcing ‘we are only doing what Moses told us to do’. Probably in uenced by language re ected at 5:31, δοῦναι (‘give’) displaces Mark’s γράψαι (‘write’) — the LXX, following the MT, uses both verbs in a more detailed account. 19:8 λέγει αὐτοῖς (‘he says to them’) matches λέγουσιν αὐτῷ (‘they say to him’) in v. 7.29 Displaced from v. 7, ἐπέτρεψεν (‘permitted’) now nds its place: Matthew had the Pharisees say, ‘Moses commanded (ἐνετείλατο)’, which Jesus displaces with ‘Moses permitted’ (as discussed at 5:31, the latter re ects the actual syntax of Dt. 24:1-4). is contrast is further reinforced by the change of language from τὴν ἐντολὴν ταύτην (‘this commandment’ — ἐντολὴν is cognate with ἐνετείλατο) in Mk. 10:4 to ἀπολῦσαι τὰς γυναῖκας ὑμῶν (‘to divorce your wives’).30 e σκληροκαρδι(‘hard-hearted’) root is found ve times in the LXX,31 but only in Ezk. 3:7 is the imagery re ected in the Hebrew text. Perhaps the hard-heartedness of the generation of the Exile is being called to mind or perhaps, though the language is not so close, the hardening of hearts at Meribah.32 Mark has no parallel to Matthew’s nal clause. Its role is to bring into focus freshly the thrust of vv. 4-6: the evocative phrase ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς (‘from [the] beginning’) is repeated from v. 4, and a sharp contrast is drawn between the creation pattern and the Mosaic permission; the permission is not rescinded but treated as a second best.

19:9 is is clearly a version of Mk. 10:11. Matthew drops the private-teaching-to-disciples setting provided by v. 10 and therefore adjusts Mark’s καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς (‘and he says to them’) to λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν (‘I say to you’).33 He adds a ὅτι to introduce the direct speech, as he does from time to time (most recently in the previous verse). Otherwise he reproduces Mk. 10:11, adding only μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ (‘except for sexual impurity’34) and in compensation dropping the nal ἐπ᾿ αὐτήν (lit. ‘upon her’, but context requires the sense ‘against her’), which can be inferred from the context. e reader is meant to hear the present verse as a version of Mt. 5:32. e subsequent marriage is mentioned here, but not at 5:32. But in the discussion there I argued that it was implied. No equivalent to Mk. 10:12, which already has a partial parallel in Mt. 5:32 (but from the man’s point of view, not the woman’s), is offered here. Various features of the syntax and language of 5:32 are different from those of 19:9, but the most striking of the differences is the manner in which the exception clause is expressed. παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας (‘except [in relation to] a matter of sexual impurity’) in 5:32, as indicated in the discussion there, is unnatural Greek clearly designed to echo the language of Dt. 24:1 and point to a restrictive interpretation of that verse. With μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ (‘except for sexual impurity’) the relationship to Dt. 24:1 drops from sight.35 Is this signi cant? It probably points to a difficulty in how Matthew has developed the material of Mk. 10:2-12. To address a situation in which there was no legal protection of women from arbitrary divorce (see at v. 3 above) two possible strategies are to interpret Dt. 24:1 restrictively (as Mt. 5:31-32 do) or to appeal beyond Dt. 24:1 to the creation norms (as Mk. 10:2-12 do). e two approaches could be seen as incompatible — they produce different results — but need not be; it all depends on how the formal features of the results are understood and applied. However, what cannot be done is to

integrate the two approaches into a single argument. In reproducing a version of Mk. 10:2-12, Matthew runs into a difficulty. He feels the need for formal consistency with Mt. 5:31-32 but also wants to avoid confusing the two forms of argumentation. So in 19:9 he edits the Markan language to agree materially with 5:32, but he suppresses the connection with Dt. 24:1, which was expressed in the language of Mt. 5:32. e truth, however, is that Mt. 19:9 is not a natural conclusion to Mt. 19:3-8. Matthew can suppress the language link with Dt. 24:1, but the very idea of an exception is still a trace of that link. 19:10 ough Matthew does not mark a change of setting as Mark does in 10:10, the Markan verse probably stands behind the initiative given to the disciples at this point. Matthew encourages a reading in close connection with what precedes by continuing the sequence of historic presents from vv. 7 and 8: there is some parallel between the Pharisaic objection to Jesus’ view and the disciples’ difficulty. Matthew’s use of αἰτία here is likely to be in uenced by the use in v. 3, but the meaning here is ‘case, situation’, where in v. 3 it meant ‘cause’. Matthew’s other uses of συμϕέρει are positive: ‘it is better’.36 But the negative here means not ‘is not better’, but ‘is better not’.37 e attitude attributed to the disciples here is quite unchivalrous, even rather misogynist. Jewish marriage practice meant that wives had all along experienced marriage more or less on the terms now laid down for men in v. 9! Or should we be generous to the disciples here and set a background in what Peter reminds Jesus of in v. 27: ‘We have le everything to follow you’? Is it in the light of the claims of the kingdom of God that marriage, with its newly focussed demand for permanence, is a less-thandesirable state? e latter option would prepare nicely for ‘eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’ to come in v. 12, but it is not

the most natural reading of v. 10. Does Matthew want to have it both ways and have the disciples here speak more truly than they intended? Something like this will be evident in the interaction of 20:20-23 to come; and it seems likely that Matthew has adopted a similar technique here to make a place for 19:12. 19:11 What is τὸν λόγον τοῦτον (‘this word’) that not all can accept? Is it Jesus’ teaching about the binding nature of marriage or is it the view expressed by the disciples that it is better not to marry? Both options have been ercely defended and also opposed.38 If the disciples’ words in v. 10 are only a statement of dismay at the demanding nature of Jesus’ teaching, then the reference here must be back to Jesus’ teaching. e problem with a link back to Jesus’ teaching is, however, that it will leave v. 12 entirely unconnected, which can hardly be Matthew’s intention, given the apparent redactional creation of vv. 10-11 to provide a basis for introducing v. 12.39 Does the echo of Mt. 13:11 in οἷς δέδεται (‘to whom it has been given’) take us any further? e link is reinforced by the correspondence between οὐ … χωροῦσιν (‘do not grasp’) here and οὐδὲ συνίουσιν (‘do not understand’) in 13:13, and will be consolidated further by the mention of ‘the kingdom of heaven’ in 19:12. e connection suggests that the distinction between those who do not ‘grasp’ (χωροῦσιν)40 ‘this word’ and those to whom ‘it has been given’ is the same as the distinction between those to whom ‘it has not been given’ and ‘has been given … to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’. If this is so, then, referring ‘this word’ back to Jesus’ teaching on divorce would cause v. 11 to identify the disciples as now on the opposite side of the divide from where they were located in 13:11. is can hardly be so for Matthew.41 For this reason we must prefer the reference of ‘this word’ to the disciples’ comment in 19:10. ‘e kingdom of heaven’

link with v. 12 adds to the case for an understanding of v. 11 that prepares for v. 12 and thus reinforces this judgment. e best solution seems, then, to involve the double sense suggested above for v. 10, with ‘this word’ referred back to the disciples’ comment taken, not as they intended it, but in re ection to what is coming in v. 12: they spoke more truly than they yet knew. In light of the connection with 13:11, the distinction that is set up in 19:11 is not to be seen as merely a distinction between those who do not and who do have a speci c calling to celibacy. ‘is word’ is to be grasped by all disciples. Whether ‘made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’ is meant to re ect the action of all Christian disciples depends on precisely what it means, but it is certainly meant to be affirmed by all disciples. 19:12 e linking γάρ (‘for’) con rms the role of v. 12 as explanatory of v. 11. But the explanation is anything but immediately transparent. We are introduced to three kinds of eunuchs, each introduced in a separate clause and classi ed in terms of how they came to be eunuchs.42 e impression is that the listing is intended to be logically comprehensive: the situation is either a natural state or it results from the actions of others or of oneself.43 e rst two items on the list correspond to a known Jewish division.44 e third item is distinctive in providing a reason for the emasculation: ‘for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’. διά (‘for the sake of ’) could mean either ‘on the basis of ’ and point to what lies behind and energises the self-emasculation or ‘in order to gain’. Scholarship has oen preferred the former or le the matter open, but in the wider context concern about entering the kingdom, entering life, and having eternal life favour the latter.45 What kinds of images would have been evoked by talk of ‘unmanned’ men?

In the LXX εὐνοῦχος regularly renders srys. In oriental courts eunuchs were used for roles in the royal court (initially, no doubt, because this made them ‘safe’ in relation to the royal harem, but then also to develop a cast who could devote themselves to public affairs on behalf of the monarch without the distraction of family). Over time this seems to have generated a class of people who were prepared for civil service by means of castration (mostly at a post-puberty stage?) and whatever training was deemed relevant. Among their number were those who attained to high office and great power. So a rst image for eunuchs is that of members of a class of castrated civil servants. ere is a question, however, about whether the word srys necessarily continued to imply a castrated state, or whether it eventually came to be used of those who were exercising a role which in the history of the language had at an earlier time been restricted to eunuchs. e reason for raising the question is Gn. 39:1, 7, where we meet a srys who has a wife!46 In OT usage much of the time the most natural translation is ‘official’ because that is the role in view. Only in Is. 56:3, 4 is the castrated state clearly in focus, but the role of the castrated state is clear enough in Est. 2:3, 14-15. And with these texts we should probably also set 2 Ki. 20:18; Is. 39:7, where royal sons are reduced to ‘srysym [the plural] in the palace of the king of Babylon’.47 Without Gn. 39:7 there would be no question to raise, but Gn. 39:7 is there. e sense of the Greek term εὐνοῦχος is drawn into this uncertainty only because of the LXX translation pattern.48 ere is otherwise, as far as I have been able to discover, no evidence of any use of εὐνοῦχος that does not imply castration. Eunuchs by birth at the beginning of the list make it quite clear, however, that Matthew has lack/loss of male potential in view. As now, children were occasionally born with defective genitals and subsequently would fail to develop male secondary characteristics as they grew up.49 e primary context in which eunuchs would have been made eunuchs by others is that mentioned in the paragraphs above.50 Xenophon re ects on the change of temperament sought by castration: eunuchs are less aggressive and more loyal.51 Not among Jews, but more broadly, there was also some use of castration as a punishment.52 Self-mutilation would have been extremely

rare, but some devotees of Attis are known to have been self-castrated. ose born with defective genitals would never properly mature, along with the castrated would never carry on the family line, and were to be excluded from the worshipping community of Israel (Dt. 23:2[ET 23:1]). e contempt in which eunuchs were normally held is well re ected in the quotation from Xenophon in n. 51, but so is the value that could be placed on their loyalty and single-minded devotion. e same bifurcation of attitude is true of the self-castrated devotees of Attis.

In general, humans view castration as a horrible thing, reducing the signi cance of the person in various respects, but they also recognize that the eunuch state may be bene cial in some cases. In the present context a brief exploration of attitudes to sexual abstention may also be of value. In general Jewish men felt a strong obligation to marry and reproduce.53 Regular sexual relations with one’s wife were a solemn obligation.54 e focus was on the obligation to reproduce, but the role of sex in marriage in the avoidance of immorality and of impure sexual thoughts was also recognised.55 Nonetheless, both Josephus and Philo report the Essenes as consisting of celibate males.56 e explanations of this by Josephus and Philo are highly misogynist, but within their comments we may note in Philo an emphasis on the maintenance of the speci c vision of religious community to which the Essenes were committed and in Josephus the Essene commitment to ‘shun pleasures as a vice and regard temperance and the control of the passions as a special virtue’. e latter smacks of Hellenistic dualism and may tell us more about Josephus than the Essenes, but even so it points to values present in some sections of Judaism.57 Stoic in uence may be suspected of lying behind Jewish texts which set over against each other sex for procreation and sex for pleasure.58 More centrally Jewish roots for valuing abstention from sex, at least temporarily, are not hard to nd. In the Jewish purity system sexual activity temporarily rendered one ritually impure. To be ready to meet God on Sinai

and later in the temple one needed to have refrained from sex in the immediately preceding period.59 As with other extensions of the scope of the purity laws, the restriction on sexual activity was readily generalised to cover such things as the Day of Atonement and times of fasting for rain or for the relief of famine.60 e rabbis were in con ict over whether one should be allowed to delay marriage in order to study Torah, recognising that marriage and children could be a real distraction from intense study.61 In Je. 16:2 Jeremiah is instructed not to marry and have children: this will make a symbolic statement about the dreadful future that is coming for the families of Judea. In the wider Greco-Roman world early medical science held that sexual continence meant that vital energy was retained in the body, to the bene t of its health and vitality.62

Against this background of images evoked by the eunuch state and attitudes to sexual abstinence, what could Matthew mean by ‘make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’? Nothing in Matthew provides encouragement to make a narrow link with one of the strands of culture and belief surveyed above.63 ree preliminary points can be made. First, it is highly unlikely that castration is intended any more here than was self-mutilation in 18:8-9. Despite the pull towards literalness produced by the rst two of the three parallelled statements, the third is ultimately in a class apart; and this fact is signalled by the asymmetry produced by the presence of a motivational phrase in just this case. Making oneself a eunuch is a grotesque and powerful metaphor for something else. Second, the link with the discussion of marriage and divorce makes it most likely that the eunuch image has been chosen precisely because some form of self-denial in relation to sexual activity is in view. ird, the imagery of becoming a eunuch is chosen precisely because it takes up and intensi es the negative feelings engendered in a Jewish context by the notion that one

should abstain from marriage and subsequent sexual expression within marriage. We are le needing to nd a form of sexual abstinence that will allow v. 12 to support and explain v. 11 and in turn make sense of its connection back to v. 10. Fidelity to marriage can hardly be called castration. e resolute refusal to enter a new marriage aer divorcing one’s wife for adultery ts better but depends on an understanding of v. 9 that has been rejected above. e reference has been taken to be either to childless marriages where the husband does not send his wife away for her sterility or to leaving one’s wife for evangelistic work without divorcing and so forcing childlessness, but neither of these suggestions allows for a satisfactory link with the context. Countryman tries out the loss of the man’s patriarchal supremacy in the family in the new egalitarian Christian vision.64 is is an intriguing and challenging proposal, but it cannot be made to t the Matthean context.65 e points of best guidance for the present text would seem to come from 18:8-9, from which we may draw the principle that any sacri ce is worth making for the kingdom of heaven, and from 19:16-29, which press the need to be prepared to leave everything to follow Jesus. Precisely because the vision of marriage that Jesus promotes is so permanent, some people will sense the challenge to forego the possibility of marriage for the sake of the call of the kingdom of heaven.66 is is presumably what Jesus himself had done. But it clearly was not a general condition for being one of the disciples called by Jesus to travel with him and for him.67 Perhaps the Matthean Jesus saw in the unmarried state some of the advantages that Paul saw in 1 Cor. 7.68 It does not seem possible to be any more precise.

e concluding challenge picks up on the use of χωρεῖν (‘grasp’) in the previous verse. e clause is likely to be modelled on ‘e one who has ears to hear, let them hear’ language already used several times,69 one of them in 13:9, just before the verse (v. 11) which has such strong links with 19:11. As in 13:11 the call is to understand. One must penetrate a parablelike enigma here. Not all are called to make themselves eunuchs, but all are called to understand and affirm the priorities involved. But only those who have been able to engage with the kingdom of heaven through the presence of Jesus will be able to do so. C. ‘Let the Children Come to Me’ (19:13-15) 13en

children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them. 14Jesus said,a ‘Let the children come to me, and do not stop them. For bthe kingdom of heaven is for those who are like these.b 15en he laid his hands on them and went [away] from there.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αυτοις (‘to them’) is added in ‫ א‬C D L W f13 579 892 etc. lat sams mae bo, probably in uenced by Mk. 10:14. b-b. Lit. ‘of those-who-are-like-these is the kingdom of heaven’ (parallelling Mt. 5:3, 10). Bibliography Bailey, J. L., ‘Experiencing the Kingdom as a Little Child: A Rereading of Mark 10:13-16’, WW 15 (1995), 58-67. • Beisser, F., ‘Markus 10, 13-16 (parr)-doch ein Text für die Kindertaufe’, KD 41 (1995), 244-51. • Brown, R., ‘Jesus and the Child as a Model of Spirituality’, IBS 4 (1982), 178-92. • Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 119-28. • Carter, W., Households, 90-114. •

Chilton, B. D. and McDonald, J. I. H., Ethics, 80-89. • Crossan, J. D., ‘Kingdom and Children: A Study in the Aphoristic Tradition’, Semeia 29 (1983), 75-95. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Why Jesus Blessed the Children (Mk. 10:13-16)’, NovT 25 (1983), 1-18. • Hahn, F., ‘Kindersegnung und Kindertaufe im ältesten Christentum’, in Urchristentum, ed. H. Frankemölle and K. Kertelge, 497-507. • Heckel, U., ‘Die Kindersegnung Jesu und das Segnen von Kindern: Neutestamentliche und praktisch-theologische Überlegungen zu Mk 10,13-16 par’, TB 32 (2001), 327-45. • Kümmel, W. G., ‘Das Urchristentum, II: Arbeiten zu Spezialproblemen, c. Taufe und Gottesdienst’, TRu 51 (1986), 239-58. • Liebenberg, J., Language, 462-66. • Lindars, B., ‘John and the Synoptic Gospels: A Test Case’, NTS 27 (1981), 287-94. • Lindemann, A., ‘Die Kinder und die Gottesherrsha’, WD 17 (1983), 77-104. • Patte, D., ‘Jesus’ Pronouncement about Entering the Kingdom like a Child: A Structural Exegesis’, Semeia 29 (1983), 3-42. • Ringshausen, G., ‘Die Kinder der Weisheit: Zur Auslegung von Mk 10:13-16 par’, ZNW 77 (1986), 34-63. • Robbins, V. K., ‘Pronouncement Stories and Jesus’ Blessing of the Children: A Rhetorical Approach’, Semeia 29 (1983), 43-74. • Robbins, V. K., ‘Using a Socio-Rhetorical Poetics to Develop a Uni ed Method’, SBLSP 31 (1992), 302-19. • Sauer, J., ‘Die ursprüngliche “Sitz im Leben” von Mk 10.13-16’, ZNW 72 (1981), 27-50. • Schlosser, J., Règne, 2:477-508. • Silberman, L. H., ‘Schoolboys and Storytellers’, Semeia 29 (1983), 109-15. • Stegemann, W., ‘Lasset die Kinder zu mir kommen’, in Traditionen der Befreiung: Sozialgeschichtliche Bibelauslegung, Vol. 1: Methodische Zugänge, ed. W. Stegemann and W. Schottroff (Munich: Kaiser, 1980), 114-44. See further at 18:1-5.

From marriage and divorce and celibacy for the sake of the kingdom, Matthew turns his attention to the place of children. Again the kingdom is the point of reference, as it will continue to be in the remaining units of this section. Natural humility, such as that of a child, is a great bene t in relation to the coming of the kingdom.

Matthew continues the Markan sequence, offering his parallel to Mk. 10:1316. He makes various, mostly minor, changes, but offers no equivalent to Mk. 10:15, since he has already used a form of this in 18:3. Mk. 10:15 may have been secondarily combined with Mk. 10:13-14, 16, but reasonable arguments for an original unity have been offered. ere is no sufficient reason for suspecting early church creation.

19:13 Matthew again marks the transition to a fresh piece with τότε (‘then’).70 e inde nite third person plural (an unspeci ed ‘they’) in Mk. 10:13 is improved to a passive construction. Since Matthew does not normally change such inde nite constructions, perhaps he is in uenced by the most recent use of the verb in Mt 18:24 or perhaps this change works with the other changes to focus attention on what is signi ed here for Jesus and not what is signi ed here for those who bring the children — from 19:14 it will become clear that Jesus is concerned with access to the kingdom of heaven. Mark’s rather vague ‘touch’ does not suit Matthew, for whom touch almost always denotes healing.71 Instead he reaches forward to the end of Mark’s account (10:16) for what Jesus is actually said to have done: Jesus’ embrace (ἐναγκαλισάμενος) of the children is abbreviated out (perhaps Matthew is concerned that his readers not confuse affirmation of signi cance with affection); placing his hands on them takes rst place;72 and ‘blesses’ (κατευλόγει)73 becomes ‘prays’ (προσεύξηται). ough Jesus makes use of touch on several occasions, apart from here and in v. 15 Matthew has ‘place a hand upon’ only in 9:18, where Jesus is asked by the synagogue ruler seeking the restoration of his dead daughter to ‘place a hand on her’.74 Surprisingly, Jesus is almost never reported to be praying for people: in the Synoptic Gospels there are only the present text using προσεύχεσθαι and Lk. 22:32 using δεῖσθαι.75 e role of prayer here categorically separates the present event from healings and

exorcisms, which express Jesus’ own intrinsic authority. Elsewhere in the NT prayer with the laying on of hands is found only in Acts, which has in view commissioning for ministry, the bestowal of the Spirit, and (in one case) healing.76 Presumably the fruit of prayer is concretely applied to the recipient by the laying on of hands. Jesus will draw the children into the coming of the blessings of the kingdom of heaven in his own ministry. ere is little focus on what precisely the disciples objected to.77 Whenever anybody other than Jesus rebukes, it is wrong (only 16:22; 20:31). 20:31 is most similar. In both 19:13 and 20:31 Jesus probably is seen as too important to be disturbed by such matters. ere may be some parallel with 15:23. 19:14 Matthew abbreviates by dropping from Mk. 10:14 the linking ἰδών (‘seeing’), the reference to Jesus’ indignation (he tends to spare the disciples), and the expressed object aer εἶπεν (‘said’). He also reorders, sending ‘to come to me’78 to the end of the clause, probably to be able to set ‘let the children’ and ‘do not stop them’ in immediate antithetical parallel and to have the in nitive phrase complete the sense of both (English idiom does not allow this to be represented straightforwardly in the translation). Finally, Matthew, as usual, prefers ‘kingdom of heaven’ to Mark’s ‘kingdom of God’. Matthew has previously used ἀϕιέναι of permission in 3:15. Its pairing with κωλύειν for ‘stop, forbid’ is natural enough, but not found in the LXX. ἐλθεῖν πρός με (‘come to me’) has its closest parallel in the permission given by Jesus for Peter to come to him on the water (14:28-29); Matthew may intend an echo. Otherwise the thought is close to 12:28 (‘Come to me, all who are weary and burdened’), where, however, δεῦτε is used for ‘come’. e use of a plural genitive with ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘is the kingdom of heaven’) offers the reader an echo of the beatitudes in 5:3, 10 — especially the former, given the easy link between ‘poor in spirit’

and childlikeness. e use of τῶν τοιούτων (‘those who are like these’) at the same time allows for reference to the children involved, other children, and those who, in the language of 18:2, ‘turn and become like children’. ere is no romanticism here about the innocence of children, but it is striking that the text goes much further than 18:1-5. At 18:4 I was able to say, ‘e vital difference, however, between the child and what Jesus calls for is that for the child this [humility] is a natural state, but what is called for in the kingdom of God is a deliberately chosen (“turn and become”) stance of humility’. But now it becomes clear that natural humility has its own positive signi cance in relation to the kingdom. It is those who place themselves on a pedestal who exclude themselves from the reach of the kingdom of heaven; those who cannot place themselves on a pedestal bene t from being spared the temptation.79 e pericope to follow will explore the case of a person who falls foul of this temptation. In considering the openness of the kingdom to children we should not lose sight of the fact that these children came to Jesus just as other people have. ough the view seemed to drop from favour entirely for a time, some recent scholarship continues to claim a direct or indirect reference to baptism. But even the more nuanced arguments of recent scholarship work from the gratuitous assumption that the account needs to be correlated with some problem in the early church about what to do with children.80 In the account the children function as illustrations of something larger. is is not to say, however, that those who seek to formulate a theology and practice of baptism can afford to ignore this text. On the contrary, it must be considered a key text. 19:15 Matthew has made use in v. 13 of the more substantial statement by Mark at this point, so he can abbreviate here. e

prayer anticipated in v. 13 is not speci cally mentioned but is to be considered to be implied by the laying on of hands. Jesus’ ful lment here of the request for the laying on of hands made in v. 13 brings closure to the account. Matthew81 reformulates the departure language of Mk. 10:17 to serve as the conclusion to the present episode rather than, as in Mark, the introduction to the next. Jesus continues his movement through the regions of Judea (see at 19:1). D. Giving Up All (19:16-29) 1. ‘Sell Your Possessions … Follow Me’ (19:16-22) certain person came up to him and said, a ‘bTeacher, what good cmust I do in order to havec eternal life?’b 17He said to him, d‘Why do you ask me about the good? e good is One.e d a If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ 18He says to him, ‘Which?’Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; 19honour father and mother; and you shall love your neighbour as yourself ’. 20e young man says to him, ‘I have kept all thesef; in what respect am I still deficient?’ 21Jesus gsaid to him, ‘If you want to be complete, go and sell what you possess, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.’ 22When the young man heardh ithe wordh, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 16A

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Wenham, ‘Why Do You Ask?’, 116-25, has argued for an original that approximates the Markan text for the man’s words in v. 16 (but with τι αγαθον [‘what good’ and ινα σχω or εχω [‘so that I might have’]) and the rst two clauses of Jesus’ response in v. 17. e understanding developed below suggests that the Matthean account gains in coherence from accepting

instead the more common text-critical judgments adopted here through this block. b. αγαθε (‘good’) is added (to match Mk. 10:17) in C W Θ f13 etc. lat sy sa mae bopt. c-c. ποιησας … κληρονομησω (lit. ‘having done … I might inherit’) in ‫א‬ L 33 (579) 892 l 2211 etc. (sys, c, hmg) (sams bo), reminiscent of Mk. 10:17. d-d. τι με λεγεις αγαθον; ουδεις αγαθος ει μη εις ο θεος (‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except one: God’) in C W f13 33 etc. f q syp, h sa boms, as in Mk. 10:18. e. ο θεος (‘God’) is added in lat syc mae bo, with ο πατηρ (‘the Father’) in e. ese are natural clarifying expansions. f. εκ νεοτητος μου (‘from my youth’) is added in ‫א‬2 C (D) W f13 33 etc. it vgcl sy co, in uenced by Mk. 10:20. g. Under the in uence of the historic presents in Mt. 19:18, 20 a third historic present, λεγει (‘he says’), is found here in B Θ f13. h. Missing from ‫ א‬L Z 0281 (e f h), with its Christian diction, this could be an expansion, but Matthew uses this diction in 13:20-23. i. ουτος (‘this’) in B 892c etc. it sys, c, p mae bomss. Bibliography Bailey, K. E., Peasant Eyes, 157-70. • Bivin, D., ed., ‘Jerusalem Synoptic Commentary Preview: e Rich Young Ruler Story’, JerPersp 38-39 (1993), 331. • Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 39-66, 89-101. • Carter, W., Households, 115-45. • Collins, R. F., ‘Matthew’s ἐντολαί: Towards an Understanding of the Commandments in the First Gospel’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1,325-48, esp. 1,326-31. • Cope, O. L., ‘“e Good Is One” — Mt 19:16-22 and Prov 3:35–4:4’, in Matthew: A Scribe, 111-19. • Coulot, C., ‘La structuration de la péricope de l’homme riche et ses différentes lectures (Mc 10,17-31; Mt 19,16-30; Lc 18,18-30)’, RevSR 56 (1982), 240-52. • Coulot, C., Jésus, 98-121. • Crossan, J. D., In Fragments, 42-47, 202-4, 220-26. • Eicher, P., ‘Die Befreiung zur Nachfolge: Zur Geschichte des “reichen Jünglings”’, in

Der reiche Jüngling, ed. Karl Barth (Munich: Kosel, 1986), 13-66. • Fuller, R. H., ‘e Decalogue in the New Testament’, Int 43 (1989), 243-55. • Göbel, C., ‘Über die Frömmigkeit, den Vater zu verlassen: Mt 19,29 und Platons Euthýphron’, EuA 76 (2000), 367-78. • González, J. L., Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Use and Significance of Money (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990). • Harrington, D. J., ‘e Rich Young Man in Mt 19,16-22: Another Way to God for Jews?’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1,425-32. • Harvey, A. E., Strenuous Commands (London: SCM, 1990), 116-39. • Hoppe, R., ‘Vollkommenheit bei Matthäus als theologische Aussage’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 141-64. • Kisner, G. D., ‘Jesus’ Encounter with the Rich Young Ruler and Its Implications for eology and Development’, JRT 49 (1992-93), 81-86. • Lindner, H., ‘Johannes Hyrkan und der Reiche Jüngling’, in Begegnung zwischen Christentum und Judentum in Antike und Mittelalter. FS H. Schreckenberg, ed. D.-A. Koch and H. Lichtenberger (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 263-70. • Lohse, E., ‘“Vollkommen sein”: Zur Ethik des Matthäusevangeliums, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 131-40. • Lohse, E., ‘Jesu Bussruf an die Reichen’, in Glaube und Eschatologie. FS W. G. Kümmel, ed. E. Grässer and O. Merk (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985), 159-63. • Luck, U., ‘Die Frage nach dem Guten: Zu Mt 19,1630 und Par’, in Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments. FS H. Greeven, ed. W. Schrage (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986), 282-97. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 142-46. • Murray, G., ‘e Rich Young Man’, DR 103 (1985), 14446. • New, D. S., Quotations, 71-77. • O’Neill, J. C., ‘“Good Master” and the “Good” Sayings in the Teaching of Jesus’, IBS 15 (1993), 167-78. • Schmidt, T. E., Hostility to Wealth. • omas, R. L., ‘e Rich Young Man in Matthew’, GTJ 3 (1982), 235-60. • Vogt, T., Angst und Identität im Markusevangelium (NTOA. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 142-83. • Vouga, F., Jésus, 107-33. • Wenham, J. W., ‘Why Do You Ask about the Good? A Study of the Relation between Text and Source Criticism’, NTS 28 (1982), 116-25.

e focus for fresh assessment in light of the kingdom now moves from family to possessions. 19:16-22 belongs in a closely integrated development with the rest of the unit (to 20:16), but the material is

presented here in four subunits for practical convenience. Matthew may have developed a chiastic structure for 19:16-22, centred on Jesus’ listing of the commandments in vv. 18-19.82 e anonymous inquirer who is gradually revealed as both young and rich cannot rise to the challenge of committing himself to the deeper understanding of the commandments and thus throw in his lot with Jesus and the kingdom of God. Matthew continues the Markan sequence (see Mk. 10:17-22), and no additional source is evident. Some interpreters have judged Mk. 10:18 as secondary, but its difficulty counts in its favour. e apparently double answer to the man’s question (commandments, sell what you have) has raised doubts about the original unity of the pericope, but only as a whole unit does it witness to the kind of radicalisation of the Law that can be attributed to the historical Jesus.83

19:16 Matthew provides an emphatic opening to the account by adding καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’ — but not translated above).84 e combination of καὶ ἰδού with the participle προσελθών (‘coming up to’) is reminiscent of the approach of the woman with the ow of blood (9:20), and even more of the leper (8:2). e use of εἷς (lit. ‘one’; here ‘a certain person’) is reminiscent of 8:19, where εἷς, a scribe, comes up to (προσελθών) Jesus. Matthew is fond of such cross links, but they do not always have a very precise function. Here the echo suggests little more than a ringing of the changes on a theme. e departure statement in v. 15 and the call to follow to come in v. 21 make it likely that we are to picture Jesus as on the move (as in Mk. 10:17) when he is approached. e one approaching is introduced quite anonymously (εἷς). He will be characterised as ‘a young man’ in v. 20, but his affluence is revealed only at the very end (v. 22). e act of deference which accompanies the approach in Mk. 10:17 is dropped, but so will other language

that marks attitudes throughout the episode. His addressing Jesus as teacher provides another connection with the scribe at 8:19 (more clearly with the loss of Mark’s ‘good’) — the two gures are also linked by reference to an offer/a call to follow Jesus.85 ough ‘teacher’ is not the address of a disciple in Matthew (see at 8:19), it suits the nature of this man’s interest in Jesus. e man has come to ask about the way to eternal life. e phrase has not been used earlier, but ‘life’ is used with the same meaning in 7:14; 18:8, 9 (in 18:8 ‘life’ is set over against ‘eternal re’). e simple ‘life’ will be used in 19:17, with ‘eternal life’ returning in v. 29 and then in 25:46. e interchangeability for Matthew of ‘eternal life’ and ‘[entry into] the kingdom of heaven’ is marked by the way that ‘enter into life’ in 19:17 will be taken up in vv. 23-24 as ‘enter into the kingdom of heaven’. Dropped from ‘teacher’, ‘good’ is now used to add precision to the man’s question: What good does he need to do?86 e change prepares for the more extended difference from Mark in v. 17. Matthew likes Mark’s phrase ‘inherit eternal life’, but prefers to keep it back for a more climactic role in v. 29; here ‘have eternal life’ will do. 19:17 Matthew sees no need to introduce Jesus freshly at this point (as Mk. 10:18 does). Jesus’ answer consists of a question rst, then a statement explaining the question, and nally an answer to the man’s question. Despite having clear links to the Markan parallel, the whole of Jesus’ answer here is quite different. ‘Why do you call me good?’ has become ‘Why do you ask me about the good?’ e change has traditionally been attributed to a concern not to have the Markan form understood as creating a distance between Jesus and God, but, though Matthew abbreviates it, he keeps Mark’s following reference to God as the [only] one who is good, which is just as capable of opening up a distance between

Jesus and God; and the ‘me’ in both forms of question has the same potential for opening up a distance between Jesus and God. Surely Matthew and Mark agree in having Jesus focus the man’s attention on God, and both want posed the question of the signi cance of Jesus in relation to God as the only one who is good. ey adopt different strategies, however. Matthew produces a more integrated account since his question picks up on the thematic interest in what is to be done introduced in v. 16 and leads naturally to the citation of the commandments. e Markan Jesus by contrast seems to comment rather separately on two different features of the man’s words to him. Perhaps Matthew heard the echo of Dt. 6:4 (as part of the daily Jewish recitation of the Shema) in Mk. 10:18 and deliberately strengthened the echo (see below) and allowed this to guide him through the task of reformulation. Speci cally Matthew is likely to have seen that in the Shema the affirmation of the oneness of God leads in Dt. 6:6 to a call to keep the ‘words that I am commanding you’, words which in turn refer back centrally to the Ten Commandments of chap. 5. If by Jesus’ (or Matthew’s) day the Shema had already grown from its original brief form to include Dt. 11:13-21, then the motif of the commandments as the way to life is already provided by the emphasis in the Shema on the blessings and curses attached to obedience and disobedience to the commandments.87 If one wants to know about the good that leads to life, then the Shema invites one to go back to the Ten Commandments as given by God himself. e Matthean form of the question reinforces the thrust of Mt. 5:17-20: Jesus takes the commandments with all seriousness as revealing the will of God; his concern is for a new depth of insight into what these commandments entail. e Matthean Jesus will

recommend no good that is different from that commended already by the commandments. Matthew renders Mark’s οὐδεῖς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εις ὁ θεός (‘No one is good except one: God’) as εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός, which is probably to be translated ‘the good is One’ — the forms are masculine, so there is unlikely to be a reference to some greatest commandment; νόμος (‘law’) is masculine, but reference to the Law gives a strained thought sequence. ere is a strong allusion to Dt. 6:4, where the LXX verse ends with εἷς ἐστιν (‘is one’)88 and the Hebrew with ʾḥd (‘[is] one’).89 But here the monotheistic emphasis of the Shema has been merged with the persistent OT motif of the goodness of God.90 God alone de nes the good because he is the good.91 Matthew has expanded Mark’s ‘you know the commandments’ to provide emphasis and to make the thrust of Mark’s words explicit: ‘If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments’. Again the message of Mt. 5:17-20 is reinforced. ‘Enter into life’ picks up on the language of 18:8, 9. 19:18-19 Aer his intrusion at the end of v. 17 Matthew needs something fresh to introduce the listing of the commandments. He makes the scene more interactive by having the man ask, ‘Which?’92 e question may offer the opportunity to consider whether Jesus might have an obscure choice of commandments with its own eccentric emphasis. e answer will locate him centrally within Jewish tradition. Probably as a mark of emphasis, at this point Matthew decides to introduce Jesus afresh. He signals the listing by beginning the rst with a neuter singular de nite article, but fails to continue with this form. He prefers the use of the future for the shorter commandments (as in the LXX); Mark has used negated aorist subjunctives with imperative force. e order is the same as in Mk. 10:19, but ‘you shall not defraud’ is

dropped as in Lk. 18:20 (it is not one of the Ten) and ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself ’ is added at the end (though not one of the Ten, it will be part of Jesus’ answer to the question about the greatest commandment in Mt 22:39 and has already been expounded in 5:43-48 at the climax of the set of antitheses in 5:2148). e foundational, God-directed commandments are perhaps to be understood as implicit in the allusion to the Shema, with its call to an exclusive focus on God. Otherwise (as long as we link the sabbath command with the rst set) the only missing command is that concerning coveting, for which the call to love one’s neighbour is an appropriate substitute. For the short commands the MT order is followed, with the command not to bear false witness given in a reduced form to allow it to formally parallel the others. In Ten Commandments order ‘honour father and mother’ (which is also reduced but does not permit a parallel form) should come before the others rather than at the end of the list. e logic of the order is disputed. e relocation of ‘honour father and mother’ brings the two commandments about family life together; it is the one positive command; and in Matthew’s text the relocation allows nicely for transition to the positively formulated call to love one’s neighbour.93 See further comments on ‘love your neighbour as yourself ’ at 22:39.94 19:20 Here as in v. 18 Matthew marks the speech contributions of the man with a use of the historic present: ‘says to him’. Matthew seems at times to use the historic present to introduce speech in order to mark main points of signi cant development in the account. Now he identi es the man as νεανίσκος. e term is imprecise, but it appears to be one step up on μειρακίον, which refers to one who is pubescent but not yet fully mature (‘stripling/lad’).95 A νεανίσκος is a young man who has fully

matured physically. It is unclear why Mark’s ἐκ νεότητος (‘from youth’) in the man’s words has become νεανίσκος in the Matthean description. Is it that a young man has not had much time yet to enjoy the privileges that fall to him because of his wealth, nor much time to realise the limits of what wealth can give? Perhaps, with the future still before him, a young man has more to give up than his elders.96 At this point Mark has the man address Jesus as teacher again, but Matthew abbreviates this away. e young man feels he has kept the commandments as listed by Jesus.97 In Mark the sentence about Jesus’ love for the man suggests that his words should be taken at face value, but in line with Matthew’s general tendency to drop language of emotion about Jesus he omits this sentence. He probably thinks that Jesus’ challenge exposes a gap in the man’s obedience to the commandments. Matthew withdraws the ‘lack’ language from Jesus’ words in Mk. 10:21 to create for the young man the extra sentence: ‘In what respect am I still de cient?’98 Are these words meant to re ect some existential sense of lack, or do they simply invite Jesus to say more if he should think it necessary? Whichever it is, Jesus will con rm (but with different language) that there is a de ciency. 19:21 ἔϕη αὐτῷ, displaced from v. 20 by a historic present, is now used in place of Mark’s εἶπεν αὐτῷ for ‘said to him’, and the fresh introduction of Jesus in the dropped sentence is carried forward to here. Mark’s ‘one thing you lack’ has already been used and is replaced here by ‘if you want to be complete (εἰ θέλεις τέλειος εἶναι)’. ‘If you want (εἰ θέλεις)’ picks up on language from v. 17. ‘Complete (τέλειος)’ is the counterpart to ‘lack’, but also echoes the requirement of 5:48 to be ‘complete… just as your heavenly Father is complete’. What is called for is not a new and extra thing, but an aspect of what keeping the commandments in all their

fullness will mean for this young man.99 Matthew does not make clear exactly how the demanded behaviour is a keeping of the commandments. Perhaps for Matthew the adding of the call to love one’s neighbour is the key. Seen in the light of love of neighbour, the neighbour-directed commandments expand their scope to embrace all that concerns the well-being of the neighbour. In Mark the challenge is perhaps more directly related to the new situation in relation to the kingdom of God: the new situation demands a response that goes beyond the commandments.) For the rest of the verse Matthew stays closer to Mark; only σου τὰ ὑπάρχοντα (‘what you possess’100) displaces ὅσα ἔχεις (lit. ‘as many things as you have’). Matthew’s language is not quite as categorical as Mark’s, but either way ‘selling’ and disposing of the proceeds are clearly involved. On almsgiving see the comments at 5:42; 6:2, 19-21, and on the snare of wealth see those at 6:24. Whereas 6:19-21 deals with the accumulation of assets (in heaven or on earth), the present text focuses on the disposal of existing assets. Since capital (generally in the form of property) was the basis of social standing and what generated income, signi cant, not to say total, disposal of capital would be a radical action. Later rabbinical wisdom held that overly exuberant generosity should be curbed: one may give away up to an initial 20 percent of one’s capital and subsequently 20 percent of one’s income.101 But there is no prudence here in Jesus’ directive. On ‘treasure in heaven’ see the discussion at 6:20. Matthew expresses the call to follow Jesus variously. Elsewhere it is not exactly as here, but all the elements are represented in previous calls.102 ough clearly not a call to become part of the Twelve (see 19:28) the call here is represented as particular and individual. e link to Jesus is critical here: Jesus’ challenge is related to his own signi cance for the coming of the kingdom. is is the only reported occasion on which a person does

not respond positively to a speci c call from Jesus (the outcome of the renewal of call in 8:22 is le open). 19:22 At this crunch point Matthew again points to the youth of the young man. To make it clear that for this young man Jesus’ challenge is ‘the word of the kingdom’, Matthew introduces language of hearing the word, echoing a pattern developed in his account of the interpretation of the Sower.103 In line with his general habit, he compensates by dropping Mark’s language of strong emotion: ‘he was shocked at this word’. But Matthew keeps the nal piece of emotional language: ‘he went away grieving’.104 He wants to make clear that the young man did not go away because he found no attraction in what Jesus offered: he went away because the cost seemed too great. e nal clause explains why: he had many possessions. e story is reported not because Matthew would have his readers understand that Jesus called for universal selfimpoverishment as a condition of discipleship, but for its concrete challenge. Jesus’ chosen mode for going to the heart of a matter at times involved isolating an issue with no regard for considerations which in any practical life situation must stand alongside the matter addressed. As Harvey has it, in relation to the account under consideration here, ‘To the question “How much should I give?”, Jesus refused to permit any form of calculus, and, with his characteristic preference for the exaggerated example and the extreme case, was bound to answer, “Everything!”’105 For the young man in question the demand was literal, but to others, then and now, the value is the standing challenge to assumptions and values in relation to wealth. e young man’s response to Jesus’ extreme demand unmasked the man’s loyalty to mammon and not to God (6:24). In the normal complexities of life nothing exposes our deep

values quite so sharply, but what these values are is as important in relation to the kingdom as ever it was for the rich young man. 2. How Difficult — but with God Possible — for the Rich to Enter the Kingdom (19:23-26) 23Jesus

said to his disciples, ‘Amen, I say to you, [only] with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I say to you, it is easier for a acamel to bpass throughb the ceye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of dGod.’ 25When they heard [this], the disciples were extremely astonishede and said, ‘Who then is able to be saved?’ 26Jesus said to them, ‘With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. 579 1424 etc. arm have καμιλον (‘cable, rope’), offering easier imagery. b-b. εισελθειν (‘enter in [through]’) as in Lk. 18:25, rather than διελθειν (‘pass through’), in ‫ א‬C K L (W) Z Δ 0281 f1, 13 33 579 892 1241 1424 l 2211 etc. sys, p, h samss bo. Of these ‫ א‬L Z f1 33 0281 892 etc. sys boms drop the εισελθειν later in the verse, as do a few other texts. c. Various words for ‘hole’ are found in textual variants: ‫ א‬B* use τρηματος, as does Lk. 18:25; C K Θ 0281 567 700 l 2211 etc. have τρυμαλιας, as does Mk. 10:25. Most likely is τρυπηματος, as in ‫א‬2 D L W Z Γ Δ f1, 13 33 579 892 1241 1424 etc. d. ουρανου (‘heaven’) in Z f1 33 etc. ff1 sys, Matthew’s main use.

c

boms, conforming to

e. και εϕοβηθησαν in D it vgmss syc, giving ‘were astonished and extremely afraid’. Bibliography

Coulot, C., Jésus, 122-36. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘A Camel through the Eye of a Needle’, NTS 32 (1986), 465-70. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 86-101. • Lattke, M., ‘e Call to Discipleship and Proselytizing’, HTR 92 (1999), 359-62. • Lindeskog, G., ‘Das Kamel und das Nadelöhr’, in Glaube und Gerechtigkeit, ed. J. Kiilunen et al. (Helsinki: Finnische Exegetische Gesellscha, 1983), 109-22. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 146-56. • Wouters, A., Willen, 58-67. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 193-200. See further at 19:16-22.

e role of these verses is to re ect on the rich young man’s failure: riches pose a profound barrier to engagement with the kingdom; but God breaches even this barrier. e Markan sequence continues (cf. Mk. 10:23-27), with only the Markan source evident. ere are difficulties inherent in reading the Markan materials as a coherent narrative. V. 25 could have been transmitted alone, but v. 23b may always have been attached, while v. 27 may have lost an original setting or may own an original connection with v. 25. e linking materials are likely to be secondary formulation.106

19:23 As elsewhere, Mark’s ‘looked around’ is dropped,107 giving a tighter link with the preceding material. Having made his own use of historic presents in vv. 18 and 20, Matthew has no use for Mark’s here: he employs a standard aorist. An added ‘Amen, I say to you’ lends emphasis to the saying to come108 and builds a parallel for the opening in v. 28 of Jesus’ next statement to the disciples. Mark’s broader ‘those having possessions’ is sharpened to ‘a rich person’, which despite the change of vocabulary strengthens the connection with v. 22.109 As generally, Matthew prefers ‘kingdom of heaven’ to Mark’s ‘kingdom of God’ (but see at v. 24). ‘Enter the kingdom of heaven’ echoes ‘enter’ from ‘enter into life’ from v. 17 and has the same meaning. e present verse con rms

that the young man’s problem is his wealth, and generalises from this to a statement of principle. 19:24 Neither Luke nor Matthew retains Mk. 10:24, with its expression of surprise by the disciples and the extension by Jesus of the difficult statement to embrace everybody. No doubt they found it hard to see how it tted into the ow, particularly since v. 25 picks up on v. 23, ignoring the new elements introduced in v. 24.110 Matthew rescues πάλιν (‘again’) from the passed-over materials and fashions a parallel introduction, ‘again I say to you’,111 for the second and parallelled statement (ascending parallelism). Curiously, for ‘an eye of a needle’, no two of the Synoptics entirely share common language: Luke entirely goes his own way, using what are probably more re ned words; Matthew shares with Mark ῥαϕίδος for ‘needle’, but prefers τρύπημα to τρυμαλιά for ‘hole = eye’ (perhaps he wants to avoid the sexual connotations that sometimes attached to τρυμαλιά112). By contrast with his procedure in v. 23, Matthew now allows the ‘kingdom of God’ of his source form to survive. e reason is only stylistic: it means that the phrases v. 23 shares with v. 24 differ at the beginning (ἀμήν; πάλιν) and at the end (τῶν οὐρανῶν; τοῦ θεοῦ). e image is a provocative statement of an impossibility.113 ere is therefore intensi cation from v. 23 to v. 24. 19:25 With the move from difficulty to impossibility, this time the astonishment of the disciples makes more obvious sense, and Matthew keeps it. He begins with ἀκούσαντες (‘hearing’),114 providing a partial parallel to the rich young man in v. 22, picks up οἱ μαθηταί (‘the disciples’) from the material passed over in Mk. 10:24, and drops Mark’s complicating πρὸς ἑαυτούς (‘to themselves’) — if original.115 e motivation for the disciples’ question is not clearly given. It is probably based on the equation wealth = success, which may in turn be rooted in a theological view

that wealth is a mark of God’s blessing,116 but need be rooted in nothing stronger than normal human perspectives, here to be set over against the searching scrutiny of the vision that Jesus brings with the coming of the kingdom. 19:26 As in v. 23, Mark’s historic present goes. In v. 23 Matthew dropped ‘looked about’ (περιβλεψάμενος) but here he keeps the related ‘looked intently’ (ἐμβλέψας), probably in the interests of marking a minor climax.117 Mark’s cryptically expressed ἀδύνατον (‘impossible’) gains the missing elements to become ‘this is impossible’, but in compensation Matthew drops ἀλλ᾿ οὐ παρὰ θεῷ (‘but not with God’), which prepares for Mark’s following clause (that the phrase also disappears in Luke’s rather different changes suggests that it looked awkward).118 ere is probably an echo of Gn. 18:14 or Je. 32:17, or perhaps better of a proverbial saying rooted in them.119 Is the salvation of anyone humanly impossible (linking with Mt. 19:25), or is it the salvation of the rich (linking back to v. 24)? e latter almost certainly. ‘e text does not make clear how [the humanly impossible is to happen], but presumably the process must involve the breaking of the mesmerizing effect through which riches control those who possess them.’120 3. What Is ere for ose Who Follow and ose Who Sacrifice? (19:27-29) 27en

Peter responded, ‘Look, we le everything and followed you. What then will there be for us?’ 28Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, I say to you, you who have followed me will also — in the Renewal, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory — sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And whoever has le ahouses or brothers or sisters or father or mother

bor

children or fields for the sake of my name will receive ca hundredfoldc and will inherit eternal life.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. οικιας (‘houses’) has been moved to the end of the list in ‫ א‬C* L f1 579 892 mae bo (it is missing in ‫)*א‬. See the discussion of the Matthean order below. b. Probably under the in uence of Lk. 18:29, η γυναικα (‘or wife’) is added in ‫ א‬C*, 3 L W Θ f13 (33) 579 892 etc. lat sy(c), p, h sa mae bo. c-c. Under the in uence of Lk. 18:29, B L 579 etc. sa mae have πολλαπλασιονα (‘manifold’). Bibliography Barton, S. C., Discipleship, 204-19. • Burnett, F. W., ‘Παλιγγενεσία in Matt. 19:28: A Window on the Matthean Community?’ JSNT 17 (1983), 60-72. • Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 67-88. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Palingenesia (Matthew 19.28)’, JSNT 20 (1984), 51-58. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 238-45. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 140-51. • Hoffmann, P., et al., Q 22:28, 30: You Will Judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel, ed. C. Heil (Documenta Q: e Database of the International Q Project. Leuven: Peeters, 1998). • Horsley, R., Spiral, 199-208. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 460-72. • May, D. M., ‘Leaving and Receiving: A Social-Scienti c Exegesis of Mark 10:29-31’, PRS 17 (1990), 141-54. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 258-62. • Roh, T., Familia dei, 168-70. • Schmidt, T. E., ‘Mark 10.29-30; Matthew 19.29: “Leave Houses … and Region”?’ NTS 38 (1992), 617-20. • Sim, D. C., ‘e Meaning of παλιγγενεσία in Matthew 19.28’, JSNT 50 (1993), 3-12. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 190-99. • Verheyden, J., ‘Documenta Q: e Reconstruction of Q 22,28-30’, ETL 76 (2000), 404-32. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 234-45. See further at 19:16-22.

e challenge to the rich young man has real similarities to that to which the Twelve have responded. Peter’s question is not exactly parallel to that of the young man, but it is related. e man was offered eternal life and treasure in heaven; what were the Twelve in line for, and, generalising from them, what was there to be for those who had sacri ced much for the sake of the name of Jesus? Matthew continues to follow his Markan source (see Mk. 10:28-30), but intrudes into it material parallelled in Lk. 22:28-30. Mk. 10:29-30 is likely to have been a separately transmitted saying that Mark has drawn in at this point.121 Luke and Matthew seem to have received the material re ected in Mt. 19:28 in variant forms. e evaluation of original forms and historicity is difficult. See further below.

19:27 Matthew tightens the connection with the preceding by using his favoured ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered, he said’) to introduce Peter’s words.122 e link for vv. 27-29 is primarily back to vv. 16-22, and Matthew adds to this connection by making the point of Peter’s statement explicit with the added: ‘What then will there be for us?’ (cf. v. 21). e addition also prepares for the sharp focus on the Twelve that the materials in v. 28 (not in Mark) give to the rst half of Jesus’ answer. ‘We le everything’ is broader and more diffuse in its focus than the challenge to the rich young man in v. 21. It links to this challenge (but takes it up in terms of the costly nature of commitment, not self-impoverishment as such), but beyond that it is intended to echo the paradigmatic leaving statements in 4:20, 22 (where, we should note, no selling is involved) and perhaps also the substance of the harsh demand of 8:22 (‘let the dead to bury their own dead’). ‘Followed you’123 echoes more directly the call to the rich young man to ‘follow me’ (19:21), but behind that it echoes the correspondences noted above at v. 21. Peter sees the disciples as having successfully met, but in another

form, the challenge issued to the rich young man. What for them corresponds to the ‘treasure in heaven’ offered to him? Peter here speaks for the Twelve, and Jesus will make his answer to the Twelve. 19:28 Matthew uses the opening ‘Amen, I say to you’ of Mk. 10:29 (it forms a useful parallel to v. 23),124 but then intrudes a separate tradition before rejoining Markan material in Mt. 19:29. e separate tradition has a partial parallel in Lk. 22:28-30. e main differences are: Luke has (a) ‘stuck with me in my trials’ rather than ‘followed me’, (b) lacks Matthew’s παλιγγενεσία (‘Renewal’), (c) parallels the conferral of royal rule on Jesus and on the disciples rather than the sitting on a throne of the Son of Man and the disciples, and (d) has an additional clause about eating and drinking in Jesus’ kingdom. ere is no rm scholarly consensus on the most original form, it is likely that Matthew and Luke have received the material in different forms, but for (a) and (d) Luke is widely considered secondary. For (c) the Lukan form is mostly considered secondary,125 but Matthew’s ‘Son of Man on the throne of his glory’ is oen suspected of being redactional on the basis of the use of the same language in 25:31 (but the language is likely to be traditional in one of the two places, and the t seems better at 19:28 than at 25:31). ere is no straightforward Semitic equivalent for παλιγγενεσία (‘Renewal’), but it could render various Semitic terms (see further below). e material can do without it, but Matthew will hardly have added it. It may well be an original feature (but see further below). e emphatic ‘you’ (ὑμεῖς) echoes the emphatic ‘we’ (ἡμεῖς) of v. 27. ‘You who have followed me’ is here narrowly the Twelve; a widening out will come in v. 29. ere is an A B B′ A′ pattern, with ‘followed’ taken up narrowly here in connection with the Twelve and ‘le’ taken up more broadly in v. 29 as ‘everyone who has le’.

What does παλιγγενεσία mean? e word is an abstract of πάλιν γενέσθαι (‘to become again’) and is used in a wide range of contexts.126 But most of them are not technical, and the article with the present use suggests some kind of technical use. In Stoic teaching the universe was understood to be periodically dissolved and renewed in a ery con agration (e.g. Diogenes Laertius 7.134; Cicero Nat. Deorum 2.118), spoken of at times as a παλιγγενεσία (see Marcus Aurelius 11.1.3; Philo Aet. Mundi 47, 76). It is primarily against this Stoic background (as a Jewish/Christian alternative) that the choice of παλιγγενεσ ία in Matt 19.28 is best understood. Philo Moses 2.65 applies παλιγγενεσία to the Flood period, an application also found in 1 Clem 9.4. is is likely to point to the merging together of this Stoic background with another background based on a Jewish (and Christian) response to the ancient myth which envisaged the world as undergoing recurrent and alternating destructions by ood and re (with subsequent regeneration) — παλιγγενεσία is not used in this connection. For the myth see Plato Tim. 22C-E; Seneca Nat. Quaest. 3.28; 3.29.1; Lucretius Rerum Nat. 5. For the Jewish and Christian alternative see 2 Pet 3.5-7; Josephus Ant. 1.70-71; Adam and Eve 49:3; Mek. Amalek 3.14. is Jewish/Christian response may build on what was already recognised in apocalyptic texts as the typological correspondence between the Flood and eschatological judgment (see 1 Enoch 10.22–11.2; 93.4; cf. Sib. Or. 1.195; 7.11).127

As pointed out by Sim,128 the expectation of just such a cosmic renewal of the world is re ected in Mt. 5:18; 24:35, where the passing away of the present heaven and earth is anticipated. e use of the Greek term παλιγγενεσία locates this material in a Hellenistic context, but the idea of a remaking of the world is well rooted in the OT (Is. 65:17; 66:22) and the wider Jewish tradition.129 So there is nothing to demand that this tradition be judged a Greek-language creation. It simply gains a particular form and precision in a Greek-

language context. Indeed, given the very limited materials for comparison in Matthew, we cannot be sure how closely in touch Matthew himself was with the origins of, and therefore the precise sense of, the term he has used. e language ‘the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory’ is probably dependent on the coming together of Ps. 110:1 and Dn. 7:13, as in Mt. 26:64.130 It has a striking parallel in two passages in 1 Enoch, which perhaps suggests a particular connotation here to a Jewish tradition.131 To this point the links between Son of Man and Dn. 7:13 have been cumulating (see at 16:27), but Ps. 110:1 is used for the rst time (it will be used again in 22:41-46; 26:64132). e place of sitting at the right hand of God has become a throne (presumably one of the thrones of Dn. 7:9). e glory that in Dn. 7:13 is given to the Son of Man and in Mt. 16:27 is ‘the glory of his Father’ is now connected with the throne (presumably on the basis that glory attaches to the one who sits on this throne). Matthew does not specify what the Son of Man will be doing on his throne, but the parallelism between the Son of Man and the Twelve suggests that he too will judge. is nds con rmation in 25:31, where the language is repeated in relation to the separation of the sheep and the goats (the scope of judgment in 19:27 is the twelve tribes of Israel; in 25:32 this has become all nations). Whereas in 13:41-43 the judgment function of the Son of Man seemed to be joined with the establishing of his rule, here he seems to have gained a judgment function without this restriction of focus (as in 25:31-32 and already in 16:27). It is not clear where the judging function of the Son of Man has its roots, but Ps. 110:6 may have played a role (but it has judgment among the nations), or, rather more likely, a reading of Dn. 7:26 is involved in which the opening phrase ytb dynʾ has been understood differently.133 dynʾ is literally ‘the judgment’, while ytb is ‘will sit’. e

phrase is typically translated ‘the court will sit in judgment’ (NRSV), and the bene ciaries of the judgment are ‘the people of the saints of the Most High’ of v. 27. But in v. 22 dynʾ (‘judgment’) is given to ‘the saints of the Most High’ — ‘the saints of the Most High’ is a decoded equivalent for ‘one like a Son of Man’ of v. 13. And if l is taken here as meaning ‘to’ rather than ‘for’, then the sense could be represented as ‘[the role of] judgment is given to the Son of Man [of v. 13]’. If the opening words of v. 26 are read from this perspective, then what is literally ‘the judgment will sit’ can be taken to mean that the Son of Man will sit in judgment — thus exercising rather than bene ting from the judging function referred to with dynʾ. Such an interpretive approach may have been prompted by or may in turn have prompted a link with Ps. 110. e same kind of judgment function (but without the precise use of the term) is found in the 1 Enoch references to the Son of Man sitting on the throne of his glory. With imagery drawn from the role of an ancient eastern monarch, the ruler also represents the highest level of the judiciary. Given the conviction that all must stand before the judgment seat of God, to conceive of Jesus as the ultimate judge is a natural enough development from (a) the place of the announcement of judgment in his preaching and (b) the conviction that ‘all things have been handed over to [him] by [the] Father’ (Mt. 11:27).134 Since the choice of the Twelve represents God’s claim on Israel (cf. at 10:1), there is a ttingness in having the Twelve participate in the judgment of Israel. e idea that the messiah would be involved in judging Israel has little place in Jewish tradition, but the Qumran community would have been at home with the idea135 since it considered Jewish life to be largely under the control of the forces of darkness; and the idea is re ected in the John the Baptist materials as we have them (see discussion at 3:11). Judging does not mean

condemning: as in Mt. 25:31-46, there are two options. e relationship here between the role of the Son of Man and the Twelve is likely to be inspired by the parallelling in Dn. 7 of a Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High (esp. cf. vv. 14 and 27). 19:29 With the move from ‘followed’ to ‘le’ the narrow focus on the Twelve is dropped in favour of the language of generality: ‘everyone who …’.136 e list is much as in Mark: a plural for ‘houses’ probably re ects the possibility that on various occasions one might freshly need to leave one’s home (perhaps this is how Matthew understands the activity of Jesus and his band since in Matthew they are frequently found in a house or coming and going from a house); ‘father or mother’ regains its traditional patriarchal order (Mark’s order probably re ects an imperfect chiasm, with family members enclosed within a frame of ‘house’ and ‘ elds’ and with the enclosed family members arranged male, female, female, male; the chiasm is broken by the presence of ‘children’ aer the gendered sequence — perhaps Mark was not content to put [male and female] children in the middle of his female pair137); where in 16:25 Mark’s ‘for my sake and the gospel’s’ became ‘for my sake’, here ‘for my sake and the sake of the gospel’ becomes ‘for the sake of my name’ (10:18 has ‘for my sake’, while 10:22; 24:9 have ‘because of my name’) — the sense is the same. For the readiness to abandon family ties cf. 10:35-37. Since land was the main source of wealth for most people, the reference to elds may function as a speci c link to the challenge to the rich young man. e change from Mark is more drastic for the rest of the verse. e positive reformulation is responsible for the future ‘will receive’, but Matthew may have been glad to get rid of Mark’s rather unusual ἐὰν μή (lit. ‘if [he or she does/will] not’; here ‘who [will] not’) plus subj. construction aer οὐδείς ἐστιν ὅς (‘there is no one who’). But more signi cantly Mark’s νῦν ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τούτῳ (‘now in this

time’) disappears: Matthew does not want to distinguish between bene ts that come to the Christian disciple now and those which must await the age to come.138 And Matthew drops the list of bene ts that repeats the list of things le (with a plural for ‘mother’ and with ‘father’ dropped from the list — God is Father): he is concerned that his readers should not think in terms of like for like. With the dropping of the list goes ‘with persecutions’. He has kept the reference to ‘persecution’ in 13:21 and sees no need for it here in the material that identi es the blessings to be given. e central point being made is that, though the demands of discipleship may be severe, the blessings are completely out of proportion to the costs. ‘Hundredfold’ may echo language of hundredfold blessing by God in the OT.139 Having dropped ‘now in the present age’ Matthew also drops the parallelled ‘in the coming age’. ‘Will inherit’ (used with ‘eternal life’), omitted in 19:16, can now be used in the climactic position again with ‘eternal life’ and allows ‘a hundredfold’ and ‘eternal life’ to have their own verbs. e promise of a hundredfold is very reassuring, but as we began in v. 16 with the much more signi cant question of eternal life, this is what takes pride of place at the end. e danger with all this material is that it might encourage a calculating response, with reward seen as proportionate to achievement. 19:30–20:16 will address this matter. E. Making All the Workers Equal (19:30–20:16) 30‘But

many [who are] first will be last, and [many who are] last [will be] first. 1For the kingdom of heaven is like [a situation in which there is] a landowner who went out right at daybreak to hire workers into his vineyard. 2He agreed with the workers for a denarius a day and sent them into his vineyard. 3en he went out about the third hour and asaw others standing

idle in the public square, 4and he said to them, “You go into bthe vineyard too, and I will give you whatever is right”. 5ey went off. He went out again about the sixth and the ninth hour and did the same. 6About the eleventh [hour] he went out and found others standing [around], and he says to them, “Why are you standing c[around] idle all day?” 7ey say to him, “Because no one hired us.” He says to them, “You go into the vineyard too.”d 8When evening came, the master of the vineyard says to his steward, “Call the workers and give them their hire, beginning from the last and [continuing on] until [you get to] the first”. 9And when those [hired] about the eleventh hour came, they received a denarius each. 10When the first [hired] came, they expected to receive more; but they also received ethe [same] denarius each. 11When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, “ese last [hired] did one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the burning heat”. 13He answered one of them, “Comrade, I do not wrong you; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and go! I want to give to this last[-hired person the same] as I also give to you. 15fAm I not permitted [to do] what I want to do with what is mine? Or is your eye evil because I am good? 16So, the last will be first, and the first [will be] last.’g

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ευρεν (‘found’), as in v. 6 in D 1424 etc. it. b. μου (‘my’) in ‫ א‬C Θ f13 33 579 700 etc. it vgcl sa mae (cf. v. 2). c. αγρους (‘idle’) in C W f1, 13 etc. f h q syp, h (cf. v. 3). d. και ο εαν η δικαιον λη(μ)ψεσθε (‘and whatever is right you will receive’) in C* N W f13 33 565 1421 etc. f h q sy(c), p, h (bomss) (cf. v. 4). e. e article is missing from B D W f1, 13 etc., easing the syntax. f. η (‘or’) is found in ‫ א‬C W 085 f1, 13 33 etc. lat syp, h co. is could be original, but the sense sequence and the artistry work a little better without it.

g. πολλοι γαρ εισιν κλητοι, ολιγοι δε εκλεκτοι (‘many are called, but few are chosen’) is added in C D W Θ f1, 13 33 etc. lat sy mae bopt (cf. 22:14). Bibliography Barré, M. L., ‘e Workers in the Vineyard’, BiTod 24 (1986), 173-80. • Blomberg, C., Parables, 221-25. • Busse, U., ‘In Souveränität- anders Verarbeitete Gotteserfahrung in Mt 20,1-16’, BZ 40 (1996), 61-72. • Carter, W., Households, 146-60. • Carter, W., ‘Parable of the Householder in Matthew 20:1-16’, in Parables, W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 124-146. • Chalendar, X. de, ‘L’argent: Matthieu 19,30–20,16’, CHR 28 (1981), 450-56. • Charette, B., Recompense, 109-17. • Culbertson, P., ‘Reclaiming the Matthean Vineyard Parables’, Encounter 49 (1988), 257-83. • Dietzfelbinger, C., ‘Das Gleichnis von den Arbeiten im Weinberg als Jesuswort’, EvT 43 (1983), 126-37. • Doyle, B. R., ‘e Place of the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16’, ABR 42 (1994), 39-58. • Elliott, J. H., ‘Matthew 20:1-15: A Parable of Invidious Comparison and Evil Eye Accusation’, BTB 22 (1992), 52-65. • Erlemann, K., Bild Gottes, 93-114. • Fortna, R. T., ‘“You have made them equal to us!” (Mt 20:1-16)’, JTSA 72 (1990), 66-72. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 20’, SémiotBib 84 (1996), 3-13. • Göbel, C., ‘Übermensch im Weinberg des Herrn: Betrachtungen zu Mt 20,1-16’, ProtBib 10 (2001), 3340. • Harnisch, W., Gleichniserzählungen, 177-200. • Haubeck, W., ‘Zum Verständnis der Parabel von den Arbeitern im Weinberg (Mt 20,1-15)’, in Wort, ed. W. Haubeck and M. Bachmann, 95-107. • Hezser, C., Lohnmetaphorik und Arbeitswelt in Mt 20,1-16: Das Gleichnis von den Arbeitern im Weinberg im Rahmen rabbinischer Lohngleichnisse (NTOA 15. Fribourg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). • Hoppe, R., ‘Gleichnis und Situation: Zu den Gleichnissen vom guten Vater (Lk 15,11-32) und gütigen Hausherrn (Mt 20,1-15)’, BZ 28 (1984), 1-21. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 33-46. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 412-24. • Knowles, M., ‘“Everyone Who Hears ese Words of Mine”: Parables on Discipleship (Matthew 7:24-27//Luke 6:47-49; Luke 14:28-33; 17:7-10; Matthew 20:1-16)’, in Parables, ed. R. N. Longenecker, 285-305. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 69-88. • Lamoureux, P. A. and Zilonka, P., ‘e Workers in the

Vineyard: Insights for the Moral Life’, RevRel 61 (2001), 57-69. • Lowe, M., ‘A Hebraic Approach to the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard’, Immanuel 24/25 (1990), 109-17. • Manns, F., ‘L’arrière-plan socio-économique de la parabole des ouvriers de la onziéme heure et ses limites’, Anton 55 (1980), 259-68. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 451-60. • Marion, D., ‘Simples et mystérieuses paraboles, VI: Paraboles paradoxales: le règne qui bouleverse le quotidien des hommes’, EV 106.39-40 (1996), 197*, 205*-8*. • Menahem, R., ‘Epitropos/Paqid in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard’, Immanuel 24/25 (1990), 118-31. • Mühlenberg, E., ‘Das Gleichnis von den Arbeitern im Weinberg (Mt 20,1-16) bei den Vätern’, in ΕΡΜΗΝΕΥΜΑΤΑ. FS H. Hörner, ed. H. Eisenberger (Heidelberg: Winter, 1990), 11-26. • Mudíso Mbâ Mundla, J.-G., Jesus, 5-40. • Nützel, J. M., ‘“Darf ich mit dem Meinen nicht tun, was ich will?” (Mt 20,15a)’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 267-84. • Pak, C. H., ‘Die Arbeiter im Weinberg (Mt 20,1-16)’, BK 52 (1997), 136-37. • Patte, D., ‘Bringing Out of the Gospel-Treasure What Is New and What Is Old: Two Parables in Matthew 18–23’, QRev 10 (1990), 79108. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 51-56. • Rodríguez, J. D., ‘e Parable of the Affirmative Action Employer’, CurTM 15 (1988), 418-24. • Roloff, J., ‘Das Kirchenverständnis des Matthäus im Spiegel seiner Gleichnisse’, NTS 38 (1992), 337-56, esp. 343-45. • Ruetther, R. R. M., ‘Matthäus 23,1-12: Umwandlung von Macht zu Dienst’, in Feministisch gelesen I, ed. E. R. Schmidt, K. Korenhof, and R. Jost (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1988), 170-78. • Schenke, L., ‘Die Interpretation der Parabel von den “Arbeitern im Weinberg” (Mt 20,1-15) durch Matthäus’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 245-68. • Schlosser, J., Le Dieu de Jésus (LD 129. Paris: Cerf, 1987), 213-33. • Schnider, F., ‘Von der Gerechtigkeit Gottes: Beobachtungen am Gleichnis von den Arbeitern im Weinbert (Mt 20,1-16)’, Kairos 23 (1981), 88-95. • Schottroff, L., ‘Human Solidarity and the Goodness of God: e Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard’, in Lowly, ed. W. Schottroff and W. Stegemann, 129-47. • Schottroff, L., ‘Matthäus 20,1-16: Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein’, in Feministisch gelesen I, ed. E. R. Schmidt, K. Korenhof, and R. Jost (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1988), 163-69. • Schröder, R., ‘Die Arbeiter im Weinberg’, ZdZ 1 (1998), 69-71; Scott, B. B., Parable, 281-98. • V. G., Shillington, ‘Saving Life and Keeping Sabbath (Matt. 20:1b-15)’, in Parables, ed. V. G. Shillington, 87-101. • Tevel, J. M., ‘e Labourers in the Vineyard: e Exegesis of

Matthew 20,1-7 in the Early Church’, VC 46 (1992), 356-80. • eobald, M., ‘Die Arbeiter im Weinberg (Mt 20,1-16): Wahrnehmung sozialer Wirklichkeit und Rede von Gott’, in Christliche Sozialethik im Anspruch der Zukun, ed. D. Mieth (Studien zur theologischen Ethik 41. Freiburg: Herder, 1992), 107-27. • Weder, H., Gleichnisse, 218-30. • Zwick, R., ‘Die Gleichniserzählung als Szenario: Dargestellt am Beispiel der “Arbeiter im Weinberg” (Mt 20,1-15)’, BibNot 64 (1992), 53-92.

us far in the section 19:1–20:16 the balance between demand and grace has tipped quite heavily in the direction of demand, but now the balance is redressed. Sacri ce brings its reward, but in the generous goodness of God many will receive full pay who have worked only a fraction of the day. God is free to do what he wishes with what is his own, and what he wishes is to place on an equal footing and provide fully for all who work in his vineyard. Mt. 19:30 continues the Markan sequence, parallelling Mk. 10:31. Matthew has added the parable in Mt. 20:1-15 as an illustration of (the understanding he intends for) the Mk. 10:31 material. He then rounds off the section with a near repetition of Mt. 19:30. is parable is preserved only by Matthew. Scholarship has con dently traced it to the historical Jesus. Matthean touches are likely to be the speci c comparison with the kingdom of heaven, the use of ‘landowner’ of the vineyard owner, some of the uses of ‘ rst’ and ‘last’ (but not that in v. 8), and possibly the mention of the steward. Vv. 3-5 are sometimes suspected of being a Matthean addition, but as discussed below they are too well integrated into the telling for this to be likely.

19:30 In vv. 27-29 everything seems to work very straightforwardly, and everyone might think they know where they are. But the present verse introduces uncertainty. What is in view is not at all clear, but clearly con dences are being deliberately unsettled. Perhaps everything does not work by formula, as vv. 2729 might seem to suggest! e near repetition of this verse in 20:16 suggests that the enclosed parable is intended to provide the speci c

sense intended by Matthew. But for the present we have an unidenti ed ‘many’ for whom there is to be a major reversal: the rst to become last and the last rst. We do not yet know what is to be reversed, but aer vv. 27-29 a connection with rewards and status is likely. 20:1 It is unclear whether the likeness to the ‘kingdom of heaven’ language is an original feature of the parable. Certainly Matthew is interested in the echo it provides of the parables material of chap. 13,140 as well as in its contribution to the formal equivalence between the parable in 18:23-35 that ends the previous section and the present parable at the end of the section 19:1–20:16. Probably Matthew is already thinking as well of the parables to come in 22:1-14 and 25:1-13, which will be similarly introduced. e speci c identi cation of the gure as a landowner (on the sense given to οἰκοδεσπότης here see at 13:27 — an owner of worked land is intended) may also be secondary and intended to contribute to these links (and also to a connection with 21:33, where ‘person’, ‘landowner’, and ‘vineyard’ also come together).141 On the need to landconstrue the syntax in the likeness statement loosely (like [a situation in which there is]) see the comments at 13:24. e use of ἅμα with πρωΐ suggests in a striking idiom the concurrence of the man’s activity and the (arrival of) dawn:142 here is a man eager to get a full day’s work from those he is about to hire for the day. e working day probably begins at sunrise (around 6 a.m.). V. 3 will make clear that the ‘labour exchange’ was to be found in the public square (ἀγορά), which served in the main as the marketplace. Day labourers occupied a precarious niche between slave labourers (who were considerably cheaper, but remained one’s responsibility whether there was work for them to do or not) and labourers with regular employment (who represented a more dependable workforce, with less need for supervision, but were

suitable only for areas of work that was not subject to major seasonal or other kinds of uctuations). In good times the rotation of seasonal needs and the uctuations in other casual labour needs would have added up to fairly regular employment for the day labourers, but oen this would not have been so.143 e man is hiring for vineyard work. Harvest is the obvious time when there is a need for extra seasonal labour, but no such precision is offered here; and despite frequent assumptions to the contrary, no such precision is implied by the subsequent hirings.144 We should assume that our landowner is not, or does not expect to be, the only one hiring that morning. 20:2 ough the wage agreement attracts no special emphasis at this point in the story, it will gain major signi cance later. e rate of pay negotiated appears to have been fairly standard.145 e agreement was verbal, but public. And though such workers were in a weak legal position, there would not normally have been any serious doubts about the agreement being honoured. ese labourers go off to their work. ey will not reappear in the story again until v. 10, but from there on they will be central. 20:3 e engaging of extra workers in vv. 3-5 is not re ected in the subsequent development (see vv. 8-10). Are they an original feature of the story? In favour of originality is the added verisimilitude thereby gained for the engagement of workers at the eleventh hour to come in v. 6 (this is then the climactic instance of a broader feature of the story). Against originality is the disappearance from the rest of the story of these workers engaged for intermediate periods.146 Whether original or not, the limited narrative investment in the intermediate groups147 suggests that at least they be downplayed for purposes of interpretation. Nonetheless, as will become clear, this material has enough features

which contribute positively to the main development of the parable to favour its originality. e landowner ventures out again at about the third hour (around 9 a.m., but timing was quite inexact because hours were a subdivision of the day and so varied through the seasons). e working day is a quarter through. Why is he hiring more labourers partway through the day? Has he misjudged at the beginning of the day? Are the work needs in the vineyard pressing? e only clue we are given is the clause about the landowner seeing them standing idle. But the more extended development of this feature in the conversation of vv. 6-7 indicates that the reference to idleness is to be treated as having greater signi cance than simply pointing to availability for work. We are pointed in the direction of the needs of the workers rather than the needs of the landowner: he can use them; not, he needs them. At this stage in the story, however, this emphasis is not yet strong. We simply have a rst thread of what will become clearer later. But note that whereas in v. 1 the man went out to hire, now he goes out and he sees: the hiring becomes a consequence of what he nds. It is conceivable that this second batch of workers have already done a little work elsewhere but that work had come to an end. More likely (especially given the more expanded treatment in vv. 6-7) their services had not yet been taken up. 20:4 To provide variation, Matthew uses direct speech to report the engagement of this second set of workers (this also prepares for the importance of speech in vv. 6-7), and reverses the order of treatment of the wage agreement and the sending. ‘You go too’ (ὑπάγετε καὶ ὑμεῖς) would seem to imply that these new workers had witnessed the hiring of the earlier workers. is time ‘whatever is right (δίκαιον)’ replaces the agreement for a denarius. e vagueness here will be important later. Also, the δικ- root used

will be taken up in v. 13 in ‘I am doing you no wrong’ (οὐκ ἀδικῶ σε). 20:5 e agreement of the second set of workers to the deal is marked by their departure to the vineyard.148 e rest of the verse, in briefest compass, encourages the hearer to imagine a repetition at the sixth and ninth hour of the man’s intermediate hiring activity. Were these workers passed over when the landowner hired at the third hour, or are we to imagine that there was to a signi cant degree a piecework arrangement, such that during the day workers would cycle in and out of availability? e language of v. 6 suggests the former. But in any case, we must think in terms of other potential hirers coming along for workers partway through the day.149 20:6 For the account of the nal hiring the time is brought forward to the emphatic beginning position to emphasise yet further its lateness (how much work can they possibly do, given the need to make their way to the vineyard and be directed into their task?), ‘found’ (εὗρεν) replaces ‘saw’ (εἶδεν) (marking more strongly the purposefulness of the landowner’s movement), and the location is dropped. ‘Idle’ is also dropped, but only to be given greater emphasis in the conversation between the landowner and the unhired workers. For the interchange this time, the historic present replaces the aorist of v. 4, probably to mark emphasis. e historic presents will mark vv. 6-8 as an emphasised centre of the parable. e opening exchange identi es the plight of the unhired workers: they might have been suspected of being work-shy, but such was not the case.150 e question is not critical, only clari catory. 20:7 e historic present ‘they say’ corresponds to that in v. 6. e verb for ‘hire’ is picked up from v. 1. ese people are idle not because they have no need or desire for work, but because they have been given no opportunity for work. For the rst part the man’s

response is exactly as in v. 4, but the vagueness there about the wage gives way to silence here. at these labourers take up the offer is not speci cally indicated, as it had been at the start of v. 5 for those in vv. 3-4. With this nal hiring we are probably to understand that the landowner has now (progressively) offered work to all the unplaced labourers in the public square.151 Emphatic features and the scale of the telling suggest that these workers hired at the eleventh hour are of particular signi cance for the story. 20:8 e story clearly has no investment in the actual work being done in the vineyard: the action moves from nal hiring to the end of the day. ὀψίας γενομένης (‘when evening came’) probably also marks the end of the workday in 8:16. e landowner is now identi ed as ‘the master of the vineyard’, probably to narrow the bridge to interpretation (see below). e master’s direction to his steward is introduced with the last of the sequence of historic presents: though the developments to come in vv. 9-15 are vital to the parable, the action which is being responded to or interpreted becomes complete with (the implementation of) the directive to the steward.152 As oen in storytelling, despite the use of direct speech we are actually le to discover important details of the directives given to the steward from the developments to follow. Payment on the same day is required in Lv. 19:13; Dt. 24:14-15. μισθός is translated ‘hire’ here to draw attention to the cognate relationship with the verb in Mt. 20:1, 7. I have elsewhere translated μισθός as ‘reward’, but it is also a standard term for payment for work done. e reverse sequence of payment provides for an element of chiasm in the parable.153 It also provides a fairly trivial but quite literal reversal corresponding to the language of 19:30. e narrative need for the reversal here is that it allows the rst hired to witness the payment of the last hired before receiving and then

reacting to their own payment.154 Dealing with the last rst also con rms the hints of vv. 6-7 that the workers hired at the eleventh hour are of particular signi cance for the story. Despite the restriction of vv. 9-15 to the rst- and last-hired workers, the language ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῶν ἐσχάτων ἕως τῶν πρώτων (‘beginning from the last and [continuing on] until [you get to] the rst’) suggests intermediate categories. 20:9 If the hiring of workers at the eleventh hour was surprising, yet more so is the wage paid to them. ‘A denarius for the day’ (ἐκ δηναρίου τὴν ἡμέραν) of v. 2 is now taken up in modi ed form as ‘a denarius each’ (ἀνὰ δηνάριον). No reaction statement is provided since this is not where the story is invested, but the hearer spontaneously imagines the delight and appreciation of these workers, but also the expectation aroused in the others. V. 10 will address this expectation. 20:10 In the sequence proposed in v. 8 the intermediate categories of workers should now have been paid. No doubt we are to understand that they were, but the scene moves immediately to the workers who have worked through the whole day: here the contrast is sharpest. Whereas v. 9 could draw on the language of vv. 5-6 for οἱ περὶ τὴν ἑνδεκάτην ὥραν (‘those [hired] about the eleventh hour’), there is no simple equivalent in vv. 1-2. Instead v. 10 draws on the language of v. 9 with οἱ πρῶτοι. Naturally enough these workers expected to receive more and were disappointed to receive exactly the same payment: they felt devalued. at the payment is precisely the same is emphasised by καὶ αὐτοί (‘they also’) and by the de nite article (translated ‘the [same]’ above) before ἀνὰ δηνάριον (‘denarius each’). Despite a dramatic contrast in work done, there is no difference in wage received. Not only in the ancient world would such behaviour create resentment but today as well.155

20:11 e workers are not so foolish as to refuse the wage; they know the precariousness of their bargaining position over against the power realities of the day. But they feel quite justi ed in expressing their feelings: they make their complaint against the landowner, and, as will become clear in v. 12, they make their complaint to the landowner. 20:12 ose hired at the eleventh hour are now called ‘the[se] last’, contrasting them with ‘the rst’ of v. 10 and thereby completing the reuse of the language pair introduced in v. 8. ‘Did one hour’ is contrasted with ‘have borne the burden of the day and the burning heat’.156 e double use of ποιεῖν (‘do/make’) contrasts the last and the landowner: what he did does not correspond in the eyes of the full-day workers with what those employed last did. ose have been made equal who have not contributed enough to deserving to be made equal. ere is no disagreement about the material facts as laid out here. e disagreement is over whether this should be a cause for complaint. 20:13 e householder’s response is directed not collectively to the group, but to one individual from the group. Is this to suggest that the thrust of this parable is not something that can be apprehended as a general (abstract) truth but only in a deeply personal and individual manner? e individual is addressed as ἑταῖρε. is need be no more than a conventional way of addressing someone in a friendly manner whose name is not known. But the word does mark having something in common with the other person. Perhaps here it marks the common investment in the vineyard. Perhaps it represents an invitation to come to a common perception of the situation being addressed. e landowner’s commitment to doing what is just or right, marked in v. 4, is con rmed here. Speci cally the landowner has kept to the terms agreed to in v. 2. His question about this needs no answer.

20:14 It seems a little odd to nd ‘Take what is yours and go!’ at this point rather than at the end of the landowner’s comments. But at the end it would gain a negative thrust (‘What I do with the others is no business of yours’) and suggest a permanent breach. Here it can be an invitation to be happy in the outcome.157 ere seems to be a chiastic pattern here centred on ‘Take what is yours and go!’: the clause is immediately framed by statements about the payment made, and these are in turn framed by statements about justice (οὐκ ἀδικῶ)/what is permitted or lawful (οὐκ ἔξεστιν;). e nal clause of v. 15 remains over as a concluding statement. e individuation introduced in v. 13 is taken further now by the selection of the case of one particular person from among those hired last (‘to this last’). ere is an implicit contrast between the commitment involved in what the landowner has agreed to and the freedom involved in what he wants to do (θέλω). Both are given importance, and the landowner sees no necessary tension between them. His wish is to pay the latecomer exactly the same as the rst arrival. 20:15 e point about freedom is now pressed with a question: ‘Am I not permitted [to do] what I want to do with what is mine?’ e frame of reference for thinking about the situation is transformed. In terms of what is deserved, parity between those who worked the full day and those who arrived only at the end is patently unfair. But to explain his actions the landowner is invoking the freedom of the benefactor.158 For the attentive listener, fresh emphasis will fall at this point on the role of the state of idleness in which the landowner initially found the workers hired later. As noted at v. 3, by means of this feature we are pointed in the direction of the needs of the workers rather than the needs of the landowner: he can use them; not, he needs them. As noted at v. 7, the landowner appears to have provided work for all the unplaced

workers. e landowner was already being signi cantly othercentred in his hiring pattern (they needed work); he continues to be so in his payment pattern (they need the pay that would have gone with a full day of employment). How the matter looks from the landowner’s point of view is pointed up sharply by the concluding paradoxical formulation, with its contrast between evil and good. In this context what is an evil eye (ὁ ὀϕθαλμός σου πονηρός)? ere was a widespread ancient view that certain individuals had the power to harm magically by means of a look; these people had the evil eye. Elliott argues for this background here, suggesting that the landowner is making an evil-eye accusation as a means of discrediting the complainant.159 But the landowner of the parable is trying to win over the complainant, not simply win out over him. In 6:23 the same phrase is applied to a diseased eye and thus to a distorted vision of things. ere I suggested that the phrase is likely to have taken its rise from the way that people’s eyes can clearly betray their strong emotions (in this case negative emotion), that it could be used to refer to a range of negative attitudes, and that it could gain a more focussed sense only from context. Elliott thinks that the sentiment is envy,160 but, though no doubt the latecomers could be envied for the ease with which they had gained the full day’s pay, full-day workers feel negative sentiment towards the landowner, not the other workers (vv. 11-12). e sentiment is resentment, not envy; resentment is plainly visible in their eyes. But was such resentment reasonable? If the frame of reference is to be that of what is deserved, then the resentment is justi ed. But the landowner has been pressing the claims of a different framework. He has been doing good.161 e hearer is invited to ponder whether the one who has been doing good should be met with evil. Perhaps implicitly the hearer is also being asked to

consider the well-being of the other workers, but primarily he or she is being asked to see with fresh eyes the action of the landowner. e story is open-ended. It is the hearers who will or will not be reoriented in their attitude to the landowner’s actions. us far the story. But how does this illuminate how things are with the kingdom of heaven, and how does it clarify the reversal language of 19:30?162 e landowner and the vineyard can hardly avoid carrying OT echoes of Israel as God’s vineyard.163 e use of ὁ κύριος (‘the Lord/master’) makes a further contribution to nding God in the story. Since following Jesus in 19:22, 27, 28 implies following him in his mission, working in the vineyard implies sharing in his mission to Israel. e overall role of the story seems to be to provide a way in which a need for response to an invitation and a guarantee of reward can be set within a larger framework in which the primary dynamic is provided by the generous goodness of God now at work in and through Jesus.164 An eschatological context is intrinsic to the parable and reinforced by the positioning aer 19:27-29. e reversal language of v. 30 turns out to be slightly misleading. e ‘many’ are straightforwardly those who come and work in the vineyard. But the rst becoming last turns out to be their need to lose their priority and share an equal place with the last, and the last becoming rst is revealed as their privilege of being, out of God’s pure generosity, placed on the same level as the rst. e reversal language has much the same signi cance as its counterpart in Is. 40:4: ‘Every valley shall be lied up, and every mountain and hill be made low’. Here everything is evened out to provide a level terrain. is parable has at times, rightly, been paired with that of the father and his two sons in Lk. 15:11-32. e point is not identical, but they share the challenge to recognise the goodness of the outcome of the action of the landowner/father. Solidarity plays a

greater role in Lk. 15 than in Mt. 20, but in both cases one’s perspective towards what God is now doing is chie y in focus; what he is doing is good and to be rejoiced in. In speci c terms who are those who come late to the vineyard? For the historical Jesus it is likely to be sinners who are responding to his ministry as distinct from those who have remained faithful to God (cf. the older brother of Lk. 15:25-32). For Matthew it is more likely to be newcomers to the Christian faith who were not part of the earliest circles of disciples or at least lack longstanding status as Christian disciples. ose whom God has accepted on an equal footing need to be accepted by other Christians as on an equal footing. ere is some kinship here with the value placed in Mt. 10:42; 18:6, 10, 14 on ‘these little ones’ (see at 18:6), but also signi cant difference. 20:16 e near repetition here of 19:30 completes the bracketing around the parable. Aer the parable the limiting ‘many’ of 19:30 is no longer necessary; it is replaced by de nite articles with ‘ rst’ and ‘last’ (the rst and the last of the parable are in view). A reversal of order for ‘ rst’ and ‘last’ allows for a minor chiasm in the bracketed material and picks up rst on the term used most recently in the parable (‘last’ in 20:14).

1. See Mt. 7:28–8:1; 11:1; 13:53. 2. Mt. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1. ere is some, but not a tight, parallelism in the language which follows: ‘these words’, ‘instructing his twelve disciples’, ‘these parables’, ‘these words’, and ‘all these words’. 3. καί (‘and’) is slightly insecure in the text of Mk. 10:1. It is missing from C2 D G W D Q f etc. 565 579 1342 1424 2542 etc. latt sys, p and is displaced by διὰ τοῦ (‘through’) in A 1006 1506 etc. syh.

4. E.g., Lk. 4:44; 6:17; 7:17. 5. e raw material for a link with Mt. 16:1 was all available in Mk. 10:2; in fact, Matthew fails to exploit one of the links (he replaces ἐπηρώτων [‘asked’] with λέγοντες [‘saying’]), but we will see that this is in the interests of another link. He ensures the link, however, by bringing πειράζοντες (lit. ‘tempting/testing’) into proximity with Φαρισαῖοι (‘Pharisees’). 6. In Mk. 10:2 εἰ ἔξεστιν comes aer ἐπηρώτων αὐτόν (‘asking him’) and may represent indirect speech to be translated ‘whether it is permitted’. In Mt. 19:3, coming aer λέγοντες, only direct speech is possible: ‘Is it permitted?’ On the Semitic Greek involved see the comments at 10:10. 7. κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν is sometimes taken to mean ‘for any cause at all’, but this view appears to be based on a confusion in translation between the use of ‘any’ referring to any and every instance meeting some speci ed condition (generally synonymous with ‘every’) and the use of ‘any’ in determining whether a category is void of members. Scholars have improperly appealed to the use of πᾶς in the former sense (e.g., Mt. 3:10) in order to claim a use of πᾶς in the latter sense. e Hebrew word kl can, however, mean ‘any at all’ and has in uenced LXX usage. 8. Matthew also replaces the pairing of ἀνήρ (‘man/husband’) and γυνή (‘woman/wife’) with the pairing of ἄνθρωπος (‘person/man’) and ἡ γυνή αὐτοῦ (‘his wife’). 9. Lv. 21:7, 14; 22:13; Nu. 30:10; Dt. 21:14; 22:19, 29; 24:1-4; Ez. 44:22. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:15, point out that the prohibition of priests from marrying divorced women ‘suggests that divorce is at odds with holiness’. 10. Ex. 21:11 is related. It deals with marriage to a woman who has been sold by her father into slavery. Such a woman is to be released debt-free from the marriage if her husband takes another wife and diminishes the food, clothing, or marital rights of the rst wife. 11. M. Giṭ. 9:10 offers the spoiling of a dish of food as an example of something sufficiently shameful to justify divorce. ose favouring a more liberal interpretation could also point to the introductory words of Dt. 24:1: ‘If she nds no favour in his eyes’. On the basis of these words Rabbi Akiba is

said to have considered nding a more attractive woman an adequate basis for divorcing a wife (m. Giṭ. 9:10). 12. Josephus reports (Life 426) that he divorced his rst wife μὴ ἀρεσκόμενος αὐτῆς τοῖς ἤθεσιν (‘not being pleased with her behaviour’). In Ant. 4.253 he speaks of divorce ‘for whatever cause’ (καθ᾽ ἁσδηποτοῦν αἰτίας), adding ‘and with mortals many such [causes] may arise’ (πολλαὶ δ᾿ ἂν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τοιαῦται γίγνοιντο). Philo (Spec. leg. 3.30) recognises that there is a range of possible grounds for divorce. 13. See also the discussion by R. Fuller, ‘Text-Critical Problems in Malachi 2:10-16’, JBL 110 (1991), 47-57; C. C. Jones, ‘A Note on the LXX of Malachi 2:16’, JBL 109 (1990), 683-85. 14. To introduce Jesus’ response Mt. 19:4 retains ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (‘he responded’) from Mk. 10:3 (dropping the object: αὐτοῖς [‘to them’]) 15. is will become ‘have you never read’ in 21:16 (chief priests and scribes), 42 (reference unclear, but chief priests, elders of the people, and Pharisees feature in the context), and reverts to ‘have you not read?’ in 22:31 (Sadducees). 16. In the LXX ὁ κτίσας is not used in quite this titular manner since there is always an object. But it is coming close to being titular in Ec. 12:1; Is. 45:8; Dn. 4:37; 1 Esdr. 6:12; 3 Sir. 24:8; Macc. 2:3. Matthew’s reordering also means that the emphatic time contrast in Mk. 10:6 is no longer tting. 17. But CD 4:19-21 connects Gn. 1:27 with polygamy (and possibly but less likely to divorce — see discussion at Mt. 5:32). 18. In Mk. 10:7 καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ (‘and be joined to his wife’) is insecure in the text since it is absent from ‫ א‬B Ψ 892* 2427 etc. sys. If it is original, Matthew’s changes amount to preferring the form ἕνεκα to Mark’s ἕνεκεν, dropping αὐτοῦ from aer πατέρα (‘father’), and replacing προσκολληθήσεται πρός + acc. with κολληθήσεται + dat. (without change of meaning). If it is not original, then Matthew has lled in the gap, but with some variation from the LXX wording. 19. e verbs used in the quotation of Gn. 2:24 are future (the MT uses the imperfect). e force is probably gnomic (thus the present tenses in the translation). To give the verbs an imperatival force would suit the normative

status of the materials but not the sense that something more than chosen human actions is involved here. 20. ἄνθρωπος is normally a general word for a human, but it is occasionally used for the adult male, which is clearly the case here. 21. G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 71. 22. Cf. W. Rudolph, ‘Zu Malachi 2.10-16,’ ZAW 93 (1981), 85-90; Sigal, Halakah, 93; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:12. 23. See Tosato, ‘Genesis 2:24’, 396. 24. Without offering any real evidence, Tosato, ‘Genesis 2:24’, 397, 407, 409, accuses the rabbis of removing the words to favour a more lax approach to marriage and divorce. 25. But in an interpretive tradition that linked Gn. 1:27 with 7:9 in the interests of asserting that monogamy is the Creator’s intention (see CD 4:21–5:1), the presence of ‘the two’ in Gn. 1:27 would make the connection between the two texts yet stronger. Since, as noted at Mt. 5:31-32, the logic of Jesus’ insistence that remarriage is adultery against the divorced wife would be undercut by assumptions of permitted polygamy, it is likely that the Gospel tradition here indirectly bears witness to the interpretive tradition that connected Gn. 1:27 and 7:9 in the interests of insistence on monogamy. Cf. the discussion in Instone-Brewer, ‘Monogamy’, 96-100. 26. Aer the use of ἄνθρωπος for the man in Mt. 19:5 (cf. n. 20), it has the same force here. 27. Rather than the responsive οἱ δὲ εἶπεν (‘and they said’) of Mk. 10:4. 28. Matthew keeps this verb back for 19:8. 29. Displacing the ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς (‘and Jesus said to them’) of Mk. 10:5. 30. e language is in uenced by Mt. 19:3. 31. See Dt. 10:16; Pr. 17:20; Je. 4:4; Ez. 3:7; Sir. 16:10. 32. Ps. 95(94):8: ʾl tqšw lbbkm/μὴ σκληρύνητε τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν; (‘Do not harden your hearts’). See also Is. 63:17. 33. Matthew uses this or variants (with ἐγώ [‘(emphatic) I’], γάρ [‘for’] or πλήν [‘but’] for δέ [lit. ‘and/but’], and an opening ἀμήν [‘amen’]) y-six times.

34. For the understanding of πορνεία as ‘sexual impurity’ see the comments at Mt. 5:32. 35. As for Mt. 5:32, I take the majority view that an exception is in view. e alternative views are listed in Nolland, Luke 2:816. 36. Mt. 5:29, 30; 18:6. 37. ere is no closely matching use in either the NT or the LXX; the closest is Est. 3:8. 38. A third option is to refer ‘this word’ forward to what is coming in v. 12, but this makes v. 11 a fresh start and leaves v. 10 as a rather odd conclusion to vv. 3-9. It also leaves the connecting γάρ at the beginning of v. 12 without force, which is linguistically possible but unlikely. A fourth option is attractive for those who take Mt. 19:9 as allowing the man to divorce but not remarry in the case of marital in delity on the part of his wife. On this understanding, to divorce but not re-marry is eunuch-like behaviour, called for on the part of those who will engage with the coming of the kingdom of God in relation to Jesus. 39. For P. Farla, ‘One Flesh’, 71, despite the link of v. 11 to v. 9 rather than to v. 10, Mt. 19:12 is related because ‘eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’ is a description of the married Christian man who, because of his commitment to Jesus’ teaching on marriage, is, metaphorically, a eunuch in relation to all other women than his wife. But this is an unnatural reading of v. 12. 40. e NRSV translates χωροῦσιν ‘can accept’, but this is probably misleading. e meanings of χωρεῖν develop from the use of spatial imagery. It is used of movement across a terrain, where it can be oriented towards the movement itself (e.g., ‘be in motion’, ‘make progress’, ‘spread out’) or the destination to be reached (e.g., ‘go away to’). It is used of the capacity to encompass (e.g., ‘have room for’, ‘hold’, and even ‘make room for’). And it is used to encompass in the sense of mental grasp (e.g., ‘grasp’, ‘understand’, perhaps even ‘accept’ if the imagery is ‘have space for’). e NRSV’s intruded ‘can’ introduces a note of evaluation which is foreign. 41. is might have been possible if the text were in Mark, but at Mt. 16:9 Matthew’s response to something similar in Mk. 8:18 has been to soen

the account in a manner that removes all ambiguity as to which side of the divide the disciples are to be found. 42. For other Matthean lists of three cf. 5:22; 7:22; 12:25-26; 23:8-10, 2022, 29-30, 34, but none of these has a closely parallel structure or function. For other pairings and longer lists see 5:29-30, 34-36; 12:35; 13:17; 18:8-9. 43. One could point out that the list makes no provision for the effect of disease or accident, but the overall sense of comprehensiveness remains. 44. e rabbinic sources distinguish between srysy ḥmmh (lit. ‘eunuchs of the sun’) or srysy šmym (lit. ‘eunuchs of heaven’) and srysy ʾdm (lit. ‘eunuchs of man’). See Str-B, 1:805-7. 45. See Mt. 18:3, 8, 9; 19:16, 17, 23, 24, 29. 46. It is just possible that we are to understand the marriage between Potiphar and his wife in Gn. 39 as a celibate marriage since Potiphar is a eunuch, and that this background is intended to illuminate his wife’s attraction to Joseph. e marriage of eunuchs is contemplated in m. Yeb. 8:46. 47. e humiliation would seem to combine: exile, reduction to the status of petty functionary, and inability to continue the royal line. In the LXX there is also Wis. 3:14, where the inability to have children is clearly in view (cf. v. 13, where the barren woman is in view), and Sir. 20:4; 30:20, where the inability to be sexually intimate is in view. Cf. also Jdt. 12:11. 48. e LXX has two further terms for eunuch: Lv. 22:24; Dt. 23:2 (ET 23:1) both use θλαδίας, and the latter also uses ἐκτομίας. In these physical defects are clearly in view. 49. In rabbinic discussion of the srys, when the focus is on the incapacity to reproduce, it is not interest in the absence of testicles but interest in the absence of evidence of physical maturing that de nes the srys (see, e.g., b. Yeb. 79b). 50. For evidence of the persistence of this practice into the NT period, see Jos., Ant. 15.218; 17.32; Life 27; Ovid, Amores 2.3; Tac., Ann. 4.8, 10; 6.31; 12.66; 14.59. e issues raised in the paragraph above have made some reluctant to appeal to Acts 8:27-39 in this respect.

51. Xen., Cyr. 7.5.61-65, ‘… eunuchs are objects of contempt to the rest of mankind, … for there is no man who would not think that he had a right to take advantage of a eunuch at every opportunity…;but there is no reason why even a eunuch should not be superior to all others in delity to his master’. [62] ‘… [Cyrus] did not admit … that eunuchs are weaklings; and he drew this conclusion also from the case of other animals: for instance, vicious horses, when gelded, stop biting and prancing about, to be sure, but are none the less t for service in war; …’ [63] ‘And men, too, in the same way, become gentler when deprived of this desire, but not less careful of that which is entrusted to them; they are not made any less efficient horsemen, …’ [64] ‘… no one ever performed acts of greater delity in his master’s misfortunes than eunuchs do’. [65] ‘And if it is thought with some justice that they are inferior in bodily strength, yet on the eld of battle steel makes the weak equal to the strong. Recognizing these facts, he selected eunuchs for every post of personal service to him, from the doorkeepers up’. 52. For Jewish objection to castration see Ps.-Phoc.. Sent. 187; Philo, Hypothetica in Euseb., Praep. Ev. 8.7.7; Jos., Ap. 2.270-71; b. Sanh. 56b; b. Šab. 110b. 53. E.g., m. Yeb. 6:6: ‘No man may abstain from keeping the law “Be fruitful and multiply”’. e obligation was thought to fall on men and not on women, re ecting male initiative in marriage matters. We cannot be sure that the intense focus on the responsibility to procreate, evident in rabbinic sources, was as strong prior to the crisis in Jewish life resulting from the A.D. 70 war. 54. E.g., in m. Ket. 5:6 they are called ‘the duty of marriage’ and are regulated in connection with the need in certain professions to be away from home for periods of time or for men to give themselves unreservedly to a task for a certain period. Even a vow of abstention could be only for a limited period. 55. E.g., b. Qid. 29b–30a; b. Sanh. 76a–76b. 56. Philo, Hypothetica, in Euseb., Praep. Ev. 8.11.14-18; Jos., Ant. 18.21; War 2.120-21. e Qumran documents themselves make no mention of a celibate community, but the community would seem to have been either

dominantly or entirely male (but graves of women and children have been found). 57. Cf. the way Philo (Vita cont. 68) eulogises aged virgins who ‘have kept their chastity not under compulsion, like some of the Greek priestesses, but of their own free will in their ardent yearning for wisdom…. ey have spurned the pleasures of the body’. is text is oen used to support the view that the minor Jewish sect, the erapeutae, was committed to celibacy, but this involves an overreading of the text. 58. Test. Iss. 2:3 commends Rachel for wanting ‘to lie with Jacob for the sake of children and not for sexual grati cation’. In Philo, Ios. 43, Joseph explains: ‘e end we seek in wedlock is not pleasure, but the begetting of lawful children’. In Spec. leg. 3.9 Philo speaks of the unchastity of immoderate and insatiable sexual desire for one’s wife, and in 3.113 he accuses those who expose infants of mating not to procreate only for pleasure like pigs and goats. In War 2.160 Josephus reports that some Essenes forewent intercourse during the pregnancy of their wives, ‘thus showing that their motive in marrying [was] not self-indulgence but the procreation of children’. ere is wider evidence for the practice of refraining from intercourse for (pseudo-)medical reasons for at least part of the period of pregnancy. 59. Ex. 19:10-15; Lv. 7:20-21; 15:16-18; 22:4; and cf. Dt. 23:9-11 for the conduct of ‘holy’ war. A strand of Jewish tradition argued that, since God spoke to Moses frequently and without warning, Moses, though married, must have become a lifelong celibate (e.g., b. Yeb. 62a; b. Šab. 87a; b. Pes. 87b). 60. See m. Yoma 8:1; b. Yoma 74a; m. Taʿan. 1:6; b. Taʿan. 11a. Sexual relations in a room containing Torah scrolls came to be speci cally forbidden (y. Ber. 3:5). 61. See b. Qid. 29b. 62. P. Brown, Body and Society, 19, points to Galen’s speculation (De semine 1.8) that if Olympic athletes could be castrated in such a way that their reserves of heat would not be disrupted, they would be stronger; to Soranus’s insistence (Gyn. 17.30.2) that men who are sexually continent are stronger and in better health than others; and to Artemidorus’s report of an

athlete’s dream about castration (Oneirocrit. 5.95), which is seen to relate to the outstanding success of his athletic career until the time when he began to have sexual intercourse. 63. Using the imagery of the eunuch for its shock value precludes appeal to the advantages of being a eunuch. Matthew does not re ect a dualism that would be offended by the pleasure of sex, nor anything that would encourage a connection with notions of retention of vital energy within the body. Judgment is important in Matthew, but it does not have a role that would encourage an imitation of Jeremiah. ere is nothing to hint an interest in purity concerns here. e only link that remains possible is to the value re ected in the views of those rabbis who encouraged the delay of marriage for the sake of the study of Torah. Certainly the presence of Jesus in connection with the kingdom of heaven meant that something more important than marriage needed to be engaged with. 64. L. W. Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and eir Implications for Today (London: SCM, 1888), 176. 65. It has some right to survive as a conjecture about the meaning of Mt. 19:12 for the historical Jesus. 66. I think this is more likely than Tannehill’s view (Sword, 135–36) that Mt. 19:12 harks back to the teaching on marriage by identifying an exception: some married men are called on to abandon their wives for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. 67. Cf. Mt. 8:14 with 1 Cor. 9:5. 68. See esp. 1 Cor. 7:7, 25-35, 38, 40. 69. Mt. 11:15; 13:9, 43. 70. Most recently at Mt. 17:19. 71. As it does elsewhere uniformly in Mark. e exception in Matthew is 17:7, where Jesus reestablishes contact with the disciples by touch aer the experience of the trans guration. 72. e idiom for ‘place on’ then moves from τιθέναι ἐπ᾿ αὐτά to ἐπιτιθέναι αὐτοῖς, but with no change of meaning. 73. e verb is not found elsewhere in the NT. While one person blessing another is found in Luke (using εὐλογεῖν), it is not found in Matthew or Mark.

74. In Mt. 9:18 ‘hand’ is singular and there is an extra ἐπί (‘upon’) in the Greek. In the Markan parallel to 9:18 (5:23) the idiom is as in Mt. 19:13, 15. In Mark and Luke laying hands on is much more frequently linked with healing. See Mk. 6:5; 7:32 (singular); 8:23, 25; Lk. 4:40; 13:13. 75. In Mt. 18:20 Jesus is in effect the one who brings the answer to the prayer of the gathered disciples. 76. See Acts 6:6 (appointment of the Seven); 8:15-17 (bestowing the Spirit); 13:3 (commissioning for ministry); 28:8 (healing of Publius). Without explicit mention of prayer, similar notes are sounded for laying on of hands in 8:19 (bestowing the Spirit); 9:12, 17 (restoration of Paul’s sight); 19:6 (bestowing the Spirit); 1 Tim. 5:22 (commissioning for ministry). ough laying hands on is quite common in the OT (predominantly in relation to the cult, but also for blessing), laying hands on and prayer never come together in the LXX. 77. Strictly the syntax requires that the disciples be rebuking the children, but Matthew probably failed to notice that with the change from Mark’s ‘they brought’ to the passive ‘were brought to’ the appropriate antecedent for ‘them’ (i.e., those who brought the children) disappears. 78. Matthew replaces Mark’s present in nitive with an aorist. 79. An unhelpful move in the direction of self-isolation is involved when the text is used to maintain that ‘the acceptance of social marginality is a prerequisite for entering the kingdom’ (Silberman, ‘Schoolboys’, 113; cf. Carter, Households, 114). ough the two can at times be joined, low status, not marginalisation, is what is involved here. 80. E.g., Beisser, ‘Markus 10,13-16’, 244-51; Lindemann, ‘Die Kinder’, 77104. 81. Making use of his favoured word ἐκεῖθεν (‘from there’) of which Matthew has almost half the NT uses. 82. Of the paired features most are Matthean, and in all cases at least one pole of the pair is. To the coming up to in v. 16a corresponds the departure in v. 22; to ‘have eternal life’ in v. 16b corresponds ‘have treasure in heaven’ in v. 21b; to ‘if you want’ in v. 17c corresponds ‘if you want’ in v. 21a; the centre is immediately bracketed by the two statements by the young man introduced by ‘he says to him’ (historic present). V. 17ab has no real place in

the structure — it must be attached to the following clause for which it prepares — and on a smaller scale ‘and come, follow me’ in v. 21 remains outside the structure — the sequence at this point is in uenced by the value for the imagery of immediately juxtaposing the giving away of money and the acquisition of treasure in heaven. e presence of ‘the young man’ in v. 22 aer its use in v. 20 might be thought to compete with the structure. For a somewhat different chiastic analysis see Coulot, ‘L’homme riche’, 250. 83. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:884-85. 84. Used twenty-eight times by Matthew, it oen marks the introduction of a new gure onto the scene in relation to whom the episode will subsequently develop. 85. Matthew’s preference for εἶπεν αὐτῷ (‘he said to him’) over the ἐπηρώτα αὐτόν (‘he began to ask him’) of Mk. 10:17 could also be for the sake of the parallel with the scribe of Mt. 8:19, but Matthew is in any case much less fond of ἐπερωτᾶν (‘ask’) than Mark is. 86. ough the language is singular (‘what good [thing]’), the level of abstraction is such that there is no focus on a singular deed, as might be suggested by, e.g., the NRSV translation ‘what good deed’. 87. e Shema came to consist of Nu. 15:37-41; Dt. 6:4-9; 11:13-21, passages drawn together by their shared pertinence to phylacteries. Something of the scope of the fully developed Shema is re ected in m. Ber. 2:2, where the opening words of each of the three sections are quoted. 88. However, in the LXX the operative phrase is provided by the larger unit κύριος εἷς ἐστιν (‘is one Lord’). 89. e construal of the Hebrew is disputed since the verb(s) could be supplied at various points. Despite the variety of senses that are possible, they all attribute a unique signi cance to Yahweh, whether this is seen in terms of loyalty to God alone, or of the unity of the Godhead. 90. See 1 Ch. 16:34; 2 Ch. 5:13; Pss. 25:8; 34:8; 106:1; 118:1, 29; 136:1; Na. 1:7; etc. 91. Cf. Ps. 119:68: ‘You are good and do good; teach me your statutes’. 92. ποίας is used for τίνας and is accusative since it functions as the object of an implied longer question form, e.g., ‘Which commandments must I keep?’

93. Other suggestions include: late entry to the list; a nal position to suggest that family honour and not just individual righteousness depends on the ful lment of the commandments listed earlier. 94. Given that Lv. 19:18 is also connected with the Decalogue in Rom. 13:9; cf. Gal. 5:14; Jas. 2:8, 11, Matthew is likely to be in uenced by an existing tradition of some sort. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:45. 95. Cf. Philo, Op. mundi 105. 96. is seems more likely than the suggestion that ‘young man’ re ects the predominance of young men among those who responded to Jesus’ radical call. 97. Luke and Matthew both prefer the active rather than Mark’s middle form for ‘kept’, which may re ect LXX in uence. 98. Ps. 38:5 LXX (ET 39:4) has the same idiom, different only in the presence of the emphatic ‘I’: τί ἔτι ὑστερῶ ἐγώ. τί is probably not the object since this verb takes genitive objects (though there is an instance in Ct. 7:3 of the passive used with an active meaning taking an accusative object), but rather an accusative of reference. 99. ere is a long history of looking for support here for a call of certain Christians to a higher life. But the Matthean links for the completeness called for here require universal applicability (though not necessarily precise imitation of what the young man was called to). 100. More literally ‘your possessions’, but since this is the natural translation of κτήματα in Mt. 19:22, an alternative is used here to mark the use of different language. 101. See Str-B, 4:551. 102. Mt. 4:19 has δεῦτε ὀπίσω (‘come aer’); 8:22; 9:9 have ἀκολούθει (‘follow’); 10:38 has ἀκολουθεῖ ὀπίσω (‘follow aer’) — though this last is a statement of principle and not a call. Mt. 19:21 has δεῦρο (singular of δεῦτε) ἀκολούθει (‘come, follow’). 103. See Mt. 13:(19), 20, 21, 23. Lk. 18:23 also has ἀκούσας (‘having heard’) at this point. 104. Matthew has six of the eight Synoptic uses of this verb. 105. Harvey, Strenuous Commands, 124.

106. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:889-90. 107. None of Mark’s six uses of περιβλέπειν (‘look around’) survives in Matthew. 108. Used most recently at Mt. 18:18, 19. 109. Otherwise Matthew uses δέ (‘and/but’) rather than καί (‘and’) to couple with 19:22 and drops the exclamatory use of πῶς (giving: ‘with what difficulty!’) in favour of a simple recitative ὅτι. ere are also minor changes in word order. 110. Probably Mark thinks in terms of sacri cial commitment being required of all, not simply of the rich. 111. But this time with no ὅτι (he is not compensating for a dropped Markan feature), unless we follow ‫ א‬C L Z 0281 579 l 2211 etc. aur. 112. τρύπη would have been another alternative, but it can mean ‘anus’. 113. Scholars have now largely abandoned the attempt to identify some narrow city gate as ‘the eye of the needle’. An early exposition of the text involved reading κάμιλον (‘rope, cable’) for κάμηλον (‘camel’), but no signi cant difference of meaning results, and κάμηλον is much better attested. ere is a later rabbinic image of an elephant passing through the eye of a needle (see b. Ber. 55b; b. Meṣ. 38b). 114. Lk. 18:26 also has ἀκούσαντες. 115. Matthew also prefers σϕόδρα to Mark’s περισσῶς for ‘extremely’ (Matthew uses it only once, but has seven uses of σϕόδρα) and the more precise ἄρα to καί for the linking ‘then’. 116. See, e.g., Ps. 112:3; Pr. 3:16; 8:18. 117. But the object is moved from ‘looked intently’ to ‘said’. 118. Matthew also drops the linking γάρ (‘for’) of the following clause in the same adjustment, and brings παρὰ θεῷ (‘with God’) in the following clause to the front to match the Markan emphasis otherwise lost through the abbreviation. 119. Cf. Job 42:2; Zc. 8:6. e LXX of Job 10:13 expresses a similar sentiment. 120. Nolland, Luke, 2:891. 121. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:889-90.

122. In the singular or the plural Matthew uses this idiom about fortyve times. e opening τότε (‘then’) is also a Matthean favourite. 123. Mk. 10:28 has a perfect tense for ‘followed’, but Matthew brings this into line with what in Mark is already an aorist for ‘le’. 124. Reversing the change of Mt. 19:21, Matthew replaces Mark’s ἔϕη with εἶπεν for ‘said’. 125. Both Matthew’s ‘thrones’ and Luke’s ‘royal rule’ (βασιλεία [lit. ‘kingdom’]) are likely to re ect forms of the material that predate the Evangelists, but each has the form that best ts his own themes. See further Nolland, Luke 3:1,063-64. e Matthean form has a simpler unity that may stand in favour of its greater antiquity. ere does, however, seem to be a relationship between the Lk. 22:29 material and Mt. 25:34, which complicates matters. Perhaps Luke has merged two parallel forms of the material (one using the language of thrones and judging; the other using the kingdom language), both known to Matthew, who uses the former in 19:28 and echoes both in Mt. 25:31-34. (is represents a partial change of mind from Nolland, Luke, 3:1,063-64, but it remains likely that the form represented in Mt. 19:28 is the more primitive.) 126. See Derrett, ‘Palingenesia’, 52 and notes, for an extensive list of uses and references. To Derrett’s list can be added its use in connection with the post-Exilic restoration of Judah in Jos., Ant. 11:66. 127. Nolland, ‘Genesis’, 465 n. 11 (see the bibliography for 1:2-17). 128. Sim, ‘Meaning’, 7-11. 129. 1QS 4:25 uses the language of ‘the new creation’ (ʿśwt ḥdšh). 1QH 11(= 3):28-33 describes a con agration (at the hands of Belial). Jub. 1:29 speaks of ‘the day of the new creation when the heaven and earth and all their creatures shall be renewed’. And see 1 Enoch 45:4-5; 72:1; 91:16; 2 Bar. 32:6; 44:12; 57:2; 4 Ezra 7:30-32. 130. It is possible but by no means certain that Ps. 80:18(ET v. 17; LXX 79:18) played a role in bringing together Dn. 7:13 and Ps. 110:1. Ps. 80:18 has ‘Son of Man’, as does Dn. 7:13 (but one in Hebrew and one in Aramaic), and its use of ‘your right hand’ corresponds to the use of ‘my right hand’ in Ps. 110:1.

131. 1 Enoch 62:5 has ‘the Son of Man sitting on the throne of his glory’; 69:29 has ‘that Son of Man has appeared and has seated himself on the throne of his glory’. ere are no de nite links in the 1 Enoch contexts to Ps. 110, but the broader thematic connections are strong. e passages are from the section of 1 Enoch called the Similitudes, which is of uncertain date, but it is likely to re ect earlier strands of Jewish tradition. Earlier arguments that it is post-Christian, and even in uenced by Christian faith, have now largely been abandoned. 132. It is uncertain whether Ps. 110:1 has had any in uence on the language of Mt. 20:20-21, where presumably Jesus is also seen as sitting ‘in [his] glory’. 133. e same phrase, but without the opening w (‘and’) of the form in Dn. 7:26, is found earlier in v. 10. 134. Various scholars want to give κρίνειν here a wider sense based on the OT use of špṭ, pointing in some cases particularly to the role of the judges in Judges, where elements of rule, justice, deliverance, grace, and salvation are all to be found. While this view has attractions, Matthew does not elsewhere use the verb in this manner, and, in any case, while the role of the Judges was wider, semantically κρίνειν/špṭ even as applied to them always retains a judicial meaning. Also, the linking materials (both relevant traditions and the rest of Matthew) t a judgment context better. But since (as noted above) the rule of an ancient eastern monarch included the role of the highest level of the judiciary, one should not draw too sharp a distinction between ruling and judging. 135. E.g., 1QpHab 5:3; 1QS 8:7. 136. Matthew rejoins his Markan source. e Markan formulation has been negative: ‘no one has …’. 137. With the loss of the chiasm, the end position for ‘ elds’ in the Matthean form seems unjusti ed. By accepting ‘wife’ into the list (see ‘Textual Notes’ above), Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:59, can identify as the pattern ‘three personal pairs sandwiched between two impersonal things’. 138. Scholars oen assume that Matthew moved all the bene ts here to the age to come, but that is to overread the change and pays no attention to

the strong sense of God as provider that permeates the Gospel (e.g., Mt. 6:33). 139. See Gn. 26:12; 2 Sa. 24:3; 1 Ch. 21:3. 140. See Mt. 13:31, 33, 34, 45, 47; cf. vv. 24, 52. 141. e key gure in the parable in Mt. 13:24-30 is identi ed as οἰκοδεσπότης (‘a landowner’) in v. 27, and the juxtaposition of ἀνθρώπῳ (‘person/man’) with οἰκοδεσπότῃ in 20:1 is like that of ἀνθρώπῳ with ἐμπόρῳ (‘merchant’) in 13:45 and that of ἀνθρώπῳ with βασιλεῖ (‘king’) in 22:2. e introduction of the gure of a steward in Mt. 20:8 who seems to be super uous to the fundamental dramatic development of the story has oen puzzled commentators. His introduction may be no more than a secondary effect of the introduction of the landowner (in 13:24-30 the landowner directs his slaves). But see further below. 142. BDAG 49 compares the use in Aristeas 304 of ἅμα τῇ πρωΐᾳ, using the noun rather than the adverb for ‘early morning’. 143. It is not clear how such workers survived the lean periods. Some may have begged. Some may have been able to supplement their wages by working a small plot of land. Some may have depended on family or friends through the lean periods. 144. Explained as made under the pressing necessity of getting the harvest in quickly (perhaps by nightfall). 145. ἐκ δηναρίου (lit. ‘out of a denarius’) functions as a genitive of price (there is no ἐκ in Mt. 20:13); τὴν ἡμέραν (‘the day’) is used distributively. Information for precise comparisons is not available. Rabbinic sources use a denarius as a standard day’s wage, but in one case a rate of half a denarius is reported. A skilled scribe is reported as earning twelve denarii a week (see Str-B, 1:831). Tob. 5:14; Pliny, Nat. hist. 33.3; Tac., Ann. 1.17, also point to a basic wage rate of a denarius a day. But H. Klo, ‘Arbeit und Arbeitsverträge in der griechisch-römischen Welt’, Saeculum 35 (1984), 200-221 (here p. 201) has assembled evidence for wage rates in Rome that were a quarter lower, and lower again in the Roman countryside (I owe the reference to Busse, ‘Souveränität’, 68 n. 30).

Drawing on A. Ben David, Talmudische Ökonomie (Hildesheim: Olms, 1974), 292-93, Luz, Matthew 8–20, 530, points out that ‘e Mishnah calculates that a person needs a minimum of 200 denarii per year in order to exist’ (i.e., without supporting a family). A loaf of bread might cost a twelh of a denarius (a pondion), according to m. Šebi. 8:4; m. ʿErub. 8:2, but our for baking one’s own would have cost only a fraction of this (see m. Šeq. 4:9). Judging from m. Maʿaś. 2:5-6, an issar (half a pondion) might buy ve to twenty gs, a bunch or two of grapes, one or two pomegranates, or one or two watermelons. Four denarii might buy a lamb (m. Men. 13:8), and twelve denarii a cloak (m. Meʿila 6:4). 146. Busse, ‘Souveränität’, 61-72, offers the most effective argument against originality, stressing the likely allegorical interest re ected in this addition. Cf. also Schenke, ‘Interpretation’, 257-59. 147. Measured in verses, the hiring of the rst and last occupies four verses while the three intermediate hirings are covered together in three verses. 148. Glover, ‘Workers’, 310-11, accounts for the absence of these workers from the continuing story by taking ‘they departed’ as marking the refusal of the landowner’s proposal. But while this solves a problem, it adds a feature to the parable which cannot be well integrated into an interpretation, except in a rather arbitrary allegorical manner. 149. In m. B. M. 9:11 the possibility of being hired by the hour and in m. Šebi. 8:4 the possibility of being hired for a task worth one twenty-fourth of a denarius (an issar) are marked. 150. ough sometimes suggested, there is no reason here to suspect a camou age for lack of desire to work. 151. ough he doubts the originality of Mt. 20:3-5, Schenke, ‘Interpretation’, 258, recognises the hiring of the eleventh hour as based on the kindness (‘Güte’) of the landowner. 152. e introduction of the steward may be speci cally to allow for this concentration. 153. What is being framed is unclear. We could think in terms of vv. 1-2 corresponding to vv. 10-15; v. 6 corresponding to v. 9. Setting aside for the moment the troublesome vv. 3-5, this would highlight v. 8. But the historical

presents suggested a highlighting of vv. 6b-8. To accommodate this, v. 6a alone could be taken to provide the correspondence with v. 9. But this is rather arti cial. 154. is narrative need allows for some con dence that the reversal of Mt. 20:8 is an original feature of the parable. Possibly, however, Matthew has accentuated this feature by taking up the language of rst and last in vv. 10, 12, and 14 (and in his nal comment outside the parable in v. 16). 155. Interpreters who are oriented to issues of economic justice have latched onto this fact and looked in the parable for a story that unmasks the pretension of those who control the levers of power. But despite widespread suspicion of wealth in the NT, neither for the historical Jesus nor for Matthew is such an interpretation credible. 156. ‘Of the day’ picks up on ‘for the day’ in Mt. 20:2. 157. Busse, ‘Souveränität’, 65, argues for an original end-position for ‘Take what is yours and go!’ but does not see that this very position tends to give a negative sense to the clause. 158. I do not use ‘benefactor’ here with the connotations that regularly attached to it in the ancient world, especially in relation to the mutual set of obligations which were considered to be implied by benefaction. 159. Elliott, ‘Matthew 20:1-15’, 52-65. 160. Elliott, ‘Matthew 20:1-15’, 58-62. 161. e language is not the same, but the phrase ‘he went about doing good [said about Jesus]’ from Acts 10:38 bears comparison. For Matthew there will also be an echo of Mt. 19:17. 162. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:67-68, provide quite a full list of interpretations of the parable. 163. See Is. 5:1-7; 27:2-5; Ps. 80:9-14(ET 8-13); Je. 2:21; Ez. 19:10-14; Ho. 10:1. 164. Haubeck, ‘Parabel’, 104-7, is right to insist that the generous goodness of God was a rm part of OT and rst-century Jewish faith. e need was to recognise the concrete form that this was now taking.

XVI. REDEFINING GREATNESS, JESUS GOES TO JERUSALEM TO DIE: JERICHO, BETHPHAGE, ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM (20:17–21:11) A. To Jerusalem to Die (20:17-28) 1. Jesus Heads for His Fate in Jerusalem (20:17-19) Jesus was agoing up to Jerusalem, he took the Twelveb aside privately, cand on the way he said to them, 18‘Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him dto deathd 19and hand him over to the Gentiles to mock and flog and crucify; and on the third day he will be raised.e 17As

TEXTUAL NOTES a. μελλων δε αναβαινειν in B (f2) syp samss boms, giving ‘about to go’. b. μαθητας (‘disciples’) is added in B C W 085 33 etc. lat syh samss mae. at elsewhere (10:1; 11:1) Matthew uses αυτου (‘his’) with δωδεκα μαθηται (‘twelve disciples’) — but cf. the variant at 26:20 — stands against μαθητας being original here (though the full form is found in 13 892c 1424 etc. it vgmss syp samss). c. Displaced to aer ‘way’ in C D W etc. e f h q sy and dropped by 346 mae. d-d. Missing from B.

e. e Markan αναστησεται (‘will rise’) is found in B C2 D W Θ 085 f1, 13 33 etc. Bibliography Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 129-44. • Caragounis, C. C., Son of Man: Vision and Interpretation (WUNT 68. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1986), 190201. • Tan, K. H., Zion, 77-80. See further at 16:21-23; 17:22-23.

e new section 20:17–21:11, as have the previous three (from 16:21; 17:22; 19:1), begins with a statement that reminds the reader of Jesus’ goal in Jerusalem. Of these statements all but 19:1 involve Passion predictions. Now Jesus heads directly for Jerusalem; the section will cover the stages, reaching rst Jericho (20:29), then Bethphage (21:1), and nally Jerusalem itself (v. 10). Aer the addition of the parable in Mt. 20:1-16, Matthew rejoins the Markan order (cf. Mk. 10:32-34). No source beyond the Markan is evident.

20:17 e Twelve were introduced as ‘his twelve disciples’ in 10:1 and focussed on as a group of twelve from 10:1 to 11:1. eir number plays an indirect role in 19:28, but is picked up explicitly for the rst time here in 20:17 with reference to them as ‘the Twelve’. is language will recur again in the Passion Narrative.1 For more general discussion of the Passion predictions see the comments at 16:21-23; I will comment here only on the distinctives of the present material. Matthew freshly introduces Jesus, and it is he rather than the collective ‘they’ of Mk. 10:32 who is said to be going up to Jerusalem (different from Mk. 8:31, Mt. 16:21 reveals that the Matthean Jesus must do so). Matthew drops the Markan material about travel order, amazement, and fear (it is convoluted and a bit cryptic), adds ‘privately’ (picking up the thread from

16:21-23 — a less detailed version has been made more widely available in 17:22), links ‘on the way’ with ‘said’2 rather than ‘going up’ (without Mark’s interest in the theme of being on the way, it becomes redundant in the Markan position), and drops ‘what was going to happen to him’ (Mark had combined rather awkwardly a statement of the topic of Jesus’ words with a report in direct speech of the words used). 20:18 For this verse Matthew retains the Markan wording almost completely intact.3 Does ‘we are going up to Jerusalem’ re ect the call to follow of 16:24-26 or simply mark the external circumstances at that point? is third Passion prediction shares with 17:22-23 (see at v. 22) the focus on being handed over (παραδίδοσθαι), but like 16:21 it identi es speci c categories of people (here ‘the chief priests and scribes’; in 16:21 these two groups pre xed by ‘the elders’ — see at 16:21). ‘ey will condemn him to death’ is a new feature, anticipating in more concrete form the judicial role of the Jerusalem leadership (26:66; cf. 27:3). 20:19 Here Matthew intervenes progressively more as the verse unfolds. e main changes are: he omits ‘and spit on him’ (there is no clear reason for this loss; such will feature in the Passion account in 27:30; cf. 26:67 — perhaps Matthew wants a set of three, and spitting can be subsumed under mocking); ‘kill’ becomes the more precise ‘crucify’ (to be used repeatedly in the Passion account; cf. 23:34); ‘aer three days’ becomes ‘on the third day’ (as in 16:21); and he prefers ἐγερθήσεται to ἀναστήσεται to refer to the resurrection (as similarly in 16:21).4 e mention of the role of the Gentiles adds something to the previous Passion predictions and leads to a second use of the ‘handing over’ language in the statement. e Jewish judiciary could decide that a death penalty was appropriate, but the execution could take place only under the good offices of the Roman

authorities. Mt. 27:29, 31 have Jesus mocked by Pilate’s soldiers; cf. v. 41. Matthew uses μαστιγοῦν for ‘ og’ in 10:17; 23:34, but in the Passion Narrative both Matthew (27:26) and Mark (15:15) actually use ϕραγελλοῦν. Mock, og, and crucify mark a progression, but in the Passion Narrative the ogging actually comes before the mocking. Cruci xion was, in the hands of the Romans (and others before them), designed to be as shocking a means of execution by torture as lent itself to public display (see further at Mt. 27:32-37). 2. To Be at the Right and Le Hand of the One Who Gives His Life as a Ransom (20:20-28) 20en

the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons and, doing obeisance, she asked something of him. 21He said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She asays to him,a ‘Say that these, my two sons, may sit one at byour right [hand] and one at cyour le in your kingdom’. 22Jesus responded, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup which I am about to drink?d’ ey say to him, ‘We are able’. 23He says to them, ‘You will drink my cup,e but to sit at my right [hand] fand le — gthis is not mine to give; rather, [it is for those] for whom [this role] has been prepared by my Father’. 24When the ten heard [this], they were angry about the two brothers. 25So Jesus called them to himself and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles have dominion over them, and their great ones exercise their authority over them. 26It hshall not beh so among you! Rather, whoever wants to become a great one among you, ithey shall bei a servant of yours; 27and whoever wants to be one who has the first place, jthey shall bej a slave of yours; 28just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’k

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. e tense is aorist in B 209 etc. sa (cf. Mk. 10:37), with ‘to him’ missing from 209. b. Missing from ‫ א‬B. c. Missing from D Θ f1 etc. lat mae. d. η (και S 892 etc.) το βαπτισμα ο εγω βαπτιζομαι βαπτισθηναι (‘or [and] be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized’ — cf. Mk. 10:38) is added in C W S 33 892 etc. (f) q syp, h bopt. e. και το βαπτισμα ο εγω βαπτιζομαι βαπτισθησεσθε (‘and you will be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized’ — cf. Mk. 10:39) is added in C W 33 etc. f h q syp, h bopt. f. η (‘or’) in B L Θ f1 33 1424 it vgcl sa mae bopt (cf. Mk. 10:40). g. Omitted by ‫ א‬B L Z Θ f1, 13 etc. lat sy co (cf. Mk. 10:40). h-h. Present rather than future in B D Z 0281 etc. samss (cf. Mk. 10:43). i-i. εστω (‘let him or her be’) in ‫א‬2 L S 982 etc. lat sams mae bo. j-j. εστω (‘let him or her be’) in B Γ 1424 etc. mae bo. k. A variant form of Lk. 14:8-10 is found here in D Φ it vgmss syc. Bibliography Allison, D. C., ‘Anticipating the Passion: e Literary Reach of Matthew 26.47-56’, CBQ 56 (1994), 701-14. • Bayer, H. F., Jesus’ Predictions, 54-89. • Bieringer, R., ‘Traditionsgeschichtlicher Ursprung und theologischer Bedeutung der ΥΠΕΡ-Aussagen im Neuen Testament’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck, 1:219-48. • Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 145-61. • Carter, W., Households, 161-92. • Casey, M., Aramaic Sources, 193-218. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 319-26. • Goppelt, L., eology, 1:193-99. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 106-10, 302-42. • Hengel, M., Atonement. • Higgins, A. J. B., Son of Man, 36-50. • Janowski, B., ‘Auslösung des verwirkten Lebens: Zur Geschichte und Struktur der biblischen Lösegeldvorstellung’, ZTK 79 (1982), 25-59. • Jonge, M. de, ‘Jesus’ Death for Others and the Death of the Maccabean Martyrs’, in Text and Testimony, ed. T. Baarda et al. (Kampen: Kok, 1988), 142-51. • Kim, S., e ‘Son of Man’ as the ‘Son of God’(WUNT

30. Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), 38-73. • Léon-Dufour, X., ‘Jésus devant sa mort à la lumière des textes de l’institution eucharistique et des discours d’adieu’, in Christologie, ed. J. Dupont, 141-68. • Lindars, B., Son of Man, 76-84. • Lindars, B., ‘Salvation Proclaimed, VII. Mark 10.45: A Ransom for Many’, ExpTim 93 (1982), 292-95. • Muddimann, J., ‘e Glory of Jesus, Mark 10:37’, in Glory, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright, 51-58. • O’Callaghan, J., ‘Fluctuación textual en Mt 20,21.26.27’, Bib 71 (1990), 552-58. • Oberweis, M., ‘Das Martyrium der Zebedaiden in Mk 10.35-40 (Mt 20.20-23) und O 11.3-13’, NTS 44 (1998), 74-92. • Page, S. H. T., ‘e Authenticity of the Ransom Logion (Mark 10:45b)’, in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham, 1:137-61. • Phillips, E. A., ‘ntn npšw: Paradigms of SelfSacri ce in Early Judaism and Christianity’, BBR 9 (1999), 215-31. • Porter, S. E., Studies, 125-38. • Schottroff, L., Sisters, 204-23. • Seeley, D., ‘Rulership and Service in Mark 10.41-45’, NovT 35 (1993), 234-50. • Stuhlmacher, P., ‘Vicariously Giving His Life for Many: Mark 10:45 (Matt. 20:28)’, in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical eology, tr. E. Kalin (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 16-29. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 253-57. • Watts, R. E., ‘Jesus’ Death, Isaiah 53, and Mark 10:45: A Crux Revisited’, in Suffering Servant, ed. W. H. Bellinger Jr. and W. R. Farmer, 125-51. • Wilcox, M., ‘On the Ransom-Saying in Mark 10:45c; Matt 20:28c’, in Geschichte, Tradition, Reflexion, Band III: Frühes Christentum. FS M. Hengel, ed. H. Lichtenberger (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1996), 173-86. • Wischmeyer, O., ‘Herrschen als Dienen — Mk 10,41-45’, ZNW 90 (1999), 28-44. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘e Signi cance of Mark 10:45 among Gentile Christians’, HTR 90 (1997), 371-82. • Zager, W., ‘Wie kam es im Urchristentum zur Deutung des Todes Jesus als Sühnegeschehen? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Peter Stuhlmachers Enwurf einer Biblischen eologie des Neuen Testaments’, ZNW 87 (1996), 165-86.

Mt. 20:20-28 and the preceding vv. 17-19 make up the rst half of the section 20:20–21:11, which is framed by the fresh focus on the Passion in 20:28 and the Passion prediction in vv. 17-19 (both with Son of Man statements) and provides the immediate introduction to Matthew’s account of Jesus’ nal approach to Jerusalem. ough

the family of Zebedee are yet unaware of this, the prospect of the coming Passion rede nes for disciples what true greatness consists in: the Son of Man reaches the pinnacle of greatness by giving his life as a ransom for many. e Markan sequence continues with Matthew’s version of Mk. 10:35-45. It differs in what are mostly only minor ways from that in Mark. All the changes are explicable as Matthean editing. e main changes are the introduction of the mother as spokesperson of the request and the omission of the baptism image of 10:38-39. While there is general agreement that Mark has contributed little to Mk. 10:35-45 (perhaps most at vv. 41-42a), the earlier prehistory is hotly disputed. Could vv. 35-40 have been transmitted separately? Possibly, but it is much clearer as an introduction to vv. 41-45; without the following development, vv. 35-40 are in danger of being not just enigmatic but positively opaque. Have vv. 35-40 been produced secondarily as a setting for vv. 41-45? For that purpose the piece is too elaborate and too enigmatic. An original unity seems most likely (vv. 41-42a could be a separate development to ensure that the whole disciple band is addressed). If vv. 35-40 and 41-45 have not been secondarily united, then the original inclusion of v. 45 and especially the ransom piece would seem to follow: only then does the implicit focus on the cross of vv. 35-40 gain an appropriate counterpart in vv. 41-45 (it is the cross which validates and grounds the reversal of values with which the whole account is preoccupied). A version of Mk. 10:45 lies behind 1 Tim 2:6. e partial parallel in Lk. 22:25-27 exhibits the same basic structure as Mk. 10:42-45, but the forms of at least vv. 26 and 27 suggest independent transmission (for v. 26 cf. Mt. 23:11 — in both, contra Mark, those who are already great are spoken about, not those who aspire to greatness; for v. 27 note the Semitism of its māšāl form and double question). Lk. 22:25 is also rather different, but here the difference could well be Lukan redaction. For v. 24 Luke has drawn for a second time on a tradition that he has already used at 9:46 and which is parallelled in Mk. 9:33-34. We cannot be sure, but perhaps Luke had a piece containing the main part of Lk. 22:26b-27 (probably in reverse order — the relationship with Jn. 13:4-5, 12-17 raises the possibility that the material already had some form of Last Supper link

in Luke’s tradition) and, struck by its evident closeness of sentiment to Mk. 10:43b-45, produced a composite for which he provides an opening by drawing again on the material of Mk. 9:33-34 and for which he forms the body of the pericope by drawing a structure from 10:42b-45 and perhaps from there the content for Lk. 22:25 and the rst clause of v. 26.5

20:20 e linking τότε (‘then’) added by Matthew invites the reader to see the development here as a response to vv. 17-19: the request was being made in the context of the anticipation of a coming denouement in Jerusalem. But what is being related to is not the anticipation of suffering, but the prospect of divine vindication and establishment of Jesus as messianic king. V. 24 makes clear that the present coming to Jesus is an add on rather than a replacement for the setting in v. 17 where the Twelve have been taken aside by Jesus: the brothers have momentarily moved away and now — distinctive to Matthew — their mother comes to Jesus along with her sons.6 Matthew adds a use of προσκυνεῖν (‘do obeisance’) to the use of προσέρχεσθαι (‘come to’) already found in Mk. 10:357 to provide an echo of the coming of the leper in 8:2, which is Matthew’s rst real coming to Jesus.8 e same language pair will occur in 28:9. At 8:2 I noted that with the use of προσκυνεῖν for the leper we begin to be nudged in the direction of religious worship. at process reaches its climax at 28:17, anticipated in v. 9. Here the use of προσκυνεῖν is likely to point to the close relationship to be perceived between Jesus’ kingdom (20:21) and the kingdom of God/heaven. On the priority of James and John (with Peter) see the discussion at 17:1. Mark’s ‘James and John, the sons of Zebedee’ becomes ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons’ (the verbs are singular and feminine). James and John were identi ed as the sons of Zebedee in 4:21; 10:2;9 and their mother will again be

‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’ in 27:56 (only in Matthew). She is to be thought of as one of those who gathered in Galilee to make this trip to Jerusalem (see at 17:22 and cf. 27:55-56, where she is one of the women who witness the cruci xion and accompanying events). Because of the role of a woman here, it is not quite the surprise in 27:55-56 that it is in Mk. 15:40-41 that women follow Jesus (despite their following having begun already in Galilee). One of the main ways in which a woman in a patriarchal society could exercise power was in terms of her continuing in uence over her adult sons. e mother is asking for her sons, but she is also asking for herself. Matthew is not moving the responsibility from the sons to their mother (‘with her sons’ ensures their complicity in this), but allowing the woman’s stake in this also to come to the fore. In the Markan question Jesus is being asked ‘to sign a blank cheque’: ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you’.10 From Mt. 20:21 it becomes clear that the τί (‘something’) in Matthew’s αἰτοῦσά τι ἀπ᾿ αυτοῦ (‘asked something of him’) marks correspondingly an imprecision in the asking, not merely an imprecision in the reporting. 20:21 Jesus’ response is recast to address the mother; the Markan ‘me to do for you’, which echoed words from the question already omitted by Matthew, falls away. Jesus asks for the ‘something’ to be explained. e introduction to the response back to Jesus is adjusted to allow the mother to be the speaker and the verb changed to a historic present, which will be matched by a second introduced to mark the point at which the sons speak for themselves (v. 22) and a third used to mark Jesus’ nal response to the request (v. 23). ese three places are marked as the emphatic points of the exchange.11 Mark’s ‘give us’ become εἰπέ (lit. ‘say’): since what is being asked for relates to what is yet future, all that can actually be given at this point is an agreement, a promise. For the

mother to make the request, ‘we [in the verb]’ becomes ‘these, my two sons’. at the context of thought is royal rule is made explicit by Matthew’s replacement of Mark’s ‘in glory’ with ‘in your kingdom’. For the power and in uence involved in being at the right hand cf. Ps. 110:1, where the king is called to sit at the right hand of God, and Zc. 6:13 LXX, where ‘the Branch’ (v. 12) sits on his throne and has the priest at his right hand’.12 In a more general way Sir. 12:12 gives the advice, ‘Do not let him sit at your right hand, or else he may try to take your own seat’. In Jos., Ant. 6:235, the eldest son and the commander of the army sit at the right and le hand of the king, respectively. e mother anticipates acquisition of royal rule in Jerusalem in the near future, and hopes that her two sons will be able to play a key role in this royal rule. e promise of Mt. 19:28 is part of the background of the present request. ere is, however, a clue that Matthew intends some kind of double entendre at this point: he has made language adjustments both here and at 27:38 to allow εἷς ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ εἷς ἐξ εὐωνύμων to express the con guration in both cases, but in 27:38 it is the thieves who are at Jesus’ right and le as he hangs on the cross. 20:22 ἀποκριθείς (lit. ‘having answered’) is a Matthean touch (he uses it forty-three times). μέλλω πίνειν (‘about to drink’) for Mark’s simple use of the present πίνω (lit. ‘I drink’) links the drinking image closely to the preceding Passion prediction.13 Matthew simpli es by omitting the parallelled material using the image of baptism. At this point the verbs move to the plural: the sons are now addressed, and the request made by their mother is treated as their own request. In what sense do they not know what they are asking? e two options would seem to be: though they know what they are asking,

they do not realise the implications; or what they are asking actually has a rather different sense in Jesus’ frame of reference than it had in the minds of those whose request it was. Either drinking the cup is a condition for the positions asked for or, as Jesus viewed things, it is itself directly part of what is being asked for. e link with 27:38 counts in favour of the latter. at ‘the cup which I am about to drink’ is a reference to the coming Passion is con rmed in 26:39: ‘Let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want’. Drinking of the cup is to be understood in connection with OT language where it is an image for being overtaken by disaster.14 With ‘Are you able to drink the cup?’ the link with the thieves at the cross becomes stronger. Nowhere else does Matthew develop the idea that Jesus is in a position of kingly rule on the cross, but the importance of messianic categories in the Passion Narrative is suggestive, as are the aer-effects of the dying of Jesus, in 27:45-54. e echoing of the Magi’s words of 2:2 in the wording of the accusatory plaque in 27:37 may well point in an ironic manner to the cross as the place where Jesus effectively takes up his rule as king. e sons of Zebedee say, ‘We are able’ (their speech introduced with a historic present, as noted above). What are they to be taken to mean? ey could, with at least some understanding of Jesus’ vision, be claiming a readiness to go to the cross with Jesus, but more likely we must, to understand their words, move from the frame of reference now established by Jesus back to the original frame of reference in which the request was formulated. ese disciples recognised the need to make sacri ces in order to reach the desired goals. is is probably how they wanted to understand Jesus’ Passion prediction: as a highly metaphorical way of speaking about a hard struggle before success. e protestations of 26:33-35 are also probably to be set against a backdrop of a failure to

understand that the threat on Jesus’ life was not simply an evil plot in relation to which the disciples might need to sacri ce their own lives in defence of their master (this is why, aer their beginning attempt in v. 51 to defend Jesus, they are undone in v. 56b by his reaction in vv. 52-56a). 20:23 Matthew sees no reason at this point to freshly mention Jesus’ name. He substitutes a third historic present for Mark’s aorist verb to introduce speech. Matthew accentuates the contrast between the two parts of Jesus’ answer with a μὲν … δέ construction. In v. 22 Jesus has questioned the capacity of the brothers to drink the cup. Is he now, aer all, reassured by their answer? Given what is to come in the Passion account, probably not. So what can he mean by, ‘You will drink my cup’? Probably once more he is having the disciples speak more truly than they themselves know: for Jesus’ impending suffering the disciples will not be at all ready, but later, informed by that experience and its aermath, they will give their lives as those who live out an understanding of greatness as service.15 Again the parallelled baptism material is dropped. Mark’s ‘right or le’ becomes ‘right and le’, which ts well an allusion to the thieves on the cross: the two positions come as a package.16 ἀλλ᾿ οἷς ἡτοίμασται (lit. ‘but for whom it has been prepared’) is elliptical. It needs to be lled out as something like ‘but [it is for those] for whom [this role] has been prepared’. Matthew’s addition of ‘by my Father’ only completes the implied logic, but it can be linked to the place of the will of the Father in the Passion,17 understood here to embrace as well the place of the thieves on either side of Jesus.18 20:24 e presence of the other ten is carried forward from v. 17. Matthew sees no need of Mark’s ‘began to be angry’ (ἤρξαντο ἀγανακτεῖν): the ten simply ‘were angry’ (ἠγανάκτησαν) when they heard. We could be generous to the Ten and claim that they saw the

problem with the request much as Jesus saw it, but the situation looks suspiciously like one of ‘sibling’ rivalry.19 James and John, through their mother, have made a bid for what the others see as an unfair advantage. ey have been rebuffed by Jesus, but they should not have tried to get one-up on the others. e reaction of the Ten is every bit as status conscious as the original request. In line with changes at vv. 20 and 21, Mark’s ‘with James and John’ has become ‘with the two brothers’. 20:25 Jesus calls the Ten forward. Having carefully introduced his own three historic presents with verbs of saying, Matthew omits Mark’s here: what Jesus says in this second part comes in a single block, so this mode of highlighting is inappropriate. Matthew also omits the complication involved in Mark’s use of the language of appearance or reputation: οἱ δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν (NRSV: ‘those whom they recognise as their rulers’) becomes simply οἱ ἄρχοντες (‘the rulers’).20 Both the verbs applied to the rulers here begin with κατα, which generally functions as an intensi er but sometimes loses its force. Earlier scholarship was inclined to nd in the uses of κατα a pointer to an abusive and oppressive use of power. But more recent scholarship has accepted the result’s of Clark’s survey of uses [κατα]κυριεύειν that in this verb the intensi er has virtually no signi cance and the verb simply means to exercise lordship over.21 But this may be an overcorrection. While abuse of power may not be in the semantic range, pressure and control certainly are.22 e power realities are very evident as some dominate and others are dominated. Probably we are to take ‘rulers’ as a more exalted category than ‘great ones’. is allows a minor chiasm centred on ‘It shall not be like this among you!’, with ‘the rulers’ parallelled with ‘one who has the rst place’ (πρῶτος) in v. 27 and ‘the great ones’ parallelled with ‘a great one’ in v. 26.

20:26 e main difference between Matthew and Mark here is a tense change in the opening clause: ἐστιν (‘is’) becomes ἔσται (‘shall be’ — quasi-imperatival use of the future).23 Mark establishes a principle rst (things are different in the sphere of Christian discipleship) and allows the directive language to ow from that; Matthew uses directive language consistently from the beginning. e link with the aspirations for James and John in vv. 20-24, already evident in the wish language, is best re ected by translating γενέσθαι as ‘to become’ (which is its predominant sense) rather than as ‘to be’ (as, e.g., NRSV). Similarly, and especially aer the use of the same word in v. 25 (translated ‘great ones’), μέγας here should be translated ‘a great one’ and not ‘great’ (as, e.g., NRSV). In the disciple community the behaviour patterns that mark aspiration to greatness are those of service and not those of control. If the wish language allows the material here to address would-be great ones, the use of third person forms for the aspirant and second person forms for the members of the community to be served invites the exercise of discernment of greatness on the part of the community. e sentiment of vv. 26-27 is clearly related to that in 18:4, but with language of service in place of language of humility.24 20:27 e Markan wording is unaltered. e language runs parallel to that of v. 26, but with μέγας (‘a great one’) intensi ed to πρῶτος (‘one who has the rst place’25) and διάκονος (‘servant’) intensi ed to δοῦλος (‘slave’).26 e correspondences with v. 25 in the chiastic pattern are noted in the discussion there. 20:28 e single change from Mark is an opening ὥσπερ in place of Mark’s καὶ γάρ. ough ὥσπερ accentuates the motif of likeness and thus of imitation, despite the importance of soteriology in what is said (as much in Matthew as in Mark), Mark already clearly intends the exemplary. ‘Son of Man’ here is a designation pointing to the Matthean Jesus’ awareness of his own importance

(cf. discussion at 8:20). In the ow of thought we are apparently invited to see that Jesus exhibits his exalted status precisely in taking up a serving role.27 In the pattern of 20:25 those ruled exist for the bene t of the rulers, but the Son of Man exhibits his preeminence precisely by giving service rather than by receiving service. In view will be the whole range of the bene cent nature of Jesus’ ministry, from his teaching and preaching to his healings and feedings. e general then gives way to the speci c and to the climactic. e necessity of Jesus’ coming death has been pressed since 16:21, but the why has not been very clear (see discussion there). e explanation here provides a bracket back to the Passion prediction at the beginning of the present section (20:17-19 — the Son of Man language from the beginning of v. 28 also contributes to the bracketing effect): it is the material thus bracketed, 20:17-29, which in turn provides the immediate introduction to Matthew’s report in 20:30–21:11 of the nal approach to Jerusalem. One could appeal to some notable OT instances of intervention of an individual on behalf of the people as general background here. Moses intervenes with God with partial success in Ex. 32:30-34 (cf. Ps. 106:23); Phineas stops the plague by intervening to deal with its source in Nu. 25 (cf. Ps. 106:30) and thus ‘[makes] atonement for the Israelites’.28 But we must look elsewhere for a closer connection. λύτρον (‘ransom’) is used in secular sources primarily of manumission of slaves and release of prisoners of war, but also of an offering to a god to gain release from a curse, an omen, or a state of servitude brought on by one’s offences.29 ‘To give his life as a ransom for many’ has oen been linked with Is. 52:13–53:12 and notably with 53:10. δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ (lit. ‘give his soul’) has its counterpart in tśym… npšw (lit. ‘you make…his soul’). λύτρον (‘ransom’) is not ʾšm (‘[offering for] sin’), but both involve a vicarious death. rbbym (‘many’) is found in

Is. 52:14, 15; 53:11, 12 and has its counterpart in the Gospel πολλῶν (‘many’), where the contexts mean that both in Isaiah and the Gospel text the idea is of one dying in the place of ‘many’. e contacts are suggestive, but the limited precision means that as general con dence in the in uence on Jesus of the Isaianic Servant Songs has waned, so has the con dence in the connection here with Is. 52–53.30 Hampel has more recently championed a view proposed by Grimm that Is. 43:3-4 instead provides the background.31 is text has directly the ‘give’ language of the Gospel text (though it is God who gives rather than the one who acts as a ransom). It certainly has a much closer equivalent to λύτρον (‘ransom’).32 It also makes use of ‘soul’ language, though in relation to the soul that is ransomed (Israel considered collectively) rather than the soul that is forfeited. And it even has the suggestive ʾdm tḥtyk (lit. ‘a person/humanity instead of you’), which aer the ransom language of v. 3 is clearly short for ʾdm kprk (‘a person/humanity as your ransom’). But it requires a considerable level of reinterpretation to get from the Gentile peoples (Egypt linked with Ethiopia and Seba in v. 3, more generally ‘peoples’ in v. 4) who are envisaged as ransom for Israel to the Son of Man as a ransom.33 And though such a move is evident in Jewish interpretation, something of an inversion is involved in any interpretation that treats the ransom as changing things with God. In Is. 43:3-4 the ransom is not something that puts things right with God for Israel; rather, God out of his existing commitment to Israel makes others expendable for the sake of Israel. God in effect pays the ransom to the largescale socio-political context. In the end we cannot be sure of a tie with a speci c OT text. But Is. 43:3-4 and other OT ransom texts34 allow for some con dence

that a notion of ransom in connection with God was well within the purview of Jewish re ection in the period of Jesus. ere is not yet an explicit notion of ransom in 2 Macc. 7:37-38 with the appeal to God ‘through me and my brothers [i.e., their deaths under torture for their loyalty to God] to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on the whole nation’. But in 4 Macc. 6, where the death of Eleazar is reported in a quite parallel manner and a very similar thought is expressed, the notion of ransom has become explicit in vv. 27-29: ‘You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. Make my blood their puri cation and take my life (ψυχή) as a ransom (ἀντίψυχον) for theirs’.35 Despite the obvious Hellenism of 2 Maccabees, there is no need to look beyond Judaism for the background for the Gospel use of ransom imagery. Admittedly, what exactly is thought to be involved in the Son of Man giving his life as a ransom for many remains quite imprecise. Is he to function as kind of lightning rod for the coming wrath of God, which is to be spent on him so that others may be spared the wrath that is justly their due (somewhat as in the Maccabees texts)? Or is the rescue more extrinsic? In other words, is the idea that this self-sacri ce will so expose the corruption of Jewish life that it will shock the Jewish people into a transformed response to God? e former seems more likely than the latter.36 But the point remains that we are given an image rather than precise content. Mt. 26:26-28 will provide us with related images which will freshly identify Jesus’ death as the high point of the pattern of self-sacri cing service that characterised his ministry. B. Jericho, Bethphage, Jerusalem (20:29–21:11)

1. Insight and en Sight for Two Blind People near Jericho (20:29-34) they were going out of Jericho, aa great crowd followed him.a 30And two blind people sitting by the roadside, when they heard, ‘Jesus is passing by’, called out and said, ‘Have mercy on us, bLord, Son of David’. 31e crowd rebuked them, that they should be quiet. But they cried out and said [even] more loudly, ‘Have mercy on us, cLord, Son of David’. 32Jesus stopped and called them, and said, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ 33ey say to him, ‘Lord, let our eyes be opened!’ 34Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes; and immediately dthey gained their sight and followed him. 29As

TEXTUAL NOTES 45).

a-a. Plural in

45

D (Γ) 1424 etc. it vgmss syh bomss (‘him’ is missing in

b. Found at the beginning of the spoken words in B L Z 085 0281 892 etc. lat samss bo and missing from ‫ א‬D Θ f13 565 700 etc. it syc mae, ‘Lord’ may not be original here, but the loss is more likely to have been in uenced by Mk. 10:47 (‫ א‬Q f13 c e h n mae have Ιησου [‘Jesus’] in its place, as in Mk. 10:47 — 700 892 etc. samss bo also have Ιησου). c. Found at the beginning of the spoken words in ‫ א‬B D L Z Θ 085 0281 f13 892 etc. lat syp samss bo and missing from 579 700 etc. e. Cf. textual note b. d. αυτων οι οϕθαλμοι (‘their eyes’) is provided as subject of the verb in C K N W Γ Δ 565 579 1241 1424 etc. q syp, h samss. Bibliography Busemann, R., Jüngergemeinde, 161-72. • Carter, W., Households, 192-203. • Dupont, J., ‘L’Aveugle de Jéricho recouvre la vue et suit Jésus (Marc 10,4652)’, RevAf 8 (1984), 165-81. • Kirchschläger, W., ‘Bartimäus — Paradigma

einer Wundererzählung (Mk 10.46-52 par)’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. van Segbroeck, 2:1,105-23. • Mirro, J. A., ‘Bartimaeus: e Miraculous Cure’, BiTod 20 (1982), 221-25. • Steinhauser, M. G., ‘Part of a “Call Story”?’ ExpTim 94 (1982-83), 204-6. • Steinhauser, M. G., ‘e Form of the Bartimaeus Narrative (Mark 10:46-52)’, NTS 32 (1986), 583-95. See further at 9:27-31.

e rst half of the section, 20:17-28 has explained why Jesus must make his fateful journey to Jerusalem. Now Jesus and those with him begin their nal approach to the city: Jericho, Bethphage, and entry into Jerusalem. Two blind people who have fullness restored to them by Jesus messianic dispensation of the fruits of the coming kingdom of God correctly perceive the identity of the one about to enter Jerusalem as Son of David. e Matthean sequence continues with Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 10:46-52. ough he has made considerable changes, there is no evidence for a second source. e Markan material has itself probably undergone considerable development. In particular, (a) the disciples and the crowd are introduced awkwardly in v. 26 — the presence of one or other is likely to be secondary; (b) the nal statement about the man following Jesus on the way is also likely to be secondary because it ts ill with ‘go off/depart’ earlier in the verse; and (c) there is some doubt about whether ‘Son of David’ was an original feature of the account.37

20:29 Matthew can see no need for Mark’s reference both to entry into and departure from Jericho, and omits the former. ‘Leaving Jericho’ is the rst of a set of precise location markers ending with ‘he entered Jerusalem’ in 21:10. Jericho is about sixteen miles northeast of Jerusalem. e presence of the disciples is le to be presumed on the basis of the preceding material rather than mentioned, as in Mark (but a change of the verb to the plural marks a place — distinct from the crowd — for the disciples and others

who were part of Jesus’ travelling group). Matthew prefers πολύς (‘great’) to Mark’s ἱκανός (lit. ‘sufficient’) to mark the size of the crowd.38 Matthew’s great crowd ‘followed’ as crowds oen do in Matthew (in Mark they share the ‘going out’).39 20:30 Matthew has already made considerable use in 9:27-31 of the material he uses for 20:30-34, and, as we shall see, he invests in highlighting the parallel. It is likely that some kind of bracketing effect is intended: 9:27-31 summed up in itself the healing ministry of chaps. 8–9 (see at 9:27), and 20:30-34 is the last pre-Jerusalem healing.40 Given the thread of Son of David references between (discussed at 9:27), Matthew perhaps intends to emphasise that Jesus’ healing ministry has been an exercise of his role as the messianic Son of David and has been recognised as such by, among others, the physically blind but spiritually insightful.41 e opening καὶ ἰδού (lit. ‘and behold’) is a Matthean touch, marking emphasis.42 Mark’s ‘Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar’ has become anonymously ‘two blind people’ (cf. 9:30 and the doubling of the demoniacs in 8:28, with discussion there of the signi cance of these and other doublings). Matthew keeps ‘sitting by the roadside’,43 which still indirectly suggests begging but here locates the blind people near the passing Jesus. e emphasis on Jesus-on-the-move is enhanced with ‘Jesus is passing by’ rather than Mark’s ‘It is Jesus the Nazarene’. Matthew does not keep any of Mark’s uses of ‘the Nazarene’;44 the passing gure is simply Jesus. As recently in 20:24, Matthew omits ‘began’.45 e words are the same as in 9:27, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’, but probably with ‘Lord’ added (see textual discussion above) — with this addition the words are identical to those of the Canaanite woman in 15:22; see there. e addition of ‘Lord’ may be inspired by the use in Mk. 10:51 of ῥαββουνί, which is a transliteration of the Aramaic for ‘my

Lord’.46 Compared to Mk. 10:47, this verse drops ‘Jesus’ and adds ‘Lord’. For a discussion of ‘Son of David’ see the comments at 9:27. 20:31 Mark’s ‘many’ becomes collectively ‘the crowd’. e crowd is not focussed on what the blind people are saying, only on the disturbance they create. No doubt they think that they are honouring the signi cance of Jesus by trying to silence the voice of such insigni cant people. e disciples played a parallel role in 19:13 and in relation to the Canaanite woman in 15:23 (perhaps roughly modelled by Matthew on the present text to provide yet another link between the accounts). Matthew simpli es Mark’s πολλῷ μᾶλλον (lit. ‘more by much’) to μεῖζον (lit. ‘more greatly’)47 and increases the parallelism between the accounts of the rst and second appeals by repeating ἔκραζαν λέγοντες (‘they cried out, saying’) from v. 30 in preference to Mark’s ἔκραζεν (‘he was crying out’) and by using the same words of appeal, whereas Mark this time drops ‘Jesus’. eir perseverance here matches that of the Canaanite woman. 20:32 e renewed appeal brings Jesus to a halt. Matthew simpli es by having Jesus call the blind people himself (in Mark the call is mediated by people in the crowd, who now add their own word of encouragement) and by dropping Mark’s account of their coming. Having thus compacted Mark’s account, Matthew can then drop Mark’s use of the language of response and his fresh use of Jesus’ name. e appeal of the blind people has been for mercy; though what they wish for is obvious enough, Jesus wants their wish to be articulated. 20:33 Just as Jesus needed no fresh introduction in v. 32, neither do the blind people here (contra Mark). Matthew highlights the importance of their articulation of the concrete request by changing to a historic present.48 Mark’s ῥαββουνί (‘rabbouni’) is roughly translated κύριε (‘Lord’), but the request becomes ἵνα

ἀνοιγῶσιν οἱ ὀϕθαλμοὶ ἡμῶν (‘that our eyes may be opened’) rather than Mark’s ἵνα ἀναβλέψω (‘that I might see [or see again]’), in order to connect with Mt. 9:30: ἠνεῴχθησαν αὐτῶν οἱ ὀϕθαλμοί (‘their eyes were opened’). 20:34 Matthew notes the compassion of Jesus at 14:14; 15:32, in both cases for the crowd. Both of these verses are parallelled in Mark, but Mark’s other reference to the compassion of Jesus (using σπλαγχθείς as here) was in his account of the healing of the leper (Mk. 1:40-45; here v. 41) and was not used by Matthew in his parallel in 8:3. For the healing of the blind people in 9:27-31 Matthew drew on Mk. 1:40-45 for various features, among them the use of touch, which is repeated here.49 Now he adds to that the compassion of Mk. 1:41. e touch of Jesus displaces Mark’s ἀνάβλεψον (‘see [again?]!’) as well as the explanatory ‘your faith has saved you’, to which Matthew has a parallel in 9:22 and which he prefers not to repeat here: now the emphasis falls squarely on the power of Jesus’ touch. e effect is immediate.50 It is unclear whether ἀνέβλεψαν should be taken to mean ‘regained sight’ or ‘gained sight’, that is, whether the people have been blind from birth or have become blind later. Probably Matthew intends a correlation between the ‘sight’ involved in recognition that Jesus is the Son of David and the physical sight now gained, as in the correlation between prophetic sign and event in OT sign acts.51 In any case, the healing con rms the confession: Jesus acts the part of the messianic restorer. Matthew does not share Mark’s interest in what happens ‘on the way’, so he drops the phrase here. Otherwise he prefers the aorist to express the blind people’s following Jesus. In Matthew this following puts them on a par with the crowd in v. 29: they have not

necessarily become disciples in a more developed sense, but like the crowd they have behaved in a way that points towards discipleship (cf. at 4:25). Given, however, the rather symbolic handling of sight, the juxtaposition of ‘gained their sight’ and ‘followed’ may well hint at more. e crowd which in v. 31 was eager to silence the two blind voices will in 21:9 echo their assessment that Jesus is the Son of David; as the blind people gain their sight, the crowd comes to appreciate their insight. 2. From Bethphage to Jerusalem: e Son of David on a Donkey (21:1-9) 1When athey

drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, at that point Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tethered, and a colt with her. Untie [them] and bring [them] to me. 3If someone says something to you, you shall say, “e Lord has need of bthem”. And he will send them at once. 4cis happened so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: 5‘Say

to daughter Zion, “See, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden”’. 6e

disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them, 7and brought the donkey and the colt, and placedd [their] garments eon fthem; and he sat on them. 8e greatest crowd of all spread their coats on the roadway; and others began to cut branches from the trees and to gspread [them] on the roadway. 9e crowds that were going ahead of him and those who were following were crying out,

‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Singular verbs (in one or both cases — mostly both) are found in ‫*א‬ C3 W Δ 892 etc. b e ff2 q vgmss syc, p sams bomss mae, to focus attention on Jesus. b. Singular, as in Mk. 11:3, in ‫ א‬Θ 579 1241 etc. c. A heightening ολον (‘all’) is added in B C3 W f1, 13 33 etc. q vgcl syh sa mae boms. d. Present in ‫א‬1 C L W f1, 13 33 etc. lat sy co. e. επανω (‘above/over’) in C W f1 etc. syh, perhaps in uenced by its occurrence later in the verse. f. Singular, as in Mk. 11:3, in Θ f13 33 etc. (cf. at note b) and singular with a change to the accusative in D Φ l 2211. g. e imperfect here becomes aorist in ‫ *א‬D etc. bo, conforming to its use earlier in the verse. Bibliography Brandscheidt, R., ‘Messias und Tempel: Die alttestamentlichen Zitate in Mt 21,1-17’, TTZ 99 (1990), 36-48. • Bratcher, R. G., ‘at Troublesome Καί in Matthew 21:5’, NotesTrans 6 (1992), 14-15. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘e “Triumphal” Entry’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 319-34. • Duff, P. B., ‘e March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the GrecoRoman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem’, JBL 111 (1992), 55-71. • Evans, C. A., ‘Jesus and Zechariah’s Messianic Hope’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 373-88. • Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘Aramaic Evidence Affecting the Interpretation of Hosanna in the New Testament’, in Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 110-18. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die

agreements der Einzugsperikope Mk 11,1-10 par Mt 21,1-9 par Lk 19,28-38’, SNTU 23 (1998), 215-27. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 21’, SémiotBib 85 (1997), 47-62. • Grams, R., ‘e Temple Con ict Scene: A Rhetorical Analysis of Matthew 21-23’, in Persuasive Artistry, ed. D. F. Watson, 41-65. • Hanfmann, G. M. A., ‘e Donkey and the King’, HTR 78 (1985), 421-26. • Hart, H. St. J., ‘Hosanna in the Highest’, SJT 45 (1992), 283-301. • Harvey, A. E., ‘Jesus the Christ: e Options in a Name’, in Constraints, 120-51. • Kinman, B., Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem: In the Context of Lukan eology and the Politics of His Day (AGJU 28. Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1995). • Kinman, B., ‘Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” in the Light of Pilate’s’, NTS 40 (1994), 442-48. • Loh nk, N., ‘Der Messiaskönig und seine Armen kommen zu Zion: Beobachtungen zu Mt 21,1-17’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 179-200. • März, C.-P., ‘Siehe, dein König kommt zu dir…’, in Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Einzugsperikope (ETS 43. Leipzig: St. Benno, 1980). • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e Quotations from Zech 9.9 in Mt 21.5 and in Jn 12.15’, in John, ed. A. Denaux, 571-78. • Meyer, P. W., ‘Matthew 21:1-11’, Int 40 (1986), 180-85. • Mora, V., Création, 71-79. • Nieuviarts, J., L’Entrée de Jésus à Jérusalem (Mt 21,1-17): Messianisme et accomplissement des Écritures en Matthieu (LD 176. Paris: Cerf, 1999). • Pope, M. H., ‘Hosanna — What It Really Means’, BRev 4 (1988), 16-25. • Rodd, C. S., ‘e Way of the Cross’, ExpTim 91 (1980), 178-79. • Ross, J. M., ‘Names of God: A Comment on Mark 11.3 and Parallels’, BT 35 (1984), 443. • Sanders, E. P., Jesus, 306-8. • Sanders, J. A., ‘ A New Testament Hermeneutic Fabric: Psalm 118 in the Entrance Narrative’, in Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis. FS W. H. Brownlee, ed. C. A. Evans and W. F. Stinespring (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 177-90. • Sauer, G., ‘Die Messias-Erwartung nach Mt 21 in Ihren Rückbezug auf das Alte Testament also Frage an die Methode einer biblischen eologie’, in Altes Testament und christliche Verkündigung, ed. M. Oeming and A. Graupner (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1987), 81-94. • Talbot, M., ‘Heureux’, 134-91. • Tan, K. H., Zion, 137-57. • Tatum, W. B., ‘Jesus’ SoCalled Triumphal Entry: On Making an Ass of the Romans’, Forum 1.1 (1998), 129-43. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 347-78. • Visser’t Hoo, W. A., ‘Triumphalism in the Gospel’, SJT 38 (1985), 491-504. • Weren, W., ‘Jesus’

Entry into Jerusalem: Matthew 21:1-17 in the Light of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint’, in Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 117-41.

At Bethphage Jesus makes arrangements to stage a royal entry into Jerusalem. is speaks as much of his humble situation as of his royal status and aspirations. In an act of prophetic symbolism he stakes out his claims. e accompanying crowds acclaim him ‘Son of David’ and celebrate his approach to the throne city. e Markan sequence continues with Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 11:1-10. e Matthean distinctives are all explicable in terms of Matthean redaction (though Jn. 12:12-19 may well represent an independently transmitted version of this tradition). e main changes are the introduction of the formula citation in Mt. 21:4-5, the compression of Mk. 11:4-6 into a few words, and the omission of the main clause of v. 10, to be replaced with ‘to the Son of David’ aer ‘Hosanna’. Scholars have seriously questioned the historicity of the account, but it gains in credibility once one recognises that some believed Jesus to be the messiah during his ministry and was cruci ed as a messianic pretender. At the heart of the account is likely to be the memory of Jesus making a fuss about getting a donkey to ride the last couple of miles into Jerusalem and some exuberant affirmation of Jesus as he was approaching the holy city.52

21:1 Matthew’s main change from Mark is his dropping of ‘and Bethany’:53 to mention both Bethphage and Bethany seems unnecessary (and awkward given that Mk. 11:2 mentions only one village); and since Bethany will play its own role as the place to which Jesus retreats in the evening during his time in Jerusalem (21:17; 26:6), Bethphage is retained. ‘To Bethphage’ also gains its own verb (‘to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage’ rather than Mark’s ‘to Jerusalem, to Bethphage’), which adds extra weight to the geographical markers.

e name ‘Bethphage’ is normally taken to be a transliteration of an Aramaic phrase meaning ‘house of unripe gs’, probably with reference to a type of gs which, though edible, never seemed to ripen properly. e precise location of Bethphage is not known, but its pairing with Bethany in Mk. 11:1 suggests that it was not far from Bethany, which was about two miles east of Jerusalem. e Mount of Olives is the central of three main summits of a range rising from the Kidron valley, east of the city and running northsouth. Bethphage would have been on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives. ‘When they drew near’ recalls ‘going up to Jerusalem’ from 20:17, and thus the Passion prediction there: what Jesus does now he does as one going to Jerusalem to die. At this point Jerusalem would still have been out of sight on the other side of the hill. While Jesus has been on his way to Jerusalem for a good while now, what constitutes his arrival in Jerusalem may be imagined to begin from the point at which Jerusalem comes into view (which will also be the point at which the arriving of him and his group will become visible to the city). If arrangements for the entry need to be made, now is the time to make them. Jesus sends off two disciples. Only here and in 8:21 does Matthew have a subgroup of unnamed disciples. 21:2 e striking change from Mk. 11:2 concerns what the disciples nd. In Mark there is a single animal: ‘a πῶλον tied up [masculine form] on which no one has ever sat’. In Matthew there is ‘a donkey tethered [female form], and a πῶλον with her’.54 πῶλον is capable of a range of meanings. In secular Greek it oen means ‘horse’, but it means ‘donkey’ in the LXX and documents showing LXX in uence. Originally it had meant the young of an animal, and it still did in appropriate contexts. e reference to a female donkey

and the quotation to come in v. 5 make clear that for Matthew πῶλον means a young male donkey. e signi cance of the animals will be discussed further at v. 5, which quotes Zc. 9:9, and at Mt. 21:7, but it is already clear from the language links that Matthew alludes to Zc. 9:9. However, the connection with Zc. 9:9 does not illuminate the focus on the acquisition of the animals and in particular the interest in where the animals were to be found. e Markan text shows an interest in things being just as Jesus said they would be, but Matthew has dropped this emphasis in his heavy abbreviation of Mk. 11:4-6. So the Matthean concern cannot be with Jesus’ supernatural awareness.55 It is likely that only an echo of Gn. 49:11 can account for the narrative investment in the location of the animals. Gn. 49:11 also refers to the tethering of the mount(s). Since Zc. 9:9 and Gn. 49:11 already have in common a double reference to the mounts,56 in reinforcing the link to Zc. 9:9 Matthew also provides a stronger connection to Gn. 49:11.57 So what is the signi cance of this link? I have elsewhere written on Luke (but it is just as applicable to Matthew) that ‘there is a dramatic contrast between the royal gure of Gen 49:11-12, who in the best traditions of royal excess and selfindulgence tethers his own beast to the vine in order to satiate himself on the richness of wine and milk, and the gure (no less royal) in Luke [now Matthew] of one who must borrow a donkey in order to stage his royal entry into Jerusalem …, and who does so with full anticipation of rejection and execution’. Jesus’ ful lment of the messianically understood Gn. 49:10 involves signi cant inversions: the gure in Genesis ties up his mount in order to celebrate, but Jesus arranges for the mounts to be untied to carry him to his fate of suffering in the royal city.

κατέναντι could be translated ‘ahead’, as, for example, the NRSV does, but the directive makes better sense if we give the word its more normal sense, ‘opposite’, and understand that Bethphage was off to one side of the road towards Jerusalem (otherwise the animals would seem to be wanted for going through Bethphage itself). 21:3 Matthew abbreviates Mark’s τί ποιεῖτε τοῦτο (‘Why are you doing this?’) to τι (‘something’)58 and, by dropping πάλιν ὧδε (‘again here’), reverses the thrust of Mark’s language: Jesus’ immediate return of the animal becomes the questioner’s immediate sending of the animals with the disciples.59 e thrust of the verse is to assure the sent disciples that the owner will recognise Jesus’ authority. It would be attractive to nd the link with Gn. 49:11 continued and take ὁ κύριος αὐτῶν χρείαν ἔχει as meaning ‘their master has need [of them]’. e need, however, on this understanding, to supply as a completion precisely the ‘of them’ which would be the other natural sense of αὐτῶν, here translated ‘their’, points in the direction of the alternative, ‘e Lord has need of them’. Also, the emphasis on Jesus’ authority here is better carried by a reference to ‘the Lord’. Jesus is only ὁ κύριος (‘the Lord’) elsewhere in Matthew in 3:3 in an OT citation, but the regular use of κύριε in addressing Jesus as ‘Lord’ from the beginning of chap. 8 (see discussion at 7:21) probably has its counterpart in speaking about him as ‘the Lord’. 21:4 Aer quite a long gap (the last was in 13:3560), Matthew provides the ninth of ten formula quotations that are found scattered through the Gospel (see generally at 1:22). e present formula is strikingly similar to that at 1:22 — are the coming in birth and the coming to Jerusalem and the cross being parallelled? — and shares uniquely with that text a sequence in which the ful lment claim is introduced before the verses which report the actual ful lment. As noted at 1:22, in both cases what precedes

involves a directive, the carrying out of which has a part to play in the ful lment of the cited Scripture, and what follows reports the obedient execution of the task assigned. 21:5 Zc. 9:9 begins ‘Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion’, but that does not quite t Matthew’s context where Zion does not rejoice, but the crowd accompanying Jesus into Jerusalem (Mt. 21:8-9). But Is. 62:11 is thematically similar (‘See, your salvation comes’) and is introduced with ‘say to daughter Zion’. Matthew makes a substitution.61 What text form does Matthew re ect? For Is. 62:11 the LXX at this point is the natural translation of the Hebrew, so it could be either. e same is true for ‘See, your king comes to you’ from Zc. 9:9. For the rest of the quoted matter Matthew has πραΰς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὄνον καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱόν ὑποζυγίου where the LXX has πραΰς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὑποζύγιον καὶ πῶλον νέον. Both the similarities and the differences are striking. Given the range of options for translating both ʿny (‘humble’) and rkb (‘riding’) into Greek (evident already in LXX usage), the coincidence strongly suggests dependence on the LXX form. By contrast, Matthew has three different words for donkey, as does the MT (ḥmwr, ʿyr, and ʾtn), and both Matthew and the MT use a ‘son of ’ construction. e coincidence with the LXX in the use of ὑποζύγιον (lit. ‘under the yoke’) and πῶλον (for its meaning see at v. 2) — but in different positions — may point to some secondary in uence from the LXX form here as well. Once again Matthew shows himself to be master of multiple text forms.62 e approach to Jerusalem (Zion is set in synonymous parallelism with Jerusalem in Zc. 9:9 and clearly refers to the city63), the royal identity of Jesus (he is acclaimed as Son of David in Mt. 21:9), the humble nature of the approach (and the fate that awaits Jesus there), and the use of the mounts are all features of the citation which are re ected in the narrative. Neither the claim that the

donkey is a distinctive royal mount nor that it is a humble mount compared to the horse that a royal gure would prefer to ride bears scrutiny. What is true is that the donkey is no warhorse but merely a beast of burden and a means of transport. 21:6 Mk. 11:4-6 are completely reformulated in a much abbreviated form. Aer the interrupting formula citation the disciples are freshly mentioned. e use of participles subordinates the procedure to the outcome. e nearest echo of the Markan text is καθὼς συνέταξεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘just as Jesus had directed them’) for Mark’s καθὼς εἶπεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘just as Jesus had said’).64 Matthew’s wording allows the clause to cover all of the disciples’ action and maintains the Markan emphasis on the total obedience of the disciples (again stressing the practical recognition of the authority of Jesus). 21:7 e main changes here are the dropping of Mark’s historic present verbs and the mention of two animals, the ‘donkey’ and the ‘colt’ of vv. 2 and 5.65 What is signi ed by the given-up garments? How are we to visualise ἐπεκάθισεν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν (lit. ‘he sat on above them’)? ἐπικαθίζειν (‘sit on’) typically repeats ἐπί with the object. e verb is not found elsewhere in the NT and is not used with ἐπάνω (lit. ‘above’) in the LXX. But Matthew does use ἐπάνω with related verbs several times. In one case the literal sense ‘above’ is found (27:37), but in the three other cases the sense is ‘on’.66 It is unlikely that Jesus is to be visualised as suspended above the animals on a makeshi ‘throne’ made of the given-up garments. e garments here are most naturally the outer coats of the two disciples who bring the animals, which provides neatly one for each animal. e coats may well be seen as acting as saddle cloths in lieu of saddles. But by the time we meet the extra strewn garments in v. 8 there is clearly more going on here: there is likely to be an allusion to the honouring of

the newly anointed Jehu as king in 2 Ki. 9:13. Is Jesus sitting on the garments or on the animals?67 If there is one garment per animal, it makes no real difference. Perhaps we can imagine Jesus using the animals in turn, but the language more naturally suggests a rather awkward arrangement in which Jesus sits on both animals at once. Given the difficulties clearly created, why has Matthew introduced the complication of the two animals? It is unlikely that he has access to a separate source tradition here since there are no other indications of its existence. At one level the immediate reason for the two animals is a reading of Zc. 9:9 as referring to two animals. While, however, the LXX might be considered ambiguous in this respect, the MT’s intended sense is clearly that there is a rhetorical repetition involving synonymous parallelism: that the king is on a male donkey which is the offspring of a female donkey. at Matthew is quite comfortable with synonymous parallelism is clear from its presence in the quoted material of Mt. 4:16; 8:17. And as we have seen above, Matthew is a master of multiple text forms and would not therefore be restricted to what he perceived to be the sense of the LXX text. He has two animals in this text only because he has a role in his story for two animals.68 Exactly what this role is remains a matter of speculation. In the case of other doublings in Matthew, at 8:28 I make the suggestion (see discussion there) that the role of the doubling is to indicate that the incidents were not ‘one-offs’ but part of a larger pattern and further suggests that this probably had some relationship to the importance in Jewish law of two witnesses. But that explanation hardly ts here. Pesch draws a suggestive connection between what he calls the ‘over-literal’ ful lment here and ‘not one iota or one pen stroke’ in 5:18.69 Perhaps the most likely explanation is, however, that Matthew wants his readers to see the present ful lment of Zc. 9:9 as a piece of prophetic symbolism, akin to the OT sign acts (for

references see at 20:34), more a statement about the appropriate messianic aims and goals to be properly associated with Jesus and an insistence that their ful lment was on its way than a claim that the expectations of Zc. 9 were receiving their de nitive implementation at precisely that moment.70 He makes the event more striking to accentuate its prophetic symbolic character. 21:8 Matthew builds up the weight of this moment in various ways. Mark’s πολλοί (‘many’) who pave the pathway of Jesus with their garments (the link with honouring Jehu as newly anointed king was noted above at v. 7) becomes ὁ πλεῖστος ὄχλος (‘the biggest crowd of all’), found only here among all the crowd statements in Matthew. Are we to understand that the garments would be retrieved from behind and freshly placed in Jesus’ path? Or are the garments simply le where they fell and replaced by the branches as the supply ran out? e latter is favoured by the move from aorist for the placing of the garments to the imperfect for the cutting and placing of the branches. Mark’s ‘others’ cut στιβάδας from the elds. A στιβάς is a bed of straw, rushes, leaves, and the like, whether loose strewn or stuffed into a mattress.71 e language imagery in Mark is of providing Jesus with a soened underfoot for his movement by means of a leafy pavement made of the tall grasses and other so vegetation from the elds. Matthew upscales by having the pavement of honour made of (leafy) branches cut from the trees. Perhaps he thinks of palm fronds: no matter how leafy, branches that would not sit fairly atly would only snare the donkeys’ legs and make it hard for the crowd on foot to progress. Mark leaves ‘spread [them] on the roadway’ to be carried forward from the statement about the garments; Matthew spells this out with an added, ‘and they began to spread [them] on the roadway’.72 21:9 Matthew adds to Mark’s language ‘the crowds’ (in line with his heightening in v. 7).73 He underlines the focus on Jesus

with the addition of ‘him’. He also drops Mark’s ‘Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David’ and instead has the crowds greet Jesus directly as ‘the Son of David’: impressed by their healing, Matthew’s crowds have taken up on the insight of the blind people in 20:30-31.74 Presumably the roadway is sufficiently narrow and the crowds sufficiently numerous that predominantly they needed to be either in front or behind. Some of those behind might have been gathering up discarded garments for later retrieval. e acclamation of the crowds is based on Ps. 118(LXX 117):2526: ‘Hosanna’ comes from v. 25, and ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ are the opening words of v. 26. is is a psalm that clearly relates to festival pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the temple. e section quoted is a ritualized welcome for arriving pilgrims. It is known to have been used in the great pilgrim feasts (especially Tabernacles, but also Passover, and perhaps even Pentecost and Dedication). While the material from v. 26 is identical to the LXX, which is a quite literal rendering of the Hebrew, ὡσαννά (‘hosanna’) is not found in the LXX, which has instead σῶσον δή (‘save indeed’). e Hebrew has hwšyʿh nʾ, which could transliterate into Greek as ὡσιαννά (‘hosianna’) but not ὡσαννά (‘hosanna’). ‘Hosanna’ seems to re ect an Aramaic intermediate step, the Greek echoing an underlying Aramaic hšʿ nʾ.75 But there is more. e Aramaic means ‘save indeed’, as did the Hebrew, but our text says, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’! ough there is no other independent evidence for this, ‘Hosanna’ seems to have become a greeting. e process is an easily understood one. In many cultures and languages greetings are frequently derived from prayers, blessing, or invocations. ink only of the ‘God be with you’ that stands behind ‘good-bye’ or of the religious background that lies behind use of šlwm (‘peace’) as a Jewish greeting.76 And oen

something of the original sense still hangs around the use, available for reappropriation.77 e greeting to the Son of David would carry the wish/prayer that his purposes may prosper. In Ps. 118:26 it is just possible that it is the blessing which is ‘in the name of the Lord’, but the word order favours coming ‘in the name of the Lord’, and this makes perfect sense in relation to pilgrims whose coming expresses their allegiance to the Lord. Applied to Jesus, however, the words gain a christological signi cance: here is one who comes to represent and act for the Lord.78 e importance of this christological realisation is underlined in 23:38. e acclamation is rounded off with a repetition of the ‘Hosanna’ with which it opened, but this time as ὡσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις (‘Hosanna in the highest’). e sense is not quite clear. ‘In [the] highest’ is a reference to heaven as God’s realm in Lk. 2:14 and in Luke’s parallel here, 19:38,79 and is so here. Presumably ‘Hosanna’ is still used as a greeting to Jesus. Do we have a call that God may share in the greeting? Or is the wish that the greeting might be heard in heaven (and thus responded to as a prayer)? Probably the latter. 3. Arrival in Jerusalem (21:10-11) 10He

entered Jerusalem, and all the city was in turmoil, saying, ‘Who is this?’ 11e crowds were saying, ‘is is athe prophet Jesusa from Nazareth in Galilee’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. ‘Jesus’ appears rst in C L W f1 33 etc. lat sy mae bomss, but is missing in f13 579 1241 etc. a aur. ere is a slight possibility that it may not

be original. Bibliography See at 21:1-9.

e section reaches its goal with Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. e rst half of the section has explained the need for the journey to Jerusalem; the second half has tracked the nal approach. Now Jesus arrives, and the question to the fore is that of what the city will make of him. Apart from the opening ‘He entered Jerusalem’ (based on Mk. 11:11) the material is distinctive to Matthew. e disturbance in the city is reminiscent of that in Mt. 2:3, and the assignment of a prophetic identity to Jesus has already been noted in 16:14 and will be noted by Matthew again in 21:46. Matthew is unlikely to have had a speci c source for 21:10-11.

21:10-11 Jesus reaches the goal of his journey as he enters Jerusalem. e city sees his arrival as that of a disturbing presence, in language that is probably intended to echo that of 2:3.80 ose accompanying Jesus have been trumpeting his identity as the Son of David. e city, still much further back, simply asks, ‘Who is this?’ What explanation is to be given for this unsettling presence? e crowds can offer an answer; but as crowds made up of those already in Jerusalem, not of those freshly arriving with Jesus, they identify Jesus as one whom they know only by reputation. ey know his name and where he comes from; and they know that he is widely considered to be a prophet, a sentiment with which they are happy to identify (cf. v. 46). As noted at 13:57 (see there and at 16:14), a prophetic identity for Jesus does not have the signi cance for Matthew that it does for Luke. For the most part, for Matthew

‘prophet’ re ects something of Jesus’ signi cance and impact but falls short of marking a proper recognition of his identity. As Matthew’s story moves to its climax, the reader’s knowledge of the limited adequacy of the answer given by the Jerusalem crowds and the contrasting answer that has been on the lips of the accompanying crowds as Jesus makes his entry into the city leave the city’s question ringing in the air: ‘Who is this?’ What will the city ultimately make of this strange claimant to royal dignity? We should note the absence here of any expression of opinion on the part of those who made up the leadership classes in Jerusalem. e rst sign of such an opinion will emerge at 21:15-16.

1. See Mt. 26:14, 20, 47. 2. Which Matthew has preferred to Mark’s ‘began to say’. 3. Matthew drops a ὅτι marking direct speech and the separate article before ‘scribes’ (something similar to the latter happened at Mt. 16:21). 4. Matthew also prefers εἰς το + in nitive constructions (a shared εἰς) to nite clauses for the mocking, ogging, and crucifying clauses. 5. ere is some change of mind involved here from Nolland, Luke, 3:1,062-63. 6. In Mt. 20:25 it becomes clear that Matthew thinks in terms of the rest of the disciples as present, but not as immediately next to Jesus. 7. προσκυνεῖν probably displaces the address of Jesus as ‘teacher’ in Mk. 10:35 (but Matthew abbreviates more generally at this point and does not use direct speech). Matthew never has disciples address Jesus as teacher; and the mother, associated with her sons, functions as such here. 8. ere are several features common to the present coming and the coming of Bathsheba to David on behalf of Solomon in 1 Ki. 1:15-21. An echo may be intended.

9. More exactly the language in Mt. 4:21; 10:2 is ‘James the son of Zebedee and John his brother’. Without their names ‘the sons of Zebedee’ will be used in 26:37. 10. is may be as innocent as the English ‘Can you do something for me?’, but it has a precision of language that makes it likely that there is more here than this. 11. ere is also a chiastic pattern here: the two statements about sitting on the right and le frame the two statements about drinking the cup; at the centre stands ‘We are able’. However, Matthew’s failure to use a historic present for the rst statement about drinking the cup suggests that the chiasm may simply have been carried over from the source and thus may play no role for Matthew. Note also Matthew’s reduction of the degree of parallelism between the two cup statements and the loss in Mt. 20:21 of a use of διδόναι (lit. ‘give’), which in Mk. 10:37 stood in parallel with the use of the verb in v. 40 (par. Mt. 20:23). 12. e MT of Zc. 6:13 has the priest ‘on his throne’. 13. e Passion prediction in Mt. 17:22 has used μέλλειν (‘be about to’). 14. See Ps. 75:9; Is. 51:17, 22; Je. 25:15; 49:12; Lam. 4:21. e disaster is understood as owing from the wrath of God but as at times enveloping the innocent along with the wicked. Note also the ‘cup of death’ in Tg. Neof. Dt. 32:1 and in Gn. 40:23 in Tgs. Neofiti, Yerushalmi II, and Fragmentary. 15. Whether this involved martyrdom in the case of John is uncertain in the tradition — probably not. See Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:90-92. 16. Of course, one could also see the request that the two brothers occupy the positions as justifying treating the positions as a pair. 17. See Mt. 26:39, 42, 43 and cf. v. 53. 18. Matthew also abbreviates ‘which I drink’ to ‘my’. 19. e anger is clearly to be evaluated negatively in Matthew’s other two uses of ἀγανακτεῖν, in 21:15; 26:8 (the disciples). 20. Otherwise Matthew connects verses with δέ rather than καί, abbreviates (dropping ‘to them’ aer ‘said’ and ‘their’ from ‘great ones’), and brings ‘Jesus’ to the start of the clause. 21. Clark, ‘Meaning’, 100-105.

22. In the LXX κατακυριεύειν is used of subduing the earth (Gn. 1:28 — the MT has kbš; 9:1; Sir. 17:4), of gaining possession of territory by force (Nu. 21:24; 32:22, 29 — the MT has yrš; 1 Macc. 15:30), and of dominion over enemies (Ps. 109 [MT 110]:2 — the MT has rdh). It is disastrous when evil people or foreigners κατακυριεύειν (Pss. 9:31 [the MT is not close]; 18:14 [MT 19:13] — the MT has mšl; 118:133 — the MT has šlṭ. κατεξουσιάζειν is not found in the LXX, but the simple verb ἐξουσιάζειν is, and even it can point to the distressing constraint experienced by those affected. E.g., the verb is used in Ne. 5:15 (MT šlṭ) of the governor’s servants lording it over the people, and in 9:37 (MT mšl) of oppressive constraint exercised by foreign overlords: ‘ey have power also over our bodies and over our livestock at their pleasure, and we are in great distress’. 23. ἐν ὑμῖν is brought forward, making it more likely that Matthew intended ‘whoever among you’ and not ‘great among you’. Matthew’s change of Mark’s ἄν to ἐάν is only orthographic; it is not repeated in Mt. 20:27. 24. Seeley, ‘Rulership’, 234-50, has drawn attention to the motif of ruler as servant in philosophical re ection on the role of the king and thinks that this provides the ultimate inspiration for the Gospel tradition of the need for the great to serve, mediated via the self-understanding of the Cynic philosopher as ‘ruling’ through service. Our text assumes as background a different and rather less positive experience of Gentile rule, but there is a degree of genuine similarity between the Cynic ideal and that proposed by Jesus. e Christian vision here would, however, part company from the Cynic in relation to both the motivation for and the content of service. 25. For related uses of the plural οἱ πρῶτοι see Lk. 19:47; Acts 25:2. 26. εἶναι (‘be’) replaces γενέσθαι (‘become’), but the context ensures that the same futurist thrust is retained. 27. e alternative is to understand that, though as Son of Man Jesus is a great one, he nonetheless takes up a serving role. e difficulty with this alternative is that it does not recognise greatness as demonstrated in service, which has been the thrust of the preceding verses. 28. To these we may add Job’s intervention in 11QtgJob (11Q10) 38:1-3, where ‘God heard Job’s voice and forgave them their sins on his account’ (cf. Job 42:8). ere is some kind of intervention in 4QTLevid frg. 9 1:2 (‘he will

atone for all the children of his generation’), even if the image is only the role of the high priest on the Day of Atonement (G. J. Brooke, ‘4QTestament of Levid (?) and the Messianic Servant High Priest’, in From Jesus to John, ed. M. C. De Boer [JSNTSS 84. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993], 183-200, argues that the career of the gure depicted echoes that of the Isaianic servant). 29. On λύτρον as an offering to a god see Yarbro Collins, ‘Signi cation’, 373-79. 30. But Matthew quotes Is. 53:4 in 8:17. Mt. 26:27-28 alludes to Is. 53:12. Mt. 27:12 probably alludes to Is. 53:7, and Mt. 27:57 could allude to Is. 53:9. 31. Grimm, Verkündigung, 234-58; Hampel, Menschensohn, 317-34. With reference to Grimm, Stuhlmacher, ‘Vicariously Giving’, 16-29, also speaks con dently of a link with Is. 43:3-4. 32. kpr also means ‘ransom’ in Ex. 21:30; 30:12; Nu. 35:31, 32; Job 33:24; 36:18; Ps. 49:8; Pr. 13:8; 21:18; Is. 43:3, and has the related meaning ‘bribe’ in 1 Sa. 12:3; Pr. 6:35; Am. 5:12. Of these only in Job 33:24; 36:18; Ps. 49:8; Pr. 21:18; Is. 43:3 are we not dealing with a monetary payment or some equivalent (though for Ps. 49:8 this rather depends on whether we read ʾḥ [‘brother’] or ʾk [‘surely’] as the opening word; the context supports the latter, but even so, the material deserves speci c attention because the ransom envisaged is one that would be given to God). 33. Hampel/Grimm appeal to rabbinic tradition in which Ps. 49:8 was connected with Is. 43:3, with the former applied to the Gentiles and the latter to Israel. According to them, Ps. 49:8 has its counterpart in Mk. 8:37, and Is. 43:3 its counterpart in Mk. 10:45. In relation to a larger NT pattern of data, the way in which tḥt (‘instead of/for’) stands as an abbreviation for ‘as a ransom for’ in the latter part of Is. 43:3 and again in v. 4 is offered in support of a wider NT recognition of a background in Is. 43:3-4. 34. Job 33:24; 36:18; Ps. 49:8; Pr. 21:18. 35. e positive answer to the prayer is noted in related terms in 4 Macc. 17:21-22: ‘e tyrant was punished and our land puri ed — they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. And through the blood of those devout ones and the propitiation of their death (τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ θανάτου αὐτῶν) the divine Providence rescued Israel, which had been shamefully treated’.

36. e cup image of Mt. 20:22 may seem to favour this option, but v. 23 makes it clear that drinking the cup is not exclusive to Jesus. 37. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:898-99. 38. Matthew normally prefers the plural for ‘great crowds’ (seven times) but also has the singular in 14:14; 26:47. 39. Mt. 4:25; 8:1; 12:15; 14:13; 19:2; 21:9. 40. Apart from the summary statement in Mt. 21:14 (which again involves healing of the blind), this is the last healing account of the Gospel. 41. Matthew also mentions the healing of the blind in 11:5; 12:22; 15:3031. 42. See the discussion at Mt. 19:16. 43. But subordinates by replacing the nite verb with a participle. 44. He comes closest in Mt. 26:71, where in place of Mark’s Ναζαρηνοῦ Matthew has Ναζωραίου, picking up on his usage in 2:23. Mark’s other three uses have no parallel. 45. ἤρξατο κράζοντες καὶ λέγοντες (‘they began crying out and saying’) becomes ἔκραξαν λέγοντες (‘they cried out, saying’). 46. Gundry, Mark, 602, notes that rabbinic literature uses Rabbouni in addressing God and not people, and that the same pattern is dominant in the targums, but not with the same consistency. 47. Matthew uses the Markan phrase at Mt. 6:30. 48. A historic present is also found at the corresponding point in Mt. 9:28, but there the blind people are responding to Jesus’ preceding words asking about their faith, which also has a historic present. 49. τῶν ὀϕθαλμῶν for ‘the eyes’ in Mt. 9:30 now becomes τῶν ὀμμάτων with no obvious change of meaning. e word may provide a link with the omitted Mk. 8:22-26, which shares with the present account a use of ἅπτειν (‘touch’) and ἀναβλέπειν (‘gain or regain sight’). 50. Mark’s εὐθύς becomes εὐθέως: Matthew uses both words for ‘immediately’ but shows a preference for the latter. 51. See 2 Ki. 13:14-19; Is. 20:1-6; Je. 32:9-15; Ez. 4:1–5:17; 12:1-7; 24:1527; Ho. 3:1-5. 52. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:922-23.

53. Matthew also changes both Mark’s historic presents to aorists (‘drew near’, ‘sent’), adds ‘then’ to the second, thus reinforcing the opening ‘when’, prefers εἰς (already used with Bethphage) to Mark’s πρός for the ‘to’ before ‘the Mount of Olives’ (but ‫ א‬D L W Θ f1, 13 etc. lat have Mark’s πρός), and prefers the simpler ‘two disciples’ (perhaps aer ‘two blind [people]’ in 20:30) to Mark’s ‘two of his disciples’. 54. Other changes are: καί λέγει (‘and says’) becomes λέγων (‘saying’); πορεύεσθε (‘go’) is preferred to ὑπάγετε (‘go off/depart’) — Matthew uses both regularly but has some preference for the former; εἰσπορευόμενοι εἰς αὐτήν (‘going into it’) is dropped — it is redundant; and λύσατε αὐτὸν καὶ ϕέρετε (‘untie it and bring/carry’) becomes λύσαντες ἀγάγετε μοι (lit. ‘having untied bring/lead to me’) — ϕέρειν (‘carry/bring’) is much more frequent in Mark; μοι (‘me’) anticipates Jesus’ own use of the animals. 55. e question of how Jesus knew remains, but Matthew shows no interest in whether prior arrangement or supernatural awareness is the answer. 56. Gn. 49:11 uses ʿyr (‘donkey’) and bny-ʾtn (lit. ‘son of a female donkey’), while Zc. 9:9 has ḥmwr (‘donkey’) and ʿyr bn-ʾtnwt (lit. ‘donkey, son of female donkeys’). Various scholars maintain that Zc. 9:9 already involves an allusion to Gn. 49:11. 57. Blenkinsopp, ‘Oracle’, 55-64 nds a connection between Zc. 9:9 and Gn. 49:8-12 in early Jewish literature. 58. It is just possible that we should read τί and translate ‘Why?’. 59. Matthew also substitutes the future ἐρεῖτε ὅτι (‘you will say’ — it is unclear whether the ὅτι is intended to mark direct or indirect speech; Lk. 19:31 makes the same change, but an added οὕτως in Luke makes clear that direct speech is being marked) for Mark’s imperative εἴπατε (‘say’) and adjusts for the two animals with αὐτῶν and αὐτούς (‘of them’ and ‘them’) for Mark’s αὐτοῦ and αὐτόν (‘of it’ and ‘it’). 60. Mt. 21:4 and 13:35 agree in using ‘through the prophet’, providing a second pair with this phrase aer its use with the rst two of the formula quotations. 61. Weren, ‘Entry’, 124-27, offers an intriguing argument that actually the Zc. 9:9 material has been substituted for the continuing material of Is.

62:11. He points out that the pattern in Is. 62:11 is a common Isaianic one still kept intact with the substitution of material from Zc. 9:9 and that the composite quotation in Jn. 12:15, despite prefacing material from Zc. 9:9 with a different extract from Isaiah, keeps the same pattern. He would seem to be right that Matthew has used the Isaianic pattern. 62. John also quotes Zc. 9:9 in his account of the approach to Jerusalem, but because the allusive link with Zc. 9:9 is already present in Mk. 11:1-10 and because there is no agreement between John and Matthew in citation formula or citation, the two introductions of the quotation are best considered independent. (John and Matthew do have in common the substitution of a text from Isaiah for the opening clause of Zc. 9:9, which appeals to a common Isaianic pattern (see previous note), but John probably uses Is. 40:9 for ‘Do not fear’ — on the basis of a use of Zion and a thematic connection in the following ‘See, the Lord Yahweh comes with might’). Menken, ‘Quotations’, 573-74, among others, has argued that the various readings of the later Aquila, Symmachus, eodotion, and Quinta Greek texts re ect the uidity of the rst-century LXX text which is the source of Matthew’s readings. is kind of argument is very difficult to refute. But at least in relation to 2:23, more than the uidity of an LXX text needs to be appealed to. e text in 4:15-16 seems best explained as based on Matthew’s adaptation of the LXX on the ground of a fresh scrutiny of the Hebrew text. And no more than two of the distinctive words in Matthew’s version of Is. 53:4 in Mt. 8:17 nd any echo in the later Greek translations. While the uidity of the LXX text is not to be doubted, independent access to the Hebrew offers the most straightforward basis for explaining Matthew’s texts. Similarities with later Greek translations, where they exist, are best explained, at least for the most part, on the basis of a fresh scrutiny of the Hebrew in the production of these translations. 63. In the OT Zion has a range of referents. It initially referred to the old city of David, but it could be applied to the temple or the temple mount, to the whole of Jerusalem, and even by extension to the entire holy land. It was also used by extension to refer to the inhabitants. 64. Matthew will echo his own language here in his account of preparations for the Last Supper in 26:19, where the language is ἐποίησαν οἱ

μαθηταὶ ὡς συνέταξεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘the disciples did as Jesus had directed them’). 65. In addition, Mark’s ‘to Jesus’ is dropped; ἐπιβάλλειν is replaced with ἐπιτιθέναι ἐπί for ‘place on’; ‘their’ (αὐτῶν) is somewhat surprisingly dropped from ‘their coats’ (was Matthew distracted by his use of αὐτῶν in ‘on them’?); and ἐκάθισεν ἐπ᾿ is replaced by ἐπεκάθισεν ἐπάνω for ‘he sat on’. 66. See Mt. 5:14; 23:22; 28:2. 67. e attempt by Turner (Grammatical Insights, 69) to nd a generalising plural here has been effectively criticised by Soares Prabhu (Formula Quotations, 151). at ἐπάνω can be used for riding an animal is clear from Jdg. 1:14 (LXX A). 68. e overly literal reading which produces the two animals is not, however, a mark of unfamiliarity with Jewish texts. e same phenomenon can be noted at Qumran (CD 7:18-21) and among the rabbis (some identifying two beasts in Zc. 9:9 — see the texts at Str-B, 1:842-44) and plays an important role in Jn. 19:23-25. 69. Pesch, ‘Ausführungsformel’, 245. 70. Quite a bit of scholarly effort has been invested in exploring possible links between Jesus’ staged entry to Jerusalem and a range of staged entries in the Greco-Roman world (arrival of a distinguished person or of a governor, the Roman triumph) and possible Jewish analogues (an arrival of God as in Zc. 14, the royal welcome orchestrated for Solomon in 1 Ki. 1, the welcome of Jonathan Maccabaeus in 1 Macc. 10:86-89; 11:60-61; 12:43, the coming of the ark in 2 Sa. 6, pilgrimage processions, military welcomes). (e speci c listing here is based on Kinman, Jesus’ Entry, 25-65.) In a general sense these constitute worthwhile background, but speci c ties seem to be lacking. 71. Derivatively the word was used to mean ‘bed’, ‘nest’, ‘lair’, and even ‘grave’. It was also use of a religious ceremony which involved the spreading of straw. 72. ere are other minor changes: Matthew uses the re exive form for ‘their’ in ‘their coats’; he prefers ἐν + dat. rather than Matthew’s εἰς + acc. for ‘on the roadway’; he has a nite verb in place of a participle for the cutting; and he rearranges the word order in minor ways.

73. Matthew uses the plural ‘crowds’ thirty times. 74. e importance for Matthew of the link between 20:29-34 and 21:1-9 is underlined by the scale of vocabulary overlap noted by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:113. 75. For the details see Fitzmyer, ‘Hosanna’, 110-18. 76. Standing behind the use of χαίρειν as a greeting (lit. ‘to rejoice’) is presumably something like ‘May the gods so bless you that you will be well placed to rejoice’ or ‘May it be that the gods have so blessed you that you are able to rejoice’. 77. Contrast, e.g., the ‘Greetings and true peace’ of 2 Macc. 1:1 with Paul’s ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’. 78. Awareness of the language of 1 Sa. 17:45 may play a role in this deepening of sense. 79. e usage is found in Job 16:19; Ps. 148:1; Pss. Sol. 18:10. 80. Mt. 2:3 has ‘all Jerusalem’ where 21:10 has ‘all the city’, but the word ‘Jerusalem’ has just occurred; in 2:3 the verb is the passive of ταράσσειν (‘be disturbed’) where in 21:10 it is the passive of σείειν (‘be in turmoil’).

XVII. PROVOCATIVE MINISTRY IN JERUSALEM (21:12-46)

A. Activity in the Temple, Part 1 (21:12-17) 1. Disrupting Business at the Temple (21:12-13) went into the templea and drove out all who were selling and buying there, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold the doves. 13And he says to them, ‘It is written, 12Jesus

“My house shall be called a house of prayer”; but you bare makingb it a “den of bandits”.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. του θεου (‘of God’) is added in C D W f1 1006 1342 1506 etc. lat sy. b-b. In C D W f13 33 1006 1342 1506 etc. the text is conformed to εποιησατε (‘made’) of Lk. 12:46 and in f1 to the πεποιηκατε (‘have made’) of Mk. 11:17. Bibliography Ådna, J., ‘e Attitude of Jesus to the Temple’, Mishkan (Jerusalem) 17-18 (1992-93), 65-80. • Bammel, E., ‘Die Tempelreinigung bei den synoptikern und im Johannes-evangelium’, in John, ed. A. Denaux, 507-13. • Bauckham, R. J., ‘Jesus’ Demonstration in the Temple’, in Law, ed. B. Lindars, 72-89, 17176. • Borg, M., Conflict, 170-99. • Brandscheidt, R., ‘Messias und Tempel: Die alttestamentlichen Zitate in Mt 21.1-17’, TTR 99 (1990), 36-48. • Buchanan, G. W., ‘Symbolic Money-Changers in the Temple?’ NTS 37 (1991), 280-90. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘e “Triumphal” Entry’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 319-34, esp. 330-34. • Chávez, E. G., e eological Significance of Jesus’ Temple Action in Mark’s Gospel (Toronto Studies in eology 87. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2002). • Chilton, B. D., Feast

of Meanings, 46-74. • Chilton, B. D., ‘[ὡς] ϕραγέλλιον ἐκ σχοινίων (John 2.15)’, in Templum Amicitiae, ed. W. Horbury (JSNTSup 48. Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 330-44. • Chilton, B. D., e Temple of Jesus (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1992), 91-154. • Crossan, J. D., Peasant, 35560. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘No Stone upon Another: Leprosy and the Temple’, JSNT 30 (1987), 3-20. • Evans, C. A., ‘Jesus’ Action in the Temple and Evidence of Corruption in the First-Century Temple’, in SBLSP 28 (1989), 522-39. • Evans, C. A., ‘Jesus’ Action in the Temple: Cleansing or Portent of Destruction?’ CBQ 51 (1989), 237-70. • Evans, C. A., ‘Jesus and the “Cave of Robbers”’, BBR 3 (1993), 93-110. • Frankovic, J., ‘Remember Shiloh!’ JerPersp 46-47 (1994), 24-31. • Fredriksen, P., ‘Jesus and the Temple, Mark and the War’, in SBLSP 29 (1990), 293-310. • Harvey, A. E., ‘Jesus the Christ: e Options in a Name’, in Constraints, 120-51. • Holmén, T., Covenant, 303-29. • Hooker, M. D., ‘Tradition about the Temple in the Sayings of Jesus’, BJRL 70 (1988), 7-19. • Horsley, R., Spiral, 286-300. • Kallemeyn, H., ‘Un Jésus intolérant? (Matthieu 21:12-17)’, RevRef 43 (1992), 85-91. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 173-76. • Moulton, M., ‘Jesus’ Goal for Temple and Tree: A ematic Revisit of Matt 21:12-22’, JETS 41 (1998), 561-72. • MurphyO’Conner, J., ‘Jesus and the Money Changers (Mark 11:15-17; John 2:13-17)’, RB 107 (2000), 42-55. • Neusner, J., ‘Money-Changers in the Temple: e Mishnah’s Explanation’, NTS 35 (1989), 287-90. • Oakman, D. E., ‘Cursing Fig Trees and Robbers’ Dens: Pronouncement Stories within Social-Systemic Perspective, Mark 11:12-25 and Parallels’, Semeia 64 (1993), 253-72. • Richardson, P., ‘Why Turn the Tables? Jesus’ Protest in the Temple Precinct’, SBLSP 31 (1992), 507-23. • Richardson, P., ‘Why Turn the Tables? Jesus’ Protest in the Temple Precincts’, SBLSP 37 (2000), 507-23. • Runnals, D., ‘e King as Temple Builder: A Messianic Typology’, in Spirit within Structure. FS G. Johnston, ed. E. J. Furcha (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1983), 15-37. • Sabbe, M., ‘e Cleansing of the Temple and the Temple Logion’, in Studia Neotestamentica (BETL 98. Leiden: Brill, 1991), 331-54. • Sanders, E. P., Jesus, 61-90, 363-69. • Seeley, D., ‘Jesus’ Temple Act’, CBQ 55 (1993), 263-83. • Seeley, D., ‘Jesus’ Temple Act Revisited: A Response to P. M. Casey’, CBQ 62 (2000), 55-63. • Söding, T., ‘Die Tempelaktion Jesu: Redaktionskritik — Überlieferungsgeschichte — historische Rückfrage (Mk

11,15-19; Mt 21,12-17; Lk 19,45-48; Joh 2,13-22)’, TTZ 101 (1992), 36-64. • Spiegel, E., ‘War Jesus gewalttätig?’ Bemerkungen zur Tempelreinigung’, TGl 75 (1985), 239-47. • Stein, R. H., ‘e Cleansing of the Temple in Mark’, in Gospels and Tradition: Studies on Redaction Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 121-33. • Tan, K. H., Zion, 158-96. • eissen, G., ‘Die Tempelweissagung Jesu’, TZ 32(1976), 144-58. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 78-131, 347-78. • Tuckett, C., Revival, 111-19. • Watty, W. W., ‘Jesus and the Temple — Cleansing or Cursing?’ ExpTim 93 (1982), 235-39. • Winkle, R. E., ‘e Jeremiah Model for Jesus in the Temple’, AUSS 24 (1986), 155-62. See further at 21:1-11.

e section is probably 21:12-46: events in the temple frame the withering of the g tree;1 and (apart from a tailpiece) the section ends with parabolic material, as have two of the last three sections (perhaps the symbolic prophetic act at the end of the third — apart from the tailpiece — is thought of as an equivalent); the tailpiece, as it marks the beginning of attempts to arrest Jesus, reiterates the recognition by the crowds that Jesus is a prophet with which the preceding section has ended. As will become clear, the three sections 21:12-46; 22:1-45; 23:1-39 are closely linked, and for some purposes the rst two function together as a single section. In any case, the three linked sections begin and end with the prospect of judgment for the temple/Jerusalem. In 21:12-13 Jesus’ disruption of temple worship functions as a call to repentance: it is both a word of promise and a threat of judgment. Matthew makes no use of the preliminary visit to the temple placed here by Mark (11:11) — he will borrow a little of its language for Mt. 21:17 — and he keeps back the cursing of the g tree a little to give a uni ed account of cursing and withering. is allows him to report immediately as Jesus’ rst public act in Jerusalem what comes next in Mark (11:15-17): Jesus’ disruption of business in the temple. e main changes from Mark are the

dropping of v. 16 (its role is unclear), the excision of πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (‘for all the nations/peoples’ — it adds an unnecessary complication), and the loss of the reaction statement in v. 18 (Mark will have something similar in 12:12 which Matthew will use to end the section; the loss prepares for this role). ough the basic historicity of the account has occasionally been questioned, the very difficulties of the account tell strongly in its favour. e account in Jn. 2:13-16 is likely to be quite independent of the Synoptic one. Although OT prophetic signs were generally accompanied by explanation, we cannot be sure that the words of explanation now attached are original. ere is no consensus about what the event meant to Jesus and/or those who witnessed it. I have suggested elsewhere that Jesus’ action should be seen as a complaint that those who came to the temple were not offering acceptable worship to God (cf. Je. 7:8-11; Mal. 1:10) and is to be linked with traditions of eschatological temple puri cation or even replacement.2

21:12 e changes to Mk. 11:15 are minor. In Matthew Jesus does not need to enter Jerusalem once more — so the rst sentence goes. For the beginning of the new major section Jesus is freshly introduced by name. An added ‘all’, which with the use of a shared article covers both sellers and buyers, adds emphasis by insisting on the comprehensiveness of Jesus’ action.3 e main location of all that happens through to the beginning of chap. 24 is the temple (see 24:1; 26:55), but there is a speci c identi cation of a temple location only here, in vv. 14, 15, and 23, and, with a back reference, in 24:1. However, throughout these chapters only for 21:17, 18-22 is there clearly a nontemple setting. e southern side of the outer court is the likely location of the selling and buying and of the money changing. Since what is being bought and sold is not speci ed (except for the separate mention of those who sold doves), scholars have made the case that what is in view is temple officials buying supplies for the temple and selling to merchants valuable items that had been donated to the temple. But Jn. 2:14 speci es ‘cattle, sheep, and doves’, and this is what is most

likely to be in view in the Synoptic accounts as well (not to exclude wine, grain, and oil for sacri ce). Animals bought in this way could be guaranteed to be blemish free and therefore valid for sacri ce. e possibility of buying sacri cial animals in the temple itself offered hassle-free sacri cial arrangements (perhaps almost a ‘drive through’ approach to sacri ce?). According to 17:24, people were ordered to pay the temple tax in Tyrian coinage, which accounts for the presence of money changers in the temple. Tables were temporarily set up in the temple for the period leading up to Passover to provide a convenient arrangement for payment on the part of those who had not made their payment earlier at some local payment point. It is unclear why the seats of those who sold doves are singled out for special mention. At an artistic level it makes for a juxtaposition of the natural pair ‘tables’ and ‘chairs’. Since doves were the offering of the poor, the overwhelming number of the people’s offerings were likely doves. Most likely the sellers and money changers were not temple officials themselves, but were operating under licence from the temple authorities. How are we to understand Jesus’ action? It seems to be yet another instance of prophetic symbolism. e other temple texts to which it perhaps has some relationship are the prophecy of the temple’s doom in 24:1-2 (cf. v. 15) and the accusation against Jesus in 26:61; 27:40 that he claimed to be able to destroy and rebuild the temple in three days.4 A symbolic shutting down of the sacri cial activity of the temple would seem to be in view, along the lines of Mal. 1:10, which envisaged the closing of the temple gates. Cf. also Ho. 9:15, where God says, ‘I will drive them out of my house’. Jesus’ action would have created temporary havoc, but since people could always supply their sacri cial needs from elsewhere and the shutdown of the market would have been quite temporary, only a symbolic and temporary ‘closure’ was ever intended. In Mal. 1 the

laxity of practices in relation to temple worship itself is the focus of complaint. But in the related Je. 7, which anticipates the destruction of the temple, the incongruous juxtaposition of temple worship and wicked behaviour is targeted. In both cases a forceful call for repentance is intended. Jesus wanted to disrupt the temple worship to stop people in their tracks and attract attention to his challenge to respond to the message of the coming of the kingdom. To interfere with the worship of the temple might seem a curious place to begin a ministry in Jerusalem, but perhaps it is no more striking than the assumption (which it probably re ects) that runs through the Gospel, beginning with John the Baptist, that the announcement of the kingdom of God creates a situation in which there is a universal need for repentance and a fresh response to God. 21:13 Again the changes are mostly minor. Matthew drops Mark’s reference to Jesus’ explanation as teaching and replaces Mark’s imperfect tense ‘he said’ with a historic present — this will be balanced by another for Jesus’ words in v. 16. He also drops Mark’s question form, replacing ‘has it not been written’ (οὐ γέγραπται;) with ‘it has been written’ (γέγραπται) — the interactive mode seems less appropriate to Matthew here (contrast Jn. 10:34), but he will use a form of it in the related v. 16. More signi cantly, he drops ‘for all nations’ — as interested as he is in a place for all the nations in the purposes of God, Matthew struggles to see what explanatory power this phrase has in relation to Jesus’ deed here. Mark’s perfect tense πεποιήκατε (‘you have made’) becomes a present tense ποιεῖτε(‘you are making’) — pointing more sharply to present activity. e rst clause of Jesus’ words comes from Is. 56:7. e language is that of the LXX, but it fully re ects the MT. e context in Is. 56 is a vision of deliverance in which there will be a gathering

of Israel to worship in the temple, now to be a means of blessing to eunuchs, outcasts (scattered Israelites, but perhaps also those who have previously fallen away from their loyalty to God), and foreigners who join themselves to the Lord. ere is no contrast in Is. 56 between prayer and sacri ce since in v. 7 ‘burnt offerings and sacri ces’ are integrally related to prayer. Neither is Matthew contrasting prayer and sacri ce. Rather, in Matthew’s use ‘house of prayer’ suggests something like ‘place of authentic meeting with God’. Along with a de nite criticism of the status quo Matthew is perhaps implicitly suggesting that with Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom of heaven the time has come for the realisation of God’s promises of Is. 56. e second clause is based on Je. 7:11. A measure of commonality between Is. 56:7 and Je. 7:11 has probably facilitated their coming together: Is. 56:7 has ‘my house … will be called’; Je. 7:11 has ‘this [‘my’ in the LXX] house … is called’.5 Je. 7:11 uses a question form: ‘Has this house which is called by my name become a den of bandits in your sight?’ e two words of Je. 7:11 which are directly used in the Matthean form are identical to the LXX, but again this is the most natural way of rendering the Hebrew into Greek. e ‘den of bandits’ imagery in Je. 7 relates to the blatant wickedness and violence of those who came to worship in the temple, thinking that to do so provided them a safe haven with God. It is not likely to be the market vendors who are accused of wickedness:6 their part is simply to collude in the state of affairs by facilitating the public worship of those whose lives assert something quite different from delity to God. If the use of Is. 56:7 carried an implicit claim that something better was coming, then the use of Is. 7:11 likely carries an implicit threat of judgment on the temple. Is this where we are to look for what lies behind the insistence in

26:61; 27:40 that Jesus claimed to be able to destroy and rebuild the temple? 2. Leaders Angered by Healing and Acclamation (21:14-17) 14aBlind

and lamea people came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the marvellous things that he did and the children bwho wereb crying out in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry 16and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’ Jesus says to them, ‘Yes! Have you never read, “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have arranged praise for yourself.” 17en

he le and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. e order is inverted in C K N W Γ Δ (565) 579 1241 1424 etc. sy samss. b-b. e τους which this represents is missing in C K W Δ f1, 13 565 579 892 1241 1424 etc. Bibliography Gewalt, D., ‘Die Heilung Blinder und Lahmer im Tempel (Matthäus 21,14)’, Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament und seiner Rezeption in der Alten Kirche 23 (1986), 156-73. • Mulloor, A., ‘e Blind, the Lame and the Children in the Temple: Mt 21,14-17 as a Model of Action’, Biblebhashyam 20 (1994), 29-41. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 187-93. See further at 21:1-9, 12-13.

Matthew pairs healing in the temple with the disruption of temple worship. But the resulting acclaim of the children is offset by the anger of the chief priests and scribes. Again he offers a quotation from Scripture in illumination. Matthew makes no use here of the reaction on the part of the chief priests and scribes reported by Mk. 11:18 at this point, but the location and some of the content of Mt. 21:15-16 may bear its imprint. With the exception of Mt. 21:17 (cf. Mk. 11:11, 19), these verses have no parallel in Mark or Luke, and probably Matthew had no source other than tradition fragments for them. ere is, however, a measure of parallelism with Lk. 19:37 (acclaim on the basis of deeds of mighty power), 39-40 (a Pharisaic attempt to have this stopped, which is answered by Jesus), which raises the possibility that some kind of tradition or traditional pattern is being used.

21:14 Matthew makes a point of noting that this next episode also takes place in the temple. As with the disruption of the market, the location is the most public part of the temple, where even Gentiles were permitted. But the question has been raised whether limited access to the temple for ‘blemished’ people provides the background here.7 e second-class status of the blind and lame is re ected in their exclusion from priestly roles: according to Lv. 21:18, ‘No one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long’. Similarly, blind and lame animals were not to be offered in sacri ce.8 ere is no clear evidence that blind and lame Israelites were excluded from sacri cing in the temple, but the Qumran community seems to be of the view that they should be,9 and it is difficult to know what force was either originally or later given to what seems to be cited as a proverbial saying in 2 Sa. 5:8: ‘e blind and the lame shall not come into the house’ (which the LXX glosses with ‘of God’). In any case, the healing of the blind and the lame in the temple coheres thematically with the appeal to Is. 56:7 and links

with the Isaianic texts that lie behind Mt. 11:5, where the blind and the lame head the list (cf. 15:31, where they end the list and are in inverted order — as they are in v. 30, where they begin the list).10 e inclusion of 21:14 overcomes what is in Mark a notable distinction between Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem and earlier: in Jerusalem there are no healings or other positive miracles (there is the withering of the g tree).11 21:15 It is not from the bene ciaries but from others that a reaction is reported. Matthew compensates now for the role of the chief priests and scribes, which he dropped aer the disturbance in the temple. Apart from their place in a more extended list in the rst Passion prediction (16:21), the chief priests and scribes have been met previously only in connection with Herod (2:4), on the last occasion when Jesus’ life came under threat, and in the most recent Passion prediction (20:18), as those to whom the Son of Man will be handed over: the threat on Jesus’ life is being hinted at. e chief priests and scribes become witnesses here to two things. e rst is what Matthew now calls ‘the marvellous things that [Jesus] did’. ‘Marvellous things’ (θαυμάσια) is found only here in the NT. It is widely used in the LXX of the marvellous deeds of God, and especially of the Exodus wonders. Matthew likely intends a connection.12 e second thing witnessed by the chief priests and scribes is an echo on the lips of children in the temple of the cry ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, which the accompanying crowds had voiced as Jesus approached the city. e city had met him with a question as to his identity; the Jerusalem crowds considered him the prophet from Galilee; in Jerusalem only a group of children in the temple give voice to the insight granted the blind people of 29:30-34. e children’s acclaim, coming aer the healing of the blind people, echoes the same sequence in 20:29-34; 21:1-9. Presumably what the chief priests and scribes are angry about is

that the children should have responded to seeing the healings in this manner. is is what they take up with Jesus at the beginning of the next verse. 21:16 e assumption standing behind the question is that on hearing such acclamation the only responsible thing for Jesus to do would be to deny it forcefully. But Jesus has already accepted affirmation as the Son of David on several occasions, and the present affirmation is the third in a linked set.13 Jesus con rms that he has heard, and he asks his own question in response.14 As was the disruption in the temple, so now the children’s acclaim is illuminated from Scripture. e language of the citation is that of the LXX of Ps. 8:3(ET v. 2) (here the MT is rather different and rather obscure, but the sense is probably similar). Despite the dependence on LXX language here, the link with the Exodus marvels noted above raises the question of whether a Jewish tradition that connected Ps. 8:3 with Ex. 15:2 on the basis of the shared use of ʿz (‘strength’, ‘protection’, etc.) lies behind the choice of the psalm text.15 A little extra support for this possibility may be claimed from the observation that the relevant part of Ex. 15:2 is identical to Ps. 118:14, the psalm to which the children’s acclamation relates, which was used in Mt. 21:9 and will be used again in v. 41 and 23:38. e signi cance of a connection with this Jewish tradition would be to identify the children’s praise as a repetition of the contribution of the children to the song of Moses and the Israelites in Ex. 15. In any case, God is the one addressed in the psalm. e ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’ of the children is their recognition and affirmation of what God is doing and is thus tting praise to God. e psalm is not being taken fully literally since the ‘children’ (τοὺς παῖδας) of Mt. 21:15 are not exactly the same as the ‘infants and nursing babies’ (νηπίων καὶ

θηλαζόντων) of the psalm. For God as the source of the infants’ insight cf. 11:25. 21:17 e separation statement echoes that of 16:4, where Jesus breaks off aer a critical engagement with ‘the Pharisees and the Sadducees’. For the rest of the verse Matthew merges features of Mk. 11:11 (which he did not use earlier) and v. 19 (from the end of the disturbance in the temple).16 He drops Mark’s mention of ‘the Twelve’; his uses of this phrase are restricted to a set of verses in chap. 26,17 and, with the exception of 20:17, the longer phrase ‘the twelve disciples’ is restricted to the context of the mission charge.18 ‘e/his disciples’ is much more pervasive, but Matthew prefers to keep the focus here narrowly on Jesus; consciousness of the disciples’ ongoing presence with Jesus will be refreshed in 21:20. ηὐλίσθη (‘spent the night’), also used in Lk. 21:37, has in mind the crowded state of Jerusalem in the Passover period. ough the pilgrims would mill into the city during the day, for overnight accommodation they would mostly need to go further a eld to the surrounding villages or to a piece of open ground where they could put up their tents. In this respect Jesus was like any other poor pilgrim. B. A Withered Fig Tree and Faith at Will Remove the Mount of Olives (21:18-22) [in the morning], aas he was returninga to the city, he became hungry. 19So, seeing a certain fig tree along the way, he came to it but found nothing on it except leaves alone. en he says to it, ‘From now on may fruit not come from you forever!’ And at once the fig tree withered. 20e disciples saw this and were amazed, saying, ‘How [is it that] the fig tree withered at once?’ 21Jesus answered them, ‘Amen, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do the [thing that has been done] to the fig tree, but 18Early

even if you say to this mountain, “Be lied up and thrown into the sea”, it will happen. 22And whatever you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Representing the present participle, επαναγων. ‫ *א‬B* L have the aorist participle, which could be to locate the action in the city, but it is probably only to match the aorist of the principal verb. D it have παραγων (‘as he was going away/along’). W has υπαγων (‘as he was departing’). Bibliography Böttrich, C., ‘Jesus und der Feigenbaum Mk 11,12-14.20-25 in der Diskussion’, NovT 39 (1997), 328-59. • Buchanan, G. W., ‘Withering Fig Trees and Progression in Midrash’, in Gospels, ed. C. A. Evans and W. R. Stegner, 249-69. • Cotter, W. J., ‘“For it was not the season for gs”’, CBQ 48 (1986), 62-66. • Crossan, J. D., ‘Aphorism in Discourse and Narrative’, Semeia 43 (1988), 121-40, esp. 123-25. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Moving Mountains and Uprooting Trees (Mk 11.22; Mt 17.20; 21.21; Lk 17.6)’, BibOr 30 (1988), 231-44. • Dowd, S., Prayer, Power, and the Problem of Suffering: Mark 11:22-25 in the Context of Markan eology (SBLMS 20. Atlanta: Scholars, 1988). • Ellul, D., ‘Dérives autour d’un guier: Matthieu 21,18-22’, FV 91 (1992), 69-76. • Halter, D., Ce n’était pas la saison des figues: Un geste déroutant sur le chemin de la croix (Poliez-le-Grand: Editions du Moulin, 1998). • Hedrick, C. W., ‘On Moving Mountains’, Forum 6.3-4 (1990), 21937. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 176-80. • Krause, D., ‘Narrated Prophecy in Mark 11.12-21’, in Gospels, ed. C. A. Evans and W. R. Stegner, 235-48. • Meier, J. P., Marginal, 2:884-96. • Oakman, D. E., ‘Cursing Fig Trees and Robbers’ Dens’, Semeia 64 (1993), 253-72. • Schwarz, G., ‘Jesus und der Feigenbaum am Wege (Mk 11,12-14.20-25/Mt 21,18-22’, BibNot 61 (1992), 36-37. • Telford, W. R., e Barren Temple and the Withered Fig Tree (JSNTSup 1. Sheffield: JSOT, 1980). • Telford, W. R., ‘More Fruit from the Withered Fig Tree’, in Templum Amicitiae, ed. W. Horbury (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991), 264-304. • Trautmann, M., Zeichenhae, 319-46.

• Wagner, G., ‘Le guier stèrile et la destruction du Temple’, ETR 62 (1987), 335-42. • Wojciechowski, M., ‘Marc 11.14 et Tg. Gen. 3.22: Les Fruits de la Loi enlevés à Israel’, NTS 33 (1987), 287-89. See further at 17:19-20.

is single interlude away from the temple allows for a focus on the disciples rather than on the Jerusalem leaders who are otherwise in view through this section. If they have faith, the disciples will, like Jesus, be instruments of dramatic and even miraculous symbolic enactments of the coming judgment. ey will also have a role in bringing the restoration which is anticipated in the kingdom of heaven. ey will receive what they pray for. Aer the distinctive material of Mt. 21:14-17, Matthew now returns to his Markan source, using material (Mk. 11:12-14) that he kept back from before the disruption of the temple along with material that in Mark comes aer the temple disruption (Mk. 11:20-25). Matthew uni es, abbreviates, and clari es the logic of the material at points. He makes no use of Mk. 11:25: he has used related material at 6:14, where it seems to have a more natural t. e original unity of the Markan materials has been widely doubted: the withering of the g tree, the casting of the mountain into the sea, the promise of answered prayer, and the need to forgive may each have circulated separately. Not surprisingly the historicity of the withering of the g tree has been questioned, but once its prophetic symbolism is admitted, its historicity is no less likely than that of other nature miracles which also have a symbolic signi cance. Quite popular are views that Jesus said something about fruit not ever being eaten from the g tree again (a prophetic curse with symbolic signi cance or an anticipation of his own Passion or of the destruction of Jerusalem) and that this has been embellished or perhaps misunderstood and embellished to give the present account. But there is a romanticism about objecting to Jesus destroying a g tree, and personal convictions about the scale of Jesus’ powers easily impose themselves on historical reconstruction. Versions of the piece about casting the mountain into the sea are also found in Lk. 17:6 (but with a sycamore tree) and Mt. 17:20 (where the mountain is moved around, but not cast into

the sea). ere is probably also some second-source in uence on Matthew here. Elsewhere I have argued that the Lukan imagery is likely to be the most original.19

21:18 Jewish daily meal patterns seem sometimes to have involved three and sometimes only two meals. Matthew’s πρωΐ (‘early’) for Mark’s τῇ ἐπαύριον (‘the next day’) is probably intended to explain Jesus’ hunger by implying that, eager to make an early start, he had skipped breakfast on this occasion.20 Whereas Mark has a departure from Bethany, Matthew balances the departure ‘from the city’ and ‘to Bethany’ in v. 17 with a return ‘to the city’ here.21 His choice of a present participle for ἐπανάγων (lit. ‘returning’) locates the g tree to be introduced in v. 19 as on the way. Mark locates the action outside Bethany; does Matthew also think of Jesus as still on the slopes of the Mount of Olives? Almost certainly, since by the time one had reached the low point of the Kidron valley one had virtually arrived in Jerusalem. Whereas Jesus’ previous approach to Jerusalem had been a very public affair, this time it is an occasion of intimate communication with the disciples; only they are identi ed as witnessing the destruction of the g tree. 21:19 Matthew abbreviates heavily for this verse, but for what he keeps he follows Mark reasonably closely.22 μιάν (lit. ‘one’, but used Semitically for ‘a certain’)23 and ἐπὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ (‘on the way’) compensate in a minor way for some of the missing material about the g tree. Matthew also adds ἐν αὐτῇ (‘on it’) to ensure that the Markan language not be read too literally as suggesting that only leaves remained of the g tree! An added μόνον (‘alone’) stresses the absence of any sign of fruit. Matthew uses a historic present to introduce Jesus’ words here, identifying them as the heart of this piece (contrast v. 21). Mark’s καρπὸν ϕάγοι (‘may one eat fruit’) becomes καρπὸς γένηται (‘may fruit come’), giving a more natural

focus on the consequences for the tree than for others who might in the future try to take advantage of the fruit of the tree.24 ough Matthew has dropped Mark’s ‘for it was not the season for gs’, the question remains of what was reasonable for the Matthean Jesus to have expected in the Passover period. Despite much discussion scholars have reached no real consensus. What is clear is that most g trees fruit before producing leaves, so that the presence of leaves might well be taken to signal the presence of (not necessarily ripe or even yet edible) fruit.25 At Passover the fruit would for the most part be in an early stage of development, but E. F. F. Bishop photographed a g tree on April 16, 1936, loaded with gs large enough for picking, and reported that hungry Palestinians ate the unripe gs, which suggests that eating unripe gs at Passover might have been possible.26 Matthew’s relocation of the encounter with the g tree to aer the disruption of the temple means that this event can no longer separate Jesus’ harsh words about the tree and their consequences. Matthew reports now not what the disciples saw later (as Mk. 11:20 does), but what happened immediately.27 Matthew’s use of παραχρῆμα (‘immediately/at once’) is restricted to the present verse and the reference back to it in v. 20. Its use here heightens the sense of the miraculous: no natural blight could take effect so instantaneously. 21:20 is verse follows the broad sense of Mk. 11:20-21 but requires a nearly total rewrite. ‘e disciples’ is retrieved from Mk. 11:14 (and Matthew simpli es by not identifying Peter as spokesperson for the disciples), ‘saw’ is kept from v. 20, and references to saying, the g tree, and withered are preserved from v. 21.

ἰδόντες … ἐθαύμασαν (lit. ‘seeing…they marvelled’) echoes in a minor way ἰδόντες … τὰ θαυμάσια (lit. ‘seeing … the marvellous things’) of v. 15: there is an ironic inversion in the disciples’ being amazed at this rather negative miracle while the chief priests and scribes become angry at the marvel of restored sight and limbs. πῶς παραχρῆμα ἐξηράνθη ἡ συκῆ; can be literally translated ‘How did the g tree wither at once?’, but it is perhaps better taken as involving an ellipse: ‘How [is it that] the g tree withered at once?’ is allows for a larger shape to the question: ‘Why is this happening?’; not ‘What made it happen?’ (the answer to which should be obvious, given the disciples’ experience of Jesus’ capacity to work wonders). e reader also needs to ask the disciples’ question. What is going on here? Some kind of symbolic prophetic act is surely involved, as on Jesus’ previous approach to the city and as was the case in the preceding episode. But this time the act is geared towards the disciples and, as will become clear in vv. 21-22, their future role. ough the g tree is no cipher for Israel, what is imaged can hardly be anything else than the prospect of judgment on unfruitful Israel. In Mic. 7:1, when God says ‘there is no rstripe g for which I hunger’, the imagery is, as v. 2 makes clear, of a failure of righteousness among the people of God. Similarly, in Je. 8:13 God’s complaint is that ‘when I wanted to gather them … there are no … gs on the g tree; even the leaves are withered’ (the context is still the same as that for 7:11, used in Mt. 21:13). In Ho. 9:16 the judgment on Ephraim is that ‘their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit’. Here is the raw material for understanding the symbolism. A crucial moment has come in the divine timetable when the g tree will be seen to have or not to have produced the fruit to which it was obligated.

But from Jesus’ answer to follow it is not with the symbolism that he takes the disciples’ question to be primarily concerned. Rather, by means of the answer the question is glossed with something more like ‘What is it that you want us to learn from having enacted in our sight (and ours only?) this symbolic judgment on Israel?’ 21:21 Matthew follows Mark closely for the beginning of the verse, where the only adjustment is the omission of Mark’s use of a historic present to introduce Jesus’ speech (we noted the opposite change in v. 19).28 ‘Amen, I say to you’ is brought to the front of the quoted matter as the beginning of a process of eliminating some Markan repetitiveness and preparing for some Matthean expansion. Probably in uenced by a second source form (see Mt. 17:20; Lk. 17:6), Mark’s imperative clause ‘have faith in God’ becomes ‘if you have faith’,29 and this is supplemented with ‘and do not doubt’, drawn (with a change to the plural) from later in Mk. 11:23. (Matthew simpli es and avoids Mark’s repetition by otherwise dropping Mark’s ‘and does not doubt in his or her heart but believes that what she or he says will happen’.) Mark jumps from Jesus’ cursing of the g tree to the disciples’ moving of the mountain. Matthew bridges by adding ‘you will not only do the [thing that has been done] to the g tree, but even’ (οὐ μόνον τὸ τῆς συκῆς ποιήσετε, ἀλλὰ κἄν). What Jesus is able to do, namely produce dramatic and even miraculous symbolic prophetic acts warning of judgment, the disciples will also achieve if they have faith and do not doubt. ere is an echo here, to become much stronger as the verse continues, of the explanation in Mt. 17:20 of the disciples’ failed exorcism (see there): the challenge to the disciples is to move on from the failure of that earlier experience. Matthew replaces Mark’s ὃς ἄν plus subj. construction (‘whoever’) with an ἐάν plus second person plural subj. construction (‘if you’), but otherwise

retains the Markan wording for ‘say to this mountain, “Be lied up and thrown into the sea”’, only leaving Mark at the end with γενήσεται (‘it will happen’) rather than ἔσται αὐτῷ (lit. ‘it will be for him or her’) for the outcome. In Mt. 17:20 the moving of the mountain was nothing more than an image for doing something humanly impossible in the normal course of events. But there may be more here. Here disposing of the mountain — that is what throwing it into the sea achieves — replaces moving the mountain, and the activity is linked in a not-only-but-even package with the withering of the g tree. In coming from Bethany Jesus will have needed to come across the Mount of Olives from the eastern slopes. So here the natural referent for ‘this mountain’ is the Mount of Olives. And the removal of the Mount of Olives from in front of Jerusalem is anticipated in the only OT reference to it.30 It is true that in Zc. 14:4 the mountain is removed not to the sea, but by having one half slide north and the other half south, it may be possible to read the text in a manner that brings it much closer to the scenario here.31 In any case, the result in both cases is the levelling of the area in front of Jerusalem.32 In Zc. 14:4-5 the reason for the removal of the mountain is to open up an escape route from Jerusalem under attack,33 and the levelling heralds the saving intervention of God. So, if the withering of the g tree presages judgment, it may well be that the removal of the mountain in Matthew presages restoration or salvation, as it does in Zechariah. Mt. 24 anticipates Jerusalem under attack and the need to ee from Jerusalem, and the coming of the Son of Man which is identi ed as the culmination is thematically similar to the coming of God and his holy ones in Zc. 14:5.34 If this attempt to identify what is going on in the imagery of disposing of the Mount of Olives is at all along the right lines, there still remains the question of what this might mean for the disciples.

Do they ‘remove the mountain’ by praying for the end-time coming of the Son of Man? Do they metaphorically ‘remove the mountain’ by proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and thus opening up for people the place of escape and achieving what God intends before the end will come (Mt. 24:14)? We cannot be sure. Perhaps nothing quite so precise is intended: in one way or another, through the exercise of faith the disciples contribute miraculously not only to the proclamation of judgment but also to the restoration that represents the culmination of God’s purposes. However the disciples are to contribute, the importance of the coming of the kingdom of heaven/God throughout Matthew links nicely with Zc. 14:9, ‘e LORD will become king over the whole earth’, and that is ultimately what removing the mountain is about. 21:22 As had Mark, Matthew ends with a broadening generalisation that takes the focus to prayer. Matthew substitutes a simple ‘and’ for Mark’s ‘because of this I say to you’. Mark’s ‘pray and ask’ is improved to ‘ask in prayer’.35 e rather difficult and perhaps slightly obscure concept in Mark’s ‘believe that you received (ἐλάβετε) and’ is simpli ed to ‘believing’. λήμψεσθε (‘you will receive’) replaces Mark’s ἔσται ὑμῖν (lit. ‘it will be to you’ — cf. at the end of v. 21). A similar con dence in God’s response has already been articulated at 7:7 (see there). ere is no speci c restriction on the scope of prayer here, but the link with 21:21 suggests that the focus of prayer should be in line with the priorities of the mission of Jesus in relation to the coming of the kingdom.

C. Activity in the Temple, Part 2 (21:23-44) 1. Discussion with Leaders: Jesus’ Authority and at of John the Baptist (21:23-27) 23When

he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?’ 24In response Jesus said to them, ‘I will ask you one thing as well, which, if you tell me, I also will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25From where was the baptism of John? [Was it authorised] from heaven or [did it only come] from human beings?’ ey began to discuss among themselves, saying, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?” 26But if we say, “From human beings”, we are afraid of [what] the crowd [might do]. For they all aconsider John to be a prophet.’ 27So in response they said to Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ He balsob said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things’.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e verb is imperfect rather than present in f1 it vgcl, which would make the whole clause here an editorial comment (cf. Mk. 11:6). b-b. ο Ιησους (‘Jesus’) in ‫א‬, giving ‘Jesus said to them’. Missing from 700 1 bo. Bibliography Fuchs, A., ‘Die Frage nach der Vollmacht Jesu: Mk 11,27-33 par Mt 21,23-27 par Lk 20,1-8’, SNTU 26 (2001), 27-58. • Huber, K., Auseinandersetzung, 18137. • Hultgren, A. J., Adversaries, 68-75. • Lee, M. Y.-H., Jesus und die jüdische Autorität: Eine exegetische Untersuchung zu Mk 11,27–12,12 (FB 56. Würzburg: Echter, 1986). • Marucci, C., ‘Die implizite Christologie in der

sogenannten Vollmachtsfrage’, ZKT 108 (1986), 292-330. • Mell, U., ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 29-73. • Mudíso Mbâ Mundla, J.-G., Jesus, 5-40. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 193-99. • Weiss, W., Vollmacht, 143-62.

Either side of the account of the withering of the g tree, Jesus is in the temple, where he will be for the whole of his public ministry in Jerusalem. Jesus ties an answer from him to a question about his authority to an answer to his question about the status of John the Baptist. e fresh mention of the Baptist in v. 32 suggests that Matthew intends vv. 23-27 and vv. 28-32 to function together. Whereas the treatment of Jesus and the Baptist in 11:2-19 has vv. 26 concerned with the signi cance of Jesus’ ministry, vv. 7-15 concerned with the signi cance of John’s ministry, and vv. 16-19 concerned with the combined impact of the two, now 21:23-43 inverts this sequence, with vv. 23-27 dealing with the authority of both, vv. 28-32 dealing with the signi cance of the Baptist’s ministry, and vv. 33-43 dealing with the signi cance of Jesus. Matthew continues the Markan sequence, now using Mk. 11:27-33. Few signi cant changes are made, perhaps the most notable being the omission of ‘the scribes’ from the list of leaders, with the expansion of ‘the elders’ to ‘the elders of the people’. Mk. 11:27-33 has probably been developed from a simpler form that stopped with v. 30, with vv. 31-33 as an editorial elaboration. e materials of v. 27 are also likely to be in part a development: the questioners may well originally have been quite anonymous or identi ed with a more general term for leaders.36

21:23 Matthew considerably recasts the Markan language. e disciples have served their role in vv. 20-22, but now Matthew allows them to drop from sight by preferring a singular verb.37 In line with changes made at v. 18, he simpli es by dropping Mark’s mention of Jerusalem rst and thus having Jesus coming only to the temple. For Mark’s ‘walking about’ Matthew has the more

purposeful ‘teaching’.38 Matthew may be compensating for the later omission of ‘teaching in the temple’ of Mk. 12:35; he is certainly preparing for 26:55. e temple precincts in Jerusalem were the obvious place for Jesus to engage in teaching. On the temple focus of Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry in Matthew see the comments at 21:12. Matthew drops ‘the scribes’ from Mark’s list of those who have come together to question Jesus and identi es ‘the elders’ as ‘of the people’, a phrase which he will use with three of the next four occurrences of ‘the elders’ (and thereaer it is to be taken as implied).39 It is unclear whether the chief priests are also to be covered by the phrase ‘of the people’. ey seem to be included with the scribes as ‘of the people’ in 2:4 (if we may conclude this from the shared de nite article) and with the elders in 26:47, and perhaps we should take our lead from these texts and understand that ‘of the people’ also relates to the chief-priests when there is not a shared article. e leadership of both the chief priests and the elders will play a key role in 27:20. Matthew restricts his listing of the three leadership groups to the rst Passion prediction (16:21: ‘the elders, chief priests, and scribes’) and the last mention of Jewish leaders prior to Jesus’ death, at the mocking of Jesus on the cross (27:41: ‘the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders’).40 He does not spare the scribes. ey have had a turn already in 21:15-16. His strategy seems to be to ring the changes on the leadership groups, mentioned in pairs, in order to suggest that in the building opposition to Jesus various groups came together to oppose a common foe. e dominance of the chief priests in Jerusalem is, however, recognised in that they are almost always included in the pairings.41 e double question of Mk. 11:28 has oen seemed overloaded to scholars.42 If ποίᾳ is translated ‘what kind of ’, then the rst question is about kinds of authority, that is, kinds of power, and is

quite different from the second. It is, however, altogether more likely that ποίᾳ means simply ‘what’ (cf. its use in Mt. 22:36), in which case the two questions are not very different: the former is more general, while the second becomes more precise by focussing on the issue of authorisation.43 But some sense of verbal overload remains, and both Matthew and Luke have dealt with this by dropping from the second question ἵνα ταῦτα ποιῇς, ‘that you might do these things’, as redundant aer ταῦτα ποιεῖς (‘are you doing these things’) in the rst question.44 For the reader Mt. 11:27; 28:18 make clear statements about where Jesus’ authority comes from. 17:5 also invites attention, and see the discussion at 8:9. ‘ese things’ is general, with the reference to teaching in the immediate context helping to avoid any narrow reference to such things as the temple disruption, the temple healings, or the withering of the g tree. 21:24 Matthew stays closer to the Markan language here, but there is a striking set of minor agreements with Luke. None of these signi cantly changes the sense (which tends to count against a source in uence), and all of these are readily explicable as independent editorial changes on the part of Matthew and Luke.45 Matthew senses the awkwardness of the Markan sequence ‘I will ask you … and answer [imperative] me’, replacing ‘and answer me’ (καὶ ἀποκρίθητέ μοι) with ‘which, if you tell me’ (ὃν ἐὰν εἴπητέ μοι).46 Jesus’ words pick up the language of the rst question put to him. Jesus will trade answer for answer because his readiness to answer depends on the attitude of his hearers: the right to know is not independent of what one intends to do with the knowledge sought. 21:25 By adding πόθεν (‘from where’) and moving ἦν (‘was’) to an earlier position, Matthew makes Jesus’ question into a double question, perhaps to match the double question asked of him. Aer being changed in v. 24, Mark’s ‘Answer me’ is dropped here; it can

no longer nish a bracketing in Matthew as it does in Mark.47 Baptism as the characteristic marker of John’s ministry stands for his ministry as a whole. ‘From heaven’ stands for ‘from God’ as, famously, in Matthew’s use of ‘kingdom of heaven’. Perhaps originally the contrast was between ‘authorised directly from heaven’ and ‘authorised via the official channels of religious authority in Judaism’, but with the development we now have, the contrast is between ‘authorised from heaven’ and ‘only a human affair and therefore not authentically from God’. As the matter is discussed, it becomes clear very soon that assessment of the likely outcome, not concern for truth, guides the group discussion. What is implied by not believing in John? Jesus is challenging the Pharisees and Sadducees, not the chief priests and elders of the people, about a likely cynicism in their response to John’s baptism in 3:7-10. It seems most likely that in the Matthean framework here, however, to ‘believe him’ would naturally result in nding one’s way from John to Jesus and therefore having no need to ask the initial question. is expected outcome could be seen as based explicitly on John’s testimony to Jesus,48 or it could be based more generally in the congruence of John and Jesus’ message, and explicitly in their shared call to repentance in view of the coming kingdom of heaven (see 3:1; 4:17; 21:32). 21:26 e main change from Mark here is that the statement about being afraid of the crowd has been changed from third person to rst person and from imperfect to present and thus drawn into the quoted matter. In the following clause Matthew’s present ἔχουσιν (lit. ‘have’) for Mark’s imperfect εἶχον (lit. ‘had’) means that we are also to take this clause as quoted matter rather than editorial comment.49 Matthew is trying to improve on Mark’s broken syntax (the sentence, ‘But if we say, “From human beings”’, remains un nished in Mark), but his own rendering requires ‘afraid

of the crowd’ to be glossed as ‘afraid of how the crowd might react’. e leaders’ sentiment here echoes that of Herod in 14:5 and in Matthew’s hands tends to tar the present leaders with the same brush as the ruler who had had the Baptist executed. ough John had been dead some time, his hold on popular imagination had apparently remained strong.50 e Jerusalem crowds in 21:11 also considered Jesus to be a prophet, a sentiment that will be reexpressed in v. 46, where fear appears to be the leaders’ motivation in the same way. 21:27 With Matthew’s change to the aorist ‘said’ from Mark’s historic present ‘say’, the introduction of the leaders’ answer neatly matches the introduction to Jesus’ answer in v. 24: ‘in response Jesus said to them’; ‘in response they said to Jesus’. Matthew introduces καὶ αὐτός (‘he also’) to match the second use of κἀγώ (‘I also’) in v. 24.51 Since both possible answers to Jesus threatened to create problems, an evasion seemed wise: ‘We do not know’. What Jesus says in turn indicates that he accurately construes their answer as a non-answer.52 Jesus’ condition has not been met. So neither will he provide an answer. As in v. 24, the rst of the leaders’ questions is echoed. Where the leaders’ failure to answer was evasive, Jesus’ failure is not. e parallelism with the situation of John remains to address Jesus’ questioners. 2. Starting Late Is Better than Lip Service (21:28-32) do you think? A aman had two children. He came to the first and said, “Child, go off today and work in bthe vineyard”. 29ey responded, c“I don’t want to”. But later they changed their minds and went.c, d 30He came to the eother and said the same. ey responded, f“I [will], Sir”, and [then] did not go.f 31Which of the two did the will of the father?’ ey say,g ‘e hfirst’. Jesus says to them, ‘Amen, I say to you that the tax collectors and the 28‘What

prostitutes are going ahead of you into the kingdom of God. 32For John came to you in [the] way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and when you saw [this], you idid not eveni change your minds aerwards and believe him.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. τις (‘certain’) is added here in C Δ Θ f1, 13 33 892c 1241 1424 etc. it vgcl sy. Cf. Lk. 15:11. b. μου (‘my’) is found in B C2 W Z 0102 0281 579 1241 1424 etc. lat sa mae bopt. c-c. e order of the responses is reversed in quite a number of texts. In favour of the chosen order is the resulting bracketing effect of vv. 29 and 33. e reversal may have taken place under the in uence of a salvationhistorical reading of the parable in connection with Jews and Gentiles. εγω (υπαγω Θ f13 700 etc.), κυριε (Θ)· και ουκ απηλθεν (‘“I [will go], Sir”; and he/she did not go’) is found in B Θ f13 700 etc. (lat) samss bo. d. εις τον αμπελωνα (‘into the vineyard’) is added in D it sys, (c). bo.

e. δευτερω (‘second’) is found in ‫א‬2 B C2 L Z f1 33 700 892 1424 etc. mae

f-f. ου θελω, υστερον (+ δε in Θ f13 700 etc.) μεταμεληθεις απηλθεν (‘“I don’t want to”; [but] later he/she changed their mind and went’) is found in B Θ f13 700 etc. (lat) samss bo (as for textual note c-c). g. αυτω (‘to him’) is added in C W 0102 f1 etc. it vgcl sy sa mae boms. h. In line with the changes in c-c and f-f, υστερος (‘latter’) is found in B etc. (lat) samss bo and εσχατος (‘last’) in Θ f13 700 etc. But εσχατος (‘last’) is also found in D it sys, c, probably as a result of interplay between the two main patterns of readings. i-i. ουδε here is reduced to ου in ‫ א‬C L W etc., giving ‘did not’, and dropped — accidentally, since no acceptable sense is possible — by D (c) e ff1* sys.

Bibliography Bratcher, R. G., ‘Righteousness in Matthew’, BT 40 (1989), 228-35. • Broadhead, E. K., ‘An Example of Gender Bias in UBS3’, BT 40 (1989), 33638. • Cameron, R., ‘Matthew’s Parable of the Two Sons’, Forum 8.3-4 (1992), 191-209. • Carter, W., ‘e Parables in Matthew 21:28–22:14’, in Parables, W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 147-76. • Foster, P., ‘A Tale of Two Sons: Which One Did the Far, Far Better ing? A Study of Matt 21.28-32’, NTS 47 (2001), 2637. • Gibson, J., ‘Hoi telōnai kai hai pornai’, JTS 32 (1981), 429-33. • Giesen, H., Christliches Handeln, 41-77. • Häfner, G., Vorläufer, 386-400. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Righteousness in Matthew’s eology’, in Worship, eology and Ministry in the Early Church. FS R. P. Martin, ed. M. J. Wilkins and T. Paige (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 101-20. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 218-25. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 390-99. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 93-104. • Langley, W. E., ‘e Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32) against Its Semitic and Rabbinic Backdrop’, CBQ 58 (19996), 228-43. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 156-64. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 284-302. • Marion, D., ‘Simples et Mystérieuses paraboles, XI. La Parabole poufaire comprendre: Matthieu 21,28–22,14’, EV 106.39-40 (1996), 289*-98*. • Martens, A. W., ‘“Produce Fruit Worthy of Repentance”: Parables of Judgment against the Jewish Religious Leaders and the Nation (Matthew 21:28–22:14 par; Luke 13:6-9),’ in Parables, ed. R. N. Longenecker, 151-76. • Popkes, W., ‘Die Gerechtigkeitstradition im Matthäus-Evangelium’, ZNW 80 (1989), 1-23. • Przybylski, B., ‘Matthew 21:32’, in Righteousness, 94-96. • Weder, H., Die Parable von den ungleichen Söhnen (Mt 21,28-32)’, in Gleichnisse, 230-38. • Wouters, A., Willen, 63-67. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha (127-28).

Vv. 28-32 are closely linked with vv. 23-27 in that they both focus on the ministry of John the Baptist. On the larger structure see further the discussion at vv. 23-27. e failure of the leaders to respond to the ministry of the Baptist is focussed on, and is thought to explain to a signi cant degree, their failure to recognise the signi cance of Jesus (both failures are of a piece).

Matthew interrupts the Markan sequence to include 21:28-32. e application of the parable to response to the ministry of John the Baptist is probably not original, but the parable is clearly polemical and concerned to illuminate contradictory responses (probably originally to Jesus’ own ministry). ere is a certain ‘family likeness’ to the parable in Lk. 15:11-31. ough the present language of Mt. 21:31b-32 is quite Matthean and that of Lk. 7:29-30 quite Lukan, there is sufficient commonality to suggest that a common tradition probably made the point in some form that response to the ministry of the Baptist readied people to be receptive to Jesus’ ministry. Matthew seems to make implicit use of this point in his larger structure, but not in his immediate use of the material.

21:28 Jesus continues to address the chief priests and the elders. ‘What do you think?’ as a call to ponder is a Matthean touch, as it was for the earlier parable in 18:12. at ἄνθρωπος means ‘man’ here and not ‘person’ is made clear by the use of ‘father’ in v. 31. τέκνα here most likely refers to young adult offspring still living at home, though older children could be in view. ese are youngsters without regular employment outside the family. While the work to which they might be put in the vineyard might be different, offspring of either gender could be in view.53 e vineyard is envisaged as a family concern under the direction of the father. e children are to be imagined as (separately?) at leisure when the father comes to them. He approaches them separately.54 ‘Today’ in the father’s directive suggests that these young people are not expected to work every day: they may be accustomed to quite a bit of leisure! 21:29 e refusal is a major affront to the father. e surprise is that the father tolerates this, but clearly he does. Later, however, the rst child has a change of heart so that he or she actually honours the father’s directive. e father and child display a notable likeness to the father and the prodigal of Lk. 15:11-32 (in common

also is the role of two offspring). μεταμελεῖσθαι is rare in the NT.55 It can indicate regret or change of mind. Here both are likely to be involved. 21:30 e father’s approach to each is separate but identical.56 e contrasting response is doubly marked: agreement is cryptically marked with ἐγώ (lit. ‘I’) — the use of ἐγώ could mark a contrast and, if so, would indicate awareness of the refusal on the part of the other youngster; respect is also shown to the father by the use of κύριε (‘sir’) in address. But this second youngster does not follow through on his or her declared intention. With each youngster there is both the initial verbal response and then what this leads to in practice; in both cases these are contrasted as opposites. ere is a symmetrical inversion between the two double responses. 21:31 To the call to ponder in v. 28 corresponds now the question of Jesus. If the question had been, ‘With which of the two was the father happiest?’ different views would be possible,57 but the language ‘did the will of the father’ strongly directs the answer. is language also begins to point to the Matthean interpretation by echoing ‘does the will of my Father’ language in connection with God in 7:21; 12:50.58 In particular, 7:21 contrasts the one who addresses Jesus as κύριε (and does no more) and the one who does the will of Jesus’ Father. ough the present setting for the parable is Matthean, the parable with its contrasts and reversals seems to be inalienably polemical. It requires a contrast between those within Israel who, presumably because of the initiative of God with which Jesus identi ed himself, have changed their stance from one of disregard for the will of God to active implementation of it and those within Israel whose verbal assertions about commitment to doing the will of God have now been revealed as empty. God’s long-suffering

patience is to be recognised in his initial tolerance of the refusal by the rst youngster to do what his father directs. To introduce the answer Matthew uses a historic present (‘they say’), and he will do the same to introduce Jesus’ application of the parable to his hearers: the focus for the double unit, vv. 23-27 and 28-32, falls here. Additional emphasis falls on Jesus’ answer with the fresh introduction of his name and the opening ‘Amen, I say to you’ (see discussion of this phrase at 5:18). By means of the parable, Jesus comments on the leaders’ ‘don’t know’ answer about the Baptist’s authority. e three gures in the parable all have quite clear counterparts in the situation on which Jesus is intending to comment: tax collectors and prostitutes are now doing the will of God; the ‘you’ addressed by Jesus have only given lip service to the will of God; the God of the kingdom is clearly the father of the parable. e nal clause of 21:31 remains opaque without the clari cation in v. 32 that Jesus is speaking of the response of tax collectors and prostitutes to the ministry of the Baptist. Matthew offers no earlier indication that tax collectors had responded to the ministry of John, but Lk. 3:12-13 does (and cf. 7:29). Matthew does report their response to Jesus’ own ministry in 9:10-11. With them are now paired ‘prostitutes’, who are not otherwise mentioned as responding to the ministries of either John or Jesus.59 But the woman of Lk. 7:37-50 may be a prostitute (v. 39: ‘what kind of woman this is … she is a sinner’), and Luke appears to present her as having responded in turn to the ministries of John and Jesus.60 e pairing of tax collectors and prostitutes is a yet starker form of the Mt. 9:10-11 pairing of tax collectors and sinners. e contrast with the leaders is to be as extreme as possible. e use of προάγειν (‘go ahead of ’) is striking in that it highlights the possibility of following those who go ahead.61 is

prepares for v. 32. In Matthew’s other uses, entry into the kingdom is always future.62 Nonetheless, meeting the conditions for entry is a matter for the present time, in which the kingdom is being proclaimed. In light of the other instances, the imagery here would seem to be best taken as of being well along the path that leads into the kingdom rather than of having already entered the kingdom. Matthew normally uses ‘kingdom of heaven’ rather than ‘kingdom of God’ (see at 4:17), but here ‘of God’ allows the identi cation of God and the father of the parable to be more immediate. 21:32 e allusion to the ministry of John the Baptist rather than to that of Jesus himself is at rst surprising, but Matthew has a piece of tradition that correlates openness to the ministry of Jesus with response to the ministry of John (see the introductory discussion to Mt. 21:28-32). Using it here allows him to develop the thrust of vv. 23-27 in a particular way: the leaders have questions about Jesus’ authority precisely because they have never actually faced up to the challenge of John’s message. As we have seen at 3:15, ‘the righteousness that both John and Jesus have their eyes set on is the righteousness of the kingdom of God: that state of affairs in which all is right between God and his world’ (see further there). ‘John came to you in [the] way of righteousness’ points generally to John’s role in the ful lment of this project.63 e thrice-repeated ‘believe him’ picks up on the language of v. 25: the leaders there would not open themselves to the possibility of Jesus challenging them with ‘Why then did you not believe him?’; but Jesus now comes to the same point along another track. In terms of the imagery of the parable, the request of the father issued through John had patently not produced action on the part of the leaders. ey might not have been prepared to verbally own a failure to believe him, but their lack of action spoke clearly

enough. No doubt we are to understand that the fact that the tax collectors and prostitutes had believed John was evident in repentance, with the subsequent fruit of repentance (3:1-10) in a transformation of life. e fruit of John’s ministry should have impressed the leaders and given them additional impetus for taking it seriously, but it did not have this effect. e use again of μεταμελεῖσθαι (‘regret/change one’s mind’) and ὕστερον (‘later’) from v. 29 adds an extra twist to the application of the parable. e leaders have thus far been identi ed with the one who says yes but fails to act. But, of course, a kind of saying no is involved in this. So the way forward from this more implicit form of saying no would be to become like the one who in the parable says no but, with a change of heart, does what the father has asked for. Jesus is using the behaviour of the tax collectors and prostitutes as a prod for such a change of heart, but the change has not been forthcoming. 3. e Fate of the Tenants Who Refuse the Owner His Share of the Produce (21:33-43) 33‘Hear

another parable. ere was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a winepress in it and built a [watch]tower and leased it out to tenant farmers and went away [from the district]. 34When the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to receive his fruit. 35e tenant farmers seized his slaves — one they beat, one they killed, one they stoned. 36aAgain he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same. 37Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, “ey will respect my son”. 38But the tenant farmers, seeing the son, said to themselves, “is is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and we will bhave his inheritance.” 39So they seized chim and threw [him] out of the vineyard and killed [him].c 40When, then, the master of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?’ 41ey say to him, ‘Evil people — he will destroy

them in an evil manner; and he will lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit in its times’. 42Jesus

says to them, ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures, “[e] stone which the builders rejected — this became [the] head of [the] corner; From the Lord this came to be, and it is marvellous in dour eyes?”

43erefore,

I say to you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people bearing its fruits.’e

TEXTUAL NOTES a. An anacoluthon in the Greek here is relieved in ‫ *א‬syp with a connecting και (‘and’), in D with ουν (‘then’), and in 579 d with δε (‘and/but’). b. κατασχωμεν (‘take possession of ’) is found in C W 0102 f13 etc. ff1 q syp, h. c-c. e order of killing and throwing out is inverted (to give the Markan order) in D Θ it. d. υμων (‘your’) in D* f1, 13. e. With only minor variation a v. 44, καὶ ὁ πεσὼν ἐπὶ τὸν λίθον τοῦτον συνθλασθήσεται· ἐϕ᾽ ὃν δ᾽ ἂν πέσῃ λικμήσει αὐτόν (‘And the one who falls on this stone will be crushed; on whomever it falls, it shatters him or her’) is found, except in D 33 sys Or Eussyr. Despite its strong attestation, it is almost uniformly considered a scribal intrusion from Lk. 20:18. Bibliography Aus, R., e Wicked Tenants and Gethsemane: Isaiah in the Wicked Tenants’ Vineyard and Moses and the High Priest in Gethsemane (Atlanta: Scholars,

1996). • Blomberg, C., Parables, 29-69. • Brawley, R. L., ‘Falling and Fitting Stones: Mise en Abyme and Voices of Scripture in Luke 20:9-19’, in Text to Text Pours Forth Speech: Voices of Scripture in Luke-Acts (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 27-41. • Brooke, G. J., ‘4Q500 1 and the Use of Scripture in the Parable of the Vineyard’, DSD 2 (1995), 268-94. • Charlesworth, J. H., ‘Jesus as “Son” and the Righteous Teacher as “Gardener”’, in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (New York/London: Doubleday, 1992), 140-75. • Charlesworth, J. H., ‘Jesus’ Concept of God and His Self-Understanding’, in Jesus within Judaism, 13164. • Chilton, B. D., Rabbi, 111-16. • Combet-Galland, C., ‘La vigne et l’écriture, histoire de reconnaissances’, ETR 62 (1987), 489-502. • Cornette, A., ‘Notes sur la parabole des vignerons: Marc 12.5-12’, FV 84 (1985), 42-48. • Crossan, J. D., Other Gospels, 53-62. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 219-55. • Culbertson, P. L., ‘Reclaiming the Matthean Vineyard Parables’, Encounter 49 (1988), 257-83. • Dormandy, R., ‘Hebrews 1.1-2 and the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen’, ExpTim 100 (1989), 371-75. • Duplantier, J.-P., ‘Les vignerons meurtriers: Le travail de une parabole’, in Paraboles, ed. J. Delorme, 259-70. • Eck, E. van and Aarde, A. G. van, ‘A Narratological Analysis of Mark 12:1-12: e Plot of the Gospel of Mark in a Nutshell’, HTS 45 (1989), 778-800. • Erlemann, K., Bild Gottes, 222-41. • Evans, C. A., ‘God’s Vineyard and Its Caretakers’, in Jesus, 381-406. • Evans, C. A., ‘On the Vineyard Parables of Isaiah 5 and Mark 12’, BZ 28 (1989), 82-88. • Evans, C. A., ‘Authenticity Criteria in Life of Jesus Research’, CSR 19 (1989), 6-31. • Evans, C. A., ‘Jesus’ Parable of the Tenant Farmers in Light of Lease Agreements in Antiquity’, JSP 14 (1996), 65-83. • Feldmeier, R., ‘Heil im Unheil: Das Bild Gottes nach der Parabel von den bösen Winzern (Mk. 12,1-12 par)’, TB 25 (1994), 5-22. • Giblin, C. H., ‘e Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20,9-19)’, in e Destruction of Jerusalem according to Luke’s Gospel: A Historical-Typological Moral (AnBib 107. Rome: Ponti cal Biblical Institute, 1985), 57-73. • Glancy, J. A., ‘Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables’, JBL 119 (2000), 67-90. • Harnisch, W., ‘Der bezwingende Vorsprung des Guten: Zur Parabel von den bösen Winzern (Markus 12,1ff. und Parallelen)’, in Die Sprache der Bilder: Gleichnis und Metapher in Literatur und eologie, ed. H. Weder (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1989), 22-38. •

Herzog, W. R., Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994), 98-113. • Hester, J. D., ‘Socio-Rhetorical Criticism and the Parable of the Tenants’, JSNT 45 (1992), 27-57. • Horne, E. H., ‘e Parable of the Tenants as Indictment’, JSNT 71 (1998), 111-16. • Huber, K., Auseinandersetzung, 138-43. • Huber, K., ‘Vom “Weinberglied” zum “Winzergleichnis”: Zu einem Beispiel innerbiblischer relecture’, ProtBib 5 (1996), 71-94. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 351-82. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 371-90. • Kaino, K. L., ‘e Parable of the Wicked Tenants in Its Synoptic Tradition’ (Unpublished diss., Regent College, 1983). • Kim, S., ‘Jesus — e Son of God, the Stone, the Son of Man, and the Servant: e Role of Zechariah in the Self-Identi cation of Jesus’, in Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 134-48. • Kimball, C. A., ‘Jesus’ Exposition of the Wicked Husbandmen in Luke (20:9-19): An Inquiry in Light of Jewish Hermeneutics’, BBR 3 (1993), 77-92. • Kingsbury, J. D., ‘e Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen and the Secret of Jesus’ Divine Sonship in Matthew’, JBL 105 (1986), 643-55. • Kloppenborg, Verbin J. S., ‘Ideology and Ideological Readings of the Parable of the Tenants’, Bulletin of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies 61 (2001-2), 5-24. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 180-82. • Kuhn, K. H., ‘Kakiē kakōs in the Sahidic Version of Matthew 21:41’, JTS 36 (1985), 390-93. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 105-25. • Lee, M. Y.-H., Jesus und die jüdische Autorität: Eine exegetische Untersuchung zu Mk 11,27–12,12 (FB 56. Würzburg: Echter, 1986). • Llewelyn, S. R., ‘SelfHelp and Legal Redress: e Parable of the Wicked Tenants’, in New Documents, ed. S. R. Llewelyn, 6:86-105. • Lowe, M., ‘From the Parable of the Vineyard to a Pre-Synoptic Source’, NTS 28 (1982), 257-63. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 156-57, 164-67. • Marcus, J., Way, 111-29. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 303-23. • Mell, U., ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 74-180. • Meurer, H.-J., Gleichnisse, 723-27. • Milavec, A. A., ‘A Fresh Analysis of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in the Light of Jewish-Catholic Dialogue’, in Parables and Story in Judaism and Christianity, ed. C. oma and M. Wyschogrod (New York: Paulist, 1989), 81-117. • Milavec, A. A., ‘Mark’s Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen as Reaffirming God’s Predilection for Israel’, JES 26 (1989), 289-312. • Milavec, A. A., ‘e Identity of “the Son” and “the Others”: Mark’s Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen Reconsidered’, BTB 20

(1990), 30-37. • Morrice, W. G., ‘e Parable of the Tenants and the Gospel of omas’, ExpTim 98 (1987), 104-7. • O’Neill, J. C., ‘e Source of the Parables of the Bridegroom and the Wicked Husbandmen’, JTS 39 (1988), 485-89. • Overmann, J. A., ‘Matthew’s Parables and Roman Politics: e Imperial Setting of Matthew’s Narrative with Special Reference to His Parables’, SBLSP 34 (1995), 425-39. • Parker, A., Painfully Clear: e Parables of Jesus (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 82-105. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 35-45. • Ricoeur, P., ‘e Bible and the Imagination’, in e Bible as a Document of the University, ed. H. D. Betz (Chico: Scholars, 1981), 4975. • Schmeller, T., ‘Der Erbe des Weinbergs: Zu den Gerichtsgleichnissen Mk 12,1-12 und Jes 5,1-7’, MTZ 46 (1995), 183-201. • Schottroff, W., ‘Das Gleichnis von den bösen Weingärtnern (Mk 12,1-9 parr): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bodenpacht in Palästina’, ZDPV 112 (1996), 18-48. • Scott, B. B., Hear en, 237-53. • Sevrin, J.-M., ‘Un groupement de trois paraboles contre les richesses dans l’Évangile selon omas: Ev 63, 64, 65’, in Paraboles, ed. J. Delorme, 423-39, esp. 433-39. • Snodgrass, K. R., e Parable of the Wicked Tenants: An Inquiry into Parable Interpretation (WUNT 27. Tübingen: Mohr, 1983). • Snodgrass, K. R., ‘Recent Research on the Parable of the Wicked Tenants: An Assessment’, BBR 8 (1998), 187-215. • Stern, D., ‘Jesus’ Parables from the Perspective of Rabbinic Literature: e Example of the Wicked Husbandmen’, in Parable and Story in Judaism and Christianity, ed. C. oma and M. Wyschogrod (New York: Paulist, 1989), 42-80. • Trimaille, M., ‘La parabole des vignerons meurtriers (Mc 12,1-12)’, in Paraboles, ed. J. Delorme, 247-58. • Wahlde, U. C. von, ‘e Relationship between Pharisees and Chief Priests: Some Observations on the Texts in Matthew, John and Josephus’, NTS 42 (1996), 506-22. • Weder, H., Gleichnisse, 218-30. • Wehnert, J., ‘Die Teilhabe der Christen an der Herrscha mit Christus — Eine eschatologische Erwartung de frühen Christentums’, ZNW 88 (1997), 81-96. • Weren, W. J. C., ‘e Use of Isaiah 5,1-7 in the Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12,1-12; Matthew 21,33-46)’, Bib 79 (1998), 1-26. • Winterhalter, R., with Fisk, G. W., Jesus’ Parables: Finding Our God Within (New York: Paulist, 1993), 112-17. • Young, B. H., Jesus, 282-316. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha (153-67, 153-67). • Zumstein, J., Condition, 371-82.

For 21:42-43 Baarda, T., ‘“e Cornerstone”: An Aramaism in the Diatessaron and the Gospel of omas’, NovT 37 (1995), 285-300. • Bayer, H. F., Jesus’ Predictions, 90-109. • Berder, M., ‘La pierre rejetée par les bâtisseurs’: Psaume 118,22-23 et son emploi dans les traditions juives et dans le Nouveau Testament (ÉBib n.s. 31. Paris: Gabalda, 1996). • Cahill, M., ‘Not a Cornerstone! Translating Ps 118,22 in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures’, RB 106 (1999), 345-57. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 219-55. • Stanton, G. N., Gospel, 151-52. • Sudo, I., ‘Ethnizität und Heil — Exegese von Mt 21,43’, AJBI 24 (1998), (1998) 3365. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 215-37. • Turner, D. L., ‘Matthew 21:43 and the Future of Israel’, BSac 159 (2002), 46-61.

As with the preceding parable, Matthew focusses on the failure of the Jewish leaders to pay attention to the initiatives taken by God. On the larger structure see the comments at 21:12-13, 23-27. e Jewish religious leaders are in the process of failing to make good in their last chance of ful lling their responsibility for seeing that what they have been promised God is in fact delivered to him. Aer the addition of Mt. 21:28-32 the Markan sequence resumes (cf. Mk. 12:1-9). Unlike Lk. 20:9-16, Mt. 21:33-41 stays reasonably close to the Markan form of the parable, intervening mainly to reduce to two the number of sets of servants sent (v. 36) and to de ne further those to whom the vineyard will be handed over (v. 41). Because there is a striking degree of similarity between the Lukan form of the parable and that preserved in Gos. om. 65, many scholars have held that the Gospel of omas here is independent of the Synoptic tradition and provides a window onto a more original form of the parable. I have argued elsewhere against the independence of the Gospel of omas form, but also that the most original form is closer to the Luke/omas wording (with the respective editors stripping away developments in the story for different reasons — mainly a major expansion of the links to Is. 5:1-7 and of those between the servants sent and the prophets).64

Many interpreters have argued for an original story that stopped aer Mk. 12:9a, and this may be correct, but the judgment emphasis in the answer is already implied by the question. Others have sought to rewrite v. 9b to remove its violence and/or to provide an unexpected outcome (e.g., the owner gave the vineyard to the tenants) to match the shape of some of Jesus’ other parables. But these proposals are both speculative and unnecessary.65 Several more recent studies, arguing along various lines, have, however, to my mind moved the balance of probabilities about the likelihood of an original link, or at least a connection already in Aramaic, between the parable and the use of Ps. 118:22-23. I now think that a connection already in Aramaic is very likely, but that an original link remains less likely. e distinctive material in Mt. 21:43 has no original unity with the parable. It could be a Matthean formulation using motifs from the tradition, but the complex way in which it relates to the parable stands in favour of the use of a traditional piece. e use of the singular of ἔθνος for ‘people’, which is otherwise unmatched in Matthew, is striking. ere has been a major effort to interpret the parable (or a restored form of the parable) in a totally nonallegorical manner, but none of the efforts is persuasive. is parable is irretrievably semiallegorical, but on that basis it belongs no less likely to the historical Jesus.

21:33 Matthew adapts Mk. 12:1 to have Jesus continue direct speech. Mark’s ‘in parables’ becomes ‘another parable’ because of Matthew’s insertion of vv. 23-27 (Mark’s plural was purely generalising since he reported only one parable). Matthew has used ‘another parable’ to link parables in 13:24, 31, 33, and he does so again. e continuity of direct speech and ‘another parable’ both point to Matthew’s interest in having vv. 33-41 read closely with the preceding material. He adds the challenge to hear,66 which he will echo in 21:45, at the end of the section. Matthew rearranges the syntax, adding an extra clause to identify the lead gure of the parable as οἰκοδεσπότης (‘a landowner’ — for this translation see

discussion at 13:27). e changes strengthen the link with Mt. 20:1, where there is another landowner with a vineyard.67 In both cases the owner turns out to be a gure for God. At this point Matthew begins to show strong echoes of Is. 5:2, which reports the planting of a vineyard that is later identi ed (in v. 7) as the people of Israel and Judah. e Gospel parable’s ‘planted a vineyard’ (ἐϕύτευσεν ἀμπελῶνα) echoes the MT’s ‘planted it with choice vines’ (wyṭʿhw śrq) or the LXX’s ‘planted a choice vine’ (ἐϕύτευσα ἄμπελον σωρήχ) — in either case picking up ‘vineyard’ from v. 1. For ‘and put a wall around it’ (καὶ ϕραγμὸν αὐτῷ περιέθηκεν) the parable is clearly dependent on the LXX’s ‘and put a wall around’ (καὶ ϕραγμὸν περιέθηκα).68 ‘And dug a winepress in it’ (καὶ ὤρυξαν ἐν αὐτῷ ληνόν) is very close to both the LXX’s and the MT’s ‘and dug (out) a winepress in it’ (καὶ προλήνιον ὤρυξα ἐν αὐτῷ/wgm yqb ḥṣb bw).69 Finally, ‘and build a watchtower’ (καὶ ᾠκοδόμησεν πύργον) is missing only ‘in the midst of it’ from the LXX’s and MT’s ‘built a watchtower in the midst of it’ (καὶ ὠκοδόμησα πύργον ἐν μέσῳ αὐτοῦ/wybn mgdl btwkw).70 e LXX casts all the material in the rst person, but not the parable or the MT, which use the third person. ough the needs of the Gospel parable could account for the move from the LXX’s rst person to the MT’s third person, MT in uence is more likely. A mixed LXX, MT in uence seems, therefore, to stand behind the parable. ere are several indications that Matthew has freshly scrutinised the text of Is. 5:2. Fresh in uence from the Greek is suggested by changes of word order to conform to the LXX in two places.71 Also, when compared to Mark, Matthew has two additional pronouns. One of these (‘in it’ with the winepress) could have come from either the LXX or the MT, but the other (‘it’ for the wall) has a counterpart only in the MT. Matthew seems likely to have consulted the text both in Greek and in Hebrew.

e link with Is. 5:2 immediately con rms that God is to be identi ed as the landowner. It also makes virtually certain that the vineyard is to be identi ed with the Jewish people, established as a people by the efforts of God himself.72 e Gospel parable echoes only their responsibility to bear fruit for him, so important in Is. 5, as the landowner’s claim on a share of the harvest from his tenants. Against the background of attitudes at the time towards wealthy absentee landlords, the material involved in echoing Is. 5:2 probably has its own important role in seeking to direct the sympathies of the hearers of the parable. Various scholars have drawn attention to the way in which in the NT period a creeping burden of debt had forced many to give up their land and carry on as tenant farmers, yet further nancially pressured by the need to share their produce with the landowner.73 e presentation of this landowner’s activity directs its hearers away from seeing him as part of a ‘plot’ to impoverish the people. Rather, beyond his initial ownership of the land he has made a major investment in the land so that it will be available for productive use. Attention is drawn to the ‘value-added’ element: he has put in a lot of effort here and will in due course well deserve his share of the produce.74 Building on the work of Baumgarten,75 Brooke76 has explored an early tradition of interpreting Is. 5:2 in connection with the cult (temple, sanctuary, altar) which is re ected in the Targum of Isaiah. is suggests that Jesus’ parable is focussed on the religious leaders, but it is unclear that the parable should be as temple-focussed as this might suggest. Stripped away in Luke’s telling of the parable and in Gos. om. 65, the detailed link with Is. 5:2 may not be an original feature of the parable, but the identi cation of the vineyard as Israel and the

vineyard owner as God rests on a much wider base in OT tradition.77 As important as the cross reference to Is. 5:2 is, the story from this point on goes its own direction in important ways. e landowner of Is. 5 maintains his own vineyard.78 But in the present parable the vineyard is let out to tenant farmers79 who will have ongoing responsibility for the vineyard.80 at they are to take over responsibility for the vineyard in a comprehensive way is indicated by the landowner’s going away. His relationship to the vineyard is now mediated by the contractual arrangement he has with the tenants. If the vineyard is a gure for Israel, then the tenants are a natural gure for the religious leaders of Israel. Given the likelihood that the stipulations of Lv. 19:23-25 were applied to vineyards, scholars have raised questions about the terms on which a newly planted vineyard could be let out. Unless the tenants are seen as having signi cant resources of their own, it is probably best to envisage subsidy by the landowner in the early, unproductive years or to think in terms of the landowner’s having seen the vineyard through to productivity before departure. e departure of the landowner is sometimes taken as identifying him as an absentee Gentile landlord. e NRSV translation of ἀπεδήμησεν as ‘went to another country’ tends a little in this direction. But ἀποδημεῖν is literally ‘to be away from one’s home’. Most likely what is envisaged is, as Schottroff suggests, a move to the city to enjoy its culture and its wider opportunities.81 Here is a man of means who has arranged his affairs so as to be able to take part in larger affairs than would be open to him on his country estate. 21:34 Matthew expands Mark’s τῷ καιρῷ (lit. ‘at the time’ — the sense is something like ‘when the time came’) into ὅτε ἔγγισεν ὁ

καιρὸς τῶν καρπῶν (‘when the time of the fruit drew near’). What he probably pictures is not simply the landowner’s receipt of the agreed share of the crop, but his presence for the harvesting period to ensure fair play and proper processing of the crop. For this, Mark’s singular ‘a slave’ becomes ‘his slaves’ (which the further development of the story effectively glosses as ‘some of his slaves’). Matthew’s ‘to receive his fruit’ (λαβεῖν τοὺς καρποὺς αὐτοῦ) abbreviates and simpli es Mark’s ‘that he might receive from the tenant farmers [a share] from the fruit of the vineyard’ (ἵνα παρὰ τῶν γεωργῶν λάβῃ ἀπὸ τῶν καρπῶν τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος).82 What is represented in Is. 5 by the good grapes expected from the vineyard and the wild grapes that actually came is identi ed in v. 7: ‘I expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry’. In Jesus’ new story, while the imagery still inhabits the same general world, the share of the fruit to be handed over to the landowner cannot be provided with such a straightforward referent. In a broad sense, however, Jesus’ parable, like the allegory of Is. 5, is about accountability to God, and the new story highlights the leaders’ responsibility in this connection: in important ways they are answerable for seeing that what has been promised to God is in fact delivered. 21:35 Since Matthew now has both the tenant farmers and the slaves as available plurals, he feels the need to specify the subject and object of λαβόντες: ‘the tenant farmers took his slaves’. A plurality of slaves allows for the possibility of a plurality of fates. So Matthew takes advantage of this to add ‘killed’ and ‘stoned’ to Mark’s ‘beat’. ‘Killed’ he can draw from later in the Markan telling, but ‘stoned’ is new. As might be expected, ‘beat’ (δέρειν) is widely used in various contexts. Of relevance here may be the formal and informal judicial use of beating.83 Coming in the sequence ‘beat’, ‘killed’, ‘stoned’, the stoning involved will be stoning to death.

Stoning is a common form of mob violence.84 It is also the mode speci ed in the Law for communal involvement in carrying out a capital sentence in cases of heinous crime.85 Communal shaming as well as cruel punishment is involved. Does the language invite us to think of a travesty of justice? It is hard to be sure whether Matthew is intending to point speci cally to the fate of prophets. In the OT only Jeremiah of the prophets is reported to have been beaten (but the LXX does not use δέρειν for this).86 e idea of the killing of the prophets occurs a number of times,87 is taken up in Matthew in 23:37 (and cf. v. 34), and is found elsewhere in the NT.88 e only stoning of a prophet is that of Zechariah in 2 Ch. 24:21, which Matthew probably takes up (in a slightly confused form) in 23:34 and alludes to in v. 37. e strongest evidence that Matthew is consciously pointing to the prophets here is that his two additions are precisely the terms that will be used in 23:37: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it’. Matthew’s repeated use of ‘one they’ (ὃν μέν) suggests that others escaped these fates, but while Matthew drops Mark’s ‘and sent them off empty-handed’ (it does not t Matthew’s syntax, and he oen looks for an abbreviation to compensate for the additions he makes), he wants it to be understood that the mission was entirely unsuccessful. 21:36 Again Matthew prefers a plurality of slaves. His changes in v. 35 mean that intensi cation cannot be marked by worse treatment of the slaves. So he marks intensi cation with ‘more than the rst’. No allegorical motivation is evident. e role of the greater number marks the seriousness of the landowner’s intention to gain his rightful share.89 He is throwing more resources at the problem in an attempt to have the tenants see that eventually

they must capitulate. Aer the expansion in v. 35 Matthew can content himself here with ‘they treated them the same’ (καὶ ἐποίησεν αὐτοῖς ὡσαύτως).90 21:37 e Markan telling has three sendings of individual slaves followed by a generalising statement mentioning ‘many others’ (it is uncertain whether the many others are to be understood to be sent sequentially, though this is the most natural sense91). Matthew does not go beyond his two groups of slaves, the second larger than the rst. Now he moves at once to the sending of the son. Mark’s ‘he still had one [person available to be sent], a beloved son’ (ἔτι ἕνα εἶχεν υἱὸν ἀγαπητόν) is dropped.92 Perhaps Matthew does not like the notion that the landowner has otherwise run out of resources. Mark’s ἔσχατον (‘ nally’) becomes ὕστερον. e change adds a verbal link to the previous parable (vv. 29, 32). ὕστερον could mean ‘later on’ as it does in the previous parable, but here it is probably a comparative used for a superlative and means ‘ nally’.93 e ancient world was very conscious of class. So there is some reasonableness in the landowner’s expectation that his son would be respected. While someone else’s slaves could be mistreated with relative impunity, it would be quite another matter to mistreat someone’s son.94 e signi cance of the presence of the son would also be bolstered by the likelihood that he could act legally in his father’s stead in a way that the slave delegations could not.95 Nonetheless, the sending of the son would make better narrative sense in a story where those sent earlier suffered less dire fates (as in Lk. 20:10-12; Gos. om. 65). ough Matthew avoids Mark’s ‘beloved’, which would have linked clearly with 3:17; 17:5; cf. 12:18, in the context of the Gospel

a reader cannot avoid nding a strong christological statement in the image of the son. In the story itself, however, nothing more is necessarily involved than a major escalation and a sense that this is a nal bid to get the tenant farmers to see reason.96 Inasmuch as the previous sending of the slaves is linked to the sending of the prophets, there is the sense that something more is involved here. e sense of nal opportunity which John the Baptist associated with his own ministry and that of the one coming aer him (3:1-12) is matched in the drama of the present tale.97 Certainly the possibility of a messianic son is not to be excluded, but neither is reference to a messianic son to be speci cally asserted.98 21:38 Matthew sees no need for Mark’s ‘those’ before ‘tenant farmers’, but he completes the logical lacuna in Mark’s telling with ‘seeing the son’99 (‘seeing’ provides a further link with the previous parable: in both vv. 32 and 38 people are revealed for what they are by how they react to what they see). Any lingering doubts about the motivation of the tenant farmers must now evaporate. ere is no longer room for any thought that the behaviour of the tenants is to be understood, and therefore partly excused, in terms of the vagaries of climate, macrofactors in the behaviour of the economy, differences of understanding about the terms of the tenancy, or some conviction that the reality of the vineyard had shown the tenants that the tenancy terms were unfair. ese tenant farmers do not care for anything other than their own gain. How does it follow from the killing of the heir that the tenant farmers would gain his inheritance?100 We do not need to invoke any assumption that the landowner is thought to have died or to have transferred ownership to his son. e ow of the story has set up the pattern of a landowner who interacts with his tenants through mediators. e Markan telling even has a sense that the landowner has run out of mediators with the sending of the son.

But even without that, the pattern of the telling of the story is designed to collude temporarily with a shortsighted viewpoint to be attributed to the tenant farmers at this point: they fail to reckon with the possibility of any subsequent action on the part of the owner himself. So there is no need to report on the extensive investigation of scholars whether in the legal and political state of affairs of the day there was any likelihood of gaining possession of property in this way.101 21:39 Matthew inverts the Markan order of expulsion and killing. Is this an allegorical touch, picking up on a detail of the Passion?102 Or is Matthew simply giving the expulsion a different role; that is, expulsion represents a rebuttal of the mission of the son? On this reading there is an escalation from expulsion to slaying. Given that Lk. 20:15 makes an equivalent change, perhaps both things are involved. 21:40 At this point in the story the audience is asked to consider how the story might end. e opening ὅταν οὖν ἔλθῃ (‘when he comes’) as a Matthean addition is there to give a lead (Mark brings in only later the possibility of the landowner coming); Matthew brings forward ὁ κύριος τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος (‘the master of the vineyard’) to be the subject of his new clause. ough this is not at all obvious to the tenant farmers, from an outside perspective it is obvious that the landowner will want to, and will, come and do something. Narrative patterns tend to be mesmerising, and so it comes as something of a shock that, aer a pattern has been established of mediated action alone on the part of the landowner, the story suddenly assumes his personal arrival on the scene. e strategy is intended to identify as illusion any perception of God as remote and therefore ultimately powerless. Matthew’s form of the question gives a lead in another respect as well: not just ‘What shall he do?’, but ‘What shall he do to those tenant farmers?’103 ‘What

shall he do’ (τί ποιήσει) may well involve an allusion to Is. 5:5, ‘What I will do to my vineyard’ (τί ἐγὼ ποιήσω τῷ ἀμπελῶνός μου). Sitting in the background here is the extensive use in the OT of imagery of a coming God.104 21:41 Whereas in Mark Jesus answers his own question, Matthew gives the answer to those to whom Jesus tells the parable (the chief priests and elders of v. 23). In this way vv. 23-27, vv. 2832, and 33-41 all have in common a question put by Jesus and answered by the chief priests and elders to whom he is speaking, and in each case the answer turns out to be self-condemning.105 e Matthean emphasis on v. 41 is indicated by the use of a historic present — ‘they say’ — which will be matched by one in v. 42 (v. 31 has the same pattern of a double use). e Matthean form of the answer is considerably developed. Aer the reference to ‘tenant farmers’ in v. 40, Matthew settles now for ‘them’, but κακοὺς κακῶς has been added to the clause to provide intensi cation: ‘Evil people — he will destroy them in an evil manner’.106 While in Mark (‘he will destroy the tenant farmers’) we might simply have graphic language for bringing the tenant farmers to justice, the Matthean wording clearly makes the landowner the actual instrument of vengeance. Perhaps the OT avenger of blood is in view.107 But even if it is, such an act of vengeance would not be as obvious or inevitable an outcome, as the answer given suggests, in the judicial context of Roman-occupied Palestine. Here the realism of the story is allowed to suffer in favour of the allegorical intention. Matthew probably thinks in terms of the coming devastation of the war and the destruction of the temple anticipated in chap. 24. e structure of priestly leadership was to be destroyed in these developments.

Matthew reproduces Mark’s second clause about the reassigning of the vineyard,108 but he speci es that the others are other ‘tenant farmers’, and he continues with ‘who will give him the fruit in its times’.109 What the parable threatens is the displacement of the existing religious leadership. And from the Matthean development what is to characterise the new leaders is a proper concern with accountability to God. For Matthew the life of God’s people will continue in the discipleship community for which Jesus provides leadership. e parable is made to carry the rather complex thought of leadership destroyed, the vineyard itself transmuted into the Christian community, and new leadership instated. Or, better said, it is Matthew’s assumption, probably unconscious at this point, that the life of God’s people will continue in the discipleship community, which allows him to identify the destroyed tenant farmers as the Jewish religious leaders but the replacement tenant farmers as the leaders of the Christian community. e continuing existence of the Jewish community that has not become Christian remains out of sight, and he does not comment on it. 21:42 While Matthew reproduces the Markan language for the quotation from Ps. 118(LXX 117):22-23, he introduces the quotation in his own way: ‘Have you not read this Scripture’ becomes ‘Jesus says to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures?”’ He clearly intends to echo Mt. 21:16, where identical words are used (apart from a ‘yes’) at the beginning of the words of Jesus: the last piece of interaction with the Jewish leaders in the section is made to echo the rst piece. e historic present, ‘says’, matches that in v. 41 and marks emphasis, as does the fresh introduction of Jesus’ name. e citation agrees exactly with the LXX, which in turn is a fairly literal translation of the Hebrew. at the connection between the citation and the parable preceded the Greek stage of the parable is supported by the

suggestive wordplay possible in Hebrew or Aramaic between ‘son’ (bn is possible in both) and ‘stone’ (ʾbn).110 e availability of ʾbn in Ps. 118:22 for just such a wordplay is evident from the Aramaic Targum, which has ‘the boy whom the builders abandoned’.111 ere is already likely to be a wordplay between ‘builders’ (bnym) and ‘stone’ (ʾbn) in Ps. 118:22. A catchword association also exists between ‘built’ in Mt. 21:33, re ecting ybn in Is. 5:2, and ‘builders’ (bnym) in Ps. 118:22. ough this has not come through into the present Greek form of the parable, a further link with the ‘stone’ of Ps. 118:22 is possible in the reference in the Hebrew form of Is. 5:2 to stones (admittedly using sql, not ʾbn).112 e movement from the vineyard imagery of the parable to the building imagery of the quotation is precisely what is found in Is. 5, where the vineyard of the allegory is interpreted in v. 7 with ‘e vineyard … is the house of Israel’. As I have said elsewhere, e imagery involved in ‘[the] head of the corner’ is disputed. It may be a foundation stone binding two walls at the corner of a building, or it may be a keystone locking into place the stones of an arch or some similarly constructed feature of a building. ere are other suggestions as well. e difference of imagery does not affect the nal sense.113

At least it does not if the building envisaged is not speci cally the temple. Partly via temple links for Is. 5:2, scholars sometimes claim temple imagery for Mt. 21:42. is opens up the possibility of linking with 26:61 and 27:40, and nding already in the Gospel the living temple with which Ps. 118:22 is connected in 1 Pet. 2:4-7.114 Mt. 26:61; 27:40 are suggestive (see discussion at 26:61), but in the present context this approach seems to involve overinterpretation.

e rejected stone is naturally to be referred back to the son of the parable, but for those who see the tenant farmers in the most sympathetic of lights it could instead be referred to the tenants (whose claim on the land will in this view ultimately be vindicated in spite of the predations of the landowner!).115 e in-any-case evident reference of the builders to Jewish religious leaders nds further support from Qumran and the rabbinic tradition.116 In our present Gospel texts it is natural to link the vindication of the rejected stone with the anticipation of resurrection in the Passion predictions. But is that the original sense? Evans suggests that with the Markan wording ‘we are, in the nal analysis, le with a dead son and a vineyard with new tenants’.117 But that fails to pay sufficient attention to the fate of the stone — which is what is verbally prominent in the quotation — and to invest only in a belated discovery of the signi cance of the visit of the son of the parable. Perhaps we could think of vindication of the son in terms of vindication of the signi cance of his message of the kingdom. But once we have a son who is killed, at least in our present Gospels we can hardly envisage vindication of that son without restoration to life. ere is no de nite evidence of a Jewish messianic interpretation of Ps. 118:22-23 in the NT period, but the Targum has for v. 22, ‘e boy which the builders abandoned was among the sons of Jesse, and he is worthy to be appointed king and ruler’. While it is hard to tell how old this reading is, it would certainly open the way for a messianic understanding. Vv. 25-26 of the psalm are taken in a messianic way in Mt. 21:9, which suggests that our Gospel is also likely to intend vv. 22-23 messianically. ough Stern takes ‘marvellous’ as meaning beyond human comprehension and applies it to the process which involves initial

rejection of the stone = killing of the son,118 more likely it is the outcome which, as something splendid, is ‘marvellous in our eyes’. 21:43 is verse is distinctive to Matthew. διὰ τοῦτο (‘therefore’) reaches for its connection primarily back to the parable and its climax in v. 41. λέγω ὑμῖν (‘I say to you’) provides a fresh emphasis for this concluding piece.119 e use of ἀρθήσεται ἀϕ᾿ (‘will be taken away from’) is similar to those in 13:12; 25:29, which expresses a related thought. e displacement of the Jewish religious leaders is expressed not now in terms of their leadership role, but in terms of their own personal participation in the kingdom of God.120 e imagery of violent destruction in v. 41 is now replaced by one of personal loss (and the focus probably moves from the national dislocation of the coming war and consequent destruction of the temple to a more cosmic establishment of the kingdom). Matthew’s use of ‘kingdom of God’ over his preferred ‘kingdom of heaven’ (see at 4:17) is to provide a link with v. 31 in the previous unit (see there). Matthew quite oen images the kingdom as something which may be possessed.121 What is distinctive here is the loss of the kingdom, but 8:11-12 offer a closely related idea and deal with the kingdom being opened to others. Matthew uses ἔθνος in the singular elsewhere only in 24:7, where it means ‘nation’, but here the usage is nonpolitical and needs to mean ‘people’. ποιεῖν (‘do/make/produce’) and καρπός (‘fruit’) in the plural are used together elsewhere in Matthew only in 7:1718.122 e thrust of vv. 17-19 provides a parallel to the thought here. ‘Its fruit’, that is, ‘fruit of the kingdom’, is distinctive, but the connection between fruit and the kingdom is present in 3:2, along with vv. 8 and 10. e overall sentiment of the verse is very similar to that of 21:31-32, strengthening the verbal link noted in terms of

‘kingdom of God” language. is parallelism of thought suggests that ἔθνος here should not be taken as speci cally focussed on nonJews. In Matthew’s frame it will certainly include non-Jews (cf. 8:12), but also Jews who had lost their place in the religious dimension of the national identity but who now respond to the message of the kingdom. 21:44 ough present in most surviving texts, this verse looks like an adaptation of Lk. 20:18. It is likely to have been included to preclude the possibility of v. 43 leading to a loss of focus on the ‘stone’ of v. 42. e inclusion of v. 44 has achieved a christological climax. ere is allusion here both to Is. 8:14-15123 and to Dn. 2:34, 44-45. e falling involved is in the former case likely to be that of falling from a height and being crushed upon impact with this unyielding stone, and in the latter case the stone does the falling and shatters the one unlucky enough to be where it lands (the verb λικμᾶν used here originally meant only “winnow,” but by metaphorical development it comes to mean “scatter,” atten,” “destroy,” “shatter,” etc.; this verb is found in the eodotion text of Dan 2:44). Luke is drawing on Christian tradition to elaborate his stone reference from Ps 118:22. In the context of the Lukan parable, the apparent vulnerability of the son is contrasted with the actual and ultimate vulnerability of all others in relation to his permanence and solidity as the “stone.” A somewhat similar saying is found in Midr Esth 3:6: “If a stone falls on a pot, woe to the pot! If the pot falls on the stone, woe to the pot! Either way, woe to the pot!” e challenge is to side with the son in his permanence or to be set aside, with the leaders who think they can do away with the one who threatens their autonomous claim upon the vineyard.124

D. Criticised Leaders Seek Jesus’ Arrest (21:45-46)

45When

the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realised that he was speaking about them. 46And they were trying [to find a way] to seize him, but they were afraid of the crowds because they had him as a prophet.

TEXTUAL NOTES ere are no signi cant textual variants. Bibliography See at 21:33-41.

e section 21:12-46 is rounded off with the hostile reaction of the chief priests and the Pharisees to Jesus’ parabolic challenge, which is set over against a renewed statement (cf. v. 11) of the popular view that Jesus was a prophet. e Markan sequence continues (cf. Mk. 12:12), but with considerable Matthean development.

21:45 ἀκούσαντες (lit. ‘hearing’) is a Matthean link, picking up on the ἀκούσατε (‘hear’) added by Matthew in v. 33. From v. 23 Jesus has apparently been engaged with the chief priests and the elders of the people, but now Matthew names as the listeners ‘the chief priests and the Pharisees’ (Mark has no fresh identi cation). Perhaps the choice of Pharisees over ‘elders of the people’ is partly based on the focus on religious leadership in the parable of vv. 3342, but more importantly it will give the Pharisees a part in the concern to seize Jesus in v. 46 and thus to carry the thread forward from 12:14 where it is the Pharisees who conspire to destroy Jesus. e Pharisees will be seeking to entrap Jesus in 22:15, and Matthew will also introduce them in vv. 34 and 41. Matthew is concerned to

give them a rm place in the Jerusalem climax of Jesus’ ministry. On Matthew’s use of pairs of leadership groups see the comments at 21:23. e pairing of the chief priests and the Pharisees is found in Matthew only here and in 27:62. e combination has been criticised as historically incredible, but von Wahlde, largely by exploring the linking of the chief priests and the Pharisees in the writings of Josephus, has demonstrated the historical verisimilitude of the language.125 ‘His parables’ is inspired by Mark’s ‘the parable’ in a later clause. Matthew brings the clause about knowing that the parable was directed against them forward from its Markan position, but he no longer needs Mark’s ‘the parable’. Matthew replaces Mark’s εἶπεν (‘said’) with λέγει (lit. ‘says’), preferring the tense of the actual thought.126 Possibly in light of the change from the chief priests and the elders to the chief priests and the Pharisees, Matthew changes Mark’s πρὸς αὐτούς (‘to them’ or ‘against them’) to περὶ αὐτῶν (‘about them’). e verse reinforces the focus on the Jewish leadership that has marked this section since v. 15. 21:46 e major changes from Mark here are the omission of the departure statement, ‘and leaving him, they went away’ (Matthew added a departure statement in v. 17 and takes one away here), and the addition of ‘since they had him as a prophet’ (ἐπεὶ εἰς προϕήτην αὐτὸν εἶχον), designed to echo the sentiment in v. 11 with which the previous section ended127 and at the same time to echo the way in which a parallel belief about John the Baptist in v. 26 had constrained the Jewish leaders in their response to Jesus’ question (the reference in v. 46 to fear strengthens this link).128 e juxtaposition of the two contrasting responses of the Pharisees and the crowds matches that of the Pharisees and the crowds in 9:33-34. It is ironic that at this point only fear of the crowds keeps the

religious leaders from beginning to act out the part assigned to them in the preceding parable.

1. ough I have presented Mt. 21:12-13 and 21:14-17 as separate units, their evident pairing by Matthew may be intended to allow them to function as a single unit in this framing. Aer the withering of the g tree, as we shall see, vv. 23-27 and 28-32 will also be closely linked (but in this case these units also seem to form a triad with vv. 33-44 — see at vv. 23-27). 2. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:935-36, where a list of all the main views is also provided (to the list there should now be added the view of Borg, Jesus, 175-77, who thinks that Jesus was protesting the contemporary Jewish view of holiness understood as separation, which was re ected in the sacri cial activity of the temple and which was a barrier to Gentiles, and that of Chilton, Temple, 91-111, who thinks that Jesus had a problem with people paying for a sacri ce rather than bringing a sacri ce which was their own). 3. Otherwise Matthew moves from a participle to a nite verb (εἰσῆλθεν) for ‘entered’, prefers the aorist ἐξέβαλεν (‘drove out’) to Mark’s ἤρξατο ἐκβάλλειν (‘began to drive out’) — these two changes produce a nice balance between εἰσῆλθεν and ἐξέβαλεν — and moves κατέστρεψεν (‘overturned’) from the end to a position between the two objects of action, creating a sandwich effect. 4. e splitting of the curtain of the temple in Mt. 27:51 may also be relevant. 5. Is. 56:7: byty yqrʾ/ὁ οἶκός μου κληθήσεται; Je. 7:11: hbyt nqrʾ/ὁ οἶκός μου ἐπικέκληται. 6. As far as any information on the matter survives, there is every reason to believe that the sale of sacri cial animals was well regulated and not corrupt in any obvious manner. 7. A quite attractive alternative, supported by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:141, is to connect the location in the temple with ‘we bless you from the house of the Lord’ in Ps. 118:26. Vv. 25-26 have already been used in Mt. 21:9, and Ps. 118:25 will be freshly echoed in the children’s acclaim.

8. See Dt. 15:21: ‘But if it has any defect — any serious defect, such as lameness or blindness — you shall not sacri ce it to the LORD your God’. 9. See 4QMMT 52–57. e fragmentary nature of the text allows for uncertainty. 1QSa 2:8-9 excludes the blind and the lame from the assembly of the community council, and CD 15:15-17 (lacunae lled from 4QDb frg. 17 col. 1:6-9) excludes the blind and lame from the congregation. 1QM 7:4-5 excludes them from going out to war with the army. 10. Blind people are also healed in Mt. 9:27-28; 12:22; 20:30-34. 11. Was Luke responding to the same concern in 22:51? 12. e link with the nal verse of the Pentateuch, Dt. 34:12, is particularly suggestive, where the LXX text also has τὰ θαυμάσια … ἃ ἐποίησεν (‘the marvellous things … that he did’). 13. Earlier there is Mt. 9:27; 15:22. e linked set is made up of 20:30-31; 21:9, 15. 14. e language here nds an echo in Mt. 21:42, which shares Ἰησοῦς λέγει αὐτοῖς οὐδέποτε ἀνέγνωτε (‘Jesus says to them, “Have you never read”’ — there is one change of word order in the Greek) + citation from Ps. 118. In Mt. 21:42 Jesus addresses ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’ (vv. 23, 45). 15. e link is evident, e.g., in b. Soṭa 30b. e antiquity of the tradition is supported by Wis. 10:21, where, in connection with the singing of hymns aer the crossing of the Red Sea, ‘wisdom… made the tongue of infants speak clearly’. See further Grelot, ‘Sagesse 10.21 et le Targum de l’Exode’, Bib 42 (1961), 49-60; McNamara, Judaism, 185-88; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:142. 16. e separation statement displaces Mark’s statement of the lateness of the hour (and ηὐλίσθη compensates for its loss). ἐξῆλθεν εἰς Βηθανία (‘he went out to Bethany’) is found in Mk. 11:11. ἔξω τῆς πόλεως (‘out of the city’) is from v. 19. 17. Mt. 26:14, 20, 47. But note ‘the ten’ in 20:24. 18. Mt. 10:1; 11:1. 10:2 has the related ‘the twelve apostles’ and v. 5 ‘these twelve’. 19. Nolland, Luke, 2:836.

20. e word may have been inspired by its use in Mk. 11:20, which Matthew probably sees as pointing to a daily pattern of early entry into the city. 21. Since ‘with the Twelve’ of Mk. 11:11 is dropped in Mt. 21:17, Matthew speaks only of the movements of Jesus, whereas Mk. 11:12 uses the plural to include the disciples. 22. Dropped from Mk. 11:13-14 are: ‘from afar having leaves’, ‘whether perhaps he might nd something on it’, ‘coming’, ‘for it was not the season for gs’, a use of ἀποκριθείς (lit. ‘having answered’) marking response, and ‘and his disciples heard [it]’ (‘the disciples’ will be used in Mt. 21:20). 23. Matthew is responsible for the same idiom in 9:18. 24. Matthew’s verb is aorist subjunctive where Mark’s had been aorist optative, but this is of no signi cance. Matthew also relocates εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα from the beginning to the end of the clause (both emphatic positions), perhaps to avoid having μηκέτι share with it the opening emphatic position. 25. e diagram in Oakman, ‘Cursing’, 257, is helpful, particularly in clarifying the role of old wood in producing early fruit and the way in which harvesting took place over several months as different gs became ripe. See also Böttrich, ‘Feigenbaum’, 338-39, who appeals to modern botanical studies to identify the normal production of three distinct generations of gs per year, the middle of the three representing the main yield and the earliest coming from buds which have successfully overwintered on old wood and could be ready for harvest at Passover time. Y. Šebi. attributes to various rabbis views about the stages of development of the gs and leaves in which leaves appear before gs. Since there are various types of g trees (Telford, ‘More Fruit’, 275, cites Pliny, Nat. hist. 15.19.68-73; 15.21.82-83 for Pliny’s ability to name twenty-nine varieties), it may well be that for some types the leaves came before the gs. 26. E. F. F. Bishop, Jesus of Palestine, 217. 27. e disciples’ engagement with this will be taken up in Mt. 21:20. 28. In addition, the opening clause of Mt. 21:21 is joined to a δέ (lit. ‘and/but’), not the καί (lit. ‘and’) of Mk. 11:22. 29. ‫ א‬D Θ f13 33c 565 700 etc. it sys have εἰ ἔχετε πίστιν (‘if you have faith’) in Mk. 11:22, but given the difficulty of construing the Markan syntax

with this reading, the εἰ is best taken as a secondary in uence from Mt. 21:21. 30. 2 Sa. 15:30 speaks of ‘the ascent of the olives’ (mʿqh hzytym/τῇ ἀναβάσει τῶν ἐλαιῶν), apparently with reference to the western slope of the Mount of Olives. 31. Zc. 14:4 has an intriguing mention of ‘the sea’ (ymmh/πρὸς θάλασσαν), generally translated, according to regular biblical idiom, as ‘the west’ (i.e., the direction of the Mediterranean). e relevant piece of Hebrew reads wnbqʿ hr hzytym mḥṣyw mzrḥh wymmh and could almost be translated, ‘and the Mount of Olives will be split/torn up from its middle [which could mean from its position as the central of three main summits of the range rising from the Kidron valley or could refer to a part taken from the middle of the Mount of Olives itself] — from the east [i.e., of Jerusalem] and to the sea’. Taken this way, in the continuation of the verse gyʾ gdwlh (‘a great valley’) will indicate (as it is normally taken to) what results from the splitting of the Mount of Olives, and in wmš ḥṣy hhr ṣpwnh wḥṣyw-ngbbh (‘and half the mountain will withdraw northwards and half southwards’) ‘the mountain’ will be either what remains of the Mount of Olives aer the middle has been removed or the whole range from which the Mount of Olives is now missing — in either case the point will be to widen the newly created valley yet further. 32. What is anticipated in Is. 2:2; Mi. 4:1 is not the same but may be related (cf. Zc. 14:10). Is. 40:4 is different but does involve a levelling. 33. We are perhaps to understand that the coming of Yahweh and the holy ones with him in Zc. 14:5 is a coming to Jerusalem through the passageway now opened up. 34. Nothing in Mt. 24 corresponds to the removal of the impeding mountain. In fact, in v. 16 one is to ee to the mountains. 35. Matthew also marks the inde niteness by adding ἄν to ὅσα (lit. ‘as many [things] as’) and changing the verb to the subjunctive. 36. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:942. 37. Matthew also eliminates a Markan historic present and uses a participial construction (a genitive absolute, despite the presence of αὐτῷ) to

subordinate the coming of Jesus to the temple to the coming of the questioners to Jesus. 38. Lk. 20:1 has a similar change. Matthew also prefers his favoured language προσῆλθον αὐτῷ (‘came to him’) to Mark’s ἔρχονται πρὸς αὐτόν (‘come to him’) and thereby eliminates another of Mark’s historic presents. 39. See Mt. 26:3, 47; 27:1 (with 26:57 as the exception) and then 27:3, 12, 20; 27:41. 40. But at Mt. 26:57 we do have ‘Caiaphas the high priest, in whose house the scribes and elders had gathered’. 41. e nal pre-Jerusalem Passion prediction (Mt. 20:18) has chief priests and scribes, as does 21:15. 21:23 has chief priests and elders. V. 45 has chief priests and Pharisees. Chief priests and elders feature exclusively in the core Passion account (26:3, 47; 27:1, 3, 12, 20), with the exception of 26:57, which has ‘Caiaphas the high priest, in whose house the scribes and elders had gathered’, and v. 59, which has ‘the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin’. e chief priests and Pharisees return in 27:62. (Chief priests stand alone in 26:14; 27:6; 28:11, but in each case they carry forward something begun by a wider group.) 42. E.g., Weiss, Vollmacht, 147. 43. at the questions are linked by ἤ (‘or’) in Mk. 11:28 suggests that for Mark the questions are not looking in different directions. 44. Matthew also replaces Mark’s καὶ ἔλεγον αὐτῷ (‘and they said to him’) with the participle λέγοντες (‘saying’) and connects the two questions with καί (‘and’) rather than ἤ (‘or’). 45. Both Matthew and Luke are particularly fond of the idiom ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered, he said’), and there is a use of ἀποκρίνεσθαι later in Mark’s verse which both Evangelists drop. ough Matthew and Luke both generally prefer ἐπερωτᾶν (as found in Mark) for ‘ask’, they also both make editorial changes away from it to ἐρωτᾶν. Mark does not use κἀγώ (‘and/also I’), while Matthew has it eight times and Luke six times; its use here effectively points up the emphasis already implicit. 46. Matthew has also added a second κἀγώ (‘and/also I’) and changed the word order in a minor way. Lk. 20:3 also makes the same verb change

from Mark’s ἀποκρίνεσθαι (‘answer’), but keeps the same imperatival construction as Mark. 47. is is also dropped in Lk. 20:4. Matthew has other minor changes: the linking καί (‘and’) at the beginning of Mk. 11:31 becomes οἱ δέ (‘but they’) to mark the change of subject; πρὸς ἑαυτούς (‘to themselves’) becomes ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (‘in/among themselves’ — though this is probably a pure accident, these changes mean that οἱ δέ begins a set of six words which are used identically in Mt. 16:7 for the disciples); ἡμῖν (‘to us’) is added aer ἐρεῖ (‘he will say’). 48. See Mt. 3:11-12, 13-15; 9:14-15; 11:2-6. 49. Matthew thinks that the ἐάν (‘if ’) needs to be repeated since the intervening material has a ‘then’ clause. He links with δέ (‘and/but’) rather than Mark’s ἀλλά (‘but’). ὡς προϕήτην ἔχουσιν τὸν Ἰωάννην (lit. ‘have John as a prophet’) improves the roughness of Mark’s εἶχον τὸν Ἰωάννην ὄντως ὅτι προϕήτης ἦν (lit. ‘had John truly, that he was a prophet’). 50. It is not possible to know how much insight came with this conviction. One thinks of the high regard in which the Christian priest has been held in certain places and times by those who have paid little attention to what the priest stood for. 51. is displaces a fresh use of ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘Jesus’). 52. Here also Matthew displaces Mark’s historic present ‘says’, this time with the imperfect ἔϕη (‘said’). 53. τέκνα (‘children’) is neuter in Greek. e parable does use some masculine forms, but the use of default masculine forms does not indicate that females are excluded from view. See Broadhead, ‘Example’, 336-38. 54. e use of πρώτος, as with the English ‘ rst’, should require that there be at least three (for two ‘former’ is correct), but this nicety is frequently ignored in Greek as in English. 55. Mt. 21:29, 32; 27:3; 2 Cor. 7:8; Heb. 7:21. e LXX uses the verb fourteen times. 56. ὁ ἕτερος is used of the second child. Here it means ‘the other’. e sequence ὁ πρώτος… ὁ ἕτερος (‘the rst … the other’) is unusual, but Lk. 14:18-19; 16:5-7 relate the sequence ὁ πρώτος … ἕτερος (‘the rst … another’) to a larger set.

57. e insult to the father’s authority of the former could be thought even more serious than the dereliction of duty of the latter. See Langley, ‘Parable’, 233. However, in the rabbinic parable recorded in Ex. Rab. 27:9, in which a king is seeking to let out his eld to workers, it is not the succession of people who refuse his offer who are viewed critically, but the one who agrees to it and then fails to do anything with the land (a condition of the offer). 58. Cf. Mt. 18:14; 26:42. 59. e NT mentions prostitutes in Mt. 21:31, 32; Lk. 15:30; 1 Cor. 6:15, 16; Heb. 11:31; Jas. 2:25; Rev. 17:1, 5, 15, 16; 19:2. Gibson, ‘Telōnai’, 429-33, nds the commonality between tax-collectors and prostitutes in their common link to the Roman occupation. 60. e key verse here is Lk. 7:29, some form of which would seem, as indicated in the introductory discussion to Mt. 21:28-32, to have in uenced Mt. 21:31-32. See Luke, Nolland, 1:353-54. 61. Matthew’s other uses of the verb are 2:9; 14:22; 21:9; 26:32; 28:7. 62. Mt. 5:20; 7:21; 18:3; 19:23, 24. 63. ‘Way of peace’ is used in a somewhat analogous manner in Lk. 1:79. 64. See Nolland, Luke, 3:948-49. 65. For a more detailed consideration of the most original form see Nolland, Luke, 3:949. 66. Its counterpart in Mk. 12:1 is ‘began to speak’. Matthew’s juxtaposition of ‘hear’ and ‘parable’ may provide an echo of Mt. 13:18, but the connection is not certain because there the reference is to the explanation rather than the telling of the parable. 67. In each ἄνθρωπος (‘a person/man’), οἰκοδεσπότης (‘a landowner’), and ὅστις are used to introduce the owner of a vineyard. 68. e MT has wyʿzqhw, which uses the root ʿzq not otherwise found in the OT. e normal translation is ‘he dug it’, which is referred to the preparation of the ground for planting. But the LXX translator seems to have taken the expression closely with the following wysqlhw, which uses the root sql, which refers to activity with stones, imagined the forming of a wall of earth faced with stone, and then apparently adjusted this to a more familiar

use of pointed stakes rather than stones to keep people and animals out: καὶ ϕραγμὸν περιέθηκα καὶ ἐχαράκωσα (‘and put a wall around and staked [it]’). e LXX has kept the MT order, but with the new sense the enclosing logically precedes the planting, and so the parable inverts the order. 69. Matthew changes the word for ‘winepress’ from Mark’s ὑπολήνιον, which is literally the vat under the wine press, to ληνόν, which is more general. e LXX προλήνιον should probably refer to a vat placed in front of rather than below a winepress. 70. e parable inverts the Is. 5:2 order of the last two clauses. It is the change of order that allows the earlier ‘in it’ to serve as well for the dropped ‘in the midst of it’. 71. ἀμπελῶνα (‘vineyard’) is placed aer ἐϕύτευσεν (‘planted’); ϕραγμόν (‘wall’) is placed before περιέθηκεν (‘put around’). In all four places where there is a link with Is. 5:2 the Markan text inverts the LXX order of verb and object. P. C. Beentjes, ‘Discovering a New Path of Intertextuality: Inverted Quotations and eir Dynamics’, in Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible, ed. L. J. de Regt, J. de Waard, and J. P. Fokkelman (Assen/Winona Lake, IN: Van Gorcum/Eisenbrauns, 1996), 3150, has identi ed this phenomenon as part of a more widely used strategy to gain attention to the way in which a new text is going to make use of but go in a different direction from the original thrust of the text being manipulated. 72. Given the Jerusalem setting and the focus on the Jerusalem of the judgment anticipated in Mt. 24, Brooke’s phrase ‘Jerusalem, Israel in miniature’ (‘4Q 500 1’, 286) is perhaps apt. 73. See, e.g., Hengel, ‘Gleichniss’, 1-39; Derrett, ‘Fresh Light’, 286-312; Schottroff, ‘Gleichnis’, 18-48. 74. e wording in Lk. 20:9 lacks this emphasis, but not because Luke wants to increase sympathy with the tenant farmers. He is simply not conscious of the possibility of reading the parable against the background of Palestinian peasant resentment. 75. J. M. Baumgarten, ‘4Q500 and the Ancient Conception of the Lord’s Vineyard’, JJS 40 (1989), 1-6. 76. Brooke, ‘4Q500 1’, 268-94.

77. See Ps. 80:9-14(ET 8-13); Is. 27:2-5; Je. 2:21; Ho. 10:1; Ez. 19:10-14. 78. Is. 5:4: ‘What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it?’ must include ongoing care and not just the initial setting up of the vineyard of v. 2. 79. γεωργός means ‘farmer’, but the term is applied equally to farmers who own their land and those who work as tenant farmers. 80. Various tenancy contracts have survived which help us to imagine the kind of responsibilities which would have fallen to the tenant farmers. Llewelyn, ‘Self-Help’, 86-105; Evans, ‘Lease Agreements’, 65-83, helpfully discuss such documents. 81. Schottroff, ‘Gleichnis’, 33. 82. Scholars sometimes claim that in Matthew’s version the entire crop goes to the landowner, but this would be so only if αὐτοῦ referred back to the vineyard (so: ‘its fruit’). But the landowner is much closer at hand as the antecedent. 83. Mk. 13:9; Lk. 12:47-48; 22:63; Jn. 18:23; Acts 5:40; 16:37; 22:19. 84. See Ex. 8:26; 17:4; Nu. 14:10; 1 Sa. 30:6; 1 Ki. 12:18; 2 Ch. 10:18; Acts 7:58, 59; 14:5. 85. See Lv. 20:2; 24:14, 16, 23; Nu. 15:35; Dt. 13:10; 17:5; 21:21; 22:21, 24; cf. Jos. 7:25. Blasphemy, incitement to idolatry, sexual crimes, and rebellion against parents are among the crimes that could attract stoning. 86. Je. 20:2 (LXX: ἐπάταξεν); 37:15 (LXX 44:15: ἐπάταξαν). In 1 Ki. 22:24 Micaiah is slapped on the cheek; cf. Zc. 13:6. 87. 1 Ki. 18:13; 19:1, 10, 14; Ne. 9:26. Cf. Jos., Ant. 10:38. 88. Acts 7:52; 1 es. 2:15; Rev. 11:7. 89. It might be nice to think that the extra numbers had something to do with protecting the lives of those sent, but those sent are slaves, and in the Greco-Roman world of the day they were not valued as free persons were. 90. A similar strategy is found in Mt. 20:5; 21:30. 91. ere may be a speci c link with the persistent sending of the prophets in Je. 7:25-26; 25:4. 92. As a result, the resumptive ‘him’ in ‘sent him’ in Mk. 12:6 becomes ‘his son’.

93. Cf. Mt. 22:27; 26:60. 94. Glancy, ‘Slaves’, 80, discusses the ready acceptance of the mistreatment of not just one’s own slaves but also the slaves of others. 95. ough perhaps only by transferring a portion of the ownership to the son (for discussion see Snodgrass, Parable, 37; Derrett, ‘Fresh Light’, 3023). 96. e importance of not making too much of the move from slaves to the son can be illustrated from a rabbinic parable preserved in Sipre 312. In this parable there is a series of tenant farmers (successive generations of a family), each set of which turns out bad and is displaced by the next. ese are ultimately replaced by the (eventually born) son of the owner. In the interpretation the series of tenant farmers are the generations from Abraham, all of whom have (some) wayward children, and the son is Jacob, who fathers the twelve patriarchs, all of whom were worthy. (Curiously the parable refers to one more generation than the interpretation makes use of. is does raise the possibility that the present application is not the original one.) 97. Several studies have identi ed the son of the parable with the Baptist and not Jesus (see Lowe, ‘Parable’, 257-63; Stern, ‘Parables’, 65-68; cf. O’Neill, ‘Source’, 485-89, who makes John the author of the parable), but this seems most unlikely. 98. In relation to 2 Sa. 7:14; Ps. 2:7, the language of sonship was available for exploitation in messianic expectations. 2 Esdr. 13:37 seems to represent such an exploitation, and 4Q246 2:1 and 1 Enoch 105:2 may be others. Charlesworth, ‘Jesus’ Concept’, 149-52, helpfully documents the quite wide range of ways in which Jewish tradition used son-of-God language. 99. Lk. 20:14 makes similar changes. ere is no obvious signi cance to Matthew’s other changes: πρὸς ἑαυτούς to ἐν ἑαυτοῖς for (‘to/among themselves’) to accord with Matthew’s consistent preference; ‘the inheritance will be ours’ to ‘we will have his inheritance’ (but see the following note). 100. Snodgrass, ‘Parable’ 196, rightly notes that in Mark here κληρονομία (‘inheritance’) is being used loosely, as in the case of Ahab’s seizure of Naboth’s vineyard in 3 Kgdms. 20(ET 21):15-16. See also Jos., Ant.

8.359-60; cf. Sir. 24:20; 1 Macc. 6:24. Matthew’s addition of αὐτοῦ to give ‘his inheritance’ avoids this imprecision. 101. e consensus seems to be that there is no legal basis, but that in the most politically unsettled times possession could have gained ownership. 102. Heb. 13:12 is the only NT text that speci cally places Jesus’ execution outside the city of Jerusalem, but that Golgotha was outside the city was likely to have been common knowledge (though there is no archaeological certainty about its precise location). ἐξερχόμενοι (‘going out’) in Mt. 27:32 could mean ‘going out of the city’, but might not. 103. Matthew nds here a home for the use of ‘those’, which he dropped before ‘tenant farmers’ in 21:38. 104. E.g., Pss. 96:13; 98:9; Is. 66:18; Ez. 5:8; 21:3; Mi. 1:3; Mal. 3:1-2. 105. Possibly the rhetorical pattern in Is. 5:1-17 (there is a good discussion of this in Weren, ‘Use’, 2-6) has had an in uence here: Is. 5:3-4 is designed to draw hearers into making a judgment about what has been reported in v. 2, which will turn out (in v. 7) to be a judgment against themselves. 106. Weren, ‘Use’, 20, suggests that the wordplay in κακοὺς κακῶς is likely to be inspired in some way by the use in Is. 5:7 of two wordplays: mšpṭ/mśpt (‘justice’/‘bloodshed’) and ṣdqh/ṣʿqh (‘righteousness’/‘a cry’). 107. Nu. 35:19-27; Dt. 19:6-12; Jos. 20:3-9, 2 Sa. 14:11. 108. e verb δώσει (‘will give’) in Mk. 12:9 is occasionally taken as indicating the gi of the vineyard rather than a fresh leasing. Matthew makes clear that a fresh leasing is in view by using ἐκδώσεται (‘will lease’ — the same verb as used in Mk. 12:1; Mt. 21:33). 109. e language is close to that of Ps. 1:3, but the sense is different, so probably no allusion is intended. 110. Brooke, ‘4Q500 1’, 287, nds such a wordplay in Ex. 28:9-10; Jos. 4:6-7 and possibly in La. 4:1-2 and Zc. 9:16. 111. e steps will have been ʾbn (‘stone’) to bn (‘son’) to ṭlyʾ (‘boy’). 112. is possibility is strengthened if the reference to stones in 4Q 500:1, using ʾbn, echoes Is. 5:2, but this remains uncertain since in 4Q 500:1 the stones are linked with the winevat and not with the clearing of the stones

from the land as in Is. 5:2. Stern (‘Parable’, 67 and n. 61) claims a further tie between ‘builders’ and the root bwn (‘know’), referring to the knowledge claims of the Jewish religious leaders, but this seems more speculative. 113. Nolland, Luke, 3:953. 114. is is worked out in detail by Marcus, Way, 119-24, for Mark, but the same considerations apply almost equally to Matthew. 115. If the whole parable were to be read as dealing with the replacement of the Jews by the Gentiles, then it would be possible to identify the rejected stone as an image of the initially passed-over Gentile peoples. 116. CD 4:19; 8:12, 18 use ‘builders’ when speaking negatively of Jewish teachers whose views the Qumran community opposed. In b. Šab. 114a a repointing allows the reference in Is. 54:13, ‘All your children (bnyk) shall be taught by the LORD’, to become ‘All your builders (bnyk) shall be taught by the LORD’. 117. Evans, ‘Jesus’ Parable’, 73. 118. Stern, ‘Parables’, 67-68. 119. e whole introductory διὰ τοῦτο λέγω ὑμῖν (‘therefore I say to you’) is likely to be a Matthean linkage. 120. It is a mistake to think that the vineyard of the parable is now being identi ed with the kingdom of God. 121. See Mt. 5:3, 10; 8:12; 13:38, 44, 45; 19:14; 25:34. 122. ere is no doubt a catchword association between ‘fruit’ here and its use in the parable in Mt. 21:34, 41 — two of the three uses there are due to Matthean redaction and may well have been motivated in part by the desire to strengthen this link. But the fruit in mind in v. 43 is not that generally of the vineyard, but speci cally that of the Jewish religious leaders themselves. To speak in terms of the relationship of the parable to Is. 5:1-7, for this verse we have moved away from the Gospel parable and closer to the way the allegory in Is. 5 functioned. 123. Note the linking of Ps. 118:22 to Is. 8:4 in 1 Pet. 2:7-8. 124. Nolland, Luke, 3:953. 125. Von Wahlde, ‘Relationships’, 506-22. See Jos., Life 21, 189-98; War 2.409-13.

126. e difference cannot be marked in English translation. 127. Matthew also re nes Mark’s Greek with a participial construction for ‘trying [to nd a way] to seize him’ and turns Mark’s ‘crowd’ into ‘crowds’ (to match 21:11). 128. In the nal clause εἰς (lit. ‘into’) is a functional equivalent of ὡς (‘as’), perhaps betraying a Semitising in Matthew’s Greek.

XVIII. JESUS SILENCES THE LEADERS WHO ARE HIS OPPONENTS (22:1-46) A. Guests at a Royal Wedding Banquet (22:1-14) 1Jesus

responded and again spoke to them in parables. 2‘e kingdom of heaven is like [the situation of] a person, a king, who made arrangements for a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his slaves to summon those invited to the wedding banquet; but they did not want to come. 4Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Say to those invited, ‘Look, I have my meal prepared: my oxen and my fat calves slain and everything ready. Come to the wedding banquet!’” 5ose [for whom the request] was [a matter] of no concern went off, one to his own field, one to his business. 6e rest seized his slaves, treated [them] shamefully, and killed [them]. 7ae kinga was enraged and sent his troops to destroy those murderers and to set their city on fire. 8en he says to his slaves, ‘e wedding feast is ready; but those invited were not worthy. 9Go, then, to the city exit roads and, as many as you find, summon to the wedding banquet. 10So those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both evil and good; and the bwedding hallb was filled with cpeople reclining [at table]. 11‘e king went in to see the people reclining, and he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. 12So he says to him, “Comrade, how did you come din here not having a wedding garment [on]?” He was le speechless. 13en the king said to his servants, “eBind his feet and hands and fthrow him outf e into the darkness outside; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.’ 14For

many are ginvited, but few[er] are gchosen.

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. Expanded to και ακουσας ο βασιλευς εκεινος (‘when the king heard, he’) in C (D) W 0102 (33vid)etc. f q syh and, with δε rather than και and without εκεινος (these do not affect translation), Θ f13 lat syp mae bopt. b-b. γαμος (‘wedding banquet’) in B1 D W Θ 085 0161vid f1, 13 33 etc. is as likely to be original. αγαμος (‘unmarried man’) in C represents a careless divergence from this reading. c. A de nite article is added in D Θ f13 700 etc. d. e verbal pre x representing ‘in’ is missing from D it syc. e-e. αρατε αυτον ποδων και χειρων και βαλετε αυτον is found in D it (sys, c), which probably means ‘li him up by the feet and the hands and throw him’. Is this a scribal repair based on the reading in textual note f-f below, aer δήσαντες (translation above: ‘bind’) had been lost from the text? f-f. αρατε αυτον και εκβαλετε (‘li him up and throw [him] out’) is found in C M W Φ 0102 33 565 579 1241 1424 etc. f1 syh. e reading pedantically lls an obvious lacuna. g. De nite articles are added here by L f1 700 892 etc. sa. Bibliography Aarde, G. van, ‘Plot as Mediated through Point of View: Mt 22.1-14 — A Case Study’, in A South African Perspective on the New Testament. FS B. M. Metzger, ed. J. H. Petzer and P. J. Hartin (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 62-75. • Avenmarie, F., ‘Das Gleichnis von den Arbeitern im Weinberg (Mt 20,1-15) — Eine soziale Utopie?’ EvT 62 (2002), 272-87. • Bailey, K. E., Peasant Eyes, 88-113. • Bauckham, R., ‘e Parable of the Royal Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14) and the Parable of the Lame Man and the Blind Man (Apocryphon of Ezekiel)’, JBL 115 (1986), 471-88. • Blomberg, C., Parables, 233-40. • Bolyki, J., Tischgemeinscha, 75-78. • Buetubela, B., ‘Le vêtement de noce’, RevAf 27 (1990), 33-45. • Carter, W., ‘Resisting and Imitating the Empire: Imperial Paradigms in Two Matthean Parables’, Int 56 (2002), 260-72. • Crossan, J. D., ‘e Hermeneutical Jesus’, Michigan Quarterly Review 12 (1983), 237-49. • Dschulnigg, P., ‘Positionen des Gleichnisverständnisse im 20. Jahrhundert: Kurze Darstellung von fünf wichtigen Positionen der

Gleichnistheorie (Jülicher, Jeremias, Weder, Arens, Harnisch)’, TZ 45 (1989), 335-51. • Erlemann, K., Bild Gottes, 170-95. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 22’, SémiotBib 86 (1997), 49-59. • Harnish, W., Gleichnis, 230-53. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 341-51. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 399-412. • Kähler, C., Gleichnisse, 117-34. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 127-42. • Lemcio, E. E., ‘e Parables of the Great Supper and the Wedding Feast: History, Redaction and Canon’, HBT 8 (1986), 1-26. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 168-78. • Manns, F., ‘Une tradition rabbinique réinterprétée dans l’évangile de Mt 22,1-10 et en Rm 11,30-32’, Anton 63 (1988), 416-26. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 324-44. • Meurer, H.-J., Gleichnisse, 727-29. • Meyer, B. F., ‘Many (= All) Are Called, but Few (= Not All) Are Chosen’, NTS 36 (1990), 89-97. • Neusner, J., ‘Contexts of Comparison: Reciprocally Reading Gospels’ and Rabbis’ Parables’, JHC 5 (1998), 64-87. • Perkins, P., Hearing, 94-98. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 56-63. • Pousset, E., ‘ Les invités au banquet (Luc 14,15-24)’, Christus 32 (1985), 81-89. • Radl, W., ‘Zur Struktur der eschatologischen Gleichnisse Jesu’, TTZ 92 (1983), 122-33. • Reiser, M., Judgement, 241-45. • Rubinkiewicz, R., Die Eschatologie von Henoch 9–11 und das Neue Testament (ÖBS 6. Klosterneuburg: Österreiches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984), 97113. • Scholtissek, K., ‘Alles ist bereit, kommt zur Hochzeit! (Mt 22,4): Heilzeit und Lebenzeit in der urchristlichen Jesusüberlieferung’, BLit 70 (1997), 169-76. • Schottroff, L., ‘Das Gleichnis vom grossen Gastmahl in der Logienquelle’, EvT 47 (1987), 192-211. • Scott, B. B., Hear en, 161-74. • Sim, D. C., ‘e Man without the Wedding Garment (Matthew 22:11-13)’, HeyJ 31 (1990), 165-78. • Sim, D. C., ‘Matthew 22.13a and 1 Enoch 10.4a: A Case of Literary Dependence?’ JSNT 47 (1992), 3-19. • Vögtle, A., Gott und seine Gäste: Das Schicksal des Gleichnisses Jesu vom grossen Gastmahl (Lukas 14,16b-24; Matthäus 22,2-14) (Biblische-eologische Studien 29. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996). • Wainwright, E., ‘God Wills to Invite All to the Banquet: Matthew 22:1-10’, IntRMiss 77 (1988), 185-93. • Weder, H., ‘Die Parabel vom grossen Mahl (Mt 22,1-10; Lk 14,15-24; Ev 64)’, in Gleichnisse, 177-93. • Wegenast, K., ‘Freiheit ist lernbar: Lukas 14,1524 im Unterricht’, EvErz 40 (1988), 592-600. • Wolmarans, J. L. P., ‘e Wedding Feast as Allegory: Matthew 22:1-14’, Ekklesiastikos Pharos 80 (1998), 13-20. • Wouters, A., Willen, 161-67. • Wrembek, C., ‘Das Gleichnis

vom königlichen Hochzeitsmahl und vom Mann ohne hochzeitliches Gewand: Eine geistliche-theologische Erwägung zu Mt 22,1-14’, GuL 64 (1991), 17-40.

e new section follows closely from 21:12-45. In particular there are strong cross links between the present parable and that in 21:3343,1 and the rst role of the parable in 22:1-14 is to interpret the reaction of the Jewish leaders in the immediately preceding verses. e new section runs from 22:1-46. e rst part of the parable deals with the exclusion and replacement of those who fail to honour the summons when the wedding feast is ready; the second part has to do with the impossibility of coming to the wedding feast on one’s own terms. How this parable functions as an introductory piece for the section is not entirely clear. We are probably to link refusal of the invitation in this parable with failure to hand over the owner’s share of the harvest in 21:33-43 and to hear in 22:15-22 (assertion of God’s claim on the whole person) and vv. 34-40 (love of God and neighbour) fresh challenges to render to God his due; we are also to nd echoes in vv. 23-28 (resurrection as attested in Scripture and in accord with the power of God) and in vv. 41-46 (the Christ seated at God’s right hand until all his enemies are subdued) of the eschatological future to which the imagery of the marriage feast points. Matthew interrupts the Markan sequence here to add a parable. Luke has a version of this parable at 14:15-24, but the large differences suggest that the Evangelists are not drawing on a common source at this point (see below). A version of the parable is preserved in Gos. om. 64, which, unusually, shows no evidence of being secondary to the NT forms. It is signi cantly closer to the Lukan than the Matthean form, but its distinctive features have little claim to be more original than the NT forms (Crossan’s attempt2 to argue that the Gospel of omas parable is more plausible because it

envisages a suddenly arranged dinner with no forewarning of the guests founders on the opening words: ‘A man had guests’).3 e parable has an interesting relationship to several Jewish parables. Epiphanius, Panarion, 64.70, quotes a parable from the Apocryphon of Ezekiel in which a king prepares a wedding feast for his son to which he invites guests. In y. Sanh. 6:23c a tax collector’s one good deed is, when he arranges a breakfast for the leading men of the town who did not come, to have the poor invited to eat it so that it does not go to waste. B. Šab. 153a has is a parable of a king who invites servants to a banquet without indicating the exact time. e wise wait in readiness; the foolish go about their work. Consequently, when the summons comes, one group are appropriately garbed, the other group are grubby from their work. e king is angry with the latter, and only the former get to eat. As Bauckham has argued, these links are most likely to be ‘storytelling motifs that formed part of the repertoire of the centuries-long tradition of Jewish parables’.4 Jesus also drew on this repertoire of motifs.5 Given that an original unity of Mt. 22:11-13 with the rest of the Gospel parable is unlikely, it is hard to say anything with con dence about its origin. e shared motifs entirely provide the fundamental structure, so there is little room for a creative contribution from Jesus. Also, without context, there can be no con dence about what to relate the wedding garment to. We could have a Matthean or pre-Matthean development or a fragment from the historical Jesus which has lost its larger frame when incorporated into the Matthean parable.

22:1 e use of ἀποκριθείς (lit. ‘answered’, but oen, as here, ‘responded’) makes the parable a response to the reaction of the chief priests and the Pharisees in 21:45-46. e continuing use of parables is marked with πάλιν (‘again’). ἐν παραβολαῖς (‘in parables’) is probably adverbial (‘in a parabolic manner’), but the plural may have been encouraged by the sequence of parables. Jesus’ name is freshly mentioned, but since the scene continues, those addressed are simply αὐτοῖς (‘them’).

22:2 ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ βασιλεῖ ὅστις (‘the kingdom of heaven is like [the situation of] a person, a king, who’) is found identically in 18:23, in Matthew’s only other parable featuring a king (18:23-34).6 e parables will both deal with wrong responses to the divine initiative. is time the central image is that of a wedding banquet (as it will be in 25:1-13)7 which a king arranges for his son.8 In the related parable in Lk. 14:15-22 we have only a man giving a large dinner party (no king and no son are involved). Other key differences between the Matthean and Lukan parables relate to these fundamental differences of beginning point.9 e Matthean celebration has a political nature absent from the Lukan.10 Such an occasion of public affirmation of the son prepares the way for what will eventually be his succession to the throne. e role of the son is no more than to mark the particular importance of the occasion, but because of the role of the son in the preceding parable and the identi cation of Jesus as the bridegroom in 9:15 (and to come in 25:1), in the Matthean telling more will be involved. 22:3 e guest list is an important matter of state, but the initial sending out of invitations is, in the telling, bundled with ‘made arrangements for’ in v. 2. One would expect that leading dignitaries would gure prominently on the guest list. e action is picked up only at the point where all is ready and the expected guests are, as was the custom, summoned.11 e Greek has a play on two meanings of καλεῖν, ‘call’ and ‘invite’: it is literally ‘call the called’. e slave emissaries here provide an echo of those seeking a share of the crop for their master in 21:34.12 e report of their activity and its outcome is spare in the extreme: the sending is reported, but the ful lment of the mission is only assumed; the outcome is bluntly, ‘they did not want to come’, without any kind of

explanation.13 e brevity contributes to the depth of the shock. Stories abound about things that happen at parties or wedding celebrations, but here a wedding celebration is threatening not to happen at all, and not because there is a problem with the principals.14 22:4 e second set of slave emissaries also provide an echo of the previous parable.15 is second time the slaves are given speci c words to say. e wording of this renewal of invitation may represent either the trouble the king has gone to or the richness of the feast on offer, or both. ough the words come from the king, the approach remains unthreatening, even generous considering the disinterest already indicated by the guests. e central place which the meat is seen as occupying in the feast is marked by the framing of the mention of the animals with the two statements about things being prepared. e use again of keywords from v. 3 helps to provide a sense of repetition with intensi cation. Again the ful lment of the mission is not directly reported, but it produces an outcome. 22:5 It is hard to be quite sure what relationship is envisaged between those for whom the entreaties of the emissaries were a matter of no importance and ‘the rest’. Probably Matthew intends the indifferent ones to be a subset of the whole.16 e two instances given of indifferent behaviour both involve going off to engage in normal workaday activities.17 22:6 ‘e rest’ would seem to be anything but indifferent: the second visit by the emissaries is too much for them, and they turn nasty. To ignore the messengers who rst called them to the celebration was already to insult the king, but now this becomes rebellion. e brevity of the expression leaves uncertain whether those treated disgracefully are subsequently killed or whether these

are alternative fates. e fates here again echo the previous parable.18 e reaction is strikingly extreme but closely parallelled in Josephus’s report of the treatment of King Hezekiah’s messengers who seek to summon the Israelites to the feast of Passover in Jerusalem.19 In both cases the reaction is of people marking out their independence from the king. 22:7 Matthew marks a special emphasis at this point in the story, introducing it with τότε (‘then’) and a historic present (‘he says’). We are presumably not to understand that the festivities had to wait on this punitive expedition! is particular development is being dealt with now without regard for chronological sequence in order to bring closure to a segment of the story.20 Again the action of the king echoes the reaction of the landowner in the previous parable. Here there is both the rage of the king and his politicomilitary response.21 Anger also plays a role in the response of the king in 18:34. e treatment of the slave emissaries is labelled murder, and vengeance is exacted. e picture is of heavy-handed justice in which whatever is connected with the guilty is also caught up in their judgment. at the perpetrators should all inhabit a single city is not, however, provided with any narrative justi cation. Matthew almost certainly has Jesus addressing the Jerusalem leaders; he is also likely to be anticipating the materials of chap. 24. Since the burning of cities in war is such a commonplace, there is no basis here, despite the much-repeated claim, for appealing to speci c knowledge of what happened in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. ἐμπιπράναι (‘set on re’) is not found elsewhere in the NT, but it is used frequently in the LXX, mostly for setting re to towns and cities. It is also used for the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.22 22:8 e use of the historic present here puts a special focus on the development at this point in the parable (cf. the use at 18:32

in the other ‘king’ parable).23 e opening clause of the king’s words includes a brief echo of those of the second set of emissaries (22:4).24 By coming to the banquet the guests would honour their sovereign and his heir. But now we have the fresh point that in being invited in the rst place the guests were being honoured by their sovereign. ey have now shown themselves to be unworthy of this honour. e story has already reported how they have been ‘dropped from the guest list’ in the most dramatic manner. But this leaves the king with a state occasion ready to roll and no guests! 22:9 διέξοδος means something like ‘point of exit/way out’. So τὰς διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν means the roads out of town at the points where they leave either the city itself or the attached territory. e point is probably to nd people who are out and about, and in that sense ready, who could be diverted to the wedding feast.25 ere is a ‘rent-a-crowd’ aspect to this. is time καλεῖν does double duty: the invitation and the summons are the same (see discussion at v. 3). In this emergency no distinctions are to be made; everyone who comes by is to be invited. 22:10 In contrast to vv. 3 and 4, the execution of the slaves’ task is reported this time (it is necessary this time because the role of those invited is now entirely passive, so the ful lment of the task cannot be implied by the report of the response to its ful lment). e invitation/summons language of v. 9 is replaced with ‘gathered’ (συνήγαγον). e question of personal response, so important for the earlier part of the story, now drops from sight. Everything is now focussed on the lling of the seats at the wedding feast. ‘As many as you nd’ in v. 9 now becomes ‘all whom they found, both evil and good’.26 Despite Matthew’s investment in the importance of doing good,27 here the distinction is more likely that between ‘riffraff ’ and ‘people of quality’, though the idea that ‘bad coins’ and ‘shady characters’ were all bundled in is there as well. Now γάμος

(lit. ‘wedding feast’) stands for the venue, that is, the wedding hall.28 e only previous time that Matthew has used ἀνάκεισθαι (used of seating arrangements — reclining on couches or cushions — at festive meals) was for Jesus’ meal with ‘many tax collectors and sinners’ in 9:9-13.29 ere is a thematic resonance. e story has reached a point of closure and could stop here (Luke’s version does). What are the chief features that have emerged from the story, and how are they to guide interpretation? e introduction makes clear that for Matthew this parable illuminates something about the kingdom of heaven, so it is appropriate that a king, a stock image for God, is the central gure. e wedding banquet is a variant of the messianic banquet echoed in 8:11 (see there); the summons is to come to the eschatological banquet which has now been prepared. It is characteristic of the Jesus of the Gospels that he treats time in relation to the kingdom of heaven with a certain elasticity, with provisional ful lment and imminent expectation vying for rst place and a more open-ended futurity coming behind. e initial invitation to the wedding festivities is not part of the action of the parable. e invitation is not in focus, but it has something to do with the preexisting status of Israel30 or, perhaps more speci cally within that, the self-evident claim of the Jewish religious leaders on God. e unwillingness of every last one of the invited guests to come on the day is striking to the point of lack of verisimilitude; it clearly has its counterpart in the uniform hostility of the Jewish religious leaders to Jesus’ message. Going off to the farm and to the business are natural images of shortsighted self-interest (cf. 21:25-27). Nothing in the behaviour of the religious leaders yet corresponds to the murderous behaviour of those summoned, but the Passion predictions have pointed towards what is yet to come, and 23:37 will suggest that the earlier history of God’s people has plenty of intimations of what is coming. e

violent reaction of the king is politically intelligible, but ‘their city’ violates narrative integrity and con rms that the focus is on the Jerusalem leaders. Only in 22:8, however, do we reach the heart of the parable. e replacement of those who have displaced themselves is the ultimate point of focus. It is a standing religious temptation, perhaps especially for religious leaders, subconsciously to think of their relationship with God as one of co-dependence: God needs them as much as they need God. e message of the parable is that God can get by quite well without them; ‘God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham’ (3:9). e imagery of the parable runs the danger of making God seem a little desperate in his recruitment of replacement guests, but even this is purposeful. e extravagance of his measures turns out to be an extravagance of generosity, not of desperation. In view is the generous reach in the inclusion of the tax collectors and the prostitutes touched by John the Baptist’s ministry (21:31-32) and the tax collectors and sinners touched by Jesus’ ministry (9:10-13). For Matthew the Gentiles will also be within the reach of this generosity (8:10-12). At this point of the parable we are focussed entirely on the divine initiative and not at all on the appropriate human response, so the replacement guests are given a totally passive role. 22:11 e relationship between the parable to this point and vv. 11-14 is problematic. An original unity is unlikely. e inclusion of guests in vv. 9-10 was totally indiscriminate, but now a particular guest is identi ed as an interloper on the basis of dress. A rst question is whether this particular person is to be thought of as one of those brought in by the process in vv. 9-10, or whether he is to be thought of as having arrived separately. ough the former is normally assumed, the latter has some clear advantages:31 the totally passive role of the replacement guests in vv. 9-10 makes a poor

transition to a focus on an active responsibility for such guests here; ‘How did you get in here?’ (πῶς εἰσῆλθες ὧδει;) in v. 12 ts better someone who has arrived separately; we can make better sense of the transition to v. 14 if we are not dealing with one of the guests of vv. 9-10 in vv. 11-13 (see below). e king enters to see the guests that his emissaries have gathered, but one guest sticks out as not dressed for the occasion. e imagery clashes with that in vv. 9-10 (these guests have been ‘scooped up’ and will have come as they were — their dress was t to be out and about in, but nothing more), but is intelligible on its own terms. At whatever level was within their reach, people dressed up for special occasions. Freshly washed garments and lower hemlines probably provided a minimal differentiation.32 To honour the occasion of the wedding of the king’s son would require the best that could be achieved. One guest is visually obvious for not having bothered. ere is a presumption here that is insulting to the king and to the occasion. 22:12 A focal point for this second part of the parable is identi ed by the use again of the historic present, ‘he says’. e king’s question functions as an exposé. As in 20:13, the dominant gure in the parable uses ἑταῖρε (‘friend/comrade’) in addressing the one to whom he speaks. It is a conventional way of addressing someone whose name is not known, but only when this is to be in a friendly manner.33 e man is to be given every opportunity to explain himself. Appearances are against him, but perhaps there is a reason. e man is, however, reduced to silence, and it is nally his guilty silence that condemns him. 22:13 us far the king has operated through sets of slaves. Now the language is of servants. Perhaps the strength of the response in v. 7 prepares us for the intensity of the reaction here. Binding him hand and foot immobilises the man to guarantee that

he will not slip in again.34 e outer darkness presupposes that the wedding festivities take place at night, as in the parable to come in 25:1-13.35 ‘ere will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ is what nally breaks the bounds of narrative integrity. ‘row him out into the darkness outside; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ turns out to be virtually a quotation from 8:12 (see discussion of its sense there).36 Matthew will do the same thing at the end of the parable to come in 25:14-30. If the rst part of the parable has to do with the decisive exclusion and replacement of those who fail to honour the summons when the wedding feast is ready, the second part of the parable has to do with the impossibility of coming to the wedding feast on one’s own terms. It is addressed to those who are con dent that they have a place in the coming eschatological banquet. In the context it is addressed to the religious leaders. Here is a reminder that ‘Unless your righteousness is abundant — more than [that of] the scribes and Pharisees — you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven’ (5:20). 22:14 e role of the nal verse with which Matthew rounds off this unit is far from transparent. It has a natural catchword link with the rst half of the parable in its use of κλητοί (‘called’, here probably ‘invited’), but there is little else to guide us. A matter of some importance is how literally to take the ‘many’ (πολλοί)/‘few’ (ὀλίγοι) language. Meyer37 has offered an attractive case for reading the language against a Semitic background and giving a comparative force to each: ‘More are called [indeed all], but fewer are chosen’.38 If he is right, as I think he is likely to be, we should probably take ὀλίγοι in 7:14 as meaning ‘fewer’ as well, but the two texts do not need to be handled tightly together.

In 24:22, 24, 31 ‘the elect/chosen’ (οἱ ἐκλεκτοί) are those favoured by God, those who will make it through to the nal trumpet call and be gathered in by the angels. e language recognises that standing behind the perseverance of the faithful is the power and purpose of God. κλητοί refers in the rst instance to the privileged position of historic Israel. But the ministry of Jesus and, beyond it, the ministry to all nations allows for a broadening of sense. For those freshly added the two senses of καλεῖν, distinguished for historic Israel (‘invited’ and ‘summoned’ — see at v. 3 above), are probably to be seen as coming together, as with the replacement guests in the rst part of the parable. e parable has illustrated two ways in which the calling can be nulli ed: refusing the summons when the day comes; and trying to come in on one’s own terms. Not all those who are ‘called’ (κλητοί) will turn out to be ‘chosen’ (ἐκλεκτοί). B. Four Questions (22:15-46) 1. ‘To Caesar … and to God …’ (22:15-22) 15en

the Pharisees went and took counsel together in order to trap him with [their] word[s]. 16ey send to him their disciples with the Herodians, ato say,a ‘Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully. And you care about nobody, for you do not defer to people. 17bTell us, then,b what do you think: Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar, or not?’ 18Jesus, aware of their evil [intent], said to them, ‘Why do you put me to the test, hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. 20en he says to them, ‘Whose image is this, and whose inscription?’ 21ey say cto him,c ‘Caesar’s’. en he says to them, ‘en give to Caesar what Caesar has a right to, and to God what God has a right to.’

22When

away.

they heard this, they were amazed; and leaving him, they went

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. is translation re ects the reading λεγοντες, which makes the Pharisees the subject. ‫ א‬B L 085 etc. offer the easier reading λεγοντας, which allows the members of the delegation to be the speakers. b-b. Missing from D 1424 etc. it sys boms (and not found in Mark). c-c. Missing from ‫ א‬B syp. Its presence is likely, given the pattern with the three uses of historic present forms for verbs of saying here. Bibliography Barraclough, R., ‘Jesus’ Response to Reputation — A Study of Mark 12:14 and Parallels’, Colloquium 28 (1996), 3-11. • Bruce, F. F., ‘Render to Caesar’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 249-63. • Bünker, M., ‘“Gebt dem Kaiser, was des Kaisers ist!” — Aber: Was ist des Kaisers?’ Kairos 29 (1987), 85-98. • Crossan, J. D., Other Gospels, 77-87. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 149-85. • Cuvillier, E., ‘Marc, Justin, omas et les autres: Variations autour de la péricope du denier à César,’ ETR 67 (1992), 329-44. • Gibson, J. B., Temptations, 288-317. • Haacker, K., ‘Kaisertribut und Gottesdienst’, TB 17 (1986), 285-92. • Hart, H. St.-J., ‘e Coin of “Render unto Caesar …” (A Note on Some Aspects of Mark 12:13-17; Matt. 22:15-22; Luke 20:20-26)’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 241-48. • Herzog, W. R., ‘Dissembling, a Weapon of the Weak: e Case of Christ and Caesar in Mark 12:13-17 and Romans 13:1-7’, PRS 21 (1994), 339-60. • Horsley, R., Spiral, 306-7. • Huber, K., Auseinandersetzung, 144-267. • Klemm, H. G., ‘De censu Caesaris: Beobachtungen zu J. Duncan M. Derretts Interpretation der Perikope Mk. 12:13-17 par’, NovT 24 (1982), 234-54. • Meier, J. P., ‘e Historical Jesus and the Historical Herodians’, JBL 119 (2000), 740-46. • Mell, U., ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 191-266. • Mudíso Mbâ Mundla, J.-G., Jesus, 41-70. • Oster, R. E., ‘“Show me a denarius”: Symbolism

of Roman Coinage and Christian Beliefs’, RestQ 28 (1985-86), 107-15. • Owen-Ball, D. T., ‘Rabbinic Rhetoric and the Tribute Passage (Mt. 22:15-22; Mk. 12:13-17; Lk. 20:20-26)’, NovT 35 (1993), 1-14. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 199-207. • Schwank, B., ‘Ein griechisches Jesuslogion?’ in Anfänge der eologie. FS J. B. Bauer, ed. N. Brox (Graz: Styria, 1987), 61-64. • Stenger, W., ‘Gebt dem Kaiser, was des Kaisers ist …!’ Eine socialgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Besteuerung Palästinas in neutestamentlicher Zeit (BBB 68. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1988). • Ukpong, J. S., ‘Tribute to Caesar, Mark 12:13-17 (Matt 22:15-22; Luke 20:2026)’, Biblebhashyam 21 (1995), 147-66. • Ukpong, J. S., ‘Tribute to Caesar, Mark 12:13-17 (Mt 22:15-22; Lk 20:20-26)’, Neot 33 (1999), 433-44. • Weiss, W., Vollmacht, 202-34.

Aer the introductory parable in 22:1-14, the remainder of the section consists of reports of four cases of questions asked of Jesus (the rst three) or by Jesus (the nal question). e conversation partners are, respectively, the Pharisees (with the Herodians), the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and again the Pharisees. Daube may well be right that the four questions correspond to different kinds of questions found in rabbinic discussion.39 Jesus turns a question designed to trap him into a fresh opportunity to assert God’s claim on the whole person of those who for the present must pay taxes to Caesar. In the imagery of the preceding parable, the messengers for the wedding banquet are mistreated, but they continue to send out his message as they call for the owner of the vineyard to be given what is properly his due. Aer the addition of Mt. 22:1-14 Matthew returns now to the Markan sequence, with material parallelled in Mk. 12:13-17; Lk. 20:20-26. e adversarial dimension of the pericope has oen been considered a development (Markan or pre-Markan), and this is possible. Crossan has not been widely followed in his argument that the P. Egerton 2, frg. 2, recto, lines 43-59 form of this material is more original than the Gospel form.40 It

contains additional material partly parallelled in Mt. 7:21 and in Mt. 15:6-9. e form in Gos. om. 100, though briefer, clearly has some secondary features: a gold coin, ‘give to me what is mine’, and an unmotivated production of a coin. It could, however, be independent of the Gospel forms, provided there is not an echo of Mt. 17:24 in ‘Caesar’s agents demand taxes of us’. Scholars do not normally question the attribution of this section to the historical Jesus, but partly following Petzke,41 Weiss42 has recently argued that the episode and the climactic saying stand in tension with each other, as do other elements in the episode, and that aer elimination of Markan additions each part is best explained as a church creation. e argument is clever rather than compelling and depends on giving elements of the account senses that create the tension he then feels the need to resolve. ough his argument works on a much wider basis, the same may nally be said of Mell’s analysis.43 ere is a partial parallel to Mt. 22:21 in Sextus’s Sent. 20: ‘e things of the world to the world, the things of God to God, give with care’ (τὰ μὲν τοῦ κόσμου τῷ κόσμῳ, τὰ δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ τῷ θεῷ ἀκριβῶς ἀποδίδου), but it is doubtful whether this has any source implications. Without the contrasting halves there is a similarity of structure in ‘It is necessary to give to the Muses all that is of the Muses’ (ἔδει [γάρ] πάντα ταὶς Μούσαις ἀποδοῦναι τὰ τῶν Μουσῶν), found in the prologue to the ninth book of Plut., Quaes. conviv.44 With Rom. 13:7 also in mind, the two texts might suggest that the Gospel statement draws on an existing speech pattern.

22:15 In Mark the sending of the delegation to Jesus comes aer his equivalent to Mt. 21:46, but Matthew needs something new aer 22:1-14. In 12:14 he has already had the Pharisees go out and take counsel together against Jesus. He echoes the language here.45 In Mark it is an inde nite ‘they’ who send a delegation of Pharisees and Herodians. But Matthew has already introduced the Pharisees in 21:45 (see there), and will again do so in vv. 34 and 41, so he gives the initiative to the Pharisees here. For the purpose of their

meeting he reaches forward to Mk. 12:13, borrowing from what is said of the delegation. Matthew prefers the more colourful παγιδεύειν (‘set a snare/trap’) to Mark’s ἀγρεύειν (‘catch unawares’),46 and this probably changes the sense of ἐν λόγῳ from Mark’s intended ‘in [his] word[s]’ to ‘with [their] word[s]’. 22:16 For once Matthew keeps a Markan historic present (‘send’): Matthew’s distribution of historic presents marks his intention to focus rst on v. 16 and then on the interchange in vv. 20-21.47 Matthew joins the sending and the saying more closely by dropping Mark’s ‘and coming’ and preferring a participle to Mark’s nite verb for saying.48 In fact, Matthew’s language actually has the sending Pharisees do the saying: the delegation is a mouthpiece for the sending Pharisees’ words. Matthew cannot say that the Pharisees send the Pharisees, so Mark’s ‘certain of the Pharisees’ becomes ‘their disciples’. ‘Disciples of the Pharisees’ is unusual language (in any normal sense only if they were also scribes would one expect disciples), but it is matched in Lk. 5:33, in a quite different context. Matthew may think in terms of those who eagerly take their marching orders from distinguished Pharisaic leaders. Matthew gives dominance to the Pharisaic element by replacing Mark’s ‘and certain of the Herodians’ with ‘with the Herodians’. Matthew dropped Herodians at 12:14 (see there), but he keeps the words here precisely because the promoters of the family of Herod were deeply committed to alliances with Rome and would be hostile to any opposition to the existing Roman taxes and keen to report potential ‘mutiny’.49 For the rest of the verse Matthew follows the Markan words closely. He does, however, bring together the references to ‘true’ and ‘truth’ by joining the rst and last of the Markan attery statements (this gives two paired statements, with the rst pair containing a

minor chiasm and the second pair marked by a parallelism of structure50).51 For Matthew it is of importance that the words of attery actually express the truth about Jesus. Jesus has been addressed as teacher in 8:19 (see there); 12:38 (by the scribes and Pharisees); 19:16. He will be addressed as teacher again in 22:24, 36. e section is strongly focussed on Jesus as teacher. at Jesus is ‘true’ points to the moral and religious integrity of his life. is has its counterpart in the truth of what he teaches. What he teaches is ‘the way of God’. Related language is found in ‘the way of righteousness’ in 21:32 and the imagery of the narrow way in 7:13-14. e LXX equivalent is ‘the way of the Lord’.52 What is thought here to inhibit true living and true teaching is not error or personal temptation, but rather what somebody else might think. Jesus is not inhibited in what he teaches and does because he ‘does not care about anyone’ (οὐ μέλει σοι περὶ οὐδενός). e same language is used with a negative force in Jn. 10:13; 12:6, but here it means that Jesus will not modify his action or teaching out of fear or for favour. is is explained with οὐ γὰρ βλέπεις εἰς πρόσωπον ἀνθρώπων (lit. ‘for you do not look into [the] face of people’). e derivation of this idiom has not been fully explained, but it may have some relationship to the LXX rendering of the Hebrew nśh pnym (lit. ‘li faces’) in the sense of ‘show partiality’ with θαυμάζειν πρόσωπον/πρόσωπα (lit. ‘marvel at a face/faces’).53 In any case, the sense is clear enough. 22:17 Matthew adds here both εἰπὲ οὖν ἡμῖν (‘tell us then’) and τί σοι δοκεῖ (lit. ‘what does it seem to you?’).54 ese additions set off the attery from the question and press the question more strongly. For the rest of the verse Matthew reproduces the Markan

wording except for the summary repetition at the end, δῶμεν ἢ μὴ δῶμεν; (‘Should we pay, or should we not?’). Taxes are never popular. As discussed at 17:25, κῆνσος refers to the head tax and wealth (property) taxes determined by a periodic provincial census. To seek to avoid payment was from the point of view of the Roman administration a very serious matter indeed! But for Jews payment was a constant reminder of being a subject people rather than a free nation under God.55 Also, Roman taxation was an extra burden for the Jews because the Romans set the levels high in Palestine (it had been a troublesome place), and for Jews the taxes had to be added onto what was already a quite heavy level of religiously based taxation. e use of ἔξεστιν (‘it is permitted/lawful’) suggests the possibility that paying the tax might involve disobedience to the law of God and failure to be loyal to him. e Babylonian conquest and the Persian restoration offered a biblical pattern of submission to a foreign ruler as acceptance of God’s judgment56 and a restoration based not in resistance to foreign rule but in God’s ability to direct the hearts of the kings of the nations. e Maccabean uprising, however, offered a different pattern in which the brave de ance of the Maccabean leaders out of zeal for the Law of God was celebrated as leading to national freedom. Freedom ghters are oen widely admired by those whose own lives are quite conformist. To some extent a background of anti-Roman feeling is likely to have coloured popular Jewish admiration for any Jewish hero gure in the period. So this is how it is likely to have been with the popular affirmation of Jesus. All Jesus’ talk about the coming kingdom of heaven can only have fuelled feelings of disaffection with Roman rule. And what symbolises Roman rule better than Roman taxation? From originally being part of the name of Julius

Caesar, ‘Caesar’ came, initially by way of adoption of the name, to be an imperial title of the Roman emperor.57 22:18 To ask the taxation question in this public way intends to leave Jesus with a choice between being seen to be publicly inciting rebellion against Roman rule or damaging his public support and religious credibility by appearing to be pro-Roman. Matthew marks the movement from question to response more sharply by freshly using Jesus’ name. By changing Mark’s ‘hypocrisy’ to ‘evil’ Matthew is able both to clarify the sense and to free up Mark’s ‘hypocrisy’ to use as Jesus’ mode of address to the delegation: ‘hypocrites!’58 is mode of address anticipates and prepares for the repeated use of ‘hypocrites’ in direct address in chap. 23.59 e Pharisees have previously sought to test Jesus in 16:1; 19:3. eir hope is to show Jesus up in some negative way. Either of the choices offered Jesus would seem to involve taking a poison chalice. 22:19 Matthew collapses Mark’s ‘bring… that I might see’ into ‘show me’, paraphrases Mark’s ‘denarius’ with ‘the coin used for the tax’ (τὸ νόμισμα τοῦ κήνσου) in order to clarify the role of the denarius, and gets reference to ‘denarius’ back in by expanding Mark’s ‘they brought [it]’ to ‘they brought the denarius to him’.60 22:20 Matthew reproduces the Markan language exactly. Most unusually, for the second time in this account Matthew keeps a Markan historic present: the positions suit Matthew’s sense of where the emphasis is to fall (Matthew will sustain the emphasis through this part by replacing with historic presents the two verbs introducing speech in v. 21). e denarius had an image of the head of the emperor on one side with an inscription bearing his name and designation (the obverse varied from time to time). e ready availability of the coin to be viewed points to the established role of

Roman coinage as the standard currency in Palestine and even in Jerusalem. 22:21 Matthew’s change to historic presents has been noted above. Having freshly introduced Jesus’ name in v. 18 (see there), Mark drops it here. By adding τότε (‘then’ in a chronological sense) and οὖν (‘then’ in an inferential sense) Matthew makes clear that Jesus’ nal statement builds on the admission that the image and inscription are those of Caesar.61 Jesus’ nal answer is strikingly memorable, but its sense remains disputed. In commenting on the Lukan form I have previously identi ed a series of questions which indicate the basis on which the various views on offer have been generated: (i) Is the statement of general application, or is its application to be limited in some way? (a) Does the answer meet crainess with crainess and therefore remain purely ad hominem, at least in its rst half? (b) Does the answer apply only to Roman coinage users, as those already fatally compromised with the foreign overlords? (c) Is the answer to be narrowly related to the leadership groups from whom the questioning comes? (ii) Is ἀπόδοτε to be rendered “give” or “give back” (and on the second translation, should we understand that there is a call to withdraw from participation in the Roman economy)? (iii) What is the precise sense of the genitives “of Caesar” and “of God”? Is it (a) “owned by,” (b) “owing to,” or (c) “to which he has a right”? (iv) How does the added καὶ τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τῷ θεῷ (lit. “and to God, the [things] of God”) t into the development? (a) It lacks a supporting statement comparable to that provided for the Caesar half of the statement: should we provide as understood a parallel supporting statement in terms of the divine image in humanity [as many, but esp. Giblin, CBQ 33 (1971), 520-25, who points to Isa 44:5 to parallel the “inscription” on the coin] or should we treat this second element as a pious intrusive addition to the original [so Petzke, ‘Historische Jesus,’ 223-35]? (b) Are the paralleled elements to receive equal stress (as in a traditional two-kingdoms view, but as is also

the case if we refer “the things of God” to the temple tax), or is the second meant totally to overshadow the rst (pay the taxes by all means, but they hardly matter — what matters [in the present moment of eschatological urgency] is radical obedience to God), or even to overturn its natural sense (let Caesar have his coins, but he has no rights over the land of Israel, which belongs only to God [so Brandon, Trial, 66-68])? (iv) [sic for (v)] Finally does irony play a role here?62

I cannot provide a full discussion here. But in relation to (i), general applicability is all but guaranteed by the nature of the second half; in relation to (ii), ‘give’ produces a better overall sense than ‘give back’; in relation to (iii), ‘to which he has a right’ has the generality to cover both cases best; in relation to (iv) (a), the second case follows most naturally from the rst if the image of Caesar is allowed to evoke reference to humankind as in the image of God and for this in turn to be seen as implying God’s claim on human beings;63 in relation to (iv) (b), there is likely to be end emphasis, but not such as to overturn the natural force of the rst case; in relation to (v), the irony present is to be seen in the contrast between ready use of Roman coinage for commercial convenience and advantage but pious questioning of the link when it involves cost in the form of taxation.64 In the present, proper humility before God requires the payment of Roman taxes, but if it is true that some of one’s money should go the Caesar, it is so much more true that all that one is needs to handed over to the God in whose image one is made: he is the one who has a right to all that we are. One is allowed to submit to foreign taxation, but in a context of erce loyalty to the exclusive claims of the God of Israel, now being freshly pressed in relation to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of heaven. 22:22 Matthew’s added ἀκούσαντες (‘having heard’) may echo that added by Matthew in 21:45.65 It will be closely parallelled in material added at 22:33, where astonishment will also be in

common,66 and it will be the Pharisees ‘having heard’ (ἀκούσαντες) again in the following verse. e impact of hearing from Jesus is prominent throughout this part of the Gospel. Despite a xedness of opposition to Jesus, the members of this delegation cannot but be impressed. At 21:46 Matthew could not make use of Mark’s departure statement, but he can use it here, and reproduces Mark’s wording.67 Used here, it merely sends the delegation back to those who sent them. 2. ‘Not God of the Dead but of the Living’ (22:23-33) that day Sadducees came to him asaying that there is no resurrection, and they questioned him, 24saying, ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If someone dies not having children, his brother shall marry bhis wifeb as next of kin and raise up off-spring for his brother. 25ere were among us seven brothers. And the first got married and died and, not having offspring, he le his wife to his brother. 26Likewise also the second and the third, [and on] until [this had happened with all] the seven. 27Last of all the woman cdied. 28In the resurrection, then, of which of the seven shall she be wife? For all [of them] had her!’ 29In response Jesus said to them, ‘You are mistaken because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection [men] do not marry, nor are [women] given in marriage, but they are like angelsd in heaven. 31About the resurrection of the dead — have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32“I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob”? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.’ 33When the crowds heard [this], they were astonished at his teaching. 23On

TEXTUAL NOTES a. An added οι in ‫א‬2 K L Θ f13 0107 565 579 etc. bo gives ‘who say’. b-b. Omitted in D.

c. και (‘also’) is added in D Θ 0102 f13 33 etc. lat syp, h samss mae bo. d. (του) θεου (‘of God’) is added in ‫ א‬L W f13 0102 0161 33 892 1241 1424 etc. Bibliography Bianchi, U., ‘e Religio-historical Relevance of Luke 20:34-36’, in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions. FS G. Quispel, ed. R. Van den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 31-37. • Bolt, P. G., ‘What Were the Sadducees Reading? An Enquiry into the Literary Background of Mark 12:18-23’, TynB 45 (1994), 369-94. • Cohn-Sherbok, D. M., ‘Jesus’ Defence of the Resurrection of the Dead’, JSNT 11 (1981), 64-73. • Decock, P. B., ‘Holy Ones, Sons of God, and the Transcendent Future of the Righteous in 1 Enoch and the New Testament’, Neot 17 (1983), 70-82. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Marcan Priority and Marcan Skill’, BibOr 29 (1987), 135-39. • Downing, F. G., ‘e Resurrection of the Dead: Jesus and Philo’, JSNT 15 (1982), 42-50. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die Sadduzäerfrage: Mk 12,18-27 par Mt 22,23-33 par Lk 20,2747’, SNTU 26 (2001), 83-110. • Huber, K., Auseinandersetzung, 273-93. • Janzen, J. G., ‘Resurrection and Hermeneutics: On Exodus 3.6 in Mark 12.26’, JSNT 23 (1985), 43-58. • Kilgallen, J. J., ‘e Sadducees and Resurrection from the Dead: Luke 20,27-40’, Bib 67 (1986), 478-95. • Manns, F., ‘La technique du “Al Tiqra” dans les évangiles’, RevSR 64 (1990), 1-7. • Meier, J. P., Marginal, 3:389-487. • Meier, J. P., ‘e Debate on the Resurrection of the Dead: An Incident from the Ministry of Jesus?’ JSNT 77 (2000), 3-24. • Mell, U., ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 267-311. • Mudíso Mbâ Mundla, J.-G., Jesus, 71-109, 299-305. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 207-15. • Robinson, B. P., ‘“ey Are as Angels in Heaven”: Jesus’ Alleged Riposte to the Sadducees (Mark 12:18-27; par. Mt 22:23-33; Lk 20:27-40)’, NB 78 (1997), 530-37. • Schwankl, O., Die Sadduzäerfrage (Mk. 12,18-27 par): Eine exegetisch-theologische Studie zur Auferstehungserwartung (BBB 66. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1987). • Schwankl, O., ‘Die Sadduzäerfrage (Mk 12.18-27) und die Auferstehungserwartung Jesu’, Wissenscha und Weisheit 50 (1987), 81-92. • Vouga, F., ‘Controverse sur la résurrection des

morts (Marc 12.18-27)’, LumVie 35 (1986), 49-61. • Weiss, W., Vollmacht, 234-48.

is is the second of a set of four questions asked of Jesus (the rst three) or by Jesus (the nal question). Now Sadducees put their question, designed to ridicule belief in a future resurrection. Jesus’ answer points to the inadequacy of imagination that informs the Sadducees’ understanding of resurrection and therefore leaves them unable to reconcile resurrection and the levirate marriage law. He then goes on to argue that God’s continued representation of himself as God of the patriarchs means that they cannot be dead and gone as far as his commitment to them is concerned. e eschatological wedding banquet of 22:1-14 will take place in connection with the resurrection life here defended. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with material parallelled in Mk. 12:18-27. He has edited the Markan material, but with only a modest change of substance; most notably he adds Mt. 22:33. Many scholars believe that Mk. 12:26-27 represent a tradition separate from vv. 18-25 (an alternative is to treat v. 25 as a secondary insertion), but the double response represents a more adequate answer to what is put to Jesus in vv. 19-23 than either vv. 2425 or 26-27 taken separately. e former responds to the logical conundrum set; the latter deals with the underlying scepticism about resurrection. e former, with its likely implicit appeal to Dn. 12:2, while it can deal with the logical difficulties set by the Sadducees, cannot represent a convincing appeal to Scripture for Sadducees for whom Daniel seems not to have been viewed as Scripture. Mk. 12:26-27 makes up for this de cit by addressing the fundamental question of resurrection in relation to a text from the Pentateuch which had full authority for the Sadducees. Many scholars are doubtful about tracing this material to the historical Jesus. But though the case can be argued both ways, con dent denial to the historical Jesus seems unduly sceptical.68 e most intriguing of the views that deny the material to the historical Jesus is that of Weiss,69 which involves proposing that the materials of Mk. 12:19-25 (without most of v. 24) originally represented a

discussion in which resurrection is presumed and the concern is to reconcile apparently con icting scriptural perspectives.

22:23 Matthew strengthens the link with the preceding material by adding ‘on that day’. He also reformulates Mark’s clause about Sadducean belief (‘who say that there is no resurrection) to become an assertion to Jesus (‘saying that there is no resurrection’).70 It is striking that this is the only Gospel incident in which the Sadducees play a distinctive role.71 Little de nite information is available about them. ey lost signi cance in Jewish life in the aermath of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and we know about them only from sources that are hostile to them and mostly much later. ‘Sadducee’ (ṣdwqym/Σαδδουκαῖος) seems to be based on ‘Zadok’ (MT: ṣdwk; LXX: Σαδδουκ, Σαδωκ), the name of the high priest at the time of David and Solomon, whose descendants became the authorized high-priestly line in the postexilic period.72 ey seem to have been an aristocratic grouping with connections to the most signi cant priestly families. ey were more conservative than the Pharisees in their insistence on strict derivation of all halachic judgments from the Pentateuch. e view of many of the church fathers that the Sadducees had completely rejected the prophets is likely to be an overstatement, but for the Sadducees only the Pentateuch was foundational for faith. e Sadducees were known for their rejection of the idea of resurrection,73 and that is what comes into focus here. Since a notion of resurrection is clearly attested in Dn. 12:2-3 (which may well be echoed in Mt. 22:30 below), Sadducean rejection of resurrection implies non-acceptance of Daniel as authoritative Scripture. 22:24 Matthew makes many changes here, but for the most part they are only of minor signi cance. Matthew reduces ‘wrote for

us that’ to ‘said’. is brings the present reference more into line with other Matthean references to Moses and the Pentateuch,74 but more importantly it allows the reference with which the interchange begins and with which it ends to be balanced (and perhaps prioritised in terms of hermeneutical signi cance) with ‘Moses said’ versus ‘what was said to you by God, when he says’.75 Matthew spots the confusion created in Mark by his introduction of both the rst husband to die and his brother as ‘brother’, and so introduces the dying husband simply as ‘someone’ (τις) instead of Mark’s ‘a brother of someone’ (τινος ἀδελϕός). Matthew thinks that Mark’s ‘and leaves a wife’ can be le to be implied by the context. ‘And does not leave a child’ (καὶ μὴ ἀϕῇ τέκνον) is expressed more compactly and generally as ‘not having children’ (μὴ ἔχων τέκνα). Matthew prefers the future to Mark’s ἵνα plus subjunctive for the ‘then’ clause and reaches for a more technical word to describe the levirate marriage (see the next paragraph): ἐπιγαμβρεύσει ‘shall marry as next of kin’76 replaces ἵνα λάβῃ (lit. ‘that he take’). Now to be mentioned for the rst time in Matthew, Mark’s τὴν γυναῖκα (‘the wife/the woman’) needs to become τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ (‘his wife’). Matthew drops the verbal pre x ἐξ from Mark’s ἐξαναστήσῃ to give ἀναστήσει (‘raise up’), probably to make the root identical to that for ‘resurrection’ (ἀνάστασις), in order to allude to a Sadducean view that a future beyond the grave is to be achieved not through personal resurrection but through the raising up of offspring (thus the Law’s provision for producing offspring even for a man who dies before his wife has borne him children). e Sadducees are pointing to the provision in the Mosaic law of levirate marriage, designed in the rst instance to provide a son to perpetuate the name of a man who has died before any sons have been born to him.77 Dt. 25:5 uses bn, which is literally ‘son’ but can mean ‘offspring’. Gn. 38:8 uses zrʿ (lit. ‘seed’), and the LXX of both

Dt. 25:5 and Gn. 38:8 uses σπέρμα (lit. ‘seed’). e rabbis limited levirate marriage to cases where there had been no offspring, either male or female (b. B. B. 109a), and the Gospel texts re ect this broader understanding of bn in Dt. 25:5. ere is virtually no connection between the language here and that of the stipulation in Dt. 25:5 to which reference is being made, but Mark’s nal clause does echo language from Gn. 38:8. Matthew seems to have spotted the echoes, and strengthening them has been part of his motivation for introducing ἐπιγαμβρεύειν (‘marry as next of kin’ — Gn. 38:8 uses γαμβρεύειν) and preferring ἀναστήσει, echoing the root used in Gn. 38:8, for Mark’s ἐξαναστήσῃ for ‘raise up’. 22:25 Matthew’s addition of παρ᾿ ἡμῖν (‘among us’) changes what in Mark need only be a once-upon-a-time story to report something actually claimed as happening. As in v. 25, Mark’s use of the idiom λαμβάνειν γυναῖκα (‘take a wife’) is replaced; since the rst marriage is in view, he uses γαμεῖν (‘marry’), in line with Matthew’s normal usage. For a change of verb from v. 24 Matthew uses τελευτᾶν for ‘died’.78 By adding ‘le his wife to his brother’, Matthew will make it possible to describe the pattern to be repeated many times in a very compact manner.79 e language does, however, treat the widow as chattel to be transferred by inheritance. Matthew’s pattern of participles and nite verbs highlights ‘died’ and ‘le’ (with nite verbs) and leaves ‘married’ and ‘not having offspring’ subordinated; Mark had ‘took’ and ‘did [not] leave [offspring]’ as nite verbs and ‘dying’ as the participle. ere is a famous story of seven brothers in 2 Macc. 7 (all willing to face martyrdom in prospect of resurrection) and a story of a childless widow with seven dead husbands (not identi ed, however, as brothers) in Tob. 3:7-9, either or both of which may have had some in uence on the present story.80

22:26 Aer his addition of the extra clause in v. 25, Matthew can elegantly and compactly report the following six cases with ὁμοίως καὶ ὁ δεύτερος καὶ ὁ τρίτος ἕως τῶν ἑπτά (‘likewise also the second and the third, [and on] until [this had happened with all] the seven’).81 22:27 Matthew prefers ὕστερον to Mark’s ἔσχατον for ‘last’82 and drops a καί meaning ‘also’. Otherwise he reproduces Mark with one minor change of word order. e woman moves to whatever lies beyond death for her, having been half of a childless couple with seven different men. is is the situation that the Sadducees want Jesus to contemplate. 22:28 Matthew adds a linking οὖν (‘then’), drops ὅταν ἀναστῶσιν (‘when they rise’ — if this is original to Mark83), prefers τῶν ἑπτά (‘of the seven’) to αὐτῶν (‘of them’) and subsequently πάντες (‘all’) to οἱ ἑπτά (‘the seven’), and drops γυναῖκα (‘[as] wife’) as obvious in context (but this does strengthen the impression that the woman is chattel — cf. at v. 25). e resurrection life in which the Sadducees did not believe was being conceived of as marked by strong continuity with the arrangements of life in the present. However, the view of resurrection life that is rejected by the Sadducees as more than is possible (thus the conundrum) is to be rejected by Jesus as less than is to be anticipated. e idea of a general resurrection of the dead for the day of judgment has already surfaced at 12:41. Otherwise there have been only the restorations to life of 9:25; 11:5 and the Passion predictions in 16:21; 17:23; 20:19, where a notion of resurrection has surfaced. While these are certainly meant to anticipate the general resurrection, they are in themselves something quite different. 22:29 For Mark’s ἔϕη αὐτοῖς (‘he said [imperfect] to them’) Matthew prefers his favoured ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς (lit. ‘and

having answered, he said to them’).84 He drops Mark’s οὐ to change a question pressing for a positive answer into a statement. He also drops Mark’s διὰ τοῦτο (‘because of this’), probably because Matthew was as unsure of its referent as modern interpreters are. In Mark the error of the Sadducees was not directly in anything they said to Jesus. It lay, rather, in the scepticism about a future resurrection that lies behind the problem they have set for Jesus. But for Matthew the criticism is much more direct in that he has the Sadducees say in v. 23 that there is no resurrection. ‘Not knowing the scriptures’ corresponds with ‘have you never read (in the Scriptures)?’ in 21:16, 42, where the chief priests and scribes and the chief priests and the elders, respectively, were addressed. 22:30 may well allude to Dn. 12:2, but the reference is primarily to the citation to come in Mt. 22:32. Sitting in the background may also be the element of scriptural grounding in the necessity of Jesus’ own Passion and vindication through resurrection. Ignorance of ‘the power of God’ is evident in failure to believe that God will raise the dead, but more pointedly in failure to anticipate the grandeur of the resurrection future that God intends for his people (see v. 30). Again, sitting in the background may be the reality of the power of God manifest in the ministry of Jesus, and especially in his restoration of the dead to life. e two components (the Scriptures and the power of God) are to be taken up in reverse order. 22:30 Matthew simpli es Mark’s ὅταν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῶσιν (‘when they rise from the dead’) to ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει (‘in the resurrection’), repeating the language of v. 28.85 e separate clauses for men and for women re ect the asymmetry of the way that marriages were arranged, with the woman being given from her father’s sphere to that of a husband. Is the starting point for the thought here the husbandless state of the woman at her moment of death (at death she was husbandless, and through death each of her

husbands had become wifeless since the wife was le to another)? ere is a real likelihood that Dt. 24:4 would be thought to place in question a marriage bond between the woman and any but her nal husband. e production of offspring to carry on the family line certainly becomes irrelevant with resurrection to deathless existence (Lk. 20:36 makes this explicit with ‘they are no longer able to die’).86 Presumably it will still not be good for man to be alone (Gn. 2:18), but the unitive function of marriage will not in the resurrection require the exclusivity that is proper for it in the present age. A connection with Dn. 12:2-3 is tempting for ‘like the angels in heaven’, but is stronger for the Greek than for the MT, and stronger in the LXX than in the eod. text.87 e link depends on bringing together ‘the stars’ of Dn. 12 and ‘the angels’ of Mt. 22:30, which is certainly possible.88 For the Gospel text ‘angels’ is more useful than ‘stars’ since the need is to imagine the relational implications of an exalted state. Other Jewish texts also anticipate an angellike existence.89 e core thought is that resurrection involves ‘progress into a new mode of being’ that transcends present limitations.90 22:31 Now that Matthew has disposed of the logical difficulty, he can turn his attention to the question of whether there is to be a resurrection. Matthew improves Mark’s ‘concerning the dead, that they are raised’ (περὶ δὲ τῶν νεκρῶν ὅτι ἐγείρονται) to ‘concerning the resurrection of the dead’ (περὶ δὲ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῶν νεκρῶν), using ‘resurrection’ for a fourth time. Mark’s location of the text to be quoted is dropped: ‘in the book of Moses, in [the place about] the bush’. Mark’s πῶς εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεὸς λέγων (‘how God spoke to him, saying’) becomes τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑμῖν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ λέγοντος (‘what was spoken to you by God, saying’), which is notable mostly for personalising the address to Jesus’ Sadducean listeners. e bracketing effect with the opening quotation in v. 24 is noted there.

22:32 Except for de nite articles the only change in Matthew is to add the verb εἰμι (‘am’) so that the statement begins with a full ἐγώ εἰμι (‘I [emphatic] am’). Matthew may make the change to achieve an echo of the divine name (the LXX uses εἰμι; see further at 14:27) or to preclude the supply of a past tense (‘I was the God …’).91 e main difference from the text of Ex. 3:6 is the omission of ‘of your father’ from the beginning of the list (Moses’ father could still have been alive at the time and can contribute nothing to the point being made). Matthew has already marked the importance for him of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in 1:2 and 8:11 (where for them the text assumes a future role — see there). e argument is that God will not have continued to represent himself as their God if he had nished his work with them and abandoned them to the grave.92 e conviction that these three in particular live on is found in 4 Macc. 7:19; 16:25. Dreyfus (RB 66 [1959] 213-24) has shown how in the OT and in ongoing Jewish tradition “God of ” in connection with the Patriarchs points to God in his role of savior, protector, and deliverer. Dreyfus recognizes that in an earlier OT perception of life there would have been no thought that God’s protection had failed if one died in a good old age with a generous supply of off-spring. But, Dreyfus argues, by the time of Jesus, to stop there in one’s hopes for God’s protection would be severely to foreshorten the reach of one’s faith in the power of God and his covenant commitment to one’s protection and well-being. More recent study has not, in my view, improved on this approach.93

Matthew drops Mark’s repetition of the error language: ‘You are quite wrong’. 22:33 is verse is a Matthean addition, substantially drawn from the language of Mk. 11:18, passed over earlier.94 In Matthew it clearly echoes the language of Mt. 7:28. On this last occasion on

which the crowds hear Jesus teaching, Matthew returns to their rst reaction to his teaching. Matthew’s opening ἀκούσαντες (‘having heard’) helps to establish a link as well to 22:22. As noted there, the impact of hearing from Jesus is prominent throughout this part of the Gospel. e crowds last played a direct role in 21:11, but cf. vv. 26, 46. In 21:45 it was notable that Matthew identi ed a different group from that addressed as those who hear and react. e same is true here, where he addresses the Sadducees, but the crowds are reported as hearing and being astonished. Matthew is getting everyone in on the act! 3. Love of God and Love of Neighbour (22:34-40) 34When

the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.a 35And one of them, a lawyer, to test him asked, 36‘Teacher, which commandment in the Law is great[est]?’ 37He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole life and your whole mind. 38is is the great[est] and the first commandment. 39A second [is] blike it:b You shall love your neighbour as yourself. 40On these two commandments the cwhole Law hangs, and the prophets.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. D it sys, c have επ᾽ αυτον (‘to him’). b-b. ομοια αὕτη (‘like this’) in K Γ f13 565 892 1424 etc. sa mae. ομοια ταυτη (‘like this’) in D Z*vid etc. bo. ομοιως (‘similarly’) in B. c. Missing from ‫ א‬1424 sys, c, p sa bopt. Bibliography

Allison, D. C., Jr., ‘Mk 12.28-31 and the Decalogue’, in Gospels, ed. C. A. Evans and W. R. Stegner, 270-78. • Bockmuehl, K., ‘e Great Commandment’, Crux 23.3 (1987), 10-20. • Brooks, O. S., ‘e Function of the Double Love Command in Matthew 22:34-40’, AUSS 36 (1998), 7-22. • Clouse, B., ‘Jesus’ Law of Love and Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning’, JourPsyChrist 9 (1990), 5-15. • Collins, R. F., ‘Matthew’s ἐντολαί: Towards an Understanding of the Commandments in the First Gospel’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 2:1,325-48, esp. 1,336-43. • Denaux, A. and Kevers, P., ‘Die historisch-kritische Methode’, Collationes 26 (1980), 387-404. • Donaldson, T. L., ‘e Law at Hangs (Matthew 22:40): Rabbinic Formulation and Matthean Social World’, CBQ 57 (1995), 689-709. • Ebersohn, M., Das Nächstenliebegebot in der synoptischen Tradition (MTS 37. Marburg: Elwert, 1993). • Flusser, D., ‘Die beiden wichtigen Gebote bei den Griechen’, Freiburger Rundbrief 2 (1995), 27-30. • Fuchs, A., ‘Die Last der Vergangenheit: Bemerkungen zu J. Kiilunen, Das Doppelgebot der Liebe in synoptischer Sicht: Ein redaktionskritischer Versuch über Mk 12,28-34 und die Parallelen’, SNTU 16 (1991), 151-68. • Gundry, R. H., ‘A Rejoinder on Matthean Foreign Bodies in Luke 10,25-28’, ETL 71 (1995), 139-50. • Hamilton, G. J., ‘e First Commandment: A eological Re ection’, NB 69 (1988), 174-81. • Huber, K., Auseinandersetzung, 294-331. • Kiilunen, J., Das Doppelgebot der Liebe in synoptischer Sicht: Ein redaktionskritischer Versuch über Mk 12,28-34 und die Parallelen (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae B/250. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1989). • Koet, J. J., ‘Mk 12,28-34: Übereinstimmung im Kern der Sache’, in Scriptures, ed. C. Tuckett, 513-23. • Lambrecht, J., ‘e Great Commandment Pericope and Q’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 73-96. • Lemcio, E. E., ‘e Command to Love God and Neighbor: History, Redaction and Canon’, in e New Testament as Canon: A Reader in Canonical Criticism, R. W. Wall and E. E. Lemcio (JSNTSup 76. Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 67-77. • Lenhard, P. and OstenSacken, P. von der, Rabbi Akiva Texte und Interpretationen zum rabbinischen Judentum und Neuen Testament (ANTZ 1. Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1987), 174-99. • Mell, U., ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 312-53. • Miller, J. S., ‘e Neighbor’, ExpTim 96 (1984-85), 337-39. • Monte ore, H., ‘ou Shalt Love y Neighbor as yself ’, NovT 5 (1962), 157-70. • Mudíso Mbâ

Mundla, J.-G., Jesus, 110-23. • Neirynck, F., ‘Luke 10:25-28: A Foreign Body in Luke? in Crossing, ed. S. E. Porter, P. Joyce, and D. E. Orton, 149-65. • Neirynck, F., ‘e Minor Agreements and Lk 10,25-28’, ETL 71 (1995), 15160. • New, D. S., Quotations, 77-82. • Osborn, E., ‘e Love Command in 2nd-Century Christian Writing: Mt 22.36-79’, Second Century 1 (1981), 22343. • Perkins, P., Love Commands in the New Testament (New York: Paulist, 1982). • Pesch, R., ‘Jesus und die Hauptgebot’, in Neues Testament und Ethik. FS R. Schnackenburg, ed. H. Merklein (Freiburg: Herder, 1989), 99-109. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 215-25. • Schweiker, W., ‘And a Second Is Like It: Christian Faith and the Claim of the Other’, QRev 20 (2000), 233-47. • Strecker, G., ‘Gottes und Menschenliebe in Neuen Testament’, in Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 53-67. • Tuckett, C., Revival, 125-33. • Vouga, F., Jésus, 134-52. • Weiss, W., Vollmacht, 249-66. • Wilson, J. and Wilson, N., ‘Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself ’,  101 (1999), 411-20. • Wolbert, W., ‘Die Liebe zum Nächsten, zum Feind und zum Sünder’, TGl 74 (1984), 262-82. See further at 5:43-48.

is is now the third of a set of four questions asked of Jesus (the rst three) or by Jesus (the nal question). Jesus rises to the challenge set him by the Pharisaic lawyer by proposing that the command to love God, with support from the command to love one’s neighbour, goes to the heart of the Law. Instead of being shown up as inadequate, Jesus with his answer illuminates both the primary thrust of the Law and the challenge of his own proclamation of the kingdom. As in 22:15-22, he freshly asserts God’s claim on the whole person. A proper response to the call to the wedding banquet will involve love of God and love of neighbour. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with material parallelled in Mk. 12:28-34, but a signi cant set of non-Markan agreements between Mt. 22:34-40 and Lk. 10:25-28 (concentrated at the beginning) make it likely, despite repeated attempts to explain these as coincidental agreements in

independent editing, that Matthew and Luke had access to a second source form. From the second source Matthew draws the ‘testing’ motif; and probably its failure to offer a parallel to Mk. 12:32-34 stands behind Matthew’s omission of this material. ough most scholars are happy to trace the double commandment back to the historical Jesus on the basis of its general t, there have been major attempts to identify the material as having its background in Hellenistic rather than Palestinian Judaism. Weiss95 has proposed that the original (still not traceable to the historical Jesus) had only the second commandment: the rst commandment did not need to be mentioned in a Jewish framework, but, when the material was disseminated in a wider context, what had been assumed needed to be speci ed. I have explored the background for the double commandment in some detail elsewhere96 and will offer only a brief summary here. Even in the OT we nd fundamental principles that are intended to encompass the whole will of God (e.g., Is. 66:2b; Mi. 6:8). Jewish thought continued this practice (e.g., according to b. Šab. 31a the Golden Rule contains the whole Law). e call to love one’s neighbour is found in Jewish ethical summaries well before Jesus (e.g., Sir. 7:21; Jub. 7:20; Sipre to Dt. 32:29), while the call to love God was embedded in the daily recital of the Shemaʿ. e bringing together of the two commandments is oen thought to be based on a Hellenistic impulse, according to which piety and virtue constitute a natural pairing (a certain autonomy of the sphere of ethics from the sphere of religion comes with this arrangement). But the earliest evidence for the bringing together of the two love commands actually places them within a longer list (see Test. Iss. 5:2; Test. Dan 5:3). And the OT offers a better background for the emergence of the double love commandment in its own bifurcation between love/fear of God and keeping his commandments (e.g., Dn. 9:4; Ne. 1:5), one that parallels the relationship between the two love commands. e ordering of the Ten Commandments and perhaps even of the two tables of stone (Ex. 31:18) re ects an awareness of a natural division between attention to God and one’s neighbour (Davies and Allison97 note that Philo in De decal. 108– 10 uses ϕιλόθεοι [‘lovers of God’] and ϕιλάνθρωποι [‘lovers of people’] for those who attend respectively to the rst and second table of the

commandments). e bringing together of the two love commands re ects Jewish exegetical practice, which brought together texts on the basis of shared features: the OT use of the precise form wʾhbt (‘you [sing.] shall love’) is con ned to Lv. 19:18 (and the related text 19:34) and Dt. 6:5 (and the related text 11:1). e Gospel language of ‘ rst’ and ‘second’ is distinctive, but it is somewhat parallelled in rabbinic identi cation of ‘great’ (gdl or rb) or ‘weighty’ (ḥmwr or šqwl) commandments. e Gospel identi cation of the rst and second commandments would seem, therefore, to be thoroughly at home in a rst-century Palestinian Jewish setting. is conclusion makes attribution to the historical Jesus both easier and harder: it ts his context, but it is not distinctive in the manner sometimes claimed. But Jesus did not offer this summary to demark his views from those of others; he offered it to provide a clarity and sharpness of focus in connection with what was in principle already well known to his hearers.

22:34 Matthew’s foregrounding of the Pharisees continues (see at 22:15) with his addition of them again here. Mark’s ‘answered well’ language is strengthened to ‘he had silenced the Sadducees’.98 is makes good the failure to report a response from the Sadducees in v. 33. e Matthean addition helps to prepare for 22:46, which is in turn developed out of Mk. 12:34b. Matthew has the Pharisees hearing (ἀκούσαντες) to continue the thread of references to hearing throughout this section (see at 22:22).99 ἀκούσαντες is used for the Pharisees hearing Jesus in 21:45; 22:22. ough the language is also found in Jdg. 6:33; 2 Sa. 10:15, συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό (‘gathered together’100) is almost certainly an allusion to Ps. 2:2, where ‘the rulers gather together against the LORD and his anointed one’. In their opposition to Jesus the Pharisees here are playing out the role of the leaders of Ps. 2:2. Matthew is anticipating the christological focus of vv. 41-46, where he will again add reference to the Pharisees as gathered together.

22:35 Mark’s ‘one of the scribes’ becomes ‘one of them, a lawyer’. νομικός (‘lawyer’) is found only here in Matthew. Luke also uses it at this point. e meaning is not different from that of Mark’s γραμματεύς (‘scribe’), which is otherwise Matthew’s term (see at 2:4).101 Only a source explanation seems to account for the use here.102 πειράζων (lit. ‘testing/tempting’) is also an addition to the Markan wording, matched in Luke at this point.103 e Pharisees have previously sought to test Jesus in 16:1; 19:3, and most recently in 22:18. Matthew continues the thread. eir hope is to put Jesus under pressure yet again, with a view to exposing his inadequacy in some way or other. 22:36 With ‘teacher’ Matthew again departs from Mark’s language and joins Luke’s. ‘Teacher’ identi es Jesus as the sort of person one might reasonably ask such a question. Matthew replaces πρώτη πάντων (‘ rst of all’) with μεγάλη ἐν τῷ νόμῳ (lit. ‘great in the Law’) — ἐν τῷ νόμω is found in Lk. 10:26, so it may come from the second source — bringing the language more into line with standard rabbinic diction (see above, the penultimate paragraph before the discussion of 22:36).104 In what sense is Jesus being asked to rank one commandment as the greatest? Certainly there can be no sense in Matthew that in its light other commands will become redundant or optional (see 23:23). In discussing 5:21-26 I noted that the murder commandment was being interpreted in light of the love commandment. is offers a more promising paradigm for how the priority of the greatest commandment is to be construed: it can offer an ethos in relation to which all the commandments can best be understood and implemented. 22:37 ere may be another trace of the second source in the use of ὁ δέ for the change of subject, as in Lk. 10:26, rather than Mark’s fresh use of Jesus’ name.105 Matthew’s failure to reproduce Mark’s quotation of Dt. 6:4 may be similarly inspired, as also the

preference of ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ to Mark’s ἐξ ὅλης τῆς in each of the ‘with your whole …’ phrases (the LXX has Mark’s ἐξ ὅλης τῆς).106 For the quotation from Dt. 6:5 Matthew reduces the number of elements from Mark’s four to three, in line with the count in the OT text. Again an in uence from the second source is most likely, given that Matthew’s reduction to three does not conform the set to the OT list, which would have required the dropping of διανοία (‘mind/understanding’) and not ἰσχύς (‘strength’).107 (e addition of διανοία to the list is likely to be related to its occurrence as a variant to καρδία [‘heart’] in the LXX of Dt. 6:5 and other texts.) Except for Lk. 11:42, which is probably ultimately dependent on the present pericope, this account (in each of the Synoptic Gospels) provides the only Synoptic reference to loving God.108 ‘But no language better sums up the passion for God, the intimacy with God, and the delity to God that were the hallmarks of Jesus’ own life, and to which he called others.’109 e call to love God has a strong OT pedigree; it occurs no fewer than ten times in Deuteronomy alone (admittedly a place of special concentration).110 In the Gospel pericope, ‘“Your heart” denotes a response to God from the innermost personal center of one’s being; “your life” (“soul”) conjures up the role of the life force that energises us;… “your mind” signals the inclusion of the thinking and planning processes. e challenge is to a comprehensive engagement with God with the total capacity of all of one’s faculties’.111 e omission of ἰσχύς (‘strength’) from the list tends to let the focus on love for God fall on the inner dispositions and thoughts, leaving the sphere of energetic physical action to love of neighbour. 22:38 is verse is distinctive to Matthew. He now makes use of the language of ‘ rst’ (πρώτη), which he replaced in v. 36, and he again uses μεγάλη (lit. ‘great’) and ἐντολή (‘commandment’) from v.

36. is framing repetition emphasises the priority to be given to the command to love God. 22:39 Mark’s δευτέρα αὕτη (‘this [is the] second’) becomes δευτέρα ὁμοία αὐτῇ (‘a second [is] like it’). In the rst instance he is probably marking formal similarity and then, via the interpretive view of the day that formal similarity invites connection, the suggestion is being made that these two commandments belong together in their claims on humanity. e ‘second’ is, thus, second in importance only to the greatest commandment. For the citation from Lv. 19:18 Matthew uses the Markan wording, which is the LXX wording, which in turn is a quite literal translation of the MT. is is Matthew’s third use of Lv. 19:18 (see 5:43, where the scope of neighbour is extended even to one’s enemy; 19:19, where love of neighbour takes the place of the tenth commandment). Love of neighbour is rather more widely attested in the Synoptic tradition than is love of God.112 Where intensity and comprehensiveness mark a true love of God, parity is offered as the mark of true love of one’s fellow human beings. Scholars have shown a great desire to nd here an othercentredness that is self-disregarding: love of neighbour in place of love of self. But the wording hardly supports this. e text assumes positive self-regard and the care for oneself that goes with this, and therefore that behaving towards others as though one were oneself on the receiving end will produce kindly and considerate behaviour towards them. Self-disregard may be said to characterise love of God, but not love of neighbour. And since the two commandments are coupled together, even love for God — that God who commands love of neighbour as oneself — should not be seen, despite all the rigours of discipleship, as extinguishing the signi cance of our own well-being (cf. Mt. 7:12; Eph. 5:29).

22:40 Matthew substitutes this verse for Mark’s ‘ere is no other commandment greater than these’. Where in v. 38 Matthew was concerned to give pride of place to the command to love God, here is concerned to bind the two love commands together as foundational to the Law and the Prophets. A formulation remarkably similar to Matthew’s is found in b. Ber. 63a: ‘What small section [of Scripture] is there upon which the substance (gwpy) of the Torah hangs (tlwyn)? “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths”’ (Pr. 3:6). Matthew nds language to express his point that will align with that being used in Jewish discussion in his environment. κρεμαννύναι (‘hang’) is not found elsewhere in the NT, but in the LXX it is the regular translation of the verb used in the quotation from b. Ber. 63a. Another rabbinic manner for expressing such thoughts is to identify a kll (‘a principle/general rule’) ‘in which the whole Law is contained (klwlh)’. Mek. on Ex. 15:26 nds such a principle in Ex. 15:26.113 Matthew is not requiring his readers to label other Jewish views as to what identi es the heart of the Law as wrong; but he does offer Jesus’ answer as intrinsically commending itself and perhaps operating at a level of profundity that some of the other answers on offer lacked. Far from being shown up as inadequate by his questioner, Jesus has an answer which illuminates both the primary thrust of the Law and the challenge of Jesus’ own proclamation of the kingdom. What is distinctive to Matthew’s formulation here is to have ‘the whole Law … and the Prophets’, not simply the Law, represented by the identi ed fundamental principle.114 As noted at 5:17, ‘Matthew’s own concern is to bring the Law and the Prophets into closest possible connection since in his understanding it was the prophetic perspective which enabled the Law to be correctly apprehended’; cf. 7:12, which says of the Golden Rule: ‘is is the Law and the

Prophets’. Matthew probably intends a cross link to the Sermon on the Mount, the body of which begins and ends with these references to the Law and the Prophets. A family likeness is to be discerned between the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and the present summary of the Law. 4. ‘David Calls Him Lord’ (22:41-46) 41While

the Pharisees were [still] gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 ‘What do you think about the Christ? Of whom is he son?’ ey say to him, ‘Of David’. 43He says to them, ‘Why, then, does David in [the] Spirit call him “lord,” saying, 44“[e]

Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right [hand] Until I put your enemies under your feet’”? then, Davida calls him lord, how is he his son?’ 46And nobody was able to answer him a word; nor from that bday did anyone dare any longer to ask him anything. 45If,

TEXTUAL NOTES a. εν πνευματι (‘in [the] Spirit’) is added in D K Δ 0281 f13 565 1424 etc. it vgmss syh** mae bopt. is increases the parallelism with v. 43 and is accepted as original by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:253 n. 21. It is more likely to be a scribal addition. b. ωρας (‘hour’) in D W f1 etc. a q sys, c boms. Bibliography

Breytenbach, C., ‘Das Markusevangelium, Psalm 110,1 und 118,22f.: Folgetext und Prätext’, in Scriptures, ed. C. Tuckett, 197-222. • Callan, T., ‘Ps 110,1 and the Origin of the Expectation at Jesus Will Come Again’, CBQ 44 (1982), 622-35. • Chilton, B. D., ‘Jesus ben David: Re ections on the Davidssohnfrage’, JSNT 14 (1982), 88-112. • Fuchs, A., ‘Mehr als Davids Sohn: Mk 12,35-37a par Mt 22,41-46 par Lk 20,41-44’, SNTU 26 (2001), 11128. • Hengel, M., ‘Setze dich zu meiner Rechten!’ Die Inthronisation Christi zur Rechten Gottes und Psalm 110,1’, in Le Trône de Dieu, ed. M. Philonenko (WUNT 69. Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 108-94. • Huber, K., Auseinandersetzung, 332-427. • Marcus, J., Way, 130-52. • Mudíso Mbâ Mundla, J.-G., Jesus, 234-98. • Repschinski, B., Controversy, 225-33.

Aer three questions asked of Jesus, we have at the end of the section a question posed by Jesus. e same inadequacy of imagination that crippled the Sadducees’ understanding of resurrection in 22:23-28 also limits the Pharisees’ understanding of the signi cance and role of the Christ. In both cases careful attention to Scripture points the way forward. Jesus’ message has rung true, but the result here is not response to his call to come to the wedding banquet, but instead withdrawal from engagement with him. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with material parallelled in Mk. 12:35-37. e most notable change in Matthew is that Jesus’ articulation of the view of the scribes in Mark becomes in Matthew a view expressed by the Pharisees when questioned by Jesus. e end part of Mk. 12:34, which was not used in Mt. 22:41, provides the basis for Mt. 22:46. ere is no scholarly consensus about whether the material here can be traced to the historical Jesus. But a good part of the difficulty comes from reading too much into the present account on the basis of other NT citations and allusions to Ps. 110(LXX 109):1. at the mode of argumentation from Scripture aligns with rabbinic patterns has been viewed negatively, but the use of Scripture in relation to the double love command is somewhat similar.115 ere is no doubt that Christian use of Ps. 110:1 in relation to

Jesus began very early.116 Beyond the parallels to Mt. 22:41-46, Ps. 110:1 is likely to have in uenced Mt. 26:64; Mk. 14:62; Lk. 22:69; Acts 2:33, 34-35; 5:31; 7:55-56; Rom. 8:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12-13; 12:2; 1 Pet. 3:22.

22:41-42 Matthew almost entirely recasts the Markan text, but with the retention of many of the key words. Mark signals a connection with what precedes with his opening καὶ ἀποκριθείς (lit. ‘and have answered’); Matthew retains the connection and makes it closer,117 but signals it differently by using συνηγμένων δὲ τῶν Φαρισαίων (lit. ‘and the Pharisees have gathered together’) to echo the language of v. 34. In Mark the question is rhetorical and about an opinion of the scribes, but Matthew rewords to produce a genuine question (actually a double question) addressed to and answered by the Pharisees.118 ‘Asked them’ here corresponds to ‘asked… him’ in v. 35. For the use here of the interplay of questions cf. 21:23-27, 28-32 (structurally closest); 22:15-22. On ‘Christ’ see the comments at 16:16. Christ is the royal gure of Davidic descent through whom God would restore the fortunes of his people as long promised. So it is not surprising that the Pharisees answer ‘of David’ (Mk. 12:35 has ‘son of David’, which could point in the direction of ‘Son of David’ as a messianic title, but Matthew’s change of language moves the focus away from titles). To introduce the Pharisees’ answer, Matthew uses a historic present (‘they say’). He will follow this up with another to introduce Jesus’ subsequent comment (‘he says’). Here lies the emphasised centre of the episode. ough the Gospels preserve the material of this pericope in part to throw light on Jesus’ messiahship, the episode itself is clearly about messiahship as such and not about Jesus as messiah; there is no implicit claim here on the part of Jesus to be the messiah under discussion. At the same time other features of Jesus’ ministry and sporadic suggestions by people in Matthew’s story that he be

identi ed as the messiah (oen with ‘Son of David’ language) provide a link between the present discussion and the coming of the kingdom that Jesus had been proclaiming. In Mt. 26:64, where selfreference is clearly implied, Matthew does allude to Ps. 110:1. 22:43 In Mark Jesus continues to speak, but in Matthew he must begin to speak again aer the Pharisees’ answer: ‘they say to him’ is matched by ‘he says to them’. Matthew drops Mark’s use of πῶς (‘how’) from v. 42 but introduces it here, along with Matthew’s much favoured οὖν (‘then’). In compensation he drops Mark’s emphatic αὐτός (‘himself ’). Matthew also reduces Mark’s ἐν πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ (‘in/by the Holy Spirit’) to ἐν πνεύματι (‘in/by [the] Spirit’), but with no evident change of meaning. He does not elsewhere link the Holy Spirit with the production of the wording of Scripture.119 Perhaps he is making a connection with Jesus’ own empowering by the Spirit (see 12:28; cf. 10:20). ‘Calls him Lord’ is a Matthean addition anticipating language from Mk. 12:37, to be used again by Matthew in 22:45. καλεῖ replaces Mark’s λέγει (lit. ‘says’) for ‘calls’;120 Matthew allows only passive uses of λέγειν to have this sense.121 at David as the putative father (ancestor) should be ‘available for comment’ is particularly apt given the cultural importance of a father’s acknowledgment of paternity. e attribution of the coming quotation to David depends on the traditional heading of the Psalm: ‘a psalm of David’ (ldwd mzmwr/τῷ Δαυιδ ψαλμός). Seventy-three of the OT psalms are so identi ed. And though ldwd may originally have meant something other or more general than ‘of/by David’, that is how the words were understood in Jesus’ time.122 Jesus’ words involve a con dence that his hearers will take it for granted, as he does, that Ps. 110 has the Christ in view. Scholars are split over whether Jews in Jesus’ day actually read Ps. 110 messianically. Later Jewish tradition certainly did,123 and the exalted

role of Melchizedek in 11QMelch suggests an eschatological understanding of Ps. 110 (see the end of v. 4). A messianic understanding of the psalm would certainly t well with the postexilic vision of an eschatological future in which the kingship of Yahweh would become universally effective, but the messianic reading would not have been thought of as excluding other readings. Despite the relatively extended quotation to come, Matthew focusses immediately on the element to be picked up from the rst line of the quotation. e lack of a de nite article with κύριος (‘lord’) need not be signi cant, but it becomes so when in the quotation the language is τῷ κυρίῳ μου (‘my lord’): we do not have here the absolute use of ‘the Lord’ that points to deity, but rather the ‘my lord’ used in speaking to or about the king. e contemporizing of David with ‘calls’ is carried through to the quotation by the use of λέγων (‘saying’) in place of Mark’s εἶπεν (‘said’). 22:44 Matthew reproduces the Markan wording for the quotation from Ps. 110 (LXX 109):1. It differs in two respects from the LXX: the de nite article is missing from the rst use of κύριος (‘Lord’ — in connection with God); and ὑποκάτω (‘under’) replaces ὑποπόδιον (‘footstool’), which is a literal translation of the MT hdm. An in uence from Ps. 8:6 is likely: the change gives ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ (‘under his feet’) in common, suggesting some sort of Adamic christology (the Christ ful ls the human destiny). But no such role is evident in Matthew. What is signalled by ‘David calls him lord’ is given speci c content in terms of the privileged role which the psalm indicates is intended for this gure. However, the quoted language gains little precision of meaning within the Matthean frame. e imagery is clear, but its application is less so. Vindication and triumph in the face of enemies are certainly involved. As applied to Jesus, his

session at the right hand of God can ll the gap between resurrection appearances and eschatological coming; the judgment on Jerusalem and the temple in chap. 24 could be linked with putting his enemies under his feet. Matthew clearly accepts ‘Son of David’ as a messianic title (see at 9:27); Mark has it used in a single episode, Matthew in six episodes.124 Matthew also asserts Davidic descent for Jesus.125 So what is being questioned? Scholars oen claim an original denial of either Davidic descent for the messiah or Davidic messianology as a whole. But since the Gospel writers can use the material without embarrassment, this seems unlikely. Given the focus on ‘David calls him lord’, the emphasis seems to fall on a bigger and more exalted messianic vision. What is being questioned is a restricted view of the messianic programme that went along with seeing the messiah as one whose action would follow the paradigm of the establishment of the early united kingdom of Israel, under David and Solomon. e messiah would be greater, and his messianic programme would transcend such limitations. 22:45 οὖν (‘then’) is repeated from v. 43. Again αὐτός (‘himself ’) is dropped before Δαυίδ (‘David’). Matthew makes Mark’s assertion into an ‘if ’ clause, drops a linking καί (lit. ‘and’, but here ‘so’), and replaces πόθεν, which could mean ‘in what way’, but probably means here ‘how’, with πῶς (‘how’) as used in v. 43. As discussed at v. 43, καλεῖ replaces λέγει for ‘calls’. is is a more elaborate statement of the point already made in v. 43. 22:46 Matthew continues his transformation of the Markan piece into a genuine dialogue with his comment here that no one was able to answer. e Markan question had been only rhetorical. Whereas the failure to answer in 21:27 had been self-protective, here it is because his hearers nd Jesus’ case unanswerable. Since an outcome is marked (vv. 22, 33, 46) for three of the four question-

and-answer scenes and the scene lacking an outcome includes interaction with the same gathered Pharisees as this nal scene, v. 46 may be intended to mark the outcome of the double scene. e nal clause of v. 46 is the transition noted in Mk. 12:34126 but moved from the Markan position between questions asked of Jesus and initiative taken by Jesus to its present position, where it marks the end of all interaction with Jewish leadership groups.127 When Jesus is under arrest there will be some renewal of questioning, but only in a judicial context with a view to establishing guilt. Matthew’s addition of ἀπ᾿ ἐκείνης ἡμέρας (‘from that day’) strengthens the sense that an important watershed is being crossed.128 ere is an echo of Mt. 22:23 (‘on that day’) by means of which Matthew in yet another way binds the set of four question episodes. In reporting the abandonment of interaction, Matthew already has in mind developments leading towards the Passion.

1. e verbal overlaps are striking: βασιλεία (‘kingdom’) in 21:43; 22:1; υἱόν/υἱῷ (‘son’) in 21:37, 38; 22:2; ἀπέστειλεν τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ (‘he sent his slaves’) in 21:34; 22:3; πάλιν ἀπέστειλεν ἄλλους δούλους (‘again he sent other slaves’) in 21:36; 22:4; δεῦτε (‘come’) in 21:38; 22:4; ὃν μὲν … ὃν δέ/ὃς μὲν … ὃς δέ (‘one … one’) in 21:35; 22:5; λαβόντες … τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ … ἀπέκτειναν/κρατήσαντες τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ … ἀπέκτειναν (‘having seized … the slaves … killed/having seized the slaves they killed’) in 21:35; 22:6; κρατῆσαι/κρατήσαντες (‘seize’/‘having seized’) in 21:46; 22:6; ἀπολέσει/ἀπώλεσεν (‘will destroy/destroyed’) in 21:41; 22:7. 2. Crossan, Other Gospels, 51. 3. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:754; and for the view that Luke drew his version of the parable from a distinctive parables source see pp. 530-31. 4. Bauckham, ‘Matt 22:1-14’, 471-88 (quotation from p. 480).

5. On the relationship of b. Šab. 153a to Mt. 22:1-14 see also Neusner, ‘Contexts’, 64-87. 6. Mt. 25:34, 40 identify the Son of Man as a king, but there is no parable here despite the comparison with a shepherd separating sheep and goats. 7. γάμους is the plural for ‘wedding’ but is widely attested with the sense ‘wedding celebration’. See BDAG, 188. 8. ἐποίησεν (lit. ‘did/made’) is clearly causative; it is translated ‘made arrangements for’ above. 9. Cf. Bauckham, ‘Matt 22:1-14’, 483: ‘is motif [a king invites guests to his son’s wedding feast] is the neglected key to the parable’s narrative integrity’. 10. ough the two parables are clearly variants of a common story, only eighteen words are common to the two tellings, and most of these are in different forms. Ignoring repeats, in common are βασιλεία (‘kingdom’), ἄνθρωπος (‘person/man’), ποιεῖν (lit. ‘do/make’), καλεῖν (‘call’), ἀποστέλλειν (‘send’), δοῦλος (‘slave’) with αῦτοῦ (‘his’), ἔρχεσθαι (‘come’), ἕτοιμος (‘ready’), ἀγρός (‘ eld’), ὀργίζεσθαι (‘to be angry’), ἐκείνος (‘that’), πόλις (‘city’), τότε (‘then’), ἐξέρχεσθαι (‘go out’), εἰς τὰς ὁδούς (‘into the streets’). 11. For the custom see Est. 5:8, cf. 6:14; La. Rab. 4:2; Philo, Op. mundi 78; Terence, Heaut. 169-70; Apul., Met. 3.12. 12. In line with the expanded scale of the Matthean celebration, ‘his slaves’ are sent rather than ‘his slave’ as in Lk. 14:17. 13. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:199, aptly compare the refusal of the previously invited guests to come to the behaviour of the disobedient son in Mt. 21:30. 14. Bauckham, ‘Matt 22:1-14’, 482-83, makes an important distinction between ‘lack of verisimilitude’ and ‘lack of narrative integrity’. For all the guests to refuse to come lacks verisimilitude, but narrative integrity is maintained; at this point the story is not bent out of shape as a story by an allegorical intention. 15. ere is no second set in Lk. 14:15-24, though there will be two sendings for the replacement guests. 16. οἱ δέ looks at rst like a change of subject marker, with ἀμελήσαντες functioning as an adverbial participle (‘disregarding [the request], they went

away’). But this leaves no room for ‘the rest’ who do not go away, but abuse and kill the messengers. e alternative is to have οἱ function with ἀμελήσαντες as ‘those [for whom the request] was a matter of no concern’. A use of a μὲν … δέ (‘some … others’/‘one … another’) construction would have made this clear, but a μὲν … δέ construction is being used for the distinction between the one who goes to his eld and the one who goes to his business. 17. In Lk. 14:18-20 (as in Gos. om. 64) a series of excuses are offered instead; among them is that of having just bought a eld which must be inspected. 18. ere is nothing corresponding to this maltreatment of the slaves in Lk. 14:15-24. 19. See Jos., Ant. 9.263-67 (esp. 265). 20. We could imagine the command being given and its execution running in parallel with the developments of Mt. 22:8-13. 21. e rage is found in Lk. 14:21, but there is no action against the guests who refuse to come. 22. See 2 Ki. 25:9; 2 Ch. 36:19; Bar. 1:2. Rengstorf, ‘Stadt’, 106-29, argues that a literary topos is used involving the sending of soldiers, the killing of inhabitants, and the burning of their city. is is certainly possible. See Jos. 6:21-24; Jdg. 1:8; 18:27; 20:48; 1 Macc. 5:28, 35. 23. Nothing matches this verse in Lk. 14:15-24, but perhaps v. 24 is some kind of equivalent. 24. But instead of the plural γάμοι for ‘wedding banquet’ the singular is now used (the change has been marked in translation by a change to ‘wedding feast’, but there is no difference of meaning). 25. Lk. 14:15-24 envisages a much more focussed group of replacement guests: ‘the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame’ (v. 22). 26. is language has no parallel in Lk. 14:15-24. 27. E.g., Mt. 13:36-43, 48-49. 28. is is clari ed in ‫ א‬B* L 0102 892 etc. ff2 by the substitution of νυμϕων (‘wedding hall’/‘bridal chamber’).

29. It will be used again in Mt. 26:7 in the account of the anointing of Jesus and in v. 20 in the Last Supper narrative. 30. ‘Sons of the kingdom’ in Mt. 8:12 involves something similar. 31. Sim, ‘e Man’, 167-73, argues on the basis of the wider context that the improperly garbed ‘guest’ cannot (only) be one of the replacement guests of Mt. 22:9-10. 32. In the parable in b. Šab. 153a where a king summoned his guests suddenly to the banquet, ‘the wise entered adorned, while the fools entered soiled’, and the latter were excluded on the basis of attire. B. Šab. 113a requires that sabbath garments be different from weekday garments, which for those who had only one garment meant arranging their garment so that it hung lower on the sabbath (and therefore had more the length of the garb of the leisured classes). 33. e word will be used similarly in Mt. 26:50 to address Judas at the point of betrayal. 34. For binding feet and hands cf. Jn. 11:44; Acts 21:11; 1 Enoch 10:4; cf. 2 Sa. 3:34. (e NRSV of Tob. 8:3 has ‘bound him there hand and foot’, but this does not seem to correspond to any form of the Greek text.) 35. 1 Enoch 10:4 has ‘bind Azazʾel hand and foot (and) throw him into the darkness’. An echo is possible, but if there is an allusion it does not have the elaborate signi cance claimed by Sim, ‘Matthew 22.13a’, 3-19. 36. Mt. 8:12 has a passive construction for its use of ἐκβάλλειν (‘throw out’) and relates to ‘the sons of the kingdom’, not to the singular ‘him’ of 22:13. Otherwise the wording is identical. 37. Meyer, ‘Many’, 89-97. 38. 2 Esdr. 8:3 has preserved a version of this saying which may suggest that we are dealing with the utilisation of a common saying. Meyer, ‘Many’, 96, points to 8:41, where the language of ‘not all’ is introduced to support taking 2 Esdr. 8:3 as he proposes taking the Mt. 22:14 saying, but 2 Esdr. 8:2 with its comparison between ‘much clay from which earthenware is made’ and ‘little dust from which gold comes’ is much closer and counts against Meyer’s view here. 39. Daube, Rabbinic Judaism, 159-61. Daube identi es these as respectively a halakhic question, dealing with a point of law, a question of

boruth, designed to ridicule a belief held by Jesus, a question of derekh ʾereṣ, which is concerned with the fundamental principles on which to base one’s conduct, and a question of haggadha, concerned with the outworking of God’s purposes in the world. Whether the four questions belong to such a xed rabbinic scheme as Daube suggests remains less certain. 40. Crossan, Other Gospels, 77-87. 41. Petzke, ‘Historische Jesus’, 223-35. 42. Weiss, Vollmacht, 202-34. 43. Mell, ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 212-66. 44. Cited here following Weiss, Vollmacht, 216. 45. In Mt. 12:14 ἐξελθόντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι συμβούλιον ἔλαβον … ὅπως (‘the Pharisees went out and took counsel together …, so that’); in 22:15 πορευθέντος οἱ Φαρισαῖοι συμβούλιον ἔλαβον ὅπως (‘the Pharisees went and took counsel together, so that’). 46. Both words are found only here in the NT but are used in the LXX. 47. Curiously, Mt. 22:16 has αὐτῷ rather than the πρὸς αὐτόν of Mk. 12:13 for ‘to him’. Matthew does not use the dative elsewhere with ἀποστέλλειν (‘send’). 48. In the compression Mark’s second ‘to him’ is judged unnecessary and dropped. 49. In truth nothing de nite is known about the Herodians. What is proposed is based simply on what is known of the Herod family. 50. e chiasm is marked by the sequence διδάσκαλε — ἀληθής — ἀληθείᾳ — διδάσκεις (‘teacher’ — ‘true’ — ‘truth’ — ‘teach’). e parallelism is not complete, but each clause has οὐ (‘not’) + verb + preposition + object. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:213. 51. e change of position means that the linkage necessarily changes from ἀλλ᾿ (‘but’) to καί (‘and’). Matthew also prefers for ‘truthfully’ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ (more common in the rest of the NT) to Mark’s ἐπ᾿ ἀληθείας. 52. See Jdg. 2:22; 4 Kgdms. 21:22; 2 Ch. 17:6; Ho. 6:9; Je. 5:4, 5; Wis. 5:7. 53. See Gn. 19:21; Dt. 10:17; 28:50; 1 Ki. 5:1; 2 Ch. 19:7; Job 13:10; 34:19; Pr. 18:5; Is. 9:14. e LXX also renders this idiom with λαμβάνειν πρόσωπον (Lv. 19:15; Mal. 2:9), which seems to be re ected in the language of Gal. 2:6.

54. εἰπέ is clearly redactional also in Mt. 20:21; 24:3. Matthew uses τί σοι δοκεῖ or the plural with ἡμῖν also in 17:25; 18:12; 21:28; 22:42; 26:66. 55. ere had been riots and rebellion when, as a preliminary to incorporating it into the taxation structure of the empire, Quirinius had conducted a census in Judea in A.D. 6-7 (see Jos., War 2.118; Ant. 18.1-8). 56. See Je. 27; 38:17-18; Ez. 21. 57. It later came to be used to indicate the heir to the throne. 58. Otherwise Matthew prefers γνούς to Mark’s εἰδώς for ‘knowing’ and drops ‘to them’ from ‘said to them’. 59. e Pharisees and scribes are addressed as ‘hypocrites’ in Mt. 15:7. 60. ‘Brought’ (ἤνεγκαν) in Mk. 12:16 becomes ‘brought to’ (προσήνεγκαν) in Mt. 22:19. 61. Otherwise Matthew drops Mark’s use of οἱ δέ/ὁ δέ to mark a change of subject, and makes a minor change in word order. 62. Nolland, Luke, 3:959. e sense proposed by Tagawa, ‘Jésus critiquant’, 117-25, is not covered by the matrix created by this set of questions. He nds a sense which can be paraphrased, ‘You who impose the temple tax as “of God” might as well pay the Roman taxes as “of Caesar”, since both re ect the same oppressive exploitation of the people’. e other element of some views which does not become visible through the above matrix of questions is the identi cation of the temple as that which belongs to God. 63. is represents a change of mind from Nolland, Luke, 3:960. Defending and extending Giblin’s argument (‘ings of God’, 510-27), Owen-Ball (‘Rabbinic Rhetoric’, 1-14) has offered an attractive case for linking ‘image’ with Gn. 1:26 and ‘inscription’ with Ex. 13:9 (as seen above, Giblin had made the latter link with Is. 44:5; it is hard to choose between the two — since a text from the Law is available for ‘image’, it is hardly necessary to follow Owen-Ball in insisting on a text in the Law for the extra term; both texts allow for a focus on the covenant people of God). 64. e survey of Mell, ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 222-27, indicates that it is unlikely that only Roman coinage could be used for paying taxes. Nonetheless, the use of Roman coinage quickly became widespread, and at a later period its use in payment became mandatory.

65. Matthew also loses the intensi er ἐκ from Mark’s ἐξεθαύμαζον (‘they were marvelling greatly’) and changes the imperfect to an aorist. In view of the addition, to include Mark’s ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ (‘at him’) is also unnecessary. 66. But with ἐκπλήσσεσθαι rather than θαυμάζειν as in Mt. 22:22. 67. Except for preferring the form ἀπῆλθαν to Mark’s ἀπῆλθον. 68. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:963 and see the extended discussion in Schwankl, Sadduzäerfrage, 466-587, and the defence of historicity by Meier, ‘Debate’, 3-24. 69. Weiss, Vollmacht, 242. 70. Mark’s οἵτινες λέγουσιν (‘who say’) is changed to λέγοντες (lit. ‘saying’). Otherwise Matthew’s changes are: replacement of Mark’s historic present ἔρχονται πρός (‘come to’) with the aorist προσῆλθον + dat. (‘came to’); an aorist rather than Mark’s imperfect for ‘asked’; and a minor change of word order. 71. Matthew has bundled Sadducees with Pharisees in 3:7; 16:1, 6, 11, 12. Acts refers to them several times (4:1; 5:17; 23:6, 7, 8). 72. See Ez. 40:46; 43:19; Sir. 51:12 (Hebrew). 73. See Jos., War 2.162; Ant. 18.16-17; ʾAbot R. Nat. A.5. 74. Mt. 8:4; 19:7 have, ‘Moses commanded’; Mt. 19:8 has, ‘Moses permitted’. (Matthew failed to use Mark’s ‘Moses said’ from 7:10 at Mt. 15:4.) 75. Is ‘Moses said’ more suitable for the level of paraphrase that Matthew observes in comparing the language here with that of Dt. 25:5? 76. γαμβρός means ‘connection by marriage’ and then derivatively ‘sonin-law’, ‘brother-in-law’, ‘father-in-law’, and even ‘bridegroom’ or ‘suitor’. Against this background, (ἐπι)γαμβρεύειν developed two related elds of meaning: ‘become connected by marriage’ or ‘play the role of one connected by marriage’, the latter, in the context of a practice of levirate marriage, gaining the force of ‘marry as next of kin’. 77. See Dt. 25:5-10; cf. Gn. 38:8-10; Ru. 3:9–4:10. In Deuteronomy the provision is restricted to brothers who live together. Deuteronomy made provision for the brother to refuse (with shame), but in good patriarchal fashion the provision of a child who could be as much as possible like the dead man’s children takes priority over the wishes of the bereaved wife.

78. He uses τελευτᾶν and ἀποθνῄσκειν for ‘die’ with about equal frequency. 79. Matthew steals the verb from Mark’s οὐκ ἀϕῆκεν σπέρμα (lit. ‘did not leave seed’), replacing it here with μὴ ἔχων (‘not having’). Quite differently expressed, Mark’s equivalent to ‘le his wife to his brother’ comes in ‘the second took her’. 80. Str-B, 1:887, draws attention to a rabbinic text which speaks of a man who had gained twelve wives by levirate marriage due to the deaths of his twelve brothers. 81. Mk. 12:21-22 has, ‘And the second took her and died, not leaving offspring; and the third in the same way (ὡσαύτως); and the seven did not leave seed’. 82. Matthew uses ὕστερον seven times to none in Mark and a single use in Luke. Matthew has made the same change in 21:37. 83. ὅταν ἀναστῶσιν is missing from Mk. 12:23 in ‫ א‬B C D L W Δ Ψ 33 579 892 2427 etc. c r1 k syp co. 84. With and without the δέ the phrase is frequent in Matthew, most recently at 22:1. 85. Otherwise Matthew moves εἰσιν (‘are’) from the beginning to the end of its clause and uses the singular rather than the plural for ‘heaven’ (Matthew at times uses the forms interchangeably). 86. B. Ber. 17a asserts the absence of propagation in the world to come. 87. All text forms anticipate resurrection, but the MT has yqyṣw, which is literally ‘they will awake’. eod. has ἐξεγερθήσονται (‘they will be raised’), and the LXX has ἀναστήσονται (‘they will rise’). All text forms include a comparison with shining heavenly entities, but only in the LXX are these ‘of heaven’. e MT and eod. have ‘of the rmament’. e comparison is in no case with angels. All text forms also include a comparison with ‘stars’. e MT and eod. include a comparison with ‘the brightness of the rmament’ as well, whereas the LXX makes the comparison with ϕωστῆρες, which could mean ‘brightness’ in the singular, but means ‘lights’ or ‘stars’ in the plural. 88. Job 38:7 sets ‘the morning stars’ in parallel with ‘the sons of God’. In the LXX ‘the sons of God’ becomes ‘all my angels’, but the parallelism is

broken to give ‘when the stars came to be, all my angels praised me with a great voice’. In 1 Enoch 86:3 (cf. 90:21) the ‘sons of God’ of Gn. 6:2 become ‘many stars’. In 1 Enoch 104:2, ‘You shall shine like the lights of heaven’ seems to echo Dn. 12:3; and v. 4, ‘You are about to be making a great rejoicing like the angels of heaven’ is added to this. 2 Bar. 51:10 brings ‘angels’ and ‘stars’ together in ‘ey will live in the heights of that world, and they will be like the angels and equal to the stars’ (an echo of Dn. 12:2-3 is likely). ough the language is difficult, in 1 Enoch 43 the stars of heaven are probably what the holy are destined to become. Texts like Jdg. 5:20 are probably to be understood in a more poetic manner. 89. 2 Bar. 51:5 has ‘changed … into the splendor of angels’ (cf. v. 10, quoted in the note above); Philo, Sacr. 1:5, describes Abraham, who has overcome death, as ‘equal to the angels’; Test. Isaac 4:45-47 speaks of people who ‘will be removed from this world’ and ‘will be engaged in holy, angelic service’, and ‘the angels will be their friends’. Part of the blessing in 1QSb (1Q28b) 4:24-26 is, ‘You shall be like an angel of the Face’ … ‘sharing the lot with the angels of the Face’. 90. e words (translated) are those of Mell, ‘Anderen’ Winzer, 301. 91. e MT of Ex. 3:6 lacks the verb. 92. Philo, Abr. 50–55, re ecting on the same text (or one of the related texts), is impressed with how God ‘integrally joins his name’ (51) with theirs, and even justi es his allegorical interpretation of the names as virtues on the basis of the perishable nature of man (thus nding the same thrust in the verse as Jesus, but taking the argument in a quite different direction). Cf. Downing, ‘Resurrection’, 42-50. For rabbinic attempts to deduce resurrection of the dead from the Law of Moses see b. Sanh. 90b, 91b. 93. Nolland, Luke, 3:967. 94. Compared to the nal clause of Mk. 11:18, Matthew supplies the opening καὶ ἀκούσαντες (lit. ‘and hearing’) and substitutes plural for singular forms for the subject and verb. Mk. 12:37b may also be in Matthew’s mind. 95. Weiss, Vollmacht, 261-63. 96. In Nolland, Luke, 2:580-82.

97. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:238. 98. Matthew drops ‘them disputing with one another and seeing’ of Mk. 12:28. 99. He can borrow it from the reference in Mk. 12:28 to the scribe as ἀκούσας (lit. ‘having heard’). 100. ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό accentuates the force of the συν (‘together’) pre xed to the verb. It could be translated ‘in one place’. 101. Matthew uses γραμματεύς twenty-two times, beginning with 2:4. 102. Since νομικός is missing from a few texts (see ‘Textual Notes’ above), its originality is sometimes disputed. 103. Lk. 10:25 has the stronger form ἐκπειράζων. 104. Matthew keeps Mark’s use of ποία (lit. ‘of what kind’) for τίς (‘which’). 105. Mk. 12:29 has ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘Jesus answered’); Mt. 22:37 has ὁ δὲ ἔϕη αὐτῷ (‘he said to him’); Lk. 10:26 has ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτῷ (‘he said to him’). 106. Lk. 10:27 has ἐξ ὅλης τῆς for the rst and ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ for the rest. 107. e LXX of Dt. 6:5 has δύναμις (‘power/strength/ability/etc.’); the MT has mʾd (‘power/might’). 108. But cf. Mt. 6:24; Mk. 7:6; Lk. 7:42, 47. 109. Nolland, Luke, 2:584. 110. Dt. 7:9; 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3; 19:9; 30:6, 16, 20. 111. Nolland, Luke, 2:584. 112. To the direct language of love must be added at least the language of compassion and mercy. In Matthew see Mt. 5:7; 9:13, 27, 36; 12:7; 14:14; 15:22, 32; 18:27, 33; 20:30-31, 34; 23:23. 113. Cited following Str-B, 1:908. 114. e Law retains its primacy: the singular verb agrees with ὅλος ὁ νόμος (‘all the Law’) as subject, emphasised by being placed rst, with καὶ οἱ προϕῆται (‘and the prophets’) appended aer the verb. 115. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:790-92. 116. See, e.g., Hengel, ‘Setze dich’, 119-43, 185-94.

117. In Mk. 12:35 the change to a general audience (cf. v. 37) and ‘while he was teaching in the temple’ qualify the closeness of connection with the preceding episode. 118. τί ὑμῖν δοκεῖ (‘What do you think?’) is notably Matthean. Cf. Mt. 17:25; 18:12; 21:28; 22:17; 26:66 (see discussion at 17:25; 22:17). e change from ‘scribes’ to ‘Pharisees’ is in some way connected with Matthew’s dropping of the following pericope in Mark, 12:38-40, with its ‘beware of the scribes’. Including the change in Mt. 22:35 from Mark’s ‘scribe’ to ‘lawyer’, Matthew deletes all the references to scribes in Mk. 12. 119. For David, the thought, but not the language except for ‘[the] Spirit’, is parallelled in 2 Sa. 23:2. 120. Cf. Mt. 1:21, 23, 24; 2:23; 5:9; 21:13; 23:7, 8, 9, 10; 27:8. 121. See Mt. 1:16; 2:23; 9:9; 13:55; 26:3, 14, 36; 27:16, 17, 22, 33. 122. 11QPsa 27:2-11 attributes to David several thousand psalms and cultic songs. 123. See Gn. Rab. 85:9; Nu. Rab. 18:23; Midr. Pss. 110:4. 124. See Mk. 10:47, 48; Mt. 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30, 31; 21:9, 15. 125. See Mt. 1:1, 6-16, 17, 20. 126. καὶ οὐδείς (‘and no one’), which begins the Markan clause (12:34), has been borrowed for the previous clause, so οὐδέ…τις (‘neither … anyone’) takes its place. For the verb ‘dared’, Matthew as oen replaces an imperfect with an aorist. 127. Given that it is Jesus who has asked the question in Mt. 22:41-45, ‘dared to question’ betrays its Markan origin by its lack of a perfect t. 128. In various constructions Matthew has a number of uses of ἐκεῖνη ἡμέρα (‘that day’). See 3:1; 7:22; 13:1; 22:23; 24:19, 22, 29, 36, 38; 26:29.

XIX. JESUS CRITICISES THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES (23:1-39) A. Scribes and Pharisees: Custodians of the Law, but Bad Examples (23:1-12) 1en

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, 2saying, ‘e scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3aDo and keep,a therefore, whatever they tell you [to]. But do not do [what is] in accord with their deeds. For they say, but do not do. bind up bheavy burdens and place them on the shoulders of the people, but they themselves are not willing to move them with a finger. 5ey do all their deeds to be seen by people. For they make their tepillin broad and their tassels long. 6ey love the first place at dinners, and the prime seats in the synagogues, 7and greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by people, “Rabbi”.c 8‘You are not to be called, “Rabbi”. For [you have] one [who] is your dteacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. 9And do not call [any] eamong you[rselves]e on the earth, “Father”. For the father of [each one] of you is one, fthe heavenly one.f 10Neither are you to be called “personal tutors” gbecause [the] personal tutor of [each] of you is one,g the Christ. 11‘e one who is greatest among you will be a servant to you. 12Whoever exalts him- or herself will be humbled, and whoever humbles him- or herself will be exalted.’ 4‘ey

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. e use of the two verbs here has been found awkward. Only the rst is found in ‫( *א‬Γ) etc. sys?, and only the second in Φ etc. e order of the verbs is inverted in W 0107 0138 f13 etc. lat syp, h. In syc the verbs have become ακουετε (‘hear’) and ποιειτε (‘do’). b. ‫ א‬adds μεγαλα (‘great’). B D(*) W Θ 0107 0138 f13 etc. lat sy sa (mae) merge with the reading of Lk. 11:46 by adding και δυσβαστακτα (‘and hard to carry’); 700 1010 etc. have only δυσβαστακτα (‘hard to carry’). c. ‘Rabbi’ is doubled in D W 0107 f13 etc. sys, c, h. d. καθηγητης (‘personal tutor’), as in v. 10, is found in ‫*א‬, 2 D L (W) Θ 0107 0138 f1, 13 etc. e-e. υμιν rather than υμων in D Θ etc. lat sys, c, p sa bo, probably to give ‘do not call yourselves’. Neither is found in 1241 1424 etc. l, giving ‘do not say … father’. f-f. ο εν τοις ουρανοις (‘who is in heaven’) is found in (D W D Θ f1 etc.) 0133 0138 etc. syh. g-g. εις γαρ υμων εστιν ο καθηγητης (‘one of you is the personal tutor’) in ‫ א‬Δ 0107vid 0133 28 1424 etc. f q sy(p), s co. K W 0104vid 0138 565 1010 1241 have this without υμων (‘of you’). In both cases there is some variation of word order. Bibliography Becker, H.-J., Auf der Kathedra des Mose: Rabbinisch-theologisches Denken und anti-rabbinische Polemik in Matthäus 23,1-12 (ANTZ 4. Berlin: Institute Kirche und Judentum, 1990). • Boonstra, H., ‘Satire in Matthew’, CLit 29 (1980), 32-45. • Brooks, S. H., Matthew’s Community, 59-71. • Byrskog, S., Teacher. • Cohen, S. J. D., ‘Epigraphical Rabbis’, JQR 72 (1981), 1-17. • Deddo, G. W., ‘Jesus’ Paradigm for Relating Human Experience and Language about God’, EvQ 68 (1996), 15-33. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Matt. 23:810: A Midrash on Isa 54:13 and Jer. 31:33-34’, Bib 62 (1981), 372-386. • Fiedler, P., ‘Das Matthäusevangelium und “die Pharisäer”’, in Nach den Anfängen Fragen. FS G. Dautzenberg, ed. C. Mayer et al. (Giessen:

Selbstverlage des Fachbereichs Religionswissenschaen der Justus-LiebeUniversität, 1994), 199-218. • Frankemölle, H., Biblische Handlungsanweisungen: Beispiele pragmatischer Exegese (Mainz: Grünewald, 1983), 133-90. • Freyne, S., ‘Vilifying the Other and De ning the Self ’, in ‘To See Ourselves’, ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs, 117-43. • Genuyt, F., ‘Matthieu 23’, SémiotBib 89 (1998), 39-49. • Hartin, P. J., ‘e Woes against the Pharisees (Matthew 23,1-39): e Reception and Development of Q 11,39-52 within the Matthean Community’, in Quest, ed. J. M. Asgeirsson et al., 265-83. • Hoet, R., ‘Omnes autem vos fratres estis’: Étude de concept ecclésiologique des ‘frères’ selon Mt 23,8-12 (Analecta Gregoriana 232. Rome: Università Gregoriana Editrice, 1982). • Johnson, L. T., ‘e New Testament’s Anti-Jewish Slander and Conventions of Ancient Rhetoric’, JBL 108 (1989), 419-41. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 209-12. • Kosch, D., Eschatologische Tora, 61-212. • Krentz, E., ‘Community and Character: Matthew’s Vision of the Church’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 565-73. • Limbeck, M., ‘Die nichts bewegen wollen! Zum Gesetzesverständnis des Evangelisten Matthäus’, TQ 168 (1988), 299-320. • Marchadour, A., ed., Procès de Jésus, procès des Juifs? Éclairage biblique et historique (LD. Paris: Cerf, 1998). • Marquet, C., ‘Ne vous faites pas appeler “maître”: Matthieu 23,8-12’, CHR 30 (1983), 88-102. • Marshall, I. H., ‘How to Solve the Synoptic Problem: Luke 11:43 and Parallels’, in Age, ed. W. C. Weinrich, 2:313-25. • Mason, S., ‘Pharisaic Dominance before 70 CE and the Gospels’ Hypocrisy Charge (Matt 23:2-3)’, HTR 83 (1990), 363-81. • McKnight, S., ‘A Loyal Critic: Matthew’s Polemic with Judaism in eological Perspective’, in AntiSemitism and Early Christianity: Issues of Polemic and Faith, ed. C. A. Evans and D. A. Hagner (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 55-79. • Moxnes, H., e Economy of the Kingdom: Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 109-26. • Newport, K. G. C., e Sources and Sitz im Leben of Matthew 23 (JSNTSup 117. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995). • Newport, K. G. C., ‘A Note on the “Seat of Moses” (Matthew 23:2)’, AUSS 28 (1990), 53-58. • Newport, K. G. C., ‘e Pharisees in Judaism prior to A.D. 70’, AUSS 29 (1991), 127-37. • Niedner, F. A., ‘Rereading Matthew on Jerusalem and Judaism’, BTB 19 (1989), 43-47. • Patte, D., ‘Love Your Enemies’, 81-96. • Powell, M. A., ‘Do and Keep What

Moses Says (Matthew 23:2-7)’, JBL 114 (1995), 419-35. • Przybylski, B., ‘e Setting of Matthean Anti-Judaism’, in Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, Vol. 1: Paul and the Gospels, ed. P. Richardson et al. (Studies in Christianity and Judaism 2. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 1986), 181-200. • Rahmani, L. Y., ‘Stone Synagogue Chairs: eir Identi cation, Use, and Signi cance’, IEJ 40 (1990), 192-214. • Roh, T., Familia dei, 206-13. • Russell, E. A., ‘“Antisemitism” in the Gospel of Matthew’, IBS 8 (1986), 183-96. • Russell, E. A., ‘e Image of the Jew in Matthew’s Gospel’, ProcIBA 12 (1989), 37-57. • Saldarini, A. J., ‘Delegitimation of Leaders in Matthew 23’, CBQ 54 (1992), 659-80. • Schmithals, W., ‘Zur Geschichte der Spruchquelle Q und der Tradenten der Spruchüberlieferung: Das siebenfache Wehe Lk 11.37-54 par.’, NTS 45 (1999), 472-97. • Schürmann, H., ‘Die Redekomposition wider “dieses Geschlecht” und seine Führung in der Redenquelle (vgl. Mt 23,1-39 par Lk 11,37-54): Bestand — Akoluthie — Kompositionsformen’, SNTU 11 (1986), 33-81. • Stanton, G. N., ‘e Gospel of Matthew and Judaism’, BJRL 66 (1984), 264-88. • Viviano, B. T., ‘e Pharisees in Matthew 23’, BiTod 27 (1989), 338-44. • Viviano, B. T., ‘Social World and Community Leadership: e Case of Matthew 23.1-12, 34’, JSNT 39 (1990), 3-21. • Weinfeld, M., ‘e Charge of Hypocrisy in Matthew 23 and in Jewish Sources’, Immanuel 24/25 (1990), 52-58. • Weinfeld, M., ‘e Jewish Roots of Matthew’s Vitriol’, BRev 13.5 (1997), 31. • Wild, R. A., ‘e Encounter between Pharisaic and Christian Judaism: Some Early Gospel Evidence’, NovT 27 (1985), 105-24. • Winter, B. W., ‘e Messiah as Tutor: e Meaning of καθηγητής in Matthew 23:10’, TynB 42 (1991), 152-57. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 28288. • Zimmermann, A. F., Lehrer.

e new section 23:1-39 is again closely linked to the preceding one,1 giving three closely linked sections: 21:12-46; 22:1-45; 23:1-39, beginning and ending with the prospect of judgment for the temple/Jerusalem. Given that the whole section 23:1-39 is a discourse of Jesus and that towards the end (at least from v. 34) it has a thematic unity with the continuing discourse materials of chaps. 24–25, a case can be made for chaps. 23–25 as the scope of the last of the ve main discourse units of Matthew’s Gospel, which

are distinguished by the shared manner in which their termini are reported (see at 7:28).2 e close links, however, between 21:12-46, 22:1-45, and 23:1-39, as well as the frame around them provided by the prospect of judgment for the temple/Jerusalem at the beginning and the end, suggest rather that the whole of 21:12–23:39 is intended to prepare for the discourse in chaps. 24–25.3 e dominant structuring feature of chap. 23 is the seven woes, beginning in v. 13 and ending with v. 33, with vv. 32-33 also serving as a transition piece bridging to the future-oriented material of vv. 34-39. Vv. 1-12 provide the introduction for the section: Jesus’ disciples are dependent on the scribes and Pharisees for a knowledge of the Mosaic Law, but what these people do with it and how they live do not exemplify good practice. In the Markan order at this point (Mk. 12:37b-40) Jesus warns the crowds against the scribes, who like privilege and honour but devour widows’ houses. An overlap between this material and other material available to Matthew (and largely preserved also in Lk. 11:37-54) has led to the incorporation of the bulk of Mt. 23 from this other source. Speci cally, vv. 24, 6b-7a, (12), 13, 15, 23, 25-26, 27, 29-31, 34-36, and 37-39 come from this source, which also probably continued with a form of at least a part of Lk. 11:53-54. (I am following Schürmann,4 who seems to me to have offered what is in most respects the most persuasive source analysis. Schürmann identi es a set of three woes against the scribes — re ected in Mt. 23:2-4, 6b-7a, 12, 13; four woes against the Pharisees — re ected in vv. 15, 23, 2526, 27; and a block of more general material — re ected in vv. 29-31, 34-36, 37-39. Kloppenborg5 thinks that the Lukan order is more original, with only the rst two of the original woes interchanged to allow the connection with the Lukan narrative context. Catchpole6 favours the Matthean sequence, but with shutting the kingdom in rst position. And there are other proposals. Zimmermann7 has offered a detailed source-critical argument for tracing vv. 8-9 to the historical Jesus, with v. 10 added later but prior to Matthew. e argumentation is suggestive rather than decisive.

Because of the unfortunate caricature of rst-century Pharisaism to which the material has contributed, most scholars are not prepared to trace much of it to the historical Jesus. But perhaps the real problem is that what was originally formulated as address to a group of people has come to be taken as providing a description of a group of people. A passionate prophetic consciousness will catch attention and challenge in ways that involve the exaggeration of hyperbole and the imaginative presentation of what are only partial perspectives…. In the ongoing con ict between emerging church and Jewish leadership, Christians made use of these materials in a polemical context, not without some justi cation, but nevertheless with a real danger of distortion.8 Criticism of some of the Pharisees some of the time, or even of aspects of the Pharisaic movement in general is easily turned into a portrait of all the Pharisees all the time. It is also important to set the material into the cultural context of ancient conventions of polemic and not modern conventions of politeness.9 Weinfeld10 has shown that most of accusations of Mt. 23 can be parallelled in rabbinic sources. In favour of the general historicity of the materials, Mason11 has drawn attention to the combination in Mt. 23 of a general endorsement of the Pharisaic system (though I disagree with his particular understanding of vv. 2-3) with accusations of hypocrisy, and points out that this is how disaffected groups within a culture oen react. Saldarini12 has a rather similar approach, but he gives less (too little) weight to the level of endorsement and to the speci c charge of hypocrisy. Subsequently, he locates the material in the period of reconstruction aer A.D. 70, in which Matthew’s group was a bidder for in uence and power which had largely lost out to the dominant coalition.

23:1 e opening verse is Matthean, with some inspiration from Mk. 12:37b.13 e Jerusalem crowds were introduced at Mt. 21:11, and are to be understood as having been present ever since.14 Outside 21:18-22, the disciples have fallen into the background

since Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem and his need to be brought to the fore again. e juxtaposition of crowds and disciples is reminiscent of Mt. 5:1; 7:28-29, where the address is in effect to disciples and potential disciples. e second person language addressed to the scribes and Pharisees from 23:13 on suggests that their continued presence is also to be assumed here (cf. 22:34, 41). 23:2 Matthew alone has preserved the material of vv. 2-3. e imagery of sitting in the seat of Moses has not been parallelled. It is normally taken to mean to have authority to interpret for people the demands of the Mosaic Law. But this is difficult, given that the same people to whom the sitting is applied are identi ed soon aer in v. 16 (cf. 15:14) as ‘blind guides’. Powell identi es ten different approaches to dealing with this tension, but as he clearly shows, none is satisfactory.15 e only Jewish reference to ‘the seat of Moses’ in Talmudic literature seems to be Pesiq. Rab Kah. 7b, which says that King Solomon’s throne ‘resembled the seat of Moses’.16 ough it might be possible to refer ‘seat of Moses’ to a heavenly throne for Moses,17 a link to an item of furniture in some synagogues seems more likely, though such an item in its turn may be intended to represent a heavenly throne. Surviving ancient stone chairs from synagogue ruins seem to have been designed to hold scrolls of Scripture.18 It is a reasonable conjecture, but no more, that ‘the seat of Moses’ might have been applied to these stone seats. But if this is right, then there is very little likelihood that anybody ever actually sat in the seat of Moses, both because of the dishonour to the Law which would be implied19 and the presumption involved in taking the place of Moses (and more so if representation of a heavenly throne is involved). However literal the seat of Moses might have been, sitting in it can only be understood metaphorically!

So, what is the force intended by ‘sit/sat in the seat of Moses’? According to Powell, Jesus may be simply acknowledging the powerful social and religious position that [the scribes and Pharisees] occupy in a world where most people are illiterate and copies of the Torah are not plentiful. Since Jesus’ disciples do not themselves have copies of the Torah, they will be dependent on the scribes and the Pharisees to know what Moses said…. In light of such dependence, Jesus advises his disciples to heed the words that the scribes and Pharisees speak when they sit in the seat of Moses, that is, when they pass on the words of the Torah itself.

We might say that the scribes and Pharisees were walking copies of the Law. What they did with it might be suspect, but not their knowledge of it. ey could be relied on to report the Law of Moses with care and accuracy. ere remains the use of the aorist ἐκάθισεν (lit. ‘sat’) to comment on. Since in v. 3 we are clearly dealing with the present, the aorist here is normally given a constative (‘have sat’) or a gnomic (‘sit’) force, sometimes with reference to a likely source use of a Semitic stative perfect. Attempts to give a past sense to ἐκάθισεν introduce unresolvable inner tensions into the text.20 So a gnomic force is to be preferred. 23:3 e requirement of the rst part of the verse is based on (οὖν [‘then’]) the statement in v. 2. To πάντα ὅσα ἐὰν εἴπωσιν ὑμῖν (‘whatever they tell you’) may be compared the use with the Mosaic Law of ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται (‘until it has all happened’) in 5:18 (and see discussion of its sense there) and the warning in v. 19 against disregarding even ‘one of the least of these commandments [of the Law]’. To the paired verbs ‘do and keep’ (ποιήσατε καὶ τηρεῖτε) of 23:3 correspond ‘do and teach’ (ποιήσῃ καὶ διδάξῃ) in 5:19. e only other pairing of ‘do’ and ‘keep’ in Matthew comes in

19:16-17, where the rich young man asks what he must do, and he is told to keep the commandments.21 Discipleship in Matthew involves a rigorous commitment to all the requirements of the Law of Moses. Aer the positive beginning comes a sharp disjunction: the scribes and Pharisees are a reliable source of information on the Law, but are not to be looked to in other respects. eir ‘deeds’ stand in contrast to the ‘good deeds’ to which Jesus calls in 5:16. e contrast here between saying and doing echoes that warned against in 7:21. 15:3-9 explores an instance of how the Pharisees and scribes use their own tradition to bypass one of the Ten Commandments, but it is primarily to the continuing material in chap. 23 that we must look for illumination here. Matthew seems content to illuminate how the scribes and Pharisees are in the wrong in terms both of what they do and what they fail to do. He makes no effort to link these things speci cally with commandments of the Mosaic Law; if what is done fails to stand moral scrutiny, it is not the doing the Law. 23:4 It is not immediately clear whether to ‘bind up heavy burdens and place them on the shoulders of people’ is to be seen negatively: this activity could stand in parallel with the role of reporting the Law in v. 3 (‘whatever they tell you’). ere is, however, likely to be some interplay intended with 11:28-29, and this counts in favour of a more negative reading. e sabbath incidents of 12:1-13 provide examples of burdens placed by the Pharisees, but in Jesus’ view never intended by God.22 Nonetheless, the emphasis in the criticism is clearly intended to fall on the second clause. e thrust of the second clause has been taken in three different ways. (a) e very people who impose heavy burdens on others do not even begin to take the same burdens on themselves. is view is

historically not credible23 and does not even t well with the punctilious and energetic approach to the religious life mirrored in the rest of Mt. 23. (b) e scribes and Pharisees impose burdens and refuse to see that the nature of the imposed burdens should be adjusted in light of human need and circumstance.24 On this view see further the discussion at note 15. ough κινῆσαι (lit. ‘move’) can certainly be used for making changes in law or custom, the sense ‘change [the Law]’ for κινῆσαι does not commend itself in the phrase ‘κινῆσαι burdens with their nger’. (c) e scribes and Pharisees do not want to offer help to the people who are struggling to carry the loads that have been de ned for them by these very same scribes and Pharisees. is seems to be the intended sense. e imagery is probably not of helping to carry the load (contrast Gal. 6:2), but of moving the load around to produce a better weight distribution and centre of gravity. e scribes and Pharisees are accused of not being willing to li a nger to help with the t of the load.25 ere is a negative equivalence here to the well-designed yoke placed by Jesus in 11:30 Beyond the graphic imagery, it is hard to see what, concretely, the scribes and Pharisees fail to do. Perhaps the best vantage point for elucidating here comes from making a contrast with the approach of Jesus, who is ‘gentle and humble in heart’ (11:29), as taken up in 12:19-20 in terms of the gentle ways of the servant of Is. 42:1-4. e scribes and Pharisees lack the sensitivity that would make it possible to say of them, ‘A crushed reed [they] will not break, and a smouldering wick [they] will not extinguish’. 23:5 e focus moves from something that the scribes and Pharisees fail to do to what they actually do. e opening πάντα (‘all’) echoes that at the beginning of v. 3 (‘whatever’), as τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν (‘their deeds’) echoes the same phrase at the end of v. 3: here there is to be speci c attention to the deeds which are not to be

emulated, or at least to the motivation for the deeds, which makes them unsuitable for emulation. e continuing language of v. 5 echoes strongly the language of 6:1,26 which allows the descriptions of ostentatious almsgiving, prayer, and fasting in 6:2-18 to serve as illustrations for what is in view in 23:5. e explanatory clauses to follow from vv. 5b-7 are probably not intended to give instances of deeds done to be seen by others, but rather supporting evidence for such being the motivation of those who perform the deeds. e list is of kinds of attention-getting behaviour. ϕυλακτήριον (‘phylactery’) is found only here in the NT. e Greek word means literally ‘a safeguard, a means of protection’ and was used of amulets and charms worn in the ancient world. Here, however, it is almost universally taken to refer, in the plural, to tepillin, the small leather boxes which contained selected passages of Scripture (normally Ex. 13:1-10, 11-16; Dt. 6:4-9; 11:13-21), which were worn on the le hand and the forehead. is practice is based on a literal reading of Ex. 13:9, 16; Dt. 6:8. e purpose was to carry about a concrete reminder of one’s obligation to the directives of the Mosaic Law. e practice can be documented from the time of the Letter of Aristeas (159) and is probably re ected in Josephus (Ant. 4.213). Later Judaism used ‘phylacteries’ to refer to tepillin, but there are no surviving early instances of this language use beyond Mt. 23:5. Since some Jews also wore amulets,27 the question has been raised whether Mt. 23:5 might refer to amulets, but it is hard to see how enlarged amulets could be represented as a claim to special piety. Matthew’s ϕυλακτήρια are surely tepillin.28 Broad tepillin will imply that the text inside has been written not in a tiny script but in large letters. is in turn will be intended to be a claim that the content is being taken with that much greater

seriousness than by those whose tepillin are too small to contain texts written in a large script. For ‘tassels’ (κράσπεδα) see the comments at 9:20. eir role is not dissimilar from that of the tepillin. eir basis is Nu. 15:37-41: ‘When you see it, you will remember the commandments of Yahweh and do them’ (v. 39). Long tassels would represent a similar claim to that of broad tepillin. 23:6 Here Matthew probably draws on Mk. 12:38-39 with its ‘wanting … the rst places at dinners’ (θελόντων … πρωτοκλισίας ἐν τοῖς δείπνοις).29 When it is taken alone, there is no necessary religious claim in ‘loving the place of honour at dinners’, but such a place makes some kind of statement of signi cance or value. Its companion phrase, ‘and the prime seats in the synagogues’, provides a more directly religious frame. 23:7 e greetings here are not those of simple friendliness, but rather those appropriate to one who is to be especially honoured. ‘To be called by people, “Rabbi”’ makes this explicit. It may well be a Matthean elaboration designed to prepare for the insertion of the material of vv. 8-12 into Matthew’s source form here. Limited sources for the rst-century period mean that the history of the early development of the use of ‘rabbi’ as a title remains obscure. It came ultimately to be used of a guild of officially recognised teachers of the Mosaic Law and Jewish tradition. All our Gospels but Luke use ‘rabbi’ (ῥαββί) of Jesus,30 and the title is also used once of John the Baptist (Jn. 3:26). e related ‘rabbouni’ (ῥαββουνί) is also used of Jesus in Mk. 10:51; Jn. 20:16. In the NT both ‘Rabbi’ and ‘Rabbouni’ are translated into Greek with διδάσκαλε (‘teacher’),31 and Mt. 23:8 clearly treats ‘rabbi’ and ‘teacher’ as synonyms. e Gospel evidence suggests that an

honori c use of ‘rabbi’ preceded its use as an official title. Its use as an official title is rst attested from tomb inscriptions from around the end of the rst century A.D. (probably indicating its use for some decades earlier), but a Greek inscription from an ossuary on the Mount of Olives using διδάσκαλος (‘teacher’) may be earlier than 32 A.D. 70. e related ‘rabban’ is used of Gamaliel the Elder, who probably died before AD 70. It would seem, then, that Jesus’ ministry and the period of development of the Gospel materials covers the period in which use of ‘rabbi’ emerges and gradually becomes an official title.33 e usage was developing, and there were those who were eager to be included. Historically it makes better sense to think of scribes here than of Matthew’s umbrella ‘scribes and Pharisees’. 23:8 Under the rubric of ‘do not do [what is] in accord with their deeds’ (v. 2), Matthew introduces material in vv. 8-12 in which the disciple community is now directly challenged about selfpromotion and the use of titles. ere are three parallel statements, each consisting of two clauses, one directive and the other providing support for the directive (in one case this second is a double clause). While the general parallelism is close, there is a great deal of variation in speci c form.34 Christian leaders should not join the scramble to claim the newly popular title ‘rabbi’. To do so would be to obscure the unique teaching role of Jesus for the Christian community. (On Jesus as a teacher in Matthew see the discussion at 8:19.) By elevating one over another, the title ‘rabbi’ would also distort the family relationship as brothers and sisters which is to characterise the Christian community. To refuse the title ‘rabbi’ on the basis of being brothers and sisters is based on a radical Christian adaptation of a Jewish understanding of membership in the community of God’s people (cf. at 12:49).35

23:9 If Jesus is the unique teacher, then God is the unique father to whom each owes the origin of his or her life in the Christian community.36 It is this which must not be obscured by the pedestalising of any human gure as father. Matthew is probably challenging a newly emerging titular use. In rabbinic sources various important gures in rst- and secondcentury Judaism have the title ʾbbʾ (‘father’) in front of their names.37 It is likely to be this practice, rather than a wide range of other uses of ‘father’, to which the Matthean Jesus is objecting. Matthew does not have in mind addressing one’s natural father as ‘father’. He is not criticising respectful or affectionate uses of ‘father’ as an honori c for categories of older people, as found in most cultures.38 Usages like the Jewish reference to Abraham as father (e.g., Lk. 1:73), which seem to draw together ancestry and foundational signi cance for national identity and faith, come a little closer to Matthew’s concerns, but they are unlikely to have provoked his opposition. e references to ‘our father Eleazar’ in 4 Macc. 7:1, 5, 9 and to ‘our father Aaron’ in v. 11 share with the reference to Abraham the sense of historical signi cance, but without an ancestry component.39 I doubt whether this would have bothered Matthew. Where would Matthew have classi ed Elisha’s uses ‘my father, my father’ of the departing Elijah in 2 Ki. 6:21; 13:14? e question is nally whether the signi cance of the direct link of each to God as father is being obscured.40 Perhaps the active verb has been chosen for discussion of ‘rabbi’ and ‘personal tutor’ to suggest that responsibility for the situation lies primarily with a person seeking to be identi ed in these ways, but for ‘father’ a passive verb is used to suggest that responsibility in this cases falls on those addressing others.

Where appeal is made in Mt. 23:8 to the Christian development and radicalisation of the Jewish recognition of the brotherhood of the Jewish people, there may be an implicit appeal here to the Jewish confession of the oneness of God, as, for example, in Dt. 6:4; cf. Mal. 2:10. (We cannot be sure of this because the parallel language of oneness is used in Mt. 23:8 for the one teacher, who is clearly Jesus and not God.) 23:10 καθηγητής is used of a personal or private tutor.41 is is a special kind of teacher whose role is personalised and individualised for the particular student. We are probably not actually dealing with a titular use here (perhaps signalled by the move to the plural and the lack of a de nite article). A person would be a καθηγητής for one or more individual student. What is rejected has some parallel in what Paul criticises in 1 Cor. 1:12: ‘Each of you says, “I belong to Paul”, or “I belong to Apollos” …’. is kind of focus and loyalty belongs only to Christ. As in 11:2, ‘the Christ’ here is the language of Matthew’s Christian community, not that of the historical Jesus. Why does Matthew feel the need to add ‘the Christ’ here (different from the pattern of the previous two cases addressed)? Is it because of the possibility that the kind of unitary focus that Matthew is pointing to could attract itself to a Christian gures who is more foundational for the church than local Christian community members, for example, a church founder or a recognised apostle or even a Gospel writer? 23:11 Jesus has roundly criticised pursuit of status in vv. 5-7 and again in vv. 8-10. V. 11 now offers a comment on how the truly great are to behave: they are to be your servants. Instead of scrambling for recognition they are to use the resources that make them great in the service of, rather than to assert themselves over, the Christian community. ough the language echoes are signi cant, the thought is not quite the same as in Mt. 20:26, where

the concern is with aspirations to greatness. e parallel in thought in Lk. 22:26 suggests that Matthew is drawing on another source than that for Mt. 20:26. 23:12 Whereas v. 11 identi es proper behaviour for the great, v. 12 marks out a path to greatness. e same thought has already been expressed in 18:3; cf. 20:26-27, but the language is most closely parallelled in Lk. 14:11; 18:14, which indicates that Matthew is again here drawing on another source form. He sets the pursuit of greatness as God’s gi via self-humbling before God and the Christian community over against the self-aggrandisement practised by the scribes and Pharisees and against which he warns in regard to the use of titles.42 B. Seven Woes against the Scribes and Pharisees (23:13-33) 13‘Woe

to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven in the face of people. For you do not go in yourselves, and you do not allow those who are on their way in to go in.a 15‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you cover sea and land to make one proselyte, and when it happens, you make them full twice as much a child of Gehenna as yourselves. 16‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary — it is nothing. But whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound.” 17Foolish and blind [ones]! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that sanctifies the gold? 18‘And who say, “Whoever swears by the altar — it is nothing. But whoever swears by the gi on the altar is bound.” 19bBlind [ones]! For which is greater, the gi or the altar that sanctifies the gi? 20‘e one, then, who swears by the altar swears by it and by all that is on it; 21and the one who swears by the sanctuary swears by it and by the one who

cinhabits

it; 22and the one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and the one who sits on it. 23‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you tithe mint, dill, and cummin and have abandoned the weightier matters of the Law, justice and mercy and faith. You ought to have done these (and not abandoned the others). 24Blind guides, dstraining out a gnat but swallowing a camel! 25‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of rapacity and eselfindulgence. 26Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cupf so that the outside gof itg might [also] be clean. 27‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you are like whitewashed tombs, hwhich on the outside seem beautiful, but inside they are fullh of bones of the dead and all [kinds of] uncleanness. 28So you also on the outside seem to people [to be] righteous, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the grave monuments of the righteous, 30and say, “If we were [alive] in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in [the shedding of the] blood of the prophets”. 31So you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32You, then, ilive up toi your fathers’ measure! 33Snakes, offspring of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna?’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. ουαι δε υμιν, γραμματεις και Φαρισαιοι υποκριται, οτι κατεσθιετε τας οικιας των χηρων και προϕασει μακρα προσευχομενοι· δια τουτο λημψεσθε περισσοτερον κριμα (‘Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance pray at length; because of this you will receive a greater judgment’) is added by f13 etc. it vgcl syc bopt. It is located aer v. 12 by W Δ 0102 0107 0133 0138 etc. f syp, h bomss. It is based on Mk. 12:40; Lk. 11:47.

b. B C W 0133 0138 f13 etc. c f syp, h co add μωροι και (‘foolish and’) to conform to v. 17. c. e participle is aorist rather than present in C D K L W Z Γ Δ 0102 0133 0138 (33) 565 700 892 1010 1241 etc., perhaps to suggest that God’s residence in the temple is a thing of the past. d. A de nite article is present in most texts here (so: ‘who strain out…’), but not in ‫א‬1 B D* L samss, which I have followed. e. e more general term αδικιας (‘wrongdoing’) is found in C K Γ 28 700 etc. f syp. W (syh) combine the two readings, perhaps treating ακρασιας adjectivally (so: ‘self-indulgent wrongdoing’). Σ lat sys co have ακαθαρσιας (‘uncleanness’), probably in uenced by the language of v. 27 into a misreading. M etc. have πλεονεξιας (‘greed’). f. και της παροψιδος (‘and the dish’) is added in ‫ א‬B C L W 0133 0138 f13 etc. lat syp, h co to conform to v. 25. g-g. Missing from X etc. lat mae. αυτων (‘of them’) is found in ‫ א‬B2 C L W 0133 0138 etc. syp, h to match the reading of the note above. h-h. D (mae) have εξωθεν ο ταϕος ϕαινεται ωραιος, εσωθεν δε γεμει (‘outside the tomb seems beautiful, but inside it is full’). i-i. πληρωσατε (lit. ‘ful l’). B* etc. e sams have the present imperative. D etc. have πληρωσατε (lit. ‘you ful lled’). Bibliography Bird, M. F., ‘e Case of the Proselytizing Pharisees? — Matthew 23.15’, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 2.2 (2004), 117-37. • Booth, R. P., Jesus and the Purity Laws: Tradition History and Legal History in Mark 7 (JSNTSup 13. Sheffield: JSOT, 1986). • Brandt, W., ‘Jüdische Reinheitslehre und ihre Beschreibung in den Evangelien’, ZAW 19 (1910), 1-62. • Casey, M., Aramaic Approach, 64-104. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘Temple Traditions in Q’, in Templum Amicitiae, ed. W. Horbury (JSNTSup 48. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991), 305-29. • Chilton, B., ‘Forgiving at and Swearing by the Temple’, Forum 7.1-2 (1991), 45-50. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 29-36, 171-

74. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Receptacles and Tombs (Mt 23,24-30)’, ZNW 77 (1986), 256-66. • Gench, F. T., Wisdom, 35-90. • Goodman, M., ‘Jewish Proselytizing in the First Century’, in e Jews among Pagans and Christians, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (London: Routledge, 1992), 53-78. • Hultgren, A. J., ‘Jesus and Gnosis: e Saying on Hindering Others in Luke 11.52 and Its Parallels’, Forum 7.3-4 (1991), 165-82. • Kloppenborg, J. S., Formation of Q, 139-47. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 133-40. • LaGrand, J., ‘All Nations’, 145-56. • Maccoby, H., ‘e Washing of Cups’, JNTS 14 (1982), 315. • Maccoby, H., ‘e Law about Liquids: A Rejoinder’, JSNT 67 (1997), 115-22. • McKnight, S., A Light among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). • Miller, R. J., ‘e Rejection of the Prophets in Q’, JBL 107 (1988), 225-40. • Miller, R. J., ‘e Inside Is (Not) the Outside; Q 11:39-41 and Gom 89.’ Forum 5.1 (1989), 92-105. • Poirier, J. C., ‘A Reply to Hyam Maccoby’, JSNT 76 (1999), 115-18. • Schlosser, J., ‘Des choses sacrées au Dieu vivant (Mt 23,16-22)’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 285-98. • Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich, 129-33. • Schwartz, D. R., ‘Viewing the Holy Utensils (P. Ox. V,840)’, NTS 32 (1986), 153-59. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Reinige … das Innere des Bechers”? (Matthäus 23,26)’, BibNot 75 (1994), 31-34. • Schwarz, G., ‘“Gebt … den Inhalt als Almosen”? (Lukas 11,40.41)’, BibNot 75 (1994), 26-30. • Uro, R., ‘Washing the Outside of the Cup: Gos. om. 89 and the Synoptic Parallels’, in Quest, ed. J. M. Asgeirsson et al., 303-22. • Vaage, L. E., ‘Q and Cynicism: On Comparison and Social Identity’, in Gospel Behind, ed. R. A. Piper, 199229. • Vaage, L. E., ‘e Woes in Q (and Matthew and Luke): Deciphering the Rhetoric of Criticism’, SBLSP 27 (1988), 582-607. • Will, E. and Orrieux, C., ‘Prosélytisme juif ’? Histoire d’une erreur (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1992). See further at 23:1-12.

Where the introductory piece spoke to the crowds and the disciples about the scribes and Pharisees, the present section (for the bene t of the crowds and the disciples) speaks to the scribes and Pharisees. Matthew has a set of seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees. ey appear to be organised into an opening set of two (keeping people out of what is good and drawing them into what is bad), a

middle set of three (oaths, tithing, and washing of cups) and a nal set of two (dealing with tombs).43 In a manner parallelled in 5:48, 23:(32-)33 provide both a conclusion for the nal woe and a conclusion for the whole set. But 23:(32-)33 also acts as a transition piece bridging, as already indicated, to the future-oriented material of vv. 34-39. On the origin of these woes see the comments at Mt. 23:1-12.

23:13 e Matthean Jesus has pronounced woes against unresponsive towns in 11:21 (on woes see there) and on the world in 18:7 as providing causes of stumbling; he will yet do so against the betrayer in 26:24 and in a rather more sympathetic tone in 24:19 against pregnant and nursing mothers caught up in the fearful developments anticipated in chap. 24. As already indicated, the woe is designed to makes a powerful but imprecise statement about the unhappy situation in which some category of persons nds itself (whether they know it or not). In each of the present set of woes except the third (v. 16) those criticised are introduced as ‘scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites’. On the Pharisees generally see the discussion at 5:20. Beyond the links noted at 23:1-12 between chap. 23 and chap. 6, ‘hypocrites’ now provides a further link, occurring in 6:2, 5, and 16 (see at v. 2 for the meaning of ‘hypocrite’). e Pharisees and scribes have already been identi ed as hypocrites in 15:7, and the Pharisees again in 22:18.44 e second person address to ‘scribes and Pharisees’ is probably not addressed to those who are absent (as in 11:21), but an indication that Matthew imagines the scribes and Pharisees as still present (see at 23:1). As in Mt. 16:19, Jesus images the kingdom of heaven as a city which is entered through a gate.45 Just as ‘the keys (κλεῖδας) of the kingdom’ there stands for ‘the keys to the gate through which people may enter into the kingdom’, ‘shut (κλείετε) the kingdom’

here stands for ‘shut the gate through which people may enter into the kingdom’.46 ἔμπροσθεν is lit. ‘before/in front of ’, but here it seems to mean ‘right in front of ’, ‘in the face of ’.47 Elsewhere in Matthew the language of entering the kingdom relates to the kingdom as future (for general discussion of the kingdom see at 4:17),48 but here the orientation is to the present. Matthew’s rst reference to entering the kingdom also involved mention of the scribes and Pharisees (5:17) and also implicitly had them excluded from the kingdom. e critical attitude of the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus’ ministry is summarised in a double way: ‘you do not go in yourselves’; and ‘you do not allow those who are on their way in (τοὺς εἰσερχομένους) to go in (εἰσελθεῖν)’.49 Only the former of these two aspects is clearly visible in Matthew’s story, but the latter may be implied from the combined effect of the assumed strong public in uence of the scribes and Pharisees and their critical stance against and efforts to destroy Jesus. Matthew is likely to see all this in the light of the opposition of the scribes and Pharisees in his own day to Christian mission. 23:14 is verse is poorly attested and is almost certainly a secondary insertion from Mk. 12:40 or Lk. 20:47. See ‘Textual Note’ above. 23:15 e introductory ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because’ for the second woe is repeated exactly from v. 13. προσήλυτος (‘proselyte’) is the LXX translation of the OT gr for the resident alien in Israel. Since the resident alien was expected to live in accord with the Mosaic Law, the term came to mean ‘convert to Judaism’, which for males would include having themselves circumcised.50 Various other terms were in use for those who were drawn to Judaism and had to some degree taken on a Jewish faith, but without fully identifying with the Jewish community.51 ough

the literature oen claims active Jewish efforts on an extensive scale to convert Gentiles,52 there is precious little evidence for such activity.53 It is far more likely that proselytes, drawn by the ethical standards, the meticulous regulation of life, and the loy view of God in Judaism, largely converted themselves and had then to nd their place in the Jewish community against a background of theoretical acceptance as on a par with those born Jews, but widespread scepticism about the reality of the faith of the convert and of the capacity of a Gentile convert to live an authentic Jewish life. If this is right, then, what of Mt. 23:15? e choice seems to be between taking the reference here as being to a well-known particular instance of Pharisaic proselytising54 and taking ‘proselyte’ here as metaphorical and relating it to Pharisaic efforts to draw other Jews into the Pharisaic movement.55 e dramatic language of ‘cross sea and land’ is probably best accounted for by reference to a speci c event that had gained some notoriety. e same may be true for ‘full twice as much (διπλότερον56) a child of Gehenna’. Apart from the speci cs of some case, it is hard to see how Pharisaic converts could be thought of as being (automatically) twice as much children of Gehenna as their mentors. Matthew is quite fond of ‘Gehenna’ language.57 ‘Sons of Gehenna’ runs parallel to ‘sons of the kingdom’ and ‘sons of evil’ in 13:38 (see there). 23:16 e third woe in vv. 16-22 is only modestly conformed (with ‘woe to you’) to the woe pattern evident in the preceding woes and those yet to come. Matthew will smooth the difference slightly by adding ‘blind guides’ in an extra sentence at the end of the following woe, and he will have ‘blind Pharisee’ in an extra clause in

the woe aer that. is seems to make woes three to ve into a kind of a subset of the seven woes. is third woe is missing from the Lukan set. Matthew seems to have added material here that he received in a non-woe form, and decided that it did not lend itself to full adaptation to the pattern he had otherwise used.58 In 15:14 Matthew edited into his Markan material a reference to Jesus’ Pharisaic opponents as ‘blind guides’ (see discussion of the image at 15:14). is makes for a cross link now between the critical materials of chaps. 23 and 15, and perhaps more precisely between the discussion of oaths here and in 15:4-6 (see further below). In 23:16 ‘blind leaders’ is a mode of address, in v. 17 the address will be ‘foolish and blind [ones]’, in v. 19 it will become ‘blind [ones]’. e three occasions of address partly mark the sectioning of this woe, but less so as the woe progresses. e discussion here is at rst a surprise aer Mt. 5:33-37, with its ‘You are not to swear [an oath] at all’. But in both cases part of the concern is to assert the need to take full personal responsibility for one’s own word (whether supported by an oath or not). Whereas the discussion in Mt. 5 is about whether one should (voluntarily) make oaths, the discussion in Mt. 23 is about the binding nature of oaths once they have been taken. Wherein lies the initial credibility of the view opposed here? In a context in which oaths of all sorts had become part of daily life and in which there had been a huge proliferation of oath forms, there can be no doubt that for many it had become quite unclear what exactly the use of an oath was meant to add. It made the matter more serious; but how much more serious? And was there a gradation with different oath forms? And, most important of all, what oaths had legal force? e rabbis sought to bring clarity and order into a situation of chaos by insisting that binding oaths could

be identi ed by the presence of one or more of three fundamental features: the use of the word šbwʿh (‘oath’),59 the use of some form of the divine name,60 or the use of the word qrbn (‘gi’) or some equivalent (on qrbn oaths see at Mt. 15:5-6). It is something of this later rabbinic perspective which is anticipated in the view opposed in 23:16-19.61 Matthew sees both ‘the gold of the sanctuary’ here and ‘the gi on [the altar]’ in v. 18 as qrbn equivalents since both have to do with gis dedicated to the temple.62 By contrast, the shrine and altar themselves belong to the fundamental fabric of the temple and do not connote the dedication of something to God and thus to the temple. 23:17 e counterargument makes use of two OT and Jewish concepts: graded holiness and the possibility of transfer of holiness (and its opposite) by contact. e whole Jewish purity system was based on these ideas. e temple was the holy place, and the holy of holies in the temple was the place of greatest sanctity since that was where God was considered to be most intimately present. Access to the various parts of the temple was progressively more restricted the closer one came to the holy of holies. Sacri cial materials were separated from their normal secular use and signi cance by being brought in sacri ce to the temple. e holiness thereby acquired constrained the use to which the parts of the sacri ce not burnt on the altar could subsequently be put. In light of these two key concepts the gold of the sanctuary is clearly different from any other gold precisely because of its connection with the sanctuary: the sanctuary imparts holiness to it, not the other way around. Similarly, the signi cance of the gis on the altar is based on the signi cance of the altar itself.63 23:18 e repetition of the ‘whoever’ (ὃς ἄν) constructions of v. 16 requires that we understand a repetition of at least the opening

‘who say’ (οἱ λέγοντες) if not the whole phrase ‘Woe to you, blind guides who say’. For v. 18 see the comments at v. 16. 23:19 Whereas the whole of ‘Woe to you, blind guides who say’ is trimmed away from the form in v. 16 for v. 18, ‘foolish and blind [ones]’ of v. 17 is merely reduced to ‘blind [ones]’ for v. 19. For v. 19 see the discussion at v. 17. 23:20 Vv. 20 and 21 will take up the cases raised in vv. 16-17 and 18-19 in inverted order. Linked with οὖν (‘then’), vv. 20-23 seem to offer themselves as a summary and generalisation of the points made in vv. 17 and 19. But while they share with vv. 17 and 19 a conviction of the signi cance of the altar and the sanctuary and of the importance of that to which something is related, they in fact move the argument onto quite a different footing. e fundamental idea for these verses is that the signi cance of something has to do with its use, what it is there for. When an oath is sworn on something, then, not narrowly the physical reality of the thing is relevant, but the role of that which is being sworn by. e altar is not only more important than the gis on the altar, but the signi cance of the altar means that we should have in mind the gis on the altar as we think or speak of the altar. Only so are we relating to it as it really is. In the case of altar and gis this does not get us anywhere very different from where v. 18 got us, but in the following verses the difference will become much greater. 23:21 If mention of the altar inevitably involves the gis on the altar, mention of the sanctuary should inevitably involve God, since the sanctuary exists to be his dwelling place.64 A development here that strictly parallelled that in v. 20 would have spoken not of God but of the gold that beauti ed the sanctuary. But the intention in vv. 20-23 is to raise the stakes: cultic sanctity is important in the Matthean frame, but relating to God is much more important.

Given the signi cance of the sanctuary, to swear by it is to swear by God himself. 23:22 e change of direction in v. 20 is probably for the sake of reaching the present verse. e form is a little different from that set in vv. 20 and 21; here we leave behind the concern with the signi cance of the sanctuary and the altar in oaths; and this is where it becomes clear, with the very strong echo of 5:34, that the fundamental idea controlling these verses is the same as that in 5:34-35. ere the idea was used to oppose a place for even ‘milder oaths’ (all the things we might swear by have their signi cance in relation to God and so really involve swearing by God); here it is used to affirm the binding signi cance of even the ‘mildest’ forms of oaths. As in 5:34, there is an allusion here to Is. 66:1, offering implicit scriptural support for the point being made. Once we reach for something worth swearing by we have in fact reached something that has its signi cance in relation to God; we are implicitly swearing by God; and we answer to him for what we have undertaken. 23:23 Aer the deviation from the norm in vv. 16-22, for this fourth woe Matthew returns to his standard introduction.65 Jewish tithing practice was based on the signi cant body of OT material devoted to this matter.66 Elaboration lled in the gaps, and adaptation recognised the changing circumstances of life. e list of tithed items here focuses on things that would be used only in tiny quantities, but in connection with which tithing was practised.67 ‘Weightier matters of the Law’ is likely to be a Matthean touch, having its equivalent in ‘the greatest’ of 22:36, 38 and its counterpart in ‘the least of these commandments’ of 5:19.68 ough Matthew’s list is not identical to any OT list, it has a family likeness to various attempts to give a set of principles that would sum up the whole will

of God.69 κρίσις as ‘justice’ has appeared in Matthew only in 12:18 and 20, in the quotation from Is. 42:1-4, but that must be its sense here. ἔλεος (‘mercy’) is identi ed as a matter of central concern in the uses of Ho. 6:6 in Mt. 9:13; 12:7. And in both these texts the Pharisees are identi ed with a lack of ‘mercy’. To create a uniform set πίστις here should mean ‘faithfulness’ rather than ‘faith’ (as it mostly does in the LXX). But since Matthew otherwise uniformly uses πίστις to mean ‘faith’, this possibility must be considered also for Mt. 23:23. If Mic. 6:8 is the model (it has a list of three items and starts with ‘justice’ and ‘mercy’ as does Matthew), then ‘faith’ would be analogous to Micah’s ‘walk humbly with your God’. Without πίστις as ‘faith’ the list runs the danger of setting over against a set of acts (tithing of various kinds of produce) that is directed Godward (or at least to the religious institutions of the faith) a set of acts which are neighbour-directed. And for Matthew, though love of neighbour is inextricably linked with it, love of God has priority (22:36-40).70 Whichever it is, Matthew at the end wants it to be quite clear that a prophet-like focus on issues of justice and mercy is not to be thought of as antithetical to even the minutiae of cultic practice: ‘and not abandoned the others’. 23:24 Matthew reintroduces the ‘blind guides’ of v. 16 to link with the previous woe. ‘Blind Pharisee’ will be used in v. 26 in a similar position to its use in v. 24. In this way the three woes from vv. 16-26 — oaths, tithes, and puri cation — are joined together as a subset, the central three of Matthew’s set of seven woes. κώνωψ is used for ‘gnat’ or ‘mosquito’, here probably the former. Both gnats and camels can be identi ed as unclean creatures in Lv. 11:4, 41, and therefore are not to be eaten.71 In an original in Aramaic there would be a wordplay between qlmʾ (‘gnat’) and gmlʾ (‘camel’).72 To avoid eating a camel would seem to be quite easy, but to avoid eating a gnat requires much more diligence. In particular

gnats would readily end up in standing liquids. In Mt. 23:24 the gnats are being removed by straining the liquid.73 e straining of wine is normally thought to be in view,74 but the sense may not be so precise. While πίνειν means ‘drink’, the intensive form καταπίνειν (‘swallow’) has no comparable restriction to liquids.75 We need not necessarily, then, think of the camel as oating in the liquid, somehow missed by the straining efforts. Matthew gives us a powerful image of people carefully attending to detail but missing what is much more signi cant. e imagery works in part by creating an interplay between the literal and the gurative: the straining out of gnats is actually something that the scribes and Pharisees would be careful to do. e same approach will be evident in the next woe. 23:25 e h woe also has Matthew’s standard introduction, as will all the rest.76 In rabbinic discussion on ritual cleansing the outside and the inside of vessels were distinguished.77 e impurity of the one did not necessarily affect the impurity of the other. For practical use as a container for food the ritual cleanness of the inside of the vessel was decisive, and the impurity of the inside was thought to transfer to the outside.78 Immersion is likely to have been the preferred mode of cleansing,79 but it was probably not invariably the case until later.80 e statement in Mt. 23:25 starts out as if to describe a standard act of washing vessels, though perhaps one that is defective in not giving priority to the washing of the inside.81 But the hearer must reassess when the second clause comes. e rst clause has, aer all, been a metaphorical description of wider patterns of behaviour. e image is of only the appearance of purity. e point is not too different from that in v. 5: ‘ey do all their works to be seen by

people’. e second clause intends to expose what lies behind the appearances. Matthew does not make use of ‘they devour widow’s houses’ from Mk. 12:40, but this well illustrates the kind of thing that ‘rapacity’ (ἁρπαγή) points to.82 ἀκρασία (‘self-indulgence/lack of self-control’) is oen applied to sexual immorality, but it has a much wider remit and is unlikely to be focussed here on sexual matters. 23:26 Presumably a single (generic) ‘blind Pharisee’ matches the single ‘cup’, which now replaces the ‘cup and dish’ of v. 25. e inside and the outside are now taken up in reverse order, which is both an artistic and a natural consequence of the priority now to be claimed for the inside.83 ‘Clean the inside of the cup’ is a metaphorically expressed challenge to change the state of affairs pointed to in the second clause of v. 25. e link with v. 25 makes clear that no dualistic separation of inner and outer is intended, as does the second clause of v. 26, which, unlike the situation with the literal ritual washing of vessels, claims in effect that the cleanliness of the inside of the cup will transfer outwards. e thought is related to that of Mt. 13:34; 15:8, 18-19. 23:27 Matthew introduces the sixth woe in his standard manner. In theme and vocabulary this woe belongs closely with the preceding one,84 which makes it likely that these stood together in Matthew’s source.85 But Matthew does not seem to make anything of this. Having drawn the h woe into association with the third and fourth, he seems to depend on the shared motif of tombs to link the sixth woe with the seventh. παρομοιάζειν (‘be like’) is not used elsewhere in the NT or in the LXX.86 It is not likely to be from Matthew’s hand, as is the case for a number of the key words here.87 In fact, beyond the standard introduction, nothing is strikingly Matthean in vv. 27-28.88

κονιᾶν has to do etymologically with the use of anything nely ground (κονία), from ash to sand to soil to lime. It is used in the LXX for decoration, and it probably means ‘plaster’ there.89 Since whitewashing was a common form of basic decoration and made use of powdered lime, κονιᾶν can mean ‘whitewash’ too.90 As whitewashing makes something stand out from its surroundings, and given Jewish concerns about the imparting of ritual impurity by graves, the whitewashing of tombs could be for the purpose of identifying the location of tombs rather than for their decoration.91 Only the state and location of the tomb and the quality of the whitewashing would indicate which was intended.92 But it is clear from the use of ὡραῖοι (‘beautiful’) in Mt. 23:27 that beauti cation is in view.93 e Jews of Jesus’ day took considerable care with the burial of the dead. How this was done would necessarily have varied hugely, depending on economic and social status, but the remains of elaborate tombs demonstrate the level of commitment among the very well-to-do.94 e point in Mt. 23:27 is that a well-decorated tomb may look beautiful, but at the end of the day it is a source of ritual contamination. What does Matthew mean by ‘all [kinds of] uncleanness’? Ritual de lement is clearly in mind, but Matthew probably also thinks of bodies at various stages of putrefaction. 23:28 e image is now unpacked in a manner that closely mimics the structure of v. 27. To seem righteous is reminiscent of the clean exterior of v. 25 and the concern with being seen in v. 5. To be truly ‘righteous’ is a thread of concern for Matthew,95 and ‘lawlessness’ characterises its opposite.96 23:29 Matthew introduces the seventh and nal woe in the set in his standard manner. Whereas in the previous woe the scribes

and Pharisees were decorated tombs, now they build and decorate the tombs of others. ‘And adorn (κοσμεῖτε) the grave monuments (μνημεῖα) of the righteous’, not found in the parallel in Lk. 11:47, is likely to be a Matthean addition designed to strengthen the link with Mt. 23:27-28.97 ere is nothing obviously wrong with honouring the resting place of the prophets and the righteous. But it is yet another kind of highly visible deed, inviting questions about what lies beneath the surface. Matthew has already roundly criticised (v. 5) the concern of the scribes and Pharisees with the visibility of their good deeds. Against the background of the failure of the Jewish leaders of all categories to take with full seriousness the prophetic ministries of John the Baptist and of Jesus,98 questions must be raised about their honouring long-dead prophets. Perhaps it is quite safe to honour a prophet who is no longer able to challenge. 23:30 Behind their insistence that ‘we would have honoured the prophets’ lies the admission that they were not honoured in their own day.99 e view that surfaces here, that prophets were characteristically murdered, has a rm place in Jewish tradition despite not being strongly evidenced in the OT in terms of actual accounts of bloodshed.100 e statement in v. 30 is to be treated as a piece of self-serving deception. It is probably also to be seen as a piece of self-deception. It does, however, recognise the role of the speakers’ ancestors in the murder of the prophets. 23:31 Picking up on precisely the point about kinship from the protestation of superiority in v. 30, this verse depends for its thrust on the assumption that behind natural kinship stands a kinship of values and action: ‘like father, like son’. 23:32 e broad sense of the verse is ‘prove me right’. e kind of ironic imperative found here is matched in other biblical

texts.101 πληρώσατε τὸ μέτρον τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν (lit. ‘ful l the measure of your fathers’) is generally understood in the light of vv. 34-35 and 1 es. 2:16 to mean that there is a quota of evil to be reached, to which the scribes and Pharisees are being invited to add what their fathers had not already achieved. But more likely the verse invites the scribes and Pharisees to live up to what their fathers have done, that is, to continue the family tradition of killing the prophets. e idea normally found here does, however, stand behind Mt. 23:34-36 to come. 23:33 is verse is likely to be a Matthean conclusion to the set of woes. ‘Offspring of vipers’ comes from the tradition in 3:7, set there on the lips of John the Baptist. But already there Matthew was probably responsible for focussing John’s attack on the Pharisees and the Sadducees (see at 3:7). Matthew has used the language again in 12:34, once more against the Pharisees. And now we have it in 23:33. For variety this time it is ‘Snakes, off-spring of vipers’. ‘How can you ee from the judgment of Gehenna?’ is a more pessimistic variant of ‘Who warned you to ee from the coming wrath?’ of 3:7.102 C. Culmination: Emissaries to Be Rejected; Judgment to Fall (23:34-36) this reason I aam sendinga prophets and sages and scribes bto you.b Some of them you will kill and will crucify, cand some of them you will have flogged in your synagoguesc and will persecute from town to town, 35so that all the righteous blood poured on the earth will come upon you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah dson of Barachiah,d whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.’ 34‘For

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. αποστελλω (‘I will send’) in D 33 etc. co, in agreement with Lk. 11:49. b-b. Missing from D 33 etc. co. c-c. Missing from D a. Cf. Lk. 11:49. d-d. Missing from ‫*א‬. Cf. Lk. 11:50. Bibliography Becker, H.-J., ‘Die Zerstörung Jerusalems bei Matthäus und die Rabbinen’, NTS 44 (1998), 59-73. • Beckwith, R., e Old Testament Canon of the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1985), 211-22. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘Temple Traditions in Q’, in Templum Amicitiae, ed. W. Horbury (JSNTSup 48. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991), 305-29. • Deutsch, C. M., Lady Wisdom, 66-75, 124-33. • Deutsch, C. M., ‘Wisdom in Matthew’, NovT 32 (1990), 13-47. • Dubois, J.-D., ‘La mort de Zacharie: Mémoire juive et mémoire chrétienne’, REA 40 (1994), 23-38. • Han, K. S., Jerusalem, 169-83. • Kühschelm, R., Jüngerverfolgung, 249-59. • Légasse, S., ‘L’oracle contre cette génération (Mt 23,34-36 par. Lc 11,49-51) et la polémique judéo-chrétienne dans la Source des Logia’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 237-56. • Lövestam, E., ‘is Generation,’ 67-80. • Miller, R. J., ‘e Rejection of the Prophets in Q’, JBL 107 (1988), 225-40. • Orton, D. E., Understanding Scribe, 153-59. • Peels, H. G. L., ‘e Blood “from Abel to Zechariah” (Matthew 23,35; Luke 11,50f.) and the Canon of the Old Testament’, ZAW 113 (2001), 583-601. • Pregeant, R., ‘e Wisdom Passages in Matthew’s Story’, SBLSP 29 (1990), 469-91. • Ross, J. M., ‘Which Zachariah?’ IBS 9 (1987), 70-73. • Winkle, R. E., ‘e Jeremiah Model for Jesus in the Temple’, AUSS 24 (1986), 155-72. See further at 23:1-12, 13-33.

23:32-33 set the agenda for 23:34-36: the opportunity fully to live up to the forebears’ measure (v. 32) is to be provided by the divine emissaries sent. e judgment of Gehenna will not be avoided (v. 33); rather, judgment will fall within the life span of the generation.

Matthew continues with his source sequence here since the parallel material in Lk. 11:49-51 comes aer Luke’s version of the woes. See further at Mt. 23:1-12.

23:34 e linking διὰ τοῦτο (‘because of this/for this reason’) is difficult. Is the logic: what is to come is because the scribes and Pharisees are as vv. 29-31 have claimed, and it is to happen in order to make publicly visible the validity of the harshly negative evaluation made there? Or is the link actually with the second clause of v. 34: ‘For this reason, [when] I send…you will kill…’? Or are we to coordinate διὰ τοῦτο and ὅπως (‘so that’) in v. 35: ‘Because you are like your fathers, I will send, and you will kill … so that all the righteous blood … may come upon you’? Or does διὰ τοῦτο refer to v. 32: here will be the opportunity to ‘live up to your fathers’ standard’ (with or without a speci c link to the ὅπως clause)? Each is possible. Matthew moves the source material from third to second person forms to conform the materials to the preceding woes: the scribes and Pharisees continue to be addressed. Where in the source form ‘e Wisdom of God said, “I will send”’ (Lk. 11:49), Matthew prefers a straight attribution to Jesus: ‘I am sending’. e importance of Jesus’ initiative here is then accentuated by an untranslated ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’)103 and by the use of ἐγώ (‘I’) to add emphasis to the subject. e attribution to Wisdom ts Jesus’ initiative into a larger historical and even cosmic frame, but Matthew prefers to place the focus on Jesus as the initiator.104 One practical effect of this change is to exclude John the Baptist and Jesus himself from being included among those sent. ‘Prophets’ is already in the source form (cf. Lk. 11:49), but Matthew has ‘sages’ (σοϕούς) and Luke has ‘apostles’. Since the envoys were envoys of Wisdom (ἡ σοϕία) in the source, Matthew is

likely to have preserved the original at this point. But he is probably responsible for adding ‘scribes’ to the list of categories of those sent (cf. Mt. 13:52 and discussion there). e efforts made by scholars to correlate the three categories with speci c roles or offices in the Matthean church are probably misspent: the material is concerned rather to use traditional images to provide an evocation of a range of functions in God’s speaking to his people: ‘prophet’ establishes the reality of God speaking — the one who will not listen is refusing to give God attention;105 despite Matthew’s abandonment of ‘the Wisdom of God says’, ‘sages’ remains to suggest that what Jesus’ emissaries bring comes from the Wisdom of God and offers the riches that are Wisdom’s to dispense;106 it is the role of ‘scribes’ to bring godly learning to bear on speci c situations and their needs — Matthew has in mind people like those ‘discipled [to be] scribe[s] for the kingdom of heaven’ in 13:52. e sending activity envisaged has occurred in an anticipatory manner in 10:5 and will be the climax of the Gospel in 28:19-20. e simpler ‘Some of them they will kill and persecute’ of Lk. 11:49 is likely to be more original, though probably with an extra ‘some of them’ (‘Some of them they will kill, and some of them they will persecute’) since Luke’s ‘kill and persecute’ makes an odd sequence when applied to a single group of people, and the parallelism postulated offers a good anchor point for the Matthean development (parallelled clauses become parallelled double clauses). e extra ‘crucify’ and ‘ og’ merge with v. 18 of the Passion prediction in 20:18-19, and thus with the idea that some of Jesus’ emissaries will experience a fate that parallels Jesus’ own coming fate.107 But ‘you will have ogged in your synagogues’ is an echo of ‘will have you ogged in their synagogues’ in Mt. 10:17. And the addition of ‘from town to town’ to ‘will persecute’ makes it refer back to ‘When [people] persecute you in this town, ee to the next’

in v. 23. Matthew wants to establish a rm link both with what Jesus anticipated for the mission of the disciples and with his own coming Passion. 23:35 e language ‘… [the] blood will come upon you’ (ἔλθῃ ἐϕ᾿ ὑμᾶς … αἷμα) would seem to be based on a non-Septuagintal OT idiom. e idiom is found in Je. 26:15; Jon. 1:14.108 In these texts ‘blood of ’ (dm) stands for ‘responsibility for the death of ’, with overtones both of bloodguilt and of punishment.109 A related re exive use of ‘blood of ’ (i.e., of one’s own blood being on oneself) is found more oen.110 It involves the same sense of responsibility for the death, but in these texts the only death involved is that which punishes the person involved, and bloodguilt plays no role. With his echo of non-Septuagintal OT idiom, the Matthean form is a little more likely to be original than that in Lk. 11:51, which has instead the LXX idiom ἐκζητηθῇ τὸ αἷμα (‘the blood will be sought out [i.e., required]’).111 As used by Matthew, the idiom emphasises judgment, the judgment in store for the scribes and Pharisees. Luke’s ‘the blood of all the prophets’ carries forward the lead term ‘prophets’ from 11:49 par. Mt. 23:34 and is likely to be more original. Matthew’s ‘all the righteous blood’ picks up on ‘the graves of the righteous’ for which he seems to have been responsible in v. 29. e pouring out of righteous blood is found in several OT texts. So Matthew may have picked up on the OT use of the idiom.112 Given the coming reference to Abel, Matthew’s ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς (‘on the ground/earth’) is likely to be designed to echo Gn. 4:10: ‘Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground’.113 e parallel in Lk. 11:50, ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (‘from [the] foundation of the world’), has a rather different sense, but the verbal relationship suggests that the difference may have emerged at a Semitic-language

level and imply therefore a difference between the Matthean and Lukan sources at this point.114 ‘From the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah’ is obviously intended to represent the scope of ‘all the righteous blood’. Lk. 11:51 has neither ‘righteous’ nor ‘son of Barachiah’. ey are likely to be Matthean expansions. e former is intended to link with Matthew’s other added uses of ‘righteous’, and the latter is to balance the former. e choice of Abel from Genesis suggests that the scope is being represented either chronologically or canonically. Can the identi cation of a Zechariah help us with the choice? e evidence for making a decision is limited. ere was a Zechariah son of Baris whom zealots assassinated in the temple area in the Jewish uprising prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.115 ose who want to identify the Zechariah mentioned as the son of Baris can point to the full chronological span marked by Abel and this Zechariah.116 ose who make this identi cation are con dent that this is prophecy aer the event. Matthew’s ‘Zechariah son of Barachiah’ is, however, the prophet Zechariah (Zc. 1:1), and certainly not the son of Baris. But there is no tradition of Zechariah the son of Barachiah being murdered, and certainly not of his being murdered in the temple. ere is, however, another Zechariah whom Matthew’s identi cation does not necessarily exclude: there was a priest Zechariah who spoke prophetically in 2 Ch. 24:20 and was stoned to death for his troubles (vv. 21-22). Jewish tradition re ects confusion between, or, perhaps better, the deliberate interpretive equation of, Zechariah the son of Barachiah and the priest Zechariah whose murder is reported in 2 Ch. 24:20-22.117 Matthew’s additional speci cation is likely to belong in this tradition and, if it does, makes possible that both Matthew and the tradition before him had in mind the priest Zechariah. e dying words of the priest Zechariah in 2 Ch. 24:22

(‘May Yahweh hear and avenge’) make a good t for Mt. 23 and match the blood of Abel crying out from the ground (Gn. 4:10).118 If the right Zechariah has been identi ed, then the Gospel tradition is probably the earliest indication that, as was true later, 2 Chronicles was placed last in the Hebrew Bible. e scope is mapped by the choice of the rst and last pertinent murders in the Hebrew Bible. ὃν ἐϕονεύσατε (‘whom you murdered’) is probably a Matthean heightening compared to the τοῦ ἀπολομένον (lit. ‘the one having perished’) of Lk. 11:50. It reinforces the solidarity in guilt with the fathers. Aer Mt. 23:16, 17, 21 τοῦ ναοῦ (‘the sanctuary’) for Luke’s τοῦ οἴκου (‘the house’) is likely to be a Matthean change.119 What is the logic that allows punishment for the shedding of the blood of all the OT righteous to fall on the scribes and Pharisees because of how they treat the emissaries of Jesus? We must look primarily to the Babylonian exile for the pattern used here. It was the culmination of many generations of accumulated wickedness that was understood to have brought God’s judgment in the form of the Babylonian Exile. e nal generation contributed by their own acts, and, in doing so, they showed that they stood in continuity and solidarity with those who had preceded them. But the judgment that was falling on the nal generation was a judgment in relation to a much larger history. So also with the scribes and Pharisees. eir own reaction to Jesus’ emissaries will demonstrate solidarity with their ancestors; and God’s judgment in relation to that whole history will fall on these ‘sons of their fathers’. As with the Exile, there is almost certainly some sense of a critical mass of sin being now reached (cf. 1 es. 2:14-16). I noted at 23:34 above that Matthew’s changes eliminate John the Baptist and Jesus from the emissaries considered in that verse. It is unclear whether Matthew really intended to suggest that the

response to the early church’s mission rather than the response already made to Jesus would be the crucial ‘nail in the coffin’ as far as the threat of impending judgment was concerned. Probably he simply thought that the response to the church’s mission only con rmed what had already happened in the ministry of Jesus. e scribes and Pharisees of Matthew’s day seem to have been for the most part rm foes of the church’s mission. 23:36 In the earlier tradition this verse had served to allow Jesus to appropriate Wisdom’s message as his own. Here it functions as an emphatic concluding summary. We cannot tell whether the original had Luke’s favoured ναί (‘yes’) or Matthew’s favoured ἀμήν (‘amen’).120 e other differences correspond to the differences in v. 35, though this time Matthew will use ἥκειν and not ἔρχεσθαι for ‘come’, and ταῦτα πάντα (‘all these things’) moves the idiom away from that identi ed in v. 35.121 ‘is generation’ has primarily a chronological thrust: it will all happen in the lifetime of the present generation. But since something akin to the Babylonian Exile is being envisaged, an impact on those who make up ‘this generation’, and not simply the scribes and Pharisees themselves, is to be expected. D. Lament over Jerusalem (23:37-39) 37‘Jerusalem,

Jerusalem, which kills the prophets and stones those sent to aher! How oen I have wanted to gather up your children, as a hen gathers up bher young under her wings, but you did not want [it]. 38Your house is cnow le to you, da desolation.d 39For I say to you, from now [on] you will certainly not see me until you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”.’

TEXTUAL NOTES

a. σε (‘you’) in D etc. lat sys to produce greater consistency with the following clause. b. Missing from ‫ *א‬700 and giving: ‘the young’. c. Not present in the Greek, but representing an untranslated initial ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’). d-d. Missing from B L ff2 sy sas bopt. Probably the difficulty of the syntax has invited correction in line with Lk. 13:35. Bibliography Allison, D., ‘Matt. 23.39 = Luke 13.35b as a Conditional Prophecy’, JSNT 18 (1983), 75-84. • Borg, M., Conflict, 181-84. • Green, H. B., Poet, 141-50. • Han, K. S., Jerusalem, 183-203. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 141-46, 182-88. • Kühschelm, R., ‘Verstockung als Gericht: Eine Untersuchung zu Joh 12,3543; Lk 13,34-35; 19,41-44’, BLit 57 (1984), 234-43. • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic, 215-22. • Miller, R. J., ‘e Rejection of the Prophets in Q’, JBL 107 (1988), 225-40. • Stanton, G. N., A Gospel, 247-51. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Aspects of Early Christian-Jewish Polemic and Apologetic’, NTS 31 (1985), 377-92, esp. 385-90. • Tan, K. H., Zion, 100-131. • Weinert, F. D., ‘Luke, the Temple and Jesus’ Saying about Jerusalem’s Abandoned House (Luke 13:34-35)’, CBQ 44 (1982), 68-76. • Zeller, D., ‘Entrückung zur Ankun als Menschensohn (Lk 13,34f; 11,29f)’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 513-30. See further at 23:1-12, 13-33, 34-36.

e section 23:1-39 and the linked sections 21:12-46; 22:1-46; 23:139 now come to an end by anticipating the ultimate scale of Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus. His attempt to gather Jerusalem into a place of safety has been spurned, God will withdraw from its temple, and it will become a desolation. Jesus will be removed, but he hopes for better things in the future: once hearts are changed, he anticipates being welcomed in joy at his future coming.

ere is no scholarly consensus over whether Matthew continues his source sequence here. He gives the parallel tradition in Lk. 13:34-35 a different location. In any case, Mt. 23:37-39 probably do not form an original unity with the material that precedes it in either Gospel. ere are considerations, however, which favour a pre-Matthean link with the material behind Mt. 23:34-36 par. Lk. 11:49-51. God is the natural speaker of Mt. 23:37-38 (see further below). An original attribution to Wisdom here as in Lk. 11:49 would make God the speaker by providing in ‘Wisdom’ a suitable euphemism for ‘God’. But if the source for Mt. 23:37-39 began as did the source for vv. 34-36, then the degree of parallelism of theme and structure become more obvious. In each case Wisdom speaks of the mistreatment of her emissaries (in the one case present/future; in the other past), and then of the intention of the sending (in the one case to establish guilt and as a prelude to punishment; in the other to rescue from threat). In the one case the statement of intention already indicates the outcome (punishment); in the other case the outcome is indicated separately (‘Your house is abandoned’). Finally, in each case there is a change of speaker to Jesus with ‘I say to you’. In the one case, he con rms the prognostication of Wisdom as due to become effective in that generation, and in the other case he indicates an immediately imminent consequence of the prognostication of Wisdom but also the possibility of a future beyond the coming loss. On this reconstruction an ἰδού (lit. behold’) introduces the rst and last statements of Wisdom. If I am right about the earlier relationship between the two blocks of material, then in these earlier forms they offer a window onto how Jesus was understood to have experienced illumination and direction from above.122 It is unlikely, however, that the materials were from the beginning a single unit: they have been brought together on the basis of a degree of intrinsic similarity, and this similarity has probably been enhanced in the editing process (perhaps Mt. 23:39 belongs to this stage of the development).123

23:37 For Matthew, the opening part of v. 37 picks up on and develops the reference in v. 35 to the murder of Zechariah in the temple (since the priest Zechariah was stoned in 2 Ch. 24:21, the reference to stoning in v. 37 adds its own modest contribution to

the case for understanding this Zechariah to be the one intended in v. 35).124 A negative image of Jerusalem is already anticipated in 2:3; 16:21; 20:18. e double address, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem’, may be patterned on OT instances where God uses double address.125 If so, Jesus’ words are intended to echo the OT pattern of divine speech. Synthetic parallelism is involved in the parallel assertions: the sense is ‘killing, at times by stoning, the prophets sent to her’. e only actual OT account of the stoning of a prophet is that in 2 Ch. 24:21, but stoning was the proper fate for false prophets and for those who blasphemed against God or led others astray from him.126 On the killing of the prophets more generally see the comments at Mt. 23:30. Jerusalem as the centre of in uence was likely to be well implicated in most of what went on, but there is a speci c Jerusalem link for the murder of a prophet only in 2 Ch. 24:21 and Je. 26:2023. It would be most natural to correlate the sending of the various prophets with the repeated wish to gather the children. But this would necessitate making God the speaker (see the comment on the speaker in the source materials in the introductory discussion of Mt. 23:37-39 above). On the lips of Jesus the connection has to be more complicated: the historic pattern is in the process of repeating itself as Jerusalem does not give the repeated desire of Jesus to gather the children a tting response.127 e city is thought of as a mother, as in Is. 54; 62:1, 4. ‘Your children’ refers most easily in the present context to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but the imagery could be used more broadly.128 In any case, Matthew will think of what happens in Jerusalem only as being what Jesus’ whole mission has been leading to. Some interpreters have wanted to correlate the language of gathering here with the OT motif of the gathering of the Exiles,129

but this is to overcomplicate the imagery. To gather as a hen gathers her young is to protect, not to reverse the ravages of Exile. e imagery of the protective wings of a mother bird is applied to God in the OT and Jewish tradition.130 On the lips of Jesus its use involves a claim to be in a position to act in the place of God. Unfortunately, Jesus’ desire to gather has been met by a refusal to be gathered. e historic pattern has been repeated again with Jesus in the present climactic context. How comprehensively are we meant to take this assertion of Jerusalem’s refusal of the divine initiative in the person of Jesus, and in what context are we to set it? Clearly, as generally with its OT counterparts, the prophetic accusation and threat of judgment here operate at the collective level and are consistent with the existence of dissenting voices. But at this stage of Matthew’s story we hardly have a Jerusalem standing solidly against Jesus. e material from Mt. 21:12–22:46 has portrayed a Jerusalem leadership solidly united against Jesus, but not at all a people united against him. e picture is of people very impressed by Jesus and drawn to him. We have to reach further on in the story to nd that ultimately the people will follow their leaders and turn against Jesus (27:20-25). 23:37-38 seem to anticipate this nal state of affairs rather than to relate to the immediate Matthean setting (in line with this, ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι [‘from now on’] in v. 39 takes us, in anticipation, to the very end of Jesus’ life). With the logic of Mt. 23:34-36 in mind, a reader is prepared for the statement of outcome to follow. 23:38 What is ‘your house’? It has been applied to the city, but despite the move to the plural for ‘your’ (ὑμῶν) this is a bit strained aer ‘Jerusalem’ in v. 37; to the nation, but we have ‘your house’ and not ‘the house of Israel’ as in 10:6; 15:24, and no parallel has been offered for the use of ‘house’ with a personal pronoun in this sense; to the Jerusalem leaders, which is contextually appropriate but not a

natural sense for the words; and to the temple, which seems most likely given its role as the focus and centre of Jerusalem, and indeed of the whole life of the nation. e relationship between ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘your house’ in Mt. 23:37-38 is close to that in Is. 64:10-11, especially in the LXX (vv. 9-10): ‘e holy city has become a desolation (ἔρημος), Jerusalem something cursed. Our holy house (οἶκος) … has been burnt by re.’ As Is. 64 already suggests, this identi cation does not require a narrow temple focus. ἔρημος (‘desolation’) is not found in the Lk. 13:35 parallel and may have been added by Matthew in light of Is. 64. Indeed, we may well have a desolation image superimposed by Matthew on a more original abandonment-of-the-temple-by-God image.131 e presence of ὑμῖν (‘to you’) in ‘le to you’ counts in favour of this suggestion since it has no easy role if the imagery is only of desolation. 23:39 Matthew connects the new clause using γάρ (‘for’), and Lk. 13:35 using δέ (lit. ‘and/but’): for Matthew the new material supports the preceding by underlining the fact that the present opportunity to be gathered in is now gone. With the new clause, Jesus is no longer speaking as one in a position to act directly in the place of God; he announces, rather, his own impending departure and therefore subsequent unavailability.132 We have here the rst of three uses of ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι (‘from now [on]’), all set on the lips of the Matthean Jesus, to mark a major transition point. In each case the Passion, as imminent, is anticipated as though already a reality.133 Zeller (‘Entrückung’, 515-17) … is probably right to appeal to Jewish traditions of gures translated to heaven in preparation for a future eschatological role (beginning from 2 Kgs 2:11-12 and the OT anticipation of a future role for Elijah; cf. esp. 2 Esd 6:22). Jesus will be snatched away (through death in his case [though this is not visible in the immediate context]) to heaven until it is time for his eschatological role.134

Disaster is not, however, given the last word. e nal clause seems to open a fresh opportunity for a change of mind (which will also be a message of hope to those who have all along been the dissenting voices but who are caught up in the consequences of corporate stances taken). Or is this how we are meant to take the verse? e precise force of οὐ μὴ … ἕως ἄν (‘will certainly not … until’) is disputed. Tan helpfully distinguishes three options, though the differences are not entirely differences over syntax.135 I will also discuss a further option not considered by Tan. e choice is between (a) taking οὐ μὴ … ἕως ἄν as indicating that seeing will resume at an indicated future moment and (b) understanding the form conditionally as indicating that a future seeing is dependent on meeting a speci ed condition. e sense that (a) produces depends on how one understands ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’. e words clearly represent some kind of acknowledgment of something that is happening, namely a fresh coming of Jesus. Something like the coming of the Son of Man of Mt. 10:23; 16:27-28 is clearly in mind (see discussion there).136 But what of the attitude of those who utter the words? e view that the fragment from Ps. 118:26 is to be uttered by those facing judgment is to be rejected. Blessing belongs to welcoming and celebrating, not to fear and despair.137 e one who says, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’, is involved in joyful welcome of one whose signi cance is appreciated. It is in effect an abbreviated form of the shout of the welcoming crowds in 21:9 (see discussion there). But something is still missing here. ere has clearly been a major change of heart. ere are two possible ways of nding a place for such a change of heart. It could be the visible arrival of Jesus that provokes a change of heart and produces a hearty welcome. But this is difficult to square with the

strong association in Matthew between the coming of the Son of Man and judgment (see 16:27). Or the material could be prophetic of a change of heart that will come during the period of the church’s mission. e Gospel seems to re ect a quite negative experience of mission to Israel, but that would not preclude such a prophetic hope. What, however, if we take the syntax as representing a condition, as in (b) above? e obvious understanding to emerge along these lines involves a delay of the coming of the Son of Man until such time as there will be a proper reception for him in Jerusalem. Jesus will wait in heaven until the circumstances are right.138 Despite the attractions of this view, it is not easy to imagine the Matthean Jesus quite saying: ‘You were not ready for me at this point. Never mind. I will go off and wait quietly in heaven until you are ready.’ e best option seems to be to understand the material as prophetic of a change of heart that will come during the period of the church’s mission: despite all the difficulties and all the hostility, the Matthean church expected a signi cant Jewish turning to Christ.

1. Speci cally Matthew has increased the number of references to the Pharisees between 21:12 and 22:45 from one in the corresponding Markan material to four. e scribes have, however, not done as well: Mark has ve references to them to Matthew’s two (and one of these is with νομικός rather than γραμματεύς), but Matthew has in mind in chap. 23 those scribes associated with the Pharisaic movement. So for him the Pharisaic identity provides the important link. 2. Mt. 13 has within it a change of audience which is comparable to that between Mt. 23 and 24.

3. Mt. 11:2-30 is also more or less a discourse, and it has also not been granted a place in the set of ve main discourses. Whereas 23:1-39 comes immediately before one of the ve labelled discourses, 11:2-30 comes immediately aer one. 4. Schürmann, ‘Redekomposition’, 33-81. 5. Kloppenborg, Formation, 139-40; and cf. Kosch, Eschatologische Tora, 84-104. 6. Catchpole, ‘Temple’, 308-10 (see the bibliography for Mt. 23:13-33). 7. Zimmermann, Lehrer, 158-85. 8. Nolland, Luke 2:662. 9. See, e.g., Johnson, ‘Anti-Jewish Slander’, 419-41. 10. Weinfeld, ‘Charge’, 52-58. 11. Mason, ‘Pharisaic Dominance’, 363-81. 12. Saldarini, ‘Delegitimation’, 659-80. 13. Both Mt. 23:1 and Lk. 20:45 add ‘the disciples’ at this point (‘his disciples’ in Matthew), but nothing should be made of this: aer the preceding critical interaction by Jesus with leadership groups, the disciples need to be reintroduced at some point; both Matthew and Luke decide to do this one episode earlier than Mark (Matthew will not use the material of Mk. 12:41-44, which is where Mark reintroduces the disciples; Luke treats the material as teaching rather than interacting with Jesus’ opponents). 14. See Mt. 21:26, 46; 22:33; and cf. 21:23. 15. e list includes relating the authority only to a past already gone in Matthew’s day or a present identi ed as requiring emergency and temporary measures (token formal allegiance to Judaism); treating the authority as selfgranted; considering the language as hyperbole or ironic exaggeration; reading the language as implicitly concessive; taking the clause as only a rhetorical ploy; applying the authority only to exposition of the Law of Moses and not to the tradition of the elders; identifying the scribes and Pharisees here as only ciphers for Christian leaders to whom the chapter really applies. See Powell, ‘Matthew 23:2-7’, 424-29. To Powell’s list should be added the view of Limbeck, ‘Nichts bewegen wollen’, 299-320, who focusses on the use of κινῆσαι (lit. ‘move’) in v. 4, which he takes to mean ‘change’

and applies to making changes in the [application of] the Mosaic Law, and argues that what is involved is an authority to adjust the Law in the interest of the needs of the people. According to Limbeck, this is precisely what Jesus has done in Mt. 5 and what the scribes and Pharisees have failed to do. A fatal aw in Limbeck’s case is his total disregard of τῷ δακτύλῳ αὐτῶν (‘with their nger’). 16. qtdrʾ dmšh. Cited following Rahmani, ‘Stone Synagogue Chairs’, 198. qtdrʾ is a transliteration of the Greek καθέδρα (‘seat’) as used in Mt. 23:2. 17. Ezk. Trag., Exagoge 74–75, has Moses on a heavenly throne, at least in a dream. Orphica 32–33 (long and short versions) is probably referring to Moses with ‘He is established in the great/bronze heaven on a golden throne’. 18. See the discussion in Ginsberger, ‘Chaire de Moise’, 161-65; Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues, 57-61; Renov, ‘Seat of Moses’, 262-67; Roth, ‘Chair of Moses’, 100-111; Rahmani, ‘Stone Synagogue Chairs’, 192-214; Newport, ‘Seat of Moses’, 53-58. 19. See b. Meg. 26b: ‘Raba said: At rst I used to think that the stand (kwrsyʾ) [on which the sefer torah is placed] is an accessory to an accessory and that it is permitted [to use it for secular purposes when taken out of use in the synagogue]. When, however, I saw that the sefer torah is placed actually on it, I came to the conclusion that it is all accessory of holiness and is forbidden.’ It is likely but not at all certain that this kwrsyʾ performed the same role as the qtdrʾ dmšh. Certainly the preserved stone chairs for holding scripture scrolls served such a role. 20. See Powell, ‘Matthew 23:2-7’, 424. 21. τηρεῖν means ‘keep guard/watch’ in Mt. 27:36, 54; 28:4. Elsewhere in Matthew it means only ‘keep’ in 28:20: ‘teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you’. 22. In the history of scholarship, Christian caricature regularly takes over here, with much talk of endless baffling regulations disconnected from the attitude of the heart to God. But all such talk takes us far beyond the text. 23. See Limbeck, ‘Nichts bewegen wollen’, 302; Limbeck, Matthäus, 26364. 24. is view is distinctive to Limbeck, ‘Nichts bewegen wollen’, 299-320.

25. e translation of τῷ δακτύλῳ αὐτῶν (lit. ‘their nger’) is difficult: δακτύλῳ is singular because what is envisaged is the use of a single nger by each; the translation of τῷ δακτύλῳ αὐτῶν above as ‘a nger’ is meant to catch this. 26. Compare ποιεῖν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι αὐτοῖς (‘do before people to be seen by them’) of Mt. 6:1 with ποιοῦσιν πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις (‘do to be seen by people’) of Mt. 23:5. 27. tepillin and qemeʾin (‘amulets’) are mentioned side by side in m. Šab. 6:2; 8:3; m. Miqw. 6:4; m. Kel. 23:9. 28. See Newport, Sources, 85-90, for a useful and more extended discussion of phylacteries. 29. Both Mt. 23:6 and Lk. 20:46 have ϕιλεῖν (‘love’) rather than θέλειν (‘want’) for this clause (in Luke this is a new verb for the piece, whereas in Mk. 12:38-39 the verb is shared by all the items in the list). When compared with Mark’s list, Matthew has dropped the rst item (walking about in ne garb), reversed the order of the other three items, and added ‘to be called rabbi by people’ at the end. Lk. 11:43 has another, briefer version which again uses ϕιλεῖν as in Matthew and shares the Matthean order for seats of honour in the synagogues and being greeted in the marketplaces. Matthew has merged two sources here. 30. Mt. 26:25, 49; Mk. 9:5; 11:21; 14:45; Jn. 1:38, 49; 3:2; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8. 31. Jn. 1:38; 20:16. 32. See Shanks, ‘Rabbi’, 343-45. 33. See Newport, Sources, 90-95, for a more extended and useful discussion of ‘Rabbi’. 34. In the directive clauses: only the rst has a pronoun used as emphatic subject; the rst and third use passive verbs and the middle one an active verb; the middle one is also distinctive in that πατέρα (‘father’) is placed before rather than aer the verb, has a modifying ὑμῶν (‘your’), and the clause has an additional phrase, ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς (‘on the earth’); the third is distinctive in using the appellation (here καθηγεταί [‘personal tutors’]) in the plural. In the supporting clauses: only the rst case has a second supporting clause; only the second has an adjectival modi er (ὁ οὐράνιος

[‘heavenly’]); only the third uses ὅτι (‘because’) to connect the clause (the others use γάρ [‘for’]); only the third has a further noun (ὁ Χριστός [‘the Christ’]) in apposition with the title; only the third places εἷς (‘one’) not at the beginning, but much later in the clause; only the third uses the title without a de nite article. 35. Derrett, ‘Matt. 23:8-10’, 372-86, has taken up the suggestion of eodore Beza that Mt. 23:8-10 are a midrashic expansion of Is. 54:13 and Jer. 31:31-34, exploiting a range of possible meanings for rb in Is. 54:13b (providing the link for ‘teacher’, ‘father’, and ‘personal tutor’). e suggestion is probably overly clever, but the more modest version of it espoused by Knowles, Jeremiah, 211, that sees Is. 54:13 and Jer. 31:31-34 as the background for Mt. 23:10 and accounts for the reference to ‘brothers [and sisters]’ on the basis of the reference to ‘sons [and daughters] in Is. 54:13 has more to commend it. 36. In Matthew reference to God as ‘your heavenly Father’ is found only here outside the Sermon on the Mount (see at 5:16). 37. E.g., m. Miqw. 2:10 has Abba Eleazer ben Dolai. See further Newport, Sources, 95. 38. Perhaps Acts 7:2; 22:1 belong here, but the combination ‘brothers and fathers’ gives a rather speci c family-of-faith twist to this. 39. See 4 Bar. 2:2, 4, 8 as well, which has Baruch addressing Jeremiah as ‘father’. 40. Paul could metaphorically speak of himself as having become the father of those he brought to faith (1 Cor. 4:15; cf. 1 es. 2:11), but with no diminution of the sense that it is into a unique relationship of sonship with God the Father that his converts have come. 41. See the discussion in Winter, ‘Messiah as Tutor’, 152-57. 42. e role implicitly attributed to God here is matched by that for Zeus in Diog. Laert.1.69: ‘humbling the exalted and exalting the humble’. 43. A difficulty with this structuring is the obviously close connection between woes four and ve, which has no role in the sectioning (see below). If we ignore the apparent tie between ‘blind Pharisee’ at the beginning of v. 26 and the linked phrases ‘blind guides’ (v. 16), ‘foolish and blind [ones]’ (v. 17), ‘blind [ones]’ (v. 19) and ‘blind guides’ (v. 24), and Matthew’s likely

expansion to enhance links between the nal two woes (see at 23:29), then we could think in terms of three pairs of woes and a climactic nal woe (this is favoured by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:282). 44. ‘Hypocrite’ is also found in Mt. 7:5; 24:51. 45. In Lk. 11:52 this woe is the sixth and nal woe in the set and the third addressed to the lawyers. 46. e kinship with Mt. 16:19 has an extra dimension of visibility in the form in which Lk. 11:52 reports Mt. 23:13: ‘You have taken away the key (κλεῖδα) of knowledge’. As with Mt. 23:13, compression is involved: ‘key of knowledge’ is short for ‘key to the door/gate to knowledge’. e priority of Matthew’s kingdom language over Luke’s knowledge language is suggested by its better t with the image of entering which follows in both forms. 47. In the LXX ἔμπροσθεν is one of the regularly used translations of lpny (lit. ‘to the face of ’). 48. Mt. 5:20; 7:21; 18:3; 19:23, 24. 49. A considerable number of scholars understand the verse as focussing on matters of legal interpretation, but a focus on the mission of Jesus is altogether more likely. e choice of kingdom language suggests that this and the following woe share a mission focus. 50. In the NT it is also found in Acts 2:11; 6:5; 13:43. 51. Acts uses ϕοβούμενος τὸν θεὸν (‘one fearing God’) and σεβομένος [τὸν θεόν] (‘one worshipping [God]’). e level of allegiance would range from faithful attendance at synagogue to a rather superstitious adoption of selected Jewish practices. Jos., Ap. 282, picks out abstaining from work on the sabbath, fasts, lighting of lamps, and abstention from certain foods as Jewish customs that had been widely adopted by non-Jews. 52. e classic statement of the view remains that of Simon, Verus Israel, 271-305. See also L. H. Feldmann, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 53. Goodmann, ‘Jewish Proselytizing’, 53-78, clearly recognises that the evidence claimed for proselytising actually goes no further than indicating acceptance of proselytes into the Jewish community. See also McKnight, Light; Will and Orrieux, ‘Prosélytisme’. Some of the intertestamental literature was designed to commend Jewish faith to the wider Hellenistic

culture (as in parts are the writings of Josephus), but this is more about establishing respectability and a right to exist than about proselytising, though at times its existence may have smoothed the way for proselytes. 54. e account in Jos., Ant. 20.40-42, of the conversion of King Izates offers the kind of case that could be in mind. 55. is is Goodmann’s view (cf. n. 53). 56. διπλότερον is the comparative of διπλοῦν (‘double’). e translation ‘full double’ takes this as an elative use. 57. He has seven of the ten Gospel uses. 58. e form of the material involves a statement which is criticised, a second statement which is criticised, and what looks like a concluding summary and generalisation but turns out to be rather more (see below). e complexity of this pattern, along with the opening image ‘blind guides’, which conforming to the pattern would have disturbed, have dissuaded Matthew from seeking to work the transformation. 59. M. Šeb. 4:13 offers a broader set of words for placing a person under oath. In the absence of any speci c indication that something else is being sworn by, the use of an oath word was taken to imply that the oath was being sworn by God. 60. M. Šeb. 4:13 lists ‘“by Aleph-Daleth” or “by Yod-He” or “by Shaddai” or “by Sabaoth” or “by the Merciful and Gracious” or “by him that is longsuffering and of great kindness”, or by any substituted name’. 61. e fundamental study here is that of S. Liebermann, Greek in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Life and Manners of Jewish Palestine in the II-IV Centuries CE (New York: Jewish eological Seminary of America, 1942). His insights into rabbinic discussion of oaths and vows have been applied to Mt. 23:16, 18 by Garland, Matthew 23, 132-36, and, following him, Schlosser, ‘Choses’, 293; Newport, Sources, 100-102; and more cautiously Westerholm, Jesus, 109-11. 62. M. Ned. 1:3 offers as an illustration of equivalence: ‘If one vowed by any of the utensils of the Altar, although he did not utter [the word] qrbn, it is a vow as binding as if he had uttered the word qrbn’.

63. See Ex. 29:37: ‘Whatever touches the altar will become holy’; m. Zeb. 9:1: ‘e altar makes holy whatsoever is prescribed as its due’. 64. See, e.g., Ps. 18:6; Hab. 2:20; 11QTemple (11Q19) 29:7-10. 65. And to a woe parallelled in Luke; see Lk. 11:42. e source form is likely to be close to Matthew’s wording (apart from the standardised introduction). e main difference is that ‘the love of God’ replaces ‘mercy and faith’ in Luke’s text. Luke has no parallel to Mt. 23:24. 66. See Lv. 27:30-33; Nu. 18:21; Dt. 12:6-9; 14:22-29; 26:12-15; 2 Ch. 31:5-12; Ne. 10:37-38; 12:44; 13:5, 12; Mal. 3:8, 10. 67. See m. Maʿaś. 4:5 for tithing dill, m. Dem. 2:1 for cummin. Mint has not in fact been found in the Jewish sources, but the lack is likely to be fortuitous. e form of the material in Lk. 11:42 exaggerates to drive home the point. It is probably less original than the Mt. 23:23 form in this respect. 68. Cf. t. Peʾa 4:19: ‘Charity and deeds of loving-kindness outweigh all other commandments in the Torah’ (cited following Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:295). 69. See Pss. 15; 24; Is. 66:2b; Je. 22:3-4; Am. 5:24; Mi. 6:8; Zc. 7:9-10; 8:16-17. 70. But the point could be to set over against each other minor matters of a religious practice and major matters of dealing with other people. 71. B. Hor. 11a; b. ʿA. Zar. 26b identify the eating of a ea or a gnat as a transgression of the Torah. 72. See Black, Aramaic Approach, 175-76. 73. e verb here, διϋλίζειν (‘strain’) is used of the straining of wine in Am. 6:6 LXX. 74. As in Am. 6:6 LXX; b. Šab. 20:2; and cf. b. Ḥul. 67a. 75. E.g., καταπίνειν is used in 1 Pet. 5:8 of a lion devouring (swallowing) its prey. 76. Luke’s parallel to Mt. 23:25-26 is Lk. 11:39, 41. Matthew’s παρυψίδος (‘dish’) is likely to be the source form rather than Luke’s πίνακος (‘platter/dish’) because Matthew accepts πίναξ from his source in 14:8, 11. Matthew’s ἀκρασίας (‘self-indulgence’), the only Gospel occurrence, is likely to be the source form rather than Luke’s πονηρίας (‘evil’). Luke has drawn in

additional material for Lk. 11:40 and totally reformulated the material of Mt. 23:26. ere is, however, an intriguing possibility that there is some sort of source foundation for the link between ἄϕρονες (‘fools’) in Lk. 11:40, the Matthean pattern of μωροί (‘foolish [ones]’) in Mt. 23:17 (joined with τυϕλοί [‘blind (ones)’], as repeated from v. 16), and Φαρισαῖε τυϕλέ (‘blind Pharisee’) in v. 26. ‘Pharisee’ (without scribe) here is likely to re ect Matthew’s use of material earlier addressed to Pharisees (cf. Lk. 11:39-41) rather than to Matthew’s combined group. 77. See, e.g., m. Kel. 25:1. e handle was sometimes distinguished as a third category. See m. Kel. 25:7-8. 78. See m. Kel. 25:6-7: ‘If the outer side of a vessel contracted uncleanness from a liquid, only its outer side is unclean but its inner side, rim, hanger, and handles remain clean. If its inner side contracted uncleanness, the whole is unclean. All vessels are subject to different laws in regard to their outer and inner sides respectively.’ H. Maccoby, ‘Washing’, 315; Maccoby, ‘Liquids’, 115-22, thinks that these distinctions depend on a decree about liquids that came aer the time of Jesus (but in the period of formation of the Gospels), but while this decree represents a stage of development in the codi cation of purity rules, the practices are likely to have predated this speci c contribution to the codi cation. e Gospel texts themselves offer support for the existence of the distinction. e view in m. Kel. 25:6-7 that uncleanness on the outside does not transmit to the inside may not have been the only view current. Neusner, ‘First Cleanse’, 492 cites y. Ber. 8:2, where, according to the House of Shammai, one is to wash one’s hands before handling the cup to avoid the possibility of uncleanness from the hands contaminating liquid on the outside of the cup and subsequently making the (whole) cup unclean. 79. See m. Miqw. 10:1 for the care that needed to be taken when immersing vessels to ensure that water reached the inside of the vessel (no immersing mouth downward!). 80. e key OT texts are Lv. 11:32, which has bmmym ywbʾ (lit. ‘will be brought into the water’), and Nu. 31:23, which has tʿbyrw bmmym (‘will pass through the water’). e my nddh (‘water of cleansing’) involved in Nu. 31:23 is used in Nu. 19:13 for sprinkling. Passing the vessels through a

stream of water, as was the case with the ritual washing of hands, would not seem entirely out of place. 81. Possibly what is envisaged is the kind of careless emersion that is warned against in m. Miqw. 10:1 (referred to in n. 79 above), in which the water does not properly get to the inside of the vessel. 82. e linking ἐξ should not be taken to mean ‘on the basis of ’. It is best seen as used with γέμουσιν (‘are full’) as a slightly overliteral translation of a use of mlʾ mn (‘be full of ’). See Ezra 9:11; Is. 2:6; Je. 4:12; Ez. 12:19; 19:7; 32:6. 83. ‘Inside’ and ‘outside’ are expressed in Mt. 23:25 with ἔσωθεν and τὸ ἔξωθεν and in v. 26 with τὸ ἐντός and τὸ ἐκτός, but no difference of meaning is intended. In the repetition from v. 27 to v. 28 ἔσωθεν and ἔξωθεν are used on both occasions. 84. Beyond the shared standard Matthean introduction there is the shared interest in what is ritually clean or unclean (use of the καθαρ- root); a shared double use of the outside/inside distinction (ἔξωθεν/ἔνωθεν in both cases in Mt. 23:27-28; moving to ἐκτός and ἐντός for the second case in vv. 25-26); a shared use of ἔσωθεν δὲ γέμουσιν (‘inside you are full’) with a double object; a shared movement between the gurative and the literal (in vv. 27-28 the gurative of v. 27 gives way to the literal of v. 28; in vv. 25-26 the literal appears in v. 25b and v. 27 moves back into the gurative). e shared letters and letter sequences between ἀκρασίας (‘self-indulgence’) and ἀκαθαρσίας (‘uncleanness’) suggest that a wordplay might have been intended in the Greek source. 85. In Luke these two woes (11:39-41, 44) are separated by two further woes. Luke presents the rst in a non-woe form and has so transformed the second that the thematic and language parallels all but disappear. e level of Lukan intervention in v. 44 makes it more difficult to assess the level of Matthean intrusion (but see n. 87). It seems unlikely, however, that Matthew has deliberately enhanced the links between Mt. 23:25-26 and 27-28. 86. e related adjective παρόμοιος is found in Mk. 7:13. 87. κονιᾶν (‘plaster’) is found only in Mt. 23:27 and Acts 23:3; the way in which ϕαίνειν (‘to appear’) is used is matched only in Matthew in 6:16, 18, where it is traditional (elsewhere in the Gospels cf. Lk. 24:11); ὀστέον

(‘bone’) is found only here in Matthew; γέμειν (‘be full’) is only here and in the following woe; ἀκαθαρσία (‘uncleanness’) is only here in the Gospels; μεστός (‘full’) is only here in Matthew; even ὑπόκρισις (‘hypocrisy’) is only here in Matthew. 88. But for Mt. 23:28 only μεστός (‘full’) and ὑπόκρισις (‘hypocrisy’) count against Matthean creation. 89. Dt. 27:2, 4; Pr. 21:9. e same is true of the Hebrew śyd. 90. In b. B. B. the decorative role of the ‘whitewashing’ is clear from the juxtaposition of the noun with ‘mural decoration’ and of the verb with ‘decorate’. In the argument of the text an ‘improvement’, even if rather token, of an abandoned estate establishes ownership. 91. For the marking of tombs see m. M. Š. 5:1; b. M. Qaṭ. 1:2; b. M. Qaṭ. 2a. 92. B. Yoma 66 has an interplay between the whitewashing of houses and of graves, where the whitewashing of the house is clearly intended to be decorative and that of the grave seems to be primarily to mark the existence of the grave. 93. Garland, Matthew 23, 154-57, makes the matter more complicated by distinguishing between monumental tombs, which were beautiful, and the whitewash on them, which identi ed them as tombs rather than some other kind of monument. is is possible, but probably unnecessarily complicated. 94. On Jewish tombs see Jeremias, Heiligengräber; Figuras, Decorated; Yadin, Jerusalem, 18-20. 95. See Mt. 1:19; 5:45; 10:41; 13:17, 43, 49; 25:37, 46. 96. See Mt. 7:23; 13:41; 24:12. 97. Matthew has already established ‘prophet’ and ‘righteous [one]’ as a pair in 10:41; 13:17. He is able to use τὰ μνημεῖα (‘the grave monuments’) from his source for the one group and introduce τοὺς τάϕους (‘the tombs’) for the other group for a connection back to 23:27. Care for the ‘tombs of the righteous’ in v. 29 has its counterpart in ‘seem[ing] to people [to be] righteous’ in v. 28. Note that once Matthew has used ‘the righteous’ in v. 29 to strengthen the link with v. 28, they drop from sight in vv. 30-31. 98. See Mt. 3:7; 14:1, 5; 16:14; 21:11, 23-27, 46.

99. Luke has no parallel to this verse (see Lk. 11:47-48), but the difficulty of making sense of Luke at this point (only in the second part of v. 48 does his point become clear) suggests that he has compressed the material. 100. See 1 Ki. 19:10, 14; Ne. 9:26; Je. 2:30; 26:20-24. 101. See Is. 8:9-10; Je. 7:21; Am. 4:4-5; Rev. 22:11. 102. ‘Gehenna’ has already been used in the woes in Mt. 23:15. κρίσις as ‘judgment’ is found in Mt. 12:41, 42; and in the phrase ‘day of judgment’ is found in 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36. ‘From the judgment of Gehenna’ is a good Jewish phrase = mdnh šl ghinnm. Schlatter, Matthäus, 686, cites Tanchuma brʾšyt 25:19: my ynnzl mddynh šl gyhnnm (‘who will be rescued from the judgment of Gehenna’). 103. Matthew uses ἰδού to mark emphasis, oen in connection with his structuring of materials. 104. Matthew’s readiness to see John the Baptist and Jesus as envoys of Wisdom in Mt. 11:19 (see there) suggest, however, that he intends no criticism of his source by his changes. 105. Marked strongly in Matthew’s story by the role of the formula citations, beginning with 1:22 (see there). 106. Wisdom is a core category for Proverbs, Sirach, and Wisdom; and there is much here to be evoked by reference to the sending of the wise as emissaries. e use of ‘sages’ (ḥkmym) as an early rabbinic category suggests that ‘sages’ and ‘scribes’ should be thought of as overlapping categories. 107. In this light Matthew probably also intends ‘will kill’ to be connected with the use of the same verb in the Passion predictions in 16:21; 17:23. 108. e phrase in Jon. 1:14 is wʾl-ttn ʿlynw dm (lit. ‘and will not give blood on us’) and in Je. 26:15 is dm ntnym ʿlykm (lit. ‘giving blood upon you’). 109. Closely related idioms using ‘upon the head of ’ are found in Jos. 2:19, dmw brʾšnw (lit. ‘his blood [will be] on our head’); 1 Ki. 2:32, hšyb dmyhm brʾš (lit. ‘will return their blood on [the] head’); 1 Ki. 2:33, wšbw dmyhm brʾš (lit. ‘and their blood will return upon the head’).

110. Lv. 20:9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 27; Jos. 2:19; 2 Sa. 1:16; Ez. 18:13; 33:4, 5; cf. La. 4:14; and cf. 2 Sa. 1:16 dmyk ʿl-rʾšk (lit. ‘your blood [be] upon your own head’). is idiom is carried over to the LXX. 111. See Gn. 9:5; 42:22; 2 Kgdms 4:11; Ps. 9:13; Ez. 3:18. 112. Pr. 6:17; La. 4:13; Joel 3:19(LXX 4:19). 113. But 1 Ch. 22:8 says of Solomon, ‘You have poured out so much blood … on the land (LXX: ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς)’, which is verbally close. 114. ‘e similarity between “from [the] foundation of the world” [in Lk. 11:50] and “from the beginning of creation” in Mark 13:19, along with the general similarity of thought, suggests that the link to Dan 12:1 of that verse may be via an exegetical tradition also re ected here’ (Nolland, Luke, 2:668). 115. See Jos., War 4.334-44. 116. In chronological terms, the last OT prophet to be murdered would seem to be Uriah in Je. 26:20-23. 117. See Str-B, 1:940-42. Cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 138-39; McNamara, ‘Zechariah’, 160-63. 118. A legend in b. Giṭ. 57b which says of the priest Zechariah, ‘his blood has not rested’, and has Nebuzaradan avenge the priest’s blood by means of massive slaughter in Jerusalem, also seems to re ect a link between the blood of Abel crying from the ground and the blood of the priest Zechariah, and to have the same focus on vengeance as found in Mt. 23:35. Cf. also y. Taʿan. 4:5. 119. Since Matthew seems to be the one making changes in this part of 23:35 par. Lk. 11:50, the reversal of the order of ‘sanctuary’/‘house’ and ‘altar’ is probably his also. 120. Luke has ‘Yes, I say to you’ also at 7:25; 12:5. Matthew has no fewer than thirty-one uses of ‘Amen, I say to you’ (counting both singular and plural uses). 121. Luke does not need to be precise with his use of the passive ἐκζητηθήσεται (‘it will be required’), but his reference is naturally back to ‘the blood of all the prophets’ in 11:50. 122. Cf. Nolland, Luke, 2:668.

123. e discussion here re ects some change of mind from Nolland, Luke, 2:739. 124. Matthew uses only the indeclinable form for ‘Jerusalem’, Ἰερουσαλήμ, here. e wording of Mt. 23:37 and Lk. 13:34 is nearly identical: Lk. 13:34 leaves Matthew’s use of ἐπισυνάγει (‘gathers up’) to be implied and uses τὴν ἑαυτῆς νοσσιάν (‘her own brood/young’) rather than τὰ νοσσία αὐτῆς (‘her brood/young’). 125. See Gn. 22:11; 46:2; Ex. 3:4; 1 Sa. 3:4, 10. ese, however, all address individuals. 126. Lv. 24:14, 16, 23; Dt. 13:1-11. Certain other categories of sin also called for stoning: Ex. 19:13; Lv. 20:2, 27; Nu. 15:35-36; Dt. 17:2-5; 20:20-21; 22:17-21, 23-34. 127. A repeated wish does not require repeated visits, only a repeated awareness that conditions for a successful attempt were not present, or even ongoing attempts at a single visit. 128. Cf. Ps. 147:2; Gal. 4:26. 129. See Pss. 106(LXX 105):47; 107:3; 147(LXX 146):2; Is. 11:12; 40:11; 43:5; 49:18 (in context children); 52:12 (LXX only); 54:7; 56:8; 60:4; Je. 23:3; 29:14; 31:8, 10; 32:37; Ez. 11:17; 20:41; 28:25; 34:13; 36:24; 37:21; 39:27; Mi. 2:12; 4:6; Zp. 3:19; Zc. 10:8-10. 130. See Dt. 32:11; Ru. 2:12; Pss. 17:8; 36:7; 2 Esdr. 1:30; 2 Bar. 41:3-4; b. Šab. 31a; b. Yeb. 46b, 48b; b. Ned. 32a; b. B. M. 84a; b. Sanh. 96b; b. ʿA. Zar. 13b. 131. See Ez. 11:22-23, where God (‘the glory of Yahweh’) abandons the city, presumably by leaving the temple; and references in Jos., War 5.412-13; 6.295-300; Tac., Hist. 5.13; 2 Bar. 8:2; 64:6-7; 4 Bar. 4:1 to the departure of the divine presence from the temple as the prelude to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. 132. Matthew has added ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι (‘from now [on]’) (cf. Mt. 26:29, 64). e complex ἕως ἥξει ὅτε (‘until [the time] comes when’) of Lk. 13:35 is simpli ed to ἕως ἄν (‘until’). 133. ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι (‘from now [on]’) is found in Mt. 23:39; 26:29, 64. In 23:39; 26:29 ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι is preceded by λέγω … ὑμῖν, οὐ μή + subj. (‘I say to you’ + emphatic negative future). 26:64 has ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι before the verb, which is this

time a regular future. Does Matthew intend an echo of his narrative use of ἀπὸ τότε (lit. ‘from then’) in 4:17; 16:21; 26:16? 134. Nolland, Luke, 2:742. 135. Tan, Zion, 115-16. 136. e coming of the Son of Man will again be in view in Mt. 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:31; 26:64; cf. 24:5, 42, 50; 25:10. 137. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:323. (Exceptionally in 1 Enoch 62:6, 9-10; 63:1-12 the wicked bless God as a ploy in an attempt to evade judgment.) 138. is view is well defended by Allison, ‘Matth. 23.39’, 75-84; and cf. van der Kwaak, ‘Klage’, 156-70.

XX. THE SHAPE OF THE FUTURE (24:1– 25:46) A. e Temple Will Be Destroyed (24:1-2) le athe temple and was on his waya when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2In response he said to them, ‘You see all these, bdon’t youb? Amen, I say to you, there won’t be le here [one] stone upon [another] stone which will not be pulled down.’ 1Jesus

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. επορευετο, ‘was on his way’, is brought to the beginning of this set of words in C W 0102 1006 1342 1506 etc., to give ‘and was on his way from the temple’. b-b. Missing from D L 33 700 892 etc. lat sys sa mae bo, to agree with Mk. 13:2. Bibliography Baarlink, H., Eschatologie, 67-121.• Buzzard, A. F., ‘Cutting Up Matthew 24’, JournRadRef 6 (1997), 1-3. • Heil, J. P., ‘Final Parables in the Eschatological Discourse in Matthew 24–25’, in Parables, W. Carter and J. P. Heil, 177-209. • Agbanou, V. K., Le Discours eschatologique de Matthieu 24-25: Tradition et rédaction (ÉBib 2. Paris: Gabalda, 1983). • Balabanski, V., Eschatology in the Making: Mark, Matthew and the Didache (SNTSMS 97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). • Bauckham, R. J., ‘e Delay of the Parousia’, TynB 31 (1980), 3-33. • Beasley-Murray, G. R., Jesus and the Last Days: e Interpretation of the Olivet Discourse (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993). • Beasley-Murray, G. R., ‘Second oughts on the Composition of

Mark 13’, NTS 29 (1983), 414-20. • Black, C. C., ‘An Oration at Olivet: Some Rhetorical Dimensions of Mark 13’, in Persuasive Artistry, ed. D. F. Watson, 66-92. • Bockmuehl, M. N. A., ‘Why Did Jesus Predict the Destruction of the Temple?’, Crux 25 (1989), 11-18. • Boismard, M.-É., ‘Réponse aux deux autres hypothèses: 2. La “Two-Gospel Hypothesis”: Le discours eschatologique’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 265-88. • Brandenburger, E., Markus 13 und die Apokalyptik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1984). • Broer, I., ‘Redaktionsgeschichtliche Aspekte von Mt. 24:1-28’, NovT 35 (1993), 209-33. • Burnett, F. W., Testament. • Burnett, F. W., ‘Prolegomenon to Reading Matthew’s Eschatological Discourse: Redundancy and the Education of the Reader in Matthew’, Semeia 31 (1985), 91-109. • Carroll, J. T., Response to the End of History: Eschatology and Situation in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 92. Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1988), 103-19. • Conyers, A. J., e End: What Jesus Really Said about Last ings (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995). • Cope, O. L., ‘“To the Close of the Age”: e Role of Apocalyptic ought in the Gospel of Matthew’, in Apocalyptic and the New Testament. FS J. L. Martyn, ed. J. Marcus and M. L. Soards (JSNTSup 24. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989), 113-24. • Cran eld, C. E. B., ‘oughts on New Testament Eschatology’, SJT 35 (1982), 497-512. • Detering, H., ‘e Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13 par): A Document from the Time of Bar Kochba’, JHC 7 (2000), 161-210. • Donaldson, T. L., Mountain, 157-69. • Dupont, J., Les trois apocalypses synoptiques: Marc 13; Matthieu 24–25; Luc 21 (LD 121. Paris: Cerf, 1985). • Dyer, K. D., e Prophecy on the Mount: Mark 13 and the Gathering of the New Community (International eological Studies: Contributions of Baptist Scholars 2. Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt: Lang, 1998). • Dyer, K. D., ‘“But concerning that day…” (Mark 13:32): “Prophetic” and “Apocalyptic” Eschatology in Mark 13’, SBLSP 39 (2000), 104-22. • Evans, C. A., ‘Prediction of the Destruction of the Herodian Temple in the Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Scrolls, and Related Texts’, JSP 10 (1992), 89-147. • Feuillet, A., ‘La signi cation fondamentale de Marc XIII: Recherches sur l’eschatologie des Synoptiques’, Revom 80 (1980), 181-215. • Geddert, T. J., Watchwords: Mark 13 in Markan Eschatology (JSNTSup 26. Sheffield: JSOT, 1989). • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 163-225. • Gibbs, J. A., Jerusalem and Parousia: Jesus’ Eschatological

Discourse in Matthew’s Gospel (St. Louis: Concordia, 2000). • Giesen, H., ‘Christliche Existenz in der Welt und der Menschensohn’, SUNT 8 (1983), 18-69. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Matthew’s Eschatology’, in Mystery, ed. T. E. Schmidt and M. Silva, 49-71. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Imminence and Parousia in the Gospel of Matthew’, in Texts and Contexts. FS L. Hartmann, ed. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm (Olso/Boston: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 77-92. • Hagner, D. A., ‘Apocalyptic Motifs in the Gospel of Matthew: Continuity and Discontinuity’, HBT 7 (1985), 53-82. • Hahn, F., ‘Die eschatologische Rede Matthäus 24 und 25’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 107-26. • Hallbäck, G., ‘Der anonyme Plan: Analyse von Mk 13,5-27 im Hinblick auf die Relevance der apokalyptischen Rede für die Problematik der Aussage’, LingBib 49 (1981), 28-53. • Harrington, D. J., ‘Polemical Parables in Matthew 24–25’, USQR 44 (1991), 287-98. • Hengel, M., Mark, 14-28. • Hengel, M., ‘Entstehungszeit und Situation des Markusevangeliums’, in MarkusPhilologie: Historische, literargeschichtliche und stilistische Untersuchungen zum zweiten Evangelium, ed. H. Cancik (WUNT 33. Tübingen: Mohr, 1984), 1-45. • Kallilkuzhuppil, J., ‘e Glori cation of the Suffering Church (Mk 13.1-37)’, Biblebhashyam 9 (1983), 247-57. • Knockaert, A., ‘A Fresh Look at the Eschatological Discourse (Mt 24–25)’, LVit 40 (1985), 167-79. • Laufen, R., Doppelüberlieferung, 361-84. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 479-561. • Martin, F., ‘Le signe du ls de l’homme: Analyse de chapitres 24 et 25 de l’évangile de Matthieu’, LumVie 160 (1982), 61-77. • McNicol, A. J., ‘e Composition of the Synoptic Eschatological Discourse’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 157-200. • McNicol, A. J., Jesus’ Directions for the Future: A Source and Redaction-History Study of the Use of the Eschatological Traditions in Paul and in the Synoptic Accounts of Jesus’ Last Eschatological Discourse (NGS 9. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996). • Mitchell, M. M., ‘A Tale of Two Apocalypses’, CurTM 25 (1998), 200-209. • Mora, V., Création, 81-87. • Mussner, F., Was lehrt Jesus über das Ende der Welt? Eine Auslegung von Markus 13 (Freiburg: Herder, 1987). • Neirynck, F., ‘Note on the Eschatological Discourse’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 77-80. • Neirynck, F., ‘Response to the Multiple Stage Hypothesis I: e Eschatological Discourse’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 108-24. • Neirynck, F., ‘e Eschatological Discourse’, in Evangelica II, 493-510. •

Neirynck, F., ‘Le discours anti-apokalyptique de Mc. XIII’, in Evangelica, 598-608. • Neirynck, F., ‘Marc 13: Examen critique de l’interprétation de R. Pesch’, in Evangelica, 565-97. • Paesler, K., Tempelwort. • Sabourin, L., ‘Apocalyptic Traits in Matthew’s Gospel’, RSB 3 (1983), 19-27. • Pesch, R., Naherwartungen: Tradition und Redaktion in Mk 13 (KuBANT. Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1968). • Pesch, R. ‘Markus 13’, in L’Apocalypse, ed. J. Lambrecht, 355-68. • Schlosser, J., ‘La parole de Jésus sur le n du Temple’, NTS 36 (1990), 398-414. • Sim, D. C., Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew (SNTSMS 88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). • Taylor, N., ‘Interpretation of Scripture as an Indicator of Socio-historical Context: e Case of the Eschatological Discourses in Mark and Q’, in Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 459-67. • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 12565. • eissen, G., ‘Jesus’ Temple Prophecy’, in Social Reality and the Early Christians, tr. M. Kohl (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 94-114. • Tiede, D. L., ‘Weeping for Jerusalem’, in Prophecy and History, 65-96, 143-48. • Tuckett, C. M., ‘e Eschatological Discourse’, in Interrelation, ed. D. L. Dungan, 63-76. • Tuckett, C. M., Revival, 167-85. • Turner, D. L., ‘e Structure and Sequence of Matthew 24:1-41: Interaction with Evangelical Treatments’, GTJ 10 (1989), 3-27. • Verheyden, J., ‘e Source(s) of Luke 21’, in L’Évangile de Luc — e Gospel of Luke: Revised and Enlarged Edition of L’Évangile de Luc: Problèmes littéraires et théologiques (BETL 32. Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1989), ed. F. Neirynck, 491-516. • Vorster, W. S., ‘Literary Re ections on Mark 13.5-37’, Neot 21 (1987), 203-24. • Vorster, W. S., ‘A Reader-Response Approach to Matthew 24:3-28’, HTS 47 (1991), 1099-1108. • Ware, B. A., ‘Is the Church in View in Matthew 24–25?’ BSac 138 (1981), 158-72. • Wenham, D., ‘Paul and the Synoptic Apocalypse’, in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham, 2:245-75. • Wenham, D., ‘is generation will not pass …’, in Christ the Lord: Studies in Christology. FS D. Guthrie, ed. H. H. Rowdon (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982), 127-50. • Wenham, D., e Rediscovery of Jesus’ Eschatological Discourse (Gospel Perspectives 4. Sheffield: JSOT, 1984). • Wright, N. T., Victory, 339-68, 51019. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘e Eschatological Discourse of Mark 13’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1125-40. See further at 23:1-12.

e new section 24:1–25:46 (26:2) has been prepared for by the materials towards the end of chap. 23. Indeed, 21:12–23:39 have all been leading up to this. is section is the h and nal of the set of major discourses in Matthew which are linked by a shared marker at the end.1 Jesus’ extended discourse here divides into three major sections: 24:4-35 give Jesus’ response to the question of v. 3; 24:36–25:30 take their point of departure from the note of uncertainty about the timing of the coming of the Son of Man, introduced in v. 36; and 25:31-46 portray the decisive separation of people carried out at the nal judgment by the Son of Man, and the basis on which it will take place. Here in 24:1-2 the point is that, in judgment, God will reduce the magni cent Jerusalem temple to rubble. Matthew continues his Markan sequence for chap. 24. Mk. 13 is his major source, but he also makes use of material parallelled in Lk. 17:22-37 (speci cally for Mt. 24:26-27, 28, 37-39, 40-41 [vv. 17-18 are also parallelled, but this material has probably been drawn into Lk. 17 from Mk. 13]) and in Lk. 12:39-40, 42b-46 (for Mt. 24:43-51). e earlier history of the materials of Mt. 24 and parallels is much disputed. ere seem to have been at least four separately transmitted bodies of material (made up in turn of pieces which do not necessarily exhibit an original unity). Luke is likely to have added much of v. 22, vv. 25 and 32-33, and the start of v. 37 to his source form for 17:22-37.2 ere is a thematic coherence and a modest level of overlap (Lk. 17:31; Mk. 13:15-16) between Luke’s source here and Mk. 13. In the case of the source for Mt. 24:43-51, again there is thematic coherence and modest overlap (Lk. 12:40; Mk. 13:35 — and Luke’s source here will also have included Lk. 12:35-38, which are signi cantly parallelled in Mk. 13:33-37), but likely separate transmission.3 ough the precise scope of the supplementary source is rather uncertain, Luke seems to have had for Lk. 21 a second source version of the Eschatological Discourse, one which had not undergone what one might

suspect to have been the secondary rewriting in Danielic idiom of the Mk. 13 form (perhaps inspired by an original Danielic link for only Mk. 13:26).4 As argued by Kloppenborg,5 Matthew may have had an additional source represented in 24:10, 12, 30, 31 since Did. 16:3-6 has materials that parallel these verses and the Didache materials are striking in their lack of correspondence with any of the Markan clauses. ere is also a likelihood that Mt. 10:23 is the outcropping of another form of the Eschatological Discourse (of uncertain but perhaps limited scope) known to Matthew (v. 23 concludes a section of material parallelled in Mk. 13:9-13). Mt. 10:23 is likely to be part of the same source as that identi ed by Kloppenborg. See further the discussion at Mt. 10:23. It is the origin of the material on the coming disaster in Jerusalem that is most hotly disputed. Many scholars have favoured origin in an apocalyptic pamphlet, either Christian or Jewish. eissen6 offers a particularly attractive version of this general approach, which traces the material to a Christian apocalyptic prophecy at the time of the threat to Jewish life posed in A.D. 40 by Emperor Caligula’s proposal to set up a statue of himself in the Jerusalem temple. Despite undoubted apocalyptic elements in common, however, the postulated document is radically unlike the apocalyptic documents available for comparison. e Gospel tradition widely attested the expectation of a present-generation judgment. So there is ultimately no need for a particular point of crisis to lie behind these materials. As I note elsewhere, ‘When Jesus’ view that the intervention of God in the world had reached a decisive stage in connection with his own ministry is linked with his experience of the substantial rejection of his ministry, especially by the leadership classes, it becomes difficult not to attribute to him some such expectation of impending judgment’.7 ere is every likelihood that a core of Mk. 13 and related materials goes back to the historical Jesus.8 It is not inconceivable that an original prophecy by Jesus has taken on some colouring from a crisis situation facing Jerusalem in the subsequent period. For prophecy by others of the destruction of the Herodian temple see Evans.9

24:1 ough the general thrust remains much as in Mk. 13:1, Matthew has largely reformulated. He freshly introduces Jesus by name at the start of the new section.10 He also presents Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem as made up of visits to the temple on two consecutive days (21:12-17, 23–23:39). e second visit now comes to an end. Whereas Mark locates the exchange within the temple area as Jesus makes his way past the various buildings on his way out, Matthew imagines the disciples approaching Jesus when he is already outside the temple area, presumably at a point where he could have some overall view of the temple (perhaps already on the Mount of Olives — cf. 24:3). Despite its popularity, the view that Jesus’ departure from the temple symbolises here its abandonment by God is probably not to be accepted for Matthew, though it may well be true for Mk. 13:1-3.11 Matthew makes this yet another coming of the disciples to Jesus (most recently in 18:1, and to be repeated almost immediately in 24:3).12 ‘To point out to him the buildings of the temple’ probably means to draw his attention to the impressive pro le which the buildings presented from the particular vantage point that had been reached.13 No particular investment in the signi cance of the temple is being attributed to the disciples. ey are simply marking the impressiveness of the structure. 24:2 Again Matthew has intervened signi cantly in the language, but with little substantial change of meaning. He adds his much favoured ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered, he said’), puts emphasis on Jesus’ rhetorical question by adding οὐ (indicating an expectation of a positive answer), generalises with ‘all these things’ (ταῦτα πάντα) for Mark’s more speci c ‘these great buildings’,14 introduces the emphatic ‘Amen, I say to you’ of which he is so fond (most recently at 23:36 in connection with material with which the present material shows strong thematic continuity).15

Matthew sees the fate of the temple as connected with the judgment for ‘all the righteous blood’ anticipated in 23:35-36 and more speci cally with the desolation of the temple heralded in the woe on Jerusalem in vv. 37-38. Many centuries earlier the prophet Jeremiah had announced a similar fate for the temple.16 Aer the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, Jewish re ection on the signi cance of this event frequently involved linking it with the earlier Babylonian destruction.17 We have already noted at 23:35 the use of patterns of thought drawn from the experience of the Babylonian Exile. ere may be a variant on the Babylonian-Exile connection here, with λίθος ἐπὶ λίθον (lit. ‘stone on stone’) echoing Hg. 2:15, where λίθον ἐπὶ λίθον (MT: ʾbn ʾl ʾbn) is used for the beginnings of the construction of the post-Exilic temple: restoration is now to be reversed. Matthew’s verbs are divine passives. e contrast is to be noted with the active verbs of Mt. 26:61; 27:40, where another use of καταλύειν (‘destroy/pull down’) indicates an intended link.18 e destruction of A.D. 70, while it utterly devastated the fabric of the temple, did not literally leave no stone on another. B. e Question and the Main Body of the Answer (24:3-35) 1. e Beginning of the ‘Labour Pains’ (24:3-8) 3When

he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what [will be] the sign of your coming and of athe completion of the age?’ 4In response Jesus said to them, ‘See that no one leads you astray. 5For many will come in my name, saying, “I am the Christ”, and will lead many astray. 6You will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed. For it is necessary for b[these things] to happen, but the end is not yet. 7For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be cfaminesd and

earthquakesc from place to place. 8But all these [things are but] the beginning of the e“labour pains”e.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. A separate de nite article for ‘completion’ is absent, but it is provided in D W 0102 f13 1006 1342 1506 etc. b. e subject here is unexpressed, but various texts make good this lack. C W 0102 f13 1006 1342 etc. syp, h have παντα (‘all’); 565 1506 etc. lat sys have ταυτα (‘these [things]’); (545) 1241 etc. (f) have παντα ταυτα (‘all these [things]’). c-c. e order of ‘famines’ and ‘earthquakes’ is reversed in ‫א‬, as in Mk. 13:8. d. και λοιμοι (‘and plagues’) is added here from Lk. 21:11 by C Θ 0102 f1, 13 1006 1342 1506 etc. h q syp, h mae as well as by L W 33 579 etc. lat, but with the order ‘plagues’, ‘famines’, ‘earthquakes’. e-e. οδυνων (‘pains/sorrows’) is found here in place of ωδινων in D*. Bibliography See at 24:1-2.

e disciples ask for an expansion on what Jesus has said to them about the coming destruction of the temple, linking it with Jesus’ future coming and the end of the age. Jesus begins his answer by warning against being led astray by false claimants to his eschatological role. He warns that the widespread distress to come will be no more than the beginning of the sufferings that must precede the end. For these verses Matthew continues with his Markan source and follows Mk. 13:3-8 fairly closely. His most signi cant changes are to involve all the disciples and not just the four of Mk. 13:3 and to adjust their question in

anticipation of the shape and content he intends for the whole discourse. On sources more broadly and issues of historicity see the comments at Mt. 24:12.

24:3 Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem had involved crossing the Mount of Olives (21:1) to approach the city via its western slopes. His later prediction of the disciples’ desertion will take place there too (26:30).19 As in 5:1, Jesus’ seating himself on a mountain presents an opportunity for the disciples to come to him for instruction.20 e disciples want Jesus to expand on his statement in v. 2 about the future of the temple. Matthew enhances the sense that an expanded repeat performance is involved here by repeating ‘the disciples came to him’ from v. 1 (Jesus’ sitting has its counterpart in his being on the move in v. 1; ‘privately’ has its counterpart in the implicitly public setting for v. 2;21 the disciples’ question has its counterpart in Jesus’ statement in v. 2).22 e Markan question already assumes that the destruction of the temple is necessarily caught up in a larger complex of events (‘these things’; ‘all these things’). Matthew adds precision by replacing ‘when all these things are about to be accomplished’ (ὅταν μέλλῃ ταῦτα συντελεῖσθαι πάντα) with ‘of your coming and the completion of the age’ (τῆς σῆς παρουσίας καὶ συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος). e Christian absolute use of παρουσία for the (second) coming of Jesus (‘the Parousia’) is based on the use of the word in this absolute manner for the official arrival of a dignitary or for the manifestation of a deity. Its usage in relation to Jesus is reasonably common in the NT letters, but in the Gospels it is restricted to Mt. 24.23 A deliberate anachronism is involved in having the disciples ask about Jesus’ coming. is way of wording the question belongs to

the early church period; despite the Passion predictions the historical disciples had not at all come to terms with the prospect of Jesus’ death, and even if they had, death and resurrection as such do not create the absence that would be necessary for the coming envisaged here. e ‘withdrawal’ and subsequent coming (ὁ ἐρχόμενος) anticipated in 23:39 do, however, provide for the reader the perspective required for the language of coming here, and there are earlier links in the anticipated coming of the Son of Man in Mt. 10:23; 16:27-28. In the NT only Matthew uses the phrase ‘completion of the age’ (συντελε ία τοῦ αἰῶνος) — see at 13:39. is will be the time when the Son of Man arranges the nal separation of the wicked from the righteous. In the Greek text ‘your coming’ and ‘the completion of the age’ are marked as belonging together by sharing a single de nite article. In the general part of their question the disciples ask about when: ‘When will these things be?’ But in relation to the ‘coming’ and the ‘completion of the age’ they ask, ‘what will be the sign’ of these things? e Markan text has the difficulty that nothing later in the text is identi ed as this sign.24 Matthew will make good this de ciency with his very clear reference to ‘the sign of the Son of Man’ in 24:30 (see further discussion there). 24:4-5 Matthew’s parallelling of vv. 1-2 and vv. 3ff., noted above, is enhanced further by his repetition here of ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς (‘in response he said to them’) from v. 2.25 e response begins on a negative note with a warning against the possibility of being misled by the claims of some charlatan. Jesus anticipates a number (‘many’) of people putting themselves forward as the ones destined to play the key role in the unfolding of the future.26 Matthew’s intended sense for ‘in my name’ (ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι μου) is clari ed by the words attributed to these false gures: ‘I am the Christ’ (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ χριστός). ‘Christ’ is Matthew’s gloss on his

source here, which has only ‘I am [he]’ (ἐγώ εἰμι).27 Given the eschatological role that is in view, ‘Son of Man’ might have been a better gloss in the present context, but Matthew’s overarching christological title is ‘the Christ’, so this is what comes naturally to him here.28 He will also have in mind the link with v. 23 to come where ‘Christ’ is already in his source. ere is a similar slipping into Matthew’s own natural Christian diction at 11:2; 23:10. In the context of the present discourse, for someone to identify themselves as the Christ is to claim to be present in order to be involved in bringing the present age to its completion. In the kind of unfolding of the future that Mt. 24 envisages there is no place for a gure needing to identify himself as the coming Christ/Son of Man. But Jesus anticipates that many people will be taken in by false claimants.29 ough the information is sparse and our sources oen tendentious, the rst and second centuries no doubt produced a number of prophetic gures who made eschatological claims,30 and later centuries have produced further examples. Matthew will come back to the topic of being led astray in vv. 11 and 24. 24:6 Matthew increases the measure of parallelism between vv. 4-5 and v. 6 by adding ὁρᾶτε (‘see’) to Mark’s μὴ θροεῖσθε (‘do not be alarmed’) to conform the syntax to that of βλέπετε μή τις ὑμᾶς πλανήσῃ (‘see that no one leads you astray’) and by following with a linking γάρ (‘for’). ere is a natural connection between reports of wars and the prospect of the physical destruction of the Jerusalem temple: if one lived in or around Jerusalem and the wars one heard of were going to lead to the prophesied event, then alarm would be appropriate, the kind of alarm that might lead to the rapid evacuation which will be proposed in vv. 16-18. ἀκοή is a report, something that is heard. Here the distinction is between actual wars (of which one hears) and what is no more than a report, either

because it anticipates a war that is yet to break out or because it is a false rumour. As was the case with the announcement of the necessity of the Passion in 16:21, the kind of necessity that stands behind δεῖ (‘it is necessary’) is not yet clearly visible, but it will gradually become so. Again as there, the use of δεῖ may well re ect the in uence of the language of apocalyptic (cf. Dn. 2:28, both LXX and eod.): a good deal of trauma was generally believed to be necessarily involved in the dawning of the apocalyptic future. It will soon emerge that these wars have a place in an unfolding sequence that will in time lead to that in which the disciples have expressed their interest. What does τὸ τέλος (‘the end’) mean here? It can hardly be satisfactory to refer it to ‘the completion of the age’ of v. 3 and to separate this from the destruction of the temple.31 But the diction can hardly refer to the destruction of the temple and not to the completion of the age. e assumption seems to be that the destruction of the temple and the completion of the age are closely connected with each other. Con rmation for this will come later. e negative statement here that ‘the end is not yet’32 will be clari ed by v. 8. 24:7 Here we have a restatement and expansion in more objective terms of the rst clause of v. 6. ere may be an allusion to 2 Ch. 15:6 for ‘nation against nation’ and to Is. 19:2 for ‘kingdom against kingdom’ (these texts share a reference to ‘city against city’, which may be the basis for drawing them together, but which has not itself been used). e events anticipated in Mt. 24:7 are judgments of God, as were those of the OT texts alluded to. Matthew reverses Mark’s order for famines and earthquakes, perhaps because famines are as oen generated by war as by nature, where only nature, here viewed as the activity of God, stands behind earthquakes. For the OT prophets famine is oen the form in which the expression of God’s displeasure is anticipated. e

same is not true for earthquakes, which are reserved for more climactic moments.33 e prospect of coming turmoil is graphically imaged, but the level of generality is such that it would never be possible to say that this stage is now nished. At least for this part there is no intention of providing any sense of a sequence of preliminary events. is has implications for the sense of τότε (‘then’) at the beginning of v. 9. 24:8 For the expanded statement in v. 7, the negative ‘the end is not yet’ now gives way to the more positively stated ‘all these [things are but] the beginning of the “labour pains”’.34 ὠδίν (normally in the plural as here) refers literally to labour pains, but it is used extensively as a metaphor for acute suffering,35 oen with additional wording that makes clear that the imagery of childbirth is very much in mind. ere is, however, no sense in the imagery that the pain is for a good cause and is meant to have a happy outcome. In the present context the point is that, with ‘all these things’ as no more than the beginning, a great deal more suffering must be anticipated beyond them. 2. Persecution and Preaching Prepare for the End (24:9-14) 9‘en

they will hand you over to oppression and will kill you, and you will be hated by aall the nationsa because of my name. 10And then many will be caused to stumble, and will hand each other over band hate each other.b 11And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12And because lawlessness cwill be multiplied,c the love of many will be snuffed out. 13e one who endures to [the] end — dthis [one] will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.’

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. ‫ *א‬has only ‘the nations’; C f1 205 2542 etc. l (sys) boms have only ‘all’. b-b. Replicating v. 9, ‫ א‬has εις θλιψιν (‘to tribulation’). Φ etc. insert εις θανατον (‘to death’) at the beginning. c-c. D has πληθυναι (‘[will] multiply’). d. e brokenness of the syntax here is repaired in W by the omission of ουτος (‘this [one]’). Bibliography Dautzenberg, G., ‘Das Wort von der Weltweiten Verkündigung des Evangeliums (Mk 13.10) und seine Vorgeschichte’, in Christus bezeugen. FS W. Trilling, ed. K. Kertelge et al. (Leipzig: St. Benno, 1989), 150-65. • Davison, J. E., ‘Anomia and the Question of an Antinomian Polemic in Matthew’, JBL 104 (1985), 617-35. • Grassi, J. A., ‘Matthew as a Second Testament Deuteronomy’, BTB 19 (1989), 23-29. • Kühschelm, R., Jüngerverfolgung. • Légasse, S., ‘Le refroidissement de l’amour avant la n (Mt 24,12)’, SNTU 8 (1983), 91-102. • Reicke, B., ‘A Test of Synoptic Relationships: Matthew 10,17-23 and 24,9-14 with Parallels’, in Synoptic Studies, ed. W. R. Farmer, 209-29. • Taylor, J., ‘“e Love of Many Will Grow Cold”: Matt 24:9-13 and the Neronian Persecution’, RB 96 (1989), 352-57. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 241-63. • Verheyden, J., ‘Persecution and Eschatology: Mk 13,9-13’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1,141-59. • Wenham, D., ‘A Note on Matthew 24:10-12’, TynB 31 (1980), 155-62. See further at 24:1-2.

Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question in v. 3 continues, emphasising now the distinctive experience of Christians. Before the end come persecution, false prophets, apostasy, and the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom to all nations. e continuing materials of Mk. 13:9-13 have already been used at Mt. 10:17-22. Matthew contents himself with a brief summary in 24:9 and then draws directly on a second and probably partly overlapping source for vv. 10-12, coming back in vv. 13b-14 to repeat the language of Mk. 13:13b

(already used once at Mt. 10:22) and for a version of Mk. 13:10, only a fragment of which has been represented in Mt. 10:18. On sources more broadly and issues of historicity see the discussion at Mt. 24:1-2.

24:9 e linking τότε (‘then’) has a force something like: ‘as well as this’, ‘while this is still going on’ (see at the end of v. 7). While Christians will relate on an equal footing with others to what is predicted in v. 7, what comes here is distinctive to followers of Jesus. Except that now the setting is the wider world and not primarily a context within Judaism, v. 9 functions as a summary of 10:17-21, but with the material on bearing witness omitted (this will be dealt with in 24:14). ‘ey will hand you over’ occurs verbally in 10:17. e subject remains unspeci ed as there, but it is probably intended to mean fellow members of the Jewish community. ‘To oppression’ (εἰς θλῖψιν) does not come entirely naturally aer ‘hand you over’, but summarises well enough the mistreatment by the legal system and by rulers set out in 10:17-18. ‘ey will kill you’ echoes 10:21, where the reference is to inner family con ict, and especially ‘they will kill them’ at the end of the verse. On the basis that family betrayal represents the extreme case, Matthew intends a wider reference here. e remainder of the verse repeats exactly the wording of 10:22, but with the important addition of ‘the nations’ (τῶν ἐθνῶν), to give ‘hated by all the nations’. is will not mean hatred by Gentiles as opposed to Jews, but an expanded horizon in which Gentile hatred is added to Jewish. 24:10 is time the linking τότε (‘then’), in a καὶ τότε (lit. ‘and then’) combination, marks chronological, or, better, logical sequence (‘and as a result’).36 Matthew is quite fond of σκανδαλίζειν (‘cause to stumble’),37 and could be responsible for its use here (though all his other uses are either traditional or deliberate echoes of linked tradition).38 For the use of ‘many’ here compare the

comments at 19:30; 22:14. e rest of the verse looks as if it might originally have emerged as an application to the family of faith of material about the natural family like that in Mt. 10:21(-22). e handing over here echoes that of v. 9, but now it is not only fellow Jews but (fallen-away) fellow Christians who will be the instrument of betrayal to hostile authorities. 24:11 ‘And lead many astray’ is repeated from v. 5 (but with a difference of word order in Greek). is time, however, it is not people wanting to claim the eschatological role of Christ, but false prophets. What primarily de ned the false prophets of 7:15 was the falseness of their relationship to the prophetic stand of Jesus. One needed to be on guard against them because their in uence would distort one’s own embrace of the teaching of Jesus. Much the same is likely to be true here. e pressure of persecution makes an easier way look attractive. 24:12 e ‘lawlessness’ in view here is probably not lawlessness within the Christian community as in 7:23, but the wider phenomenon as in 13:41. Cf. Dn. 12:4 (LXX), which has the buildup to the eschatological climax πλησθῇ ἡ γῆ ἀδικίας (‘the land will be lled with lawlessness’).39 Mt. 24:12 is thus something of a repetition of vv. 9-10: the pressure of the lawlessness all around undercuts people in their Christian lives, and the radical love for God and neighbour which they learned from Jesus fades away to nothing. e language here has several words not used elsewhere by Matthew, which stands in favour of its origin in a source.40 ψύχεσθαι means ‘grow cool or cold’, but, in connection with the imagery of re or ame, ‘go out’, ‘be extinguished’, ‘be snuffed out’. It is unclear whether or not love is being imaged as re here, but the verse has in view the failure rather than the weakening of love. It is the loss of love that makes the betrayal of v. 10 possible.

24:13 e string of clauses from v. 9 all linked with καί (lit. ‘and’) is now broken with a linking δέ (lit. ‘and/but’). is gives a certain emphasis to the present clause, which stands as a counterpart to all of vv. 9-12. e wording is the same as that of 10:22 (see there). e language of the end (τέλος), used in 24:6, is taken up again.41 What is implied is that while the disturbances of v. 6 do not signal the end, the difficulties of vv. 9-12 are not to be thought of as temporary, but will persist until relieved by the end. 24:14 Mark’s ‘the gospel’ becomes ‘this gospel of the kingdom’, echoing ‘the gospel of the kingdom’ from 4:23 (discussed there); 9:35. e distinction between ‘the gospel of the kingdom’ and ‘this gospel of the kingdom’ marks the move from the ministry of Jesus to the postresurrection ministry of the disciples (cf. the analogous change from Mark in 26:13).42 Perhaps to avoid creating a parallel between the wars of 24:6 — where δεῖ γενέσθαι (‘it is necessary for [these things] to happen’) — and the preaching of v. 14, Matthew has κηρυχθήσεται (‘[this gospel of the kingdom] will be proclaimed’) instead of Mark’s δεῖ κηρυχθῆναι (‘it is necessary for [the gospel] to be proclaimed’). In any case, the change ensures that the emphasis falls on the place of the preaching in the unfolding of the destined future rather than on the responsibility of the disciples for the preaching (contrast 28:19-20). Since Matthew does not elsewhere use ἡ οἰκουμένη (‘the inhabited world’ — but oen, though probably not here, just ‘the world of the Roman Empire’), ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ (‘in the whole world’) is likely to have a source base. e doubling up involved in using both ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ and πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (‘to all the nations’), where Mark has simply εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (‘to all the nations’), is likely to indicate the merging of two sources here.43 Be that as it may, for Matthew the doubling creates emphasis. Matthew anticipates here in a powerful way the central role that universal

mission has in his vision for the postresurrection period. See the comments at 10:5 for a discussion of how Matthew can get from the restrictive language there to the universal mission anticipated here. In the present eschatological context there is some echoing of the OT anticipation of the end-time gathering of the nations to Yahweh.44 Matthew gives such a central role to the universal mission that he can link the timing of the end to its completion: the wars and rumours of wars of v. 6 do not herald the end, but the completion of the mission does. Clearly there is nothing here that is intended to have predictive power (in the language of v. 3, this is not the sign). e concern is rather to assert the Matthean understanding of the signi cance of the period between the resurrection and the Parousia as a period de ned by universal mission. It is precisely universal mission that prepares for the universal scope and signi cance of the end. 3. Flee When the Desolating Sacrilege Stands in the Temple (24:15-22) 15‘When

you see the desolating sacrilege, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, astanding in the holy place’ (let the reader understand), 16‘then those in Judea must flee bto the mountains. 17e one who is on the rooop must not go down and take ctheir thingsc from the house, 18and the one who is in the field must not turn back to take their coat. 19Woe to those who are pregnant and the nursing mothers in those days. 20Pray that your flight may not happen in winter or on a sabbath. 21For there will be great oppression then, such as has not happened from the beginning of the world until now, and will not happen. 22And if those days had not been shortened, no one of all flesh would be saved. But because of the elect he will shorten those days.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e masculine form εστως for ‘standing’ is found in B2 D* Θ f1, 13 1006 1342 etc., but since it is nominative and an accusative is required a misspelling for the otherwise-attested neuter εστος is most likely. b. Reading εις (lit. ‘into’); but επι (here: ‘onto’) is found in ‫ א‬E F G H W Z f13 33 565 579 1006 1342 1506 2542 etc. and may be original. c-c. Following Mk. 13:15, D E Θ f1 33 205 1424 etc. latt have τι in place of τα, giving ‘something from their house’. ‫ *א‬has το, giving ‘the thing which is in their house’. Bibliography Harris, G. H., ‘Satan’s Deceptive Miracles in the Tribulation’, BSac 156 (1999), 308-24. • Koester, C. R., ‘e Origin and Signi cance of the Flight to Pella Tradition’, CBQ 51 (1989), 90-106. • Lüdemann, G., ‘e Successors of Earliest Jerusalem Christianity: An Analysis of the Pella Tradition’, in Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity, tr. M. E. Boring (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 200-213. • Shea, W. H., ‘e Sabbath in Matthew 24:20’, AUSS 40 (2002), 23-35. • Stanton, G. N., ‘“Pray at Your Flight May Not Be in Winter or on a Sabbath” (Matthew 24.20),’ in Gospel, 192-206. • Stanton, G. N., ‘“Pray at Your Flight May Not Be in Winter or on a Sabbath” (Matthew 24.20)’, JSNT 37 (1989), 17-30. • Wong, E. K.-C., ‘e Matthaean Understanding of the Sabbath: A Response to G. N. Stanton’, JSNT 44 (1991), 3-18. • Yang, Y.-E., Sabbath, 230-41. See further at 24:1-2.

Developments towards the end take a fresh step with the appearance of the desolating sacrilege in the temple. is points towards a time of immense suffering and calls for urgent ight to the hills. Matthew returns now to the Markan sequence, with material parallelling Mk. 13:14-20. e most signi cant changes are the addition in Mt. 24:15 of

‘which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet’ and the replacement there of Mark’s ‘where it ought not’ (ὅπου οὐ δεῖ) with the more transparent ‘in the holy place’ (ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ), and the addition in v. 20 of ‘nor on the sabbath’. On sources more broadly and issues of historicity see the comments at Mt. 24:1-2.

24:15 Matthew adds a linking οὖν whose force is not immediately clear. οὖν is most oen inferential (‘so/then/therefore’). If it is so here, then the mission perspective of v. 14 might be determinative and the thought might be like that of 10:23: the ight encouraged in 24:15-18 is to be seen as a eeing from persecution in one town in order to continue the mission in another. Or, still with the pattern of 10:23 in mind, the link might be more to 24:9, and the encouragement might be to ee in order to avoid as much as possible the impact of what is warned of in v. 9. But there may be better options. ere is some trace in the NT of the classical emphatic use of οὖν.45 With οὖν as ‘to be sure’, the text becomes less directive about its connection to the preceding, and there are various ways in which the thought link could be construed: vv. 15ff. might deal with a climactic instance of what is spoken of in v. 9; again, the mission perspective could be in view; or the link might be, via the ‘not yet’ statements of v. 8 and v. 6 and the general formulation of the rst part of the question in v. 3, back to the initial statement in v. 2 about the temple’s doom. In the case of this third option of the set, οὖν as climactic shades into οὖν as adversative (‘but’):46 various things must happen, but only here where Jesus speaks of the temple directly coming under threat does he begin to deal speci cally with the disciples’ question of v. 3. It is with this nal option that the thought sequence of the materials seems to work most effectively: no matter what the turmoil all around might be, it is only when what potentially

threatens the temple is right in the temple that the disciples should consider as imminent what Jesus has announced in v. 2. βδέλυγμα is what revolts, what is detestable. In the LXX βδέλυγμα mostly translates the roots šqṣ (‘something detestable’, esp. with reference to an idol), tʿbh (‘abominable custom or thing’) and ʾlylym (‘something worthless’ esp. with reference to idols or gods). For the sake of having a noun and to catch the idolatrous overtones, I have translated βδέλυγμα as ‘sacrilege’. e full phrase βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως (lit. ‘detestable thing of desolation’) appears three times in the Greek text of Daniel, and with his addition of ‘which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet’ Matthew makes clear that this is where he wants his reader to root the phrase. Dn. 9:27 (LXX) has, ‘Sacri ce and drink offering shall be taken away, and there shall be on/at/in the temple (ἐπὶ τὸ ἱερόν) a desolating sacrilege (βδέλυγμα τῶν ἐρημώσεων ἔσται) until [the] completion (ἕως συντελείας), and a completion (συντέλεια) will come aer(?) the desolation (ἐπὶ τὴν ἐρήμωσιν)’. 9:27 (eod.) has, ‘My sacri ce and drink offering shall be taken away, and [there will be] a desolating sacrilege on/at/in the temple, even (καί in rst position) until [the] completion of time. A completion (no linking δέ or καί) shall be given aer(?) the desolation.’ e MT has, ‘He will cause sacri ce and offering to cease. And upon (wʿl) the devastating corner/wing/border of the detestable things (knp šqwṣym mšmm) [judgment], even to the extent of a full and decreed end (wʿd-klh wnḥrṣh), will be poured out (ttk), [yes,] upon the devastator (ʿl-šmm)’. e Hebrew is difficult to construe, and knp is normally thought to be a corruption, but if this construal does justice to the Hebrew, a correction may not be necessary. e point may be that it is only that part of the detestable foreign power which had wrought the devastation in Jerusalem that would be wiped out. e relationship in Dn. 9 between the desolating sacrilege in v. 27 and the destruction of the city and the sanctuary (hqdš/τὸ ἅγιον) in v. 26 is not clear but is likely to be of relevance to the Gospel construal of this text.

Dn. 11:31 (LXX) has, ‘Arms [i.e., forces] from him will set themselves up and de le the holy [place] (στήσονται καὶ μιανοῦσι τὸ ἅγιον) of fear [presumably destroying the sense of the fear of God that should be associated with the temple] and will take away (ἀποστήσουσι) the sacri ce and will make (δώσουσι) a desolating sacrilege’. Dn. 11:31 (eod.) has, ‘Seeds47 from him will rise up and desecrate the sanctuary of the Power (τὸ ἁγίασμα τῆς δυναστείας) and remove the continuity (μεταστήσουσιν τὸν ἐνδελεχισμόν — the reference is to the disruption of the regular burnt offering) and make a ruined sacrilege (βδέλυγμα ἠϕανισμένον)’. e MT has, ‘Arms (zrʿym) [i.e., forces] from him shall set themselves up (yʿmdw) and shall profane the sanctuary (wḥllw hmqdš), the place of refuge (hmʿwz), and shall turn aside the continuity (whsyrw htmyd), and shall set up (wntnw) the desolating sacrilege (hšqwṣ mšwmm)’. e judgment anticipated in 9:27 is also indicated in 11:31, but more obliquely, in v. 35, with ‘until the time of the end, for there is still an interval until the time appointed’. e LXX, but not eod., uses συντέλεια again. Dn. 12:11 (LXX) locates the end 1,290 days, ‘from when the continual sacri ce is taken away (ἀϕ᾽ οὗ ἂν ἀποσταθῇ ἡ θυσία διὰ παντός) and the desolating sacrilege is prepared to be given (καὶ ἑτοιμασθῇ δοθῆναι τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως)’. Dn. 12:11 (eod.) has, ‘from the time of the change of the continuity (ἀπὸ καιροῦ παραλλάξεως τοῦ ἐνδελεχισμου) and of the giving of a desolating sacrilege (καὶ τοῦ δοθῆναι βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως)’. e MT has, ‘from the time that the continuity is turned aside (mʿt hwsr htmyd) and a desolating sacrilege is given (wltt šqwṣ šmm)’. e end is referred to in v. 7 with, ‘when the shattering of the hand of the holy people is completed [i.e., comes to an end], all these things will be completed’ (with a double use of the klh root used in 9:27 — the Greek translations use συντέλεια/συντελεῖν), and in v. 13 with, ‘at [the] end of the days (εἰς συντέλειαν ἡμερῶν in both LXX and eod.)’.48

In Daniel the overcoming of the effects of the sacrilege will usher in the end of the age. e original Daniel ‘sacrilege’ was the erection of a pagan altar and/or image of Olympian Zeus in the Jerusalem temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 B.C.49 But in

part because the Maccabean restoration was something less than the dramatic culmination anticipated in Daniel, there was the expectation that the whole thing was to be played out again on a grander scale. In Mk. 13:14 ‘the sacrilege’ is clearly a person, because though βδέλυγμα is neuter, Mark follows it with the masculine form ἑστηκότα (‘standing’). Matthew’s correction of the syntax makes it impossible to tell whether he is reverting more closely to the Daniel original and thinking in terms of an altar or statue, or whether he is simply being a grammatical purist. In any case, this arrival in the temple is taken to signal a disastrous set of events in relation to which the only prudent course of action is ight. Matthew’s ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ (‘in [the] holy place’) for Mark’s ὅπου οὐ δεῖ (‘where it ought not’) makes quite clear that somewhere in the sanctuary is intended, most likely a part of the temple where only priests were permitted.50 One looks in vain in Josephus’s account of the Jerusalem war for a distinct event that would stand out clearly as deserving the label ‘the desolating sacrilege’, and especially for one that marks a sharp divide between a time when people in Judea were best advised to stay put and a time when they needed to ee at once for their lives (Mt. 24:17-18). Josephus emphasises zealot abuse of the temple.51 But there had already been a great deal of ghting and bloodshed before this began. He makes ghting between rival Jewish groups responsible for the death of priests and worshippers as they were engaged in sacri ce in the temple.52 He has rival Jewish groups ghting for possession of the temple.53 He has Jews diverting temple resources and melting down the temple treasures to support their own group in the civil war.54 e Romans certainly attacked the temple.55 Josephus makes Jews and Romans jointly responsible for the burning of the temple.56 He has Titus involved in the fate of the temple, maintaining in a lengthy discussion that Titus did his

uttermost, but in vain, to have it spared.57 e nearest thing to a Roman profanation of the temple that Josephus reports happened quite late on, when the city and temple were in ames. ‘e Romans… carried their standards into the temple court and, setting them up opposite the eastern gate, there sacri ced to them, and with rousing acclamations hailed Titus as imperator.’58 One could perhaps describe this as the beginning of the end, as far as the war was concerned. If we take this as a public marker that the fate of the city is now sealed, then this is the best candidate Josephus offers for ‘the desolating sacrilege’. A great deal of Roman barbarity was to follow, but there had also been considerable barbarity earlier. Titus entered the city only aer the city was totally in Roman hands.59 All in all, it is doubtful whether possession of the Gospel prophecy would have offered a very clear signal for the moment of ight.60 What it would have done, however, is to identify clearly the signi cance in the purpose of God of the devastating events that were unfolding. at there had been a ‘desolating sacrilege’ would have been clear enough. But the prophecy is more about declaring God’s hand than about predicting the speci cs of the future. We will discuss below whether the sharp urgency of Mt. 24:16-18 does not have an ultimacy that has more to do with being ready for the eschatological denouement than with making good survival decisions in a particular military and political situation. With ‘let the reader understand’ Jesus’ speech is interrupted momentarily by an editorial comment.61 is aside is yet more obvious than that in 9:6, which seems to be the only other place where an editorial aside interrupts the ow of Jesus’ words. In Mark the language here was already intended to point to Daniel, but Matthew has made this explicit, as noted above.62

Without it being said in so many words, the destruction of the temple spoken of in Mt. 24:2 is being agged as belonging within this segment. Aer the important preliminaries the answer to the question asked in v. 3 is now beginning to be given. But instead of being given timetable information, the disciples are in effect told that the destruction of the temple will be known to be imminent only at the point when the threat to the temple is immediately present, that is, when that which can only mean the desolation of the temple is right there in the temple. What is implied is that there will be no last-minute reprieve for the temple; desperate last-ditch defence of the temple will be useless. It will be time for ight. 24:16 Matthew reproduces the Markan language exactly. A forti ed city like Jerusalem would normally be considered a suitable place of refuge in time of war, but the outcome of this ‘invasion’ has been preannounced. is time Jerusalem represents no place for safe retreat for the people of Judea. To disappear into the mountains and hills has been from time immemorial the sensible response to the approach of an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.63 Such is the case here, and such is the advice. 24:17-18 ese verses provide two images of desperate urgency. Matthew abbreviates slightly and, in the process, increases the parallelism between the two statements. e imagery [in the rst case] is of a person on the at roof that served as an important extension of the living area of a typical Mediterranean dwelling (cf. Acts 10:9). e way down was not through the house but by an external staircase. To leave as quickly as possible would involve leaving everything in the house behind.64

e second image is of a man working in a eld. It is not clear whether he is to be viewed as having discarded his outer garment as the day warmed up, or dispensed with it to free his movements for

the work he was doing, or even come from home without it in view of the work he was planning to do. In any case, the urgency of the situation will be too great to lose time in fetching the garment. e alarm that was not appropriate at v. 6 has all at once become desperately appropriate. To make sense of this level of urgency Luke has set this material into a context dealing directly with the coming of the Son of Man (Lk. 17:22-37): one must be ready to let everything go and be ‘evacuated’ by the Son of Man. From Mt. 24:19-20 it is clear that Matthew (so Mk. 13:17-18) still has a quite speci c, localised event in mind. Perhaps the language is just extremely graphic, but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that even in Matthew and Mark the urgency is being given an ultimacy that has more to do with being in place for an eschatological denouement than with a realistic response to a particular political and military development. But how can this be understood in Mt. 24? at some kind of merging of horizons is involved is likely. e coming destruction of the temple is being viewed as of eschatological signi cance, though Matthew does not immediately identify it with the end (see below on vv. 23-28). Part of the sense of urgency is given by the recognition that the fate of the temple and city is xed in the purpose of God and will involve all the horror that ts with this being an act of judgment that expresses his extreme displeasure. Leaving the city to its fate involves radical disconnection from it, which nds concrete expression in urgent ight.65 24:19 Matthew reproduces the Markan language exactly. On the woe form see the discussion at 11:21. In its sympathy with sufferers, this woe is different from the other Matthean woes, all of which have a threatening edge to them. θηλάζειν is used both of a baby nursing at the breast and of a mother nursing a baby. It is used of babies in 21:16, but since the feminine form is used here, it refers this time to mothers. Coming in the midst of other ight material,

the verse deals with pregnant and nursing mothers caught up in the rigours of ight, not with those trapped in the doomed city. e need to abandon everything and move with extreme haste poses huge hardship for pregnant and nursing mothers. 24:20 Matthew reproduces the Markan language but expands by adding ‘your ight’ and ‘nor on a sabbath’. e focus of v. 19 on practical difficulties continues. As well as clarifying, Matthew’s addition of ‘your ight’ allows the reference to ight in v. 16 (‘those in Judea must ee’) and the present reference to frame the ight materials, before the subject changes somewhat in v. 21.66 While the coming disaster is seen as xed in the purposes of God, the timing is evidently seen as more uid. Hiding in the mountains is considerably more difficult in winter than in summer. e outer garment le behind in v. 18 would be sorely missed in winter. Food is much less readily available in winter. What of ight on the sabbath? From time to time people have suggested that the Jewish Christians involved here would, in deference to the sabbath command, have considered themselves prohibited from eeing on the sabbath. is issue, however, had been seriously faced in the Maccabean period, and clearly an older view that it was better to allow oneself to be killed than to ee on the sabbath had been largely displaced by a more pragmatic understanding of the demands of an emergency situation.67 At the time of Pompey the Jews would defend themselves against sabbathday attacks.68 During the rst-century Jewish War John of Gischala ed to Jerusalem on the sabbath with several thousand supporters.69 Hengel has, however, shown that a more conservative view was also still to be found.70 But this more conservative view is not re ected in Matthew’s text. Matthew’s added ‘your ight’ makes it clear that, with whatever difficulties, ight on the sabbath is being

contemplated (Mark’s non-speci ed subject would have allowed for ight to be stopped by the sabbath; Matthew’s speci ed subject does not). So what are the difficulties of the sabbath for Matthew likely to be? Flight on the sabbath was an emergency provision. Matthew probably contemplates a serious difference of opinion between the Jewish Christian disciples who ee and the other Jews as to whether this was a ight-justifying emergency. In particular the difference could well be not over whether this was a sabbath emergency but over what kind of sabbath emergency was involved: others may well have seen this as the time not for ight but to ght. More general difficulties with sabbath ight have to do with the degree to which the normal structures of public provision temporarily shut down on the sabbath; for example, city gates were shut, shops were closed, and even more informal buying and selling were temporarily stopped.71 e Matthean addition of ‘not on the sabbath’ has been examined in relation to the question of whether the Matthean community kept the Jewish sabbath. Verses like Mt. 5:17-19; 23:23 make it very likely that they did, or at least that the Jewish members did. But ‘not on the sabbath’ adds nothing decisive to the argument. 24:21 Matthew reproduces much of Mark’s wording, but edits and mostly shortens: he replaces Mark’s unusual nominative time expression, αἱ ἡμέραι ἐκεῖναι (‘in those days’), with another τότε (‘then’);72 he emphasises θλῖψις (‘oppression’) and distinguishes this oppression from that of v. 9 by adding μεγάλη (‘great’); he considers Mark’s τοιαύτη (‘of such a kind’) redundant aer οἵα (‘of what sort’ — ‘such as’ in the translation above); he simpli es κτίσεως ᾓν ἔκτισεν ὁ θεός (‘creation which God created’) to κόσμου (‘world’); and he replaces the καί (‘and’) before the nal clause with οὐδ᾽

(‘nor’ — this adds an extra negative which cannot be represented in translation). Matthew’s attention now moves to the oppression heralded by the appearance of the ‘desolating sacrilege’. He intends to speak further about that from which the Christians have been urged to ee. Beyond the framing role of the reference to ight noted above, the beginning of v. 15 and vv. 21-22 also act as a frame around the ight materials. Given the other Daniel links, a connection with Dn. 12:1 is certain.73 But the connection is either mediated via or supplemented with other tradition. e ‘and never will be’ motif is not directly found in Daniel, but it is found in Exodus traditions as a marker of the unrepeatable foundational nature of what was being achieved by the marvels that marked the con ict with Pharaoh.74 And it is found in the description of the blackness of the coming day of Yahweh anticipated in Joel 2:1-2. Given that Dn. 12:1-2 anticipates that the sufferings will give way to an ultimate deliverance involving resurrection to everlasting life, the addition of ‘and never will be’ is an easy and natural development. Despite all the horrors of the rst-century Jewish War, the events probably cannot justify the description offered here. Looking back on the war, Josephus felt he could make such a claim at least in relation to past history,75 but this is something of a rhetorical ourish at the beginning of his book on the war, and since his days periods of tragic suffering on a huge scale have taken place. Despite the Holocaust, it may still be true that the rst-century Jewish War was the greatest tragedy ever to befall the Jewish people,76 but the language of v. 21 is stronger than that. As we have seen at various points throughout this section, there is a heightening that has to do, not with descriptive accuracy, but with an eschatological horizon in relation to which the events are being understood. Much as had been the case with the Daniel prophecies, the arrival of the

‘desolating sacrilege’ has proved not to have the degree of immediate connection with the nal phase of the end-time events that was anticipated, so it is perhaps not surprising that it had about it less of the grandness appropriate to eschatological events. e eschatological horizon has proved to be further removed. See the related discussion at 16:28. 24:22 Matthew edits the Markan wording in three ways: he prefers divine passives (‘had not been shortened’; ‘will be shortened’) to Mark’s active verbs (‘the Lord had not shortened’; ‘he will shorten’) — this enables him to make use of ‘those days’, discarded in v. 21; he deletes ‘whom he chose’ as repetitive; and he uses δέ rather than Mark’s stronger ἀλλά for ‘but’. God will limit the time of suffering that would have been the proportionate marker of his judgment. e sympathy for the fragile nature of the human frame under divine scrutiny that the shortening of the time re ects is also found in Job 14, where it takes the form not of a shortening of the time of judgment, but of asking that God might look away.77 In 2 Esdr. 2:13 Ezra is instructed to pray that his days may be shortened (for the kingdom that he will inhabit beyond death is already prepared for him).78 e motif of God somewhat relenting on the basis of the vulnerability of Jacob is found in Am. 7:1-9.79 e nature of the interest in Mt. 24:22 in the survival of at least some of the people remains unexplained, except as being a side bene t of the presence in their midst of the elect.80 is aspect of the thought has its analogue in Gn. 18:22-33, where Abraham pleads with God to spare Sodom if as many as ten righteous people can be found in it. It is unclear whether the assumption here of the continuing presence of the elect implies that, though they would ee, some (many?) would not be out of reach of the great oppression or that despite the directive, not all would be able to ee. Matthew uses ‘the elect’ twice more in the chapter

(24:24, 31) and already in 22:14. ‘e elect’ are those favoured by God, those who will make it through to the nal trumpet call and be gathered in by the angels (see further at 22:14). 4. Beware of False Christs, Even en (24:23-28) if anyone says to you, “aLook, here is the Christ”, or “Here”, don’t believe [it]. 24For false Christs will arise, and false prophets, and will give bgreat signs and wonders, so as to clead astray,c if possible, even the elect. 25Look, I have told you ahead of time. 26So, if they say to you, “Look, he is in the wilderness”, don’t go out; “Look, in the storerooms”, don’t believe [it]. 27For just as the lightning comes out from the east and shines to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will be gathered together.’ 23‘en,

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Translating ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) here and twice in v. 25, it provides emphasis, but I have not normally represented it in translation. b. Missing from ‫ א‬W* etc. ff1 r1 boms to give the more common ‘signs and wonders’. c-c. L Z Θ f1 33 205 etc. prefer the passive πλανασθαι, while ‫ א‬D favor πλανηθηναι, giving in each case ‘so that, if possible, even the elect might be led astray’. Bibliography Black, M., ‘e Aramaic Dimension in Q with Notes on Luke 17.22 and Matthew 24.26 (Luke 17.23)’, JSNT 40 (1990), 33-41, esp. 38-39. • Catchpole, D. R., ‘e Law and the Prophets in Q’, in Tradition,, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 95-109, esp. 101-6. • Guenther, H. O., ‘When “Eagles” Draw Together’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 140-50. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 51-63. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 298-312.

See further at 24:1-2.

In the dramatically heightened situation of vv. 23-28 there are fresh siren calls from false Christs and false prophets. Claims of a secret appearance of the Christ are always false claims; the real thing will have a comprehensive visibility. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 13:21-23 and then moves to a different, slightly overlapping, source for materials parallelled in Lk. 17:23-24, 37b. ough his own touches are pervasive, no major changes are introduced. On sources more broadly and issues of historicity see the comments at Mt. 24:1-2.

24:23 Matthew makes only minor adjustments to the Markan language.81 e fresh τότε (‘then’) locates the action here aer the appearance of the desolating sacrilege and the occurrence of the ight. At every stage of the unfolding future Matthew warns of the danger of being led astray. In particular he warns of false Christs at the beginning in vv. 4-5 and false prophets in the context of the anticipation of persecution in vv. 9-13. Now in vv. 23-26 he issues a renewed warning of both. In v. 23 his warning is about taking seriously claims to knowledge of the secret location of the Christ. Here he simply tells his readers not to believe such claims. But he renews the warning in v. 26, and there the following verse will explain why such claims must always be false. 24:24 To connect v. 24 to v. 23 we will need to understand that the hidden locations each have an occupying false Christ. Matthew’s changes to the Markan language here are also of minor import. e most signi cant is the change from ‘signs’ to ‘great signs’, just as in v. 21 Matthew changed from ‘oppression’ to ‘great oppression’: ‘great signs’ match ‘great oppression’ in intensity.82 ‘False prophets … will arise … and … lead astray’ repeats from v. 11

(he has also used the language of being led astray in vv. 4-5 in connection with false claims to be the Christ). e juxtaposition of false Christs and false prophets is new, as are the role of signs and wonders and the question of whether the elect can be led astray. He clearly intends a crescendo here: the closer one gets to the real thing the greater the scale on which attempts to deceive will occur. ‘Signs and wonders’ occurs frequently in the OT, and the phrase is overwhelmingly used of the wonders connected with the exodus from Egypt (the few other uses are probably all, or almost all, echoes of this primary use).83 e attractiveness of the signs and wonders that will be on offer will be precisely their echo of the signs and wonders that were so foundational for the people of God.84 ‘e elect’ repeats from v. 22 and will come again in v. 31. e term is discussed at 22:14. ere is a conundrum involved in contemplating the (catastrophic) deception of the elect. Election language looks at things from God’s end: God elects; he chooses whom he will. And the identity of the elect is a matter that is only nally to be eschatologically revealed. But there are patently those who here and now identify themselves with what God is doing in the world, and there are patently those who do not. In a serious but ultimately only a provisional sense, it is appropriate to identify those who align themselves with God as the elect, that is, as the people of God. So there is the question of precisely how Matthew intends to use the election language. But there is also the question of how God’s choice and human responsibility interrelate. In the Gospel perspective one is kept back from error, at least in part, by taking all the proper precautions, not by some unchangeable divine at that has allocated one to the elect. Temptation is real and must really be resisted or disaster will follow. So if one uses the language of election in its strongest sense, then there will be no leading astray, not because of something invincible about the elect, but

because in this conceptual sphere the question cannot even arise. But once there is talk of that which might deceive, then the discussion is operating in the terms of human responsibility, and the possibility of being led astray must be taken fully seriously. e text intends to signal the juxtaposition of these two analytically irreconcilable, but vitally important, perspectives with ‘if possible’. 24:25 Mark’s βλέπετε (lit. ‘see’) becomes ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’), one of the string of four to be found in vv. 23-26. Mark’s πάντα (‘all things’) is dropped: for Matthew the point here is that Jesus has preannounced the role of the false Christs and false prophets and thus prepared the disciples to avoid their enticements. A question that has considerably exercised scholars is that of where in the development outlined in the Eschatological Discourse the Gospel writers understood themselves to be as they produced their Gospels. For example, the claim is oen made that Mark’s equivalent to v. 25 (13:23) signals the time of the present for him. Similar statements in other apocalyptic literature are thought to be markers of the present for the apocalypticists.85 But eissen has drawn attention to parallel statements in several texts where the events in focus are clearly still part of the future for the writer.86 e lack of precision in Mt. 24 and the limitation of a precise t between the materials in Mt. 24 and rst-century events between the time of Jesus and the outcome of the Jewish War make it likely that for Matthew too the events of vv. 15-24 (par. Mk. 13:14-23) are still future. 24:26 A modest overlap between this verse and Lk. 17:23 and the somewhat closer parallel between Mt. 24:27 and Lk. 17:2487 indicate that Matthew draws on another source for the present restatement of Mt. 24:23.88 e repetition creates a frame which uni es vv. 23-26. New here is reference to speci c possible locations

and the idea of going to them. ere may be an echo of Jesus’ reference in 11:7 to the going out of people into the wilderness to see the prophet, John the Baptist. But as the development into 24:27 will make clear, the interest here is in nding the Christ = the Son of Man (see at v. 5); the false prophets of v. 24 drop from sight. At the end of v. 26, ‘do not believe’ is repeated from the end of v. 2 to seal the link between the two verses. 24:27 Despite an evident use of the same tradition, the imagery of Lk. 17:24 is sufficiently different from that of Mt. 24:27 that we cannot be sure whether the respective Evangelists received the tradition in the same form.89 ough Matthew intends comprehensiveness, he uses only the east-west axis (cf. 8:11). e lightning is thought of as emerging from the eastern horizon but creating a ash that shines right across the sky to the western horizon.90 Lightning can lend itself to use in the imagery of suddenness,91 but here the point is clearly the impossibility of remaining unaware of the lightning strike: its visibility is comprehensive. is is how it will be with the coming of the Son of Man, and this is why claims of a secret appearance of the Christ will always be false claims. e Son of Man language here is anticipated by the Son of Man associations of the language used in the initial question in 24:3 (see there). e word παρουσία for ‘coming’ here is anticipated by its use in v. 3 (see there) and will appear again in vv. 37 and 39. In the Matthean timetable we are not yet at the coming of the Son of Man: the text is simply explaining why any localised claims for such must by de nition be false. 24:28 e more graphic πτῶμα (‘corpse’) in Matthew is likely to be more original than the σῶμα (‘body’) of Lk. 17:37, but the difference is only verbal since in both cases we are to imagine a dead body.92 Nobody will need to direct Christian disciples to the Son of Man: as unerringly as the vultures gather to the corpse, so

they will nd themselves gathered without prompting to the Son of Man. ἀετός is oen translated ‘eagle’, but it must be ‘vulture’ here since the corpse is clearly carrion for the birds.93 (Only the context allows the application of the bizarre metaphor to be determined; and even then it has spawned many explanations.) 5. e Coming of the Son of Man (24:29-31) 29Immediately

aer the oppression of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven; and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30en the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with apower and mucha glory. 31And he will send out his angels with ba great trumpet blast,b and cthey will gather his elect from the four winds, from [the] boundaries of [the] heavens [in one direction] to their boundaries [in the opposite direction].d’

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. e word order is changed to the Markan in D etc. lat sys to give ‘great power and’. b-b. ϕωνης is added in B f13 33 892mg 1006 1342 etc. (syh**) sa to give ‘a great sound of a trumpet’; και ϕωνης is added in D etc. lat to give ‘a trumpet blast and a great sound’. c. Singular in ‫ *א‬etc. vgms sys bomss to conform to Mk. 13:27. d. D etc. it add Lk. 21:28, αρχομενων δε τουτων γινεσθαι αναβλεψατε και επαρατε τας κεϕαλας υμων, διοτι εγγιζει η απολυτρωσις υμων (‘When these things begin to happen, straighten yourselves up and raise your heads because your deliverance is drawing near’). Bibliography

Draper, J. A., ‘e Development of “the Sign of the Son of Man” in the Jesus Tradition’, NTS 39 (1993), 1-21. • Iersel, B. van, ‘e Sun, Moon, and Stars of Mark 13,24-25 in a Greco-Roman Reading’, Bib 77 (1996), 84-92. • Kirchhevel, G. D., ‘He at Cometh in Mark 1:7 and Matt 24:30’, BBR 4 (1994), 105-11. • Mora, V., Création, 215-17. • Penney, R. L., ‘Why the Church Is Not Referenced in the Olivet Discourse’, Conservative eological Journal (Fort Worth) 1 (1997), 47-60. • Verheyden, J., ‘Describing the Parousia: e Cosmic Phenomena in Mk 13,24-25’, in Scriptures, ed. C. Tuckett, 525-50. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 297-303. See further at 24:1-2.

What will bring the great oppression to an end will be the cosmic ‘drum roll’ that will herald the coming of the Son of Man and the gathering of the elect. Matthew returns to the Markan sequence aer the use of another source for 24:26-28. But vv. 30 and 31 show traces of a second source that has been merged with the materials of Mk. 13:24-27. On sources more broadly and issues of historicity see the discussion at Mt. 24:1-2.

24:29 e most signi cant change from Mk. 13:24-25 is the replacement of ‘in those days’ with ‘immediately’.94 e link is back to the period of oppression described in Mt. 24:21-22. In v. 22 this is indicated as of limited duration; now we are told that immediately aer it come the events of vv. 29-31. ‘Immediately aer the oppression’ should probably be glossed with ‘as that which brings the oppression to its end’; otherwise the ending of the period of oppression remains unexplained.95 e heavenly portents here are marks of submission in the face of a visitation of God. e son, moon, and stars are glorious heavenly bodies, frequently identi ed as gods and worshipped, but they must humble themselves when God acts; when God’s glory is revealed, their glory must be veiled.96 e language has strong

echoes of Is. 13:10: ‘For the stars of the heavens … will not shine their light; the sun will be darkened…, and the moon will not shed its light’.97 e Gospel sequence has been conformed to the standard order of reducing brightness (the normal biblical order98), and a very speci c reason for the failure of the light of the stars is proposed: they will fall from heaven. is last change is in uenced by Is. 34:4, ‘All their hosts [stars in the LXX] shall fall’.99 (Ultimately the natural phenomenon of ‘shooting stars’ lies behind this part of the imagery.) e nal clause of Mt. 24:29 appears to have been craed as a con ation of Is. 34:4 and Hg. 2:6 (21).100 It is in effect an interpretive summary of the preceding material. In ancient mythology the heavenly bodies are or represent supernatural powers. eir affairs are thrown into disarray by the approach of God. In the OT the kinds of disturbances in the heavens spoken of in Mt. 24:29 accompany or herald God’s intervention in judgment, and it will be so here as well. e highly symbolic language makes it impossible to tell what literal impact on the natural order is expected, but there is probably an expectation that nature visibly gets in on the act when God comes in eschatological judgment. It is the Son of Man whose coming these heavenly disturbances actually presage, but here he is understood to be exercising the functions of deity on the grandest of scales. 24:30 e words from ‘the sign’ to ‘will mourn and’ have no parallel in Mk. 13:26. Matthew either merges a second source with the Markan material or his second source signi cantly overlaps with Mk. 13:26.101 e verse begins with another of the uses of τότε (‘then’), which are ubiquitous throughout the chapter (nine uses; four with καὶ τότε [lit. ‘and then’] as here102). e information about

a sign, asked for in Mt. 24:3, is now given. But what is the nature of the sign? at was what the original question asked about. e only information directly given in v. 30a is that the sign will appear in heaven. Unless in this respect the wording of the question is deliberately ignored in the answer,103 we should expect to be able to identify from the answer the nature of the sign and not merely the fact of the sign.104 Taking the question seriously seems to leave us only two options: either the cosmic events of v. 29 constitute the sign or (but less likely) the sign is nothing other than the visible appearing of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven. In either case, comprehensive visibility as stressed in v. 27 will be important. In response, all the tribes of the earth will mourn. is statement echoes language from Zc. 12:12, ‘e land shall mourn, each family by itself ’, which has, however, been transformed in one important respect. In Zc. 12:12 hʾrṣ/ἡ γῆ (‘the land/earth’) which will mourn is ‘the land’ of Israel (cf. v. 10). In Mt. 24:30 the sense of γῆ has become ‘earth’. e track for the broadening of sense, if it is based on the Greek text, seems to run like this: Zc. 12:14 uses ‘all the tribes/families’ (πᾶσαι αἱ ϕυλαί) to catch up all the groups in Israel not singled out for special mention in vv. 1213. But this same language is used in 14:17, where it is followed by ‘of the land/earth’ (τῆς γῆς). But here γῆ is clearly applied to the whole earth. Note that the Greek text of Zc. 14:17 has ‘all the tribes of the earth’, as does Mt. 24:30 (nominative in Matthew, genitive in Zechariah). Since the MT of Zc. 14:17 does not have ‘all the tribes/families of the earth’, but simply ‘the tribes/families of the earth’, the track, if based on the Hebrew text, will have been slightly less well signposted, but it will have gone from the use of both mšpḥwt (‘tribes/families’) and ʾrṣ (‘land/earth’), but separately, in 12:12 straight to their use together in 14:17. If the development happened on the basis of the Hebrew text, it has been retracked in the Greek for the material used by Matthew. Except for an additional ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν (‘over him’), which re ects Zc. 12:10, Rev. 1:7 has the same language as Mt. 24:30. It also shares

the link with Dn. 7:13-14 (see below). Mt. 24:30 and Rev. 1:7 are echoing a shared tradition here.

κόπτειν meant ‘strike’ and then ‘cut’. It came to be used in the middle (as here) for beating the breast in mourning and then more generally for any expression of mourning. e mourning envisaged here is probably grief at the prospect of judgment rather than a mark of repentance. Linked nicely by the paronomasia of the juxtaposition of κόψονται (‘will mourn’) and ὄψονται (‘will see’), the echo of Zechariah now gives way to the echo of Dn. 7:13-14, possibly with ‘they will see’ as the bridge. Zc. 12:10 has hbbytw ʾl/ἐπιβλέψονται (‘they will look upon’); Dn. 7:13 has in the MT ḥzy … ʾrw (‘seeing … behold’) and in the Greek ἐθεώρουν … ἰδού (‘I was seeing … behold’). ‘e Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ (τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐπὶ τῶν νεϕελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ) is closely parallelled in Dn. 7:13: the MT has ‘coming with the clouds of heaven like a son of man/humanity’ (ʿm-ʿnny šmyyʾ kbr ʾnš ʾth); the LXX has, ‘He was coming on the clouds of heaven like a son of man/humanity’ (ἐπὶ τῶν νεϕελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἤρχετο); eod. has, ‘coming with the clouds of heaven like a son of man/humanity’ (μετὰ τῶν νεϕελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενος). ‘With power and much glory’ (μετὰ δυνάμεως καὶ δόξης πολλῆς) are less closely matched. e MT of Dn. 7:13 has šlṭn wyqr (‘dominion and honour’); the LXX has ἐξουσία … καὶ πᾶσα δόξα (‘authority … and all glory’ — but it is doubtful whether the syntax — which I cannot de nitely resolve — will allow the terms to be coordinated like this; it looks as if the Aramaic textual tradition from which the LXX translator was working had at some point suffered a duplication of yplḥwn from which the opening y was dropped, the p read as k, and the word was divided to give kl ḥwn; ḥwn, meaning ‘wealth’, possessions’, was then paraphrased into Greek as δόξα, perhaps in the sense ‘splendour’ or ‘grandeur’); eod. has ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ ἡ τιμὴ καὶ … ἡ ἐξουσία (‘rule and honour and … authority’ — the third resumes the rst).

e Danielic Son of Man has judgment passed in his favour at the divine assize and receives from God glory and everlasting dominion over the nations. In Mt. 24:30 he comes to exercise that dominion. e links here to Dn. 7:13-14 that go beyond those Matthew has already used (see discussion at 16:27) are ‘on the clouds of heaven’ and ‘with power’. 24:31 ‘With a great trumpet blast’ is likely to represent a trace of another source here. Otherwise the differences from Mk. 13:27 are not great. e change in the imagery at the end of the verse could be a further trace of the additional source: ‘from [the] boundary of earth to [the] boundary of heaven’ (ἀπ᾿ ἄκρου γῆς ἕως ἄκρου οὐρανοῦ) has become ‘from [the] boundaries of [the] heavens [in one direction] to their boundaries [in the opposite direction]’ (ἀπ᾿ ἄκρων οὐρανῶν ἕως τῶν ἄκρων αὐτῶν).105 On the Son of Man sending out his angels see the comments at 13:39. e trumpet blast announces that the time has arrived. As a ‘great trumpet blast’ it corresponds to the ‘great oppression’ of v. 21 (cf. the ‘great signs’ of v. 24). Trumpet blasts announce for all to hear and with authority that a time of signi cance has arrived, but without further context the use of a trumpet blast as such does not identify the nature of the signi cance.106 What is important here is that the trumpet blast is sent forth from heaven at the initiative of the Son of Man. e connection will be with OT texts in which God is responsible for a trumpet blast.107 Of these the interest in God’s intervention on behalf of his people make a link with Zc. 9:14; Is. 27:13 particularly apt. In Mk. 13:27, though the instrumental role of the angels is clear, it is the Son of Man who is said to gather (ἐπισυνάξει). In Matthew

the verb has been made plural (ἐπισυνάξουσιν), so that it is the angels who gather. An in uence from Mt. 13:41 is likely. Where only the east-west axis was used in the imagery of 24:27, ‘from the four winds’ makes use of all four points of the compass. ‘e four winds’ occurs a number of times in the OT.108 Of these its use in Zc. 2:6 and especially its LXX equivalent in v. 10 are of particular interest. Where in the MT restoration to Zion is spoken of in terms of ‘Flee … for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven’, in the LXX this has been reexpressed as ‘Flee …for I will gather [using συνάγειν, cognate with ἐπισυνάγειν as used in Mt. 24:31] you from the four winds of heaven’. e Gospel text seems to make use of the imagery of the gathering of the exiles of Israel. e four-winds imagery is designed to include all directions, but it makes no comment on distance. e second image makes good this de ciency: as far as the heavenly vault reaches, so far will the angels go to gather the elect in. ough in other respects similar, the imagery of 13:41 involved the Son of Man sending his angels to root out the wicked, while the imagery here is of the gathering together of the elect. e difference is based on the use here of restoration-from-Exile imagery. 6. ‘is Generation Shall Not Pass Away Until All ese ings Happen’ (24:32-35) 32‘From

the fig tree learn the parable: When its branch has already become tender and it causes its leaves to grow, ayou knowa that summer is near. 33In the same way, when you see all these things, you should know that he is near, at the [very] gates. 34Amen, I say to you, this generation shall not pass away until all these things happen. 35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. γινωσκεται (‘it knows’) in B3 D W 579 1006 2542 etc. Bibliography Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 425-28. • Kidder, S. J., ‘“is Generation” in Matthew 24:34’, AUSS 21 (1983), 203-9. • Lambrecht, J., Astonished, 132-39. • Lövestam, E., ‘is Generation,’ 81-87. • Lövestam, E., ‘e ἡ γενεὰ αὔτη Eschatology in Mk 13,30 parr’, in L’apocalypse, ed. J. Lambrecht, 403-13. • Mussner, F., ‘Wer ist “dieses Geschlecht” in Mk 13.30 parr.?’ Kairos 29 (1987), 23-28. • Nelson, N. D., ‘“is Generation” in Matt 24:34: A LiteraryCritical Perspective’, JETS 38 (1995), 369-85. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 147-49. See further at 24:1-2.

e primary answer to the disciples’ question of v. 3 is rounded off with the parable of the g tree and the approach of summer, along with the assurance that the present generation will see ‘all these things happen’. Mt. 24:32-35 continues the Markan sequence with material parallelled in Mk. 13:28-31. Matthew makes only minor editorial changes. e Markan material here is evidently composite. V. 31 is likely to have had its own separate transmission and history; it may well be a church formulation. V. 30 now functions to splice vv. 28-29 into the eschatological chapter, but it may earlier have linked more directly to the core eschatological materials. e likeness to Lk. 12:54-56 of Mk. 13:28-29 without v. 30 raises the question of whether it did not originally apply to what was present in the ministry of Jesus as the sign of the presence or nearness of the kingdom of God.109

24:32 Matthew reproduces Mark’s language without signi cant change.110 All three of Matthew’s uses of μανθάνειν (‘learn’) are challenges to learn (aorist imperatives).111 Here, as in 9:13, the challenge is to ponder the signi cance for the matter at

hand of the parable Jesus proposes/the Scripture he is drawing attention to. e thrust here is, ‘Let the g tree become your teacher’. Presumably ‘its branch’ is in the singular because what is envisaged is a close inspection of a single specimen branch. ἁπαλός means ‘tender/so’. When applied to trees, it seems to refer to the so new growth that comes in the spring aer the winter loss of leaves.112 With reference to g trees no distinction is intended here between signs of life connected with leaves and with fruitproducing owers,113 but since the next clause tracks the production of leaves, the parable is content to set the production of fruit to one side and focus on the development from budding to the opening of the leaves. Jesus appeals to a particular instance of the widespread human experience of drawing reassurance about the prospect of easier times ahead (brightness, warmth, crops) from the signs of new life in the spring aer the difficulties of winter. e freshly alive g tree heralds with great reliability the coming of summer. 24:33 Again Matthew follows Mark’s language closely, with only one slight change: ταῦτα γινόμενα (‘these things happening’) becomes πάντα ταῦτα (‘all these things’) and provides a minor frame by taking us back to the phrase that the Matthean Jesus used as he began his account of the sequence of events of which he has just reached the conclusion.114 Since the topic is the timing of the coming of the Son of Man, Matthew’s actual account of the coming must be excluded from the scope embraced by ‘all these things’ here. He probably wants to exclude the whole of vv. 29-31, with the present language of nearness functioning as an equivalent to the use of ‘immediately’ in v. 29. Matthew reproduces Mark’s opening words οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς (lit. “in the same way also you”).

Mark has been accused of infelicity in his use of [these words] to make the transition from parable to application (e.g., Dupont, RB 75 [1968] 532-33), but perhaps καί, “also,” should be read with οὕτως, “in the same way,” and ὑμεῖς, “you,” seen not as emphatic but simply as a mechanism for containing the “when” clause within the scope of the principal clause (and perhaps also encouraging the reading of the verb as a futuristic present rather than as an imperative).115

e understood subject of the verb is likely to be the Son of Man rather than ‘the end’ (vv. 6, 13, 14), ‘the completion of the age’ (v. 3), or Jesus’ ‘coming’ (the παρουσία of vv. 3, 27). e primary perspective from which the nearness of the Son of Man is being viewed here is that of redemption, and speci cally relief from persecution and the great oppression. e disciples are being invited to nd the promise of the imminent approach of summer in a sequence of distressing developments.116 ‘At [the] gates’ makes use of the imagery of arrival at a walled city. It invites the imagination of the kind of official arrival of a king or other high dignitary to a city that the use of the word παρουσία in v. 3 for ‘coming’ conjured up. 24:34 Matthew reproduces Mark’s language without signi cant change.117 He is happy to reproduce the emphatic ‘Amen, I say to you’, which he likes so much (discussed at 5:18). When the phrase is taken with the following ‘will not pass away’ and ‘until all … [things] happen’ (ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται, which is translated in 5:18 as ‘until it has all happened’), a very signi cant set of words is repeated in identical Greek from 5:18; this one can add the close similarity between ‘heaven and earth will pass away’ in 24:34 and ‘until heaven and earth pass away’ in 5:18.118 What are we to make of this very powerful echo? Syntactically ‘this generation’ in 24:34 and ‘my word’ in v. 35 each take the place of the reference in 5:18 to the smallest detail of the law: Jesus asserts the fate of this generation

as con dently as he insists on the continuing validity of every detail of the Mosaic Law; and Jesus’ own word is given the same enduring validity as the Mosaic Law. Matthew uses γενεά here for the tenth time. ough his use of the term has a range of emphases, it consistently refers to (the time span of) a single human generation.119 All the alternative senses proposed here (the Jewish people; humanity; the generation of the end-time signs; wicked people) are arti cial and based on the need to protect Jesus from error. ‘is generation’ is the generation of Jesus’ contemporaries. At several points in our exploration of Mt. 24 we have already had reason to note the difficulties of taking the text as a straightforward account of (future) historical events (see at vv. 15, 17-18, 21). I have commented elsewhere on the tension involved here between prediction and event in Luke’s version of Mt. 24. As the prophets before him had regularly done, the Gospel Jesus presents as part of a single development things that belong together in principle but turn out to be separated chronologically in a manner that he did not anticipate. (Caird [Language and Imagery, 243-71] has argued forcefully that, at least in part, this involved a deliberate use in a metaphorical manner of end-of-the-world language in connection with what the prophets well knew was not the end of the world. e present and immediately future events were to be seen in the light of and somehow as participating in the reality of what would one day be fully true eschatologically. His insights are pertinent to the present discussion [and have been widely followed] but are not capable in themselves of eliminating the difficulty over timing.) e fundamental driving force for the sentiment expressed …is the conviction that Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries in Palestine (“this generation”) were to nd themselves at a climax point in the purposes of God in judgment (cf. esp. [Luke] 11:49-51), just as they had been experiencing a climax point of God’s saving purposes in the ministry of Jesus. As with the earlier prophets,

the anticipation of the future was rst and foremost an interpretation, in the light of a knowledge of God, of the signi cance of the present and of the nature of its development out of the past.120

24:35 I have already partly discussed this verse above. e main change to the Markan wording increases the parallelism between the ‘pass away’ clauses dealing with ‘this generation’ and ‘my words’.121 Matthew thinks of the replacement/renewal of the present created order in the eschatological period (see discussion at 19:18). It would be natural to think rst of applying ‘my words’ to Jesus’ predictions in Mt. 24, and these should not be entirely excluded. But something altogether more comprehensive is intended. e parallel noted above between the Mosaic Law in every detail and Jesus’ words suggests as much. As predictions the material of Mt. 24 will have lost currency by the time the creation has undergone its eschatological renewal, but Jesus’ teaching will still retain its pertinence. e closest OT parallels also support a wider reference for ‘my words’.122 C. Being Ready (24:36–25:30) 1. ‘About at Day and Hour No One Knows’ (24:36) 36‘About

that day and hour no one knows except the Father alone — not even the angels of heaven, anot even the Sona.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from ‫א‬1 L W f1 33 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. g1 l vg sy co, no doubt in deference to a high christology.

Bibliography See at 24:1-2, 37-44.

Matthew uses 24:36 as an introductory piece for 24:37–25:30, the next subsection of 24:1–25:46 (26:2). How is one to conduct oneself in the period of limited but uncertain duration before the coming of the Son of Man? Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 13:32. It is difficult to say anything with much assurance about the prehistory of the material. It is hardly likely to have circulated alone, but it cannot con dently be said to form an original unity with surrounding materials. Ignorance on the part of the Son favours origin with the historical Jesus and not the early church. On the other hand, given that various of the language elements locate it in relation to the preceding Markan materials but thematically it links with what follows rather than what precedes, it could be identi ed as an editorial seam designed to connect the following Markan materials into the primary part of the Eschatological Discourse. It may be best to think of Markan or pre-Markan formulation on the basis of Jesus’ known antipathy towards attempts to engage in apocalyptic timetabling, which may well have involved him in denying knowledge of the time of the end.

24:36 Matthew reproduces the Markan language with only minor changes. e ἤ (‘or’) linking ‘day’ and ‘hour’ becomes καί (‘and’), on the ground that to tie down a time requires knowledge of both the day and the hour, not just one or the other. Matthew has the two nouns share a single article for the same reason: together the day and the hour identify the time. An added μόνος (‘alone’) adds emphasis to the unique situation of the Father (cf. the change at 12:4).123 Matthew reproduces the awkwardness of the overall syntax, which involves merging a ‘no one … except’ (οὐδεὶς … εἰ μή) pattern with a ‘no one …, not even’ (οὐδεὶς …, ουδέ) pattern.124

In the translation above I have adjusted the ordering of phrases to ease the difficulty in syntax. ere is a deliberate contrast between the con dent tone of the predictive materials thus far in the chapter, climaxing in v. 34, and the present insistence that only the Father knows.125 e referent of ‘that time’ is the time for the coming of the Son of Man. e exclusion from knowledge of ‘the angels’126 and ‘the Son’ as a coordinated pair, coming aer the linking of ‘the Son of Man’ and ‘his angels’ in vv. 30-31, suggests that ‘the Son’ here is likely to be the Son of Man rather than the normally assumed Son of God.127 e coming together of ‘his Father’ and ‘the Son of Man’ in 16:27, where ‘Son of Man’, ‘Father’, and ‘angels’ all appear, also points in this direction. roughout the chapter various functions of deity clearly attach to the Son of Man, but here the Father clearly remains distinct as the ultimate fount of the divine will, and he does not reveal everything even to those most closely connected with the execution of his will.128 Read in close connection with v. 35, v. 36 could easily be understood as qualifying v. 35 and therefore as designed to deal with the contingency that the Son of Man’s coming might be delayed beyond the generation of v. 35. But the role of the text is preparatory for the following verses (in both Mark and Matthew). It deals with when within the generation, not whether within the generation: in heaven God’s servants await his signal; on earth the disciples should keep themselves in a state of constant readiness. 2. ree Kinds of Image of Being Caught by ‘at Day’ (24:37-44) 37‘For

just as the days of Noah [were], so will the coming of the Son of Man be.a 38For bas in cthose days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, until the day in which Noah went into

the ark, 39and they did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so dtoo will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40en there will be two [men] in the field; one is taken and one is le. 41Two [women] grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is le.e 42So, stay awake, because you do not know the day on which your Lord is coming. 43Know this, that if the master of the house had known the watch in which the thief would come, he would have stayed awake and not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44erefore, you also, be ready, because the Son of Man comes at an hour in which you do not think [he will come].’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. και (‘too/also’) is added in D W Θ 067 f1, 13 etc. lat syh. b. ωσπερ (‘just as’), as in v. 37, in D W Θ 067 f1, 13 etc. c. Missing from ‫ א‬L W Θ f1, 13 33 etc. lat mae bo. του Νωε (‘of Noah’) in 1424. d. Missing from B D 892 l 2211 etc. it vgmss sys, p co. e. In uenced by Lk. 17:34, D f13 etc. it vgs add δυο επι κλινης μιας· εις παραλαμβανεται και εις αϕιεται (‘two on one bed; one is taken and one is le’). Bibliography Bjorndahl, S., ‘To Live and Die in omas 61’, Forum 10.1-2 (1994), 87-93. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 57-66. • Friedl, A., Das eschatologische Gericht in Bildern aus dem Alltag: Eine exegetische Untersuchung von Mt 24,40f par Lk 17,34f (ÖBS 14. Frankfürt/Berlin/Bern: Lang, 1996). • Guenther, H. O., ‘A Fair Face Is Half the Portion: e Lot Saying in Luke 17:28-29’, Forum 6.1 (1990), 56-66. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 52-70. • Harrington, D. J., ‘Polemical Parables in Matthew 24–25’, USQR 44 (1991), 287-98. • Higgins, A. J. B., Son of Man, 56-72. • Jefford, C. N., ‘e Dangers of Lying in Bed’, Forum 5.1 (1989), 106-10. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 429-33. •

Kollmann, B., ‘Lk 12,35-38 — Ein Gleichnis der Logienquelle’, ZNW 81 (1990), 254-61. • März, C.-P., ‘Das Gleichnis vom Dieb: Überlegungen zur Verbindung von Lk 12,39 par Mt 24,43 und 1 ess 5,2.4’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 633-76. • Schottroff, L., Sisters, 152-73. • Sellew, P., ‘Reconstruction of Q 12:33-59’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 617-68. • Steinhauser, M. G., Doppelbildworte, 197-214. • Wenham, D., Parables, 80-93. • Walvoord, J. F., ‘Is Posttribulational Rapture Revealed in Matt 24?’ GTJ 6 (1985), 257-66. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘e Son of Man Sayings in the Sayings Source’, in To Touch the Text. FS J. A. Fitzmyer, ed. M. P. Horgan and P. J. Kobelski (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 369-89. See further at 24:1-2.

Whereas 24:36 has asserted the unknowability of the timing of the coming of the Son of Man, vv. 37-44 press the need, in light of this necessary ignorance, for constant readiness. Matthew leaves his Markan source at this point and turns again to the source from which he drew 24:26-28. For vv. 37-41 he will use materials parallelled in Lk. 17:26-35. For an ending here Matthew will draw on Mk. 13:35 (he will make no further use of the material of Mk. 13:33-37) before he turns to another source, this time parallelled in Lk. 12:39-40. On sources more broadly and issues of historicity for chap. 24 see the comments at Mt. 24:1-2.129

24:37 Matthew uses a γάρ (‘for’) to connect with his theme statement in v. 36. With ὥσπερ γάρ (‘for just as’) in place of Luke’s καὶ καθὼς ἐγένετο (‘and just as it happened’), Matthew can repeat the ὥσπερ γὰρ … οὕτως ἔσται (just as … so will be’) pattern of v. 27, while ἡ παρουσία (‘the coming’) in place of καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις (‘and in the days’) allows for a repetition of ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (‘the coming of the Son of Man’) from the same verse. But whereas universal comprehensiveness was in view in v. 27, here the point will be clari ed in vv. 38-39 as unexpectedness.

24:38 With his opening ὡς γάρ (‘for as’) here130 and οὕτως ἔσται (so will be’) in v. 39,131 Matthew intends more or less to replicate the pattern of v. 37 in his spelling out of what he intends by v. 37. To carry forward from his chosen ὡς γάρ, he adds ‘in those days before the ood they were’,132 which means that he must carry on with participles rather than the nite verbs found in Lk. 17:27. In Matthew τρώγειν replaces ἐσθίειν for ‘eat’, probably to represent the eating more graphically: ‘they were chewing [away at their food]’. But like Luke, he represents the ordinary rhythms of life.133 e entry of Noah into the ark does not change the behaviour of the people;134 it frees God to bring the intended judgment. 24:39 ‘ey did not know until’ is Matthew’s insertion. e life pictured in v. 38, untroubled by larger concerns, is discovered only too late to have been life in a fool’s paradise. e Genesis account drops no suggestion that ‘life as usual’ for all but Noah’s family is based on any refusal to attend to Noah. Opportunity for repentance had long since passed by the time God declared his intention in Gn. 6:7. e judgment falls not as something of which people had been warned, but as a total surprise.135 ἦρεν (‘took’) for ἀπώλεσεν (‘destroyed’) may be a Matthean touch: whether he is focussing on those to be redeemed or those to be subject to judgment, Matthew tends to favour imagery of people being moved off somewhere to experience their ultimate fate.136 Apart from the καί (‘also’) added this time, the nal clause repeats identically the second clause of v. 37.137 Matthew draws no moral from his rst image; he leaves that for the second and third images. 24:40 Having already mentioned the coming of the Son of Man twice in vv. 37-39, Matthew moves to the second image (actually a pair of images) without feeling the need for a fresh introduction; τότε (‘then’) suffices.138 It looks as if both Matthew

and Luke have settled for two of what would originally been a set of three correlated images here.139 Neither has the other’s rst image. Matthew’s omission of Luke’s rst image allows him to avoid the difficulty of a committed night setting aer the openness of v. 36. ere is no obvious gain for Luke, except for economy, in dropping Matthew’s rst image. ere has been a worker ‘in the eld’ in v. 18. Matthew has (futuristic) present tenses, while Luke has future verbs for the outcomes.140 Either could be more original. Are those taken taken off to salvation or to judgment? e potentially negative nuances of which ‘le’ (ἀϕίεται) is capable (‘le out’) make it more likely that being taken off to salvation is intended, as by the angels in v. 31. 24:41 Matthew expresses the second example more economically, dropping the verb.141 Two men at work are now balanced by two women at work. Probably he has in mind a small domestic mill in the home, with perhaps a woman and her mother or grown-up daughter working with her grinding the meal for their family baking needs. 24:42 Matthew now draws on Mk. 13:35 to help draw a moral from his images in 24:40-41.142 Matthew adds a causal ὅτι (‘because’), prefers ποίᾳ ἡμέρᾳ (‘in what hour’) to Mark’s simple πότε (‘when’) — presumably to take up language from v. 36 (the other time term from v. 36, ὥρα [‘hour’], will appear in v. 44), and replaces τῆς οἰκίας (‘of the house’) with ὑμῶν (‘your’) to disconnect the Markan language from the imagery of its Markan context.143 In terms of its derivation from Mark, ὁ κύριος ὑμῶν should mean ‘your master’, but ‘your Lord’ is more likely as an intrusion of Matthew’s own Christian language (on addressing Jesus as ‘Lord’ see at 7:21). For the Christian the clue to not being le behind is in being on the alert for the coming of ‘your Lord’. In some important

sense not immediately clari ed here one needs to be ready for the ‘pickup’. 24:43 From that of the ood and of the pairs of workers the imagery now moves to that of a householder facing the prospect of a break-in — imagery which Matthew draws from yet another source.144 e only Matthean touches here are likely to be ‘he would have stayed awake and’, which Matthew uses to provide a link back to v. 42, and τὴν οἰκίαν as Matthew’s preference for ‘the house’ over Luke’s τὸν οἶκον.145 ough Matthew has seven of the twelve NT uses of οἰκοδεσπότης (lit. ‘master of the house’), only here does possession of a house play any role in his use of the word. e language of the watches of the night is tting, drawn as it is from the practice of taking turns in three-hour blocks through the night to watch out for danger, guard prisoners, and the like. Since thieves do not send calling cards, if one were to be ready for a thief ’s intrusion one would need to have all of the watches covered. Aer the event the master of the house becomes painfully aware that the level of vigilance has not been in line with the realities of the situation faced. διορυχθῆναι is literally ‘to be dug through’, which re ects the largely mud-brick construction of Palestinian homes.146 24:44 Disciples are to do what the master of the plundered house would need to have done to protect his goods but had failed to do. e language is as in Lk. 12:40 except for Matthew’s addition of the opening διὰ τοῦτο (‘for this reason/therefore’).147 ough the language overlap is only a shared use of ἔρχεται (‘comes’), the moral is the same as that in v. 42. ‘Do not think’ is a weaker version of ‘did not know’ in v. 39. ‘e hour’ balances ‘the day’ of v. 42, and together they echo ‘that hour and day’ of v. 36. ‘e Son of Man’ echoes the language of the nal statement aer the rst image; and, as already noted, ‘comes’ echoes the parallel nal statement from v.

42. is third coming statement as the last and fullest sums up the thrust of vv. 37-44. 3. ree Parables about Being Ready to Meet the Master (24:45– 25:30) a. On the Job as the Slave Le in Charge (24:45-51) 45‘Who,

then, turns out to be the faithful and wise slave whom the master set over [the other slaves in] the ahousehold to give them their food at the proper time? 46Fortunate is that slave whom the master, when he comes, will find doing just so! 47Amen, I say to you, he will set him over all his goods. 48But if bthat [one who turns out to be a] wicked slave says in his heart, “My master takes his timec”, 49and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and he eats and drinks with the drunkards, 50the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect [him] and in an hour which he does not know [about]. 51He will cut him in two and will allocate [him] his place with the hypocrites; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. οικιας (‘house’) in ‫ א‬565 579 892 etc. q; θεραπειας (‘serving’), from Lk. 12:42, in D f1 1006 1342 1506 etc. e sys. b. Missing from ‫ *א‬Θ 0204 983 1006 etc. sys sa mae, giving ‘the’. c. With some variation of word order, ελθειν (‘to come’) is added by C D L W Θ f(1), 13 067 1006 1342 1424 1506 etc. latt sy mae bomss. Bibliography Dewey, A. J., ‘A Prophetic Pronouncement: Q 12:42-46’, Forum 5.2 (1989), 99-108. • Ellingworth, P., ‘Luke 12.46 — Is there an Anticlimax Here?’ BT 31 (1980), 242-43. • Fleddermann, H., ‘e Householder and the Servant Le

in Charge’, SBLSP 25 (1986), 17-26. • Friedrichsen, T. A., ‘A Note on καὶ διχοτομήσει αὐτόν (Lk 12:46 and the Parallel in Matthew 24:51)’, CBQ 63 (2001), 258-64. • Glancy, J. A., ‘Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables’, JBL 119 (2000), 67-90. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 157-68. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 433-42. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 189-98. • Schwarz, G., ‘Τὴν τροϕὴν ([τοῦ] σιτομέτριον) ἐν καιρῷ Mt 24,45/Lk 12,42’, BibNot 59 (1991), 44. • Scott, B. B., Parable, 205-12. • Sim, D. C., ‘e Dissection of the Wicked Servant in Matthew 24:51’, HTS 58 (2002), 172-84. • Weber, K., ‘Is ere a Qumran Parallel to Matthew 24,51/Luke 12,46?’ RevQ 16 (1995), 657-63. See further at 24:1-2.

Readiness for the coming of the Son of Man, the need for which has been highlighted in 24:37-44, is now given content in the set of three parables which Matthew joins together in 24:51–25:30. In the rst, sustained ful lment of the master’s directives for as long as he is absent marks the faithful and wise slave. Matthew continues with the new source turned to in 24:43. e material here is parallelled in Lk. 12:42-46. e changes are small, except for the nal clause of Mt. 24:51 where Matthew substitutes a clause which he has already used four times and will use once more. Scholars have discussed much the question of development in the parable. e two most likely points at which there may have been development are in the rst and last verses. In the rst verse the story logic seems somewhat overloaded at the beginning, with the question seeming to need both to establish the task (whether effectively carried out or not) and to invite identi cation of the successful slave. ‘Faithful and wise servant’ is oen thought to be secondary, but without this phrase the question form does not really work. For the reduced form an appeal may be made to Semitic syntax something like that of Dt. 20:5; Ps. 25(LXX 24):12,148 or, keeping the full text, we may treat the formulation as a little cryptic and give the sense as (with the Matthean language) ‘Who, then, turns out to be the faithful and wise slave whom the master set over [the other slaves in] the

household to give them the food at the proper time?’ (with his use of ‘steward’ — what the successful slave becomes at the end — Luke certainly seems to have taken the material this way). e drastic outcome at the end of the parable has been thought so excessive as to destroy the realism of the story, but this is only the most extreme example of a tendency that pervades the parable. All the actions and responses of the parable are extreme (other than the initial assignment of the task and its possible faithful implementation), but in the rst-century world they are all nally within the horizons of the possible. e whole shape of the parable involves pushing the logic of everyday affairs to the kind of extreme that will guarantee that the hearer will sense the need to move behind the story world to search for the intention of the parable. From its inception, the whole parable is somewhat allegorical, but this should not deter us from attributing it to the historical Jesus. But for the nal two clauses in the Matthean form we do move beyond the bounds of anything that can be contained within the boundaries of the story, and these are likely to be developments.149 e parable may originally have been a parable about the coming of the kingdom of God, with God imaged in the master of the parable. But in our Gospel use it is clearly a parable about the eschatological coming of Jesus as Lord.

24:45 e various differences between Matthew and Luke here are all likely to be Lukan modi cations.150 ἐστίν (lit. ‘is’) is futuristic and has been translated above as ‘turns out to be’: only the slave’s actions aer having been assigned the task reveal his true qualities.151 In Matthew πιστός (‘faithful’) is found only in this parable and then twice in the third of the current set of three.152 ϕρόνιμος (‘wise’) has two earlier uses,153 but aer its use in this parable it will appear four times in the second parable of the set.154 ὁ κύριος is ‘the master’ of the set of household slaves who feature in

the story, but by his previous use of ὁ κύριος in v. 42 Matthew has increased the transparency to Jesus as Lord. e slave is given responsibility over the food supplies and charged with taking care of the other slaves in this respect. His control of the food gives him some leverage over the other slaves, but he is not said to be put in charge in a more comprehensive sense. 24:46 Only a minor change of word order separates this verse from Lk. 12:43. On the beatitude form see the comments at Mt. 5:310. ‘e master’ has a possessive pronoun in Greek: ‘his or her master’. e basis of the declaration of good fortune will be given in 24:47. As the story unfolds, it may be possible to observe this slave in action and, while recognising that he is being faithful, think that he is being anything but wise in his failure to exploit the opportunities that the absence of his master has opened up for him. But that is not the perspective of the story. e moment of truth is when the master comes. 24:47 Matthew’s much favoured ‘Amen, I say to you’ is likely to be original here; Luke has translated ἀμήν (‘amen’) with ἀληθῶς (‘truly’). Otherwise Mt. 26:47 and Lk. 12:44 are identical. at to which he has been appointed (as an interim arrangement for the period in which the master is absent) gives way to that to which he shall be appointed (as a reward which recognises his capability and reliability). Fidelity in a lesser appointment leads to a more signi cant appointment — a point which will be developed more fully in the third parable of the set. We now have an answer to the opening question: the faithful and wise servant is the one who reliably carries out his master’s bidding. But the story is not nished because the not-faithful-and-wise option has not yet been explored. 24:48 Matthew’s text has κακός (‘wicked’), which is lacking in Lk. 12:45, and Luke has ἔρχεσθαι (‘in coming’ — lit. ‘to come’), which is absent from Matthew. It is not clear who has added or

subtracted. ‘If that wicked slave’ is elliptical and must stand for ‘if that [one who turns out to be a] wicked slave’, and have a role analogous to that of ‘Who, then, … turns out to be the faithful and wise slave?’ in v. 45.155 e presence of χρονίζει μου ὁ κύριος (normally translated ‘My master is delayed’) has oen been claimed as a product of Christian re ection on the delay of the Parousia, but the parable needs something like it if the action of wicked slave is to have any real plausibility. In any case, χρονίζειν does not mean to delay beyond an expected time (though in the right contexts that can be implied), but simply to take considerable time over something. In the parable the sense ‘My master [characteristically] takes his time’ is unobtrusive in the context and offers the necessary framework for the slave’s actions.156 An extended absence is a golden opportunity for the slave who is so minded to ‘let his hair down’ for a while — with every intention of having the house back in order by the time the master returns. For the hearers of the story this is the space within which the true colours of the slave can show. 24:49 Luke is responsible for the difference between τοὺς συνδούλους αὐτοῦ (‘his fellow slaves’) of Mt. 24:49 and τοὺς παῖδας καὶ τὰς παιδίσκας (‘the male and female servants’) of Lk. 12:45. Allocation of responsibility for other minor differences is uncertain.157 e behaviour represents a usurpation of the role of the master, but with an exercise of the master’s powers in an irresponsible manner: the beatings are arbitrary, not appropriate impositions of justice; he exercises control of the food supplies in a totally self-indulgent manner (the imagery is probably that of the slave supplying food and drink for drunken orgies with his drinking mates). e excesses of this upstart slave have their parallels in other ancient stories.158 24:50 Matthew and Luke are identical here. e moment of truth is again, as in v. 46, the coming of the master. e time of the

coming was just as unknown in v. 46, but Matthew gives an emphasis that is now quite ominous to the surprise arrival because for this slave a lack of readiness goes with the unexpectedness: this slave is being caught offguard. e language of ‘day’ and ‘hour’ harks back to the theme statement in v. 36. Not knowing here takes us back to a motif shared by each of the three blocks in vv. 37-44 (vv. 39, 42, 43 — the rst and the last have the same verb as in v. 50). Not expecting takes us to the nal coming statement that sums up vv. 37-44 (though this time the Greek verbs are different). 24:51 Matthew prefers ‘the hypocrites’ to ‘the unfaithful’ of Lk. 12:46 and adds the nal clause, for which he nds no fewer than six places in his Gospel (see at 8:12). Otherwise the wording is identical. ough Jewish law provided slaves with some protection and recognition of human dignity, in the Roman world the slave belonged in a more absolute sense to the owner, who for the most part was free to do what he would with his ‘property’.159 Summary justice was largely in the hands of the master. While a slave’s life was cheap, and slaves could lose their lives for what we would consider fairly minor infractions, the death of a slave at the hands of a master was normally an accidental byproduct of punishment by a master rather than something positively intended. In other ancient stories cited as parallels to the Gospel story the ruthless killing of slaves by their masters seem to be restricted to (despotic) kings. Glancy has, however, drawn attention to a Roman inscription that includes within the duties of a particular public official the execution of slaves on demand.160 is notwithstanding, the logic of everyday affairs is probably being pushed to a kind of extreme in the parable, as a means of signalling that the story of the parable is ultimately a story about something other than what it appears to be on the surface.

Nonetheless, since the present Gospel forms have a fate for the punished slave beyond being cut in two,161 we must leave open the possibility that a non-literal, idiomatic use of διχοτομᾶν (‘cut in two’) is involved.162 We can only guess what it might mean. English idioms like ‘cut him down to size’ or ‘tear him to shreds’ may offer some measure of parallel, but the parable intends something much more violent. Matthew may intend ‘will allocate [him] his place with the hypocrites’ to link his fate here with that anticipated for the hypocrites who feature prominently in chap. 23. e judgment motif is reinforced by the repetition here of the oen-repeated ‘there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’. In the present Gospel text the parable is transparently about the disciples’ responsibility to be faithful on the job, ful lling the task allocated by the Lord until such time as the Lord comes. e time of the Lord’s absence is to be marked by unfaltering service that can pass scrutiny at whatever moment the Lord should turn up. A correlation between the serving role in the parable and the call to various forms of service in the church is appropriate, but any narrow focus on the role of church leaders is to be resisted. In various ways earlier Gospel material has implicitly recognised a period in which Jesus would be absent subsequent to his ministry, but unless we count 23:39, this is the rst time absence emerges explicitly as a place of focus. It will do so equally strongly in the third of the present set of three linked parables. b. Bridesmaids Waiting for the Bridegroom (25:1-13) 1‘en

[the coming of] the kingdom of heaven will be like [the situation of] ten maidens who took their torches and went out to meet the bridegroom.a 2Five of them were foolish and five wise. 3bFor theb foolish [ones] took ctheir

torches and did not take oil with theirs.d 4e wise [ones] took oil in the containers [that were] with their torches. 5While the bridegroom took his time, they all became drowsy and were falling asleep. 6In the middle of the night a cry comes, “e bridegroom! Go out to meet ehim!” 7en all those maidens got up and got their torches ready. 8e foolish ones said to the wise ones, “Give us some of your oil, because our torches are going out”. 9e wise [ones] said in response, “So that [we don’t have a situation where] there will fcertainly notf be enough for us and for you, ggo, instead, to the sellers and buy [some] for yourselves.” 10And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11Later the rest of the maidens hcome and say, “Master, master, open [the door] for us!” 12He said in response, “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you”. 13Stay awake, then, because you do not know the day and [certainly] not the hour.i’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. και της νυμϕης (‘and the bride’) is added in D Θ f1 etc. latt sy mae. b-b. αιτινες (lit. ‘which’) in W f13 1006 1342 1506 etc. sy. e link is with ουν (‘then’) in D ff2 and with δε (‘and/but’) in Z (Θ f1 205) etc. c. Missing from ‫ א‬L Θ 700 etc aur g1 l vg., giving ‘the torches’. d. εν τοις αγγειοις αυτων is added in D 1424vid etc. (ff1), giving ‘[with them] in their containers’. e. Missing from ‫ א‬B (Z) 700. f-f. With ουκ in place of ου μη for the negative, the statement becomes less emphatic in ‫ א‬A L Z (Θ) 0249vid f13 33 205 209 565 579 700 892 1006 1342 1424 etc. g. A linking δε (‘and/but’) here in C F W Z Θ 0249 f1, 13 33 305 565 700 892 1006 1342 1424 1506 etc. ff2* syh requires the preceding clause to be treated as independent, giving ‘Perhaps/certainly there will not be enough for us and for you’.

h. e historic present here is ‘corrected’ to an aorist in D W it vgmss. i. εν η ο υιος του ανθρωπου ερχεται (‘in which the Son of Man comes’) is added from 24:44 in C3 E F G H f13 579 700 1006 1342 1424c 1506 1582mg 2542 etc. vgmss. Bibliography Blomberg, C., Parables, 193-97. • Culbertson, P. L., Parables, 119-47. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘La parabola delle virgine stolte’, in Studies, 1:128-42. • Erlemann, K., Bild Gottes, 93-125. • Feuillet, A., ‘Les éspousailles messianiques et les références au Cantique des Cantiques dans les évangiles synoptiques’, Revom 84 (1984), 399-424. • France, R. T., ‘On Being Ready (Matthew 25:1-26)’, in Parables, ed. R. N. Longenecker, 177-95. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 169-79. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 443-62. • Lambrecht, J., ‘e Wise and Foolish Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13)’, in Astonished, 146-66. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 199-215. • Légasse, S., ‘La parabole des dix vierges (Mt 25,1-13): Essai de synthèse historico-littéraire’, in Paraboles, ed. J. Delorme, 349-60. • Mattam, S., ‘Judgement on the Present Economic Order: Matthew Twenty Five’, Biblebhashyam 23 (1997), 174-82. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 63-68. • Puig i Tàrrech, A., La Parabole des dix vierges (Mt 25,1-13) (AnBib 102. Rome: Ponti cal Biblical Institute, 1984). • Rosenblatt, M.-E., ‘Got into the Party aer All: Women’s Issues and the Five Foolish Virgins’, Continuum 3 (1994), 107-37. • Schwarz, G., ‘Zum Vokabular von Matthäus XXV.1-12’, NTS 27 (1981), 270-76. • Sherriff, J. M., ‘Matthew 25:1-13: A Summary of Matthean Eschatology’, in Studia, ed. E. A. Livingstone, 301-5. • Weder, H., ‘Die Parabel von den zehn Jungfrauen (Mt 25,1-13)’, in Gleichnisse, 239-49. • Zimmermann, R., ‘Das Hochzeitsritual im Jungfrauengleichnis: Sozialgeschichte Hintergründe zu Mt 25.1-13’, NTS 48 (2002), 48-70. See further at 24:1-2.

As the middle of the three parables about being ready to meet the master (24:45-51; 25:1-13; 14-30), the present parable serves to refresh the theme of readiness from 24:37-44, but it also sustains the

focus of its two companion parables by locating this readiness in action that precedes the inevitable coming. e present parable is unique to Matthew. Its tradition history is much disputed, with a major divide between those who trace some form of the parable to the historical Jesus and those who maintain that from the beginning this has been an allegory created in the early church — there is, as well, any number of speci c versions of the precise stages of development of the tradition. e beginning of Mt. 25:1 is generally judged Matthean; quite likely Matthew has either displaced or edited an original introduction. e overlap between v. 1 and v. 6 has been made the basis for eliminating more of v. 1, but this is hardly necessary and seems to require a quite conjectural replacement to be generated — the only thing that gives pause here is the odd, but probably insigni cant, even accidental, change from ὑπάντησιν to ἀπάντησιν (but not in D L W Z f13 33 1006 1342 etc.) for ‘meeting’ between vv. 1 and 6. V. 13 is widely and rightly judged to be a Matthean addition. Vv. 11-12 have an evident relationship to the material in Lk. 13:25. It seems to be a Matthean development (the last clause of Mt. 25:10 is generally excised with vv. 11-12 but will be defended below). e other place of difficulty is in vv. 5-6, and especially with the ‘delay’ of the bridegroom. e question of the origin of these verses is related to that of the possible link between them and the material of 1 es. 4:13-17, a discussion of which is found at n. 178 below. Some would eliminate both Mt. 25:5 and 6, but this is excessive. Others settle for dropping v. 5 and make a slight adjustment at the start of v. 6 (say: ‘once night had fallen’ for ‘at midnight’). But even this is more than is needed. Only ‘while the bridegroom took his time’ disturbs the logic of the narrative; something like ‘as they waited for the bridegroom’ seems to have been displaced so that Matthew can make some cross links to the other related parables. e second half of v. 9 has been questioned, but its presence or absence makes little difference; the story is slightly more compact without it, and it could have developed from v. 10a.

e restored story has no difficulty taking its place among the parables of the historical Jesus. For more detail see further below.

25:1 Matthew’s opening τότε (‘then’) picks up on the time of the coming of the master at the end of the preceding parable. Matthew uses ὁμοιοῦν (‘is like’) with ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘the kingdom of heaven’) on three other occasions, but elsewhere the verb is aorist passive, not future passive as here. So while there will be a connection, this parable is not being identi ed as part of a set with the other three.163 Matthew does use the future passive of ὁμοιοῦν in 7:24, 26, where the wise and the foolish turn up as in 25:2, 8. So a link to 7:24, 26 will be intended.164 On the loose syntax of kingdom of heaven is like statements see the comments at 13:24 (thus the translation above). παρθένος normally implies virginity, as it does in 1:23 (see there), but here Matthew does not have virginity as such in view but the ladies’ status as young unmarried women, ‘maidens’, in a supporting role for a wedding, in a manner analogous to that of modern bridesmaids. e role of the maidens is to take the bridegroom to the bride. Before we move to a discussion of the nature of the lights to be used by the maidens, it is necessary to clarify a feature of the overall telling of the story. Scholars have oen noted that the maidens ‘went out to meet the bridegroom’ here in v. 1, but are called on to ‘go out to meet him’ in v. 7. e double reference has been a puzzle and, related to it, the question of where the maidens are in between has proved difficult to answer. Everything becomes clear when we see that vv. 1-2 preannounce the theme of the parable and the beginning of the actual story is delayed until v. 3. ere has been considerable discussion over what τὰς λαμπάδας are. λαμπάς is etymologically imprecise.165 It could be used of clay lamps with their wicks and oil supply or of aming torches (sticks

wrapped in rags and soaked in oil).166 e more tting here will depend on what exactly is intended to be happening in the imagery of the parable. Going out to meet the bridegroom seems to involve the use of sources of light suitable for an outdoor journey, which clearly favours aming torches. But the preparation of τὰς λαμπάδας in v. 7 has seemed to some to point rather to the trimming of the wick of clay lamps. e verb used is κόσμειν, which means ‘prepare/put in order/arrange/adorn/beautify’. e verb clearly ts clay lamps, but can it t aming torches equally well? Discussion of whether there can be a suitable role for preparation in the case of aming torches has normally assumed that the torches have already been in use in v. 1. But without vv. 1-2 as part of the parable proper, it is only in v. 7 that the lights will be lit. So how does one prepare a aming torch? We could imagine dry rags being soaked in oil at this point, but more likely the prepreparation of such torches involved wetting them with oil well ahead of time to get the cloth ready to absorb as much oil as possible. But too much oil pre-soaked into the cloth would mean that oil dripped out during the period the torch sat unused. e trick would be to get enough in to make it easy to get more in, but not so much on as to unnecessarily create a mess (and waste expensive olive oil). Probably this would involve initially soaking the torches and then squeezing out a good bit of the oil. e nal preparation of the torches is then to add the extra oil that will make them useful for a long period, but not so much as to create dripping balls of re. Various features of the story which have otherwise proved difficult cohere well on this understanding of how things were being done.

e maidens take their lamps to go out to meet the bridegroom. It is not that they are providing necessary lighting for the bridegroom in the darkness. He will have already had to nd his own way to the point where he is to be met. e light is to make for a grand arrival: the bridegroom will be illuminated as a focus of attention; this is his moment of glory as he is on his way to take his bride. e phrase ἐξῆλθον εἰς ὑπάντησιν (or ἀπάντησιν, as in v. 6) is oen used of the official welcome of a dignitary, and this usage is likely to be echoed here.167 We have little knowledge of the speci cs of wedding customs among rst-century Jews, and we do not know how xed various patterns were. e present story, however, seems to work best if we imagine the bride as already at the bridegroom’s destination and as sending out her maidens to welcome him in.168 e sites of wedding celebrations seem to have mostly been the homes of the bridegroom’s parents, but nothing points speci cally to that here. No doubt at times premises would have been rented for the occasion, or better-off relatives may have opened their homes for the celebration.169 ough the bride is not directly visible in the story, she is the other chief character here. Her location determines the goal of the bridegroom’s journey, and she is represented in the story by her proxies, the maidens who act on her behalf to signal her welcome of her bridegroom. 25:2 As with 24:45, where the adjectives are ‘faithful’ and ‘wise’, the identi cation of ve as foolish and ve as wise here presummarises what will emerge in the unfolding of the story.170 25:1-2 tell us that we are about to be told a story about ten maidens who go out with lamps to meet the bridegroom, ve of whom will show themselves to be foolish and ve of whom will show

themselves to be wise. As already noted, the foolish and the wise here correspond to those in 7:24, 26 (taken up in inverted order). 25:3 Now the story begins. e linking γάρ (‘for’) offers the story as the explanation of what has been said in vv. 1-2. e λαμπάδες here have been identi ed as ‘burning torches’ in the discussion at v. 1. at they are said here not to have taken oil is normally thought to refer to spare oil, but in light of the discussion above that represents an uncalled-for re nement. ere is a little oil in the prepared torches, but for using such torches the expectation will be that a supply of oil is necessary,171 and not simply insurance against unforeseen developments.172 (μεθ᾽ ἑαυτῶν could mean ‘with them [i.e., the maidens], but in light of the language coming in v. 4 it will be ‘with theirs’ — short for μετὰ τῶν λαμπάδων ἑαυτῶν [‘with their lamps’] of v. 4.) To go without the oil supply is a piece of pure thoughtlessness, not simply a failure to plan for any contingency. ey have not gone without the oil to meet the bridegroom, but to the meeting point from which they will go out to meet him when signalled to do so. 25:4 As a minor piece of artistry to bracket vv. 3 and 4 yet more closely together, the key terms ‘torches’ and ‘oil’ are taken up in v. 4 in the reverse order from that of v. 3. ἀγγείον is used very widely for all sorts of containers,173 mostly solid containers but also wineskins. It is used for containers of oil for burning in Nu. 4:9. e wise are not doing anything out of the ordinary. ey are simply taking along the oil supplies that are needed for their torches. e de nite article but no possessive pronoun with ἀγγείοις (‘containers’) is likely to suggest that the torches had associated oil containers. If this is so, then it is unclear whether the foolish maidens are to be thought of as leaving the containers behind, or, perhaps more likely, as bringing them, but without rst lling them with oil.

25:5 No particular motivation is offered for why the bridegroom does not come earlier. People get delayed in such circumstances for all sorts of reasons. is is the bridegroom’s great occasion, and he can come when he wants to. How does the lateness of the coming of the bridegroom affect the situation? If the oil had been burning all this time, then the shortage of oil would have been acute. But as we have seen, once the role of v. 1 is clari ed, there has not yet been a reason to light the torches. Nobody seems worried about the situation: the maidens simply nod off to sleep174 (we might imagine that some of them are quite young; for such, and not necessarily only for such, the mixture of excitement and boredom can prove quite sopori c). From Matthew’s point of view the presence of this feature is a nice cross link with the previous parable (see 24:48): nobody knew when this character would come either! But in 25:1-13 the passage of time seems to play no essential role in the story; the die has long since been cast by the failure of the foolish maidens to bring oil.175 Indeed, the passage of time creates a problem for v. 9, where the middle of the night is hardly an auspicious time for nding sellers of olive oil on the job. It looks rather as if Matthew has added at least ‘while the bridegroom takes his time’ of v. 5 to tie his parables yet more closely together.176 e addition of this part of v. 5 will also open up the possibility of adding v. 13 (see below). But in light of v. 13 it may well be too much to make Matthew responsible for the whole of v. 5: in v. 5 falling asleep is totally innocent; in v. 13 staying awake is a vital imperative. Did Matthew’s source have something like ‘As they waited for the bridegroom, they all became drowsy and began to fall asleep’? 25:6 e next stage of the action needs to take place aer dark, but ‘in the middle of the night’ is likely to be a Matthean

adjustment to make room for v. 5. μέσης νυκτός is sometimes translated ‘at midnight’, but with a genitive rather than a dative a less precise sense is more likely: ‘well into the night’ or, with the imprecision that oen attaches to it in English usage, ‘in the middle of the night’. Matthew oen makes use of historic presents to highlight focal moments in narrative, but here, with his use of γέγονεν (lit. ‘has happened’), this role has fallen to the perfect tense.177 So, to t with the translation strategy adopted for historic presents, the rendering above is ‘a cry comes’. We have now reached the decisive moment of the story. e lookout who has been posted sounds the alert. It is time for action. e maidens can now perform their role as welcome escorts for the bridegroom. e lookout now calls for the central action anticipated in v. 1. 25:7 With both ‘all’ and ‘those’ the phrase ‘all those maidens’ is strongly emphatic: every last one sets out to respond to the call, which only heightens the tragedy of the development to follow. ‘ey got up’ (ἠγέρθησαν) covers both waking up and getting to their feet.178 All the maidens now spring into action. Now it is time to make nal preparations for the torches to be lit. Primarily this will involve putting on the extra oil and lighting the torches, but a covering over the wrapped end of the torch may have needed rst to be removed, and good practice may have required checking that the cloth remained securely xed to the stick. Whatever the speci cs, the foolish maidens will not have gotten far into their nal preparations before they realise that there is a major problem. 25:8 e only solution at hand for those who had been thoughtless is to beg oil from those who had remembered to bring theirs. σβέννυνται (‘go out’) is present tense. It could be being used futuristically for ‘will go out’, but what is more likely is that the maidens are trying to make do with the oil with which the rags have

been pre-impregnated, and then nding that they cannot get their torches burning properly with only this small amount of oil.179 25:9 Translating μήποτε οὐ μὴ ἀρκέσῃ is not straightforward. οὐ μὴ ἀρκέσῃ is an emphatic negative future construction; ‘there will certainly not be enough’. μήποτε is used in various ways, but perhaps it is best used here as the negative form of ἵνα (‘in order that’), as in purpose clauses. e wise maidens give the alternative recommendation so as to avoid creating a situation in which there is ultimately not enough oil for any of the torches. e answer might seem cruel, but the sensible maidens are ultimately considering the bridegroom rather than themselves. If the existing oil were to be shared in all ten torches, then the likely outcome would be a torchlight procession that was brilliant for the rst half of its duration but then gradually spluttered out to darkness as it should have been reaching its climax. at would not be a t way to honour the bridegroom! e wise maidens have rightly identi ed the problem with the proposal of the foolish maidens. But their own counterproposal cannot be guaranteed to rescue the foolish maidens from their predicament. One can imagine that their hope is that the purchase can be made quickly enough for the second set of maidens to be able to catch up to the procession and add to its brilliance for the nal approach. 25:10 e foolish maidens have no better option and go off to nd oil. As already noted, to nd sellers in the middle of the night will be quite a task. e telling becomes quite compressed at this point, and it is not at once clear what we are to imagine. To what point does the bridegroom come while the foolish maidens are away? Does he arrive at some agreed rendezvous point, to which the wise maidens have headed out to be when he arrives? is would

mean that the word from the lookout in v. 6 was based on spotting the arriving bridegroom while he was still some distance away. On this reconstruction the actual procession is passed over and the telling moves at once to the destination: the wedding banquet. But this is to allow a different coming to steal the limelight from the coming that the story is about. It seems better to nd reference here to the bridegroom arriving at the wedding banquet than to arriving at a point of rendezvous: the procession has not only begun without the foolish maidens, but it now ends before their return. e call to go out to meet him of v. 6 has been implemented, and, though it is only with half his complement of torch bearers, the bridegroom has made his grand arrival at the site of the wedding banquet. αἱ ἕτοιμοι (‘those [who were] ready’) takes us back to the decisive period when, aer the warning cry, it becomes evident that half of the maidens are not ready for their role. e use here of ἕτοιμοι echoes that of 24:44, with its call to ‘be ready’, and this supports the parallelling of ‘the bridegroom came’ in 25:10 and ‘the Son of Man comes’ in 24:44. e maidens have helped him stage his arrival, and now they accompany him to the wedding banquet. Whether or not their official duties are over, the focus is now on their freedom to enjoy the party. e privilege of the occasion makes it tting for the bridegroom to be the last participant in the banquet to arrive. Once he arrives, the door is shut. It would be to insult his signi cance for the occasion to allow other guests to arrive aer him. 25:11 e story could end with v. 10, and almost certainly originally did. Whether the other maidens found oil or not is irrelevant once the door has been closed. ey have missed out. But the other two parables in the set will end with an emphasis on failure, and so this one will too. ‘e door was shut’ at the end of the

parable is likely to have reminded Matthew of other traditional material, also used in Lk. 13:25, where the shutting of the door happens when the master has determined that the guest list is complete (either because all have arrived or because it has become so late that to come any later would be a gross insult to his hospitality). Beyond the shutting of the door, Lk. 13:25 has ‘saying, Master, open [the door] for us’, whereas Matthew only doubles ‘Master’ and uses, necessarily, a feminine form for ‘saying’; and Lk. 13:25 has, ‘In answer he will say, “I do not know you”’, whereas Matthew uses ‘said’ rather than ‘will say’ and adds his muchfavoured ‘Amen, I say to you’. Matthew builds a nal scene out of this source inspiration. e use of the historic present for ἔρχονται (‘come’) marks what is for Matthew a second point of emphasis in the story (cf. at v. 6). We are not actually told whether the maidens found oil or not; by this stage it has become irrelevant. e use of κύριε (‘master/lord’) in address here has been thought to be too formal. But however well the maidens might have known the bridegroom, his dominant role on the wedding day is well re ected in such an address. But the use of κύριος (‘master’) serves Matthew’s purpose by introducing into this parable the use of a term that belongs quite intrinsically to the preceding and following parables. e late-coming maidens address themselves to the bridegroom since he is the one whom they have offended.180 Will he relent and let them in? 25:12 e material of Lk. 13:25 provides even more of this verse (see above). e Matthean use of ‘Amen, I say to you’ sustains the emphasis that was marked in v. 11 by the use of the historic present. e late-coming maidens who failed in their role still consider themselves part of the wedding party, but the bridegroom is of quite a different opinion. eir failure to be ready for their role has severed any connection. In the story this is harsh, but perhaps

not unrealistic. Matthew probably sees this as a feature of the story that points beyond the story level. With ‘I do not know you’ he is likely to intend an echo of Mt. 7:23,181 where the language is ‘I never knew you’, which in turn is linked with ‘you who practice lawlessness’, an accusation addressed to people who insist that they have done great things in the name of Jesus. In the Matthean frame the story is very clearly told with reference to the coming of the Son of Man. e goal of his coming is being described under the imagery of a marriage banquet. is does not quite happen elsewhere in Matthew, but Jesus is likened to a bridegroom celebrating with his guests in 9:15, coming in response to the king’s invitation to the wedding banquet of his son is used in 22:1-14 as an image for the signi cance of responding to Jesus’ ministry, and the eschatological kingdom is imaged as a banquet in 8:11. e challenge is to readiness to participate in the official welcome. e speci c content of that readiness comes under the imagery of oil, but it is probably pointless to try to identify something in particular to which the oil is meant to correspond. e classical identi cation is with good works. But this is too narrow. A proper orientation to the signi cance of what is coming will include the deeds of the present, but it is more comprehensive than that. Outside the Matthean framework and within the ministry of the historical Jesus, the parable is likely to have related to the imminent coming of (the kingdom of) God as anticipated by Jesus (in close connection with the signi cance of his own ministry). We do not have the crude allegory that has oen been claimed, but a parable that, while it draws on a supply of stock metaphors like other parables of Jesus, has its own well-sustained narrative integrity. 25:13 e materials of 24:36, 37-44 have already been cross referenced with the echo of v. 44 in 25:10. Now in v. 13 ‘Stay awake,

then, because you do not know’ is repeated from 24:42.182 ‘e day’ continues the echo of v. 42 (‘in what day’), but in combination with ‘or the hour’ it harkens back speci cally to v. 36 and then also to v. 50 in the rst of the three linked parables.183 is verse is Matthew’s addition to strengthen the links between this parable and its larger context. In terms of the speci c imagery of the parable, staying awake is actually of no signi cance (the wise maidens also fall asleep) and knowing the exact time for the arrival of the bridegroom would have been of no use to the foolish maidens (what they needed to become aware of is that their readiness for his coming was defective in a vital manner). Aer the parable, the thrust of v. 13 can only be ‘Check your “equipment” now because who knows how much longer it will be before you have to be sure that you are ready’. c. Slaves Entrusted with eir Master’s Business Affairs (25:14-30) 14‘aFor

[it is] as if a person going away from home called his own slaves and handed his capital over to them: 15to one he gave five talents, to one two, to one one, [to each] according to their own ability; then he went away. bImmediately 16the one who had received the five talents went and worked with them and cgained five mored. 17In the same waye the one with twof gained two more. 18But the one who had received one went off and dug g[up] earthg and hid the master’s money. 19‘Aer a long time the master of those slaves comes and settles accounts with them. 20e one who had received the five talents came up and presented five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over five talents to me; look, I have gained five more talents”. 21e master said to him, “Well [done], good and faithful slave; hyou have been faithful over a few [things], I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your master”. 22e one iwith the two talents also came up and said, “Master, you handed over two talents to me; look, I

have gained two more talents”. 23e master said to him, “Well [done], good and faithful slave; jyou have been faithful over a few [things], I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your master”. 24‘e one who had received the one talent also came up and said, “Master, I know kyou — that you are a hard person, harvesting where you did not sow and gathering lfrom wherel you did not scatter [seed]. 25So I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the ground. Look, you have what is yours.” 26But the master said in response, “Wicked and indolent slave! You knew, did you, that I harvest where I did not sow and gather from where I did not scatter [seed]? 27Ought you not then to have put my monies with the bankers, so that when I came I would have received what is mine, with interest. 28Take the talent from him, then, and give it to the one who has mten talents.” 29 — For to neveryone who has [more] will be given, and they will have in abundance, but from the one who has nothing even what they ohave will be taken away from them.p — 30“And th[is] worthless slave? row [him] out into the darkness outside; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from D W vgmss boms. b. e text is unclear about which sentence ‘immediately’ belongs with. An added δε (‘and/but’) in ‫א‬2 A C D L W f13 892 1006 1342 etc. aur l vg syp, h links ‘immediately’ to the preceding sentence, while a differently placed δε in Θ f1 205 700 1506 etc. it sa anchors ‘immediately’ to its present location. c. εποιησεν (‘made’) in ‫ *א‬Ac W 1006 1342 etc. q syh, aer Lk. 19:18. syh.

d. ταλαντα (‘talents’) is added in ‫ א‬A C D W f1, 13 106 1342 1506 etc. f q

e. και (‘also’) is added in ‫א‬2 (A) B C3 D W f1, 13 1006 1342 1506 etc. it vgcl sy samss mae bopt.

f. και αυτος (‘he also’) is added here by A C3 (D) W Θ f1, 13 1006 1342 etc. h syh. g-g. εν τη γη (‘in the earth’) in A (C2) D W Θ f1, 13 892 1006 1342 1506 lat. την γην (‘[up] the earth’) in C* 700. h. επει (‘since’) is added in D lat co. i. λαβων (lit. ‘having received’) is added in ‫ א‬D 1006 1342 1506vid etc. latt samss to match v. 20. j. επει (‘since’) is added in D latt co. k. Missing from D Θ etc. lat sa mae to smooth the syntax. l-l. οπου (‘where’) in D W etc. lat sa. m. πεντε (‘ ve’) in D, representing the original amount given. n. παντι (‘everyone’) is missing from D W 1006 etc. syp, giving ‘the one who’. o. δοκει εχειν (‘seem to have’) in L D 33 69 346 892 983 etc. lat syh mae. p. In uenced by a lectionary ending, C3 Fc H 892mg 1006mg etc. have ταυτα λεγων εϕωνει· ο εχων ωτα ακουειν ακουετω (‘saying these things, he used to call out, “Let the one who has ears to hear, hear”’). is is aer v. 30 in f13 etc. Bibliography Blomberg, C., Parables, 214-21. • Brisman, L., ‘A Parable of Talent’, RelArts 1 (1986), 74-99. • Carpenter, J. B., ‘e Parable of the Talents in Missionary Perspective: A Call for an Economic Spirituality’, Missiology (Scottdale, PA) 25 (1997), 165-81. • Denaux, A., ‘e Parable of the King-Judge (Lk 19,1228) and Its Relation to the Entry Story (Lk 19,29-44)’, ZNW 93 (2002), 3557. • Dietzfelbinger, C., ‘Das Gleichnis von den anvertrauten Geldern’, BerlinTZ 6 (1989), 222-33. • Enslin, M. S., ‘Luke and Matthew: Compilers or Authors?’ ANRW 2/25.3 (1985) 2,357-88, esp. 2,385-87. • Erlemann, K., Bild Gottes, 196-221. • Flusser, D., ‘Aesop’s Miser and the Parable of the Talents’, in Parable and Story in Judaism and Christianity, ed. C. oma and M. Wyschogrod (New York: Paulist, 1989), 9-25. • Fortna, R. T., ‘Reading Jesus’

Parable of the Talents through Underclass Eyes: Matt 25:14-30’, Forum 8.3-4 (1992), 211-28. • Glancy, J. A., ‘Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables’, JBL 119 (2000), 67-90. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 271-81. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 463-80. • Kähler, C., Gleichnisse, 164-90. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 217-44. • Lambrecht, J., ‘e Talents and the Pounds (Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:11-27)’, in Astonished, 167-95. • Lys, D., ‘Contre le salut par les oeuvres dans la prédication des talents’, ETR 64 (1989), 331-40. • Manns, F., ‘La parabole des talents: Wirkungsgeschichte et racines juives’, RSR 65 (1991), 343-62. • Marcel, P., ‘La parabole des talents (Matthieu 25:14-30)’, RevRef 34 (1983), 49-54. • Marion, D., ‘Simple et mystérieuses paraboles, VIII: Paraboles de crise (2): Mt 25,14-30: les talents’, EV 106.30-33 (1996), 241*-45*, 252*-55*. • Martins, F., ‘Parabole des talents: Matthieu 25,14-30’, SémiotBib 84 (1996), 14-24. • Naegele, J., ‘Translation of talanton “talent”’, BT 37 (1986), 441-43. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 68-72. • Pilch, J. J., ‘e Parable of the Talents’, BiTod 39 (2001), 366-70. • Puig i Tàrrech, A., ‘La parabole des talents (Mt 25,14-30) ou des mines (Lc 19,11-28)’, in À cause, ed. F. Refoulé, 165-94. • Resenhö, R. W., ‘Jesu Gleichnis von den Talenten: Ergänzt durch die Lukas-Fassung’, NTS 26 (1979-80), 318-31. • Rohrbaugh, R. L., ‘A Peasant Reading of the Parable of the Talents/Pounds: A Text of Terror?’ BTB 23 (1993), 32-39. • Scott, B. B., Parable, 217-35. • Steinmetz, D. C., ‘Matthew 25:14-30’, Int 34 (1980), 172-76. • Weder, H., ‘Die Parabel von den anvertrauten Geldern (Mt 25,14-30; Lk 19,11-27; HebEv fr 15)’, in Gleichnisse, 193-210. • Wohlgemut, J. R., ‘Entrusted Money (Matt. 25:14-28)’, in Parables, ed. V. G. Shillington, 103-20. • Wright, N. T., Victory, 632-39. • Zager, W., Gottesherrscha, 179-83. See further at 24:1-2.

e present parable completes the set of three linked parables on being ready to meet the master. It is particularly coupled with the rst parable in 24:45-51, which was also a parable about what slaves do in their master’s absence. at with which one has been entrusted needs to be productive for the master while he is absent.

Mt. 25:14-30 is partially parallelled in Lk. 19:11-27 by the parable of the man who goes to a far country to receive kingly power and then returns as king. Luke seems to have merged two parables, one of which was something like that of Matthew’s source. Because of the complex Lukan role here, reconstructing the source forms is necessarily quite tentative, but the source forms available to Matthew and Luke were probably not identical (notably, some form of Mt. 25:16-18 seems likely in Matthew’s source, but not in Luke’s). See below for more detail on source matters. As was the case with the parable in Mt. 24:45-51, most likely the present parable as used by Jesus was originally a parable about the coming of the kingdom of God, with God imaged in the master of the parable. But in Christian usage Jesus as the coming Son of Man was quickly identi ed as the master.

25:14 Matthew may have omitted Mk. 13:33-37, but the importance of its theme for him was evident in the impact of the language of v. 35 on Mt. 24:42, and via that on 25:13. Now v. 14 has echoes of Mk. 13:34.184 It looks as if Matthew does not use Mk. 13:33-37 because he has a more developed parable that he wants to use that will parallel its primary features, notably a master going away from home who sets tasks for his slaves and is expected back later.185 e linking γάρ (‘for’) connects better to the preceding parable than to 25:13 (both parables have an assigned task for which one is answerable). e linking ὥσπερ (lit. ‘[just] as/like’) is used in an unusual manner since it has no expressed term or clause of comparison (thus the need to intrude ‘[it is]’ in translation)186 and the following syntax seems to lose sight of the fact that the sentence started to make a comparison (covered in the translation by rendering ὥσπερ ‘as if ’ rather than more literally as ‘just like’).187 ἀποδημεῖν (‘go away from home’) has been used previously in 21:33. e present participle is used futuristically here (‘was about to go away’).

‘His own (ἰδίους)’ with ‘slaves’ may be intended to highlight the master’s action here as unusual: one would normally make investment arrangements for a period of absence in other ways; these slaves are being treated with particular distinction. e need to call the slaves already distinguishes the master/slave interaction in this parable from that of any of the other parables: elsewhere the slaves are simply there to be spoken to and, as necessary, directed to call other people. ὑπάρχοντα has been rendered in 24:47 — the rst of quite a number of cross links between the three linked parables — as ‘goods’ and in 19:21 as ‘what [you] possess’, but here, since it is handed over as money, it requires something like ‘[business] capital’. From the unfolding story it is clear that this is no gi. e money is being handed over (παρέδωκεν) to them, not given to them. e slaves are being asked to make commercial use of the money while the master is away. Despite frequent appeals to Jewish business law governing investment loans and lease of property,188 nothing suggests that the money here is an investment loan from the master.189 Nor is anything said about any pro t due to the slaves. Later in the story their reward will be to manage more, not to keep a share as their own personal pro t. ough most slaves lived fairly servile lives, able slaves at times became major players in the educational, economic, and political spheres. As will become clear, the slaves of our story are being groomed for important roles. 25:15 On the value of the talent see the discussion at 18:24. Five talents is a substantial amount of money: it would have employed a hundred day labourers for about a year. A serious engagement in business would be possible with any of the three amounts. Luke has much smaller disbursements, with each slave (he has ten) receiving a mna, which is only one three-hundredth of ve

talents. Because Matthew seems to have exaggerated the amount in 18:24 (see discussion there) and because he can speak of the original disbursement as ‘a few things’ in vv. 21 and 23, he can reasonably be presumed to have exaggerated here. But perhaps Matthew is more original in having different slaves receive different amounts.190 With good common sense, the amounts are matched to the ability of each.191 e departure anticipated in v. 14 now takes place. εὐθέως (‘immediately’) is more likely to belong with v. 16, as a marker of serious engagement with the task at hand, than to v. 15 in connection with the departure. 25:16 Luke’s telling has no equivalent to vv. 16-18, with their account of what happened while the master was absent. Its content is mostly replicated in the reports to the master in vv. 20-25. e repetition works well in the dynamic of the storytelling, but it represents a luxury that is not typical of the parables of Jesus. It will not be Matthew’s expansion, and Luke may have dropped it when he merged the two parables with which he works, but it is probably not an original feature of the parable. e one strikingly distinctive feature that is able to emerge from this way of telling the story is in the language, ‘he worked with them [i.e., the ve talents]’. e slave, and not just the money, is on the job. In this way Matthew marks the personal investment of effort involved in the effective use of the money. Matthew may have exaggerated the amounts involved, but his version of the returns is considerably more modest than that of Luke: Matthew’s slaves double their money, but for Luke the successful slaves turn 1,000 percent and 500 percent pro ts. is is probably Matthew’s compensation for his earlier exaggeration. e Lukan returns are extraordinary, but not unknown in the high risks of ancient business.192 As in the parable of the sower, each case is followed through the whole time span before moving on to the next case.

25:17 e second case is dealt with quite summarily with a ὡσαύτως construction and omitting unnecessary words.193 ough the second slave has less capital to work with, he makes the same percentage gain. A rhythm has begun to develop, which creates an expectation as to how things should be in the third case. (Luke has a pattern of varying levels of success, with a stepped gradation from the most successful return to the level of banker’s interest that would have been acceptable, whereas simply preserving the money intact was not acceptable. Because it integrates the banker’s-interest option, this may re ect an original feature of the parable.) 25:18 at there is no ὡσαύτως at the beginning of v. 18, however, suggests a change. e difference of vocabulary and syntactical pattern from that in v. 16 points in the same direction.194 In Luke the money is wrapped up in a cloth, but that is easier to do with a mna than with a talent, which amounted to about twenty- ve kilograms of silver! e change is probably Matthew’s. e burying of valuables for safekeeping has been widely practised.195 Something similar is re ected in 13:44. e difference of behaviour from that of the previous two slaves is striking, but is not commented on here. ‘e master’ (the Greek has a possessive pronoun: ‘his or her master’) here as well as in vv. 21, 23, and 26 echoes its use in 24:46 of the rst parable in the set. 25:19 is time the story is not χρονίζει μου ὁ κύριος (‘my master takes his time’) as in the rst parable (24:48), nor χρονίζοντος δὲ τοῦ νυμϕίου (‘while the bridegroom took his time’) as in the second parable, but μετὰ δὲ πολὺν χρόνον ἔρχεται ὁ κύριος (‘aer a long time the master comes’). Luke has no real equivalent; though it makes narrative sense as creating sufficient space for the slaves to make their pro ts, it looks like a Matthean touch to further link the three parables. e two verbs of this verse are historic presents, marking the point of accountability at the

return the key moment of the parable (cf. the similar role of the perfect tense in v. 6 at the analogous point). συναίρει λόγον μετ᾽ αὐτῶν (‘settles accounts with them’) is very much like συνᾶραι λόγον μετὰ τῶν δούλων αὐτοῦ (‘to settle accounts with his slaves’) from 18:23 (cf. v. 24). Luke uses different language; Matthew has probably edited in light of the earlier parable. e master of the earlier parable had had to confront a difficult situation, and that will soon be necessary here as well. 25:20 With a change of direction from ‘went’ (πορευθείς) to ‘came’ (προσελθών) the opening words of v. 16 are now repeated, but this time the action is to present, rather than work for, the earnings. e verb προσήνεγκεν is literally ‘carried to’. It can mean simply ‘brought’, but it tends to be a more formal word, oen used with the offering of temple sacri ce. e translation ‘presented’ is designed to re ect something of a sense of occasion. ‘Presented ve more talents’ implies that he delivered ve plus ve. His words comment on both sets of ve talents. e report is not simply factual: the man makes a report that he is very happy to make. He feels good about what has happened. It re ects well on his own efforts, and it honours his master. ough the overall sense (except for the amounts) is much the same, the Lukan and Matthean accounts meet only in λέγων κύριε (‘saying, “Master”’). In line with v. 16, the Matthean language marks the achievement of the man, not just of the money, whereas Lk. 19:16 focuses on the money with ‘your mna has earned ten mnas’.196 25:21 ough there is more common language between Matthew and Luke here,197 both have put their own stamp on the verse. e verbal commendation of a slave here is striking. Being a slave in the ancient world was for the most part a thankless task (cf. Lk. 17:9). Masters noticed competence and diligence and would at times have rewarded these (cf. Mt. 24:46), or at least given greater

responsibility (cf. Mt. 24:47) or allowed greater freedom on that basis. But actual praise would for the most part have been rare.198 ‘And faithful’ is Matthew’s addition, in order to have in ‘good and faithful’ paired terms to match ‘faithful and wise’ of v. 45 of the rst parable of the set.199 ‘A few [things]’ is probably original. It supports the suggestion that Matthew has increased the amounts since it does not match ‘ ve talents’ particularly well, but it does correspond nicely to ‘I will set you over many [things]’.200 For Matthew’s interlinking of the three parables, ‘I will set you over many [things] has a nice correspondence with ‘he will set him over all his goods’ in v. 47 of the rst parable (the use of the same verb may be attributable to Matthew).201 ‘Enter into the joy of your master’ is distinctive to the Matthean telling and is probably a Matthean touch. He will have an eye here on the maidens of v. 10 going with the bridegroom into the wedding banquet. As a statement made to a slave, this is yet more striking than the verbal praise with which the master’s statement begins. e mood of the statement matches that of what should have been the shared celebration by father and son of the restoration of the prodigal in Lk. 15:32.202 25:22-23 A linking ‘also’ is used here. en these verses use a slightly abbreviated version of the same words to deal with the case of the slave who received two talents.203 at he has earned less makes no difference to his treatment by the master. 25:24 e third case begins much as the second,204 but once this slave begins to address his master, the words necessarily go their own way. e disproportionately large investment in this third case is evident (even more in an original without vv. 16-18). In Luke the man’s explanation follows instead of preceding the revealing of the fate of the mna. In Matthew the hearer already knows what has happened, so the explanation can readily come rst, and the

‘presentation’ of the talent is free to function as a kind of climax. Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of the explanation have many points of contact but only a limited amount of identical wording.205 Luke is probably responsible for displacing one of what in Matthew are two virtually identical images with an image drawn from banking (‘you carry off [from the bank] what you have not deposited’). e image of harvesting where one has not sown is an image of being able to turn situations to one’s own advantage. On the lips of the slave and in company with ‘you are a hard person’, it probably implies that the master cannot bear to lose out and does not care who gets trampled in the process of his ensuring that he does not do so. 25:25 Given this image of the master, the third slave felt that to take any business risks at all with his master’s money represented an altogether too exposed position for him to be prepared to venture. He was too frightened by the prospect. e slave’s account of what he did uses in slightly abbreviated version the language of v. 18, adjusted to the needs of direct speech. He employs the emphatic ἴδε (‘look’), the same word used by each of the previous slaves. But whereas the others speak of what they have gained without mentioning the original capital, this one says, ‘You have what is yours’. 26:26 e previous parable uses ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (‘said in response’) in addressing the foolish maidens of v. 12 (the idiom is a particular favourite for Matthew). Matthew does not have Luke’s ‘I will judge you out of your [own] mouth’ (Lk. 19:22), but the point is as true of Matthew’s telling.206 Luke’s ‘wicked slave’ becomes ‘wicked and indolent’, matching the doubling in vv. 21 and 23. ‘Wicked’ is used of the corresponding slave in the rst parable of the set (24:48). ‘Indolent’ marks the inactivity of this slave in comparison with the invested effort noted in v. 16. e master makes no comment on the slave’s identi cation of him as ‘hard’, but his

treatment of the two preceding slaves might suggest that the use of this adjective might need to be quali ed. He does, however, repeat (in question form) the two images that constituted the ‘knowledge base’ appealed to by the slave. 26:27 Matthew and Luke say much the same thing here, but with only limited shared language.207 Whatever else they are, the repeated images are those of somebody for whom gain is vitally important. e master accepts, at least for argument’s sake, the reality of the slave’s fear and does not suggest that he should have pushed past this fear to engage in business as the others had done. But, the master points out, there was a virtually risk-free alternative. With a minimum of effort the slave could have placed the master’s money with the bankers (the plural is perhaps to suggest that spreading the money over several bankers would have made it yet safer). ough this was not at all what the master had originally intended (but the parable reports no speci c directives), it would at least have gained money for the master for whom, in this slave’s image, gaining more was a consuming passion. e slave has not really acted in line with his declared view of the master. His explanation is revealed as more an excuse than a reason. Initially it may have sounded plausible, but in the end it was only a cover-up for wicked sloth. is third slave now stands exposed for what he is. We have, however, passed over the question of how true the slave’s image of the master was. Questions about the character of God (in Matthew’s telling questions about the character of the coming Son of Man) lurk beneath the surface. Is he the grasping tyrant that he is made out to be here? e master drops the word ‘hard’ as he repeats the slave’s words. But the sowing and reaping images are repeated. Perhaps we are to understand that there is something true about these, if not exactly what the slave takes from them. e one who reaps where he has not sown is one who proves

to be master of the situation, one who is ultimately dominant. God asserts his claim to be Lord of all and will ultimately make good that claim. To those who are alienated from him this may well look like taking unfair advantage, an assertion of his superior power to the hurt and loss of others. e parable acknowledges that this is how things may seem, but it does not speci cally address the question of theodicy thereby posed. For the parable, God’s right to be Lord of all takes precedence. He does not need to defend himself against his detractors. e parable places the spotlight on the behaviour of the third slave, not on the question of the validity of his images of his master. It is content to imply that the images are not entirely right, but that they are not totally wrong either. 25:28 Here Matthew and Luke are much closer verbally,208 but Matthew does not have the bystanders supplied by Luke to do the master’s bidding. e removal of the talent from the third slave implies a denial of any second chance. e giving of it to the one who already has ten and has been promised control of an immensely greater fortune is only symbolic. e comment of the bystanders in Lk. 19:25 has no counterpart in Matthew. It is best seen as a Lukan preparation for the following verse, but in formulating it Luke seems to have temporarily lost sight of the fact that this slave has in the meanwhile been entrusted with ten cities. What difference would a mna make? 25:29 is verse is a oating logion, a form of which is also found in Mk. 4:25; Mt. 13:12. Both Matthew and Luke have it at this point in the parable. It seems to have been attracted into this position on the basis of its use of the key verbs of v. 28. Structurally v. 29 should be treated as an explanatory aside (probably earlier a concluding comment) by Jesus rather than as part of the parable proper. Matthew links with an explanatory γάρ (‘for’), whereas Luke has ‘I say to you that’ to mark a fresh start.209 e negative half links

closely to v. 28, but the t works best if we can link the positive half not narrowly to v. 28, but also to vv. 21 and 23 (Matthew’s addition of ‘and will have in abundance’ helps with this). In what sense is the third slave one who ‘does not have’ before the talent is taken from him? Probably what he does not have is a right attitude to his master. 25:30 Luke passes at this point to material from the other of the two parables he is merging, while Matthew’s nal verse looks like an addition he has made. Matthew is reusing the material of 22:13 (see there); except for the fact that αὐτόν (‘him’) becomes καὶ τὸν ἀχρεῖον δοῦλον (‘and the worthless slave’) the wording is identical. One bene t of this for Matthew is that he has added the nal clause of it to the end of the rst parable of the set (24:51): here is another cross link between the rst and third parables. ‘Worthless’ is literally true in relation to this slave’s use of the talent entrusted to him. Within the Matthean framework this story is also very clearly told with reference to the coming of the Son of Man. As in 24:45-51, a period of absence is involved which this time has a much more explicit role as an extended period of being away from home. In some ways this third parable is the rst over again on a much grander scale, but the differences are also signi cant. Whereas the wicked slave of 24:45-51 was caught by the timing of his master’s return and in the parable of 25:1-13 the bridegroom’s arrival ushes out the thoughtlessness of the foolish maidens’ earlier preparation, in vv. 14-30 the imsiness of the rationalisation of the wicked and indolent slave comes to light on the master’s return. In each case, though the nal emphasis falls on the negative case, there is also a positive counterpart: in the slave promoted to permanent responsibility over the household; in the maidens who share the festivities of the wedding banquet; in the slaves who have the

privilege of managing large fortunes and who ‘enter into the joy of their master’. With his three parables Matthew has been exploring different dimensions of what is involved in being ready to meet the master. e thrust of the parable on the lips of the historical Jesus is rather more uncertain. Does the slave who buried the talent stand for those who fail to manifest the virtues of delity and effort (Jülicher), or those who preserve the Jewish tradition but make no pro table use of it for God (Jeremias), or the fearful legalists (Dupont), or those who will not make fruitful for God what Jesus brings (in various forms, Weiser, Weder, Didier), or the scribes and Pharisees, who see Jesus’ God as too demanding (Lambrecht), or those who when faced with the challenge of the message of the kingdom of God, with its call to a bold readiness to risk all, take refuge in a sterile security (Puig i Tàrrech)? Perhaps not any of these. e best starting point might be to focus on the fact that whereas in Matthew the parable relates to the coming of the Son of Man, on the lips of Jesus the imagery will have God as master. In connection with his preaching of the kingdom of God, Jesus was taking on himself to interpret the nature of God’s claim, but the claim itself (the use to be made of the mnas) was the answerability of the people to the God of Israel. It seems likely to me that Jesus is addressing a certain kind of nominalism among…his contemporaries: quite happy to be in a general way within the orbit of the People of God [to preserve the mna intact], but unwilling to make themselves answerable to God’s expectations in any committed sense. Feeling that God was something of an exacting tyrant, they chose to avoid the pressures of ful lling his expectations rather than to run the risk of doing what they feared might be too little. e parable challenges directly the perverted logic of this kind of opting out. But more subtly it

places in question the assumptions made about God (how has he in fact dealt with the other servants?) and draws attention to what these abstainers have failed to realize: though God’s mandates to his servants open up a vast sphere of possibility, he is prepared to accept, when there has been any sort of effort to implement the mandate, what is actually a minimal return on his investment.210

ose who have custody of the master’s money remain responsible to his mandate and must expect to be called to account by God himself in the coming of the kingdom. D. Universal Judgment by the Son of Man (25:31-46) the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the aangels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and will place the sheep at bhis right [hand] and the goats at c[his] le. 34‘en the king will say to those on his le, “Come, those blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry, and you gave me [something] to eat;d I was thirsty, and you gave me [something] to drink; a stranger, and you welcomed me in; 36 naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.” 37en the righteous [ones] will say in response, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed [you], or thirsty and gave [you] drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and welcome [you] in, or naked and clothe [you]? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?” 40And the king will say in response, “Amen, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it for [even] one of the least of these emy brothers or sisterse, you did for me.” 31‘When

41’en he will say, f[speaking] nowf to those on [his] le, “Depart from me, gthose [who are] cursed, into the eternal fire hprepared for the devil and his

angels. 42For I was hungry, and you did not give me [something] to eat;i I was thirsty, and you did not give me [something] to drink; 43I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me in;j naked, and you did not clothe me; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me.” 44en these kas wellk will say in response, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick lor in prison, and we did not take care of you?” 45en he will say to them in response, “Amen, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it for [even] one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.” 46‘And they will go off: these to eternal punishment, and the righteous [ones] to eternal life.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αγιοι (‘holy’) is added in A W f13 892 1006 1342 1506 etc. f syp, h bopt. Cf. Mk. 8:38, which has previously in uenced some texts at Mt. 16:27. b. Missing from ‫ א‬A 579 (2542) etc. vgms. c. αυτου (‘his’) is present here in ‫( א‬2542) sys, p sa bo. d. A linking και (‘and’) is found in W Δ syp, h**. e-e. Missing from B* 0128* 1424 ff1 ff2 (to match v. 45). f-f. Representing και (lit. ‘also’). g. A de nite article, represented here by ‘those’, is missing from ‫ א‬B L 0128 33 etc., and may not be original. h. ο ητοιμασεν ο πατηρ μου (‘which my Father prepared’) in D f1 205 it mae. i. A linking και (‘and’) is found in B* L. j. A linking και (‘and’) is found in 45 Θ. ημην (‘I was’), to match the previous clause, is found in 45 h vgmss sa bo. k-k. Missing from ‫ *א‬etc. l. και (‘and’) in

45.

Bibliography Brändle, R., ‘Zur Interpretation von Mt 25,31-46 im Matthäus-kommentar des Origenes’, TZ 36 (1980), 17-25. • Brandenburger, E., Das Recht des Weltenrichters: Untersuchung zur Matthäus 25,31-46 (SBS 99. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1980). • Brown, S., ‘Faith, the Poor and the Gentiles: A Tradition-Historical Re ection on Matthew 25:31-46’, TJT 6 (1990), 17181. • Court, J. M., ‘Right and Le: e Implications for Matthew 25.31-46’, NTS 31 (1985), 223-33. • Cran eld, C. E. B., ‘Who Are Christ’s Brothers (Matthew 25.40)?’ Metanoia 4 (1994), 107-37. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Unfair to Goats (Mt 25:32-33)’, ExpTim 108 (1997), 177-78. • Donahue, J. R., e

Gospel in Parable, 109-25. • Donahue, J. R., ‘e “Parable” of the Sheep and the Goats: A Challenge to Christian Ethics’, TS 47 (1986), 3-31. • Farahian, E., ‘Relire Matthieu 25,31-46’, Greg 72 (1991), 437-57. • Feuillet, A., ‘La caractère universel du judgement et la charité sans frontières en Mt 25,3146’, NRT 102 (1980), 179-96. • Foster, G., ‘Making Sense of Matthew 25:3146’, ScotBEvT 16 (1998), 128-39. • Genthe, H. J., ‘Wer sind die geringsten Brüder? Zur Auslegung von Matthäus 25,40’, ZdZ 51 (1997), 189. • Grassi, J. A., ‘“I Was Hungry and You Gave Me to Eat” (Matt. 25:35ff.); e Divine Identi cation Ethic in Matthew’, BTB 11 (1981), 81-84. • Gray, S. W., e Least of My Brothers: Matthew 25:31-46: A History of Interpretation (SBLDS 114. Atlanta: Scholars, 1989). • Heil, J. P., ‘e Double Meaning of the Narrative of Universal Judgment in Matthew 25.31-46’, JSNT 69 (1998), 314. • Herrmann, V., ‘Anmerkungen zum Verständnis einiger Paralleltexte zu Mt 25,31ff. aus der altägyptischen Religion’, BibNot 59 (1991), 17-22. • Hultgren, A. J., Parables, 309-30. • Hurley, R., ‘Le lecteur et les chevreaux dans le jugement dernier de Matthieu’, SémiotBib 101 (2001), 21-41. • Hutter, M., ‘Mt 25:31-46 in der Deutung Manis’, NovT 33 (1991), 276-82. • Jacob, E. M., ‘Discipleship and Mission: A Perspective on the Gospel of Matthew’, IntRMiss 91 (2002), 102-10. • Jones, I. H., Matthean Parables, 22665. • Klein, L., ‘Who Are the “Least of the Brethren”?’ Dialog 21 (1982), 13942. • Kynes, W. L., Christology of Solidarity, 145-59. • Lambrecht, J., Treasure, 249-84. • Lambrecht, J., Astonished, 196-235. • Lapoorta, J., ‘“… whatever you did for one of the least of these … you did for me” (Matt. 25:31-46)’, JTSA 68 (1989), 103-9. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 179-93. • Luz, U., ‘e Final Judgment (Matt 25:31-46): An Exercise in “History of In uence” Exegesis’, in Treasure, ed. D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, 271-310. • Marguerat, D., Jugement, 345-77, 481-520. • Meyer, P. W., ‘Context as a Bearer of Meaning in Matthew’, USQR 42 (1988), 69-72. • Pamment, M., ‘Singleness and Matthew’s Attitude to the Torah’, JSNT 17 (1983), 73-86. • Panier, L., ‘Le Fils de l’Homme et les nations: Lecture de Mt 25,31-46’, SémiotBib 69 (1993), 39-52. • Petzoldt, M., Gleichnisse, 72-77. • Pokorný, P., ‘Matth 25,31-46 und die Globalisierung christlicher Ethik’, CV 43 (2001), 153-58. • Pond, E. W., ‘Who Are the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25:31-46?’ BSac 159 (2002), 288-301. • Pond, E. W., ‘e Background and Timing of

the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats’, BSac 159 (2002), 201-20. • Pond, E. W., ‘Who Are “the Least” of Jesus’ Brothers in Matthew 25:40?’ BSac 159 (2002), 436-48. • Puzicha, M., Christus peregrinus: Die Fremdenaufnahme (Mt 25,35) als Werk der privaten Wohltätigkeit im Urteil der Alten Kirche (Münstersche Beiträge zur eologie 47. Münster: Aschendorff, 1980). • Rowland, C. C., ‘Apocalyptic, the Poor, and the Gospel of Matthew’, JTS 45 (1994), 504-18. • Roy, M., ‘Jugement et sanction: Matthieu 25,31-46; Luc 16,19-31’, CHR 28 (1981), 440-49. • Sayer, J., ‘“Ich hatte Durst, und ihr gabt mir zu trinken”: Zum Ansatz einer eologie der menschlichen Grundbedürfnisse nach Mt 25,31ff im Rahmen der Pastoral der Befreiung’, MTZ 42 (1991), 151-67. • Schillebeeckx, E., ‘A Glass of Water for a Fellow Human Being (Matt. 25,31-46)’, in God among Us (London/New York: SCM/Crossroad, 1983), 59-62. • Stanton, G. N., ‘Once More: Matthew 25.31-46’, in Gospel, 207-31. • omas, R. L., ‘Jesus’ View of Eternal Punishment’, MastSJ 9 (1998), 147-67. • Tisera, G., Universalism, 265-82. • Via, D. O., Jr., ‘Ethical Responsibility and Human Wholeness in Matthew 25:31-46’, HTR 80 (1987), 79-100. • Watson, F., ‘Liberating the Reader: A eological-Exegetical Study of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25.31-46)’, in Open Text, ed. F. Watson, 57-84. • Weber, K., ‘e Image of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25:31-46’, CBQ 59 (1997), 657-78. • Wengst, K., ‘Wie aus Böcken Zeigen wurden (Mt 25,32f): Zur Entstehung und Verbreitung einer Forschungslegende oder: Wissenscha als “stille Post”’, EvT 54 (1994), 491-500. • Wouters, A., Willen, 142-51. See further at 24:1-2.

e Eschatological Discourse now comes to a climactic end with this account of the nal judgment. e three preceding parables about being ready to meet the master have all de ned readiness in terms of an abstractly expressed principle (e.g., in the third parable readiness consists in ensuring that that with which one has been entrusted is productive for the master while he is absent). In this nal scene the basis of judgment is concrete acts of compassion to those in particular need. Even such acts, done for ‘nobodies’, the

Son of Man values as done for him in his own moment of pressing need. Again Matthew makes use of distinctive material. e source questions here are much disputed, as is the matter of whether anything here can be traced to the historical Jesus. Probably the level of Matthean intervention here is unusually high since Matthew uses this nal piece to provide a climax for and to draw together not just the Eschatological Discourse but the whole set of ve linked discourses. In particular an account of a nal judgment by God has been remoulded into an account of a nal judgment by the Son of Man, and Matthew provides a rich texture of cross references to earlier material. What was probably originally a parable by Jesus about a king who entered into judgment with his people has been progressively allegorised (to a considerable degree already before Matthew) to the point where it has become an account of the nal judgment and no longer a parable. For further details see below.

25:31 e language ties here are most strongly with 24:30-31, which also has ‘the Son of Man’, ‘comes’/‘coming’, ‘glory’, and ‘the angels’.211 Vv. 29-31 were the goal for which chap. 24 was heading from v. 3. Now we are taken back to explore this goal further aer all the intervening materials about expecting and being ready for this goal. ‘All the angels with him’ lls in a logical lacuna in 24:3031, where the Son of Man sends out his angels in v. 31, but their presence has not been mentioned in v. 30 (perhaps we are to imagine them bundled with ‘great power and glory’). As the angels play no actual role in 25:31-46 (at most angels as attendants heighten the sense of grandeur, as in 16:27), their mention is likely to be primarily for the sake of the connection with 24:30-31 (and partly via that also with 13:41; 16:27). Given that the Son of Man exercises the function of God, there may also be an echo here of Zc. 14:5.

Matthew has brie y anticipated the present scene in 19:28: ‘when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory’. ere the Twelve are given a role in judgment that remains out of sight here. See the discussion there for the link between Ps. 110:1 and Dn. 7:13 that is likely to stand behind the imagery, which Matthew shares with 1 Enoch, and for the understanding of Dn. 7:22, 26 which is likely to be involved. See further the comments at 16:27 for the way in which the links between Matthew’s use of the phrase ‘the Son of Man’ and Dn. 7 cumulate in the unfolding of Matthew’s story. 25:32 e gathering of all the nations for judgment is most similarly represented in the OT in Joel 4:2(ET 3:2); Is. 66:18,212 both of which use συναγαγεῖν for ‘gather’ and πάντα τὰ ἔθνη for ‘all the nations’ in the LXX, as does Mt. 25:32. Is. 66:18 also shares with Mt. 25:31 the idea of a coming (using ἔρχεσθαι, as in Matthew) and a reference to glory (δόξα, as in Matthew). As already earlier in the Eschatological Discourse, the Son of Man acts in the place of God. Matthew has used ‘all the nations’ earlier in relation to universal hatred of Christian disciples (24:9) and the universal proclamation of the gospel (24:14), and he will use it later in connection with the discipling of people of all nations (28:19), but here the perspective is that of universal judgment. Taken literally, ‘separate them from one another’ should mean separate nations from one another, but the continuation of the present account is clearly focussed on individuals, and in neither of the other Matthew references to ‘all the nations’ are the people dealt with as national groups. e sense is ‘separate the individuals involved from one another’. ἀϕορίζειν has been used previously of the nal separation in 13:49, a verse which in turn echoes v. 41, whose link with 25:31 has been noted above. God acts as a shepherd in Ez. 34:15, a role which he passes to ‘my servant David’ in v. 23 and which is expressed in 37:24 with ‘My

servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd’ (the Son of Man in Mt. 25 will be spoken of as ‘the king’ in vv. 34, 40). ough the text of Ez. 34:12 is a little corrupt, there is even a separating of sheep there, expressed in a syntactical pattern which has a notable similarity to that of Mt. 25:32: ‘As a shepherd seeks out his ock when they are in the midst of his (the?) scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep’.213 e context of Ez. 34:12 is not immediately one of judgment, but there is as well in v. 17 ‘I will judge [the LXX has διακρίνω, which could mean ‘make a distinction’] between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats’ (and cf. v. 22). e imagery of Mt. 25:32 would seem to have been developed on the basis of Ez. 34. Mt. 9:36 echoes the compassionate caring of the divine shepherd of Ez. 34; now Matthew takes up the judging function of the shepherd.214 τὰ πρόβατα are undoubtedly ‘sheep’,215 but the meaning of ἔριϕος (ἐρίϕιον in v. 33)216 has been disputed. e dominant view is that ἔριϕος/ἐρίϕιον means ‘goat’, but the suggestion has been made that ἔριϕος/ἐρίϕιον should be taken to mean ‘ram’, leaving τὰ πρόβατα to refer to female sheep. In the imagery the reason for the separation would then be based on the need to milk the females. LXX usage offers no encouragement, however, to this alternative. ἐρίϕιον is used only once in the LXX, of an animal given to be eaten; ‘a kid’ ts well. ἔριϕος is oen used in the LXX to denote the young of goats and paired with ἀρνός (‘lamb’), but in Je. 28:40(ET 51:40) it is set in parallel with κριός, which means ‘ram’, so the usage is not restricted to the young. In the LXX, wherever certainty is possible, the reference is clearly to a goat, and where the Greek context provides no clear direction, the rendering of Hebrew terms is always consistent with the meaning ‘goat’ or ‘kid’.217 e reason regularly offered in the literature for the separation of sheep and goats is the need for goats to be protected from the

cold at night in a way that sheep had no need of.218 But any difference between sheep and goats could become the basis of separation.219 All that matters is that shepherds from time to time made such a separation between animals which had otherwise been kept together. e only disadvantage of the proposal of a regularly nightly separation is that a more occasional separation would t the image better to the nal eschatological separation envisaged in Matthew. Derrett has made suggestions as to why the goats and not the sheep end up providing the negative image.220 ere may be something in his suggestions, but they are based on the use of śʿyr, which accounts for only four of the many uses of ἔριϕος in the LXX. e dominant impression created by a survey of OT uses of ‘sheep’ and ‘goat’ is the degree to which they are interchangeable (both are milked; both, and especially the young of both, are eaten; the hair and the skins of both are used; they are mostly interchangeable as sacri ces; they are oen referred to together). However important the difference between them might have been for certain purposes (some sacri ces did require a distinction;221 the cloth produced from spinning goats’ hair had a coarse texture, more suitable for curtains and coverings than for garments222), and this may imply a certain priority for sheep, the animals are rst and foremost thought of together. In their normal dirty state, it might even have been considered wise to leave it to the skilled shepherd to distinguish with con dence the sheep from the goats. 25:33 ἱστάναι (here: ‘set/place’) is used in a similar manner in 4:5 and 18:2, with Satan and Jesus respectively doing the placing. If the sheep/goats distinction has not already hinted at the outcome of the judgment, allocation to the right and le sides certainly does so. e right is the preferred side (see at 20:21), but when the contrast is drawn sharply, the le becomes not simply second best but a

place to be de nitely avoided. In Test. Abr. 12:12; 13:9 the angel on the right side of the throne of judgment records good deeds, and the one on the le records sins.223 Allocation to the le side is ominous. 25:34 For speech introductions throughout the material Matthew uses in the interchange with those on the right the sequence τότε ἐρεῖ (‘then he will say’), τότε ἀποκριθήσονται … λέγοντες (lit. ‘then they will answer … saying’), and καὶ ἀποκριθεῖς ἐρεῖ (lit. ‘having answered, he will say’). With those on the le, except for an added καί (‘also’) in each case, the rst two introductions will be the same, while the third, τότε ἀποκριθήσεται … λέγων (lit. ‘then he will answer … saying’), repeats the second, but without the added καί and with singular forms. Given Matthew’s fondness for using forms of ἀποκρίνεσθαι (‘answer’) and λέγειν (‘say’) together, and for ringing the changes with his speech introductions, he is likely to have played a role here. ough reference to right and le continues, the imagery of the ock now disappears, and instead of ‘the Son of Man’ acting like ‘the shepherd’, we have without introduction ‘the king’. Matthew does use ‘king’ language in relation to Jesus,224 but the uses in 25:34, 40 are in a class apart. e linking of shepherd and king in Ez. 37:24, noted above, may have something to do with this transition, but it remains abrupt. ‘rone of his glory’ in Mt. 25:31 offers a better preparation for ‘the king’ in v. 34, especially given its background in Dn. 7 — where the one like a Son of Man receives a kingdom (v. 14), and his role is contrasted with that of various kings (vv. 17, 24) — and in Ps. 110:1, which stands at the beginning of a royal psalm. And for Matthew the distance from ‘the Son of Man’ to ‘the king’ cannot be great when he has been able in 13:41 to have ‘the Son of Man’ as the antecedent of ‘his’ in ‘his kingdom’. To the introduction of ‘the king’ corresponds his bestowal of ‘the kingdom

prepared for you from the foundation of the world’. In this juxtaposition there is a striking similarity to the Lukan form of the tradition shared by Lk. 22:29-30 and Mt. 19:28 (Lk. 22:29: ‘Just as my Father has conferred royal rule [βασιλείαν] on me, I also confer [it] on you’). In the LXX the perfect participle of εὐλογεῖν (‘bless’) is dominantly futuristic, and it is likely to be so here: ‘you who are marked out for blessing’. e reference to ‘my Father’ comes as something of a surprise: in hereditary dynasties kings do not normally have living fathers. Is the relationship of Jesus as Son to the Father being allowed to obtrude through the imagery? Something similar happens at the hands of Matthew in 16:27, where ‘his Father’ in relation to ‘the Son of Man’ is unexpected.225 e reference to the Father here is a quiet reminder that Jesus as the Son of Man exercises the functions of deity not independently but on behalf of his Father. Matthew has previously used κληρονομεῖν (‘inherit’) in one of the beatitudes, 5:5 (‘will inherit the earth’), and in 19:29, just aer v. 28 (discussed above), where those who have le things behind to follow Jesus ‘will inherit eternal life’, which in the context is equivalent to ‘will enter the kingdom’ (cf. vv. 23, 24). Does ‘inherit the kingdom’ mean more than ‘enter the kingdom’? ough occupation of the realm might be all that is involved, the connection with Lk. 22:29, to which I have drawn attention above, makes it likely that some form of participation in royal rule is also in view here. e perfect passive tense of ἑτοιμάζειν (‘prepare’) has been used in a related way in 20:23 (of the positions at Jesus’ right and le hand). e language is ‘prepared by my Father’, which makes for a double link.226

ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (‘since the foundation of the world’) repeats language from 13:35 (though κόσμου is not secure in the text of 13:35). e use of a similar phrase in 24:21, ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς κόσμου (‘from the beginning of the world’) may have helped to call the earlier phrase to mind. at which in 13:35 was said to have been hidden since the foundation of the world has nonetheless all along been God’s intention, and it includes his intention to bestow on his people royal rule in the coming kingdom. 25:35-36 On what basis has the one group been labelled sheep and placed at the right hand of the shepherd/king? Vv. 35-36 explain the basis of identi cation. At this point links with earlier Matthean material suddenly become much more limited and tenuous. Certainly, in a general way these verses pick up on all the compassionate material scattered through the Gospel, but there is hardly anything more precise.227 ‘Good fortune now to the merciful’ in 5:7 is, however, a good statement of the principle. e items on the list are all concrete acts in response to speci c and pressing needs.228 e list is clearly intended to be exemplary and not at all exhaustive. Comparable lists from the OT and Jewish tradition share many of the elements found in vv. 35-36, but without the same scope or degree of consistency of form. Job 22:6-7, 9 include a negative equivalent of the rst, second, and fourth items, in inverted order (with weariness instead of thirst). In Job, exacting pledges, sending widows away empty-handed, and crushing the arms (held out to beg?) of orphans are in the list. An equivalent to Matthew’s third item is found in Job 31:32, as an aside in a long list of ‘if I have’ items which includes partial equivalents to Matthew’s rst and fourth items. Is. 58:6-7 includes an equivalent to the rst and fourth items, with ‘bring the homeless poor into your house’, a partial equivalent to the third, between them. In Isaiah these three keep company with ‘to loose the bonds of

injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke’ and ‘not to hide yourself from your own kin’. Ez. 18:6-9 (cf. vv. 15-17) include together an equivalent to the rst and the fourth. In Ezekiel these are preceded by ‘If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right, if he does not eat upon the mountains or li up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not de le his neighbour’s wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period, does not oppress anyone but restores to the debtor his pledge, [and] commits no robbery’ and followed by ‘does not take advance or accrue interest, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between contending parties, follows my statutes, and is careful to observe all my ordinances, acting faithfully’. In Test. Jos. 1:5-7 Joseph celebrates God’s having dealt with his situation in ways that are partially equivalent to Matthew’s rst, h, and sixth items (but only the rst is at all close). Test. Jac. 2:23 has in a list of ‘blessed be’s one that includes equivalents to Matthew’s second, third, fourth, and h items. ese are ‘acts of mercy in honour of [God’s] several names’, but they also include ‘com[ing] with an offering to the sanctuary’. In b. Soṭa 14a the fourth and h items as examples of how ‘to walk aer the attributes of the Holy One’ are linked with comforting mourners and burying the dead. is last item is notable in being as consistent in form as the Matthean set. Midr. Pss. 118:17 has Matthew’s rst, second, and fourth items in a context of eschatological judgment (entering the gates of Yahweh), followed in a more summary form by bringing up orphans, giving alms, and practicing works of love. Cf. further 2 Enoch 9:1; 10:5; 42:8; 63:1; Mek. Ex. 14:9; Tg. Ps.-J. Dt. 34:6. To go further a eld, the Egyptian Book of the Dead 125 displays a striking agreement with Matthew’s rst, second, and fourth items: ‘I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked’. e Egyptian provenance of the material is re ected in the fourth item that completes the set: ‘a boat ferry to the boatless’!

In the comparable lists Matthew’s third and sixth items are rare. It is therefore striking that just these two have counterparts in Heb. 13:2-3.229 e principle of organisation is not immediately clear. e rst, second, and fourth items relate to basic survival needs, while

the third, h, and sixth all deal with things that pose a threat of isolation in one way or another. But the sequence does not t this mode of division. e items are clearly linked in pairs in vv. 37-39, and in vv. 35-36 the rst two begin with aorist verbs and the second two begin with adjectives (but one of these has the copula and one not — the third two are not syntactically matched, with, respectively, an aorist verb and a prepositional phrase at the beginning). e rst two, hunger and thirst, form a natural pair (basic inner physical needs); and the last two, the sick and prisoners, have in common the prospect of physical isolation. Perhaps the middle two, hospitality and clothing, have in common protection from the elements. e use of συνάγειν (lit. ‘gather together’) in Mt. 25:35 to mean ‘welcome in/show hospitality to’ has not been closely matched, but with εἰς [τὴν] οἰκίαν (lit. ‘into [the house]’) it functions like this in a hospitality-to-strangers context in Jdg. 19:15, 18. Perhaps we are dealing with a contracted version of that idiom.230 e welcoming of strangers, while not radical in the same way, has a family likeness to love of enemies in Mt. 5:43-48: both cases transcend focussing on one’s self. But hospitality to strangers was more widely recognised as a virtue in antiquity than was love of enemies.231 ough contagion was not properly understood, contact with the sick sometimes clearly posed a threat to one’s own health. Visiting the sick involves exposing oneself to this risk. e bedridden sick may not only be in a situation of not being able to see to their own needs but may also be unable to make others aware of their needs. Only a visit can break through the isolation. e signi cance of visiting those in prison needs to be set against the background of ancient prison arrangements. e prison provided a roof over one’s head, but for food and personal needs the prisoner was entirely dependent on the efforts of family and friends, or, as is probably commended here in

Matthew, on the compassion of those who would bring help to prisoners, not on the basis of existing relationship but on the basis of need. e dramatic claim made in 25:35-36 is not that all these acts have been done by those addressed, but that they have all been done to the king himself. e commendation comes on the basis of aid and succour given to the king in his need. At this point we have the blanket assertion, but nothing to help us make sense of it. 25:37-39 Jesus now speaks of those on the right as ‘the righteous [ones]’. Cf. the use of ‘the wise [ones]’ in v. 9. In 13:43, 49 those who will be blessed in the eschatological separation are also called ‘the righteous’. κύριε is ‘Lord’ here, but it echoes the use of κύριος for ‘master’ in the three preceding parables (in address, as here, in the second and third). e list of vv. 35-36 is more or less repeated, broken into three pairs, each with the items linked by ‘or’ (ἤ), and with each pair introduced with ‘when did we see you’ and the necessary syntax adjustments. But the rst item has ‘we fed [you]’ (ἐθρέψαμεν) instead of ‘we gave [something] to you to eat’ (ἐδώκαμεν σοι ϕαγεῖν), and the nal two items share a single verb (that of the latter) for ‘we came to you’ (ἤλθομεν πρὸς σέ). e surprise expressed should not surprise us because those responding know full well that they have not done what has been attributed to them. In Mt. 25:31-46 this list of acts of compassion appears no fewer than four times,232 with signi cant abbreviation on only the fourth occasion. e account is concerned to drive home the profound signi cance of the kinds of behaviour listed. 25:40 e repetition of the list in a threefold question form has built up dramatic tension by keeping the hearers waiting long enough. For the second time the speaker is introduced as ‘the king’ (when he speaks again in vv. 41 and 45, his identity will be assumed

from the context). At this point of emphasis in the account Matthew adds one of his favoured ‘Amen, I say to you’ phrases. He will use another in the corresponding negative statement in v. 45. In 9:15 ἐϕ᾽ ὅσον meant ‘for as long as’, but here and in 25:45 it means ‘to the degree that’ and thus ‘inasmuch as’. e underlying logic of the account here depends on an assumption that the value of service is dependent on the status of the one being served. erefore, service to the least will instinctively be considered as of little consequence, while service to the king will be seen as something that obviously matters. (To make this underlying assumption more visible I have intruded into the translation an ‘even’ that is not represented in the Greek.) e assumption is both appealed to and subverted. e perception of the righteous that they did only what was of little consequence will be answered with the assertion that they served the king in his needs. e perception of the others that they failed to do only what was of little consequence will be answered by the assertion that they failed to serve the king in his needs. ‘To one of the least of these my brothers or sisters’ (ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελϕῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων) is a mouthful (even without ‘or sisters’ to mark the gender inclusiveness of τῶν ἀδελϕῶν). e phrase is clearly intended to mark a maximal contrast with ‘the king’. All its elements may be original, but the question can be asked whether the addition has overloaded the sentence. ἑνί (‘one’) is needed to bring into focus individual acts done in connection with individual needs. τούτων (‘these’) refers either to the group on the right or to both groups together (it will emerge below in the discussion of ‘my brothers or sisters’ and then further at v. 45 that the more restricted reference group ts Matthew’s text better); to be self-contained, the text needs it (otherwise a reference outside the immediate narrative world is created with ‘one of my brothers or

sisters’). e candidates for consideration as additions are τῶν ἀδελϕῶν μου (‘my brothers or sisters’) and τῶν ἐλαχίστων (‘the least’). It is unlikely that τῶν ἐλαχίστων could survive the loss of τῶν ἀδελϕῶν μου. So the possible additions are τῶν ἐλαχίστων or all of τῶν ἀδελϕῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων. ere is also the need to discuss the possibility of modi cation rather than addition, but that will be kept back to the end, when I will attempt to identify Matthew’s role in relation to the whole account. Jesus has those who are literally his brothers and sisters in 12:46-47; 13:55. But more important is the ctive family created by Jesus’ identi cation in 12:48-50 of those who do the will of his Father as his brothers and sisters (and mother); in this sense the phrase will appear again in 28:10. For Matthew the same sort of identi cation seems to be involved in 25:40 (and this implies that for him ‘these’ must relate to the group on the right). ‘My brothers and sisters’ adds nothing to the contrast with ‘the king’, and it ts comfortably with neither ‘the king’ nor ‘the shepherd’. It has more possibility of connection with ‘the Son of Man’, but the Gospel traditions develop the human-solidarity potential of the term very little, and do not develop the family language at all. ‘My brothers and sisters’ is extrinsic to the immediate narrative world created in the scene, which may mean that Matthew is responsible for it. But we must also keep open the possibility that modi cation rather than addition is at work here. In any case, ‘brothers and sisters’ here identi es the group on the right as composed of disciples committed to doing the will of Jesus’ Father. ere will be an important difference in v. 45, which will make it clear that while the focus here is on disciples who have helped other disciples in need, the Son of Man actually identi es (but not as with a brother or sister) with the needy in their need.

Matthew has the phrase ‘one of these little ones (μικρῶν)’ in 10:42 and then in a linked set in 18:6, 10, 14. Despite the use of the superlative rather than the positive form of the adjective, the presence of τῶν ἐλαχίστων (‘the least’) in 25:40 makes it almost impossible not to nd an echo of ‘one of these little ones’ in ‘one of the least of these my brothers and sisters’. Bracketing out ‘my brothers and sisters’, which is there for its own reason, the Greek would translate ‘one of these least ones’, which looks suspiciously like it has been created to be a heightened form of ‘one of these little ones’. With the earlier uses of this phrase Matthew has been concerned with the positive and negative consequences of treatment of even ‘one of the little ones’. Now he is concerned with the consequences even if it involves only the least of the little ones. Matthean intervention seems quite likely and nds support from his use of τῶν ἐλαχίστων in 5:19, in a somewhat parallel manner, to assert the value of all the commandments by insisting on the value of the least. But caution is necessary because ‘the least’ clearly does make a contribution to the contrast with ‘the king’, and Matthew has not reused his precise term μικρῶν (‘little [ones]’), used in the most closely related contexts. ‘You did it to me’ represents the high point of the account. e thought is not dissimilar to that of 18:5; cf. 10:40.233 ere the challenge was to treat the lowly gure of the child with the respect that would come naturally in relating to Jesus himself, and the claim is made that in offering such a welcome to a child one is in a hidden way extending such hospitality to Jesus himself. Similarly here: if it had been ‘the king’ who had any of the needs listed in vv. 35-36, then meeting those needs would have been an urgent priority for his subjects; it is those who have perceived meeting needs as still a priority, despite the low status of the needy, who turn out to have, in a hidden way, rendered personal service to the king. Personal

service to the king in his moment of urgent need has its generous reward. 25:41 Vv. 41-45 present a negative counterpart of vv. 34-40. In v. 34 those addressed were told to ‘come’ (δεῦτε) because the future they move into is shared with the king. Here in v. 41 those addressed are told by contrast to ‘depart from me’ (πορεύεσθε ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ). ough the wording is not identical, an echo of ἀποχωρεῖτε ἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ (‘depart from me’) in 7:23 is likely. e counterpart to ‘blessed’ is ‘cursed’. Matthew has used ‘into the eternal re’ (εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον) previously in 18:8 (on Matthew’s cross references between his major discourses see at 18:8-9). But quite new here is the idea that the re has been prepared for the devil, and that the devil has his own angels who will share his fate.234 e closest link is with 13:39-40, where the zizania which are the sowing of the devil are to be weeded out and burnt in a re. at the eternal re has been prepared for the devil has not been closely parallelled, but Rev. 20:10 has the devil thrown into the lake of re. 25:42-43 ese verses are a negative repetition of vv. 35-36. Apart from the negations there is no difference until the nal pair. e nal two items are combined, much as in v. 39, but this time ‘I was sick’ (ἀσθένησα) is replaced by the adjective ‘sick’ (ἀσθενής), the linking is with καί (‘and’), not ἤ (‘or’), and the verb connected with the former of the nal two items is preferred over that connected with the nal item. e changes simply relieve monotony. 25:44 ere is no counterpart to ‘the righteous’ in v. 37. Now we have a negative repetition of vv. 37-39, but for this fourth occurrence the list is seriously abbreviated to avoid tedium. ree separate questions, each with a focus on one of the pairs, have been collapsed into a single question. Each of the conditions is represented by an adjective or adjective equivalent (the sequence is

two participles followed by three adjectives and the phrase ‘in prison’), ἤ (‘or’) is used to link each with the previous, and the failure of response is represented by the negative with the allpurpose verb διακονεῖν (here: ‘take care of ’). e same verb has been used of domestic service to Jesus in 8:15, and will be used again in 27:55 with women from Galilee who had provided for Jesus (perhaps in connection with the nal journey to Jerusalem). 25:45 In the pattern of repetitions there is nally the negative counterpart to v. 40. Apart from the necessary negatives, the words of address are identical, except for the omission of ‘my brothers and sisters’. is omission provides con rmation that the right sort of connections were being made above for the signi cance in Matthew of ‘my brothers and sisters’: only those on the right are identi ed as siblings.235 But the omission is also important in another respect: it implies that ‘the king’ values service to the needy as service to himself irrespective of whether those served are disciples or not.236 It may not be service to his brother or sister, but it does count as service to himself. 25:46 e account ends with a summary conclusion that implements the fate of the two groups, revealed earlier. (e ‘come’ of v. 34 and the ‘depart from me’ of v. 41 are obviously not immediately implemented, for the king goes on to explain the appropriateness of the directive and in each case there is further interchange between the king and the respective groups.) e two groups are taken up in inverted order here. κόλασις (‘punishment’) is a new word in Matthew, but the rest of the language either takes up earlier elements in the account or links with earlier material in Matthew. In particular ‘the righteous’ is a reference back to v. 37 where those on the right were thus identi ed, and ‘eternal life’ replaces the kingdom language of v. 34 in a manner that is reminiscent of the movement of terms in 19:16-29 (note the

discussion of 19:29 at v. 34 above).237 e double statement may be intended to echo Dn. 12:2, but lacks its focus on resurrection, and the language is much closer for the positive than for the negative fate. ough normally called such, the account as a whole does not add up to being a parable. It starts with language that is quite literally intended. en it introduces a comparison with a shepherd in v. 32. e comparison is extended into v. 33, where the separated groups of animals are placed to the right and le of the shepherd. But then the account reverts to literal language. A further complication is that, aer the comparison with a shepherd, it is ‘the king’ who carries forward the action rather than ‘the Son of Man’ of v. 31. In its own way the use of ‘the king’ makes a fresh comparison, this time by way of a metaphor, but the metaphor is not embedded in a story which at any level is the story of an earthly king. is king is king in virtue of being the Son of Man, and he is straightforwardly engaged in conducting the eschatological judgment. While the account has a totally comprehensible sense in its Matthean use, various unevennesses and tensions suggest a complicated history. At various points there seem to be Matthean accents and even quite Matthean features. One particular difficulty the verse-by-verse discussion above has not drawn attention to is the implicit assumption that those on the le would have behaved differently if they had realised they would have been serving the king in need. What sense does this make in relation to a judgment of all the nations? On the basis of the tensions and difficulties in the account many scholars have held that Matthew has cobbled this account together out of traditional fragments and OT resources. Others would be prepared to identify a remnant of a parable in vv. 32c-33 and a

signi cant fragment of tradition in vv. 35-36.238 But perhaps even this is too pessimistic. We have had cause to notice that the king in various of Jesus’ parables was originally God, but he has become Jesus himself in secondary use of the parable. is is likely to be true of all three of the immediately preceding parables. In the other cases the adjustment is likely to be pre-Matthean, but this time it may be Matthew himself who is responsible for the change. Without vv. 31-32a, ‘by my Father’ in v. 34, and ‘my brothers and sisters’ in v. 40, the account could be focussed on God and not on Jesus. With some brief, now-lost beginning to introduce the king, the restored parable is free of the tensions and difficulties that have been identi ed in the Matthean account. With the loss of vv. 31-32a the account will be of the eschatological judgment of Israel rather than of all nations. So we can now make sense of the unquestioning recognition of the status of the king by those on the le and the assumption that they would have served him if it had been visible to them that that was what was involved. Both those on the le and the right are Israelites who in principle recognised God as their ultimate king. We may, however, have been too hasty in dropping ‘my brothers and sisters’. As ‘my brothers and sisters’ the phrase is important to Matthew, but what about as ‘your brothers and sisters’? e reference would be to the solidarity of the people of God and would t a judgment of Israel very well. Various other Matthean features noted above may also betray his intervention, but these do not disturb the basic functioning of the narrative. Among these is possibly the comparison with the shepherd, which may in part serve a christological role.239 Matthew has bundled a lot of cross referencing into his account in a manner reminiscent of his development of 9:27-31. It remains an open

question whether the fourfold repetition of the list is a preMatthean feature. It is reminiscent of the repetition involved in the inclusion of 25:16-18, which was judged above to be pre-Matthean but not original. e pre-Matthean account that emerges is still not a parable, only an account of the judgment that makes use of a comparison (if this is not Matthean) and speaks of God as ‘the king’. But could there be a genuine parable further behind this? A lot depends on the missing beginning. But the other places where the narrative world of a parable about a king is broken are vv. 34, 41, and 46, and we would have to give up ‘your brothers and sisters’ suggested above for the pre-Matthean account. A possible beginning sentence for a parable might be something like ‘ere was a king who entered into judgment with his people’ (all the future tenses of the account would need then to become past tenses). If in v. 34 ‘Come, you blessed ones’ was followed by something more appropriate to the narrative world, and similar adjustments were made to v. 41, then the narrative world of a parable would be complete (while v. 46 completes the narrative logic, it is not strictly necessary, but it could be adjusted in a corresponding manner). ere is one important proviso here to describing both the Matthean and, behind that, the immediately pre-Matthean account as ‘an account of the judgment’. We have already noted the tension between 24:31 (see discussion there) and 13:41, where the angels respectively gather the elect and take off the wicked to punishment. Mt. 25:31-46 offers a different picture again. Not the angels, but Jesus/God acting like a shepherd makes the division himself (perhaps the angels might be used for the initial gathering), and the two groups are arranged on either side of him. e differences are based on the use of traditional images of various sorts (the gathering in of the exiles, the rooting out of evil, the king acting as

supreme judge). Accounts of the eschatological events offer their descriptions of it by means of available images, and to that degree all events must be considered as revealing images rather than literal descriptions. But this use of a traditional image does not make 25:31-46 a parable. e further along this track behind the Matthean material we go, the more our account of it becomes necessarily speculative. But there appears to be no insurmountable barrier to tracing the origins of the Matthean account back to the historical Jesus. And the original that we might attribute to the historical Jesus offers the same challenge about the importance for judgment day of God’s profound self-identi cation with his people. At every level of the tradition the account in Mt. 25:31-46 is denatured if its criterion of judgment is allowed to displace others that feature prominently in the Gospel material. To be sure, Matthew places a fresh level of emphasis on the need to conform action to profession and to a signi cant degree conceives following Jesus ethically (see, e.g., 16:24-27), as long as ‘ethically’ is understood to relate to action and is seen to embrace love of God as well as love of neighbour (22:34-40) and as long as action is understood to be rooted in the nature of the inner person (12:3435). It is also true that Matthew focusses ultimately on answerability to God and not belief in Jesus. But given the depth of Matthew’s conviction that God’s fresh initiative is located in Jesus (e.g., 1:23) and the readiness with which Matthew assigns functions of deity to Jesus (pervasive in the Eschatological Discourse and notable also in the present account), too much should not be made of this distinction. Recognising what God is doing and aligning oneself with it are of fundamental signi cance for Matthew. At 8:10 I commented that ‘the kind of faith in view is a faith that recognises and responds to what God has now begun to do in Jesus’; this is

characteristically how Matthew understands faith. In 23:23 the scribes and Pharisees are criticised for neglecting ‘justice and mercy and faith’. For Matthew ‘religion’ matters.

1. Mt. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1 all have καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘It so happened that when Jesus had nished’). 2. See the discussion at Nolland, Luke, 2:856-57. 3. See further Nolland, Luke, 2:698-700. 4. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:983-84. 5. Kloppenborg, ‘Didache’, 54-56. 6. eissen, Gospels in Context, 125-65. 7. Nolland, Luke, 3:986. 8. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:984-86. 9. Evans, ‘Prediction’, 89-147. 10. ‘Jesus’ is not used in Mk. 13:1 but is found in v. 2, where it functions to help clarify identities in the conversational exchanges. 11. In Mt. 24:3 Matthew drops the phrase κατέναντι τοῦ ἱεροῦ (‘opposite/over against the temple’) from Mk. 13:3, which, as an echo of ἀπέναντι τῆς πόλεως (‘opposite/over against the city’) in Ez. 11:23, is an important element in Mark’s set of signals of an intention to allude to the material in Ez. 11:22-23. 12. In Mk. 13:1 there is no coming and only one of the disciples speaks. 13. Matthew has three of the four Gospels uses of ἐπιδεικνύναι (‘show/point out’). e other is Lk. 17:14. Mark’s focus on the size of individual stones and buildings suited better a location still in the temple and has been adjusted by Matthew (the greater originality of Mk. 13:1 is favoured by the ‘stone upon stone’ language to come in Mk. 13:2; Mt. 24:2). 14. In compensation, however, Matthew adds ὧδε (‘here’) in the following clause (if it was not already present in Mk. 13:2 — it is present in ‫א‬ B C D W Θ 1 118 131 209 etc. it sys, p sa bo).

15. Matthew also replaces the second οὐ μή + aorist subj. construction (emphatic negative future) of Mk. 13:2 with οὐ + future (nowhere in the NT other than Mk. 13:2 is one emphatic negative future dependent on another; Matthew is likely to have thought it not good style). 16. Je. 7:1-14; 22:5; cf. 52:12-13. 17. Jos., War 6.250, makes the connection by maintaining that the ring of the temple in A.D. 70 had taken place on the same day of the year as the ring by the king of Babylon. In 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and 3 Baruch re ection on the A.D. 70 destruction takes place under the guise of re ection on the signi cance of the earlier destruction. 18. e redundance in Mk. 13:2 of ‘which will not be not be pulled down’ aer ‘[one] stone on [another] stone’ raises the possibility that its presence is editorial for the sake of the connection with 14:58; 15:29. 19. Jesus’ retreat to Bethany in the evenings while he was visiting Jerusalem (Mt. 21:17; 26:6) was also a retreat to the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives. 20. For ‘on’ in ‘on the Mount of Olives’, Mt. 24:3 prefers the stylistically better ἐπί (lit. ‘on’) for the εἰς (lit. ‘into’) of Mk. 13:3. Matthew drops Mark’s κατέναντι τοῦ ἱεροῦ (‘opposite/over against the temple’): he takes it as the natural assumption in context that the location will be thought of as the western slopes of the Mount, with the temple in sight, and he does not take up (was not aware of?) the likely symbolic signi cance of the phrase for Mark (see at Mt. 24:1). 21. Mt. 26:61; 27:39 are probably to be understood as based on an overhearing of 24:2. 22. As he mostly does, Matthew drops Mark’s use of ἐπερωτᾶν (‘ask’) — it is somewhat redundant before ‘tell us’ — settling in 24:3 for the participle λέγοντες (‘saying’). 23. 1 Cor. 15:23; 1 es. 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 es. 2:1, 8, 9; Jas. 5:7-8; 2 Pet. 1:16; 3:4, 12; 1 Jn. 2:28; Mt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39. 24. Mk. 13:22 has a plural use of ‘sign’ (σημεῖα), but at most these are false versions of the asked-about ‘sign’. 25. For 24:4 Matthew links with a καί (‘and’) rather than a δέ (‘and/but’) and uses the name ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘Jesus’). Mk. 13:5 has ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἤρξατο

λέγειν αὐτοῖς (‘Jesus began to say to them’). 26. Matthew clari es the relationship between 24:4 and 5 by providing a linking γάρ (‘for’). 27. In the absence of the clarifying ‘Christ’ ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου (lit. “upon my name”) has been taken in quite a number of ways (“as Christians”; “pretending to be me”; “claiming my authority”; “speaking in my name [as the OT prophets spoke in the name of Yahweh]”; etc.). But the traditional understanding “claiming to be the Christ, i.e., claiming my office,” has the most to commend it (see Nolland, “Luke’s Readers,” 213-18, 313-23). ἐγώ εἰμι (lit. “I [emphatic] am”) has most oen been taken to mean “I am the Christ,” but by some to mean “[that] I am here” (announcing Jesus’ secret presence), or as a mark of prophetic possession in which the speaker becomes the mouthpiece of the deity (see discussion in “Luke’s Readers,” 213-16). e predominant view is the correct one. (Nolland, Luke, 3:991) 28. Matthew uses ‘Christ’ sixteen times, spanning from 1:1 to 27:22. To these we may add for most purposes the eleven references to ‘son of David’. ‘Son [of God]’, with een uses (but also various senses), is also extremely important for Matthew and is allowed the last word in 27:54; 28:19. But for Matthew ‘Son’ provides clari cation for ‘Christ’, and not the other way around. ough with twenty-eight uses ‘Son of Man’ is numerically preponderant, because of the way that its intended meaning unfolds from the vaguest of beginnings and when clarity does emerge it is focussed on a yet future role, it never quite becomes a fundamental christological category for Matthew. 29. e possibility of false alarms is also anticipated in 2 es. 2:2, but not there in connection with the claims of false Christs. 30. Acts 5:37-38; 21:38; Jos., War 2.258-63, 433-56; 6.285-87; 7.437-50; Ant. 17.271-85;20.97-98, 118, 167-72; y. Taʿan. 4:5; b. Sanh. 93a. Horsley, ‘Messianic Movements’, 484-86, among others, has argued that the gures in Jos., War 2.39-79; Ant. 17:254-98, were posing as messianic pretenders in the period aer the death of Herod the Great. 31. In the rst instance hearing of wars will make one anticipate the destruction of the temple. 32. Mt. 24:6 adds the verb, which was only implicit in Mk. 13:7.

33. In Is. 29:6 an earthquake signals God’s presence as he puts down his people’s enemies. Similarly, in Ez. 38:19-22 an earthquake is linked to God’s intervention against Gog. 34. Mt. 24:8 provides a linking δέ (‘and/but’) and adds πάντα (‘all’) for emphasis. 35. e LXX uses ὠδίν more than thirty times. 36. In Mt. 24:14 καὶ τότε (‘and then’) is simply chronological (‘and aer that’). In Mt. 24:30, rst occurrence, it is probably ‘and in these events’, but it might be simply chronological (‘and aer that’). In Mt. 24:30, second occurrence, καὶ τότε is ‘and as a result’, as in v. 10. 37. Matthew has fourteen uses (eight in Mark; two in Luke; two in John). 38. Matthew has oppression (θλῖψις) leading to being caused to stumble (σκανδαλίζειν) in 13:21, as in 24:9-10. 39. Dn. 12:4 (eod.) uses Matthew’s verb πληθύνειν (‘increase’), but has ‘knowledge’ increasing (re ecting what is probably a corruption in the MT at this point). In an eschatological context 2 Esdr. 5:2 has ‘unrighteousness shall be increased’. 40. πληθύνειν (‘increase’), ψύχεσθαι (‘grow cool or cold’, or, of a re, ‘go out’), ἀγάπη (‘love [noun]’), and the articular substantival use of πολύς (‘much/many’). 41. e lack of a de nite article with τέλος is not signi cant. In the NT the phrase εἰς τέλος (‘to [the] end’) occurs six times without the article and only once with it. 42. But to claim that ‘this gospel’ refers to Matthew’s own book (as, e.g., recently Grassi, ‘Matthew’, 23-29), while not impossible, is more precise than the evidence warrants. 43. e doubling actually includes as well the presence of both κηρυχθήσεται (‘will be preached’) and εἰς μαρτύριον (‘for a testimony’). e latter, giving εἰς μαρτύριον πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (‘for a testimony to all the nations’), echoes the language of Mt. 10:18, where the link between εἰς μαρτύριον and καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (‘and to the nations’) is itself the result of a merging of Markan elements, but that merging could well have been inspired by a parallel source that had, say, εἰς μαρτύριον ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ (‘for a testimony to the whole world’).

44. See Is. 2:2-4; 45:20-22; 49:6; 55:5; 56:6-8; Mi. 4:1-4; 2 Esdr. 6:26; 1 Enoch 48:4-5; Sib. Or. 3:710-23; Test. Levi 18:3-9. 45. See Jn. 20:30; Acts 26:9. 46. See Acts 23:21; cf. Rom. 10:4. 47. Dn. 11:31 (eod.) has taken zrʿym as the plural of zrʿ (‘seed’) rather than as the plural of zr(w)ʿ (‘arm/shoulder’). 48. Dn. 8:13 is a related text. It has hpšʿ šmm, ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως (‘the sin that desolates’) and refers to the same disruption of the regular sacri cial offering. 49. See 1 Macc. 1:54, 59; 6:7; 2 Macc. 6:1-5. 50. τόπος ἅγιος (‘holy place’) with or without articles or possessives is used in the Greek OT seventeen times, a further four times in the Apocrypha, and elsewhere in the NT in Acts 6:13; 21:28. 51. Jos., War 4.151: ‘ese wretches converted the temple of God into their fortress’; 4.388: ‘[ey were the ones] to de le God’s sacred precincts’. 52. Jos., War 5.15-18. 53. Jos., War 4.578; 5.98-105. 54. Jos., War 5.562-66. 55. Jos., War 6.71-74. 56. Jos., War 6.164-68. 57. Jos., War 6.228-66. 58. Jos., War 6.316. 59. Jos., War 6.409. 60. Despite extensive scholarly discussion, the relationship between the Gospel directive to ee and the ight of the Jerusalem Christians to Pella, as reported by Eusebius (HE 3.5.3), remains uncertain. Eusebius suggests that it took place at the beginning of the Jewish War, but that does not t well with the Gospel material. Does he have the timing wrong? Is the oracle, which he thinks of as a fresh oracle, uttered at the time of the war to be identi ed with the Gospel oracle? Did the tradition behind the Gospel material inspire a fresh oracle?

61. e alternative, to think of Jesus as referring to his hearers as readers of Daniel, seems altogether less likely. 62. As Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:346, think, there may be an allusion to Daniel in the wording of the aside. See Dn. 8:15-17; 9:22-23; 11:33; 12:9-10. 63. Cf. Jdg. 1:34; 6:2; 1 Sa. 23:19; 26:1; Je. 16:16; 50:6; La. 4:19. In Gn. 19:17 Lot is urged to ee to the hills from a doomed city. 64. Nolland, Luke, 2:861. By dropping μηδὲ εἰσελθάτω (‘and let him or her not go in’ — coming aer the correlated μή, μηδέ would normally mean ‘nor’, or, with the force of the earlier negative still in force, ‘or’, but here it must mean ‘and … not’, with the sense best represented by ‘in order to’), Matthew leaves it to the reader to realise that the point is that a measure of doubling back is involved in getting things from the house. Matthew ups the scale by dropping τι (‘something/anything’) and adding τά to give ‘their things in the house’. 65. e recommendations of ight in Jeremiah are similarly rooted in the xedness in God’s purposes of the coming judgment on Jerusalem (e.g., in connection with Jerusalem itself, Je. 6:1). 66. Stanton, ‘Pray’, 21-24, argues that ‘your’ in Mt. 24:20 refers to different people from ‘those in Judea’, but this involves an unwarranted fragmentation of the materials. 67. See 1 Macc. 2:32-48 (vv. 42-48 function to indicate that no loss of commitment to the Mosaic Law was involved in this change of mind); Jos., Ant. 12.274-78. 68. Jos., Ant. 14.63. 69. Jos., War 4.97-111. 70. Hengel, Zealots, 287-90. 71. Admittedly, if we take the extreme urgency of Mt. 24:17-18 fully literally, there could be no thought of buying provisions or a donkey or a cart in preparation for ight. 72. In Mk. 13:19 αἱ ἡμέραι ἐκεῖναι is subject of ἔσονται (‘will be’), and we have the odd construction ‘those days will be oppression (θλῖψις)’. Matthew’s change also involves, therefore, a change to a singular verb.

73. Dn. 12:1: ‘a time of oppression such as has never occurred since a nation rst came into existence until that time’. Dn. 12:1 (eod.) has exactly in common with Mt. 24:21: ἔσται … θλῖψις οἵα οὐ γέγονεν ἀϕ᾿ … ἕως (‘there will be … oppression such as has not happened from … until’). e idea of suffering as never before is, however, also found in Je. 30:7; Joel 2:2; 1QM 1:11-12; Test. Mos. 8:1; Jos., War 1.12. 74. Ex. 10:14; 11:6. 75. Jos., War 1.12: ‘Accordingly, it appears to me that the misfortunes of all people, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable as they were’. 76. e sixth-century Babylonian destruction of the Jerusalem temple and associated exile were relieved by the restoration and rebuilding of the temple. Despite the creation of the state of Israel there has been no corresponding restoration aer the rst-century destruction of the temple. 77. e fragility is re ected in Is. 51:12, under the imagery of ‘grass’; cf. 40:6-8 (where πᾶσα σάρξ [‘all esh’] is used as in Mt. 24:22). 78. In 2 Esdr. 2:13 ‘days may be few’ and ‘they may be shortened’ are treated as synonymous, which means that at least here ‘shortened’ applies not to the rapid passage of time, but to a lessening of the number of days. is is likely to be the case as well in Mt. 24:22. Contrast the speeding up of time in 2 Bar. 20:1: ‘e periods will hasten more than those which are gone, and the years will pass more quickly than the present ones’; 83:2: ‘e Most High will surely hasten his times’. Cf. 1 Enoch 80:2: ‘In respect to their days, the sinners and the rainy season are cut short. eir seed shall lag behind in their lands and in their fertile elds, and in all their activities upon the earth’. 79. Inasmuch as one of the ways in which Matthew understands Jesus’ death is as a bearing of the judgment of God with and on behalf of his people, Matthew may consider the basis for the shortening of the days as that which Jesus has already borne. 80. οὐκ … πᾶσα σάρξ (lit. ‘not … all esh’) is Semitic idiom. οὐκ … πᾶσα in the sense ‘no one of all’ is frequent in the LXX, mirroring the Hebrew lʾ kl; and πᾶσα σάρξ (lit. ‘all esh’) is also frequent, mirroring the Hebrew kl bśr. e Matthew combination is not actually matched in the OT.

81. Compared to Mk. 13:21, Mt. 24:23 lacks the linking καί (‘and’); prefers ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) to ἴδε for the demonstrative particle; favours ἢ ὦδε (‘or here’) over ἴδε ἐκεῖ (‘behold there’) for the alternative location; and improves the negated present imperative to a negated aorist subjunctive (but B* etc. have the Markan reading for this last). 82. Otherwise Matthew replaces a linking δέ (‘and/but’) with γάρ (‘for’), ποιήσουσιν (‘will do’) with δώσουσιν (‘will give’), πρὸς τό with ὥστε (perhaps preferring result to purpose), and the present tense of the compound verb ἀποπλᾶν with the aorist tense simple verb πλανῆσαι (Matthew is conforming the verb to that used in Mt. 24:11; in any case, Mark’s verb is used only one other time in the NT). Matthew also adds an emphatic καί to give ‘even the elect’. 83. ough the word order is not the same, in Dt. 6:22; 29:2 the Exodus ‘signs and wonders’ even have the ‘great’ of Mt. 24:24. 84. Scholars oen claim a connection with the ‘a sign or a wonder’ of the false prophet of Dt. 13:1, but this is less likely. 85. See, e.g., Brandenburger, Markus 13, 75-87. 86. eissen, Gospels in Context, 135, cites As. Mos. 11:1; 2 Bar. 84:1; Test. Levi 19:1. 87. What is in common is the idea of going out to the indicated location, an impersonal plural representation of those who ‘say’ (Lk. 17:23 has the verb in the future; Mt. 24:26 has an ἐάν [‘if ’] clause with the aorist subjunctive), a following ‘to you’, and a double use of ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’). 88. Given the level of Lukan conformity of 17:23 to Mk. 13:21, it is hard to say how much of Mt. 24:26 is Matthean. e use of ταμεῖον (‘storeroom’) in 6:6, also in connection with a secret location, stands in favour of its being Matthean here. e uses of ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’) may be Matthean (or at least one of them — there is one in Lk. 17:23). 89. As I have noted elsewhere, While ἀστράπτουσα (lit. “ ashing”; [Luke] 24:4 and cf. 9:29) is likely to be Lukan, and ἡ παρουσία, “the coming,” will be Matthean, it remains unclear whether in other respects Matthew or Luke is more original. e difficulty of Luke’s idiom may count in its favor, especially if the

feminine gender of τῆς and τῆν (two forms of “the”) betrays a Semitic in uence upon the Greek idiom, rather than arising from any implied Greek word (the offered suggestions in Greek [χώρας, “region,” γῆς, “earth/land,” μερίδος, “part”] all leave something to be desired; Semitic words for “end” are mostly feminine [cf. esp. Jer 25:33 (LXX 32:33); Deut 4:32]). at Matthew’s “east” and “west” are to be set to his account in 8:11 (see discussion at 13:28-30; Luke has all four directions) also stands in favor of Luke here as more original. Nolland, Luke, 2:859. 90. e imagery in Lk. 17:24 is more cryptically expressed but seems to be of the whole earth (or sky) being illuminated by the lightning, ‘from [one end] of heaven to the [other end] of heaven’. 91. Unexpectedness works less well because of the common association of lightning with storms, which have an obvious pro le of development. 92. Luke has relocated the material and needs to provide a fresh introduction in 17:37. Otherwise Matthew has ὅπου ἐάν rather than ὅπου for ‘where’, prefers συναχθήσονται to Luke’s ἐπισυναχθήσονται for ‘gathered together’, lacks Luke’s use of καί for ‘also’, and changes the word order slightly. 93. ἀέτος seems to be a vulture in the LXX of Job 39:27. V. 30 has an image very similar to the Gospel one: ‘Wherever those who have died (τεθνεῶτες) are, immediately they [the vultures] are found’. e sentiment is quite proverbial. See Cornutus, Nat. deorum 21; Aelian, Nat. anim. 2.46; Seneca Ep. 95.43; Martial, Epigrams 6.62.4. 94. Other changes are: soening the linking ἀλλά (‘but’) in Mk. 13:24 to δέ (‘and/but’ — but oen best le untranslated); replacing ἐκείνην (‘that’) with τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐκείνων (‘of those days’ — rescued from the lost ‘in those days’ of Mark’s text); the replacement of Mark’s periphrastic future for ‘will fall’ with a normal future; ἀπό (‘from’) for ἐκ (‘out of ’); and preference for τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘of the heavens’) to Mark’s adjectival use of αἱ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (‘in the heavens’). 95. Glossing ‘Immediately’ in Mt. 24:29 with ‘As that which brings the oppression to an end’ allows the shortening of the days of v. 22 to have a

quite concrete form: the period of the great oppression is not allowed to run its natural course but is interrupted by the events of vv. 29-31. 96. Cf. Is. 24:23. 97. Cf. Is. 34:4; Ez. 32:7; Joel 2:10; 3:3-4(ET 2:30-31). 98. In een out of seventeen instances the order is: sun, moon, stars. e exceptions are Is. 13:10 and the closely related Ez. 32:7. 99. ough there is a corruption in the Latin text here, 2 Esdr. 5:5 seems to have drawn the same material from Is. 34:4, as also Sib. Or. 2:200: ‘All the stars will fall together from heaven on the sea’ (also 8:190, 341) and Rev. 6:13. In Mt. 24:29 a secondary in uence from Is. 14:12 is possible: ‘How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!’ 100. Possibly the link is with Sir. 16:18 rather than Hg. 2:6 (21). It is verbally closer to ‘e heavens… will be shaken’. But in its turn Sir. 16:18-19 is likely to involve an echo of Hg. 2:6, (21). 101. Minor differences between Mk. 13:26 and Mt. 24:30 are: ἐν νεϕέλαις (‘in [the] clouds’) becomes ἐπὶ τῶν νεϕελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (‘on the clouds of heaven’ — this brings the text into line with Dn. 9:13 [LXX]); πολλῆς (‘great’) is attached to δόξης (‘glory’) rather than to δυνάμεως (‘power’). 102. See the discussion at Mt. 24:10. 103. While for Mk. 13 scholars have seriously debated the seriousness with which the question should be taken, Matthew’s evident intervention in the wording of the question and speci c reuse of all the key verbal elements later in the discourse suggest strongly that he intends the answer in chap. 24 to correspond closely to the question. 104. e many speculative answers that have been offered as to what the sign might be are made possible only by ignoring the wording of the question. In relation to Matthew’s source here, however, Mt. 24:3 does not constrain. Draper, ‘Development’, 1-21, has urged the claims of taking ‘sign’ as ‘ensign’: an eschatological ensign signalling muster for the nal battle. is is an attractive option in relation to Matthew’s source. 105. at a second source is likely to be involved here nds further support in the use of the plural of οὐρανός to mean the ‘heavens’, not as the

dwelling place of God, but as the upper reaches of the created order. Otherwise, with the partial exception of 24:29, where the realm of supernatural powers which might be considered God’s competitors is in view, Matthew always uses the plural of the dwelling place of God — oen as a euphemism for God. 106. An association with the last battle is oen made with the military use of the trumpet. But this is only one of a whole range of possible associations. e trumpet blast as the signal for the coming of Christ is also found in 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 es. 4:16. 107. See Ex. 19:13, 16, 19; 20:18; Ps. 47:5 (LXX 46:6); Zc. 9:14; cf. Is. 18:3; 27:13. 108. 1 Ch. 9:24; Zc. 2:6 (LXX 2:10); 6:5; Je. 49:36 (LXX 25:16); Dn. 7:2; 8:8; 11:4. Except for 1 Ch. 9:24, it is always ‘the four winds of heaven’. 109. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,009. 110. Apart from some minor changes of word order the only difference is that Mt. 24:32 drops ἐστίν (‘is’) from Mk. 13:28. 111. Mt. 9:13; 11:29 (perhaps more encouragement than challenge); 24:32. 112. e LXX uses ἁπαλός of tender young meat, of the frailty of children, of not being toughened by experience, of so kneading clay, and of the delicacy of re ned young women. 113. Apparently fruit generally came before the leaves. On the respective timing of the growth of leaves and the production of fruit on g trees see the comments at Mt. 21:19. 114. Matthew will use πάντα ταῦτα (‘all these things’) again in 24:34 to reinforce the framing. 115. Nolland, Luke, 3:1,009. 116. Cf. 2 Esdr. 9:1-2: ‘When you see that some of the predicted signs have occurred, then you will know that it is the very time when the Most High is about to visit the world’. 117. e only difference between Mt. 24:33 and Mk. 13:29 is ἕως ἄν (eleven times in Matthew; three in Mark) in place of μέχρις οὗ (only here in

Mark; not in Matthew — but μέχρι τῆς σήμερον [‘until today’] is found twice in Matthew) for ‘until’. 118. In Mt. 24:35, though he keeps the same plural subject (‘heaven and earth’), Matthew has rather curiously reduced the plural παρελεύσονται (lit. ‘they will pass away’) of Mk. 13:31 to the singular παρελεύσεται (lit. ‘it will pass away’). A possible reason for this is that he uses the singular in 5:18 (where, with the subject coming aer the verb, it is common to have the verb agree only with the closest part of a composite subject). In 24:35 Mark’s plural is restored in ‫א‬2 W Θ f1, 13 1342 1506 etc. lat. 119. Matthew has ‘this generation’ in 11:16; 12:41, 42, 45; 23:36; 24:34. 120. Nolland, Luke, 3:1,009-10. 121. Mt. 24:35 replaces Mk. 13:31’s οὐ παρελεύσεται (‘will pass away’) with οὐ μὴ παρέλθωσιν (‘will certainly not pass away’), matching the syntax of the emphatic negative in v. 34. 122. See Pss. 102:25-27; 119:89, 160; Is. 40:8. 123. Otherwise Mt. 24:36 prefers τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘of heaven’) to the ἐν οὐρανῷ (‘in heaven’) of Mk. 13:32. ere is no obvious reason for this since Matthew is responsible for the use of ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ in 22:30. But Matthew does have thirty-six of the forty-two uses of τῶν οὐρανῶν in the NT. 124. e merged pattern is not matched in the rest of the NT or the LXX. 125. But for all the foretelling of the future, the outlining of developments has the kind of generality that means that it is not such as to encourage speculative prediction. Only the assurance of the brevity of the great oppression provides a clear marker of proximity for a future event. 126. For limitations to the knowledge of angels cf. 2 Esdr. 4:52; 1 Pet. 1:12. 127. e other absolute use of ‘Son’ in Mt. 11:27 is undoubtedly to be understood as standing for ‘Son of God’. 128. For God alone as the one who knows the time of the end see 2 Bar. 21:8; 48:3; 54:1; cf. Acts 1:7; Pss. Sol. 17:21. 129. See also Nolland, Luke, 2:699-700, 856-57. 130. Lk. 17:27 lacks anything introductory.

131. Lk. 17:30 has κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ἔσται (‘the same will be’), but κατὰ τὰ αὐτά may be Lukan, as Luke has it as well in 6:23, 26. 132. In this way ‘in the days’ can be ‘rescued’ from what Matthew changes in Lk. 17:26. ‘e ood’ is available from the next verse. 133. Tannehill, Sword, 119: ‘[e activities] invite the hearer to feel the familiar, comfortable rhythm of life and recognize his involvement in it’. 134. e language echoes that of Gn. 7:7. 135. Jewish use of the tradition of Noah’s ood was in terms of the certainty of judgment, not its sudden arrival or unexpectedness (see Schlosser, ‘Les jours’, 13-36), but unexpectedness is the point here. 136. E.g., Mt. 13:41-42; 24:31. 137. Lk. 17:29-30 has before the nal clause a parallel example of Lot’s departure from Sodom. Matthew probably abbreviates here. Luke’s version of the nal clause is: ‘It will be like this (κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ἔσται) on the day when (ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ) the Son of Man is revealed’. Matthew oen increases parallelism, but it is unclear what exactly to attribute to the respective Evangelists. 138. Luke’s ‘I say to you, on that night’ provides little more introduction, but it is likely to be more original here. 139. In the original set of three images a husband-and-wife image would have been balanced by an image of two men at work and an image of two women at work, and probably a nighttime image for the husband-and-wife scene is balanced by daytime images for the two working pairs. 140. Mt. 24:40-41 expresses the two fates with εἷς … καὶ εἷς (‘one … and one’) and μία … καὶ μία (‘one … and one’), while Lk. 17:34-35 uses εἷς … καὶ ὁ ἕτερος (‘one … and the other’) and μία …; ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα (‘one … but the other’). It is probably Luke who has made the change. 141. Luke is likely to be responsible in 17:35 for ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό (‘together’) displacing the ἐν τῷ μύλῳ (‘at the mill’) of Mt. 24:41, which must in any case be implied from ἀλήθουσα (‘grinding’): ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό balances ἐπὶ κλίνης μιᾶς (‘on one bed’) of Luke’s rst image. 142. e drawing in of material of Mk. 13:35 here is inspired in part by the material of Lk. 12:35-38, with its thematic similarity to Mk. 13:35 as well as its use of γρηγορεῖν (‘stay awake’). In Matthew’s source, as in Luke, the

material of Lk. 12:35-38 will have come before the material of Lk. 12:39-40 (par. Mt. 24:42-44). e presence of ‘thief in the night’, ‘stay awake’, and ‘drunk’ in 1 es. 5:2-7 suggests that Paul was aware of material that parallelled Lk. 12:35-38, 39-40, 43-46 (so März, ‘Gleichnis’, 633-48). 143. Mt. 24:42 does not make use of the list of options provided in the latter part of Mk. 13:35. 144. e material is parallelled in Lk. 12:39-40. 145. Matthew’s use of ἐκεῖνο (lit. ‘that’) with an epexegetical ὅτι clause in 24:43 is unmatched in the NT or the LXX; the change to τοῦτο (‘this’) in Lk. 12:39 is Luke’s. Lk. 12:39-40 has ὥρα (‘hour’) in both verses; Mt. 24:43-44 has ϕυλακή (‘watch’) in the image and ὥρα in the application. Luke has simpli ed. Matthew does not use ἂν εἴασεν (‘allow’) elsewhere; Luke is responsible for the change to ἀϕῆκεν for ‘would not have allowed’. 146. διορυχθῆναι has been used previously in Mt. 6:20. 147. διὰ τοῦτο is found ten times in Matthew (three in Mark; four in Luke). 148. See Beyer, Semistische Syntax, 287-93. 149. See Nolland, Luke, 2:700, 703, 704 (quote on p. 703). 150. e move is in the direction of a more classical and more complex use of language. 151. With this future perspective in mind Luke replaces δοῦλος (‘slave’) with οἰκονόμος (‘[house-]steward/manager’), having in mind the more comprehensive role gained in Lk. 12:44; Mt. 24:47. 152. Mt. 25:21, 23. 153. Mt. 7:24; 10:16. e use of ϕρόνιμος in 7:24 is eschatologically oriented in the way that the parable uses are. 154. Mt. 25:2, 4, 8, 9. 155. e difference of syntax in the second case leaves no room in Mt. 24:48-51 for a woe to balance the beatitude of v. 46. 156. e use of χρονίζειν is discussed further at Mt. 25:5. 157. Mt. 24:49 has present subjunctives for ‘eat and drink’ (linked to the preceding material with δέ [‘and/but’]); Lk. 12:45 has present in nitives following from ‘began’ (linked to the preceding material with τέ [‘and’]). Mt.

24:49 has ‘with those who are drunk’ (μετὰ τῶν μεθυόντων); Lk. 12:45 has ‘and to get drunk’ (καὶ μεθύσκεσθαι). 158. Weiser, Knechtsgleichnisse, 194-95, cites texts from the Arabic, Syriac, and Armenian versions of Ahikar (Charles, Pseudepigrapha, 740-41, 749) and Bet Ha-Midrash 4:145-46. 159. At times moralists spoke out against the vicious and arbitrary punishment that was oen the order of the day. Glancy, ‘Slaves’, 83-84, cites Seneca, Ira 3.24; Martial, Epigrams 3.94; Juvenal 6.474-501. 160. Glancy, ‘Slaves’, 67. e inscription is from Puteoli and dates from either the late Republic or the reign of Augustus. Glancy draws on M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (New York: Viking, 1980), 95; K. R. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (Collection Latomus 185. Brussels: Latomus, 1984), 122. 161. Unless in the imagery ‘put him with the hypocrites’ is simply about which ‘rubbish pile’ his remains should be allocated to. 162. If, however, Sus. 13:55, 59 alludes to an angelic cutting in two, as suggested by Sim, ‘Dissection’, allusion to the judgment of God is being allowed, in the interests of application, to rupture the integrity of the parabolic world. ough the language is different, the similarity of thought makes it quite possible that Matthew uses such an allusion in the present form of the parable. But another possibility is that the consequences of failure to observe the terms of a solemn covenant are in view (see Gn. 15:721; Je. 34:18-20). Friedrichsen, ‘Note’, argues for this approach. 163. Mt. 13:24; 18:23; 22:2. On the links between the three parables see at 18:23; 22:2. On the use and precise sense of the passive of ὁμοιοῦν see the comments at 13:24. 164. e language of the introductory half-verse may well be Matthean, but the parable is likely to have come with some comparable introduction. 165. e related λαμπηδών means ‘brightness/brilliance’, and λάμπειν means ‘shine (forth)/gleam’. 166. Following F. Zorell, ‘De lampadibus decem virginum’, VD 10 (1930), 176-82, Jeremias, ‘Λαμπάδες’, 196-210, and Luz, Matthaüs, 3:469-71, have argued that in ancient usage λαμπάς never means an oil lamp or lantern but only a aming torch. Certainly it is most oen used of a aming torch, but

contexts of usage oen do not allow for precise determination of meaning. Are ‘silver λαμπάδες’ found in Jdt. 10:22, where they are carried before Holofernes as he comes from within to the front of his tent to see Judith, who has just been brought into the tent, aming torches or oil lamps? 167. Noted by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:396, with reference to Polyb. 5.26:8; Cicero, Ad. Att. 8.16; Jos., Ant. 11.327; 13:101; War 7.101, and drawing on E. Peterson, ‘Die Einholung des Kyrios’, ZNW 7 (1930), 682-702. 168. Scholars oen appeal to 1 Macc. 9:37-42 for illumination (parallelled in Jos., Ant. 13.18-21); and cf. b. Ber. 59b (‘when the bridegroom has gone out to meet the bride’); Mek. Ex. 19:7 (‘like a bridegroom goes out to meet his bride’). But there the bridegroom goes out to meet the bride and welcome her in, which reverses the pattern of the parable. Partly under the misleading in uence of these texts, a popular reconstruction of the imagery of the parable involves the maidens with the bride processing to the house of the bridegroom and being met by him and led into the house. But most of this has to be brought to the Gospel text and does not follow its natural lines (e.g., the bride is not mentioned). ough in a much simpler form, the pattern of the bridegroom being brought to the bride is re ected in Tob. 8:1. ough he claimed it for Galilee, Beuchler (‘Induction’, 21) recognised that the pattern of 1 Macc. 9:37-42 has le no trace in accounts of weddings in Judea. 169. Or the celebration may be imagined as taking place in the home of the bride’s parents (which was customary in Greek marriages; see Zimmermann, ‘Hochzeitsritual’, 56). 170. ere is a similar characterisation in Mt. 25:21, 23, 26: ‘good and faithful’ and ‘wicked and lazy’; cf. ‘useless’ in v. 30. But in the third parable in the set the characterisation is not pre-announced. 171. eir action is about as foolish as that of the best man who forgets the rings: it happens! 172. Balabanski, Eschatology, 42, notes that were it not for some dominant assumptions in the scholarship on the parable, the obvious meaning of Mt. 25:3 ‘would be that the foolish maidens had no oil, not simply too little’.

173. In Jdt. 10:5 ἀσκοπυτίνην οἴνου καὶ καψάκην ἐλαίου καὶ πήραν ἐπλήρωσεν ἀλϕίτων καὶ παλάθης καὶ ἄρτων καθαρῶν (‘skin of wine and a ask of oil and a bag with roasted grain, dried g cakes, and ne bread’) is resumed with πάντα τὰ ἀγγεῖα (‘all the containers’). 174. ere is a careful choice of tenses in the move from the aorist ἐνύσταξαν (‘became drowsy’) to the imperfect ἐκάθευδον (‘were falling asleep’). e same verb pair and tense sequence are found in the LXX of 2 Sa. 4:6. 175. Just possibly one could see the passage of time as opening a space for the foolish maidens to have realised their error and to put it right; instead they went to sleep. But if Matthew intends this emphasis, and in view of 25:13 he might, its role is minor. 176. e third parable in the set will also make use of the passage of a lot of time. But in 25:19 the time (though likely to be a Matthean touch) ts naturally into the story (as it did in 24:48) as the time available to the slaves to work with the resources entrusted to them by their master. 177. A perfect seems to have been given this role also in Mt. 13:46, but the matter there was less clear since the verb πιπράσκειν appears to lack an aorist form. 178. Since ἐγείρειν (as here in Mt. 25:7) can mean ‘rise’ in relation to the resurrection of the dead (but otherwise, as far as I am aware, passive forms used in connection with the resurrection seem to take a passive force, unlike here, where the sense is transitive active) and 1 es. 4:13-17 has in common with Mt. 25:6-7 falling asleep (but the verbs are different, and in 1 es. 4:13, 14, 15 sleep is an image of death), a cry (but the words are different; the cry is of an archangel in 1 es. 4:16), a meeting (1 es. 4:17; Mt. 25:6 both use εἰς ἀπάντησιν, while Mt. 25:1 has εἰς ὑπάντησιν), and a rising (ἀνιστῆναι in 1 es. 4:16; ἐγείρειν in Mt. 25:7) — all in the context of the coming of the Lord — interpreters oen claim that Mt. 25:7 is connected with eschatological resurrection. e links with 1 es. 4:13-17 are quite striking, but the differences are equally striking. e difficulty with making a connection is that in Matthew this makes everybody die and then be raised, which is in sharp contrast with both 1 es. 4:13-17 and the broad assumption in Mt. 24–25 that many people will live to experience the return

of the Lord (and cf. 17:28). It seems best to explain the links mostly in terms of the fact that both texts refer to the Parousia, with the apparent commonality over falling asleep and rising being nothing more than a curious coincidence. 179. ey are not likely to be setting light to dry rags. 180. Scholars oen assert that men and women were kept quite separate for the celebration, but neither Mt 25:11 nor the scene in Jn. 2:3-4 from a wedding banquet supports radical gender separation in a wedding context. 181. e likelihood of this link of Mt. 25:12 to 7:23 is strengthened by the connection noted already between 25:2 and 7:24, 26. 182. For ‘stay awake’ cf. Mt. 24:43, and for ‘do not know’ cf. vv. 36, 39, 42, 43, 44, and 50. 183. For ‘hour’ cf. also Mt. 24:44. 184. Cf. Mt. 25:14: ὥσπερ … ἄνθρωπος ἀποδημῶν … τοὺς ἰδίους δούλους … παρέδωκεν (‘as if a person going away from home … his own slaves … handed over’) with Mk. 13:34: ὥς ἄνθρωπος ἀπόδημος … δοὺς τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ (‘like a person going away from home … gives to his slaves’). ese echoes complicate the task of distilling the source wording from Mt. 25:14 and Lk. 19:12-13, but, because Luke is merging two parables, in general the Matthean wording is to be preferred. In common are ἄνθρωπος (‘person’), a use of καλεῖν (‘call’), δούλους (‘slaves’), and [παρ]έδωκεν αὐτοῖς (‘handed over/gave to them’). 185. e distinction in Mk. 13:33-37 between slaves who are set their tasks and a doorkeeper whose task is to stay awake and keep watch is a rather opaque feature of the Markan material, and Matthew drops it without any sense of loss. 186. is feature is matched in Ep. Jer. 6:53 (ET v. 55); Ign., Magn. 5:2; Plut., Mor. 7C. 187. is feature I have not been able to match. 188. Derrett, ‘Law’, 184-95. 189. Not that being a slave precluded personal engagement in business and even borrowing business capital. e gure with the huge debt in Mt.

18:24 is a slave. 190. e mistake in arithmetic in Lk. 19:25 may be a relic of a more original form in which ve mnas had become ten. e use of the dative relative pronoun in a ὃς μὲν … ὃς δέ construction is uncommon. It is not found in the LXX, and in the NT we nd it only here and in 1 Cor. 12:8; 2 Cor. 2:16. 191. κατὰ δύναμιν is a stock phrase for ‘according to ability’. It is used with ἕκαστος, as in Mt. 25:15, in Dt. 16:17: ἕκαστος κατὰ δύναμιν τῶν χειρῶν ὑμῶν (‘each according to the ability of their hands’); and cf. Jos., Ant. 3:108: κατὰ τὴν ἑκάστου δύναμιν (‘according to the ability of each’). Lk. 19:13 has instead a clause which makes explicit the business responsibilities laid on the slaves. Either or both could be expansions. Just possibly the former owes something to Mk. 13:34. 192. See Derrett, ‘Law’, 190. 193. Cf. the use of ὡσαύτως in Mt. 20:5; 21:30, 36 (but none of the constructions is as in Mt. 25:17). 194. In particular πορευθείς (‘went’) becomes ἀπελθών (‘went away’) and moves later in the clause. 195. Cf. 2 Enoch (J) 51:2; b. B. M. 42a; b. Šab. 102b. 196. It is hard to be sure, but while the opening παρεγένετο (‘arrived’) of Lk. 19:16 is probably Lukan, it is otherwise likely to be the Matthean language that is the product of a further layer of pastoral re ection. 197. αὐτῷ, εὖ, δοῦλε, ἀγαθέ, and πιστός (‘to him’, ‘well [done]’, ‘slave’, ‘faithful’) are common to Mt. 25:21 and Lk. 19:17, but so is the general content more widely, except for the outcome statements. 198. But its negative counterpart would have been all too common. Cf. Mt. 18:32; 25:26. 199. e word is immediately available to Matthew from the immediately following ‘you were faithful’. 200. Lk. 19:17 uses a superlative: ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ. e sense is ‘in a very small matter’. Luke’s choice of the superlative is for the sake of the contrast with the authority over ten cities which is to be given.

201. Cf. m. ʾAb. 4:2: ‘e recompense for a command [performed] is a [further] command’. 202. Something of the sense of sharing in a happy outcome is matched in Mt. 19:28. 203. Speci cally, in Mt. 25:22 λαβών (‘who had received’) is le to be implied by the context and the clause dealing with the bringing of the earnings is dropped (with a modest corresponding adjustment in syntax). 204. In Mt. 25:23 the missing λαβών of v. 22 is restored, but with the perfect participle in place of the aorist. 205. ὅτι, ἄνθρωπος, εἶ, οὐκ ἔσπειρας, σου (‘because’, ‘person’, ‘you are’, ‘you did not sow’, ‘your’) are common to Mt. 25:24 and Lk. 19:20-21. 206. Luke has probably made the implicit logic explicit. 207. Only μου, ἐλθών, and σὺν τόκῳ (‘my’, ‘coming’, and ‘with interest’) are common to Mt. 25:27 and Lk. 19:23. e Matthean language for the most part looks more original. 208. Mt. 25:28 has a linking οὖν (‘then’) not found in Lk. 19:24, and each has its own version of the amount involved. Otherwise there is only a slight change of word order. 209. Apart from Matthew’s addition of ‘and they will have in abundance’, other differences between Mt. 25:29 and Lk. 19:26 are minor: Luke improves the syntax by cancelling ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ (‘from him’) and setting ἀπό (‘from’) before the genitive phrase τοῦ μὴ ἔχοντι (‘the one who does not have’); παντί (‘to everyone’) gets the more emphatic rst position in Luke. 210. Nolland, Luke, 3:912. 211. In this section ‘Son of Man’ is also found in Mt. 24:27, 37, 39, 44 (all of which refer to his future coming). Angels are associated with the Son of Man earlier in 13:41; 16:27. And the latter of these also has ‘in the glory’ (but continuing ‘of his Father’, not with ‘of him’ — giving ‘his glory’ — as in 25:31) and a coming. A future coming of the Son of Man is found earlier in 10:23; 16:27 once more; and 25:28. e links with 19:28 are discussed separately. 212. Cf. Joel 4(ET 3):11-12 (which has ‘I will sit to judge’); Is. 43:9; 44:11; 45:20-21; Zp. 3:8.

213. bywm-hyww btwk-ṣʾnw npršwt (lit. ‘in the day when he is in the midst of his separated sheep’) in Ez. 34:12 is likely to be corrupt in some respect. e LXX has ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὅταν ᾖ γνόϕος καὶ νεϕέλη ἐν μέσῳ προβάτων διακεχωρισμένων (‘on a day when there is darkness and a cloud in the midst of the scattered sheep’). is re ects hyt (lit. ‘to be’) for hytw (giving ‘there is/they are/etc.’ for ‘he is’) — one MT manuscript has this — and nprśwt for npršwt (giving ‘scattered’ for ‘separated’). (Beyond that, the LXX has lled an apparent lacuna on the basis of material at the end of the verse.) A restored text might read ‘in the day when they are in the midst of his scattered sheep’. e ‘his’ (w) suffix on ‘sheep’ (ṣʾn) remains difficult. It may represent an addition to align with the w added in the MT to hyt. Otherwise we are le to imagine the seeking out of a particular ock from a larger number of sheep all belonging to the shepherd. Another possibility that has been canvassed is to remove btwk (‘in the midst of ’). is would give a restored text reading ‘in the day when his sheep are scattered’, but in support of the retention of btwk we should note that v. 13 has Israel dispersed among the peoples. 214. e shepherd image is also evident in Mt. 2:6; 10:6; 15:24; 26:31-32. 215. ough τὰ πρόβατα in the LXX can translate ṣʾn and thus mean ‘the ock’, perhaps consisting of both sheep and goats (e.g., Gn. 27:9), and the singular πρόβατον can be used in a manner that does not discriminate between a sheep and goat (e.g., Ex. 12:5). 216. ere is the same slide between ἔριϕος and ἐρίϕιον in Tob. 2:12-13. 217. e view of Luz, ‘Final Judgment’, 297, that the separation is of young male goats for slaughter from a mixed ock of sheep and goats would be more attractive if the text had ‘the kids’ being separated from ‘the ock’ and not the reverse, and if the diminutive form ἐρίϕιον had been used in Mt. 25:32 and not only later. 218. e view is normally traced to Jeremias (see Parables, 206), who follows Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte, 6:99. It has since been supported by Friedrich, Gott im Bruder? 137-40. 219. In certain conditions they might have needed to be grazed separately. For marketing they would need to have been separated. ey may have been separated in the breeding or lambing seasons.

220. Derrett, ‘Unfair’, 177-78. 221. e ritual in Lv. 16 required the use of goats and not sheep, and goats or sheep are distinctly speci ed in various other sacri ces. 222. In 2 Esdr. 16:2 cloth of goats’ hair is used as a penance. 223. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:424, cite Plato, Rep. 10.614c, where judges send the just ‘to the right and upwards’ and the unjust ‘down to the le’; Virgil, Aen. 6.540-43, where the road to the aerlife splits, with the right fork as ‘our highway to Elysium’ and the le ‘leading down to godless Elysium’; and Iambl., Vit. Pythag. 156, where ‘e right hand is the principle of what is called the odd number and is divine, while the le hand is a symbol of the even number and dissolution’. 224. Mt. 2:2; 21:5; 27:11, 29, 37, 42. 225. ere is another curious juxtaposition in Mt. 13:41, 43, with ‘his’ in ‘his kingdom’ in v. 41 referring to ‘the Son of Man’, but with ‘the kingdom of their Father’ in v. 43. 226. Mt. 20:23 has in common with Mt. 25:31-34 a role for the positions at the right and le sides of Jesus, but the role of these is quite different. 227. ere is a possible concrete link between ‘I was hungry, and you gave me [something] to eat’ in Mt. 25:35 and Jesus’ challenge, ‘You give them [something] to eat’, in 14:16. Giving someone something to drink is praiseworthy both in 25:35 and in 10:42, but in the latter water is given on the bases that the one receiving is a disciple and that it represents minimal assistance, while in the former the giving is the appropriate counterpart to the need. 228. Against the background of Jewish piety, scholars have oen drawn attention to the absence of widows and orphans, but they could not be tted into the form that was chosen because the nature of their need, though oen quite acute, was general (when speci c it might well t under one of the items already in the list). 229. Hospitality to strangers has quite a pro le in the parenesis of the Epistles: Rom. 12:13; 1 Tim. 3:2; 5:10; Tit. 1:8; 1 Pet. 4:9; 3 Jn. 5. 230. Jeremias, Parables, 207, thinks that the idiom is Aramaic, since kns can mean either ‘gather’ or ‘show hospitality’.

231. e examples of Abraham (Gn. 18:1-6) and Lot (19:1-3) are notable, and especially the former has had an impact on ancient Jewish re ection. On hospitality see J. Koenig, New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). 232. Cf. the expansiveness involved in the inclusion of Mt. 25:16-18. 233. ere is a notable parallel in Acts 9:4, 5. e closest the OT gets to this thought is Pr. 19:17: ‘Whoever is kind to the poor lends to Yahweh, and he will recompense them in full’. While not identical, the sentiment in Dt. Rab. 15:9 is clearly related: ‘When you gave food to the poor, I counted it as though you had given it to me’; as is that in Mek. on Ex. 18:12: ‘When one welcomes his fellow man, it is considered as if he had welcomed the Divine Presence’. 234. ough the symmetry is not complete, in the present account there is some correspondence between the angels associated with the devil in Mt. 25:41 and those with the Son of Man in v. 31. 235. Interpreters sometimes claim that the omission of ‘my brothers and sisters’ in Mt. 25:45 is simply abbreviation, but it is curious that precisely this phrase is lost in the abbreviation. ‘One of these’ would have been a more natural abbreviation, or even ‘one of these my brothers and sisters’: the sense of contrast between king and people would still be sustained without ‘the least’, but the striking element of sibling identi cation is lost without ‘my brothers and sisters’. If ‘my brothers and sisters’ is an addition in v. 40, then the point might be that Matthew did not add it in v. 45 because he could see that it did not t as well, given the new reference group. 236. ere is actually an un lled gap between service to ‘one of the least of these my brothers or sisters’ and failure to meet the needs of ‘one of the least of these’, i.e., service to one of the least who is not a brother or sister to Jesus, but such a gap is acceptable within the constraints of the artistry of the telling. 237. Mt. 19:16 has ‘eternal life’; v. 17 simply ‘life’; v. 23 ‘the kingdom of heaven’; v. 24 ‘the kingdom of God’; and v. 29, again, ‘eternal life’. 238. Another view nds the core in an account of judgment by the Son of Man, to which the shepherd comparison has been added, as has his

identi cation as king (and other less signi cant elements). As far as I have been able to observe, this view has not gained a signi cant following. 239. e shepherd comparison complicates the narrative. While the role of the ‘right’ and the ‘le’ is fundamental to the narrative, the shepherd comparison, with its sheep and goats, is not strictly necessary. e necessary element here (‘right’ and ‘le’) is the one element that is not rooted in Ez. 34.

XXI. THE PASSION ACCOUNT (26:1–27:66)

A. Section 1 (26:1-19) 1. Passover Identified as the Time for the Passion (26:1-2) 1It

so happened that when Jesus had finished all these words, he said to his disciples, 2‘aYou knowa that aer two days the Passover happens. And [it is then that] the Son of Man is handed over to be crucified.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from D, presumably on the basis that the disciples did not really know what this Passover would bring. Bibliography General for the Passion Narrative Aletti, J. N., ‘Mort de Jésus et théorie du récit’, RSR 73 (1985), 147-60. • Allison, D. C., End. • Anon., ‘Voting Records: e Passion Narrative’, Forum 1.1 (1998), 227-33. • Beauchamp, P., ‘Narrativité biblique du récit de la Passion’, RSR 73 (1985), 39-59. • Bergèse, D., ‘De Gethsémané à Golgotha: Le procès de Jésus: Approche historique’, RevRef 49.4 (1998), 9-26. • Best, E., e Temptation and the Passion: e Markan Soteriology (SNTSMS 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19902), xxiii-lxxiv. • Biser, E., ‘Die älteste Passionsgeschichte’, GuL 56 (1983), 111-18. • Brown, R. E., A Crucified Christ in Holy Week: Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986). • Brown, R. E., e Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave (2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1994). • Carroll, J. T. and Green, J. B., eds., e Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). • Crossan, J. D., e Cross at Spoke: e Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988). • Crossan, J. D., Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots

of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995). • Delorme, J., ‘Sémiotique du récit et récit de la passion’, RSR 73 (1985), 85-109. • Dillon, R. J., ‘e Psalms of the Suffering Just in the Accounts of Jesus’ Passion’, Worship 61 (1987), 430-40. • Droge, A. J. and Tabor, J. D., A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 117-28. • Dungan, D. L., ‘Jesus and Violence’, in Jesus, the Gospels, and the Church. FS W. R. Farmer, ed. E. P. Sanders (Macon, GA: Mercer, 1987), 135-62. • Egger, P., ‘Crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato’: Das ‘Crimen’ Jesu von Nazareth im Spannungsfeld römischer und jüdischer Verwaltungs- und Rechtsstrukturen (NTAbh n.f. 32. Münster: Aschendorff, 1997). • Evans, C. A., ‘e Passion of Jesus: History Remembered or Prophecy Historicized?’ BBR 6 (1996), 15965. • Fiedler, P., ‘Die Passion des Christus’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 299-319. • Flusser, D., Die letzten Tage Jesu in Jerusalem: Das Passionsgeschehen aus jüdischer Sicht: Bericht über neueste Forschungsergebnisse, tr. H. Zechner (Lese-Zeichen. Stuttgart: Calwer, 1982). • Garland, D. E., One Hundred Years of Study on the Passion Narratives (NABPR Bibliographic Series 3. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990). • Girard, R., ‘e Gospel Passion as Victim’s Story’, Cross Currents 36 (198687), 28-38. • Grappe, C., ‘Essai sur l’arrière-plan pascal des récits de la dernière nuit de Jésus’, RHPR 65 (1985), 105-25. • Green, J. B., e Death of Jesus: Tradition and Interpretation in the Passion Narrative (WUNT 33. Tübingen: Mohr, 1988). • Haulotte, E., ‘Du récit quadriforme de la Passion au concept de Croix’, RSR 73 (1985), 187-228. • Hendrickx, H., e Passion Narratives of the Synoptic Gospels (rev. edn. London: Chapman, 1984). • Kelber, W. H., Oral, 184-226. • Kertelge, K., ed., Der Prozess gegen Jesus: Historische Rückfrage und theologische Deutung (QD 112. Freibourg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1988). • Kiehl, E. H., e Passion of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990). • Kümmel, W. G., ‘Jesusforschung seit 1965: Der Prozess und der Kreuzestod Jesu’, TRu 45 (1980), 293-337. • Kurichianil, J., ‘Jesus’ Consciousness of His Passion and Death according to the Synoptic Gospels’, Biblebhashyam 9 (1983), 114-25. • LaVerdiere, E., ‘e Passion Story as Prophecy’, Emman 93 (1987), 84-98. • Légasse, S., Le Procès de Jésus: La passion dans les quatre évangiles (LD, commentaries 3. Paris:

Cerf, 1995). • Légasse, S., Les récits de la Passion (Cahiers Évangile 112. Paris: Cerf, 2000). • Leenhardt, F. J., La mort et le testament de Jésus (Essais bibliques 6. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1983). • Lentzen-Deis, F., ‘Passionsbericht als Handlungsmodell? Überlegungen zu Anstössen aus der “pragmatischen” Sprachwissenscha für die exegetischen Methoden’, in Prozess, ed. K. Kertelge, 191-232. • Limbeck, M., ed., Redaktion und eologie des Passionsberichtes nach den Synoptikern (WF 481. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1981). • Loh nk, G., e Last Days of Jesus: An Enriching Portrayal of the Passion, tr. S. Attanasio (Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1984). • Marcus, J., ‘e Old Testament and the Death of Jesus’, in Death, ed. J. T. Carroll and J. B. Green, 205-33. • Marin, L., e Semiotics of the Passion Narrative: Topics and Figures, tr. A. M. Johnson (PTMS 25. Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1980). • Marshall, I. H., ‘e Death of Jesus in Recent New Testament Study’, WW 3 (1983), 12-21. • Mattila, T., ‘Naming the Nameless: Gender and Discipleship in Matthew’s Passion Narrative’, in Characterization, ed. D. Rhoads and K. Syreeni, 153-79. • Mays, J. L., ‘Prayer and Christology: Psalm 22 as Perspective on the Passion’, TToday 42 (1985), 322-31. • McCafferey, U. P., ‘Psalm Quotations in the Passion Narratives of the Gospels’, Neot 14 (1981), 73-89. • McGinn, S. E., ‘“Not Counting [the] Women …”: A Feminist Reading of Matthew 26–28’, SBLSP 34 (1995), 16876. • Meynet, R., Jésus passe: Testament, jugement, exécution et résurrection du Seigneur Jésus dans les évangiles synoptiques (Rhétorique biblique 3. Rome: Editrice Ponti ca Università Gregoriana, 1999). • Minear, P. S., ‘e Messiah Forsaken … Why?’ HBT 17 (1995), 62-83. • Moberly, W., ‘Proclaiming Christ Cruci ed: Some Re ections on the Use and Abuse of the Gospels’, Anvil 5 (1988), 31-52. • Moo, D. J., e Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives (Sheffield: Almond, 1983). • Myllykoski, M., Die letzten Tage Jesu: Markus und Johannes, ihre Traditionen und die historische Frage 1 (Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemia Toimituksian B. 256. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemia, 1991). • Navone, J. and Cooper, T., e Story of the Passion (Rome: Ponti ca Università Gregoriana, 1986). • Nickelsburg, G. W. E., ‘e Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative’, HTR 73 (1980), 153-84. • Nodet, É., Le Fils de Dieu: Procès de Jésus et évangile (Josèphe et son temps 4. Paris: Cerf, 2002). • Pilch, J. J., ‘Death with Honor:

e Mediterranean Style Death of Jesus in Mark’, BTB 25 (1995), 65-70. • Powell, M. A., ‘e Plot to Kill Jesus from ree Different Perspectives: Point of View in Matthew’, SBLSP 29 (1990), 603-13. • Radl, W., ‘Der Tod Jesu in der Darstellung der Evangelien’, TGl 72 (1982), 432-46. • Ricoeur, P., ‘Le récit interpretatif: Exégèse et éologie dans le récits de la Passion’, RSR 73 (1985), 17-38. • Ritt, H., ‘Wer war schuld am Jesu Tod? Zeitgeschichte, Recht und theologische Deutung’, BZ 31 (1987), 165-75. • Rivken, E., What Crucified Jesus? e Political Execution of a Charismatic (London: SCM, 1986). • Roy, L., ‘e Passion of Jesus: A Test Case for Providence’, NB 79 (1998), 512-23. • Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism, 294-318. • Schenk, W., ‘Der derzeitige Stand der Auslegung der Passionsgeschichte’, EvErz 36 (1984), 527-43. • Soards, M. L., ‘Oral Tradition before, in, and outside the Canonical Passion Narratives’, in Oral Gospel, ed. H. Wansbrough, 334-50. • Soards, M. L., ‘e Question of a Pre-Markan Passion Narrative’, Biblebhashyam 11 (1985), 144-69. • Stadelmann, L. I. J., ‘e Passion Narrative in the Synoptics as Structured on Ps 22(21)’, PerTeo 15 (1983), 193-221. • Stuhlmacher, P., Was geschah auf Golgotha? Zur Heilsbedeutung von Kreuz, Tod und Auferweckung Jesu (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1998). • eissen, G., Gospels in Context, 166-99. • urston, B. B., Wait Here and Watch: A Commentary on the Passion according to Saint Matthew (St Louis: CBP, 1989). • Trocmé, É., e Passion as Liturgy: A Study in the Origin of the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (London: SCM, 1983). • Watson, A., e Trial of Jesus (Athens: University of Georgia, 1995). • Watson, F., ‘Why Was Jesus Cruci ed?’  88 (1985), 105-12. • White, J. L., ‘e Way of the Cross: Was ere a Pre-Markan Passion Narrative?’ Forum 3.2 (1987), 3549. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘From Noble Death to Cruci ed Messiah’, NTS 40 (1984), 481-503. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘e Composition of the Passion Narrative in Mark’, Sewanee eological Review 36 (1992), 57-77. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘e Genre of the Passion Narrative’, ST 47 (1993), 3-28. • Zehrer, F., Das Leiden Christi nach den vier Evangelien: Die wichtigsten Passionstexte und ihre hauptsachlichen Probleme (Vienna: Mayer, 1980). For the Matthean Passion Narrative

Broer, I., ‘Bemerkungen zur Redaktion der Passionsgeschichte durch Matthäus’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 25-46. • Buck, E., ‘Anti-Judaic Sentiments in the Passion Narrative according to Matthew’, in Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, Vol. 1: Paul and the Gospels, ed. P. Richardson (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University, 1986), 165-80. • Fornberg, T., ‘Deicide and Genocide: Matthew, the Death of Jesus, and Auschwitz’, SEÅ 61 (1996), 97-104. • Heil, J. P., e Death and Resurrection of Jesus: A NarrativeCritical Reading of Matthew 26–28 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). • Houlden, J. L., Backwards into Light: e Passion and Resurrection of Jesus according to Matthew and Mark (London: SCM, 1987). • Lodge, J. G., ‘Matthew’s Passion-Resurrection Narrative’, ChicStud 25 (1986), 3-20. • Martin, F., ‘Mourir: Matthieu 26–27’, SémiotBib 53 (1989), 18-47. • Martin, F. and Panier, L., ‘Dévoilement du péché et salut dans le récit de la passion selon Saint Matthieu’, LumVie 36 (1987), 72-88. • Matera, F. J., ‘e Passion according to Matthew, Part Two: Jesus Suffers the Passion, 27:1-66’, Priests and People 1 (1987), 13-17. • Matera, F. J., ‘e Passion according to Matthew, Part One: Jesus Unleashes the Passion, 26:1-75’, ClerRev 62 (1987), 93-97. • Overman, J. A., ‘Heroes and Villains in Palestinian Lore: Matthew’s Use of Traditional Polemic in the Passion Narrative’, SBLSP 29 (1990), 592602. • Rieckert, P. K., ‘e Narrative Coherence in Matthew 26–28’, Neot 16 (1982), 53-74. • Schmidt, D. D., ‘e Septuagintal In uence in Shaping the Passion Narratives: With Special Attention to Matthew’, Forum 1.1 (1998), 95-118. • Senior, D., ‘e Lure of the Formula Quotations: Re-assessing Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament with the Passion Narrative as Test Case’, in Scriptures, ed. C. M. Tuckett, 89-115. • Senior, D., ‘e Death of Jesus and the Birth of a New World: Matthew’s eology of History in the Passion Narrative’, CurTM 19 (1992), 416-23. • Senior, D., ‘e Gospel of Matthew and the Passion of Jesus: eological and Pastoral Perspectives’, WW 18 (1998), 372-79. • Senior, D., ‘Matthew’s Special Material in the Passion Story: Implications for the Evangelist’s Redactional Technique and eological Perspective’, ETL 63 (1987), 272-94. • Senior, D., ‘Matthew’s Story of the Passion: eological and Pastoral Perspectives’, ChicStud 40 (2001), 275-85. • Senior, D. and Stuhlmueller, C., e Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1985). • Smith, R., ‘Celebrating Easter in the Matthean Mode’, CurTM 11 (1984), 79-82.

For the Significance of the Death of Jesus Berger, K., Wozu ist Jesus am Kreuz gestorben? (Stuttgart: Quell, 1998). • Cousin, H., ‘Dieu a-t-il sacri é son ls Jésus?’ LumVie 29 (1980), 55-67. • Daly, R. J., ‘e Eucharist and Redemption: e Last Supper and Jesus’ Understanding of His Death’, BTB 11 (1981), 21-27. • Galvin, J. P., ‘Jesus’ Approach to Death: An Examination of Some Recent Studies’, TS 41 (1980), 713-44. • Hengel, M., Atonement, 65-75. • Hengel, M., ‘Der stellvertretende Sühnetod Jesu: Ein Beitrag zur Entstehung des urchristlichen Kerygmas’, IKZCom 9 (1980), 1-25, 135-47. • Henten, J. W. van, ed., Die Entstehung der Jüdische Martyrologie (SPB 38. Leiden: Brill, 1989). • Léon-Dufour, X., ‘How Did Jesus See His Death?’ TD 29 (1981), 57-60. • Schürmann, H., ‘Jesu Todesverständnis im Verstehenshorizont seiner Umwelt’, TGl 70 (1980), 141-60. • Schürmann, H., ‘Jesu ureigenes Todesverständnis: Bemerkungen zur “implizierten Soteriologie” Jesu’, in Begegnung mit dem Wort, ed. J. Zmijewski and E. Nellessen (BBB 53. Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1980), 272-309. • Schwager, R., ‘Christ’s Death and the Prophetic Critique of Sacri ce’, Semeia 33 (1985), 109-23. • Yarbro Collins, A., ‘Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus’, JR 78 (1998), 175-96. For Passion Dating Questions Beckwith, R. T., ‘Cautionary Notes on the Use of Calendars and Astronomy to Determine the Chronology of the Passion’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 183-205. • Casey, M., ‘e Date of the Passover Sacri ces and Mark 14:12’, TynB 48 (1997), 245-47. • Chilton, B. D., Feast of Meanings, 46-74. • Fitzmyer, J. A., e Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools for Study (SBLRBS 8. Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), 180-86. • Hoehner, H. W., ‘Jesus’ Last Supper’, in Essays. FS J. D. Pentecost, ed. S. D. Toussaint and C. H. Dyer (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 63-74. • Humphreys, C. J. and Waddington, W. G., ‘Dating the Cruci xion’, Nature 306 (1983), 743-46. • Humphreys, C. J. and Waddington, W. G., ‘Astronomy and the Date of the Cruci xion’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 165-81. • Kokkinos, N., ‘Cruci xion in A.D. 36: e Keystone for Dating the Birth of Jesus’, in Chronos, ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi, 133-63. • Martin, E. L., e Year of Christ’s Crucifixion (Foundation for Biblical Research

Exposition. Pasadena, CA: e Foundation for Biblical Research, 1983). • Ruckstuhl, E., Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), 101-84. • Smith, B. D., ‘e Chronology of the Last Supper’, WTJ 53 (1991), 29-45. For 26:1-2 Geist, H., Menschensohn, 246-50. • Lücking, S., Mimesis der Verachteten: Eine Studie zur Erzählweise von Mk 14,1-11 (SBS 152. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1993). • Schwarz, G., Judas, 141-48. • Wambacq, B. N., ‘PesaḥMaṣṣôt’, Bib 62 (1981), 499-518.

e new section embraces chaps. 26–27, but material from at least 27:51 onwards already prepares well for the transition at 28:1 to resurrection morning, which means that chap. 28 is bound tightly with the Passion Narrative.1 Fiedler has more or less discerned the structure Matthew has used for chaps. 26–27: he divides it into six major subsections and discerns in each case a three-part arrangement, mostly in terms of material before and aer framing a central item, but in the rst and last subsections the framing material dividing chiastically into a double frame).2 e structure may be represented like this. Part 1: Anointing in Bethany (26:6-13) provided with a double frame, rst with the conspiracy to do away with Jesus (vv. 3-5) and its parallel in Judas’s offer to make this possible (vv. 14-16), and then with the announcement of the coming Passover and Passion (vv. 1-2) and its parallel in the preparations for Passover (vv. 17-19); Part 2: Last Supper (vv. 26-29[30]), framed by the announcement of the betrayal (vv. 20-25) and its parallel in the announcement of the coming denial (vv. [30]31-35); Part 3: Jesus and the disciples in Gethsemane, which Matthew has divided into three sections each beginning with τότε (‘then’), thus providing framing material (vv. 36-37, 45-46) around the three sessions of Jesus’ private prayer (vv.

38-44);3 Part 4: Jesus before the Council (vv. 57-68; 27:1-2), framed by the betrayal (26:47-56) and its parallel in the denial (vv. 69-75);4 Part 5: Jesus before Pilate (27:11-26), framed by the accounts of the fate of the betrayer (vv. 3-10) and of the abuse by the soldiers (27:27-31);5 Part 6: Jesus’ death on the cross (vv. 45-53), provided, as in Part 1, with a double frame, rst with the ridicule of Jesus by three named categories of people (vv. 39-44) and its parallel in ‘affirmation’ of Jesus by three named categories of people (vv. 5461), and then with the cruci xion of Jesus by the soldiers (vv. 32-38) and its parallel in the guard of soldiers securing the tomb (vv. 6266).6 A few of these items have natural subdivisions; where appropriate, I will divide them for discussion below. e role of Mt. 26:1-2 is to coordinate Passover and the Passion. Aer the special material of Mt. 25, Matthew now returns to the Markan sequence. For Mt. 26:1-2 there is nothing to indicate that Matthew has anything more than Mk. 14:1. ough there is some modest evidence for the use of other sources, clearly Matthew is almost entirely dependent on the Markan account for his Passion Narrative. But behind the Markan account lies a primitive Passion account (its scope is difficult to be sure about), and Luke’s Passion account provides evidence for a second primitive Passion account which in turn has some links to a third primitive Passion account that is likely to lie behind the account in John. ese three primitive Passion accounts are not entirely independent of each other, but they do provide a measure of multiple attestation for the main lines of the Passion events. ough the matter needs to be considered item by item, the main lines are stable among the different strands of tradition, and a whole emerges that has a great deal more historical credibility than much of the more recent sceptical scholarship on the Passion is prepared to allow (but even the Jesus Seminar allows that Jesus was cruci ed in Jerusalem, indeed at Golgotha, under Pontius Pilate and that the highest Jewish authorities were involved7).8 e overall shape of

the Passion Narrative seems to show marks of in uence from patterns associated with stories in Jewish literature of persecution and vindication.9

26:1 Here, as with all ve of the major discourses of Jesus, Matthew marks the end with the words καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (‘it so happened that when Jesus had nished’).10 For the rst and the fourth discourses what is nished is ‘these words’, and this language is taken up again here, but for this last of the sets ‘all’ is added, giving ‘all these words’.11 As in the other cases, the formulaic conclusion acts as a transition to the next section. Jesus has been in private conversation with the disciples since 24:3. e fresh introduction marks a new topic, not a new setting. 26:2 For the rst clause here Matthew turns into direct speech what in Mk. 14:1 was an editorial comment.12 In the more expansive telling which char-acterises the Passion Narrative he makes greater use of direct speech as a storytelling technique.13 Up to this point the reader has not been aware of the proximity of Passover. In the Matthean telling Jesus and his band have gone to Jerusalem for the Passion; that they are also making the Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem becomes visible only now. e correlation of Passover and the Passion will have a sustained importance through the Passion Narrative. Corresponding to what Jesus says to his disciples here about the proximity of Passover is what the disciples will say to Jesus in 26:17 about making preparation for the Passover. Also, ‘my time is near’ in v. 18 will pick up on the juxtaposition here of Passover and the Passion. Passover is the feast prepared for by the sacri cial slaughter of lambs in the late aernoon of 14 Nisan and celebrated throughout Jerusalem in family or wider groupings aer sunset (and so by Jewish reckoning on 15 Nisan). An elaborate meal was built around the eating of the cooked lamb. Since the customs associated with

Passover went through various developments, in many respects we cannot be con dent about its state of development already in the lifetime of Jesus. For more discussion of this see the comments at 26:26-29. All Jews agreed that Passover should fall on 14/15 Nisan, but they did not fully agree about which day this was. e official calendar was based on a year of 354 days, which represented twelve lunar months. But a solar calendar of 364 days appears to have been in earlier use and was maintained by some sectarian groups, including the people at Qumran.14 ere is, however, no evidence that Passover according to this sectarian calendar was practised in Jerusalem in Jesus’ time.15 Appeal to the sectarian calendar is, nonetheless, one strategy adopted to reconcile the Last Supper as a Passover meal in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., Mt. 26:17-29) with the dying of Jesus while the Passover lambs are being sacri ced in John (Jn. 19:14, 31-37). A better approach might be to recognise that both John and the Synoptics are concerned to portray the connection between the death of Jesus and the Passover redemption. Mark has everything from the Passover meal to Jesus’ burial on 15 Nisan, Passover day (and Matthew keeps this feature); John uses various techniques to correlate the dying of Jesus with that of the lambs. ough the Johannine chronology has become more popular in recent years, the solution I continue to favour accepts the historicity of the Synoptic Passover Last Supper but locates Passover that year earlier in the week than the ursday evening to Friday early evening suggested by Mark. If this is right, then, without a de nite day of the week for Passover, we have less rm data than sometimes thought for identifying the year of these events. Astronomical calculations can identify within a day or so the day on which 15 Nisan will have fallen (human observation might on occasion be a

day ahead or behind). In the relevant period, Passover is very likely to have been too late in the week in A.D. 30 and 33 and in an attractive position earlier in the week in A.D. 28 and 32, but other years in the period remain possible.16 Since the two days spoken of in Mt. 26:2 are not clearly identi ed in the following text, they could be inclusive or exclusive of the day of the Passover feast, but they are probably made up of the day beginning on the evening of the day of the pronouncement in v. 2 (when the anointing takes place) and the day that begins with the Passover meal itself. Once Jesus has reached Jerusalem, Matthew moves the story forward quickly by representing on consecutive days the disruption of temple worship, the day of teaching in the temple (ending with the eschatological discourse to the disciples), the day of preparation (anointing and making arrangements for the Passover meal), and the day of the Passion. Beyond these will come a day of sabbath rest while Jesus is in the grave and the day of resurrection. With the need for a journey to Galilee, a gap is then opened between resurrection day and the nal commissioning episode which takes place on a mountain in Galilee. For the wording of the brief Passion prediction here (which has no parallel in Mark) Matthew draws on the language of the most recent of the Passion predictions (20:17-19). But his abbreviated form focusses only on the beginning and ending of the Passion process: the process will begin with Jesus’ handing over by Judas and will end with Jesus’ execution at the hands of the Roman justice system. ough Matthew is only renewing the theme from earlier Passion predictions, his linking of the Son of Man with handing over and cruci xion comes quite jarringly aer the exalted role anticipated for the Son of Man in chaps. 24–25. But this only represents in an extreme form the cognitive dissonance with which

Matthew wants to strike his readers from the very rst use of ‘Son of Man’ in 8:20. 2. Conspiracy in the High Priest’s Palace (26:3-5) the chief priests aand the elders bof the peopleb gathered together in the courtyard [of the palace] of the high priest, who was called cCaiaphas, 4and they conferred together in order to seize dand killd Jesus by treachery. 5ey said, ‘Not during the festival, in case a riot happens among the people’. 3en

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e leadership set is lled out with και οι γραμματεις (‘and the scribes’) in many of the later Greek MSS and in it syp, h. In W the expansion is with και οι ϕαρισαιοι (‘and the Pharisees’). b-b. Missing from B*. c. e name lacks the second α (‘a’) in D etc. it vgcl sa mae. d-d. Missing from B* etc. Is this in recognition that it is the Romans who must kill Jesus? Bibliography See at Mt. 26:1-2.

On the structure of chaps. 26–27 see the comments at 26:1-2. In the symmetrical double bracketing of the anointing account in vv. 6-13, Judas’s agreement with the chief priests in vv. 14-16 to hand Jesus over to them will correspond to the present moment of conspiracy. e convenience of Judas’s offer will carry the Jewish leadership past their desire to avoid a nal showdown during the Passover festival.

Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his equivalent to Mk. 14:1b-2. Matthew provides here an occasion and a setting for material that lacks these in Mk. 14:1b-2, but this is not likely to be simple embellishment since John 11:47-53 reports a similar gathering, with a named role for Caiaphas. A shared tradition is likely.

26:3 For Mark’s ‘the chief priests and the scribes’ Matthew substitutes ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’ (the pattern of Matthew’s references to groupings of Jerusalem leaders is discussed at 21:23, which already has this pairing; the leaders mentioned by Matthew in the core Passion account are almost always the chief priests and elders17). Matthew provides an occasion and a setting for material that lacks these in Mk. 14:1b-2. e place of gathering is the αὐλή of the chief priest. An αὐλή is an enclosure and thus regularly a courtyard, but the word can derivatively mean a ‘palace’ or a ‘house’ or a ‘court of a temple’. αὐλή clearly refers to the courtyard of the high priest’s palace in 26:58, 69. e right translation for αὐλή in v. 3 is tied up in turn with the question of where the ‘trial’ before Caiaphas is seen as taking place. A good deal of the public life of great houses will have taken place in their enclosed courtyards rather than indoors, and this is probably the case for the hearings in the high priest’s palace. e αὐλή is probably to be thought of as the meeting place of the palace. So ‘courtyard’ is likely to be the right translation in v. 3 as well. Caiaphas was high priest for approximately the period A.D. 1836. ough the office of high priest had earlier been hereditary and for life, the Romans had taken control of the right of appointment. Pilate’s predecessor had initially repeatedly deposed high priests aer a short time in office, but once he had appointed Caiaphas, as far as our sources allow us to determine, he made no further change, and Pilate seems to have le Caiaphas in office for the

whole of his own time as governor: Caiaphas knew how to get along with the Roman authorities.18 26:4 e provision of occasion and setting encourages a change of verb from Mark’s ἐζήτουν πῶς (‘they were seeking how’); Matthew chooses the weighty but colourless συνεβουλεύσαντο ἵνα (‘they conferred together in order to’). Perhaps he thinks of this in connection with the previous verb συνήχθησαν (‘they gathered together’) and treats the two verbs together as creating an allusion to Ps. 31:13 (LXX 30:14), one of the classic descriptions of the affliction of the righteous person.19 Matthew freshly mentions Jesus’ name to reinforce the status of Mt. 26:3-5 as a separate unit (Mark has ‘him’). Matthew gives equal weight to the two verbs ‘seize’ and ‘kill’ where Mark had subordinated the former; Matthew’s formulation accommodates better the reality that execution was in the hands of Roman, not Jewish, authorities (see at 26:57-68), but compression is still involved. e desire to arrest Jesus was anticipated already at 21:46; there the popular standing of Jesus was identi ed as the barrier to action against him. δόλος means ‘treachery’ or ‘deceit’.20 Since the plan in v. 5 is to keep the matter as much as possible out of view of the people, we should probably locate the deception in what is being plotted in the intention to make use of half-truths and tendentiously presented evidence to establish Jesus’ criminality. e account in 26:57-68 will make clear, however, that no actual coordinated fabrication of evidence plays any role in the Sanhedrin’s deliberations. It may be, alternatively, that the ‘deceit’ involved is precisely keeping the matter away from the public: it is the public who are to be deceived by action taken behind their backs. e Jewish leadership may have believed sincerely enough that Jesus was bad news for the Jewish people, but our text insists that only by acting with subterfuge were they going to be able to ‘eliminate’ their problem.

26:5 ough he makes a number of verbal changes, Matthew follows Mark closely here.21 With the juxtaposition of vv. 2 and 5 Matthew provides a nice irony: the prime initiators in the action know less well than Jesus what is actually going to happen — ‘not during the festival’ will become ‘precisely during the festival’. e prospect of a riot among the people makes good sense against the background of the conviction of the people in 21:46 that Jesus is a prophet. As it will turn out, a riot among the people will threaten, but it will be in the face of potential inaction against Jesus on the part of Pilate (27:24) and not in the face of action against Jesus by the Jewish leaders. Matthew has accentuated the people’s affirmation of Jesus, but he will also accentuate what will ultimately be the people’s clamour for his execution. 3. Jesus Anointed by a Woman in Bethany (26:6-13) 6[Now]

when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 7a woman came to him; she had an alabaster flask of perfume, of great worth, and she poured it out on his head as he reclined [at dinner]. 8When the disciples saw [this], they became angry and said, ‘Why this loss? 9For thisa could have been sold for a lot and [the money] given to the poor.’ 10 Knowing [what they were talking about], Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you bothering the woman? She has done me a good deed. 11For you always have the poor with you; you do not always have me. 12For this [woman], in putting this perfume on my body, did [what she did] to prepare me for burial. 13Amen, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what this [woman] did will also be told, as her memorial.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. το μυρον (‘perfume’) is added in K Γ f13 33 579 700 1241 1424 etc. c q.

Bibliography Bond, L. S., ‘e Rhetoric of Gender and the Rhetoric of Folly: e Incompatibility of Two Feminist Approaches’, Encounter 61 (2000), 297-319. • Breytenbach, C., ‘ΜΝΗΜΟΝΕΥΕΙΝ: Das “siche-erinnern” in der urchristlichen Überlieferung die Bethanien-episode (Mk 14,3-9/Jn 12,1-9) als Beispiel’, in John, ed. A. Denaux, 548-57. • Coakley, J. T., ‘e Anointing at Bethany and the Priority of John’, JBL 107 (1988), 241-65. • Dauer, A., Johannes und Lukas: Untersuchungen zu den johanneisch-lukanischen Parallel-Perikopen Joh 4,46-54/Lk 7,1-10 — Joh 12,1-8/Lk 7,36-50; 10:38-42 — Joh 20,19-29/Lk 24,36-48 (FB 50. Würzburg: Echter, 1984), 126-206. • Delorme, J., ‘Parole, Évangile et mèmoire’, in La mèmoire et le temps. FS, P. Bonnard, ed. D. Marguerat and J. Zumstein (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1991), 113-25. • März, C.-P., ‘Zur traditions-geschichte von Mk 14,3-9 und Parallelen’, SNTU 6-7 (1981-82), 89-112. • Mack, B. L., ‘e Anointing of Jesus: Elaboration within a Chreia’, in Patterns, B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, 85-106. • Maunder, C. J., ‘A Sitz im Leben for Mark 14.9’, ExpTim 99 (1987), 78-80. • Riggans, W., ‘Jesus and the Scriptures: Two Short Notes’, emelios 16 (1991), 15-16. • Schedl, C., ‘Die Salbung Jesu in Betanien: Zur Kompositionskunst von Mk 14,3-9 und Mt 26,6-13’, BLit 54 (1981), 151-62. • Schüssler Fiorenza, E., In Memory of Her: A Feminist eological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983). • iemann, R. F., ‘e Unnamed Woman at Bethany’, TToday 44 (1987), 17988. • urston, A., Knowing Her Place, 43-51. • Wagner, G., ‘L’onction de Béthanie: Essai sur la genèse du récit de Marc 14/3-9 et sa reprise par Matthieu, Luc et Jean’, ETR 72 (1997), 437-46. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 124-37, 257-83. See further at Mt. 26:1-2.

Matthew’s narrative investment in the anointing account is evident from its central place in the rst set of linked items (it is framed rst by 26:3-5 and vv. 14-16 and then by vv. 1-2 and vv. 17-19). On the structure of chaps. 26–27 see further the discussion at 26:1-2. e

woman’s behaviour is a burial anointing precisely because she honours Jesus in the context of his immediately impending Passion. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 14:3-9. ough there are a few material similarities between Mt. 26:6-13 and Jn. 12:1-18 (both use ἀνακεῖσθαι rather than Mark’s κατακεῖσθαι for ‘recline at table’; in both the protest is not anonymous but linked with the disciples/a disciple; and in both ‘and when you want to, you can do good to them’ is missing), Matthew is unlikely to have any source beyond Mk. 14:3-9. ere is a related anointing in Lk. 7:36-50, and, as noted below, there seems to have been some interchange of motifs between these accounts of similar events. Once one accepts that Jesus did anticipate his own death (see at Mt. 16:21-23), a likelihood that becomes increasingly certain the nearer his death comes, there is no real barrier to the fundamental historicity of the account. Since the nal verse provides the dramatic climax of the account, some version of it (notably including the idea of the woman’s act being remembered) is likely to have been an original feature of the account, but the original seems to have been heavily overwritten in the form we now have of this verse. Mk. 14:8 is oen suspected of being a later addition, but once one recognises the interlocking nature of the three basic points Jesus makes in vv. 6-8 (see below), it becomes clear that there is no completion without v. 8.

26:6 Matthew follows the Markan language closely. e only difference of any signi cance is γενομένου in place of ὄντος in the opening genitive absolute expression.22 e difference can hardly be represented in translation, but Matthew’s aorist participle is probably intended to indicate that, aer the pattern of 21:17, Jesus was where he was because he had come back for the night to Bethany aer the day’s events as reported in 21:18–26:2. Jesus and his band may have been staying in Simon’s house, but if Matthew had wanted to press this point he would have introduced Simon’s name in 21:17. Matthew is content to have Jesus and his disciples at dinner in Simon’s house.

e naming of Simon is striking, particularly since the woman who plays the key role remains anonymous. e use of names is very restricted in Matthew,23 as in the Gospel material more broadly.24 at Simon should be identi ed as ‘Simon the leper’ is yet more striking and cries out to be linked in some way with 8:1-4 and 11:5. It is most natural to think in terms of Simon as someone whose identity is expected to be known in the Christian folk memory of the Gospel readership, and who is remembered as one cured of leprosy by Jesus and in relation to whom the epithet ‘the leper’ continued to be used as a means of maintaining in visibility the fact of his healing by Jesus. It seems likely that Jesus had stronger links with Bethany than the structure of the Synoptic Gospels can allow to become visible. An (earlier) cure of Simon from leprosy can be alluded to, but no account of it can be tted into the Gospel structure.25 26:7 Matthew abbreviated considerably, but otherwise he stays fairly close to Mark.26 But where Mark has ‘a woman came’, Matthew takes the opportunity to record her approach with his favoured ‘came to him [Jesus]’. We are probably to imagine the woman as not part of the dinner party and not even part of the household. Jn. 12:1-8 is obviously an account of the same event, but there the dinner party is in the home of Lazarus, not of Simon, and the anointing woman is no anonymous gure, but Mary, Lazarus’s brother. It is hard to be sure what to make of this, but when one compares the anointings of Jn. 12:1-8 and Lk. 7:36-50 it appears that the degree of similarity has led to a transfer of motifs from the one episode to the other.27 In an analogous manner, it seems possible that knowledge of a special relationship between Mary and Jesus (cf. Lk. 10:39, 42) has been eshed out in Jn. 12:1-8 with an account borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, from that of an anonymous woman.28

is woman’s coming is like no other. Accounts of people spontaneously doing something for Jesus are rare. Outside the present episode, unless we count the provision in 21:7-8 of garments and branches for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, Matthew has only Peter’s restored mother-in-law serving Jesus in 8:15, the disciples’ initiative in preparing the Passover for Jesus in 26:17-19, and the late note in 27:55 of the many women who had provided for Jesus (but this may or may not be spontaneous).29 Beyond these, in 17:27 Jesus sends Peter shing, in 21:1-7 he sends two disciples to fetch his mounts, and in 26:38 he invites three of the Twelve to stay awake with him while he prays, but the three fail him in this. ἀλάβαστρον here means a ask carved from the expensive so alabaster which was believed to help preserve ointments and perfumes.30 μύρον is a general word for perfume, but in the LXX it can mean perfumed oil. A distinctive blend was reserved for sacred purposes (Ex. 30:25). Perhaps the same was true for the anointing of kings, but the OT does not mention it. e anointing of Aaron as high priest, with the fragrant spiced oil owing down over his head and through his beard, becomes in Ps. 133:2 an image of blessing owing from God.31 Having one’s head anointed (with oil) is more broadly an image of blessing in Ps. 23:5, while Lk. 7:46 suggests that one might do this for an honoured guest.32 e use of perfumes/perfumed oils characterised the life of the rich (Am. 6:6). Like the drinking of wine, the use of perfume or perfumed oils marked times of celebration (Pr. 27:9 LXX; Wis. 2:7-9). Perfume/perfumed oil added seductive charm to both men and women (Ct. 1:3; Jdt. 10:3). Burial could involve placing perfumes around the body (2 Ch. 16:14), and in Mk. 16:1; Lk. 23:56; 24:1 the women intend to anoint the already entombed body of Jesus with spices/perfumes.33

e anonymous woman pours the precious contents of her alabaster jar over Jesus’ head as he reclines at table (the verb ἀνακεῖσθαι is used of reclining on couches or cushions at festive meals). While the woman clearly intends to honour Jesus in a very extravagant manner, it is likely that, given this varied background material, nothing more precise can be said about her intention.34 Indeed, it is likely that her intention has no greater precision than to honour Jesus in a very extravagant manner. Jesus interprets her action rather than the speci cs of her intention.35 Possibly a measure of embarrassment at the intimate contact the woman makes with Jesus (and which Jesus does not repudiate) is lurking just beneath the surface of the account.36 26:8 Matthean abbreviation continues, as well as some expansion,37 but the major change is to attribute the angry protest to the disciples (Mark has τινες [lit. ‘certain ones’]). Despite the omission of Mark’s ‘to themselves’ the protest is made into the air and not to either the woman or Jesus, but we are probably to imagine that the disciples’ unhappiness at what happened, if not its verbal articulation, is clear enough to all present. ἀπώλεια normally means ‘destruction’, but in this sense its use is not well motivated in Matthew’s text. In Mark the dramatic smashing of the alabaster container (presumably by breaking its neck off to be able to rapidly disperse its contents) would t better with ἀπώλεια as ‘destruction’. Perhaps Matthew failed to notice the difficulty his abbreviation caused, or, more likely, he saw no difficulty because his sense of the semantic range of ἀπώλεια had been in uenced by its use in the LXX. e LXX clearly uses ἀπώλεια of what has been lost and not only of what has been destroyed.38 Matthew will, then, have understood ἀπώλεια in relation to the loss of resources focussed on in v. 9.

26:9 Except for ‘a lot’ (πολλοῦ), which replaces Mark’s more precise ‘more than three hundred denarii’, Matthew draws his language from Mk. 14:5, but he leaves out as much as allows for the preservation of the basic sense.39 To sell and give to the poor is what the rich young man of 19:21 was directed to do. e disciples assume that this is what should have happened here. But for Jesus, the priority of the poor was not to be simply equated with the practice of austerity (cf. 11:19, with discussion), and he recognised the validity of other priorities as well (e.g., the party hosted by Jesus in 9:10 to celebrate Matthew’s joining of the disciple band). Jesus will set his glad acceptance of the woman’s extravagant gesture into the very speci c context of his impending Passion. 26:10 Most of Mark’s language survives here, but Matthew makes several changes of some signi cance. Matthew adds an opening γνούς (lit. ‘knowing’). e motif of Jesus’ pre-science is probably implicit in Mark here. Matthew is less comfortable with this motif for knowledge of everyday matters (he downplays it in the nding of the donkeys in 21:2-3 and drops it, if that is what is intended or even if Matthew thinks it might be so taken by a reader, from his account of the preparations for Passover in 26:17-19), but he is totally at home with the motif for Jesus’ capacity to read people’s hearts.40 Matthew makes explicit that Jesus is addressing the disciples with an added ‘to them’. He brings the woman into greater prominence by replacing ‘her’ with ‘the woman’. As Matthew dropped Mark’s ‘they spoke harshly to her’ from v. 9, so he drops Mark’s ‘Let her alone’. Jesus’ ‘Why are you bothering the woman?’ is kept, but it is not well motivated (but see at v. 8). Matthew adds the explanatory γάρ (‘for’) to the nal clause.41 Over against the disciples’ unhappiness, Jesus will explain and

defend the woman’s action with three linked γάρ (‘for’) clauses — the basic pattern of question using τί (‘why’) followed by an explanatory γάρ clause is repeated from vv. 8-9. For Matthew the three γάρ clauses are closely interlinked: the speci c sense in which Jesus considers the woman to have done something good for him is yet to emerge.42 ἔργον καλὸν ἠργάσατο (translated above, ‘she has done a good deed’) is literally ‘she has worked a good work’, with a deliberate play between the cognate noun and the verb.43 Matthew probably intends an echo of the ‘good deeds’ of 5:16 which draw others to glorify God.44 26:11 Matthew drops Mark’s two middle clauses,45 which highlights the antithetical parallelism between the remaining clauses, but otherwise he adopts the Markan wording. ‘You always have the poor with you’ echoes Dt. 15:11. But whereas Dt. 15:11 offers the view as a foundation for the challenge to openhanded generosity to the poor, here instead it provides the foundation for suggesting, at least by implication, that the very pervasivenessof the needs of the poor must mean that on speci c occasions other things must be allowed to take priority over their needs. Why another priority might be appropriate here begins to be suggested by ‘but you do not always have me with you’. Given the recency of Mt. 26:2 (and with v. 12 to come), this is a piece of deliberate understatement and must be taken to mean, ‘I am about to be cruci ed’.46 Given the strongly Passion-oriented context, it is doubtful whether Matthew gives a thought at this point to the ongoing presence of Jesus which is asserted in 18:20; 28:20. It is the opportunity to meet any of Jesus’ purely human needs which is rapidly disappearing. Matthew excludes any thought that religious activity is being given priority here over care of one’s neighbour with the recent presence of 25:31-

46, with its ‘inasmuch as you did it for [even] one of the least of these my brothers or sisters, you did for me’. 26:12 Mark’s rst clause disappears (lit. ‘she did what she had’) — but Matthew rescues ἐποίησεν (‘did’) for the end of the verse — and he signi cantly recasts the rest of the verse, but without major change of sense. e nal clinching γάρ (‘for’), but not the substance of the clause to which it relates, is a Matthean contribution. ‘is [woman], in putting this perfume on my body, did [what she did] to prepare me for burial.’47 e woman’s act turns out to be the only burial anointing that Jesus is to get (Matthew will drop what in Mk. 16:1 is the women’s intention to anoint the already entombed body of Jesus with spices/perfumes). (Matthew rewords the Markan expression that suggested that the burial anointing is taking place ahead of time.) e woman’s good deed turns out to be a timely honouring of Jesus in a manner that ts precisely the needs of the Passion setting. ough there is something ghoulish here, we have in this anointing for burial the one really bright moment between the beginning of chap. 26 and the death of Jesus. Only this woman honours him ttingly as he faces his death. 26:13 Only a modest change of word order, the omission of a linking δέ (‘and/but’), the addition of ‘this’ (τοῦτο) before ‘gospel’, and a preference for ἐν rather than εἰς in ‘in the whole world’ separate the Matthean and Markan wordings. Matthew happily includes ‘Amen, I say to you’ when he wants to make a point emphatically; the Matthean Jesus speaks like this thirty-one times (see at 5:18). ‘Wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world’ strongly echoes 24:14 (see discussion there), refreshing the theme of universal proclamation in preparation for 28:19. μνημόσυνον means ‘memorial’ or ‘reminder’. Closest in the OT to the idea here of a story being told as a memorial is the recording of

important events as a means of keeping them in memory.48 To have one’s memory kept alive for having done something worthwhile was a thing to be valued greatly.49 e Christian community will keep this woman in memory as a person who did something signi cant at a crucial moment.50 Against this background, however, the loss of the name of the woman is yet more striking. What is really being remembered is that this signi cant act was performed in such a timely manner, not that this particular woman performed it. Aer the clari cation of the signi cance of the woman’s act offered in 26:10-12, v. 13 expresses the absolute contrast between Jesus’ and the disciples’ valuation of her act: what for them was the loss of a valuable resource was for him the makings of such a reputation as would gain worldwide currency. 26:13 implies that the report of at least some of the events of Jesus’ life (including his anointing by this unnamed woman) would be closely linked with the proclamation of the gospel. at the report of Jesus’ teaching is to play an important role in connection with the proclamation of the gospel becomes evident in 28:18-20. Matthew undoubtedly offered his own Gospel as a foundation for the proclamation of the gospel.51 At 14:21; 15:38 Matthew has added ‘besides women and children’ to point to the fact that Jesus and his ministry are as signi cant for women and children as for men, and speci c women do appear as bene ciaries of his ministry.52 But the general level of visibility of women in Matthew’s account prior to the Passion Narrative is modest in the extreme. e account of the woman anointing Jesus in this early position in the Passion Narrative signals a change in this respect. From now on women will gain a much higher pro le of visibility. ere will be Pilate’s wife in 27:19, the women witnesses of the cruci xion in vv. 55-56 (who, we learn

rather belatedly, had followed Jesus from Galilee and served him), the two Marys who witness the entombment in v. 61, and the two Marys with their complex and important role at the tomb on Easter morning in 28:1-11. During a period in which the discipleship of the Twelve painfully collapses, the women are consistently presented in a positive light. ey discern what the Twelve fail to discern; they remain loyal when the Twelve desert; they are the real witnesses to Jesus’ death on the cross, the entombment, the angelic testimony to the empty tomb, and the resurrected state of Jesus; they are the rst to see the resurrected Jesus, and they worship him without any doubts when the later worship of the Eleven is quali ed with ‘but some doubted’. How are we to account for the change between pre-Passion and Passion/resurrection materials? ough not as dramatic, the change is somewhat like that between the restricted mission of 10:5-6 and the universal mission that emerges in 24:14; 28:19-20, and which is echoed in the present episode in 26:13. Perhaps Matthew wants to say that the prominent role allowed women in the early church (his church), which sat uncomfortably with the patriarchal norms of the culture, was not so much the result of Jesus’ deliberate violation of those patriarchal norms — though he did relate to women with an openness and acceptance that was uncharacteristic of the culture — as a product of a process of development in which, in relation to the crucial signi cance of the Passion, the women gained their place by being the ones who discerned the truth and remained faithful to it. e authenticity of their discipleship spoke for itself. Against this background it made no sense to constrain them in minor and subordinate roles. It is doubtful whether the Matthean church totally abandoned the patriarchal norms of its environment, but it was probably known for the ‘dangerous’ freedoms and responsibilities it allowed its women.

2′. Judas Arranges to Betray Jesus (26:14-16) one of the Twelve, the one called Judas aIscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, ‘What do you want to give me, and I will hand him over to you?’ ey weighed out thirty bpieces of silverb to him. 16And from that time he was looking for an opportune moment to hand him over. 14en

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e name lacks the initial ι (‘i’) in D Θc vid lat. b. D a b q r1 make good the missing information on the unit involved (see below) by substituting στατηρας (‘staters’ — a stater equals four denarii). In f1 h the reading is στατηρας αργυριου (‘silver staters’). Bibliography Bammel, E., ‘Judas in der jüdischen Überlieferung’, in Judaica et Paulina: Kleine Schrien II (WUNT 91. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997), 24-33. • Bjerg, S., ‘Judas also Stellvertreter des Satans’, EvT 52 (1992), 42-55. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 102-16. • Fenske, W. with Martin, B., Brauchte Gott den Verräter? Die Gestalt des Judas in eologie, Unterricht und Gottesdienst (Dienst und Wort 85. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000). • Hughes, K. T., ‘Framing Judas’, Semeia 54 (1991), 223-38. • Klassen, W., Judas. • Klassen, W., ‘e Authenticity of Judas’ Participation in the Arrest of Jesus’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 389-410. • Klauck, H.-J., ‘Judas der “Verräter?” Eine exegetische und wirkungsgeschichtliche Studie’, ANRW 2.26.1 (1992), 717-40. • Klauck, H.-J., Judas — Ein Jünger des Herrn (QD 111. Freiburg: Herder, 1987). • Luke, K., ‘e irty Pieces of Silver’, ITS 31 (1994), 156-58. • Maccoby, H., Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil (London: Peter Halban, 1992). • Neirynck, F., ‘ΑΠΟ ΤΟΤΕ ΗΡΞΑΤΟ and the Structure of Matthew’, ETL 64 (1988), 21-59. • Roquefort, D., ‘Judas: Une gure de la perversion’, ETR 58 (1983), 501-13. • Schwarz, G., Judas. • Stein-Schneider, H., ‘A la recherche

du Judas historique: Une enquête exégètique à la lumière des textes de l’Ancien Testament et des Logia’, ETR 60 (1985), 403-29. • Vogler, W., Judas Iskarioth: Untersuchungung zu Tradition und Redaktion von Textes des Neuen Testaments und ausserkanonischer Schrien (eologische Arbeiten 42. Berlin: Evangelische, 1983). • Wagner, H., ed., Judas Iskariot: Menschliches oder heilsgeschichtliches Drama? (Frankfurt: Knecht, 1985). See further at Mt. 26:1-2.

26:14-16 corresponds to vv. 3-5 in the frame set around the anointing of vv. 6-13. On the structure of chaps. 26–27 see the discussion at 26:1-2. Judas’s offer to betray Jesus will make possible the rapid achievement of the goals of the plot against Jesus hatched in vv. 3-5. Matthew continues the Markan sequence. ere is no evidence of a source beyond Mk. 14:10-11, except for Judas’s words in Mt. 26:15, which are inspired by Matthew’s source for 27:3-10. e general historicity of the Judas material is not to be doubted. e various attempts at rehabilitating Judas must be judged exercises in uncontrolled speculation. e Gospel writers may not have known why Judas betrayed Jesus, but they knew that he did.53

26:14 ‘One of the Twelve’, ‘Judas Iscariot’ (but with a declinable form, as in 10:4, in place of Mark’s indeclinable), and ‘to the chief priests’ are Mark’s words; otherwise Matthew recasts. e opening τότε (‘then’) matches that beginning v. 3, providing an extra small element of correspondence for the items parallelled by Matthew. τότε is, however, such a exible word that its use tells us little about when Matthew wants us to picture the action here to be happening. e most natural timing would be the following morning, but a late-night contact would also be possible. Matthew’s last reference to ‘the Twelve’ has been in 20:17, in connection with the Passion prediction in v. 18. He probably intends this Passion prediction to the Twelve to be called to mind.54

Matthew may well bring ‘one of the Twelve’ forward from its Markan position to provide a link with the role of the disciples in the preceding anointing: it is what happens in the anointing that precipitates the present action of Judas.55 But this is not to say that Matthew thinks we can understand Judas’s action on the basis of his reaction to the anointing. ‘e many attempts to identify the nature of Judas’ motivation in defecting from the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples are, for lack of evidence, no more than imaginative exercises’.56 Introducing Judas as ‘the one called Judas Iscariot’ serves to remind the reader that Judas was introduced in 10:4 as ‘Judas Iscariot, who indeed handed him over’.57 On the name Iscariot see there. e conspiring group in 26:3 has been ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’; here only the chief priests are mentioned (Judas does not need to see all the conspirators). 26:15 e language here is almost entirely Matthean; only a use of παραδιδόναι (‘hand over’) is in common with Mark.58 Matthew introduces direct speech, as he did in vv. 1-2. ‘What do you want to give me?’ is an oriental euphemism expressing somewhat delicately the demand for money. Judas’s failure to mention Jesus’ name encourages us to think of vv. 14-16 as almost a continuation of the scene in vv. 3-5. Jesus was not hard to nd during the day: he taught openly in the temple. It is difficult to tell how hard he would have been to nd at night. Possibly quite hard, if he wanted to make it hard, given the general chaos created by the packed-in pilgrim crowds, who would largely have been strangers to one another. But as it turns out, the value of the betrayer consisted in his capacity to identify Jesus’ location to the authorities at a time when he was with the disciples. In this way the actual arrest could be kept from the public gaze and, though the public would nd out soon enough, the particular ashpoint situation created by the

move to take Jesus into custody avoided. With this arrangement, the authorities could hope that, with Jesus safely separated from his public, the public would accept a fait accompli. At Mt. 21:5 Matthew linked Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to the arrival of a royal gure in Zc. 9:9. Here again Zechariah proves useful, as οἱ δὲ ἔστησαν αὐτῷ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια (‘they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him’) echoes the language of 11:12.59 Matthew will come back to this part of Zechariah in Mt. 27:3-10 (see there). He will draw on Zc. 13:7 for Mt. 26:31, and possibly on Zc. 13:8-9 for Mt. 26:32. All of the Zechariah materials in the Passion Narrative relate to the shepherd imagery. ough the thought development in Zc. 11–12 is not easy to follow, the material used from Zc. 11 and 12 is about the failure of the shepherding process among God’s people, and God’s subsequent judgment. In Zc. 11:4-14 the prophet is called on to provide by his own actions a prophetic image of the process that is going on. He becomes a literal shepherd of sheep and acts in ways that image both the failure of the leaders of God’s people and God’s intention, as divine shepherd, to abandon his ock to their fate. In vv. 15-17 the prophet becomes a shepherd once more, this time to image the raising up of a particular worthless leader over God’s people, one who will deserve the most dire punishment. Zc. 13:7-9 comes back to this worthless shepherd, who, in the position assigned to him, should have been God’s ‘right hand man’ and speaks of his fate and of the way in which his people will be caught up in his fate, as God puri es his people by judgment. Judas appears to be being imaged as a shepherd who gives up on the ock of God’s people and is happy to be paid off by those to whose not-so-tender care he now intends to leave the sheep.60 In Mt. 26:31 Jesus will be the shepherd, but the common thread is the

ultimate failure of the shepherd role in Israel. God’s people are being abandoned to their fate. See further the comments at 26:31. Matthew probably intends irony in the juxtaposition of the loss of money in v. 8 (which was no loss at all, but an excellent use of the resource) and the gain of money in v. 15 (which in the end — see 27:5 — is no gain at all). e ‘thirty pieces of silver’ is normally thought to mean thirty shekels, that is, thirty double drachmas of silver (on these coins and their value see at 17:24). In OT money statements a unit of measure is nearly always supplied, but there are ten exceptions.61 In the case of 2 Sa. 18:12, the LXX supplies the missing unit as a shekel,62 which provides some support for the normal assumption. On this basis the amount would be equivalent to a basic wage for two or three months. We are dealing with a tidy sum, but no fortune. e same amount was the level of compensation to be paid to a slave owner whose slave had been gored to death by somebody’s ox (Ex. 21:32). But this is a minimum level, even for a slave.63 So Jesus’ life was being valued at something like the minimum level of that of a slave.64 26:16 Matthew stays generally closer to Mark here, but the exact agreement is restricted to καὶ ἐζήτει (lit. ‘and he was seeking’).65 Matthew has used ἀπὸ τότε (lit. ‘from then’) twice before, both at key moments of transition (4:17; 16:21). Here it lacks the continuing ἤρξατο ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς (‘Jesus began’) that the other two references share, but an echo is probably intended, marking this also as a key moment of transition: from 16:21 Jesus began to speak of his coming Passion; from 26:16 Judas looks for the opportunity to hand Jesus over and bring it to pass. In the rst instance ‘hand him over’ echoes the language ‘will be handed over’ of the nal Passion prediction in v. 2. Judas will not have to wait long for his ‘opportune time/moment’ (εὐκαιρίαν). e quiet of Gethsemane in the middle of the night will do very well for what is planned.

1′. Arrangements for the Passover Meal (26:17-19) 17On

the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?’ 18He said, ‘Go into the city to such and such and say to him, “ae teacher says,a ‘My time is near; I will do the Passover with my disciples at your place’”’. 19So the disciples did as Jesus had commanded them, and they prepared the Passover.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from A Φ. Bibliography Benoit, P., ‘Le Prétoire de Pilate à l’époque byzantine’, RB 91 (1984), 161-77. • Arnott, A. G., ‘“e rst day of unleavened …”: Mt 26.17, Mk 14.12, Lk 22.7’, BT 35 (1984), 235-38. • Borgen, P., ‘John and the Synoptics: Can Paul Offer Help?’, in Tradition, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz, 80-94. • Casey, M., Aramaic Sources, 219-52. • Routledge, R., ‘Passover and Last Supper’, TynB 53 (2002), 202-21. See further at Mt. 26:1-2.

e arrangement for the Passover meal reported here, with its own allusion to the impending Passion, has its counterpart in the announcement in vv. 1-2 of the near approach of Passover and the Passion. Together these provide the outer bracket around the anointing in vv. 6-13. On the structure of chaps. 26–27 see the discussion at 26:1-2. In vv. 17-19 the disciples seek direction from Jesus and go off to prepare the Passover meal at which Jesus will preside. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with material parallelled in Mk. 14:12-17. He abbreviates heavily. ere is no sign of any other source. As

part of his argument that Mk. 14:12-26 is a very early traditional piece, Pesch, ‘Evangelium’, 113-55, has argued effectively for the basic historicity of vv. 12-17. In particular, the effort to keep Jesus’ location on this evening a secret, with its implication that the householder has become part of a plot to hide a fugitive, does not seem to be the stuff of Christian pious embellishment.66

26:17 Matthew stays fairly close to Mark here.67 e main difference is that Matthew drops the explanatory ‘when they sacri ced the Passover [lambs]’ — this is self-evident to Matthew and his readers. ‘e rst day of Unleavened Bread’ is not strictly accurate here as a way of referring to the day (14 Nisan) on the evening of which (15 Nisan) the Passover meal was celebrated. Unleavened Bread (τὰ ἄζυμα — lit. ‘the unleavened [things]’) was a seven-day festival beginning on 15 Nisan. at is, it began with the Passover meal, the rst meal to be eaten with only unleavened bread, since what marked the festival was the elimination of all leaven from every household (on leaven see further at 13:33). But the Gospel use is matched in Josephus (War 5:99) and is ultimately based on the language of Ex. 12:18, which refers to eating unleavened bread on ‘the fourteenth day of the month at evening’. Aer all, on 14 Nisan all the leaven needed to be identi ed and disposed of. Matthew re ects common speech patterns here. Matthew makes use of προσῆλθον (‘came to’) to make this yet another approach to Jesus (cf. most recently at 26:6).68 In line with introducing a coming to Jesus, Matthew freshly introduces Jesus’ name where Mark was content with ‘to him’. Mark’s ἀπελθόντες (‘having gone off ’) is redundant aer ποῦ (‘where’) and is dropped. Initiative on the part of the disciples is rare and mostly plays a negative role. But here it is positive. Mark’s ἑτοιμάσωμεν ἵνα ϕάγῃς (‘prepare, that you might eat’) has the disciples preparing for Jesus

to eat, where Matthew’s ἑτοιμάσωμέν σοι ϕαγεῖν (‘prepare for you, to eat’) has the disciples make the preparation something done for Jesus and leaves the question of who eats open. 26:18 Matthew simpli es the whole process. He probably misses Mark’s interest in showing that Jesus was concerned to avoid detection by the authorities prior to the Passover meal with his disciples. So Matthew does not bother with having just two disciples undertake the preparation,69 and he drops the elaborate process in Mark by which the chosen two would know where to prepare.70 In Mark, not until aer the Last Supper would Judas be in a position to give away Jesus’ location. For Matthew it is enough that it is in fact sometime aer the Supper that Judas slips away to enact his betrayal. Matthew represents the unnamed host as τὸν δεῖνα; like the English ‘such and such’ it is a way of representing a name which one does not know or has some reason for not actually reporting.71 In Matthew’s scene it represents some name Jesus is understood to have actually mentioned. For Matthew ‘say to him’ is clear enough: he does not need Mark’s ‘say to the householder’ to distinguish him from the water carrier. e words given to the disciples to report involve Jesus describing himself as ‘the teacher’. On Jesus as the teacher see the comments at 8:19 and the texts listed there. As in 23:8, Jesus is ‘the [one] teacher’, not simply ‘a teacher’. In Matthew’s version of the words to be used by the disciples, an assertion replaces a question. ‘My time is near’ displaces the Markan question about the location of the room. e reference is to the time of the Passion. e language is designed to echo, at least for the reader, the juxtaposition of Passover and the Passion in 26:2. πρός σε is Matthew’s radical simpli cation of the Markan account of the arrangement envisaged; the words do not mean the normal ‘to you’,

or even the ‘with you’ that 13:56 might suggest,72 but rather ‘at your place’. Mark’s idiom is ‘eat the Passover’, echoing Mk. 14:12; Matthew replaces this with the biblical idiom ‘do/make (ποιεῖν) the Passover’.73 Jesus and his disciples constitute a natural grouping for the Passover meal. ough it is probably to be assumed, Matthew reports no other instance of Jesus eating privately with his disciples. 26:19 Aer the earlier changes Matthew needs to makes major changes here, and again he abbreviates. καὶ οἱ μαθηταί … καὶ ἡτοίμασαν τὸ πάσχα (‘so the disciples…, and they prepared the Passover’) survives from Mark’s wording, but otherwise Matthew uses once more a pattern he formulated at 21:6. ‘Did as Jesus had commanded them’ covers in summary all of the disciples’ action and moves from the Markan emphasis on what they found to an emphasis on the disciples’ recognition in practical obedience of the authority of Jesus. Matthew may be interested in a contrast between Judas, who went to the chief priests so as to be able to betray Jesus, and the disciples, who go to Jesus in order to obey him.74 In Mk. 14:15 the room to which the disciples are led will be found to be ‘furnished and ready’ (ἐστρωμένον ἕτοιμον). So Mark probably thinks in terms of minimal nal preparation on the part of the disciples sent. Certainly they would need to deal with the sacri cial slaughter of the lamb in the temple. But Matthew has dropped Mk. 14:15, so the question of how much preparation would be needed remains open (Matthew does, however, have the whole disciple band available to do the work). e repetition of a string of words from v. 17 creates an inclusio, rounding off this brief unit.75

B. Section 2 (26:20-35) 1. Jesus Says, ‘One of You Will Hand Me Over’ (26:20-25) evening had come, he reclined [at table] with the Twelve.a 21And as they were eating, he said, ‘Amen, I say to you bthat one of you will hand me over’. 22So they were exceedingly distressed and began to say cto him,c deach one,d ‘Could it be I, Lord?’ 23In response he said, ‘e one who has dipped his hand with me in the dish — this one will hand me over. 24e Son of Man goes just as it is written about him. But woe to that person by means of whom the Son of Man is handed over. It would be better for him if that person had not been born.’ 25In response Judas, the one who would hand him over, said, ‘Could it be I, Rabbi?’ eHe says to him, ‘You have said [it]’. 20When

TEXTUAL NOTES a. μαθητων (‘disciples’) is added in ‫ א‬A L W ΔΘ 33 892 1241 1424 l 844 etc. lat syh samss mae bo. μαθητων αυτου, giving ‘his twelve disciples’, is found in 0281 etc. it vgcl syp. Expansion is more likely than loss. b. Missing from

37, 45

c. Missing from

37 vid, 45

2542 etc. D Θ f13 700 1424 l 2211 etc. latt sys mae bo.

d-d. αυτων (‘of them’) is added in 45 vid D Θ f13 etc. sys, p, h mg. εις (‘one’) is dropped and αυτων (‘of them’) is added in A W 074 f1 etc. syh. e whole phrase is missing from 64 vid 1424. e. ο Ιησους (‘Jesus’) is added in

45

‫ א‬13 etc. it vgmss syp for clari cation.

Bibliography Bohnen, J., “‘Watch How You’ re Eating”: Judas and Jesus and Table Manners: An Intertextual Reading of John 13:26, Matthew 26:23 and Sirach

31:12–32:13’, Scriptura 74 (2000), 259-83. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘e Upper Room and the Dish’, HeyJ 26 (1985), 373-82. • Fenton, J., ‘Eating People’,  94 (1991), 414-23. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 326-28. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 343-56. • Puech, É., ‘Des fragments grecs de la Grotte 7 le Nouveau Testament? 7Q4 et 7Q5, et le papyrus Magdalen grec 17 = P64’, RB 102 (1995), 570-84. • Schwarz, G., Judas, 162-75. • Vogler, W., Judas, 43-81. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 3-5, 17-19.

e second of the subsections in chaps. 26–27 (identi ed at 26:1-2) begins with 26:20-25. e announcement of betrayal here will have its counterpart in the announcement of desertion in vv. 30-35. Together they frame the account in vv. 26-29 of the innovation that Jesus introduces into the Passover drama. e Markan sequence continues with Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 14:18-21. ere is no adequate reason for thinking in terms of any further source (but Luke seems to have had a second source in connection with Lk. 22:21-23). e prehistory of the Markan piece is hotly disputed. V. 21 is likely to have an origin separate from that of vv. 18-20. It is harder to trace it with con dence to the historical Jesus than is the case for some of the Son of Man sayings, but at the same time it has nothing in it that the historical Jesus could not have been said. At the heart of vv. 18-20 is ‘Amen, I say to you that one of you will hand me over’. ere seems to be no adequate reason for denying to the historical Jesus a saying about anticipating denial from among his own intimate band. While, however, this core saying will always have needed some narrative framework (minimally to identify ‘you’), the present form may owe a considerable amount to early Christian artistry (perhaps esp. v. 19).76

26:20 Matthew stays fairly close to Mk. 14:17.77 ‘When evening had come’ marks the transition from 14 Nisan to 15 Nisan and thus the beginning of Passover day and the time for the celebration. For the Passover we need to think in terms of an extended evening of celebration in the midst of which the formal

part of the meal took place. It is probably not possible to be more precise about the times.78 Given earlier changes, Matthew cannot have Jesus ‘come with the Twelve’, so he reaches forward to Mk. 14:18 for an alternative verb: ‘reclined [at table]’ (ἀνέκειτο). e group consists of the Twelve plus Jesus. Judas is included, but the women who have come with Jesus from Galilee are not, and neither is the householder who has extended hospitality for the occasion. 26:21 e main difference from Mk. 14:18 is the loss of ὁ ἐσθίων μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (‘who is eating with me’).79 For Mark this is likely to provide an allusion to Ps. 41:9. If so, Matthew seems to have missed the allusion and thus considered the words redundant, given the opening words, ‘as they were eating’, and the more pointed language to come in Mk. 14:20 par. Mt. 26:23 (the opening ‘as they were eating’ prepares for this). On the emphatic language ‘Amen, I say to you’ see the comments at 5:18. How traumatic this betrayal from within was in the memory of the early church is marked by Judas’s introduction from the beginning in the Gospel tradition as the one who handed Jesus over (10:4).80 e level of precision of Jesus’ announced awareness of his coming fate moves from general outline in the main Passion predictions, to the precise timing of 26:2, and now to an awareness that betrayal will come from one of his own most intimate followers. By v. 25 Matthew will have made it clear that Jesus knows even the personal identity of the betrayer. 26:22 In preparation for setting off Judas’s reply, Matthew links ἤρξαντο (‘they began’) only to λέγειν (‘to say’), expressing the grief with a participle in place of Mark’s in nitive and intensifying it with an added σϕόδρα (‘exceedingly’). e addition of σϕόδρα allows λυπούμενοι σϕόδρα (lit. ‘being exceedingly distressed’) to echo the disciples’ response to the Passion prediction in 17:23. Matthew also adds κύριε (‘Lord’) to the disciples’ words in order to be able to have Judas in v. 25 address Jesus differently (as ‘Rabbi’).81

What are we to imagine the disciples are thinking of as they each say, μήτι ἐγώ, κύριε; (‘Could it be I, Lord?)’? Do they think of deliberate betrayal, or are their thoughts more likely to turn to the prospect of an unguarded carelessness that exposes Jesus to his enemies? Perhaps the latter is best expressed by μήτι ἐγώ, κύριε; 26:23 Matthew introduces ἀποκριθείς to add yet one more to his list of uses of ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered, he said’).82 ‘One of the Twelve’ drops out: it does not t well on the lips of Jesus as he speaks to the Twelve. Matthew keeps Matthew’s verb for ‘dip’, but changes the tense of the participle from present to aorist and prefers the active with τὴν χεῖρα (‘the hand’) rather than Mark’s absolute use of the middle. e change from the middle to the active is only stylistic, but the change to the aorist is probably to locate the action in the immediate past — see further below — rather than to allow one of the various options le open by the present (a general statement, action in the present, action in the near future). Matthew adds οὗτός με παραδώσει (‘this one will betray me’) to enhance the parallel with v. 21.83 ough we know too little about the details of the Passover as it was being celebrated in the time of Jesus to speak with con dence about the earliest recoverable shape of the meal, the dipping is best equated with the appetizer stage of the meal, aer the rst cup of wine with its benediction, when pieces of lettuce or green herbs were dipped in a sauce.84 What is the function of the de nite article in ὁ ἐμβάψας (lit. ‘the one having dipped’)? Matthew takes it over from Mk. 14:20, where it is somewhat parallel to the de nite article in ὁ ἐσθίων μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (lit. ‘the one eating with me’) in Mk. 14:21. Formally, with its use of the article, ὁ ἐσθίων μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (lit. ‘the one eating with me’) in Mk. 14:21 ought to be providing a means of identifying the yetunidenti ed εἷς (‘one’) in εἷς ὑμῶν (‘one of you’). But unless ἐσθίων

is to be understood futuristically — and that possibility seems to be excluded by the preceding ἐσθιόντων (‘while they were eating’) — this is not how Jesus’ words are taken by the disciples in v. 19. When it comes to the similar use of the article in v. 20 with ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος (lit. ‘the one dipping’) and its equivalent in Mt. 26:23, ὁ ἐμβάψας (lit. ‘the one who has dipped’), there is no reported response to make clear whether Jesus’ words have enabled the disciples to identify Judas as the betrayer. But the words have probably not done so, given the way Jesus’ words in Mk. 14:18 have been understood by the disciples,85 and given that Matthew will go on to add Mt. 26:25, which seems to require that Judas has not to that point been publicly unmasked.86 In Matthew, the change to the aorist of the participle for expressing the dipping would allow for another possibility: with the dipping already over, Jesus can speak about an apparently unimportant detail of how it was done — two hands dipping at the same time — which had not necessarily stuck in anybody’s memory, perhaps not even in Judas’s, in a manner that reveals nothing to the Twelve, but indicates to Judas that his identity as the betrayer may well be known to Jesus. In any case, though more colourful and more elaborated, Mt. 26:23 is probably little more than a repetition of v. 21. 26:24 Matthew stays very close to Mark here. He drops the causal ὅτι (‘because’) at the start — the link is not straightforwardly causal — and supplies the verb ἦν in ‘it would be good for him’, which Mark had le to be supplied from context. As consistently from 17:12 on and most recently in 26:2, Matthew’s Jesus speaks of his coming Passion in Son of Man language. ὑπάγει (lit. ‘departs’; ‘goes’ in the translation above) is clearly a euphemism here, used for speaking about dying. e necessity that is said in 16:21 to attach itself to Jesus’ coming Passion is now identi ed as a scriptural necessity. See the comments at 16:21 for the range of Scripture that

may be in mind. But here we should add Zc. 13:7 to the list since, with γέγραπται (‘it is written’) as here, it will mark Jesus’ fate in Mt. 26:31, in the unit that stands parallel to 20:20-25. e Matthean Jesus has pronounced woes against unresponsive towns in 11:21 (see there), two related woes in 18:7 in relation to causes of stumbling, woes repeatedly against the scribes and Pharisees in chap. 23, and in a rather more sympathetic tone against pregnant and nursing mothers caught up in the fearful developments anticipated in chap. 24. e woe makes a powerful but imprecise statement about the unhappy situation in which some types of persons nd themselves (whether they know it or not). ough it is hard to see what, if anything, should be made of it, there is a striking similarity of form between this woe and the second in Mt. 18:7.87 If nothing else, the parallel encourages us to give δι᾿ οὗ its literal sense, ‘through him’, rather than treating it as a loosely expressed ‘by him’. e sense of scriptural necessity, and behind that the will of God, allows Judas to be viewed here as an, albeit unwitting, instrument of the purposes of God. It is not that Matthew would be likely to go so far as to allow that God handed over Jesus, but he would at least have us see that the handing over for which Judas is responsible falls squarely within the divine plan and intention. e idea that it might be better for somebody not to have been born can be traced back at least to Job 3, where Job curses the day of his birth. e alternatives that Job considers are stillbirth or death in the womb. Job 3 is echoed in Sir. 23:14, which suggests that one who behaves foolishly ‘will wish that [they] had never been born, and will curse the day of [their] birth’. e same echo of Job 3 is evident in 2 Bar. 10:6, which, with an inversion from cursing to a blessing of the opposite, says of those who have witnessed the fall of Jerusalem, ‘Blessed is the one who was not born, or who was born

and died’. In the same vein, but without the clear echo of Job 3, 1 Enoch 38:2 suggests that ‘it would have been better for [sinners] not to have been born’. rough his betrayal of Jesus, Judas becomes one for whom birth has turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing. Mt. 26:24 locates the signi cance of the predicted betrayal on a double front. ere is its relationship to the scriptural necessity of handing over the Son of Man; but there is also its terrible signi cance as an act of ultimate disloyalty against the only one to whom absolute loyalty is due. 26:25 is verse is unique to Matthew. It repeats the ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (‘said in response’) of v. 23. With the loss of ‘Iscariot’, which is not repeated aer its recent use in v. 14, and with a change of tense from aorist to present — to mark Judas’s role as in the process of taking place — it reintroduces Judas in language which echoes that in which he was rst introduced in 10:4, Ἰούδας ὁ παραδιδοὺς αὐτόν (‘Judas, the one who hands him over’), and thus provides the fourth reference to handing over in vv. 20-25 (two distinctive to Matthew). It gives Judas the same words as for the other disciples in v. 22, except for the important difference of address, ‘Rabbi’ rather than ‘Lord’ — Matthew draws the greeting ‘Rabbi’ out of its use by Judas as words of betrayal in v. 49 in the arrest scene. No answer has been reported to the disciples’ questions in v. 22. But this time Matthew provides an answer. And he highlights the answer by using the historic present for the speech verb, λέγει (‘he says’), which introduces it. e answer given is σὺ εἶπας (‘you said [it]’). In a formal sense it is a noncommittal answer, but we are clearly intended to hear it as an obliquely expressed affirmative, and this is how we are to understand that Judas is meant to hear it.88 But what about the other disciples? Given that the parallel question put by each of them was met with a noncommittal

silence in v. 22, we are likely to think that the extra signi cance of this different form of non-committal was lost on them. e role of Mt. 26:25 is to make clear that Jesus is to be understood as aware not simply that it will be one of the Twelve who betrays him, but also which one of the Twelve it was. Mark is not clear that Jesus’ knowledge extends this far. But Matthew and John are both able to draw on a traditional view that Jesus was well aware who was to betray him.89 2. Jesus Directs the Eating of Bread as His Body, and Wine as His Blood of the Covenant (26:26-29) they were eating, when Jesus took abread and bsaid the blessing,b he broke [it], and cwhen he gave [it] to the disciples,c he said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’. 27And when he took da cup and gave thanks, he gave [it] to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all [of you]. 28For this is my blood of the ecovenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29I say to you, from now [on] I will certainly not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it with you anew in the kingdom of my Father.’ 26As

TEXTUAL NOTES a. τον (‘the’) is added in A W 0160vid f13 etc. is is probably a liturgical in uence. b-b. και ευχαριστησας (‘and gave thanks’) in A K W Γ Δ f1, 13 565 1241 l 844 etc. syh to conform to v. 27. Missing from 1424. c-c. εδιδου τοις μαθηταις και (‘and he was giving it to the disciples and’) in (‫ )*א‬A C W etc. a.

d. An added το in

45

A C D K Γ f13 565 1241 etc. gives ‘the cup’. Cf. note

e. καινης (‘new’) is added in A C D W f1, 13 etc. latt sy sa bo. Cf. Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25. Bibliography Amphoux, C.-B., ‘Le dernier repas de Jésus, Lc 22/15-20 par’, ETR 56 (1981), 449-54. • Balembo, B., ‘Le produit de la vigne et le vin nouveau: Analyse exégétique de Mc 14,25’, RevAf 8 (1984), 5-16. • Barth, M., Das Mahl des Herrn: Gemeinscha mit Israel, mit Christus und unter den Gästen (Neukirchen/Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1987). • Bayer, H. F., Vindication, 29-53. • Blank, J., ‘Der “eschatologische Ausblick” Mk 14,25 und seine Bedeutung’, in Kontinuität und Einheit. FS F. Mussner, ed. P. G. Müller and W. Stenger (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1981), 508-18. • Bokser, B. M., ‘Was the Last Supper a Passover Seder?’ BRev 3.2 (1987), 24-33. • Bokser, B. M., e Origins of the Seder: e Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism (Berkeley: University of California, 1984). • Boughton, L. C., ‘“Being Shed for You/Many”: Time-Sense and Consequences in the Synoptic Cup Citations’, TynB 48 (1997), 249-70. • Bradshaw, P. F., ‘Zebah Todah and the Origins of the Eucharist’, Ecclesia Orans (Rome) 8 (1991), 245-60. • Bradshaw, P. F. and Hoffman, L. A., eds., Passover and Easter (Two Liturgical Traditions 6. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999). • Burchard, C., ‘e Importance of Joseph and Asenath for the Study of the New Testament: A General Survey and a Fresh Look at the Lord’s Supper’, NTS 33 (1987), 10234. • Carmichael, D. B., ‘David Daube on the Eucharist and the Passover Seder’, JSNT 42 (1991), 45-67. • Casey, M., ‘e Original Aramaic Form of Jesus’ Interpretation of the Cup’, JTS 41 (1990), 1-12. • Chilton, B., Feast of Meanings. • Chilton, B., Temple of Jesus. • Chilton, B., ‘e Eucharist’, BRev 10.6 (1994), 37-43. • Cohn-Sherbok, D., ‘A Jewish Note on ΤΟ ΠΟΤΗΡΙΟΝ ΤΗΣ ΕΥΛΟΓΙΑΣ’, NTS 27 (1980-81), 704-9. • Cook, M. J., ‘Righting What’s Wrong with Church “Seders”’, CCAR Journal 47 (2000), 1-12. • Crossan, J. D., Fragments, 145-52. • Daly, R. J., ‘e Eucharist and Redemption: e Last Supper and Jesus’ Understanding of His Death’, BTB 11 (1981), 21-27. • Descamps, A., ‘Les origines de l’Eucharistie’, in Jésus, 455-96. • Dockx, S., ‘Les étapes rédactionnelles du récit de la dernière céne chez les synoptiques’,

in Chronologies néotestamentaires et vie de l’église primitive (Leuven: Peeters, 1984), 207-32. • Emminghaus, J. H., ‘Stammen die Einsetzungsworte der Eucharistie von Jesus selber?’ BibLeb 53 (1980), 36-38. • Feeley-Harnik, G., e Lord’s Table: Eucharist and Passover in Early Christianity (Symbol and Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981). • Galot, J., ‘Les paroles eucharistiques de Jésus’, EV 102 (1992), 161-71. • Galot, J., ‘Eucharistie et Incarnation’, NRT 105 (1983), 549-66. • Grelot, P., ‘L’institution du “Repas du Seigneur”: Pour une lecture des textes parallèles’, EV 106 (1996), 474-79. • Hahn, F., ‘Das Abendmahl und Jesu Todesverständnis’, TRev 76 (1980), 265-72. • Ham, C., ‘e Last Supper in Matthew’, BBR 10 (2000), 53-69. • Heron, A. I. C., Table and Tradition: Towards an Ecumenical Understanding of the Eucharist (Edinburgh: Hansel, 1983). • Ho us, O., ‘“Für euch gegeben zur Vergebung der Sünden”: Vom Sinn des Heiligen Abendsmahls’, ZTK 95 (1998), 313-37. • Huser, T., ‘Les récits de l’institution de la Cène: Dissemblances et traditions’, Hokhma 21 (1982), 28-50. • Johnson, P. F., ‘A Suggested Understanding of the Eucharistic Words’, SE 7 (= TU 126) 7 (1982), 265-70. • Jonge, M. de, ‘Mark 14:25 among Jesus’ Words about the Kingdom of God’, in Sayings of Jesus: Canonical and Non-Canonical. FS T. Baarda, ed. W. L. Petersen, J. S. Vos, and H. J. de Jonge (NovTSup 89. Leiden: Brill, 1997), 123-35. • Kahlefeld, H., Das Abschiedsmahl Jesu und die Eucharistie der Kirche (Frankfurt: Knecht, 1980). • Kilpatrick, G. D., e Eucharist in Bible and Liturgy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). • Klauck, H.-J., Herrenmahl und hellenistischer Kult: Ein religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief (NTAbh n.f. 15. Münster: Aschendorff, 1982). • Klawans, J., ‘Interpreting the Last Supper: Sacri ce, Spiritualization, and Anti-Sacri ce’, NTS 48 (2002), 1-17. • Knoch, O., ‘“Tut das zu meinem Gedächtnis!” (Lk 22,30; 1 Kor 11,24f): Die Feier der Eucharistie in den urchristlichen Gemeinden’, in Freude am Gottesdienst. FS J. G. Plöger, ed. J. Schreiner (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983), 31-42. • Kodell, J., e Eucharist in the New Testament (Zacchaeus Studies: New Testament. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1988). • Koester, H., ‘e Memory of Jesus’ Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord’, HTR 91 (1998), 335-50. • Kollmann, B., Ursprung und Gestalten der frühchristlichen Mahlfeier (GTA 43. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck

& Ruprecht, 1990). • Kynes, W. L., Solidarity, 161-79. • Lang, B., ‘e Eucharist’, BRev 10.6 (1994), 44-49. • Lang, B., ‘e Roots of the Eucharist in Jesus’ Praxis’, in SBLSP 31(1992), 467-72. • Laurence, J. D., ‘e Eucharist as the Imitation of Christ’, TS 47 (1986), 286-96. • LaVerdiere, E., ‘Do is in Remembrance of Me’, Emman 90 (1984), 365-69. • Léon-Dufour, X., ‘Jésus devant sa mort à la lumière des textes de l’institution eucharistique et des discours d’adieu’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont, 141-68. • Léon-Dufour, X., Sharing the Eucharistic Bread: e Witness of the New Testament, tr. M. J. O’Connell (New York: Paulist, 1987). • Léon-Dufour, X., ‘Prenez! Ceci est mon corps pour vous’, NRT 104 (1982), 223-40. • Lindars, B., ‘Joseph and Asenath and the Eucharist’, in Scripture: Meaning and Method. FS A. T. Hanson, ed. B. P. ompson (Hull: Hull University Press, 1987), 181-99. • Luke, K., ‘“is Is My Flesh” (Mark 14:22 and par)’, ITS 34 (1997), 150-67. • Luomanen, P., Entering, 218-30. • Maccoby, H., ‘Paul and the Eucharist’, NTS 37 (1991), 247-67. • Magne, J. M., ‘Les Paroles sur la coupe’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 485-90. • Marion, D., ‘Textes évangélique sur l’Eucharistie, II: Les récits de l’institution de l’Eucharistie’, EV 109 (1999), 321*-29*. • Marshall, I. H., Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). • Meyer, B. F., ‘e Expiation Motif in the Eucharistic Words: A Key to the History of Jesus?’ Greg 69 (1988), 461-87. • Meyer, B. F., ed., One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor. 11 and Other Eucharistic Texts: e Cambridge Conference on the Eucharist, August 1988 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1993). • Pesch, R., ‘Das Evangelium in Jerusalem: “Mk. 14,12-26 als älteste Überlieferungsgut der Urgemeinde’, in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1983), 113-55. • Reumann, J., ‘e Last and the Lord’s Supper’, LTSB 62 (1982), 17-39. • Reumann, J., e Supper of the Lord: e New Testament, Ecumenical Dialogues, and Faith and Order on Eucharist (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). • Reumann, J., ‘e Problem of the Lord’s Supper as Matrix for Albert Schweitzer’s “Quest of the Historical Jesus”’, NTS 27 (1980-81), 475-87. • Ruckstuhl, E., ‘Neue und alte Überlegungen zu den Abendmahlsworten Jesu’, in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), 69-100. • Saldarini, A. J., Jesus and Passover (New York: Paulist, 1984). • Schlosser, J., Règne, 373-417. •

Schürmann, H., Gottes Reich-Jesu Geschick. • Schweitzer, A., e Problem of the Lord’s Supper according to the Scholarly Research of the Nineteenth Century and the Historical Accounts, Volume 1: e Lord’s Supper in Relationship to the Life of Jesus and the History of the Early Church, ed. J. Reumann, tr. A. J. Mattill Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1982). • Senn, F. C., ‘e Lord’s Supper, Not the Passover Seder’, Worship 60 (1986), 362-68. • Smith, B. D., ‘e More Original Form of the Words of Institution’, ZNW 83 (1992), 166-86. • Stallings, J., Rediscovering Passover (San Jose: Resource Publications, 1995). • Stemberger, G., ‘Pesachhaggada und Abendmahlsberichte des Neuen Testaments’, Kairos 29 (1987), 147-58. • Stuhlmacher, P., ‘Das neutestamentliche Zeugnis vom Herrenmahl’, ZTK 84 (1987), 1-35. • Tan, K. H., Zion, 197-220. • Traets, C., ‘Les parles sur la coupe pendant la prière eucharistique: Trois considérations bibliques et liturgicopastorales’, QLP 77 (1996), 135-51, 213-28. • Wenham, D., ‘How Jesus Understood the Last Supper: A Parable in Action’, Churchman 105 (1991), 246-60. • Whallon, W., ‘e Pascha in the Eucharist’, NTS 40 (1994), 126-32. • White, J. L., ‘Beware of Leavened Bread: Markan Imagery in the Last Supper’, Forum 3.4 (1987), 49-63. • Wilkens, H., ‘Die Anfänge des Herrenmahls’, JLH 28 (1984), 55-65. • Wojciechowski, M., ‘Le naziréat et la Passion (Mc 14,25a; 15,23)’, Bib 65 (1984), 94-96. • Wouters, A., Willen, 33546. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 3-5, 17-19, 20-25.

We now come to the heart of the Last Supper. Matthew has it framed by the announcement of betrayal in vv. 20-25 and the announcement of desertion in vv. 30-35. ese three pieces together form the second of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27 (see further at 26:1-2). It is Jesus, as about to be betrayed, abandoned, and struck down, who gives what is to be achieved by his dying to precisely those whose loyalty is about to fail. Matthew is following the Markan sequence with his equivalent to Mk. 14:2225. ere is nothing to suggest a second source, but the early Christian

liturgical practice of reenacting in its Eucharistic practice the core part of the Last Supper means that the form of this reenactment with which Matthew was familiar may have in uenced his reproduction of the Markan material. I have commented on the link between the Last Supper and the Passover meal above at 26:1-2. e NT offers us four accounts of the core action of Jesus at the Last Supper (Mt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:14-20; 1 Cor. 11:23-26; cf. Jn. 6:25-59; 13:1-20; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; Did. 9:1-5). ere has been a huge scholarly investment in interpreting these forms, tracking their development, attempting to identify a most original form, and assessing its claim to go back to the historical Jesus. ough it would be too much to claim that any scholarly consensus has emerged, the main dri of recent scholarship has been to enhance con dence that in some form the words of institution go back to the historical Jesus. For those who are prepared to trace a bread saying to the historical Jesus, there is a good measure of consensus that its most original form was ‘is [is] my body, for you/many’, but with less con dence about ‘for you/many’ (I think ‘for you’ is more likely, given the intimacy of the occasion and the restricted number of actual participants in the bread and wine) and without agreement about the original Aramaic word standing behind ‘body’. For the cup saying there is considerably less agreement, with some prepared only to trace a cup saying like Mt. 26:29 back to the historical Jesus. Most want to go further, but with many views as to the original wording. Perhaps the two most attractive options are that of Ruckstuhl,90 who defends a form which mixes elements of the two main surviving forms to get ‘this cup [is] my blood of the covenant’, and that of Casey,91 who accepts the Markan form and retroverts it into Aramaic as dmy dnh, dqymʾ hwʾ (lit. ‘my blood this, of the covenant it [is]’). e difference between the two is formal rather than substantive. Original wording does not, however, get us to original meaning.92 To survey the discussion of original meanings is not possible here, but we can identify various broad approaches, which are frequently merged. (a) We can make meal fellowship with Jesus the focus of attention and see the celebration of the Eucharist that is to emerge from the Last Supper as primarily a meeting establishing solidarity with (the now risen and exalted) Jesus. (b) We can focus on the eating itself and see the Eucharist as the

provision of spiritual food. (c) In a novel interpretation, Fenton93 suggests that the eating of what is identi ed as the body and blood of Jesus, that is, eating Jesus, is to be elucidated in terms of texts in which the eating of people is an image of hostile action: Jesus is saying, ‘You must become my enemy for my necessary death to take place’. (d) We can see the world of Jewish sacri ce as primary background, with the separation of the blood from the body of the sacri ced animal matched by the separate identi cation in Jesus’ words of the body and the blood. is can produce an identi cation of Jesus as a human sacri ce, or, very differently, it can suggest that Jesus, now alienated from the temple in Jerusalem, is proposing that, at least in the present circumstances, a meal of bread and wine will represent better than temple sacri ces the sacred fellowship with God achieved in the celebratory eating of the temple sacri ce: bread and wine consumed together will be, for Jesus, the appropriate sacri ces to God (as far as I am aware, this view is distinctive to Chilton94). (e) Without the tight correlation of bread and wine with the esh and blood of sacri ce, we can appeal to the world of Jewish sacri ce at a more general level, with Jesus’ death as the means of atonement. (f) e suffering servant of Is. 52:13–53:12 can become the key to interpretation. (g) We can make covenant ideas carry the main weight, on the basis of the reference to ‘my blood of the covenant’. (h) We can make anticipation of the eschatological banquet a primary interpretive grid, with varying results, depending on whether this eclipses or supplements attention to the words over the bread and the cup. (i) we can bring the Passover setting into prominence with the suggestion that, represented in the bread and the wine, Jesus takes the place of the Passover lamb as the new paschal sacri ce. (j) With bread and wine understood in relation to Jesus’ impending death, we can highlight the command to eat and drink and see it as an act of assignment: by giving bread and wine identi ed as his body and his blood, Jesus assigns (but not exclusively) what he sees as the bene ts of his coming death. I offer the approaches above as suggestive rather than exhaustive. My own sympathies are most closely represented in the nal suggestion, but not to the exclusion of other strands. We must discuss Mt. 26:29 somewhat separately. Luke seems to have had an additional source for this (as for the main body of the Last Supper account), but this has le no trace on Matthew. e saying here probably

does not belong in an original unity with the preceding words over the bread and the cup, but on the basis of its content it does seem to come from the same occasion. It is oen traced back to the historical Jesus with greater con dence than the preceding sayings.95

26:26 Matthew freshly introduces Jesus’ name. His addition in v. 25, with its active role for Judas, may have prompted this, or it may simply be to use the name in the central piece of the subsection. A related change will be ‘the disciples’, connecting back to v. 19, in place of ‘them’. Mark’s repetition of ‘as they were eating’ is retained (cf. v. 20):96 the meal setting continues as the necessary backdrop. In describing Jesus’ action, Matthew uses all of Mark’s vocabulary but manages to make a surprising number of small changes: Matthew provides a coordinating ‘and’ between λαβών (lit. ‘having taken’) and εὐλογήσας (lit. ‘having blessed’) which tends to give a stronger independent signi cance to the rst action alongside the second; he replaces the nite form ἔδωκεν (‘he gave’) with the participle δούς (lit. ‘having given’), which requires the loss of the following καί (‘and’) — these changes mean that ‘he broke’ and ‘he said’ are the emphasised actions, where Mark had pro led ‘broke’, ‘gave’, and ‘said’; and Matthew completes the logic by adding a second imperative, ‘eat’, to Mark’s ‘take’ — the point of taking is to eat.97 Since the Passover meal is also the rst meal within the festival of Unleavened Bread, it will be the rst occasion on which unleavened bread is actually eaten.98 In the earliest recoverable shape of the meal,99 sharing in an unleavened loaf of bread comes aer the dipping of lettuce or green herbs in a sauce — with which the words about the betrayal are associated in v. 23. e earliest sources do not mention a separate benediction, but such a benediction, thanking God for the bread, is likely at this point of

rst participation in the unleavened bread that marked the larger festival. e breaking apart of the bread is standard practice in Jewish paschal meal practice, indeed in Jewish meal practice more broadly. In order to link to Jesus’ body as broken, the breaking would have had to have been part of what Jesus spoke about (cf. ‘poured out’ in v. 28) and not just part of what he did at this point (Jesus is not breaking his own body as though his death was to be some kind of suicide). Up to and including the giving, all the individual elements are part of a normal Jewish meal pattern (see at 14:19). e striking thing is that they are individually reported and not simply assumed. In any Jewish text reporting a meal, they will be largely assumed and are never formally reported as a set. e reporting here is the more striking because it comes in the midst of an account of a Passover meal, an account which is notable for leaving totally unreported the main elements of the Passover liturgy (notably the eating of the lamb and the questions and answers about redemption from Egypt). Why the emphasis on these labelled actions? e immediate answer is ‘because they are the elements which have been taken up in the early Christian Eucharist’.100 But behind that answer must lie another. Presumably these elements have been taken into the Eucharist precisely because they allow one to map with care precisely what was distinctive about Jesus’ action: the reports step us through the immediately connected parts of the standard action in order to be able to mark precisely what is different. In the standard practice we do not know whether the person presiding at the breaking of the bread said anything beyond the blessing. But the unleavened bread was certainly among the elements of the meal interpreted in the question-and-answer session about the redemption from Egypt which the Passover meal

liturgically restaged. e bread was the ‘bread of affliction’ of Dt. 16:3. Where the questions and answers were to come in the meal sequence is uncertain, but it could have been as early as aer the distribution of the unleavened bread.101 e question-and-answer pattern is based on Ex. 12:26-27.102 In the earliest surviving Jewish accounts the set of questions is represented in a consolidated set, but given that no xed place in the liturgy is marked, it is possible that, at least earlier, the questions and answers were actually scattered through the meal at appropriate points. (In later practice they de nitely became a set, but not with a rigidly determined wording.) Whether Jesus’ words at this point are displacing standard Passover words or not, the opening ‘take, eat’ re ects well enough the obligatory nature of participation in the elements of the Passover meal.103 To participate in the meal was to belong to the company of those who knew themselves to have been redeemed from Egypt. Viewed overall, there is an interesting parallelism between the Passover and the Last Supper/Lord’s Supper. Each involves a meal with interpreted elements. In the case of the Passover, the original anticipated the imminent Exodus as the saving event and subsequent celebrations looked back to the saving event and brought the participants freshly into touch with it. In the case of the Last Supper/Lord’s Supper, the original anticipated the imminent Passion as the saving event and subsequent celebrations looked back to the Passion and brought the participants freshly into touch with it. In the case of the Last Supper, this was perhaps originally overlaid on the Passover without in any essential respect dislodging the original, but it is clear enough in Christian celebration that the original setting was soon displaced (Christians seem to have celebrated the Lord’s Supper much more oen than annually, so at least on all the other occasions the paschal meal would not have

been appropriate) or at least subordinated (the earliest Jewish Christians would not have abandoned celebration of the Passover prior to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple). Novelty begins in the Last Supper account with ‘is is my body’. e bread is not now the bread of affliction marking the departure from Egypt; it is identi ed instead as Jesus’ body. But what does this mean? e words alone leave the sense very open. As indicated in the opening discussion of Mt. 26:26-29, the Matthean and Markan forms have probably lost an original ‘for you’, which is now represented in the cup saying as ‘for many’. is change has not altered the sense: the omission of reference to the main part of the meal between the two statements (cf. Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25) has allowed the two to become a single interpretive unit, and this in turn has led to the additional interpretive keys all being concentrated on the second element, which from the beginning offered the less ambiguous symbol. e form of the text suggests, therefore, that to understand the more cryptic statement about the bread we should turn our attention to the more expansive statement about the wine. But nonetheless the context may already take us some distance. e framing material in Mt. 26:20-25, 30-35 is heavily focussed on the imminence of the Passion, so it is hard to imagine that ‘is is my body’ does not have something to do with the same. Perhaps ‘my body’ in place of ‘bread of affliction’ implicitly relocates the affliction from those who eat the bread (identifying with the affliction of their ancestors) to the one who is the bread (anticipating his coming Passion): this bread that in its unleavenedness bears the impress of affliction is on this occasion to point to Jesus’ impending affliction. I have suggested that we will ultimately need to make use of the second element, wine as blood, to understand the rst. Does this mean that we should consider the images as a xed pair: body and

blood? One suggestion for treating them as a pair is to link them to the body and blood of animal sacri ces, separated at death and with different roles to play in the act of sacri ce. Despite the claim by Jeremias,104 however, we do not seem to get the actual use of ‘ esh’ and ‘blood’, let alone ‘body’ and ‘blood’, as paired terms in sacri cial language.105 It is unlikely, therefore, that we should connect the paired body and blood and the esh and blood of animal sacri ces. What about linking ‘body’ and ‘blood’ as the constituent parts of the human physical identity? ‘Flesh’ and ‘blood’ are regularly paired in this way,106 but there is some slight evidence that ‘body’ and ‘blood’ could function as such a pair.107 But the very separation of ‘body’ and ‘blood’, as linked respectively to the bread and the wine, counts against reference to this xed pairing being involved. ough ‘body’ and ‘blood’ are coordinated, they seem, therefore, each to point independently to the coming death of Jesus rather than pointing as a xed pair. e only other thing that is available to help clarify the image involved in the equation of the bread with Jesus’ body is the fact that the disciples are directed to eat it. I have elsewhere suggested that an original feature of the Last Supper account, now partially obscured in all our preserved accounts, is that the words of explanation were given only aer the consumption: the disciples ate the bread rst and only then were told that they had been eating Jesus’ body.108 If this is so, then the focus needs to be, at least initially, on what Jesus is doing, not on what the disciples are doing. (We should note that, unlike the episodes on either side, the scene in 26:26-29 says nothing about what the disciples do or how they react.) Inasmuch as ‘is is my body’ must link the bread with the death of Jesus, the giving of the bread to be eaten seems to be an act in which Jesus assigns to his disciples that which he believed was to be achieved by his death. It is natural enough that a concern that

participants in the Lord’s Supper eat and drink with a clear consciousness of the signi cance of the bread and wine has led to a modi cation of the account so that explanation now comes before consumption. But this change will not have been in the interests of changing the sense of the fundamental symbolism, so it is still appropriate to allow the earlier sequencing to guide our interpretation. 26:27 As he did between the related verbs in v. 26, Matthew provides a coordinating ‘and’ between λαβών (lit. ‘having taken’) and εὐχαριστήσας (lit. ‘having blessed’), which again tends to give a stronger independent signi cance to the rst action alongside the second. Matthew absorbs Mark’s καὶ ἔπιον ἐξ αὐτοῦ πάντες (‘and they all drank from it’) into Jesus’ words as πίετε ἐξ αὐτοῦ πάντες (‘Drink from it, all [of you]’). Matthew does this by putting Mark’s καὶ εἶπεν (‘and he said’) a clause earlier, as the participle λέγων (‘saying’). Otherwise he reproduces the Markan language. A signi cant level of parallelism between the action with the bread and the wine is clearly intended, though Matthew’s changes in vv. 26-27 both add to and subtract from this parallelism.109 Four cups of wine had an official role in the Passover liturgy in its earliest surviving form, though we cannot be entirely con dent that this was already a xed feature at the time of Jesus. On the basis of the indication in Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25 that the cup intended came aer the meal, the cup is normally identi ed as the third cup, but occasionally the fourth cup is preferred. In Jewish Passover discussion the third cup came to be called the cup of blessing (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16), probably because the aer-dinner grace came with it.110 And clearly we have a grace associated with the cup of the Gospel accounts. εὐλογήσας (lit. ‘having blessed’) was used for the grace in Mt. 26:26; εὐχαριστήσας (lit. ‘having given thanks’) is used in v. 27. e

former is the more natural rendering of the blessing of God which characterised the Jewish saying of grace. While an emphasis on thanksgiving has its own secure place in Palestinian Judaism, the absence of εὐχαριστεῖν from the Greek text of the OT and its importance in early Christian thought as marked by its frequency in the NT letters make it likely that in the case of εὐχαριστήσας here we are dealing with early Christian diction. Whereas in the case of the bread the giving was a standard feature of the Passover meal, the giving of the cup is exceptional. e Jewish practice for Passover was, naturally enough, for each person to have their own cup. On occasion the host might send his own cup to a particular guest as a mark of honour or as a means of bestowing a blessing, but as far as we can tell, there was no Passover custom of drinking from a shared cup. But here Jesus is having the disciples share from his own personal cup rather than drinking from their own individual cups. is striking departure must be taken into account as we seek to understand Jesus’ words about the wine in the discussion of v. 28.111 e ‘all’ in Mark’s ‘and they all drank from it’ is already striking, but it becomes more so in the Matthean imperative form. What is the point of explicitly requiring that all must drink? It is probably to make the point that self-exclusion from the bene ts of Christ’s death is possible.112 But in Matthew it may also be to make the point that that which Jesus’ death is to achieve is even for the betrayer Judas.113 26:28 Matthew preserves almost all of the Markan wording,114 but adds a linking γάρ (‘for’) at the beginning and an interpretive εἰς ἄϕεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (‘for the forgiveness of sins’) at the end. As far as Matthew is concerned, v. 28 provides the reason for Jesus’ directive, and forgiveness of sins is at the heart of the matter.

In parallel with ‘is is my body’ in v. 26, we now have ‘is is my blood’. When blood is used with a possessive pronoun in the OT, the reference is almost always to death, and nearly always to violent death.115 Very oen there is a connection with judgment or vengeance: the spilling of blood is frequently the crime which is the reason for judgment,116 but it is also at times the means of judgment.117 e rst person form, ‘my blood’, is used several times with the prospect of a violent death.118 Of particular interest in relation to our text is the language of 4 Macc. 6:28-29, ‘Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them; make my blood their puri cation, and take my life in exchange for theirs’.119 But reference to ‘my blood’ can also be used metaphorically of suffering that falls short of death.120 e blood is spoken of as poured out, as here, in quite a number of texts.121 e idiom is used generally in relation to violent death (the English translations generally speak of the shedding of blood), but it is also used for the ritual pouring out of the blood of animal sacri ces,122 as well as for the pouring out of the blood of animals killed for food but not sacri ced.123 Since the content of the cup in Mt. 26:28 is not poured out but drunk, the reference to ‘poured out’ takes us into another realm, and speci cally to the judicial murder of Jesus. e immediate link will be to the violent mode of Jesus’ death, not to his death considered as similar to an animal sacri ce. No major spilling of blood is involved in cruci xion. But since the blood said to be poured out is here ‘blood of the covenant’, the imagery of sacri ce is certainly involved (see the next paragraph), and we should not exclude a secondary allusion to the pouring out of the blood of sacri cial animals.

‘Blood of the covenant’ evokes Ex. 24:8, where Moses splashes on the people half of the blood of the sacri ces mentioned in v. 5. e other half had already been splashed against the altar in the normal way (v. 6), but half of it had been kept back and put in basins. e book of the covenant is read out to the people, and they promise obedience to its stipulations. en the blood is splashed over the people with the explanatory words, ‘See the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words’.124 e blood, shared between the altar and the people, binds God and the people together, with the people aligned with the holiness of God,125 and with solemn commitment on both sides. e one de nite OT echo of Ex. 24:8 is in Zc. 9:11, ‘Because of the blood of the covenant with you [lit. ‘your covenant’], I [God] will set your prisoners free’. On the basis of his covenant commitment to Israel at Sinai God promises that he will act to liberate. Given the importance of Zechariah in the Passion Narrative,126 it is likely that Zc. 9:11 is also in mind here, and that Matthew is echoing God’s affirmation there of his covenant commitment to the saving of his people.127

e big difference now is that there is mention of a fresh sealing in the blood of the covenant. at there should be a fresh sealing in the blood of the covenant implies some kind of failure of the covenant. e background is likely to be the prophetic insistence that it was the people’s failure to adhere to the covenant that led to the Exile.128 In prophetic expectation, the way forward beyond the devastating experience of the Exile would involve God freshly initiating a covenant relationship with his people.129 Ez. 16:59-63 maps the steps clearly, from the breaking of the covenant and subsequent judgment in v. 59, through God’s remembering of the ancient covenant and fresh move to ‘establish… a neverlasting covenant’ in vv. 60-63, which involves, in v. 63, God forgiving the people for all that they had done, that is, all that had ruptured the covenant and led to the Exile. A speci c tie to Je. 31:31-34 will be given to the cup saying with the introduction of new-covenant language in Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25, but there is no real difference between the new covenant of Je. 31:31-34 and the wider prophetic expectation of God acting afresh to establish his covenant with his people. Jesus does not otherwise use covenant language, but despite the difference of imagery, to speak of God freshly establishing his covenant with his people is not very different from speaking of the coming of God’ kingdom. It is notable that the other saying of Jesus that survives from his last meal with his disciples, Mt. 26:29, anticipates the coming of the kingdom. With its background in the experience of the Exile, the covenant language in Mt. 26:28 also has connections with the beatitudes of Mt. 5:3-10 with their message of fresh hope to those who have been chastened by the humiliation of ‘exile’ (see discussion at 5:3-10). While the idea that the covenant should be sealed with human blood is unprecedented in a Jewish context, a notion of

representative and substitutionary bearing of the punishment of others is pioneered in Is. 52:13–53:12 and developed in 4 Macc. 6:28-29; 17:21-22. Is. 53:10 understands the Servant’s death by viewing his life as given up as a guilt offering (ʾšm). In 4 Macc. 6:29, ‘make my blood their puri cation’, the language that is borrowed to speak of representative and substitutionary suffering comes from the puri cation of things and people associated with the temple.130 In 17:21 puri cation language is used again, but this time of the puri cation of the land. A further link to the Jewish sacri cial system is found in v. 22, but it operates at a level which remains imprecise.131 Not quite on the same level, but relevant here, is also the language of Ex. 32:30. Moses, prepared to place his own life on the line for his sinning people, says, ‘Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin’. e language is clearly that of the sacri cial system.132 What is not said in any of these cases is that the temple sacri cial system is being replaced by (a) human sacri ce. In each case, rather, the sacri cial language is borrowed to allow the elucidation by metaphor of the thought intended.133 Matthew has the blood ‘poured out for many’. In the intimate scene in which Jesus passes the cup to the Twelve and tells them all to drink, the ‘for you’ of Lk. 22:24 seems to offer a better t. (See, however, the introductory discussion of Mt. 26:26-29 and the discussion of v. 26, where I suggest that this ‘for you’ belonged originally with the bread saying rather than the cup saying.) But for the role of the present account as a paradigm for the Christian Eucharist it became imperative to indicate that there is no special apostles’ privilege here. A link to the death of Jesus is available to all who will share in the bread and the wine of the Eucharist. An echo of ‘a ransom for many’ in 20:28 is probably intended in ‘poured out for many’.

e fresh beginning of the covenant anticipated by the prophets is related to forgiveness. For example, Ez. 16:63, discussed above, has, ‘when I [God] forgive you all that you have done’,134 and Je. 31:34 has, ‘I [God] will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more’. So it is not surprising that Matthew has added ‘for the forgiveness of sins’.135 is is actually Matthew’s only use of the word ‘forgiveness’ (ἄϕεσις),136 but he deals with forgiveness on various occasions using the cognate verb ‘forgive’:137 he identi es the role of Jesus in bestowing forgiveness of sins;138 warns about the possibility of excluding oneself from the ‘forgiveness project’ in which Jesus is engaged;139 and stresses the connection between forgiveness of others and forgiveness by God.140 e forgiveness associated by the prophets with the fresh beginning of the covenant is not connected with sacri ce, but the OT cult regularly links sacri ce with forgiveness. ere are enough other associations with the imagery of sacri ce in Mt. 26:28 to make it quite possible that there is a link also here with sacri cial imagery.141 In whatever terms it is to be understood, once we begin to view Jesus’ death as a saving event, questions press about the relationship between what he is achieving in his death and what he aimed to achieve in the rest of his ministry, or, to put it in other terms, about the relationship between the soteriology that is implicit in the rest of his ministry and that which is involved in his death. Sometimes interpreters drive a wedge between the perspective that governs Jesus’ ministry and the perspective that is thought to govern Jesus’ approach to death. Does Jesus’ readiness to face death and conviction of the need for his death have its basis in the failure of his ministry to Israel? Certainly if there were no sin there would be no need for atonement, and if Jesus’ ministry had not aroused hostility he would not have been executed. But Jesus’ approach to

death is no ‘plan B’ aer the failure of ‘plan A’. Rather, his approach to death is to be seen as the continuation and culmination of all his efforts to reach his people. In life and in death Jesus set himself to overcome the indifference, uncertainty, and opposition that he faced through self-sacri cing love. Jesus’ death may be the atonement for the sins of his executioners, but it is effective only when it also leads to a change of heart about him. We are to see Jesus as in some sense the midwife of the kingdom of God, both in connection with his ministry and in connection with his death. Mt. 20:28 views Jesus’ death as the supreme instance of the servant mentality that characterised his whole ministry. Jesus gives birth to a vision of greatness as measured on the scale of service. In vulnerable love Jesus goes unresisting to the cross, loving his enemies (5:44-48) to the end. In this sense Jesus’ death is of a piece with his life and makes its own contribution to the ethic that he promoted. To share Jesus’ passion for God and his kingdom, one must follow him in the way of the cross (16:24-26). But how exactly does this ultimate service that he renders bestow its bene t? Does it somehow undercut the ultimate signi cance of taking up Jesus’ challenge? What becomes of the need for ‘abundant’ righteousness (5:20), or the warning that ‘e Son of Man… will reward each according to their activity’ (16:27), or the threat implied by ‘Depart from me, those [who are] cursed, into the eternal re prepared for the devil and his angels’ (25:41)? at Matthew does not think that his saving death on the the cross is some sort of alternative to the stringent demands of discipleship is clear from 20:25-28, where, precisely as salvi c, the cross becomes the supreme example of the servant role to which his disciples are summoned. To understand the relationship between grace and demand has always been a challenge for Christians, as it

has been for Jews. In our primary documents they tend to stand side by side as both of ultimate signi cance, but the interrelationship between the two is not transparent. e Gospel of Matthew is no exception. e proclamation of the kingdom is the proclamation of God’s saving intervention (5:3-10), but it also makes repentance urgent (4:17). Jesus healed and fed, but he also taught, inspired, challenged, and threatened with judgment. He taught a practice of unceasing forgiveness, but paradoxically he announced that there would be no forgiveness from God for those who were not prepared to forgive (18:22, 35). Perhaps the various OT categories that have been identi ed as contributing to the signi cance of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper can give us a measure of help here. At the heart of the notion of covenant in the OT is God’s relationship with his people. e prophetic expectation echoed in Jesus’ words found the basis for renewal in God’s readiness to forgive but also anticipated that in the new situation people would be inspired to respond in ready obedience. Jesus’ words also invoke the world of OT sacri ce. Sacri ce spoke of God’s provision of the means of forgiveness, but it was never a licence for laxity, and no sacri ce could protect one from the consequences of high-handed disregard of God’s will. God’s ways in the OT are marked by generosity to the repentant but severity to the rebellious. Jesus appears to have seen himself as involved in the representative and substitutionary bearing of the punishment due to fall on others. But the bene t that he assigns to the disciples is not indiscriminately bestowed. e disciples will abandon and even disown Jesus, but that is not their nal stance. Judas is in process of betraying Jesus, but that is not his nal stance. e Jerusalem crowds will say, ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (27:25), and even Jesus’ death as a saving event will not stop the coming

destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, but that is not the nal stance anticipated for them in 23:39 (see discussion there). Proper repentance involves a serious reorientation to all that the Matthean Jesus stands for. But nobody need fear that they have fallen so far as to be beyond the reach of God’s grace, and human frailty is well recognised in the repeated celebration of the Lord’s Supper that brings us ever afresh into connection with Jesus’ death as the means of our forgiveness. e discussion of the relationship between demand and grace must include discussion of the Spirit. For Matthew Jesus is clearly a focal point for a new eschatological work of the Spirit.142 Alongside demand and forgiveness, supernatural empowering is also an important element in the story. Of course, in these brief comments I do not claim to have solved the problem posed by how to adequately relate grace and demand in the soteriology of Matthew. Perhaps not even Matthew was quite sure of that. But the matters commented on do, I think, enable us to see that Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ death is of a piece with his presentation of his ministry and that Matthew’s manner of correlating grace and demand, while it may involve paradox, does not involve crass contradiction and is quite at home in a Jewish and OT thought world. Partly in their attempt to understand v. 29, scholars have disputed whether we should think in terms of Jesus himself drinking from the cup. In particular they have seen the image of Jesus drinking his own blood as difficult. But there may be an important asymmetry here. e disciples drink the cup to participate in the bene ts of Jesus’ death; but Jesus drinks the cup to commit himself to that coming death. Jesus’ resolve in this respect will be sorely tried in Gethsemane (Mt. 26:39: ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass from me’), but for him only to gain fresh con dence as

to the Father’s will (v. 42: ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done’). 26:29 Surprisingly, given his proneness to add ‘Amen’ in precisely this context, Matthew drops an ‘Amen’ here from Mark’s ‘Amen, I say to you’, but this is to strengthen the link he intends to create by means of the following change. Mark’s οὐκέτι (‘any longer’) is displaced by ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι (‘from now [on]’) to make this the second of three linked ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι statements (see at 23:39); the third will come in 26:64. An added τούτου (‘this’) makes clear that the drinking in view is that of the Passover celebration. But Matthew probably does not mean to imply by this that Jesus might drink wine in another context. e point is rather that it is in the context of this celebration that he drinks his last cup of wine. Matthew may think more speci cally of the cup which Jesus has just shared with his disciples,143 or, given that in the earliest recoverable Passover pattern a nal cup of wine was associated with the singing of the second part of the Hallel (re ected in the singing mentioned in v. 30 — see below), the connection might be to a fourth cup which functioned as the ‘nightcap’, at the end of the period of conviviality following the formality of the meal and its associated liturgy, as those assembled were about to disperse. Given that nothing marks the passage of time from v. 28 to v. 29, the former is more likely. Matthew adds μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν (‘with you’). It echoes μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν (‘with the disciples’) from v. 18 and makes clear that Jesus’ focus is not nally on the wine as such but on the table fellowship with which it is associated. Perhaps ‘I am there, in their midst’ in 18:20 and ‘I am with you always’ in 28:20 are thought to be a prolepsis of ‘with you’ in the kingdom here, but such a connection is far from certain.

Mark’s ‘kingdom of God’ becomes ‘kingdom of my Father’. Matthew does not use ‘kingdom of my Father’ elsewhere, but ‘kingdom’ and ‘Father’ are associated in 13:43 in ‘kingdom of their Father’ and in 25:34, where ‘those blessed by my Father’ inherit the kingdom that has been prepared, and ‘my Father’ on the lips of Jesus has been important from 7:21 (see discussion there). Matthew’s language here marks the privileged place of Jesus in the coming kingdom. ‘Fruit of the vine’ is LXX idiom.144 It is also found in m. Ber. 6:1 in a blessing over wine. ‘Drink from (ἀπό)’, rather than simply ‘drink’, is a slightly unusual idiom, but though it is not common in either the Greek or the Semitic languages, it can be found in both. It is unlikely to be speci cally the wine of a Passover celebration that Jesus anticipates drinking in the kingdom; the new celebration will be of the kingdom itself. e syntax for καινόν (‘new’) is not clear. Is the use adverbial, giving ‘anew’ or ‘in a new way’? Is καινόν in apposition to αὐτό (‘it’), giving ‘as something new’? Or does καινόν stand outside the syntax, giving something like ‘a new situation’? Perhaps the former option of the rst of these. Mt. 26:29 functions as yet another Passion prediction. It anticipates the Passion as so close that there would be no further occasion for Jesus to drink wine before the event. But the prospect of the Passion does not blunt Jesus’ con dence about the kingdom, and the future in the kingdom which Jesus had announced and anticipated is the focus of his attention here. e imagery is of the eschatological banquet of the kingdom of God, met earlier in 8:11.145 Because of the judgment focus of chaps. 24–25, the positive eschatological goal receives only modest attention, but the wedding banquet of 25:1-13 is there, to be echoed here in 26:29. Here the whole process outlined in chaps. 24–25 can be passed over in favour of its goal in the eschatological banquet. While 26:29 does not

exclude resurrection appearances, or the promise in 18:20; 28:20 of Jesus’ supernatural presence with his own, it characterises the period between the Passion and the nal kingdom as a period of separation between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus’ ministry in Palestine is seen as concluding with the Passion. It is in line with this perspective that, as will become clear in the treatment of the resurrection materials below, the resurrection appearances, despite their great importance, demonstrate that Jesus is alive and prepare the disciples for the future, but they do not in any sense mark a continuation of the pre-Passion ministry. ose materials, as we will see, contain a strong but unstated assumption that Jesus is not back for things to continue as before. Mt. 26:30 is a transitional verse, probably best treated with the following verses. But the part about the singing of the hymn belongs here. Once the preparation of the Passover meal is in place (v. 19) and the meal has begun (v. 21), the Last Supper account has failed to mention any feature of the Passover meal that does not have an immediate connection with an innovation on the part of Jesus. Now the nal boundary of the occasion is marked by the mention of the singing with which the liturgical marking of Passover concludes. Once again our need to depend on later sources causes uncertainty, but the earliest recoverable Passover liturgy included the singing or recitation of the Hallel (‘praise’), consisting of Pss. 113–118.146 Half of it came before the third cup with its grace, and half of it was kept back to be the nal element of their time together (associated with the nal cup, either with it or before it). 1′. Jesus Says, ‘You Will Deny Me ree Times’ (26:30-35) 30Aer

the hymn singing they went out to the Mount of Olives. 31en Jesus says to them, ‘is night you will all take offence at me. For it is written,

I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. 32But

aer I am raised up, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.’ 33In response Peter said ato him,a ‘If all take offence at you, I will never take offence’. 34Jesusb said to him, ‘Amen, I say to you, this night, before a ccock crows,c dyou will denyd me three times. 35Peter says to him, ‘Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you’. All the disciples said something similar.

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. Missing from

37

700 1424 etc. b c ff2 sys sams.

b. In 37 an added καί (‘also/too’) marks the responsive nature of the interchange. c-c. In p37 vid, 45 (L) f1 (a) the accusative and in nitive construction is replaced by the noun ελεκτοροϕωνιας (‘the cockcrow’). d-d. A third person singular future form here, απαρνησει (‘he will deny’), in 53 B C Θ 565 579 892 1424 etc. looks like a careless recording from dictation of the otherwise-attested απαρνησῃ. Bibliography Anderson, J. C., Web, 169-72. • Best, E., Following, 199-203. • Brown, R. E., ‘e Passion according to Matthew’, Worship 58 (1984), 98-107. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 117-25. • Iersel, B. M. F. van, ‘“To Galilee” or “in Galilee” in Mark 14,28 and 16,7?’ ETL 58 (1982), 365-70. • Politi, J., ‘“Not (Not I)”’, Liteol 6 (1992), 345-55. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 3-5, 17-19, 20-25, 26-29.

e announcement of coming denial here in vv. 30-35 provides the second half of the bracketing (matched by the announcement of betrayal in vv. 20-25) around the heart of the Last Supper. Vv. 30-35

bring to a close the second of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27 (see further at 26:1-2). Jesus knows full well that as he approaches the nal crisis of his life, even his most intimate followers will abandon him. Matthew continues to follow the Markan sequence with his version of Mk. 14:26-31. Lk. 22:33-34 shows awareness of a second source for the material of Mk. 14:29-31,147 but there is no indication that Matthew is aware of any source beyond the Markan. e second-century Fayyum Fragment combines features of the Markan and Matthean forms; it does not take us beyond our canonical Gospels. e core material of Mk. 14:26-31 consists of Jesus’ prediction of the desertion of the disciples, Peter’s protestation, and Jesus’ more precise prediction (it is just possible that one should separate a general prediction of abandonment by the disciples and a speci c prediction in the case of Peter; if so, v. 29 could have been created to merge the traditions). Beyond this are the use of the quotation from Zc. 13:7 and the announcement that aer his resurrection Jesus would go ahead of the disciples to Galilee. Jesus’ prediction that his disciples would desert him is of a piece with his prediction of betrayal. Its primary historicity has been variously evaluated but can be asserted with reasonable con dence. In particular, the account of Peter’s denial (Mk. 14:66-72) is likely to have always had its repentance motif (see discussion at Mt. 26:69-75), and this is intimately tied to Jesus’ prediction. e most likely part of Mk. 14:26-31 to represent a development is the use of Zc. 13:7; it represents an easily detachable support for Jesus’ prediction. Evaluation of Mk. 14:28 is more difficult. e fundamental question is how much, if at all, Jesus, during his ministry, prepared his disciples for a role beyond his Passion. If he anticipated a future coming as the apocalyptic Son of Man, he must have anticipated a period of absence. In the present form of the Gospels a good bit of material treats Jesus as preparing for a situation in which he will be absent. And though there has clearly been development, the basic historicity of much of the material is to be accepted. Against this general background, the historicity of Mk. 14:28 becomes quite possible. But questions may still be raised about its concrete form. ‘Aer I

am raised up’ merely repeats material from the primary Passion predictions, and does so in a manner reminiscent of 9:9. It is the going ahead into Galilee which raises the difficulties. is motif from 14:28 is clearly of great importance to Mark, and he repeats it in 16:7. Mark has no resurrection appearances and no Great Commission. He depends on 14:28; 16:7 to point to the future beyond the empty grave. And that future involves for him a fresh beginning in Galilee aer the pattern of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Is ‘into Galilee’ a speci c prediction by the historical Jesus or Mark’s schematic formulation of his conviction that Jesus had prepared his disciples for a ministry beyond the Passion which would in important respects replicate Jesus’ own ministry? Given the competing Lukan pattern which locates the post-Pentecost beginning in Jerusalem (esp. Lk. 24:59), I do not think that we can be sure, but perhaps what we have in Mk. 14:28 is a schematic formulation inspired by Galilean resurrection appearances.

26:30 Matthew reproduces the Markan wording. is verse is transitional. For the singing see the comments at 26:29. Matthew has twice already located Jesus on the Mount of Olives. In 21:1 the location would have been on the eastern slopes, but in 24:3 he would have been on the western slopes, as here. An intriguing set of parallels have been noted with David’s ight from Jerusalem on the occasion of the Absalom revolt: 2 Sa. 15:3031 has David ascending the Mount of Olives, weeping and praying to God, and aware that a trusted advisor, Ahithophel, has joined the conspirators; Ahithophel later hangs himself (17:23), as does Judas. At key points the parallels are not exact (Jesus is not eeing Jerusalem, but he is keeping his whereabouts quiet; Jesus is not said to weep, but to be grieved and agitated, and this and the prayer come not as he moves up the Mount of Olives, but in Gethsemane), but especially with the Judas/Ahithophel similarity, a connection at some level is quite likely: Jesus is the displaced royal gure, betrayed

by an intimate who later expresses in suicide his regret for his actions. On this night there would be no return to Bethany. e Passover night had to be passed in (greater-) Jerusalem.148 ough the matter is not clari ed, it is probably best to think of the place of the Last Supper as where the disciples and Jesus planned to pass the night, but one might also envisage a night under the stars or in a rough shelter or tent.149 But this night was too fraught with signi cance for the group to be ready for sleep at the conclusion of the Passover celebration. 26:31 Matthew stays quite close to the Markan wording. He replaces Mark’s linking καί (‘and’) with his favoured τότε (‘then’), drops a ὅτι marking direct speech, adds an emphatic ‘you’ (ὑμεῖς) and the extra precision of ‘at me’ (ἐν ἐμοί), reaches forward to Mk. 14:30 for the extra precision of ‘this night’, prefers γάρ (‘for’) to Mark’s ὅτι (‘because’) to connect the ‘it is written’ clause, and adds ‘of the ock’ to the quotation, moving ‘the sheep’ to which it is attached to the end of the clause. is time Matthew keeps the historic present for the verb of saying (‘says’). He will change it in v. 34, but add another in v. 35. In this way Matthew allows the emphasis of the unit to fall on Jesus’ opening assertion and Peter’s emphatic denial. ‘All of you’ is probably a conscious counterpart to ‘one of you’ in v. 21.150 e language, ‘offended at’, has been used previously in connection with Jesus at 11:6 (beatitude on whoever is not); 13:57 (in his hometown); and without the explicit object at 15:12 (by the Pharisees at Jesus’ words). e disciples will now move into this orbit. It is probably the response marked by Jesus’ words in 26:52-54 which will prove too much for the disciples. ‘is night’ anticipates the events of vv. 56, 69-74. is is the seventh and last time that

Jesus uses γέγραπται (‘it is written/it stands written’) with an appeal to Scripture.151 e citation from Zc. 13:7 is loose, but it is clearly not based on the LXX.152 In Zc. 13:7 ‘strike’ is God’s direction to a sword. e move to the rst person form is based on the rst person form of the nal clause of Zc. 13:7 (not quoted). e attribution of the action directly to God is striking. e sense of divine necessity in relation to the Passion has been strong enough, but this takes us a step further and identi es the fate that will befall Jesus with the judgment of God. τῆς ποίμνης (‘of the ock’) has no counterpart in Zc. 13:7. It appears to be a repeat rendering of the Hebrew hṣṣʾn, which underlies τὰ πρόβατα (‘the sheep’). Given that he already has τὰ πρόβατα from Mk. 14:27, perhaps τῆς ποίμνης is Matthew’s way of marking that ṣʾn in Zc. 13:7 is used of sheep gathered in a ock and not simply of a number of sheep. But Matthew probably also likes the word because ‘ ock’ is a standard image for Israel/Judah.153 Just possibly he may even intend a secondary echo of Je. 31:10, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a ock’. In any case, Matthew sees the scattering of the sheep in relation to the image of the scattering of Israel. e language of Mt. 9:36 comes to mind: ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep who do not have a shepherd’. at is the state to which the disciples will fall back. Cf. 17:17, where, under the imagery of the failure of Israel in the Exodus period, the disciples represent their generation in its failure to respond appropriately to the ministry of Jesus. I have tracked the thread of Zechariah references in the Passion Narrative at 26:15. As already noted there, in the logic of Zechariah the shepherd of 13:7 should be the worthless shepherd of chap. 11. But the larger theme is the failure of the shepherd role in Israel and the way in which God’s people will also be caught up in the fate of

the shepherd, as God puri es his people by judgment. Matthew’s text will take up this larger thought and not Zechariah’s speci c identi cation of the shepherd here. e immediate justi cation for applying 13:7 to Jesus will be the presence there of the phrase, ‘the man who is my [i.e., God’s] associate’. Some sort of status as God’s vice regent is involved. 26:32 Except for a weaker δέ in place of Mark’s ἀλλά for the linking ‘but’, Matthew reproduces the Markan language. e coming disaster is not allowed the last word (in a broad sense there may be an in uence from Zc. 13:8-9, where the scattering of the sheep is not to be the end of the story, but leads ultimately to restoration). ‘Aer I am raised up’ recalls the language in the Passion predictions with which the restoration aer the suffering is indicated.154 With v. 32, vv. 31-32 gain the overall shape of the earlier Passion predictions. But whereas it is cryptic in relation to the Passion, for the rst time it adds something beyond being raised up. It would be attractive to see προάξω (‘I will go ahead/lead’) as intended to mark the renewal of the lost shepherding role (cf. Jn. 10:1-5). is may be so, but no literal following of Jesus to Galilee is involved (cf. 28:7). Matthew will use echoing language in the angel’s words in 28:7 to mark clearly the ful lment of the expectation of 26:32. And 28:7 will add, ‘ere you will see him’, which in turn will be echoed in the words of the resurrected Jesus in 28:10, which also make a direct imperative out of what has thus far been implicit: ‘Go to Galilee’. e purpose of this thread becomes clear in 28:16-20, where Jesus commissions the disciples to renew his ministry, beginning where he began in Galilee but now expanded to embrace all peoples and supported by Jesus’ presence in a supernatural manner. e return to Galilee symbolises a fresh beginning. 26:33 Matthean intervention is greater here, but not so as to produce any material change. Matthew takes the opportunity to

introduce again ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (lit. ‘having answered, he said’). His uses of this idiom in vv. 23 and especially in v. 25 may well be in mind. Mark’s εἰ καί (‘even if ’) is soened to εἰ (‘if ’). An added ἐν σοί (‘at you’) matches the corresponding addition in v. 31. e εἰ … ἀλλά (‘if … but’) construction in Mk. 14:29 seems rough, and the ἀλλά is dropped. Mark’s simple οὐκ (‘not’) is strengthened to οὐδέποτε (‘never’). And Matthew repeats the verb to provide syntactical completeness to the nal clause. Peter is con dent that though Jesus’ words may prove true of others, they will not apply to him. We are being set up to hear something more precise in connection with Jesus’ prophetic awareness of Peter’s coming action. For good or for ill Peter gains distinctive prominence at various points in the story and will again here, this time for ill. 26:34 Matthew replaces Mark’s historic present with ἔϕη (‘said’) and abbreviates by dropping an emphatic ‘you’ (σύ), a ‘today’ (σήμερον) which is redundant given the more precise ‘this night’ to follow, and ‘twice’ (δίς),155 a detail which Matthew will also drop vv. 74-75 from his account of the ful lment.156 With yet another emphatic ‘Amen, I say to you’ Jesus contradicts Peter. ‘On this night’ recalls Jesus’ earlier statement in v. 31. But now Jesus becomes more precise, ‘before a cockcrows’. A cock crow might be heard any time from about 2:30 a.m. on, but since it is normally the rst light that sets the cocks crowing, it is natural to take the sense as ‘before dawn’.157 In Mark the ‘twice’, ‘thrice’ sequence is probably a storytelling technique, but it does require reference to the sound of a speci c cock. Matthew retains this concreteness (but not the doubling) for vv. 74-75. e triple denial will be vividly reported in vv. 69-75. e reference to denial of Jesus in v. 34 must call to mind 10:32-33. But by his choice of verbs (ἀπαρνεῖσθαι here, but ἀρνεῖσθαι in 10:33) Matthew prefers to hold

back his accentuation of the link until 26:69-75, where the seriousness of Peter’s situation will be marked by the twofold use there of the verb used in 10:33 for ‘deny’ (in vv. 70, 72 — the only other uses of ἀρνεῖσθαι in Matthew). 26:35 Matthew substitutes the opening λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πέτρος (‘Peter says to him’) for the Markan ὁ δὲ ἐκπερισσῶς ἔλεγεν (‘but he was saying emphatically’) — both the repetition of Peter’s name and the historic present highlight these words of Peter — and Matthew reworks the end of the verse to ὁμοίως καὶ πάντες οἱ μαθηταὶ εἶπαν (‘All the disciples said something similar’) in place of Mark’s ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ πάντες ἔλεγον (‘all [the rest of them] said the same’) — ὁμοίως allows for a measure of individuality in the different responses, and the addition of οἱ μαθηταί is consistent with Matthew’s evident interest in heightening the pro le of the disciples in this chapter. Otherwise the changes are minor.158 ere is no particular reason to think of Peter as self-deceived about his readiness to die with Jesus rather than to deny him. His sentiment is probably quite like that which I attributed to James and John in discussing 20:22. It will be the thieves and not disciples who die with Jesus in 27:38. What throws Peter and James and John is that the threat on Jesus’ life was not simply an evil plot in relation to which the disciples might need to sacri ce their own lives in defence of their master (this is why, as I have already suggested, aer their beginning attempt in 26:51 to defend Jesus the disciples are undone in v. 56b by his reaction in vv. 52-56a). But as sincere as Peter’s words might be, there will be a nice irony in vv. 69-74 in having Peter mouth his denials just aer it has been said of Jesus, on trial for his life, ‘he deserves death’.159 He shows no readiness to die with Jesus on the terms that will actually be involved. Peter takes the lead in protestation, but the other disciples want to make kindred claims for themselves.

roughout chap. 26 the disciples are collectively given a major role, but with respect to the failure of their discipleship the matter is to be worked out concretely only in the cases of Judas and Peter and handled quite generally for all the rest — the failure to watch and pray of the sons of Zebedee, with Peter, is the partial exception to this pattern. ough vv. 30-35 give special prominence to Peter, the way Matthew intends to work this pattern is not yet clear because the other disciples, at least collectively, are given a reasonably signi cant treatment here. But it is suggestive of what is to come that the parallelling of units in Matthew’s structuring treats this unit as focussed on the prediction of Peter’s denial. at all the disciples are to take offence at Jesus is prophesied, and its ful lment will be reported in v. 56b, but neither the prophecy nor its ful lment contributes to the larger shape of the Matthean structuring of the material in chaps. 26–27.

C. Section 3: Praying to Be Spared Trial (26:36-46) 36en

Jesus comes with them into a plot of land called Golgotha, and he says to the disciples, ‘Sit here until I go off athere and pray’. 37He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and he began to be grieved and distressed. 38en he says to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved, [grieved] to death. Stay here and watch with me.’ 39And he bwent forwardb a little and fell on his face, praying and saying, ‘cMy Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Only, not as I wish, but as you [wish]’.d 40He comes to the disciples and finds them sleeping, and he says to Peter, ‘So, did you not have strength to watch with me one hour? 41Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ 42Again, a second time, he went off and prayed, esaying, ‘fMy Father, if it is not possible for thisg to pass h[me] by, let your will come into effect.’43And again he came and found them sleeping. For their eyes were weighed down. 44He le them and iagain went off and prayed ja third time,j saying the same thing [yet] again. 45en he comes to the disciples and says to them, ‘Have you been sleeping for the time that was le and taking your rest? ke hour has drawn near, and the Son of Humanity is handed over into [the] hands of sinners. 46Get up, let us be going! e one who hands me over has drawn near.’

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from ‫ א‬C* etc. ωδε (‘here’) in 33 700. b-b. προσελθων (lit. ‘having gone towards’) replaces προελθων in 53 ‫א‬ A C D L W Θ 067 f1, 13 33 etc. syh. If this is not a careless mistake, it is hard to be sure what sense was intended. Does Jesus come even closer to the three disciples? c. Missing from

53*

L Δ f1 892 etc. a vgww.

d. Lk. 22:43-44 is added here in Cmg f13 etc.

e. Missing from B g1. f. Missing from

37

a c hc.

g. το ποτηριον (‘cup’) is added in D Θ f etc. lat sys, p mae bo to match Mt. 26:39. h. απ εμου (lit. ‘from me’) is added in A C W 067 f13 etc. f ff2 q vgmss syh to match v. 39. i. Missing from j-j. Missing from

37 vid 37

Θ f1, 13 700 l 844 etc. a sys.

A D K f1 565 1424 etc. it.

k. A linking γάρ (‘for’) is provided in B Θ f1 etc. sys samss mae. In Θ f1 mae this displaces an ιδου (lit. ‘behold’, but not translated above). Bibliography Aagaard, A. M., ‘Doing God’s Will: Matthew 26:36-46’, IntRMiss 77 (1988), 221-28. • Beck, B., ‘Gethsemane in the Four Gospels’, EpR 15 (1988), 57-65. • Black, S. L., ‘e Historic Present in Matthew: Beyond Speech Margins’, in Discourse, ed. S. E. Porter and J. T. Reed, 120-39, esp. 135-39. • Brown, R., Passion Narratives, 192-203. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Sleeping at Gethsemane’, DR 114 (1996), 235-45. • Feldmeier, R., Die Krisis des Gottessohnes: Die Gethsemaneerzählung als Schlüssel der Markuspassion (WUNT 2/21. Tübingen: Mohr, 1987). • Fuchs, A., ‘Gethsemane: Die deuteromarkinische Bearbeitung von Mk 14,32-42 par Mt 26,36-46 par Lk 22,39-46’, SNTU 25 (2000), 23-75. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 329-33. • Giblet, J., ‘La prière de Jésus [Mc 14,32-42]’, in L’Expérience de la Prière dans les Grandes Religions, ed. H. Limet and J. Ries (Homo Religiosus 5. Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre d’Histoire de Religions, 1980), 261-73. • Gibson, J. B., Temptations, 238-55. • Grassi, J. A., ‘Abba, Father (Mark 14:36): Another Approach’, JAAR 50 (1982), 449-58. • Kayalaparampil, T., ‘Passion and Resurrection in the Gospel of Matthew’, Biblebhashyam 16 (1990), 41-51. • Kelber, W. H., ‘Mark 14,32-42: Gethsemane: Passion Christology and Discipleship Failure’, ZNW 63 (1972), 166-87. • Kiley, M., ‘“Lord, Save My Life” (Ps 116:4) as Generative Text for Jesus’ Gethsemane Prayer (Mark 14:36a)’, CBQ 48 (1986), 655-59. • Lods, M., ‘Climat de bataille à Gethsemane’, ETR 60 (1985), 425-29. •

Martin, F., ‘Literary eory, Philosophy of History and Exegesis’, omist 52 (1988), 575-604. • Mays, J. L., ‘“Now I Know”: An Exposition of Genesis 22:1-19 and Matthew 26:36-46’, TToday 58 (2002), 519-25. • Mora, V., Création, 89-94. • Murphy-O’Connor, J., ‘What Really Happened at Gethsemane?’ BRev 14 (1998), 28-39, 52. • Phillips, G. A., ‘Gethsemane: Spirit and Discipleship in Mark’s Gospel’, in e Journey of Western Spirituality, ed. A. W. Sadler (Annual Publication College eology Society. Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981), 49-63. • Ruprecht, L. A., ‘Mark’s Tragic Vision: Gethsemane’, RelLit 24 (1992), 1-25. • Saunderson, B., ‘Gethsemane’, Bib 70 (1989), 224-33. • Schwarz, G., Judas, 59-65. • Seby, R., Sr., ‘Jesus: e Man of Prayer and Suffering’, Biblebhashyam 18 (1992), 71-82. • Senior, D., and Stuhlmueller, C., Passion, 100-119. • Smith, C. A., ‘A Comparative Study of the Prayer of Gethsemane’, IBS 22 (2000), 98-122. • Söding, T., ‘Gebet und Gebetsmahnung Jesu in Getsemani: Eine redaktionskritische Auslegung von Mk 14,32-42’, BZ 31 (1987), 76-100. • Spencer, W. D. and A. B., e Prayer Life of Jesus: Shout of Agony, Revelation of Love: A Commentary (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991). • Stanley, D. M., ‘Matthew’s Gethsemane (Mt 26:36-46)’, in Jesus in Gethsemane: e Early Church Reflects on the Sufferings of Jesus (New York: Paulist, 1980), 155-87. • Taylor, J. E., ‘e Garden of Gethsemane’, BAR 21.4 (1995), 26-35. See further at Mt. 20:20-28; 26:1-2, 31-35.

We now come to the third of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27. Where the other subsections consist of multiple panels, generally three, here there seems at rst to be only one unit, but Matthew marks it as three units by introducing three uses of τότε (‘then’):160 the three sessions of prayer are framed by the introductory material of vv. 36-37 and the concluding material of vv. 45-46. On the structure of the entire section see the comments at 26:1-2. As the Passion becomes imminent, Jesus is faced by its full horror and recoils from what he has thus far understood to be his Father’s will. In prayer he regains renewed con dence about the Father’s will, and by v. 46 is ready to

face his future. e three privileged disciples have been asked to watch with Jesus and to pray for themselves, but the weakness of the esh is their undoing. As a result they are not ready for what is to come. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 14:32-42. ough Luke probably knew a second source for this episode, and John re ects considerable awareness of aspects of the tradition involved, Matthew’s account shows no signs of in uence from anything other than his Markan source. e prehistory of the Markan material is hotly disputed, with a number of versions of the pre-Markan materials. In particular we should note that the striking number of occasions in the Markan account where things are in effect said twice has encouraged some scholars to see here a merging of two sources (one with Jesus and the Twelve and one with Jesus and the three). More oen, however, the addition of the other feature into an account with only one or other of these two features is favoured. e debate is quite unresolved, but there is no compelling reason to think that all the main features of Mark’s telling came to him in a single tradition. e fundamental historicity of the material has two obvious supports. ere is clearly multiple attestation, with the brief account in Heb. 5:7 to be added to the Gospel evidence. And there is the sheer difficulty involved for the early Christians to allow that Jesus wavered as to his understanding of the will of God for violent death.161

26:36 Matthew disturbs the Markan language in many, mostly minor, ways. He adds the rst of three further uses of τότε (‘then’) which point to the sectioning intended by Matthew (see further in n. 160). He replaces Mark’s ἔρχονται (‘they come’) with ἔρχεται μετ᾿ αὐτῶν ὁ Ἰησους (lit. ‘Jesus comes with them’, but in the Greek this means that they are coming along with Jesus and not that Jesus is coming along with them, as a literal translation tends to suggest in English idiom162): aer v. 35, Mark’s ‘they come’ without speci c mention of Jesus might seem to exclude him, and Matthew wants not only to include him but to make him central. e

structurally simpler λεγόμενον (‘called’) replaces Mark’s οὗ τὸ ὄνομα (‘of which the name’). ‘e disciples’ replaces ‘his disciples’ to conform to the preferred usage in chap. 26.163 ἀπελθὼν ἐκεῖ (lit. ‘having departed there’) is added to anticipate the movement of Jesus away from the main group of disciples to pray — the ἐκεῖ allows a ‘here’/‘there’ contrast to be expressed.164 Unusually, Matthew accepts virtually all Mark’s historic presents in the Gethsemane account and adds none of his own. Perhaps he saw there the beginnings of a pattern that he could develop: the historic presents could track the story in terms of the interchange between Jesus and the disciples; the aorists could track the story of Jesus alone and praying to God.165 We cannot be sure since the uses of τότε (‘then’) added by Matthew before the rst and last sets of historic presents (vv. 36, 45) and before the solitary historic present in v. 38 give these a structural role, and leave over only the linked three in v. 40, where emphasis might be a sufficient explanation (the omission of a historic present in v. 37 might count in favour of this second explanation). Nothing indicates the moment at which Judas peeled off from the disciple band. We are perhaps to understand that he slipped off quietly and that nobody was particularly aware of his absence (except Jesus in vv. 45-46). e name ‘Gethsemane’ is probably based on the Semitic Gat šĕmānîm (‘Oil Press’), which suggests that we may be dealing with the site of an oil press within an olive grove. No evidence has survived of its location, but on the basis of v. 26 we can locate it on the western slopes of the Mount of Olives, and since olive trees apparently grow better on the lower than the upper slopes, we might be inclined to look for it there. But given the traditional name of the mountain, we should not expect to learn very much from the name ‘Gethsemane’. Jesus asks the disciples to wait for him while he goes apart to pray. Peter, James, and John have

a role, but Jesus gives the other disciples no function. He does not make it quite clear,166 but probably in Matthew’s telling Jesus does not reconnect with these other disciples prior to his arrest and their eeing (v. 56). 26:37 Matthew replaces a historic present here in Mark with a participle construction. Matthew oen breaks up Markan parataxis with a change to a participle; the change allows for an aorist participle with an aorist verb here to be matched in v. 39, which marks the next stage of Jesus’ movement. Certainly Matthew sees no place here for using a historic present to mark emphasis. Matthew identi es James and John not by their names, as in Mk. 14:33, but as ‘the two sons of Zebedee’. e other place where Matthew has the two as (only) the sons of Zebedee is 20:20, where he makes a similar change to the Markan text.167 is will allow Peter to be the only named disciple in the episode, but given other links between 26:36-46 and 20:20-28 the change will also serve to enhance the links. Peter is there as the one who will deny Jesus; is it too much to suggest that the sons of Zebedee are there as precisely those who have asked, via their mother, for positions at Jesus’ right and le hand? ese positions were not Jesus’ to grant, but he may be allowing for the possibility that the positions either side of him on the cross might be for them. Matthew keeps back Mark’s μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ (‘with him’) for a much more signi cant use as μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ in 26:38 (see there). Matthew drops all Mark’s uses of ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι (‘be amazed/alarmed/distressed’). So there is probably no great signi cance in his substitution here of λυπεῖσθαι (‘be grieved’). λυπεῖσθαι has already been brought into connection with the coming Passion in 17:23; 26:22. Its choice here has the virtue of making use of the same root as περίλυπος (‘deeply grieved’) in 26:38 to follow.

As already in 17:1 (see there), Peter, James, and John function as an inner circle within the disciple band. By introducing James and John differently here, Matthew weakens the cross reference to the trans guration account, but other cross references to come ensure that the link remains alive (the nature of the link is re ected on at 17:1). ἀδημονεῖν is rare in Biblical Greek.168 Its negative formation is perhaps best represented by the translation ‘be distressed’.169 Apart from references to Jesus’ compassion (e.g., 9:36) Matthew has virtually no reference to Jesus’ emotions prior to this point.170 is makes the emotion of the present episode stand out the more. While it is clear enough that the grief and distress are about the prospect of the Passion, no sharper focus is possible at this stage of the narrative. e continuing narrative will suggest that the focus is on the awfulness of the event and not, say, the role of betrayal or desertion. 26:38 An added τότε (‘then’), linked with the historic present already found in Mark, indicates the move to the central pane of Matthew’s intended triptych. Solidarity with Jesus in his vigil is highlighted by the addition of μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (‘with me’), adapted from the Markan μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ (‘with him’) kept back from v. 37.171 Otherwise Matthew reproduces the Markan language here. e initial explanatory words of Jesus allow him to express to the three what the narrator informs us of in v. 37; it is the present articulation that takes the story to the next stage. Tob. 3:1 (S) brings together being ‘deeply grieved’ (γενόμενος περίλυπος), the ‘soul’ as the seat of the emotions (τῇ ψυχῇ), the activity of prayer (προσεύχεσθαι), and in the prayer itself even a reference twice in v. 6 to death (ἀποθανεῖν). Jesus’ words belong within this world of piety, but no speci c allusion is likely to be intended. e thricerepeated refrain in Pss. 42–43 (LXX 41–42) comes closer to the Gospel syntax with τί περίλυπος εἶ ψυχή (‘why, soul, are you deeply

grieved’), and the MT here even has the equivalent to ‘my’. An allusion is possible since the turning to God that characterises the psalm characterises Jesus here, but again the link is probably via a shared world of piety.172 e Gospel περίλυπος ἕως θανάτου (lit. ‘deeply grieved to death’) is not far from λελύπημαι … ἕως θανάτου in Jon. 4:9 LXX, where the language seems to mean (cf. v. 8), ‘I have been grieved so much that I want to die’. But that does not t the Gospel context very well, where Jesus’ distress leads rather to the request to be spared the death that faces him. A better guide comes from Jdg. 16:16, which says that Samson’s ‘soul was grieved to death’ (tqṣr npšw lmwt), where ‘death’ is not literal but a marker of intensity.173 ‘Stay here’ runs parallel to the ‘sit here’ of Mt. 26:36, just as ‘went ahead’ in v. 39 has a parallel role to ‘go off ’ in v. 36. Jesus’ need for privacy with God marks this as a critical time.174 But the three who have accompanied Jesus further are asked to watch with him. While ‘with me’ expresses solidarity with Jesus, it is not at once so clear what kind of watching is in view in γρηγορεῖτε (lit. ‘stay awake’, but used widely in a gurative sense for ‘be watchful’, ‘stay alert’). e three are to watch with Jesus, not to watch Jesus or to watch out on his behalf. ough it is Passover night, that they should be asked to help keep the Passover vigil called for in Ex. 12:42, as some interpreters claim, seems extraneous to the main thread of thought through the narrative here. Clearly staying awake is involved in watching, but that can hardly be what it is primarily about. In Mark the best guidance comes from 13:33-37, which uses the verb three times in connection with the image of being a doorkeeper alert for the arrival of the master. e context there is eschatological, but the nature of the readiness called for is a spiritual alertness, a readiness for what is coming. Matthew has no equivalent to Mk. 13:33-37, but equivalent imagery of readiness using γρηγορεῖτε is found in Mt.

24:42; 25:13, and Matthew’s intended sense for γρηγορεῖτε here is the same. In the Gethsemane context the verb calls for readiness for what is coming in the Passion. One who is alert to the will of God as Jesus was would stand with Jesus as he went to his death. 26:39 e main substance remains the same, but Matthew reworks the Markan language considerably. ἐπὶ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ (‘on his face’) for Mark’s ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς (‘on the ground’) provides a link with 17:6, supplying a further cross reference to the trans guration account. Here Jesus is falling on his face before God to bring his distress and concern to his Father;175 in 17:6 the disciples are falling on their faces in response to the voice from heaven. Mark has καὶ προσηύχετο … καὶ ἔλεγεν (lit. ‘and he was praying … and he was saying’), but because Matthew compacts the indirect statement of the prayer that Mark puts with προσηύχετο and the direct statement of the prayer that he puts with ἔλεγεν Matthew brings the verbs together as προσευχόμενος καὶ λέγων (lit. ‘praying and saying’), keeping the two verbs presumably for the extra sense of weight.176 From the indirect statement εἰ δυνατόν ἐστιν (‘if it is possible’) is rescued, to replace ‘all things are possible to you’ in the Markan wording of the prayer. Mark’s ‘all things are possible to you’ echoes the similar language in Mk. 9:23. Matthew uses the language in his parallel to this latter verse (Mt. 19:26), where it is a matter of rich people getting into the kingdom, but he is less happy with it here, where it might seem to suggest that an arbitrary whim of the Father’s would determine Jesus’ fate. He prefers the much more open-ended ‘if it is possible’. Mark’s striking bilingual ἀββὰ ὁ πατήρ (‘Abba, Father’), which he shares uniquely with Paul (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), becomes πάτερ μου (‘my Father’).177 From the indirect statement Matthew also takes the verb παρέλθῃ ἀπ᾿ (‘it may pass by/from’) which, to t its new syntactical context, becomes παρελθάτω ἀπ᾿ (‘let it pass by/from’) to displace

παρένεγκε (‘take away’). e language imagery seems to be of a situation in which a cup is being handed to one person and then another (cf. the giving of the cup at the Last Supper), and an individual expresses the wish not to participate.178 As Jesus moved away from the larger disciple body in Mt. 26:36, now he moves away from the three, but this time only a short distance: though he needs to be alone with God,179 their nearness is important for him. What Jesus asks to be spared is ‘this cup’.180 I suggested above that Jesus should be understood to have drunk from the cup at the Last Supper that he shared with the disciples: the disciples drink the cup to participate in the bene ts of Jesus’ death; but Jesus drinks the cup to commit himself to that coming death. ‘is cup’ can refer to nothing else, and it probably refers to his coming death with a conscious link to the Last Supper imagery. An allusion to the cup of Mt. 20:22, 23 also intended, where the cup is an image of being overtaken by disaster. e dreadful reality of what Jesus is facing has now struck him. As it stares him in the face, he recoils from it. And he comes to God with the question: Does it have to be? It can hardly be that Jesus entertains serious doubts about what he has understood to be the Father’s will, but a serious gap has opened between what he has understood as his Father’s will and what in the reality of his human life he can perceive as desirable.181 Jesus asks ‘if it is possible’, but ultimately he comes to be reassured that it is not possible and that despite his own natural recoil from the prospect, his coming death on the cross represents the best possible thing that can happen given the situation that exists. Jesus would be very happy to be told, ‘It is not necessary’, but he expects to be told, ‘It is necessary’.182

26:40 e language is mostly Markan. Matthew adds the more precise ‘to the disciples’. is ts with his tendency throughout the chapter to highlight the role of the disciples, but the scope of reference that ts the context here is the three and not, as elsewhere, the whole disciple group. He will again refer to the whole group in v. 56 with ‘all the disciples’ (cf. v. 35 earlier). Matthew drops Mark’s Σίμων, καθεύδεις: the syntax of the Markan sentence is uncertain,183 and there is a measure of redundancy in the use both of the name (coming aer ‘to Peter’) and the verb (coming aer ‘ nds them sleeping’). Matthew uses οὕτως (‘thus/so/in this way’) instead to point generally to what Jesus nds on his return. ough Matthew follows Mark in having Jesus’ words addressed to Peter, he marks what is said as not individual to Peter by changing Mark’s second person singular verb to the second person plural form. He repeats here the μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (‘with me’) that was added in v. 38. Once again Matthew keeps Mark’s uses of the historic present in order to highlight this encounter in the middle of the episode. For these disciples to be asleep places them in default in relation both to the literal and the gurative sense of γρηγορεῖτε (‘stay awake/watch’). ἰσχύειν means ‘have strength’, but it can also be used as an auxiliary verb meaning ‘be able’.184 Given the reference to come to the esh being weak, the former is preferable. μίαν ὥραν (‘one hour’) here is consistent with a period of prayer of up to an hour. But although it is the basis for the traditional understanding of a three-hour vigil, it offers no precise information about how long either the rst or the subsequent sessions of prayer are to be imagined to be. Jesus’ departure, prayer, and return is the rst of three to be reported. Patterns of three make for good storytelling and have good OT precedent.185 As already prophesied (v. 34), Peter will be involved in another pattern of three in vv. 69-75. We are probably to

understand that the failure in the latter is linked with the failure in the former. 26:41 Matthew reproduces the Markan language here virtually unchanged. us far it might seem as if the disciples’ failure was all about letting Jesus down. But now we nd that more is involved in the watching Jesus intends for them. I have suggested above that in the Gethsemane context the spiritual alertness called for in ‘watch with me’ has to do with readiness for what is coming in the Passion and would entail a readiness to stand with Jesus as he goes to his death. It now becomes evident that, in this way, watching with Jesus would be important for themselves and not simply for Jesus. at in the present context watching with Jesus as he prays should involve prayer is already implicitly evident, but now in the face of the disciples’ failure this need is stated explicitly. And more pointedly the disciples should pray that they may not enter into trial. e language here is reminiscent of that of the penultimate clause of the Lord’s Prayer (6:13), and Matthew has tweaked the Markan language to make it yet closer.186 e only difference is that here God is not speci cally made the agent of what is to happen (‘enter’ vs. ‘lead us’). As we saw earlier, the petition in the Lord’s Prayer is to be spared times of great pressure, times which would prove very trying for one, and the prayer re ects a sense of one’s own frailty and limitation, one’s vulnerability to situations in which one nds oneself. e prayer the disciples are being asked to pray parallels broadly that which Jesus is praying for himself. ey are to pray to be spared the pressure that it is becoming clear Jesus is not to be spared. In 20:21 the sons of Zebedee have asked for positions at Jesus’ right and le hand; here they are in effect being told to pray to be spared just this.

e urgency of the need to pray as Jesus has directed is indicated by ‘the spirit is willing, but the esh is weak’. is and the Markan parallel are the only spirit/ esh contrasts in the Synoptic Gospels. Elsewhere in Matthew only in 5:3; 27:50 does ‘spirit’ not refer to the Holy Spirit or to an evil spirit; and neither of these offers much help here.187 Matthew’s other uses of ‘ esh’ are not illuminating either. In the OT ‘spirit’ and ‘ esh’ each represent the human person, but considered, at least sometimes and to some extent, under different aspects. ‘Flesh’ is the easier word to comment on. In Brown’s words, ‘“Flesh” applies to human beings … in their tangible, perishable, and earthly aspects’.188 No doubt Brown includes these under ‘perishable’, but I would want to add ‘weak’ and ‘vulnerable’ to Brown’s list, especially because these nuances represent an anchor point for later developments.189 e OT itself does not re ect on the weakness of the esh in ethical terms. But both Qumran and Paul do. Again to use Brown’s words for what we nd in the Qumran documents, ‘Flesh (which in itself is not evil, sinful, crassly sexual, or opposed to God) is oen the channel through which the Spirit of Wickedness attacks, tests, tempts, or takes over the individual’.190 ‘e Spirit of Wickedness’, however, is not linked with uses of ‘ esh’ with the consistency Brown’s words might suggest. Paul goes a step further and can identify ‘ esh’ as an evil power working through the appetites and wishes of the human frame. ‘Flesh’ in Mt. 26:41 is not like Paul’s use (if it were, the difficulty would be caused by the esh being strong, not weak), but it does t well with the Qumran use. ‘Spirit’ poses more difficulties. It can represent the life force that animates the human body (the imagery is of the breath of life)191 and then derivatively the vigour of one’s life or the positive energy of one’s spirits. With a qualifying genitive, ‘spirit’ is applied to various kinds of aptitudes and attitudes (e.g., ‘spirit of jealousy’) and

‘spirit’ by itself can mean ‘attitude’ or ‘outlook’ (e.g., Nu. 14:24; Dt. 2:30). e OT uses are carried on in Qumran, but the notable development is the idea that people participate in two spirits: the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit (see 1QS 3:17-26). is is clearly a recognition of the presence of contradictory impulses within the human breast. What counts at Qumran is which one predominates. Paul has nothing comparable. Over against Paul’s distinctive use of ‘ esh’ is to be set ‘the Holy Spirit’ (e.g., Rom. 8:9). Where are we to locate Mt. 26:41? e Gospel statement might seem at rst to be a universal statement about the nature of the human condition. But it is being applied narrowly to three men who belong to the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples, and it is best taken as having in mind ways in which they have shown themselves different from their peers as well as ways in which they have shown themselves to be like their peers. In connection with ‘ esh’ the disciples are not distinctive: they too are weak and subject to temptation. Under pressure they too are likely to break. ‘e spirit is willing’ is, however, something that distinguishes the disciples from many others. ey have been eager to identify themselves with Jesus and his project. ey have recently declared their readiness to die for him. eir prayer must be to be spared a situation that could prove to be too much for them. But for them too, there sits in the background the need, ultimately, to submit their wills to the divine will. 26:42 Mark will include the count only on the third occasion, but Matthew has already here ἐκ δευτέρου (‘a second time’).192 Mark is content with τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον εἰπών (lit. ‘saying the same word’), but Matthew produces a somewhat different wording for this second session of prayer. ough much of his wording repeats or rephrases the rst, Matthew probably intends it to be subtly different in one important respect. For ‘saying’, Matthew exchanges

Mark’s aorist participle for a present to match his own use in v. 39. ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass me by’ of v. 39 becomes ‘if it is not possible for this to pass by, if I do not drink it …’.193 Both forms of prayer formally leave the outcome open, but while the former explores the possibility of Jesus avoiding the cup, the latter explores the possibility of Jesus not being able to avoid the cup. e centre of gravity has moved in favour of the likelihood of the need to embrace the fearful fate represented by the cup. Matthew and Mark record no speci c answer to Jesus’ prayer, but in Matthew the dri from the rst to the second set of words is quite suggestive, and Jesus’ construal of the answer becomes quite clear from his words in v. 46. An echo of ‘drink from it’ in v. 27 and probably also of ‘I will not drink’ in v. 29 is intended with ‘if I do not drink it’ in v. 42. e nal clause of this second form for Jesus’ prayer is a quotation from the fourth clause of the Lord’s Prayer (6:10). As with differences earlier, this nal change in the wording tips things in favour of Jesus needing, in the will of his Father, to go the cross. 26:43 Matthew stays close to Mark’s wording here. He moves πάλιν (‘again’) later so that the coming is no longer included in the material embraced by this adverb. He also replaces Mark’s καταβαρυνόμενοι (‘being very heavy’), the present participle of a verb otherwise not used in the NT or the LXX, with the perfect participle βεβαρημένοι (‘weighed down’) of a better-attested verb. e two verbs are etymologically related; and in dropping the intensifying κατα- Matthew may be soening the language. e same motivation may lie behind the omission of the expression of embarrassment in Mark, ‘and they did not know what to say to him’. e additional urgency expressed by Jesus in v. 41 has made no difference. e disciples might need to pray because the esh is weak, but the weakness of the esh is already getting in the way of

the needful prayer being undertaken. We are le to guess whether Jesus should be seen as renewing his exhortation or as accepting the inevitability of the situation. 26:44 In Mark’s account we know only that there has been a third departure and period of prayer from the report of Jesus’ return from it in Mk. 14:41. Matthew lls the gap. e opening καὶ ἀϕείς (lit. ‘and having le’) is fresh language, but for the rest Matthew pulls together pieces from elsewhere in the account. With the number adjusted and put into the syntax at a different point, the opening of Mt. 24:42 gives, ‘Again he went off and prayed a third time’.194 ‘Saying the same word[s]’ is language Matthew displaced in his parallel to Mk. 14:39; he can make use of it now. ‘Again’ (πάλιν) at the end of the verse does not t easily. Perhaps Matthew has become slightly confused about his own text and his Markan source and thinks of πάλιν as meaning ‘yet again’, marking a third occurrence of the same language. Or perhaps (with the same meaning for πάλιν) he intends τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον εἰπών to mean ‘saying the same thing/expressing the same sentiment’ and not ‘saying the same word[s]’, and thinks that for the level of precision he intends here all three prayers are making the same point. Matthew handles parallelled material in a similar manner in 20:1-16 (see v. 5) and in 27:39-44 (see v. 44).195 26:45 At this point Matthew for the third time adds τότε (‘then’) and marks the beginning of his third subsection for this piece (see discussion at v. 36). e language is essentially Markan, but there are some signi cant changes. Matthew drops τὸ τρίτον (‘the third time’): he has used this idea in v. 44. He adds πρὸς τοὺς μαθητάς (‘to the disciples’) as in v. 40. It is the rst and third returns that he gives expansive treatment. λοιπόν loses its de nite article, but this is a change of idiom, not of meaning. He drops the difficult ἀπέχει (NRSV ‘enough’) of Mark’s text, whose meaning and role

remain uncertain. Mark’s ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα (‘e hour has come’) becomes ἰδοὺ ἤγγικεν ἡ ὥρα (lit. ‘Behold, the hour has drawn near’), adding emphasis and allowing for a verbal play on the relationship between the approach of ‘the hour’ and the approach of the betrayer. (Matthew reorders the wording in the nal clause of v. 46 to bring ἰδού and ἤγγικεν together and to ensure that there also they come at the beginning of the clause.) Matthew’s earlier uses of ἤγγικεν have all been in connection with the coming of the kingdom of heaven.196 Is ἤγγικεν ἡ ὥρα intended to create an echo and to suggest a connection between the approaching fateful hour and the coming of the kingdom? e parallelled use of ἰδοὺ ἤγγικεν in v. 46 counts against this, as does the sheer complexity of the set of ideas that would need to be generated out of the allusion. Finally, the de nite articles before ‘hands’ and ‘sinners’ disappear, presumably to replicate the pattern of 17:22 (the link with 17:22 is discussed further below). e language of Jesus’ coming to the disciples is much as in v. 40, but what he nds this time is le to be implied from the context and the address is ‘to them’ and not ‘to Peter’. e sense to be given to λοιπόν is much disputed. It is the neuter singular of the adjective λοιπός (‘what remains/what is le/[the] other/[the] last’) used adverbially or in an accusative time expression. e sense to be given to λοιπόν depends in part on how we understand the syntax of the whole sentence. Are Jesus’ opening words here to be punctuated as a question and the verbs treated as indicatives, or do we have indicatives without a question, or do we have a pair of ironic imperatives? e effective difference is only slight. Ironic imperatives would make the point that it is too late now to do anything different. Indicatives with or without a question represent a negative comment on what Jesus nds. With a question there would be some echo of the question form used in v. 40. e

link to v. 40 favours this option. So with indicative verbs and a question form we come back to λοιπόν. e parallel with v. 40 offers us some guidance: in v. 40 the comment is on the period of sleep that Jesus comes and disturbs; and so it will be in v. 45. is period of sleep is the third and last of a set of three, with a terminus set to the sequence by the announcement of the approach of the betrayer. It seems best to refer λοιπόν to the third and last period of time available and for which Jesus has encouraged watching with him and praying, but which the disciples have instead used for sleeping and taking their rest. So I translate λοιπόν as ‘for the time that was le’ and, in line with this, καθεύδετε and ἀναπαύεσθε as ‘Have you been sleeping?’ and ‘[Have you been] taking your rest?’ e omission of the end of Mk. 14:35, with its language of the fateful hour which Jesus would have gladly missed, leaves ‘the hour’ here unprepared for. But from the general context it can only mean the hour when Jesus must drink from the cup that he has so dreaded. e hour must be the hour for what the sinners to whom he is about to be handed over are to do with him. ‘e Son of Man’ is again used, as consistently in the Passion predictions from 17:12. Uses of ‘be handed over’ (παραδίδοσθαι) have also occurred persistently in anticipations of Jesus’ Passion from 17:22.197 is verb does not occur elsewhere with ‘sinners’ (ἁμαρτωλοί). e object is oen unspeci ed, but Matthew speci es it variously as ‘people’, ‘chief priests and scribes’, and ‘the Gentiles’. e strongest link here is with the rst use of παραδ ίδοσθαι in a Passion prediction, in 17:22, where the handing over is εἰς χεῖρας (‘into the hands of ’) as here.198 Against the background of the complaint in 9:11; 11:19 that Jesus associated with sinners, there may be an intended irony in designating as ‘sinners’ here the Jewish leaders into whose hands Jesus will be handed over.

26:46 Except for the change in word order change noted above, Matthew reproduces the Markan language. e available time for watching and praying versus sleeping and taking one’s rest has passed. A visitor is arriving; one must rise and go out to meet him! Faced in near expectation with the horror of it all, in the privacy of his own meeting with his Father Jesus has questioned the necessity of what is about to happen. But now as it begins to come upon him he shows no reluctance. He has received his answer; his resolve has been strengthened. He leads his disciples (probably still the three here) out to meet the future.199 ough these disciples have not watched with Jesus and prayed, and despite his own prophecies of their coming failure, Jesus still includes them with himself as he faces his fate. Judas has been called ὁ παραδιδούς (‘the one who hands [him] over’) in v. 25. Now the language comes from the lips of Jesus.

D. Section 4 (26:47–27:2) 1. Identified by Judas, Jesus Is Arrested (26:47-56) 47While

he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48e one who handed him over gave them a sign, saying, ‘He is [the one] whom I kiss. Take hold of him.’ 49Coming up at once to Jesus, he said,a ‘bGreetings, Rabbi!’ and he kissed him. 50Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, [go on doing] what you are here for’. en they came up, laid their hands on Jesus, and took hold of him. 51One of those with Jesus stretched out his hand, drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. 52en Jesus says to him, ‘Return your sword to its place. For all who take [up] the sword will perish by the sword. 53Do you think that I am not able to appeal to my Father, and he will send mec now more than twelve legions of angels? 54[But] how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it is necessary [for it] to happen like this?’ 55At that time Jesus said to the crowds, ‘You have come out with swords and clubs, as against a bandit, to arrest me! Day by day I was sitting teaching in the temple, and you did not take hold of me.’ 56All this happened that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. en all dthe disciples le him and fled.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αυτω (‘to him’) is added in b. Missing from

37

C etc. (sys) sams mae bo.

37.

c. ωδε (‘here’) is added in ‫ *א‬Θ f1 (l 844) (bo). d. αυτου (‘his’) in B 0281vid etc. it vgmss sys sa.

Bibliography Crossan, R. D., ‘Matthew 26:47-56 — Jesus Arrested’, in Tradition as Openness to the Future, FS W. W. Fisher, ed. F. O. Francis and R. P. Wallace (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 175-90. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Peter’s Sword and Biblical Methodology’, BeO 32 (1990), 180-92. • Dibelius, M., ‘Jesus und der Judaskuss’, in Botscha und Geschichte, ed. G. Bornkamm (Tübingen: Mohr, 1953), 1:272-77. • Légasse, S., ‘L’arrestation de Jésus d’après Marc 14.43-52’, ETR 68 (1993), 241-47. • Légasse, S., e Trial of Jesus, tr. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1997), 14-22. • Limbeck, M., ‘“Stecke dein Schwert in die Scheide …!” Die Jesusbewegung im Unterschied zu den Zeloten’, BK 37 (1982), 98-104. • McVann, M., ‘Conjectures about a Guilty Bystander: e Sword Slashing in Mark 14:47’, Listening 21 (1986), 124-37. • Peri, I., ‘Der Weggefährte’, ZNW 78 (1987), 127-31. • Suggit, J., ‘Comrade Judas: Matthew 26:50’, JTSA 63 (1988), 56-58. • Suhl, A., ‘Die Funktion des Schwertstreichs bei der Gefangennahme Jesu: Beobachtungen zur Komposition und eologie der synoptischen Evangelien (Mk 14,43-52; Mt 26,47-56; Lk 22,47-53)’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Van Segbroeck, 1:295-323. • Viviano, B., ‘e High Priest’s Servant’s Ear’, RB 96 (1989), 71-80. • Winter, S. C., ‘e Arrest of Jesus: Mark 14:43-53 (par) and John 18:2-12’, Forum 1.1 (1998), 145-62. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 3-5, 20-25, 31-35, 36-46.

We now come to the fourth of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27 (see further at 26:1-2). e betrayal by Judas here in 26:47-56 will have its counterpart in the denial by Peter in 26:69-75. ese two episodes frame the account of Jesus before the Council which is the central piece of this subsection.200 e betrayer leads the arresting group to Jesus and identi es him with a kiss. e disciples would have risked all to restore Jesus to freedom, but his refusal of their aid — he cites the need to refuse so that the Scriptures may be ful lled and protests the use of the sword — so troubles them that they abandon him and ee.

Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 26:47-56. Both Mt. 26:45-56 and Lk. 22:47-54 are primarily edited versions of the Markan material, but links between the Lukan and Johannine forms suggest that Luke may have had access to other traditions here as well, and there are reasons (see below) for thinking that Matthew could draw on tradition for his distinctive material in 26:52, 53. e Markan material itself may well be composite, but there is no scholarly consensus about origins. Mk. 14:43bc46, 53a is likely to represent the core of the primary source, but both the cutting off of the ear and the ight of the disciples have good claim to authenticity. But whatever we make of the source history, the nocturnal betrayal and arrest of Jesus are undoubtedly historical (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23).201

26:47 e language is mostly Markan. Mark’s εὐθύς (‘immediately’) is dropped as redundant (‘while he was still speaking’ makes the same point). An emphatic ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’, but not translated above) is added before Ἰούδας (‘Judas’). Another will be added in v. 51. ey probably mark a division in the unit between vv. 47-50 and 51-56. Mark’s opening historic present (‘comes’) becomes an aorist (‘came’), and Matthew switches the verb from παραγίνεσθαι, which is more pretentious and which Matthew uses only for initial reference to the comings of the Magi, John the Baptist, and Jesus,202 to the quite mundane ἔρχεσθαι. Mark’s ‘a crowd’ becomes ‘a great crowd’. Matthew is full of crowd language, and though Matthew speaks of ‘a crowd’, he strongly prefers the plural or the use of an adjective to emphasise the size of the crowd. Here he might have in mind the scale of the angelic intervention contemplated in v. 53. ‘And the scribes’ drops from Mark’s list of categories of Jewish leaders, and ‘of the people’ is added, probably qualifying both ‘chief priests’ and ‘elders’ (they share a de nite article). In this way we are taken back to the composition of the conspiring group in v. 3. It is perhaps as constituting this conspiratorial group that Matthew makes them share a single

de nite article in v. 47. On Matthew’s naming of leadership groups in Jerusalem see the comments at 21:23. Given the links between the trans guration account and the Gethsemane account noted earlier, we should note that ἔτι αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος ἰδού (‘while he was still speaking, behold’) here in this transitional verse is language that Matthew added in 17:5. We are not to understand that Jesus’ directive in 26:46 is thwarted by the sudden arrival of Judas. e sequencing is reminiscent of that in 2 Ki. 8:5, where, as Elisha’s deeds are being rehearsed, the woman whose son he restored to life suddenly arrives. In like manner Jesus’ prophetic awareness is con rmed before he can even nish speaking about it. ‘Judas… came’ is best taken as encompassing the period from the initial coming in sight through to but not including the coming to Jesus of v. 49. ough Judas has come in sight, we should understand that there is still time to go out and meet him. Judas as ‘one of the Twelve’ takes us back to v. 14, where he rst sets in motion his plot to betray Jesus. Since we do not know when Judas le the disciple group, we do not know how he knew where to nd Jesus. e simplest assumption is that he le when the disciples were le waiting while Jesus prayed. So he simply comes back to where he knew Jesus to be praying. While the crowd comes from the named leadership groups, it does not include them (different in Lk. 22:52). e hope is that there will be no observing public, but in the middle of Passover night who can be quite sure? It would be physically safer and politically wiser to stay away. e crowd sent is clearly prepared for the possibility that there might be erce resistance. But their instructions are no doubt to keep the matter as low key as possible (the role of the sign in v. 48 makes this clear). As we hear the story, we know that the crowd has come from ‘the chief priests and the

elders of the people’, but in the immediacy of the experience the crowd could have been composed of any set of people. Even the carrying of arms is less notable than it might seem, given that at least one of those in Jesus’ immediate company is carrying a sword (in Lk. 22:38 they can produce two swords). Presumably it will only be in the brandishing of their arms as they take Jesus into custody that the extent to which they are set up for violent action becomes clearly visible. 26:48 Again the language follows Mark closely. Matthew replaces Mark’s pluperfect ‘had given’ with a simple aorist and gives it prominence at the beginning of the sentence. Similarly, Matthew prefers the ordinary word for ‘signal/sign’, σημεῖον, to Mark’s rare σύσσημον, which is found only here in the NT.203 Finally, Matthew drops καὶ ἀπάγετε ἀσϕαλῶς. καὶ ἀπάγετε means ‘and lead [him] away’, but it is less clear whether ἀσϕαλῶς should be applied to Jesus, in which case it will mean ‘under guard’, or whether the reference is to the crowd, in which case the sense will be ‘safely’ or even ‘successfully’. Perhaps the latter. In any case, though the role of the kiss remains, the Matthean excision leaves it a little less clear that what is intended is to ‘take out the target’ in a well-prepared snatch-and-run operation. Matthew probably has little interest in that level of circumstantial detail. Judas was labelled ὁ παραδιδοὺς αὐτόν (‘the one who handed him over’) as the one who is speaking in 26:25. is was echoed in v. 46 and is now repeated here. Or, more precisely, ‘Judas, the one who handed him over’ of v. 25 has been distributed now between ‘Judas’ in v. 47 and ‘the one who handed him over’ here in v. 48. e role of the kiss makes quite clear that Jesus alone is the target. e intelligence on which the operation is based has made quite clear that Jesus is an irreplaceable leader. His movement will be nothing without him. So there is no need to make the

disturbance greater than need be by rounding up the disciples. Presumably the choice of a kiss as a signal is based on a desire not to forewarn Jesus or his companions about what is happening. It is hard to see quite how this could work. e crowd is said to be with Judas, but perhaps we are to imagine Judas sufficiently separated from the crowd as to be able to maintain an initial pretense of having nothing to do with it. A kiss might be a natural enough greeting as Judas makes as if to rejoin Jesus and his associates aer a yet unexplained absence. But, given the darkness, the crowd would need to be close enough to be able, with whatever light if any Jesus and the disciples were using, to keep a x on Jesus once he had been visually pointed out. If this proved difficult, Judas would still be there to renew the identi cation as necessary. 26:49 Matthew makes only minor changes. Mark’s use of two participles, ἐλθὼν … προσελθών (lit. ‘coming … coming to’), is considered overly generous and reduced to only the latter. Matthew prefers a fresh use of the name with ‘to Jesus’ to Mark’s ‘to him’ — one has to reach back quite far for an antecedent. A historic present for the verb of saying (‘says’) becomes an aorist (‘said’). Matthew adds a verbal greeting, χαῖρε, to the address and the kiss. χαῖρε is a standard Greek greeting (the angel Gabriel will so address Mary in Lk. 1:28),204 but Matthew is likely to have in mind that this will be the greeting of those who crown Jesus with a crown of thorns and pay him mock homage in 27:29.205 at Judas needs to come forward at this point indicates that ‘came’ in v. 47 needs to be glossed in some way, as suggested above. ough unexceptionable in itself, ‘Rabbi’ has been made the betrayer’s word by its use in v. 25 (see there). e mark of intimacy, the kiss, becomes the mark of betrayal.206 e intensive form for ‘kissed’, κατεϕίλησεν, is used here (but not in v. 48), either to mark

the per dy of betrayal with a kiss207 or to suggest that the kiss was prolonged to make sure the crowd had time to mark their man. 26:50 Mark does not have Jesus speak at this point. And the cryptically reported words Matthew attributes to him here have proved hard to decipher (see below). Aer Jesus’ words Matthew adds τότε προσελθόντες (lit. ‘then coming to’) to introduce the action of the crowd — Mark had only οἱ δέ to mark the change of subject. Matthew is very fond of τότε (‘then’) and uses it for various purposes. Here it simply grounds the crowd’s action in that of Judas (note the repetition of the participle, ‘coming to’). Mark’s αὐτῷ (lit. ‘to him’) becomes ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰησοῦν (lit. ‘upon Jesus’) — the antecedent could otherwise have been Judas. Matthew is the only NT writer to use ἑταῖρος, and each time it is the vocative ἑταῖρε.208 As noted at 20:13, the word marks the existence of something in common with the other person. Here that will be Judas’s place as one of the Twelve. But given what is happening, the tone may be ironic. e difficulty with the continuing words, ἐϕ᾿ ὅ πάρει, is that they probably require completion with something that has to be understood to be implied. πάρει means ‘you are present/here’; ἐϕ᾿ ὅ is literally ‘on which’. If we punctuate the phrase as a question, then the relative pronoun ὅ may stand for the interrogative τί, giving ‘Why are you here?’209 or ‘What are you here for?’ But it is probably better to punctuate as a statement, in which case completion is needed. One possibility is to draw on the emphasis throughout chap. 26 on Jesus’ knowledge of what is coming and complete with οἶδα to give, ‘I know what you are here for’. is would mark the futility of Judas’s use of a secret signal. Another possibility is to complete with γενηθήτω as in 26:42, giving ‘Let what you are here for happen’: the event proceeds (only!) with Jesus’ permission. Not too different, but less imperious and therefore preferable, would be

completion with a second person imperative, like ποίει, to give ‘Go on doing what you are here for’, with Jesus accepting his fate rather than directing his fate.210 e last seems most likely to me, but completion with οἶδα remains an attractive alternative. ‘ey laid hands on him’ is the counterpart to Jesus’ words, ‘into the hands of sinners’, in v. 45. ἐκράτησαν αὐτόν (‘and they took hold of him’), with its taking up of language from v. 48, marks the successful implementation of the scheme marked out there. 26:51 ough the substance remains the same, Matthew has recast more of the language here. e addition of an opening καὶ ίδού (lit. ‘and behold’) provides a second ἰδού to match that in v. 47: the second half of the story begins here. Mark’s εἷς τις τῶν παρεστηκότων (‘a certain one of the ones standing alongside’) is taken, probably correctly, to refer to one of those immediately with Jesus (one of the three),211 and becomes εἷς τῶν μετὰ Ἰησοῦ (‘one of those with Jesus’) — the μετὰ Ἰησου (‘with Jesus’) echoes the μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (‘with me’) added by Matthew in vv. 37, 40. ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα (‘stretched out [his] hand’) is a common LXX idiom, but it is unclear why Matthew has added it. Perhaps he has done so to give an extra sense of signi cance to the action he is about to report. Matthew avoids two consecutive participles by replacing Mark’s σπασάμενος (‘having drawn’) with ἀπέσπασεν (‘he drew’) — Matthew chooses a less technical verb. e next verb is then moved into participle form, with the more frequently used πατάσσειν replacing παίειν for ‘strike’.212 e rearrangement of verbs gives two instances of an aorist participle followed by an aorist verb, a pattern of verb sequences much favoured by Matthew. e crowd comes well armed precisely because they might meet opposition. And now they do. But the scale of the opposition is paltry. To lose an ear is nasty enough, but as a wound in con ict it must count as minor. Only one person is hurt, and that one person

a slave (though the point may well be that it is the high priest’s personal representative, there to oversee the operation, who loses an ear). What is being marked, however, is the readiness to take up arms for Jesus and thus to risk life and limb. It probably suits Matthew not to say which of the three takes up the sword because the lack of speci city can allow the action to echo both the con dence of the sons of Zebedee in 20:22 (see discussion there) and that of Peter in 26:35. As we soon see, the scale of the opposition remains paltry only because Jesus steps in to halt it. 26:52 For vv. 52-54 there is no equivalent in Mark. at Matthew is basing the material here on some kind of tradition is evident from the links between v. 52, Lk. 22:51, and Jn. 18:11. But vv. 53-54 are not parallelled there (but see below). e historic present, ‘says’, especially with the preceding τότε (‘then’), marks Jesus’ words in vv. 52-54 as the high point of the episode. Except that ῥομϕαίαν is used in place of μάχαιραν for ‘sword’, the words ἀπόστρεψον τὴν μάχαιράν σου εἰς τὸν τόπον αὐτῆς (‘return your sword to its place’) are found identically in Jos. As. 29:4. e coincidence is particularly striking because we can add to it the fact that the previous verse in Joseph and Asenath has in explanation of this directive the words ‘It does not be t a man who worships God to repay evil for evil’, thus reminiscent of the second last antithesis, Mt. 5:38-42, normally thought to be echoed in Mt. 26:52. Possibly language from 1 Ch. 21:27 (cf. Je. 47:6), where the return of the sword to its sheath functions as an image for curbing God’s punitive wrath, underlies both Mt. 26:52 and Jos. As. 29:4, but, if so, only because it is mediated to each from some common tradition. It is clear from the earlier discussion of the nal two antitheses (Mt. 5:38-42, 43-48) that Jesus’ views on not returning evil for evil and on love of enemies represent a particularly radical exemplar of

views found in a much wider world of moral re ection. At least in relation to the OT instances, he is manifestly dependent on that wider world of discussion, and his view is best understood in conscious connection with other variants explored in the earlier discussion of these antitheses. I think it likely that an element in this wider discussion is being echoed jointly by Mt. 26:52 and Jos. As. 29:4. e language of Jos. As. 29:4 may even be a clue that ‘return your sword to its place’ is meant to be recognised as a quotation: the use of ‘your’ is odd since Benjamin (who is being addressed by Levi) has no sword of his own, but has drawn the sword that is in his hand from the sheath strapped to the prostrate form of the son of Pharaoh (whom he intends to kill with the sword). e relationship between the way the quoted words function in Mt. 26:52 and in Jos. As. 29:4 is much like the relationship between Jesus’ views in the nal two beatitudes and those in the related traditions explored in the earlier discussion. In Jos. As. 29:4 one is not to use the sword against an enemy who is powerless and has fallen into one’s hands; in Mt. 26:52 one is not to use the sword against an enemy who comes well armed and threatens life itself, at least Jesus’ life. Jesus’ teaching is seen to represent the general approach in its most radical form. It proved wise in the discussion of the nal two antitheses to pay close attention to the speci c contexts of application. Here in Mt. 26:52 the context is the arrest of Jesus, an event which he has recently been con rmed in believing was the will of God for him. If Jesus’ words in v. 52 consisted only of the clause we have discussed, it would be reasonable to link the insistence on non-resistance with Jesus’ conviction about the will of God. But as the second half of the verse justi es (γάρ [‘for’]), it also generalises: ‘ose who take up the sword shall perish by the sword’. is is proverbial-sounding

language. And with proverbial language the need is to identify the appropriate setting within which the dictum proves true. We might couple the dictum with statements like ‘e life of a soldier is glorious but short’ and ‘Conquerors have their moment in the sun, and then they in turn are conquered’. But a rather different context is primarily in mind here. e formal principle involved in Mt. 26:52 nds primordial expression in Gn. 9:6: ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a person, by a person their blood will be shed’. Gn. 9:6 expresses the principle as foundational to human justice. In the OT the principle is reexpressed under various images as a principle of divine justice.213 In Tg. Is. 50:11 the image of Is. 50:11 has been expanded to include the sword.214 But there are ultimately two signi cant differences between all of this and what is found in Mt. 26:52. First, by speaking generally of taking the sword, the sphere seems to have been broadened to embrace the imposition of one’s will by violence or threat of violence — that is what the crowd is doing; it has no speci c violent or murderous intent. And second, there has been a move from a consideration of violence only as evil done to another to the use of violence, or the threat of violence, to protect oneself from the will of the other — that is what the disciple is seeking to do with his sword. If I have rightly followed the track of development, we have in Jesus’ words a version of the fundamental principle of justice which has been refracted through the lens of Jesus’ own particular understanding of the call to love one’s enemies. Here also we have, to quote from my comment on 5:47, ‘a concern to remain “on the side of ” all people, no matter what they might do to provoke a different orientation’. In relation to the use of the sword, love of enemies is identi ed as a principle on the basis of which God will judge human behaviour. (ough the imagery is of perishing by the

sword, the question of whether the principle of ‘retribution’ articulated is seen to operate in the ow of history or instead or as well before the bar of God remains open.) 26:53 Jn. 12:27 (‘What shall I say, “Father, save me from this hour?” But for this purpose I came to this hour’) probably echoes not only the Gethsemane tradition but also the tradition behind Mt. 26:53. But the form in which we now have the tradition is thoroughly Matthean in language and thought. God is ‘my Father’ here as at Gethsemane, where Jesus worked through the issue of what God’s will was in this situation. Angelic help is available for Jesus in the Infancy Narrative, and its possibility is raised in 4:6. Given Jesus’ knowledge of the will of his Father, an appeal for/expectation of angelic help is no more appropriate here than when suggested by the devil in 4:6. But Jesus’ point is: If he called for it, it would come. In his future glory the Son of Man will direct his own angels (see 13:41), but for now he must appeal to his Father. His con dence here represents an oblique assertion of his unique status with God, but one that is not to be put to the test in this particular way. e ‘twelve legions’ probably correspond symbolically to the twelve disciples Jesus had gathered around him, one of whom had gone over to the other side and the rest of whom were about to desert him. A Roman legion had a notional strength of six thousand, but the speci c numbers play no role here. e tradition of a possible military role for angels is probably rooted in 2 Ki. 6:17; it is widespread in Jewish tradition.215 ‘More than’ takes the number even higher than the seventy-two thousand contemplated. e crowd from the Jewish leaders, for all its menace, would be as nothing. 26:54 ough clearly not exhibiting the pattern evident in the set of formula quotations, beginning with 1:22-23 (see there) the

importance of the ful lment of Scripture is echoed here. e same language of necessity, δεῖ γενέσθαι (‘it is necessary … to happen’), was used at 24:6; but it is the necessity language in the rst Passion prediction, 16:21, which is the more important background here. As in the Passion prediction, no speci c basis for necessity is offered. οὕτως means here ‘like this’: not the exact form of the event now taking place but the larger shape into which it ts is considered scripturally necessary. 26:55 Matthew intervenes strongly at the beginning, and then only modestly in the words of Jesus. As in 18:1, ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ (lit. ‘in that hour’) marks a new item as being in thematic continuity with what precedes. Since in Matthew Jesus has been speaking to his disciples, Mark’s response language (ἀποκριθείς) no longer ts and is dropped. Similarly, a clarifying τοῖς ὄχλοις (‘to the crowds’) replaces αὐτοῖς (‘to them’).216 Finally, ἐκαθεζόμην (‘I was sitting’) replaces ἤμην πρὸς ὑμᾶς (‘I was with you’). πρὸς ὑμᾶς as ‘with you’ is not found in Matthew; he dropped it from his parallel in 17:17 to Mk. 9:19. In any case, to say that Jesus was with the people of this crowd in the temple might not be quite right. Matthew has Jesus sitting to teach in 5:1, but there is no obvious reason why he uses a different verb here.217 e person who sits to teach is not ready to make a hasty departure. ‘With swords and clubs’ echoes the description in Mt. 26:47. ‘To arrest’ (συλλαβεῖν) is a new word, but it re ects closely enough the use of ‘take hold of ’ in vv. 48, 50 and ‘lay hands on’ in v. 50. ‘As against a bandit’ prepares for the company Jesus keeps with bandits as he dies on the cross (27:38, 44). It is unclear whether the rst part of Jesus’ statement is a question or an ironic observation. e thrust is much the same either way. καθ᾿ ἡμέραν (‘day by day’) is not literally true in Matthew’s highly condensed presentation of the Jerusalem ministry, but it will be truer to the actual history.218

Matthew’s account of Jesus’ teaching in the temple is concentrated into 21:23–23:38. Not to be able to take hold of Jesus as he taught in the temple suggests the bad faith in which the enterprise to arrest him is undertaken. 26:56 For this second ful lment statement in the unit Matthew expands on the existing Markan language: He displaces Mark’s opening ἀλλ᾿ (‘but’) with τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν (‘all this happened’). e change produces a neat repetition of ‘all this happened so that … might be ful lled’ from 1:22, which introduces the rst of the formula quotations (see at 1:22). All the formula citations speak of ‘the prophet’ or ‘the prophets’, so Matthew adds ‘of the prophets’ to Mark’s ‘the Scriptures’ to extend the echo. How far does ‘all this’ reach? We cannot be sure, but the two things that have threatened the reaching of the present point are Jesus’ own questioning in Gethsemane and the disciples’ short-lived bid to free Jesus from custody. At least the overcoming of these ‘threats’ will be included. It is not clear whether this ful lment statement should be treated as continuing words of Jesus or as editorial comment. e way in which the formula for the ful lment citations is being echoed favours the latter. In the second half of the verse Matthew adds yet one more τότε (‘then’) — displacing Mark’s καί (‘and’), adds ‘the disciples’ to Mark’s ‘all’, and brings the subject (‘all the disciples’) to the emphatic front position. e role of ‘all’ is likely to bring back into the picture the disciples le behind when Jesus moved off with the three. ey have been watching on the sidelines, some distance off. Matthew introduced the singular participle ἀϕείς at v. 44 for Jesus’ nal leaving of the disciples in order to pray, and here now he uses the corresponding plural, ἀϕέντες, for the disciples’ leaving of Jesus. Does Matthew intend in this way to mark the threefold prayer of

Jesus as opening up decisively the difference of perspective between Jesus and the disciples which lies behind the disciples’ leaving him now?219 Jesus will not let himself be defended, and the disciples are totally undone by this. At 26:35 I noted the way in which Matthew worked out the failure of discipleship in terms of Judas and Peter, with the other disciples treated at a much more general level. In line with this, we have here a brief statement of the desertion of the disciples in a pericope designed centrally to mark the working out of Judas’s act of betrayal and given its place in Matthew’s structure on this basis. 2a. Jesus before the Sanhedrin, I (26:57-68) 57ose

who took hold of Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered together. 58Peter was following him from afar, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and he went inside and was sitting with the attendants, to see the end. 59e chief priestsa and the whole Sanhedrin were seeking false witness against Jesus so that they might put him to death. 60bAnd though many false witnesses came forward, they did not find [anything useful]. Aerwards twoc came forward 61and said, ‘is [fellow] said, “I am able to destroy the sanctuary of God and within three days rebuild d[it]”’. 62e chief priest stood up and said to him, ‘Do you not answer at all? What [is it that] these testify against you?’ 63But Jesus was silent. So the chief prieste said to him, ‘fI put you under solemn oathf before the living God to tell us if you are the Christ, the Son ofg God’. 64Jesus says to him, ‘You have said [it]. In truth I say to you, from now [on] you will see the Son of Man seated at the right [hand] of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ the chief priest ripped his clothes and said, ‘hHe has blasphemed. Why do we still have need of witnesses? See, now you have heard the blasphemy. 66What do you think?’ iIn response theyi said, ‘He is worthy of death’. 65en

they spat in his face and struck him. Some slapped j[him], saying, ‘Prophesy to us, Christ; who is it who hit you?’ 67en

TEXTUAL NOTES a. και οι πρεσβυτεροι (‘and the elders’) is added in A C W f1 33 etc. f q syp, h. b. An extra και (‘and’) and an ουχ ευρον (‘did not nd [any]’) in A C (D) W f(1), 13 33 it sy(s), h give (in translation) another ‘and did not nd any’ at this point. is is likely to have come from combining readings that have ουχ ευρον in different positions, or perhaps just from a careless scribe who momentarily forgets that ουχ ευρον has already been placed in the rst position and completes the sense aer the genitive absolute phrase. c. ψευδομαρτυρες (‘false witnesses’) is added in (A) C D f13 33 etc. latt syh, under the in uence of the use earlier in the verse of the genitive equivalent. In N W 1241 etc. (sys) this addition is accompanied by τινες (‘certain’). d. αυτον (‘it’) is added in ‫ א‬A C D L W 33 892 etc. lat. e. αποκριθεις (lit. ‘having answered’) is added in A C (D) W etc. it sy, which produces a syntax pattern which matches that to come in v. 66. f-f. ορκιζω in place of εξορκιζω in D L Θ f13 565 etc. gives ‘I put you on oath’. g. του ζωντος (‘the living’) is added in C* N W Δ 1241 1424 etc. ff2 vgmss syh samss mae bo to complete the match with 16:16. h. ιδε (‘see’) is added in ‫ *א‬syp to match the use of ιδε in the blasphemy clause at the end of the verse. i-i. απεκριθησαν παντες και (‘they all answered and’) in D it sys (boms). j. αυτον (‘him’) is added in D G Φ f1 579 700 etc. sy(s). Bibliography

Ådna, J., Tempel, 90-153. • Anderson, C. P., ‘e Trial of Jesus as JewishChristian Polarization: Blasphemy and Polemic in Mark’s Gospel’, in AntiJudaism in Early Christianity, Vol. 1: Paul and the Gospels, ed. P. Richardson (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University, 1986), 107-25. • Beavis, M. A., ‘e Trial before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14.53-65): Reader Response and Greco-Roman Readers’, CBQ 49 (1987), 581-96. • Ben-Chorin, S., ‘Wer hat Jesus zum Tode verurteilte?’ ZRGG 37 (1985), 63-67. • Betz, O., ‘Probleme des Prozesses Jesu’, ANRW 2.25.1 (1982), 565-647. • Betz, O., ‘Jesus and the Temple Scroll’, in Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth, 75-103, esp. 7991. • Betz, O., ‘e Temple Scroll and the Trial of Jesus’, SWJT 30 (1988), 5-8. • Bickermann, E., Studies in Jewish and Christian History (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 3:82-138. • Bock, D. L., Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus: A Philological-Historical Study of the Key Jewish emes Impacting Mark 14:61-64 (WUNT 2/106. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1998). • Bock, D. L., ‘Key Jewish Texts on Blasphemy and Exaltation and the Jewish Examination of Jesus’, SBLSP 36 (1997), 115-60. • Broer, I., ‘Der Prozess gegen Jesus nach Matthaus’, in Prozess, ed. K. Kertelge, 84-110. • Broer, I., ‘Bemerkungen zur Redaktion der Passionsgeschichte durch Matthäus’, in Studien, ed. L. Schenke, 27-46. • Burnett, F. W., ‘Characterization in Matthew: Reader Construction of the Disciple Peter’, McKendree Pastoral Review 4 (1987), 13-43. • Chilton, B. D., ‘e So-Called Trial before the Sanhedrin: Mark 14:53-72’, Forum 1.1 (1998), 163-80. • Cohen, D. and Paulus, C., ‘Einige Bemerkungen zum Prozess Jesu bei den Synoptikern’, ZSSR 102 (1985), 437-45. • Crossan, J. D., Cross at Spoke, 33113. • Dauer, A., ‘Spuren der (synoptischen) Synedriumsverhandlung im 4. Evangelium’, in John, ed. A. Denaux, 307-39. • Dautzenberg, G., ‘Der Prozess Jesu und seine Hintergründe’, BK 48 (1993), 147-53. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘“I Adjure ee” (Matthew 26:63)’, DR 115 (1997), 225-34. • Donahue, J. R., ‘From Cruci ed Messiah to Risen Christ: e Trial of Jesus Revisited’, in Jews and Christians Speak of Jesus, ed. A. E. Zannoni (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994), 93-120. • Ellis, E. E., ‘Deity Christology in Mark 14:58’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 192-203. • Evans, C. A., ‘In What Sense “Blasphemy”?’ in Jesus, 407-34. • Flusser, D., ‘Who Is It at Struck You?’ Immanuel 20 (1986), 27-32. • France, R. T., ‘Jésus devant Caïphe’,

Hokhma 15 (1980), 20-35. • Fricke, W., e Court-Martial of Jesus : A Christian Defends the Jews against the Charge of Deicide, tr. S. Attanasio (New York: Grove Wiedenfeld, 1990). • Gerhardsson, B., ‘Confession and Denial before Men: Observations on Matt. 26:57–27:2’, JSNT 13 (1981), 4666. • Gnilka, J., ‘Der Prozess Jesu nach den Berichten des Markus und Matthäus mit einer Rekonstruktion des historischen Verlaufs’, in Prozess, ed. K. Kertelge, 11-40. • Grappe, C., ‘Mt 16,17-19 et le récit de la Passion’, RHPR 72 (1992), 33-40. • Groupe d’Enrevernes, ‘Analyse de la véridiction: Procès de Jésus devant le Sanhedrin (Marc 14,55-65)’, SémiotBib 27 (1982), 1-11. • Harvey, A. E., Constraints, 11-35. • Hill, D., ‘Jesus before the Sanhedrin — On What Charge?’ IBS 7 (1985), 174-86. • Hofrichter, P., ‘Das dreifache Verfahren über Jesus als Gottesohn, König und Mensch’, Kairos 30 (1988), 69-81. • Holz, G., Die Herrscher und der Weise im Gespräch: Studien zu Form, Funktion und Situation der neutestamentlichen Verhörgespräche und der Gespräche zwischen jüdischen Weisen und Fremdherrschen (Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen eologie und Zeitgeschichte 6. Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1996). • Hooker, M., ‘Traditions about the Temple in the Sayings of Jesus’, BJRL 70 (1988), 7-19. • Imbert, J., ‘Le procès de Jésus’, RICP 19 (1986), 53-66. • Imbert, J., Le procès de Jésus: ‘Que sais-je?’ (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1980). • Jonge, M. de, ‘e Use of ho Christos in the Passion Narratives’, in Origines, ed. J. Dupont et al., 169-92. • Kempthorne, R., ‘Anti-Christian Tendency in pre-Marcan Traditions of the Sanhedrin Trial’, SE 7 (= TU 126) (1982), 283-86. • Kertelge, K., ed., Prozess. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 198-202. • Kolping, A., ‘“Standrechtlich gekreuzigt”: Neuere Überlegungen zum Prozess Jesu’, TRev 83 (1987), 265-76. • Lapide, P., Wer war Schuld an Jesu Tod? (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1987). • Légasse, S., e Trial of Jesus, tr. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1997). • Lentzen-Deis, F., ‘Passionsbericht als Handlungsmodell? Überlegungen zu Anstössen aus der “pragmatischen” Sprachwissenscha für die exegetischen Methoden’, in Prozess, ed. K. Kertelge, 191-232, esp. 221-32. • Lührmann, D., ‘Markus 14.55-64’, NTS 27 (1981), 457-74. • Maier, P. L., ‘Who Killed Jesus?’ ChrTod 34 (1990), 16-19. • Marchadour, A., ed., Procès de Jésus, procès des Juifs? Éclairage biblique et historique (LD. Paris: Cerf, 1998). • Marcus, J., ‘Mark 14:61: “Are You the Messiah — Son of God?”’ NovT 31 (1989), 125-41. •

Matera, F. J., ‘e Trial of Jesus: Problems and Proposals’, Int 45 (1991), 5-16. • McLaren, J. S., Power, 88-101. • Millar, F., ‘Re ections on the Trials of Jesus’, in Tribute, ed. P. R. Davies and R. T. White, 355-81. • Moule, C. F. D., ‘e Graveman against Jesus’, in Jesus, ed. E. P. Sanders, 177-95. • Müller, K., ‘Möglichkeit und Vollzug jüdischer Kapitalgerichtsbarkeit im Prozess gegen Jesus von Nazaret’, in Prozess, ed. K. Kertelge, 41-83. • Mussner, F., ‘Der Prozess gegen Jesus von Nazareth’, TRev 84 (1988), 353-60. • Mussner, F., ‘Wer trägt die Schuld am gewaltsamen Tod Jesu?’ in Traktat über die Juden (Munich: Kössel, 1988), 293-305. • Neirynck, F., ‘Τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε: Mt 26,68/Lk 22,64 (diff. Mk 14,65)’, ETL 63 (1987), 5-47. • Paesler, K., Das Tempelwort, 11-39, 203-27. • Paulus, C., ‘Einige Bemerkungen zum Prozess Jesu bei den Synoptikern’, ZSSR 102 (1985), 437-45. • Pawlikowski, J. T., ‘e Trial and Death of Jesus: Re ections in Light of a New Understanding of Judaism’, ChicStud 25 (1986), 79-94. • Pesch, R., e Trial of Jesus Continues, tr. D. G. Wagner (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1996). • Quispel, G., ‘e Gospel of omas and the Trial of Jesus’, in Text and Testimony. FS A. F. J. Klijn, ed. T. Baarda et al. (Kampen: Kok, 1988), 193-99. • Schinzer, R., ‘Die Bedeutung des Prozesses Jesu’, NZSTR 253 (1983), 138-54. • Schnabel, E. J., ‘e Silence of Jesus: e Galilean Rabbi Who Was More than a Prophet’, in Words, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 203-57. • Schubert, K., ‘Biblical Criticism Criticised: With Reference to the Markan Report of Jesus’ Examination before the Sanhedrin’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 385-402. • Söding, T., ‘Der Prozess Jesu: Exegetische, historische und theologische Fragestellungen’, HerKor 41 (1987), 236-40. • Soards, M. L., ‘e Silence of Jesus before Herod: An Interpretive Suggestion’, ABR 33 (1985), 41-45. • Strobel, A., Die Stunde der Wahrheit: Untersuchungen zum Strafverfahren gegen Jesus (WUNT 21. Tübingen: Mohr, 1980). • eissen, G., ‘Jesus’ Temple Prophecy: Prophecy in the Tension between Town and Country’, in Social Reality and the Early Christians, tr. M. Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 94-114. • Tuckett, C. M., ‘e Minor Agreements and Textual Criticism’, in Minor Agreements: Symposium Göttingen 1991, ed. G. Strecker (GTA 50. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 119-42, esp. 135-41. • Wright, N. T., Victory, 519-28, 54752.

For 26:64 Beasley-Murray, G. R., ‘Jesus and Apocalyptic: With Special Reference to Mark 14.62’, in Apocalypse, ed. J. Lambrecht, 415-29. • Bock, D. L., ‘e Son of Man Seated at God’s Right Hand and the Debate over Jesus’ “Blasphemy”’, in Jesus of Nazareth, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner, 181-91. • Callan, T., ‘Psalm 110.1 and the Origin of the Expectation at Jesus Will Come Again’, CBQ 44 (1982), 622-36. • Dautzenberg, G., Studien, 222-39. • Flusser, D., ‘“At the Right hand of Power”’, Immanuel 14 (1982), 42-46. • Geist, H., Menschensohn, 333-40. • Hampel, V., Menschensohn, 174-84. • Loba Mkole, J. C., ‘Mark 14:62: Substantial Compendium of New Testament Christology’, HTS 56 (2000), 1,119-45. • Lührmann, D., ‘Markus 14.55-64: Christologie und Zerstörung des Tempels im Markusevangelium’, NTS 27 (1980-81), 45774. • Maartins, P. J., ‘e Son of Man as a Composite Metaphor in Mark 14.62’, in A South African Perspective on the New Testament. FS B. M. Metzger, ed. J. H. Petzer and P. J. Hartin (Leiden: Brill, 1986),76-98. • Schaberg, J., ‘Mark 14.62’, in Apocalyptic and the New Testament. FS J. L. Martyn, ed. J. Marcus and M. L. Soards (JSNTSup 24. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989), 69-94. • Vorster, W. S., ‘Redaction, Contextualization, and the Sayings of Jesus’, in Logia, ed. J. Delobel, 491-501. See further at Mt. 21:12-13; 24:1-2; 26:1-2, 31-35, 36-46.

In the fourth of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27 (see further at 26:1-2), the account of Jesus before the Council, as the central piece of this subsection, is framed by the betrayal by Judas in 26:47-56 and the denial by Peter in 26:69-75. Matthew’s main structuring of the unit is provided by a historic present in v. 64 to mark this verse as the high point of the episode, and two uses of τότε (‘then’) to identify vv. 65-66 and 66-67 as paired responses to Jesus’ words in v. 64. Davies and Allison have noted a diadic arrangement throughout.220 In a hearing in the high priest’s house, aer much false but contradictory witness against Jesus, two witnesses nally agree that Jesus had claimed to be able to destroy and miraculously rebuild the

temple. Jesus’ response is silent acceptance of his situation. Placed under oath by the high priest, he agrees in equivocal language that he is the Christ, the Son of God, but goes on to provide all and more than the Sanhedrin could wish for with his assertion of his future role as Son of Man. Already convinced that Jesus is not what he claims, the high priest nds this quite blasphemous and has no difficulty in getting the Sanhedrin to agree that Jesus deserves death. e nal element is cruel and vindictive belittlement of Jesus, whose prophetic claims are mocked. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 14:53-65. ough the matter is disputed I think it likely that the links between Luke’s equivalent in 22:66-71 and material in Jn. 10:24-25 point to a source beyond the Markan being used by Luke. In turn, the near agreement against Mark of Mt. 26:64 and Lk. 22:69 in reading ‘from now on’ (ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι and ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν respectively) — and note the agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark on the place of καθήμενον (‘seated’) and the conceptual but not verbal affinity between Matthew’s ‘you have said [so]’ (σὺ εἶπας) and Luke’s more elaborate ‘If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I ask, you will not answer’ — makes it possible that Matthew was also aware of a second source (I will note other likely traces in Matthew of the second source in my discussion of Mt. 26:58, 68). e Lukan account and, probably even more, the second Lukan source — since Luke is likely to have added Markan features — have none of the marks of a formal trial about them. It would be best described as a pretrial investigation, preparing the ground for a bid to have Jesus tried before the Roman Prefect. ere is more that is judicial about the Markan and Matthean accounts, but they too represent hearings that are preliminary. ey lead to Jesus’ being handed over to Pilate, before whom the chief priests appear in the role of accusers rather than as representatives of a court seeking to have its verdict rati ed by higher authority.221 Assessments of historicity vary wildly. Here I can report only a few of the major questions and my own judgments. Contrary to some recent opinion, but in line with most, I think there was a Sanhedrin in Jerusalem that had signi cant political powers and functioned as the highest Jewish court.

Again with what is, I think, the scholarly consensus, I believe that the right of capital punishment had, however, with some narrow exceptions, been removed from the hands of the Jewish authorities. Consequently, the Sanhedrin hearing that the Gospels report should not be read as purporting to be an account of a court sitting in a capital case. We should not in any case make it answerable to later and probably idealistic Mishnaic regulations for the conduct of capital cases (see m. Sanh. 4:1), and the more so because a capital trial is not actually involved. (One could always argue that the Sanhedrin conducted hearings preliminary to handing a fellow Jew over to the Roman authorities for a capital crime as though capital cases were still in their hands, but there is no evidence to appeal to.) If there is no place nor need for a Jewish capital trial, it is, nonetheless, hard to believe that there could have been Roman action against Jesus without the kind of Jewish bridge that the Gospel account of the Sanhedrin hearing and handing over offer us. Whether our present accounts bundle together what may have happened on different occasions is a matter I am happy to leave undecided. Assessing the details, however, of our surviving accounts is quite another matter. e particular features of the account that have provoked questions are (a) the testimony of the false witnesses about the destruction and renewal of the temple; (b) the silence of Jesus; (c) the double form of the high priest’s question (‘the Christ, the Son of the Blessed’); (d) Jesus’ affirmation of his identity as messiah; (e) the elaboration of Jesus’ positive answer in Mk. 14:62; (f) the claim of blasphemy; and (g) the mocking of Jesus. (a) e testimony of the false witnesses is credible, given other temple materials in the Gospel tradition, but the form Mark uses shows signs of Christian re ection on a sense in which the false accusation is largely true. (b) e silence of Jesus is difficult to interpret, but I will judge below that its purpose is unlikely to be to echo the silence of the Servant in Is. 53:7. e silence seems to have a fair claim to being an oddness of Jesus’ behaviour that was sufficiently striking to be recalled. (c) e double form of the high priest’s question is almost certainly in uenced by Christian confessional language but given a more Jewish tinge with ‘of the Blessed’. e high priest is not to be understood to be deliberately re ecting Christian conviction. Rather, the account enjoys the

irony of giving words to the high priest that mean more than he can imagine. (d) e quali ed but not equivocating affirmative re ected by Mt. 26:64; Lk. 22:67-68 may be more original than the simple ἐγώ εἰμι (‘I am’) of Mk. 14:62, which is likely to be in uenced by its role as a stark contrast to Peter’s threefold denial. (e) e evaluation of Mk. 14:62 is altogether more difficult. Affinity with other Son of Man sayings which I have judged to be authentic stands in favour of authenticity. e place in the original of the allusion to Ps. 110:1 is rather less secure than the allusion to Dn. 7:13, but even this takes us only a slight step from the thought of what is likely to be the original form behind Mt. 10:32-33. But it is quite possible that the material gained a confessional edge at the same time as the opening response became ‘I am’, and that earlier it served rather as a vindication statement in connection with the glorious manifestation of the Son of Man. (f) As noted at 9:3, where Jesus’ declaration of the forgiveness of God is in view, the NT uses ‘blasphemy’ much more loosely than does later Jewish discussion. Treating the hearing as a formal trial in a capital case has misled scholars into wanting to apply a legal de nition of blasphemy here. e language of blasphemy may well be an original feature, as long as this is not seen as a claim that what Jesus has uttered is equivalent to blaspheming the Name, which is treated as an offence for which stoning is prescribed in Lv. 24:10-23 (no threat of stoning is in view in Mt. 9:3). (g) Given the differences in the Gospels as to who did what to Jesus, and when, in the way of mocking him, we cannot be sure either of who the perpetrators were or the precise details of what happened (see further at 27:27-31).222

26:57 Matthew spots the lack of a proper antecedent in Mk. 14:53 and adds ‘those who took hold of Jesus’ (based on Mt. 26:50) to identify the subject of the verb ‘led away’, in the process stealing what had been Mark’s object for ‘led away’. He adds the name of the high priest Caiaphas to match his use of the name in 26:3 (see there). He also displaces Mark’s καὶ συνέρχονται (‘and [they] come

together’) with its historic present, with ὅπου … συνήχθησαν (lit. ‘where [they] gathered together’). Perhaps he, more realistically(?), imagines the Jewish leaders as already gathered at Caiaphas’s palace, in which case we should translate ‘where they had gathered’. As frequently in the Jerusalem materials, Matthew makes a change in Mark’s identi ed leadership groups. Inverting the order and dropping ‘all’ and ‘the chief priests’ leaves Matthew with ‘the scribes and the elders’ for ‘all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes’. He has this pairing only here, and it does not match those who sent the crowd in v. 47. But he seems to be continuing his pattern, identi ed in the discussion at 21:23, of suggesting, by bringing together in pairs the four identi ed leadership groups, the way that the various groupings came together to oppose a common foe.223 Except for here in 26:57, Matthew has the pairing ‘chief priests and elders’ consistently through the core Passion account.224 ere is no obvious reason for this exception. Perhaps he thinks that with the mention of Caiaphas as the high priest, the presence of the other chief priests can be assumed (in Greek ‘chief priests’ is the plural of ‘high priest’). In any case, the presence of the chief-priests becomes clear in v. 59. ἀπήγαγον (‘they led him away’), found again in 27:2, is the rst of a series of links between the hearing before the Sanhedrin and the hearing before Pilate. Since the links with 26:57-68 are not all in sequential order and are not restricted to the central unit 27:11-26, but are spread over all the units of Mt. 27:1-26, the connections seem to be concerned not to establish structure but to mark a certain equivalence between the Jewish and Roman hearings. e other ties I have noted are as follows. e testimony of 26:59-61 has its counterpart in the accusations of 27:12-13. ‘So that they might put him to death’ in 26:59 is echoed in ‘in order to put him to death’ in 27:1. ‘Do you not answer at all?’ in 26:62 and ‘Jesus was silent’ in

v. 63 correspond to ‘he was not answering at all’ in 27:12 and to ‘he did not answer him, not even one word’ in v. 14. e high priest’s ‘tell us if you are the Christ’ in 26:63 has its equivalent in Pilate’s, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ in 27:11 (with ‘Christ’ also appearing in vv. 17 and 22). Jesus’ answers are, ‘You have said [it]’ in 26:64 and ‘You are saying [it]’ in 27:11. e question of Pilate and the response in v. 22 may take the place of the high priest’s question and the answer in 26:66. e mockery of Jesus in terms of prophetic aspirations in 26:67-68 is matched by the mockery of Jesus as king of the Jews in 27:27-31a. At 26:3 I made the point that a good deal of the public life of great houses will have taken place in their enclosed courtyards rather than indoors, and that this is probably the case for hearings in the high priest’s palace.225 ere has been considerable discussion about where the Sanhedrin normally met and, in this connection, about whether this meeting is to be seen as a meeting of the Sanhedrin (a regular meeting of the Sanhedrin, an irregular meeting of the Sanhedrin, or not a meeting of the Sanhedrin at all). τὸ συνέδριον is used of the present meeting in v. 59, but it can simply mean ‘the council’ (cf. the plural use in 10:17). As indicated above, though the matter is controverted, I share the majority opinion that there was a Sanhedrin in Jerusalem that had signi cant political powers and also functioned as the highest Jewish court. Unfortunately the extended material on the Sanhedrin in m. Sanhedrin is an idealised picture that provides little information on the rst-century functioning of the institution. We do not even know the Sanhedrin had a xed membership or whether its functions could be exercised by any group of appropriate composition called together by the high priest. Nor, because the traditions are contradictory and/or obscure, is it clear where the Sanhedrin normally met.

Josephus mentions a council meeting place (βουλή; βουλευτήριον)in War 5.144; 6.354 as part of the topography of Jerusalem. is is probably our best evidence for an established meeting place for the Sanhedrin (the other materials are all later and may represent idealisations or even speculation). But an available venue does not determine the question of whether to meet somewhere else, as convenience dictated, would be seen as irregular. For the Sanhedrin to use its official meeting place was probably to make a public statement about its role and signi cance, but it may well have conducted a good deal of its business at other locations, with the high priest’s house presenting itself as an obvious alternative venue. e desire to deal with Jesus in private has already been noted in the discussion of Mt. 26:15, 47. A night meeting of the Sanhedrin in the courtyard of Caiaphas’s palace would suit these concerns better than a daylight meeting in the Sanhedrin’s official quarters. In any case, given the composition of the group and the matter at hand (especially establishing a basis for handing Jesus over to Pilate), this is a meeting of the Sanhedrin and not of some other Jerusalem council. 26:58 A change from a linking καί (‘and’) to a linking δέ (‘and/but’) and from an aorist to an imperfect for ‘followed’, along with a change of word order, gives ὁ δὲ Πέτρος ἠκολούθει (lit. ‘and Peter was following’) in common with Lk. 22:54, to which we may add Matthew’s use in common with Lk. 22:55 of ἐκάθητο for ‘was sitting’. Matthew resolves Mark’s unparallelled ἕως ἔσω (lit. ‘until into’) plus acc. into ἕως plus gen. and καὶ εἰσελθὼν ἔσω (‘and entering inside’), and he replaces the circumstantial ‘and warming himself at the re’ (that is not why Peter is there) with what is identi ed as Peter’s intention: ‘to see the end’. It is not clear whether Matthew intends ‘end’ here to have an echo of his earlier uses of

τέλος in relation to the eschatological end. is is certainly possible, given the kind of colouring Matthew gives the dying of Jesus in 27:45-54. What is clear is that for the rst time Peter is portrayed as accepting the long-heralded fact that his master is to die. ‘To see the end’ marks an intention to see the action through to the execution of Jesus. But aer the failure of 26:69-75 Peter will totally drop from sight, and it is only the women of 27:55-56, 61 who see the matter through to the end. Also, some of their number are rst aware of the empty tomb because they are unafraid to identify with the executed Jesus by visiting the tomb. Peter will be included in reference to ‘his disciples’ in 28:7-8, ‘my brothers’ in v. 10, and ‘the eleven disciples’ in v. 16; but that he will not again be named in Matthew may represent in a literary manner the shadow of Peter’s failure in 26:69-75. Mt. 26:58 must be allowed to qualify v. 56 (‘all the disciples le him and ed’): Peter ed, but not too far; he was following from a safe distance. Following is the language of discipleship (from 4:20 onwards). Here we are either to think of an attenuated discipleship or to see the language as ironically intended. at we should prefer the former nds support from the way in which ‘from afar’ here will be matched in the reference to the women in 27:55.226 But in the case of the women there will not be the collapse of this attenuated link with Jesus as is to be reported for Peter in 26:69-75. Jn. 18:16 raises the problem that he had to go past a guard at the gate of the courtyard. But in the melee of comings and goings which we must imagine for the scene, this need not have proved too difficult. ὑπηρέτης is a general term covering ‘attendant’, ‘assistant’, ‘helper’, ‘servant’, even ‘guard’, and gaining its speci c sense from its context. What is probably intended here is the retinue of ‘support staff ’ of both the high priest himself and other Sanhedrin members. Coming from different households, they will not all have known

each other. is would make it reasonably possible for Peter to expect to be able to be there anonymously and blend in. Beyond making a modest contribution to the larger scene to be imagined, the role of Mt. 26:58 is to prepare for vv. 69-75. We are probably to think of the action of vv. 59-68 taking place at the same time as that in vv. 69-75. Luke simpli es the sequencing by reporting the denials immediately in connection with his parallel to Mt. 26:58. 26:59 Anticipating the reference to false witnesses in Mk. 14:56-57, Matthew replaces μαρτυρίαν (‘witness’) with ψευδομαρτυρίαν (‘false witness’).227 Since Matthew is con dent that there were and could be no proper grounds for seeking to put Jesus to death, he reasons that anything sought to establish his guilt can only be the result of seeking what is false witness. But by the change does Matthew intend to accuse members of the Sanhedrin of engaging in a deliberate exercise in falseness? ough Mt. 26:4 is already close to this, it may be to go too far to claim barefaced falseness here. For if Matthew intends us to take him in that way, he will rather get himself caught in a trap of logic, and more acutely so because he will drop from v. 60 Mark’s explanatory ‘and their testimonies did not agree’ (καὶ ἴσαι αἱ μαρτυρίαι οὐκ ἦσαν) — see below. e dominant role of the chief priests in the opposition to Jesus in Jerusalem is marked here with ‘the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin’. On the Sanhedrin see the comments at v. 57. It is hard to imagine where those who are to give the false witness against Jesus are meant to be drawn from during this middle-of-the-night hearing. In the discussion at 26:2 I suggested the likelihood that the timetable was a little more drawn-out than our account suggests. is would give time for the sounding out and summoning of potential witnesses. ‘So that they might put him to death’ involves

an understandable compression. e Sanhedrin can certainly decide that he is worthy of death (v. 66),228 but only as a preliminary to handing him over to Roman justice, where his fate will ultimately be decided and sentence executed. 26:60 Matthew prefers the aorist for ‘did not nd’ over Mark’s imperfect (lit. ‘were not nding’), which could be used to take us into the unfolding of a process but is probably only a simple past for Mark, who uses a string of imperfects throughout this section. A more compact genitive absolute construction which has many false witnesses coming forward replaces Mark’s explanatory double clause, allowing Matthew to drop all of ‘against him, and their testimonies did not agree’. Matthew drops ‘and their testimonies did not agree’, but the contrast with a common statement from ‘two’ mentioned at the end of the verse suggests that, just as much as Mark, he sees the difficulty with the earlier witness as a lack of corroboration. Matthew abbreviates and alters Mark’s ‘and certain ones rose up and testi ed falsely against him, saying’ to ‘aerwards two came forward and said’ (ὕστερον δὲ προσελθόντες δύο εἶπεν): the falseness of the testimony is no longer asserted as in Mark; ‘aerwards’ clari es the unclarity of relationship in Mark’s sequencing; ‘two’ introduces with brevity the issue of concurrent witness,229 otherwise lost with the dropping of Mark’s ‘and their testimonies did not agree’; ‘came forward’ repeats for the sake of parallelism the verb that Matthew has introduced earlier in the verse. e implicit object of ‘did not nd’ ought to be ‘false witness’, but, if Matthew has not lost the thread of his own thought, clearly is not (otherwise there is a contradiction with ‘many false witnesses came forward’). e implied object must be something like ‘usable witness’. And this indicates that the hearing is being conducted with some basic attention to the rules of evidence, but also that the chief

priests, no matter how much they may be thought of as driven to get a particular outcome, are not to be thought of as having primed false witnesses with matching stories. When the Gospels impugn the integrity of those who oppose Jesus, we ought not to think of them simply as dastardly blackguards. As Brown has put it in relation to the Sanhedrin members dealing with Jesus, ‘ere was surely an admixture of insincerity, self-protective cunning, honest religious devotion, conscientious soul-searching, and fanaticism’.230 At last two witnesses provide usable testimony against Jesus. 26:61 Matthew makes important changes, and on the basis of these changes he is able, unlike Mark, to accept the basic truthfulness of the witness (and thus not only to make the changes noted above for v. 60 but also entirely to drop Mk. 14:59, with its suggestion that discrepancies between the witnesses in even this case placed its truthfulness in question). Mark’s ‘we have heard him saying that’ is simpli ed to ‘this [fellow] said’ (οὗτος ἔϕη). ‘I am able to destroy’ replaces ‘I will destroy’ (with an emphatic ἐγώ): a statement of capability replaces a statement of hostile intention.231 For Matthew, the language can in this new form be safely allowed to echo the sentiment of Je. 7:12, 14-15, where, over against a misplaced con dence in the indestructibility of the Jerusalem temple, God threatens the destruction of the temple. e Matthean Jesus can declare his capacity to act for God in this particular respect. Acting in the place of God, he is in a position to call ‘time’ on the temple. is takes us further than the symbolic shutting down of the sacri cial activity of the temple in 21:12, but is at home with it. e way Jesus takes it on himself in 23:38; 24:2 to announce the temple’s doom takes us in the same direction. But it is probably to the accoutrements of deity associated with the coming Son of Man in 24:29-31 (see discussion there) that

we need nally to look, to take us as far as ‘I am able to destroy the sanctuary’. e appropriate frame of reference for these words is not given by contemplating the possible action of a potential leader of an armed attack, but rather by contemplating the possible action of one who can operate in a supramundane sphere, as God does. Who would take the place of the sixth-century Babylonians in pulling the temple down is a secondary matter within this frame of reference. Mark’s ‘this sanctuary made with hands’ becomes for Matthew simply ‘the sanctuary of God’: not now the nature of the sanctuary itself, but the nature of what goes on in it places its future under threat.232 Matthew keeps Mark’s καὶ διὰ τριῶν ἡμερῶν. ese words do not mean ‘and in [or aer] three days’, suggesting a gap of three days in the provision of a sanctuary.233 (Any link with the time between the death and resurrection of Jesus is unlikely.234) e text is actually silent about whether there is to be any gap in provision (though a gap might be assumed, on the analogy of the Babylonian conquest and Persian restoration); the words point instead to a building programme that is miraculously nished no more than three days aer it has been begun. ‘I am able’ governs the second verb as well as the rst. So Mark’s ‘I will build’ becomes ‘[I am able] to build’. Mark’s object here, ‘another not made with hands’, quite disappears. is makes the earlier ‘the sanctuary of God’ the quasiobject here as well. One could envisage an exercise that is strictly a rebuilding-out-of-the-ruins activity, but, guided by the sixthcentury-B.C. experience, we would do better to think in terms of a fresh building which would become ‘the sanctuary of God’. As with the destruction so with the rebuilding, we need to look to God as the temple builder. In Is. 60:7, 17 God sees to the glori cation of the rebuilt sanctuary. In Jub. 1:17 we nd, ‘I [i.e., God] will build my sanctuary in their midst’ (admittedly in connection with the rst temple). In 1 Enoch 90:28-29, ‘e Lord of

the sheep [i.e., God] brought about a new house … and set it up’. e reference is in the rst instance to the city, but this also embraces the temple. e passive forms leave the agency not explicit, and Zion is the building which is in view, but the words of 2 Bar. 31:3-4 have an evident family likeness to the motifs being explored, and the phrase ‘perfected into eternity’ sounds like the action of God: ‘at building will not remain; but it will … be uprooted…. And aer that it is necessary that it will be renewed in glory and that it will be perfected into eternity’. e sentiment in 2 Esdr. 10:54 is related: ‘No work of human construction could endure in the place where the city of the Most High was to be revealed’. Similarly, Rev. 21:10 has ‘the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God’. e OT role of David in building the rst temple235 and the role of the Davidic gure Zerubbabel in building the second temple (Zc. 6:12-13) would readily allow for the development of a hope for the messianic rebuilding of the temple. But there is scant early evidence for such an expectation. Despite the expectation at Qumran of a coming eschatological temple, there is no sign of an expectation of the messiah as a builder. Possibly a messianic temple builder is to be found in Sib. Or. 3:290 in what may be a Maccabean oracle, but the use of sixth-century-B.C. restoration imagery makes this uncertain.236 In any case, it is ‘the royal tribe’ and not the messiah alone which ‘will begin to raise up a new temple of God’. Otherwise the early-second-century-A.D. text Sib. Or. 5:414-22 may be the earliest; there ‘A blessed man came from the expanses of heaven … and made a holy temple’. It is notable that Matthew is indebted here to the Son of Man text Dn. 7:13, and not to a Davidic messianic text; and that, as in the Gospel exploitation of this connection, the human gure in Sib. Or. 5:414-22 acts on behalf of God and with the authority of God. e messiah has straightforwardly become a

temple builder in the Targum texts of Zc. 6:12-13 and Is. 53:5. But if the Maccabean temple difficulties did not quite provoke such a development, the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 may well have done so. It remains quite unclear what kind of ful lment Matthew might have envisaged. In the discussion at Mt. 16:18 I raised the possibility of temple imagery in relation to the church, but I reached no certain conclusion. 26:61 does not help: it is unlikely that the new temple of 26:61 is, for Matthew, the church. What is clear is the signi cance of Jesus for the larger shape of the unfolding purposes of God, not the concrete form of this aspect of those unfolding purposes. 26:62 Matthew abbreviates, but he makes no signi cant change to the language of Mk. 14:60.237 e arrested Jesus had been brought to the high priest (v. 57). Here for the rst time in the episode the high priest is said to play a role. ‘Do you not answer at all?’ (οὐδὲν ἀποκρίνῃ;) requires that we understand Jesus to have made no immediate response. e high priest asks Jesus to comment on the testimony against him. It is hard to know what role the testimony might be believed to have in demonstrating that Jesus deserved to die. If our understanding above is along the right lines, then Jesus is seen as making a claim to incredible authority. e high priest may consider this claim to be self-evidently false because he does not believe that God delegates authority on such a scale to anyone. Or he may simply consider the claim unfounded in the case of Jesus, whose manner of demonstrating status runs contrary to the power realities people would generally have considered intelligible. Jesus’ claim to authority also came up for question in 21:23-27. ere the lack of integrity of those asking was exposed. 26:63 Matthew both abbreviates and expands. He now adds the name ‘Jesus’, which he kept back from the previous verse, but he drops Mark’s second statement of Jesus’ silence, ‘and he did not

answer at all’ (καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίνατο οὐδέν), which picks up on language from the previous verse, as repetitive. He also drops the ‘again’ by which Mark makes what follows a distinct second intervention by the high priest; Matthew treats it more as a continuing interaction. With an adjustment similar to that in v. 62,238 he introduces the high priest’s words with ‘said to him’, as they were there. ‘I put you under solemn oath before the living God to tell us if ’ (ἐξορκίζω σε κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος ἵνα ἡμῖν εἴπῃς εἰ) is a Matthean addition to the high priest’s words. e Markan question becomes a demand for information under an imposed solemn oath.239 ough different language is used, it is probably right to contrast the oath imposed on Jesus with the oaths volunteered by Peter in vv. 72 and 74, the one evoking the truth and the other masking a lie. Matthew replaces ‘the Son of the Blessed’, with its euphemism for God,240 with simply ‘the Son of God’. With the last change (with its use of the phrase ‘the living God’) and this, Matthew produces a very clear echo of Peter’s confession in 16:16: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. What are we to make of the silence of Jesus? It has less prominence in Matthew than in Mark, but it is still striking.241 Some interpreters have seen here the silence of contempt, a refusal to respect the proceedings, but this is to make too much of Jesus as self-consciously superior. Others nd here an allusion to the suffering servant of Is. 52:13–53:12, who ‘is silent’ like the lamb led to slaughter or the sheep facing shearing and ‘does not open his mouth’ (v. 7). But as there is no common vocabulary, the basis for the association is nally too tenuous. ere is more to be said for a more general link with what Is. 53:7 has in common with some of the Psalms, namely, an acceptance of oppression by enemies as coming from the hand of God, whose it is to decide whether there is to be an end to the oppression or not.242 If this is the connection,

then the silence is acceptance of his situation, a refusal to ght back.243 is would t well with Jesus’ refusal to call for the angels in vv. 53-54 and may represent the right approach, irrespective of any OT connection. Of course, aer the statement of the two agreeing witnesses, Jesus’ silence means that he is not prepared to protest the truthfulness of what has been said. If he were ghting for his life, he might have wanted to object to the particular way in which his words have been represented, but he is not, and what has been attributed to him is essentially true. We should probably understand that the high priest’s fresh challenge has to do with wanting to link the claim to authority involved in the words of v. 61 with the claim to have a certain identity. Who does Jesus think he is to make such an authority claim? What options would be available to the high priest? If he were prepared to reach beyond the human sphere, he might have gone for an angelic gure like Michael or Gabriel, but, though Jesus’ authority claim might have made some sense in relation to such a gure, the Jesus of rst-century Palestine could hardly even in his own self-deluded fantasy have been identi ed in that sort of way. e high priest might have considered Herod’s preference (14:2) and wondered whether Jesus might join his claims to a supramundane authority with a claim to be John the Baptist come back from the dead. But something more than the claim to be a prophet is clearly involved, even more than could be claimed for a returning Elijah. e anticipated agent of God’s future purposes was the Christ. And it was clear that the Jews had a range of beliefs about precisely what might be involved in the messianic programme. e most likely option is that Jesus’ extraordinary authority claim is to be connected with his own eccentric brand of messianism. It is this option that the high priest takes up.

As noted above, with his changes in the Markan wording Matthew produces a very clear echo of Peter’s confession in 16:16. But the high priest is not to be taken as asking with a knowledge of what the terms of the confession might signify in a Christian or more speci cally a Matthean context. ough ‘the Son of God’ is not a normal Jewish designation for the messiah, given the range of Jewish use of the ‘Son of God’ notion,244 it is not at all out of reach as a synonym for ‘messiah’. We may even be meant to understand that precisely the strong sense of capacity to act for God evoked in 26:61 is meant to be re ected in the high priest’s speci c choice of language.245 26:64 Matthew changes Mark’s aorist verb (‘said’) to a historic present (‘says’) to identify Jesus’ words here as the high point of this unit.246 He anticipates, with the addition of ‘to him’, the speci c focus on the high priest that will be involved in his change to σὺ εἶπας (‘you have said [it]’) from Mark’s ἐγώ εἰμι (‘I am’). e words that follow in Mark are now introduced with ‘but I say to you, from now [on]’ (πλὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι). καθήμενον (‘seated’) is repositioned before ἐκ δεξιῶν (‘at the right [hand]’), which re ects the word order of Ps. 110(LXX 109):1. ‘On (ἐπί) the clouds’ replaces ‘with (μετά) the clouds’. Why does Matthew prefer an equivocating answer to the clear affirmation in Mk. 14:62? e language is the same as Jesus’ answer to Judas’s question in Mt. 26:25. And as there, though formally noncommittal, it is to be taken as an obliquely expressed affirmative. e question of the basis of Jesus’ [claimed] authority was taken up in 21:23-27. ere too Jesus’ response was indirect. e point there was, ‘What one has a right to be told depends on what one does with what one already has and what one intends to do with what one might get’. Much the same is likely to be involved here. e high priest is interested in the question only in

connection with how he may use it against Jesus. Jesus’ language raised obliquely the question of how the answer might affect the high priest’s own situation. As in 11:22, 24, in the same phrase, πλὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, the opening πλήν (normally marking an intense contrast) is used as a strong ascensive: ‘in truth I say to you’. As oen in Matthew, λέγω ὑμῖν (‘I say to you’) adds its own extra emphasis. A deliberate contrast may be intended between ‘you have said [it]’ and ‘I say to you’. ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι (‘from now [on]’) is used here for the third time. In the earlier cases (23:39; 26:29) it is the Passion which, as imminent, is anticipated as though already a reality. is is not so obviously the case here, but the pattern is likely sustained and the same watershed is probably in view. With only an adjustment from third person plural to second person plural, ‘you will see the Son of Man… coming on the clouds of heaven’, with its allusion to Dn. 7:13, repeats language from 24:30 (see there). It must, therefore, refer to the same event: the climax of history in the eschatological coming of the Son of Man to gather in the elect.247 But rst there is ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right [hand] of “the Power”’.248 Matthew is echoing ‘Sit at my right hand’ from Ps. 110:1. At Mt. 19:28 (see there) I discuss the coming together of Dn. 7 and Ps. 110. But for the link to function here as it does in 19:28 the sequence of sitting and coming would need to be reversed. Whereas Mt. 19:28 is about a function exercised on the throne, 26:64 is about gaining a place on the throne. is is the transition actually described in Ps. 110:1. e image in the psalm is not exactly that of enthronement, more of being securely established in power by God. Since ‘coming on the clouds of heaven’ belongs further in the future, ‘sitting at the right hand of “the Power”’ must be joined in the rst instance to ‘from now [on]’. So what are the Sanhedrin members to see? We can think of the events of 27:51-53; certainly

these events are enough to force the guards at the cross to affirm Jesus’ identity as the ‘Son of God’. We may also recall the report from the guards at the tomb in 28:11-15. Finally, we may think of the contrast between the disciples who all le Jesus and ed in 26:56 and their coming actions as implied by 28:16-20. e Sanhedrin will see these as indications of power, but this will not guarantee that they will realise what they are seeing. ere will, however, be no ambiguity about the ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’. Of course, we must note that Jesus does not say that he is the Son of Man in question. Clearly he is implying that this Son of Man has something to do with himself, even that the process through which Jesus was presently going would precipitate what he was asserting would happen in connection with the Son of Man. But Jesus lets his hearers make the nal connection. ough his words are treated as a blasphemous confession, a residual obliqueness remains. 26:65 As so oen, Matthew adds a τότε (‘then’) — displacing Mark’s linking δέ (‘and/but’). He moves the emphasis onto the chief priest’s dramatic action with the change from the participle to the nite verb for ‘ripped’ (διέρρηξεν) and the matching change from the nite verb to the participle with ‘saying’ (λέγων) — this also gets rid of Mark’s unwanted historic present λέγει (‘says’). Matthew replaces Mark’s fairly uncommon use of the plural of χιτών (normally used for the tunic, the basic garment worn in some form or other by all) for clothes in general with the more usual τὰ ἱμάτια. Anticipating, he begins the quoted matter with ἐβλασϕήμησεν (‘he has blasphemed’). In this way this part of the high priest’s words can begin and end with mention of the blasphemy. An added ἴδε νῦν (‘see, now’) has a heightening affect.249 In ripping his clothes the high priest behaves as one who has been deeply distressed.250 We may be meant to detect a certain

amount of melodrama, but clearly something of great importance is at stake. What are we to understand by ‘He has blasphemed’? We saw above that ‘blasphemy’ is used much more loosely in the NT than in later Jewish discussion. Where blasphemy is spoken of in 9:3, there is no question of a trial or of Jesus being considered worthy of death. But that he was considered there to be arrogating to himself an authority that belonged to God alone (see at 9:3) may nonetheless be of help to us here. ere is a tradition in b. Sanh. 93 that when Bar Kokhba announced himself to be the messiah, he was killed when he failed to demonstrate the capabilities expected of the messiah. Bar Kokhba did have messianic pretensions, but it is more likely that he was killed by the Romans. Even as a legend, however, the story demonstrates the likely attitude towards a discredited messiah gure. A messiah who was patently not the messiah would be considered a deceiver to whom the strictures of Dt. 13:1-11 (cf. 18:20) would apply. Perhaps Jesus’ form of messianism was considered too grand and therefore to involve arrogating authority to himself that belonged to God alone (as in Mt. 9:3),251 but for those who had a prior conviction that Jesus’ claims were to judged false, the very claim to be a messianic gure was already an arrogant act of deception. To call it blasphemy was to give it an emotionally charged name, but the actionable offense that stood behind this rhetoric would have been that of leading Israel astray. Only on the basis of the already assumed impossibility of Jesus’ being the messiah can Jesus’ statement mean that there is no need for further witnesses. Jesus himself has now said all that the Sanhedrin needed to hear. Jesus’ words have now generously provided the selfincrimination that had been sought for in 22:15-22, but which he had there avoided.

26:66 Mark’s ϕαίνεται becomes δοκεῖ to match an idiom favoured by Matthew.252 Matthew replaces Mark’s language of appearance (‘What does it seem to you?’) with the language of opinion or judgment (‘What do you think?), but without changing the basic meaning. He drops Mark’s comprehensive ‘all’; he probably wonders how it can be squared with the role of Joseph of Arimathea in Mk. 15:43-46. Matthew also replaces κατέκριναν αὐτόν (‘condemned him’) with ἀποκριθέντες εἶπαν (lit. ‘having answered, they said’): the Markan language sounds too much like the delivery of an official judgment of a court able to impose the death penalty; Matthew substitutes a favoured idiom which gives no precise weight to the opinion to be expressed.253 It is not that Matthew wants to deny a judicial status to the conclusion reached (in more summary treatments he allowed language similar to Mark’s here to stand in the Passion prediction in 20:18, and he will echo this same terminology in 27:3), but he probably wants to avoid the impression here that sentence is already being passed. To create the syntax for speech, Matthew replaces εἶναι (‘to be’) with ἐστίν (‘he is’). He has now given a semblance of due process, which is perhaps as much to convince themselves as to convince others, to the pursuit of the intention marked at 26:4. 26:67 Matthew adds another τότε (‘then’) — this time displacing Mark’s linking καί (‘and’). e uses of τότε in vv. 65, 67 organise the account of the response to Jesus’ declaration in v. 64 into two subunits, vv. 65-66 and vv. 67-68. Having dropped ‘all’ in v. 66, he no longer needs the restrictive τινες (‘certain ones’) of Mk. 14:65. He prefers the simple aorists ‘spat’ and ‘struck’, as aer the previous τότε in v. 65, to Mark’s ‘began to spit … and to strike’. To further underline the revolting and insulting nature of the activity, Mark’s ‘on him’ becomes ‘on his face’, as in the two uses of ἐμπτύειν (‘spit’) in the LXX.254 Matthew is, in part, rescuing ‘face’ from ‘and

to cover his face’ (καὶ περικαλύπτειν αὐτοῦ τὸ πρόσωπον), which he drops from Mark.255 is loss is curious. In Mark the role of the piece is unclear256 because the demand for prophecy remains imprecise. Lk. 22:64 clari es the reason for the blindfolding by making the demand for prophecy more precise with the addition of ‘Who is it who struck you’? In the rst instance Matthew seems to have dropped the Markan phrase on the basis that it has no obvious role, but then, as we shall see below in the discussion of v. 68, added Luke’s phrase from a second source, forgetting that this addition really needs the phrase dropped from Mark (or its Lukan equivalent) in order to make sense. Aer the coming demand for prophecy, Mark has, as a separate item, ‘and the attendants received him with blows (ῥαπίσμασιν)’,257 but Matthew consolidates, inserting ‘and some slapped [him]’ (οἱ δὲ ἐρράπισαν) as preparatory for the demand for prophecy. Cruel and vindictive belittlement is oen the fate of a person of in uence who has been discredited. Sadistic pleasure is found in the fall of the mighty, and perhaps even more in the fall of those who have reached too high. An echo of Is. 50:6 may be intended in Mark, but the exact correspondence is modest.258 If the link is there, Matthew has taken away as much as he has added to the echo. e difficulty with asserting a connection is that the submission motif which is central in Is. 50:6 is not evident at this point in the Gospel texts. Where modern sensibilities are inclined to see injustice in such behaviour, ancient Jewish tradition which involved the whole community in the imposition of judgment would be unlikely to be disturbed by such action.259 26:68 Where Mark’s list of in nitives aer ‘began’ continues with ‘and to say to him’, Matthew uses a participial construction aer ‘slapped’: ‘slapped [him], saying’. He will clarify a moment why the slapping and the demand for prophecy belong together.

Matthew also adds ‘to us’ and a vocative use of ‘Christ’ aer ‘prophesy’. ‘To us’ marks the only-very-local interest that the prophecy being called for will have. ‘Christ’ picks up on the high priest’s language in v. 63: in the understanding of these people Jesus has made clear his pretensions in this respect. Matthew also adds τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε (‘Who is the one who hit you?’). ese words are found identically in Lk. 22:64. Given the other traces of a second source and the curious difficulty in the Matthean text noted above, a source explanation best accounts for the agreement.260 e call to prophesy is probably to be linked to the pretension of one who considered himself to be more than a prophet.261 Certainly, prophecy was an obvious feature of Jesus’ ministry, and both Mt. 26:61 and 64 have a prophetic element. Flusser and others have, however, raised the possibility that the cruel sport was something that happened more generally with prisoners, a variant of the children’s ‘Guess Who Hit You’ game.262 At this point he draws attention to several rabbinic texts in which ‘words of prophecy’ means ‘guesses’ or ‘wild imaginings’263 and wonders whether that might be all that is involved in the Gospel text here. e difficulty with the game proposal is that the game in all its variants was a group activity in which the role of the ‘victim’ passed from one to another (aer a successful guess).264 Certainly a trivialisation of prophecy is involved in the Gospel request, but that is no different from the kind of trivialisation that characterises even elements of contemporary popular understandings of prophecy. We should consider the victimisation of Jesus here as tailored to his speci c identity. 1′. Peter’s Denial of Jesus (26:69-75)

69Now

Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a certain servant girl came forward, saying, ‘You also were with Jesus the aGalilean’. 70But he denied before all, saying, ‘I do not know what you are saying’.b 71He went out into the entranceway, and another c[servant girl] saw him and says to those there, ‘is [fellow] was with Jesus the Nazorean’. 72And again he denied, with an oath,d ‘I do not know the person’. 73Aer a little [while] those present said to Peter, ‘Truly, eyou alsoe are one of them, forf your speech gmakes you[r place of origin] clear’.g 74en he began to invoke a curse and to swear, ‘I do not know the person’. And immediately the cock crowed. 75Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken, ‘Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times’. And he went outside and wept bitterly.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ναζωραιου (‘Nazorean’) in C etc. syp, as in v. 71. b. ουδε επισταμαι (‘and I do not understand’) is added, on the basis of Mk. 14:68, in D (Δ) f1 it sys. c. D it vgcl add παιδισκη, which is the word in Lk. 22:56 for the servant girl of the rst denial. d. λεγων (‘saying’) is added in D b c ff2 mae. e-e. και συ (‘also’ + emphatic ‘you’) is missing from D Θ f1 etc. sys sams. f. Con ating with the Markan reading, C* Σ syh** add Γαλιλαιος ει και (‘you are a Galilean and’). g-g. D it sys have ομοιαζει (‘is like [that of Jesus]’). Bibliography Boomershine, T. E., ‘Peter’s Denial as Polemic or Confession: e Implications of Media Criticism for Biblical Hermeneutics’, Semeia 39 (1987), 47-68. • Borrell, A., e Good News of Peter’s Denial: A Narrative and Rhetorical Reading of Mark 14:54, 66-72, tr. S. Conlon (University of South

Florida International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism 7. Atlanta: Scholars, 1998). • Dannemann, I., Aus dem Rahmen fallen, 195-242. • Dassman, E., ‘Die Szene Christus-Petrus mit der Hahn’, in Pietas. FS B. Kotting, ed. E. Dassman and K. S. Frank (JAC 8. Münster: Aschendorff, 1980), 510-11. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘e Reason for the Cock-Crowings’, NTS 29 (1983), 142-44. • Evans, C. A., ‘“Peter Warming Himself ”: e Problem of an Editorial “Seam”’, JBL 101 (1982), 245-49. • Fox, R., ‘Peter’s Denial in Mark’s Gospel’, BiTod 25 (1987), 298-303. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘Confession and Denial before Men: Observations on Matt. 26:57–27:2’, JSNT 13 (1981), 4666. • Herron, R. W., Jr., Mark’s Account of Peter’s Denial of Jesus: A History of Interpretation (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992). • Hunter, J., ‘ree Versions of Peter’s Denial’, Hudson Review 33 (1980), 39-57. • LaVerdiere, E. A., ‘Peter Broke Down and Began to Cry’, Emman 92 (1986), 70-73. • McEleney, N. J., ‘Peter’s Denials — How Many? To Whom?’ CBQ 52 (1990), 467-72. • Murray, G., ‘Saint Peter’s Denials’, DR 103 (1985), 296-98. • Taylor, D. B., ‘Jesus — of Nazareth?’ ExpTim 92 (1981), 336-37. • urston, A., Knowing Her Place, 52-58. • Watt, J. M., ‘Of Gutturals and Galileans: e Two Slurs of Matthew 26.73’, in Diglossia and Other Topics, ed. S. E. Porter (JSNTSup 193; SNTG 6. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 107-20. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 31-35, 57-68.

Peter’s denials here in vv. 69-75 provide the second half of the bracketing (matched by the betrayal by Judas in vv. 47-56) around the account of Jesus before the Sanhedrin. e preparatory role of v. 58 suggests that the questioning of Peter by the women and the bystanders constitutes a negative counterpart to the interrogation of Jesus by the chief priest (the two sets of events are to be seen as taking place at the same time). While Jesus remains true to his vision, Peter plunges deeper and deeper into denial of Jesus. e cockcrow pulls him up short, and he is full of bitter regret. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 14:66-72. ough the evidence is modest because Matthew and Luke largely work from their Markan source, both seem to have had access to a second source

form (Lk. 22:62 is found identically in Mt. 26:75, and Lk. 22:58 has common elements with Jn. 18:25 and Mt. 26:72). But we can say little about the possible scope and shape of this source. In particular we do not know its relationship to the tradition behind the Johannine version in Jn. 18:15-27 (which I take to be independent of the Synoptic Gospels, but to be linked in some way in the pre-Gospel phase — I have been struck by the way in which both Mark and John have the denials intercalated within the hearing[s] before the high priest[s], but Brown, Death, 612, notes that the mode of intercalation is different, which means that nothing more than a shared tradition that arrest, trial, and denial belong closely together is needed to explain the degree of similarity). Various source deconstructions have been offered in relation to the Markan text, but there is no consensus and the results remain uncertain. Some sort of account of a threefold denial, linked to an anticipation of this by Jesus, would seem to belong to the historical core. And given the intercalation shared by the Markan and Johannine version, these will have belonged to a pre-Markan Passion account.265

26:69 ough Matthew’s level of intervention in the language of his sources is quite varied, the present account is marked by an unusually high level of departure from his main Markan source. As indicated above, there is reason to believe that Matthew had access to a second source here (shared with Luke), but that he does not make much use of the language of that second source. e second source may, however, have affected Matthew’s presentation in a more fundamental manner. He will have been able to see that though his two sources cover the same basic ground, they are very different in the speci cs of how they present the three challenges and the three denials. If he concluded that each represents a dramatisation of the basic event, then he may have felt considerable freedom to create his own dramatisation. Without any great change of sense, Matthew almost totally recasts the Markan language here.266 e change to the new subject is marked by a linking δέ (lit. ‘and/but’; ‘now’ in the translation

above). ἐκάθητο (‘was sitting’) is repeated from v. 58. Curiously, ἔσω ἐκάθητο (‘inside and was sitting’) in v. 58 now becomes ἐκάθητο ἔξω (‘was sitting outside’). e difference is likely to have its own deliberate symbolism: in v. 58 Peter is following, if only ‘from afar’; in v. 69 Peter is marked visually as separated from where the action with Jesus is, in anticipation of the way he will identify himself as an outsider by his denial of any tie with Jesus. ‘In the courtyard’ in v. 69 echoes ‘as far as the courtyard’ from v. 58.267 One notable difference between Mark and Matthew is that Mark has Peter ‘below in the courtyard’. Matthew’s ‘outside’ achieves the same separation from Jesus, but it seems to involve a different visualisation of the scene (cf. at 26:57). e action of the piece is precipitated by the approach of a servant girl. To mark her coming Matthew uses προσῆλθεν (‘came forward’) to echo the verbs used of the witnesses against Jesus in v. 60. παιδίσκη (‘servant girl’) is a feminine diminutive derived from παῖς (‘servant’/‘child’). e diminutive form is more likely to be a mark of subordinate status than of tender years. Probably most such servant girls were slaves, but about this the sources are such that we cannot be sure. Mark’s μία τῶν παιδισκῶν is straightforwardly ‘one of the servant girls’, but Matthew’s μία παιδίσκη (lit. ‘one servant girl’) has raised questions. Matthew uses ‘one’ to mean ‘a certain’ (21:19: ‘a certain g tree’), and he makes an equivalent change in 9:18 from Mk. 5:22 (‘a certain leader’ vs. ‘one of the synagogue leaders’). ough elsewhere in Matthew the ‘one’ comes aer the noun and not before it as in 26:69, it is best to take μία as ‘a certain’ here also. Matthew reproduces the opening καί (‘also’) of the woman’s statement. If the ‘also’ associates Peter with Jesus, its use is not strictly correct but understandable; there is no obvious alternative. Mark’s ‘with the Nazarene Jesus’ becomes ‘with Jesus the Galilean’.

Jesus is not called ‘a Galilean’ elsewhere in the NT. e nearest is ‘the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee’ in Mt. 21:11, which is also distinctive to Matthew. Of course, Jesus’ connections with Galilee are pervasive in Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew will use ‘with Jesus the Nazorean’ (on Nazorean see below at v. 71) for the second denial, in place of Mark’s rather colourless ‘[one] of them’. ‘You are a Galilean’ from Mark’s third denial is the likely inspiration for Matthew’s wording here in the rst denial (as we shall see, Matthew nds an effective substitution for the third denial). e order ‘Galilean’–‘Nazorean’, with its displacement of material from Mark’s rst denial to his second, is probably inspired by the sequence ‘Galilee’–‘Nazareth’ in Mt. 2:22-23, moving from the more general to the more speci c (‘Nazorean’ comes at the end of v. 23). Matthew probably also wanted ‘Nazorean’ in the center for reasons to be clari ed below. ‘With Jesus’ echoes the only earlier use of the phrase in Matthew, in 26:51 in the arrest scene, which in turn echoes the uses of ‘with him’ in vv. 37, 40 in the Gethsemane account. In these places being with Jesus has already been defective. But worse is to come. Jesus as ‘the Galilean’ recalls the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem that has brought Peter and Jesus to their present respective situations. ere is nothing to suggest the basis on which the servant girl makes her claim. Was she part of the crowd that had gone to arrest Jesus? Had she seen Jesus teaching in the temple and recognised Peter as one of those with him? Nor are we given any insight into the signi cance for the servant girl of confronting Peter as she does. Is she doing any more than responding at the moment to the fact of her own recognition of Peter, with no particular personal motivations or thought as to likely consequences? In relation to the second servant girl and the bystanders we will be no wiser. ough

Peter’s denials are hardly likely to be intended to seem convincing to those who challenge him, in none of the cases is the matter of Peter’s identity pressed or any threat made to expose him to the authorities. Peter’s interrogators are not hostile opponents, which is not to say that no perceived or actual threat to Peter is involved in their recognition. eir role is to confront Peter with the need to give an honest acknowledgement of his allegiance to Jesus. But in this he will fail. 26:70 Matthew keeps more of Mark’s language here. Peter’s words are evasive rather than a straightforward denial, but Matthew has no doubt that this is denial and introduces the words with the quite insistent ‘he denied before all’. Matthew has added ἔμπροσθεν πάντων (‘before all’). e addition makes for a stronger echo of Mt. 10:33: Peter is denying Jesus ‘before people’ in a comprehensive manner. e consequence, according to Mt. 10:33, must be that Jesus ‘will deny’ Peter ‘before [his] Father in heaven’. Matthew abbreviates and improves the syntax by reducing οὔτε οἶδα οὔτε ἐπίσταμαι (‘I neither know nor understand’)268 to οὐκ οἶδα (‘I do not know’). It is probably too much to nd an echo of the high priest’s ‘You have said [it]’ (σὺ εἶπας) in the servant girl’s ‘you are saying’ (λέγεις), especially in Matthew, which drops Mark’s emphatic σύ (‘you’), with its σὺ … λέγεις. ere had been no serious attempt, perhaps no attempt at all, to arrest any of the disciples along with Jesus. But Peter is not to be thought of as having any clear idea of official policy. In any case, if Peter identi ed himself as a disciple in the courtyard where Jesus was being ‘tried’, he might be considered more of a threat than he was as one of the group who had ed for their lives. e danger was real but unquanti able. 26:71 Here again little of the speci c Markan language survives, but the content remains reasonably close despite

signi cant differences of detail.269 Where in Mark Peter escapes the attention of the servant girl only temporarily, in Matthew Peter escapes the attentions of one servant girl only to be spotted by another.270 e place of retreat in Mark is τὸ προαύλιον (‘the forecourt’) and in Matthew τὸν πυλῶνα (‘the entranceway’). ere is probably not much difference between the two.271 Both represent the direction of escape. e words could represent the same space or, depending on the speci c architecture of the building, ‘the entranceway’ could represent the part of the forecourt nearest the exit or even be a separate area beyond the forecourt, on the way out.272 Matthew removed a historic present ‘says’ from his account of the rst denial. He has it here instead. is may not be to give any speci c emphasis to the second denial but only to mark the centre point of the threefold denial. at, however, Matthew has moved the Nazareth reference into second place may point to the reason for emphasis (see below). is time it is the bystanders who are addressed, and not Peter directly. In the account of the rst denial, Mark used μετὰ τοῦ Ναζαρηνοῦ … τοῦ Ἰησοῦ (‘with the Nazarene, Jesus’). Matthew uses here μετὰ Ἰησου τοῦ Ναζωραίου (‘with Jesus the Nazorean’). Both the change in word order and the change in spelling have to do with 2:23 (see there). For Matthew ‘Jesus the Nazorean’ is not just a reference to Jesus’ having grown up in Nazareth; it is a reference to Jesus’ messianic identity. e account of the central denial is highlighted by the historic present ‘says’ because here the servant girl uses language which is equivalent to a messianic confession. It is she who provides a literal ful lment of the words of 2:23, ‘He shall be called a Nazorean’. Once again there is nothing to indicate the basis on which the servant girl associates Peter with Jesus. 26:72 Mark’s account of this second denial is extremely brief: ὁ δὲ πάλιν ἠρνεῖτο (‘again he was denying’). Matthew wants a little

more.273 He moves the verb to the aorist to match that in v. 70. He does not need to repeat ‘before all’. ‘Again’ will suggest it, and since the servant girl’s comments have been addressed to the bystanders, Peter’s response will have the same audience. A new feature is ‘with an oath’. Matthew is likely to intend a link with 5:33-37: not only is Peter lying, but he is using an oath — something Jesus did not want his disciples to do — to support his lie. ‘I do not know’ is repeated from v. 70, but in place of ‘what you are saying’ is ‘the person’: Matthew draws the words for Peter here from the coming third denial; the idea, but not the speci c language, for the use of an oath also comes from there. From evasion, Peter has moved to lying with an oath. 26:73 is time Matthew follows Mark a little more closely.274 He adds προσελθόντες (‘came forward’) to match the use of the same verb in the account of the rst denial. His dropping of Mark’s πάλιν (‘again’), by restricting its use to the account of the second denial, shows the same tendency. οἱ ἑστῶτες (‘those present’) picks up on τοῖς ἐκεῖ (‘those there’) in v. 71: they have heard the servant girl’s claim as well as Peter’s response; now they offer their own comment. ey address Peter, as was the case with the rst denial but not with the second, a correspondence that Matthew accentuates by adding καὶ σύ (‘you also’), as used in v. 69. ‘[One] of them’ is unde ned; one of Jesus’ band will be meant. Matthew took language from Mark’s ‘you are a Galilean’ here to get his language for the challenge in the account of the rst denial. With reference back to Jesus as a Galilean in Mt. 26:69, Matthew can use an explanatory paraphrase of Mark’s language here: ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ποιεῖ (lit. ‘your speech makes you [i.e., your place of origin] clear’). Peter’s speech identi es him as a fellow Galilean with Jesus.275 e logic as verbalised is incomplete. Not a Galilean and therefore a follower of Jesus, but presumably a Galilean in the

courtyard of the high priest in the middle of the night and therefore not one of the various kinds of attendants who might be expected to be there (whose accent would betray their place of origin as in Judea), and almost certainly a Galilean whose only reason for being there could be his interest in the situation of his fellow Galilean Jesus. 26:74 Here Matthew stays much closer to the Markan language. His substitution of τότε (‘then’) for Mark’s transitional ὁ δέ, marking a change of subject, is in the interest of adding to the sense of climax in this third response. In Mk. 14:71 the use of ἤρξατο (‘began’) plus two coordinated in nitives is likely to be a formal echo of v. 65 from the end of the Sanhedrin hearing. Matthew keeps the syntax but omits the cross reference through changes made at Mt. 26:67. His pattern of syntax simply contributes to the end weighting here. For ‘invoke a curse’, Matthew prefers καταθεματίζειν, for no obvious reason, to Mark’s ἀναθεματίζειν, which is otherwise the NT and LXX use.276 ere has been some discussion about who is being cursed here. Jesus, Peter himself, or those who stand behind the claim that he has a link with Jesus? To be ready to curse Jesus was a most effective form of distancing oneself from him, and that is what many scholars nd here.277 ey may be right, but Peter calling down a curse on himself ts the context very neatly. In either case, in yet another way Peter is condemning himself here. Matthew feels no need to repeat the speci c language of denial that he has used in the rst two denials; that is by now more than clear enough. He reduces Mark’s τὸν ἄνθρωπον τοῦτον ὃν λέγετε (‘this person of whom you speak’) to τὸν ἄνθρωπον (‘the person’). is is the form Matthew drew into the second denial: Peter’s words in the nal two denials are identical; the difference is marked by a move from ‘with an oath’ to ‘he began to invoke a curse and to

swear’. In line with the change noted at v. 34, Matthew drops ἐκ δευτέρου (‘for a second time’). e immediacy of the cockcrow adds drama to this moment of ful lment of Jesus’ prediction in v. 34.278 As noted at v. 34, it is the rst light that sets the cocks crowing. So the night has all but gone as Peter is stopped in his tracks by the sound of the cock. 26:75 Again Matthew stays reasonably close to Mark’s language. His ἐμνήσθη without the ἀνα pre x replaces Mark’s ἀνεμνήσθη for ‘remembered’: Matthew prefers the much more common verb.279 He probably nds syntactically rough the use of ὡς in Mark’s ὡς εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς (lit. ‘as Jesus said to him’, but Mark intends ὡς here to mean ‘how’, not ‘as’) to introduce a kind of apposition to τὸ ῥῆμα (‘the word’). But he does not do any better himself as he in turn overloads the syntax with his replacement, Ἰησοῦ εἰρηκότος (lit. ‘Jesus having said’): Matthew is in effect combining ‘remembered the word’ with ‘remembered Jesus’ having said’ to give what is literally ‘remembered the word, Jesus having said’. e quoted words are an exact extract from v. 34, even using the compound form for ‘deny’ where the account in vv. 69-75 has otherwise used the simple form. Since the cross reference to v. 34 was clear enough in v. 74, the material to this point in v. 75 amounts to emphatic underlining: it has happened just as Jesus said it would. Matthew’s ἐξελθὼν ἔξω (‘[he] went outside’) reverses the language used in v. 58, εἰσελθὼν ἔσω (‘[he] went inside’). Already in v. 71 Peter had begun the process of leaving. To be quite outside what is happening with Jesus is what Peter’s following from afar has come to, and he is now painfully aware of the fact. To express Peter’s remorse Matthew has ἔκλαυσεν πικρῶς (‘he wept bitterly’) instead of Mark’s ἐπιβαλὼν ἔκλαιεν (ἔκλαιεν means ‘he began to weep’, but nobody is quite sure what ἐπιβαλών means here280). ere is likely to be no real change of meaning. πικρῶς is related to weeping in the

LXX of Is. 22:4; 33:7 (in the former with Matthew’s verb; in the latter with Mark’s). e last ve words of Mt. 26:75 are found identically in Lk. 22:62 and represent the core of the case for a second source for the Petrine denials being available to both Matthew and Luke. e implicit reinstatement of Peter in the continuing story281 suggests that his bitter reaction here is to be taken as a mode of repentance. But the language itself does not make this clear.282 It is, however, already clear from the place of Mt. 26:32 (‘I will go ahead of you into Galilee’) immediately before the speci c predictions of failure in vv. 33-34 that the absolute failure of the disciples, including Peter, is not to have the last word. Does 12:32 embed within Matthew’s story the possibility of forgiveness for one who has behaved as Peter has here? In his overall structuring Matthew has set the failure of Peter in parallel with that of Judas. Traditionally the failure of Judas has been treated as unforgivable, while the failure of Peter has been treated as quickly forgiven. But the question must be raised whether 27:3-10 does not represent for Matthew an equivalent in the case of Judas to the bitter tears which for Peter marked his facing up to the signi cance of his own failure, and, if so, whether a ‘repentance’ in which Judas gives away his own life in recognition of his role in giving away the life of Jesus does not open up for Judas as well the possibility of restoration, albeit in the case of Judas a postmortem restoration. I will address this possibility further in my discussion below of 27:3-10.283 2b. Jesus before the Sanhedrin, II (27:1-2) morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people atook counsel togethera against Jesus, so as to put him to death: 2they bound him, led [him] away, and handed [him] over tob Pilate the governor. 1As

TEXTUAL NOTES a. εποιησαν (lit. ‘did/made’) in place of ελαβεν (lit. ‘took’) in D a c f vgmss mae bo. In uence from an early variant or possibly the original in Mk. 15:1 is likely. b. Ποντιω (‘Pontius’) is added in A C W Θ 0250 f1, 13 etc. latt syh. Bibliography Bedenbender, A., ‘“Sein Blut komme über uns …”: Überlegungen zum Passionstext Matthäus 27,1-26’, TK 23 (2000), 32-48. • Bond, H. K., Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (SNTSMS 100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). • McGing, B. C., ‘Pontius Pilate and the Sources’, CBQ 53 (1991), 416-38. • McGing, B. C., ‘e Governorship of Pontius Pilate: Messiahs and Sources’, ProcIBA 10 (1986), 55-71. • Schwarz, D. R., ‘Josephus and Philo on Pontius Pilate’, e Jerusalem Cathedra 3 (1983), 2645. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 257-68.

27:1-2 mark the conclusion of the account in 26:57-68. Its detached position here is to mark the chronological intertwining of the Sanhedrin hearing and the denials of Peter (cf. the placing of v. 58). Beyond the con rmation of the fact that Jesus deserved death lay the need to develop a strategy that would ensure that the Roman governor would put Jesus to death. We are not directly informed of the strategy, but implementation begins with handing him over bound to Pilate. e Markan sequence continues with a fairly lightly edited version of Mk. 15:1 in which all the differences are readily accounted for in terms of Matthean editing.

27:1 As oen, Matthew drops Mark’s εὐθύς (‘immediately’).284 ough he uses it elsewhere, Matthew replaces Mark’s adverbial πρωΐ (‘early’) with the genitive absolute πρωΐας γενομένης (‘morning having come’). Perhaps this change is, in part, connected with a concern to show that there is an unbroken continuity of action from 26:68 to 27:1. e one clear time marker for the passage of time through the trial is the cockcrow of 26:74. ere, the beginnings of rst light set the cocks crowing; now, the full light of morning has come. e form πρωΐας γενομένης is designed to match ὀψίας γενομένης in 26:20. e hours of darkness have taken us from the beginning of the Last Supper to dispatch to Pilate. συμβούλιον ἑτοιμάσαντες (‘decided on a plan of action’)285 becomes συμβούλιον ἔλαβεν (‘took counsel together’), to match language that Matthew has used earlier.286 Again Mark’s mention of three leadership groups is reduced to two (see at 21:23): the scribes are dropped,287 and ‘with the elders’ becomes ‘and the elders of the people’; this produces the same con guration as in 26:3, 47. Matthew now uses an ‘all’ which he omitted at v. 64.288 ough Matthew kept it at 26:59, Mark’s ‘and the whole Sanhedrin’ also goes, but, perhaps precisely because Mark’s ‘and the whole Sanhedrin’ makes him think of that verse, he introduces from there ‘against Jesus, so that they might put him to death’.289 From beginning to end the meeting of the Sanhedrin had putting Jesus to death as its xed goal. e Sanhedrin has been in session through the night. By early morning they have not only convinced themselves that, by his own confession, Jesus has shown himself worthy of death, but they have also worked out their strategy for achieving this end.

27:2 Having introduced Jesus’ name afresh in v. 1, Matthew does not need Mark’s use of it again so soon. He replaces Mark’s ἀπήνεγκαν with ἀπήγαγον for ‘led away’, so as to repeat at the end language from the beginning of this episode (26:57). Matthew identi es Pilate as ‘the governor’. Otherwise the language is as in Mark. Why is Jesus bound? It is hardly likely to be simply to constrain him. ose arresting Jesus saw no need to bind him when he was rst arrested, and Jesus had shown no inclination to try to escape. Some interpreters take this as pointing to a change of legal status subsequent to the trial before the Sanhedrin.290 But the binding is likely to have more to do with appearances than with legal realities. If Jesus is going to be represented to the governor as a claimant to royal power and thus a threat to civil order, then he must be made to look dangerous. A man who needs to be bound is a man who represents a threat when he is free. e handing over to Pilate is the handing over to the Gentiles anticipated in 20:19. But as a product of Matthew’s curious ringing the changes on paired groups of Jerusalem leaders (see at 21:23), this handing over is attributed to ‘the chief priests and scribes’ in 20:18-19 and to ‘all the chief priests and the elders of the people’ in 27:1-2. Judea had come under direct Roman rule aer the deposition of Herod’s son Archelaus in A.D. 6. Aer four earlier governors, all but his immediate predecessor serving for shorter periods, Pilate was appointed governor of Judea by the Roman emperor Tiberius and served from A.D. 26-36. e traditional image of Pilate as supremely cruel and unjust has been formed on the basis of Jewish sources. More recently scholars have recognized this picture as badly overdrawn (because seen narrowly from the Jewish side and drawn from sources that have their own speci c investments, and

especially so in the case of Philo). Judea was a particularly difficult province to govern, and Pilate did as well as might reasonably have been expected of the kind of low-ranking officials who were appointed to govern such lesser provinces.291 He showed a tendency towards making strong initial stands on matters and then, perhaps aer procrastinating or vacillating, backing down when the inappropriateness of his original stand eventually came home to him. A measure of cruelty was probably a necessary quali cation for the job, and limited knowledge at times exacerbated the effects of a shortage of sensitivity and tact. But Pilate was not the supremely cruel and unjust governor of popular imagination. As we have already seen, the need to involve the Roman governor had to do with the Jewish loss of any general right to impose the death penalty. If Jesus was to be executed, then, short of a lynching party, Roman justice must be involved and Roman soldiers must do the deed.

E. Section 5 (27:3-31) 1. Judas’s Remorse and Suicide, and the ‘Field of Blood’ (27:3-10) Judas, the one who ahands him over, seeing that he [i.e., Jesus] was condemned, changed his mind and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4saying, ‘I have sinned in having handed over binnocent blood’. ey said, ‘What [is that] to us? See [to it] yourself!’ 5So he threw the cmoney into the sanctuary and departed; and he went off and hanged himself. 6e chief priests took the money and said, ‘To put it into the dtreasury is not permitted since it is the price of blood’. 7ey took counsel together and bought with it the potter’s field to be a cemetery for strangers. 8erefore, that field has been called ‘field of blood’ to this day. 9en what was spoken through the prophet eJeremiah was fulfilled: 3en

And I took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one priced, whom some of the sons of Israel priced, 10and fI

gavef them for the potter’s field, just as [the] Lord commanded me.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. e aorist participle is preferred (it makes the syntax smoother and was used in 10:4) to the present in B L 0281vid 33 etc. co. b. δικαιον (‘righteous’) in B1 L Θ latt sys samss mae bo to match 23:35. c. τριακοντα (‘thirty’) is added in ‫ א‬etc. to give ‘thirty pieces of silver’, as in v. 3. d. κορβαν (lit. ‘gi’) in place of κορβαναν in B* it vgmss mae. is probably represents an attempt to remove the Greek ending from what is

identi ably a Semitic word. K f13 (33) 1241 etc. 1 vgmss have the spelling κορβοναν. e. ‘Corrected’ to Ζαχαριου (‘Zechariah’) in 22 syhmg and Ιησαϊου (‘Isaiah’) in 21 l. Dropped in Φ 33 a b sys, p boms. f-f. εδωκαν (‘they gave’) in Ac B* C L Θ f1, 13 33 etc. latt co. εδωκεν (‘he gave’) in A* vid. e reading accepted above is supported by ‫ א‬B2 vid W etc. sy. See the discussion below at v. 10. Bibliography Bartnik, C. S., ‘Judas l’Iscariote, histoire et théologie’, Colleol 58 (1988), 57-69. • Conard, A., ‘e Fate of Judas: Matthew 27:3-10’, TJT 7 (1991), 15868. • Daube, D., ‘Judas’, California Law Review 82 (1994), 95-108. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Akeldama (Acts 1:19)’, Bijdragen 56 (1995), 122-32. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘e Iscariot, Mesira and the Redemption’, JSNT 8 (1980), 2-23. • Desautels, L., ‘La mort de Judas (Mt 27,3-10; Ac 1,15-26)’, ScEs 38 (1986), 221-39. • Edwards, R. A., Narrative, 126-30. • Escande, J., ‘Judas et Pilate prisonniers d’une même structure (Mt 27,1-26)’, FV 78 (1979), 92-100. • Heil, J. P., ‘e Blood of Jesus in Matthew: A Narrative-Critical Perspective’, PRS 18 (1991), 117-24. • Knowles, M., Jeremiah, 53-81. • Manns, F., ‘Un midrash chrétien: Le récit de la mort de Judas’, RevSR 54 (1980), 197-203. • Menken, M. J. J., ‘e References to Jeremiah in the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 2,17; 16,14; 27,9)’, ETL 60 (1984), 5-24. • Moeser, A. G., ‘e Death of Judas’, BiTod 30 (1992), 145-51. • Moo, D. J., ‘Tradition and Old Testament in Matt 27:3-10’, in Gospel Perspectives: Vol. 3, ed. R. T. France, 157-75. • Nortjé, L., ‘Matthew’s Motive for the Composition of the Story of Judas’s Suicide in Matthew 27:3-10’, Neot 28 (1994), 41-51. • Quesnel, M., ‘Les citations de Jérémie dans l’évangile selon saint Matthieu’, EstBíb 47 (1989), 513-27. • Schwarz, W., ‘Die Doppelbedeutung des Judastodes’, BLit 57 (1984), 227-33. • Tilborg, S. van, ‘Matthew 27:3-10: An Intertextual Reading’, in Intertextuality, ed. S. Draisma, 159-74. • Upton, J. A., ‘e Potter’s Field and the Death of Judas’, ConcJ 8 (1982), 213-19. • Whelan, C. F., ‘Suicide in the Ancient World: A Re-examination of Matthew 27.3-10’,

LTP 49 (1993), 505-22. • Wick, P., ‘Judas als Prophet wider Willen: Mt 27,310 als Midrasch’, TZ 57 (2001), 26-35. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 3-5, 14-16, 20-25, 47-56.

We now come to the h of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27 (see further at 26:1-2). e account of Judas’s remorse and the purchase of the eld of blood here in 27:310 will have its counterpart in the mockery of the soldiers in 27:2731.292 ese two episodes frame the account of Jesus before Pilate, which is the central piece of this subsection. Appalled at what he has done, Judas bends all his efforts to distance himself from his deed. e chief priests ignore him until he is safely dead, but thereaer they act as his proxies (but not in their own intention), allowing him to carry through to its completion the complex prophetic pattern with which he is associated by Matthew. Matthew uses distinctive materials here. Acts 1:18-20 also has an account of Judas’s end, but there is only a limited degree of overlap. In common are the purchase of a eld with the proceeds of the payment made to Judas for betraying Jesus, ‘ eld of blood’ as the name which the eld gained, and Judas’s untimely and violent death. In curiously different ways both accounts also make Judas the purchaser of the eld. e heavy craing of Matthew’s account in relation to OT texts has made many if not most scholars suspicious about any historical core here. But there is no good reason for scepticism about the common core. And Judas’s repentance and the role of the eld as a cemetery speci cally for strangers are elements of Matthew’s telling that do not come from the OT texts used. ere is every likelihood that Matthew has played a quite active role in the formulation of his account; this makes it difficult to be sure about what came to him as tradition. But the common elements with Acts certainly did, and the elements that are not found in the OT texts may well have. Some of the convolutions involved for Matthew in correlating prophecy and ful lment, make it very likely that he does not feel free to fashion events to suit the natural ow of the OT texts. Since Matthew does not elsewhere simply create an event to claim its

ful lment, it is unlikely that he has done so here. So at least a framework for what creates the basis for the OT links that Matthew has so carefully exploited has come to him, probably without any evident OT cross reference. I do not think it is possible to be more precise.

27:3 ere is a nice artistry to the place in the chronological sequence chosen by Matthew for this account: the die is cast, but the deed is not done. But by the end of the account Matthew is talking of events that must have come later than the cruci xion, and in v. 8 even his own later time becomes brie y visible. e position suits Matthew’s structuring, but it would be unwise to make chronological claims on its basis. τότε ἰδών (lit. ‘then, having seen’) also introduces a response by Herod in 2:16. ere may be a deliberate contrast (one is distressed at having lost an opportunity to kill the infant Jesus, the other that he stands responsible for the impending death of Jesus). Since at the time of the arrest Judas was with the crowd that took Jesus into custody, we are probably to imagine that he returned with them to the high priest’s house and was an immediate witness to the unfolding of events. Judas is ὁ παραδιδοὺς αὐτόν (‘the one who hands him over’), as in 26:25.293 As there, the present tense (aorist in 10:4) is based on the narrative horizon being provided from within the Passion Narrative (this is what is still going on). It might be Matthew’s desire to repeat the exact phrase from 26:25 that is responsible for the slightly surprising failure here to introduce the name of Jesus anew. Matthew was unwilling to take over Mark’s use of κατακρίνειν (‘condemn’) in v. 64, where it sounded too much like the delivery of an official judgment of a court able to impose the death penalty. But he is happy to ‘rescue’ the Markan word for use here, where the larger context (Jesus in transit to Pilate) can allow the word to have a less technical sense.

Matthew has three of only ve NT uses of μεταμελεῖσθαι (‘change one’s mind’). Since his other two uses come in a single episode, it seems likely that Matthew intends a link. ough it comes too late to make any practical difference to Jesus’ fate, Matthew attributes to Judas the regret and change of mind that was wished for but had not been forthcoming from others in 21:32 (cf. v. 29).294 Judas will reverse all that he can of what he has done. e nal acts of his life express his repentance and the depth of his sorrow and regret. e thirty pieces of silver weighed out to Judas in 26:14 are now returned, or at least Judas tries to return them. He goes to the chief priests and the elders, who were the named conspirators in v. 4 (‘of the people’ drops out here; Matthew’s pattern is commented on at 21:23), not simply to the chief priests, who are identi ed in v. 14 as those with whom Judas struck his deal and from whom he received the money.295 e use of στρέϕειν to mean ‘return’ is quite distinctive. ough Matthew uses the verb several times, it has this sense only here. Indeed, with the partial exception of a use in Acts 7:39, where the verb means ‘return’, but in an intransitive sense (‘they returned to Egypt’), there is no comparable use in the rest of the NT or the LXX. So its use could well re ect source language. 27:4 Matthew represents the interchange in direct speech, as he likes to do more generally. Is there anything in the fact that the only other times Matthew uses the verb ἁμαρτάνειν (‘sin’) are related to the need to forgive (18:15, 21)? Judas has already been labelled παραδ(ιδ)ούς (lit. ‘one handing over/having handed over’) ve times in Matthew,296 but here, as it occurs for the last time, Judas takes the label onto his own lips. Matthew has the only NT uses of αἷμα ἀθῷον (‘innocent blood’), but it is found nineteen times in the LXX (seventeen of these re ecting the MT). Two of these may shed light on Matthew’s

use here. In Dt. 27:25 a curse is to be pronounced on ‘anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood’.297 It is hard to be sure of the exact scope of what is envisaged in Dt. 27:25,298 but its relevance to Judas’s handing over of Jesus for money is clear enough. e second text of interest is 1 Sa. 19:5, where Jonathan says to his father, ‘Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David?’ A use of the verb ‘sin’, ‘innocent blood’, and the connection between David and the betrayed messiah (cf. the role of a link with David in the echoes of 2 Sa. 15:30-31 noted at Mt. 26:30 — one of these echoes is Judas’s hanging himself in 27:5) all connect 1 Sa. 19:5 to Judas and his words. at these two links (Dt. 27:25; 1 Sa. 19:5) might be involved will nd a measure of support below where we will explore a density of linkage to Jeremiah in connection with what in Mt. 26:9-10 is ostensibly a quotation from Jeremiah but is actually mostly a quotation from Zc. 11:12-13. e response to Judas is one of cold indifference. e Jewish leaders were not concerned earlier about what was motivating Judas, as he agreed to hand Jesus over to them for money. Now the fact that he regrets his earlier action is of no greater interest to them.299 σὺ ὄψῃ (lit. ‘you [emphatic] will see’,300 but meaning ‘See to it yourself ’) is probably a Latinism.301 e plural equivalent is found in v. 24.302 e chief priests and the elders are maintaining that the problem is all Judas’s. Judas fully recognises that the problem is his, but those who address him are wrong in claiming that the problem is only his. If Jesus’ blood is truly innocent blood, then they cannot wash it from their own hands so easily. Matthew creates a measure of parallelism between vv. 4 and 24. ‘Innocent’, ‘blood’, and ‘See to it yourself ’ link the two texts. Like the Jewish leaders in v. 4, Pilate in v. 24 wants to believe that he can abdicate responsibility and leave the problem elsewhere. But in this he is as mistaken as the Jewish leaders. Judas in grief and ‘all the people’ in bloodlust are happy

enough to take responsibility, but a larger structural responsibility still lies with the chief priests and elders on the one hand and Pilate on the other. 27:5 Matthew fails to report the actual refusal of the chief priests and elders to take the money back. For him it is part of ‘See to it yourself ’. From their point of view, refusing the money symbolically isolates the problem with Judas. But their symbolic act cannot make it so. In vv. 9-10 Matthew will quote from Zc. 11:12-13, but already here Matthew’s telling of the story begins to be affected by material from Zechariah. Matthew’s language takes us to Zc. 11:13, which, at the beginning and the end of the verse, refers to money being thrown into the temple. At the beginning of the verse we have, ‘Yahweh said to me, “row it [the thirty pieces of silver] (in)to hywṣr (LXX τὸ χωνευτήριον)’, and at the end of the verse, ‘I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them [into] the house of Yahweh, (in)to hywṣr (LXX τὸ χωνευτήριον)’. hywṣr means the potter, and this will be important for Mt. 27:7 (χωνευτήριον means a smelting furnace303). But the idea of a potter in the temple is odd, and textual corruption has been suspected.304 But for the moment Matthew bypasses that question by having Judas simply throw the money into the sanctuary.305 At least, ‘throw’ if ῥίψας here has overtones of violence. ῥίπτειν properly connotes violent activity, but as with βάλλειν (lit. ‘to throw’) and its compounds, it sometimes loses much of its violent edge (as in Mt. 15:30).306 But a violent act of disposal ts best the emotional tone of 27:5.307 Perhaps fortuitously, the two verbs used here of Judas’s departure are those used for the departure of Joseph and his family to Galilee in 2:22 (and nowhere else in Matthew).308 But Matthew seems to have had Mt. 2:22-23 in mind as recently as 26:69 (see

discussion there) and probably had 2:16 in mind in 27:3, so there may be something in the coincidence here. Joseph is keeping his distance from the danger posed by Archelaus, while Judas is distancing himself from all that marked his act of betrayal. Judas nds a ‘ nal solution’ in suicide.309 e verb ἀπάγχεσθαι means literally ‘strangle’, but it was also used for ‘hang’ (in the middle for ‘hang oneself ’).310 e Christian tradition has been ercely against suicide, and not without good reason.311 e present text has been a major impetus to the negative moral evaluation of suicide, and it may be responsible for some of the more regrettable features of the historic Christian abhorrence of suicide.312 But is Judas’s suicide presented in a totally negative light here? As responsible for Jesus’ death, Judas recognises that he too should face death. But he cannot get the Jewish leaders to take his confession seriously. So as a desperate man he takes the law into his own hands and sees to the execution of the sentence on himself. ere is a tting correspondence between Jesus’ words in 26:24, ‘it would be better for him if that person had not been born’, and Judas’s termination of his own life: he had no hand in his birth, but he can take measures to ensure that the life that has caused such wrong continues no longer. Not strictly in the sense intended, but nonetheless in a profound sense, Judas is the rst disciple to ‘lose his life for [Jesus’] sake’ (16:25). When it is all put together, I think it is extremely difficult to deny the Matthean Judas genuine repentance. His change of heart cannot be judged as less authentic than that of Peter in 26:75; it is certainly much more dramatic in its practical effects, and it is spelt out in much greater detail by Matthew. Judas is not restored in life as are Peter and the other disciples, but, more than likely, Matthew fully expected him to be restored beyond life.

27:6 In a curious way the Jewish leaders who had refused to have anything to do with Judas while he was still alive will act as his proxies once he is dead. It is the chief priests and not the combined group of 27:3 who now take the pieces of silver. So, are we to think of the money as having been thrown into a part of the sanctuary to which only priests had access? Probably, but Matthew also has an eye to creating a symmetry with the role of the chief priests alone in 26:14-15. Matthew uses direct speech again, as in v. 4. We have the chief priests here and not the Pharisees of chap. 23, but 23:23-24 certainly come to mind. e question of what is permitted or lawful has arisen a number of times previously in Matthew.313 e chief priests are quite clear here that such money is not permitted in the temple treasury. ough Matthew normally drops non-Greek terms, κορβανᾶν for ‘[temple] treasury’ is clearly the transliteration of a Semitic word. It is related to κορβᾶν as used in Mk. 7:11, which is a transliteration into Greek of the Semitic qrbn (common in the MT), and which Matthew replaces with δῶρον (‘offering’) at 15:5. Josephus has a near match for Matthew’s usage.314 e reason given for the prohibition is that ‘it is the price of blood’. ere is a common view that the underlying text here is Dt. 23:19 (ET v. 18): ‘You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a male prostitute [lit. ‘a dog’] into the house of Yahweh your God in payment of any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to Yahweh your God’. is establishes the principle that money gained from the practice of what is abhorrent to God should not go into the temple treasury. And this in turn implies self-condemnation on the part of the chief priests, who can categorise what has happened with the thirty pieces of silver, coming from them, as abhorrent to God. ere is, however, no evidence for such development from Dt. 23:19 in Jewish thought. Indeed, the discussion of Dt. 23:19 in

rabbinic sources suggests that the interest there was not at all in God’s attitude towards the activity for which the payment had been made, but entirely on matters of temple purity, and also that the concern was to limit, not to generalise, the scope of application.315 e focus of the rabbinic discussion of Dt. 23:19 may encourage us to look for the same focus on temple purity in the outlook attributed in Mt. 27:6 to the chief priests. ough the text is not from the Mosaic Law with its focus on temple purity, 1 Ch. 22:8-9 may throw more light on the thinking of the chief priests here. e important thing to note is that the blood connection in 1 Ch. 22:8-9 is one with ritual purity and not at all with guilt. e point is that the money is ritually impure, not that it represents, in the view of the chief priests, ill-gotten gains.316 27:7 e use of συμβούλιον λαμβάνειν (‘take counsel together’) here is distinguished from Matthew’s three previous uses317 by the use of an aorist participle rather than an aorist indicative. It is the one use that does not directly involve hostility to Jesus, but the hostility remains in the background. If the money could not be used for temple purposes, to what use could it be put? As pious duties almsgiving and burial of the dead ranked high for the Jews (on the latter see at 8:21). Since cemeteries were by nature ritually unclean, what better use could there be for ritually unclean money than the purchase of a cemetery? And who has greater need of a cemetery than those who are away from their homes and families when they die in Jerusalem?318 Matthew’s only other uses of ξένος are also concerned with seeing to the needs of the ‘stranger’.319 Once the central matter of Jesus has been bracketed out, the chief priests demonstrate in this way their wisdom and piety, though, as already indicated, Matthew prefers to see them as now functioning as surrogates for Judas.

But why mention ‘the potter’s eld’? We have already met the potter brie y in the discussion of v. 5. e confusing ‘threw them [into] the house of Yahweh, to the potter’ of Zc. 11:13 is now resolved into the money being rst thrown into the sanctuary and later given to the potter in exchange for his eld. ere is no de nite need for further explanation of the role of the eld here, but the attribution of the quotation of Zc. 11:13 in Mt. 27:9 to Jeremiah does raise the question whether connections with Jeremiah might be lurking beneath the surface. In Je. 32:6-15 buying a eld serves as an important image of hope, a piece of prophetic symbolism, as the people of Jerusalem are under siege from the army of the king of Babylon: beyond the present disaster lies a future and a hope. Perhaps Matthew has Je. 32:6-44 in mind. Whether he relates the positive future anticipated in Jeremiah to Jesus’ resurrection, to a more general resurrection (cf. Mt. 27:5253), or to the prospect of a change of heart in relation to Jesus on the part of those who have rejected him (see 23:39 and discussion there) remains unclear. But the buying of the eld is probably intended to be seen as a prophetic symbol of hope. If the eld is allowed to have a connection with Jeremiah, then possibly the potter also has such a connection. In Je. 18:1-11 Jeremiah visits a potter’s house and sees imaged in the potter’s work God’s sovereign freedom to change his mind about his purposes for Israel and speci cally God’s freedom to destroy the city and the people he had thus far defended. It is suggestive that in taking up this insight and pressing it home Jeremiah is directed in 19:1 to buy a potter’s earthenware jug (subsequently to be smashed).320 e earthenware jug of 19:1, called ‘the potter’s vessel’ in v. 11, may be the bridge between Je. 19 and Je. 32, where in v. 14 ‘an earthenware vessel’ is used to store the property deeds to the eld that has been bought. For Matthew, the potter’s eld is likely to provide a

compound image, pointing rst to judgment and destruction and then to renewed hope. 27:8 Either directly or indirectly Matthew is aware of a eld that still as he writes bears the name ‘ eld of blood’. Presumably the eld was still in use as a cemetery. If the cemetery was still dedicated to the burial of visitors to Jerusalem, the persistence of the name may have owed something to the idea that those buried there had met an untimely end.321 But Matthew nds it natural to link the name with the blood money that provided for its original purchase for this purpose. e phrase ‘ eld of blood’ matches the phrase ‘price of blood’ in v. 6: on the basis of the purchase the eld takes the place of the money. 27:9 e words introducing the quotation are identical to those introducing the quotation from Je. 31:15 in Mt. 2:17-18 (see there), the only other quotation said to be from Jeremiah in the set of formula quotations (on these see at 1:22). Here is yet another link to 2:13-23 to add to those noted at 26:69; 27:3, 5. We have, however, already had cause to pay attention to the fact that what Matthew quotes is not actually from Jeremiah, but from Zc. 11:13.322 καὶ ἔλαβον τοὺς τριάκοντα ἀργύρια (‘and I took the thirty pieces of silver’) is taken verbatim from Zc. 11:13, except for ἀργύρια in place of ἀργυροῦς for ‘pieces of silver’. e language is close to that of the LXX, but also the most natural translation of the Hebrew text into Greek. ἔλαβον could also mean ‘they took’. is would be a departure from the sense of the OT (MT and LXX) at this point. It has obviously been taken this way in the MSS that read ἔδωκαν (‘they gave’) in Mt. 27:10 rather than ἔδωκα (‘I gave’) — see ‘Textual Notes’ above. But this leaves μοι (‘me’) at the end of v. 10 high and dry. Most likely a scribe, following the narrative sequence, took ἔλαβον as re ecting the action of the chief priests and thus as ‘they

took’ (cf. the use of the same verb in v. 6), and was therefore convinced that the ἔδωκα which he read as the next verb must have accidentally lost its nal ν, and corrected accordingly. In the Matthean ful lment the chief priests have become the proxies who act on behalf of the now dead Judas. For τὴν τιμὴν τοῦ τετιμημένου ὃν ἐτιμήσαντο ἀπό (‘the price of the one priced, whom some… priced’) Matthew uses none of the LXX language. τὴν τιμήν (‘the price’) stands for the MT ʾdr. ʾdr means ‘glory’, but the irony involved in its use in Zc. 11:13 could mislead. Matthew chooses to render it with τιμή. It is a shrewd choice since τιμή in its meaning ‘honour, reverence, respectability’ comes close to the semantic range of ʾdr but in its meaning ‘price’ functions more straightforwardly in the Matthean context. Matthew has already anticipated this choice in his language in v. 6. e repetition involved in τοῦ τετιμημένου ὃν ἐτιμήσαντο ἀπό (‘of the one priced, whom some … priced’) is obviously a (slightly clumsy) attempt to duplicate in Greek the double use of the root yqr (‘be heavy, precious, dear, costly, esteemed’) in the MT of Zc. 11:13.323 In Zc. 11:13 the one directed to throw the money into the temple is the same person as the one who has been valued (i.e., his services have been valued) at thirty pieces of silver. But as with the sanctuary and the potter discussed at v. 7 above, in the ful lment Matthew separates: Judas is the one to whom the task of disposing of the money is given; Jesus is the one who has been valued at thirty pieces of silver.

For the MT mʾlyhm (‘by them’) Matthew has the more speci c but still rather general ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ. ἀπό provides a formal equivalent to mʾl; and therefore the phrase ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ could mean, by itself, ‘by [the?] sons of Israel’. But, because the verb to which ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ is linked in Matthew is middle and not passive, ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ needs to be the subject, and so ἀπό must

have a partitive force and ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ will mean ‘some of [the] sons of Israel’. Matthew is, therefore, not to be seen as generalising to the whole people; he probably has the chief priests speci cally in mind. 27:10 Where does Matthew think of the quoted matter as ending? If it were already at the end of v. 9, then the quote is from Zc. 11:13 without remainder and with no connection to Jeremiah. But if the cited material is taken as continuing here, at least in terms of allusion, then there is a place for material from Jeremiah. e continuation of rst person forms guarantees that Matthew intends the reader to see the continuation of quoted matter (or at least paraphrased quoted matter). e potter in v. 10 can still be the potter of Zc. 11:13 (see at v. 5 above), but he can at the same time be the potter of Je. 18:1-11; 19:1 (see at v. 7 above). ere is no place for the eld of the potter in Zc. 11:13, but the inclusion of ‘for the eld’ allows a place for Je. 32:6-15 (see at v. 7 above). What are we to make of ‘just as the Lord commanded me’ at the end of the verse? Since Matthew elsewhere prefers καθώς324 to the present καθά for ‘just as’, its presence here is likely to signal quoted matter. συνέταξεν κύριος (‘the Lord commanded’) is frequent in the LXX and even καθὰ συνέταξεν κύριος (‘just as the Lord commanded’) is found many times. e full form is used exclusively with commands to Moses,325 except in the case of Jos. 24:31(ET v. 30), where in extra material in the LXX, in connection with the burial of Joshua, it is used of an unspeci ed ‘them’ (αὐτοῖς). Beyond the shared language two features of Jos. 24:31 may suggest a relation to Mt. 27:10: the burial context in Joshua is matched in the creation of a cemetery in Matthew; Jos. 24:31 shares with Mt. 27:8 the words ἕως τῆς σήμερον (‘until this day’).326 Perhaps Matthew lights on Jos. 24:31 precisely because it is the one use not associated with Moses. e cited words seem to have a role that is no more profound than

to represent in heightened form the ‘Yahweh said to me’ of Zc. 11:13 (which is where the ‘me’ comes from — the LXX has εἶπεν κύριος πρός με) and the various related phrases which introduce the Lord’s directives to Jeremiah in the relevant texts (perhaps especially Je. 32:6: ‘the word of Yahweh came to me’ — ‘to me’ has become ‘to Jeremiah’ in the LXX [39:6]). e perspective for the nal clause continues to be provided by viewing what the chief priests have done as done as proxies for Judas, enabling him to ful l postmortem the prophetic materials quoted or alluded to from Zechariah and Jeremiah (the anonymous gures of Jos. 24:31 function as nothing more than good examples). ough dead, Judas continues to speak, and what he says highlights yet again the wickedness perpetrated against Jesus, in part by Judas himself, and points both to coming judgment and to a future salvation beyond that judgment. 2a. Jesus before Pilate, I (27:11-14) 11Now

Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus said,a ‘You are saying [it]’. 12When he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he said nothing in response. 13en Pilate says to him, ‘Don’t you hear how many things they testify against you?’ 14And he did not answer him, not even to the extent of one word, so that the governor was very much amazed.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. αυτω (‘to him’) is added in A B D L W 0250 f1, 13 etc. lat sy mae. It is found in Mk. 15:2. Bibliography

Bammel, E., ‘e Trial before Pilate’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 415-51. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Daniel and Salvation History’, DR 100 (1982), 62-68. • Hoffmann, P., ‘Das Zeichen für Israel: Zu einem vernachlässigten Aspekt der matthäischen Ostergeschichte’, in Zur neutestamentlichen Überlieferung von der Auferstehung Jesu, ed. P. Hoffmann (WF 522. Darmstadt: Wissenschaliche Buchgesellscha, 1988), 416-52. • Kinman, B., ‘Pilate’s Assize and the Timing of Jesus’ Trial’, TynB 42 (1991), 282-95. • Lémonon, J.-P., Pilate et le gouvernement de la Judée: Textes et Monuments (ÉBib. Paris: Gabalda, 1981). • Matera, F., ‘Mt 27.11-54’, Int 38 (1984), 55-59. • Riesner, R., ‘Das Prätorium des Pilatus’, BK 41 (1986), 34-37. • Sabbe, M., ‘e Trial of Jesus before Pilate in John and Its Relation to the Synoptic Gospels’, in Studia Neotestamentica: Collected Essays (BETL 98. Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1992), 467-513. • Staats, R. K., ‘Pontius Pilatus im Bekenntnis der frühen Kirche’, ZTK 84 (1987), 493-513. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 30-35, 57-68.

Just as in the fourth of the six subsections into which Matthew has divided chaps. 26–27 (see further at 26:1-2) the account of Jesus before the Council in 26:57-68 was the central piece of the subsection, so now the account of Jesus before Pilate in 27:11-26 forms the central piece of the h subsection, with the account of Judas’s remorse and the purchase of the eld of blood in vv. 3-10 and that of the mockery of the soldiers in vv. 27-31 providing the frame. Matthew’s account of Jesus before Pilate falls naturally into two parts. Only in the rst part, 27:11-14, is Jesus an active participant. e second part, vv. 15-26, deals with the choice between Barabbas and Jesus. I will deal with these two parts separately. As Jesus stands before him, Pilate speaks twice to Jesus and hears the accusations of the chief priests and the elders. Having given an equivocal answer to the question about his identity as king of the Jews (but one clearly to be taken as a quali ed positive), Jesus

falls silent. He will not speak again before he dies, other than to cry out to God from the cross (v. 46). Aer Mt. 27:3-10 Matthew returns to Markan material and the Markan sequence with his parallel to Mk. 15:2-5. ough Luke seems to have had access to a second source and John has his own probably independent account (Jn. 18:29-38), there is no sign of Matthean access to any other source. e fundamental historicity of a hearing before Pilate has rarely been questioned. But opinions vary widely about the details of the hearing and its legal signi cance. e authenticity of three features in particular of the account in Mk. 15:2-5 have been questioned: (a) the question ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’; (b) the active role of the Jewish leaders; and (c) the silence of Jesus in the face of his accusers. In relation to (a), strong support comes from the written charge on the cross (Mt. 27:37; Mk. 15:26; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19). ere had to be some basis on which Jesus could be considered a heinous criminal in Roman eyes. In relation to (b), once we accept that a Jewish hearing is a necessary bridge to a Roman one, some kind of involvement of the Jewish leadership in the Roman trial is certain. In relation to (c), we may have less con dence. But in relation to this feature of Jesus’ behaviour in the Jewish hearing I have made the judgment above that it most likely re ects an oddness of Jesus’ behaviour that was sufficiently striking to be recalled. It may have moved from one account to the other on the basis of an assumption of consistency on the part of Jesus, but that assumption itself has a certain historical credibility.327 In discussing Mt. 26:57-68 above, I have argued that the Sanhedrin hearing was not in every respect a trial of a capital case. e counterpart to that judgment is that the hearing before Pilate will not be some upper court review of a lower court judgment, but a full trial in its own right. But we are not really given even an outline account of such a trial, any more than such is provided in Josephus’s account of the trial of Jesus son of Ananias in War 6.303-5 and any more than we were given even an outline account of the Passover meal that provided the framework (see Mt. 26:17) for the account of the Last Supper in 26:20-30. ere are several very good reasons for this neglect. (a) e knowledge base from which the report has emerged is likely to have been largely anecdotal. (b) Since this was not the trial of a Roman

citizen, there was no very xed judicial pattern to which the trial had to conform, so the question of whether Pilate ‘did it right’ is nowhere in sight. (c) Partly against this background, the account is content to identify what from the Gospel point of view are major elements in the situation. Psychological verisimilitude and a clear sense of narrative development are not matters of particular concern. (d) Distinctly Christian interests have no doubt coloured the account and in uenced the selection of what is considered worthy of mention.328

27:11 Jesus had been handed over to Pilate (v. 2), but Matthew needs to add the opening clause here to renew the focus on Jesus with Pilate aer the insertion of the Judas material in vv. 310. Jesus is freshly introduced by name. e language of Mk. 13:9 may have had some in uence: it uses the same verb and the word ‘governor’. Matthew does not use Mk. 13:9 in the corresponding part of his own account (Mt. 24:9), but the material occurs in a somewhat different form in 10:17-18. Since Matthew’s own version lacks the shared verb, he can only be borrowing language and not making a connection between the situation of the disciple and the master. Jesus stands before the governor as the one who, as the highest representative of Roman law in Judea, holds his (Jesus’) fate in his hands. As prefect of Judea, Pilate also functioned as judge at the highest level. e Roman system did not separate the judiciary and the executive. Josephus reports comparable hearings before the procurators Cumanus (A.D. 48-52) and Albinus (A.D. 62-64).329 Aer the rst clause Matthew stays quite close to Mark’s language. Jesus has been freshly introduced by name, but following the lead of his own opening clause, Matthew prefers ‘the governor’ to Mark’s ‘Pilate’. Matthew adds a fulsome λέγων (lit. ‘saying’, but not translated above) to Mark’s ἐπηρώτησεν (‘asked’).330 Instead of a ὁ δέ to mark the change of subject, Matthew introduces Jesus’ name

a second time. Matthew does not think that Jesus’ minimal answer deserves the weight that Mark’s fulsome introductory ἀποκριθεὶς αὐτῷ λέγει (lit. ‘having answered, he says to him’), with its historic present, gives it: ἔϕη (‘said’) suffices.331 (e corresponding answer in the Sanhedrin trial [26:64] has the emphatic historic present, but it carries the important Son of Man statement. is time Pilate’s comment on Jesus’ silence in the face of Jewish accusation is given emphasis with an historic present.) In 2:2 ‘king of the Jews’ on the lips of the Magi served as an imprecise messianic designation, of a kind that might be appropriate on the lips of non-Jews. e sense is much the same here. is is what ‘the Christ, the Son of God’ of 26:63 becomes when transported to a Roman setting. But now we need to listen for what might be disturbing from the point of view of Roman rule. Nothing about Jesus’ ministry seems to have independently drawn Roman attention. His capacity to gather crowds could have marked him as dangerous, but he did not seem to have used his eloquence to stir up anti-Roman feeling or to make political claims for himself. ere were revolutionary prophets in the rst century who attracted immediate Roman attention. ose whom Josephus describes are all later than the time of Jesus, but one can make useful comparisons. Still in the time of Pilate a Samaritan prophet gathered a huge crowd to go to Mount Gerizim, where he would reveal the site where Moses had deposited the sacred vessels.332 Josephus tells us that the people came together as an armed body, so it is not surprising that Pilate considered a bloody suppression necessary. As far as he was concerned, an armed revolt was intended. About ten years later, when Fadus was procurator, a prophetic gure named eudas persuaded a large crowd to join him in eeing across the Jordan.333 What he promised had strong echoes of the Exodus from

Egypt: with a miraculous parting of the Jordan the people would ee with all their goods to a new life. As far as Fadus was concerned, this was an attempt to withdraw from Roman rule. Pilate treated it as an act of political insurrection and dealt with it brutally. Perhaps a decade later again, when Felix was procurator, there were more revolutionary prophets.334 ese incited people to ee into the wilderness in expectation of miraculous signs and wonders at the hands of their prophetic leaders. Felix, perhaps wrongly, thought that this was the beginning of a revolt and sent troops against them. About the same time a prophetic gure came to Jerusalem from Egypt. He led a crowd by way of the wilderness to the Mount of Olives. At his command the walls of Jerusalem would miraculously collapse and his followers were to take the city by force. Naturally enough Felix ordered an attack on the gathered group. Sometime in the very early 60s, the procurator Festus had to deal with another prophetic gure leading people off into the wilderness.335 is gure was identi ed with the revolutionary movement of the Sicarii. So Festus’s brutal military response is what might have been expected. ough the prophetic inspiration involved in these various incidents has something in common with Jesus’ vision, in each case there is a political dimension to the prophet’s activity unmatched in the case of Jesus. Only the insistence of the Jewish leaders who have brought Jesus to him induces Pilate to consider whether Jesus might already be or might become a focal point for insurrection. e form in which the Gospels represent Pilate’s attempt to probe this matter is the question: ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Given the differences between Jesus and the other prophetic gures who fell foul of the Romans, and given the politically loaded context in which Jesus is asked the question, Pilate would be expecting a negative answer. Since the activities of Jesus had raised no alarm for the Romans, a

negative answer may have been quite enough to convince Pilate that the bid by the Jewish leaders to eliminate Jesus was only an attempt to use his office in the cause of Jewish factionalism. Why should Pilate play along with their games? e negative answer which might reasonably have been expected was not, however, forthcoming. Not that Jesus quite said ‘yes’. But his manner of equivocating was closer to a ‘yes’ than a ‘no’. e mode of answer, ‘You are saying [it]’, is similar to that to Judas’s question in Mt. 26:25 and that to the high priest’s question in vv. 6364. And as there, though formally noncommittal, it is to be taken as an obliquely expressed affirmative. ere was a challenge to the high priest, and there may be a challenge to Pilate here. But the concern may also be, as there, with the question of what Pilate wants to do with the information, perhaps even with what the information could possibly mean to him, given the frame of reference within which he is operating. Insurrection was not on Jesus’ agenda, but could he agree to the language ‘king of the Jews’ without this being the clear implication for Pilate? On the other hand, could Jesus say ‘no’ without denying his whole messianic programme? Not of course that Jesus, in Matthew, has ever claimed to be the messiah. He has accepted direct and indirect messianic affirmation. He has to some degree acted out the part of the messiah. But he has never said that he is the messiah, either on his own initiative or in answer to the question of another. To say ‘yes’ to Pilate’s question would have been a departure from pattern. With his continuing indirectness Jesus sustains the pattern. Jesus’ equivocation is not reassuring to Pilate. 27:12 Where Mark’s point here is the accusations levelled at Jesus by the chief priests, Matthew’s point is Jesus’ silence in the face of accusation. Matthew subordinates the activity of accusation by

using an ἐν plus in nitive construction in place of Mark’s imperfect indicative. Matthew adds the elders to the chief priests as accusers, reusing his most common pairing throughout the Passion Narrative (most recently v. 3, but most relevantly v. 1, as the group who bring Jesus to Pilate). What in the Sanhedrin hearing is called witness is now called accusation. Matthew drops Mark’s πολλά, which could mean ‘much’ but is best taken as ‘[of] many things’ and which provided a further parallel with the Sanhedrin hearing (see Mk. 14:56; Mt. 26:60). e parallel failure of Jesus to answer his accusers there was indicated obliquely in 26:62 through the high priest’s comment on it. Here the refusal to answer is reported directly. Where in the Sanhedrin trial the silence of Jesus has less prominence in Matthew than in Mark, here the opposite is true. With somewhat different language in each case, reference to it comes three times in 27:12-14. at we are not told what the accusation(s) is/are does not help with the interpretation of Jesus’ silence. We should probably understand that the activity of accusation is connected with the matter probed by Pilate in v. 11. As discussed at 26:63, Jesus’ refusal to answer means that he is not prepared to protest the truthfulness of what has been said. If he had been ghting for his life, he might have wanted to protest the particular way in which the matter was being represented; but he is not ghting for his life. He accepts his situation and refuses to ght back. In the next verse Matthew will indicate that he wants the emphasis of the unit to fall on Jesus’ nonresponse. 27:13 Matthew maintains Mark’s main thrust but with signi cant change of language. e opening τότε (‘then’), which replaces Mark’s πάλιν (‘again’), adds some emphasis, but it is with the historic present λέγει (‘says’) in place of Mark’s ἐπηρώτα … λέγων (lit. ‘was asking … saying’) that Matthew most clearly marks

his concern to place emphasis here. is time, and only this time in vv. 11-14, Matthew allows the name ‘Pilate’ to stand. Matthew has introduced the verb ἀποκρίνεσθαι (‘answer’) into v. 12, so he nds an alternative here: not ‘Do you answer nothing?’, but ‘Do you not hear…?’ With his dropping of Mark’s ἴδε (‘see’) Matthew’s following clause can become that which Jesus is questioned about hearing: ‘Do you not hear how many things …?’e loss of οὐκ ἀποκρίνῃ οὐδέν; (‘Do you answer nothing?’) reduces the parallelism with the high priest’s question in 26:62, but Matthew compensates by replacing Mark’s σου κατηγοροῦσιν (‘they accuse’) with the high priest’s σου καταμαρτυροῦσιν (‘they testify against’). In this way Matthew can con rm the equivalence of the accusation language of v. 12 and the testimony-against language of the Sanhedrin hearing. Faced with Jesus’ silence, Pilate officially invites him to comment on the testimony. 27:14 Having already added Jesus’ name twice to the text, Matthew sees no need of Mark’s use of it here. Matthew makes the Markan statement yet more emphatic: οὐκέτι ἀπεκρίθη οὐδέν (‘answered nothing further’) becomes οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ πρὸς οὐδὲ ἓν ῥῆμα (‘he did not answer him, not even to the extent of one word’336). Mark’s ‘Pilate’ becomes ‘the governor’, as in v. 11. Pilate’s amazement is underlined by Matthew’s addition of λίαν (‘very much’). In what way is Jesus’ silence to be thought of as impressing Pilate? Jesus has not been too frightened to speak. His two-word response in v. 12 marks Jesus as one who is doing exactly what he intends to do. But Jesus has neither defended his claim to be what is so offensive to his accusers, nor has he denied guilt. Jesus is neither de ant nor compliant. He simply keeps his own counsel. ere is acceptance here, but nothing abject or craven. Aer Gethsemane Jesus accepts the fate that is unfolding for him and has no wish to ght for his life. is is a very unusual posture at a trial.

2b. Jesus before Pilate, II (27:15-26) 15At

the festival the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wanted. 16ey had then a notable prisoner called aJesus Barabbas.b 17When, cthen, they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release to you, dJesus Barabbas or Jesus called Christ?’ 18For he knew that they had handed him over out of envy. 19As he was sitting on the judicial bench, his wife sent to him, saying, ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous person. For I have suffered greatly today in a dream because of him’. 20e chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 21e governor said to them, ‘Whom do you wish me to release to you, of the two?’ ey said, ‘Barabbas’. 22Pilate says to them, ‘What then shall eI do with Jesus called Christ?’ ey all say, ‘Let him be crucified!’ 23fHe said,f ‘Why? What evil has he done?’ ey cried out all the more, ‘Let him be crucified!’ 24Pilate, seeing that he was achieving nothing, but rather that a riot was happening, took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of thisg[person]; see [to it] yourself ’. 25All the people responded, ‘His blood [be] on us and on our children.’ 26en he released Barabbas to them and had Jesus flogged and handed him overh ito be crucified.i

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Ιησουν (‘Jesus’) is found here only in Θ f1 700* etc. sys, but is probably to be accepted because omission of the name ‘Jesus’ with reference to somebody other than Jesus is much more likely than addition. See further below in the discussion of v. 16. b. In uenced by Mk. 15:7, Φ etc. (f13 vgmss sys mae) add ος δια ϕονον και στασιν ην βεβλημενος εις ϕυλακην (‘who because of murder and rebellion was thrown into prison’).

c. Missing from D Θ f13 etc. it samss mae, which instead have a linking δε (‘and/but’). d. Ιησουν (‘Jesus’) is found here only in B Θ f1 700* etc. sys. On its acceptance see note a. e. Plural (‘we’) in D etc. it. f-f. λεγει αυτοις ο ηγεμων (‘the governor says to them’) in D L f1 892 etc. lat syp mae bo. g. e addition of του δικαιου in ‫ א‬A D L W f1, 13 33 etc. lat syp, h samss mae bo adds ‘righteous’ here. In 1010 etc. boms του δικαιου replaces τουτου (‘this [person]’) to give ‘the righteous [one]’. h. αυτοις (‘to them’) is added in ‫א‬1 D L N Θ f1 892 etc. lat sys sams mae. i-i. σταυρωσωσιν αυτον (‘that they might crucify him’) in D Θ etc. it. Bibliography Aus, R. D., ‘e Release of Barabbas (Mark 15:6-15 par; John 18:39-40), and Judaic Traditions in the Book of Esther’, in Barabbas and Esther and Other Studies (Atlanta: Scholars, 1992), 1-27. • Cousland, J. R. C., Crowds, 231-37. • Davies, S. L., ‘Who Is Called Bar Abbas?’ NTS 27 (1981), 260-62. • Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Haggadah and the Account of the Passion: “Have nothing to do with that just man!” (Matt. 27,19)’, in Studies, 3:184-92. • Gillman, F. M., ‘e Wife of Pilate (Matthew 27:19)’, LS 17 (1992), 152-65. • Hagedorn, A. C. and Neyrey, J. H., ‘“It Was out of Envy at ey Handed Jesus Over” (Mark 15.10): e Anatomy of Envy and the Gospel of Mark’, JSNT 69 (1998), 1556. • Kany, R., ‘Die Frau des Pilatus und ihr Name: Ein Kapitel aus der Geschichte neutestamentlicher Wissenscha’, ZNW 86 (1995), 104-10. • Lémonon, J. P., Pilate et le gouvernement de la Judée: Textes et monumentes (ÉBib. Paris: Gabalda, 1981), 191-95. • Levine, A.-J., Social and Ethnic, 26171. • Merritt, R. L., ‘Jesus Barabbas and the Paschal Pardon’, JBL 104 (1985), 57-68. • Ott, E., ‘Wer war die Frau des Pilatus? Eine Geschichte für Heute’, GuL 59 (1986), 104-6. • Philonenko, M., ‘La sang du Juste (1 Hénoch 47.1, 4; Matthieu 27.24)’, RHPR 73 (1993), 395-99. • Riesner, R., ‘Das Prätorium des

Pilatus’, BK 41 (1986), 34-37. • Scholz, G., ‘“Joseph of Arimathäa” und “Barabbas”’, LingBib 57 (1985), 81-94. For 27:24-26 Broer, L., ‘Antijudaismus im Neuen Testament? Versuch einer Annäherung anhand von zwei Texten (1 ess 2,14-16 und Mt 27,24f)’, in Salz, ed. L. Oberlinner and P. Fiedler, 321-55. • Cargal, T. B., ‘“His Blood Be upon Us and upon our Children”: A Matthean Double Entendre?’ NTS 37 (1991), 101-12. • Frankemölle, H., ‘27, 25: pas ho laos’, in Jahwebund, 204-11. • Haacker, K., ‘“Sein Blut über uns”: Erwägungen zu Matthäus 27,25’, Kirche und Israel 1 (1986), 47-50. • Heil, J. P., ‘e Blood of Jesus in Matthew: A Narrative-Critical Perspective’, PRS 18 (1991), 117-24. • Jankowski, G., ‘“Sein Blut komme über uns und unsere Kinder”: Erwägungen zu Mt 27,25’, TK 23 (2000), 16-29. • Kampling, R., Das Blut Christi und Die Juden: Mt 27,25 bei den lateinischsprachigen christlichen Autoren bis zu Leo dem Grossen (NTAbh 16. Münster: Aschendorff, 1984). • Kee, H. C., ‘What Is the Meaning of “e Jews” in the New Testament?’ Explorations 11 (1997), 2. • Lovsky, F., ‘Comment comprendre “Sang sur nous et nos enfants”?’ ETR 62 (1987), 34362. • Matera, F. J., ‘“His blood be on us and on our children’, BiTod 27 (1989), 345-50. • Mora, V., Le Refus d’Israël: Matthieu 27,25 (LD 125. Paris: Cerf, 1986). • Scullion, J. P., ‘Scripture and Preaching in the Aermath of the Shoah’, NTR 11 (1998), 67-69. • Smith, R. H., ‘Matthew 27:25: e Hardest Verse in Matthew’s Gospel’, CurTM 17 (1990), 421-28. • Sullivan, D., ‘New Insights into Matthew 27:24-25’, NB 73 (1992), 453-57. • Wouters, A., Willen, 376-83. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 57-68; 27:11-14.

For the place of 27:15-26 (the second part of a larger unit, vv. 11-26) in the structure of the Passion Narrative see the comments at vv. 1114. ough strongly inclined to consider Jesus innocent, Pilate capitulates to pressure but seeks to offload responsibility for Jesus’ death onto the crowd, who, manipulated by the Sanhedrin leadership, are more than eager to accept.

Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his equivalent to Mk. 15:6-15. ough there are traces in Lk. 23:18-25 of a second source, with some parallels in the Johannine account,337 no second source for the pericope overall is visible in Matthew, but the question needs to be asked separately for the distinctive materials in vv. 19, 24-25. e material of v. 19 is articulated in what is very much a Matthean manner. Many doubt that Matthew had any source at all here. e use of βήμα (‘judicial bench’) does, however, create an interesting link with Jn. 19:13, which has the only other Gospel use of βήμα. e idea of a message from Pilate’s wife coming while he is sitting on the judicial bench is sufficiently striking to have been the kind of thing that would be talked about: it makes for a good anecdote. A source for Mt. 27:24-25, written or oral, seems much less likely than for v. 19 (see further below). I have discussed above the general historicity of the trial before Pilate at 27:11-14. Here the question of the paschal pardon needs to be addressed. ough there are good historical analogies,338 we have no knowledge of such a custom in Palestine in the rst century apart from the four Gospels. While there are many versions of how the paschal pardon narrative arose, I think the most cogent account of how it could be that all the Gospels agree about a paschal pardon which did not actually exist is that given by Brown.339 Barabbas (probably Jesus Barabbas) was arrested aer a riot but eventually released when Pilate reviewed his case, most likely on the same visit during which he tried Jesus and committed him to execution. Christian storytelling joined the stories of the two, who both probably bore the name Jesus, on a compare-and-contrast basis — the guilty released and the innocent condemned. In the face of Jewish hostility to Christians and their message, Christians imagined that the Jewish people must have had a crucial role in these contrasting decisions of Pilate, and generated the scene we now have in the Gospels. I think that the role of Pilate emerges too coherently in the Gospel account for Brown’s proposal to be nally convincing. While Christian hostility to non-Christian Jews is not absent from the NT, I nd far less of it than many seem to. Since I am unconvinced that Pilate is spared responsibility for his action in any of the Gospels, I am not convinced that we should explain the Gospel accounts in terms of making the Jews rather

than Pilate responsible. Our knowledge base for reconstructing rst-century Palestine is extremely limited. So I think it is best to accept the historicity of the paschal pardon on the basis of the Gospel accounts and the existing historical analogies. Such a custom would certainly offer a safety valve for the periodic intense difference of opinion in speci c cases between a foreign ruler and a subject people about true justice. Related to the question of the paschal pardon is that of whether Pilate acted against Jesus under signi cant Jewish pressure. ere are certainly several instances of the role of the Jewish crowds in creating pressure on Pilate to back down on a matter of Jewish sensitivity.340 If the Jewish leaders pressed their case against Jesus with Pilate, they would have made use of the people if it was in their power to do so. It seems that the paschal pardon provided just the context for successful manipulation of the Jewish crowds by the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem.

27:15 Matthew sharpens Mark’s ‘used to release’ to ‘was accustomed (εἰώθει341) to release’. More conscious than Mark of the shi of focus here, Matthew adds ‘the governor’ in the interests of the unit being able to function in a semi–self-contained manner. For the same reason Mark’s ‘to them’ becomes ‘to the crowd’, which Matthew brings forward from Mk. 15:8. Matthew is not going to highlight in v. 17, as Mark does in Mk. 15:8, the initiating role of the crowd, so here, reaching forward to the language of Mk. 15:9, 12, he substitutes ‘whom they wanted (ἤθελον)’ for ‘whom they asked for (παρῃτοῦντο342)’. Because we know of it only through the Gospel accounts, we can say little about the details of how the paschal pardon operated. Did the people have a totally free choice or was a process of bargaining involved in which both the governor and the people would have to be satis ed? Mark’s version of the status of Barabbas may throw a little light on this matter. Notably, Barabbas is not the leader of the insurrection, but only a popular gure who had taken life in the name of the cause. ere were likely to be ground rules

that constrained choice. At the same time the Gospel ‘short list’ should not be taken as indicating that the people’s choice was only between the candidates put forward by the governor. We are surely to understand that Barabbas was the already known choice of the people, but the arrest of Jesus has potentially changed the situation. e choice between Barabbas and Jesus would have been a choice between the one already pre-indicated as the one who would be chosen and a newly arrested prisoner who had known great popularity. A possible last-minute change of choice is what Pilate has in mind. What is Jesus’ legal status as we begin Mt. 27:15? Both Mark and Matthew seem to have le it vague. Indeed, vagueness about the status of Jesus at this point seems necessary for the narrative dynamic, at least of Matthew’s text: on the one hand, a Jesus whom Pilate has not yet convicted, and perhaps did not intend to convict, can with little credibility be offered as a candidate for the paschal release; on the other hand, it is not in relation to a Jesus who has already been pronounced guilty that vv. 24-27 are played out. Vv. 15-21 work against the background of an assumption that Pilate intended to go along with the wishes of the chief priests and elders. But this assumption begins to unravel in vv. 22-23, and vv. 24-27 make quite clear that he had in fact still been equivocating. Pilate is presented as one who by keeping his own counsel makes his own attempt to manipulate the situation. If the crowd had chosen Jesus for release, then Pilate would have been spared a difficult decision. If his plan had worked, he could have avoided a major confrontation with the Jewish leaders with whom he needed to work, kept Barabbas in his hands, and released a popular Jesus — whom Pilate really considered innocent despite Jesus’ unwillingness to defend himself — back to his public. Nowhere in the account is Pilate’s judgment actually declared. We are only nally sure of the

guilty verdict at the point where Pilate hands Jesus over to be cruci ed (v. 26). 27:16 Since Matthew is not concerned with what the crowd is choosing between in preferring Barabbas to Jesus, he is not interested in any particular information about Barabbas. He heavily abbreviates and reformulates Mk. 15:7. ‘ey had then’ (εἶχον τότε) replaces ‘there was’ (ἦν): this limits the degree of focus on Barabbas. Matthew repeats ‘a prisoner’ (δέσμιον) from v. 16 rather than explain, as in Mark, the larger group to which Barabbas belonged. ἐπίσημον replaces Mark’s description of the man’s crime. e breadth of the word ἐπίσημον is probably useful to Matthew. Its basic meaning is ‘signi cant’. e form of signi cance is quite open: one could be signi cant as being ‘conspicuous’, ‘well known’, ‘outstanding’, or even ‘notorious’. Matthew probably wants to say nothing more precise than that Barabbas is a ‘big sh’, but he may intend to indicate with this word the popularity which made Barabbas a prime candidate for the paschal pardon. As I wrote elsewhere, ‘“Barabbas” is a Grecized form of an Aramaic name (“Son of Abba [= father, as in Jesus’ mode of address to God]”) attested in h- or sixth-century-B.C. texts and is the name of a third- or fourth-century-A.D. Babylonian rabbi. “Abba” [ʾbh] has been identi ed as a personal name on a funerary inscription from near Jerusalem, coming from the period 110 B.C.–A.D. 100’.343 Despite the relatively poor textual support, much can be said for accepting the reading Ἰησοῦς Βαραββᾶς (‘Jesus Barabbas’) for the name both in vv. 16 or 17 and not the better-attested reading that lacks Ἰησοῦς (‘Jesus’)344 — for the textual support see ‘Textual Notes’ above. Matthew reports a similar naming pattern for Peter in 16:17, ‘Simon Bar-Jona’. Barabbas might similarly be expected to have a personal name to which ‘Barabbas’ was attached (and by which he might mostly have been known). It is likely enough that Matthew

had access to the fuller name from oral tradition, but we must also reckon with the possibility that the name represents symbolically his role as the alternative to Jesus in this particular context — not an alternative with any speci c contours, just the alternative at the time. 27:17 Matthew here transfers the initiative from the crowd to Pilate, or at least he limits the initiative of the crowd to gathering together for this paschal ritual. Having brought Mark’s use of ‘crowd’ here forward to v. 15, Matthew does not feel the need of it here. In the Passion Narrative Matthew has already used συνάγειν (‘gather together’) twice of groups gathering to determine the fate of Jesus (26:3, 57); in place of Mark’s ἀναβάς (lit. ‘having gone up’), he uses the same συνάγειν again here to echo these earlier gatherings.345 Since Pilate is not responding but taking the initiative, Mark’s ἀπεκρίθη λέγων (lit. ‘answered, saying’) becomes εἶπεν (‘said’). Matthew keeps Mark’s use of ὁ Πιλᾶτος (‘Pilate’) here: he will use the name at the three key transition points in the account (vv. 17, 22, 24). With the addition of τίνα (‘whom’) and Ἰησοῦν Βαραββᾶν (‘Jesus Barabbas’) Matthew transforms the Markan question from one about whether Jesus should be released into one about which of the two should be released. Where, to refer to Jesus, Mark repeats the language of Pilate’s rst question to Jesus (‘the king of the Jews’), Matthew has instead ‘Jesus the one called “Christ”’. Clearly Matthew did not think of Pilate dealing in v. 11 (‘king of the Jews’) with a different concern than had been the preoccupation of the Sanhedrin (‘the Christ, the Son of God’): ‘king of the Jews’ is how Pilate says it when acting with the concerns of a officer of Roman law; ‘the Christ’ is how he says it when seeking to articulate a Jewish point of view to a crowd of Jewish people.346

I have commented at 27:15 above on how it might be that Pilate can set Barabbas and Jesus up as the choice. We are being asked to assume that Pilate knew of Jesus’ great popularity and something of his messianic aspirations. 27:18 Matthew’s changes here are only verbal,347 except for dropping ‘the chief priests’ as subject, which sends us back to ‘the chief priests and elders’ of v. 12 for the implied subject. Φθόνος (‘envy’) here and its parallel in Mark are the only Gospel uses of the term. Envy is resentment of another’s success, and, as here, oen leads to actions designed to undercut that success.348 We can only surmise from the larger shape of Matthew’s story what the elements of success of Jesus were which provoked envy. Certainly we must think of the popularity of Jesus with the crowds, which in Matthew’s telling began to open up a divide between the Jewish people and their leaders from at least 9:33-34.349 e closing of this gap in 27:20-25 represents an important, but tragic, last-minute twist in Matthew’s story. e language of handing over here echoes that in v. 2. 27:19 is verse is distinctive to Matthew. Up to this point Matthew has offered nothing to indicate where Pilate has been, either for the receiving of Jesus in v. 2 or the interchange with him in vv. 11-14 or the interaction now with the crowd in vv. 15-26. In the absence of any indication to the contrary, it is most natural to assume a continuous sequence of events at a common location. Now that location, or at least the location for the present part of the action, is identi ed as καθημένου ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος (‘sitting on the βήμα’). Related uses of βήμα are found in John and Acts.350 e word means literally a ‘step’, as in ‘taking a step’.351 But its more important use is in relation to a platform from which to speak for important public functions of one sort or another,352 and then more

focussedly of the judicial bench from which Roman justice was dispensed.353 e proper posture for exercising judicial authority was to sit on the βήμα.354 e one under investigation would stand before the βήμα.355 e whole judicial hearing might not take place with the judge sitting on the βήμα,356 but since the βήμα represented the authority of his office, the judge needed to be sitting on the βήμα at the moment when judgment was being passed. Against this background I have translated βήμα above as ‘judicial bench’. In Matthew we are to imagine Pilate as seated on this ‘judicial bench’ at least from v. 15. Where are we to think of this judicial bench as located? ere will be a change of location at v. 27, which, with its mention of τὸ πραιτώριον (‘the praetorium’), offers us some help in relation to this question. e ‘judicial bench’ would seem to have been outside the praetorium. As governor of the province, Pilate was not based in Jerusalem but in Caesarea, which was the centre for the Roman administration of Judea. e word ‘praetorium’ had come to be used of the governor’s official residence,357 in this case in Caesarea.358 But if the governor had other official residences, then ‘praetorium’ could be used of these as well. Since Pilate would need to be in Jerusalem quite oen if he was to stay on top of Jewish affairs, it was natural enough that he also had a residence there. Two locations have been proposed for Pilate’s Jerusalem praetorium. e rst is the Fortress Antonia. is had originally been a palace or, perhaps better, a fortress of the Hasmonean priestkings, but it had been refurbished by Herod the Great at the beginning of his reign and renamed aer Mark Antony. It stood on a rock formation which dominated the northwest corner of the temple area. e second had also been a palace of Herod the Great. It was on the western hill of the city, on the highest spot within the walls. Once completed, it seems to have become the main residence

for Herod. e fortress Antonia dominated the temple, but the other Herodian palace dominated the city. A certain choice between the two is not possible, but the latter seems the more likely.359 So, most likely, the seat of justice was to be found outside the palace on the western hill of the city, which had become the praetorium of the Roman governor. In Caesarea the seat of justice is likely to have been a permanent feature, but probably not so in Jerusalem. At least this was the situation when Florus was governor thirty years later. Josephus tells us that Florus arrived ‘at the royal residence and on the following day had a βήμα placed in front and took his seat’.360 e judicial bench would be set up in a place of public visibility when the governor was in residence and had justice to dispense. High Roman officials typically began their workday very early. So if Pilate’s wife was to get a message to him about Jesus aer she was up in the morning, it would have to come to him while he was hearing the case. But we are clearly to understand that it would have been very unusual for her to disturb her husband’s judicial activity in this way.361 at is why Matthew chooses this moment to indicate that Pilate is sitting on the judicial bench. ere are several interesting features about the message she sends her husband. Her advice is μηδὲν σοὶ καὶ τῷ δικαίῳ ἐκείνῳ, which is literally ‘nothing to you and to that righteous [person]’. e language in the rest of Matthew (and the rest of the NT) to which it is most similar is that of the demoniacs in 8:29, τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; (lit. ‘what to us and to you?’). As with the demoniacs’ words, she denies that the parties have anything in common. With reference to Pilate and Jesus the language probably implies that there is nothing about Jesus that should attract Pilate’s judicial attention. But Pilate’s wife does not say, ‘Come to this innocent man’s rescue’. e statement is

made in terms of the interests of Pilate and his wife and not in terms of the interests of Jesus. Pilate’s wife speaks of Jesus as ‘that righteous person’ (τῷ δικαίῳ ἐκείνῳ). e obvious link is with the righteous of 23:35, who have lost their lives, as Jesus is on the threshold of losing his. Pilate is being advised to play no role in this process. In his own way he will, in 27:24, take his wife’s advice. Apart from the present use and for the epileptic of Mt. 17:15, Matthew employs πάσχειν (‘suffer’) only for Jesus’ suffering.362 References to suffering as anguish caused by the situation of another are extremely rare, but in 4 Macc. 15:22 the verb πάσχειν is used of the mother of the seven sons of Eleazar, who had to watch her seven sons be tortured to death. By contrast, the sufferings of Pilate’s wife are limited to those of a bad dream. Should we detect a rather narrow self-interest in her language of suffering here? e ‘today’ to which Pilate’s wife refers is the momentous today which in Matthew covers all the events from the Last Supper to the burial of Jesus. κατ᾿ ὄναρ (‘in a dream’) echoes the role of dream messages that marked the Infancy Narrative,363 and perhaps particularly the dream that warned the Magi not to return to Herod. 27:20 Where the last time Matthew dropped ‘the chief priests’ (in v. 18) of the Markan text, this time he supplements them with ‘and the elders’. e effect is again to send us back to v. 12. ἔπεισαν (‘persuaded’) replaces ἀνέσεισαν (‘stirred up’). e latter verb is not found in the LXX and, apart from Mk. 15:11, is found in the NT only in Lk. 23:5.364 Matthew’ strong preference for the plural of the word shows in his switch from Mark’s singular ‘crowd’ to the plural ‘crowds’.365 Matthew makes changes to match those in 27:17: in Mark the crowd was offered ‘the king of the Jews’ but stirred up to have Pilate ‘release Barabbas to them instead’; in Matthew the

people have been offered a choice between ‘Jesus Barabbas’ and ‘Jesus the one called Christ’ and are persuaded to ‘ask for Barabbas’ and to ‘destroy Jesus’.366 With ‘destroy Jesus’ Matthew is preparing for the call for Jesus’ cruci xion to come in v. 22. He wants to make clear that not just the preference for Barabbas but also the surprising hostility to Jesus is to be traced back to the activity of the chief priests (and the elders). e use of ‘destroy’ here (τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἀπολέσωσιν [‘destroy Jesus’]) links the people here with the conspiring of the Pharisees in 12:14 (αὐτὸν ἀπολέσωσιν [‘destroy him’]) and then more remotely with the plans of Herod in 2:13 (ἀπολέσαι αὐτό [‘to destroy him (the child)’]). e change in the attitude of the ordinary people to Jesus is as much of a surprise to a reader as it is to Pilate. Matthew has offered some modest anticipations of the possibility of a negative attitude towards Jesus that was wider than the named leadership groups which had manifested hostility. But he gives the impression of great popularity much more strongly than any possibility that a dark shadow may lie behind this. On the negative side there is ‘and all Jerusalem with [Herod]’ in his fear in 2:3; the anticipation of persecution (and not only from official leaders) that is prominent in the mission instructions in chap. 10 (and cf. 24:9); the description of the response of ‘this generation’ to John the Baptist and to Jesus in 11:16-19; the woes in 11:20-24 on Chorazin and Bethsaida for their failure to repent; the explanation in 13:11 of Jesus’ use of parables in speaking to the crowds; Jesus’ reception in his hometown in 13:54-58; Jesus’ words against ‘this generation’ (which is represented by the disciples!) in 17:17; and the lament over Jerusalem in 23:37. But none of this allows for an easy explanation of how the people could be persuaded so quickly and so thoroughly. e most likely key to the sharp turnaround seems to involve an appeal to nationalism. As long as the choice was between their own

awed leaders and an exciting prophetic gure who had newly come on the scene, it was not too hard for the people to side with the prophet over against their own leaders. But only in the case of smaller numbers of people will this ‘siding with’ have gone deeper. Now, against the background of the paschal pardon, the situation presents itself in a signi cantly different light. First, a choice between Barabbas and Jesus was one between two popular gures, but popular gures whose spheres of popularity were immensely different. Barabbas was a Jewish nationalist in a way that Jesus, despite his full delity to his people and their religion, was not. Barabbas had the glamour of a freedom ghter. By and large, in this period, the Jewish people were well accommodated to their situation as a subject people within the Roman Empire, but that did not mean that they harboured no romantic dreams of national freedom. Most people would never have considered taking part in an uprising, but the uprising certainly represented something with which they could identify. en, second, there was not only a choice between Jesus and Barabbas but also a choice between Pilate and their own Jewish leaders. It was one thing to choose Jesus over their own natural leaders, but it would be quite another thing to choose Pilate’s candidate for release over the one who had already been established as the favoured choice of the Jewish people (before Jesus had ever become an option). All of a sudden Jesus seems to be identi ed with the Romans over against a Barabbas who represented the most committed form of Jewish nationalism. Despite all the viciousness attributed to the crowds, the driving force here had little to do with Jesus and a lot to do with the loyalties of a confused nationalism.367 But it is important to stress again that for Matthew responsibility for leading the people astray is

laid squarely at the feet of the leadership groups: described as ‘of the people’ (see at 21:23), they here regain control over the people. 27:21 On the change from Mark’s ‘Pilate’ to ‘the governor’ here see the comments at v. 17. In Mark, though not explicitly said, we are to understand that the people gave the answer to Pilate in which they had been schooled by the chief priests and then Pilate asks a follow-on question. Matthew’s construal is different. For Matthew Pilate rst asks the same question (with simpli ed wording) a second time. He has not yet had a response from the crowds. e putting of the question the rst time has led to the crowd’s discussion, which has been the opportunity for the chief priests and elders to do their work of persuasion. Aer the hubbub has sufficiently settled — this is what Pilate is responding to (thus the use of ἀποκριθείς [lit. ‘having answered/responded’, but not translated above]) — Pilate puts his question again. e Matthean changes re ect this different way of picturing the development.368 And it is Matthew who provides the wording for the brief answer given by the crowds: ‘Barabbas’. e people have exercised their choice, and to Pilate’s surprise it has not been in favour of Jesus. 27:22 Now Matthew makes use of the Markan question in Mk. 15:12. Matthew adds Pilate’s name and introduces a historic present, ‘says’, to focus attention on this piece of the episode. (A second historic present will introduce the crowds’ answer to show that the material being focussed on continues there.) Matthew modi es Mark’s ‘whom you call the king of the Jews’, which was hardly accurate in the rst place, to repeat language from Mt. 27:17: ‘Jesus, the one called Christ’. Again Matthew drops πάλιν (‘again’): for him this is a rst saying. e subject of the verb is identi ed not with Mark’s οἱ δέ denoting change of subject, but with the emphatic πάντες (‘all’): this was not just a majority decision; the whole crowd was swept up in a mob response. In addition to matching the ‘says’

used of Pilate earlier in the verse, Matthew’s ‘say’ in place of Mark’s ‘cried out’ will allow for escalation to v. 23, where Mark’s verb here (and there) will be used. Without much real change of meaning σταύρωσον αὐτόν (‘Crucify him!’) becomes σταυρωθήτω (‘Let him be cruci ed!’). e best suggestion here is that Matthew chooses the language as quasi-judicial: the people have given their verdict, or more properly announced the sentence that goes with the verdict of guilty. In asking the question and receiving the answer Pilate has moved from the paschal pardon to something quite new. e people have exercised their power of choice in favour of Barabbas. Pilate, and Pilate alone, is now responsible for the decision about Jesus. As discussed at v. 15, at this point the assumption that Pilate has already determined to condemn Jesus (which alone makes sense of having him considered for the paschal pardon) begins to unravel. Pilate had not quite made up his mind and had hoped that the paschal pardon would spare him the need to do so. Now the need to do so freshly presses. And Pilate behaves in a manner that can only be judged to be extremely surprising. With only a slight stretch of the imagination we could think of the role of the people in the paschal pardon as quasi-judicial (though they are really saving the life of a condemned criminal, not adjudicating guilt or innocence), but now the people seem to be being called on (with no stretch of the imagination) to be co-judges with Pilate of the case of Jesus. We are not dealing with the clamour of an angry mob to whom the ruler feels he must give in, but with a deliberate choice on the part of Pilate to involve the same crowd that has just thwarted his purposes with Barabbas in determining the fate of Jesus. Pilate’s move is extremely unusual;369 clearly he does not want to take responsibility for the decision that confronts him.

27:23 Matthew drops the name ‘Pilate’ (see discussion at v. 17) and marks the change of subject simply with a change of subject marker, ὁ δέ. As in v. 11, Matthew prefers ἔϕη for ‘he said’, 370 and he sees no need to specify who is being spoken to. κακόν has been moved earlier in its clause. e difference can be represented as the difference between ‘What has he done that is evil?’ in Mark and ‘What evil has he done?’ in Matthew. Matthew indicates that the outcry was a continuing phenomenon by replacing Mark’s ἔκραξαν (‘they cried out’) with ἔκραζον λέγοντες (lit. ‘they were crying out, saying’). As in v. 22 σταυρωθήτω (‘Let him be cruci ed!’) replaces σταύρωσον αὐτόν (‘Crucify him!’).371 e force of τί γάρ (lit. ‘what for’) is difficult to adequately represent. e γάρ marks the reference back to what precedes in the question being asked. In an attempt to capture this, I have represented τί γάρ above as ‘Why? What?’ Having asked the crowds for a verdict, or more exactly for a sentence, Pilate now belatedly asks them to identify the criminal action which is the basis for the proposed sentence. (An echo of language used of the servant in Is. 53:9 is just possible.372) But this is a nicety that escapes the crowds. ey are probably not too sure why they want Jesus cruci ed, beyond having a sense that Jewish solidarity requires it. Additional noise takes the place of explanation: they repeat yet more emphatically their call for Jesus to be cruci ed. 27:24 Vv. 24-26 have no parallel in the other Gospels. Matthew may have access to further traditional materials here, but it is also possible that, helped slightly by the tradition of Pilate’s wife’s message, Matthew has developed these verses to bring to graphic expression what he takes to be already implied by the Markan account. (e key element here is the presence already in Mk. 15:13, 14 of the crowd’s call to have Jesus cruci ed, not simply to have Barabbas be the one who is released on the basis of the

paschal pardon. e beginning of Mt. 27:24 could well be inspired by Mk. 15:15a, with help from language ‘rescued’ from Mk. 5:26.) e situation was threatening to turn ugly. e crowds were inclined to interpret Pilate’s attempts to get an explanation from them as attempts to thwart their will. With not a little irony Matthew reuses θόρυβος γίνεσθαι (lit. ‘a riot to happen’) to echo the language of 26:5. With the help of Judas, the Jerusalem leadership has succeeded against Jesus to an extent that is beyond all its wildest hopes. e riot that was feared would be the popular reaction to the Jewish arrest of Jesus is now being provoked instead by Pilate’s slowness in agreeing to the crowd’s clamour for Jesus’ cruci xion. Matthew does not use the word for ‘wash’ (νίπτειν) here that he has uses earlier and which is the common word for wash in the rest of the NT and in the LXX. Instead he uses ἀπονίπτειν, which is not found elsewhere in the NT and just three times in the LXX, in each case with negative overtones, and especially in the two cases which use middle forms as here.373 Matthew may intend to carry into his text something of these negative overtones. Certainly the washing of hands is more readily seen as an image of seeking to be cleansed than of a claim to be in no need of cleansing. Getting clean again is the interest of the Greco-Roman texts to which Broer draws attention.374 e situation in the OT is more complex, however. It has various texts in which washing has to do with getting clean what is not clean, regularly in the sense of ritual puri cation.375 en there are Pss. 26(LXX 25):6; 73(LXX 72):13, which have ‘wash/washed my hands in innocence’, an expression that has sometimes puzzled commentators. ese seem to merge notions of moral innocence and ritual purity: on the basis of existing moral innocence one achieved ritual purity by washing one’s hands.376 Something rather similar seems to be the case in Dt. 21:1-9. When a murdered body is found and all attempts to identify

the murderer have failed, the elders of the nearest town are to wash their hands over a heifer whose neck has been broken in a wadi with owing water, and they are to declare their innocence of the murder. is ritual purges the guilt of innocent blood from the people’s midst. But of course its effectiveness depends on a genuine moral innocence in the rst place, and this must be articulated as part of the ritual. In Pilate’s action we are probably meant to see a parody of what is prescribed in Dt. 21:1-9. Pilate wants to be considered innocent. He has in mind his wife’s message. He knows that innocent blood is going to be shed,377 but he does not want the resulting ritual impurity to contaminate him (there is an analogous concern on the part of the chief priests in Mt. 27:6 in relation to the blood money). e ritual washing of the hands is meant as a kind of prophylactic. Also, having drawn the crowd in as co-judges with himself, Pilate wants, with and beyond the ritual washing, to go a step further: he wants the members of the crowd to see themselves henceforth not just as co-judges, but as judges in his place. e innocence that he claims — there are echoes of the innocence of Jesus recognised by Judas in v. 4 — is the innocence of withdrawal from responsibility.378 Just as the chief priests sought to make responsibility for Jesus’ fate all Judas’s, so Pilate wants to make responsibility for Jesus’ fate at this next level up all the Jewish crowd’s. But responsibility does not shi so easily. What the chief priests said to Judas, Pilate says to the crowd: ‘See to it yourself ’ (see discussion at v. 4). 27:25 Matthew’s ‘all’ here picks up on the ‘all’ he added in v. 22. us far in this episode Matthew has used either the singular or plural of ὁ ὄχλος (‘the crowd’); now he moves to ὁ λαός (‘the people’). Its use here adds to the cross reference to 26:5 established with the use of θόρυβος γίνεσθαι (lit. ‘a riot to happen’) in 27:24.

Matthew does not use ὁ λαός very much, but in his early uses he establishes its reference as to the Jewish people as the historic people of God.379 Matthew is reporting behaviour which brings shame on the people precisely in relation to their identity as the people of God.380 Pilate’s eagerness to pass responsibility is matched by the people’s readiness to take responsibility.381 If that is what it takes to achieve their goal, then the people are ready for it. Whatever it takes, Jesus must be done away with. e statement attributed to the people is compact and lacks a verb. e language is probably short for something like ‘Let responsibility for his blood rest upon us and on our children’. On the lips of the people it is a statement of readiness to take responsibility, not a confession of guilt. By this stage in the story they share the view expressed at the conclusion of the Sanhedrin hearing in 26:66: ‘He deserves death’. But Matthew chooses the ‘blood … on’ (αἷμα ἐπί) language to echo 23:35. And since, as far as Matthew is concerned, the people take innocent blood on themselves, the overtones of blood guilt and of punishment which the OT links provide for 23:35 carry over now to 27:25. ‘And on our children’ is not intended to pass responsibility down through the generations. To involve one’s children as well as oneself betokens a deeper level of commitment and seriousness. Since for Matthew judgment is to fall within the generation (23:36), inevitably those who are now children will also fall victim to its coming. By this stage in Matthew’s story the landscape is littered with people who share responsibility for Jesus’ death. Some, like Judas and the people, readily own responsibility; some, like the chief priests and the elders, prefer to see the responsibility fall elsewhere; and some, like the disciples and especially Peter, simply deny and abandon Jesus. All are guilty, and the judgment heralded in 23:35-

36 will certainly fall, but for all as well the possibility of forgiveness and restoration remains. e cross reveals the guilt of all, but in turn it offers forgiveness to all.382 Christian history is full of readings of 27:25 that fail to pay sufficient attention to its role as embedded in Matthew’s story. e consequence has been a most un-Christian hatred and persecution of the Jews. 27:26 Matthew rejoins his Markan source for the nal verse. Once again he drops Mark’s use of the name ‘Pilate’ (see at v. 17). Matthew has his (quite differently formulated) equivalent to Mark’s ‘wishing to satisfy (τὸ ἱκανὸν ποιῆσαι — lit. ‘to do what is sufficient [for]’383) the crowd’ in v. 25. e opening τότε (‘then’) is Matthew’s, as oen. Here it indicates resolution at last. Otherwise, Matthew reproduces Mark’s wording except for a δέ (‘and/but’) for a καί (‘and’) and a change of word order that puts the reference to ogging more logically before the reference to handing over. Apparently content with the people’s assurances that they will take responsibility for the sentence for which they clamour, Pilate nally acts. e crowd’s demands had been for the release of Barabbas (v. 21) and for the cruci xion of Jesus (vv. 22, 23). Now both are granted. Barabbas is released back into the Jewish community, and Jesus is handed over yet one more time,384 this time to those who will execute the sentence. Mention of the ogging enhances the parallel between the hearing before Pilate and that before the Sanhedrin (see 26:67-68).385 Its role in Matthew’s narrative is to provide immediate satisfaction to the crowds: it is an earnest of the cruci xion to come. Since it is separated from the cruci xion, Bammel had objected to identifying this ogging as that which routinely accompanied cruci xion, on the grounds that this was administered to the criminal already on the cross.386 Certainly ogging was a

punishment in its own right,387 but its practice was more varied than Bammel allows for.388 In the case of Jesus here, no very clear legal reason for the ogging seems to have been invoked, and certainly not remembered. We are probably justi ed in thinking of the ogging as preparatory for cruci xion. Knotted leather straps were used for ogging; sometimes they held pieces of bone or metal. e ogging itself at times proved fatal. e severity of a particular ogging would have a bearing on how long the condemned man could survive on the cross. 1′. Pilate’s Soldiers Mock Jesus’ Claim to Royal Status (27:27-31) 27en

the governor’s soldiers took Jesus along into the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him. 28ey aundressed himb and put a scarlet cloak around him. 29ey twisted together a crown out of thornbushes and placed it on his head, and a reed in his right [hand]. ey knelt down before him and cmocked him, saying, ‘Greetings, king of the Jews’. 30ey spat at him, and took the reed and hit him on his head. 31When they had [finished] mocking him, they undressed him of the cloak and dressed him in his [own] clothes, and they led him out to crucify [him].

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In uenced by the immediately following reference to the scarlet cloak, ‫א‬1 B D 1424 etc. it vgmss sys have ἐνδυσαντες (‘dressed’). b. To match v. 31, τα ιματια αυτου (‘[of] his clothes’) is added by 33 etc. syhmg sams mae boms. In uenced by Mk. 15:17, D etc. it (sys) add ιματιον πορϕυρουν και (‘a purple garment and’). c. Perhaps with in uence from Mk. 15:18, the verb is imperfect in A W Θ 0250 f1, 13 etc. lat, giving ‘began to mock’.

Bibliography Crossan, J. D., Cross at Spoke, 114-59. See further at Mt. 26:1-2; 27:11-14, 15-26.

e account of the soldiers’ mockery of Jesus’ royal pretension here in vv. 27-31 provides the second half of the bracketing (matched by the account in vv. 3-10 of Judas’s remorse and suicide and of the eld of blood389) around the account of Jesus before Pilate. On the larger structure of chaps. 26–27 see the discussion at 26:1-2. Within the praetorium the soldiers parody Jesus’ messianic status by dressing him in a down-market royal manner and greeting him as king of the Jews. He is also subjected to spitting and hitting. e scene is arranged in a chiasm centred on the kneeling and mocking of 27:29b.390 Matthew continues the Markan sequence. He follows the Markan material reasonably closely, but reorders material in a more logical sequence and develops further the drama of the scene. e distribution of mocking scenes in the various Gospel Passion Narratives is such that it is impossible to be at all sure what happened. e mockery at the Sanhedrin hearing and aer the hearing before Pilate is clearly parallelled in Mark and, following him, Matthew. It may be of signi cance that the immediate similarity is located in the spitting and the hitting. ese two elements may be connected to Is. 50:6 (as discussed at Mt. 26:67-68, but without con dence of the link; the correspondences are less close in 27:30). Transfer from the one Gospel text to the other is likely. Otherwise the respective accounts are well tailored to their different contexts. is may represent verisimilitude or historical memory. Philo’s account in Flacc. 36–40 of the mocking of King Herod Agrippa I in A.D. 38, where an idiot is dressed in royal robes, with a diadem (a sheet of papyrus) and a reed for a sceptre, is strikingly like the Gospel account. ere is no physical abuse, but those involved were mocking Agrippa and not the one dressed up to play his role. Perhaps we can be more con dent of the Roman mockery than of its Jewish counterpart, but both have a reasonable claim to historicity.

27:27 Matthew reinforces the sense that a new unit begins here by adding τότε (‘then’) and τοῦ ἡγεμόνος (‘of the governor’), and replacing αὐτόν (‘him’) with τὸν Ἰησοῦν (‘Jesus’). παραλαβόντες … συνήγαγεν (lit. ‘having taken along … they gathered’) replaces Mark’s ἀπήγαγον … καὶ συγκαλοῦσιν (‘they led away … and call together’): Matthew has used Mark’s rst verb to mark the delivery to Caiaphas (26:57) and the delivery to Pilate (27:2); he will now hold it back for v. 31, where it will mark the delivery to the cross;391 in v. 17 Matthew chose συνάγειν (‘gather’) to evoke earlier gatherings hostile to Jesus, and he probably does the same here.392 e change from ἀπήγαγον to παραλαβόντες creates the rst of a string of ve aorist participles, each followed by third person plural aorist active indicatives, which is a notable structural feature of the account.393 Matthew adds the clarifying ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν (‘around him’). Matthew uses αὐλή to mean courtyard (see at 26:3), but here in Mark it means ‘palace’. So, avoiding the danger of confusion and simplifying, Matthew has εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον (‘into the praetorium’) for Mark’s ἔσω τῆς αὐλῆς, ὅ ἐστιν πραιτώριον (‘inside the palace, which is [the] praetorium’). On the identity and location of the praetorium (Pilate’s official residence in Jerusalem) see the comments at v. 19. If Jesus had not been ogged in v. 26, one might have thought that that was what the soldiers were taking him off to do (but the Romans liked to in ict penalties in as public a manner as possible). A cohort of soldiers is the tenth part of a legion and so has a nominal strength of six hundred, but perhaps the word was also used more loosely. In any case, we have here the makings of an intimidating scene. 27:28 Matthew spots the redressing in Mk. 15:20 and adds a detail about the indignity of rst being stripped. Mark’s πορϕύραν (‘purple’, i.e., ‘a purple garment’) becomes χλαμύδα κοκκίνην (‘a

crimson cloak’). Both colours have to do with splendour, status, and wealth. ‘Purple’ seems to be restricted mainly to official status: it represents royalty, or high office that links one closely with royalty. χλαμύς is a soldier’s cloak. Matthew’s use may point to the thinking behind his change of the colour: the soldiers will not have access to what is genuinely a royal garment, as Mark’s text may suggest; the nearest look-alike that might reasonably be thought to be available to the soldiers was the cloak of one of them who was either particularly wealthy and liked to show it (but would soldier’s cloaks not be expected to conform to a relatively tight standard?), or of one of them whose rank was marked by the splendour of his cloak (Brown suggests the cloak of a higher Roman official394), or, if we allow for a modicum of artistic licence and take the ‘crimson’ as ‘red’,395 a standard Roman soldier’s cloak. It is the last which best matches the use later in the account of a reed for a royal sceptre. Matthew thinks that Mark’s περιτιθέασιν (lit. ‘place around’) is odd for putting on a crown, but adopts the verb for the cloak,396 replacing the historic present with an aorist. With the change away from Mark’s ‘purple’, it is not quite clear at this point in Matthew’s narrative what the dressing up is about. But it will soon become so. 27:29 ἐξ ἀκανθῶν (‘out of thornbushes’) replaces Mark’s use of the adjectival form ἀκάνθινον (‘made out of thornbush’). Having taken Mark’s περιτιθέασιν (lit. ‘place around’) for earlier use, Matthew uses the more natural ἐπέθηκαν (‘placed upon’), once again preferring an aorist to Mark’s historic present.397 Pedantically, one might at rst think, Matthew adds ἐπὶ τῆς κεϕαλῆς (‘on his head’), but he has in mind the next addition he will make, which will link something to a different part of Jesus’ body: καὶ κάλαμον ἐν τῇ δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ (‘and a reed in his right [hand]’). Matthew chose a better verb for the placing of the crown, but now it has to serve for, or at least suggest a missing verb for, the placing of the reed as

well. Matthew’s mock sceptre here is probably inspired by ‘they struck his head with a reed’ in Mk. 15:19. In Matthew the soldiers will take it back to strike him on the head (Mark’s ‘with a reed’ is, then, no longer needed). From here Matthew does some reordering of the Markan material. It seems to him more logical to have the kneeling before Jesus before the mock greeting, so material from the end of Mk. 15:19 is brought earlier. But Matthew has καὶ γονυπετήσαντες ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ (‘kneeling before him’) for Mark’s καὶ τιθέντες τὰ γόνατα προσεκύνουν αὐτῷ (lit. ‘and having placed the knees, they were doing obeisance to him’).398 While Luke is fond of Mark’s idiom τιθέναι τὰ γόνατα (lit. ‘place the knees’) — ve uses — it is not found anywhere else in the Bible, and Matthew avoids it. For Matthew προσκυνεῖν is restricted to what is at least on the way to a proper religious reverence for Jesus (see discussion at 2:2), so Matthew does not feel comfortable with the Markan usage. Matthew indicates the mocking nature of both the kneeling and the words to come by placing ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ (‘they mocked him’) between. To allow for this insertion, he reduces καὶ ἤρξαντο ἀσπάζεσθαι αὐτόν (‘and they began to greet him’) to λέγοντες (‘saying’). He draws ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ from Mk. 15:20, and will use it again in his equivalent, Mt. 27:31. Matthew has used this verb in the Passion prediction in 20:18-19. Despite learned speculation, there is no way to know what plant the Gospels have in mind for the crown of thorns. e point could be simply that a plant of no value was used (cf. the role of the thornbushes elsewhere in Matthew399), but a plant with spikes is not a natural choice of material to work with — twisting it together to make a crown is dangerous to the ngers — unless the spikes themselves have a role to play.400 e choice is spikes to represent the light rays which are supposed to have emanated from the heads

of divinities and which were laid claim to by various monarchs in the representation of their diadems on coins,401 or spikes to cause Jesus physical distress to go along with the emotional distress of the mock honouring. e former seems too precise to me with its attention to details of graphic representation, while the latter ts the general brutality of the scene and the wider setting. e crown has made clear that the crimson cloak was a contribution to a royal image. To this is added a reed (κάλαμος) in the right hand. e word regularly used for a royal sceptre was ῥάβδος (‘rod’), with something more substantial in mind than an easily broken stick of reed stem, which was good for a lightweight measuring rod but not for much else. e role of the ῥάβδος as a royal sceptre is made clear in the context (‘golden’, ‘royal’, ‘glorious’, ‘ruler’s’).402 e substitution of a reed is the deliberate use of something puny in place of something that could genuinely connote the power of royal rule. e greeting χαῖρε (lit. ‘rejoice’) was the one used by Judas in his act of betrayal. e same falseness is present here. ‘King of the Jews’ is repeated from its use by Pilate at the trial (v. 11). It will be repeated in v. 37 in the charge placed over Jesus’ head on the cross and paraphrased in v. 42 in the mocking of Jesus on the cross. e words articulate the royal pretensions that a crimson cloak, a crown of thornbush, and a reed sceptre cruelly parody. e equivalence between ‘king of the Jews’ here and ‘Christ’ in the earlier mockery in 26:68 is established by Pilate’s move from the one to the other between 27:11 and vv. 17, 22. 27:30 Again Matthew reorders: given Matthew’s earlier addition, to have Jesus struck with the reed at this point would involve beginning to dismantle the royal garb rather early; better to have Jesus spat on rst. Matthew, subordinating the spitting to the following action, represents this with an aorist participle rather than

Mark’s imperfect indicative.403 Aer ἐμπτύσαντες (‘spat’) Matthew has εἰς αὐτόν (‘at[?] him’) rather than Mark’s αὐτῷ (‘on him’). is brings the language closer to that in the parallel incident of mockery in 26:67-68, where spitting also features. Matthew has to have the reed retrieved from Jesus’ hand for its next use. Matthew uses εἰς (lit. ‘into’) aer ἔτυπτον (‘began to hit’) instead of Mark’s direct object. τύπτειν (‘hit’) regularly takes an accusative object, but the Matthean idiom is matched in Pr. 26:22 in the phrase τύπτουσιν εἰς ταμίεια σπλάγχνων (‘hit into the hidden places of one’s innermost feelings’). Accordingly I have translated ἔτυπτον εἰς as ‘began to hit into’. I think it likely, however, that the choice of εἰς was determined less by an interest in precision of meaning than by a desire to play with the sound similarities of ἐμπτυ- εἰς and ἐτυπτεἰς (stripping off the endings to highlight the similarity). Hitting with a reed stem could certainly sting and even bruise, but not do the kind of damage that a rod or a ogging whip could. 27:31 In line with v. 28 Mark’s τὴν πορϕύραν (‘the purple’) becomes τὴν χλαμύδα (‘the cloak’), but without the need to repeat the colour. ἀπήγαγον (‘led away’), which was kept back from v. 27, is now used in place of Mark’s ἐξάγουσιν (‘lead out’), and in the process Mark’s historic present is dispensed with. Possibly to echo the construction in 26:2, εἰς τὸ σταυρῶσαι (‘to crucify [him]’) replaces ἵνα σταυρώσωσιν αὐτόν (‘so that they might crucify him’). ὅτε ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ (lit. ‘when they mocked him’) looks back over the incident as an act of mockery from start to nish; I have, therefore, translated, ‘when they had [ nished] mocking him’. Matthew repeats the verb (ἐκδύειν) used in v. 28 for undressing, but now in relation to the ‘royal’ garb. It is now balanced by a use of ἐνδύειν (‘dress’), as Jesus’ own clothes are restored to him. In normal Roman practice the prisoner would go naked to the place of execution,404 but they may have made a concession to Jewish

sensibilities in Judea. At the cross, however, Jesus will be stripped of his clothing (27:35). As noted above, Matthew has used ἀπήγαγον (‘led away’) to mark the delivery to Caiaphas (26:57) and the delivery to Pilate (27:2); now it will mark the delivery to the cross. If we take Matthew’s language seriously, Jesus has quite a sizeable military escort as he makes his way to the place of cruci xion.

F. Section 6 (27:32-66) 1. e Soldiers Crucify Jesus (27:32-38) 32As Cyrene,a

they [the soldiers] were coming out, they found a person from Simon by name. ey pressed this [person] into service to carry his [Jesus’] cross. 33When they had come tob a place called Golgotha, that is, ccalled place of a skull, 34they gave him dwine mixed with gall to drink. When he had tasted it, he edid not wante to drink [it]. 35Aer they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by throwing a lot;f 36then they sat down and kept watch over him there. 37His ‘cause’ was placed above his head; [what was] written [was], ‘is is Jesus, the king of the Jews’. 38en two bandits are crucified with him, one at the right [hand]g and one at the le.h

TEXTUAL NOTES a. D it vgmss add εις απαντησιν αυτου (‘to meet him’). Does it go with the opening participle? If so, the positioning is odd. Perhaps the thought is of Simon coming to meet Jesus (and to perform for him this service). 33 adds, from Mk. 15:20, ερχομενον απ αγρου (‘coming from [the] country/ eld’). b. e de nite article is supplied in B 0281. c. Missing from ‫א‬1 D Γ Θ 0281 565 700 1241 1424 etc. lat sa bo. e difficulty posed by the text at this point is discussed below. d. οξος, the word used for ‘sour wine’ in Mt. 27:48 and in Ps. 68:22 (LXX), is used here in A W 0250 0281 etc. c f h q syp, h mae bomss. e-e. e imperfect rather than the aorist is found in ‫א‬1 A W etc. f. With inspiration from Jn. 19:24, another Matthean ful lment citation, ινα πληρωθη το ρηθεν δια (υπο f1, 13) του προϕητου (+ λεγοντες 0250) διαμερισαντο (-σαν Θ) τα ιματια μου εαυτοις, και επι τον ιματισμον μου εβαλον κληρον (‘so that what was spoken through [by] the prophet [saying],

“ey divided up my clothes for themselves, and for my clothing they threw a lot”, might be ful lled’), is created here in Δ Θ 0250 f1, 13 1424 etc. it vgcl syh mae. επ αυτα (‘for them’) is added from Mk. 15:24 in 892* etc. sys co?. g. Nomine Zoatham (‘Zoattam by name’) is added in c. h. Nomine Camma (‘Camma by name’) is added in c. Bibliography Bammel, E., ‘e titulus’, in Politics, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 35364. • Blount, B. K., ‘A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis of Simon of Cyrene: Mark 15:21 and Its Parallels’, Semeia 64 (1993), 171-98. • Brug, J. F., ‘Psalm 69:22 — ey Gave Me Gall’, Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 96 (1999), 50-52. • Buhlmann, W., ‘Die Kreuzigung Jesu’, HL 9 (1981), 3-12. • Crossan, J. D., Cross at Spoke, 160-233. • Crowder, S. B., Simon of Cyrene: A Case of Roman Conscription (Studies in Biblical Literature 46. New York/Bern: Lang, 2002). • Dillon, R. J., ‘e Psalms of the Suffering Just in the Accounts of Jesus’ Passion’, Worship 61 (1987), 430-40. • Guichard, D., ‘La reprise du Psaume 22 dans le récit de la mort de Jésus (Marc 15,21-41)’, FV 87 (1988), 59-64. • Jackson, H. M., ‘e Death of Jesus in Mark and the Miracle from the Cross’, NTS 33 (1987), 16-37. • Kingsbury, J. D., ‘e Signi cance of the Cross within the Plot of Matthew’s Gospel’, in Synoptic Gospels, ed. C. Focant, 263-79. • Martin, E. L., Secrets of Golgotha: e Forgotten History of Christ’s Crucifixion (Alhambra: ASK, 1988). • Mays, J. L., ‘Prayer and Christology: Psalm 22 as Perspective on the Passion’, TToday 42 (1985), 32231. • Riesner, R., ‘Golgotha und die Archäologie’, BK 40 (1985), 21-26. • Robbins, V. K., ‘e Cruci xion and the Speech of Jesus’, Forum 4.1 (1988), 33-46. • Sabbe, M., ‘e Johannine Account of the Death of Jesus and Its Synoptic Parallels’, ETL 70 (1994), 34-66. • Schreiber, J., Der Kreuzigungsbericht des Markusevangeliums: Mk 15,20b-41: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche und methodenkritische Untersuchung nach William Wrede (1859-1906) (BZNW 48. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1986). • Stolz, F., ‘Psalm 22: Alttestamentliches Reden vom Menschen und neutestamentliches Reden von Jesus’, ZTK 77 (1980), 129-48. • Wainwright,

E. M., Shall We Look for Another? A Feminist Rereading of the Matthean Jesus (Bible & Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), 100-118. On Crucifixion Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘Cruci xion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament’, in To Advance the Gospel: New Testament Studies (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 125-46. • Halperin, D. J., ‘Cruci xion, the Nahum Pesher, and the Rabbinic Penalty of Strangulation’, JJS 32 (1981), 32-46. • Harrison, S. J., ‘Cuero and “crurifragium”’, ClQ 33 (1983), 453-55. • Kuhn, H.-W., ‘Die Kreuzesstrafe während der früen Kaiserzeit: Ihre Wirklichkeit und Wertung in der Umwelt des Urchristentums’, ANRW 2.25.1 (1982), 648793. • Tzaferis, V., ‘Cruci xion: e Archaeological Evidence’, BAR 11.1 (1985), 44-53. • Zias, J., and Charlesworth, J. H., ‘Cruci xion: Archaeology, Jesus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth, 273-89. • Zugibe, F. T., ‘Two Questions about Cruci xion: Does the Victim Die of Asphyxiation? Would Nails in the Hands Hold the Weight of the body?’ BRev 5.2 (1989), 34-43. See further at Mt. 26:1-2; 27:11-14, 15-26.

We now begin the sixth and nal subsection of Matthew’s sectioning of the Passion Narrative (on the whole pattern see at 26:1-2). As with the rst subsection, this one has a more complex structure: a central piece is twice bracketed, not once bracketed as in the intermediate subsections. e account of Jesus’ death on the cross in vv. 45-53 is now the centre. e outer bracket is provided by accounts of the role of the soldiers in the cruci xion here in vv. 32-38405 and the role of the soldiers in securing the tomb in vv. 6266. Internally framed itself by the roles of Simon of Cyrene and of the bandits, the unit reports the giving of contaminated wine, the cruci xion, the sharing of the clothing, and the placing of a plaque which indicated the cause for which Jesus was being executed.

Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his equivalent to Mk. 15:2128. ere is no sign of a second source, but in uence from oral tradition is possible in Mt. 27:33 and likely in v. 37. e claim to historicity of the various items must be considered separately. Of the cruci xion itself there is no doubt. e role of Simon of Cyrene can really be explained adequately only in terms of historical memory. His sons were known among those who rst formulated the account. ough Matthew has linked the giving of wine to Ps. 69, this connection is not evident in the earlier Markan version. It has verisimilitude in its favour. e division of clothing with its uniform link with Ps. 22 could have been generated out of the psalm text, but the practice is thoroughly believable, and it is more likely that it was remembered and reported because of the Ps. 22 link rather than generated from that link. e plaque indicating the reason for execution (a well-documented practice) has not made use of any standard Christian confession and is thoroughly credible in relation to why the Romans might have been willing to execute Jesus. e manufacture of the bandits out of Is. 53:12 is not credible; it is not even clear whether the Gospel writers noticed the connection.406

27:32 ‘ey led him out to crucify [him]’ at the end of v. 31 could take us already to the scene of the cruci xion, but Matthew’s insertion of ἐξερχόμενοι (lit. ‘coming out’) makes clear that the story is being picked up well short of that goal, in fact just outside the praetorium. Matthew improves the logic of Mark’s account by having the party nd Simon before conscripting him. Matthew delays the mention of the impressment, and out of Mark’s παράγοντά τινα Σίμωνα Κυρηναῖον (‘a certain passerby, Simon of Cyrene’) he constructs εὗρον ἄνθρωπον Κυρηναῖον ὀνόματι Σίμωνα (‘they found a person from Cyrene, Simon by name’). He allows ἐρχόμενον ἀπ᾿ ἀγροῦ (‘coming from the country/ eld’) to drop away, as he does the family information about Simon’s sons that Mark gives. Matthew introduces τοῦτον (‘this [person]’) to take up the reference to Simon as he now nally introduces the

impressment (Mark’s verb, but an aorist rather than a historic present).407 Cyrene was the capital city of the North African district of Cyrenaica. ere was a Jewish population there,408 and there was even a Cyrenian synagogue in Jerusalem (Acts 6:9). Christian Jews from Cyrene feature in Acts (11:20; 13:1). Mark almost certainly mentions the names of Simon’s two sons because they were known in Christian circles. Here is a living link from the cruci xion to the Christian circles in which the Gospels were produced. But the names may not have been familiar in Matthew’s circles. I have commented on the practice of impressment involved here at Mt. 5:41. But the task is an unusual one. By ‘cross’ here is meant (by synecdoche) the cross bar and not the whole cross.409 e upright will already be in position at the place of execution. ‘Oen [the cross beam] was carried behind the nape of the neck like a yoke, with the condemned’s arms pulled back and hooked over it.’410 e condemned man was the one who was expected to carry the cross bar for his own execution.411 Our Gospel texts are not interested in why this exceptional arrangement was made, only that Simon became involved with the events for this reason. Probably Jesus had been so weakened by his earlier treatment that he would have been unable to undertake the task or would have died on the way if pressed to it. Was Simon being forced to undertake work forbidden to Jews on the day of Passover? Strictly speaking he probably was, but in the case of this sort of impressment he would not be considered to be personally in violation of the festival requirements, and, in any case, this was the kind of emergency in relation to which the rules were unlikely to be pressed.

Does Simon’s act offer an image of the discipleship that would take up the challenge of 16:24 to ‘take up their cross and … follow [Jesus]’? e language links are striking (ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ vs. ἄρῃ τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ), but αὐτοῦ means ‘his or her [own]’ in 16:24 and ‘Jesus’’ in 27:32, and there is no language of following in 27:32. e language of impressment has been taken to count against a discipleship motif here, but 5:41 treats impressment as something that one can and should embrace rather than resent. So the impressment language does not count decisively against an interest in discipleship. Strictly speaking, 27:32 does not report Simon’s carrying of the cross, only his impressment by the Roman soldiers for this purpose. So it is not quite Simon’s action which is in focus. In order to mark Simon as acting out the part of the disciple at a point where all the disciples have deserted, it would have been ever so easy for Matthew (or Mark before him) to include the language of following, or even to describe Simon’s implementation of the impressment demand. In the absence of these, I think it might be right to claim an image of discipleship, but not an act of discipleship; a challenge, but not an example. 27:33 Matthew largely rewrites the Markan verse, but with little change of sense. Mark’s ϕέρουσιν αὐτόν (‘they bring him’) immediately loses sight of Simon; Matthew’s more general ἐλθόντες (‘coming’) covers everybody. An unwanted historic present is disposed of in the same change. ough not so consistently as in the previous unit, Matthew has quite a number of aorist participles followed by aorist verbs in this unit. e change to ἐλθόντες is the rst of them.412 ἐπὶ τὸν Γολγοθὰν τόπον (lit. ‘on the Golgotha place’) becomes εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον Γολγοθά (lit. ‘into a place called Golgotha’). Matthew is probably not happy with the mixture of transliteration and translation involved in Mark’s juxtaposition of ‘Golgotha’ and

‘place’ (cf. his treatment of the ‘Abba, Father’ of Mk. 14:36 in Mt. 26:39). For the translation of the name Matthew substitutes ὅ ἐστιν λεγόμενος (lit. ‘which is called’) for ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενος (‘which is translated’).413 He will eliminate μεθερμηνευόμενον in v. 46 (but there he uses τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν [‘that is’]) and eliminates the need of it in 9:25. e one place where Matthew allows μεθερμηνευόμενον to stand is 1:23. Probably there a use of λέγειν (‘call’) would have been too much like the use of καλεῖν (‘call’) in the OT text being commented on. But he has failed to notice that a similar consideration ought to have constrained him in 27:33. Matthew rather infelicitously has ‘a place called Golgotha, which is called Place of the Skull’, unless he means that Greek speakers used the Greek equivalent and not the Semitic name, which at rst seems unlikely but can be supported from Lk. 23:33; Jn. 19:17. ere may be another anomaly in Matthew’s account here: in eliminating the mix of languages in Mark’s ‘Golgotha place’ Matthew gives the name as ‘Golgotha’, but for the translation ‘place’ remains, carried over from Mark. Curiously, Jn. 19:17 has the same difficulty. Perhaps both John and Matthew are aware that the name in Aramaic was ‘Skull’, but the name in Greek was ‘Skull-place’.414 Mention of the location as ‘Skull-place’ makes its own contribution to the sombre atmosphere of the scene being recounted. ough the representation is not precise, ‘Golgotha’ represents the Aramaic gûlgaltā rather than the Hebrew gulgōlet.415 ‘Calvary’ of common Christian usage renders the Latin for skull, calvaria. ough Golgotha is normally considered to have been within the area of the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre (beyond the north wall of the city, not far from the Garden Gate), there is no archaeological certainty about its location.416 We might expect it to be outside the walled city (i.e., the walls of Jesus’ day, not the walls of the later enlarged city). It will be close to

a thoroughfare in order to guarantee the publicity that was so important for Roman justice. Most likely something about the topography originally inspired the name, but there are other possibilities.417 e traditional site offers a knoll originally formed by quarrying in the area. It stands thirty- ve to forty feet above the quarry oor, but due to in lling already by the period of Jesus it is not clear how far above the surrounding ground level the knoll would have stood in Jesus’ day. In any case, it would have served as a suitable prominence for making a public statement with the execution. e remains of tombs cut into the rock of the knoll have been identi ed;418 since Jesus is likely to have been buried not too far from the site of his execution, this represents another point in favour of the traditional location. 27:34 Matthew asks himself the obvious question: ‘How did Jesus know what was being offered him?’ His answer is that Jesus must have tasted it before rejecting it. So Mark’s ἐδίδουν (here: ‘tried to give’) becomes ἔδωκαν (gave’) — this change also provides the second half of the aorist participle plus aorist indicative pairing commented on in v. 33 — καὶ γευσάμενος (‘and having tasted’) is added — which starts the next participle plus indicative set — and ὃς δὲ οὐκ ἔλαβεν (‘who would not take [it]’) is replaced with οὐκ ἠθέλησεν πιεῖν (‘he was not willing to drink [it]’). But Matthew also has a different angle on what Jesus has been offered. Mark has ‘ἐσμυρισμένον wine’, which means wine into which myrrh has been mixed. ere is a long history of alcohol being used to dull the effects of pain; it is even recommended in Pr. 31:6 (‘strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress’). Myrrh is an aromatic, resinous gum. It may have been thought to enhance the sopori c and therefore the paindulling effect of wine, but its most obvious use with wine in the ancient world was to enhance the avour of the wine.419 e

Markan Jesus is refusing ne wine offered to relieve his suffering. e refusal can only be a statement about his commitment to drain to the dregs the cup that it is his Father’s will for him to drink (Mk. 14:36). It seems a little odd that the soldiers who have been mocking Jesus should now offer this token of sympathy, and that may have bothered Matthew. But in any case the situation is different in Matthew. For Matthew the wine is μετὰ χολῆς μεμιγμένον (‘mixed with gall’). e LXX uses χολή to translate various Hebrew terms, with meanings that range from the bitter substance secreted from the liver into the gall bladder, through ‘wormwood’, and to ‘poison’. ere is some evidence for the addition of wormwood as a avouring to wine in the ancient world.420 So possibly Matthew is simply replacing sweet wine with dry. But rather more likely he thinks instead of the spoiling of the wine. Since it is the same soldiers who had mocked Jesus earlier, giving him spoiled wine would continue the pattern of the earlier mockery. As wine contaminated with gall, the wine here and the sour wine (ὄξος) of v. 48 make a nice echo of Ps. 68:22 LXX (MT 69:22; ET 69:21), which juxtaposes, as what has been offered to the psalmist by those who are his foes and who have been insulting him, χολή (‘gall’), given as bread, and ὄξος, given as drink. e Matthean change of detail draws attention to the relevance of this psalm to the experience Jesus is undergoing.421 Various features of the psalm could illuminate Jesus’ situation, and certainly the broad theme of the psalm, the suffering of the righteous, is an important one, but following the thread through the Passion Narrative of Jesus’ commitment to what was the Father’s will for him, perhaps v. 8 (ET v. 7) is most tting: ‘It is for your [i.e., God’s] sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face’.

27:35 Matthew creates another aorist participle and aorist indicative pair with the changes that he makes to the Markan verbs here. Again he dispenses with historic presents. Curiously his pattern subordinates the cruci xion to the subsequent sharing of Jesus’ clothing. Matthew drops the rather unnecessary ἐπ᾿ αὐτὰ τίς τί ἄρῃ (lit. ‘over them: who should take what’). It is striking that none of the Gospel accounts provides any description of the actual cruci xion. ere is likely a number of reasons for this: (a) in the world for which the Gospels were written this barbaric punishment was well known, and the mere mention of it would evoke powerful images; (b) given the limited descriptions in the secular sources and the tenor of some comments, it would seem that educated Romans considered the subject so unsavoury as to be avoided as much as possible in conversation; (c) the one who had been cruci ed in this case was the beloved Lord, so to dwell on his agony on the cross felt wrong; and (d) the focus of interest of the Gospel accounts is not on the cruci xion as such, except as having happened, but on the larger pattern of signi cance within which the cruci xion nds its place. Ancient literary accounts can be pieced together to provide information on the Roman practice of cruci xion, and these can now be supplemented by what may be learned from the discovery of the remains of a Jewish victim of cruci xion in the excavation of ancient cave tombs at Givʿat ha-Mivtar, just north of Jerusalem near Mount Scopus and immediately west of the road to Nablus. Cruci xion seems to have been designed to be as shocking a means of execution by torture as lent itself to public display. On the whole, the concern seems to have been to prolong the death agony. e sources suggest that there were many different ways in which victims were cruci ed: various kinds of preliminary torture, different kinds of crosses, different postures on the cross (impaled, cruciform, upside down)….

We cannot be sure exactly how Jesus was cruci ed, but it is likely that the nails pierced his forearms rather than, as in the traditional picture, his hands (χεῖρας in Luke 24:39, 40; John 20:20, 25, 27 can mean “arms” as well as “hands”). Possibly, in connection with Jewish concerns that the body not remain on the cross overnight and especially so on the eve of a sabbath, the use of the buttocks support, which prolonged life and therefore extended the agony, may have been, on occasion, dispensed with for cruci xions in Judea (a cruci ed man might otherwise survive for days; alternatively, a more rigorous regime of precruci xion agellation may have been used to abbreviate the death agonies).422

e description of the distribution of the clothing is formulated to echo Ps. 22:19(ET v. 18; LXX 21:18). e LXX has διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτιά μου … ἔβαλον κλῆρον (‘they divided my garments … threw a lot’); Matthew has διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ βάλλοντες κλῆρον (‘they divided his garments, throwing a lot’). As with Ps. 68 above, there is much in the psalm that resonates with the Passion Narrative. Since we are going to come back to Ps. 22:1 in the cry of desolation in Mt. 27:46, it is the experience of abuse and affliction without any sign of the saving intervention of God to which we can most con dently link the use of Ps. 22:19 in Mt. 27:35. But in the larger shape of Matthew’s story the expectation of ultimate deliverance by God, which is so important for the larger shape of the psalm, will also be in mind. We should probably think of Jesus as totally naked on the cross. is was the normal Roman pattern.423 But since Jesus had been allowed his clothing for the journey to Golgotha, some scholars have surmised that the same concession to Jewish sensibilities would mean that a loincloth would have been allowed on the cross. Since, however, even rabbinic opinion was divided over whether a condemned male should be stoned naked or with a covering over

the genital area (m. Sanh. 6:3), there is no strong case for a Roman concession on this matter. e practice of a condemned man’s clothes going to the executing soldiers has not been documented,424 but it is intrinsically likely, and yet more likely in a case where the condemned man goes still clothed to the place of execution. 27:36 is verse is distinctive to Matthew. It displaces the time of cruci xion statement of Mk. 15:25. e active role of these soldiers is nished for the moment, but their presence will become important again in v. 54. is verse encourages a reader to keep the soldiers in mind as observers of what is to transpire between. In v. 54 the language with which they will be reintroduced, οἱ … τηροῦντες τὸν Ἰησοῦν (‘those keeping watch over Jesus’) — a Matthean addition — will clearly echo ἐτήρουν αὐτόν (lit. ‘they were keeping watch over him’) here. ere was always the possibility that a man like Jesus with a popular following would be the subject of a rescue attempt. e soldiers’ presence ensures that this will not be the case. 27:37 Mark uses ἐπιγραϕή to refer to what was displayed to indicate Jesus’ crime. Depending on the particular force given to the ἐπι pre x (‘in’, ‘above’, ‘on’), the word can mean ‘inscription’ or ‘superscription’, or just ‘writing’ (as in ‘the writing on the wall’). Mark probably intends the third,425 but it is just possible that Matthew takes him to mean the second and draws from this his own distinctive ‘and they placed above his head’. Since, however, Jn. 19:19 speci es that the charge was ‘on the cross’ and Lk. 23:38 locates it ‘over him [i.e., Jesus]’, Matthew more likely draws on oral tradition. If the statement was on the cross and not on some separately set-up notice board or hung around Jesus’ neck, then a position above the head seems most likely, and this in turn suggests that Jesus’ cross was ‘t’ shaped, much as it has been traditionally represented. Matthew adjusts the case of ἡ αἰτία (‘cause’) to t into

the syntax of his own earlier language and does the same with Mark’s ἐπιγεγραμμένη (‘written’), dropping the ἐπι pre x as he does so. Finally, by adding οὗτός ἐστιν (‘this is’) at the beginning, Matthew transforms the charge from a title into a statement. He also adds Ἰησοῦς (‘Jesus’) to personalise the statement. Matthew is at times not careful about antecedents and will use ‘they’ forms as equivalents to passive constructions. at is probably the case here with ἐπέθηκαν (‘they placed’), since it makes little sense to settle the soldiers to watch in v. 36 and then to have them create a sign in v. 37. So I have translated above with the passive ‘was placed’. Matthew is completing the painting of the scene, not continuing the sequence of events here. Since αἰτία is not a technical term for a legal charge and what is written is clearly not the language of a legal charge, I have preferred to translate with the more general term ‘cause’.426 e use of such a plaque to indicate the reason for the execution is well documented.427 Such plaques were not official legal noti cations but means of informing the public, in order, presumably, to maximise the deterrence potential of the execution. ough the core phrase ‘the king of the Jews’, which links back to Pilate’s question in v. 11 and the mockery in v. 29 (the meaning is discussed in those two places), is common to the four Gospel versions of the ‘cause’, no two concur entirely on the wording. Jn. 19:19 agrees with Matthew in adding the name Jesus, but for John it is ‘Jesus the Nazorean’. Lk. 23:38 agrees with Matthew in adding οὗτος (‘this’), but puts it at the end and not the beginning, and leaves the verb ἔστιν (‘is’) to be understood. e differences between Matthew and Mark have already been noted above. 27:38 Matthew adds an opening τότε (‘then’): he is back to sequential reporting now. His separation of the cruci xion of the bandits as subsequent to Jesus’ cruci xion keeps Jesus from being

just one of three: the others might have been executed on the same occasion, but Jesus is in a class apart. is time Matthew does remember to switch to the passive. In making the switch he decides to keep Mark’s historic present this time.428 What can be the reason for placing emphasis here? I think it is that he wants to indicate a link between v. 38 and 20:21, 23 (see there): it is the bandits who get the positions that James and John were aer. e speci cation of the positions as being at the right and le of Jesus lends itself to this association (except for the personal pronouns in chap. 20 the language is identical). If this is so, then we are being freshly invited to view Jesus’ cruci xion in relation to his kingly rule. If only in a proleptic sense, Jesus, paradoxically, manifests his kingly rule from the cross. Jesus had complained in 26:55 that he was being treated as a bandit in his arrest. Now his companions in death indicate that he is being treated as a bandit here too. An echo of Is. 53:12, ‘he was numbered with the transgressors’, was ripe for exploitation, but since there are no links in vocabulary in any of the Gospels, we cannot be sure that this had been spotted. Only if we believe that more than a contribution to the portrayal of the degradation of Jesus’ nal period must lie behind the preservation of this memory will an intended echo of Is. 53:12 commend itself. 2. ree Lots of Mockers (27:39-44) 39ose

who passed by would blaspheme him, shaking their heads 40and saying, ‘e one who destroys the temple and builds [it] in three days! Save yourself, if you are [the] Son of God, aand come down from the cross.’ 41Similarly, the chief priests mocked him as well, with the scribes band elders,b and said, 42‘He saved others; he is not able to save himself. cHe is the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and dwe will believed in him.

43eHe

trusts in God; let him rescue f[him] nowf if he wants him. For he said, “I am [the] Son of God”.’ 44In the same way the bandits gwho were crucifiedg with him also railed at him.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from ‫א‬2 B L W Θ 0250 f1, 13 33 etc. lat sy co?. b-b. Missing from G etc. (as in Mk. 15:31); και Φαρισαιων (‘and Pharisees’) is found instead in D W 1424 etc. it sys; και Φαρισαιων (‘and Pharisees’) as well in the Majority text f syp, h bopt. c. ει (‘if ’) is added in A W Θ f1, 13 etc. lat sy mae bo to make clear that the mockers do not believe this. d-d. πιστευσωμεν (‘let us believe’) in ‫ א‬L W Γ Δ Θ f13 33 565 579 1424 etc., probably in uenced by Mk. 15:32. e. ει (‘if ’) is added in D Θ f1 etc. it co. Cf. note f above. f-f. νυν αυτον (‘him now’) in D W Θ f1, 13 etc. lat; αυτον (‘him’) in A 565 1424 etc. ff2. g-g. e de nite article is missing in D L Θ, giving ‘having been cruci ed’. Bibliography Donaldson, T. L., ‘e Mockers and the Son of God (Matthew 27.37-44): Two Characters in Matthew’s Story of Jesus’, JSNT 41 (1991), 3-18. • Graham, S. L., ‘A Strange Salvation: Intertextual Allusion in Mt 27,39-44’, in Scriptures, ed. C. Tuckett, 501-11. • Paesler, K., Tempelwort, 30-38. • Robbins, V. K., ‘e Reversed Contextualization of Psalm 22 in the Markan Cruci xion: A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck, 1,161-85. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 57-68; 27:11-14, 15-26, 32-38.

On the complex double bracketing of the account of Jesus’ death on the cross in vv. 45-53 see the comments at 27:32-38, and on the larger structure of the Passion Narrative see those at 26:1-2. 27:3238 contributed the opening outer bracket; vv. 39-44, with its three lots of mockers of Jesus, now contribute the opening inner bracket, which will be matched by an account of ‘affirmation’ of Jesus by three categories of people in vv. 54-61. Echoing mostly the material of the Sanhedrin hearing, three lots of people mock the dying Jesus, whose pretensions seem to be now belied by his situation. e Markan sequence is continued with Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 15:29-32. Apart from the addition of Mt. 27:43, Matthew stays fairly close to the Markan content and language. e mocking of Jesus on the cross is intrinsically likely. But while the content is in continuity with credible elements of the hearings before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, the details and the precise formulation represent artistic theological writing which draws heavily on OT images and texts.429

27:39 In vv. 39-44, apart from the addition in v. 43, Matthew makes limited changes to the Markan language. In the present verse the only change is that from a linking καί (‘and’) to a linking δέ (‘and/but’).430 Since cruci xions were also public thoroughfares, ‘those who passed by’ can encompass the public broadly, but is not as committedly comprehensive as the language of v. 25. On the other hand, the random selection of the Jerusalem population that the verb implies marks the Jerusalem leadership’s control over public opinion about Jesus as having spread rapidly beyond the crowds gathered before Pilate to ask for Barabbas.431 ἐβλασϕήμουν (lit. ‘were blaspheming’) could be translated ‘would slander’ (see discussion at 15:19), but the language of blasphemy is better, given that the suggestion that these people ἐβλασϕήμουν Jesus is probably a deliberate inversion of the accusations of blasphemy against Jesus

in 26:65. Nonetheless, in the light of 12:31-32, this is not as ultimately damning as it might at rst appear. A different verb will be used with each set of mockers: ‘blaspheme’, ‘mock’, ‘rail at/revile’. e OT allusion here is in the rst instance to a theme and not to a speci c text. e shaking of the head is a stock OT image for mockery by those who are hostile to the people of God.432 It is an image either of condemnation or of mock sympathy (‘Oh dear! Look how things have turned out for you!’). But because of the recent echo of Ps. 22 in Mt. 27:35, the presence of this image in Ps. 22:8(ET v. 7) is likely to be particularly in mind,433 and given the yet stronger language links with La. 2:15 (where Jerusalem is the mocked sufferer), that text is also likely to be in view.434 ere may be irony in the connection with La. 2:15: that which is happening to Jesus will lead to a repetition of the same act of mockery as in La. 2:15, to be directed against these present mockers as residents of Jerusalem when Jerusalem meets its doom in a repetition of the sixth-century-B.C. experience. 27:40 Matthew has made somewhat more modi cation of the Markan text in this verse. He has dropped the Markan interjection οὐά (‘aha’), which is found only here in the Bible. He has also added εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοὺ θεοὺ (‘if you are [the] Son of God’) to echo the use of this phrase by the devil in 4:3, 6: the reader is to see the challenge here as a renewal of the earlier satanic temptation. e addition of Son-of-God language here and in v. 43 will also serve to point up the confession of the centurion and those with him in v. 54 as being the positive counterpart to the present mockery — something that has signi cance for Matthew’s structuring of the material. e immediate justi cation for its addition is the role of Son-of-God language in the Sanhedrin hearing (see 26:63). e more forceful imperative construction, καὶ κατάβηθι (‘and come down’), replaces

Mark’s participial construction, καταβάς (lit. ‘having come down’).435 e description of Jesus as ‘the one who destroys the temple and builds it in three days’ takes up the language of the witnesses of 26:61. On the meaning of the language see the comments there. We may be meant to see a slight misrepresentation in the popular rendering here, but the main thing is the contrast between Jesus’ grandiose claims to power and the sorry state in which he now is. e right framework for evaluating the challenge to Jesus to save himself is provided by 16:25, where in the wake of the rst Passion prediction Jesus had said, ‘Whoever wants to save their life will lose it’ and ‘Whoever loses their life for my sake will nd it’. Jesus is losing his life as a drinking of the cup which his Father has given to him to drink. To save himself would be to abort his mission, to undercut all that his ministry has represented. e drawn-out horror of dying on a cross must have frequently provoked a revery of breaking free from the cross to which one was pinned. is is what Jesus is being mockingly challenged to do. 27:41 Matthew drops πρὸς ἄλληλους (‘to one another’), which in Mark prepares for the third person forms which will distinguish this second act of mocking from the rst: the third person forms themselves will make the point clearly enough. Matthew adds ‘And the elders’ to his version of the leadership groups involved to give at last a listing of the three leadership groups featured in the rst Passion prediction in 16:21. On Matthew’s manipulation of the Markan references to leadership groups in the Jerusalem section of the Gospel see the comments at 21:23. e third person forms mean that we are not necessarily to imagine that the Jerusalem leadership groups went to the cross to do their mocking: they are mocking about Jesus rather than

necessarily mocking Jesus to his face. e use of ἐμπαίζειν (‘mock’) here provides a link to vv. 29 and 31 in the earlier soldiers’ mockery. 27:42 Matthew drops ‘the Christ’ before ‘the king of Israel’: he is going to add ‘Son of God’ in v. 43, and given the link with 26:63 (‘Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God’), the one designation will do; in any case, there is a certain amount of internal duplication involved in ‘the Christ, the king of Israel’. In Mark ‘the Christ, the king of Israel’ could be either the subject of the third person imperative (so: ‘let the Christ … come down’) or, more likely, a functional parallel to ‘the one who destroys the temple and builds it in three days’. Matthew opts clearly for the latter by making it into a full clause in its own right with the addition of ἐστιν. Matthew replaces Mark’s purpose clause with the two verbs ‘see’ and ‘believe’ with a καί (‘and’) plus future construction with only the latter verb: the seeing can be taken to be implied, or, if we are to think of the Jerusalem leaders as not necessarily at the cross, it would not literally be true; the change of construction conforms the language to a striking-a-deal pattern (‘If he does this, we are prepared to do that’). Matthew also adds ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν to give ‘believe in him’. While Mark’s ‘believe’ ts well enough within the Gospel story, ‘believe in him’ is not the language of the ministry of Jesus but of the life of the church.436 Matthew has the leaders offer to become Christians if Jesus should come down from the cross. Perhaps the account of the reaction of the chief priests to the report by the guards in 28:11-15 should make us think that they did not uphold their end of the bargain when Jesus, not as they were proposing but by resurrection, broke free from the clutches of the cross. By contrast, it is Jesus not coming down from the cross but staying on the cross that brings about the unfolding events which evoke the response in 27:54, ‘Truly, this person was [the] Son of God’.

‘He saved others’ is meant sarcastically, but it reminds the readers of Jesus’ rescue of others from their plights. But this plight is of a different sort and sits differently within the purposes of God. Matthew does not use ‘king of Israel’ elsewhere. In fact, except as parallelled here in Mark, the phrase is found elsewhere in the NT only in Jn. 1:49; 12:13. But it is only a transposition back into more Jewish terms of ‘king of the Jews’ of vv. 11, 29, and 37.437 Only the third person form and ‘now’ distinguish the Jerusalem leaders’ ‘let him come down now from the cross’ from the words of the passersby. 27:43 Matthew continues the leaders’ mockery with this added verse. Its obvious connection to Ps. 22:9(ET v. 8; LXX 21:8) increases con dence that Mt. 27:39 has a de nite link with v. 8. In uence from the LXX text form seems clear. e MT has, ‘Commit your cause to Yahweh; let him deliver — let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’ But to avoid the possibility of the sarcasm being misunderstood, the Greek restricts the element of sarcasm to the end and transmutes this to, ‘He hoped in [the] Lord; let him rescue him, let him save him because he wants him’. Mt. 27:43 uses πέποιθεν (‘he trusts’) instead of ἤλπισεν (‘he hoped’) and ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν (‘in God’) in place of ἐπὶ κύριον (‘in [the] Lord’). It does not bother with the object αὐτόν (‘him’) aer ῥυσάσθω (‘let him rescue’) and drops ‘let him save him’ since the salvation theme has already been handled in a different way in v. 42. Matthew adds νῦν (‘now’) to parallel the use in v. 42. Finally, he removes the last bit of the sarcasm of the LXX text by replacing ὅτι (‘because’) with εἰ (‘if ’). On the signi cance of the links with Ps. 22 see the comments at Mt. 27:35. Given the likely secondary link to La. 2:15, and thus imagery of threat to the city of Jerusalem, in Mt. 27:39, it would be attractive to nd a secondary link to Is. 36:7 = 2 Ki. 18:22, which in the LXX

share with Mt. 27:43 the use of a present perfect form of πείθειν (‘trust’ in the present perfect), not found in Ps. 21:8 (LXX).438 In Is. 36:7 a declaration of trust in God is being sneered at. None of the other texts where the language is as close shares this feature with Mt. 27:39.439 e trust in God of Is. 36:7, as in Mt. 27:43, is a trust in God which in due course is vindicated. e supporting ‘for’ clause shares with the material from Ps. 22:9 in a double way: ‘I am the Son of God’ can be both the way in which the Jerusalem leaders have deemed Jesus to have expressed his trust in God and that which raises the question whether this self-proclaimed ‘Son of God’ is actually wanted by the God of whom he claims to be ‘Son’. As in Mt. 27:40, the immediate justi cation for the ‘Son of God’ language here is its role in the Sanhedrin hearing in 26:63. ere is, of course, an important difference, but the high priest had considered Jesus’ ‘You have said [it]’ as equivalent to the present language of 27:43. In the larger context of the mockery, the addition of the Son-ofGod clause to the material echoing Ps. 22:9 produces something which has a striking similarity to Wis. 2:13, 16-20: He claims to have knowledge of God and names himself a child (παῖδα) of [the] Lord…. He pretends falsely that God is his Father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is a Son of God, he will come to his aid and rescue him from the hand of his opponents. Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may know his forbearance and make trial of his patient endurance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, there will be a visitation [of God] for him (αὐτοῦ ἐπισκοπή).

e t is so good that surely this material was in Matthew’s mind as he wrote. If so, Matthew will expect his readers to understand how

benighted the attitude of the opponents of the righteous man of the book of Wisdom is and will be shown to be as the book unfolds.440 Matthew will be seeing the present scene of mocking very much in relation to the coming vindication, rst in the events of 27:45-54 and then in the resurrection. 27:44 Matthew now returns to Markan material. τὸ δ᾿ αὐτό (‘in the same way’) at the beginning is Matthew’s contribution,441 as is the fresh labelling of those cruci ed as ‘the bandits’. Otherwise he reproduces the Markan language. e bandits cruci ed with Jesus make up the third set of mockers. Matthew has no words to set on their lips, so he settles for the nonspeci c ‘in the same way’. Since the common elements of the rst two sets of mockery are the reference to coming down from the cross and the Son-of-God language, we are to imagine that these also feature here. e use of ὀνειδίζειν (‘rail at/revile/reproach’) relates to that of the beatitude of 5:11, where the railing at is for the sake of Jesus.442 3. e Death of Jesus (27:45-53) the sixth hour darkness came aover all the landa until the ninth hour. 46About the ninth hour Jesus called out in a loud voice, b‘Eli, Eli,b clema sabachthani?’c is is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ 47Some of those standing there, when they heard [this], began to say, ‘is [fellow] is calling Elijah’. 48Immediately one dof themd ran and took a sponge, and filled it with sharp wine and put it on a reed, and began to give him a drink. 49e rest ewere saying,e ‘Wait [there]! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.’f 50Again, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, and he let [his] spirit go. 45From

51eng the curtain of the sanctuary was two,i and the earth was shaken, and the rocks

split hfrom top to bottomh iinto were split, 52and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the holy ones who had fallen asleep were raised.

53And jaer

his resurrection,j they came out of the tombs and went into the holy city and appeared to many.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from ‫ *א‬etc. b-b. ελωι (‘Eloi’), as in Mk. 15:34, in ‫ א‬B 33 vgmss co. c-c. λαμα ζαϕθανι (‘lama zaphthani’) in D* (Dc has σαϕθ- [‘saphth-’]) b ff2 h; λαμα σαβαχθανι (‘lama sabachthani’) in Θ f1 etc. vgcl mae; λιμα σαβαχθανι (‘lima sabachthani’) in A (W) f13 etc. (f q); λεμα σαβακτανει (‘lema sabaktanei’) in B (892) etc. lat bopt. d-d. Missing from ‫א‬. Cf. Mk. 15:36. e-e. ειπαν (‘said’) in B (D) f13 etc. A scribal switch from imperfect to aorist is easier to understand than the reverse. f. A version of Jn. 19:34, αλλος δε λαβων λογχην ενυξεν αυτου την πλευραν, καν εξηλθεν υδωρ και αιμα (‘another took a spear and stabbed his side, and water and blood came out’), is added here in ‫ א‬B C L Γ etc. vgmss mae. ough occasionally defended as original, this reading is widely recognised, despite its strong attestation, to be an intrusion of Johannine material, probably representing the early insertion of a marginal note. e striking thing is the position chosen for the insertion: immediately before Jesus’ death. Pennells, ‘Spear rust’, 99-115, documents other early traditions which located the spear thrust prior to Jesus’ death (though some of the evidence is more ambiguous than Pennells allows). But this probably only demonstrates how widespread the Matthean variant text was at an early date. g. Greek: και ιδου (lit. ‘and behold’). h-h. Greek: απ ανωθεν εως κατω (lit. ‘from above as far as below’). i-i. Found aer ‘split’ in A C3 (D, adding μερη [‘parts’]) W f1, 13 etc. syp, h mae, as in Mk. 15:38. j-j. Because of the interpretive difficulty created by these words, they are sometimes (e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:634-35; Troxel, ‘Matthew

27.51-54’, 36-37) thought to be a scribal insertion. But absence from the Palestinian Syriac Lectionary, Eg. Pap. 3 frg. 1 (recto) and probably from the Diatessaron represents a very slender basis for this proposal. Bibliography Aarde, A. G. van, ‘Matthew 27:45-53 as the Turning of the Tide in Israel’s History’, BTB 28 (1998), 16-26. • Aguirre, R., ‘Cross and Kingdom in Matthew’s eology’, TD 29 (1981), 149-53. • Allison, D. C., ‘Anticipating the Passion’, CBQ 56 (1994), 701-14. • Allison, D. C., End, 40-50. • Aus, R., Samuel, Saul and Jesus (Atlanta: Scholars, 1994), 109-73. • Brower, K., ‘Elijah in the Markan Passion Narrative’, JSNT 18 (1983), 85-101. • Burchard, C., ‘Markus 15,34’, ZNW 74 (1983), 1-11. • Caza, L., ‘Le relief que Marc a donné au cri de la croix’, ScEs 39 (1987), 171-91. • Chronis, H. L., ‘e Torn Veil: Cultus and Christology in Mark 15:37-39’, JBL 101 (1982), 97-114. • CohnSherbok, D., ‘Jesus’ Cry on the Cross: An Alternative View’, ExpTim 93 (1982), 215-17. • Crawford, L., ‘Non, Jésus n’est pas mort sur le Golgotha!’ CCER 33.142 (1985), 17-29; 34.143 (1986), 20-22; 34.144 (1986), 37-42. • Deissler, A., ‘“Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen …!” (Ps 22,2): Das Reden zu Gott und von Gott in den Psalmen — am Beispiel von Psalm 22’, in ‘Ich will euer Gott werden’: Beispiele biblischen Redens von Gott, ed. H. Merklein and E. Zenger (SBS 100. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981), 97-121. • Edwards, W. D., Gabel, W. J., and Hosmer, F. E., ‘On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ’, Journal of the American Medical Association 255 (1986), 1455-63. • Fuller, R. C., ‘e Bodies of the Saints: Matt 27,52-53’, Scr 3 (1948), 86-88. • Gilly, R., Passion de Jésus: Les conclusions d’un médicin (Paris: Fayard, 1985). • Gourgues, M., ‘“Il entendit de son temple ma voix”: Échos du “Cantique de David” (Ps 18–2 S 22) en Mt 27,50-51 et dans le Nouveau Testament’, in Où demeures-tu? La maison depuis le monde biblique. FS G. Couturier, ed. J.-C. Petit (Montreal: Fides, 1994), 323-41. • Guichard, D., ‘La reprise du Psaume 22 dans le récit de la mort de Jésus’, FV 87 (1988), 59-65. • Hill, D., ‘Matthew 27:51-53 in the eology of the Evangelist’, IBS 7 (1985), 76-87. • Jackson, H. M., ‘e Death of Jesus in Mark and the Miracle from the Cross’, NTS 33 (1987), 16-37. • Jonge, M. de, ‘Matthew 27.51 in Early Christian Exegesis’, HTR 79 (1986), 67-79. • Jonge,

M. de, ‘Two Interesting Interpretations of the Rending of the Temple-veil in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, Bijdragen 46 (1985), 350-62. • Kraus, W., ‘Die Passion des Gottessohnes: Zur Bedeutung des Todes Jesu im Matthäusevangelium’, EvT 57 (1997), 409-27. • LaCocque, A., ‘Le grand cri de Jésus dans Mathieu 27/50’, ETR 75 (2000), 161-87. • Landes, G. M., ‘Matthew 12.40 as an Interpretation of “e Sign of Jonah” against Its Biblical Background’, in e Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth. FS D. N. Freedman, ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 665-84, esp. 670-74. • Légasse, S., ‘Les voiles du Temple de Jérusalem: Essai de parcours historique’, RB 87 (1980), 560-89. • Maisch, I., ‘Die Österliche Dimension des Todes Jesu: Zur Osterverkündigung in Mt 27,51-54’, in Auferstehung Jesu — Auferstehung der Christen. FS A. Vögtle, ed. L. Oberlinner (QD 105. Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 96-123. • Mora, V., Création, 95-100, 201-7. • Motyer, S., ‘e Rending of the Veil: A Markan Pentecost?’ NTS 33 (1987), 155-57. • Niskansen, P., ‘e Last Words of Jesus’, HPR 102 (2002), 23-25. • Parker, D. G., Living Text, 40-41. • Pella, G., ‘“Pourquoi m’as-tu abandonné?” Marc 15,33-39’, Hokhma 39 (1988), 3-24. • Pennells, S., ‘e Spear rust (Mt. 27,49b, v.l./Jn. 19,34)’, JSNT 19 (1983), 99-115. • Petersen, W. L., ‘Romanos and the Diatessaron’, NTS 29 (1983), 484-507. • Radl, W., ‘Der Tod Jesu in der Darstellung der Evangelien’, TGl 72 (1982), 432-46. • Riebl, M., ‘Jesu Tod und Auferstehung — Hoffnung für unser Sterben’, BibLit 57 (1984), 208-13.• Rossé, G., e Cry of Jesus on the Cross: A Biblical and eological Study, tr. S. W. Arndt (New York: Paulist, 1987). • Sagne, J.-C., ‘e Cry of Jesus on the Cross’, Concil 169 (1983), 5258. • Schmidt, T. E., ‘Cry of Dereliction or Cry of Judgment? Mark 15:34 in Context’, BBR 4 (1994), 145-53. • Schmidt, T. E., ‘e Penetration of Barriers and the Revelation of Christ in the Gospels’, NovT 34 (1992), 229-46. • Schwarz, G., ‘ΚΑΘΕΛΕΙΝ oder ΣΩΣΩΝ? (Mk 15,36/Mt 27,49)’, BibNot 64 (1992), 17. • Senior, D., ‘Revisiting Matthew’s Special Material in the Passion Narrative: A Dialogue with Raymond Brown’, ETL 70 (1994), 417-24. • Senior, D., ‘e Death of Jesus and the Birth of the New World: Matthew’s eology of History in the Passion Narrative’, CurTM 19 (1992), 416-23. • Skehan, P., ‘St. Patrick and Elijah’, in Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy, ed. P. Cassette et al. (OBO 38. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 47183. • Smith, D. E., ‘An Autopsy of an Autopsy: Biblical Illiteracy among

Medical Doctors’, Wesstar 1.2 (1987), 3-6, 14-15. • Tilliette, X., ‘Der Kreuzesschrei’, EvT 43 (1983), 3-15. • Troxel, R. L., ‘Matt 27.51-54 Reconsidered: Its Role in the Passion Narrative, Meaning and Origin’, NTS 48 (2002), 30-47. • Ulansey, D., ‘e Heavenly Veil Torn: Mark’s Cosmic Inclusio’, JBL 110 (1991), 123-25. • Wenham, J. W., ‘When Were the Saints Raised? A Note on the Punctuation of Matthew xxvii.51-53’, JTS 32 (1981), 150-52. • White, R. E. O., ‘at “Cry of Dereliction”…?’ ExpTim 113 (2002), 188-89. • Whitters, M. F., ‘Why Did the Bystanders ink Jesus Called upon Elijah before He Died (Mark 15:34-36)? e Markan Position’, HTR 95 (2002), 119-24. • Witherup, R. D., ‘e Death of Jesus and the Raising of the Saints: Matthew 27:51-54 in Context’, SBLSP 26 (1987), 574-85. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 57-68; 27:11-14, 15-26, 32-38.

On the complex double bracketing of the account of Jesus’ death on the cross in vv. 45-53 see the comments at 27:32-38, and on the larger structure of the Passion Narrative see those at 26:1-2. Aer an opening outer bracket in vv. 32-38, where the soldiers crucify Jesus, and an opening inner bracket in vv. 39-44, with its three lots of mockers of Jesus, we now have in vv. 45-53 the centrally placed piece of the sixth and nal subsection of Matthew’s Passion Narrative. Aer the opening verse, vv. 45-53 is itself structured as two panels placed either side of v. 50 as the centre piece.443 Jesus’ dying moments are illuminated in a number of ways. e darkness marks the frown of God’s displeasure. It comes, then, as no surprise that, aer the death of Jesus, God is pictured, in the splitting of the temple curtain, the shaking of the earth, the splitting of the rocks, and the raising of the holy ones, as now powerfully on the move in response. ese events constitute a set of ‘proto’eschatological events, anticipating their soon-to-come full-scale counterpart. Scripture continues to illuminate: Jesus expresses his desolation with the opening words of Ps. 22, words that are misunderstood as an appeal to Elijah — a misunderstanding which

in its own turn allows for an echo of Ps. 69:21, completing that in Mt. 27:34. Jesus dies not as one defeated by all that has been thrown at him, but as an assertive presence, standing to the very last moment for what he has always stood for. Matthew’s parallel to Mk. 15:33-39 continues the Markan sequence. Matthew goes his own way for Mt. 27:51b-53, but for vv. 45-51a there is no indication that Matthew has anything more than his Markan source. While Matthew puts his own stamp on the language, he stays fairly close to the Markan content. Mk. 15:33-39 appears to have undergone some development, either at the hands of Mark and/or earlier.444 e evaluation of its basic historicity is complicated by uncertainty about the boundary between symbol and event in the account. Perhaps the most secure features are the cry of dereliction (even given its role in a wider use of Ps. 22 the starkness remains striking) and — to include Mt. 27:54 in the scope — the idea that Jesus’ mode of dying had a profound impact on at least one person who witnessed it. e darkness is more likely to be literal than the splitting of the temple curtain, though, since Josephus and later rabbinic materials can report similarly odd occurrences with all seriousness (see Jos., War 6.288-309; b. Yoma 39b; y. Yoma 6:43c), we should hesitate to assert that no event at the temple is echoed in the Gospel language. Mt. 27:51b-53 is hardly likely to be a purely Matthean creation, but it is impossible to say anything de nite about its prehistory. Perhaps minimally Matthew had a tradition of the appearances in Jerusalem of long-dead gures aer Jesus’ resurrection and also draws on a preformed Jewish or Christian vision of the ful lment of resurrection hope — ‘the earth was shaken; the rocks were split; the tombs were opened; the holy ones were raised’ (the tenses may have been future in Matthew’s source) — which was in turn based on Ez. 37:7, 12 and, most likely, Zc. 14:4-5 (on giving a role to Zc. 14:4-5, which is based in part on the apparent combination of motifs from Ez. 37:12 and Zc. 14:4-5 in the mid-third-century-A.D. north panel of the Dura-Europos synagogue, which nds support from later Jewish interpretation of Zc. 14:4-5 in terms of resurrection, and in part on the unMatthean use of ‘the holy ones’ in Mt. 27:52, see Allison445). Partly inspired by the pattern of 2 Sa. 22:7-8, Matthew makes use of the words describing

the day of eschatological resurrection to connect the splitting of the temple curtain and the appearances in Jerusalem. Matthew’s linking piece allows him to emphasise the anticipation of eschatological hopes involved in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Matthew may also have received from tradition the idea that there was an earthquake at the moment of Jesus’ death. If Jesus himself raised the dead and was himself raised from death, the historicity of the appearance of the holy ones envisaged here should not be simply rejected out of hand. But what is envisaged is directly akin neither to Jesus’ own raising of the dead (these holy ones appeared momentarily in Jerusalem but then have no present ongoing role) nor to Jesus being raised from the dead (an ongoing role for Jesus, albeit of quite a different kind, is a key outcome of the resurrection). e raising of the holy ones appears to be in some sense only temporary, a brief anticipation of the ultimate eschatological raising of the dead. eir appearance in Jerusalem is not unlike the appearance of Moses and Elijah in Mt. 17:3, and like their appearances it has a primarily symbolic signi cance.

27:45 For the most Matthew stays close part to the Markan language. Mark’s genitive absolute, γενομένης ὥρας ἕκτης (lit. ‘[the] sixth hour having become’), with its link back to the previous time expression in 15:25, does not work for Matthew since he dropped this earlier verse. Since he still needs the reference to a beginning time for the darkness, he simpli es to ἀπὸ ἕκτης ὥρας (‘from the sixth hour’), but even with the change the sudden reference to a particular hour remains somewhat awkward.446 e same interval of time, between the sixth (i.e., noon) and the ninth hours, is marked in the storytelling of Mt. 20:5. ese are the three hours during which the sun might be expected to be at its strongest. ough the darkness is primarily reported for its symbolic value, the Evangelists are likely to have believed that there was literal darkness. It is striking that Matthew speaks simply of darkness (σκότος), with no modi er or explanatory clause to act as

an intensi er, contrary to what one generally nds in OT usage. e literal phenomenon claimed may be nothing more than a total cover of black storm clouds or a darkening of the sun’s light by a erce sand or dust storm. Matthew has no particular interest in the speci c form of the darkness; what is of importance is its symbolic signi cance. But what is its symbolic signi cance? ere are various possibilities. Darkness could signal the activity of Satan or more generally point to a period of the triumph of evil. e closest Matthew comes to this elsewhere is in 4:16 (‘the people who sat in darkness’). Not too different is the suggestion that the darkness functions as a symbol of mourning, as nature itself laments the evil being perpetrated. With the verb rather than the noun, 24:29 anticipates that the sun will be darkened as one of a number of phenomena which, in line with OT imagery, accompany or herald God’s intervention in judgment. Since eschatological overtones (of a proleptic nature) are evident in other features of the account of Jesus’ death, most likely the darkness in 27:45 also has a proleptic eschatological sense and is intended to mark the frown of God’s displeasure and the anticipation of his judgment.447 Does γή here mean ‘land’ or ‘earth’? e latter is attractive in relation to the eschatological overtones of the darkness. But in light of the lack of intensi ers for ‘darkness’ and the proleptic nature of the eschatology, the more modest scope of ‘land’ ts better. It also ts better with the sharp Jerusalem focus of the whole Passion Narrative. Are we to understand that the darkness dispersed immediately aer three hours? In Mark’s chronology Jesus is on the cross for three hours before the darkness falls and then there are three hours of darkness. We are hardly to understand that the darkness disappears at the point where Jesus speaks. It is rather more likely

that we are to understand that the three hours of darkness take us up to the last moments of Jesus, reported in Mk. 15:34-37; Mt. 27:46-50, and that the last moments also take place in the gloom. Perhaps the darkness should also be understood to embrace the disturbances of vv. 51-52. Once it has all happened, the marking role of the darkness has been achieved, and the light can (gradually?) return. Matthew lacks Mark’s schematic division of Jesus’ time on the cross into two three-hour blocks, but there is no reason to believe that he thinks differently about the period of darkness. e darkness is a cosmic accompaniment to the dying of Jesus. 27:46 Matthew follows the Markan shape of the verse closely, but he now intervenes more in the language. e language of approximation which Matthew introduces (‘about’) may be speci cally to make room in the three hours of darkness for vv. 4650, or it may simply express discomfort with the idea that Jesus waited until precisely 3 p.m. to utter his words. Matthew adds an intensi er, ἀνα, to Mark’s verb for ‘cried out’, reinforcing yet further the ‘in a loud voice’ that he carries over from Mark. e addition of λέγων (lit. ‘saying’) gives separate weight to the fact of crying out and to the content of the cry, yielding ‘cried out and said’. e major change, however, is with respect to the words of Jesus quoted from Ps. 22:2(ET v. 1). First, Matthew’s Semitic transliteration is somewhat different.448 Mark’s ἐλωΐ (᾿Ελοι᾿), which must be a transliteration of the Aramaic ʾelāhî (‘my God’), is quite far from ʾēlîyāhû (‘Elijah’). Matthew seems to think that the alternative form ʾēlî for ‘my God’, which is both Aramaic and Hebrew,449 but which Matthew is likely to think of here as Aramaic in line with the following forms, will serve the misunderstanding ‘Elijah’ better, and renders ʾēlî as ἐλί (‘Eli’). He probably thinks in terms of abbreviation: the full form of

Elijah’s name, ʾēlîyāhû, means ‘Yahu [short for Yahweh] is my God’; Matthew seems to gure that ʾēlî, meaning ‘my God’, can do service as a short form.450 Alternatively he may think of some of the bystanders as hearing something that approximates the Greek Ἠλίας (lit. ‘Elias’), perhaps with the conjecture that the -ας (‘as’) is missing as a Greek ending added to a Semitic name. Mark’s λαμα (‘lama’) could be taken to represent the Hebrew form lāmâ for ‘why’, but since Mark’s other words are Aramaic, it is better taken as a less accurate transliteration of the Aramaic equivalent, lemā. Matthew corrects this to lema (‘lema’). Matthew nds no fault with the nal Semitic word, σαβαχθάνι (‘sabachthani’), which transliterates the Aramaic šebaqtanî (‘you have forsaken’)451 — note a for e as in Mark’s λαμα, but this time a short a, which may have sounded much the same as the short e here. Second, in the introduction to the translation, Matthew makes a change similar to one made in 27:33 (see there): the simpler τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν (‘this is’) takes the place of ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον (‘which is translated’). And nally he makes various minor changes to the translation itself: he uses θεέ rather than ὁ θεός for the imperative form for ‘God’; ἱνατί replaces εἰς τί as the Greek for ‘why’;452 and he gives ἐγκατέλιπες (‘you have forsaken’) rather than με (‘me’) the nal emphatic position.453 Jesus has been silent in Matthew ever since his statement to the Sanhedrin in 26:64. His last obvious act has been to refuse the wine aer tasting it in 27:34. Here we are reassured that he has not lapsed into passivity. Instead he indirectly marks with great insistence the evil of what is being done. (In Mark the ‘loud voice’ in 15:34, 37 probably marks the intensity of distress as it does with the demons in 1:26; 5:7. Matthew offers no guidance, but he probably does not intend anything different.)

Matthew has already echoed language from Ps. 22 in Mt. 27:35, 39, 43. So the quotation here is well prepared for. But where the earlier allusions deal with what is done to Jesus (elements of the suffering in icted on the righteous person of Ps. 22), now we are given the insider’s view: what Jesus understands himself to be experiencing through this whole cruci xion drama is Godforsakenness, and in particular that God-forsakenness which is the subject of Ps. 22. Perhaps as Jesus approaches death we are to think of the nal clause of Ps. 22:15: ‘you lay me in the dust of death’. Since not to abandon his people is one of the promises of God’s covenant with Israel (Dt. 4:31),454 any occasion on which they or one of them nd themselves abandoned must raise questions. And so we have the question form in Mt. 27:46. e normal answer to the question about why God has forsaken is that God’s people have failed to keep the terms of the covenant (e.g., Je. 7:29: ‘Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation that provoked his wrath’; cf. 12:7-8).455 But Ps. 22 is an example of a far more puzzling form of abandonment: the situation where the righteous are at the mercy of their enemies with no help in sight. is is a form of abandonment which the OT readily acknowledges as common enough456 and to which the only answer seems to be that found implicitly in Ps. 22: the abandonment is only temporary. If one will continue to look to God, he will come through with deliverance.457 Jesus’ situation is being identi ed not as that of an abandoned sinner but as that of a rather special instance of what is outlined in Ps. 22. ere has been no end of Christian embarrassment about Jesus’ questioning of God in this way and of Christian theological re ection about the place of his being abandoned by God his Father in the atonement wrought by Jesus on the cross. e theological re ection goes beyond anything in which Matthew demonstrates an

investment. But Matthew is sensitive to the puzzle of how the one who is not only righteous as in Ps. 22, but beyond that the faithful Son and Messiah of Israel, should nd himself in such a situation. In various ways he has sought to throw light on this in terms of the special role of the suffering of Jesus in the will of his Father. But Matthew also makes use of Ps. 22 in this respect. Ps. 22 does not deny the difficulty, but it nds solace in recognising that the situation is only temporary. And so it will be with Jesus. ough in Gethsemane Jesus found assurance that drinking the cup was his Father’s will, Ps. 22:1 on his lips on the cross may be seen as a vestige of the concern that led to his Gethsemane prayers. Already the darkness that has marked Jesus’ dying hours points to the evil of the situation but also towards God’s coming intervention in judgment and restoration. 27:47 Matthew makes various minor changes in Mark’s language. Mark’s παρεστηκότων (lit. ‘[ones] standing by’) becomes ἐκεῖ ἑστηκότων (lit. ‘[ones] standing there’) — Matthew uses Mark’s verb only once, and then in a different sense. Matthew is sparing in his use of ἴδε (‘see’), which identi es the following words as direct speech in Mark; he uses a standard ὅτι as the speech marker instead. As subject he adds οὗτος (‘this [fellow]’). What language competence are we meant to attribute to ‘some of those standing there’? e answer is not clear. If only competence in Greek is to be assumed, then they will have made nothing of ‘lema sabachthani’ and will be construing the situation on the basis of the attention-getting volume of Jesus’ cry and their own version of the role of Elijah. If competence in Aramaic is assumed, then the initial misunderstanding is more of a puzzle and we must understand that these people take ‘why have you forsaken me’ as a complaint which also serves as an appeal. On the whole linguistic competence restricted to Greek seems a little more likely. At stake is

primarily the question of whether we are to think of Jewish or Gentile bystanders. 27:48 e Matthean changes here are a little more extensive. For once Matthew adds an ‘immediately’: there is an urgency, already expressed by Mark’s ‘running’, if Jesus’ life is to be sustained a little longer to give Elijah a chance to come. Mark attributes both the action and the words for which Matthew has his equivalent in v. 49 to an unspeci ed τις (‘a certain [person]/someone’). Matthew produces a more integrated text: he relates vv. 48 and 49 back to v. 47 and distributes the activity between εἷς ἐξ αὐτῶν (‘one of them’) for v. 48 and οἱ δὲ λοιποί (‘and the rest’) for v. 49. He adds an extra explicit step to the action by introducing καὶ λαβών (‘and taking’) and arranges the verbs into two pairs by placing a τέ (‘and’) aer πλήσας (Matthew replaces Mark’s γεμίσας for ‘ lled’ with the much more common πλήσας). A soaked sponge is likely to be an effective way of giving a small drink to an expiring person. What other uses of sponges might make it likely that a sponge could be found reasonably at hand? Could a sponge have been part of a soldier’s standard kit? e thirdcentury-B.C. Antigonus of Carystus reports the use of sponges tied to poles as means of bringing up water.458 So the one who gives the drink to Jesus is not being entirely innovative. e use of a reed here echoes the use of a reed in 27:29 and 30, but the word may be being used loosely of a nondescript stick. Anything strong enough to hoist up a wet sponge would do. ὄξος is a sharp vinegary wine. It is used of the red peasant wine drunk by Roman soldiers. It is wine of poor quality, but it would probably have been quite bracing. We should compare the traditional practice of giving brandy to revive someone in need of an immediate ‘stimulant’. Scholars regularly talk about mockery here, but idle curiosity seems closer to the mark. If we are to track a continuity through to

‘the centurion and those who were with him’ of v. 54, we may want to consider the possibility that the dying Jesus is beginning to make an impact, and want to think even of a measure of genuine curiosity. ere is, however, the echo of Ps. 68:22 LXX(MT 69:22; ET 69:21) discussed at Mt. 27:34. e psalm contrasts the giving of sharp wine with pity and comfort. So the psalm echo must count on the negative side. An idle curiosity that has no real regard for Jesus’ plight seems best. Clearly the bystanders are not yet ‘on Jesus’ side’, but cruel mockery does not seem to be in view. 27:49 e opening change to οἱ δὲ λοιποί (‘and/but the rest’) has already been discussed above. In consequence Mark’s λέγων (‘saying’ [singular]) becomes εἶπαν (‘[they] said’), and, to have the words of the rest spoken to the one, the plural imperative ἄϕετε becomes the corresponding singular ἄϕες. It is not immediately clear whether or not Matthew, by his changes, creates a contrast between the reaction of the one and of the rest. e answer turns on whether δέ is contrastive (so: ‘but’) and on the sense to be given to ἄϕες. Mark’s ἄϕετε seems to be concerned with the acting individual’s desire that the situation be held in place long enough to see whether perchance Elijah might turn up. It is suitably translated as ‘wait’.459 But in Matthew ἄϕες could mean ‘leave off ’, ‘let [him] be’, and a contrast might be being established between the help that the one was trying to give and the view of the many that it should be le to Elijah to determine whether help should come. Since (a) good sense can be made of Matthew without a change from Mark in the basic meaning of ἄϕετε/ἄϕες; (b) the sense ‘leave off ’/‘let [him] be’ is only a marginal possibility for ἄϕες; and (c) the contrastive view requires the action of the one to be construed more positively than seems likely above, it seems best to take δέ as ‘and’ and ἄϕες as having much the same force as in Mark: the one with

the sour wine is to keep his post and see whether there are developments. Matthew replaces Mark’s use of the in nitive καθελεῖν (‘take down’), which is well suited to the taking down of a person from a cross, with the more general σώσων (‘save’) — he prefers the participle to Mark’s in nitive construction. e change allows an echo of the mockery of vv. 40 and 42: Jesus has clearly not been able to save himself; but perhaps Elijah may come to the rescue of this ‘heroic failure’. What exactly were these bystanders waiting for? ‘Elijah was very prominent in popular expectations as … miracle worker in time of mortal need’.460 And that was very much Jesus’ situation at this point. Since we are probably to think of Gentiles who know of Jewish religious traditions only vaguely and secondarily and are religiously pluralist in a rather superstitious manner, we should not think in terms of anything too precise. We are probably dealing with something analogous to the role imagined for key saints in more superstitious forms of Catholicism of the earlier periods. 27:50 Mark is unclear whether there is a fresh cry at the moment of death or whether the reference is to the same cry. With the addition of πάλιν (‘again’) Matthew resolves the ambiguity in favour of a second cry. He wants to use the verb ἀϕιέναι (here: ‘release/let go/let out’) for the release of Jesus’ spirit at the moment of death, so he replaces Mark’s use of this verb for the loud cry with κράξας (‘cried out’). e choice of a different verb from that used in v. 46 probably counts against the idea that on this second occasion Jesus is to be understood as repeating his words from the earlier verse, but that does not necessarily mean that the fresh cry represents any change of sentiment. Matthew’s ἀϕῆκεν τὸ πνεῦμα is a natural development from Mark’s ἐξέπνευσεν (lit. ‘breathed out’; a standard euphemism for ‘died’), with the πνευ of πνεῦμα (‘spirit’)

represented directly in Mark’s word. e release of the spirit is the opposite of the return of the spirit reported in Lk. 8:55 for the restoration of the synagogue ruler’s daughter. Death is spoken of as the departure of the spirit in Sir. 38:23; Wis. 16:14; and with ψυχή (‘life/soul’) rather than πνεῦμα, Matthew’s idiom is matched in Gn. 35:18; 1 Esdr. 4:21 (ψυχή and πνεῦμα are oen used synonymously as, e.g., in Wis. 16:14).461 Matthew’s change of language here is not a change of sense: both see Jesus as giving up his hold on life. Why the second cry immediately before death? We cannot be entirely sure. Perhaps it is to make clear that Jesus does not die a broken man. He does not slip slowly and passively into death, resigned to the way that things work out in this world; he remains an assertive presence right to the moment of death.462 ere was to be no help from Elijah. e Elijah role had seen its ful lment in the ministry of John the Baptist, who, as Jesus now does, had earlier met a violent death. ough there has been much speculation, we cannot know the precise medical cause of Jesus’ death.463 Given the nature of our sources, the main value of the ongoing discussion of possible causes is that it helps to give concrete reality to the undoubtedly awful mode of dying which was in icted on Jesus. 27:51 e Matthean wording of the rst part of the verse is separated from the Markan only by the addition of an emphasising ἰδού (lit. ‘behold’, but καὶ ἰδού is translated above as ‘then’) — which should probably be related to the whole set of phenomena of vv. 5153 and not narrowly to v. 51 — and by a more natural word order which has the splitting as being from top to bottom before the splitting as being into two. With ‘the earth was shaken’ Matthew moves into distinctive material, which continues to the end of v. 53. Elsewhere I have distinguished eleven different understandings of the splitting of the temple curtain.464 ese divide broadly into approaches that connect the splitting (a) with what has been

positively achieved by the death of Jesus, (b) with God’s negative reaction to the execution of his Son, and (c) symbolically with the actual death of Jesus itself. Standing outside the classi cation is the view that only the scale and dramatic nature of the event are signi cant, not its particular nature, since its role is to function as an apocalyptic sign. Since in Matthew as distinct from the other Synoptic Gospels the splitting is followed by a whole series of dramatic acts, yet another possibility is to be noted: the splitting may mark God as breaking forth from his temple to act in a dramatic manner. In relation to (c), a symbolic equivalence between the splitting of the temple curtain and the death of Jesus depends on relating the splitting of the temple curtain to the temple accusation of 26:61, an option which has been rejected above. In relation to (a), the main contextual support for linking the splitting of the curtain to the achievement of Jesus’ death is provided by the opening of the tombs in 27:52-53; but since from v. 51a we must traverse the remainder of the verse before reaching vv. 52-53 and ‘the earth shook and the rocks were split’ can hardly be viewed soteriologically, it is unlikely that (a) will give us an appropriate reading of v. 51a. What remain for evaluation are approaches under (b) and the two non-classi ed options. If Matthew had wanted to link the splitting of the curtain directly with the seismic phenomena of v. 51b, it would have been more logical for him to place it at the end, not the beginning of the verse. So, given its front position, we should expect it to have its own distinctive signi cance; it is not likely to contribute only by scale and drama to the general apocalyptic tone. at the splitting of the curtain should signal the coming doom of the temple is likely enough from the wider context. One could see it as signalling the coming doom by being prophetic of the coming destruction, in much the way that Josephus interprets

the wonders that he reports for the period A.D. 60-70 as portents of the coming destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Romans.465 Or one could see it as a symbolic beginning of the actual destruction, though for a symbolic beginning perhaps the distance between the two options is not very great. Another approach under (b) worth reporting is to have the tearing of the temple curtain express God’s distress at what has been in icted on Jesus, in much the same way that people tore their clothing as an expression of extreme unhappiness. is would carry on quite nicely from the role of the darkness in v. 45. But the symbolism that identi es the temple curtain with God’s own garments is not a self-evident one. What nally of the splitting of the temple curtain as symbolic of God’s breaking forth from his temple to act in a dramatic manner, with the content of his action then provided by the seismic phenomena and the opening of the tombs? In 3:16 the heavens are opened in order that the Spirit might descend and so that Jesus might overhear the conversation of heaven; in 27:51 the temple entrance curtain is split open and God comes forth to act in power. e prospect in Ex. 19:22, 24 that God might break through from Mount Sinai is comparable.466 If the splitting of the temple curtain signals God on the move, the shaking of the earth can be seen in imagination as the impact of his footfalls and the splitting of the rocks (same verb as for the curtain) can readily point to the fact that nothing stands in his way. I nd it difficult to choose between the claims of the splitting of the temple curtain as a sign of the coming destruction of the temple and as a visible indication that God is breaking out in power in the aermath of the death of Jesus.467 But perhaps we can say that if the fabric of the temple is damaged in this way when God, at a fairly

token, even symbolic, level, breaks out to act, then what is likely to be the fate of the temple when he acts more decisively in judgment? Which temple curtain is it that has been split from top to bottom? ough curtains seem to have been used more widely in the temple complex,468 some probably over doors, we must consider just two curtains here. ere is the curtain closing off the holy place from the outer court of the temple, and the curtain closing off the inner holy of holies from the holy place. ese curtains were two key markers of increasing degrees of holiness in the temple area, with the holy of holies identi ed as the place of God’s presence, restricted to him alone, apart from a single annual visit from the high priest bearing the blood of atonement on the Day of Atonement. In terms of graded holiness, the inner curtain must be considered the more important one. So if sheer importance should be allowed to determine which curtain is intended, then the inner curtain will be intended. However, only priests saw the inner curtain. So if a publicly visible phenomenon is intended then only the outer curtain can be considered — not that even this was readily visible, given the con guration of buildings on the temple site. From the traditional site of Golgotha the outer curtain would have been visible. If God leaves the temple, he must come past two curtains. If only one is mentioned, it is likely to be the one that, like the shaking of the earth and the splitting of the rocks, can mark a ‘public appearance’ of God: the outer curtain is most likely to be in view (ordinary Jewish people might not have had much clarity about what was behind the outer curtain). In the OT the shaking of the earth is oen its expression of fear at God’s coming in judgment.469 But instead, or perhaps as well, such a disturbance can be an image of God’s ‘throwing his weight around’.470 In the present context, 2 Sa. 22:7-8 is particularly suggestive: ‘In my distress I called upon Yahweh; to my God I

called. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry came to his ears. en the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked, because he was angry.’471 e link in Mt. 27:51 between the shaking of the earth and the breaking of the rocks suggests that it intends an indication of God’s power ‘on the loose’. For the breaking of the rocks Na. 1:6 is the most obvious connection: ‘His hot displeasure is poured out like re, and by him the rocks are broken in pieces’.472 Where the related OT texts are sharply focussed on the wrath of God, Matthew is more understated. He probably also intends to be more open-ended, since while he wants to affirm God’s anger at what has been done to Jesus, he also wants to continue the thought of Mt. 27:51 with the opening of the tombs in v. 52, which has no connection at all with the wrath of God. Matthew’s larger point is that God is powerfully on the move. 27:52 Distinctive Matthean material continues. ‘e tombs were opened’ echoes the language of Ez. 37:12, 13 (for the view that this connection is likely to be mediated via a preformed traditional piece which spans from ‘the earth was shaken’ to — in the source — ‘the holy ones were raised’, see the introductory discussion of Mt. 27:45-53473). Matthew is likely to have noted with approval a correlation between the heavens opened in Mt. 3:16 and the tombs opened in 27:52; this gives him yet another correspondence between the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and its ending. With the opening of the tombs as the third element, the eschatological potential of the earth being shaken and the rocks being split is now clearly activated. But Matthew makes it quite plain that he is concerned here with proleptic manifestations of eschatological realities, not with the full substance of those realities (which has been sketched as the culmination of the sweep through the future offered in chaps. 24–25). Matthew seems to be saying that with the

death of Jesus history has begun its nal rush to the eschatological denouement. at which happens now in miniature is an intimation, an anticipation, of what is due to happen on a grand, even a cosmic, scale. We are probably not intended to see the opening of the tombs as immediately achieved by the splitting of the rocks: it belongs with the preceding shaking of the earth and the splitting of the rocks, but it goes a step further. For ‘many bodies of the holy ones who had fallen asleep were raised’ Matthew’s tradition probably had only ‘the holy ones were raised’, with ‘the holy ones’ drawn from Zc. 14:5 on the basis of an interpretation of the coming of the holy ones there as happening through resurrection (see, again, the introductory discussion of Mt. 27:45-53). But Matthew is applying an eschatological vision to what is taking place within the continuing unfolding of history, and he feels the need for some clari cation. He draws in a common biblical euphemism for dying, ‘to fall asleep’, probably in uenced by Dn. 12:2.474 Dn. 12:2 is also likely to be responsible for Matthew’s inclusion of ‘many’, but in Matthew’s context it points to the limited scale of the present set of events. e reference to the bodies of the holy ones may be simply to reinforce the notion of physical resurrection already intended by the reference to the opening of the tombs (this is not simply the calling up of the spirits of the dead), but it is likely also or instead to have its goal in a contrast with what has happened and is about to happen to the body of Jesus:475 as Jesus dies, his body is destined for a tomb; at the same moment the bodies of many nd release from their tombs. Matthew is unlikely to have any particular holy ones in mind, though he may well think of gures who have met a violent and untimely death because of their faithfulness to God.476 ‘e holy ones’ will not be different from ‘the righteous’ of 23:29; with the use of μνημεῖα in both places Matthew is likely to intend a cross

reference.477 Matthew may well think in terms of tombs which are proximate to the place of Jesus’ execution, as Jesus’ own will be. ough the correspondence is far from perfect, quite possibly 2 Ki. 13:21 (restoration to life from contact with the bones of Elisha) is somewhere in the back of Matthew’s mind as he makes the connection between Jesus’ passage to the realm of death and the emptying of tombs. But Matthew thinks primarily of God in action subsequent to the death of Jesus and not of effects achieved directly by the death of Jesus. 27:53 e use of two distinctive words here for ideas that occur elsewhere in Matthew with other language suggests that Matthew is in part basing himself on source language here. ese are ἔγερσις for ‘resurrection’ and the passive of ἐμϕανίζειν for ‘appear’. Elsewhere Matthew uses ἀνάστασις for ‘resurrection’478 and the passive of the verb ἐγείρειν for the resurrection of Jesus,479 and he uses ϕαίνειν480 or the passive of ὁρᾶν481 for ‘appear’. ‘Were raised’ in v. 52 might naturally enough have been allowed to cover also the coming out of the tombs, but Matthew has a problem to deal with: he wants to correlate the string of protoeschatological events with the death of Jesus, and that includes the tombs being opened and the holy ones being raised, but Matthew’s tradition correlates the appearances with the resurrection of Jesus. Making the coming out of the tombs into a separate event covers the need by allowing Matthew to present the appearances, as distinct from the opening of the tombs and the resurrections, as happening aer the resurrection of Jesus.482 (A reference back to Ez. 37:12 may have provided Matthew with his lead here: Ez. 37:12 distinguishes God’s opening of the tombs from his bringing people out of their tombs.)

For Paul the idea that Jesus’ resurrection blazed a trail for the general resurrection is important,483 and John has his own distinctive way of linking Jesus’ resurrection with the resurrection of others (Jn. 11:25). But while in Acts Luke makes some correlation between the general resurrection and that of Jesus,484 in the Synoptic Gospels no connection between Jesus’ own resurrection and the resurrection prospect of others is evident unless it be here in Mt. 27:53. In some sense the holy ones are clearly a ‘supporting cast’ to Jesus as his own resurrection and appearances are enacted:485 their resurrections and appearances are miniatures of his own. God’s power at work in them represents the overspilling of his powerful engagement subsequent to the death of Jesus. As Matthew has it, the resurrections and appearances of the holy ones bracket Jesus’ own resurrection and appearances. Since, however, the resurrections of the holy ones are clearly anticipations of the eschatological resurrection, this surely draws Jesus’ resurrection into the same orbit. But while he implies a qualitative difference between the resurrection of Jesus and that of the holy ones, Matthew offers nothing more precise here about the eschatological signi cance of the resurrection of Jesus. In Zc. 14:5 the holy ones come with God, presumably to Jerusalem (cf. v. 2).486 Given the likely role of Zc. 14:4-5 in the formation of the material used by Matthew in Mt. 27:51b-52, Zc. 14:5 may be echoed in ‘entered into the holy city’.487 ‘Holy city’ echoes Matthew’s own language in Mt. 4:5, giving another correlation between beginnings and endings. It is likely that ‘holy’ in ‘holy ones’ suggested the choice to him. e juxtaposition of resurrection and appearance may provide an echo of Is. 26:19 LXX, which juxtaposes the resurrection of some with the rejoicing of others (in response to the resurrections?).488 Matthew does not actually use ‘appeared to’ language for Jesus (he has ‘met them’ in

28:9 and ‘they saw him’ in v. 17), but the link between the appearances of the holy ones and that of Jesus is clear enough. ‘Many’ in ‘appeared to many’ is designed to create con dence: multiple appearances of many different gures from the past mean that more than private imaginings are involved. As was the case with Moses and Elijah at the trans guration, no attention is paid to the question of how the witnesses were to realise what they were experiencing. What does Matthew imagine happens to the holy ones once they have made their appearances? A return to their graves would be quite anticlimactic, but that they should resume their longdiscontinued lives on earth is no better. e neatest solution is to imagine them translated to heaven as were Enoch and Elijah.489 But perhaps Matthew had not re ected on the matter: he was not interested in the holy ones in their own right, only in the supporting role that their resurrections and appearances could play in his account of the resurrection and appearances of Jesus. 2a′. ree Kinds of Affirmation, I (27:54) 54When

the centurion and those keeping watch over Jesus with him saw the earthquake and the athings that happened,a they were exceedingly frightened and said, ‘Truly this [fellow] bwas [the] Son of God’.b

TEXTUAL NOTES a-a. γινομενα in place of γενομενα in B D 33 etc. gives ‘things that were happening’ and could be original, but it makes better sense as a modi cation to mark the incompleteness of the divine witness at the point of confession. b-b. ere is some variation of word order here in the MSS. A de nite article before θεου (‘of God’) is supplied in ‫*א‬.

Bibliography Dautzenberg, G., Studien, 222-39. • Davis, P. G., ‘Mark’s Christological Paradox’, JSNT 35 (1989), 3-18. • Johnson, E. S., Jr., ‘Is Mk 15:39 the Key to Mark’s Christology?’ JSNT 31 (1987), 3-22. • Johnson, E. S., Jr., ‘Mark 15,39 and the So-Called Confession of the Roman Centurion’, Bib 81 (2000), 40613. • Kim, T. H., ‘e Anarthrous υἱός θεοῦ in Mark 15:39 and the Roman Imperial Cult’, Bib 79 (1998), 221-41. • Manus, C. U., ‘e Centurion’s Confession of Faith (Mk. 15:39)’, BTA/BAT 7 (1985), 261-78. • Shiner, W. T., ‘e Ambiguous Pronouncement of the Centurion and the Shrouding of Meaning in Mark’, JSNT 78 (2000), 3-22. • Sim, D. C., ‘e “Confession” of the Soldiers in Matthew 27.54’, HeyJ 34 (1993), 401-24. • Stockklausner, S. K. and Hale, C. A., ‘Mark 15:39 and 16:6-7; A Second Look’, McMJT 1 (1990), 34-44. • Verseput, D., ‘e Role and Meaning of the “Son of God” Title in Matthew’s Gospel’, NTS 33 (1987), 532-56. • Viviano, B. T., ‘A Psychology of Faith: Matt 27:54 in the Light of Exod 14:30-31’, RB 104 (1997), 368-72. See further at Mt. 26:1-2, 57-68; 27:27-31, 32-38, 39-44, 45-63.

e immediate frame around the centrally placed piece of the sixth and nal subsection of Matthew’s Passion Narrative, the account of Jesus’ dying, is provided on the one side by 27:39-44, with its three lots of mockers of Jesus, and on the other side by vv. 54, 55-56, 5761, with their three instances of affirmation of Jesus. It is the rst of these instances which will bear the main weight of the setting up of the parallelism between vv. 39-44 and vv. 54-61. (On the complex double bracketing of the account of Jesus’ death on the cross see the comments at 27:32-38, and on the larger structure of the Passion Narrative see those at 26:1-2.) ough vv. 54, 55-56, and 57-61 share a single slot in Matthew’s larger structure, the materials are diverse and lend themselves to being presented as I do here in three separate subunits.

In v. 54 the manifest response of God to the death by cruci xion of his Son convinces the Roman soldiers that Jesus was neither selfdeluded nor a charlatan, but indeed the Son of God. Matthew rejoins the Markan sequence here with material equivalent to Mk. 15:39. He retains the main thrust of the Markan text, but develops the material to strengthen its role and to t it with the new material he has added in Mt. 27:51b-53. I have discussed questions of sources and historicity in vv. 45-53 above.

27:54 Matthew replaces Mark’s distinctive Latinism for ‘centurion’ (κεντυρίων)490 with ἑκατόνταρχος, which he has used earlier491 and which is the dominant LXX term.492 Mark’s centurion is a lone voice, but Matthew has added ‘and those keeping watch over Jesus with him’, which displaces Mark’s ‘who stood facing him’. is is in line with other Matthean pluralisations, which are otherwise, however, regularly doublings. As suggested at 8:28, Matthean pluralisation probably represents an insistence that the incidents were not ‘one-offs’ but part of a larger pattern. Matthew has prepared for his pluralisation here by his addition earlier of v. 36, with its reference to those who ‘kept watch over him’. What the Markan centurion sees is ‘that he breathed his last (ἐξέπνευσεν) like this’; Matthew changes this to ‘the earthquake and the things that happened’. ‘e earthquake’ is a reference back to ‘the earth was shaken’, introduced by Matthew at v. 51. e change of vocabulary may allow for an extra set of OT echoes, calling to mind earthquakes experienced or anticipated, which mark the intervention of God.493 It also prepares for the language of 28:2 and thus mediates between the shaking of the earth that led to the opening of the tombs in 27:51-52 and the earthquake of 28:2 which leads to the angelic opening of Jesus’ tomb. ‘e things that happened’ (τὰ γενόμενα) is probably deliberately vague: Matthew

wants his readers to see that all that he has recounted in 27:45-53 makes a contribution to perceiving that Jesus is the Son of God, but only part of it is immediately available to the centurion and those with him (notably not the appearances of the holy ones — but perhaps we are to imagine them as seeing the holy ones vacate their tombs). Matthew adds a phrase that he also introduced into the trans guration account (17:6): ‘they were exceedingly frightened’ (ἐϕοβήθησαν σϕόδρα). ere too the reality of Jesus as the Son of God is manifested, but under very different circumstances. Allison notes an intriguing set of similarities and differences which link the Matthean account of the trans guration and of the cruci xion.494 With some modi cation and without the weaker links I reproduce his list. Similarities ‘aer six days’ (17:1) Jesus as God’s Son (v. 5) ‘they were exceedingly frightened’ (v. 6) three named onlookers (v. 1)

 

Differences private event (v. 1) clothing becomes white as light (v. 2) two OT saints with Jesus (v. 3) light (v. 2) God attests Jesus as his Son to

 

‘from the sixth hour’ (27:45) Jesus as God’s Son (v. 54) ‘they were exceedingly frightened’ (v. 54) three named onlookers (vv. 5556)

public event (passim) clothing divided (v. 35; cf. v. 28) two criminals with Jesus (v. 38) darkness (v. 45) Jesus expresses his sense of

the disciples (v. 5) Elijah appears (v. 3)

abandonment by God (v. 46) Elijah (apparently) called for in vain (vv. 47, 49)

While the trans guration represented a preliminary ful lment of the anticipated glory of the coming of the Son of Humanity in his kingdom, at its centre was the challenge to listen to Jesus as he spoke about his coming Passion (17:5 and the discussion there): he would be revealed as the Son of God there every bit as much as on the Mount of Trans guration, and on a larger public canvas. We are probably once again being invited to view Jesus’ cruci xion in relation to his kingly rule. As discussed at 27:38, if only in a proleptic sense, Jesus, paradoxically, manifests his kingly rule from the cross. Since, however, Jesus’ manifestation of his kingly rule from the cross is not a publicly visible reality, it is to the visible accompaniments orchestrated by God that Matthew invites his readers to look for divine attestation as to the scale of the signi cance of what is happening on the cross. For Matthew what the centurion and the others say gives expression to their fear, so Mark’s εἶπεν (‘he said’) becomes λέγοντες (‘saying’). As the immediate executioners of Jesus, they might well be terri ed by their discovery of the true identity of this man. Matthew abbreviates the Markan words of confession by dropping ὁ ἄνθρωπος (‘the person’) and changes the emphasis by bringing θεοῦ υἱός (‘Son of God’) to the beginning and sending οὗτος (‘this [fellow]’) to the end (the two places of greatest emphasis in a Greek sentence). e use of ἀληθῶς (‘truly’) at the beginning of the confession strengthens the link with the disciples’ confession in 14:33, ‘Truly, you are [the] Son of God’, as does the order of θεοῦ (‘of God’) and υἱός (‘Son’) and the lack of de nite articles before them.495 But the

use of ἀληθῶς also serves to underline the contrast with the scepticism being expressed in 27:40, 43 about Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, and thus to reinforce the (negative) parallelism. e choice of ἦν (‘was’) rather than ἐστιν (‘is’) also helps to reinforce the connection back to the mockers (‘was and was not recognised to be’). We are not intended to inquire too closely what the centurion could mean by ‘Son of God’, given the limited knowledge he must inevitably have had of the whole world represented by Jesus. e centurion recognises the presence of deity and has enough evidence to be profoundly convinced that Jesus is bona de: he is neither a grand deceiver, nor is he self-deceived. As far as the centurion is now concerned, Jesus was whatever those who knew him best considered him to be; and Jesus was whatever he had himself said that he was. ‘Son of God’ is the language that they hear (immediately from the mockery in 27:40, 43, to which the present confession is the positive counterpart), and the centurion and those with him use it. ey can grow into the meaning of their confession. But for Matthew and his readers this is the recognition that climaxes Matthew’s story of the impact of the life of the one who is affirmed to be the Son of God at his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, but who throughout his ministry is generally not recognised for who he is and whose path of obedience to his Father goes via the cross. e recognition that has largely eluded him makes a powerful fresh beginning here precisely at the cross. e directive in 28:19 to make disciples of all nations — with the implication that efforts to do so will meet with success — will in some way be rooted in the present recognition of the signi cance of Jesus by the centurion and those with him. 2b′. ree Kinds of Affirmation, II (27:55-56)

55Many

women were there, looking [on] from afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee in order to serve him, 56among whom were aMary Magdalene, and aMary the mother of James and bJoseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. In C (L) Δ Θ (f1) etc. sa(mss) the more Semitic form Μαριαμ (the OT ‘Miriam’) is preferred to Μαρια (‘Mary’). b. ‫ *א‬adds η Μαρια η (lit. ‘the Mary the’) and drops the linked μητηρ (‘mother’) giving ‘Mary [the mother] of Joseph’ (aer ‘Mary [the mother] of James’), which changes the list into one of four women. a* also drops μητηρ (‘mother’), but no change of sense is involved. Either as Ιωσητος or Ιωση, the Markan name ‘Joses’ is found in A B C Dc f1, 13 33 etc. syp, (h) samss. Bibliography Boer, E. de, Mary Magdalene — Beyond the Myth, tr. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1997). • Byrskog, S., History, 73-82, 190-97. • Cheney, E., ‘e Mother of the Sons of Zebedee (Matthew 27.56)’, JSNT 68 (1997), 13-21. • Crossan, J. D., Cross at Spoke, 281-90. • Ebner, M., ‘Bilder von Maria Magdalena im Neuen Testament. Unterschiedliche Weichenstellungen’, BK 55 (2000), 17077. • Gerhardsson, B., ‘Mark and the Female Witnesses’, in DUMU-E2-DUBBA-A. FS Å. W. Sjöberg, ed. H. Behrens et al. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 217-26. • Haskins, S., Mary Magdalene: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994). • Heil, J. P., ‘e Narrative Structure of Matthew 27:55–28:20’, JBL 110 (1991), 419-38. • Heine, S., ‘Eine Person von Rang und Namen: Historische Konturen der Magdalenerin’, in Jesu Rede von Gott und ihre Nachgeschichte im frühen Christentum: Beiträge zur Verkündigung Jesu und zum Kerygma der Kirche, ed. D.-A. Koch, G. Sellin, and A. Lindemann (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1989), 179-94. • Luter, A. B., ‘Women Disciples and the Great Commision’, TJ 16 (1995), 171-85. • Meier, J. P., Marginal, 3:73-80. • Munro, W., ‘Women Disciples in Mark’, CBQ 44

(1982), 225-41. • Ricci, C., Mary Magdalene and Many Others: Women Who Followed Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). • Schottroff, L., ‘Maria Magdalena und die Frauen am Grabe Jesus’, EvT 42 (1982), 3-25; ET = ‘Mary Magdalene and the Women at Jesus’ Tomb’, in Let the Oppressed Go Free: Feminist Perspectives on the New Testament, tr. A. S. Kidder (Gender and the Biblical Tradition. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 168-203. • Schüssler Fiorenza, E., Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet (New York: Continuum, 1994), 111-28. • Schweizer, E., ‘Scheidungsrecht der jüdischen Frau? Weibliche Jünger Jesu?’ EvT 42 (1982), 294-300, esp. 297-300. • Shaberg, J., ‘How Mary Magdalene Became a Whore’, BRev 8 (1992), 31-37, 51-52. • ompson, M. R., Mary of Magdala: Apostle and Leader (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1995). • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 137-43, 147-50, 288-99, 314-16. • Witherington, B., Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitude Towards Women and eir Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Ministry (SNTSMS 51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). See further at Mt. 26:1-2; 27:32-38, 45-53.

Mt. 27:54, 55-56, 57-61 together provide the three instances of affirmation of Jesus which form the counterpart to the three lots of mocking in vv. 39-44. ese two sets of material frame Matthew’s account of Jesus’ death. On the structure see further the discussion at v. 54.496 e confession of the centurion and those with him marked a newly found loyalty to Jesus. Here the presence of the women at the cross marks their sustaining of a loyalty to Jesus despite all that has happened to him and in contrast to the behaviour of the male disciples. Matthew continues the Markan order with his equivalent to Mk. 15:40-41. He reorders and compacts the Markan material. His inclusion of the mother of the sons of Zebedee in the list, in place of Salome, is based on the role she gains in Mt. 20:20-21. His change in how the second Mary is described may suggest that Matthew did not know about these women or that he knew her only from his Markan source, or it may re ect lack of knowledge of the

particular James to whom the epithet ‘the little’ (ὁ μικρός) was applied — perhaps the latter, given Matthew’s treatment of Simon of Cyrene in 27:32. ough Luke shows awareness in Lk. 8:2-3 of a second source listing women who played a prominent role in Jesus’ ministry, no second source is evident for Matthew. e three elements of the Passion-resurrection role of the women belong together: at the cross, at the burial, and at the empty tomb on Easter morning. e rst two could be logical deductions of the third, but, if so, they are logical deductions that still seem sound.497 See further the comments at Mt. 28:1-10.

27:55 Whereas Mark is content to say that the women ‘also were looking [on] from afar’, Matthew with his simple addition of ἐκεῖ (‘there’) emphasises rst and foremost that they were there. e contrast is with 26:56, ‘then all the disciples le him and ed’, and more particularly with Peter in v. 58, whose ‘following [Jesus] from afar … to see the end’ had proved so disastrously abortive. e women were still there. Matthew compacts and reorders the Markan material. As the beginning of this process he changes Mark’s ‘women’ to ‘many women’, using the ‘many’ from ‘many others’ in the latter part of Mk. 15:41. Matthew moves the partial list of names to the end and goes straight to the Galilean link. He will make rather less of the women’s prior role than Mark had. e Markan syntax leaves unclear which of the women at the cross had earlier done what. What is clear is that the named women constituted at least part of a core group who had followed Jesus in Galilee (the language of discipleship) and had served him (and by implication it was as a continuation of this following and service that they now found themselves at the cross), and that many other unnamed women (presumably because they had already begun to join in on the following and serving that characterised the others) had joined the band that had come up with Jesus to Jerusalem.

Matthew does not trace the women’s story back to the main part of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, but only to the threshold of his departure from Galilee (see 17:22 and the discussion there) — Matthew’s women follow Jesus ‘from Galilee’, not ‘when he was in Galilee’.498 And Matthew narrows the signi cance of the women’s following to their serving role — where Mark’s women ‘followed … and served’, Matthew’s women ‘followed … to serve’. Aer 25:44, where service to Jesus emerges as an important and privileged activity, this narrowing should not be seen as demeaning, but, in line with 8:15, their service will involve activities associated with domestic hospitality. Matthew sees the women as having become a mobile support corps, notably for Jesus but in practice no doubt also for the band of male disciples intimately associated with Jesus. But while Matthew narrows the scope of what it meant for the women to follow Jesus to traditional women’s roles, he makes quite clear that it was the women’s discipleship (on the language of following and its connection with discipleship see at 4:20) — and even the women’s discipleship as set in parallel with the discipleship of Peter — that was sustained through the Passion period, whereas the discipleship of all the men failed.499 at women can have been so identi ed with Jesus’ itinerant group from much earlier but not mentioned until this point is striking. Here the feminist complaint proves true that in patriarchal societies the women’s contribution, though expected and perhaps even appreciated, is generally rendered invisible by male dominance of public discourse. e important practical contribution made earlier by the women comes into visibility only incidentally because, given the disappearance of the male disciples, Matthew needs the women to take his story from cross to resurrection. 27:56 For the second Mary, Matthew drops the epithet ‘the small’ (τοῦ μικροῦ) from Mark’s ‘James the small’ — it probably

does not help Matthew identify this James any more precisely — and as in 13:55 he prefers the LXX form Ἰωσήϕ (‘Joseph’) to the hellenised form Ἰωσῆς (‘Joses’). For the third named member of the set, Matthew substitutes ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’ for ‘Salome’,500 re ecting the role of the mother of James and John in 20:20-21 on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem and speaking of her in the same language he used to introduce her there.501 Named participants in Matthew’s story are very rare, and named women are even rarer. A special focus on three women from among a larger set of followers of Jesus is rather like the singling out of Peter, James, and John from among the Twelve. Hengel has shown that NT lists normally imply a ranking, but he offers no adequate basis for setting this ranking within the context of competing claims to authority and prestige in the early Christian community.502 Here the fact that the named women are a subset of an unspeci ed number of women engaged in the same activity has a levelling effect and suggests that the naming has to do, not with privilege, but with the existence of de nite speci able witnesses (cf. Dt. 19:15; Acts 1:21-22). e rst two of the named women are the only people who have a part in all four stages of the traditional confession preserved in 1 Cor. 15:3-5 (death, burial, resurrection [= empty tomb], and resurrection appearance). It suits Matthew nicely that two of the women whom he introduces here as his story moves to its end should be named Mary, the name of the mother of Jesus who featured signi cantly in his story at its beginning. We know virtually nothing about any of the women named here. ‘Magdalene’ probably means ‘from Magdala’. e location of Magdala is uncertain. It might be another name for Tarichaeae, a town on the west coast of the Sea of Galilee whose name in later rabbinic writings appears as migdāl nûnayyāʾ. e surname magdelāʾâ, found in rabbinic literature, might be related to the

Gospel ‘Magdalene’. Lk. 8:2 tells us that Jesus had rescued Mary Magdalene from a severely demonised state (seven demons).503 Later tradition and speculative cross identi cation of Gospel gures have lled in the missing details. Jesus’ mother is also the mother of ‘James and Joseph’ (along with ‘Simon and Judas’ and their sisters). Because Jesus’ mother is at the cross in John’s Gospel, the second Mary in Matthew’s list is sometimes identi ed with her. But it is hardly likely that Matthew would introduce Jesus’ mother in this indirect manner. While to identify a woman in relation to her husband was common enough, to identify a woman in relation to her sons is much less so.504 e obvious reason for this naming pattern in the Gospel tradition here is that James and Joseph had signi cant identities in the early Christian community (even if they were not known in Matthew’s circles). Where the presence of the two Marys prepares for a continuing role (Mt. 27:61: 28:1), the presence of the mother of the sons of Zebedee looks back only to her earlier role: she now knows what she had been asking for her sons.505 2c′. ree Kinds of Affirmation, III (27:57-61) 57When

evening had come, a rich person from Arimathea came — the name [is] Joseph — who had also himself abeen discipleda to Jesus. 58is [man] came to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. en Pilate commanded b[it] to be given. 59So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60and placed cit in his [own] new tomb, which he had carved in the rock; and he rolled a large stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. 61dMary

tomb.

Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting in front of the

TEXTUAL NOTES

a-a. A B L W f13 etc. have εμαθητευσεν (‘had been/become a disciple’). b. το σωμα (‘the body’) is added in A C D W Θ f13 1424 etc. lat syp, h; and the longer το σωμα του Ιησου (‘the body of Jesus’) is found in Σ etc. vgms syhmg. c. Missing from ‫ א‬L Θ f1, 13 33 892 l 844 etc. d. In ‫ א‬B C L Δ Θ f1 l 844 etc. mae boms the Greek is the more Semitic form Μαριαμ (the OT Miriam) — the form is found in some texts of Mt. 27:56 for both Marys — but this is not matched in v. 61 for the second Mary and so is not likely to be original, given the phrase ‘the other Mary’. Bibliography Bahat, D., ‘Does the Holy Sepulchre Church Mark the Burial of Jesus?’ BAR 12.3 (1986), 26-45. • Barkay, G., ‘e Garden Tomb — Was Jesus Buried Here?’ BAR 12.2 (1986), 40-57. • Brown, R. E., ‘e Burial of Jesus (Mark 15:42-47)’, CBQ 50 (1988), 233-45. • Craig, W. L., Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1989), 163-96. • Crossan, J. D., Cross at Spoke, 234-48. • Figeras, P., ‘Jewish Ossuaries and Second Burial: eir Signi cance for Early Christianity’, Immanuel 19 (1984-85), 41-57. • Fortna, R. T., ‘Mark Intimates/Matthew Defends the Resurrection’, Forum 10.3-4 (1994), 197218. • Hachlili, R. and Killebrew, A., ‘Jewish Funerary Customs during the Second Temple Period, in the Light of the Excavations at the Jericho Necropolis’, PEQ 115 (1983), 109-39. • Heil, J. P., ‘e Narrative Structure of Matthew 27.55–28.20’, JBL 110 (1991), 419-38. • Liebowitz, H., ‘Jewish Burial Practices in the Roman Period’, ManQ 22 (1981-82), 107-17. • McCane, B. R., ‘“Where No One Had Yet Been Laid”: e Shame of the Burial of Jesus’, in Activities, ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans, 431-52. • McCane, B. R., ‘“Where No One Had Yet Been Laid”: e Shame of Jesus’ Burial’, SBLSP 32 (1993), 473-84. • O’Collins, G. and Kendall, D., ‘Did Joseph of Arimathea Exist?’ Bib 75 (1994), 235-41. • Osiek, C., ‘e Women at the Tomb: What Are ey Doing?’ Ex Auditu 9 (1993), 97-107. • Price, R. M., ‘Jesus’ Burial in a Garden: e Strange Growth of the Tradition’, Religious

Traditions 12 (1989), 17-30. • Puech, É., Les nécropoles juives palestiniennes au tournant de notre ère’, in Dieu l’a resusscité d’entre les morts (Les quatres euves 15-16. Paris: Beauchesne, 1982), 35-55. • Riesner, R., ‘Golgota und die Archaeologie’, BK 40 (1985), 21-26. • Scholz, G., ‘“Joseph of Arimathäa” und “Barabbas”’, LingBib 57 (1985), 81-94. • Schreiber, J., ‘Die Bestattung Jesu: Redaktionsgeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Mk 15,42-47 par’, ZNW 72 (1981), 141-77. • Senior, D., ‘Matthew’s Account of the Burial of Jesus (Mt 27,57-61)’, in Four Gospels, ed. F. Segbroeck 1433-48. • Shea, G. W., ‘On the Burial of Jesus in Mark 15:42-47’, Faith and Reason 17 (1991), 87-108. • Strelan, R., ‘To Sit Is To Mourn: e Women at the Tomb (Matthew 27:61)’, Colloquium 31 (1999), 31-45. • Turiot, C., ‘Sémiotique et lisibilité du texte évangélique’, RSR 73 (1985), 161-75. • Wainwright, E. M., Feminist Critical Reading, 137-43, 147-50, 288-92, 299-300, 314-16. See further at Mt. 26:1-2; 27:32-38, 45-53.

It is the action of Joseph of Arimathea, with the two Marys there, which provides the third item in the Matthean set of three instances of affirmation of Jesus, 27:54, 55-56, and 57-61, which are set over against the three instances of mocking in 27:39-44. On the structure see further the discussion at v. 54. Joseph of Arimathea appears as a rich man who had been successfully discipled (contra that of chap. 19) and, like the women, manifests the loyalty to Jesus in extremis that was not to be found among the Twelve. Jesus has those who will properly bury him and keep vigil at his tomb. Matthew continues the Markan sequence with his equivalent to Mk. 15:4247. For the most part Matthew seems to be rewriting his Markan source, but agreement with Lk. 23:50-56 over the omission of Mk. 15:44-45a (Luke does not have an equivalent to v. 45b either) and some verbal and content agreements in Mt. 27:59-60 suggest that both Matthew and Luke had access to a second account (which is also partly re ected in Jn. 19:38-42). ere is no reason to question the basic historicity of the account.

27:57 No precise time is indicated by ‘when evening had come’ (ὀψίας γενομένης). Only a late hour in the day is indicated (see discussion at Mt. 14:15). But the ‘already’ (ἤδη) in Mark’s ‘when evening had already come’ makes it seem a little later, and there are two lines along which this will not do for Matthew. Mark does not mean it so, but it could be taken to suggest that Joseph of Arimathea is seeking to preserve a certain anonymity by operating under cover of darkness,506 especially without Mark’s continuing words in the verse, which Matthew does not intend to keep. ‘When evening had already come’ with the sense ‘aer dark’ would also mean that, in Jewish reckoning, the next day, the sabbath day, had already come, and Dt. 21:23, which was thought to apply to cruci xion, required that ‘His corpse must not remain all night on the tree; you shall bury him that same day’. Just under twenty-four hours have passed since Jesus sat down with his disciples at the Last Supper, but his removal from the cross and the burial as well must be tted in before the full twenty-four hours are over. Even without ‘already’, ‘when evening had come’ allows for Jesus to have been hanging dead on the cross for at least an hour or two — there can be no doubt about his being dead. Matthew fails to see that its being the day of preparation for the sabbath affects matters fundamentally and drops this Markan material. (An echo of the language dropped from Mark here will be found in Mt. 27:62, when Matthew speaks of the next day as ‘[the day] aer the day of preparation’.) Mark has a very long and convoluted sentence; Matthew breaks it in two by replacing the participle ἐλθών (lit. ‘having come’) with ἦλθεν (‘[he] came’). Matthew has his own way of introducing Joseph. He makes him ‘a rich person’, probably to suggest that here is a rich person for whom the issues of discipleship worked out more happily than in Mt. 19:16-26: with God the discipleship of this rich man has proved

possible (v. 26).507 Matthew marks the fact that Joseph is a new character on the scene, not yet introduced to his readers, by introducing his name in the phrase τοὔνομα Ἰωσήϕ (‘the name [is] Joseph’).508 e Matthean changes are reminiscent of those in the case of the introduction of Simon of Cyrene in 27:32. Matthew drops Mark’s ‘a respected member of the council’ (εὐσχήμων βουλευτής): Joseph’s status in the Jewish leadership is of no interest to Matthew here. He identi es the quality that caused Joseph to be ready to act as he does, not with the more general Markan language ‘[he]was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God’,509 but with the more precise ‘[he] had been discipled to/for Jesus’ (ἐμαθητεύθη τῷ Ἰησοῦ).510 e idiom has its nearest analogue in ‘discipled … for the kingdom’ in 13:52, but perhaps ‘discipled to’ is better than ‘discipled for’ — functioning somewhat analogously to ‘apprenticed to’.511 Joseph has been ‘discipled’, just as the Twelve had been.512 On the use of the verb μαθητεύειν (‘disciple/make disciples’) see the comments at 5:1. It is worth noting again the rarity of named participants in the Gospel story. e naming, except where public gures are involved, marks the associated events as having a particularly high level of signi cance. Where Joseph ‘came’ to in 27:57 is not clear. Matthew is mostly interested in saying that Joseph comes in on the action. We are probably to imagine that Joseph comes to the scene of the cruci xion and determines to his own satisfaction that Jesus is already dead. e Gospel form Ἁριμαθαία (Arimathea) has not been matched. So attempts to locate Arimathea are based on identifying it with places with names that are only partially identical with the Gospel name. Candidates include Ramathaim-zophim of 1 Sa. 1:1; Remphis (= Rentis), nine miles northeast of Lydda; Rathamin of 1 Macc. 11:34, which is also linked with Lydda; and Beit Rimeh, ve miles east of Rentis and about twelve miles

northwest of Bethel. No real con dence can be placed in any of the identi cations. Aer the coincidence of names between the Marys at the cross and Mary the mother of Jesus, it is of some satisfaction to Matthew that Joseph of Arimathea at the end of Matthew’s story shares a name with Joseph, husband of Mary, at the beginning of his story. ὃς καὶ αὐτός (lit. ‘who also he [emphatic]’) in Matthew indicates that ‘discipled for Jesus’ should be applied retrospectively also to the women of vv. 55-56: we are now in a position to know that the language of following Jesus in v. 55 was meant to imply being discipled. e link with the women will be developed further in the present subunit in v. 61. 27:58 e big change from Mark here is the dropping of Mk. 15:44-45a:513 Matthew feels no need to provide extra assurance that Jesus was de nitely dead; not a Jesus who had not really died, but a Jesus whose resurrection might be falsely claimed on the basis of a missing body is what interests Matthew (vv. 62-66). Matthew also drops Mark’s τολμήσας (‘dared’): aer vv. 20-26 there is no need for him to signal that Joseph’s action will be unpopular and possibly even dangerous. In line with Matthew’s sharper separation of the two phases of Joseph’s intervention (with the break into two sentences through change from participle to indicative verb in v. 57 noted above), Matthew introduces an emphatic οὗτος (‘this [man]’) as subject. e rst of Mark’s two coordinated aorist indicatives (‘came in … and asked’) is subordinated as a participle to put the emphasis on the asking, and in the process εἰσῆλθεν πρός (‘came into’) becomes προσελθών (lit. ‘having come to’).514 Aer dropping Mk. 15:44-45a Matthew reformulates Pilate’s directive: he adds yet another τότε (‘then’); since he has omitted the fresh naming of Pilate in v. 44, he adds it now; and since he has just mentioned ‘the body’, he does not need ‘the corpse’ of the Markan text here; he also

replaces ἐδωρήσατο (‘he granted’), with its use of the rare verb δωρεῖσθαι (‘give/bestow upon’),515 with ἐκέλευσεν ἀποδοθῆναι (‘he commanded [it] to be given’).516 In Matthew the soldiers at the cross are responsible for removing Jesus’ body from the cross and handing it over to Joseph. (Mark seems to imagine Joseph himself taking the body from the cross, but perhaps he means that Joseph directed the Roman soldiers in performing this task.) On the basis of evidence of Roman refusal of burial for those cruci ed, with the bodies either le on the cross to decay and be carrion for the birds or thrown into a pile on the ground,517 scholars sometimes deny the historicity of Jesus’ burial, and therefore of Joseph’s request or at least its success. But this Roman practice is far from uniform;518 since Jesus was not a Roman citizen, Pilate would have had considerable personal discretion as to how he treated Jesus’ case; concessions to Jewish sensibilities are not unlikely in Judea; and we have already had reason to see that Pilate had no conviction that Jesus represented a threat or even deserved his sentence. e Jewish concern for providing a proper burial even for executed criminals, noted above in connection with Dt. 21:23, is re ected in a statement in Josephus about Jewish practice519 and probably lies behind the initiative taken by the Jews in Jn. 19:31 to have the bodies removed from the cross.520 ere is nothing intrinsically unlikely about the Gospel report. e Jewish Sanhedrin may have preferred that Jesus be subject to a dishonourable burial if such a speci c category existed at the time,521 but since they did not constitute the court that passed sentence, the matter was not in their hands. None of the Evangelists has any interest in the fate of the bodies of the two criminals. But Jewish sensibilities would have been as

much concerned about the disposal of their own bodies as of that of Jesus. Joseph’s interest, however, is speci cally in the body of Jesus. 27:59 e purchase of the linen cloth (σινδών) is a detail Matthew feels able to dispense with (a compensating addition will come a little later).522 ere is no more need to mention this than there is to mention that a man of substance like Joseph is not acting alone: under his supervision ‘his men’ who will actually do what is attributed to Joseph. As a counterpart to the change to ‘to be given’ in v. 58 Matthew has ‘took’ (λαβών) in place of Mark’s ‘took down’ (καθελών), which had in view the removal from the cross (see comments at v. 58 above). Matthew repeats ‘the body’ from v. 58 in place of Mark’s ‘him’ — he considers ‘him’ as less suitable for a dead Jesus.523 He also changes the verb for ‘wrap in’ from ἐνειλεῖν to ἐτύλισσειν. e reason for the change is uncertain,524 but Lk. 23:53; Jn. 20:7 have the same preference, and Lk. 23:53 also agrees with Mt. 23:53 in supplying ‘it’ (αὐτό) as the object, which suggests the possibility of a source in uence. In compensation for not mentioning the purchase of the wrapping cloth, Matthew adds ‘clean’ (καθαρᾷ) to give ‘a clean linen cloth’. σινδών can be a linen garment or a linen cloth (here the latter). It would not be used of rough cloth, but we can say nothing further about precisely what kind of cloth is intended. Wrapped around Jesus’ body, it will serve as a minimal shroud, hiding the mangled body of Jesus from sight. at the only thing mentioned is the wrapping with the linen cloth does not de nitely preclude other care shown to the body, for example, washing off the blood, but it does leave the impression of a minimal and rushed preparation. e burial account will combine minimal preparation of the body with a most digni ed resting place. is is consonant with Joseph’s making the most of a very limited window of opportunity.525

27:60 In agreement with his addition of ‘it’ (αὐτό) in v. 59, Matthew prefers the same here to Mark’s ‘him’ (αὐτόν).526 Matthew adds ‘his own new’ (τῷ καινῷ αὐτοῦ). Luke has a partial equivalent in Lk. 23:53, ‘where no one had yet been placed’, while Jn. 19:41 has language similar to Luke but also Matthew’s word ‘new’.527 With an aorist active verb for a periphrastic pluperfect passive, Mark’s ‘was carved out of rock’ (ἦν λελατομημένον ἐκ πέτρας) becomes ‘he carved in the rock’ (ἐλατόμησεν ἐν τῇ πέτρᾳ). e last two changes emphasise Joseph’s personal stake in this tomb. Matthew may well have reasoned that an unused tomb to which Joseph has access at very short notice must be a tomb to which he has the rights. Anticipating his addition at the end of the verse of ἀπῆλθεν (‘he went away’), Matthew prefers a participle (προσκυλίσας) to Mark’s indicative (προσεκύλισεν) for ‘rolled to/against’. Mark’s ‘stone’ (λίθον) becomes a ‘large stone’ (λίθον μέγαν) — Matthew draws this from Mk. 16:4, where the stone is ‘exceedingly large’ (μέγας σϕόδρα) — probably anticipating the role of the ‘great (μέγας) earthquake’ and the angel of the Lord in getting it removed.528 Matthew adds ἀπῆλθεν (‘he went away’) at the end of the verse, which serves to bring closure to the account of Joseph’s role and will make clear that the women at the tomb in v. 61 are not there simply to see the burial: they stay on in lonely vigil. We are probably to think of the tomb as being in the same vicinity as Golgotha (this becomes explicit in Jn. 19:42). As already noted at Mt. 27:33, there is evidence from the period of tombs having been cut into Golgotha itself, and there are remains of other tombs in the vicinity. e language of rolling a stone against the entrance of the tomb suggests that the tomb envisaged is not one cut vertically into the rock, as was sometimes the case, but one cut horizontally. Such tombs were entered by a small opening at ground level through which one would need to crawl. For the most

elaborate tombs, the rock to close off the entrance would be a wheel-shaped cut stone, rolled sideways in a shallow guide trench cut in the rock. But the Gospel accounts favour the use of a boulder which has been rounded roughly and shaped to t the entrance. We are probably to imagine the need for several people to be involved in moving the stone (Joseph’s men). Once inside there was generally more space than the small entryway might suggest, and one could stand erect again. Many such cutout tombs became family vaults, with several ‘rooms’. Bodies were accommodated in various ways: in deep, narrow ‘pigeonholes’, on benches cut out from the walls, or in semicircular niches cut into the walls. e Gospel accounts favour a tomb with a bench or a niche construction.529 27:61 Matthew adds ἐκεῖ (‘there’) here as he did in v. 55,530 and in this way continues to make the point that women stayed when the male disciples had long since ed. In v. 55 Matthew preserved the Markan reference to seeing what happened, but here, with his substitution of ‘sitting in front of the tomb’531 for Mark’s ‘seeing where he was placed’, he allows the interest in seeing to drop entirely, putting all the emphasis on the simple presence of the women (I have noted at v. 60 above that the women stayed aer Joseph le). Mark’s language for identifying the second Mary here and in Mk. 16:1 is confusing: aer introducing a second Mary in Mk. 15:40 as ‘Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses’, he refers to what must be the same woman in v. 47 as ‘Mary the mother of Joses’ and in 16:1 as ‘Mary the mother of James’. Matthew simpli es and removes the cause of confusion: in Mt. 27:61 and 28:1 the second Mary is ‘the other Mary’ (as part of the same simpli cation, in 28:1 Matthew will not follow Mark in having three women go to the tomb on Easter morning when only two have seen where the tomb was on Good Friday).

It is not the whole group of women, but only the two Marys who are to be found at the tomb. Do the two Marys go as leaders and representatives of the larger group? Quite a group of women standing some distance from the cross would probably have attracted no attention, but the situation would likely have been quite different if the whole group had taken it on themselves to set themselves in front of the tomb while the interment was taking place and then stayed in front of the tomb. It would be better to have just a couple of them do this. e presence of the women as Joseph sees to the burial of Jesus strengthens the bond already marked between the women and Joseph in v. 57 and thus makes its own contribution to helping the reader see the centurion and those with him, Joseph, and the women as linked together as providing affirmation of Jesus in contrast to the three groups in vv. 39-44 whose attitude had been to mock Jesus. No terminus is given to the vigil of the women. We are perhaps simply to think of them as wanting to keep vigil there for as much time as was practically possible. Matthew does not tell us that they were not back there on the sabbath, but we may be meant to imagine that they were or that only sabbath obligations kept them away. He next mentions them there on Easter morning because that is when the next dramatic development takes place. 1′. A Guard of Soldiers Is Set at the Tomb (27:62-66) 62e

next day, that is, [the day] aer the [day of] preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together to Pilate 63and said, ‘Lord, we remember that that deceiver said [while he was] still living, “Aer three days I will be raised”. Command that the tomb, therefore, be secured until the third day; otherwise ahis disciples may comeb and steal him [away] and say to the people, “He has been raised from the dead”; and the last deception will be worse than the first.’ 65Pilate said to them, ‘You [can] have a guard; go off and

secure [the tomb] in whatever manner you have experience of ’. 66ey went and secured the tomb by means of the guard, and they set a seal on the stone.

TEXTUAL NOTES a. Missing from ‫ א‬B arm geopt, giving ‘the disciples’, which is not a natural idiom on the lips of the Jewish leaders. b. νυκτος (‘by night’) is added, not always in the same position, in C3 L S Γ 565 700 892 1241 l 844 etc. sys, p. Cf. 28:13. Bibliography Brown, R. E., ‘e Resurrection in Matthew (27:62–28:20)’, Worship 64 (1990), 157-70. • Carrier, R., ‘e Guarded Tomb of Jesus and Daniel in the Lion’s Den: An Argument for the Plausibility of e’, JHC 8 (2001), 304-18. • Craig, W. L., ‘e Guard at the Tomb’, NTS 30 (1984), 273-81. • Crossan, J. D., Cross at Spoke, 249-80. • Ritt, H., ‘Die Frauen und die Osterbotscha: Synopse der Grabesgeschichten (Mk 16,1-8; Mt 27,62–28,15; Lk 24,1-12; Joh 20,1-18)’, in Die Frau im Urchristentum, ed. G. Dautzenberg, H. Merklein, and D. Müller (QD 95. Freiburg: Herder, 1983), 117-33. • Schaeffer, S. E., ‘e Guard at the Tomb (Gos. Pet. 8.28–11.49 and Matt 27.62-66; 28:1-4, 1116): A Case of Intertexuality’, SBLSP 30 (1991), 499-507. See further at Mt. 26:1-2; 27:32-38, 45-53.

We now reach the end of the sixth and nal subsection of Matthew’s Passion Narrative (on the whole pattern see at 26:1-2). e subsection 27:45-53 centred on the account of the death of Jesus. To the second part of the double closing bracket here in vv. 62-66 corresponds the role of the soldiers in the cruci xion in vv. 32-38 (see further there). It was the opposition of the Jerusalem leadership to Jesus that nally led the Roman soldiers to crucify Jesus (vv. 32-38); a fresh

initiative on the part of Jerusalem leaders now gives a guard of Roman soldiers the further role of guarding his tomb. It was important not only to have Jesus killed as one whose claims had been discredited but also to nip in the bud any moves to claim that he had been posthumously vindicated by resurrection. Matthew adds 27:62-65 to the Markan sequence. He will continue this new strand of the story in 28:2-4, 8-10. Scholars are split over whether this material is free Matthean composition or is based on source material. At various points (see below) non-Matthean features do seem to point to a source, but Matthew seems likely to have signi cantly overwritten his source. ough there seem to be identi able source traces in all but the opening verse, these do not make up more than a tiny fraction of the wording. Of all the materials in the Gospel of Peter, its parallel to Mt. 27:62-65; 28:2-4, 11 in Gos. Pet. 8:29–11:49 makes the best case for access to a separate source.532 Here the equivalents to the three separated parts of Matthew’s material come in sequence. In fact, only two of the likely source traces identi ed below are found in both Matthew and the Gospel of Peter, but that is not surprising, given that both the language and the content of the Gospel of Peter telling are very different from Matthew’s account. e point of closest verbal agreement in a sequence of words is Gos. Pet. 8:30 and Mt. 27:64, both of which have ‘otherwise his/the disciples may come and steal him [away]’. However, this could as well be a secondary in uence from Matthew as a source agreement. Because of the likelihood of a secondary in uence from Matthew, the Gospel of Peter material is of no real use in seeking to reconstruct a more original form of the material, but it does count against the view that Matthew has freely composed these materials. How can one evaluate the historicity of such material? So oen critical scholarship assumes that if something could have been made up by early Christians, then it must have been made up by early Christians. But that is to show undue scepticism. Early Christian tradents were no narrow literalists, and they were quite capable of embellishing and creating symbolic narratives, but they operated with a sense of integrity and responsibility

which is oen not adequately reckoned with. As a minimum, the material seems likely to re ect a solid historical tradition that the tomb of Jesus was kept under scrutiny in the days aer his cruci xion and that in some way this proved to be an embarrassment to the Jerusalem leadership. Craig offers a well-argued defence of the basic historicity of setting a guard at the tomb.533

27:62 ough in Jewish reckoning the new day started at sunset, for practical purposes it was just as Jewish to recognise it as starting the following morning, as here with ‘the next day’.534 ἥτις ἐστιν (lit. ‘whichever is’) has a function here like ‘i.e.’ or ‘that is’ in English.535 μετὰ τὴν παρασκευήν (‘[the day] aer the [day of] preparation’) is an unexpected way of speaking of the sabbath day. But Matthew failed to include in v. 57 a use of παρασκευή (‘[day of] preparation’) in the Markan parallel and seems to want to make up for the loss here. παρασκευή stands here for the Hebrew ʿereb (lit. ‘evening’), which in turn is an abbreviation of ʿereb šabbāt (‘sabbath eve’). Because no work was permitted on the sabbath, a good deal of preparation was necessary on its eve, and ‘sabbath eve’ gained its own clear identity. e present context alludes not to regular preparation for the sabbath, but to what Joseph of Arimathea has done in preparation for this particular sabbath. Is Matthew quietly saying that, unlike Joseph, the chief priests and the Pharisees here had failed to do the preparing they deemed necessary and are here found doing it on the sabbath, in violation of at least its spirit and probably, in their own best lights, also its letter? While the role of the chief priests has been pervasive throughout the Passion Narrative, the Pharisees have not been mentioned. eir period of prominence during Jesus’ time in Jerusalem has been from 21:45 to 23:29. Matthew put the chief priests and the Pharisees together for the rst time at 21:45, and he does so now again as we move to the end of the Passion account.

Matthew is careful to give both groups a rm place in the Jerusalem climax of Jesus’ ministry; this is his schematic way of saying that although the Pharisees as a group played no direct role in the nal conspiracy against Jesus, they shared fully in the opposition to Jesus that sent him to his death. ere is a nice irony in having the Pharisees, with their strong belief in resurrection, involved in precisely this episode in which only the possibility of a pretense of resurrection is considered. We should probably see the use of συνήχθησαν for the gathering together as echoing its uses in 26:3, 57 (and cf. that in 22:34 of the gathering of the Pharisees) in relation to the key gatherings that had plotted Jesus’ death. ough Pilate had released the body to Joseph, these leaders still go to Pilate: despite his ritual hand-washing, they still consider Pilate to be the person with ultimate responsibility for the situation. 27:63 Except in a few parables, where the ‘Lord’ of the parable functions metaphorically as an image of Jesus and/or God, the address κύριε (‘Lord/master’) has been reserved exclusively for Jesus elsewhere in the Gospel. Against this background, the use of κύριε here on the lips of the chief priests and the Pharisees, and addressed to Pilate, has an impact not unlike that of Jn. 19:15, where the chief priests say, ‘We have no king but Caesar’. e role of remembering here makes an ironic contrast with that of Peter, who in Mt. 26:75 remembered, but aer what was anticipated had taken place, another prediction of Jesus. ἐκεῖνος ὁ πλάνος (‘that deceiver’) is striking in two respects: otherwise Matthew consistently places ἐκεῖνος (‘that’) aer the noun to which it is linked (except in time expressions, where both orders are found); and πλάνος (‘deceiver’) has not previously played a role in the Passion Narrative — this is its only Gospel occurrence. Source language is likely. e cognate verb πλανᾶν is used in chap. 24 of the false prophets and messiahs against whose deceptions Jesus warns.536 e likelihood that the

Jerusalem leadership considered Jesus to be a deceiver to whom the strictures of Dt. 13:1-11 would apply is discussed at 26:65. ἔτι ζῶν (lit. ‘still living’) is hardly necessary here — Jesus can hardly have predicted his resurrection when he was dead. Is it designed to express satisfaction that Jesus is no longer living? As the Jerusalem leadership had successfully put an end to Jesus’ life, now they plan to put an end to any hopes that his life might be restored. For a public statement available to be remembered and for the ‘three day’ language (not the ‘third day’, which Matthew has otherwise consistently substituted for Mark’s ‘aer three days’) we have to reach back to Mt. 12:38-40, where Jesus also spoke to a group that included Pharisees. But for the use of ἐγείρειν (‘raise’) we must reach back to the other Passion predictions (where Matthew has consistently, but without signi cant difference of meaning, used ἐγείρειν rather than Mark’s ἀνιστάναι) — as much as anything it is the reader who is to remember. For the ‘aer three days’ construction we would have to reach back beyond Matthew to his Markan source, but this is less likely than that he had a source here that already used the ‘aer three days’ language. Why has Matthew not corrected it to ‘on the third day’ as earlier? Did he keep the imprecision and even ambiguity of the language that he otherwise corrects precisely because he wanted us to think in terms of a misunderstanding here on the part of the Jerusalem leaders? To display the body of Jesus once the full three days have passed would be a powerful refutation of any lingering hopes that Jesus might yet be vindicated by God. Are we to understand that this was the plan? e soldiers would secure the situation until the vital third day, and perhaps the leaders themselves would keep vigil on the vital third day, in order to display a still mangled corpse at its end. If so, resurrection ‘a day early’ would have quite wrongfooted their plans.

27:64 κελεύειν has been used of Pilate’s command in v. 58: how the chief priest and Pharisees are calling for another piece of post-cruci xion management of the situation. eir concern to secure (ἀσϕαλισθῆναι) the tomb is a concern to deny people, and in particular the disciples, access to it. e verb ἀσϕαλισθῆναι is used three times in this account. is repetition is not just to underline how important a matter this is for the Jerusalem leaders (one of the uses is on the lips of Pilate), but to suggest that this very act of securing the tomb has its own contribution to make to Christian con dence that Jesus rose from the dead: the guard guarantees that the body of Jesus has no other fate. As noted earlier, Matthew uses τάϕος, not his normal μνημεῖον, for the tomb in this episode (and in immediately adjacent texts). e use of the word is likely to re ect a source usage here. e critical window created by the remembered prediction will be open for three days. (Actually ‘until the third day’ [ἕως τῆς τρίτης ἡμέρας] here is quite ambiguous. Where does the count start from, the day of cruci xion or the day of the present speaking? Is ἕως [‘until’] inclusive or exclusive of the third day? And if the third day is to be included, is only its beginning included or the whole day through to its end? Not the immediate language but the larger sense and particularly ‘aer three days’ in the previous verse must control the choice.) eir fear is that the disciples might continue the deceptive ways of their master by spiriting his body537 away and subsequently maintaining that he had indeed been raised from the dead. e possible impact of such a deception on the people was of real concern to the Jerusalem leaders, whose freshly regained claim on the loyalty of the people (see discussion at v. 20) was not necessarily secure. ere would be real fears that the people’s loyalty might switch again if they could be fooled into believing that Jesus had been raised from death. e language ἠγέρθη ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν (‘he

has been raised from the dead’) is both that of Herod in 14:2, whose explanation of Jesus’ powers was that he was John raised from the dead, and that of the angel in 27:7, who gives the women the precise words with which they are to address Jesus’ (male) disciples. What Herod’s musings pointed confusedly towards and the Jerusalem leaders feared a pretense of is what is to come, not by sleight of hand as a con dence trick, but in reality. e language pattern of the nal clause is strikingly similar to that of the second last clause of 12:45: 12:45: καὶ γίνεται τὰ ἔσχατα … (‘and the last [state] … becomes 27:64: καὶ ἔσται ἡ ἐσχάτη πλάνη χείρων (‘and the last deception will be

χείρονα τῶν πρώτων worse than the rst’) 27:64: τῆς πρώτης worse than the rst’).

For Matthew, 27:64 may be a parody — not intended on the part of the speakers — of Jesus’ words in 12:45. Despite the language of rst and last, only two ‘deceptions’ are in view: there has been the claim of Jesus’ ministry, which the people had earlier been inclined to be ‘taken in’ by; and there is the prospect of a falsely claimed resurrection. 27:65 e language of Pilate’s reply is ambiguous. If ἔχετε (‘have’) is an imperative, then Pilate is placing a guard of soldiers at the disposal of the Jerusalem leaders. If it is indicative, then the sense could be much the same (‘you have’ as short for ‘I will let you have’), or the point could be that the leaders must look to resources already at their disposal. But there is no evidence that any band of Roman soldiers was at the disposal of the Jewish leadership. So,

since (a) the guard is spoken of in 28:12 as ‘soldiers’ (στρατιώτης), the language used for the Roman soldiers of 27:27, (b) Matthew538 keeps a Latin loanword, κουστωδία = kustodia, most unusually to speak of the guard (probably retained from a source), and (c) 28:14 implies ultimate answerability to the governor, we must think in terms of Pilate’s making a guard available as requested. e only difference is that Pilate interposes the Jewish leaders between himself and this guard, insofar as they, not he, are to determine the directions under which the guard is to operate. is interposition is of a piece with 27:24 (‘See [to it] yourselves’). ὡς οἴδατε (lit. ‘as you know’) seems to mean something like ‘in whatever manner you are experienced [in doing such things]’. 27:66 Given the late position of μετὰ τῆς κουστωδίας (‘with the guard’), it is unlikely that we should translate ‘went with the guard’ (so, e.g., the NRSV). We should rather think of the guard as the means by which the Jerusalem leaders ‘went and secured the tomb’. I have translated ‘by means of the guard’.539 But what of the action of sealing the stone (σϕραγίσαντες τὸν λίθον)? σϕραγίζειν means primarily to put a stamp of ownership on. But the regular use of stamped seals on documents as security checks to ensure that only authorised people had access to personal or sensitive information — even if the physical seal was restored aer being broken open, any breach of security could be identi ed by the damage to the impression caused by either the breaking open of the seal or the subsequent melting involved in restoring it — produced a strong secondary meaning involving keeping inaccessible that which had received a seal. e Greek verb never seems to imply that the sealed object is physically inaccessible, as the English word seal oen suggests. e inaccessibility of what has been sealed is backed by the stature or power of the one whose seal is involved, not some unbreakable quality to be attributed to the

seal itself. In view of this background to the word, it seems best to take the Jerusalem leaders as the subject of σϕραγίσαντες (lit. ‘having sealed’) — not the guard, nor the leaders along with the guard. Why the seal? Probably to keep the guard honest. A broken seal would be proof positive to the chief priests and the Pharisees that the security of the tomb had been violated,540 no matter what the soldiers on guard might say.541 No doubt Matthew assumes that the Jerusalem leaders or the soldiers will have checked for the body on the other side of the stone before setting the seal and arranging the guard. But he is not sufficiently concerned about closing up all possible loopholes that he feels the need to say so.

1. Matthew’s major structural investment seems to be in arranging the materials of chaps. 26–27 as a section, as I have explored in connection with Fiedler’s analysis in what follows. But Wainwright, Feminist Critical Reading, 258-60, has drawn attention to the way in which the materials of 26:1-13 and 28:1-20 could be seen as providing a triple bracket around the body of the Passion Narrative (26:1-2 and 28:16-20 correspond as instances of Jesus instructing his disciples; 26:3-5 and 28:11-15 correspond as occasions of conspiracy against Jesus; and 26:6-13 and 28:1-10 correspond as places where women play a prominent active role). at this is Matthew’s intention seems less likely. 2. See Fiedler, ‘Passion’, 299-302 (I have adapted Fiedler’s structure at some points). 3. Fiedler points only to the three sessions of prayer. 4. e situation here is actually slightly more complicated. Because of the chronological intertwining intended for the Sanhedrin hearing and Peter’s denials, the closing frame is partly embedded within the account of the Sanhedrin hearing. us Mt. 26:58 is separated from the main part of the account of Peter’s denials and placed near the beginning of the Sanhedrin

hearing account, and 27:1-2 are separated from the main part of the Sanhedrin hearing account and placed aer the account of Peter’s denials. 5. Part 5 is where I depart furthest from Fiedler. His structure has Jesus before Pilate (27:11-26) framed by the handing over to Pilate (vv. 1-2) — to which is attached the account of the fate of the betrayer (vv. 3-10) — which is parallelled by the abuse by the soldiers (vv. 27-31). In support of his linking of vv. 1-2 and 3-10 might be cited the fact that 20:18-19 have earlier identi ed the handing over by the betrayer and the handing over to Pilate as two parallel handings over. It seems better, however, to treat 27:1-2 as a conclusion to 26:57-68 (see previous note), set off to nish the task of making clear that Peter’s denials are coincident in time with Jesus’ ‘confession’ of the truth. 27:3-10 then become the opening piece of the frame. e parallell of vv. 3-10 and 27-31 would then be based on a contrast (cf. the immediately framing elements around the account of Jesus’ death on the cross in Part 6). e Sanhedrin hearing reduces Judas, who had handed Jesus over to the Jewish leaders, to profound regret that culminates in Judas’s death; the Roman hearing, at the conclusion of which Jesus is handed over to the soldiers, leads to their mockery of Jesus and climaxes in their leading him off to death. 6. e basis of the structure is virtually there already in Mk. 14–16. e main differences are that, with the absence of any equivalent to Mt. 27:62-66, the parallel to the cruci xion of Jesus by the soldiers will be the resurrection material in Mk. 16:1-8; and with the absence of an equivalent to Mt. 27:3-10, some or all of Mk. 15:1-5 would need to provide the opening part of the frame around the trial before Pilate. ere is no clear three-part division of the Gethsemane material in Mk. 14:32-42, but Mark may have thought in terms of the three sessions of prayer (but clearly no framing is involved). 7. Anon., ‘Voting’, 232-33. 8. See further Nolland, Luke 3:1023-24, and item by item below. 9. See Nickelsburg, ‘Genre’, 153-67, 182-84. 10. Mt. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1. 11. What is nished in the other cases is ‘instructing his twelve disciples’ (Mt. 11:1) and ‘these parables’ (13:53).

12. Mt. 26:1 dispenses with ‘and the [feast of] Unleavened Bread’ of Mk. 14:1. Matthew probably thinks that the combination ‘the Passover and the [feast of] Unleavened Bread’ is clumsy and imprecise. In 26:17 he will retain the reference to ‘the rst day of Unleavened Bread’ of Mk. 14:12. 13. Quite a number of times in the Passion Narrative Matthew will increase the material presented in the rst person. See Mt. 26:2, 15, 27, 31, 61, 66, 71. Cf. Descamps, ‘Rédaction’, 370. 14. To add further confusion, both calendars (but the one much more frequently than the other) required the periodic intercalation of extra months to keep the seasons in line with the calendar. Little is known about how intercalation was regulated on either calendar. 15. e community at Qumran had boycotted the temple. Casey, ‘Date’, 245-47, thinks that he has evidence in m. Zeb. 1:3 for the sacri ce of the Passover lamb on 13 Nisan and the morning of 14 Nisan (the aernoon is the standard time of sacri ce). But the text probably means the opposite of what Casey claims it means. What is under discussion is the validity of the sacri cial slaughter of Passover lambs on the morning of 14 Nisan. Because this was not officially allowed, those who wanted to do this would have to do so under the name of some other sacri ce (which the unscrupulous might want to do to avoid the crowds or to have more time to prepare the meal). Two rabbinic opinions are given. One speaks of the act as being ‘[as] valid as if ’; the other speaks of it as ‘[as] invalid as if ’. is looks like a split opinion until one examines the points of comparison more closely. Ben Bathyra declares the sacri ce to be as invalid as if it were slaughtered at the proper time, but not as a Passover sacri ce (cf. m. Zeb. 1:1, where the Passover sacri ce and sin offerings are exceptions to the general rule that sacri ces offered under the wrong names are nonetheless acceptable). R. Joshua declares the sacri ce to be as valid as if it were slaughtered a day earlier on 13 Nisan. But that is to say that it is only as valid as something that is even further out of line than what is being evaluated — in other words, not valid at all. e two opinions between them rule the practice out of court by asserting that the sacri ce is doubly invalid because it takes place at the wrong time and under the wrong name. (Casey’s reconstruction has to make the dubious assumption that sacri ce on 13 Nisan was accepted as valid, while that on the morning of 14 Nisan was under dispute.)

16. For further detail on the material of this paragraph see Nolland, Luke 3:1,024-26. 17. Mt. 26:3, 47; 27:1, 3, 12, 20. e exception is 26:57, with ‘the scribes and the elders’, but these are with Caiaphas the high priest and thus the leader of the chief priests. 18. Josephus mentions Caiaphas in Ant. 18.35, 95. In the NT he is mentioned in Mt. 26:3, 57; Lk. 3:2; Jn. 11:49; 18:13, 14, 24, 28; Acts 4:6. e family tomb of Caiaphas has apparently been found south of Abu Tor. See Z. Greenhut, ‘Burial Cave of the Caiaphas Family’, BAR 18.5 (1992), 28-36; R. Reich, ‘Caiphas’ Name Inscribed on Bone Boxes’, BAR 18.5 (1992), 38-44, 76; W. Horbury, ‘e “Caiaphas” Ossuaries and Joseph Caiaphas’, PEQ 126 (1994), 32-48. 19. Ps. 30:14 LXX has, ‘When they gathered together, they conferred together against me to take my life’. e LXX uses the aorist passive of ἐπισυνάγειν (‘gather together’). Matthew also uses the aorist passive, but drops the use of ἐπί, which he may have read as a redundant element repeating the sense of the συν (‘with’) pre x or as an anticipation of the ἐπί, with the sense ‘against’ before the following ἐπ᾿ ἐμέ (‘against me’), which is no longer appropriate in the Matthean text. e LXX uses ἅμα … ἐβουλεύσαντο for (‘they conferred together’) where Matthew has the closely related συνεβουλεύσαντο, which has the same meaning. A use of Ps. 31 (LXX 30) in relation to the Passion is also found in Lk. 23:46, where Ps. 31:6(ET v. 5; LXX 30:3) provides the language for Jesus’ words from the cross. 20. Mt. 26:4 prefers the simple dative to the ἐν + dat. of Mk. 14:1, but there is no difference of meaning. 21. e most signi cant change from Mk. 14:2 to Mt. 26:5 is the use of δέ (‘but/and’) rather than γάρ (‘for’) to connect the verse: if one takes Mark’s γάρ with full force, then the ‘treachery’ is reduced to keeping the people in the dark about what is happening (but Mark probably does not intend this). Matthew also prefers ἵνα μή (lit. ‘so that not’) to Mark’s μήποτε (lit. ‘lest’) to introduce the prospect to be avoided, uses the grammatically better subjunctive γένηται (‘happen’) for Mark’s future ἔσται (‘will be’), and has a

disturbance ‘among the people’ (ἐν τῷ λαῷ) rather than ‘of the people’ (τοῦ λαοῦ). 22. Otherwise Mt. 26:6 is linked with a δέ (‘and/but’) in place of the καί (‘and’) of Mk. 14:3; and the article disappears before οἰκίᾳ (‘house’). Mark’s genitive absolute phrase that locates Jesus at a meal table is delayed to the end of v. 7 and represented differently. 23. If we set aside the names in the genealogy in 1:1-17 and the names of OT characters, the only names in Matthew to this point are Mary, Joseph and Jesus, John the Baptist, the names of the Twelve (with identi cation in terms of family connections in the case of the family of Zebedee), and then, as gures of public prominence in the political realm, King Herod, Herod the Tetrarch, his brother Philip and his wife Herodias, and nally Caiaphas. To come are only Pilate, Jesus Barabbas, Simon from Cyrene, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph (brothers whose identities are otherwise uncertain). 24. Oen the names may not have been retained in the tradition, but even if known they are likely to have been suppressed in the interests of generalising from the speci c cases reported. 25. John, despite placing Jesus in Jerusalem for a considerable part of his ministry, scarcely does better, but a preexisting relationship with people in Bethany is indicated in 11:1-3. ough his speci c setting for the ministry is largely Galilean, Luke invites his readers to think in terms of a ministry through all of Jewish Palestine (see discussion of Lk. 4:43 in Nolland, Luke, 1:216). is allows Luke to include readily the material on Martha and Mary in 10:38-42 (assuming that he was aware of its ties with Bethany, which seems likely given the many links between the Lukan and Johannine traditions). 26. All of νάρδου πιστικῆς πολυτελοῦς· συτρίψασα τὴν ἀλάβαστρον (NRSV: ‘very costly … of nard and she broke open the jar and’) of Mk. 14:3 disappears from Mt. 26:7, to be replaced only with βαρυτίμου καί (‘of great worth … and’). Matthew adds ἐπί (‘on’) between ‘poured out’ and ‘head’ (surprisingly keeping Mark’s genitive for ‘head’; an accusative would be expected) and introduces ἀνακειμένου to replace κατακειμένου αὐτοῦ dropped from the previous verse (Mark uses both verbs, but Matthew is happy only with the former).

27. Elements of similarity between Mk. 14:3-9 and Lk. 7:36-50 may have a similar cause. 28. If this is right, the identi cation of Mary in Jn. 11:2 in terms of the anointing suggests that the merging of the gures preceded the writing of the Gospel of John. 29. Some interpreters might want to include the attempt to give Jesus drugged wine in Mt. 27:34, but Matthew probably sees it as an act of mockery (see below). Aer Jesus’ death Joseph of Arimathea takes the body and buries it (27:57-60). 30. Cf. Pliny, Nat. hist. 13.3.19. 31. Cf. Ex. 29:7; Lv. 8:12. 32. In Ps. 23:5 the imagery seems to be of God as host anointing the head of the honoured guest at the banquet God himself has arranged. B. Ḥul. 94a re ects a custom of offering oil to a guest to anoint himself. See StrB, 1:427-28, for further rabbinic references. In Jos., Ap. 2.256, the pouring of perfume onto somebody becomes a metaphor for honouring them. 33. For the use of perfumes/anointing oils in preparing bodies for burial see further Jos., Ant. 17.199; Test. Abr. (A) 20:11. 34. In particular it is unlikely that either in the Gospel forms or in the underlying tradition we have, as sometimes claimed, an anointing of Jesus as messianic king. 35. Feminist scholarship is inclined to grumble that the woman has not been allowed to speak for herself, but it is highly likely that there never were any words. Her action, however, speaks very powerfully, if not precisely. 36. Cf. Mack, ‘Anointing’, 94-95, but Mack wants to explain the objection in Mk. 14:4-5 as a rather arti cial attempt to shi the focus away from the obvious cause for concern. 37. Mt. 26:8 adds a bridging ἰδόντες (‘seeing’), replaces the periphrastic imperfect of Mk. 14:4 with an aorist, sees the need for a verb of speaking to introduce the direct speech, and drops τοῦ μύρου γέγονεν (lit. ‘of perfume has happened’) as clear enough from the context. Curiously Matthew drops πρὸς ἑαυτούς (‘to themselves’), but then adds a reference in v. 10 to Jesus knowing, which makes sense only if we are to assume that Jesus cannot hear the words of those who complain.

38. E.g., Lv. 6:3; Dt. 22:3; Sir. 29:10. 39. Mt. 26:9 uses eight of the sixteen words of Mk. 14:5. 40. Matthew has the motif from Mark in connection with the disciples in 16:8 (using γνούς as in 26:10). He also has the motif, likewise from his sources, in 9:4; 12:25; 22:18 (Matthew, but not his source, uses γνούς). 41. Otherwise Matthew makes a modest change in word order and has εἰς ἐμέ rather than ἐν ἐμοί for ‘to me’ (elsewhere, neither in the NT nor in the LXX does ἐν aer ἐργάζειν mean ‘to’ or ‘for’; in 3 Jn. 5 εἰς aer ἐργάζειν means ‘for’). 42. Sometimes the three basic statements of Mt. 26:10-12 (or of Mk. 14:6-8) are treated as having independent signi cance from each other. But satisfactory senses do not clearly emerge on this approach, and the statements cry out to be related to each other. 43. e same play is oen found in the LXX and quite a number of other times in the NT. 44. Jeremias, ‘Salbungsgeschichte’, 77-81, used a rabbinic distinction between works of compassion, which included care for the dead, and almsgiving as a requirement of the Mosaic Law. But almsgiving was also a recognised act of compassion (see ʾAbot R. Nat. 20a). 45. ‘Whenever you want, you can do good to them’ may seem too oand to Matthew. is material is also missing from Jn. 12:8; Mark may want the addition to spell out the logic, but in fact the focus is sharper without it. 46. Separated from its context, the statement in Mt. 26:11 could be taken along with 9:15 as concerned to mark the time of Jesus’ ministry as one in which attention to him displaces poor relief. But such an understanding coheres very poorly with other Gospel material. 47. Jesus speaks of ‘body’ rather than ‘head’ because anointing for burial naturally dealt with the body as a whole and not simply the head. But the speci cs of anointing for burial were, of course, not literally possible for the woman. Head, hands, and feet were the publicly visible and available parts of the human body. She ‘perfumed’ him as she was able. 48. See Est. 2:23; 10:2 for recording in the royal annals what Mordecai had done and been.

49. On the blessing of being well remembered see Ps. 112:6; Sir. 39:9; 49:1. e negative counterpart is to have one’s memory blotted out, as in Ps. 9:6, or to leave behind an accursed memory, as in Sir. 23:26. 50. is is more likely than that we should paraphrase εἰς μνημόσυνον as ‘and at the end God will remember her’ or ‘with the result that God will remember her on judgment day’, or that we should take the sense as ‘as her memorial to Jesus’. 51. With reference to Mk. 14:9, Delorme, ‘Parole’, 113, speaks aptly of ‘a sort of auto-justi cation of the text’, explaining that the text ‘authorises itself from Jesus to recount what it recounts’. Much the same can be said of Mt. 28:19-20 in relation to the teaching material of the Gospel (and especially the ve major discourses). 52. See Mt. 9:20-22; 15:21-28. 53. Cf. Nolland, Luke, 3:1,029. 54. Otherwise Matthew has referred to the Twelve only in the immediate context of the mission charge (10:1, 2, 5; 11:1). But cf. 19:28. 55. Cf. Vogler, Judas, 58. 56. Nolland, Luke, 3:1,029. 57. Lk. 22:3 does the same thing, but with a different verb (he uses Matthew’s verb when he does it again in v. 47). 58. On the use of this verb with the Passion see the comments at Mt. 17:22. 59. ἔστησαν is literally ‘placed/stood’. Its translation as ‘weighed out’ is based on LXX usage, where the verb regularly stands for the Hebrew šql, meaning ‘weigh (out)’. e basis of the idiom can probably be illuminated from the fuller form found in Is. 46:6, where the verb is followed by bqqnh/ ἐν σταθμῷ (‘in the/a balance’). ἔστησαν is an abbreviation of ἔστησαν ἐν σταθμῷ (‘placed in a balance [to be weighed]’). 60. e NRSV etc. translate ʿnyy hṣṣʾn (lit. ‘[those] afflicting the sheep’) in Zc. 11:7, 11 as ‘the sheep merchants’. e LXX was unsure what to do with this phrase. It runs ʿnyy together with the preceding kn and gets rst τὴν Χαναανῖτιν (‘the Canaanite woman’) and then οἱ Χαναναῖοι (‘the Canaanites’). ere should clearly be a link back to v. 5: these people are

those ultimately responsible for the sheep and who employ the shepherds to take immediate responsibility for them. 61. Jdg. 16:5; 17:3, 4, 10; 2 Sa. 18:11, 12; 1 Ki. 10:29; 2 Ch. 1:17 (oddly, for these last two cases and Ho. 3:2 the NRSV intrudes ‘shekels’ into the text); Ps. 119:72 (LXX 118:72); Ho. 3:2. Acts 19:19 is the only other NT text where the unit of measure for silver pieces remains unexpressed. All of these texts use the singular of the Greek word for silver, whereas Matthew uses the plural. ough the plural of ἀργύριον is not found elsewhere in the Bible, Matthew uses it consistently, except in 25:18, where he has probably been in uenced by the linked ἕν (‘one’). 62. In effect the LXX of 2 Sa. 18:12 renders a use of šql in the MT of the verse twice: once with ἴστημι, meaning ‘weigh out’, and a second time with σίκλους (‘shekels’). 63. Philo, Spec. leg. 2.32-33, provides gures for people of different ages which, translated into shekels, are: thirty for a man more than sixty years old; a hundred for a man between twenty and sixty; forty for a youth between ve and twenty; and ten for a child less than ve years old. 64. Zc. 11:13 ironically calls the amount ‘this lordly price’. 65. But Mt. 26:16 and Mk. 14:11 also have in common the εὐκαιρ- root (expressing the idea of a good time for something) and a use of παραδιδόναι (‘hand over’). 66. See Nolland, Luke 3:1032, 1034. 67. Beyond the changes from Mk. 14:12 to Mt. 26:17 which receive speci c comment in what follows, there is only a linking δέ (‘but/and’) in place of Mark’s καί (‘and’) and an omission of ἡμέρᾳ (‘day’) — it can be read as implicit — and of αὐτοῦ (‘his’) to give ‘the disciples’. 68. In Mt. 26:17 προσῆλθον … λέγοντες (‘they came to … saying’) takes the place of λέγουσιν (‘they say’). 69. Matthew has also dropped the role of ‘two’ at 10:1, but there the loss is probably only a by-product of Matthew’s failure actually to report a mission. 70. Beyond the changes involved in the matters commented on, Matthew in 26:18 changes a historic present λέγει (‘he says’) in Mk. 14:13 to an aorist and drops the attached αὐτοῖς (‘to them’).

71. δεῖνα is not used anywhere else in the NT or the LXX. 72. Matthew clearly indicates that Jesus is to celebrate the Passover with his disciples. 73. ere are twelve OT uses of the idiom, and it is also found in Heb. 11:28. 74. In both cases a question is asked using θέλειν (‘want/wish’). 75. V. 17: οἱ μαθηταὶ … τῷ Ἰησοῦ … ἑτοιμάσωμεν … τὸ πάσχα V. 19: οἱ μαθηταὶ … ὁ Ἰησοῦς … ἡτοίμασαν … τὸ πάσχα Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:458. 76. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,058-59. 77. Beyond the change commented on below the only difference between Mt. 26:20 and Mk. 14:17 is that the link to the previous verse is with δέ (‘and/but’) rather than with καί (‘and’). 78. In Mark’s ‘Passion day’ six hours are likely to be allowed for the Passover celebration. See Nolland, Luke, 3:1,025. 79. Otherwise the reference to reclining at table is dropped (it has already been used), and Matthew sees no need to freshly introduce Jesus (26:20 would have been the place for that, but even there Matthew decided that the ow was effective without it). 80. Cf. Mk. 3:19; Lk. 6:16; Jn. 6:71. 81. Otherwise Mt. 26:22 adds an initial linking καί (‘and’) and uses εἷς ἕκαστος (‘each one’) in place of the εἷς κατὰ εἷς (‘one by one’) found in Mk. 14:19 (Mark’s idiom is matched in the Bible only in Jn. 8:9 ([using καθ᾿ rather than κατά]; Matthew’s idiom is a common biblical idiom). 82. I count seventeen uses of ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν. 83. Otherwise there is only Matthew’s preference for ἐν (‘in’) over εἰς (‘into’) with τρύβλιον (‘dish’). 84. For a reconstruction of the sequence of the meal see Nolland, Luke, 3:1,048. 85. In discussing ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος (lit. ‘the one dipping’) in Mk. 14:20, Derrett, ‘Upper Room’, 374, describes such a use of the de nite article as ‘classi catory’. is seems to be what others call the generic use of the article.

86. ough John in 13:21-30 treats the matter rather differently, the passing of the dipped bread to Judas, which is John’s equivalent activity, has immediate signi cance only for the beloved disciple, who has questioned Jesus privately at the instigation of Peter. 87. Each has a necessity statement followed by a woe which is against the one through whom the necessity nds its realisation. Also, each has an associated clause expressing what would have been better. In the form of this woe found in Lk. 17:1-2 even the sequence of the clauses is the same as for Mt. 26:24. If Mt. 26:24 is not to be traced to the historical Jesus, possibly its formulation has in part been inspired by the tradition found in Mt. 18:6-7; Lk. 17:1-2. 88. Matthew will make similar uses of noncommittal answers that indicate more than they formally say in 26:64; 27:11. 89. See Jn. 13:18, 25-27. 90. Ruckstuhl, ‘Neue’, 96-105. 91. Casey, ‘Original’, 1-12. 92. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,041-49. 93. Fenton, ‘Eating People, 414-23. 94. See, e.g., Chilton, Temple, 137-54; ‘Eucharist’, 37-43. 95. See further Nolland, Luke 3:1,043, 1,051-52. 96. Given the repetition, the connecting δέ (‘and/but’) of Mt. 26:26 is an improvement over the καί (‘and’) of Mk. 14:22. 97. ‘Eat’ in Mt. 26:26 may be inspired by ‘drink’ in v. 27 (which has become an imperative in Matthew whereas it was a narrative past tense in Mk. 14:22), but Matthew certainly does not work systematically to enhance the parallelism between Jesus’ two actions. 98. Matthew uses ἄρτος, the regular word for ‘bread’ or ‘a loaf of bread’. For the use of ἄρτος for unleavened loaves such as the unleavened Passover loaf cf. the LXX of Ex. 29:2; Lv. 2:4; Nu. 6:19; etc., as well as Philo, Spec. leg. 2.158; Jos., Ant. 3.142. 99. For a reconstruction of the sequence of the meal, see Nolland, Luke, 3:1,048.

100. I have noted the link between Mt. 26:26 and 14:19; 15:36 in the discussion of those texts. But as discussed there, the description in 26:26 is not for the sake of echoing the feedings. Rather, the feedings are so reported as to echo the Last Supper and via it the Christian Eucharist. 101. Alternatively, it could have come before, during, or aer the main meal. 102. Cf. Ex. 13:8. Dt. 26:5-9 also provided something of a pattern. 103. A formal tension may be sensed between δούς (lit. ‘having given’) and the following imperative, λάβετε (‘take’). But given the exibility of the use of the Greek aorist participle, various relationships in time between the giving and the taking are consistent with the syntactical pattern used. In any case, it is easy to think of a distribution of the bread which was then to be kept aside pending a signal for simultaneous consumption. 104. Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, 200, 221-22. 105. ‘We do get repeated reference to the separation of the “blood” from the sacri cial “ esh,” and we do get reference to the disposal of the sacri cial animal having to do with what is done respectively to the “blood” and to the “ esh” (sometimes “body” in Philo).’ Nolland, Luke, 3:1,053. 106. See Sir. 14:18; 17:31; 1 Enoch 15:4; Mt. 16:17; 1 Cor. 15:50; Gal. 1:16; Heb. 2:14. Ez. 39:17-18 (cf. 32:5-6), where ‘ esh’ and ‘blood’ are the constituent parts of human bodies as consumed by wild animals, bring us closer to the death-facing context of the Last Supper. 107. See Philo, Rer. div. her. 54. In any case, in terms of an original meaning, for the Aramaic the distinction in Greek between ‘body’ and ‘ esh’ may be irrelevant (bśrh can mean either; the semantic range of gph at the time of Jesus remains disputed). 108. See Nolland, Luke, 3:1,053. In the case of the cup, this original pattern of consumption rst and then explanation is clearly preserved by Mk. 14:23-24. Both Mt. 26:27 and Lk. 22:20 make adjustments that allow the statement to be read as offering explanation before consumption. In the case of the bread, both Mt. 26:26 and Mk. 14:22 could be read in terms of consumption before explanation (with a pause for eating between the directive to ‘take, eat’ or ‘take’ and the words of explanation), but are more naturally read in terms of consumption aer explanation.

109. e main, and a quite striking, gain is the directive ‘drink’ to sit alongside that to ‘eat’. e move from nite verb to participle for ‘gave’ in Mt. 26:26 is not matched by an equivalent move in v. 27, while the opposite move for the verb of saying in v. 27 means the loss of parallelled uses of ‘and said’. 110. e meal began with a cup of wine over which the opening grace of the meal was said. It is unclear whether there was a blessing over the second cup (probably not), and no blessing seems to have been associated with the nal cup. 111. Cf. Schürmann, Ureigener Tod, 76. Stuhlmacher, ‘Zeugnis’, 11, makes appeal to rabbinic traditions in which all Israel would drink at the eschatological meal on Mount Zion from a single cup of blessing (cf. Ps. 116:13; texts at Str-B, 4.1.72; 4.2.628, 1146-47, 1163-64) to claim that Jesus’ use of a single shared cup involves a deliberate anticipation of the eschatological meal. is extra dimension is possible. 112. ere is something of a thematic parallel in Jn. 13:8. 113. e possibility that Mt. 27:3-10 represents a kind of restoration of Judas will be explored when I discuss this text below. 114. Mt. 26:28 uses περί rather than the ὑπέρ of Mk. 14:24 for ‘for’ and brings the phrase that included it to a position before ἐκχυννόμενον (‘poured out’). 115. e meaning is occasionally not one’s own blood, but the blood one has shed (e.g., Jdg. 9:24; Ez. 22:13). When the reference is to animal sacri ce, there is no emphasis on the violence involved in their deaths (e.g., Ex. 29:20; Lv. 1:11). On rare occasions the use can be for menstrual blood (e.g., Lv. 20:18) or the blood associated with childbirth (e.g., Lv. 12:7; Ez. 16:6, 9, 22). 116. E.g., 2 Sa. 4:11; 1 Ki. 2:33; Je. 51:35; Joel 3:21. 117. E.g., Je. 46:10; Ez. 21:32; Jdt. 8:21. 118. See 1 Sa. 26:20; Ps. 30:9 (here the threat has been averted); 4 Macc. 6:29. 119. Cf. the related material in 4 Macc. 17:21-22: ‘e tyrant was punished, and the homeland puri ed — they having become, as it were, a ransom (ἀντίψυχον) for the sin of our nation. And through the blood of

those devout ones and their death as an atoning sacri ce (ἱλαστηρίου), divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated.’ 120. See Job 16:18, ‘Earth, do not cover my blood’, where in the context Job’s sufferings are in view. 121. E.g., Gn. 9:6; Pss. 79:3; 106:38; Zp. 1:17; 1 Macc. 7:17. e LXX tends to prefer forms of the verb ‘pour out’ that are based on ἐκχεῖν rather than ἐκχύννειν, the verb which underlies the form in Mt. 26:28. 122. E.g., Ex. 29:12; Lv. 4:7; 9:9. 123. E.g., Dt. 12:16; 15:23. 124. In Ex. 24:8 ‘see’ is hnnh. is is literally ‘behold’, but in dynamic terms it could easily be rendered ‘this is’. ‘In accord with’ is the very general ʿl (lit. ‘upon’). ‘All these words’ could refer to the people’s promise or to the words read from the book of the covenant, or most likely to both together. 125. On the holiness imparted by the blood see, e.g., Lv. 6:20. 126. Before the Passion Narrative, there is already the use of Zc. 9:9 in Mt. 21:5; ‘Zechariah the son of Barachiah’ in 23:35 echoes Zc. 1:1; Zc. 12:10, 12, 14 are alluded to in Mt. 24:30; Zc. 9:14 and/or 2:6 (LXX v. 10) may have le their mark on Mt. 24:31; and Zc. 14:5 seems to have contributed to Mt. 25:31. e Passion Narrative uses Zc. 11:12 in Mt. 26:15, Zc. 13:7 in Mt. 26:31, and Zc. 11:13 in Mt. 27:9. 127. Rabbinic tradition linked Zc. 9:11 not only to Ex. 24:8 but also to the blood released in the act of circumcision (see Str-B, 4.1.39), but this is unlikely to be of signi cance here. 128. See, e.g., Je. 11:9-11; 22:8-9; 31:32; Ez. 16. Bar. 2:34-34 links restoration beyond the Exile with God’s making of an everlasting covenant with his people. e Qumran community considered themselves to be the people of the new covenant (see CD 6:19; 8:21 [MS A]; 19:33-34 [MS B]; 20:12; 1QpHab 1:16-20) and expected a future renewal of the covenant (see 1Q 34:2:5-6; 1QSb 3:25-26; 5:21-22). 129. See Is. 55:3; 59:20-21; 61:7-8; Je. 31:31-34; 32:37-41; Ez. 16:60-63; 37:24-28; Bar. 2:27-35. 130. Closest to the καθάρσιον αὐτῶν ποίησον τὸ ἐμὸν αἷμα (‘make my blood their cleansing’) language of 4 Macc. 6:29 is the LXX of Ex. 30:10: ἀπὸ

τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ τῶν ἅμαρτιῶν (‘from the blood of the cleansing of sins’). 131. 4 Macc. 17:22 has διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐκείνων καὶ τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ θανάτου αὐτῶν (‘through the blood of those devout ones and the place of atonement of their death’). In the LXX ἱλαστήριον is otherwise a reference to the place where atonement is made, not the means by which atonement is made, but Rom. 3:25, also with an obvious intention to relate to the imagery of OT sacri ce, uses ἱλαστήριον and αἷμα (‘blood’) much as they are used in 4 Macc. 17:22. 132. In Ex. 32:30 the verb translated ‘make atonement’ is kpr, which is used regularly in the OT to mean ‘make atonement by sacri ce’. 133. e ‘as it were’ involved in the metaphorical use of the language becomes explicit in 4 Macc. 17:21. 134. It is the piel of the Hebrew verb kpr which is translated ‘forgiven’ here in Ez. 16:63. e same verb is translated ‘make atonement’ in Ex. 32:30 in connection with Moses’ approach to God on behalf of the sin of the people. 135. In 3:1 Matthew failed to use ‘for the forgiveness of sins’ from Mk. 1:4. e suggestion that Matthew dropped it because he did not want to associate John the Baptist with the forgiveness of sins is unlikely, given that the replacement in Mt. 3:1 is the same message Matthew will attribute to Jesus in 4:17, and given that the possibility of forgiveness is implicit in John’s call to repentance. But Matthew does not like to ‘waste’ material, and it is quite possible that he kept a lookout for a suitable place to make use of the words lost to John the Baptist. 136. ἄϕεσις does not mean ‘forgiveness’ in the LXX, which may have something to do with Matthew’s general avoidance of the term (in the LXX the cognate verb is, however, frequently used to mean ‘forgive’). 137. See Mt. 6:12, 14, 15; 9:2, 5, 6 (last three with reference to ‘sins’); 12:31, 32; 18:21, 27, 35. ough it does not use ‘forgive’, ‘Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ in Mt. 1:21 is a key verse for this theme. 138. See Mt. 1:21; 9:2, 5, 6; 26:28. 139. See Mt. 6:12, 14, 15; 18:21, 27, 35. 140. See Mt. 12:31, 32.

141. In the targum tradition of Ex. 24:6-8 the half of the blood of the covenant which is splashed against the altar is speci cally linked with atonement, and thus implicitly with forgiveness (see Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Onq. Ex. 24:8; the verb used is qpr). 142. See Mt. 3:11; 4:1; 10:20; 12:18, 28, 31-32; 28:19. 143. If so, then the older view that we have a vow of abstinence here would be true to the degree that aer drinking from the third cup, which he interprets in terms of his own death and by which he commits himself to his coming death, Jesus draws back from the convivial drinking with which the meal continues. 144. See Dt. 22:9; Is. 32:12. 145. Given that an extraordinary meal in the presence of God follows in Ex. 24:9-11 from the use of the blood of the covenant in v. 8, one must consider the possibility that this provides the pattern for Mt. 26:29 following from v. 28. But the lack of any speci c echoes counts against making such a connection. 146. Philo, Spec. leg. 2.148, provides some early support for this with its mention of ‘prayers and hymns [i.e., psalms]’ on the occasion of the Passover celebration. 147. See Nolland, Luke, 3:1,071, 1,073. 148. In order to accommodate the numbers, for Passover night the city boundaries were expanded to include the western slopes of the Mount of Olives. See Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, 43. For different views on what could be counted as Jerusalem for various purposes (and con icting views on the matter) cf. t. Men. 11:1 with t. Pes. 8:8. 149. In the event, it is unlikely that any of the disciple band went to bed at all that night. 150. e Greek forms are not exactly the same, but the ἐξ ὑμῶν (lit. ‘out of you’) used in Mt. 26:21 is not appropriate when the whole and not a part is in view. 151. All are followed by quotations except Mt. 26:24. γέγραπται is also found in 2:5; 4:6, also in connection with Scripture.

152. e A and Q texts of Zc. 13:7 have διασκορπισθήσεται as in Mt. 26:31, but this is likely to represent, at least for A, secondary correction of the Greek text in light of the Hebrew. e presence of Matthew’s τῆς ποιμνῆς (‘of the ock’) in the Q text makes it likely that Matthew’s text has exerted an in uence on the Q text at this point. 153. E.g., Je. 13:17; Ez. 34 passim; Zc. 10:3. e Hebrew term is mostly ʿdr. 154. Mt. 16:21; 17:9, 23; 20:19. 155. Since Luke (22:34, 60, 61) and John (13:38; 18:27) also have only a single cockcrow, the question needs to be asked whether Matthew was aware of a second source. Luke seems to have shared something in common with John here (see Nolland, Luke, 3:1,071, 1,073), but given that the double cockcrow is such an odd feature and that Mark, while repeating it in 14:72, makes nothing of it (e.g., the rst cockcrow could, as in the longer text of Mk. 14:68, have been reported partway through the denials as a marker to the reader or even as an unheeded warning to Peter) — assuming that ‘and the cock crowed’ is not original in v. 68 (nonoriginality has the support of ‫א‬ B L W Ψ* 579 892 2427 etc. c sys samss bo) — its omission is natural enough. Brown, Death, 137 lists a series of references to Greco-Roman sources in which the dawn or the rising sun is associated with the second cockcrow (presumably on the basis that the rst is to be treated as simply the cry of a restive bird!). is may explain the original Markan intention, but also how it might have been treated as an exotic way of speaking. 156. Otherwise Matthew prefers the idiom with ἐν for ‘on this night’, uses πρίν rather than πρὶν ἤ for ‘before’, and moves με (‘me’) to the emphatic nal position. 157. In 3 Macc. 5:23 the cockcrow marks the early morning (ὄρθριος), the earliest moment at which the activities of the day might reasonably begin (cf. Job 29:7 LXX; 3 Macc. 5:10; b. Yoma 21a; b. Ber. 60b: ‘When he hears the cock crowing, he should say: “Blessed is He who has given to the cock understanding to distinguish between day and night”’). We should not take too seriously the reports by modern scholars of the times when they heard cocks crowing in Jerusalem. e ancient materials are much more

important here. In ancient times, as now, a random cockcrow could come at any time. 158. κἄν (‘even if ’) replaces ἐάν (‘if ’), a move in the direction opposite from the one noted at Mt. 26:33; the σύν (‘with’) of ‘with you’ is switched from being a verbal pre x to a preposition, and σύν σοι (‘with you’) is brought earlier in its clause. 159. ere is conscious irony in the demand for prophecy from Jesus in Mt. 26:68 at precisely the point where prior prophecy by Jesus is being ful lled in vv. 69-73. 160. In each case τότε is followed by a historic present (in the rst and third cases a double historic present). e rst and third cases share τότε ἔρχεται … καὶ λέγει (‘then he comes … and says’). In the one case Jesus comes with the disciples; in the other case he comes to the disciples. Near the middle of the framed piece, vv. 38-44, the opening and closing paired historic presents are echoed, but without τότε and with a third historic present (‘he comes … and nds … and says’). 161. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,081-82; Brown, Death, 218-34. 162. For this reason I would have inverted the literal translation and rendered ‘Jesus comes with them’, were it not for the unfortunate side-effect that would have resulted of obscuring the parallelism between vv. 36, 40, and 45. 163. Earlier ‘his disciples’ has been common, but in Mt. 26 the presence of the disciples is quite pervasive, so aer ‘his disciples’ in 26:1 Matthew consistently has ‘the disciples’. 164. Otherwise Matthew prefers ἕως οὗ to Mark’s ἕως for ‘until’ and uses αὐτοῦ for ‘here’ rather than the ὧδε of Mk. 14:32. αὐτοῦ is found ten times in the LXX, but in the NT it is otherwise found only in Luke-Acts. On the ground that καθίσατε αὐτοῦ (‘sit here’) is found elsewhere only in Gn. 22:5, some scholars have argued that Matthew intends an allusion to the sacri ce of Isaac, but though the text continues, ‘I and the boy will go on further and worship’, the connection seems tenuous to me. 165. Black, ‘Historic Present’, 135-39, identi es this pattern in Matthew. Matthew has certainly adjusted imperfects in Mark to an aorist with associated particles in line with Black’s hypothesis (Mk. 14:35, 36; cf. Mt.

26:39), but the pattern observed by Black is somewhat compromised by the aorist εὗρεν (‘he found’) in Mt. 26:43 (carried over from Mk. 14:40). e change from historic present to aorist participle in Mt. 26:37 does not impact Black’s hypothesis directly, but the retention of the historic present would have provided stronger support (see further below). 166. e unclarity has to do with the referent of ‘disciples’ in Mt. 26:40, 45. It seems most likely that Matthew intends the three singled-out disciples and signals a return to reference to the whole disciple band with ‘all the disciples’ in v. 56. 167. Mt. 27:56 has ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’, but this is to link the woman here with that of 20:20 and has nothing to do with the sons as such. 168. ἀδημονεῖν is not found in the LXX, and beyond the parallel in Mk. 14:33 is found in the NT only in Phil. 2:26. 169. Other translations are ‘be in anxiety’, ‘be troubled’. 170. In 8:3 Matthew drops the reference to Jesus’ emotions of Mk. 1:4143 and in 19:20 to that of Mk. 10:21. 171. In light of ‘with me’ in Mt. 26:38, ‘with him’ in v. 36 gains in signi cance. Up to a point all the disciples have thus far demonstrated the solidarity with Jesus that he particularly asks of the three at this moment of extreme stress. 172. Brown, Death, 154, supports the connection to the psalm refrain as a pre-Gospel link on the ground that the refrain, represented by a different part of its wording, also lies behind Jn. 12:27. 173. Similarly in Sir. 37:2 we have, ‘Is it not a sorrow unto death (λύπη ἕως θανάτου) when your companion or friend is turned enemy?’ 174. In Gn. 22:5 Abraham leaves his young men behind when he goes to offer Isaac. In Ex. 24:2, 15 Moses alone is permitted to draw near to Yahweh. In Lv. 16:17 the temple sanctuary must be empty when the high priest makes his annual trip behind the curtain into the holy of holies with the blood of atonement. 175. With reference to Gn. 17:3, 17, Smith, ‘Prayer’, 107, takes the posture as implying humble submission to God.

176. Cf. Lk. 22:41-42, where λέγων (‘saying’) is added to the προσηύχετο (‘he was praying’) of Mk. 14:35. Matthew has similar uses of καὶ λέγων to that in 26:39 in 3:1-2; 8:5-6. 177. On ‘my father’ see the comments at Mt. 7:21. Otherwise Matthew corrects Mark’s imperfect ἔπιπτεν for ‘fell’ to the aorist ἔπεσεν. He improves the style by replacing the rst of Mark’s uses of ἀλλά (‘but’) with πλήν (here: ‘only’). And with a change from τί to ὡς he shows a preference for ‘not as I wish’ to ‘not what I wish’. 178. παρέρχεσθαι is used with ἐπί to mean ‘pass by’ in Ct. 3:4, but in relation to the movement of a person passing by. In Dn. 4:32 παρέρχεσθαι ἐπί is used (in the aorist) with a more precise meaning to indicate that something which one had (in Mt. 26:39 this would become ‘had been intended to have’) has now gone (in Mt. 26:39 this would become ‘should go’) to somebody else. 179. For Jesus’ solitude with God in prayer cf. Mt. 14:23; Mk. 1:36, and for others Mt. 6:5-6. 180. In Is. 51:22 the cup is taken from Jerusalem’s hand, but unlike what is contemplated in Mt. 26:39, this is to bring the drinking to an end aer a generous round has already been required. 181. In connection with Jesus himself, Mora, Création, 91, makes an interesting distinction between his ‘desire (désir)’and his ‘will (volonté)’: his desire is to be spared the fate that looms; his will is to do what his Father wishes. 182. Not that Jesus should be thought of as considering his Father’s will immutable. Cf. the prayers of Moses in Ex. 32:10-14 and Hezekiah in 2 Ki. 20:1-6. 183. e texts and the translation tend to punctuate Σίμων, καθεύδεις as a question: ‘Simon, are you sleeping?’ and then to make a second question out of οὐκ ἴσχυσας μίαν ὥραν γρηγορῆσαι: ‘Did you not have strength to watch one hour?’ ἴσχυσας could, however, be either a second person aorist or a nominative aorist participle. e latter would give, ‘Simon, are you asleep, not having had strength to watch one hour?’ 184. Matthew uses ἰσχύεν as an auxiliary in 5:13; 8:28.

185. See Nu. 24:10; 1 Sa. 3:2-8; 20:20-22, 35-39; 2 Ki. 1:9-16. Cf. b. Yoma 87a; Dt. Rab. 34:5. 186. For ‘enter into’ Mt. 26:41 has εἰσέλθητε εἰς where Mk. 14:38 has ἔλθητε εἰς. 187. In Mt. 5:3 ‘spirit’ is best taken as referring to one’s attitude or state of mind; in 27:50 ‘spirit’ means something like ‘life force’. 188. Brown, Death, 198. 189. In a later reference back to his list Brown uses the word ‘weakness’ (Death, 198). 190. Brown, Death, 199. See, e.g., 1QS 11:9: ‘I belong to evil humankind, to the assembly of wicked esh’; 11:12: ‘if I fall in the sin of the esh’; 4Q418 frg. 81: ‘He has separated you from all spirit of the esh; and you, keep separate from all that he hates and keep yourselves apart from all abomination of the soul’. 191. When ‘spirit’ and ‘ esh’ function as a pair in the OT, it is always in terms of the life that God has given to human esh, but that is not what is happening in Mt. 26:41. 192. e language may be ‘retrieved’ from Mk. 14:72, where Matthew has already decided not to use it (see 26:34). 193. e imagery now is presumably of a cup that is being held out to Jesus and remains waiting for him until he takes it. Beyer, Semitische Syntax, 1:139-40, construes the syntax on the basis of Semitic patterns and argues that it should be translated ‘unless I should drink it’, but ‘cannot pass by unless’ does not actually make sense: if the cup is drunk, it has not passed by. 194. e number is used in Mk. 24:41. Matthew will not repeat it in his parallel to that verse. 195. e technique in Jos. 6:12-14 (see v. 14) is quite similar. 196. Mt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7. 197. Mt. 17:22; 20:18, 19; 26:2, 15, 16, 21, 23, 24, 25. And cf. 10:4. 198. e frequency in the LXX of the idiom, παραδιδόναι εἰς χεῖρας (lit. ‘hand over into hands’) was noted at Mt. 17:22.

199. Some interpreters have found here a last failed attempt to avoid capture, but that is to miss the expression of resolution on the part of Jesus in Mt. 26:46, aer the questioning that marked his time of prayer. 200. e simplicity of this representation is complicated by the chronological intertwining intended for the Petrine denials and the Sanhedrin hearing. One verse of the Peter account (26:58) is inserted already near the beginning of the Sanhedrin account, and two verses of the Sanhedrin account (27:1-2) are delayed to the end of the Peter account. 201. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,086-87; Brown, Death, 305-10. 202. Mt. 2:1; 3:1, 13. 203. In Mt. 26:48 Matthew also moves his word for ‘sign/signal’ a word earlier in the sequence. 204. Use of the in nitive form χαίρειν is more common. 205. Otherwise Matthew prefers the form εὐθέως to Mark’s εὐθύς for immediately. 206. Lk. 22:48 has Jesus comment on this. Jacob and Esau kiss in reconciliation in Gn. 33:4; father and son do in Lk. 15:20; one who is a host should in 7:45; that Christians do as a sign of Christian fellowship is indicated in Rom. 16:16; 1 Pet. 5:14; etc. Abimelech and Baruch kiss when reunited in 4 Bar. 6:2. 207. Cf. Pr. 27:6: ‘Profuse are the kisses of an enemy’. ere is something like a treacherous kiss in 2 Sa. 20:9. 208. Mt. 20:13; 22:12; 26:50. 209. A further option for a question would be, ‘Is that [i.e., the kiss/the betrayal] why you are here?’ 210. Not too different would be completion with a third person passive imperative (‘May it be done’). A variant on this which has some attractions is to complete simply with ‘that’: ‘that is what you are here for’. is has the virtue of recognising that Judas has by this point ful lled his role. Brown, Death, 257, 1,385-88, supports this approach by pointing to the likelihood that ‘Rejoice; that’s what you are here for’ was a standard greeting to convivial friends (he depends on Deissmann, Light, 125-31, who reports an inscription on a goblet reading εὐϕραίνου ἐϕ᾿ ὅ (ᾧ) πάρει [‘Enjoy yourself; that’s why you are here’]). If there was such a greeting, I do not think it

supports his view here. What counts against this otherwise attractive view is the complexity of needing to refer the implied ‘that’ rst to Judas’s kiss as an event and then to its role as the betrayer’s signal to the crowd. But this view remains possible. Slightly different from Brown’s view, but with the same translation, is to treat the words as an exclamation expressing Jesus’ moment of insight into the signi cance of the kiss. 211. Lk. 22:49-50 clearly attributes the action to a disciple, and Jn. 18:10 attributes it to Peter. On the other hand, in Mark the other references to people standing by are not to disciples (Mk. 14:69, 70; 15:35, 39). Perhaps Mark wants to keep the matter open in 14:47. 212. Otherwise the changes from Mk. 14:47 to Mt. 26:51 are: ‘the sword’ becomes ‘my sword’, and the word for ‘ear’ is changed from ὠτάριον to ὠτίον. 213. E.g., Ps. 7:15 (in terms of digging a pit and falling into it); Pr. 26:27 (as Ps. 7:15, but also in terms of setting a stone rolling down a hill); Ec. 10:8 (as Ps. 7:5); Is. 50:11 (in terms of those who set destructive res); Sir. 27:26 (as Ps. 7:5). 214. A clause from Rev. 13:10 is oen taken to mean ‘If one kills with the sword, with the sword one must be killed’, but this involves giving the related uses of ἀποκτανθῆναι (aorist passive in nitive of the verb ‘kill’) different senses (the rst active and the second passive) and ignores the parallelism between these clauses and the preceding pair of clauses in the same verse. 215. E.g., Dn. 10:13; 2 Macc. 3:22-23; 4 Macc. 4:10; 1QM 7:6; 13:10; Ps.Philo 27:10; 61:8; 2 Bar. 63:5-11; Test. Levi 3:3. 216. Despite the use of the singular in Mt. 26:47. 217. e verb here, καθέζεσθαι, is used of Jesus sitting among the teachers in the temple in Lk. 2:46. With Jesus teaching, Matthew uses yet another verb for ‘sit’, καθῆσθαι, in 13:2, where Jesus sits in the boat to teach (cf. 24:3). 218. It is, however, just possible that Argyle, ‘Meaning’, 354, is right to translate καθ᾿ ἡμέραν here as ‘by day’ (to contrast with the night arrest). 219. We can hardly be sure of this because the divide between Jesus and the disciples is one that goes back as far as Mt. 16:21-23 and is well marked again at 20:20-28. But Gethsemane does mark both Jesus’ rst visible

difficulty with his coming fate and the establishment of his con dence in his Father’s will that will carry him through the awful events themselves. By failing to watch and pray, the disciples exclude themselves from any parallel insight into the will of God. Possibly ἀϕέντες (lit. ‘having le’) echoes as well or instead Mt. 4:20, 22, where the same form occurs: leaving to follow Jesus is now reversed in leaving Jesus to ee. 220. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:519. 221. See further Nolland, Luke, 1,104-5. 222. On various of these matters see further at Nolland, Luke, 3:1,105-9. 223. As noted at Mt. 21:23, Matthew reserves a listing of three leadership groups for the rst Passion prediction and the last mention of Jewish leaders prior to Jesus’ death at the mocking of Jesus on the cross (27:41). e Pharisees constitute the fourth leadership group, and, outside chap. 23, they are given only a minor role in the Jerusalem materials. 224. Mt. 26:3, 47; 27:1, 3, 12, 20. 225. Mark is no more explicit than Matthew about where the hearing before the Sanhedrin takes place, but since in 14:66 Mark has Peter ‘below in the courtyard’, he evidently envisages a difference of level between the ground oor of the courtyard and where Jesus and the Sanhedrin are. Whether this is because he imagines them as inside an enclosed room or as on a raised platform in the courtyard itself is uncertain. If the hearings are intended to be semipublic (or, perhaps better, semivisible to the public), there is something to be said for a platform in the courtyard. 226. Légasse, Procès (1995), 44, 191, 296, wants to link both to Ps. 38:11 (LXX 37:12) and thus to emphasise the drawing back and see it as contributing to the image of Jesus as the afflicted righteous one. But while a drawing back is undoubtedly involved, the use of the language of following in the case of both Peter and the women, and Matthew’s change in Mt. 27:55 to put emphasis on the fact that the women were ‘there’, suggest that it is attenuated following and not withdrawal that is in view. 227. Otherwise Mt. 26:59 replaces an εἰς τό + in nitive construction with a ὅπως + subj. construction, which he mostly prefers (with no change of meaning), and makes some minor adjustments in word order.

228. And Judas can see Jesus as condemned by the action of the Sanhedrin (Mt. 27:3). 229. On the need for at least two witnesses to establish the truth of a matter, see Nu. 35:30; Dt. 17:6; 19:15. 230. Brown, Death, 434. 231. Matthew uses ‘I am able’ language of Jesus also in 8:2; 9:28; 26:53. Perhaps the last has the most pertinence here. 232. If it were not for the fact that the destruction statement is followed by a building statement, the claim to be able to destroy the temple of God would come across as arrogant hostility to God. e version of this tradition used against Stephen in Acts 6:14 utilises this negative potential by speaking of destroying without rebuilding (the latter has been displaced by ‘will change the customs that Moses handed on to us’). 233. Admittedly, διά + gen. with time expressions does occasionally mean ‘aer’. See Mk. 2:1; ; Acts 24:17; Gal. 2:1. But only a clear contextual necessity should cause us to choose this unusual meaning. 234. Matthew regularly uses ‘on the third day’ for the resurrection element in the Passion predictions (16:21; 17:23; 20:19), but he does have ‘three days and three nights’ in 12:40 for the comparison with Jonah. 235. 2 Sa. 7:1-16; 1 Ch. 17:1-15; 21:28–22:19; 29:1-19. 236. e question turns on whether Cyrus is the king in ‘the heavenly God will send a king and will judge each man in blood and the gleam of re’ (Sib. Or. 3:285). See Nolland, ‘Sib. Or. III. 265-94: An Early Maccabean Messianic Oracle’, JTS 30 (1979), 158-66. 237. Mt. 26:62 drops εἰς μέσον (‘into the middle’) from Mk. 14:60; simpli es ἐπηρώτησεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν λέγων (lit. ‘asked Jesus, saying’) to εἶπεν αὐτῷ (‘said to him’), saving ‘Jesus’ for the next verse; and drops a redundant negative. 238. Where Mk. 14:60 had ἐπηρώτησεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν λέγων (lit. ‘asked Jesus, saying’), v. 61, which underlies Mt. 26:63, has ἐπηρώτα αὐτὸν καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ (lit. ‘was asking him, and he says to him’). 239. ough the situations are not the same, Derrett, ‘Adjure’, 229-31, draws a helpful connection with the ‘public adjuration to testify’ in Lv. 5:1.

240. is particular euphemism is not otherwise attested. Brown, Death, 469 n. 14, discusses the possibility that it might be re ected in a document from Murabbaʿat, but in the end he is uncertain. 241. Schnabel, ‘Silence’, 233-41, surveys the Jewish and Greco-Roman evidence for anything analogous to Jesus’ silence and concludes that there are no genuine analogies. 242. Pss. 38:13-15; 39:9; cf. La. 3:28. 243. is is not the same refusal to ght back as that of the penultimate antithesis, Mt. 5:38-42, but it is related (as we saw was the refusal to summon the angels in 26:53). 244. Nolland, Luke, 1:45-46: In Jewish thought to be a son of God is never a matter of physical origin. e notion “son of God” is generally focused on adoption or election to a special relationship with God (Exod 4:22; 2 Sam 7:14; Pss 2:7; 89:26-27; Jer 31:20; Hos 11:1; Sir 36:11; 4 Ezra 6.58; Ps.-Philo, Bib. Ant. 32.10; cf. TDNT 8:347-53). When the nation Israel is in view, sometimes the additional element of God’s formation of the nation is also present (Isa 43:6-7; cf. 63:16; 64:8), and something analogous in the way of endowment is possibly present also in the case of the king (Ps 2:7). Even when used of supernatural beings, the language of sonship expresses no more than that these beings belong to the heavenly order and not to the earthly (Gen 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Pss 29:1[?]; 82:6[?]; 89:6). Occasionally the element of moral likeness to God appears, though not generally alone (Ps 73:15 [?]; Sir 4:10; Jub. 1.24-25 [?]; T. Jud. 24.3; y. Qidd. 1:8; cf. Matt 5:45; Luke 6:35). ere is one fragmentary Qumran text, 4Q246, in which ‘the son of God’ is used of a future gure. Given the minimal context, scholars debate whether the gure is to be viewed negatively or positively, but most of them recognise a positive gure here. It is hard to know what signi cance to give to ‘my son the Messiah’ in 2 Esdr. 7:28, 29. ere is a signi cant possibility that a Christian interpolation is involved. But ‘my son’ in 13:33, 37, 52; 14:9 is probably messianic, and there is less likelihood of Christian intervention there. So perhaps they are all genuine Jewish uses.

245. In discussing Mk. 14:61, Marcus, ‘Messiah — Son of God’, 125-41, develops a distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive apposition. As a restrictive apposition ‘the Christ, the Son of God’ would mean ‘that Christ who can be described as the Son of God’; as a non-restrictive apposition it would mean ‘the Christ, who can also (and always) be spoken of as the Son of God’. In these terms I take the full Christian meaning of ‘the Christ, the Son of God’ as restrictive, but its sense on the lips of the high priest as nonrestrictive. 246. Matthew drops the linking δέ (‘and/but’) of Mk. 14:62. 247. ough judgment is undoubtedly involved, the sharp focus on judgment which is oen associated with Jesus’ words in Mt. 26:64 is misplaced. All that is involved in the nal establishment of the kingdom of God is embraced here. 248. ough the use of euphemisms in place of the divine name is widespread in Jewish sources, ‘the Power’ (ἡ δύναμις) has not been precisely parallelled earlier than the Tannaitic Midrashim and the Targums. Goldberg, ‘Sitzend’, 284-93, documents the use of ha-gĕbûrâ (‘the Power’) of God there. is use is in relation to God as the revealing God. ὁ δυνατός (‘the Mighty One’) in Lk. 1:49 is close to its use in Mt. 26:64. e choice in Mt. 26:64 may re ect the emphasis on power that characterises Ps. 110. Flusser, ‘Right Hand’, 42-46, traces the use to a Jewish exegesis of Is. 9:6(ET v. 5) which refers gbwr (‘mighty’) to God and not to the child ‘born for us’. (Aer ‘wonderful counsellor’ 1QH 3:10 has ʿm gbwrtw [‘with his might’] in place of ʾl gbwr [‘mighty God’].) 249. In 26:65 Matthew also ‘corrects’ Mark’s gen. τῆς βλασϕημίας for ‘the blasphemy’ aer ‘heard’ to the acc. τὴν βλασϕημίαν (gen. for the person saying it, acc. for what is heard). 250. Cf. Gn. 37:29; 2 Ki. 6:30; 18:37–19:1; Jos., War 2.316. Scholars have debated whether the high priest would be wearing his priestly vestments for a session of the Sanhedrin. is seems unlikely given the Roman control of the garments and the practice reported in Jos., Ant. 15.403-8, of releasing them only the day before the feast. ough on this particular occasion the vestments may have been in the possession of the high priest, his lack of access to them at other times suggests that they would not have been his

garb for Sanhedrin sittings. Had he been wearing the vestments, the proscription of Lv. 10:6 might be expected to take priority. 251. Bock, ‘Blasphemy’, 181-91, offers a case for locating Jesus’ blasphemy in the claim that he will be ‘sitting at the right hand of the Power’. For Bock the proximity to God in heaven involved is the heavenly analogue to entering the holy of holies of the earthly temple. Others point to the unease created by suggestions in Jewish sources that the messiah might have a throne in heaven (in b. Sanh. 38b; b. Ḥag. 14a, Aqiba, in making this suggestion, is profaning the divine glory). In b. Ḥag. 15a Metatron is punished because he sat in heaven, giving rise to the opinion that there might be other divinities. 252. See Mt. 17:25; 18:12; 21:28; 22:17, 42. 253. Otherwise singular except for Mt. 21:27. 254. ‘On her face’ in Nu. 12:14; ‘on his face’ in Dt. 25:9. 255. Brown, Death, 578, also ties together the loss and gain of a use of ‘face’, but he gives priority to the gain, seeing it as enhancing a link with Is. 50:6, ‘I did not hide my face from insult and spitting’, and points out that a covered face is incompatible with having one’s face spat on. 256. Given both the lack of an obvious role for the blindfolding in Mk. 14:65 and Matthew’s failure to reproduce it, some have wanted to follow D a sys bomss and omit the blindfolding from the text of Mark. But with such a weak textual basis, some other explanation is to be preferred. is is far from being the only unevenness in Mark’s text. Perhaps Mark thinks that in blindfolding Jesus his attackers want to remain anonymous. Böcher, Exorcista, 129, likens the blindfolding to that of a condemned man prior to execution. 257. Or perhaps, if a Latinism is involved, the right sense for ῥαπίσμασιν αὐτὸν ἔλαβον is ‘treated him to blows’ (see DBF §198). 258. ‘Spittle’ (rq, ἐμπτυσμάτων) is used in Is. 50:6; the verb ‘spit’ (ἐμπτύειν; ἐνέπτυσαν) is used in Mk. 14:65; Mt. 26:67). Is. 50:6 has ‘I did not hide my face from’; nothing corresponds with it in Mk. 14:65; Mk. 26:67 has ‘[they spat] in his face’. Is. 50:6 uses ῥαπίσματα (‘slaps’) in ‘I gave my cheeks to slaps’ (in the MT the imagery is of pulling out the hairs of the beard); Mk.

14:65 uses the same noun (but in the dat. rather than the acc.); Mt. 26:67 uses the cognate verb ἐρράπισαν (‘slapped’). 259. See, e.g., Lv. 24:14, 16; Nu. 15:35; Dt. 13:9; 21:21. 260. McLoughlin, ‘Accords’, 31-35; Neirynck, ‘Mt 26,68’, 5-47; Tuckett, ‘Minor Agreements’, 135-41; etc., argue that the clause τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε is a secondary interpolation into Matthew, but since this view has no manuscript support, all that stands in its favour is the lapse in logic of the Matthean text, a lapse which is better explained in the discussion of Mt. 26:67 above. 261. Betz, ‘Probleme’, 638, nds a link with Is. 11:3, ‘He shall not judge by what his eye shall see’, but since Matthew fails to report the blindfolding, he certainly does not have this text in mind, while Mark fails to make a clear link between the blindfolding and the prophesying. In any case, to have any con dence that such an overly literal handling of the text was in mind would require strong verbal allusion or quotation. 262. Flusser, ‘Who is It?’ 27-32. He cites evidence for the antiquity of the game, but not for its use with prisoners. 263. ʿErub. 60b; B. B. 12a; Ber. 45a. 264. In Nolland, Luke, 3:1,099, I accepted the relationship between the ill treatment and an ancient game, but I have since come to see the weakness in the suggestion. Perhaps Jesus’ prophetic claims provoke not a playing of the game but the use of a game format, but with Jesus as the only victim, in order to mock Jesus’ prophetic pretensions: ‘You have made big prophecies; let’s see how good you are on some little ones’. 265. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,094-95; and, for a more detailed discussion, Brown, Death, 610-21. 266. e only language that survives intact from Mk. 14:66-67 to Mt. 26:69 is ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ (‘in the courtyard’), μία (‘one’), σὺ … μετὰ … Ἰησοῦ (‘you…with… Jesus’), ἦσθα (‘you were’) — found only in these two places in the NT. Πέτρος (‘Peter’), παιδίσκη (‘servant-girl’), and λέγειν (‘say’) are also retained, but in different forms. 267. A silent echo of Mt. 26:58 in v. 69 is the omission from Mk. 14:67 of ‘and seeing Peter warming himself ’, which matches the omission from Mt. 26:58 of ‘and warming [himself] at the re’ from Mk. 14:54.

268. For Matthew οἶδα (‘know’) and ἐπίσταμαι (‘know/understand’) are too synonymous to be joined in an οὔτε … οὔτε (‘neither … nor’) construction. 269. e only language that survives intact from Mk. 14:68-69 to Mt. 26:71 is εἰς τό(ν) (‘into the’), αὐτόν (‘him’ — as direct object), τοῖς (‘to the’) and οὗτος (‘this [fellow]’). Mark’s ἐξέρχεσθαι (‘go out’) and ὁρᾶν (‘see’) are both used, but Matthew interchanges the participle and the nite verb. 270. Lk. 22:58 agrees with Matthew in having a different person challenge Peter the second time, but Luke has a man. 271. Matthew uses a word that is common in the LXX; the Markan word is not found in the LXX. 272. As noted at Mt. 26:34, I do not accept και αλεκτωρ εϕωνησεν (‘and the cock crowed’) as original here in Mk. 14:68. It has the support of C D Θ Ψc 067 f1, 13 33 (1424) etc. lat syp, h (samss boms). If it is original, Matthew has dropped this too. 273. Compare the way Matthew has produced words for Jesus for the second session of prayer in Mt. 26:42. 274. e language that survives intact from Mk. 14:70 to Mt. 26:73 is μετὰ μικρόν (‘aer a little [while]’), τῷ Πέτρῷ ἀληθῶς (‘to Peter’, “Truly”’), ἐξ αὐτῶν εἶ, καὶ γάρ (‘you are [one] of them, for’). Mark’s λέγειν (‘say’) is used, but with a change from imperfect to aorist. Mark’s οἱ παρεστῶτες (‘the bystanders’) becomes οἱ ἑστῶτες (‘those present’) — Matthew uses Mark’s verb only once, in 26:53, and with quite a different meaning. 275. B. ʿErub. 53b identi es a series of ways in which Galilean speech was unclear to Judean ears. 276. Mt. 26:74 has the rst attested use of καταθεματίζειν. In the declining phase of -μι verbs, regular verb forms began to replace the forms distinctive to these verbs. In 26:74, for ‘to swear’ Matthew also prefers the in nitive with -ειν (ὀμνύειν) to the in nitive with -ναι (ὀμνύναι) found in Mk. 14:71. 277. ey appeal particularly to Pliny, Ep. 10.96-97, where those suspected of being Christians were to seal their denial of Christ by cursing or reviling him (male dicere).

278. According to m. B. Q. 7:7, to raise chickens in Jerusalem because of the holy things was forbidden. is has been used to discredit the Gospel tradition, but later idealisation rather than historical memory is probably involved here. 279. Matthew’s change in 26:72 from the acc. object τὸ ῥῆμα (lit. ‘the word’) in Mk. 14:72 to the gen. matches the change of verbs. 280. Brown, Death, 610, lists nine different proposals for the sense of the nal words of Mk. 14:72. e difficulty is that the particular idiom involved in the use of ἐπιβάλλειν here has not been parallelled. e verb means basically ‘put or throw something on’. It also has intransitive uses, where the force of the active forms approximates a re exive meaning. Beyond Brown’s list (none of which I nd particularly persuasive) possible senses for Mark’s ἐπιβαλὼν ἔκλαιεν are: ‘he let loose and began to weep’; ‘having latched on [to how his behaviour had ful lled Jesus’ prediction], he began to weep’; or ‘he cast about [for what he might do, and realising there was nothing he could now do], he began to weep’. Given that Mark uses nominative time expressions, 2 Macc. 12:38 may point the way to yet another possibility. ere, τῆς ἑβδομάδος ἐπιβαλλούσης means, ‘as the sabbath day was coming on’. In Mk. 14:72, given the crowing of the cocks, we are probably to imagine the approach of dawn. Possibly a word like ὄρθριος (‘daybreak’) is to be understood and ἐπιβαλών ἔκλαιεν means something like ‘As dawn was breaking, he began to weep’. 281. As noted at Mt. 26:58, Peter will be included in the reference to ‘his disciples’ in 28:7-8, ‘my brothers’ in v. 10, and ‘the eleven disciples’ in v. 16; but that he will not again be named in Matthew may represent in a literary manner the shadow of Peter’s failure in 26:69-75. 282. Contrast the tears of Esau in Heb. 12:15-17. 283. In his discussion of the Petrine denials in Matthew, Broer, ‘Prozess’, 95, thinks of this as probably going too far. 284. Also, as oen, Mt. 27:1 replaces the linking καί (‘and’) with δέ (‘and/but’). 285. is reading in Mk. 15:1 is supported by ‫ א‬C L 892 etc. But A B W Ψ (1250) f1, 13 33 2427 etc. vg have συμβούλιον ποιήσαντες (‘held a consultation’), which has gained considerably more recent support. If this is

the original, then Matthew changes the meaning less. ere has been considerable discussion over whether Mk. 15:1 refers to a second meeting of the Sanhedrin. e intercalation strongly suggests that the reference is to a continuing session, and the language offers no difficulties for this view. 286. Mt. 12:14; 22:15. With a participle in place of the nite verb, the phrase will be used again in 27:7; 28:12. 287. Most recently at Mt. 26:57 it was the chief priests who were dropped from the trio. 288. If the reason for the omission of ‘all’ in Mt. 26:64 which was suggested above is to remain true, then Matthew must think of the Markan Joseph of Arimathea as neither a chief priest nor an elder. He either becomes a scribe or is a member of the Sanhedrin who does not fall into any of the main categories of membership. 289. κατὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ὅπως αὐτὸν θανατώσωσιν in Mt. 26:59 and κατὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ὥστε θανατῶσαι αὐτόν in 27:1. 290. E.g., Bammel, ‘Trial’, 415 (in bibliography for Mt. 27:11-14). 291. A balanced portrayal of Pilate may be found in Lémonon, Pilate (in bibliography for Mt. 27:15-26); McGing, ‘Pilate’, 416-38; Bond, Pilate. 292. As noted at Mt. 26:1-2, the parallelling of vv. 3-10 and 27-31 is based on a contrast (as will be the immediately framing elements around the account of Jesus’ death on the cross): the hearing before the Sanhedrin reduces Judas, who had handed Jesus over to the Jewish leaders, to profound regret, which culminates in Judas’s death; the Roman hearing, at the conclusion of which Jesus is handed over to the soldiers, leads to their mockery of Jesus and climaxes in their leading him off to death. Without difficulty the soldiers can redress Jesus in his own clothing, but there is nothing that Judas can do to undo what he has done. 293. But as indicated in ‘Textual Notes’ above, many MSS conform the reading in Mt. 26:2 to that in 10:4: an aorist participle here will have seemed more natural to a scribe, and it is used in 26:3. 294. In Mt. 21:32 the Jewish leaders ‘saw [but] did not change [their] mind’; in 27:3 Judas ‘saw … and changed his mind’. 295. But in Mt. 27:5 it is the chief priests (of the transaction in 26:14-16) who take up the money from where it has been thrown into the sanctuary.

296. Mt. 10:4; 26:25, 46, 48. 297. e language of Dt. 27:25 is echoed in Ez. 22:12. 298. In Dt. 27:25 corruption of the legal system (cf. 16:19), contract killing (cf. 27:24), or both might be in mind. 299. With τί πρὸς ἡμᾶς (‘What [is that] to us?’) in Mt. 27:4 cf. τί πρὸς σέ (‘What [is that] to you’) in Jn. 21:22, 23. Légasse, Process (1995), 222 n. 20, quotes similar diction from Plutarch and Epictetus. 300. e form has also been identi ed as an aorist imperative active, but though the aorist indicative middle form ὠψάμην and an aorist middle subjunctive form ὄψησθε are attested, this parsing seems to be based not on form, but on role. Something similar takes place in relation to Mt. 27:24. 301. See BDF §362. e Latin is tu videris. 302. In Acts 18:15 the emphatic αὐτοί takes the place of the emphatic ὑμεῖς to render ‘you yourselves’. 303. e LXX reading τὸ χωνευτήριον in Zc. 11:13 may be based on reading hmṣrp (cf. Mal. 3:2) in place of hywṣr in the Hebrew (m could look quite like yw). Given, however, that wyyṣr in 1 Ki. 7:15 means ‘and he cast [as in casting metal]’, the LXX may have taken hywṣr as a cognate noun referring to the place where such casting took place, or perhaps taken the meaning as ‘the one who casts’ and gured that the actual destiny was to be melted down in the furnace. Certainly a foundry connected with the temple makes better sense than a potter connected with the temple. See C. C. Torrey, ‘e Foundry of the Second Temple at Jerusalem’, JBL 55 (1936), 247-60; J. Hoijzer, ‘À propos d’une interprétation récente de deux passages difficiles: Zach XII,11, et Zach XI,13’, VT 3 (1953), 407-9. 304. On the basis of the Syriac, the replacement of hywṣr (‘the potter’) with hʾwṣr (‘the treasure/treasury’) is oen favoured (this is re ected, e.g., in the NRSV translation). See also the reading of hmṣrp to which the LXX text may point (see previous note). 305. ere are no vocabulary links in Mt. 27:5 with the LXX of Zc. 11:13. So presumably Matthew is working from the Hebrew text. 306. In Mt. 15:30 I translated the verb ῥίπτειν as ‘cast’ in ‘cast [the sick] at [Jesus] feet’. In the LXX of Gn. 21:15 the verb is used of Hagar casting her

son under a bush. 307. e hiphil of šlk, used in Zc. 11:13, normally implies forceful activity but can have a soened sense (the LXX uses a neutral verb the rst time and a violent verb the second). 308. Ἀναχωρεῖν (‘depart’) in Mt. 2:22 is one of ten uses in Matthew. Ἀπέρχεσθαι (‘go off ’) in Mt. 2:22 is one of thirty- ve uses. 309. e other suicides or assisted suicides in the Bible are found in Jdg. 9:54; 1 Sa. 31:4, 5; 2 Sa. 17:23; 1 Ki. 16:18. On suicide in the Bible see V. Lentzen, ‘Selbsttötung in der Bibel: Für eine Ethik zu den Leidenden’, BK 47 (1992), 87-93; digested in ‘Suicide in the Bible’, TD 40 (1993), 37-42. 310. In the LXX see 2 Sa. 17:23; Tob. 3:10. 311. To take human life is to play God. It is important, however, to point out that historically the reverence for human life as to be given and taken by God alone has not been seen as posing any difficulty for capital punishment (Gn. 9:6). e earliest surviving Jewish condemnation of suicide is in Jos., War 3:369, where Josephus objects to Greco-Roman notions of the nobility of suicide and cites a Jewish law that a suicide’s body should be exposed until sunset. He is clearly able to tap into a strand of Jewish thought that opposed suicide, but since the background against which he speaks is a plan for mass suicide and Josephus is out to justify his own refusal to commit suicide, his testimony must be considered one-sided. When it comes to the suicides at Masada, Josephus takes a different line and even speaks of being ‘able to die nobly (καλῶς) and freely (ἐλευθέρως)’ (War 7:325). He also seems to take a positive view of the suicide of Simon, who takes his own life as a ‘ t retribution’ (War 2:469-76). On the mass suicide at Masada at the end of the rst-century Jewish war see V. L. Trimble, ‘Masada, Suicide and Halakha’, CJud 31 (1977), 45-55. 2 Macc. 14:42 reports a noble suicide, and in Gn. Rab. on 27:27 the suicide of a repentant Jakim opens up for him entry into paradise. On the other hand, b. B. Q. 91b appeals to Gn. 9:5 to show that one must answer to God for suicide. See S. Goldstein, Suicide in Rabbinic Literature (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1989). 312. I think particularly of the view that suicide is an unforgivable sin. Since Judas has been viewed as unforgivable, his negatively viewed suicide

has been treated as unforgivable, and this quality has in turn been attributed to all suicide. 313. Οὐκ ἔξεστιν (‘it is not permitted’) is used in Mt. 12:2; 14:4; 20:15; 27:6. ἔξεστιν … ἢ οὔ (‘is it lawful … or not?’) is found in 22:17; οὐκ ἐξὸν ἦν (‘it was not permitted’) in 12:4. 314. Jos., War 2:175, spells the word with a ω in place of Matthew’s rst α (in P and the correctors of A and L; in other texts the spelling is as in Matthew) and applies it to the treasure rather than to the treasury. 315. See, e.g., b. Bek. 56a–56b and b. Tem. 29a–30b, where only the hire of a Gentile prostitute and not the hire of an Israelite prostitute fell under the prohibition of Dt. 23:19. 316. e point is different in Test. Zeb. 3:1-3, where the brothers do not think they can use for food the ‘blood money for our brother’. 317. Mt. 12:14; 22:15; 27:1. 318. e use of b. B. Q. 94b to establish that money which could not be placed into the temple treasury would be used for public projects is mistaken. e reason for the use of the money there for public utilities (wells, ditches, and caves are the examples given) is that this will bene t the community and therefore those from whom the money originally came, but whose identities and speci c claims can no longer be safely worked out. 319. Mt. 25:35, 38, 43, 44. 320. Further connections of the Jeremiah passage with the context within Mt. 27:3-10 are provided by the reference to ‘some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests’ (cf. ‘the chief priests and the elders’), the use of ‘blood of the innocent’ (the LXX wording could also mean ‘innocent blood’; cf. ‘innocent blood’) and ‘the valley of slaughter’ (cf. ‘the eld of blood’), and the place of burying in Jeremiah’s words of explanation in connection with the smashing of the potter’s earthenware pot (see Je. 19:1, 4, 6, 11). 321. Starting from the traditional location of this eld in the southwestwest part of Jerusalem, at the meeting point of the Kidron, Tyropoeon, and Hinnom valleys, a location which can be linked with the activity of potters (the presence of water, wind, and suitable clay) and which also held burial sites (2 Ki. 23:6; Je. 26:23), Yadin notes that water carrying blood drained

from the temple into this region (11QTemple 32; m. Meʿila 3:3; m. Yoma 5:6) and suggests that ‘ eld of blood’ was an existing name to which Christian tradition gave a new meaning. is is conjectural, but certainly not impossible. 322. Pointing to the anonymity of many of Matthew’s references (e.g., the repeated ‘through the prophet’) and accepting the authenticity of the reading ‘Isaiah’ in Mt. 13:35 with its false attribution to Isaiah of a quotation from Ps. 78:2, some interpreters are content to consider ‘Jeremiah’ in Mt. 27:9 a simple mistake, indicating limited access to scriptural texts on the part of Matthew. But the series of links with texts in Jeremiah which we have been exploring count strongly against this view. Matthew has other quotations that merge texts: Mt. 2:5-6 merges Mi. 5:1 with 2 Sa. 5:2; Mt. 21:4-5 merges Is. 62:11 and Zc. 9:9. 323. But since in 27:9 Matthew has already used the same root for ‘price’, he ends up with a triple use of the root. e LXX seems to re ect a slightly different Hebrew text at this point, but it also repeats a root to match the repetition of the MT. 324. Mt. 21:6; 26:24; 28:6. 325. Scholars regularly claim a link between Mt. 27:10 and the LXX of Ex. 9:12, but nineteen other places in the Pentateuch use the same language. 326. Jos. 24:31 supplies ἡμέρας (‘day’), which is le understood in Mt. 27:8. 327. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,114-16. 328. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,116-17. 329. See Jos., Ant. 20.115-17; War 6.300-309. 330. Matthew generates the same idiom at 12:10. A near equivalent is found in Mk. 15:4 (imperfect verb rather than aorist). at Matthew does not use the fulsomeness there may be part of his motivation for introducing it in Mt. 27:11. 331. Matthew uses ἔϕη fourteen times. Probably quite fortuitously, Lk. 23:3 also has λέγων (lit. ‘saying’) and ἔϕη (‘said’). 332. Jos., Ant. 18.85-89.

333. Jos., Ant. 20.97-98. e eudas here is normally identi ed with that of Acts 5:36, on the assumption that Luke is confused about dates. is may be so, but there might be another eudas, or Josephus might be wrong about dates. 334. Jos., Ant. 20.167-72; War 2.258-60. e gure from Egypt involved here is normally identi ed with the one in Acts 21:38. ere are again the same identity and dating issues as in the previous note. 335. Jos., Ant. 20.118. 336. For this translation I have taken πρός (lit. ‘to/towards’) to be governing ἓν ῥῆμα (‘one word’) and given πρός the unusual sense ‘as far/much as’. If this is stretching πρός too far, then it can be taken as governing ῥῆμα (‘word’) and the whole phrase translated, ‘He did not give an answer to him, not to even a single word’. e LXX of Job 9:3, with its use of ἴνα μὴ ἀντείπῃ πρὸς ἕνα λόγον αὐτοῦ ἐκ χιλίων (‘so that one cannot answer to one word of his in a thousand’) can be cited in favour of this option. A third option is for πρός to govern ἕν (‘one’), but for ῥῆμα to be the object of ἐπεκρίθη (‘he answered’). is yields, ‘He did not answer a word, not even to one [of the charges]’. But would the dative form ἑνί or ἐπί + acc. (as in the LXX of Hab. 2:1) have been better for this? In any case, nothing substantial is at stake as to the meaning. 337. See Nolland, Luke, 3:1,129. 338. For a good overview of these see Merritt, ‘Barabbas’, 57-68. Brown, Death, 815-18, also provides a survey, but he does not think the material provides any good analogies. 339. Brown, Death, 819-20. 340. See Jos., War 2:169-74; Ant. 18.55-59; War 2.175-77; Ant. 18.60-62; Philo, Leg. Gai. 299-305. 341. e only other place in the NT where this verb occurs is Mk. 10:1. Matthew may have ‘rescued’ εἰώθει from there, but it did not t into his version of this material in 19:1-2. 342. In the Gospels παριατοῦσθαι is found only in Mk. 15:6; Lk. 14:1819. 343. Nolland, Luke, 3:1,132. See further Fitzmyer, Luke, 1490.

344. e deletion of the personal name is understandable as an act of piety; the addition is much harder to account for. e best explanation of insertion of which I am aware is that of Dunkerley, ‘Barabbas’, 126-27, who thought that a dittography of ΙΝ produced ΥΜΙΝΙΝΒΑΡΑΒΒΑΝ in place of ΥΜΙΝΒΑΡΑΒΒΑΝ (‘to you, Barabbas’), that the extra ΙΝ, taken as ΙΗ, was read as an abbreviation of ΙΗΣΟΥΝ (‘Jesus’), and that this in turn led to the inclusion of ΙΗΣΟΥΝ in v. 16 as well (if it was there in the second use of the name, surely it was there in the rst). 345. In 27:17 Matthew adds a linking οὖν (‘then’) and uses a plural genitive absolute construction (συνηγμένων αὐτῶν), where the plural links back, in a construction according to sense (strictly a singular should have been used), to τῷ ὄχλω (‘the crowd’) in v. 15. 346. On the basis of ‘the one called’ and the lack of a de nite article before ‘Christ’ in Mt. 27:17, the question has been raised whether ‘Christ’ has become a proper name here as it tended to be in later Christian usage. But that is hardly the case here where messianic/regal claims are to the forefront. 347. Mt. 27:18 has ᾔδει for ‘he knew’ rather than the ἐγίνωσκεν of Mk. 15:10 (Matthew uses both verbs freely, but he shows some preference for the former when used with ὅτι [‘that’], as here) and the aorist rather than the pluperfect for ‘they had handed over’ (there is a similar change at Mt. 26:48). 348. Hagedorn and Neyrey, ‘Envy’, 15-56, draw on modern anthropological study as well as ancient sources to locate envy in relation to core values in the ancient world. ey show, e.g., how a focus on honour as a core value and a belief in the limited and xed quantity of even such a good as reputation or honour fuelled envy in Jesus’ world. 349. In the Jerusalem materials see Mt. 21:11, 15-16, 46; 26:5; cf. 21:26, 32. 350. Jn. 19:13; Acts 12:21; 18:12, 16, 17; 25:6, 10, 17; cf. Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10. 351. See, e.g., Sir. 19:30; 25:9. 352. See Ne. 8:4; 1 Esdr. 9:42; 2 Macc. 13:26; Acts 12:21. 353. Jn. 19:13; Acts 18:12, 16, 17; 25:6, 10, 17. 354. See Mt. 27:19; Jn. 19:13; Acts 25:6, 17.

355. See Acts. 25:18; cf. Rom. 14:10. 356. In Jn. 18–19 Pilate is not on the βήμα for the hearing; he takes his place there only when he is about to pass judgment. 357. Praetors were Roman officials who oen functioned as generals in the army. When praetors began serving as governors, the name for their residence as praetors came to be used of their residence as governors. 358. In Acts 23:35 we hear of ‘Herod’s praetorium’ in connection with the Roman governor Felix. It would seem that Felix’s praetorium had earlier been a palace of one of the Herods. 359. See Brown, Death, 706-10; Benoit, ‘Praetorium’, 167-88; ‘Prétoire’, 161-77. 360. Jos., War 2.328-29. As in the Gospel scene, the Jewish leaders (‘the chief priests, the most powerful and best-known citizens’) come before the governor here. 361. One might consider the action of Pilate’s wife as a miniversion of Esther’s disturbing of the king in Est. 5. 362. Mt. 16:12; 17:12, 15. 363. Mt. 1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22. 364. ough in Lk. 23:5 the verb is related to the activity of Jesus and not that of the Jewish leaders, its use has been inspired by its use in Mk. 15:11 (see Nolland, Luke, 3:1,118). 365. Matthew has used the singular in 27:15, but that was in a general statement and does not directly determine its use for this unit. In any case, Matthew switches from the singular to the plural from 26:47 to v. 55. 366. In the process Matthew in 27:20 lls a lacuna in Mk. 15:11, where, aer the account of the crowd stirred up so that Pilate might release Barabbas to them, Mark fails to mention how the stirred-up crowd is meant to achieve this goal. Perhaps it is Mark’s ἀπολύσῃ (‘release’) which stimulates Matthew to use ἀπολέσωσιν (‘destroy’), which before the adjustment from singular to plural looks so similar (ἀπολέσῃ). Matthew’s use of ἀπολέσαι (‘to destroy’) in Mt. 2:13 of Herod’s threat to the infant Jesus may have come to mind.

367. Because Matthew in 27:16 drops the information about why Barabbas was in prison, he leaves us without the main clue to what can make sense of the people’s change of mind. Matthew’s focus is on what is done and not on why. 368. e wording of Matthew’s question in 27:21 is based on the question in v. 17 and not on the wording of Mark’s question in 15:12: Matthew will make use of a modi ed form of this in v. 22. Other minor changes are: Mark’s πάλιν (‘again’) is dropped (Matthew probably nds it difficult to link ‘again’ with the response language); as elsewhere Matthew prefers the aorist for ‘said’ over Mark’s imperfect. 369. e categorical difference between the role of the crowd in freeing Barabbas and condemning Jesus is rightly stressed by Couchoud and Stahl, ‘Jesus Barabbas’, 29. 370. In Mt. 27:11 in place of ἀποκριθεὶς λέγει (lit. ‘having answered, he says’); in v. 23 in place of ἔλεγεν (lit. ‘he was saying’). 371. Otherwise κακόν has been moved earlier in its clause. 372. Cf. ‘Why? What evil has he done?’ (τί γὰρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν) in Mt. 27:23 and ‘he has done no wrong’ (LXX ἀνομίαν οὐκ ἐποίησεν; MT lʾ-ḥms ʿśh) in Is. 53:9. 373. In 3 Kgdms. 22:38 the blood of Jehoshaphat, which had drained to the bottom of the chariot as he stood propped up but fatally wounded through the rest of the battle, is washed out of the chariot in which he died. In the LXX of Pr. 30:12, ‘the evil grandchild judges himself to be righteous, but does not wash [off] his ἔξοδον (lit. ‘departure’, but perhaps referring to death as a judgment)’. e LXX of Pr. 30:20 has, ‘is is the way of the adulterous woman, who when she does [it], aer having a wash says, “I have done nothing wrong”’. e latter two use the middle as in Mt. 27:24, and in neither of these is the washing effective, except as an act of self-deception. 374. Broer, ‘Prozess’, 106, cites texts from Herodotus (History 1.35), Homer (Il. 6.266-68), Sophocles (Ajax 654-55), Virgil (Aen. 2.718-20), and Ovid (Fasti 2.35-46). 375. Ex. 30:19, 21; 38:27(MT 40:30); Lv. 15:11. 376. Cf. ‘clean hands and a pure heart’ in Ps. 24:4 and the complete sentence in Ps. 73:13: ‘I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in

innocence’. Pss. 26(LXX 25):6; 73(LXX 72):13 seem to have generated the practice in Aristeas 305-6 of washing hands during prayer as an assertion that one has done no evil. 377. e textual witness for Mt. 27:24 is nely balanced over whether the reading should be τούτου (‘of this [person]’) or τοῦ δικαίου τούτου (‘of this righteous [person]’) — see ‘Textual Notes’ above. Philonenko, ‘Sang’, 395-99, draws attention to the commonality between the longer reading and 1 Enoch 47:1, 4, which have ‘the blood of the righteous [one]’. But this offers no particular help in evaluating the readings. e presence of ‘righteous’ makes the link back to Mt. 27:19 explicit. If ‘righteous’ is not original, it is an accurate gloss on Matthew’s intended sense. But since on balance I think its addition is easier to explain than its loss (which would require, however, only a slip of the eye from τοῦ before δικαίου to the opening του of τούτου), I have not included it in the text. 378. In Sus. 1:46 (eod.) a youthful Daniel says, as Susanna is being taken off to execution, ‘I am pure of the blood of this woman’. e similarity to, but difference from, Pilate is instructive. He too is distancing himself from the sentence that has been/is to be passed, but far from seeking to avoid responsibility, Daniel is pressing to have the case reopened. is duly happens, and Susanna’s life is saved. 379. See Mt. 1:21; 2:6; 4:23. 380. Two of the three places in the OT where ‘all the people’ (ql-hʿm), ‘answered’ (using ʿnh), and ‘said’ (using ʾmr) come together are in texts which represent classic expressions of the people’s intention of following Yahweh (Ex. 19:8; 24:3 — the third text is 1 Ki. 18:24). An allusion by way of contrast is possible. 381. ere is some similarity here to the scene played out in 2 Sa. 14:411, where, to gain the king’s support for sparing the life of her one son who had killed the other son in a ght, the woman of Tekoa says in v. 9, ‘On me be the guilt … and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless (the LXX has ἀθῷος as in Mt. 27:24)’. 382. Cargal, ‘Blood’, 110-11, and others argue for a double entendre in ‘his blood be on us’: responsibility and guilt on the one hand; covered by the ‘blood… poured out for the forgiveness of many’ (Mt. 26:28) on the other.

But I do not think the case for this double entendre has been successfully made, nor the case for taking 27:25 in only a redemptive sense (e.g., Sullivan, ‘New’, 453-57). 383. Identi ed as a Latinism in BDAG, 472. 384. By Judas to the Jerusalem leaders; by them to Pilate; by Pilate to the executing soldiers. 385. e verb used is ϕραγελλοῦν, which has come over from the Latin flagellare. 386. Bammel, ‘Trial’, 428, 440-41. 387. In the later case of Jesus son of Ananias, scourging was the full punishment meted out by the Roman governor (Jos., War 6.304). 388. See Jos., War 2.306; 5.449, for instances of ogging prior to cruci xion. 389. On this pairing see further at Mt. 27:3-10. 390. Noted by Davies and Allison, Matthew, 597. Moving out from the centre: Mt. 27:29a and v. 30 both involve Jesus’ head and a reed (κεϕαλῆς αὐτοῦ and κάλαμον are repeated); in vv. 28 and 31a Jesus is undressed and dressed (ἐκδύσαντες αὐτόν and χλαμύδα are repeated); in v. 27 the soldiers take Jesus into the praetorium and gather around him, and in v. 31b they take him off to execution (συνήγαγον is balanced by ἀπήγαγον). 391. Matthew is quite fond of παραλαμβάνειν (‘take along’), using it sixteen times, and has used it already in the Passion Narrative in 26:37 (following Mark). 392. Matthew is, in any case, very fond of συνάγειν (‘gather’), using it twenty-four times. He does not use συνκαλεῖν (‘call together’). 393. ey run from Mt. 27:27 to 27:30. Each, except the rst, is introduced with καί (‘and’). e soldiers are the subject of all the verbs, and Jesus is either directly or indirectly the object of all the indicative verbs. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 597. A sixth is added to the list in v. 31 by the textual reading found in ‫( א‬L) 33 892 etc. (ἐκδύσαντες replaces ἐξέδυσαν, and καί is dropped). 394. Brown, Death, 866. Brown suggests the scarlet cloak of a lictor.

395. Is there the same artistic licence in Na. 2:4 (ET v. 3), where the Assyrian soldiers are said to be ‘clothed in crimson’ (mtlʿym)? 396. Displacing Mark’s ἐνδιδύσκουσιν (‘they dress’) in 15:17, which is part of a fairly rare verb, found just four times in the LXX and once more in the NT. 397. ese last two changes produce a run of words in Mt. 27:29 identical to words in Jn. 19:2: πλέξαντες στέϕανον ἐξ ἀκανθῶν ἐπέθηκαν (‘having woven together a crown out of thornbushes, they placed [it] on’). To this may be added a similarity between Matthew’s next change, the addition of ἐπὶ τῆς κεϕαλῆς αὐτοῦ (‘on his head’), and John’s equivalent αὐτοῦ τῇ κεϕαλῇ (lit. ‘to his head’). In the absence of any other major points of contact (Mt. 27:27 and Jn. 19:16 both use παραλαμβάνειν τὸν Ἰησοῦν [‘take Jesus along’], but John has it a stage later in the proceedings and Matthew has the aorist participle while John has the aorist indicative; both Mt. 27:31 and Lk. 23:26 use ἀπήγαγον as the soldiers lead Jesus away to the cross) it is hard to know what to make of this striking agreement. Matthew may have had access to a second source. 398. While Luke is fond of Mark’s idiom τιθέναι τὰ γόνατα (lit. ‘place the knees’) — ve uses — it is not found anywhere else in the Bible. Matthew does not feel comfortable with προσεκύνουν αὐτῷ (‘they were doing obeisance to him’). For Matthew, προσκυνεῖν is restricted to what is at least on the way to a proper religious reverence for Jesus (see discussion at 2:2). 399. Mt. 7:16; 13:7, 22. 400. ough technically possible for the Matthean form, it is unlikely that the reference is to the acanthus plant (ἄκανθος rather than ἄκανθα). e use of the adjectival form used in Mk. 15:17; Jn. 19:5 clearly refers to thorns in the LXX text of Is. 34:13. And Jn. 19:2 replicates the Matthean language, which must in John have the same sense as the adjectival form in v. 5. 401. See Hart, ‘Crown’, 66-75; Bonner, ‘Crown’, 47-48. 402. See Est. 4:11; 5:2; 8:4; Pss. 44:7 (MT 45:7; ET 45:6); 109:2 (MT 110:2); Je. 31:17 (MT 48:17); Ez. 19:11, 14; Heb. 1:8. 403. Mt. 27:30 also has εἰς αὐτόν rather than αὐτῷ for ‘on him’. is brings the language closer to that in the parallel incident in 26:67.

404. See Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 7.69.2; Val. Max., Facta 1.7.4; Jos., Ant. 19.270. 405. e boundaries of this unit are slightly uncertain. Possibly the last clause of Mt. 27:31 should be reckoned as part of the present unit, or rather, since the chiastic structure identi ed for vv. 27-31 includes this clause, it should be assigned to both units as a transitional piece. e inclusion of this clause makes it easier to include v. 38 in the unit (giving a use of the verb ‘crucify’ at the beginning, middle, and end of the unit — without the clause the word ‘cross’ of v. 32 must take the place of the rst). It would, however, also be possible to assign v. 38 to the following unit and point to the role of the two bandits in v. 38 as the beginning of the unit and in v. 44 as the end of the unit (that v. 38 begins with τότε [‘then’] could also count in favour of its being the beginning of a unit). I have preferred to keep v. 38 in the present unit because this provides for better thematic unity in each of the units: the present unit is about crucifying; the following unit is about mocking. 406. See further Nolland, Luke, 3:1,143-44. 407. Otherwise a link with καί (‘and’) at the beginning of Mk. 15:21 has been replaced by a link with δέ (‘and/but’). 408. See Jos., Ap. 2.44. 409. As in Seneca, Vita beata 19.3; Plautus, Carb. frg. 2. 410. Brown, Death, 913. 411. See Plut., De sera num. vind. 9.554AB. 412. e subordinated participle for which Matthew is responsible in 27:32 is present tense. 413. e masculine forms both for Mk. 15:22 (if that is the right reading; ‫ א‬C D L Θ Ψ 0250 f1, 13 etc. have the neuter) and Mt. 27:33 are surprising. We might have expected the neuter aer the neuter ὁ (‘which’), as in Mt. 1:23; Mk. 5:41; 15:34; Jn. 1:41; Acts 4:36. e gender of τόπος (‘place’) seems to have had any in uence here. Probably ὅ ἐστιν is being thought of as a semi-independent unit = ‘i.e.’, with λεγόμενος (‘being called’) then used in a nominative phrase. 414. ough the syntax is quite different, Jn. 19:17 and Mt. 27:33 agree in having a double use of the passive of λέγειν (here: ‘be called’).

415. e Hebrew gulgōlet is found twelve times in the OT, meaning ‘head’ or ‘skull’ (the latter in Jdg. 9:53; 2 Ki. 9:35; and just possibly 1 Ch. 10:10). 416. e traditional location is that chosen by Constantine’s architects for the construction in A.D. 325-35 of a church to honour the site of Jesus’ tomb. 417. e other attractive view is that Golgotha was a traditional place of execution, where, due to minimal attention to burial, skulls could be found at or near the surface. is suggestion ts ‘Skull-place’ better than ‘Skull’. 418. See Bahat, ‘Holy Sepulchre’ (in bibliography for 27:57-61), 32. 419. See Pliny, Nat. hist. 14.15.92; 14.19.107. 420. See Pliny, Nat. hist. 14.19.109. 421. Perhaps the similarity in Aramaic of the words for myrrh (mwr) and for gall (mrrʾ) suggested the change to Matthew (cf. Moo, Old Testament, 249-50; Moo also suggests that Mark’s ‘myrrhed wine’ means ‘over-myrrhed wine’ and therefore bitter wine as in Matthew, but this seems less likely). 422. Nolland, Luke, 3:1,145. For a more detailed overview see Brown, Death, 945-52. For full discussion see Kuhn, ‘Kreuzestraffe’, 650-793; Hengel, Crucifixion; Zias and Charlesworth, ‘Cruci xion,’ 273-89. Earlier I reported that ‘the man at Givʿat ha-Mivtar had been supported on the cross in a threefold manner: his forearms were secured to the crossbeam of the cross with iron nails; his buttocks was partially supported on a small shelf; his legs were turned somewhat to the le with the knees rather bent so that a large nail could be driven through a wooden block and then through both heel bones and into the upright of the cross’ (Nolland, Luke, 3:1,145), but this now needs revising, particularly since the surviving nail has turned out not to be as long as rst reported (10.5 centimetres vs. 17-18 centimetres). Speci cally the nail is not long enough to have gone through both feet. e current view is that the man’s feet were nailed to the sides of the upright and not the front. e question of whether the man’s arms were nailed or tied has been freshly raised. See Zias and Charlesworth, ‘Cruci xion’, 279-80.

423. See Artem., Oneirocrit. 2.53. 424. Justinian, Digest 48.20.6, is relevant but more general. 425. An inscribed statement would be too much work for the brief time of display. In the immediately following use of the cognate verb the pre xed ἐπι does not mean ‘over’, which makes it unlikely that the pre x will have this sense in the use of the noun. 426. Matthew’s other two uses of αἰτία are in 19:3, where it means ‘cause’, and v. 10, where it means ‘situation/state of affairs’. 427. Suetonius, Cal. 32.2; Dom. 10.1; Tert., Apol. 2.20; Dio Cass., History 54.3.7; Euseb., HE 5.1.44. 428. Matthew’s only other change in 27:38 is to drop the αὐτοῦ (‘his’ — in ‘his le’) in Mk. 15:27. 429. See further Nolland, Luke, 1,142-44. 430. e three previous uses of παραπορεύεσθαι (‘pass by’) in Mark have all disappeared in Matthew, but the verb is retained here. 431. Loyalty to a successful public gure can be based on nothing deeper than the attractiveness of success. When success, in whatever terms it is operative, falters, the public can very quickly become disillusioned and even feel somehow betrayed by the hero’s failure, without feeling any particular need to re ect on where responsibility for the failure lies. 432. See 2 Ki. 19:21; Pss. 22:8(ET v. 7; LXX 21:8); 109:25(LXX 108:25); Is. 37:22; Sir. 12:18. In Je. 18:16; La. 2:15 the image is used for suffering which is thoroughly deserved. e image is used in some other way in Dn. 4:19; Sir. 13:7, both texts with no MT equivalent. 433. On the signi cance of the links with Ps. 22 see the comments at Mt. 27:35. 434. οἱ παραπορευόμενοι … ἐκίνησαν τὴν κεϕαλὴν αὐτῶν (‘those who passed by… shook their heads’) in La. 2:15; οἱ παραπορευόμενοι … κινοῦντες τὰς κεϕαλὰς αὐτῶν (‘those who passed by … shaking their heads’) in Mt. 27:39. 435. Otherwise Matthew modi es the word order only in order that the contrasting καταλύων (‘destroying’) and οἰκοδομῶν (‘building’) can frame the phrase of which they are both part.

436. ‘Believe in’ language is not found elsewhere in the Gospels, but it is frequent in Acts and in Paul. 437. ‘King of Israel’ is very common in the OT (more than 150 times). 438. at πέποιθεν (‘he trusts’) is a more accurate translation of gōl in Ps. 22:8 (LXX 21:8) than the LXX ἤλπισεν (‘he hoped’) may have prepared the way for connecting the second text. Is. 36:7 has ἐπὶ … τὸν θεὸν … πεποίθαμεν (‘we trust in God’); Mt. 27:43 has the third person singular equivalent, but with a change of word order, πέποιθεν ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν (‘he trusts in God’). 439. 2 Ch. 14:20; 16:7; Is. 8:17; 10:20; 31:1. 440. e very next verse in Wis. 2:21 says, ‘ey were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them’. 441. is the only use of τὸ δ᾿ αὐτό in the NT. e only LXX use is in Ep. Jer. 6:60(ET v. 61). 442. Given the other links with Ps. 22, the use of the ὀνειδ- root provides a possible link with v. 7(ET v. 6; LXX 21:7), but the use of this root for the reviling of God’s people is widespread in the LXX. 443. All the linkages for Mt. 27:46-49 are with δέ (lit. ‘and/but’), and all the linkages for v. 51 are with καί (lit. ‘and’). (ose for vv. 45, 50, the introductory and central verse, are also with δέ). One could instead nd a chiasmic structure centred in v. 48 (bracketed rst by vv. 47, 49, concerned with the role of Elijah; then by vv. 46, 50, where Jesus cries out; and nally by vv. 45, 51-54, where nature manifests God’s reaction to what is done to Jesus). Brower, ‘Elijah’, 89-90, claims an equivalent structure for Mk. 15:3338, and Matthew’s editing in Mt. 27:48-49 allows for the separation of vv. 48 and 49 more readily than is the case for their Markan equivalents in Mk. 15:36. e main difficulty is with justifying a central focus on Mt. 27:48. Also, Matthew’s additional material in vv. 51b-53 badly unbalances the chiasm. e simpler structure centring on v. 50 is to be preferred. 444. See Nolland, Luke, 3:1,155. 445. Allison, End, 43-44. 446. Otherwise Mt. 27:45 connects with a δέ (‘and/but’) rather than the καί (‘and’) of Mk. 15:33, and substitutes πᾶσαν (‘all [the]’) for Mark’s ὅλην (‘[the] whole’), which gives ‘all the land/earth’, a common LXX expression.

447. For the relevant OT texts see the comments at Mt. 24:29. Various writers mention some form of darkening of the sun in connection with the death of Julius Caesar (Ovid, Fasti 2.493; Virgil, Georg. 1.466-67; Cicero, Rep. 6.22; Plut., Caesar 69.4; Jos., Ant. 14.309; Pliny, Nat. hist. 2.30.97. 448. I have accepted the textual judgment of NANTG 27, but there is considerable textual uncertainty for both the Matthean and Markan texts. 449. e targum form for ‘my God’ in Ps. 22:2 is ʾēlî, and ʾēl for God is evidenced in pre-Christian Aramaic (e.g., 4Q246). 450. ʾēlîyāhû was abbreviated to ʾēlîyâ. Jewish inscriptions in Rome use the form ʾēlî, which A. Kutscher, e Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (1QSaa) (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 6. Leiden: Brill, 1964), 181-82, considers to be a shortened form of ʾēlî yāhû. 451. e Hebrew of the MT in Ps. 22:2 is ʿazabtānî. 452. Matthew introduces ἱνατί in Mt. 9:4, but accepts εἰς τί from Mk. 14:4 in Mt. 26:8. 453. Neither Mt. 27:46 nor Mk. 15:34 has the added πρόσχες μοι (‘pay attention to me’) of Ps. 21:2 LXX, and both, unlike the LXX, have μου (‘my’) aer each mention of God. Mark matches the LXX with the use of ὁ θεός for ‘God’ and in the nal position given to με (‘me’), but Matthew matches the LXX with the use of ἱνατί (written ἵνα τί in the printed LXX) for ‘why’. No dependence on the Greek translation is demonstrable. e LXX reads παραπτωμάτων instead of the MT šʾgh and gets ‘the words of my sin’ instead of ‘the word of my groaning’, which would make it quite unsuitable for applying to Jesus. 454. In more individual terms the con dence that God will not forsake his people nds expression in Pss. 9:11(ET v. 10); 37:25, 28, 33; 94:14. 455. Cf. 2 Esdr. 1:25: ‘Because you have forsaken me, I also will forsake you’. 456. Caza, ‘Relief ’, 181, describes Ps. 22 as the only instance in which God abandons the righteous just, but without the language of abandonment the (temporarily) unrelieved suffering of the just is frequent in the OT and, as Brown, Death, 1050, points out there, is another instance using the same verb as in Ps. 22:1 and in 2 Ch. 32:31.

457. e OT is happy enough the blame the perpetrators of the evil, but it leaves unanswered the question of why God should delay his response to this evil. at is, however, just another aspect of the problem for theodicy of the existence of evil at all. Both the freedom of God and thus his right not to be formulaically predetermined by his commitments and the freedom and responsibility of humans are no doubt involved in the place given to divine delay in a world in which evil is prevalent. 458. See BDAG, 938. 459. Brown, Death, 1064, takes a slightly different approach and argues that ἄϕετε serves as an intensi er, with ἄϕετε ἴδωμεν meaning ‘do let us see’. In both cases Matthew’s concern is to keep the space open within which the event of interest might be able to happen. Brown’s approach makes the transition to the Matthean form more difficult, and his appeal to Mk. 10:14 is hardly appropriate since there ἄϕετε is followed by an in nitive. 460. Brown, Death, 1,062; cf. Gnilka, ‘Mein Gott’, 294-97. ough it is easy to see how the anticipated eschatological role for Elijah (based on his translation to heaven) — see at Mt. 17:10 — became a fertile ground for the development of popular traditions about Elijah as a helper, it is difficult to know what traditions can safely be traced back to the NT period. But in every age popular piety and superstition develop their own more immediate variants on the main lines of religious traditions. 461. With πνεῦμα rather than ψυχή, there is nothing to indicate whether πνεῦμα is the subject or the object. So Matthew’s language in 27:50 could be translated ‘the Spirit le’. e link to the Markan language does, however, favour treating πνεῦμα as the object. And if Matthew was to mark the departure of the Spirit here, he would likely have felt the need to assert the restoration of the Spirit to Jesus at or subsequent to his resurrection. It is unlikely that Matthew thinks of Jesus’ death as involving even a temporary loss of the Spirit. With the human spirit, not the divine, in view, in 2 Enoch 70:16, the death of Methusalam is spoken of as ‘his spirit went out’ (cf. Apoc. Sed. 10:3). 462. Quite oen interpreters claim that the ‘loud voice’ of Mt. 27:50; Mk. 15:37 is an eschatological element, but though loud cries do occur in

eschatological texts, there is always more in the context to identify them as having an eschatological role. 463. Brown, Death, 1,088-92 summarises the discussion. He cautiously favours the view of Zugibe, ‘Questions’, 34-43, who believes that shock brought on by dehydration and loss of blood was the cause of death, not asphyxia. But Zugibe’s experiments with healthy individuals humanely strapped to a cross are hardly convincing replications of the circumstances under which the exhausted and wounded Jesus either did or did not gradually asphyxiate because of increasing difficulty breathing. 464. See Nolland, Luke, 1,157. 465. Jos., War 6:288-309. See also the portents from forty years before the destruction of the temple claimed in y. Yoma 6:43c; cf. b. Yoma 39b. In b. Giṭ. 56b Titus split apart the temple curtain with his sword, and the importance of the event is marked by the claim that blood spurted out. 466. e MT of Ex. 19:22, 24 uses prṣ, which means literally ‘break’ or ‘burst’. 467. at the curtain is split from top to bottom into two does not help us to choose. e sequence top to bottom suggests divine and not human action, while the total parting of the curtain into two parts could just as well be a making way for God as an indication of total ruin. e splitting of the Mount of Olives into two in Zc. 14:4 is to open up a passageway (discussed at Mt. 21:21). 468. See Fitzmyer, Luke, 2:1518; Brown, Death, 1110. 469. E.g., Jdg. 5:4: ‘Yahweh, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens poured, the clouds indeed poured water’. e rain imagery is likely to be that of a person losing bladder control in a terrifying situation. Cf. Ps. 68:7-8; and Joel 2:10, where the sun, moon, and stars react to the presence of God as well. 470. See 2 Sa. 22:7-8; Job 9:6; Ps. 18:7; Is. 14:16; Joel 4:16(ET 3:16); Hg. 2:6, 21; Test. Levi 4:1. 471. Cf. also As. Mos. 10:3-7, which reads in part, ‘e Heavenly One … will go forth from his holy habitation with indignation…. e earth will tremble…. For God Most High will surge forth …’.

472. e thought is similar in Jdt. 16:15, but with the rocks melting rather than being broken: ‘Before your glance the rocks shall melt like wax’. e wind also breaks the rocks in 1 Ki. 19:11, but there God is not in the wind, and in Ps. 78:15: ‘He split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep’, but that hardly ts the tone of Mt. 27:51. 473. e form involved, but not the content, is closely parallelled in 1 Tim. 3:16, except that there six and not four items are set in sequence. Matthew has a four-membered set of eschatological events in Mt. 24:29 (based on Mk. 13:24-25), which is similarly based on a merging of OT texts. Both Mt. 24:9 and 27:51b-52 add eschatological colouring to the associated events: in the one case to the coming of the Son of Humanity, which is anticipated by nature functioning as at the eschatological coming of God himself; in the other case to the death of Jesus, to which God responds in a set of proto-eschatological events. 474. But Matthew is not drawing here on the Greek OT, since he uses κοιμᾶσθαι whereas both the LXX and eod. use καθεύδειν. 475. σῶμα (‘body’) is used of Jesus in Mt. 27:58, 59. 476. e loss of life of at least some of the holy ones is contemplated in Dn. 7:21, 25; 8:24; Wis. 5:5. 477. In Mt. 27:52 μνημεῖα is translated ‘tombs’, but in 23:29 it has been translated ‘grave monuments’ for the sake of a distinction from the use of τάϕους for ‘tombs’ earlier in the verse and in view of the reference to decorating, but no difference of meaning is intended. Both terms will be used, apparently interchangeably, of the tomb of Jesus: μνημεῖον in 27:60; 28:8 and τάϕος in 27:61, 64, 66; 28:1. 478. Mt. 22:23, 28, 30, 31. 479. Mt. 16:21; 17:21, 23; 20:19; 27:63, 64; 28:6. 480. Mt. 1:20; 2:7, 13, 19; 13:26. 481. Mt. 17:3; 24:30. 482. Syntactically, ‘aer his resurrection’ could be linked either with ‘coming out of the tombs’ or with ‘entered into the holy city’, or it could be intended to control both. A tie with the latter is less likely because that would leave ‘coming out of the tombs’ as a piece of fulsomeness with little role — little more than a resumptive phrase. A link with the former is

possible, but the word order is perhaps best respected by having the phrase control both what comes before and what comes aer. I have translated μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ as ‘aer his resurrection’, but αὐτοῦ can mean ‘there’ and the phrase has been taken as ‘aer the resurrection there’. is would, however, make all of ‘coming out of the tombs aer the resurrection there’ rather redundant, and one would be hard pressed to explain Matthew’s inclusion of the words. Yet another possibility for μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ is ‘aer his [i.e., Jesus’] raising [of the holy ones]’. But this inappropriately displaces attention from the action of God: his response to the manner of Jesus’ dying. 483. 1 Cor. 15:12-57; Col. 1:18; 1 es. 4:14. 484. Acts 4:2; 23:6-9; 24:15, 21; 26:8, 23. 485. Moses and Elijah in Mt. 17:1-8 have a somewhat similar ‘supporting cast’ role in connection with the trans guration. 486. Troxel, ‘Matt 27:51-54’, 41-47, derives Matthew’s appearance of the holy ones from 1 Enoch 93:6. ere are, however, several difficulties for Troxel’s view. (a) His understanding of their role in Matthew is in uenced by his excision of ‘and aer his resurrection’ from the original text of Mt. 27:53; (b) there is a difference of opinion over whether the Ethiopic word translated by Troxel as ‘holy’ (following M. Black, e Book of Enoch [Leiden: Brill, 1985]) — thus: ‘a vision of holy ones and righteousness shall be revealed’ (other translations are also possible) — should not instead be rendered as ‘old’ (preferred by E. Isaac in the Charlesworth edition); (c) there is some textual uncertainty about the reading of 1 Enoch; and (d) Troxel must assume that Matthew has misunderstood, on the basis of other 1 Enoch references to ‘holy ones’, a text which is clearly about the time of the giving of the Law as referring instead to a future time of resurrection. 487. Others have found an echo of ‘bring you back to the land of Israel’ from Ez. 37:12, but this seems more remote. 488. In the LXX, Is. 26:19 reads, ‘ose in the tombs shall be raised and those in the land shall rejoice’. e MT has, ‘eir corpses shall rise’, which could be brought into relationship with the mention of bodies in Mt. 27:52. 489. See Gn. 5:24; 2 Ki. 2. Luke uses the pattern for reporting translations to heaven in his account of Jesus’ ascension in Lk. 24:50-53 (see

Nolland, Luke, 3:1,225, 1,228, 1,229). 490. Mk. 15:39, 44, 45. 491. Mt. 8:5, 8, 13. 492. e form ἑκατόνταρχης occurs twice in the LXX and is the form favoured by Luke. 493. See esp. Is. 29:6; Je. 23:19 (LXX); Ez. 37:7; 38:19; and cf. Zc. 14:5. 494. Allison, ‘Anticipating’, 709-10. 495. De nite predicate nominatives placed before the verb ‘to be’ are normally represented without the de nite article — a practice which originated no doubt in a desire to distinguish the subject and the predicate. e genitive of θεός (‘of God’) is oen used without the article to mean ‘of God’ and not ‘of a god’. 496. Heil, ‘Matthew 27:55–28:20’, 419-38, starts the nal major section of Matthew with 27:55. He identi es three sets of three units arranged so that, in an alternating manner, the middle unit of each set provides the theme of the framing units of the subsequent set. Mt. 27:55-61 is divided into vv. 5556, 57-60, and 61. Mt. 27:62–28:4 is divided into 27:62-66; 28:1, 2-4. Mt. 28:5-20 is divided into vv. 5-10, 11-15, and 16-20. e scheme looks attractive and has the advantage of keeping the scenes involving the women and those involving the tomb of Jesus together, but it is vulnerable in its sectioning of 28:1-10 (if the division is to be ne enough to separate vv. 2-4 from v. 1 and from vv. 5-10, then it probably should also separate vv. 8-10 or 9-10 from vv. 5-8 or 5-9), does less justice to the contrast between Peter and the women and to the degree of parallelism between the women at the cross and the centurion and his soldiers (recognised by Heil), and handles less adequately the strong sense of a fresh beginning in 28:1. e main foundation of Heil’s structuring is its recognition of an entwining of two strands (which necessarily produces some form of alternation), but this may say more about sources than about structure. Working with the same units as Heil, but starting earlier with 27:50-53, 54, Luter, ‘Women’, 176-77, identi es a chiasmic structure centred in 27:62-66. Luter’s scheme has most of the same strengths and weaknesses as Heil’s, but to start with 27:50 is an added difficulty, and while 27:62-66 has links to most of the themes dealt with in 27:50–28:20, it probably does not deserve the prominence that an

eleven-element chiasm might suggest. To begin the new section at 28:1 re ects better the role of chap. 28 as a whole of bringing resolution to Matthew’s story, and especially to the developments of the Passion Narrative. at which is resolved in the nal section is best seen as introduced prior to the nal section (intimations of resolution are, however, included in 27:5153, 54). 497. Cf. Brown, Death, 1194-96. 498. e language is probably indirectly suggested to Matthew by ‘came up with him’ in Mk. 15:41. Lk. 23:49, which also has ‘from Galilee’, is likely to have taken the same lead. 499. e changes in Mt. 27:55 from Mk. 15:40-41 which are not speci cally addressed in the discussion above are: the loss of καί (‘also’) at the beginning connecting the women and the centurion as both involved in seeing (Matthew prefers to emphasise the contrast with the male disciples); αἵτινες in place of αἵ for ‘who’ (Matthew frequently makes the change to the inde nite form of the relative pronoun with no apparent change of meaning); an aorist in place of an imperfect tense for ‘followed’ (encouraged by the change to ‘from Galilee’); a fresh use of the name ‘Jesus’ in place of one of Mark’s uses of ‘him’. 500. Harmonisation would require that Matthew knew that Salome was the name of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, but if Matthew knew the name, it would have been natural for him to use it in Mt. 20:20. 501. And cf. the use in Mt. 26:37 of ‘the sons of Zebedee’ (where Mk. 14:33 has ‘James and John’) in the reference to the group of three who were taken with Jesus as he went off to pray in Gethsemane. e changes in Mt. 27:56 from Mk. 15:40 which are not speci cally addressed in the discussion above are: the addition of the verb ἦν (lit. ‘was’) where Mark leaves the verb to be understood, and the loss of Mark’s καί (which, coordinated with the following uses of the connective καί, probably plays an emphasising role and could be rendered as ‘not only’, with the following uses of καί each rendered as ‘but also’) aer αἷς (‘whom’) 502. Hengel, Maria Magdalena, 248-51. 503. In Lk. 8:2 all the named women had either been exorcised or healed, but Luke’s list of women has only Mary Magdalene in common with

Mt. 27:56. 504. Cf. Schottroff, ‘Maria’, 9. 505. Cheney, ‘Mother’, 18, offers the interesting suggestion