Text -- Matthew 11:26-30 (NET)

11:26 Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will. 11:27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 11:29 Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 11:30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Mat 11:26

Wellpleasing in thy sight ( eudokia emprosthen sou ).

"For such has been thy gracious will"(Weymouth).

Robertson: Mat 11:27

All things have been delivered unto me of my Father ( panta moi paredothē hupo tou patros mou ).

This sublime claim is not to be whittled down or away by explanations. It is the timeless aorist like edothē in Mat 28:18 (see note) and "points back to a moment in eternity, and implies the pre-existence of the Messiah"(Plummer). The Messianic consciousness of Christ is here as clear as a bell. It is a moment of high fellowship. Note epiginōskei twice for "fully know."Note also boulētai = wills, is willing. The Son retains the power and the will to reveal the Father to men.

Robertson: Mat 11:28

Come unto me ( deute pros me ).

Mat 11:28-30 are not in Luke and are among the special treasures of Matthew’ s Gospel. No sublimer words exist than this call of Jesus to the toiling and the burdened (pephortismenoi , perfect passive participle, state of weariness) to come to him. He towers above all men as he challenges us. "I will refresh you"(k'ago anapausō hūmas ). Far more than mere rest, rejuvenation. The English slang expression "rest up"is close to the idea of the Greek compound anȧpauō . It is causative active voice.

Robertson: Mat 11:29

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me ( arate ton zugon mou eph'humas kai mathete ap'emou ).

The rabbis used yoke for school as many pupils find it now a yoke. The English word "school"is Greek for leisure (scholē ). But Jesus offers refreshment (anapausin ) in his school and promises to make the burden light, for he is a meek and humble teacher. Humility was not a virtue among the ancients. It was ranked with servility. Jesus has made a virtue of this vice. He has glorified this attitude so that Paul urges it (Phi 2:3), "in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself."In portions of Europe today people place yokes on the shoulders to make the burden easier to carry. Jesus promises that we shall find the yoke kindly and the burden lightened by his help. "Easy"is a poor translation of chrēstos . Moffatt puts it "kindly."That is the meaning in the Septuagint for persons. We have no adjective that quite carries the notion of kind and good. The yoke of Christ is useful, good, and kindly. Cf. Son 1:10.

Vincent: Mat 11:27

Are delivered ( παρεδόθη )

More lit., w ere delivered, as of a single act at a given time, as in this case, where the Son was sent forth by the Father, and clothed with authority. Compare Mat 28:18.

Vincent: Mat 11:27

Knoweth ( ἐπιγινώσκει )

The compound indicating full knowledge. Others behold only in part, " through a glass, darkly."

Vincent: Mat 11:28

Labor and are heavy-laden ( κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι )

The first an active, the second a passive participle, exhibiting the active and passive sides of human misery.

Vincent: Mat 11:28

Give rest ( ἀναπαύσω )

Originally to make to cease; Tynd., ease; Wyc., refresh. The radical conception is that of relief.

Vincent: Mat 11:29

Yoke ( ζυγόν )

" These words, as recorded by St. Matthew, the Evangelist of the Jews, must have sunk the deeper into the hearts of Christ's Jewish hearers, that they came in their own old, familiar form of speech, yet with such contrast of spirit. One of the most common figurative expressions of the time was that of the yoke for submission to an occupation or obligation. Very instructive for the understanding of the figure is this paraphrase of Cant. 1:10: 'How beautiful is their neck for bearing the yoke of thy statutes; and it shall be upon them like the yoke on the neck of the ox that plougheth in the field and provideth food for himself and his master.'

" The public worship of the ancient synagogue commenced with a benediction, followed by the shema ( Hear, O Israel ) or creed, composed of three passages of scripture: Deu 6:4-9; Deu 11:13-21; Num 15:37-41. The section Deu 6:4-9 was said to precede Deu 11:13-21, so that we might take upon ourselves the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and only after that the yoke of the commandments. The Saviour's words must have had a special significance to those who remembered this lesson; and they would now understand how, by coming to the Saviour, they would first take on them the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and then that of the commandments, finding this yoke easy and the burden light" (Edersheim, " Life and Times of Jesus," and " Jewish Social Life" ) .

Vincent: Mat 11:29

Meek ( πραΰ́ς )

See on Mat 5:5.

Vincent: Mat 11:29

Lowly ( ταπεινός )

The word has a history. In the classics it is used commonly in a bad and degrading sense, of meanness of condition, lowness of rank, and cringing abjectness and baseness of character. Still, even in classical Greek, this is not its universal usage. It is occasionally employed in a way which foreshadows its higher sense. Plato, for instance, says, " To that law (of God) he would be happy who holds fast, and follows it in all humility and order; but he who is lifted up with pride, or money, or honor, or beauty, who has a soul hot with folly, and youth, and insolence, and thinks that he has no need of a guide or ruler, but is able himself to be the guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted of God" (" Laws," 716). And Aristotle says: " He who is worthy of small things, and deems himself so, is wise" (" Nich. Ethics, " iv., 3). At best, however, the classical conception is only modesty, absence of assumption. It is an element of wisdom and in no way opposed to self-righteousness (see Aristotle above). The word for the Christian virtue of humility (ταπεινοφροσύνη ) , was not used before the Christian era, and is distinctly an outgrowth of the Gospel. This virtue is based upon a correct estimate of our actual littleness, and is linked with a sense of sinfulness. True greatness is holiness. We are little because sinful. Compare Luk 18:14. It is asked how, in this view of the case, the word can be applied to himself by the sinless Lord? " The answer is," says Archbishop Trench, " that for the sinner humility involves the confession of sin, inasmuch as it involves the confession of his true condition; while yet for the unfallen creature the grace itself as truly exists, involving for such the acknowledgment, not of sinfulness, which would be untrue, but of creatureliness, of absolute dependence, of having nothing, but receiving all things of God. And thus the grace of humility belongs to the highest angel before the throne, being as he is a creature, yea, even to the Lord of Glory himself. In his human nature he must be the pattern of all humility, of all creaturely dependence; and it is only as a man that Christ thus claims to be lowly; his human life was a constant living on the fulness of his Father's love; he evermore, as man, took the place which beseemed the creature in the presence of its Creator" (" Synonyms," p. 145). The Christian virtue regards man not only with reference to God, but to his fellow-man. In lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself (Phi 2:3, Rev.). But this is contrary to the Greek conception of justice or righteousness, which was simply " his own to each one." It is noteworthy that neither the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, nor the New Testament recognize the ignoble classical sense of the word.

Vincent: Mat 11:29

Ye shall find ( εὑρήσετε )

Compare I will give you and ye shall find. The rest of Christ is twofold - given and found . It is given in pardon and reconciliation. It is found under the yoke and the burden; in the development of Christian experience, as more and more the " strain passes over" from self to Christ. " No other teacher, since the world began, has ever associated learn with rest. 'Learn of me,' says the philosopher, 'and you shall find restlessness.' 'Learn of me,' says Christ, 'and you shall find rest'" (Drummond, " Natural Law in the Spiritual World" ) .

Vincent: Mat 11:30

Easy ( χρηστὸς )

Not a satisfactory rendering. Christ's yoke is not easy in the ordinary sense of that word. The word means originally, good, serviceable. The kindred noun, χρηστότης , occurring only in Paul's writings, is rendered kindness in 2Co 6:6; Tit 3:4; Gal 5:22; Eph 2:7 (Rev.), and goodness, Rom 2:4 (Rev.). At Luk 5:39, it is used of old wine, where the true reading, instead of better, is good (χρηστός ) , mellowed with age. Plato (" Republic," 424) applies the word to education. " Good nurture and education (τροφὴ γὰρ καὶ παίδευσις χρηστὴ ) implant good (ἀγαθὰς ) constitutions; and these good (χρησταὶ ) constitutions improve more and more;" thus evidently using χρηστός and ἀγαθός as synonymous. The three meanings combine in the word, though it is impossible to find an English word which combines them all. Christ's yoke is wholesome, serviceable, kindly. " Christ's yoke is like feathers to a bird; not loads, but helps to motion" (Jeremy Taylor).

Wesley: Mat 11:27

Our Lord, here addressing himself to his disciples, shows why men, wise in other things, do not know this: namely, because none can know it by natural reason: none but those to whom he revealeth it.

Wesley: Mat 11:28

Here he shows to whom he is pleased to reveal these things to the weary and heavy laden; ye that labour - After rest in God: and are heavy laden - With the guilt and power of sin: and I will give you rest - I alone (for none else can) will freely give you (what ye cannot purchase) rest from the guilt of sin by justification, and from the power of sin by sanctification.

Wesley: Mat 11:29

Believe in me: receive me as your prophet, priest, and king.

Wesley: Mat 11:29

Meek toward all men, lowly toward God: and ye shall find rest - Whoever therefore does not find rest of soul, is not meek and lowly. The fault is not in the yoke of Christ: but in thee, who hast not taken it upon thee. Nor is it possible for any one to be discontented, but through want of meekness or lowliness.

Wesley: Mat 11:30

Or rather gracious, sweet, benign, delightful: and my burden - Contrary to those of men, is ease, liberty, and honour.

JFB: Mat 11:26

The emphatic and chosen term for expressing any object of divine complacency; whether Christ Himself (see on Mat 3:17), or God's gracious eternal arrangements (see on Phi 2:13).

JFB: Mat 11:26

This is just a sublime echo of the foregoing words; as if Jesus, when He uttered them, had paused to reflect on it, and as if the glory of it--not so much in the light of its own reasonableness as of God's absolute will that so it should be--had filled His soul.

JFB: Mat 11:27

He does not say, They are revealed--as to one who knew them not, and was an entire stranger to them save as they were discovered to Him--but, They are "delivered over," or "committed," to Me of My Father; meaning the whole administration of the kingdom of grace. So in Joh 3:35, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand" (see on Joh 3:35). But though the "all things" in both these passages refer properly to the kingdom of grace, they of course include all things necessary to the full execution of that trust--that is, unlimited power. (So Mat 28:18; Joh 17:2; Eph 1:22).

JFB: Mat 11:27

Willeth

JFB: Mat 11:27

What a saying is this, that "the Father and the Son are mutually and exclusively known to each other!" A higher claim to equality with the Father cannot be conceived. Either, then, we have here one of the revolting assumptions ever uttered, or the proper divinity of Christ should to Christians be beyond dispute. "But, alas for me!" may some burdened soul, sighing for relief, here exclaim. If it be thus with us, what can any poor creature do but lie down in passive despair, unless he could dare to hope that he may be one of the favored class "to whom the Son is willing to reveal the Father." But nay. This testimony to the sovereignty of that gracious "will," on which alone men's salvation depends, is designed but to reveal the source and enhance the glory of it when once imparted--not to paralyze or shut the soul up in despair. Hear, accordingly, what follows:

JFB: Mat 11:28

Incomparable, ravishing sounds these--if ever such were heard in this weary, groaning world! What gentleness, what sweetness is there in the very style of the invitation--"Hither to Me"; and in the words, "All ye that toil and are burdened," the universal wretchedness of man is depicted, on both its sides--the active and the passive forms of it.

JFB: Mat 11:29

The yoke of subjection to Jesus.

JFB: Mat 11:29

As Christ's willingness to empty Himself to the uttermost of His Father's requirements was the spring of ineffable repose to His own Spirit, so in the same track does He invite all to follow Him, with the assurance of the same experience.

JFB: Mat 11:30

Matchless paradox, even among the paradoxically couched maxims in which our Lord delights! That rest which the soul experiences when once safe under Christ's wing makes all yokes easy, all burdens light.

Clarke: Mat 11:26

Even so, Father - Ναι ο πατηρ . An emphatical ratification of the preceding address

It was right that the heavenly wisdom, despised, rejected, and persecuted by the scribes and Pharisees, should be offered to the simple people, and afterwards to the foolish people, the Gentiles, who are the children of wisdom, and justify God in his ways, by bringing forth that fruit of the Gospel of which the Pharisees refused to receive even the seed.

Clarke: Mat 11:27

All things are delivered unto me of my Father - This is a great truth, and the key of the science of salvation. The man Christ Jesus receives from the Father, and in consequence of his union with the eternal Godhead becomes the Lord and sovereign Dispenser of all things. All the springs of the Divine favor are in the hands of Christ, as Priest of God, and atoning Sacrifice for men: all good proceeds from him, as Savior, Mediator, Head, Pattern, Pastor, and sovereign Judge of the whole world

Clarke: Mat 11:27

No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man, etc. - None can fully comprehend the nature and attributes of God, but Christ; and none can fully comprehend the nature, incarnation, etc., of Christ, but the Father. The full comprehension and acknowledgment of the Godhead, and the mystery of the Trinity, belong to God alone.

Clarke: Mat 11:28

Come unto me - This phrase in the new covenant implies simply, believing in Christ, and becoming his disciple, or follower

Clarke: Mat 11:28

All ye that labor and are heavy laden - The metaphor here appears to be taken from a man who has a great load laid upon him, which he must carry to a certain place: every step he takes reduces his strength, and renders his load the more oppressive. However, it must be carried on; and he labors, uses his utmost exertions, to reach the place where it is to be laid down. A kind person passing by, and, seeing his distress, offers to ease him of his load, that he may enjoy rest

The Jews, heavily laden with the burdensome rites of the Mosaic institution, rendered still more oppressive by the additions made by the scribes and Pharisees, who, our Lord says, (Mat 23:4), bound on heavy burdens; and laboring, by their observance of the law, to make themselves pleasing to God, are here invited to lay down their load, and receive the salvation procured for them by Christ

Sinners, wearied in the ways of iniquity, are also invited to come to this Christ, and find speedy relief

Penitents, burdened with the guilt of their crimes, may come to this Sacrifice, and find instant pardon

Believers, sorely tempted, and oppressed by the remains of the carnal mind, may come to this blood, that cleanseth from all unrighteousness; and, purified from all sin, and powerfully succored in every temptation, they shall find uninterrupted rest in this complete Savior

All are invited to come, and all are promised rest. If few find rest from sin and vile affections, it is because few come to Christ to receive it.

Clarke: Mat 11:29

Take my yoke upon you - Strange paradox! that a man already weary and overloaded must take a new weight upon him, in order to be eased and find rest! But this advice is similar to that saying, Psa 55:22. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee; i.e. trust thy soul and concerns to him, and he will carry both thyself and thy load

Clarke: Mat 11:29

I am meek and lowly in heart - Wherever pride and anger dwell, there is nothing but mental labor and agony; but, where the meekness and humility of Christ dwell, all is smooth, even, peaceable, and quiet; for the work of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. Isa 32:17.

Clarke: Mat 11:30

For my yoke is easy - My Gospel imposes nothing that is difficult; on the contrary, it provides for the complete removal of all that which oppresses and renders man miserable, viz. sin. The commandments of Christ are not grievous. Hear the whole: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself. Can any thing be more congenial to the nature of man than love? - such a love as is inspired by God, and in which the soul rests supremely satisfied and infinitely happy? Taste, and know, by experience, how good the Lord is, and how worthy his yoke is to be taken, borne, and loved. This most tender invitation of the compassionate Jesus is sufficient to inspire the most diffident soul with confidence. See on Mar 8:34 (note)

Creeshna, the incarnate God of the Hindoos, is represented in the Geeta addressing one of his beloved disciples thus: "I am the creator of all things, and all things proceed from me. Those who are endued with spiritual wisdom, believe this, and worship me: their very hearts and minds are in me; they rejoice among themselves, and delight in speaking of my name, and teaching one another my doctrine. I gladly inspire those who are constantly employed in my service with that use of reason by which they come unto me; and, in compassion, I stand in my own nature, and dissipate the darkness of their ignorance with the light of the lamp of wisdom."Bhagvat Geeta, p. 84

The word עול aval , among the Jews, which we properly enough translate yoke, signified not only that sort of neck-harness by which bullocks drew in wagons, carts, or in the plough; but also any kind of bond, or obligation, to do some particular thing, or to do some particular work. By them it is applied to the following things: -

1.    The yoke of the Kingdom of heaven, עול מלכות השמים obedience to the revealed will of God

2.    The yoke of the Law, עול הורה the necessity of obeying all the rites, ceremonies, etc., of the Mosaic institution

3.    The yoke of the Precept, עול מצוה the necessity of performing that particular obligation by which any person had bound himself, such as that of the Nazarite, etc

4.    The yoke of Repentance, עול של השוכה without which, they knew, they could not enter into the kingdom of heaven. With the Jews, repentance not only implied forsaking sin, but fasting, mortification, etc

5.    The yoke of Faith, עול אמונה the necessity of believing in the promised Messiah

6.    The Divine yoke, עול רלעילא the obligation to live a spiritual life; a life of thanksgiving and gratitude unto God

In Shemoth Rabba it is said: "Because the ten tribes did not take the yoke of the holy and blessed God upon them, therefore Sennacherib led them into captivity.

Christ’ s yoke means, the obligation to receive him as the Messiah, to believe his doctrine, and to be in all things conformed to his Word and to his Spirit.

Calvin: Mat 11:26

26.Undoubtedly, O Father This expression removes every pretense for that licentiousness of inquiry, to which we are continually excited. There is nothing which we yield to God with greater difficulty, than that his will shall be regarded by us as the highest reason and justice. ⁶³ He frequently repeats, that his judgments are a deep abyss, (Psa 36:6;) but we plunge with headlong violence into that depth, ⁶⁴ and if there is any thing that does not please us, we gnash our teeth, or murmur against him, and many even break out into open blasphemies. On the contrary, our Lord lays down to us this rule, that whatever God has determined must be regarded by us as right. ⁶⁵ This is sober wisdom, to acquiesce in the good pleasure of God as alone equal to a thousand arguments. ⁶⁶ Christ might indeed have brought forward the causes of that distinction, if there were any; but he is satisfied with the good pleasure of God, and inquires no farther why he calls to salvation little children rather than others, and composes his kingdom out of an obscure flock. ⁶⁷ Hence it is evident, that men direct their fury against Christ, when, on learning that some are freely chosen, and others are reprobated, by the will of God, they storm because they find it unpleasant to yield to God. ⁶⁸

Calvin: Mat 11:27

27.All things have been delivered to me The connection of this sentence with the preceding one is not correctly understood by those commentators who think that Christ intends nothing more than to strengthen the confidence of his disciples for preaching the Gospel. My opinion is, that Christ spoke these words for another reason, and with another object in view. Having formerly asserted that the Church proceeds from the secret source of God’s free election, he now shows in what manner the grace of salvation comes to men. Many persons, as soon as they learn that none are heirs of eternal life but those whom God chose before the foundation of the world, (Eph 1:4,) begin to inquire anxiously how they may be assured of God’s secret purpose, and thus plunge into a labyrinth, from which they will find no escape. Christ enjoins them to come direct to himself, in order to obtain certainty of salvation. The meaning therefore is, that life is exhibited to us in Christ himself, and that no man will partake of it who does not enter by the gate of faith. We now see that he connects faith with the eternal predestination of God, — two things which men foolishly and wickedly hold to be inconsistent with each other. Though our salvation was always hidden with God, yet Christ is the channel through which it flows to us, and we receive it by faith, that it may be secure and ratified in our hearts. We are not at liberty then to turn away from Christ, unless we choose to reject the salvation which he offers to us.

None knoweth the Son He says this, that we may not be guided by the judgment of men, and thus form an erroneous estimate of his majesty. The meaning therefore is, that if we wish to know what is the character of Christ, we must abide by the testimony of the Father, who alone can truly and certainly inform us what authority he hath bestowed upon him. And, indeed, by imagining him to be what our mind, according to its capacity, conceives of him, we deprive him of a great part of his excellence, so that we cannot know him aright but from the voice of the Father That voice alone would undoubtedly be insufficient without the guidance of the Spirit; for the power of Christ is too deep and hidden to be attained by men, until they have been enlightened by the Father We must understand him to mean, not that the Father knoweth for himself, but that He knoweth for us to reveal him to us.

But the sentence appears to be incomplete, for the two clauses do not correspond to each other. Of the Son it is said, that none knoweth the Father except himself, and he to whom he shall be pleased to reveal him Of the Father nothing more is said than this, that He alone k noweth the Son. Nothing is said about revelation. I reply, that it was unnecessary to repeat what he had already said; for what else is contained in the previous thanksgiving, than that the Father hath revealed the Son to those who approve of him? When it is now added that He alone knoweth the Son, it appears to be the assigning of a reason; for this thought might, have occurred, What neccessity was there that the Son, who had openly exhibited himself to the view of men, should be revealed by the Father? We now perceive the reason why it was said, that none knoweth the Son but the Father only It now remains that we attend to the latter clause:

None knoweth the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son shall be pleased to reveal him This is a different kind of knowledge from the former; for the Son is said to know the Father, not because he reveals Him by his Spirit, but because, being the lively image of Him, he represents Him visibly in his own person. At the same time, I do not exclude the Spirit, but explain the revelation here mentioned as referring to the manner of communicating information. This agrees most completely with the context; for Christ confirms what he had formerly said, that all things had been delivered to him by his Father, by informing us that the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him, (Col 2:9.) The passage may be thus summed up: ⁶⁹ First, it is the gift of the Father, that the Son is known, because by his Spirit he opens the eyes of our mind to discern the glory of Christ, which otherwise would have been hidden from us. Secondly, the Father, who dwells in inaccessible light, and is in himself incomprehensible, is revealed to us by the Son, because he is the lively image of Him, so that it is in vain to seek for Him elsewhere. ⁷⁰

Calvin: Mat 11:28

28.Come to me all that labor He now kindly invites to himself those whom he acknowledges to be fit for becoming his disciples. Though he is ready to reveal the Father to all, yet the greater part are careless about coming to him, because they are not affected by a conviction of their necessities. Hypocrites give themselves no concern about Christ, because they are intoxicated with their own righteousness, and neither hunger nor thirst (Mat 5:6) for his grace. Those who are devoted to the world set no value on heavenly life. It would be in vain, therefore, for Christ to invite either of these classes, and therefore he turns to the wretched and afflicted. He speaks of them as laboring, or groaning under a burden, and does not mean generally those who are oppressed with grief and vexations, but those who are overwhelmed by their sins, who are filled with alarm at the wrath of God, and are ready to sink under so weighty a burden. There are various methods, indeed, by which God humbles his elect; but as the greater part of those who are loaded with afflictions still remain obstinate and rebellious, Christ means by persons laboring and burdened, those whose consciences are distressed by their exposure to eternal death, and who are inwardly so pressed down by their miseries that they faint; for this very fainting prepares them for receiving his grace. He tells us that the reason why most men despise his grace is, that they are not sensible of their poverty; but that there is no reason why their pride or folly should keep back afflicted souls that long for relief.

Let us therefore bid adieu to all who, entangled by the snares of Satan, either are persuaded that they possess a righteousness out of Christ, or imagine that they are happy in this world. Let our miseries drive us to seek Christ; and as he admits none to the enjoyment of his rest but those who sink under the burden, let us learn, that there is no venom more deadly than that slothfulness which is produced in us, either by earthly happiness, or by a false and deceitful opinion of our own righteousness and virtue. Let each of us labor earnestly to arouse himself, first, by vigorously shaking off the luxuries of the world; and, secondly, by laying aside every false confidence. Now though this preparation for coming to Christ makes them as dead men, ⁷¹ yet it ought to be observed, that it is the gift of the Holy Spirit, because it is the commencement of repentance, to which no man aspires in his own strength. Christ did not intend to show what man can do of himself, but only to inform us what must be the feelings of those who come to him.

They who limit the burden and the labor to ceremonies of the Law, take a very narrow view of Christ’s meaning. I do acknowledge, that the Law was intolerably burdensome, and overwhelmed the souls of worshippers; but we must bear in mind what I have said, that Christ stretches out his hand to all the afflicted, and thus lays down a distinction between his disciples and those who despise the Gospel. But we must attend to the universality of the expression; for Christ included all, without exception, who labor and are burdened, that no man may shut the gate against himself by wicked doubts. ⁷² And yet all such persons are few in number; for, among the innumerable multitude of those that perish, few are aware that they are perishing. The relief which he promises consists in the free pardon of sins, which alone gives us peace.

Calvin: Mat 11:29

29.Take my yoke upon you Many persons, we perceive, abuse the grace of Christ by turning it into an indulgence of the flesh; and therefore Christ, after promising joyful rest to wretchedly distressed consciences, reminds them, at the same time, that he is their Deliverer on condition of their submitting to his yoke. He does not, he tells us, absolve men from their sins in such a manner, that, restored to the favor of God, they may sin with greater freedom, but that, raised up by his grace, they may also take his yoke upon them, and that, being free in spirit, they may restrain the licentiousness of their flesh. And hence we obtain a definition of that rest of which he had spoken. It is not at all intended to exempt the disciples of Christ from the warfare of the flesh, that they may enjoy themselves at their ease, but to train them under the burden of discipline, and keep them under the yoke.

Learn of me It is a mistake, I think, to suppose that Christ here assures us of his meekness, lest his disciples, under the influence of that fear which is usually experienced in approaching persons of distinction, should remain at a distance from him on account of his Divine glory. It is rather his design to form us to the imitation of himself, because the obstinacy of the flesh leads us to shrink from his yoke as harsh and uneasy. Shortly afterwards, he adds, (verse 30,) my yoke is easy But how shall any man be brought willingly and gently to bend his neck, unless, by putting on meekness, he be conformed to Christ? That this is the meaning of the words is plain; for Christ, after exhorting his disciples to bear his yoke, and desirous to prevent them from being deterred by its difficulty, immediately adds, Learn of me; thus declaring that, when his example shall have accustomed us to meekness and humility, we shall no longer feel his yoke to be troublesome. To the same purpose he adds, I will relieve you So long as the flesh kicks, we rebel; and those who refuse the yoke of Christ, and endeavor to appease God in any other manner, distress and waste themselves in vain. In this manner, we see the Papists wretchedly torturing themselves, and silently enduring the dreadful tyranny under which they groan, that they may not bow to the yoke of Christ.

Defender: Mat 11:30

"Easy" could better be rendered "kind." A yoke is normally cruel and painful, but the yoke of Christ is kind."

TSK: Mat 11:26

for : Job 33:13; Isa 46:10; Luk 10:21; Rom 9:18, Rom 11:33-36; Eph 1:9, Eph 1:11, Eph 3:11; 2Ti 1:9

TSK: Mat 11:27

are : Mat 28:18; Joh 3:35, Joh 5:21-29, Joh 13:3, Joh 17:2; 1Co 15:25-27; Eph 1:20-23; Phi 2:10,Phi 2:11; Heb 2:8-10; 1Pe 3:22

no man : Luk 10:22; Joh 10:15

neither : Joh 1:18, Joh 6:46, Joh 10:15, Joh 14:6-9, Joh 17:2, Joh 17:3, Joh 17:6, Joh 17:25, Joh 17:26; 1Jo 2:23, 1Jo 5:19, 1Jo 5:20; 2Jo 1:9

TSK: Mat 11:28

Come : Isa 45:22-25, Isa 53:2, Isa 53:3, Isa 55:1-3; Joh 6:37, Joh 7:37; Rev 22:17

all : Mat 23:4; Gen 3:17-19; Job 5:7, Job 14:1; Psa 32:4, Psa 38:4, Psa 90:7-10; Ecc 1:8, Ecc 1:14, Ecc 2:22, Ecc 2:23, Ecc 4:8; Isa 1:4, Isa 61:3, Isa 66:2; Mic 6:6-8; Act 15:10; Rom 7:22-25; Gal 5:1

and I : Mat 11:29; Psa 94:13, Psa 116:7; Isa 11:10, Isa 28:12, Isa 48:17, Isa 48:18; Jer 6:16; 2Th 1:7; Heb 4:1

TSK: Mat 11:29

my : Mat 7:24, Mat 17:5; Joh 13:17, Joh 14:21-24, Joh 15:10-14; 1Co 9:21; 2Co 10:5; 1Th 4:2; 2Th 1:8; Heb 5:9

and learn : Mat 11:27, Mat 28:20; Luk 6:46-48, Luk 8:35, Luk 10:39-42; Joh 13:15; Act 3:22, Act 3:23, Act 7:37; Eph 4:20,Eph 4:21; Phi 2:5; 1Jo 2:6

for : Mat 12:19, Mat 12:20, Mat 21:5; Num 12:3; Psa 131:1; Isa 42:1-4; Zec 9:9; Luk 9:51-56; 2Co 10:1; Phi 2:7, Phi 2:8; 1Pe 2:21-23

and ye : Mat 11:28; Jer 6:16; Heb 4:3-11

TSK: Mat 11:30

my yoke : Pro 3:17; Mic 6:8; Act 15:10,Act 15:28; Gal 5:1, Gal 5:18; 1Jo 5:3

burden : Joh 16:33; 2Co 1:4, 2Co 1:5, 2Co 4:17, 2Co 12:9, 2Co 12:10; Phi 4:13

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Mat 11:25-26

From the wise and prudent - That is, from those who "thought"themselves wise - "wise"according to the world’ s estimation of wisdom, 1Co 1:26-27.

Hast revealed them unto babes - To the poor, the ignorant, and the obscure; the teachable, the simple, the humble. By the wise and prudent here he had reference probably to the proud and haughty scribes and Pharisees in Capernaum. They rejected his gospel, but it was the pleasure of God to reveal it to obscure and more humble people. The reason given, the only satisfactory reason, is, that it so seemed good in the sight of God. In this the Saviour acquiesced, saying, "Even so, Father;"and in the dealings of God it is proper that all should acquiesce. "Such is the will of God"is often the only explanation which can be offered in regard to the various events which happen to us on earth. "Such is the will of God"is the only account which can be given of the reason of the dispensations of his grace. Our understanding is often confounded. We are unsuccessful in all our efforts at explanation. Our philosophy fails, and all that we can say is, "Even so, Father; for so it seems good to thee."And this is enough. That God does a thing, is, after all, the best reason which we "can"have that it is right. It is a "security"that nothing wrong is done; and though now mysterious, yet light will hereafter shine upon it like the light of noonday. I have more certainty that a thing is right if I can say that I know such is the will of God, than I could have by depending on my own reason. In the one case I confide in the infallible and most perfect God; in the other I rely on the reason of a frail and erring man. God never errs; but nothing is more common than for people to err.

Barnes: Mat 11:27

All things are delivered ... - The same doctrine is clearly taught often in the New Testament. See Joh 3:35; Joh 6:46; Joh 10:15; Col 1:16-17. It means that Christ has control over all things for the good of his church; that the government of the universe is committed to him "as Mediator,"that he may redeem his people and guide them to glory, Eph 1:20-22.

No man knoweth the Son - That is, such is the nature of the Son of God, such the mystery of the union between the divine and human nature, such his exalted character as "divine,"that no mortal can fully comprehend Jesus. None but God fully knows him. If he had been only a mere man, this language surely would not have been used of him.

Neither knoweth any man the Father ... - In the original this is, neither knoweth "anyone"the Father except the Son. That is, no man or angel clearly and fully comprehends the character of the infinite God; none but the Son - the Lord Jesus - and he to whom he makes him known, have any just apprehensions of his being and perfections.

Barnes: Mat 11:28

All ye that labour and are heavy laden - The Saviour here, perhaps, refers primarily to the Jews, who groaned under the weight of their ceremonial laws and the traditions of the elders, Act 15:10. He tells them that by coming to him, and embracing the new system of religion, they would be freed from these burdensome rites and ceremonies. There can be no doubt, however, that he meant here chiefly to address the poor, lost, ruined sinner: the man "burdened"with a consciousness of his transgressions, trembling at his danger, and seeking deliverance. For such there is relief. Christ tells them to come to him, to believe in him, and to trust him, and him only, for salvation. Doing this, he will give them rest - rest from their sins, from the alarms of conscience, from the terrors of the law, and from the fears of eternal death.

Barnes: Mat 11:29

Take my yoke - This is a figure taken from the use of oxen, and hence signifying to labor for one, or in the service of anyone. The "yoke"is used in the Bible as an emblem:

(1)\caps1     o\caps0 f bondage or slavery, Lev 26:13; Deu 28:38.

(2)\caps1     o\caps0 f afflictions or crosses, Lam 3:27.

(3)\caps1     o\caps0 f the punishment of sin, Lam 1:14,

(4)\caps1     o\caps0 f the commandments of God.

(5)\caps1     o\caps0 f legal ceremonies, Act 15:10; Gal 5:1.

It refers here to the religion of the Redeemer; and the idea is, that they should embrace his system of religion and obey him. All virtue and all religion imply "restraint"- the restraint of our bad passions and inclinations - and subjection to laws; and the Saviour here means to say that the restraints and laws of his religion are mild, and gentle, and easy. Let anyone compare them with the burdensome and expensive ceremonies of the Jews (see Act 15:10), or with the religious rites of the pagan everywhere, or with the requirements of the Popish system, and he will see how true it is that Jesus’ yoke is easy. And let his laws and requirements be compared with the laws which sin imposes on its votaries - the laws of fashion, and honor, and sensuality - and he will feel that religion is "freedom,"Joh 8:36. "He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves besides."It is "easier"to be a Christian than a sinner; and of all the yokes ever imposed on people, that of the Redeemer is the lightest.

For I am meek ... - See the notes at Mat 5:5. This was eminently Christ’ s personal character. But this is not its meaning here. He is giving a reason why they should embrace his religion. That was, that he was not harsh, overbearing, and oppressive, like the Pharisees, but meek, mild, and gentle in his government. His laws were reasonable and tender, and it would be easy to obey him.

Barnes: Mat 11:30

My yoke is easy ... - That is, the services that I shall require are easily rendered. They are not burdensome, like all other systems of religion. So the Christian always finds them. In coming to him there is "a peace which passeth all understanding;"in believing in him, "joy;"in following him "through evil and good report,"a comfort "which the world giveth not;"in bearing trials and in persecution, "the hope of glory;"and in keeping his commandments, great reward.

Remarks On Matthew 11

1. A spirit of inquiry about the person and works of Christ is especially proper, Mat 11:2-3. John was solicitous to ascertain his true character, and nothing is of more importance for all than to understand his true character. Upon him depends all the hope that man has of happiness beyond the grave. He saves, or man must perish. "He"will save, or we must die forever. With what earnestness, therefore, should the old and the young inquire into his character. Our eternal all demands it; and while this is delayed, we are endangering our everlasting felicity.

2. Clear proof has been furnished that Jesus is the Christ and can save us, Mat 11:4-5. If his miracles did not prove that he came from God, nothing can prove it. If he could open the eyes of the blind, then he can enlighten the sinner; if he could unstop the ears of the deaf, then he can cause us to hear and live; if he could heal the sick, and make the lame walk, then he can heal our spiritual maladies, and make us walk in the way of life; if he could raise the dead, then he can raise those dead in sin, and breathe into us the breath of eternal life. If he was willing to do all this for the body which is soon to perish, then he will be much more willing to do it for the soul, that never dies. Then the poor, lost sinner may come and live.

3. We see in this chapter Christ’ s manner of praising or complimenting men, Mat 11:7-15. He gave, in no measured terms, his exalted opinion of John - gave him praise which had been bestowed on no other mortal ranked him far above the purest and sublimest of the prophets. But this was not done in the presence of John, "nor was it done in the presence of those who would inform John of it."It was when the disciples of John had "departed,"and his commendation of John was spoken to "the multitude,"Mat 11:7. He waited until his disciples were gone, apprehending, doubtless, that they would be likely to report what he said in praise of their master, and then expressed his high opinion of his character. The practice of the world is to praise others to their faces, or in the presence of those who will be sure to inform them of it, and to speak evil of them when absent. Jesus delivered his unfavorable opinions of others to the people themselves; their excellences he took pains to commend where they would not be likely to hear of them. He did good to both, and in both prevented the existence of pride.

4. The wicked take much pains, and are often fickle and inconsistent, for the sake of abusing and calumniating religious people, Mat 11:18-19. They found much fault with the Saviour for doing the very same thing which they blamed John for not doing. So it is commonly with people who slander professors of religion. They risk their own characters, to prove that others are hypocrites or sinners. The object is not truth, but calumny and opposition to religion; and hitherto no means have been too base or too wicked to pour contempt on the followers of Christ.

5. The purest characters may expect the shaft of calumny and malice, and often in proportion to their purity, Mat 11:19. Even the Saviour of the world was accused of being intemperate and a glutton. If the only perfectly pure being that ever trod the earth was thus accused, let not his followers think that any strange thing has happened to them if they are falsely accused.

6. Judgments will overtake guilty people, and cities, and nations, Mat 11:21-22. They fell on Sodom, Tyre, Sidon, and Capernaum. They may long linger; but in due time the hand of God will fall on the wicked, and they will die - forever die.

7. The wicked will suffer in proportion to their privileges, Mat 11:23-24. So it was with Capernaum. And if they of ancient days suffered thus; if more tremendous judgments fell on them than even on guilty Sodom, what shall be the doom of those who go down to hell from this day of light? The Saviour was indeed there a few days; he worked a few miracles; but they had not, as we have, all his instructions; they had not Sunday schools, and Bible classes, and the stated preaching of the gospel, nor was the world blessed then, as now, with extensive and powerful revivals of religion. How awful must be the doom of those who are educated in the ways of religion - who are instructed from Sabbath to Sabbath - who grow up amid the means of grace - and then are lost!

8. The poor and needy; the weary and heavy-ladened; the soul sick of sin and of the world; the sinner conscious of guilt and afraid to die, may come to Jesus Christ and live, Mat 11:28-30. The invitation is wide as the world. The child and the old man may seek and find salvation at the feet of the same Saviour. No child is too young; no man is too old: no one is too great a sinner. Christ is "full"of mercy, and all who come shall find peace. O how should we, in this sinful and miserable world, borne down with sin, and exposed each moment to death - how should we come and find the peace which he has promised to all, and take the yoke which all have found to be light!

Poole: Mat 11:25-26

Ver. 25,26. Luk 10:21 , hath the same thing, only he thus prefaces, In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, & c. He rejoiced in spirit, his heart was inwardly affected with this grace of God his Father. Then he answered and said. Answering in Scripture doth not always signify replying to the words of others, but a speaking upon some fit occasion offered, a beginning of a speech.

I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth In the Greek the same word is used which signifieth to confess. In all thanksgiving and praising there is a confession of the power, wisdom, or goodness of God, so as all praising is a confessing, though all confession be not praising. By calling his Father

Lord of heaven and earth he acknowledgeth his absolute power to have done otherwise, even as it pleased him.

Because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent By the wise and prudent he here plainly means the scribes and Pharisees, the learned doctors of that age, who should have been wise and prudent, and were so both in their own and in their followers’ opinion. By

these things he means the mysteries of the gospel, as Mat 13:11 , The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. God is said to have hid them, because he had not revealed them to them; nor can it be understood of a mere external revelation by the preaching of the gospel, but of an internal revelation by his Spirit, so as they embraced and believed them, 1Co 2:10 ; in which sense Paul saith, If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, 2Co 4:3 .

And hast revealed them unto babesnhpioiv . It signifieth persons that are young in years, infants, and weak in understanding. He principally means his apostles, together with those ordinary persons that believed in him, for the Pharisees said, Joh 7:48,49 , Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. O Father, (saith our Saviour), thou hast all power in thine hand, thou art the Lord of heaven and earth, thou couldest by thy Spirit have caused these learned men to have received and embraced thy gospel, and followed me, as well as these poor fishermen, and other Jews of none of the highest quality; in that thou hast not done it, thou hast declared thy justice, for their rejecting of thy counsel for their salvation, but in that thou hast revealed these things to any, especially to these persons, not under the same worldly advantages for reputation, wisdom, and wit, herein thou hast showed thy special and abounding grace, as well as the greatness of thy power. Lord, I rejoice in thy dispensations, and I give thee thanks that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected thy praise. There can be no other reason given of this, but thy good pleasure;

Even so, Father; so it pleased thee We may from hence observe,

1. That the further revelations of Christ some souls have more than others enjoying the same outward means, are not to be ascribed to the power or goodness of the will of man, but solely to the good pleasure of God.

2. That from the beginning of the gospel, the special and effectual revelations of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have, from the good pleasure of God, been made generally not to the most learned and wise men in men’ s account, but mostly to persons of a meaner rank. Surgunt indocti, et coelum rapiunt: Nos cum doctrina nostra in Gehennam trudimur. 1Co 1:26-28 Jam 2:5 .

3. That wheresoever God by his Spirit reveals the mysteries of the kingdom of God, it is matter of great joy and thanksgiving; especially where God reveals these mysteries to persons most unlikely to have received them.

Poole: Mat 11:27

John saith, Joh 3:35 , The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. Mat 28:18 , All power is given unto me. Joh 17:2 , Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. God is the Fountain of power, Psa 62:11 . He hath committed also power to Christ as Mediator, Psa 2:7-9 , more particularly the power of life and eternal salvation, as Joh 17:2 ; he hath the keys of hell and death, Rev 1:18 , and all the means that lead to eternal life are in his power and disposal.

And no man knoweth the Son but the Father no man knoweth his Divine essence, his eternal generation; and therefore men are not to listen to what the scribes and Pharisees say of him, but to attend to and to believe what the Father hath revealed from heaven concerning him, who best knoweth him.

Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son: no man knoweth the essence of the Father, or the counsels of the Father, as to the dispensations of the gospel.

Save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him The prophets inquired and searched diligently concerning this salvation, searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow, 1Pe 1:10-12 . Mr. Calvin saith, the Son is said to know the Father, as he is his lively image, the express image of his person, and the brightness of his glory. And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him, Joh 6:46 .

He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, Joh 14:9 . All our saving knowledge of God is in and through Christ.

Poole: Mat 11:28-30

Ver. 28-30. Our Lord having before showed;

1. That all power was given to him;

2. That none could know the Father but by and in him; closes his discourse with an invitation of persons to him. By the weary and heavy laden, in the text, some understand those that are laden with the sense of their sins, and the feeling the guilt of them. Others understand, with the burden of the law, which the apostles called a yoke, Act 15:10 .

Mr. Calvin thinks this too strait an interpretation. Others understand heavy laden with trials and afflictions. Christ will give rest to all those of his people that are any ways weary and heavy laden, but in an order first to souls wearied and heavy laden with the burden of their sins, and their want of a righteousness wherein to stand before God. Then to such to whom he hath given this rest, he promises also rest from their troubles and persecutions in the world, Joh 16:33 . It is very like he used this term, Come, with respect to that of Isaiah, Isa 55:1,2 . That by coming is to be understood believing is plain from Joh 6:44-46 Heb 11:6 . The rest promised chiefly respecteth the soul, as appears from Mat 11:29 . The promise may be understood both of that rest which believers have in this life, Rom 5:2 15:13 , and also of that rest which after this life remaineth to the people of God, Heb 4:9 . Whatever the rest be, it must be of Christ’ s giving and our seeking; nor is it to be obtained without labour and suffering, for it followeth,

Take my yoke upon you The members of Christ are not without a yoke, a law and rule by which they are obliged to walk; and though the service of God be a perfect freedom, yet to flesh and blood it is a yoke, grating upon our sensitive appetite, and restraining our natural motions and inclinations.

For I am meek and lowly Humility and meekness are in themselves yokes, as they are contrary to our pride, and aptness to swell in a high opinion of ourselves; and to our wrath and danger, which sometimes boils to a great height, without any due fuel: and as in themselves they are a great part of Christ’ s yoke, so they fit and dispose us to take Christ’ s further yoke upon us, and may be here considered as means directed for the better performance of the precept,

Take my yoke upon you Our Lord also by this precept lets us know there can be no true faith without obedience to the commands of Christ. Though true faith and obedience be two things, yet they are inseparable; Show me thy faith (saith James) by thy works; and the rest of the text is not promised to either of them severally, but to both jointly.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light Our Saviour had before Mat 7:13,14told us that the way to heaven is a strait way, how doth he now tell us his yoke is easy and his burden light?

Answer:

1. Nothing makes it hard or burdensome but our corruption, which floweth from the depravation of human nature.

2. It is much easier than the yoke and burden of the law.

3. Though it be hard to beginners, yet it is easy when we have once accustomed ourselves to it.

4. It is easy, considering that we do it not in our own strength, but by assistance from God, Jer 31:33 Eze 36:25,26 Joh 15:3 , we are delivered even from the moral law, considered as a covenant, and as merely commanding us, and affording no help and assistance.

5. It is also easy; as we are by the love of God constrained to our duty, so we are freed from the rigour of the law. It is easy and light, as it is a course of life highly consonant to our reason, once delivered from a bondage to our passions. Finally, it is much more easy and light than the service of our lusts is. There is no greater slavery than a subjection to our lusts, that if a drunkard saith "Come," we must come, if an harlot saith "Go," we must go. Or than our service to the world, &c. To say nothing of the exceeding easiness of it, from the prospect of the great reward proposed and promised to those who keep the commandments of Christ, the exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2Co 4:17 ; as Jacob’ s hard service of fourteen years seemed to him but a few days.

Lightfoot: Mat 11:29

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.   

[My yoke.] So The yoke of the law: The yoke of the precept: The yoke of the kingdom of heaven.

PBC: Mat 11:28

See Philpot: THE LABOURER’S REST

Haydock: Mat 11:26

Yea, Father, &c. St. John Chrysostom interprets this passage as if Christ would say, Go on, Father, as you have begun; or the sense may be, I give thee thanks, O Father, that it has pleased thee to act thus, that since the wise men of this world have rejected the gospel, thou hast deigned to manifest it to little ones. (Menochius)

Haydock: Mat 11:28

All you that, &c. That is, you who are wearied with the heavy load of your sins, and the grievous yoke of the old law. (Menochius)

Haydock: Mat 11:29

Take up my yoke, &c. Fear not the yoke of Christ, for it is a yoke of the greatest sweetness. Be not disheartened when he mentions a burden, because it is a burden exceeding light. If then our Saviour says, that the way of virtue is exceeding narrow, and replete with difficulties and dangers, we must call to mind that it is so to the slothful only. Perform therefore with alacrity what is required, and then will all things be easy; the burden will be light, and the yoke sweet. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxix.)

Haydock: Mat 11:30

For my yoke is sweet, &c. For though, in regard of our weak nature, it be a very heavy yoke, yet the grace of God renders it easy and light, because our Lord himself helps us to bear it, according to that of the prophet Osee, (Chap. xi, ver. 4) I will be unto them as he that takes the yoke from off their head. St. Bernard says, that our Saviour sweetens by the spiritual unction of his grace, all the crosses, penances, and mortifications of religious souls. St. Augustine owns that before he knew the power of grace, he could never comprehend what charity was, nor believe that any one was able to practice it; but the grace of God renders all things easy. (Rodriguez, On Mortification. Chap. xix.)

Gill: Mat 11:26

Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. Or, "so is the good will", or "pleasure before thee": thus, רצון מלפניך יהי, "let it be the good will before thee", or "in thy sight, O Lord", is a phrase often to be met with in the Jews' forms of prayer ^x. Here the word designs the sovereign counsel and purpose of God, to which, and to which only, our Lord refers the different dispensations of God towards the sons of men: this is a reason which ought to satisfy everyone, and is better than ten thousand others that can be thought of, or devised by men. This difference among men, with respect to the Gospel revelation, cannot be owing to natural sagacity, prudence, and penetration; for these things are with those from whom it is hid; nor to any worthiness in those to whom it is revealed; for they are the poor, the base, the foolish things of this world, and even things that are not; nor to any foresight of their making a better use and improvement of such a revelation, but to the good will and pleasure of God only.

Gill: Mat 11:27

All things are delivered unto me of my Father,.... This is to be understood of Christ, as mediator; for, as God, nothing was delivered to him; he had all things, all perfections, power, and glory his Father has; and is to be considered in the utmost extent: all persons are delivered to him, angels and men; good angels are delivered to him, to be confirmed in him, as their head, and to be made use of by him; spirits, evil spirits, which were subject to his disciples, are under him, and at his command and disposal; and their subjection to his disciples is owing to his power over them, which he communicated to them; all the elect of God are delivered to him, to be kept and saved by him; all the babes and little ones, to whom it was the Father's will to reveal the mysteries of grace, were his care and charge; all power in heaven, and in earth, are given unto him; and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid with him, which are distributed to any of the sons of men; all the blessings of grace, and the promises of the everlasting covenant, and all the glory and happiness of his people, are put into his hands:

and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; the transcendent glories and perfections of his nature, as the Son of God; nor the whole of his work and office, as mediator: or all that is committed to his charge, as such: all that he was to do, and suffer, for his people; all that he had done for them, and should communicate to, and bestow upon them.

Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son; his essence and glory, his mind and will, his purposes and decrees, his counsels and covenant; the grace and love of his heart to his chosen people; what he has prepared and laid up for them, and will make them partakers of to all eternity;

and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him; both himself, and his Father, and the grace and glory of each, which he does by his Spirit; who is a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; and which entirely depends on his own sovereign will and pleasure.

Gill: Mat 11:28

Come unto me,.... Christ having signified, that the knowledge of God, and the mysteries of grace, are only to be come at through him; and that he has all things relating to the peace, comfort, happiness, and salvation of men in his hands, kindly invites and encourages souls to come unto him for the same: by which is meant, not a local coming, or a coming to hear him preach; for so his hearers, to whom he more immediately directed his speech, were come already; and many of them did, as multitudes may, and do, in this sense, come to Christ, who never knew him, nor receive any spiritual benefit by him: nor is it a bare coming under the ordinances of Christ, submission to baptism, or an attendance at the Lord's supper, the latter of which was not yet instituted; and both may be performed by men, who are not yet come to Christ: but it is to be understood of believing in Christ, the going of the soul to him, in the exercise of grace on him, of desire after him, love to him, faith and hope in him: believing in Christ, and coming to him, are terms synonymous, Joh 6:35. Those who come to Christ aright, come as sinners, to a full, suitable, able, and willing Saviour; venture their souls upon him, and trust in him for righteousness, life, and salvation, which they are encouraged to do, by this kind invitation; which shows his willingness to save, and his readiness to give relief to distressed minds. The persons invited, are not "all" the individuals of mankind, but with a restriction,

all ye that labour, and are heavy laden; meaning, not these who are labouring in the service of sin and Satan, are laden with iniquity, and insensible of it: these are not weary of sin, nor burdened with it; not do they want or desire any rest for their souls; but such who groan, being burdened with the guilt of sin upon their consciences, and are pressed down with the unsupportable yoke of the law, and the load of human traditions; and have been labouring till they are weary, in order to obtain peace of conscience, and rest for their souls, by the observance of these things, but in vain. These are encouraged to come to him, lay down their burdens at his feet, look to, and lay hold by faith on his person, blood, righteousness, and sacrifice; when they should enjoy that true spiritual consolation, which could never be attained to by the works of the law.

And I will give you rest; spiritual rest here, peace of conscience, ease of mind, tranquillity of soul, through an application of pardoning grace, a view of free justification by the righteousness of Christ, and full atonement of sin by his sacrifice; and eternal rest hereafter, in Abraham's bosom, in the arms of Jesus, in perfect and uninterrupted communion with Father, Son, and Spirit. The Jews say ^y, that מנוחת תורה, "the law is rest"; and so explain Gen 49:15 of it: but a truly sensible sinner enjoys no rest, but in Christ; it is like Noah's dove, which could find no rest for the soles of its feet, until it returned to the ark; and they themselves expect perfect rest in the days of the Messiah, and call his world מנוחה, rest ^z.

Gill: Mat 11:29

Take my yoke upon you,.... The phrase is Rabbinical. The Jewish doctors often speak ^a of עול מלכות שמים, "the yoke of the kingdom of heaven", and of persons taking it upon them; and which they exhort to, and express in much such language as here ^b; קדישא קבילו עלייכו עול מלכותא, "take upon you the yoke of the holy kingdom", every day. They distinguish this from the yoke of the law, and say ^c.

"a man must first take upon him the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and after that take upon him the "yoke" of the commandment.''

Their sense I take to be this, that a man must first make a profession of his faith in the God of Israel, and then live conformably to his law: agreeably to this, Christ exhorts such persons who come to him for rest and happiness, to profess their faith in him, to embrace the doctrines of the Gospel, to submit to his ordinances, and to walk according to those laws, commands, and orders, which he, as king of saints, has made, and requires obedience to: so those who come to him for life, and believe in him, as the Saviour of their souls, though they are not to trust in, and depend upon any duties performed by them; yet they are not to sit still, or lay aside the performance of good works, or live a licentious course of life, but are always to be doing the will and work of their Lord. And this he calls "his yoke", in distinction from the yoke of the law of Moses, and of the traditions of the elders.

And learn of me, for I am meek, and lowly in heart: respect seems to be had to Zec 9:9 where such characters as these are given of the Messiah. The meekness, humility, and lowliness of Christ appear in his assumption of human nature; in his subjection to his Father; in the whole of his deportment and conversation among men; in his submission to the ordinance of baptism; in the whole course of his obedience to God, and in his sufferings and death: and he is to be imitated herein, by all his followers, who may learn many excellent things from his example, as well as from his doctrine; and particularly, that whereas, though he was so great a person, yet condescended to perform every duty with readiness and cheerfulness, his disciples should not think it below them to conform to every ordinance of his, to every branch of his will; for he has set them an example, that they should tread in his steps, and walk even as he has walked. There never was such an instance of humility, and lowliness of mind, as Christ; nor is there any example so worthy of our imitation as his. The Jews have a saying ^d,

"for ever let a man ענוותן כהילל, "be meek as Hillell", and let him not be wrathful as "Shammai":''

which two men were presidents of their universities about the times of Christ. But our Lord says, "learn of me", not of "Hillell", or any of your doctors,

and ye shall find rest unto your souls; referring to Jer 6:16 and which shows the rest he speaks of in the preceding verse, to be not a corporal, but a spiritual one; and which is to be enjoyed "in", though not "for" the observance of Christ's commands; whose "ways are ways of pleasantness, and all" whose "paths are peace".

Gill: Mat 11:30

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Christ calls a profession of faith in him, and subjection to his ordinances, a yoke, in allusion to the law of Moses, and in distinction from it; and a "burden", with respect to the very heavy ones the Scribes and Pharisees laid upon the shoulders of the people, obliging them to a strict observance of them; though of a different nature from either of them; "for his commandments are not grievous", hard and heavy to be borne, as their's were, but "easy and light": not that they are so to unregenerate men, or are easily performed by the strength of nature, and power of men's free will: but they are good and amiable, and lovely in their own nature, and are cheerfully complied with, and abundance of spiritual pleasure and delight is enjoyed in them by believers, when they have the presence of God, the assistance of his Spirit, and the discoveries of his love. Moreover, the commands of Christ, and the ordinances of the Gospel, are so in comparison of the law of Moses; which required perfect obedience, but gave no strength to perform, and threatened with condemnation and death, in case of the least failure; and of the numerous, and some very severe rites and usages of the ceremonial law; and of the bulky and heavy traditions of the elders, and ordinances of men.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Mat 11:26

¹ tn Grk “for (to do) thus was well-pleasing before you,” BDAG 325 s.v. ἔμπροσθεν 1.b.δ; speaking of something taking place “before” God is a reverential way of avoiding direct connection of the action to him.

NET Notes: Mat 11:27

¹ sn This verse has been noted for its conceptual similarity to teaching in John’s Gospel (10:15; 17:2). The authority of the Son and the Father are totally intertwined.

² tn Or “wishes”; or “intends”; or “plans” (cf. BDAG 182 s.v. βούλομαι 2.b). Here it is the Son who has sovereignty.

NET Notes: Mat 11:29

¹ sn A yoke is a wooden bar or frame that joins two animals like oxen or horses so that they can pull a wagon, plow, etc. together. Here it is used figuratively of the restrictions that a teacher or rabbi would place on his followers.

Geneva Bible: Mat 11:26

^{( h )} Even so, Father: for so it seemed ^{( i )} good in thy sight.

^{( h )} This word shows that he contents himself in his Father's council.

^{( i )} God's will is the only rule of righteousness.

Geneva Bible: Mat 11:27

^{( 6 )} All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him].

^{( 6 )} There is no true knowledge of God, nor quietness of mind, but only in Christ alone.

Geneva Bible: Mat 11:30

For my yoke [is] ^{( k )} easy, and my burden is light.

^{( k )} May easily be carried. For his commandments are not grievous, for all who are born of God overcome the world; (1Jo 5:4).

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Mat 11:1-30

1 John sends his disciples to Christ.

7 Christ's testimony concerning John.

16 The perverse judgment of the people.

20 Christ upbraids Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum;

25 and praising his Father's wisdom in revealing the Gospel to the simple,

28 he calls to him all such as feel the burden of their sins.

Maclaren: Mat 11:28-29

The Rest Giver

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.'--Matt. 11:28-29.

ONE does not know whether tenderness or majesty is predominant in these wonderful words. A divine penetration into man's true condition, and a divine pity, are expressed in them. Jesus looks with clear-sighted compassion into the inmost history of all hearts, and sees the toil and the sorrow which weigh on every soul. And no less remarkable is the divine consciousness of power, to succour and to help, which speaks in them. Think of a Jewish peasant of thirty years old, opening his arms to embrace the world, and saying to all men,' Come and rest on My breast.' Think of a man supposing himself to be possessed of a charm which could soothe all sorrow and lift the weight from every heart.

A great sculptor has composed a group where there diverge from the central figure on either side, in two long lines, types of all the cruel varieties of human pains and pangs; and in the midst stands, calm, pure, with the consciousness of power and love in His looks, and with outstretched hands, as if beckoning invitation and dropping benediction, Christ the Consoler. The artist has but embodied the claim which the Master makes for Himself here. No less remarkable is His own picture of Himself, as' meek and lowly in heart.' Did ever anybody before say, I am humble,' without provoking the comment, He that says he is humble proves that he is not'? But Jesus Christ said it, and the world has allowed the claim; and has answered, Though Thou bearest record of Thyself, Thy record is true.'

But my object now is not so much to deal with the revelation of our Lord contained in these marvellous words, as to try, as well as I can, to re-echo, however faintly, the invitation that sounds in them. There is a very striking reduplication running through them which is often passed unnoticed. I shall shape my remarks so as to bring out that feature of the text, asking you to look first with me at the twofold designation of the persons addressed; next at the twofold invitation; and last at the twofold promise of rest.

I. Consider Then The Twofold Designation Here Of The Persons Addressed,

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.'

The one word expresses effort and toil, the other a burden and endurance. The one speaks of the active, the other of the passive, side of human misery and evil. Toil is work which is distasteful in itself, or which is beyond our faculties. Such toil, sometime or other, more or less, sooner or later, is the lot of every man. All work becomes labour, and all labour, sometime or other, becomes toil. The text is, first of all, and in its most simple and surface meaning, an invitation to all the men who know how ceaseless, how wearying, how empty the effort and energy of life is, to come to this Master and rest.

You remember those bitter words of the Book of Ecclesiastes, where the preacher sets forth a circle of labour that only comes back to the point where it began, as being the law for nature and the law for man. And truly much of our work seems to be no better than that. We are like squirrels in a cage, putting forth immense muscular effort, and nothing to show for it after all. All is vanity, and striving after wind.'

Toll is a curse; work is a blessing. But all our work darkens into toil; and the invitation,' Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' reaches to the very utmost verge of the world and includes every soul.

And then, in like manner, the other side of human experience is set forth in that other word. For most men have not only to work, but to bear; not only to toil, but to sorrow. There are efforts that need to be put forth, which task all our energy, and leave the muscles flaccid and feeble. And many of us have, at one and the same moment, to work and to weep, to toil whilst our hearts are beating like a forge-hammer; to labour whilst memories and thoughts that might enfeeble any worker, are busy with us. A burden of sorrow, as well as effort and toil, is, sooner or later, the lot of all men.

But that is only surface. The twofold designation here before us goes a great deal deeper than that. It points to two relationships to God and to God's law of righteousness. Men labour with vague and yet with noble effort, sometimes, to do the thing that is right, and after all efforts there is left a burden of conscious defect. In the purest and the highest lives there come both of these things. And Jesus Christ, in this merciful invitation of His, speaks to all the men that have tried, and tried in vain, to satisfy their consciences and to obey the law of God, and says to them, Cease your efforts, and no longer carry that burden of failure and of sin upon your shoulders. Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.'

I should be sorry to think that I was speaking to any man or woman who had not, more or less, tried to do what is right. You have laboured at that effort with more or less of consistency, with more or less of earnestness. Have you not found that you could not achieve it?

I am sure that I am speaking to no man or woman who has not upon his or her conscience a great weight of neglected duties, of actual transgressions, of mean thoughts, of foul words and passions, of deeds that they would be ashamed that any should see; ashamed that their dearest should catch a glimpse of. My friend, universal sinfulness is no mere black dogma of a narrow Calvinism; it is no uncharitable indictment against the race; it is simply putting into definite words the consciousness that is in every one of your hearts. You know that, whether you like to think about it or not, you have broken God's law, and are a sinful man. You carry a burden on your back whether you realise the fact or no, a burden that clogs all your efforts, and that will sink you deeper into the darkness and the mire. Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' and with noble, but, at bottom, vain, efforts have striven after right and truth. Come unto Me all ye that are burdened,' and bear, sometimes forgetting it, but often reminded of its pressure by galled shoulders and wearied limbs, the burden Of sin on your bent backs.

This invitation includes the whole race. In it, as in a blank form, you may each insert your name. Jesus Christ speaks to thee, John, Thomas, Mary, Peter, whatever thy name may be, as distinctly as if you saw your name written on the pages of your New Testament, when He says to you, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.' For the' all' is but the sum of the units; and I, and thou, and thou, have our place within the word.

II. Now, Secondly, Look At The Twofold Invitation That Is Here.

Come unto Me, Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.' These two things are not the same. Coming unto Me,' as is quite plain to the most superficial observation, is the first step in the approach to a companionship, which companionship is afterwards perfected and kept up by obedience and imitation. The coming' is an initial act which makes a man Christ's companion. And the Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me,' is the continuous act by which that companionship is manifested and preserved. So that in these words, which come so familiarly to most of our memories that they have almost ceased to present a sharp meaning, there is not only a merciful summons to the initial act, but a description of the continual life of which that act is the introduction.

And now, to put that into simpler words, when Jesus Christ says Come unto Me,' He Himself has taught us what is His inmost meaning in that invitation, by another word of His: He that cometh unto Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst'; where the parallelism of the clauses teaches us that to come to Christ is simply to put our trust in Him. There is in faith a true movement of the whole soul towards the Master. I think that this metaphor teaches us a great deal more about that faith that we are always talking about in the pulpit, and which, I am afraid, many of our congregations do not very distinctly understand, than many a book of theology does. To come to Him' implies, distinctly, that He, and no mere theological dogma, however precious and clear, is the Object on which faith rests.

And, therefore, if Christ, and not merely a doctrinal truth about Christ, be the Object of our faith, then it is very clear that faith, which grasps a Person, must be something more than the mere act of the understanding which assents to a truth. And what more is it? How is it possible for one person to lay hold of and to come to another? By trust and love, and by these alone. These be the bonds that bind men together. Mere intellectual consent may be sufficient to fasten a man to a dogma, but there must be will and heart at work to bind a man to a person; and if it be Christ and not a theology, to which we come by our faith, then it must be with something more than our brains that we grasp Him and draw near to Him. That is to say, your will is engaged in your confidence. Trust Him as you trust one another, only with the difference befitting a trust directed to an absolute and perfect object of trust, and not to a poor, variable human heart. Trust Him as you trust one another. Then, just as husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend, pass through all intervening hindrances and come together when they trust and love, so you come closer to Christ as the very soul of your soul by an inward real union, than you do even to your dear ones, if you grapple Him to your heart with the hoops of steel, which, by simple trust in Him, the Divine Redeemer forges for us. Come unto Me,' being translated out of metaphor into fact, is simply Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.'

And still further, we have here, not only the initial act by which companionship and union with Jesus Christ is brought about, but the continual course by which it is kept up, and by which it is manifested. The faith which saves a man's soul is not all which is required for a Christian life. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me: The yoke is that which, laid on the broad forehead or the thick neck of the ox, has attached to it the cords which are bound to the burden that the animal draws. The burden, then, which Christ gives to His servants to pull, is a metaphor for the specific duties which He enjoins upon them to perform; and the yoke by which they are fastened to their burdens, obliged' to their duties, is His authority. So to take His yoke' upon us is to submit our wills to His authority. Therefore this further call is addressed to all those who have come to Him, feeling their weakness and their need and their sinfulness, and have found in Him a Saviour who has made them restful and glad; and it bids them live in the deepest submission of will to Him, in joyful obedience, in constant service; and, above all, in the daily imitation of the Master.

You must put both these commandments together before you get Christ's will for His children completely expressed. There are some of you who think that Christianity is only a means by which you may escape the penalty of your sins; and you are ready enough, or fancy yourselves so, to listen when He says, Come to Me that you may be pardoned,' but you are not so ready to listen to what He says afterwards, when He calls upon you to take His yoke upon you, to obey Him, to serve Him, and above all to copy Him. And I beseech you to remember that if you go and part these two halves from one another, as many people do, some of them bearing away the one half and some the other, you have got a maimed Gospel; in the one case a foundation without a building, and in the other case a building without a foundation. The people who say that Christ's call to the world is Come unto Me,' and whose Christianity and whose Gospel is only a proclamation of indulgence and pardon for past sin, have laid hold of half of the truth. The people who say that Christ's call is Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me,' and that Christianity is a proclamation of the duty of pure living after the pattern of Jesus Christ our great Example, have laid hold of the other half of the truth. And both halves bleed themselves away and die, being torn asunder; put them together, and each has power.

That separation is one reason why so many Christian men and women are such poor Christians as they are --having so little real religion, and consequently so little real joy. I could lay my fingers upon many men, professing Christians--I do not say whether in this church or in other churches--whose whole life shows that they do not understand that Jesus Christ has a twofold summons to His servants; and that it is of no avail once, long ago, to have come, or to think that you have come, to Him to get pardon, unless day by day you are keeping beside Him, doing His commandments, and copying His sweet and blessed example.

III. And Now, Lastly, Look At The Twofold Promise Which Is Here.

I do not know if there is any importance to be attached to the slight diversity of language in the two verses, so as that in the one case the promise runs, I will give you rest,' and in the other, Ye shall find rest.' That sounds as if the rest that was contingent upon the first of the invitations was in a certain and more direct and exclusive fashion Christ's gift than the rest which was contingent upon the second. It may be so, but I attach no importance to that criticism; only I would have you observe that our Lord distinctly separates here between the rest of coming,' and the rest of wearing His yoke.' These two, howsoever they may be like each other, are still not the same. The one is the perfecting and the prolongation, no doubt, of the other, but has likewise in it some other, I say not more blessed, elements. Dear brethren, here are two precious things held out and offered to us all. There is rest in coming to Christ; the rest of a quiet conscience which gnaws no more; the rest of a conscious friendship and Union with God, in whom alone are our soul's home, harbour, and repose; the rest of fears dispelled; the rest of forgiveness received into the heart. Do you want that? Go to Christ, and as soon as you go to Him you will get that rest.

There is rest in faith. The very act of confidence is repose. Look how that little child goes to sleep in its mother's lap, secure from harm because it trusts. And, oh! if there steal over our hearts such a sweet relaxation of the tension of anxiety when there is some dear one on whom we can cast all responsibility, how much more may we be delivered from all disquieting fears by the exercise of quiet confidence in the infinite love and power of our Brother Redeemer, Christ! He will be a covert from the storm, and a refuge from the tempest'; as rivers of water in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.' If we come to Him, the very act of coming brings repose.

But, brethren, that is not enough, and, blessed be God! that is not all. There is a further, deeper rest in obedience, and emphatically and most blessedly there is a rest in Christ-likeness. Take My yoke upon you.' There is repose in saying' Thou art my Master, and to Thee I bow.' You are delivered from the unrest of self-will, from the unrest of contending desires, you get rid of the weight of too much liberty. There is peace in submission; peace in abdicating the control of my own being; peace in saying, Take Thou the reins, and do Thou rule and guide me.' There is peace in surrender and in taking His yoke upon us.

And most especially the path of rest for men is in treading in Christ's footsteps. Learn of Me,' it is the secret of tranquillity. We have done with passionate hot desires,--and it is these that breed all the disquiet in our lives--when we take the meekness and the lowliness of the Master for our pattern. The river will no longer roll, broken by many a boulder, and chafed into foam over many a fall, but will flow with even foot, and broad, smooth bosom, to the parent sea.

There is quietness in self-sacrifice, there is tranquillity in ceasing from mine own works and growing like the Master.

The Cross is strength; the solemn Cross is gain.The Cross is Jesus' breast,Here giveth He the rest,That to His best beloved doth still remain.'Take up thy cross daily,' and thou enterest into His rest.

My brother, the wicked is like the troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.' But you, if you come to Christ, and if you cleave to Christ, may be like that sea of glass, mingled with fire,' that lies pure, transparent, waveless before the Throne of God, over which no tempests rave, and which, in its deepest depths, mirrors the majesty of Him that sitteth upon the Throne, and of the Lamb.'

MHCC: Mat 11:25-30

It becomes children to be grateful. When we come to God as a Father, we must remember that he is Lord of heaven and earth, which obliges us to come to him with reverence as to the sovereign Lord of all; yet with confidence, as one able to defend us from evil, and to supply us with all good. Our blessed Lord added a remarkable declaration, that the Father had delivered into his hands all power, authority, and judgment. We are indebted to Christ for all the revelation we have of God the Father's will and love, ever since Adam sinned. Our Saviour has invited all that labour and are heavy-laden, to come unto him. In some senses all men are so. Worldly men burden themselves with fruitless cares for wealth and honours; the gay and the sensual labour in pursuit of pleasures; the slave of Satan and his own lusts, is the merest drudge on earth. Those who labour to establish their own righteousness also labour in vain. The convinced sinner is heavy-laden with guilt and terror; and the tempted and afflicted believer has labours and burdens. Christ invites all to come to him for rest to their souls. He alone gives this invitation; men come to him, when, feeling their guilt and misery, and believing his love and power to help, they seek him in fervent prayer. Thus it is the duty and interest of weary and heavy-laden sinners, to come to Jesus Christ. This is the gospel call; Whoever will, let him come. All who thus come will receive rest as Christ's gift, and obtain peace and comfort in their hearts. But in coming to him they must take his yoke, and submit to his authority. They must learn of him all things, as to their comfort and obedience. He accepts the willing servant, however imperfect the services. Here we may find rest for our souls, and here only. Nor need we fear his yoke. His commandments are holy, just, and good. It requires self-denial, and exposes to difficulties, but this is abundantly repaid, even in this world, by inward peace and joy. It is a yoke that is lined with love. So powerful are the assistances he gives us, so suitable the encouragements, and so strong the consolations to be found in the way of duty, that we may truly say, it is a yoke of pleasantness. The way of duty is the way of rest. The truths Christ teaches are such as we may venture our souls upon. Such is the Redeemer's mercy; and why should the labouring and burdened sinner seek for rest from any other quarter? Let us come to him daily, for deliverance from wrath and guilt, from sin and Satan, from all our cares, fears, and sorrows. But forced obedience, far from being easy and light, is a heavy burden. In vain do we draw near to Jesus with our lips, while the heart is far from him. Then come to Jesus to find rest for your souls.

Matthew Henry: Mat 11:25-30

In these verses we have Christ looking up to heaven, with thanksgiving to his Father for the sovereignty and security of the covenant of redemption; and looking around him upon this earth, with an offer to all the children of men, to whom these presents shall come, of the privileges and benefits of the covenant of grace.

I. Christ here returns thanks to God for his favour to those babes who had the mysteries of the gospel revealed to them (Mat 11:25, Mat 11:26). Jesus answered and said. It is called an answer, though no other words are before recorded but his own, because it is so comfortable a reply to the melancholy considerations preceding, and is aptly set in the balance against them. The sin and ruin of those woeful cities, no doubt, was a grief to the Lord Jesus; he could not but weep over them, as he did over Jerusalem (Luk 19:41); with this thought therefore he refreshes himself; and to make it the more refreshing, he puts it into a thanksgiving; that for all this, there is a remnant, though but babes, to whom the things of the gospel are revealed. Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall he be glorious. Note, We may take great encouragement in looking upward to God, when round about us we see nothing but what is discouraging. It is sad to see how regardless most men are of their own happiness, but it is comfortable to think that the wise and faithful God will, however, effectually secure the interests of his own glory. Jesus answered and said, I thank thee. Note, Thanksgiving is a proper answer to dark and disquieting thoughts, and may be an effectual means to silence them. Songs of praise are sovereign cordials to drooping souls, and will help to cure melancholy. When we have no other answer ready to the suggestions of grief and fear, we may have recourse to this, I thank thee, O Father; let us bless God that it is not worse with us than it is.

Now in this thanksgiving of Christ, we may observe,

1. The titles he gives to God; O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Note, (1.) In all our approaches to God, by praise as well as by prayer, it is good for us to eye him as a Father, and to fasten on that relation, not only when we ask for the mercies we want, but when we give thanks for the mercies we have received. Mercies are then doubly sweet, and powerful to enlarge the heart in praise, when they are received as tokens of a Father's love, and gifts of a Father's hand; Giving thanks to the Father, Col 1:12. It becomes children to be grateful, and to say, Thank you, father, as readily as, Pray, father. (2.) When we come to God as a Father, we must withal remember, that he is Lord of heaven and earth; which obliges us to come to him with reverence, as to the sovereign Lord of all, and yet with confidence, as one able to do for us whatever we need or can desire; to defend us from all evil and to supply us with all good. Christ, in Melchizedec, had long since blessed God as the Possessor, or Lord of heaven and earth; and in all our thanksgivings for mercies in the stream, we must give him the glory of the all-sufficiency that is in the fountain.

2. The thing he gives thanks for: Because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and yet revealed them to babes. These things; he does not say what things, but means the great things of the gospel, the things that belong to our peace, Luk 19:42. he spoke thus emphatically of them, these things, because they were things that filled him, and should fill us: all other things are as nothing to these things.

Note (1.) The great things of the everlasting gospel have been and are hid from many that were wise and prudent, that were eminent for learning and worldly policy; some of the greatest scholars and the greatest statesmen have been the greatest strangers to gospel mysteries. The world by wisdom knew not God, 1Co 1:21. Nay, there is an opposition given to the gospel, by a science falsely so called, 1Ti 6:20. Those who are most expert in things sensible and secular, are commonly least experienced in spiritual things. Men may dive deeply into the mysteries of nature and into the mysteries of state, and yet be ignorant of, and mistake about, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, for want of an experience of the power of them.

(2.) While the wise and prudent men of the world are in the dark about gospel mysteries, even the babes in Christ have the sanctifying saving knowledge of them: Thou hast revealed them unto babes. Such the disciples of Christ were; men of mean birth and education; no scholars, no artists, no politicians, unlearned and ignorant men, Act 4:13. Thus are the secrets of wisdom, which are double to that which is (Job 11:6), made known to babes and sucklings, that out of their mouth strength might be ordained (Psa 8:2), and God's praise thereby perfected. The learned men of the world were not made choice of to be the preachers of the gospel, but the foolish things of the world (1Co 2:6, 1Co 2:8, 1Co 2:10).

(3.) This difference between the prudent and the babes is of God's own making. [1.] It is he that has hid these things from the wise and prudent; he gave them parts, and learning, and much of human understanding above others, and they were proud of that, and rested in it, and looked no further; and therefore God justly denies them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, and then, though they hear the sound of the gospel tidings, they are to them as a strange thing. God is not the Author of their ignorance and error, but he leaves them to themselves, and their sin becomes their punishment, and the Lord is righteous in it. See Joh 12:39, Joh 12:40; Rom 11:7, Rom 11:8; Act 28:26, Act 28:27. Had they honoured God with the wisdom and prudence they had, he would have given them the knowledge of these better things; but because they served their lusts with them, he has hid their hearts from this understanding. [2.] It is he that has revealed them unto babes. Things revealed belong to our children (Deu 29:29), and to them he gives an understanding to receive these things, and the impressions of them. Thus he resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble, Jam 4:6.

(4.) This dispensation must be resolved into the divine sovereignty. Christ himself referred it to that; Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. Christ here subscribes to the will of his Father in this matter; Even so. Let God take what ways he pleases to glorify himself, and make us of what instruments he pleases for the carrying on of his own work; his grace is his own, and he may give or withhold it as he pleases. We can give no reason why Peter, a fisherman, should be made an apostle, and not Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and a ruler of the Jews, though he also believed in Christ; but so it seemed good in God's sight. Christ said this in the hearing of his disciples, to show them that it was not for any merit of their own that they were thus dignified and distinguished, but purely from God's good pleasure; he made them to differ.

(5.) This way of dispensing divine grace is to be acknowledged by us, as it was by our Lord Jesus, with all thankfulness. We must thank God, [1.] That these things are revealed; the mystery hid from ages and generations is manifested; that they are revealed, not to a few, but to be published to all the world. [2.] That they are revealed to babes; that the meek and humble are beautified with this salvation; and this honour put upon those whom the world pours contempt upon. [3.] It magnifies the mercy to them, that these things are hid from the wise and prudent: distinguishing favours are the most obliging. As Job adored the name of the Lord in taking away as well as in giving, so may we in hiding these things from the wise and prudent, as well as in revealing them unto babes; not as it is their misery, but as it is a method by which self is abased, proud thoughts brought down, all flesh silenced, and divine power and wisdom made to shine the more bright. See 1Co 1:27, 1Co 1:31.

II. Christ here makes a gracious offer of the benefits of the gospel to all, and these are the things which are revealed to babes, Mat 11:25, etc. Observe here,

1. The solemn preface which ushers in this call or invitation, both to command our attention to it, and to encourage our compliance with it. That we might have strong consolation, in flying for refuge to this hope set before us, Christ prefixes his authority, produces his credentials; we shall see he is empowered to make this offer.

Two things he here lays before us, Mat 11:27.

(1.) His commission from the Father: All things are delivered unto me of my Father. Christ, as God, is equal in power and glory with the Father; but as Mediator he receives his power and glory from the Father; has all judgment committed to him. He is authorized to settle a new covenant between God and man, and to offer peace and happiness to the apostate world, upon such terms as he should think fit: he was sanctified and sealed to be the sole Plenipotentiary, to concert and establish this great affair. In order to this, he has all power both in heaven and in earth, (Mat 28:18); power over all flesh (Joh 17:2); authority to execute judgment, Joh 5:22, Joh 5:27. This encourages us to come to Christ, that he is commissioned to receive us, and to give us what we come for, and has all things delivered to him for that purpose, by him who is Lord of all. All powers, all treasures are in his hand. Observe, The Father has delivered his all into the hands of the Lord Jesus; let us but deliver our all into his hand and the work is done; God has made him the great Referee, the blessed Daysman, to lay his hand upon us both; that which we have to do is to agree to the reference, to submit to the arbitration of the Lord Jesus, for the taking up of this unhappy controversy, and to enter into bonds to stand to his award.

(2.) His intimacy with the Father: No man knoweth the Son but the Father, Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son. This gives us a further satisfaction, and an abundant one. Ambassadors use to have not only their commissions, which they produce, but their instructions, which they reserve to themselves, to be made use of as there is occasion in their negotiations; our Lord Jesus had both, not only authority, but ability, for his undertaking. In transacting the great business of our redemption, the Father and the Son are the parties principally concerned; the counsel of peace is between them, Zec 6:13. It must therefore be a great encouragement to us to be assured, that they understood one another very well in this affair; that the Father knew the Son, and the Son knew the Father, and both perfectly (a mutual consciousness we may call it, between the Father and the Son), so that there could be no mistake in the settling of this matter; as often there is among men, to the overthrow of contracts, and the breaking of the measures taken, through their misunderstanding one another. The Son had lain in the bosom of the Father from eternity; he was a secretioribus - of the cabinet-council, Joh 1:18. He was by him, as one brought up with him (Pro 8:30), so that none knows the Father save the Son, he adds, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. Note, [1.] The happiness of men lies in an acquaintance with God; it is life eternal, it is the perfection of rational beings. [2.] Those who would have an acquaintance with God, must apply themselves to Jesus Christ; for the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in the face of Christ, 2Co 4:6. We are obliged to Christ for all the revelation we have of God the Father's will and love, ever since Adam sinned; there is no comfortable intercourse between a holy God and sinful man, but in and by a Mediator, Joh 14:6.

2. Here is the offer itself that is made to us, and an invitation to accept of it. After so solemn a preface, we may well expect something very great; and it is a faithful saying, and well worthy of all acceptation; words whereby we may be saved. We are here invited to Christ as our Priest, Prince, and Prophet, to be saved, and, in order to that, to be ruled and taught by him.

(1.) We must come to Jesus Christ as our Rest, and repose ourselves in him (Mat 11:28), Come unto me all ye that labour. Observe, [1.] The character of the persons invited; all that labour, and are heavy laden. This is a word in season to him that is weary, Isa 50:4. Those who complain of the burthen of the ceremonial law, which was an intolerable yoke, and was made much more so by the tradition of the elders (Luk 11:46), let them come to Christ, and they shall be made easy; he came to free his church from this yoke, to cancel the imposition of those carnal ordinances, and to introduce a purer and more spiritual way of worship; but it is rather to be understood of the burthen of sin, both the guilt and the power of it. Note, All those, and those only, are invited to rest in Christ, that are sensible of sin as a burthen, and groan under it; that are not only convinced of the evil of sin, of their own sin, but are contrite in soul for it; that are really sick of their sins, weary of the service of the world and of the flesh; that see their state sad and dangerous by reason of sin, and are in pain and fear about it, as Ephraim (Jer 31:18-20), the prodigal (Luk 15:17), the publican (Luk 18:13), Peter's hearers (Act 2:37), Paul (Act 9:4, Act 9:6, Act 9:9), the jailor (Act 16:29, Act 16:30). This is a necessary preparative for pardon and peace. The Comforter must first convince (Joh 16:8); I have torn and then will heal. [2.] The invitation itself: Come unto me. That glorious display of Christ's greatness which we had (Mat 11:27), as Lord of all, might frighten us from him, but see here how he holds out the golden sceptre, that we may touch the top of it and may live. Note, It is the duty and interest of weary and heavy laden sinners to come to Jesus Christ. Renouncing all those things which stand in opposition to him, or in competition with him, we must accept of him, as our Physician and Advocate, and give up ourselves to his conduct and government; freely willing to be saved by him, in his own way, and upon his own terms. Come and cast that burden upon him, under which thou art heavy laden. This is the gospel call, The Spirit saith, Come; and the bride saith, Come; let him that is athirst come; Whoever will, let him come.

[3.] The blessing promised to those that do come: I will give you rest. Christ is our Noah, whose name signifies rest, for this same shall give us rest. Gen 5:29; Gen 8:9. Truly rest is good (Gen 49:15), especially to those that labour and are heavy laden, Ecc 5:12. Note, Jesus Christ will give assured rest to those weary souls, that by a lively faith come to him for it; rest from the terror of sin, in a well-grounded peace of conscience; rest from the power of sin, in a regular order of the soul, and its due government of itself; a rest in God, and a complacency of soul, in his love. Psa 11:6, Psa 11:7. This is that rest which remains for the people of God (Heb 4:9), begun in grace, and perfected in glory.

(2.) We must come to Jesus Christ as our Ruler, and submit ourselves to him (Mat 11:29). Take my yoke upon you. This must go along with the former, for Christ is exalted to be both a Prince and a Saviour, a Priest upon his throne. The rest he promises is a release from the drudgery of sin, not from the service of God, but an obligation to the duty we owe to him. Note, Christ has a yoke for our necks, as well as a crown for our heads, and this yoke he expects we should take upon us and draw in. To call those who are weary and heavy laden, to take a yoke upon them, looks like adding affliction to the afflicted; but the pertinency of it lies in the word my: "You are under a yoke which makes you weary: shake that off and try mine, which will make you easy."Servants are said to be under the yoke (1Ti 6:1), and subjects, 1Ki 12:10. To take Christ's yoke upon us, is to put ourselves into the relation to servants and subjects to him, and then of conduct ourselves accordingly, in a conscientious obedience to all his commands, and a cheerful submission to all his disposals: it is to obey the gospel of Christ, to yield ourselves to the Lord: it is Christ's yoke; the yoke he has appointed; a yoke he has himself drawn in before us, for he learned obedience, and which he does by his Spirit draw in with us, for he helpeth our infirmities, Rom 8:26. A yoke speaks some hardship, but if the beast must draw, the yoke helps him. Christ's commands are all in our favour: we must take this yoke upon us to draw in it. We are yoked to work, and therefore must be diligent; we are yoked to submit, and therefore must be humble and patient: we are yoked together with our fellow-servants, and therefore must keep up the communion of saints: and the words of the wise are as goads, to those who are thus yoked.

Now this is the hardest part of our lesson, and therefore it is qualified (Mat 11:30). My yoke is easy and my burden is light; you need not be afraid of it.

[1.] The yoke of Christ's commands is an easy yoke; it is chrēstos , not only easy, but gracious, so the word signifies; it is sweet and pleasant; there is nothing in it to gall the yielding neck, nothing to hurt us, but, on the contrary, must to refresh us. It is a yoke that is lined with love. Such is the nature of all Christ's commands, so reasonable in themselves, so profitable to us, and all summed up in one word, and that a sweet word, love. So powerful are the assistances he gives us, so suitable the encouragements, and so strong the consolations, that are to be found in the way of duty, that we may truly say, it is a yoke of pleasantness. It is easy to the new nature, very easy to him that understandeth, Pro 14:6. It may be a little hard at first, but it is easy afterwards; the love of God and the hope of heaven will make it easy.

[2.] The burden of Christ's cross is a light burden, very light: afflictions from Christ, which befall us as men; afflictions for Christ, which befall us as Christians; the latter are especially meant. This burden in itself is not joyous, but grievous; yet as it is Christ's, it is light. Paul knew as much of it as any man, and he calls it a light affliction, 2Co 4:17. God's presence (Isa 43:2), Christ's sympathy (Isa. 73:9, Dan 3:25), and especially the Spirit's aids and comforts (2Co 1:5), make suffering for Christ light and easy. As afflictions abound, and are prolonged, consolations abound, and are prolonged too. Let this therefore reconcile us to the difficulties, and help us over the discouragements, we may meet with, both in doing work and suffering work; though we may lose for Christ, we shall not lose by him.

(3.) We must come to Jesus Christ as our Teacher, and set ourselves to learn of him, Mat 11:29. Christ has erected a great school, and has invited us to be his scholars. We must enter ourselves, associate with his scholars, and daily attend the instructions he gives by his word and Spirit. We must converse much with what he said, and have it ready to use upon all occasions; we must conform to what he did, and follow his steps, 1Pe 2:21. Some make the following words, for I am meek and lowly in heart, to be the particular lesson we are required to learn from the example of Christ. We must learn of him to be meek and lowly, and must mortify our pride and passion, which render us so unlike to him. We must so learn of Christ as to learn Christ (Eph 4:20), for he is both Teacher and Lesson, Guide and Way, and All in All.

Two reasons are given why we must learn of Christ.

[1.] I am meek and lowly in heart, and therefore fit to teach you.

First, He is meek, and can have compassion on the ignorant, whom others would be in a passion with. Many able teachers are hot and hasty, which is a great discouragement to those who are dull and slow; but Christ knows how to bear with such, and to open their understandings. His carriage towards his twelve disciples was a specimen of this; he was mild and gentle with them, and made the best of them; though they were heedless and forgetful, he was not extreme to mark their follies. Secondly, He is lowly in heart. He condescends to teach poor scholars, to teach novices; he chose disciples, not from the court, nor the schools, but from the seaside. He teaches the first principles, such things as are milk for babes; he stoops to the meanest capacities; he taught Ephraim to go, Hos 11:3. Who teaches like him? It is an encouragement to us to put ourselves to school to such a Teacher. This humility and meekness, as it qualifies him to be a Teacher, so it will be the best qualification of those who are to be taught by him; for the meek will he guide in judgment, Psa 25:9.

[2.] You shall find rest to your souls. This promise is borrowed from Jer 6:16, for Christ delighted to express himself in the language of the prophets, to show the harmony between the two Testaments. Note, First, Rest for the soul is the most desirable rest; to have the soul to dwell at ease. Secondly, The only way, and a sure way to find rest for our souls is, to sit at Christ's feet and hear his word. The way of duty is the way of rest. The understanding finds rest in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, and is there abundantly satisfied, finding that wisdom in the gospel which has been sought for in vain throughout the whole creation, Job 28:12. The truths Christ teaches are such as we may venture our souls upon. The affections find rest in the love of God and Jesus Christ, and meet with that in them which gives them an abundant satisfaction; quietness and assurance for ever. And those satisfactions will be perfected and perpetuated in heaven, where we shall see and enjoy God immediately, shall see him as he is, and enjoy him as he is ours. This rest is to be had with Christ for all those who learn of him.

Well, this is the sum and substance of the gospel call and offer: we are here told, in a few words, what the Lord Jesus requires of us, and it agrees with what God said of him once and again. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.

Barclay: Mat 11:25-27

Here Jesus is speaking out of experience, the experience that the Rabbis and the wise men rejected him, and the simple people accepted him. The intellectuals had no use for him; but the humble welcomed him. We must be careful to see clearly what Jesus meant here. He is very far from condemning intellectual power; what he is condemning is intellectual pride. As Plummer has it, "The heart, not the head, is the home of the gospel." It is not cleverness which shuts out; it is pride. It is not stupidity which admits; it is humility. A man may be as wise as Solomon, but if he has not the simplicity, the trust, the innocence of the childlike heart, he shuts himself out.

The Rabbis themselves saw the danger of this intellectual pride; they recognized that often simple people were nearer God than the wisest Rabbi. They had a parable like this. Once Rabbi Berokah of Chuza was in the market of Lapet, and Elijah appeared to him. The Rabbi asked, "Is there among the people in this market-place anyone who is destined to share in the life of the world to come?" At first Elijah said there was none. Then he pointed at one man, and said that that man would share in the life of the world to come. Rabbi Berokah went to the man and asked him what he did. "I am a jailer," said the man, "and I keep men and women separate. At night I place my bed between the men and the women so that no wrong will be committed." Elijah pointed at two other men, and said that they too would share in the life to come. Rabbi Berokah asked them what they did. "We are merry-makers," they said. "When we see a man who is downcast, we cheer him up. Also when we see two people quarrelling with one another, we try to make peace between them." The men who did the simple things, the jailer who kept his charges in the right way, the men who brought a smile and peace, were in the kingdom.

Again, the Rabbis had a story like this: "An epidemic once broke out in Sura, but in the neighbourhood of Rab's residence (a famous Rabbi) it did not appear. The people thought that this was due to Rab's merits, but in a dream they were told ... that it happened because of the merits of a man who willingly lent hoe and shovel to someone who wished to dig a grave. A fire once broke out in Drokeret, but the neighbourhood of Rabbi Huna was spared. The people thought it was due to the merits of Rabbi Huna,...but they were told in a dream that it was due to the merits of a certain woman, who used to heat her oven and place it at the disposal of her neighbours." The man who lent his tools to someone in need, the woman who helped her neighbours as she could had no intellectual standing, but their simple deeds of human love had won them the approval of God. Academic distinctions are not necessarily distinctions in the sight of God.

"Still to the lowly soul

He doth himself impart,

And for his dwelling and his throne

Chooseth the pure in heart."

This passage closes with the greatest claim that Jesus ever made, the claim which is the centre of the Christian faith, that he alone can reveal God to men. Other men may be sons of God; he is The Son. John put this in a different way, when he tells us that Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Joh 14:9). What Jesus says is this: "If you want to see what God is like, if you want to see the mind of God, the heart of God, the nature of God, if you want to see God's whole attitude to men--look at me!" It is the Christian conviction that in Jesus Christ alone we see what God is like; and it is also the Christian conviction that Jesus can give that knowledge to anyone who is humble enough and trustful enough to receive it.

Barclay: Mat 11:28-30

Jesus spoke to men desperately trying to find God and desperately trying to be good, who were finding the tasks impossible and who were driven to weariness and to despair.

He says, "Come unto me all you who are exhausted." His invitation is to those who are exhausted with the search for the truth. The Greeks had said, "It is very difficult to find God, and, when you have found him, it is impossible to tell anyone else about him." Zophar demanded of Job: "Can you find out the deep things of God?" (Job 11:7). It is Jesus' claim that the weary search for God ends in himself. W. B. Yeats, the great Irish poet and mystic, wrote: "Can one reach God by toil? He gives himself to the pure in heart. He asks nothing but our attention." The way to know God is not by mental search, but by giving attention to Jesus Christ, for in him we see what God is like.

He says, "Come unto me all you who are weighted down beneath your burdens." For the orthodox Jew religion was a thing of burdens. Jesus said of the Scribes and Pharisees: "They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders" (Mat 23:4). To the Jew religion was a thing of endless rules. A man lived his life in a forest of regulations which dictated every action of his life. He must listen for ever to a voice which said, "Thou shalt not."

Even the Rabbis saw this. There is a kind of rueful parable put into the mouth of Korah, which shows just how binding and constricting and burdensome and impossible the demands of the Law could be. "There was a poor widow in my neighbourhood who had two daughters and a field. When she began to plough, Moses (i.e. the Law of Moses) said, 'You must not plough with an ox and an ass together.' When she began to sow, he said, 'You must not sow your field with mingled seed.' When she began to reap and to make stacks of corn, he said, 'When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it' (Deu 24:19), and 'you shall not reap your field to its very border' (Lev 19:9). She began to thresh, and he said, 'Give me the heave-offering, and the first and second tithe.' She accepted the ordinance and gave them all to him. What did the poor woman then do? She sold her field, and bought two sheep, to clothe herself from their fleece, and to have profit from their young. When they bore their young, Aaron (i.e. the demands of the priesthood) came and said, 'Give me the first-born.' So she accepted the decision, and gave them to him. When the shearing time came, and she sheared them, Aaron came and said, 'Give me the first of the fleece of the sheep' (Deu 18:4). Then she thought: 'I cannot stand up against this man. I will slaughter the sheep and eat them.' Then Aaron came and said, 'Give me the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach' (Deu 18:3). Then she said, 'Even when I have killed them I am not safe from you. Behold they shall be devoted.' Then Aaron said, 'In that case they belong entirely to me' (Num 18:14). He took them and went away and left her weeping with her two daughters." The story is a parable of the continuous demands that the Law made upon men in every action and activity of life. These demands were indeed a burden.

Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon our shoulders. The Jews used the phrase the yoke for entering into submission to. They spoke of the yoke of the Law, the yoke of the commandments, the yoke of the Kingdom, the yoke of God. But it may well be that Jesus took the words of his invitation from something much nearer home than that.

He says, "My yoke is easy." The word "easy" is in Greek chrestos (5543), which can mean well-fitting. In Palestine ox-yokes were made of wood; the ox was brought, and the measurements were taken. The yoke was then roughed out, and the ox wigs brought back to have the yoke tried on. The yoke was carefully adjusted, so that it would fit well, and not gall the neck of the patient beast. The yoke was tailor-made to fit the ox.

There is a legend that Jesus made the best ox-yokes in all Galilee, and that from all over the country men came to him to buy the best yokes that skill could make. In those days, as now, shops had their signs above the door; and it has been suggested that the sign above the door of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth may well have been: "My yokes fit well." It may well be that Jesus is here using a picture from the carpenter's shop in Nazareth where he had worked throughout the silent years.

Jesus says, "My yoke fits well." What he means is: "The life I give you is not a burden to gall you; your task is made to measure to fit you." Whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly.

Jesus says, "My burden is light." As a Rabbi had it: "My burden is become my song." It is not that the burden is easy to carry; but it is laid on us in love; it is meant to be carried in love; and love makes even the heaviest burden light. When we remember the love of God, when we know that our burden is to love God and to love men, then the burden becomes a song. There is an old story which tells how a man came upon a little boy carrying a still smaller boy, who was lame, upon his back. "That's a heavy burden for you to carry," said the man. "That's no' a burden," came the answer. "That's my wee brother." The burden which is given in love and carried in love is always light.

Constable: Mat 11:2--13:54

IV. The opposition to the King 11:2--13:53

Chapters 11-13 record Israel's rejection of her Messiah and its consequences. Opposition continued to build, but Jesus announced new revelation in view of hardened unbelief.

"The Evangelist has carefully presented the credentials of the king in relationship to His birth, His baptism, His temptation, His righteous doctrine, and His supernatural power. Israel has heard the message of the nearness of the kingdom from John the Baptist, the King Himself, and His disciples. Great miracles have authenticated the call to repentance. Now Israel must make a decision."⁴⁵²

"Thematically the three chapters (11-13) are held together by the rising tide of disappointment in and opposition to the kingdom of God that was resulting from Jesus' ministry. He was not turning out to be the kind of Messiah the people had expected."⁴⁵³

Constable: Mat 11:2-30

A. Evidences of Israel's rejection of Jesus 11:2-30

Matthew presented three evidences of opposition to Jesus: John the Baptist's questions about the King's identity, the Jews' indifference to the King's message, and their refusal to respond to the King's invitation.

Constable: Mat 11:25-30

3. The King's invitation to the repentant 11:25-30

This invitation is a sign of Israel's rejection of her King since with it Jesus invited those who had believed in Him to separate themselves from unbelieving Israel and to follow Him. In verses 20-24 Jesus addressed the condemned, but in verses 25-30 He spoke to the accepted.

11:25-26 Matthew's connective "at that time" is loosely historical and tightly thematic.⁴⁸¹ Jesus' titles for God are appropriate in view of His prayer. "Father" focuses on Jesus' sonship and prepares for verse 27 whereas "Lord of heaven and earth" stresses God's sovereignty and prepares for verses 25-26. "These things" refer to the significance of Jesus' miracles, the imminence of the messianic kingdom, and the implications of Jesus' teaching.

"As elaborated in the context, it [this revelation] concerns in greatest measure two matters. The one matter is the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven (13:11). And the other is insight into Jesus' identity as the Son of God (14:33; 16:16)."⁴⁸²

The "wise and prudent [or learned]" are the self-sufficient Jews who rejected Jesus because they felt no need for what He offered. The "babes [or little children]" are the dependent who received Jesus' teaching as needy individuals. Israel was not humble but proud. Consequently she could not understand the things that Jesus revealed to her.

It was God's good pleasure to hide truth from some and reveal it to others. This may make God appear arbitrary and unfair. However, Scripture reveals that God owes man nothing. God is not unjust because He hides truth from some while revealing it to others. Hiding things from some is an evidence of God's judgment, not His justice. That He extends mercy to any is amazing. That He extends it to those who are inadequate and totally dependent is even more incredible.

Jesus delighted in the fact that His Father revealed and concealed truth as He did (v. 26). Jesus delighted in whatever God did. His disciples should do likewise.

"It is often in a person's prayers that his truest thoughts about himself come to the surface. For this reason the thanksgiving of Jesus here recorded is one of the most precious pieces of spiritual autobiography found in the Synoptic Gospels."⁴⁸³

11:27 Here is another of Jesus' claims to being the Son of God.⁴⁸⁴ Jesus claimed to be the exclusive revealer of God's message that the "babes" received. Jesus has authority over those to whom He reveals God. Reciprocal knowledge with God the Father assumes a special type of sonship. The only way people can know the Father is through the Son. Similarly there are some things about the Son that only the Father knows. Some of what the Son has chosen to reveal concerns the kingdom.

11:28 This invitation recalls Jeremiah 31:25 where Yahweh offered His people rest in the New Covenant. The weary are those who have struggled long and toiled hard. The heavy laden are those who stagger under excessive burdens.

"The one [term] implies toil, the other endurance. The one refers to the weary search for truth and for relief from a troubled conscience; the other refers to the heavy load of observances that give no relief, and perhaps also the sorrow of life, which, apart from the consolations of a true faith, are so crushing."⁴⁸⁵

Jesus, the revealer of God, invites those who feel their need for help they cannot obtain themselves to come to Him. Israel's spiritual leaders had loaded the people with burdens that were heavy to bear. The rest in view involves kingdom rest (cf. Heb. 4), but it is a present reality too.

Throughout Israel's history God held out the promise of rest if His people would trust and obey Him. The Promised Land was to be the scene of this rest. However when Israel entered Canaan under Joshua's leadership she enjoyed rest there only partially due to limited trust and obedience. As her history progressed, she lost much rest through disobedience. Now Jesus as her Messiah promised that the rest she had longed for for centuries could be hers if she humbly came to Him. He provided this rest for anyone in Israel who came to Him in humble trust.⁴⁸⁶ He will provide this rest for Israel in the future in the Promised Land. This will take place when He returns to earth to establish His kingdom.

11:29-30 The yoke that farmers put on their oxen is a metaphor for the discipline of discipleship. This is not the yoke of the Mosaic Law but the yoke of discipleship to Jesus. Learning from Him involves assimilating what He reveals, not just imitating Him or learning from His experience.

Jesus is not only the authoritative revealer. He is also the humble Servant of the Lord. He deals gently with the weak (cf. 18:1-10; 19:13-15). Jesus quoted Jeremiah 6:16, a passage that pointed to Him. The yoke of discipleship may involve persecution, but it is easy (good and comfortable). His burden is light compared to the loads Israel's religious leaders imposed on their disciples.

Israel's unbelief is a strong theme in this chapter. We can see it in John's question (vv. 1-15), in Jesus' generation (vv. 16-19), in the cities of Galilee (vv. 20-24), and in the proud wise (vv. 25-30).⁴⁸⁷

College: Mat 11:1-30

MATTHEW 11

III. ISRAEL'S MISUNDERSTANDING AND

REPUDIATION OF JESUS (11:1-14:12)

Following the discourse (10:5-42) Matthew marks the transition to the narrative by noting that Jesus " went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee" (11:1). Although Jesus continues also to heal and cast out demons (12:13, 15, 22), the tone of the language and series of events that comprise this section (i.e., 11:1-14:12) clearly indicate that such activity is now subsumed under the dominant motif of Israel's rejection of Jesus. While earlier portions of the story anticipate that Jesus' ministry in Israel would ultimately clash with established religious thinking (cf. 9:3-4, 14, 32-34; also 10:24-25), beginning in 11:2 through 14:12 the story turns on the negative reviews that Jesus' therapeutic activity received from various groups of Jews and certain individuals.

It is significant that the scenes comprising 11:2-14:12 are bracketed by episodes involving John (cf. 11:2ff.; 14:1ff.), and questions concerning how Jesus' miraculous powers are to be interpreted (11:3; 14:2). While John in Herod's prison finds Jesus' activities incongruent with his own messianic expectations, Herod speculates that Jesus' exhibition of miraculous powers may be evidence that John has risen from the dead. John's question in 11:2 heads a series of episodes showing Israel's largely negative response to Jesus and his ministry (11:16-19; 20-24; 12:1-14, 24; 13:13, 54-58). After the execution of John (14:3-12) the narrative scenes are marked by Jesus' strategic withdrawals (14:13; 15:21; 16:4) alongside a more exclusive concentration on the development of the disciples (14:13-16:20).

The fundamental reason for Israel's culpable rejection of Jesus is their failure to discern in Jesus' activity the " deeds of the Messiah" (11:2, taΙ e[rga tou' Cristou', ta erga tou Christou ). Jesus' miracles are like the parables of the kingdom: they must be rightly interpreted and can only be understood by those who have " eyes to see and ears to hear." Furthermore, since it is the Father who truly knows the Son (11:27), understanding the person and mission of Jesus is ultimately dependent upon God's sovereign will to disclose the meaning of Jesus' activity (11:27; 13:11; 16:17). Accordingly, throughout 11:1-14:12 various groups misunderstand or interpret negatively Jesus' therapeutic action: John misunderstands (11:3); various Galilean cities see his miraculous powers but do not repent (11:20-24); Pharisees see his actions as a violation of Sabbath restrictions (12:1-14); other Pharisees attribute his powers to Beelzebub (12:24); his hometown looked upon his activities with suspicion (13:53-58); and Herod attributes Jesus' miraculous powers to the risen John (14:1-2). In spite of isolated positive glimpses of the disciples (11:25-27; 12:46-50; 13:10-17), for the most part 11:1-14:12 is dominated by a persistent negative tone that grimly anticipates the course of subsequent events (see 12:14).

A. JOHN'S QUESTION FROM PRISON (11:1-6)

¹ After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. ^a

² When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples ³ to ask him, " Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

⁴ Jesus replied, " Go back and report to John what you hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy ^b are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. ⁶ Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

^a 1 Greek in their towns ^b 5 The Greek word was used for various diseases affecting the skin-not necessarily leprosy.

11:1. In typical fashion, Matthew closes the discourse (10:5-42) with the same basic saying used to mark the end of each of the five major discourses of Jesus (see on 7:28). However, the transition from discourse to narrative in 11:1 is somewhat surprising since after Jesus' instructions to his disciples (10:5-42) the focus shifts abruptly to Jesus' activity of " teaching" and " preaching," with nothing being said about the disciples' missionary efforts (cf. Mark 6:12-13, 30; Luke 9:6, 10; 10:17-20). As observed by Magness: " . . . whether or not the author intends for his reader to think that the journey took place immediately, took place later in Jesus' ministry, or could only occur after the resurrection and commission (Matthew 28:18-20), the expectation and visualization of a missionary tour has been created in the mind of the reader apart from any narration of it." Be that as it may, the ominous threat of rejection and hostility foretold in chapter 10 becomes a reality in Jesus' ministry of teaching and preaching in the towns of Galilee.

11:2-3. The narrative section opens with a reference to John's imprisonment (cf. 4:12) and his genuine perplexity concerning the reports circulating about what Christ was doing (11:2, lit., " the deeds of the Messiah" ). The phrase is comprehensive and is intended to summarize all of Jesus' activity in word and deed (4:23-9:35). While Matthew is quite definite about the messianic nature of Jesus' deeds (calling him the " Christ" =Messiah), John's inquiry indicates that Jesus' activity did not immediately settle in his mind the identity question: Are you the one who was to come [i.e., the Messiah, cf. 3:11-12] , or should we expect someone else? John's earlier predictions anticipated a messianic figure who would instigate God's vengeful wrath and eschatological judgment (3:10-12), and Jesus' deeds simply did not match his expectations. John, therefore, poses the question whether they should expect another (e{teron, heteron ), perhaps one possessing the qualities he had anticipated. John's ambivalence as suggested by his inquiry does set before the reader the central concern dominating both the previous narrative section (4:23-9:35), and subsequent episodes comprising 11:7-16:20: what is the proper conclusion to be drawn upon " seeing and hearing" the ministry of Jesus?

11:4-6. Jesus' response (11:4-5) calls for John to reevaluate his activity in terms of expectations associated with the messianic times (cf. Isa 35:4-6; 26:29; 29:18-19; 61:1-2). The particular deeds highlighted deliberately coincide with the events narrated in chapters 8 and 9. Although John had heard about the " deeds of Christ" (v. 2), Jesus' intent is to supply him with an interpretative suggestion by phrasing his response in terms reminiscent of Isaiah's vision of the messianic era. If John will consider these things carefully he will have the answer to his inquiry. Indeed, if John is to avoid being " put off" (skandalivzw, skandalizô) by the character of Jesus' messiahship, he must move beyond his own narrow expectations to the realization that in Jesus God is manifesting a merciful response to the plight of his people. As Matthew's story consistently demonstrates, a one-sided messianic expectation always leads to a faulty appraisal of Jesus' mission and identity (cf. 16:21-23; 21:1-11).

B. THE PERSON AND MISSION OF JOHN (11:7-19)

1. Identification of John by Jesus (11:7-15)

⁷ As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: " What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? ⁸ If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings' palaces. ⁹ Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written:

" 'I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way before you.' ^a

¹¹ I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ¹² From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. ¹³ For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. ¹⁴ And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. ¹⁵ He who has ears, let him hear.

^a 10 Mal. 3:1

Lest anyone think that Jesus' response to John is intended to detract from the significance of his ministry, Jesus next addresses the crowd concerning John's significance, his role in God's redemptive scheme, and his relationship to his own ministry. The section can be divided structurally according to a threefold thematic emphasis: (1) Through a series of questions, which Jesus answers, John is identified as " more than a prophet," being the messenger foretold by Malachi (vv. 7-10). (2) He functions as a transitional figure, signaling a major turning point from the old era of expectation and promise to the age of fulfillment and the realization of God's salvific purposes (vv. 11-15). (3) John's rejection parallels the way " this generation" has reacted to the ministry of Jesus (vv. 16-19). But as wisdom is proved right by her actions ( erga , " works" ) (v. 19), so Jesus' works will ultimately be vindicated.

11:7-10. Jesus' series of question are intended to remind the crowds concerning their motivations for venturing into the desert to see and hear John (vv. 7-9). John's charismatic character was certainly not like a reed swayed by the wind . Both his courageous denunciation of Israel's leadership (3:7-10), and his focused call for repentance (3:2, 8) negate the conclusion that John was easily swayed by popular notions or public pressure. The rigors of his austere lifestyle and dress certainly do not correspond to the decorum and elegancy one might find in kings' palaces (cf. 3:4). John's attraction was never based on the supposition that he had the refinement and demeanor of a king, but rather because his ascetic lifestyle and powerful message conjured up images of Israel's prophetic tradition. However, in Jesus' estimation, John should be regarded as even more than a prophet . Even though he stands in the tradition of prophetic figures, his distinctive role ranks him as " something more" (perissovteran, perissoteran ) than a prophet. In fact, John's greatness arises because he is not only a prophet, but is himself the object of prophecy. Citing Malachi 3:1 (cf. also Exod 23:20), Jesus makes it clear that John had a pivotal role as a precursor ushering in the long expected " day of the Lord." By conforming the first line of the citation from Malachi to Exod 23:20 (" I am sending an angel ahead of you" ), and altering a few pronouns (mou [ mou ], " me," to sou [ sou ], " you" ), Malachi's prediction (3:1) of a messenger preparing the way for Yahweh is easily associated with John's preparing the way for God's Messiah. Of course, a high estimation of John's ministry necessarily leads to an even greater appreciation of Jesus' ministry.

11:11. The greatness of John is continued in verses 11-15, with the focus now on his relationship to the kingdom and the dawning of the new age in Jesus. First, from a human perspective, there has been no one born of women [=humans] . . . greater than John . The emphasis is upon his pivotal role in the transition from the old to the new , not his intrinsic personal worth. Yet, as valuable and important as John's ministry was, it does not compare to the participation of the least in the kingdom . While John's ministry established a critical link between the OT promises and their fulfillment, its function was nevertheless preliminary to the new order of the kingdom introduced by Jesus. As great as John was he must always be classed with those who preceded the kingdom and its blessings (cf. 8:11). As such, the privileges and blessings experienced by even the least in the kingdom far surpasses the limited experiences of John. Accordingly, the contrast between the least in the kingdom and John is not one of personal worth or achievements, but a contrast between the limitations of the old order represented in John, and the blessings and privileges experienced by those who fully participate in God's reign.

11:12. The interpretive difficulties associated with verse 12 are well known. Essentially, the difficulty hinges on how one could interpret the two verbs biavzetai ( biazetai ) and biastaiΙ ( biastai ).

The first verb can be taken either as a passive (" kingdom suffers violence" ), or as a middle (" kingdom comes forcefully" ), largely depending on whether one views the statement as a positive (e.g., the kingdom " forcefully advances" ) or as a negative (e.g., " forceful men" ) description of how the kingdom has been responded to. The NIV rendering translates the first verb as a positive middle ( has been forcefully advancing ), while rendering the second verb negatively as forceful men lay hold of it . Since the most natural meaning of biasthv" (biastçs) is negative (see BAGD , p. 141) meaning " violent person," it would seem that the first verb is also best understood negatively (" suffers violence" ) rather than positively (" forcefully advancing" ). I therefore take the first verb to be passive and both verbs to be a negative description of the kingdom's experience, hence, " since the ministry of John the kingdom has been under attack, and violent men have laid hold on it." While it is difficult to be specific as to when and by whom such violence occurred, Jesus intends to highlight the fact that since the first heralder of the kingdom (i.e., John) to the present moment, the advance of God's reign has met with increasing opposition.

11:13-15. In verse 13 Jesus links John and his ministry to the prophetic intent of the entirety of OT Scriptures (= the Prophets and the Law ). The usual word order of " the law and the prophets" (cf. Matt 15:17; 7:12; 23:40) is reversed probably to stress the prophetic nature of the entire OT. As a key transitional figure, John's ministry signaled that the era of promise and expectation has reached its culmination in Jesus and the presence of God's kingdom. As such, John is the last and greatest of the OT prophets, since in him the " law and prophets" find their climactic and definitive expression. He is indeed the Elijah who was to come (cf. Matt 117:12; Mal 3:1-3; 4:5). Allison has demonstrated that at least in some Jewish circles, eschatological beliefs definitely associated the coming of Elijah as an event preceding the coming of the Messiah. For some the mysterious disappearance of Elijah (2 Kgs 2:1-15) from this world was sufficient to generate speculations about his return and active role in the day of Yahweh (cf. 27:47-49). Jesus' words about John are not intended to imply some notion of reincarnation, where John is literally the returned Elijah (cf. John 1:21). Rather, John came in the " spirit and power of Elijah" (3:4; cf. 1 Kgs 1:8; Luke 1:17), and also endured suffering at the hands of a ruthless king (cf. 1 Kgs 17-19). In view of John's imprisonment it might be difficult for some to see John as the expected Elijah, so Jesus exhorts his hearers, He who has ears let him hear (cf. 13:9, 43). While the saying concerning John may present problems in the mind of some, those who truly " hear" (=understand) will see the validity of Jesus' assessment of John.

2. Rejection of John and Jesus (11:16-19)

¹⁶" To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

¹⁷" 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' ¹⁹ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and " sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."

11:16. Having set forth the identity and significance of John, Jesus' concluding words castigate this generation for their obdurate resistance to the implications associated with John's ministry. Furthermore, the same superficial judgment and obstinate behavior that resulted in John's rejection, necessarily resulted in a faulty appraisal of Jesus' character and mission. Although both Jesus and John, in their respective ministries, made their appeal to Israel, they are both rejected because neither squared with conventional expectations or preconceived notions of acceptable behavior.

11:17. The contemporaries of Jesus and John (=" this generation" ) are compared to children who are playing games in the marketplace. One group of children complain that no matter what game they attempted to play, either a pretend wedding or some other joyous occasion ( played the flute ), or a make believe funeral ( sang a dirge ), the other group refused to participate, neither dancing or mourning . The simile is intended to illustrate the obstinate behavior of Israel no matter what the appeal or evidence offered by either John or Jesus.

11:18-19. With respect to John's ministry, his extreme asceticism and the demands of his message resulted in the assessment that he was possessed. Thus John and his message are treated with disdain and cavalierly dismissed as the rantings of a mad man. On the other hand, Jesus is vilified because his social involvement lacked conventional sensitivities regarding table fellowship (see 9:10-13). His free indulgence in food and drink brought the charge of being a glutton and a drunkard ; and furthermore, his table companions consisted of those that should have been avoided (i.e., tax collectors and " sinners" ). Their criticism and repudiation is brought into sharper focus by the use of the designation Son of Man . Just who do they think they are insulting and treating with such contempt? Fundamentally, " this generation's" rejection of both John and Jesus is ultimately related to their stubborn refusal to be persuaded no matter what the evidence. But in spite of their evaluation, Jesus affirms that like wisdom's " mighty deeds" are proven right, so his " mighty deeds" will ultimately be vindicated.

C. UNREPENTANT CITIES (11:20-24)

²⁰ Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. ²¹" Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. ^a If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. ²⁴ But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."

^a 23 Greek Hades

11:20. The portrayal of Jewish obstinacy (11:16-19) leads naturally into the invectives directed against cities in which most of his miracles [dunavmei", dynameis ] had been performed . The term dynameis (=" deeds of power" ) is linked to the previous section (11:2-19) by keeping the focus on how Jesus' miraculous powers were responded to. In the case of several Galilean cities the miracles did not produce the desired results, i.e., repentance.

After the introductory sentence Comber observes that the overall structure of this section " consists of a double series of (1) pronouncement of judgment; (2) explanation for judgment; and (3) comparison of eschatological fates." Thus this brief section marks a new stage in the relationship between Jesus and Israel, as Jewish cities reject their Messiah and thus incur God's eschatological condemnation. Their failure to repent leaves them susceptible to a negative evaluation of Jesus' supernatural powers (cf. 9:34; 12:24). This tragic turn of events will soon degenerate into heated disputes and deadly plots perpetuated by Israel's leadership (ch. 12).

When one recalls that Jesus' message about the kingdom necessarily entailed the exhortation to repent (4:17; cf. 3:2), it is clear that the refusal to repent in the face of Jesus' " mighty deeds" is the result of a failure to interpret Jesus' deeds in terms of their disclosure of God's presence. While his miraculous deeds were a source of interest and wonder, they cannot be separated from the demands of his message.

11:21-22. Three coastal cities along the Sea of Galilee (Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum) are singled out for their stubborn refusal to be moved to repentance by Jesus' mighty works. Jesus' expression of woe upon Korazin and Bethsaida is both an expression of sorrow and warning. Their culpability is forcefully brought into focus by comparing them to the infamous cities of Tyre and Sidon (see Isa 23 and Ezek 28). These cities, which all Jews would have judged to be evil, are made to look good by comparison to contemporary cities of Jesus' day. As noted by Davies and Allison, Korazin and Bethsaida were Jewish cities while Tyre and Sidon were not. " Thus Jesus, with the hyperbole of a prophet, is exclaiming that Jews failed to respond to phenomena which would have persuaded even pagans - and what is more, notorious pagans." Jesus concludes with a dramatic reversal of expectations whereby Israelites suffer a worse fate than the pagans inhabiting Tyre and Sidon. It appears that God's judgment expects more from those with greater opportunities, and they will be judged more severely than those who had less.

11:23-24. Next Jesus singles out Capernaum , a city especially blessed by Jesus' presence, being earlier described as his " own town" (9:1; cf. 4:13; 8:14). As such, Jesus uses even stronger language in his denunciation of Capernaum. The question will you be lifted up to the skies is a typical prophetic taunt addressed to proud individuals or cities (cf. Isa 14:13; Ezek 26:20), it thus expects a negative response. Indeed, rather than being exalted, Capernaum is poised for a fall, all the way to Hades (a{/dou, hadou ; gen. of hadçs), the realm of the dead. Like the two previous cities, Capernaum is also compared to an infamous OT city, Sodom (see 10:15). In spite of the legendary wickedness of Sodom, if the mighty deeds performed by Jesus would have been performed in Sodom, they would have repented, and the city would never have been destroyed. Judgment will therefore be more severe for Capernaum than for Sodom. Although Jesus is the humiliated and rejected Son of Man (11:19), his activity in Galilee obviously has serious eschatological consequences.

D. JESUS' RESPONSE AND INVITATION (11:25-30)

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, " I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶ Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

²⁷" All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸" Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

The abrupt and remarkable change of tone from invective to praise beginning in 11:25 is intended to represent Jesus' ensuing words as a response (note ajpokriqeiΙ", apokritheis ) to Israel's hardened opposition. As such, 11:25-30 brings to a climactic closure Jesus' exposure of Israel's guilt and the stubbornness of unbelief. First, Jesus explains his rejection as due to God's sovereign will, which withholds insight to the " wise and learned," but discloses his will to " little children" (vv. 25-26). Next, Jesus boldly affirms that only God truly knows the identity and character of the Son (cf. 16:17), and only the Son truly knows and reveals the Father (v. 27). This extraordinary claim is followed by an invitation for the " weary and burdened" to accept his yoke and rest by coming to learn of him (vv. 28-30). The following controversies provide a concrete illustration of Jesus' " easy yoke" in contrast to the burdens placed on the people by the Jewish leaders (12:1-14). It is interesting that the controversies are bracketed by explicit characterizations of Jesus' person and ministry (cf. 11:28-30 and 12:15-21).

11:25-26. Jesus praises his Father because he has hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. The most natural antecedent of " these things" is the reality which Israel failed to see in Jesus' mighty deeds, as noted in 11:2-24. The opposition and rejection of Jesus is no accident, because those who deem themselves to be " wise" and claim prior knowledge of God's will (cf. 11:23; 1 Cor 1:19ff.) will always be offended by Jesus' activity and teaching. The very nature of God's revelation in Jesus is offensive to those filled with worldly pride, and whose intellectual sophistication has convinced them that they have nothing to learn from a humble Galilean peasant. On the other hand, the Father's revelatory disclosure of the significance of Jesus' deeds finds a receptive spirit among those who have no illusions of grandeur or sense of their own self-sufficiency (nhvpio", nçpios). Contextually, it would seem that Jesus' words are intended to contrast the arrogance and haughty spirit of Israel's leadership with those who humbly acknowledge their dependency upon God, and thus are willing to be taught. While, as noted by Hagner, God's mysterious sovereignty lies behind both belief and unbelief, it never precludes the accountability of those who fail to believe.

11:27. Jesus then grounds his claim to be the recipient and ultimate mediator of God's will in his unique filial relationship with God. He is qualified to be the discloser of God because all things (pavnta [ panta ]; cf. tauvta [ tauta , " these things" ], v. 25) have been committed (paredovqh [paredothç], a term typically used in the handing down of rabbinic tradition) to him by his Father. Not only does Jesus have exclusive knowledge of God, but the Son's true identity is known only by the Father. The implication is that truly perceiving the significance of Jesus comes only by God's gracious gift (cf. 12:11; 16:17). This claim of a reciprocal knowledge shared by Jesus and his Father is certainly reflective of a profound christology. The saying implies a filial consciousness and a degree of intimacy with God unlike anything found in Judaism prior to Jesus' day. While some would want to dismiss the text as the mere creation of the early church, there is no persuasive evidence that this saying lacks authenticity. The language of the text has been traced to either a Mosaic typology based on Exodus 33:12-14, or to traditions concerning wisdom's relationship to God (cf. Job 28:1-27; Sir 1:6, 8; Bar 3:15-32; Prov 8:12; Wis 7:25; 8:3-8; 9:4, 9, 11). Whatever the background, Jesus' words testify to an exclusive awareness of God that can only be explained on the basis of his unique transcendent relationship to God.

11:28. Based on the extraordinary claim of verse 27 Jesus calls the weary and burdened to himself as one who gives " rest." Earlier Jesus identified his mission as a shepherd-like ministry designed to give guidance and direction to those termed " oppressed" and " helpless" (9:36). The reference led naturally into the discourse to the twelve (10:5-42), who are called as " workers" sent into the " harvest field" (9:37-10:4). Now the metaphors change in anticipation of subsequent scenes wherein Jesus' " yoke" and " light burden" are contrasted with the heavy burdens placed upon the people by Pharisaic legalism (12:1-14).

11:29. Jesus appeals to the " weary and burdened" to accept his yoke by becoming a " learner" (mavqete [ mathete ]; cf. maqhthv" [mathçtçs]=disciple). Since Jesus has an exclusive claim on resources from the Father, the invitation is to come to him. The invitation is extended to all those weighed down to the point of exhaustion, whether by the awareness of personal sin, or more likely in this context, by the sheer weight of law keeping as advocated by Pharisaic casuistry: " They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them" (23:4).

11:30. In contrast, the yoke Jesus offers is easy and his burden is light . Jesus' words should not be construed to imply that discipleship is easy or that the rigors of his demand are not challenging (cf. chs. 5-7). Jesus grounds the nature of his " yoke" and " burden" in the unique quality of his own character: I am gentle and humble in heart (v. 29). This explicit self-characterization serves to indicate that his " yoke" and " burden" are not to be found in the precision of law keeping, but in a relationship with one who is filled with compassion and devoted to humble service on behalf of his people. It is not at all tiresome to follow such a one in devoted service. While the scribes " learn Torah," Jesus' followers are called to enroll " in his school of wisdom where he is both the teacher and core curriculum." By doing so they will experience rest for their souls, meaning an inner well-being and tranquility grounded in the assurance of God's faithfulness and sustaining power; not the fickleness of human performance in keeping the rules. Jesus is therefore the definitive interpreter of God's will who cuts " through the thicket of elaborate human rules and regulations," and charts a course directly to the heart of the Father. This will become apparent in the scenes to follow.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Mat 11:2-30

XLV.
THE BAPTIST'S INQUIRY AND JESUS' DISCOURSE
SUGGESTED THEREBY.
(Galilee.)
^aMATT. XI. 2-30; ^cLUKE VII. 18-35.

   ^c18 And the disciples of John told him of all these things.  ^a2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent by his disciples  ^c19 And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them unto the Lord [John had been cast into prison about December, A. D. 27, and it was now after the Passover, possibly in May or June, A. D. 28. Herod Antipas had cast John into prison because John had reproved him for taking his brother's wife. According to Josephus, the place of John's imprisonment and death was the castle of Machærus (or Makor), east of the Dead Sea (Ant. xviii.; v. 1, 2). It was built by Herod the Great, and was not very far from that part of the Jordan in which John had baptized, so that it is probable that Herod resided in this castle when he went to hear John preach. We learn elsewhere that Herod felt kindly towards John, and this fact, coupled with the statement that John called two of his disciples to him, suggests that John must have been held as an honored prisoner with liberties like those accorded Paul at Cæsarea -- Act 24:23],  ^a3 and said unto him, {csaying,} Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another? [The prophets spoke of the Messiah as the coming one, and John himself had done likewise -- Mat 3:11.]  20 And when the men were come unto him, they said, John the Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another? [This passage has been a puzzle to expositors from the very earliest times. Being unable to understand how the Baptist, being an inspired prophet and favored with visions of the supernatural, [278] could give way to skeptical doubts, they have exhausted their inventive genius to explain what John meant by his question. Among these many explanations the best is that given by Alford, viz.: that John wished to get Jesus to publicly declare himself for the sake of quieting all rumors concerning him, his fault being kindred to that of Jesus' mother when she tried to hasten Jesus' hour at the wedding of Cana (Joh 2:4). But the plain, unmistakable inference of the text is that John's faith wavered. The Bible does not represent the saints as free from imperfection. It does not say that inspiration is omniscience, or that visions and miracles remove doubts. It took two miracles to persuade Gideon; Moses harbored distrust (Exo 3:11-13, Exo 4:1-17.), and was guilty of unbelief (Num 20:12); Elijah despaired of God's power (1Ki 19:4-10); Jeremiah was slow of belief, and in his despondency cursed the day of his birth (Jer 20:7, Jer 20:14-18). But the most instructive parallel is that of Simon Peter. He witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus, beheld the glory of God, and heard the voice of the Father (Mat 17:1-6); yet he sank below the Baptist, and denied the Lord with cursing; and no man has ever thought it at all incredible that he should do so. The trial of John's faith, though not so clearly depicted as that of Peter, was perhaps equally searching. His wild, free life was now curbed by the irksome tedium of confinement. His expectations were not fulfilled. The unfruitful trees had not been cut down, the grain had not been winnowed, nor the chaff burned, nor should he see any visible tendency toward these results. Moreover, he held no communion with the private life of Jesus, and entered not into the sanctuary of his Lord's thought. We must remember also that his inspiration passed away with the ministry, on account of which it was bestowed, and it was only the man John, and not the prophet, who made the inquiry. The inquiry itself, too, should be noted. It is not, Are you what I declared you to be? but, Being all of that, are you the one who should come, or must we look for another? John no doubt shared with all Jews the idea that Messiah was to set up an earthly kingdom, and seeing in Jesus [279] none of the spirit of such a king, he seems to have questioned whether Jesus was to be the finality, or whether he was to be, like himself, a forerunner, preparing the way for the ultimate Messiah. He did not grasp the thought that Jesus was both Alpha and Omega; that Jesus, the lowly servant of humanity, by service and sacrifice is evermore preparing the way for Jesus the King.]  21 In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many that were blind he bestowed sight.  22 And he ^aJesus answered and said unto them, Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: {chave seen and heard;}  ^a5 the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings to them. [John himself, when thus questioned, had answered plainly, saying, "No" (Joh 1:20, Joh 1:21), and he probably expected a like categorical answer from Jesus. The indirect answer of Jesus, ending with a beatitude, was well calculated to waken in John beneficial thoughtfulness, for it threw his mind back upon the prophecies of God, such as Isa 30:5, Isa 30:6, Isa 42:7, Isa 41:1-3, etc. It may be inferred that Jesus withheld answering the messengers and went on with his works of grace, that these might testify to John more potently than mere words of assertion. Jesus did not work miracles to gratify skeptical curiosity, but he did use them, as here, to strengthen wavering faith (Mar 9:24, Joh 11:15, Joh 14:11); Jesus sums up his work in the form of a climax, wherein preaching the gospel to the poor stands superior even to the raising of the dead. Attention to the poor has always been a distinctive feature of Christianity. To care for the poor is above miracles. Modern Orientals are not impressed by the miracles of the New Testament as such. The sacred literature of India and China abounds in wonders, and with the people of these lands a miracle is little more than a commonplace. With them Christ's love for the lowly is above the miracles. "Wonders and miracles might be counterfeited, but a sympathy with the suffering and helpless, so tender, so [280] laborious, so long continued, was not likely to be simulated. Such humanity was unworldly and divine" -- Beecher.]  6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me. [The scribes had stumbled and failed to believe in Jesus because he did not fulfill their ideal, or come up to their expectations. Jesus seeks to woo John from a like fate by the sweet persuasion of a beatitude. John must realize that it is better for the subject to fall in with the plans of the all-wise King, as he fulfills the predictions of God the Father, than for the King to turn aside and frustrate the plan of the ages to humor the passing whim of a despondent and finite mind.]  ^c24 And when the messengers of John were departed, {^a7 And as these went their way,} che ^aJesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John [The commendation of Jesus which follows was not spoken in the presence of John's messengers. It was best that John should not hear it. We also do our work under the silent heavens and wait for the future plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servant"], What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the wind?  8 But what went ye out to see? ca man clothed in soft raiment? ^aBehold, they that wear soft raiment cthey that are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings' courts. {ahouses.} [After the departure of John's messengers Jesus immediately clears the character of John of unjust suspicion. John, who had testified with such confidence as to the office and character of Jesus, now comes with a question betraying a doubtful mind and wavering faith. Was John then a vacillating man? Was he guilty of that lack of steadfastness which the world looks upon as intolerable in all who it esteems great? Was he blown about by every wind of public opinion like the tall reed (the Arunda donax) which skirts the Jordan, and which stands, bearing its beautiful blossoming top twelve feet high one moment, only to bow it to earth the next, the slender stem yielding submissively to the passing breeze? Was he a voluptuary about to condescend to flatter Herod and retract [281] his reproof, that he might exchange his prison for a palace? Those who had gone to the wilderness to see John had found no such man, and John was still the John of old. One act does not make a character, one doubt does not unmake it. John was no reed, but was rather, as Lange says, "a cedar half uprooted by the storm."]  9 But wherefore went ye out? {^c26 But what went ye out to see?} ato see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. [The Mat 11:10 shows us that John was a messenger as well as a prophet. Prophets foretold the Messiah, but John was the herald who announce him. John was miraculously born, and was himself the subject of prophecy. Great as was John in popular estimation, that estimation was insufficient.]  10 This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way before thee. [This quotation is taken from Mal 3:1, where it reads "my messenger . . . before me." But Mark (Mar 1:2) concurs with Matthew and Luke in the reading given here. From the change in the words it appears "that Christ is one with God the Father, and that the coming of Christ is the coming of God" -- Hammond.]  11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater {cthere is none greater} athan John the Baptist: yet he that is but little in the kingdom of heaven {cof God} is greater than he. [We find from this passage that all true greatness arises from association, relation and contact with Jesus Christ. To be Christ's forerunner is to be above teacher and prophet, Levite and priest, lawgiver and king, and all else that the world estimates as great. If all greatness be thus measured by contact of Christ, how great must Christ be! But the least in the kingdom is greater then John. "This shows: 1. That John was not in the kingdom of God. 2. That, as none greater than John has been born of women, no one had yet entered the kingdom. 3. That, therefore, it had not yet been set up; but as John himself, Jesus, and the Twelve under the first commission, preached, was 'at hand'. [282] 4. All in the kingdom, even the humble, have a station superior to John's" (Johnson). Farrar reminds us of the old legal maxim which says, "The least of the greatest is greater than the greatest of the least," which is as much as to say that the smallest diamond is of more precious substance than the largest flint. The least born of the Holy Spirit (Joh 1:12, Joh 1:13, Joh 3:5) is greater than the greatest born of women. They are greater in station, privilege and knowledge. The dispensations rise like lofty steps, and the lowest that stand upon the New Testament dispensation are lifted above the tallest who rest upon the dispensation of Moses. This is perhaps prophetically suggested by Zechariah -- Zec 12:8.]  ^c29 And all the people [the common peopple, and not the rulers] when they heard, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. [They justified or approved the wisdom of God in sending such a prophet as John and establishing such an ordinance as baptism.]  30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, being not baptized of him. [The counsel of God was that the nation should be brought to repentance by John, that it might be saved by Jesus; but the Pharisees frustrated this plan so far as they were concerned, by their proud refusal to repent. All who followed their example shared their unhappy success. It is noteworthy that Jesus emphasizes baptism as the test as to whether men justify or reject God's counsel.]  ^a12 From the days of John the Baptist until now [a period of about three years] the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force. [Jesus here pictures the kingdom of heaven as a besieged city. The city is shut up, but the enemies which surround it storm its walls and try to force an entrance -- an apt illustration which many fail to comprehend. The gates of Christ's kingdom were not opened until the day of Pentecost (Act 2:22-36.), but men hearing it was about to be opened sought to enter prematurely, not by the gates which God would open when Simon Peter used the keys (Mat 16:19), but by such breaches as they themselves sought to make [283] in the walls. Examples of this violence will be seen in the following instances (Joh 6:15, Mat 20:21, Luk 19:11, Luk 19:36-38, Luk 22:24-30, Act 1:6.) The people were full of preconceived ideas with regard to the kingdom, and each one sought to hasten and enjoy its pleasures as one who impatiently seizes upon a bud and seeks with his fingers to force it to bloom. The context shows that John the Baptist was even then seeking to force the kingdom.]  13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.  14 And if ye are willing receive it, this is Elijah, that is to come.  15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. [The Old Testament was the work of a long series of prophets, and this series was closed by John the Baptist. But John differed from all the others in the series; for they prophesied concerning the kingdom, while John turned from their course to preach that the kingdom was at hand, and thereby incidentally brought upon it the assaults of violence. As to John the Baptist being the prophetic Elijah, see Mat 13:24-43. In the Mat 13:24 Jesus says, "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed," but in the Mat 13:37 he says "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man," thus making the kingdom of heaven like the entire parabolic picture, and not the mere subject of its leading verb. Others say that John came mourning and Jesus came piping, and that the Jews were satisfied with neither. This was the older view, and had not expositors been confused by the grammatical difficulties above mentioned, it would never have been questioned. For the context favors it, and the whole trend of Scripture demands it. It was God in his messengers -- his prophets and his Son -- who came to set the world right. It was these messengers who took the initiative and who demanded the changes. It was the people who sulked and refused to comply with the divine overtures. The whole tenor of Christ's teaching -- the parables of the supper, etc. -- represents the Jews as being invited and refusing the invitation. It was John and Jesus who preached repentance, but there was no instance where any called on them to repent. Jerusalem never wept over an intractable Jesus, but Jesus wept over the people of Jerusalem because they "would not." Jesus and John each besought the people to prepare for the kingdom of God, but the people sneered at one [285] as too strict and at the other as too lenient, and would be won by neither. To justify them in rejecting God's counsel, they asserted that John's conduct was demoniacal and that of Jesus was criminal, thus slandering each. But the lives or works of Jesus and John were both directed by the wisdom of God, and all those who were truly wise towards God -- children of wisdom (see Act 21:3, Act 27:3), and Tyre became a Christian city, while Tiberias, just south of Capernaum, became the seat of Jewish Talmudism. Sackcloth was a coarse fabric woven of goat's or camel's hair, and was worn by those who mourned. It was called sackcloth because, being strong and durable, it was used for making the large sacks in which rough articles were carried on the backs of camels. Such sacks are still so used. Ashes were put upon the head and face as additional symbols of grief. Jesus here uses these symbolic words to indicate that these cities would have repented thoroughly.]  22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.  23 And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have remained until this day.  24 But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. [Several great truths are taught in this paragraph. We note the following: 1. Every hearer of the gospel is left either much more blessed or much more wretched. 2. That the miracles which Jesus wrought were calculated to lead men to repentance, for they demonstrated his authority to demand that man should repent. 3. That even among those who stand condemned at the judgment there is a difference, and that it shall be more tolerable for some than for others. 4. That God takes account of our opportunities when he comes to measure our guiltiness (Mat 5:21, Mat 5:22, Mat 10:15, Luk 11:47, Luk 11:48, Joh 9:41, Joh 15:22-24, Rom 2:12). Capernaum was the most favored spot on earth, for Jesus made it his home. He therefore speaks of it figuratively as being exalted to heaven. Hades means the abode of the dead. It stands in figurative contrast to heaven and indicates that Capernaum shall be brought to utter ruin. Though Jesus was not displeased with the walls and houses, but with those who dwelt in them, yet the uncertain sites of these cities are marked only by ruins, and present to the traveler who searches among [287] rank weeds for their weather-worn stones the tokens of God's displeasure against the people who once dwelt there. In less than thirty years these three cities were destroyed. Sin destroys cities and nations, and permanent temporal prosperity depends upon righteousness. The history of the destruction of Sodom in the time of Abraham is well known. As it was one of (Num 13:22) the oldest cities of any great importance in Palestine, this reference to its remaining is the more striking, showing that its destruction did not come from the mere operation of natural law, but as a divine punishment meted upon it for its sins -- a punishment which might have been avoided by repentance (Jon 3:10). There is hope for the greatest sinner if Sodom might thus escape.]  25 At that season [while these thoughts of judgment were in his mind] Jesus answered [replying to the thoughts raised by this discouraging situation -- this rejection] and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding [the selfish and shrewd; the scribes and Pharisees, wise in their own conceit -- Joh 9:40, Joh 9:41], and didst reveal them unto babes [the pure and childlike; the apostles and their fellows who were free from prejudice and bigoted prepossession. God hid and revealed solely by his method of presenting the truth in Christ Jesus. The proud despised him, but the humble received him]:  26 yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. [This is a reiteration of the sentiment just uttered. It means "I thank thee that it pleases thee to do thus." The Son expresses holy acquiescence and adoring satisfaction in the doings of Him who, as Lord of heaven and earth, had right to dispose of all things as it pleased him.]  27 All things have been delivered unto me of my Father [Joh 3:35. All things necessary to the full execution of his office as Lord of the kingdom were entrusted to Jesus, but for the present only potentially. The actual investiture of authority did not take place until the glorification of Jesus (Mat 28:18, Col 1:16-19, Heb 1:8). The authority thus delivered shall be eventually returned [288] again -- 1Co 15:28]: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. [Here again are many important truths taught: 1. While we may have personal knowledge of Jesus, we can not know him completely. His nature is inscrutable. And yet, in direct opposition to our Lord's explicit assertion, creeds have been formed, defining the metaphysical nature of Christ, and enforcing their distinctions on the subject which Jesus expressly declares that no man understands, as necessary conditions of church membership in this world, and of salvation in the world to come. "It would be difficult to find a more audacious and presumptuous violation of the words of Jesus than the Athanasian Creed, with its thrice repeated curses against those who did not receive its doctrines" (Morison). 2. We can have no correct knowledge of God except through revelation. 3. Jesus begins the revelation of the Father in this world, and completes it in the world to come. 4. By this exclusive claim as to the knowledge of the Father, Jesus asserts his own divinity. 5. Christ's exalted power comes by reason of his exalted being.]  28 Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. [The preceding remarks are prefatory to this invitation. The dominion which Jesus exercises, the nature which he possess, and the knowledge which he can impart justify him in inviting men to come to him. The labor and the rest here spoken of are primarily those which affect souls. That is, the labor and the heavy burden which sin imposes, and the rest which follows the forgiveness of that sin. Incidentally, however, physical burdens are also made lighter by coming to Jesus, because the soul is made stronger to bear them. The meekness and lowliness of Jesus lend confidence to those whom he invites that no grievous exactions will be made of them. "Taking the yoke" is a symbolic expression. [289] It means, "Submit to me and become my disciple," for the yoke is symbolic of the condition of servitude -- see Jer 27:11, Jer 27:12, Isa 9:4, Act 15:10, Gal 5:1, 1Ti 6:1.]

[FFG 278-290]

Lapide: Mat 11:1-30

CHAPTER 11

And it came to pass, &c. He passed from thence : That means, He separated Himself from His Apostles, whom He sent to preach the Gospel by themselves, both that they might prepare the way for Christ who was about to follow them, and that they might make trial of themselves and their courage in this Mission, being separated from their Master. What the Apostles did when thus sent forth by Christ, S. Matthew is silent upon, but S. Luke relates it (Luk 9:6), and so does S. Mark (6:12).

That they should teach and preach in their cities : i.e., in the cities of the Jews and the Galilæans, to whom He sent them. Note the Hebraism here. For the Heb. frequently leaves unexpressed the antecedent of the relative, or demonstrative pronoun, but leaves it to be understood from the circumstances of the case by the reader or hearer. There are similar instances to be found in Psa 99:8, 2Sa 17:24, &c.

When John had heard in the prison, Vulg. in chains. When He had heard from his disciples, as Luke says (Luk 9:18), from whence it is equally plain that there is here a hysterlogia, and that what S. Matthew here relates concerning John, from the 2nd to the 20th verse, happened before the Mission of the Apostles, to which he himself referred.

In chains, Syr. in the house of those who are bound, that is when Herod had shut him up because he reproved his adultery with Herodias.

John then, a little before his martyrdom, sent these disciples to Christ in the thirty-second year of Christ's age, which was the second year of His preaching, when He was becoming famous by His doctrine and miracles, that they might learn from Himself that He was the very Messiah, or Christ, that when John was dead they might go to Him. For otherwise they might have made a schism from Christ, and preferred John as their master to Christ. For that they thought more highly of John than of Christ is plain from Mat 9:14. As therefore the runners in the Stadium hand on the lamp to the runner who succeeds them in the course, so did John-when he had fulfilled his office and ministry, resign it to Christ. And, as the dayspring dies away into the rising sun, so did John pale before Christ. For John was the morning star of the sun of righteousness. Wherefore, not only did he not envy Christ His rising glory when his own was setting, but rejoiced at it. Yea, he desired to set, that Christ might arise, for he was ambitious not of his own glory, but of God's and Christ's glory. Wherefore he said, "It behoveth Him to increase, but me to decrease."

And saith, &c. He that should come, Gr.ό ε̉ρχόμενος, the coming one, namely, that great Prophet, the Redeemer of Israel, the Saviour of the World, the Messias promised by all the Prophets, and most ardently longed for by the Fathers, who at this time, now that the prophecies concerning Hirn are fulfilled, is by all looked for as coming. He alludes to the prophecy of the Patriarch Jacob, "The sceptre shall not be taken away from Judah," &c. Gen 49:10.

From these words of John, Tertullian ( De Baptism, c. 10) and Justin ( Quest. 38 ad Orthodox ) think that John doubted concerning Jesus whether He were the Christ or not, but falsely, for John had already seen the Spirit descending upon Him in the form of a dove, and had heard the Father's voice saying, This is my beloved Son. And John had already given the clearest testimony to Him, when he said, Behold the Lamb of God.

Others think that John did not doubt whether Jesus were the Christ, but only asked whether, after death, He would come into Limbus, and visit and deliver the Fathers who were detained there. So S. Jerome, "He did not say, Art Thou He who hast come, but art Thou He who wilt come? And the meaning is, Tell me, since I am about to descend into Hades, whether also I shall announce Thee to the shades below, as I have announced Thee in the upper world? Or, is it not fitting that the Son of God should taste of death, and wilt Thou send another for these mysteries?" So, too, S. Gregory. But this opinion is little apposite or probable.

I say, therefore, that John sends his disciples, and asks Jesus whether He be the Coming One, i.e., the Messias, not as doubting about Him, but because, being near death, he wished his hesitating disciples to be instructed concerning Him, that they might be led to Christ. So SS. Hil., Chrys., Cyril. Observe, too, the prudence of S. John. He in his own name asks Jesus if He be the Christ, because his disciples would not, of themselves, have dared to propose such a question. For he is the best physician who, to cure a sick man, acts as though he were sick himself, and takes nauseous medicine. So S. Paul says, "Who is weak, and I am not weak?"

And Jesus answering, &c. These miracles which ye have seen Me perform are the marks of the true Messiah, given by Isa 35:5, and Isa 61:1. This is why S. Luke adds, In the selfsame hour He healed many of their diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and to many that were blind He gave sight. For neither Elijah, nor Elisha, nor any other prophet did so many and such great miracles as Christ. Wherefore S. Cyril ( lib. 2 Thesaur. c. 4) says, "Christ, both by the greatness and the multitude of His miracles, shewed Himself to be the Messiah." You may add, by His beneficence. For although Moses shewed many miracles in the ten plagues of Egypt, yet did he not heal the Egyptians, but afflicted and slew them. But "Christ went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." Wherefore His hands are said to be "versatile" (Son 5:14, Vulg.), that is, active in doing good to all; and "full of hyacinths" (Vulg.), i.e., of heavenly works, miracles and kindnesses.

The blind see, &c. He alludes to Isa 34:4. "Our God Himself shall come and save us." (Vulg.): "then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, &c." Also to Is. lxi. 1.

The poor have the Gospel preached, &c. Theophylact and Euthym. take the verb ευ̉αχχελίξονται, actively, meaning, the poor Apostles preach the Gospel. But the verb is passive, and so the Syriac translates it. The meaning is, "I evangelize the poor, I preach the Gospel to them, and they receive it eagerly, though the rich reject it." He alludes to, indeed he quotes, Is. lxi. 1, "He hath sent me to announce to the meek," where the LXX., instead of anavim, the meek, read aniim, the poor : and trans., he hath sent me to evangelize the poor, not the poor by necessity, but those who are poor in spirit, and consequently, meek and gentle. More simply, by the poor, you may understand such as the Apostles and the multitudes. For Christ preached to them that He might shew that the souls of the poor are equally precious before God with those of the rich; and therefore God made both equal in the Gospel. Dost thou then wish to imitate Christ? Teach the poor, guide, solace, help them.

And blessed is he, &c, i.e., who shall not be offended at my lowly conversation. The Syriac is, Blessed is he who shall not stumble at Me. For as S. Greg. says (Horn. vi.), "I do indeed marvellous things, but I do not disdain to suffer shameful things." There is a tacit reference to the disciples of John, who were offended at His lowliness; and He intimates that he beheld the secrets of their hearts. So S. Jerome says, "He aims not at John, but at his disciples." And S. Hilary says, "Because the cross was about to be a stumbling block to many, Christ pronounced them blessed to whom His cross, His death, His burial, would bring no trial of their faith."

And as they were going away. (Gr. and Vulg.) That the multitude might not think that Christ was flattering John, and aiming at His favour, as S. Chrys. says, if He had praised him in the presence of his disciples: therefore He permitted them to depart, and then He praised him.

Jesus began to say, &c. Shaken, Gr. σαλευόμενον, waving and fluctuating, like a wave of the sea. By a similar metaphor we speak of the corn waving, when impelled to and fro by the wind. Christ would remove any suspicion which might arise among the people from this message of John, that he had changed his opinion concerning Christ—that whereas he had formerly thought him to be the Messiah, he had now changed his opinion, and had sent his disciples to interrogate Him, because he was in doubt about him. So Jesus, as it were said, "Suppose not, 0 ye Jews, that John thinks any other of Me than he thought before. For John is not a reed to be shaken backwards and forwards by the wind, that he should lightly assert a thing, and afterwards retract it on account of what men say. John is like an oak, which stands unmoved in faith and stedfastness against every blast, whether of those who praise or those who blame. What he before testified of Me, when he was at liberty, he testifies with equal fortitude now that he has been shut up by Herod in prison: and he has sent his disciples to Me that they themselves may see by My miracles that his testimony concerning Me was true."

Tropologically, a reed, is a light man, inconstant, tossed to and fro: at one time impelled by the words of flatterers, he asserts something: again being driven by detractors, he denies it, as a reed is blown in different directions by different winds. 2. A reed is one who is devoid of truth, virtue, and consistency, as a reed has no strength, or stamina. 3. A reed is he who has no fruit of good works to show, since a reed bears no fruit. 4. It is he who is delighted with, and feeds upon, the fluctuating pleasures of the world. For a reed is dry: yet it grows beside the waters. Whence it is called, "the river weed." On this S. Austin writes piously and elegantly on the words of Ps. cxxxvii. 1. "Above the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Sion." (Vulg.) "The rivers of Babylon," he says, "are all things which here are loved, and pass away. Sit above the rivers; sit not in the stream, nor under the stream. Behold in Babylon there are fair things to detain thee: let them not detain thee, let them not deceive thee."

Hear S. Greg. ( Hom. vi. in Evang.) "What else but the carnal mind is signified by the reed? But such was not John, for favour could not flatter him, nor could the anger of any detraction make him harsh."

Hear also S. Ambrose ( lib. 5 in c. 7 Lk 5: 24): "The Lord denies that we must go forth into the desert—that is, into the world—lest we should think those are to be imitated by us who are of a carnal mind, whom, being obnoxious to the storms of this world, an unsettled life disquiets; who are rightly compared to a reed, in whom is no solid fruit of justice, men with their long hair, with forensic trappings, implicated in knotty points, sonorous with empty mouthings, with no benefit to themselves, but often with harm, follow after things inwardly worthless, outwardly specious. We are reeds when we are not rooted with any natural strength. If any light gale of prosperity blow upon us, we beat our neighbours with idle motion: we are useless to help, facile to injure. Reeds love rivers, as the fading and transitory things of the world delight us. If, however, anyone shall pluck up this reed from the earth, and strip off its useless parts—spoiling the old man with his deeds—and guide it by the hand of a scribe writing quickly, it begins to be no more a reed, but a pen, which impresses the precepts of the heavenly Scriptures on the hidden places of the mind, and writes them on the tables of the heart."

Afterwards S. Ambrose adds, that Christ is the good reed of whom Isaiah prophesied (c. xlii.)—"A shaken reed he will not break," (Vulg.)—because the flesh which sins had shaken He made firm by the power of the Resurrection. The good reed is the Flesh of Christ, which nailed the serpent's head, and the enticements of worldly cupidity, to the gibbet of the Cross.

But what went ye out, &c. But John is not soft and delicate. He is not clothed in palatial garments, but in sackcloth of camels' hair. For pleasures are the mistresses of flattery and lies, but hardness is the teacher of truth and sanctity.

But what went ye out for to see? More than a prophet. Syriac, one more excellent than a prophet. You may object that John himself denied that he was a prophet (Joh 1:21). I reply, He said that out of humility, but in a true sense. For a prophet is, strictly speaking, one who foretells future events. But John did not foretell of Christ as about to come, but pointed to Him as present. He was therefore, rather the finger-post, as it were, than the prophet of Christ, and therefore Christ said that he was more than a prophet. In the next place, he, through the Divine Spirit, illustrated Christ, and knew the economy of Christ in the Flesh more clearly, fully, and perfectly than any of the prophets. 3. John was the angel, that is, the ambassador and precursor of Christ Himself, and immediately sent by Him, and that in His presence and before His face, according to the words of Malachi: "Behold I send My angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee." (Vulg.) 4. He himself was altogether greater than all the prophets, as Christ asserts, verse

For this is he of whom, &c. Christ cites the words of Malachi iii. 1. See what I have there said. I have there collected the reasons and analogies why John is called an angel. And many indeed thought that he was not really a man, but an angel, as Eusebius shews ( lib. 1, De monst. c. 5). hence Auctor Imperfecti on this place says, "Marvellous was he who surpassed in human nature the sanctity of angels, and by the grace of God obtained what by nature he had not."

Verily I say unto you, &c. Luke adds the word prophet (Luk 7:27): There hath not arisen a greater prophet. Whence Toletus from SS. Ambrose and Hilary observes that Jesus does not use the word greater of John absolutely, but as restricted by the word prophet. For the Apostles were greater, or certainly in every, way the equals of John. But, on the contrary, I should say that by the expression Prophet, Christ leaves it to be understood that there had been no person who was greater than John, for the prophets were accounted in the olden time, and really were, the most holy of men. So that as none of the prophets were greater than John, it may be gathered that there was no one else who was greater.

Christ therefore tacitly here calls John the greatest of all men, for otherwise He would not conclude from thence that he was more than a propbhet, which He proceeds to prove. This must be understood of the worthies of the Old Testament—that is to say, of all time prior to Christ. John, therefore, is not here compared with Christ Himself, or the Blessed Virgin, or the Apostles, who followed Christ and who (by reason of their Apostolic dignity) were not less than John, but rather indeed greater than he. You may say that Moses was greater than John, because it was said of him (Deu 34:11), "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses." I reply, that it goes on, "Whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt." Which means, that there was no prophet like unto Moses in his familiar converse with God, and the power by which he smote Egypt with plagues. But in other things John was equal with, yea greater than, Moses and the rest of the prophets.

Besides other distinguishing characteristics and prerogatives of John, his spirit, prophetic office, life, and actions were more sublime than those of the other prophets, as S. Jerome asserts, and S. Austin ( lib. 2, contr. advers. leg. et proph. c. 5). For John was, as it were, a standing miracle in his conception, in the womb, in his birth, in his angelic life. He was conceived, by a miracle, of barren parents; by a miracle he recognized Christ in the womb; and saluted and adored him; by a miracle, when he was born he communicated universal gladness; by a miracle, at his circumcision he restored the use of speech to his dumb father; by a miracle, he went when a boy into the desert, and there lived like an angel all his life. Whence the Church sings of John—

O boundlessly happy, of merit most lofty,

Of purity snow-white, pollution thou hatest:

O martyr most valiant, of deserts the lover,

Of seers the greatest.

And so John has the crowns of virginity, prophecy, and martyrdom, in addition to the crown of a doctor.

But he that is least, &c. 1. The least of the blessed in heaven is greater, that is, more blessed and more perfect, more excellent and glorious than John, who was still a mortal traveller. Christ adds these words that He may stir up His hearers to follow after the blessedness of His salvation by means of the evangelic law which He himself brought in. For this is the Kingdom of Heaven from which Christ began and continued His preaching.

2. With greater propriety and force, you may say with S. Chrysostom and others, that Christ here opposes, and in one sense places Himself lower than John, but in other respects prefers Himself to John. He says, "I have declared that among those born of women there is not a greater in the Old Testament than John; but lest ye should think that he is the greatest of all, and the Messias, I add, that Christ, who is younger than John, is, nevertheless, greater than he." It is as though Christ said, "I, Christ, who in age, and in the opinion of the common people, am less than John in preaching, in the kingdom of Heaven am greater than he, because I so preach that I at the same time inspire grace, by which believers in Me may indeed attain this kingdom." Whence it seems that a comma should be placed after the word least, not after kingdom of heaven. In the Gr. Christ is here called ό μικρότερος, i.e., less than, junior to John. The Heb. would be. kaccaton, or the litlte one, that is to say, the least, the 1owliest, as Christ was when He said, "As for me, I am a worm and no man, the very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people." The comparative is often put for the superlative.

3. Our Maldonatus explains thus: The less, that is, the least Christian in the kingdom of Heaven, or the Church, which preaches and leads to the kingdom of Heaven is greater, that is, of higher dignity than John. Greater, I say, by reason of the status of the Church; and he is able to be greater from the nature of the Gospel, than John was. For the new law of Christ is the law of grace, which we are always able to increase. Whence John the Baptist and all the old fathers received their grace from Christ and the new law.

Symbolically, S. Cæsarius says ( dialog. 3), "The least, or the youngest of the Apostles was John the Evangelist, who is greater than John the Baptist, because the Apostle leant upon the bosom of Christ."

From the days of John the Baptist, &c. This pertains to the praise of John, and shews that he was more than a prophet, because he first began to preach the kingdom of heaven. And so efficacious was his preaching joined to his holy life, that many who were baptised by him repented, and changed their course of life, and with great zeal strove for the kingdom of heaven. And now, I succeeding to John, promote this zeal by Myself and My Apostles, yea and will more and more promote it.

Wherefore the kingdom of heaven now (βιάξεται, i.e.) suffers force, is invaded, is seized by force. 1. Because men in vast multitudes, being stirred up by the preaching of John run to obtain it with zeal, with avidity, one pushing before another, as though it were some rare merchandise.

2. Because the kingdom is now compassed by all, not by natural instinct, as the Jews would maintain, but by the supernatural power of grace. The kingdom is, as it were, invaded, in such sort that sinners, publicans, harlots, Gentiles, by the fervour of their repentance, take it beforehand, as it were, seize it by force, away from the Pharisees and Jews, who thought that it belonged to them alone as the children of Abraham. It is as though He said, the Pharisees and Christians contend for the kingdom of Heaven, but the Christians seize it from the Pharisees by force. Whence SS. Hilary and Amb. say, "Christ is seized, since He, born among one sort of people, is chosen by others." Amb. adds, "The Church has taken away the kingdom from the synagogue. Christ is my kingdom. The kingdom of Heaven is taken by force when Christ is denied by those of His own household, and is worshipped by the Gentiles. He is taken by force when he is rejected by the former, but cherished by the latter."

3. Because for the kingdom of Heaven's sake worldly men do violence to themselves by the cultivation of repentance, poverty, continence, mortification.

In the Lives of the Fathers there is related the vision of a certain anchorite who beheld that a disciple of his merited seven crowns in Heaven in a single night, because he had seven times bravely withstood evil thoughts. By this he perceived that as often as any one struggles against sinful thoughts and desires he merits a crown from God. For it is written, The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Beautifully does S. Ambrose comment on this passage, "We do violence to the Lord, not by compelling Him, but by weeping before Him, not by provoking by injuries, but by entreating with tears; not by blaspheming through pride, but by sorrowing through humility. 0 blessed violence which is not chastised with indignation, but is condoned in mercy—blessed violence, I say, which draws forth the goodness of Him who suffers the violence, and contributes to the profit of him who uses violence. An evil thing is done, and no one is blamed: violence is suffered, and religion is advanced. Whosoever shall do most violence to Christ shall be accounted most religious by Christ. We come upon the Lord in the way, for indeed He is the way, and after the manner of robbers, we endeavour to spoil Him of what is His. We desire to take His kingdom, His riches and His life. And He is so rich and so liberal that he does not resist. He does not deny, and after He has given all, He still possesses all." Afterwards he speaks of the manner and the weapons of this violence, saying, "We attack him, not with swords, nor staves, nor stones, but with meekness, good works, chastity. These are the weapons of our faith, by which we strive in our contest. But in order that we may be able to make use of these arms in doing violence, let us first use a certain violence to our own bodies, let us carry by storm the vices of our members, that we may obtain the rewards of valour. For to seize the Saviour's kingdom we must first reign in ourselves."

And the violent, &c. Those who invade the kingdom of Heaven in the sense in which I have just spoken. He alludes to an opulent city set upon a mountain, which must be stormed by great force, which is in fact stormed by soldiers who covet its riches. He alludes especially to the kingdom of Canaan, or the Promised Land, which the Hebrews under Joshua conquered by force of arms. This was a type of the kingdom of Heaven. In like manner Heaven is to be won by the sons of earth climbing up on high by their heavenly conversation. The empyrean sky is so lofty, so far above the earth, that were any one to live for 8000 years, and were every day to climb in perpendicular height a hundred thousand miles, yet would he not reach the top, as I have shewn on Gen 2:16. And because this is impossible to mortals, God has granted that what we cannot climb with corporeal feet we should reach by the affections of our minds.

In the life of S. Perpetua and her fellow-martyrs, we read that she was forewarned of her martyrdom in a dream. She beheld a golden ladder reaching from earth to heaven, which was hedged in and surrounded on all sides by knives and sharp swords. By this ladder they had to climb up to heaven. At its foot lay a horrible dragon who sought to hinder the climbers. She saw moreover one of her companions, Satyrus by name, bravely mounting the ladder, and inviting his companions to follow him. When she had related her vision they all understood that they were to suffer martyrdom. And so indeed it befell. Thus let each believer consider that with his utmost energy he must struggle up to Heaven by means of a ladder hedged about with knives.

For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied, &c. This sentence is expressed more clearly in Luk 16:16—The Law and the prophets ( i.e., prophesied), until John : since that time the Kingdom of God is preached and every one uses violence to it. (Vulg.) The Law of Moses and all the Prophets prophesied up to the time of John: i.e., darkly and by enigmas they foretold and promised Christ and His heavenly kingdom, by promising terrestial good things, such as abundance of corn and wine and oil, and a rich and peaceful earthly kingdom like that of Solomon, which was a figure and a type of the celestial kingdom to be brought in by Christ. But John was the first who clearly and openly began to preach this heavenly kingdom of Christ, and to point out Christ as it were with his finger to the Jews.

Again the Old Testament which consists of the Law, or Pentateuch, and the Prophets, under which are the Hagiographical books, such as the Psalms, prophesied until John, that is, they taught the ignorant Jews not so much to love as to fear God, by the hope of temporal rewards, and to worship Him by means of sacrifices, and external rites and ceremonies, which were shadows and types of Christ. But John began to preach the new doctrines of repentance and the love of God, through hope in the kingdom of Heaven, and of obtaining celestial good things by means of internal acts of contrition, piety, and the worship of God, by which we are truly and perfectly justified through Christ.

Christ here compares and parallels prophecy with prophecy, i.e., the doctrine of John's prophecy with the doctrine of the Law and the Prophets. For John was a mean between the Old and New Testaments, as it were the horizon of both, dividing and determining the New from the Old, as Salmeron says. He was the morning star of the Gospel who put an end to the shadows and the obscure night of the old Law, and ushered in the clear day of the new Law.

And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, &c. That is if ye wish to receive John, and to believe him, as ye ought to do. Whence the Syriac translates by the imperative—If ye wish, receive ye. For he shall be Elias unto you, because he being endowed with the spirit and power of Elias, shall convert you to God and Christ, in the same way that Elias shall convert your children and descendants at the end of the world by a like zeal and purity of life to the same Christ. Thus S. Jerome says, "John is Elias which is for to come, not because the same soul was in both, as the heretics think, but because they had the same grace of the Holy Spirit. John was girded as Elias was. Like Elias he lived in the desert. He suffered from Herodias as Elias did from Jezebel. And as Elias shall be the precursor of the Second Advent, so was John of the Lord when He came in the flesh to save us."

There is a reference to Mal 4:5, "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet." The Jews even to this day are eagerly expecting Elias from this prophecy of Malachi, that he may shew Christ unto them, and explain all the doubtful matters of the Law; and therefore they hold him in great account. This was why Christ compared and equalled John to him.

He that hath ears to hear. Gr. of hearing, i.e., to understand and obey. The Arabic has, hearing ears. For the Heb., which has a deficiency of compound words, uses simple in the place of compound words, as hear instead of obey. The meaning is, He that hath a teachable and obedient mind, let him hear, understand and obey the things which I say, namely, let him believe John to be a prophet and more than a prophet, when he declares that I am the Messiah, and henceforth let him receive and worship Me as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. There is special reference to Christ's declaration that John is Elias. For this is mystical, and requires intelligence, as S. Jerome says. Christ was wont by this phrase to rouse the attention of His hearers to important subjects.

To what shall I liken, &c. This generation means the Scribes and Pharisees, who despised the counsel of God and the preaching and baptism of John.

They are like unto boys, &c. There was in that age, says Theophylact on the seventh chapter of S. Luke, and S. Cyril, a game of this description. Boys divided themselves into two parties, and made as it were two choirs. Thus they represented human life on a sort of stage. One party, like Heraclitus, were always lamenting; the other side were always, like Democrittis, laughing, at it. By the one set all that we do was made the food for lamentation, by the other for jokes. They of the one choir kept wailing, those opposite to them played on pipes; but the choir which was wailing took no notice of the opposite choir, which was singing, neither, on the other hand, did the pipe-players take any notice of the mourners. And the lookers on heard like spectators at a comedy, but were neither moved by the wailing nor the dancing.

The meaning of the parable is plain from what follows. It is this: as though Christ said, "You may perceive in this generation of the Scribes and Pharisees something similar to the boyish games, as concerns the spectators who look on at their ease. For they cannot be induced to change their life and be converted, either by the example of the austere life of John, or by the less stern life of Christ." He likens the parable, as a whole, to the whole thing signified by it, and not a part to a part. Elegantly and wisely says S. Ambrose ( lib. 2, de Penitentia )—Not that dancing which is the companion of pleasures and luxuries is here spoken of, but that whereby a man lifts himself on high, nor suffers the members to drag lazily along the ground. Thus S. Paul danced spiritually, when for our sakes he stretched himself out, and forgetting the things which were behind, and reaching forth unto those which were before, he strove for the prize of Christ. Thou likewise, when thou comest to baptism, be admonished to lift up thine hands, and to have feet that are swift to mount to things eternal. Dancing like this is the associate of faith, the companion of grace. This, then, is the mystery. We have sung unto you, as it were, the song of the New Testament, and ye have not danced—that is, ye have not lifted up your minds unto heavenly grace. We have lamented, and ye have not wept, i.e., ye have not repented. There is an allusion to Eze 33:32: "Thou art unto them as a song of music which is very sweetly sung. And they hear thy words, but they will not do them."

Allegorically, S. Ambrose ( lib. 4, Epist. 30), "The Son of God hath said, 'We have sung unto you, and ye have not danced,' &c. The Jews who did not dance were forsaken. They knew not how to clap their hands. The Gentiles were called, who gave spiritual praise to God. Here is the glorious dancing of the wise, the dance which David danced. Therefore, in the sublimity of his spiritual dancing, he ascended to the throne of Christ, that he might hear and see the Lord saying to his Lord, 'Sit thou at My right hand. '"

For John came neither eating, &c. That is to sty, not eating, or living in pleasure, like other men, but living austerely, fasting, and feeding on locusts; that by this means he might arouse the Scribes to compunction, and affright them. Yet the Scribes say of him, He hath a devil. The Arabic has, devils are with him. That is, John was possessed by a devil, by whose power and energy he was sustained, so as to be able to lead so rigorous a life. Thus, the very austerity of John, which for their sakes he had lived, since from his purity and innocence it was not needed for his own sake, they attributed to a demon. Such was their extraordinary ingratitude and wickedness.

Observe then, how Christ applies this parable. John's austere life is signified by the troop of boys lamenting. But Christ living less austerely, and conversing with the world more familiarly, is denoted by the chorus of boys who piped. The Scribes and Pharisees laughed at, derided both of them, because they wished to be free from any reprover of their pleasures and licentious mode of life.

The Son of Man came eating, &c. (at a common table, living after the manner of ordinary men, and conversing familiarly with them), And they say ( i.e., the Scribes and Pharisees in their obstinate wickedness), Behold a gluttonous man, &c.

John led an austere life in the desert, Christ led the ordinary life of men, that His affability might allure those whom John's austerity would terrify. For Christ came into this world in order that he might afford to all men a perfect example of humility and every other virtue, an example which every one might imitate in their several ranks and stations. But especially did He come that sinners might be converted from their sins to God. Wherefore it was necessary that He should converse with them, eat and drink with them, and thus draw them to love and follow Him. So S. Thomas. S. Aug. gives another reason ( Lib. 3, de Doctr. Chtist. C. 12). It was, that Christ might show in all such things, namely, food, drink, clothing, &c., that it is not the things themselves, but the inordinate love of using them, which is in fault. And so He taught that rich men may live religiously in their riches, and be saved.

But wisdom is justified of her sons. Syr. of her servants. To justify is used in two senses, viz., to make just and to declare just. The wisdom of God is justified, i.e., is pronounced and declared just, unblameable, fully and entirely perfect, as she manifested herself in John and Christ, because she left nothing untried that would conduce to the salvation of men. That they might have a pattern of an austere life and penance, she gave them John. Again, lest many should be terrified by this austerity, and despair of virtue and salvation, she gave them in Christ an example of ordinary life and virtue. Of her children, namely, those who were desirous of virtue and wisdom, such as those who believed in Christ, and who heard and obeyed John. Therefore, the wisdom of God, which the proud Scribes and the foolish Jews despised in John and Christ, was justified, i.e., honoured and praised by all the truly wise. If, therefore, any perish, they perish by their own fault, because they will not believe and obey John and Christ. Thus they may impute their ruin to themselves, and justify God, according to the words of Psa 51:4-6. "That Thou mayst be justified in Thy sayings, and overcome when Thou art judged." In a similar sense, the Apostle says to Timothy (1Ti 3:16), "Great is the sacrament of piety, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit" (Vulg.), i.e., was declared and shown to the world to be just, holy and wise, and that the work and mystery of the incarnation of the WORD was worthy of God. That this is the meaning is plain from Luk 7:29, who thus relates the occasion of this parable, and by means of the preamble, as it were, sets forth the scope and intention of the parable. "And all the people and the publicans who heard him, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptized of him." And presently He subjoins the parable of the boys piping and lamenting, as I have already expounded it.

S. Aug. ( lib. 2 de doctr. Christ.) expounds the passage as follows: Wisdom is justified of her own sons, because "the holy Apostles perceived that the kingdom of God did not consist in meat and drink, but in the equanimity of endurance, forasmuch as they were such as neither abundance lifted up, nor want depressed."

Lastly, S. Jerome in this passage, and S. Ambrose, remark that various Gr. codices read Wisdom is justified by her works. Because, says S. Jerome, "wisdom seeks not the testimony of the mouth, but of deeds."

Then began He to upbraid, &c. Then namely, when He sent the Apostles to preach throughout Galilee, and He preached by Himself, though with little fruit and few conversions. He began o upbraid the extreme ingratitude and obstinate wickedness of these cities, viz, those in which most of His mighty works, i.e., His miracles, were done. These were the miracles by which He confirmed His teaching. And He upbraided the cities because after so many miracles, and so many exhortations, so many threats of hell, so many promises of the Kingdom of Heaven, they had not repented.

Woe unto thee, Chorazin, &c. Chorazin was a renowned city of Galilee, which was numbered amongst the ten more celebrated towns of Decapolis. It was situated over against Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, where the Jordan flows into it. It was about two miles distant from Capernaum. Wherefore Christ, who had fixed his home and settled abode at Capernaum, frequently made excursions to preach in Chorazin and Bethsaida, and the neighbouring towns. Chorazin, or Cozorain in Chaldee, is the same as Co, i.e., here, and raya, i.e., a secret. Appropriately, because Christ here preached the arcana, or secrets of the faith. S. Jerome, in his work on Hebrew places, testifies that in his time Corozain, as it is spelt in the Vulgate, was deserted. There are still some ancient ruins remaining on its site. Some persons are of opinion that Antichrist will be born at Chorazin, and brought up there, though others think he will be born in Babylon, according to the words of Jeremiah (cap. 1.), "From Babylon shall all evil be opened out." But both these opinions are extremely doubtful.

Bethsaida : Bethsaida also was one of the chief cities of Galilee, adjacent to the sea, and distant from Capernaum about three hours' journey. It received its name from being inhabited by fishermen. Beth means a house, and saida is fishing, צור sud in Heb. means to hunt, but in Syriac to fish, because fishing is hunting in the sea, whence saida means fishermen. So Franc. Lucas. It is probable that the home of Peter and Andrew was in this city, where Christ healed Peter's mother in law, who was sick of a fever. But see what I have said on Mat 8:14. Here, also, Christ placed spittle in the eyes of a certain blind man, and restored him to perfect sight (see Mark, c. viii.) Wherefore, Christ deservedly upbraids Bethsaida, because, though its people had seen so many miracles of His, they did not believe in Him. And so he threatens it with destruction, future as well as present; and this really happened to them. For this city formerly so abounding in prosperity, and so populous, is so deserted that it scarcely cntains six houses. (See Adrichomius, Descrip. Terræ Sanct. p. 137.)

For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre, &c. We must understand, if the inward grace of God had accompanied the outward miracles: that is to say, if there, had been an illumination of the understanding, and an influencing of the will, agreeable and proportionable to those, such as God is wont ordinarily to give. For without inward grace to influence the mind, all outward preaching is vain and worthless.

They would long ago have repented, &c. Theologians gather from this passage that God knows certainly conditional events, which depend on free will, even although those events will never happen, forasmuch as the condition does not exist in the nature of things. Christ here asserts positively that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have repented if they had seen the miracles of Christ, yet they did not see these miracles, and consequently did not repent. The reason a priori is, the infinite nature of the Divine Mind, the immeasurable scope and activity of the Divine understanding, which wholly comprehends, penetrates and perfectly beholds all things, even those that are the most secret, and what is called the liberty of man, and his free thoughts and volitions. Therefore it is omniscient, and nothing is able to escape it, so that it should not thoroughly behold and perceive it. For the object of the Divine omniscience is all truth, past, present, and future, and that either conditional or absolute. In future conditional events, one half of a contradiction is true, as in absolute propositions. For with the condition, that which is said will either be, or will not be. See what I have said on Jer 38:17., also on Wisdom iv. on the words, "He was taken away, lest wickedness should change his understanding."

Again, S. Aug. ( lib. de bono perseveran. caps. 9 and 10), refutes by means of this passage the Semipelagians who said that God predestinates such and such men, because He foresees they will use well grace, if it be given them. For the Tyrians would have used grace well, if it had been given, yet it was not given.

Lastly, from this place do not gather that to the Tyrians was wanting sufficient grace, but such copious and abundant grace as the Galilæans had.

Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable: Arabic, there shalt be greater remission for Tyre, &c. For the Tyrians and Sidonians shall be punished on account of their own wickednesses, but you, 0 ye Galilæans shall be more severely punished: 1. Because ye had greater knowledge of God's law, and virtue. 2. Because ye have often heard Me preaching and exhorting to repentance, and have beheld Me doing many miracles, none of which things the Tyrians have either seen or heard.

Moraliter : In like manner, Christians shall be more heavily punished in the day of judgment than the Jews; the citizens of Rome, than the inhabitants of India; priests, than laymen; religious, than seculars, if the former classes have lived sinful lives; forasmuch as they have received greater degrees of grace and knowledge from God, and would not make use of them, but abused them to their own greater damnation.

And thou, Capernaum, &c. Thou, which art exalted through My miracles and doctrine and preaching, rather than by thy merchandise and thy wealth, and who hast been made glorious and famous with God and man, shalt thou, I say, be always exalted? Not so: but in the day of judgment thou shalt be thrust down to hell. Thou shalt descend into its lowest pit; that beneath the Tyrians and Sidonians who have sinned less than thou hast, thou mayst abide in the very centre of Gehenna, and there mayest feel more than others its fiery burnings. Thou shalt be tormented and burnt up, because very many of thy citizens shall be cast into hell. Hence S. Aug. ( Serm. 42 de Sanc.) explains exalted, as follows. "Forasmuch as thou seemest to thyself to be very happy, very powerful, very proud, and so dost despise Me, and all who admonish thee, this is the very cause why thou rushest on thine own destruction."

For if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would perchance, as the Vulg. here hath it: ( forte ) &c. But this word forte, peradventure, or p erchance, does not in this place denote doubt, or hesitation. It represents the α̉ν of the Gr. text, α̉ν being here an expletive, or a particle expressing confirmation, and signifies, certainly, verify. The translation omits to render α̉ν in v. 21., and various other passages, where it is found in the Greek. Indeed α̉ν is only translated forte, perhaps, in four places, viz., here; in John v. 46; in Psa 81:15; and in 2Co 7:5. In all the other passages, which are very numerous, in which α̉ν occurs in the Greek, it is not translated in the Vulgate, but the passage is rendered affirmatively, as in Mat 3:18, Mat 5:18, Mat 6:5, Mat 10:12, and very many other places, as you may perceive from a Greek Concordance. This is the reason why Vatablus and others omit the perchance in this passage, and trans. simply, it would have remained. The perchance does not mean that Christ had any doubt about Sodom's remaining, but that although it certainly would have remained, yet this remaining would have been free, i.e. of its own free will, therefore the word α̉ν denotes that he foresaw what would have happened, as it were fortuitously. Thus Terence says in the Andria, "Perchance I behold a soldier: I approach the man." Also Livy ( lib. 1.), "Perchance it fell out." The meaning therefore is, If the Sodomites had heard My preaching, and had beheld as many miracles, as you have, 0 ye inhabitants of Capernaum, in confirmation of that preaching, verify they would have felt compunction and would have repented, and would have remained until this very day. Understand; unless they themselves or their descendants had after their repentance again relapsed into the same, or similar sins, and had again provoked the anger of God to bring upon them a like destruction. But if they had continued in their repentance and change of life, they would have remained until this day. All this is intimated by the word, perchance, here. And this is why Franc. Lucas renders α̉ν έμειναν, by the potential mood, they might have remained.

Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable : Arabic, it shall find greater forgiveness : Syriac, they shall be more tranquil.

At that time Jesus answered and said, &c. What Christ now says, agrees well with what has gone before, for Christ here gives the reason why the Capernaites, the Scribes, the priests, and the Pharisees, despised Him, and His preaching, because, in truth, they were proud, and seemed, in their own eyes, wise and prudent. Wherefore they would not bend their proud necks to the humility of Christ and the Gospel, but the Apostles and the disciples and the multitude did bow their necks. This sentence also expresses that Christ soothed the grief which He felt because of their proud incredulity by a consideration of, and complacency in, the just judgment and the Divine decree, whereby God hid these things from the proud as unworthy of them, and revealed them to little ones, i.e., to the lowly. Whence Luke adds. He exulted in the Holy Spirit (Vulg.) i.e., He rejoiced through the Holy Ghost, which had suggested to Him this consideration, and the joy which arose out of it. Therefore he praised and thanked God. We too can do as Christ did, that when we lose our labour with the proud and the unworthy, we may quell our grief by considering the Divine Will and Providence, which despises the proud, and chooses the humble, and lifts them to His grace and glory.

I confess (Vulg). That is, I praise and give thanks. This is the meaning of the Heb. ידא, yada, in Hiphil, viz., הורה, hoda, from which comes תורה, a sacrifice, viz., of confession, i.e., of praise, and giving thanks. Thus, too, we constantly find in the Psalms such expressions as, "I will confess to Thee with my whole heart," i.e., I will praise Thee; and, "Confess to the Lord, for He is good," i.e., praise the Lord.

To Thee, 0 Father, who lovest Me with a peculiar love, and who disposest all things to Thy and My glory. He adds this lest any one should attribute it to want of power in Christ that He did not subdue to Him the proud Capernaites and Pharisees. It is as though He had said, "Thou, 0 my Father, forasmuch as Thou art Lord of Heaven and earth, hast the hearts of all men in Thy hands, and couldst bend them by a single nod, and subdue them before Me, but this, by Thine holy ordinance, Thou wouldst not do."

Moreover, under the name of Heaven and earth, all creatures—all men and angels are signified. By which it is intimated—1. That God has care for and rules, and calls to the grace of the Gospel and salvation by Christ, not the Jews only, but the Gentiles also. 2. That God is drawing His faithful ones from earth to Heaven, inasmuch as He is Lord of Heaven equally with earth, and therefore opens heaven to His friends. 3. That in like manner as God has separated the lowly Apostles from the proud Pharisees on earth, so in like manner has He separated the humble angels from proud Lucifer and his adherents in heaven.

Listen to Tertullian (lib. 1, contra, Marc. c. 13): "There is the fulness of the Deity itself setting forth perfect God, Father and Lord, Father by clemency, Lord by discipline, Father by sweet power, Lord by severity: a Father to be affectionately loved, a Lord to be necessarily feared: to be loved because He prefers mercy before sacrifice; to be feared because He will not tolerate sin: to be loved because He prefers the repentance to the death of a sinner; to be feared because He will not accept sinners who do not repent. Therefore, the Law prescribes both: thou shalt love God, and thou shalt fear God. He proposes the one to him who follows Him, the other to him who goes astray from Him."

And hast revealed them unto babes, Gr. νηπίοις, or infants. So the Arabic, meaning to ignorant, unskilled, and uneloquent men (such as the Apostles, who seemed to the Scribes and worldly persons to be rude, and as foolish as children), in order that Thou mayest exhibit in them the power of Thy grace and Thy light, by which Thou hast made the tongues of these infants eloquent, so that their sound is gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. There is an allusion to Ps. viii. 3: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise, that Thou mightest destroy the enemy and the avenger." For the election and disposition of God are clean contrary to the world. For the world courts and chooses the rich, the wise, the proud. God chooses the poor, the ignorant, the weak; and He makes them rich, wise, and powerful in spirit above all the worldly.

From this passage, S. Augustine ( de prædest. Sanct. c. 6, et de Bono Perseveran. c. 8), and S. Gregory (25 Moral. c. 13) teach, that when some believe the preached Gospel and others believe not, it is the effect of the grace and justice of God. For they who believe are so congruously illuminated in their minds by the grace of God, that they do believe; but they who believe not, on account of their pride and other sins, are not so congruously illuminated by God, that they do, in fact, believe; although if they would consent to, and co-operate with, the illumination which God affords them, they could believe, and in truth would believe.

Even so Father, &c. The Gr. is ναὶ ό Πατήρ ; for the Greeks often use the nominative for the vocative. The meaning is, Truly, 0 Father, what Thou hast done, most rightly hast Thou done, in that it hath pleased Thee to humble the proud, and exalt the lowly. Christ teaches that the original cause of the predestination and election of the faithful, as well as the reprobation of unbelievers and the wicked is nothing else save God's good pleasure. Wherefore, we ought to rest in that, and not seek for other reasons, since that one thing is sufficient for the faithful, and worth a thousand reasons. Hence the Blessed in Heaven, when they see their children and parents condemned for their demerits, do not lament, but approve and laud the just judgment of God.

All things are delivered unto Me, &c. Christ said that the Almighty God was His Father, and that He—as Lord of Heaven and earth—rejected the proud Pharisees, but revealed Himself and His grace to His lowly Apostles: but now, lest any one should suppose that Christ was inferior to the Father, He teaches the converse, namely, that the Father giveth all He hath to the Son—yea, that through the Son alone He worketh, teacheth, and bestoweth His gifts.

Moreover, this expression, all things have been delivered unto Me by the Father, ought to be thus understood, that nevertheless, Christ ought to be considered to possess all things by nature. "For like as He is, according to His nature, life, He is said to be quickened by the Father; and although He is the Lord of Glory, He is said to have received glory," says the Council of Ephesus. The meaning therefore is, all things which the Father hath, viz., the divine nature, dominion and power, say SS. Hilary and Augustine, and consequently, what Christ here more particularly refers to, all things, i.e., the dominion, power, and government of all things, but chiefly of men, have been granted unto Me by the Eternal Father, as to His Son by eternal generation, and in time the same things have been given to Me, as man, by the Hypostatic Union, that I may choose, illuminate, predestinate, save, whom I will, such as the Apostles; and reject and condemn, whom I accept not, such as the proud Capernaites. For in My hand is the predestination, or reprobation, the salvation or damnation of all men; for as much as I have been appointed by God the Father the Saviour and Redeemer of the World, and in My hand the Father hath placed all things, that I should repair and renew them. That as by Me as God He created all things, so also by Me in the flesh which I have assumed, He may re-create and restore all things. To this end I came, and for this I was made man. These mysteries therefore have been hidden from the wise, I mean My Mission, My Incarnation, the end of My advent, My work, but they have been already, in part, revealed to little ones, and shall hereafter be perfectly revealed.

And no one knoweth the Son, &c., Luk 10:22, has, no one knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; nor who the Father is save the Son, &c. He means, I have been sent by the Father to be the Teacher and Saviour of the World, that I should teach men the truth and the way to God the Father, who is uncreated health and felicity. For this felicity, since it is supernatural, cannot be naturally known by man or angel. Wherefore, as no one knoweth the Son except the Father, and he to whom the Father shall reveal Him, so likewise no one knoweth the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him. For as the Father communicates His nature, so likewise He communicates the knowledge of Himself and all things which He hath to the Son, and by Him to the rest of mankind. He, therefore, who desires to draw near to the truth, grace and salvation, which are in God the Father, must draw near through Me, and believe in Me. For I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. My doctrine is the doctrine of God the Father. By Me, therefore, ye shall have access to the Father.

Now although it is said, except the Son, the Holy Ghost is not excluded; much less, when it is said, except the Father, is the Son excluded. For the rule of Theologians is, that exclusive particles, added to one of the Divine Persons in essential attributes do not exclude the other two Persons, but creatures only, or whatsoever is of a different essence. Thus S. Aug. ( lib. 6. de Trin. c. 9.) S. Cyril, and the rest of the Fathers and Schoolmen. Observe that Christ, in the first place, revealed the knowledge of the two first Persons, viz., the Father and the Son, and afterwards, just before His death, faith in the third Person, viz., the Holy Ghost, as is plain from Joh 16:7.

S. Chrysostom wisely observes ( Hom. 39.) that it is not said, to whom He has been commanded by the Father to reveal, but to whom He will reveal, in order that the Son may be shown to be equal to the Father in dominion and power. For, although Christ reveals as man, or by means of His human nature, yet this nature subsists in the Divine person, and therefore this man Christ is God, and equal to God the Father.

Moreover, SS. Chrysostom and Irenæus ( Lib. 4. c. 14.) answer Marcion, who rejected the Old Testament and its God, and said, if God the Father was not known before the revelation of Christ Incarnate, therefore He was not known in the Old Law, therefore its author andGod was not the true God. Thus they expound the words, no one knoweth the Father except the Son of the Divine knowledge by which the Son qua God, comprehends the Father, and the Father the Son. You may, however, better understand it concerning the knowledge communicated to the human nature of Christ: for this revealed His mysteries to the prophets and fathers, even the mysteries of the Divinity and the Trinity. Thus He revealed the same things after His Incarnation to the Apostles and faithful, qua man. For no one is a believer and a Christian except by Christ, and through Christ Incarnate. For, says St. Jerome, it is one thing to know what thou knowest by equality of nature, as the Son knoweth the Father; another, by the condescension of Him who reveals, as we know God by the revelation of Christ.

Come unto Me all, &c. Syriac, who are weary and bear burdens. Arabic, who are worn with labour and heavily burdened. After He has shown the Majesty and Deity, lest any one should be affrighted at it, Christ adds the Humanity, and most kindly invites all to Him.

Come, not with the feet of the body, but with the affections of faith, hope, love, religion, devotion, and piety.

All who labour, none are excluded. For there is no one who does not labour under some disease, and need Christ's medicine. Therefore Christ offers Himself to all, that they may receive from Him health and safety. Thus did He kindly correct and heal Magdalen, Matthew, Paul, and Peter. Thus even now, in the Eucharist, He inviteth all and saith, Come unto me, ye infirm, hungry, afflicted ones I will refresh you.

Who labour. Gr. οί κυπιω̃ντες, i.e., who suffer trouble and are burdened, &c., who are fatigued and depressed, and are sinking under the burden, both of sins (as SS. Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustin say), as well as of the law of Moses (as Theophylact), and also of the troubles and temptations of this life.

And I will refresh you. Gr. α̉ναπαύσω, i.e., I will give rest to the weary, as the Syriac translates. I will place you in all quietness, says St. Chrysostom, by most soothing words, by Sacraments, as most efficacious medicines, by grace, and most sweet inward consolations; lastly by most felicitous glory in Heaven.

Take, Syr., bear, My yoke. He means, ye have borne a heavy and well nigh intolerable yoke, and the burden of the old law of sin and concupiscence. Come unto Me, I will take it away, and will change it into the sweet yoke of the evangelical law of grace and charity. I will refresh you by My yoke, which indeed is a yoke because it is a law binding the soul, but at the same time it is medicine, yea a bed, in which ye may sweetly rest, especially, by means of the humility which it teaches and commands. For it is the one and only medicine of all diseases, both of soul and body, and the alleviation and rest of all burthens. For nothing is harsh to the meek, nothing difficult to the lowly, says S. Leo. For as wool receives cannon balls and breaks their force by its softness, so meekness and humility break and soften all hard and rugged things. This yoke, therefore, is the gospel of Christ, and the law of grace. Whence S. Bernard ( Serm. 15. in Ps. 91) says, "He invites those who labour to refreshment. He calls those who are laden to rest; and yet He does not take away either burden or labour, but He exchanges them for another burden, another labour, but a light burden, a sweet yoke, wherein rest or refreshment, even though it appear not, nevertheless is found."

And learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, i.e., in the affection of the heart, viz., will, says S. Bernard ( Serm. 49 in Cant ). For many are lowly in word, few in heart. And ye shall find, &c. Listen to S. Augustine. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, not to frame a world, not to create all things, visible and invisible, not to do miracles in the world and to raise the dead; but that I am meek and lowly in heart. Dost thou wish to be great, begin from the least. Thou art thinking of constructing a mighty fabric of loftiness, think first of the foundation of humility. And as great as each one wishes to build up his edifice, the greater the building, so much the more deeply let him dig his foundation." Wisely says Climacus ( Gradu 25). "Humility is a grace of the soul without a name, being named by those alone who have made trial of it, an inexhaustible treasure, having obtained a name from God, a singular gift of God. Learn, He says, not of an angel, not of a man, not out of a book, but from Me, that is, from My dwelling in you, and working in you, because I am meek and lowly in heart, and in thought, and in sense, an

Lapide: Mat 11:29-30

ake, Syr., bear, My yoke. He means, ye have borne a heavy and well nigh intolerable yoke, and the burden of the old law of sin and concupiscence. Come unto Me, I will take it away, and will change it into the sweet yoke of the evangelical law of grace and charity. I will refresh you by My yoke, which indeed is a yoke because it is a law binding the soul, but at the same time it is medicine, yea a bed, in which ye may sweetly rest, especially, by means of the humility which it teaches and commands. For it is the one and only medicine of all diseases, both of soul and body, and the alleviation and rest of all burthens. For nothing is harsh to the meek, nothing difficult to the lowly, says S. Leo. For as wool receives cannon balls and breaks their force by its softness, so meekness and humility break and soften all hard and rugged things. This yoke, therefore, is the gospel of Christ, and the law of grace. Whence S. Bernard ( Serm. 15. in Ps. 91) says, "He invites those who labour to refreshment. He calls those who are laden to rest; and yet He does not take away either burden or labour, but He exchanges them for another burden, another labour, but a light burden, a sweet yoke, wherein rest or refreshment, even though it appear not, nevertheless is found."

And learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, i.e., in the affection of the heart, viz., will, says S. Bernard ( Serm. 49 in Cant ). For many are lowly in word, few in heart. And ye shall find, &c. Listen to S. Augustine. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, not to frame a world, not to create all things, visible and invisible, not to do miracles in the world and to raise the dead; but that I am meek and lowly in heart. Dost thou wish to be great, begin from the least. Thou art thinking of constructing a mighty fabric of loftiness, think first of the foundation of humility. And as great as each one wishes to build up his edifice, the greater the building, so much the more deeply let him dig his foundation." Wisely says Climacus ( Gradu 25). "Humility is a grace of the soul without a name, being named by those alone who have made trial of it, an inexhaustible treasure, having obtained a name from God, a singular gift of God. Learn, He says, not of an angel, not of a man, not out of a book, but from Me, that is, from My dwelling in you, and working in you, because I am meek and lowly in heart, and in thought, and in sense, and ye shall find rest from internal conflicts in your souls.

2. And better, Auctor Imperf. and Maldonat. Learn of Me, i.e., do not fear to come to Me, and to take the yoke of My gospel on your neck, for if ye come and receive it, ye shall indeed learn that I am no tyrant, nor a severe and rigid King, but a lowly, meek, element and benign Lord.

Moreover, Christ was of so great humility and meekness in bearing with the Scribes, His disciples, and the multitude, in bearing injuries, derision, the scourge, the cross and death, that even if He had wrought no miracle He would, by such meekness, have proved sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, that He was the Man from Heaven and the true Prophet sent from God. I verify admire more Christ's meekness, than His miracles and His raising the dead.

Moraliter. Learn from hence how great, and how dear to Christ is humility. It is as if He said, learn of Me not to create a world, not subtilely to dispute concerning God and the Holy Trinity, not to perform Herculean labours, but that I am meek and lowly in heart.

2d. Humility is the secret of peace. There is no rest for the mind, save in humility. Do you wish for rest? Embrace humility, a lowly place, a lowly office, humble food, clothing, &c. It is impossible for the proud to have peace of soul, because they always desire great things, and often are unable to attain them.

3d. Humility takes from man every labour and all burdens. Humility is the alleviator of every labour, and the renewer of strength: as a certain Doctor has well said, humility is a medicine against all diseases; and health of soul and body. Moreover, Hippocrates hath said, Creatures without gall are long lived, i.e., animals which have no gall, such as stags, live long. The meek, therefore, and the humble, are healthy and long lived; for meekness brings into due order both the mental character and the humours of the body, which bile disorders, hence diseases.

4th. Humility is the virtue of Christ. Learn of Me, He says. This is mine own especial virtue, dear to Me above all others, which, by descending from Heaven to this lower world, and by stooping to the shameful death of the cross, I manifested in such a manner that none should be more illustrious and more wonderful in My life and in My death. Thus on the contrary, pride is the sin of Lucifer. Humility, therefore, makes us most like Christ. What more worthy? What more desirable?

Well says S. Augustine ( Epist. 112). "They who have learnt of the Lord Jesus to be meek and lowly in heart make greater progress by praying and meditating, than by reading and hearing."

Finally, Christ here joins meekness with humility, because they are, as it were, twin sisters, or as mother and daughter. Whence S. Bernard ( Sermon 2, on those words in the Apocalypse, cap. 12, A great sign Rev 12:1 ) says, Like as naughtiness is the mother of presumption, so true meekness proceeds only from true humility.

Hear Climacus ( Gradu. 24). The light of dawn goes before the sun, meekness precedes humility. Therefore, let us hear first Christ the Light, who disposes those things, as it were, by steps. Learn, He says, of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. After that, He thus defines meekness: Meekness is the immutable state of the mind which preserves an equable frame in good fortune and in disgrace. Meekness is sincerely and ex animo to pray for those who trouble you without being troubled yourself. Meekness is a jutting rock against the fury of the sea, which breaks all its waves, whilst itself remains unmoved and unbroken. Meekness is the prop of patience, the gate of charity, yea its very parent, the proof of prudence. For He will teach, saith the Lord, the meek His ways. It is the procurer of pardon, the confidence of sinners in prayer, the habitation of the Holy Spirit. "For upon whom shall I look, save upon the meek and quiet person?" (Psalm 66, Vulg.)

For My yoke is sweet (Vulg.). The yoke and burden of Christ is the gospel, say SS. Hilary, Bede, and others. The law of the gospel, therefore, is a yoke, because it binds us to discipline, lest any one should depart from justice. The Gr. for sweet is not γλυκὺς, i.e., sweet like sugar, but χρηστὸς, i.e., benefical, humane, kind (Arab.), good in comparison with the old law. 1st Because it has fewer and easier precepts; 2d. Because it gives greater grace, which much lightens the burden of the command; 3d. Because it rules us as sons, not by fear, as servants, like the ancient law; 4th because it does not threaten, nor bring in death, like the old law, but takes it away; 5th Because it promises to those who keep it the most felicitous life, and as it were, leads them by the hand to the sweetness of celestial joys, according to the words, "They shall be satisfied with the fulness of Thy house: Thou shalt give them drink of thy pleasures as out of a river." Psa 36:9.

He says, therefore, take My yoke upon you, because in the yoke of Divine servitude, perfect consolation and refreshment are included. Whence S. Ambrose ( Lib. de Helia et jejun. Cap. 22): Receive, therefore, the yoke of Christ, do not fear because it is a yoke. Make haste, because it is light. It doth not bruise the neck, but dignifies it. Why do ye doubt? Why delay? It does not bind your neck with chains, but couples it with grace. It does not constrain of necessity, but directs the will to good works.

My, because indeed I, Christ, lay it upon you, yea, indeed, I beat it with you, and put My neck under the burden, yea I bear and carry all the burden, and you yourself with it. For that is called a yoke, which two beasts joined together bear. Christ then places one portion only of the yoke, i.e., the Evangelical Law, upon our neck; He himself bears the other and heavier part, and therefore He draws this yoke with us, and infuses strength and courage into us to draw it, both by His grace and by His example. So lately there was a certain priest in Japan of the Society of Jesus, who generously endured a dreadful death for Christ's sake, who was often wont to say. "Christ therefore makes the yoke putrescent before the face of the oil." Is. x. 27. ( Vulg.)

We may apply what we read in the life of S. Mechtildes, who when she was tormented with fearful headaches and could find no rest, heard these words from Christ as He showed her the wound in His side, enter now, and be at rest. This straightway she did, and entered in with gladness. And it seemed to her that He had as many silken pillows as she had felt pangs of headache. And the Lord said, "Silk worms carry silk, and of Me it has been written, I am a worm and no man. Hitherto thou hast served Me devotedly in labours; from henceforth thou shall study to serve Me in pleasing exercises of virtues by My example; and the things which shall be insupportable to thee, I will carry with thee."

This yoke, therefore, of Christ is not so much a yoke as a silken pillow, because it does not press us with trouble, but releases us from the weight of earthly things, and raises us to Heaven.

Wherefore S. Bernard appositely compares this burden to the plumage of birds. Thus he writes to the monks ( Epist. 341), "In the way of life the more swiftly, the more easily we run; and the larger the Saviour's light burden grows, the more portable it becomes. Does not the quantity of plumage a bird has lighten, rather than weigh it down? Take away its feathers, and what remains of it is borne down to the ground by its own weight."

Thus, likewise, is Christ's discipline, thus His sweet yoke, thus His light burden; if we lay it down, we are ourselves depressed, because He carries us rather than is carried by us. S. Ambrose adds (in Ps. cxix. Serm. 3), "To carry the yoke of Christ is sweet, if you consider it an ornament to your neck, not a burden. Lift up, therefore, thine eyes to the Lord thy God, seek God, and thou shalt find Him. Erect thy neck; thou earnest a necklace, not a chain. Many creatures delight in a necklace, and seem to themselves to be adorned rather than made naked; like as the cheeks of the turtle-dove will bear the marks of her modesty, the necklace of her neck will raise the presumption of her liberty. There is nothing more glorious than that yoke of Christ." Lastly, S. Bernard (Serm. 15 in Ps. Qui habitat ) by yoke and burden understands the load of God's gifts and favours, because the burden of the law which is imposed is the gift of grace, the perfect observance of which brings all other gifts into the mind. "God burdens us when He unburdens us. He lades us with benefits when He unlades us of our sins. This is the voice of him who is burdened, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all the benefits that He hath done unto me?" The voice of him who is burdened, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Moreover, to the proud and carnal, the yoke of Christ and the law of humility, abstinence, continence, mortification, seems very heavy and intolerable, because they are devoid of the Spirit, and only love and think of the flesh and fleshly things. Truly says S. Chrysostom ( Hom. 14, in 1 ad Cor.), "Virtue is rugged if it be compared with our weakness; for that it is easy and light, hear Christ testifying, My yoke is sweet, and My burden is light. But if thou dost not understand, let not wonder seize thee, for thou art not of a brave mind: for as, when strength of mind is present heavy things become light, so when it is absent, light things become heavy. What, I ask, was sweeter than manna? What readier to their hand? Nevertheless the Jews murmured when they were feeding on delicacies. What more dreadful than the hunger and the other labours which Paul endured? Nevertheless he rejoiced and was glad, saying, Now I rejoice in mine infirmities. What, then, was the cause of these things? Diversity of mind, which, if thou wouldst make it such as it ought to be, thou wouldst discern the easiness of virtue."

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: Mat 11:28

MATTHEW 11:28-30 —Is Jesus’ yoke easy or hard?

PROBLEM: Jesus said here, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” However, Hebrews declares that “whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives” ( Heb. 12:6 ). Which is it—easy or hard?

SOLUTION: These verses are referring to different aspects of the Christian life. The life of a believer is “easy” in that it brings “rest for your souls” ( Matt. 11:29 ), but it is hard on the “flesh,” which often needs the disciplining hand of God to keep it in line. Salvation brings “peace with God” ( Rom. 5:1 ), but it also brings conflict with the world ( 1 John 2:15-17 ; Gal. 5:17 ). The Apostle Paul himself experienced God’s grace in his life, but he also had a thorn in his flesh ( 2 Cor. 12:7-9 ).   

Critics Ask: Mat 11:29

MATTHEW 11:28-30 —Is Jesus’ yoke easy or hard?

PROBLEM: Jesus said here, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” However, Hebrews declares that “whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives” ( Heb. 12:6 ). Which is it—easy or hard?

SOLUTION: These verses are referring to different aspects of the Christian life. The life of a believer is “easy” in that it brings “rest for your souls” ( Matt. 11:29 ), but it is hard on the “flesh,” which often needs the disciplining hand of God to keep it in line. Salvation brings “peace with God” ( Rom. 5:1 ), but it also brings conflict with the world ( 1 John 2:15-17 ; Gal. 5:17 ). The Apostle Paul himself experienced God’s grace in his life, but he also had a thorn in his flesh ( 2 Cor. 12:7-9 ).   

Critics Ask: Mat 11:30

MATTHEW 11:28-30 —Is Jesus’ yoke easy or hard?

PROBLEM: Jesus said here, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” However, Hebrews declares that “whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives” ( Heb. 12:6 ). Which is it—easy or hard?

SOLUTION: These verses are referring to different aspects of the Christian life. The life of a believer is “easy” in that it brings “rest for your souls” ( Matt. 11:29 ), but it is hard on the “flesh,” which often needs the disciplining hand of God to keep it in line. Salvation brings “peace with God” ( Rom. 5:1 ), but it also brings conflict with the world ( 1 John 2:15-17 ; Gal. 5:17 ). The Apostle Paul himself experienced God’s grace in his life, but he also had a thorn in his flesh ( 2 Cor. 12:7-9 ).   

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

By Way of Introduction

The passing years do not make it any plainer who actually wrote our Greek Matthew. Papias records, as quoted by Eusebius, that Matthew wrote the Logia of Jesus in Hebrew (Aramaic). Is our present Matthew a translation of the Aramaic Logia along with Mark and other sources as most modern scholars think? If so, was the writer the Apostle Matthew or some other disciple? There is at present no way to reach a clear decision in the light of the known facts. There is no real reason why the Apostle Matthew could not have written both the Aramaic Logia and our Greek Matthew, unless one is unwilling to believe that he would make use of Mark’s work on a par with his own. But Mark’s book rests primarily on the preaching of Simon Peter. Scholfield has recently (1927) published An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew’s Gospel . We know quite too little of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels to say dogmatically that the Apostle Matthew was not in any real sense the author.

If the book is genuine, as I believe, the date becomes a matter of interest. Here again there is nothing absolutely decisive save that it is later than the Gospel according to Mark which it apparently uses. If Mark is given an early date, between a.d. 50 to 60, then Matthew’s book may be between 60 and 70, though many would place it between 70 and 80. It is not certain whether Luke wrote after Matthew or not, though that is quite possible. There is no definite use of Matthew by Luke that has been shown. One guess is as good as another and each decides by his own predilections. My own guess is that a.d. 60 is as good as any.

In the Gospel itself we find Matthew the publican (Mat_9:9; Mat_10:3) though Mark (Mar_2:14) and Luke (Luk_5:27) call him Levi the publican. Evidently therefore he had two names like John Mark. It is significant that Jesus called this man from so disreputable a business to follow him. He was apparently not a disciple of John the Baptist. He was specially chosen by Jesus to be one of the Twelve Apostles, a business man called into the ministry as was true of the fishermen James and John, Andrew and Simon. In the lists of the Apostles he comes either seventh or eighth. There is nothing definite told about him in the Gospels apart from the circle of the Twelve after the feast which he gave to his fellow publicans in honor of Jesus.

Matthew was in the habit of keeping accounts and it is quite possible that he took notes of the sayings of Jesus as he heard them. At any rate he gives much attention to the teachings of Jesus as, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount in chapters Matthew 5-7, the parables in Matthew 13, the denunciation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, the great eschatological discourse in Matthew 24 and 25. As a publican in Galilee he was not a narrow Jew and so we do not expect a book prejudiced in favor of the Jews and against the Gentiles. He does seem to show that Jesus is the Messiah of Jewish expectation and hope and so makes frequent quotations from the Old Testament by way of confirmation and illustration. There is no narrow nationalism in Matthew. Jesus is both the Messiah of the Jews and the Saviour of the world.

There are ten parables in Matthew not in the other Gospels: The Tares, the Hid Treasure, the Net, the Pearl of Great Price, the Unmerciful Servant, the Labourers in the Vineyard, the Two Sons, the Marriage of the King’s Son, the Ten Virgins, the Talents. The only miracles in Matthew alone are the Two Blind Men, the Coin in the Mouth of the Fish. But Matthew gives the narrative of the Birth of Jesus from the standpoint of Joseph while Luke tells that wonderful story from the standpoint of Mary. There are details of the Death and Resurrection given by Matthew alone.

The book follows the same general chronological plan as that in Mark, but with various groups like the miracles in Matthew 8 and 9, the parables in Matthew 13.

The style is free from Hebraisms and has few individual peculiarities. The author is fond of the phrase the kingdom of heaven and pictures Jesus as the Son of man, but also as the Son of God. He sometimes abbreviates Mark’s statements and sometimes expands them to be more precise.

Plummer shows the broad general plan of both Mark and Matthew to be the same as follows:

Introduction to the Gospel Mar_1:1-13 Matthew 3:1-4:11. Ministry in Galilee Mark 1:14-6:13 Matthew 4:12-13:58. Ministry in the Neighborhood Mark 6:14-9:50 Matthew 14:1-18:35. Journey through Perea to Jerusalem Mark 10:1-52 Matthew 19:1-20:34. Last week in Jerusalem Mark 11:1-16:8 Matthew 21:1-28:8. The Gospel of Matthew comes first in the New Testament, though it is not so in all the Greek manuscripts. Because of its position it is the book most widely read in the New Testament and has exerted the greatest influence on the world. The book deserves this influence though it is later in date than Mark, not so beautiful as Luke, nor so profound as John. Yet it is a wonderful book and gives a just and adequate portraiture of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. The author probably wrote primarily to persuade Jews that Jesus is the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes as pictured in the Old Testament. It is thus a proper introduction to the New Testament story in comparison with the Old Testament prophecy.

The Title

The Textus Receptus has " The Holy Gospel according to Matthew" ( to kata Matthaion hagion Euaggelion ), though the Elzevirs omit " holy," not agreeing here with Stephanus, Griesbach, and Scholz. Only minuscules (cursive Greek manuscripts) and all late have the adjective. Other minuscules and nine uncials including W (the Washington Codex of the fifth century), C of the fifth century (the palimpsest manuscript) and Delta of the ninth together with most Latin manuscripts have simply " Gospel according to Matthew" ( Euaggelion kata Matthaion ). But Aleph and B the two oldest and best Greek uncials of the fourth century have only " According to Matthew" ( Kata Maththaion ) (note double th) and the Greek uncial D of the fifth or sixth century follows Aleph and B as do some of the earliest Old Latin manuscripts and the Curetonian Syriac. It is clear, therefore, that the earliest form of the title was simply " According to Matthew." It may be doubted if Matthew (or the author, if not Matthew) had any title at all. The use of " according to" makes it plain that the meaning is not " the Gospel of Matthew," but the Gospel as given by Matthew, secundum Matthaeum , to distinguish the report by Matthew from that by Mark, by Luke, by John. Least of all is there any authority in the manuscripts for saying " Saint Matthew," a Roman Catholic practice observed by some Protestants.

The word Gospel ( Euaggelion ) comes to mean good news in Greek, though originally a reward for good tidings as in Homer’s Odyssey XIV. 152 and in 2Ki_4:10. In the New Testament it is the good news of salvation through Christ. The English word Gospel probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon Godspell, story or narrative of God, the life of Christ. It was early confused with the Anglo-Saxon godspell, good story, which seems like a translation of the Greek euaggelion . But primarily the English word means the God story as seen in Christ which is the best news that the world has ever had. One thinks at once of the use of " word" ( Logos ) in Joh_1:1, Joh_1:14. So then it is, according to the Greek, not the Good News of Matthew, but the Good News of God, brought to us in Christ the Word, the Son of God, the Image of the Father, the Message of the Father. We are to study this story first as presented by Matthew. The message is God’s and it is as fresh to us today in Matthew’s record as when he first wrote it.

JFB: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE author of this Gospel was a publican or tax gatherer, residing at Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. As to his identity with the "Levi" of the second and third Gospels, and other particulars, see on Mat 9:9. Hardly anything is known of his apostolic labors. That, after preaching to his countrymen in Palestine, he went to the East, is the general testimony of antiquity; but the precise scene or scenes of his ministry cannot be determined. That he died a natural death may be concluded from the belief of the best-informed of the Fathers--that of the apostles only three, James the Greater, Peter, and Paul, suffered martyrdom. That the first Gospel was written by this apostle is the testimony of all antiquity.

For the date of this Gospel we have only internal evidence, and that far from decisive. Accordingly, opinion is much divided. That it was the first issued of all the Gospels was universally believed. Hence, although in the order of the Gospels, those by the two apostles were placed first in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Latin version, while in all the Greek manuscripts, with scarcely an exception, the order is the same as in our Bibles, the Gospel according to Matthew is "in every case" placed first. And as this Gospel is of all the four the one which bears the most evident marks of having been prepared and constructed with a special view to the Jews--who certainly first required a written Gospel, and would be the first to make use of it--there can be no doubt that it was issued before any of the others. That it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem is equally certain; for as HUG observes [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316, FOSDICK'S translation], when he reports our Lord's prophecy of that awful event, on coming to the warning about "the abomination of desolation" which they should "see standing in the holy place," he interposes (contrary to his invariable practice, which is to relate without remark) a call to his readers to read intelligently--"Whoso readeth, let him understand" (Mat 24:15) --a call to attend to the divine signal for flight which could be intended only for those who lived before the event. But how long before that event this Gospel was written is not so clear. Some internal evidences seem to imply a very early date. Since the Jewish Christians were, for five or six years, exposed to persecution from their own countrymen--until the Jews, being persecuted by the Romans, had to look to themselves--it is not likely (it is argued) that they should be left so long without some written Gospel to reassure and sustain them, and Matthew's Gospel was eminently fitted for that purpose. But the digests to which Luke refers in his Introduction (see on Luk 1:1) would be sufficient for a time, especially as the living voice of the "eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word" was yet sounding abroad. Other considerations in favor of a very early date--such as the tender way in which the author seems studiously to speak of Herod Antipas, as if still reigning, and his writing of Pilate apparently as if still in power--seem to have no foundation in fact, and cannot therefore be made the ground of reasoning as to the date of this Gospel. Its Hebraic structure and hue, though they prove, as we think, that this Gospel must have been published at a period considerably anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem, are no evidence in favor of so early a date as A.D. 37 or 38--according to some of the Fathers, and, of the moderns, TILLEMONT, TOWNSON, OWEN, BIRKS, TREGELLES. On the other hand, the date suggested by the statement of IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.1], that Matthew put forth his Gospel while Peter and Paul were at Rome preaching and founding the Church--or after A.D. 60--though probably the majority of critics are in favor of it, would seem rather too late, especially as the second and third Gospels, which were doubtless published, as well as this one, before the destruction of Jerusalem, had still to be issued. Certainly, such statements as the following, "Wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this day" (Mat 27:8); "And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day" (Mat 28:15), bespeak a date considerably later than the events recorded. We incline, therefore, to a date intermediate between the earlier and the later dates assigned to this Gospel, without pretending to greater precision.

We have adverted to the strikingly Jewish character and coloring of this Gospel. The facts which it selects, the points to which it gives prominence, the cast of thought and phraseology, all bespeak the Jewish point of view from which it was written and to which it was directed. This has been noticed from the beginning, and is universally acknowledged. It is of the greatest consequence to the right interpretation of it; but the tendency among some even of the best of the Germans to infer, from this special design of the first Gospel, a certain laxity on the part of the Evangelist in the treatment of his facts, must be guarded against.

But by far the most interesting and important point connected with this Gospel is the language in which it was written. It is believed by a formidable number of critics that this Gospel was originally written in what is loosely called Hebrew, but more correctly Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, the native tongue of the country at the time of our Lord; and that the Greek Matthew which we now possess is a translation of that work, either by the Evangelist himself or some unknown hand. The evidence on which this opinion is grounded is wholly external, but it has been deemed conclusive by GROTIUS, MICHAELIS (and his translator), MARSH, TOWNSON, CAMPBELL, OLSHAUSEN, CRESWELL, MEYER, EBRARD, LANGE, DAVIDSON, CURETON, TREGELLES, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, &c. The evidence referred to cannot be given here, but will be found, with remarks on its unsatisfactory character, in the Introduction to the Gospels prefixed to our larger Commentary, pp. 28-31.

But how stand the facts as to our Greek Gospel? We have not a title of historical evidence that it is a translation, either by Matthew himself or anyone else. All antiquity refers to it as the work of Matthew the publican and apostle, just as the other Gospels are ascribed to their respective authors. This Greek Gospel was from the first received by the Church as an integral part of the one quadriform Gospel. And while the Fathers often advert to the two Gospels which we have from apostles, and the two which we have from men not apostles--in order to show that as that of Mark leans so entirely on Peter, and that of Luke on Paul, these are really no less apostolical than the other two--though we attach less weight to this circumstance than they did, we cannot but think it striking that, in thus speaking, they never drop a hint that the full apostolic authority of the Greek Matthew had ever been questioned on the ground of its not being the original. Further, not a trace can be discovered in this Gospel itself of its being a translation. MICHAELIS tried to detect, and fancied that he had succeeded in detecting, one or two such. Other Germans since, and DAVIDSON and CURETON among ourselves, have made the same attempt. But the entire failure of all such attempts is now generally admitted, and candid advocates of a Hebrew original are quite ready to own that none such are to be found, and that but for external testimony no one would have imagined that the Greek was not the original. This they regard as showing how perfectly the translation has been executed; but those who know best what translating from one language into another is will be the readiest to own that this is tantamount to giving up the question. This Gospel proclaims its own originality in a number of striking points; such as its manner of quoting from the Old Testament, and its phraseology in some peculiar cases. But the close verbal coincidences of our Greek Matthew with the next two Gospels must not be quite passed over. There are but two possible ways of explaining this. Either the translator, sacrificing verbal fidelity in his version, intentionally conformed certain parts of his author's work to the second and third Gospels--in which case it can hardly be called Matthew's Gospel at all--or our Greek Matthew is itself the original.

Moved by these considerations, some advocates of a Hebrew original have adopted the theory of a double original; the external testimony, they think, requiring us to believe in a Hebrew original, while internal evidence is decisive in favor of the originality of the Greek. This theory is espoused by GUERICKS, OLSHAUSEN, THIERSCH, TOWNSON, TREGELLES, &c. But, besides that this looks too like an artificial theory, invented to solve a difficulty, it is utterly void of historical support. There is not a vestige of testimony to support it in Christian antiquity. This ought to be decisive against it.

It remains, then, that our Greek Matthew is the original of that Gospel, and that no other original ever existed. It is greatly to the credit of DEAN ALFORD, that after maintaining, in the first edition of his Greek Testament the theory of a Hebrew original, he thus expresses himself in the second and subsequent editions: "On the whole, then, I find myself constrained to abandon the view maintained in my first edition, and to adopt that of a Greek original."

One argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reliance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Greek language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine when Matthew published his Gospel to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, for their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settlement of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential element. There are extremes on both sides of it. The old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but Syro-Chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of HUG (in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 326, &c.) and ROBERTS ("Discussions of the Gospels," &c., pp. 25, &c.). For ourselves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is that there is no ground to believe that Greek was so little understood in Palestine as to make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that language--so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we think of the number of digests or short narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history which we know from Luke (Luk 1:1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully, and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement until the publican-apostle should leisurely draw up the first of the four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was the language in which the entire quadriform Gospel was to be for all time enshrined. The following among others hold to this view of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew: ERASMUS, CALVIN, BEZA, LIGHTFOOT, WETSTEIN, LARDNER, HUG, FRITZSCHE, CREDNER, DE WETTE, STUART, DA COSTA, FAIRBAIRN, ROBERTS.

On two other questions regarding this Gospel it would have been desirable to say something, had not our available space been already exhausted: The characteristics, both in language and matter, by which it is distinguished from the other three, and its relation to the second and third Gospels. On the latter of these topics--whether one or more of the Evangelists made use of the materials of the other Gospels, and, if so, which of the Evangelists drew from which--the opinions are just as numerous as the possibilities of the case, every conceivable way of it having one or more who plead for it. The most popular opinion until recently--and perhaps the most popular still--is that the second Evangelist availed himself more or less of the materials of the first Gospel, and the third of the materials of both the first and second Gospels. Here we can but state our own belief, that each of the first three Evangelists wrote independently of both the others; while the fourth, familiar with the first three, wrote to supplement them, and, even where he travels along the same line, wrote quite independently of them. This judgment we express, with all deference for those who think otherwise, as the result of a close study of each of the Gospels in immediate juxtaposition and comparison with the others. On the former of the two topics noticed, the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Gospels have been handled most closely and ably by CREDNER [Einleitung (Introduction to the New Testament)], of whose results a good summary will be found in DAVIDSON'S Introduction to the New Testament. The other peculiarities of the Gospels have been most felicitously and beautifully brought out by DA COSTA in his Four Witnesses, to which we must simply refer the reader, though it contains a few things in which we cannot concur.

JFB: Matthew (Outline)

• GENEALOGY OF CHRIST. ( = Luke 3:23-38). (Mat. 1:1-17)
• BIRTH OF CHRIST. (Mat 1:18-25)
• VISIT OF THE MAGI TO JERUSALEM AND BETHLEHEM. (Mat 2:1-12)
• THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT--THE MASSACRE AT BETHLEHEM--THE RETURN OF JOSEPH AND MARY WITH THE BABE, AFTER HEROD'S DEATH, AND THEIR SETTLEMENT AT NAZARETH. ( = Luk 2:39). (Mat 2:13-23)
• PREACHING AND MINISTRY OF JOHN. ( = Mar 1:1-8; Luke 3:1-18). (Mat 3:1-12)
• BAPTISM OF CHRIST AND DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT UPON HIM IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER. ( = Mar 1:9-11; Luk 3:21-22; Joh 1:31-34). (Mat 3:13-17)
• TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. ( = Mar 1:12-13; Luk 4:1-13). (Mat 4:1-11)
• CHRIST BEGINS HIS GALILEAN MINISTRY--CALLING OF PETER AND ANDREW, JAMES AND JOHN--HIS FIRST GALILEAN CIRCUIT. ( = Mar 1:14-20, Mar 1:35-39; Luk 4:14-15). (Mat 4:12-25)
• THE BEATITUDES, AND THEIR BEARING UPON THE WORLD. (Mat. 5:1-16)
• IDENTITY OF THESE PRINCIPLES WITH THOSE OF THE ANCIENT ECONOMY; IN CONTRAST WITH THE REIGNING TRADITIONAL TEACHING. (Mat. 5:17-48)
• FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--ITS UNOSTENTATIOUSNESS. (Mat. 6:1-18)
• CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS AND FILIAL CONFIDENCE. (Mat. 6:19-34)
• MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLEMENTARY COUNSELS. (Mat 7:1-12)
• CONCLUSION AND EFFECT OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (Mat. 7:13-29)
• HEALING OF A LEPER. ( = Mar 1:40-45; Luk 5:12-16). (Mat 8:1-4) When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
• INCIDENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF DISCIPLESHIP. ( = Luk 9:57-62). (Mat 8:18-22) And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
• MATTHEW'S CALL AND FEAST. ( = Mar 2:14-17; Luk 5:27-32). (Mat 9:9-13)
• TWO BLIND MEN AND A DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED. (Mat 9:27-34)
• THIRD GALILEAN CIRCUIT--MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. (Mat. 9:35-10:5)
• MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. ( = Mar 6:7-13; Luk 9:1-6). (Mat 10:1-5)
• THE TWELVE RECEIVE THEIR INSTRUCTIONS. (Mat. 10:5-42)
• THE IMPRISONED BAPTIST'S MESSAGE TO HIS MASTER--THE REPLY, AND DISCOURSE, ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE MESSENGERS, REGARDING JOHN AND HIS MISSION. ( = Luke 7:18-35). (Mat. 11:1-19)
• OUTBURST OF FEELING SUGGESTED TO THE MIND OF JESUS BY THE RESULT OF HIS LABORS IN GALILEE. (Mat 11:20-30) Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not.
• PLUCKING CORN EARS ON THE SABBATH DAY. ( = Mar 2:23-28; Luk 6:1-5). (Mat 12:1-8)
• THE HEALING OF A WITHERED HAND ON THE SABBATH DAY AND RETIREMENT OF JESUS TO AVOID DANGER. ( = Mar 3:1-12; Luk 6:6-11). (Mat 12:9-21)
• A BLIND AND DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED AND REPLY TO THE MALIGNANT EXPLANATION PUT UPON IT. ( = Mar 3:20-30; Luk 11:14-23). (Mat. 12:22-37)
• A SIGN DEMANDED AND THE REPLY--HIS MOTHER AND BRETHREN SEEK TO SPEAK WITH HIM, AND THE ANSWER. ( = Luk 11:16, Luk 11:24-36; Mar 3:31-35; Luk 8:19-21). (Mat 12:38-50)
• JESUS TEACHES BY PARABLES. ( = Mark 4:1-34; Luk 8:4-18; Luk 13:18-20). (Mat. 13:1-52) The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the seaside.
• HOW JESUS WAS REGARDED BY HIS RELATIVES. ( = Mar 6:1-6; Luk 4:16-30). (Mat 13:53-58) And it came to pass, that, when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence.
• HEROD THINKS JESUS A RESURRECTION OF THE MURDERED BAPTIST--ACCOUNT OF HIS IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH. ( = Mark 6:14-29; Luk 9:7-9). (Mat 14:1-12)
• JESUS CROSSES TO THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE LAKE WALKING ON THE SEA--INCIDENTS ON LANDING. ( = Mar 6:45; Joh 6:15-24). (Mat 14:22-26)
• DISCOURSE ON CEREMONIAL POLLUTION. ( = Mar 7:1, Mar 7:23). (Mat. 15:1-20)
• THE WOMAN OF CANAAN AND HER DAUGHTER. (Mat 15:21-28)
• PETER'S NOBLE CONFESSION OF CHRIST AND THE BENEDICTION PRONOUNCED UPON HIM--CHRIST'S FIRST EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS APPROACHING SUFFERINGS, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION--HIS REBUKE OF PETER AND WARNING TO ALL THE TWELVE. ( = Mar 8:27; Mar 9:1; Luk 9:18-27). (Mat. 16:13-28)
• HEALING OF A DEMONIAC BOY--SECOND EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT BY OUR LORD OF HIS APPROACHING DEATH AND RESURRECTION. ( = Mark 9:14-32; Luk 9:37-45). (Mat 17:14-23)
• THE TRIBUTE MONEY. (Mat 17:24-27)
• FURTHER TEACHING ON THE SAME SUBJECT INCLUDING THE PARABLE OF THE UNMERCIFUL DEBTOR. (Mat. 18:10-35)
• FINAL DEPARTURE FROM GALILEE--DIVORCE. ( = Mar 10:1-12; Luk 9:51). (Mat 19:1-12)
• PARABLE OF THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. (Mat. 20:1-16)
• THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS QUESTIONED AND THE REPLY--THE PARABLES OF THE TWO SONS, AND OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN. ( = Mark 11:27-12:12; Luke 20:1-19). (Mat. 21:23-46)
• PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. (Mat 22:1-14)
• DENUNCIATION OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES--LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM, AND FAREWELL TO THE TEMPLE. ( = Mar 12:38-40; Luk 20:45-47). (Mat. 23:1-39)
• PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. (Mat 25:1-13)
• PARABLE OF THE TALENTS. (Mat. 25:14-30)
• THE LAST JUDGMENT. (Mat. 25:31-46)
• JESUS LED AWAY TO PILATE--REMORSE AND SUICIDE OF JUDAS. ( = Mar 15:1; Luk 23:1; Joh 18:28). (Mat 27:1-10)
• GLORIOUS ANGELIC ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, THAT CHRIST IS RISEN--HIS APPEARANCE TO THE WOMEN--THE GUARDS BRIBED TO GIVE A FALSE ACCOUNT OF THE RESURRECTION. ( = Mar 16:1-8; Luk 24:1-8; Joh 20:1). (Mat 28:1-15)
• JESUS MEETS WITH THE DISCIPLES ON A MOUNTAIN IN GALILEE AND GIVES FORTH THE GREAT COMMISSION. (Mat 28:16-20)
• SIGNS AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS--HE IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS, AND BURIED--THE SEPULCHRE IS GUARDED. ( = Mar 15:38-47; Luk 23:47-56; Joh 19:31-42). (Mat. 27:51-66)

TSK: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Matthew, being one of the twelve apostles, and early called to the apostleship, and from the time of his call a constant attendant on our Saviour, was perfectly well qualified to write fully the history of his life. He relates what he saw and heard. " He is eminently distinguished for the distinctness and particularity with which he has related many of our Lord’s discourses and moral instructions. Of these his sermon on the mount, his charge to the apostles, his illustrations of the nature of his kingdom, and his prophecy on mount Olivet, are examples. He has also wonderfully united simplicity and energy in relating the replies of his Master to the cavils of his adversaries." " There is not," as Dr. A. Clarke justly remarks, " one truth or doctrine, in the whole oracles of God, which is not taught in this Evangelist. The outlines of the whole spiritual system are here correctly laid down. even Paul himself has added nothing. He has amplified and illustrated the truths contained in this Gospel - under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, neither he, nor any of the other apostles, have brought to light one truth, the prototype of which has not been found in the words and acts of our blessed Lord as related by Matthew."

TSK: Matthew 11 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Mat 11:1, John sends his disciples to Christ; Mat 11:7, Christ’s testimony concerning John; Mat 11:16, The perverse judgment of the people; Mat 11:20, Christ upbraids Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum; Mat 11:25, and praising his Father’s wisdom in revealing the Gospel to the simple, Mat 11:28. he calls to him all such as feel the burden of their sins.

Poole: Matthew 11 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 11

MHCC: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Matthew, surnamed Levi, before his conversion was a publican, or tax-gatherer under the Romans at Capernaum. He is generally allowed to have written his Gospel before any other of the evangelists. The contents of this Gospel, and the evidence of ancient writers, show that it was written primarily for the use of the Jewish nation. The fulfilment of prophecy was regarded by the Jews as strong evidence, therefore this is especially dwelt upon by St. Matthew. Here are particularly selected such parts of our Saviour's history and discourses as were best suited to awaken the Jewish nation to a sense of their sins; to remove their erroneous expectations of an earthly kingdom; to abate their pride and self-conceit; to teach them the spiritual nature and extent of the gospel; and to prepare them for the admission of the Gentiles into the church.

MHCC: Matthew 11 (Chapter Introduction)

(Mat 11:1) Christ's preaching.

(Mat 11:2-6) Christ's answer to John's disciples.

(Mat 11:7-15) Christ's testimony to John the Baptist.

(Mat 11:16-24) The perverseness of the Jews.

(Mat 11:25-30) The gospel revealed to the simple. The heavy-laden invited.

Matthew Henry: Matthew (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. Matthew

We have now before us, I. The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; so this second part of the holy Bible is entitled: The new covenant; so it might as well be rendered; the word signifies both. But, when it is (as here) spoken of as Christ's act and deed, it is most properly rendered a testament, for he is the testator, and it becomes of force by his death (Heb 9:16, Heb 9:17); nor is there, as in covenants, a previous treaty between the parties, but what is granted, though an estate upon condition, is owing to the will, the free-will, the good-will, of the Testator. All the grace contained in this book is owing to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour; and, unless we consent to him as our Lord, we cannot expect any benefit by him as our Saviour. This is called a new testament, to distinguish it from that which was given by Moses, and was not antiquated; and to signify that it should be always new, and should never wax old, and grow out of date. These books contain, not only a full discovery of that grace which has appeared to all men, bringing salvation, but a legal instrument by which it is conveyed to, and settled upon, all believers. How carefully do we preserve, and with what attention and pleasure do we read, the last will and testament of a friend, who has therein left us a fair estate, and, with it, high expressions of his love to us! How precious then should this testament of our blessed Saviour be to us, which secures to us all his unsearchable riches! It is his testament; for though, as is usual, it was written by others (we have nothing upon record that was of Christ's own writing), yet he dictated it; and the night before he died, in the institution of his supper, he signed, sealed, and published it, in the presence of twelve witnesses. For, though these books were not written for some years after, for the benefit of posterity, in perpetuam rei memoriam - as a perpetual memorial, yet the New Testament of our Lord Jesus was settled, confirmed, and declared, from the time of his death, as a nuncupative will, with which these records exactly agree. The things which St. Luke wrote were things which were most surely believed, and therefore well known, before he wrote them; but, when they were written, the oral tradition was superseded and set aside, and these writings were the repository of that New Testament. This is intimated by the title which is prefixed to many Greek Copies, Tē kainēs Diathēkēs Hapanta - The whole of the New Testament, or all the things of it. In it is declared the whole counsel of God concerning our salvation, Act 20:27. As the law of the Lord is perfect, so is the gospel of Christ, and nothing is to be added to it. We have it all, and are to look for no more.

II. We have before us The Four Gospels. Gospel signifies good news, or glad tidings; and this history of Christ's coming into the world to save sinners is, without doubt, the best news that ever came from heaven to earth; the angel gave it this title (Luk 2:10), Euagnelizomai humin - I bring you good tidings; I bring the gospel to you. And the prophet foretold it, Isa 52:7; Isa 61:1. It is there foretold that in the days of the messiah good tidings should be preached. Gospel is an old Saxon word; it is God's spell or word; and God is so called because he is good, Deus optimus - God most excellent, and therefore it may be a good spell, or word. If we take spell in its more proper signification for a charm ( carmen ), and take that in a good sense, for what is moving and affecting, which is apt lenire dolorem - to calm the spirits, or to raise them in admiration or love, as that which is very amiable we call charming, it is applicable to the gospel; for in it the charmer charmeth wisely, though to deaf adders, Psa 58:4, Psa 58:5. Nor (one would think) can any charms be so powerful as those of the beauty and love of our Redeemer. The whole New Testament is the gospel. St. Paul calls it his gospel, because he was one of the preachers of it. Oh that we may each of us make it ours by our cordial acceptance of it and subjection to it! But the four books which contain the history of the Redeemer we commonly call the four gospels, and the inspired penmen of them evangelists, or gospel-writers; not, however, very properly, because that title belongs to a particular order of ministers, that were assistants to the apostles (Eph 4:11): He gave some apostles, and some evangelists. It was requisite that the doctrine of Christ should be interwoven with, and founded upon, the narrative of his birth, life, miracles, death, and resurrection; for then it appears in its clearest and strongest light. As in nature, so in grace, the most happy discoveries are those which take rise from the certain representations of matters of fact. Natural history is the best philosophy; and so is the sacred history, both of the Old and New Testament, the most proper and grateful vehicle of sacred truth. These four gospels were early and constantly received by the primitive church, and read in Christian assemblies, as appears by the writings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who lived little more than a hundred years after the ascension of Christ; they declared that neither more nor fewer than four were received by the church. A Harmony of these four evangelists was compiled by Tatian about that time, which he called, To dia tessarōn - The Gospel out of the four. In the third and fourth centuries there were gospels forged by divers sects, and published, one under the name of St. Peter, another of St. Thomas, another of St. Philip, etc. But they were never owned by the church, nor was any credit given to them, as the learned Dr. Whitby shows. And he gives this good reason why we should adhere to these written records, because, whatever the pretences of tradition may be, it is not sufficient to preserve things with any certainty, as appears by experience. For, whereas Christ said and did many memorable things, which were not written (Joh 20:30; Joh 21:25), tradition has not preserved any one of them to us, but all is lost except what was written; that therefore is what we must abide by; and blessed by God that we have it to abide by; it is the sure word of history.

III. We have before us the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The penman was by birth a Jew, by calling a publican, till Christ commanded his attendance, and then he left the receipt of custom, to follow him, and was one of those that accompanied him all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that he was taken up, Act 1:21, Act 1:22. He was therefore a competent witness of what he has here recorded. He is said to have written this history about eight years after Christ's ascension. Many of the ancients say that he wrote it in the Hebrew or Syriac language; but the tradition is sufficiently disproved by Dr. Whitby. Doubtless, it was written in Greek, as the other parts of the New Testament were; not in that language which was peculiar to the Jews, whose church and state were near a period, but in that which was common to the world, and in which the knowledge of Christ would be most effectually transmitted to the nations of the earth; yet it is probable that there might be an edition of it in Hebrew, published by St. Matthew himself, at the same time that he wrote it in Greek; the former for the Jews, the latter for the Gentiles, when he left Judea, to preach among the Gentiles. Let us bless God that we have it, and have it in a language we understand.

Matthew Henry: Matthew 11 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter we have, I. The constant and unwearied diligence of our Lord Jesus in his great work of preaching the gospel (Mat 11:1). II. His discourse with the disciples of John concerning his being the Messiah (Mat 11:2-6). III. The honourable testimony that Christ bore to John Baptist (Mat 11:7-15). IV. The sad account he gives of that generation in general, and of some particular places with reference to the success, both of John's ministry and of his own (v. 16-24). V. His thanksgiving to his Father for the wise and gracious method he had taken in revealing the great mysteries of the gospel (v. 25, 26). VI. His gracious call and invitation of poor sinners to come to him, and to be ruled, and taught, and saved by him (v. 27-30). No Where have we more of the terror of gospel woes for warning to us, or of the sweetness of gospel grace for encouragement to us, than in this chapter, which sets before us life and death, the blessing and the curse.

Barclay: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT MATTHEW

The Synoptic Gospels

Matthew, Mark and Luke are usually known as the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic comes from two Greek words which mean to see together and literally means able to be seen together. The reason for that name is this. These three gospels each give an account of the same events in Jesusife. There are in each of them additions and omissions; but broadly speaking their material is the same and their arrangement is the same. It is therefore possible to set them down in parallel columns, and so to compare the one with the other.

When that is done, it is quite clear that there is the closest possible relationship between them. If we, for instance, compare the story of the feeding of the five thousand (Mat_14:12-21; Mar_6:30-44; Luk_9:10-17) we find exactly the same story told in almost exactly the same words.

Another instance is the story of the healing of the man who was sick with the palsy (Mat_9:1-8; Mar_2:1-12; Luk_5:17-26). These three accounts are so similar that even a little parenthesis--"he then said to the paralytic"--occurs in all three as a parenthesis in exactly the same place. The correspondence between the three gospels is so close that we are bound to come to the conclusion either that all three are drawing their material from a common source, or that two of them must be based on the third.

The Earliest Gospel

When we examine the matter more closely we see that there is every reason for believing that Mark must have been the first of the gospels to be written, and that the other two, Matthew and Luke, are using Mark as a basis.

Mark can be divided into 105 sections. Of these sections 93 occur in Matthew and 81 in Luke. Of Mark105 sections there are only 4 which do not occur either in Matthew or in Luke.

Mark has 661 verses: Matthew has 1,068 verses: Luke has 1,149 verses. Matthew reproduces no fewer than 606 of Markverses; and Luke reproduces 320. Of the 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce Luke reproduces 31; so there are only 24 verses in the whole of Mark which are not reproduced somewhere in Matthew or Luke.

It is not only the substance of the verses which is reproduced; the very words are reproduced. Matthew uses 51 per cent of Markwords; and Luke uses 53 per cent.

Both Matthew and Luke as a general rule follow Markorder of events. Occasionally either Matthew or Luke differs from Mark; but they never both differ against him; always at least one of them follows Markorder.

Improvements On Mark

Since Matthew and Luke are both much longer than Mark, it might just possibly be suggested that Mark is a summary of Matthew and Luke; but there is one other set of facts which show that Mark is earlier. It is the custom of Matthew and Luke to improve and to polish Mark, if we may put it so. Let us take some instances.

Sometimes Mark seems to limit the power of Jesus; at least an ill-disposed critic might try to prove that he was doing so. Here are three accounts of the same incident:

Mar_1:34: And he healed many who were sick with various

diseases, and cast out many demons;

Mat_8:16: And he cast out the spirits with a word, and

healed all who were sick;

Luk_4:40: And he laid his hands on every one of them, and

healed them.

Let us take other three similar examples:

Mar_3:10: For he had healed many;

Mat_12:15: And he healed them all;

Luk_6:19: and healed them all.

Matthew and Luke both change Markmany into all so that there may be no suggestion of any limitation of the power of Jesus Christ.

There is a very similar change in the account of the events of Jesusisit to Nazareth. Let us compare the account of Mark and of Matthew.

Mk 6:5-6: And he could do no mighty work there... and

he marvelled because of their unbelief;

Mat_13:58: And he did not do many mighty works there,

because of their unbelief.

Matthew shrinks from saying that Jesus could not do any mighty works; and changes the form of the expression accordingly.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke leave out little touches in Mark in case they could be taken to belittle Jesus. Matthew and Luke omit three statements in Mark.

Mar_3:5: "He looked around at them with anger, grieved

at their hardness of heart."

Mar_3:21: And when his friends heard it, they went out to

seize him: for they said, He is beside himself;

Mar_10:14: He was indignant.

Matthew and Luke hesitate to attribute human emotions of anger and grief to Jesus, and shudder to think that anyone should even have suggested that Jesus was mad.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke slightly alter things in Mark to get rid of statements which might seem to show the apostles in a bad light. We take but one instance, from the occasion on which James and John sought to ensure themselves of the highest places in the coming Kingdom. Let us compare the introduction to that story in Mark and in Matthew.

Mar_10:35: James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came

forward to him, and said to him...

Mat_20:20: Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came

up to him, with her sons, and kneeling before him,

she asked him for something.

Matthew hesitates to ascribe motives of ambition directly to the two apostles, and so he ascribes them to their mother.

All this makes it clear that Mark is the earliest of the gospels. Mark gives a simple, vivid, direct narrative; but Matthew and Luke have already begun to be affected by doctrinal and theological considerations which make them much more careful of what they say.

The Teaching Of Jesus

We have seen that Matthew has 1,068 verses; and that Luke has 1,149 verses; and that between them they reproduce 582 of Markverses. That means that in Matthew and Luke there is much more material than Mark supplies. When we examine that material we find that more than 200 verses of it are almost identical. For instance such passages as Luk_6:41-42 and Mat_7:1, Mat_7:5; Luk_10:21-22 and Mat_11:25-27; Luk_3:7-9 and Mat_3:7-10 are almost exactly the same.

But here we notice a difference. The material which Matthew and Luke drew from Mark was almost entirely material dealing with the events of Jesusife; but these 200 additional verses common to Matthew and Luke tell us, not what Jesus did, but what Jesus said. Clearly in these verses Matthew and Luke are drawing from a common source-book of the sayings of Jesus.

That book does not now exist; but to it scholars have given the letter Q which stands for Quelle, which is the German word for "source." In its day it must have been an extraordinarily important book, for it was the first handbook of the teaching of Jesus.

MatthewPlace In The Gospel Tradition

It is here that we come to Matthew the apostle. Scholars are agreed that the first gospel as it stands does not come directly from the hand of Matthew. One who had himself been an eye-witness of the life of Christ would not have needed to use Mark as a source-book for the life of Jesus in the way Matthew does. But one of the earliest Church historians, a man called Papias, gives us this intensely important piece of information:

"Matthew collected the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue."

So, then, we can believe that it was none other than Matthew who wrote that book which was the source from which all men must draw, if they wished to know what Jesus taught. And it was because so much of that source-book is incorporated in the first gospel that Matthewname was attached to it. We must be for ever grateful to Matthew, when we remember that it is to him that we owe the Sermon on the Mount and nearly all we know about the teaching of Jesus. Broadly speaking, to Mark we owe our knowledge of the events of Jesusife; to Matthew we owe our knowledge of the substance of Jesuseaching.

Matthew The Taxgatherer

About Matthew himself we know very little. We read of his call in Mat_9:9. We know that he was a taxgatherer and that he must therefore have been a bitterly hated man, for the Jews hated the members of their own race who had entered the civil service of their conquerors. Matthew would be regarded as nothing better than a quisling.

But there was one gift which Matthew would possess. Most of the disciples were fishermen. They would have little skill and little practice in putting words together on paper; but Matthew would be an expert in that. When Jesus called Matthew, as he sat at the receipt of custom, Matthew rose up and followed him and left everything behind him except one thing--his pen. And Matthew nobly used his literary skill to become the first man ever to compile an account of the teaching of Jesus.

The Gospel Of The Jews

Let us now look at the chief characteristics of Matthewgospel so that we may watch for them as we read it.

First and foremost, Matthew is the gospel which was written for the Jews. It was written by a Jew in order to convince Jews.

One of the great objects of Matthew is to demonstrate that all the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus, and that, therefore, he must be the Messiah. It has one phrase which runs through it like an ever-recurring theme--"This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet." That phrase occurs in the gospel as often as 16 times. Jesusirth and Jesusame are the fulfillment of prophecy (Mat_1:21-23); so are the flight to Egypt (Mat_2:14-15); the slaughter of the children (Mat_2:16-18); Josephsettlement in Nazareth and Jesuspbringing there (Mat_2:23); Jesusse of parables (Mat_13:34-35); the triumphal entry (Mat_21:3-5); the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Mat_27:9); the casting of lots for Jesusarments as he hung on the Cross (Mat_27:35). It is Matthewprimary and deliberate purpose to show how the Old Testament prophecies received their fulfillment in Jesus; how every detail of Jesusife was foreshadowed in the prophets; and thus to compel the Jews to admit that Jesus was the Messiah.

The main interest of Matthew is in the Jews. Their conversion is especially near and dear to the heart of its writer. When the Syro-Phoenician woman seeks his help, Jesusirst answer is: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat_15:24). When Jesus sends out the Twelve on the task of evangelization, his instruction is: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat_10:5-6). Yet it is not to be thought that this gospel by any means excludes the Gentiles. Many are to come from the east and the west to sit down in the kingdom of God (Mat_8:11). The gospel is to be preached to the whole world (Mat_24:14). And it is Matthew which gives us the marching orders of the Church: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Mat_28:19). It is clear that Matthewfirst interest is in the Jews, but that it foresees the day when an nations will be gathered in.

The Jewishness of Matthew is also seen in its attitude to the Law. Jesus did not come to destroy, but to fulfil the Law. The least part of the Law will not pass away. Men must not be taught to break the Law. The righteousness of the Christian must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_5:17-20). Matthew was written by one who knew and loved the Law, and who saw that even the Law has its place in the Christian economy.

Once again there is an apparent paradox in the attitude of Matthew to the Scribes and Pharisees. They are given a very special authority: "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moseseat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you" (Mat_23:2). But at the same time there is no gospel which so sternly and consistently condemns them.

Right at the beginning there is John the Baptistsavage denunciation of them as a brood of vipers (Mat_3:7-12). They complain that Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners (Mat_9:11). They ascribe the power of Jesus, not to God, but to the prince of devils (Mat_12:24). They plot to destroy him (Mat_12:14). The disciples are warned against the leaven, the evil teaching, of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_16:12). They are like evil plants doomed to be rooted up (Mat_15:13). They are quite unable to read the signs of the times (Mat_16:3). They are the murderers of the prophets (Mat_21:41). There is no chapter of condemnation in the whole New Testament like Matt 23 , which is condemnation not of what the Scribes and the Pharisees teach, but of what they are. He condemns them for falling so far short of their own teaching, and far below the ideal of what they ought to be.

There are certain other special interests in Matthew. Matthew is especially interested in the Church. It is in fact the only one of the Synoptic Gospels which uses the word Church at all. Only Matthew introduces the passage about the Church after Peterconfession at Caesarea Philippi (Mat_16:13-23; compare Mar_8:27-33; Luk_9:18-22). Only Matthew says that disputes are to be settled by the Church (Mat_18:17). By the time Matthew came to be written the Church had become a great organization and institution; and indeed the dominant factor in the life of the Christian.

Matthew has a specially strong apocalyptic interest. That is to say, Matthew has a specially strong interest in all that Jesus said about his own Second Coming, about the end of the world, and about the judgment. Matt 24 gives us a fuller account of Jesus pocalyptic discourse than any of the other gospels. Matthew alone has the parables of the talents (Mat_25:14-30); the wise and the foolish virgins (Mat_25:1-13); and the sheep and the goats (Mat_25:31-46). Matthew has a special interest in the last things and in judgment.

But we have not yet come to the greatest of all the characteristics of Matthew. It is supremely the teaching gospel.

We have already seen that the apostle Matthew was responsible for the first collection and the first handbook of the teaching of Jesus. Matthew was the great systematizer. It was his habit to gather together in one place all that he knew about the teaching of Jesus on any given subject. The result is that in Matthew we find five great blocks in which the teaching of Jesus is collected and systematized. All these sections have to do with the Kingdom of God. They are as follows:

(a) The Sermon on the Mount, or The Law of the Kingdom (Matt 5-7).

(b) The Duties of the Leaders of the Kingdom (Matt 10 )

(c) The Parables of the Kingdom (Matt 13 ).

(d) Greatness and Forgiveness in the Kingdom (Matt 18 ).

(e) The Coming of the King (Matt 24-25).

Matthew does more than collect and systematize. It must be remembered that Matthew was writing in an age when printing had not been invented, when books were few and far between because they had to be hand-written. In an age like that, comparatively few people could possess a book; and, therefore, if they wished to know and to use the teaching and the story of Jesus, they had to carry them in their memories.

Matthew therefore always arranges things in a way that is easy for the reader to memorize. He arranges things in threes and sevens. There are three messages to Joseph; three denials of Peter; three questions of Pilate; seven parables of the Kingdom in Matt 13; seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees in Matt 23.

The genealogy of Jesus with which the gospel begins is a good example of this. The genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David. In Hebrew there are no figures; when figures are necessary the letters of the alphabet stand for the figures. In Hebrew there are no written vowels. The Hebrew letters for David are D-W-D; if these letters be taken as figures and not as letters, they add up to 14; and the genealogy consists of three groups of names, and in each group there are 14 names. Matthew does everything possible to arrange the teaching of Jesus in such a way that people will be able to assimilate and to remember it.

Every teacher owes a debt of gratitude to Matthew, for Matthew wrote what is above all the teachergospel.

Matthew has one final characteristic. Matthewdominating idea is that of Jesus as King. He writes to demonstrate the royalty of Jesus.

Right at the beginning the genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David (Mat_1:1-17). The title, Son of David, is used oftener in Matthew than in any other gospel (Mat_15:22; Mat_21:9; Mat_21:15). The wise men come looking for him who is King of the Jews (Mat_2:2). The triumphal entry is a deliberately dramatized claim to be King (Mat_21:1-11). Before Pilate, Jesus deliberately accepts the name of King (Mat_27:11). Even on the Cross the title of King is affixed, even if it be in mockery, over his head (Mat_27:37). In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew shows us Jesus quoting the Law and five times abrogating it with a regal: "But I say to you..." (Mat_5:21, Mat_5:27, Mat_5:34, Mat_5:38, Mat_5:43). The final claim of Jesus is: "All authority has been given to me" (Mat_28:18).

Matthewpicture of Jesus is of the man born to be King. Jesus walks through his pages as if in the purple and gold of royalty.

FURTHER READING

W. C. Allen, St. Matthew (ICC; G)

J. C. Fenton, The Gospel of St. Matthew (PC; E)

F. V. Filson, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (ACB; E)

A. H. McNeile, St Matthew (MmC; G)

A. Plummer, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (E)

T. H. Robinson, The Gospel of Matthew (MC; E)

R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (TC; E)

Abbreviations

ACB: A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

PC: Pelican New Testament Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Matthew 11 (Chapter Introduction)

The Six Accents In The Voice Of Jesus (Mat_11:1-30)

Matthew 11 is a chapter in which Jesus is speaking all the time; and, as he speaks to different people and about different things, we hear the accent of his voice vary and change. It will be of the greatest interest to look one by one at the six accents in the voice of Jesus.

The Accent Of Confidence (Mat_11:1-6)

The Accent Of Admiration (Mat_11:7-11)

Violence And The Kingdom (Mat_11:12-15)

The Accent Of Sorrowful Rebuke (Mat_11:16-19)

He Accent Of Heartbroken Condemnation (Mat_11:20-24)

The Accent Of Authority (Mat_11:25-27)

The Accent Of Compassion (Mat_11:28-30)

Constable: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Introduction

The Synoptic Problem

The synoptic problem is intrinsic to all study of the Gospels, especially the first three. The word "synoptic" comes from two Greek words, syn and opsesthai, meaning "to see together." Essentially the synoptic problem involves all the difficulties that arise because of the similarities and differences between the Gospel accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have received the title "Synoptic Gospels" because they present the life and ministry of Jesus Christ similarly. The content and purpose of John's Gospel are sufficiently distinct to put it in a class by itself. It is not one of the so-called Synoptic Gospels.

Part of the synoptic problem is the sources the Holy Spirit led the evangelists to use in producing their Gospels. There is internal evidence (within the individual Gospels themselves) that the writers used source materials as they wrote. The most obvious example of this is the Old Testament passages to which each one referred directly or indirectly. Since Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus Christ many of their statements represent eyewitness accounts of what happened. Likewise Mark had close connections with Peter, and Luke was an intimate associate of Paul as well as a careful historian (Luke 1:1-4). Information that the writers obtained verbally (oral tradition) and in writing (documents) undoubtedly played a part in what they wrote. Perhaps the evangelists also received special revelations from the Lord before and or when they wrote their Gospels.

Some scholars have devoted much time and attention to the study of the other sources the evangelists may have used. They are the "source critics" and their work constitutes "source criticism." Because source criticism and its development are so crucial to Gospel studies, a brief introduction to this subject follows.

In 1776 and 1779 two posthumously published essays by A. E. Lessing became known in which he argued for a single written source for the Synoptic Gospels. He called this source the Gospel of the Nazarenes, and he believed its writer had composed it in the Aramaic language. To him one original source best explained the parallels and differences between the Synoptics. This idea of an original source or primal Gospel caught the interest of many other scholars. Some of them believed there was a written source, but others held it was an oral source.

As one might expect, the idea of two or more sources occurred to some scholars as the best solution to the synoptic problem.¹ Some favored the view that Mark was one of the primal sources because over 90% of the material in Mark also appears in Matthew and or Luke. Some posited another primary source "Q," an abbreviation of the German word for source, quelle. It supposedly contained the material in Matthew and Luke that does not appear in Mark.

Gradually source criticism gave way to form criticism. The form critics concentrated on the process involved in transmitting what Jesus said and did to the primary sources. They assumed that the process of transmitting this information followed patterns of oral communication that are typical in primitive societies.² Typically oral communication has certain characteristic effects on stories. It tends to shorten narratives, to retain names, to balance teaching, and to elaborate on stories about miracles, to name a few results. The critics also adopted other criteria from secular philology to assess the accuracy of statements in the Gospels. For example, they viewed as distinctive to Jesus only what was dissimilar to what Palestinian Jews or early Christians might have said. Given the critics' view of inspiration it is easy to see how most of them concluded that the Gospels in their present form do not accurately represent what Jesus said and did. However some conservative scholars used the same literary method but held a much higher view of the Gospels.³

The next wave of critical opinion, redaction criticism, hit the Christian world shortly after World War II.⁴ Redaction critics generally accept the tenets of source and form criticism. However they also believe that the Gospel evangelists altered the traditions they received to make their own theological emphases. They viewed the writers not simply as compilers of the church's oral traditions but as theologians who adapted the material for their own purposes. They viewed the present Gospels as containing both traditional material and edited material. Obviously there is a good aspect and a bad aspect to this view. Positively it recognizes the individual evangelist's distinctive purpose for writing. Negatively it permits an interpretation of the Gospel that allows for historical error and even deliberate distortion. Redaction scholars have been more or less liberal depending on their view of Scripture generally. Redaction critics also characteristically show more interest in the early Christian community out of which the Gospels came and the beliefs of that community than they do in Jesus' historical context. Their interpretations of the early Christian community vary greatly as one would expect. In recent years the trend in critical scholarship has been conservative, to recognize more rather than less Gospel material as having a historical basis.

Some knowledge of the history of Gospel criticism is helpful to the serious student who wants to understand the text. Questions of the historical background out of which the evangelists wrote, their individual purposes, and what they simply recorded and what they commented on all affect interpretation. Consequently the conservative expositor can profit somewhat from the studies of scholars who concern themselves with these questions primarily.⁵

Most critics have concluded that one source the writers used was one or more of the other Gospels. Currently most source critics believe that Matthew and Luke drew information from Mark's Gospel. Mark's accounts are generally longer than those of Matthew and Luke suggesting that Matthew and Luke condensed Mark. To them it seems more probable that they condensed him than that he elaborated on them. There is no direct evidence, however, that one evangelist used another as a source. Since they were either personally disciples of Christ or very close to eyewitnesses of His activities, they may not have needed to consult an earlier Gospel.

Most source critics also believe that the unique material in each Gospel goes back to Q. This may initially appear to be a document constructed out of thin air. However the early church father Papias (80-155 A.D.) may have referred to the existence of such a source. Eusebius, the fourth century church historian, wrote that Papias had written, "Matthew composed the logia [sayings? Gospel?] in the hebraidi [Hebrew? Aramaic?] dialekto [dialect? language? style?]."⁶ This is an important statement for several reasons, but here note that Papias referred to Matthew's logia. This may be a reference to Matthew's Gospel, but many source critics believe it refers to a primal document that became a source for one or more of our Gospels. Most of them do not believe Matthew wrote Q. They see in Papias' statement support for the idea that primal documents such as Matthew's logia were available as sources, and they conclude that Q was the most important one.

Another major aspect of the synoptic problem is the order in which the Gospels appeared as finished products. This issue has obvious connections with the question of the sources the Gospel writers may have used.

Until after the Reformation, almost all Christians believed that Matthew wrote his Gospel before Mark and Luke wrote theirs; they held Matthean priority. From studying the similarities and differences between the Synoptics, some source critics concluded that Matthew and Luke came into existence before Mark. They viewed Mark as a condensation of the other two.⁷ However the majority of source critics today believe that Mark was the first Gospel and that Matthew and Luke wrote later. As explained above, they hold this view because they believe it is more probable that Matthew and Luke drew from and condensed Mark than that Mark expanded on Matthew and Luke.

Since source criticism is highly speculative many conservative expositors today continue to lean toward Matthean priority. We do so because there is no solid evidence to contradict this traditional view that Christians held almost consistently for the church's first 17 centuries.

While the game of deducing which Gospel came first and who drew from whom appeals to many students, these issues are essentially academic ones. They have little to do with the meaning of the text. Consequently I do not plan to discuss them further but will refer interested student to the vast body of literature that is available. I will, however, deal with problems involving the harmonization of the Gospel accounts at the appropriate places in the exposition that follows. The Bible expositor's basic concern is not the nature and history of the stories in the text but their primary significance in their contexts.

". . . it is this writer's opinion that there is no evidence to postulate a tradition of literary dependence among the Gospels. The dependence is rather a parallel dependence on the actual events which occurred."⁸

A much more helpful critical approach to the study of the Bible is literary criticism, the current wave of interest. This approach analyses the text in terms of its literary structure, emphases, and unique features. It seeks to understand the text as a piece of literature by examining how the writer wrote it.

Writer

External evidence strongly supports the Matthean authorship of the first Gospel. The earliest copies of the Gospel we have begin "KATA MATTHAION" ("according to Matthew"). Several early church fathers referred to Matthew as the writer including Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen.⁹ Papias' use of the term logia to describe Matthew's work, cited above, is not a clear attestation to Matthean authorship of the first Gospel. Since Matthew was a disciple of Jesus and one of the 12 Apostles, his work carried great influence and enjoyed much prestige from its first appearance. We might expect a more prominent disciple such as Peter or James to have written it. The fact that the early church accepted it as from Matthew further strengthens the likelihood that he indeed wrote it.

Internal evidence of Matthean authorship is also strong. As a tax collector for Rome, Matthew would have had to be able to write capably. His profession forced him to keep accurate and detailed records which skill he put to good use in composing his Gospel. There are more references to money and to more different kinds of money in this Gospel than in any of the others.¹⁰ Matthew humbly referred to himself as a tax collector, a profession with objectionable connotations in his culture, whereas the other Gospel writers simply called him Matthew. Matthew called his feast for Jesus a dinner (Matt. 9:9-10), but Luke referred to it as a great banquet (Luke 5:29). All these details confirm the testimony of the early church fathers.

Language

Papias' statement, cited above, refers to a writing by Matthew in the hebraidi dialekto (the Hebrew or possibly Aramaic language or dialect). This may not be a reference to Matthew's Gospel. Four other church fathers mentioned that Matthew wrote in Aramaic and that translations followed in Greek: Irenaeus (130-202 A.D.), Origen (185-254 A.D.), Eusebius (4th century), and Jerome (6th century).¹¹ However they may have been referring to something other than our first Gospel. These references have led many scholars to conclude that Matthew composed his Gospel in Aramaic and that someone else, or he himself, later translated it into Greek. This is the normal meaning of the fathers' statements. If Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, it is difficult to explain why he sometimes, but not always, quoted from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. The Hebrew Old Testament would have been the normal text for a Hebrew or Aramaic author to use. A Greek translator might have used the LXX (Septuagint) to save himself some work, but if he did so why did he not use it consistently? Matthew's Greek Gospel contains many Aramaic words. This solution also raises some questions concerning the reliability and inerrancy of the Greek Gospel that has come down to us.

There are several possible solutions to the problem of the language of Matthew's Gospel.¹² The best seems to be that Matthew wrote a Hebrew document that God did not inspire that is no longer extant. He also composed an inspired Greek Gospel that has come down to us in the New Testament. Many competent scholars believe that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Greek. They do so mainly because of his Greek.¹³

Date and Place of Composition

Dating Matthew's Gospel is difficult for many reasons even if one believes in Matthean priority. The first extra-biblical reference to it occurs in the writings of Ignatius (c. 110-115 A.D.).¹⁴ However Matthew's references to Jerusalem and the Sadducees point to a date of compositions before 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. His references to Jerusalem assume its existence (e.g., 4:5; 27:53). Matthew recorded more warnings about the Sadducees than all the other New Testament writers combined, but after 70 A.D. they no longer existed as a significant authority in Israel.¹⁵ Consequently Matthew probably wrote before 70 A.D.

References in the text to the customs of the Jews continuing "to this day" (27:8; 28:15) imply that some time had elapsed between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the composition of the Gospel. Since Jesus died in 33 A.D. Matthew may have composed his Gospel perhaps a decade or more later. A date between 40 and 70 A.D. is very probable.¹⁶

Since Matthew lived and worked in Palestine we would assume that he wrote while living there. There is no evidence that excludes this possibility. Nevertheless scholars love to speculate. Other sites they have suggested include Antioch of Syria (because Ignatius was bishop of Antioch), Alexandria, Edessa, Syria, Tyre, and Caesarea Maratima. These are all guesses.

Distinctive Features

Compared with the other Gospels Matthew's is distinctively Jewish. He used parallelism as did many to the Old Testament writers, and his thought patterns and general style are typically Hebrew.¹⁷ Matthew's vocabulary (e.g., kingdom of heaven, holy city, righteousness, etc.) and subject matter (the Law, defilement, the sabbath, Messiah, etc.) are also distinctively Jewish. Matthew referred to the Old Testament 129 times, more than any other evangelist.¹⁸ Usually he did so to prove a point to his readers. The genealogy in chapter 1 traces Jesus' ancestry back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish race. Matthew gave prominent attention to Peter, the apostle to the Jews.¹⁹ The writer also referred to many Jewish customs without explaining them evidently because he believed most of his original readers would not need an explanation.

Another distinctive emphasis in Matthew is Jesus' teaching ministry. No other Gospel contains as many of Jesus' discourses and instructions. These include the Sermon on the Mount, the instruction of the disciples, the parables of the kingdom, the denunciation of Israel's leaders, and the Olivet Discourse.²⁰

Audience and Purposes

Several church fathers (i.e., Irenaeus, Origen, and Eusebius) stated what we might suppose from the distinctively Jewish emphases of this book, namely that Matthew wrote his Gospel primarily for his fellow Jews.²¹

He wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for a specific purpose or, more accurately, specific purposes. He did not state these purposes concisely as John did in his Gospel (John 20:30-31). Nevertheless they are clear from his content and his emphases.

"Matthew has a twofold purpose in writing his Gospel. Primarily he penned this Gospel to prove Jesus is the Messiah, but he also wrote it to explain God's kingdom program to his readers. One goal directly involves the other. Nevertheless, they are distinct."²²

"Matthew's purpose obviously was to demonstrate that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, that He fulfilled the requirements of being the promised King who would be a descendant of David, and that His life and ministry fully support the conclusion that He is the prophesied Messiah of Israel. . . .

"As a whole, the gospel is not properly designated as only an apologetic for the Christian faith. Rather, it was designed to explain to the Jews, who had expected the Messiah when He came to be a conquering king, why instead Christ suffered and died, and why there was the resulting postponement of His triumph to His second coming."²³

Matthew presented three aspects to God's kingdom program. First, Jesus presented Himself to the Jews as the king that God had promised in the Old Testament. Second, Israel's leaders rejected Jesus as their king. This resulted in the postponement, not the cancellation, of the messianic kingdom that God had promised Israel. Third, because of Israel's rejection Jesus is now building His church in anticipation of His return to establish the promised messianic kingdom on the earth.

There are at least three wider purposes that Matthew undoubtedly hoped to fulfill with his Gospel. First, he wanted to instruct Christians and non-Christians concerning the person and work of Jesus.²⁴ Second, he wanted to provide an apologetic to aid his Jewish brethren in witnessing to other Jews about Christ. Third, he wanted to encourage all Christians to witness for Christ boldly and faithfully. It is interesting that Matthew is the only Gospel writer to use the Greek verb matheteuo, "to disciple" (13:52; 27:57; 28:19; cf. Acts 14:21 for its only other occurrence in the New Testament). This fact shows his concern for making disciples of Christ.²⁵

Carson identified nine major themes in Matthew. They are Christology, prophecy and fulfillment, law, church, eschatology, Jewish leaders, mission, miracles, and the disciples' understanding and faith.²⁶

Plan and Structure

Matthew often grouped his material into sections so that three, five, six, or seven events, miracles, sayings, or parables appear together.²⁷ Jewish writers typically did this to help their readers remember what they had written. The presence of this technique reveals Matthew's didactic (instructional) intent. Furthermore it indicates that his arrangement of material was somewhat topical rather than strictly chronological. Generally chapters 1-4 are in chronological order, chapters 5-13 are topical, and chapters 14-28 are again chronological.²⁸

Not only Matthew but the other Gospel writers as well present the life of Jesus Christ in three major stages. These stages are His presentation to the people, their consideration of His claims, and their rejection and its consequences.

A key phrase in Matthew's Gospel enables us to note the major movements in the writer's thought. It is the phrase "and it came about that when Jesus had finished" (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). This phrase always occurs at the end of one of Jesus' addresses. An address therefore concludes each major section of the Gospel, and it is climactic. Matthew evidently used the narrative sections to introduce Jesus' discourses, which he regarded as specially important in his book. Mark, on the other hand, gave more detailed information concerning the narrative material in his Gospel. In addition to each major section, there is a prologue and an epilogue to the Gospel according to Matthew.

Message²⁹

The four Gospels are foundational to Christianity because they record the life of Jesus Christ and His teachings. Each of the four Gospels fulfills a unique purpose. They are not simply four versions of the life of Jesus. If one wants to study the life of Jesus Christ, the best way to do that is with a harmony of the Gospels that correlates all the data chronologically. However if one wants to study only one of the Gospel accounts, then one needs to pay attention to the uniqueness of that Gospel. The unique material, what the writer included and excluded, reveals the purpose for which he wrote and the points he wanted to stress.

What is the unique message of Matthew's Gospel? How does it differ from the other three Gospels? What specific emphasis was Matthew wanting his readers to gain as they read his record of Jesus' life and ministry? I would put it this way.

Matthew wanted his readers to do what John the Baptist and Jesus called the people of their day to do, namely "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This was the message of the King to His people and the message of the King's herald as he called the King's people to prepare for the King's coming.

This is not the final message of Christianity, but it is the message that Matthew wanted us to understand. When John the Baptist and Jesus originally issued this call, they faced a situation that is different from the situation we face today. They called the people of their day to trust in and follow Jesus because the messianic kingdom was immediately at hand. If the Jews had responded, Jesus would have established His kingdom immediately. He would have died on the cross, risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, ushered in the Tribulation, returned, and established His kingdom.

The messianic kingdom is at hand for you and me in a different sense. Jesus Christ has died and risen from the dead. The Tribulation is still future, but following those seven years Jesus will return and establish His messianic kingdom on earth. The commission that Jesus has given us as His disciples is essentially to prepare people for the King's return. To do this we must go into all the world and herald the gospel to everyone. We must call them to trust in and follow the King as His disciples.

Essentially the message of Matthew is "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The proper response to this message is, "Repent." Let us look first at the message and then at the proper response. Note three things about the message.

First, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" is the statement of a fact. The subject of this statement is the kingdom. The kingdom is the theme of Matthew's Gospel. The word "kingdom" occurs about 50 times in Matthew. Since "kingdom" is such a prominent theme it is not surprising to discover that this Gospel presents Jesus as the great King.

Matthew presents the kingship of Jesus. Kingship involves the fact that Jesus is the great King that the Old Testament prophets predicted would come and rule over all the earth in Israel's golden age. It points to the universal sovereignty of God's Son who would rule over all mankind. He was to be a Son of David who would also rule over Israel. The second smaller sphere of sovereignty lies within the first larger sphere.

The word "kingdom" refers to the realm over which the King reigns. This is usually what we think of when we think of Jesus' messianic kingdom, the sphere over which He will rule. However, it is important that we not stress the sphere to the detriment of the sovereignty with which He will rule. Both ideas are essential to the concept of the kingdom that Matthew presents, sphere and sovereignty.

The little used phrase in Matthew's Gospel "kingdom of God" stresses the fact that it is God who rules. The King is God, and He will reign over all of His creation eventually. The kingdom belongs to God and it will extend over all that God sovereignly controls.

Matthew of all the Gospel evangelists was the only one to use the phrase "kingdom of heaven." John the Baptist nor Jesus ever explained this phrase. Their audiences knew what they meant by it. Ever since God gave His great promises to Abraham the Jews knew what the kingdom of heaven meant. It meant God's rule over His people who lived on the earth. As time passed, God gave the Israelites more information about His rule over them. He told them that He would provide a descendant of David who would be their King. This king would rule over the Israelites who would live in the Promised Land. His rule would include the whole earth, however, and the Gentiles too would live under His authority. The kingdom of heaven that the Old Testament predicted was an earthly kingdom over which God would rule through His Son. It would not just be God's rule over His people from heaven. When the Jews in Jesus' day heard John the Baptist and Jesus calling them to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand, what did they think? They understood that the earthly messianic kingdom predicted in the Old Testament was very near. They needed to get ready for it by making some changes.

The simple meaning of "kingdom of heaven" then is God's establishment of heaven's order on earth. Every created being and every human authority would be in subjection to God. God would overturn everyone and everything that did not recognize His authority. It is the establishment of divine order on earth. It is the supremacy of God's will over human affairs. The establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth then is the hope of humanity, and it will only transpire as people submit to God's King. It is impossible for people to bring in this kingdom. Only God can bring it in. People just need to get ready because it is coming.

Second, Matthew's Gospel interprets the kingdom. It does not just affirm the coming of the kingdom, but it also explains the order of the kingdom. Specifically it reveals the principle of the kingdom, the practice of the kingdom, and the purpose of the kingdom.

The principle of the kingdom is righteousness. This is one of the major themes in Matthew. Righteousness in Matthew refers to righteous conduct, righteousness in practice rather than positional righteousness. Righteousness is necessary to enter the kingdom and to serve in the kingdom under the King. The words of the King in Matthew constitute the law of the kingdom. They proclaim the principle of righteousness.

The practice of the kingdom is peace. Peace is another major theme in Matthew. When you think of the Sermon on the Mount you may think of these two major themes: righteousness and peace. The kingdom would come not by going to war with Rome and defeating it. It would come by peaceful submission to the King, Jesus. These two approaches to inaugurating the kingdom contrast starkly as we think of Jesus hanging on the cross between two insurrectionists. They tried to establish the kingdom the way most people in Israel thought it would come, by violence. Jesus, on the other hand, submitted to His Father's will, and even though He died He ratified the covenant by which the kingdom will come by dying. He secured the kingdom. Jesus' example of peaceful submission to God's will is to be the model for His disciples. Greatness in the kingdom does not come by self-assertion but by self-sacrifice. The greatest in the kingdom will be the servant of all. The works of the King in Matthew demonstrate the powers of the kingdom moving toward peace.

The purpose of the kingdom is joy. God will establish His kingdom on earth to bring great joy to mankind. This will be the time of greatest fruitfulness and abundance in earth's history. God's will has always been to bless mankind. It is by rebelling against God that man loses his joy. The essence of joy is intimate fellowship with God. This intimate fellowship will be a reality during the kingdom to a greater extent than ever before in history. The will of the King in Matthew is to bless mankind. The Beatitudes express this purpose very clearly (cf. 5:3-12).

Third, Matthew's Gospel stresses the method by which the King will administer the kingdom. It is a three-fold method.

In the first five books of the Old Testament, the Law or Torah, God revealed the need for a high priest to offer a final sacrifice for mankind to God. The last part of Matthew's Gospel, the passion narrative, presents Jesus as the Great High Priest who offered that perfect sacrifice.

In the second part of the Old Testament, the historical books, the great need and expectation is a king who will rule over Israel and the nations in righteousness. The first part of Matthew's Gospel presents Jesus as that long expected King, Messiah.

In the last part of the Old Testament, the prophets, we see the great need for a prophet who could bring God's complete revelation to mankind. The middle part of Matthew's Gospel presents Jesus as the prophet who would surpass Moses and bring God's final revelation to mankind.

God will administer His kingdom on earth through this Person who as King has all authority, as Prophet reveals God's final word of truth, and as Priest has dealt with sin finally. God's administration of His kingdom is in the hands of a King who is the great High Priest and the completely faithful Prophet.

The central teaching of Matthew's Gospel then concerns the kingdom of heaven. The needed response to this Gospel is, "Repent."

In our day Christians differ in their understanding of the meaning of repentance. This difference arises because there are two Greek verbs each of which means, "to repent." One of these is metamelomai. When it occurs, it usually describes an active change. The other word is metanoeo. When it occurs, it usually describes a contemplative change. Consequently when we read "repent" or "repentance" in our English Bibles, we have to ask ourselves whether a change of behavior is in view primarily or a change of mind. Historically the Roman Catholic Church has favored an active interpretation of the nature of repentance whereas Protestants have favored a contemplative interpretation. Catholics say repentance involves a change of behavior while Protestants say it involves a change of thinking essentially. One interpretation stresses the need for a sense of sorrow, and the other stresses the need for a sense of awareness.

The word John the Baptist and Jesus used when they called their hearers to repentance was metanoeo. We could translate it, "Think again." They were calling their hearers to consider the implications of the imminency of the messianic kingdom.

Consideration that the kingdom of heaven was at hand would result in a conviction of sin and a sense of sorrow. These are the inevitable consequences of considering these things. Conviction of a need to change is the consequence of genuine repentance.

Consideration leads to conviction, and conviction leads to conversion. Conversion describes turning from rebellion to submission, from self to the Savior. In relation to the coming kingdom it involves becoming humble and childlike rather than proud and independent. It involves placing confidence in Jesus rather than in self for salvation.

To summarize, we can think of the kind of repenting that John the Baptist, Jesus, and later Jesus' disciples were calling on their hearers to demonstrate as involving consideration, conviction, and conversion. Repentance begins with consideration of the facts. Awareness of these facts brings conviction of personal need. Feeling these personal needs leads to conversion or a turning from what is bad to what is good.

Now let us combine "repent" with "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew's Gospel calls the reader to consider the kingdom and the King. This should produce the conviction that one is not ready for such a kingdom nor is one ready to face such a King. Then we should submit our lives to the rule of the King and the standards of the kingdom.

Matthew's Gospel proclaims the kingdom. It interprets the kingdom as righteousness, peace, and joy. It reveals that a perfect King who is a perfect prophet and a perfect priest will administer the kingdom. It finally appeals to mankind to repent in view of these realities: to consider, to feel conviction, and to turn in conversion. As readers of this Gospel, we need to get ready, to think again, because the kingdom of heaven is coming.

The church now has the task of calling the world to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The church is Jesus' disciples collectively. The King is coming back to rule and to reign. People need to prepare for that reality. The church's job is to spread the good news of the King and the kingdom to those who have very different ideas about the ultimate ruler and the real utopia. We face the same problem that Jesus did in His day. Therefore Matthew's Gospel is a great resource for us as we seek to carry out the commission that the King has given us.

Individually we have a responsibility to consider the King and the kingdom, to gain conviction by what we consider, and to change our behavior. Our repentance should involve submission to the King's authority and preparation for kingdom service. We submit to the King's authority as we observe all that He has commanded us. We prepare for kingdom service as we faithfully persevere in the work He has given us to do rather than pursuing our own personal agendas. We can do this joyfully because we have the promise of the King's presence with us and the enablement of His authority behind us (28:18, 20).

Constable: Matthew (Outline)

Outline

I. The introduction of the King 1:1-4:11

A. The King's genealogy 1:1-17

B. The King's birth 1:18-25

C. The King's childhood 2:1-23

1. The prophecy about Bethlehem 2:1-12

2. The prophecies about Egypt 2:13-18

3. The prophecies about Nazareth 2:19-23

D. The King's preparation 3:1-4:11

1. Jesus' forerunner 3:1-12

2. Jesus' baptism 3:13-17

3. Jesus' temptation 4:1-11

II. The authority of the King 4:12-7:29

A. The beginning of Jesus' ministry 4:12-25

1. The setting of Jesus' ministry 4:12-16

2. Jesus' essential message 4:17

3. The call of four disciples 4:18-22

4. A summary of Jesus' ministry 4:23-25

B. Jesus' revelations concerning participation in His kingdom 5:1-7:29

1. The setting of the Sermon on the Mount 5:1-2

2. The subjects of Jesus' kingdom 5:3-16

3. The importance of true righteousness 5:17-7:12

4. The false alternatives 7:13-27

5. The response of the audience 7:28-29

III. The manifestation of the King 8:1-11:1

A. Demonstrations of the King's power 8:1-9:34

1. Jesus' ability to heal 8:1-17

2. Jesus' authority over His disciples 8:18-22

3. Jesus' supernatural power 8:23-9:8

4. Jesus' authority over His critics 9:9-17

5. Jesus' ability to restore 9:18-34

B. Declarations of the King's presence 9:35-11:1

1. Jesus' compassion 9:35-38

2. Jesus' commissioning of 12 disciples 10:1-4

3. Jesus' charge concerning His apostles' mission 10:5-42

4. Jesus' continuation of His work 11:1

IV. The opposition to the King 11:2-13:53

A. Evidences of Israel's opposition to Jesus 11:2-30

1. Questions from the King's forerunner 11:2-19

2. Indifference to the King's message 11:20-24

3. The King's invitation to the repentant 11:25-30

B. Specific instances of Israel's rejection of Jesus ch. 12

1. Conflict over Sabbath observance 12:1-21

2. Conflict over Jesus' power 12:22-37

3. Conflict over Jesus' sign 12:38-45

4. Conflict over Jesus' kin 12:46-50

C. Adaptations because of Israel's rejection of Jesus 13:1-53

1. The setting 13:1-3a

2. Parables addressed to the multitudes 13:3b-33

3. The function of these parables 13:34-43

4. Parables addressed to the disciples 13:44-52

5. The departure 13:53

V. The reactions of the King 13:54-19:2

A. Opposition, instruction, and healing 13:54-16:12

1. The opposition of the Nazarenes and Romans 13:54-14:12

2. The withdrawal to Bethsaida 14:13-33

3. The public ministry at Gennesaret 14:34-36

4. The opposition of the Pharisees and scribes 15:1-20

5. The withdrawal to Tyre and Sidon 15:21-28

6. The public ministry to Gentiles 15:29-39

7. The opposition of the Pharisees and Sadducees 16:1-12

B. Jesus' instruction of His disciples around Galilee 16:13-19:2

1. Instruction about the King's person 16:13-17

2. Instruction about the King's program 16:18-17:13

3. Instruction about the King's principles 17:14-27

4. Instruction about the King's personal representatives ch. 18

5. The transition from Galilee to Judea 19:1-2

VI. The official presentation and rejection of the King 19:3-25:46

A. Jesus' instruction of His disciples around Judea 19:3-20:34

1. Instruction about marriage 19:3-12

2. Instruction about childlikeness 19:13-15

3. Instruction about wealth 19:16-20:16

4. Instruction about Jesus' passion 20:17-19

5. Instruction about serving 20:20-28

6. An illustration of illumination 20:29-34

B. Jesus' presentation of Himself to Israel as her King 21:1-17

1. Jesus' preparation for the presentation 21:1-7

2. Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem 21:8-11

3. Jesus' entrance into the temple 21:12-17

C. Israel's rejection of her King 21:18-22:46

1. The sign of Jesus' rejection of Israel 21:18-22

2. Rejection by the chief priests and the elders 21:23-22:14

3. Rejection by the Pharisees and the Herodians 22:15-22

4. Rejection by the Sadducees 22:23-33

5. Rejection by the Pharisees 22:34-46

D. The King's rejection of Israel ch. 23

1. Jesus' admonition of the multitudes and His disciples 23:1-12

2. Jesus' indictment of the scribes and the Pharisees 23:13-36

3. Jesus' lamentation over Jerusalem 23:37-39

E. The King's revelations concerning the future chs. 24-25

1. The setting of the Olivet Discourse 24:1-3

2. Jesus' warning about deception 24:4-6

3. Jesus' general description of the future 24:7-14

4. The abomination of desolation 24:15-22

5. The second coming of the King 24:23-31

6. The responsibilities of disciples 24:32-25:30

7. The King's judgment of the nations 25:31-46

VII. The crucifixion and resurrection of the King chs. 26-28

A. The King's crucifixion chs. 26-27

1. Preparations for Jesus' crucifixion 26:1-46

2. The arrest of Jesus 26:47-56

3. The trials of Jesus 26:57-27:26

4. The crucifixion of Jesus 27:27-56

5. The burial of Jesus 27:57-66

B. The King's resurrection ch. 28

1. The empty tomb 28:1-7

2. Jesus' appearance to the women 28:8-10

3. The attempted cover-up 28:11-15

4. The King's final instructions to His disciples 28:16-20

Constable: Matthew

Matthew

Bibliography

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Albright, W. F. and Mann, C. S. Matthew. The Anchor Bible series. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971.

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Anderson, Robert. The Coming Prince. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1975.

Andrews, Samuel J. The Life of Our Lord Upon the Earth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891.

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_____. "Dispensational Definitions of the Kingdom." In Integrity of Heart, Skillfulness of Hands, pp. 201-21. Edited by Charles H. Dyer and Roy B. Zuck. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1994.

_____. "The Doctrine of the Kingdom in Matthew 13." Bibliotheca Sacra 156:624 (October-December 1999):443-51.

_____. "Guidelines for Interpreting Jesus' Parables." Bibliotheca Sacra 155:617 (January-March 1998):29-38.

_____. "The Parable of the Leavening Process." Bibliotheca Sacra 156:621 (January-March 1999):61-71.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE

HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST,

ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW

INTRODUCTION.

THIS and other titles, with the names of those that wrote the Gospels, are not the words of the Evangelists themselves. The Scripture itself nowhere teacheth us, which books or writings are to be received as true and canonical Scriptures. It is only by the channel of unwritten traditions , and by the testimony and authority of the Catholic Church, that we know and believe that this gospel, for example of St. Matthew, with all contained in it, and that the other books and parts of the Old or New Testament, are of divine authority, or written by divine inspiration; which made St. Augustine say, I should not believe the gospel, were I not moved thereunto by the authority of the Catholic Church: Ego evangelio non crederem, nisi me Ecclesiæ Catholicæ commoveret auctoritas. ( Lib. con. Epist. Manichæi, quam vocant fundamenti. tom. viii. chap. 5, p. 154. A. Ed. Ben.) (Witham)

S. MATTHEW, author of the gospel that we have under his name, was a Galilean, the son of Alpheus, a Jew, and a tax-gatherer; he was known also by the name of Levi. His vocation happened in the second year of the public ministry of Christ; who, soon after forming the college of his apostles, adopted him into that holy family of the spiritual princes and founders of his Church. Before his departure from Judea, to preach the gospel to distant countries, he yielded to the solicitations of the faithful; and about the eighth year after our Saviour's resurrection, the forty-first of the vulgar era, he began to write his gospel: i.e., the good tidings of salvation to man, through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Of the hagiographers, St. Matthew was the first in the New, as Moses was the first in the Old Testament. And as Moses opened his work with the generation of the heavens and the earth, so St. Matthew begins with the generation of Him, who, in the fullness of time, took upon himself our human nature, to free us from the curse we had brought upon ourselves, and under which the whole creation was groaning. (Haydock) ---This holy apostle, after having reaped a great harvest of souls in Judea, preached the faith to the barbarous nations of the East. He was much devoted to heavenly contemplation, and led an austere life; for he eat no flesh, satisfying nature with herbs, roots, seeds, and berries, as Clement of Alexanderia assures us, Pædag. lib. ii. chap. 1. St. Ambrose says, that God opened to him the country of the Persians. Rufinus and Socrates tell us, that he carried the gospel into Ethiopia, meaning probably the southern or eastern parts of Asia. St. Paulinus informs us, that he ended his course in Parthia; and Venantius Fortunatus says, by martyrdom.--- See Butler's Saints' Lives, Sept. 21 st.

Gill: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO MATTHEW

The subject of this book, and indeed of all the writings of the New Testament, is the Gospel. The Greek word ευαγγελιον signifies a joyful message, good news, glad tidings of good things; such as Christ was anointed to preach, the Angels brought to the shepherds, and the Evangelists, Apostles, and Ministers of Christ published to the world. Isa 61:1. And such is the account given by this inspired writer, of the incarnation, life, actions, ministry, miracles, sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ; whereby peace and reconciliation, pardon and righteousness, atonement and redemption, life and salvation, are obtained for lost, perishing sinners. The Jews, to whom the message of grace was first sent, and among whom the Gospel was first preached, having despised and rejected it; they and their posterity, in allusion to the word "Evangelion", most wickedly and blasphemously call the whole New Testament, און גליון or וצן גליון "Aven Gilion" ^a, a "revelation", or "volume of iniquity and vanity"; but "blessed are the people that know the joyful sound", see Psa 89:15. The writer of this Gospel, Matthew, who also was called Levi in Luk 5:27 was by occupation a publican, or tax-gatherer, and was in his employ when Christ called him by his grace. He was one of the twelve Apostles sent forth by Christ to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, Mat 10:3 and was honoured to be the first of the writers of the New Testament, and to be the first publisher therein of the good news of the incarnate Saviour; and was a wonderful instance of the rich and sovereign grace of God. Though he was employed in collecting the Roman tax, yet he was of Jewish extract; as appears from his being called the son of Alphaeus, Mar 2:14 and from his name Matthew Levi; for as the latter, so the former is an Hebrew name. The Jews say ^b one of the disciples of Jesus was called yatm, Matthai or Matthew: his name signifies a "gift" or "given"; he was one of those the Father had given to Christ, and was kept by him, when the son of perdition was lost, Joh 17:6. It may not be improper to inquire in what language this Gospel was written. The ancient Christian writers were generally of opinion, that Matthew wrote it in Hebrew; Papias and ^c Pantaenus were of this mind, as also Irenaeus ^d, Origen ^e Eusebius ^f, Athanasius ^g, Epiphanius ^h, and Jerom ⁱ; and it is asserted in the titles of the Arabic and Persic versions, and at the end of the Syriac version of this Gospel, that it was written in that language; and this opinion is espoused by Grotius and Hammond, though justly exploded by others; for what has been published by Munster, Mercer, Hutter, and Robertson, are translations, made by themselves or others, and of no antiquity: and since Hebrew and Syriac words are interpreted in this Gospel, see Mat 1:23 which would not have been done, had it been written in either language; and since Matthew generally follows the Septuagint version in the passages cited by him out of the Old Testament; and since the Hebrew language was not generally known at that time to the common people, only to the learned; for the law and the prophets, when read in the synagogues in that language, required an interpreter; and since the Greek tongue was the language more commonly spoken, and the rest of the Evangelists wrote in Greek, and the Gospel was designed for the Gentiles as well as the Jews; it is most reasonable to conclude that this Gospel also was wrote in Greek; whereby that ancient prophecy was fulfilled, at least in part, "God shall enlarge" or "persuade Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem", Gen 9:27 the Gospel being published in the language of Japheth, the Greek language, which the Jews, the posterity of Shem, now understood; agreeably to which the Palmudic writers interpret the prophecy; says ^k Bar Kaphra, mentioning the above words,

"They shall speak tpy lv wnwvlb in the language of Japheth, in the tents of Shem;''

or,

"the words of the law shall be spoken in the language of Japheth, in the midst of the tents of Shem ^l.''

R. Jochanan ^m explains them thus:

"tpy lv wyrbr "the words of Japheth" shall be in the tents of Shem; and says R. Chiya ben Aba, the sense of it is, The beauty of Japheth shall be in the tents of Shem.''

Which the gloss interprets thus:

"The beauty of Japheth is the language of Javan, or the Greek language, which language is more beautiful than that of any other of the sons of Japheth.''

The time when this Gospel was written is said ⁿ by some to be in the eighth or ninth, by others, in the fifteenth year after the ascension of Christ, when the Evangelist had received the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, among which was the gift of tongues; and when the promise of Christ had been made good to him, Joh 14:26.

College: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION

It may surprise the modern reader to realize that for the first two centuries of the Christian era, Matthew's Gospel prevailed as the most popular of the Gospel accounts. Not only was Matthew's text the most frequently quoted NT book among second century Christians, in virtually all textual witnesses and canonical lists Matthew is placed first.

Several factors may have contributed to the premier position assigned Matthew's Gospel. Certainly its comprehensive detail and the systematic structuring of ethical and pastoral material contributed to the Gospel's favored place in the church. In addition, the Gospel's popularity was undoubtedly based upon its explicit Jewish tendencies that enabled the church to affirm its Jewish roots while at the same time distancing the Christian movement from the synagogue. In short, both in form and content, Matthew's Gospel provided second century Christianity with an eminently practical and useful compendium of what was foundational to the Christian faith.

The priority and dominance extended Matthew's Gospel prevailed as the consensus for roughly 1700 years, until the early decades of the nineteenth century. With the development of an historical consciousness, and the refinement of literary methodology, questions of historical reliability and Synoptic relationships dominated post-Enlightenment Gospel research. While the chronological priority of Matthew was not immediately challenged, the privileged position given Matthew began to erode as scholarship presupposed that Gospel composition demanded a movement from the "more primitive" to the "more advanced." Mark's size, inferior quality, and seemingly "primitive theology," suggested to many that it was Mark not Matthew that should be regarded as the oldest Gospel, and hence the most reliable for a reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus. As a result, Matthew was gradually dismissed by many (esp. German scholarship), as a secondary development, being permeated by late and legendary additions (e.g., birth and infancy stories), representing more church tradition than a factual record of the life and teachings of Jesus.

The emerging nineteenth century consensus of the secondary character of Matthew received its most substantial endorsement in 1863 from H.J. Holtzmann, who argued that Mark wrote first and was used independently by Matthew and Luke. While subsequent defenders of Marcan priority have supplemented the theory with additional sources (e.g., Q, L, and M) to explain Synoptic relationships, the hypothesis that Mark is the earliest of the Gospel narratives has remained the dominant scholarly opinion for the past 100 years.

The initial result of the emergence of Mark as the pivotal document to explain Synoptic relationships was a decline of interest in Matthew in the early decades of this century. It was to Mark, rather than Matthew that scholarship turned either to find raw materials from which to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus, or to penetrate to the earliest form of the tradition in order to elucidate the possible factors within the Christian communities that generated the rise and preservation of certain text-forms (Form Criticism). As long as the scholarly agenda was preoccupied with penetrating behind the Gospels to isolate sources or to reconstruct early Christian communities, Matthew's Gospel would remain only of secondary interest.

Graham Stanton singles out the date of 1945 as marking a new phase in Matthean studies. The first two decades after 1945 witness a number of studies addressing Matthean themes or sections of the Gospel that begin to call attention to the editorial skills and theological concerns of the Gospel's author. The shift to an emphasis on the role of the evangelist in his selection, arrangement, and modification of the material he received, brought renewed interest in Matthew as an effective communicator and sophisticated theologian (Redaction Criticism). However, such an assessment was ultimately grounded in the hypothesis of Marcan priority and the subsequent evaluation of how Matthew used Mark as his primary literary source. The result has been an exegetical method overly preoccupied with slight literary deviations from Mark, with little sensitivity to the interconnected sequence of events, and their contribution to the whole Gospel.

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of studies on Matthew, with many books and articles concerned to elucidate Matthew's Gospel as a "unified narrative" or "story" told by a competent story-teller who organizes his thought into a coherent sequence of events. The new concern for the Gospels as literary masterpieces demands that the reader be attentive to how Matthew develops his themes and focuses his account on a retelling of the story of Jesus in a way that does not merely rehearse the past, but speaks meaningfully as a guide for Christian discipleship.

Rather than reading Matthew through the lens of other Gospels or a hypothetical reconstruction of the evangelist's sources, priority has shifted to the whole Gospel as a unified coherent narrative. It follows that whatever written or oral sources the evangelist may have had access to, the writer has so shaped his composition that it has a life of its own, discernable only by attention to the structure of the parts and their contribution to the whole.

In order to read and appreciate Matthew's story of Jesus one must be attentive to the codes and conventions that govern the literary and social context of the first century. A coherent reading of any document demands an awareness of the literary rules that govern the various types of literature. Knowing the general category of literary genre of a text enables the reader to know what types of questions can legitimately be asked of the material. For example, if one is reading poetry, questions of factual accuracy or scientific precision may not be the most relevant inquiry for ascertaining a text's meaning. Knowing the genre of a writing enables one's understanding to be informed by the features and intentions that characterize the writing, and not by our modern expectations and concerns we may impose upon the text.

While Matthew's Gospel has certain affinities with the literary genres of biography and historiography, the Gospel is not strictly an historical biography. No Gospel writer was driven by an impulse simply to record the facts of what happened with strict chronological precision. In fact, one need only to read the Gospels side by side to see the freedom and creative manner with which each writer communicated his message. The authors have selected, arranged, and interpreted events, characters, and settings in the best way to communicate with their respective audiences. The result is four unique accounts of Jesus' life and teachings told from a particular "point of view," informed both by the primary events and the theological concerns and needs of the expanding church.

Matthew's Gospel builds reflectively upon the primary events to capture the significance of what happened in story form. An appreciation of the literary and communicative skills of the author enables one to recognize in the dramatic sequence of events a carefully constructed "plot." In this way the storyteller communicates his values and theological commitment and seeks to persuade the reader to accept his perspective.

COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL

Some issues and questions that may be extremely important for understanding one category of literature may contribute little to the understanding of another. For example, an informed interpretation of Paul's letters necessitates a reconstruction of the world that produced the text. The modern reader would need to know as much as possible about the author, destination of the letter, and the factors that gave rise to the text. The letter itself will constitute a prime source for acquiring such information.

However, when one approaches Gospel narratives with the same concerns the matter is complicated by the lack of information afforded by the text. The anonymity of the Gospels, alongside their silence concerning the place, time, and circumstances that may have generated their writings, necessitates that such historical inquiries be answered in terms of probability. What this means is that there is no direct access, via the text, to the historical author or primary recipients of his document. The difficulty is centered in the fact that the text is not primarily designed to function as a "window" through which to gain access into the mind and environment of the author and original readers. The author does not purport to tell his own story or that of his readers, but the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Fortunately, following the sequential development and sense of Matthew's story of Jesus does not depend on identifying with certainty the author or the historical and social matrix that may have prompted his writing.

In what follows, traditional introductory questions will be briefly discussed, alongside important insights afforded by literary theorists who focus on the Gospels as narratives.

A. AUTHORSHIP

The anonymity of the canonical Gospels necessitates heavy reliance on external evidence as a point of departure to establish Gospel authorship. The external testimony from the second century is virtually unanimous that Matthew the tax collector authored the Gospel attributed to him. Even before explicit patristic testimony regarding Gospel authorship there is convincing evidence that no Gospel ever circulated without an appropriate heading or title (e.g., KATA MAQQAION, "according to Matthew"), identifying the person thought to be the author. The common assumption that the Gospels circulated anonymously until the mid-second century when titles were finally affixed to them has been seriously challenged by Martin Hengel. While certain details of Hengel's theory regarding the origins of Gospel headings have been challenged, the lack of variation in the second-century tradition regarding Matthean authorship could well owe its origin to the time when the Gospels first began to circulate among the Christian communities.

The earliest patristic source addressing Gospel authorship comes from Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis (ca. 60-130), whose comments are available only in quotations preserved by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (ca. 260-340, H.E. 3.39.14-16). Eusebius' citation of Papias regarding Matthean authorship has been subject to various interpretations dependent upon the translation of key terms. The citation reads:

Matthew collected (sunetavxato, synetaxato , "composed," "compiled," "arranged") the oracles (taÉ lovgia, ta logia , "sayings," "gospel") in the Hebrew language (dialevktw/, dialektô, "Hebrew or Aramaic language," "Semitic style") and each interpreted (hJrmhvneusen, hçrmçneusen, "interpreted," "translated," "transmitted") them as best he could (Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16).

It appears that patristic testimony subsequent to Papias was dependent upon his testimony and thus perpetuated the tradition of Matthean authorship alongside the notion of an original Semitic version. The testimonies of Irenaeus ( Adv. Haer. 3.1.1), Pantaenus (quoted in H.E. 5.10.3), Origen (quoted in H.E. 6.25.4), Eusebius himself ( H.E. 3.24.6), Epiphanius (quoted in Adv. Haer. 29.l9.4; 30.3.7), Cyril of Jerusalem ( Catecheses 14.15), Jerome ( DeVir. III.3), as well as Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389), Chrysostom (347-407), Augustine (354-430), and Syrian and Coptic authorities are all unanimous in affirming that Matthew authored the first Gospel originally in a Semitic language. However, since the tradition seems ultimately to rest upon the view of Papias, as cited by Eusebius, the accumulated evidence of patristic testimony, in the view of some, has very little independent worth. Especially since the idea of an original Semitic Matthew, from which our Greek Matthew has been translated has been challenged on textual and linguistic grounds. Matthew simply does not read like translated Greek. These and other difficulties with the view of Papias have resulted in many dismissing all patristic testimony concerning Matthean authorship.

While much critical opinion has assumed that Papias' errant view of an original Semitic Matthew discounts his testimony about Matthew being the author, in recent times the evidence afforded by the testimony of Papias has been reassessed. On the one hand, some scholars have argued that the terms Ebrai?di dialevktw/ (Ebraidi dialektô), do not refer to the Hebrew or Aramaic language, but rather to a Jewish style or literary form. In this view, Papias would be referring to Matthew's penchant for Semitic themes and devices, not an original Semitic Gospel. Others have rejected such an interpretation as an unnatural way to read the passage from Papias, and prefer to acknowledge that Papias was simply wrong when he claimed that Matthew was originally written in a Semitic language. However, such an admission does not warrant the complete dismissal of the testimony of Papias concerning the authorship of Matthew. One must still explain how Matthew's name became attached to the first Gospel. The obscurity and relative lack of prominence of the Apostle Matthew argues against the view that the early church would pseudonymously attribute the Gospel to Matthew. Surely, patristic tradition had some basis for attributing the Gospel to Matthew. Therefore, as noted by Davies and Allison, "the simplistic understanding of Papias which dismisses him out of hand must be questioned if not abandoned."

There is nothing inherent in the Gospel itself that convincingly argues against Matthean authorship. Contrary to the view of a few, the decided Jewish flavor of the Gospel argues decisively for the author of the first Gospel being a Jew. Other scholars have noted that Matthew's background and training as a "tax collector" along with other professional skills offers a plausible explanation for the Gospel's sophisticated literary form and attention to detail. Certainly the combined weight of external and internal considerations make the traditional view of Matthean authorship a reasonable, if not a most plausible position. However, in the words of R.T. France there is "an inevitable element of subjectivity in such judgments." Not only is hard data difficult to come by to establish the authorship of any of the Gospels, what is available is often subject to diverse but equally credible explanations. It follows that while the issue of authorship is an intriguing historical problem, it is extremely doubtful that any consensus will ever emerge given the nature of the available evidence.

The question must be raised whether the veracity of the first Gospel or its interpretation are ultimately dependent upon one's verdict concerning authorship. While one's theological bias concerning authorship may influence how the text is evaluated, the two issues are not integrally connected. Since the first Gospel offers very little (if any) insight into the identity of its historical author, recreating the figure behind the Gospel is neither relevant or particularly important for understanding Matthew's story of Jesus. Thus, while I see no compelling reason to abandon the traditional attribution of Matthean authorship to the first Gospel, no significant exegetical or theological concern hangs on the issue.

B. NARRATION OF THE STORY

Of much greater importance than deciding the identity of the author, is an evaluation of the way the author has decided to present his story of Jesus. In literary terms the way a story gets told is called "point of view." A storyteller may tell his story in the first person (i.e., "I"), and portray himself as one of the characters in the story. From a first person point of view the storyteller would necessarily be limited to what he personally has experienced or learned from other characters. Matthew's story is told in a third person narration, wherein the storyteller is not a participant in the story, but refers to characters within the story as "he," "she," or "they." From such a vantage point the Matthean narrator provides the reader with an informational advantage over story characters, and thereby, situates the reader in an advantageous position for evaluating events and characters in the story.

Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of a third person narration is the storyteller's ability to provide the reader with insights which are not normally available to one in real life. His ability to move inside his characters to reveal their innermost thoughts, feelings, emotions, and motivations, enables the reader to use these insights to form evaluations and opinions about characters and events within the story. For example, the narrator reveals when the disciples are amazed (8:29; 21:20), fearful (14:30; 17:6), sorrowful (26:22), filled with grief (17:23), and indignant (26:8). He knows when they understand (16:12; 17:13), and when they doubt (28:17). The overall impact of these insights enables the reader to better evaluate the traits exhibited by the disciples.

Similar insights are provided into the thoughts, emotions, and motivations of minor characters in the story. The inner thoughts of Joseph (1:19), Herod (2:3), the crowds (7:28; 22:33; 9:8; 12:13; 15:31), the woman (9:21), Herod the tetrarch (14:59), Judas (27:3), Pilate (27:14,18), the centurion (27:54), and the reaction of the women at the tomb (28:4,8) are all accessible to the Matthean narrator. The narrator even supplies the reader with inside information about the thoughts and motivations of the Jewish leaders (2:3; 9:3; 12:14; 21:45-46; 26:3-5; 12:10; 16:1; 19:3; 22:15). These insights function to establish in the mind of the reader the antagonist of the story.

The Matthean narrator is also not bound by time or space in his coverage of the story. Matthew provides the reader access to private conversations between Herod and the Magi (2:3-8), John and Jesus (3:13-15), Jesus and Satan (4:1-11), the disciples (16:7), Peter and Jesus (16:23), Judas and the chief priest (26:14-16; 26:40), and Pilate and the chief priest (27:62-64). He makes known to the reader the private decisions made by the chief priest and the Sanhedrin (26:59-60), and the plan of the chief priest and elders concerning the disappearance of the body (28:12-15). The narrator is present when Jesus prays alone, while at the same time he knows the difficulties of the disciples on the sea (14:22-24). He easily takes the reader from the courtroom of Pilate to the courtyard of Peter's denial (26:70f.), and eventually to the scene at the cross (27:45). For the most part, the narrator in Matthew's story stays close to Jesus, and views events and characters in terms of how they affect his main character.

Whoever the actual historical author may be, it is clear that the Matthean storyteller narrates his Gospel in a way to reliably guide his readers through the story so as to properly evaluate events and characters. On occasion the narrator will interrupt the flow of the story in order to provide the reader with an explicit comment or explanation. These intrusions may take the form of various types of descriptions (e.g., 3:4; 17:2; 28:3-4; 27:28-31), summaries (e.g., 4:23-25; 9:35-38; 12:15-16; 14:14; 15:29-31), or explicit interpretive commentary (1:22-23, 2:15, 17-18, 23; 4:15-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:9-10). Detecting the narrator's voice in the story enables the reader to be sensitive to the manner in which Matthew instructs, leads, and encourages the reader to adopt a particular point of view.

SETTING OF THE GOSPEL

Traditional approaches to Gospel introduction usually treat under the heading of "setting" such issues as the date and place of the Gospel's writing, alongside the identity and problems confronting the community addressed. It is important to remember that practically speaking our exclusive source for information about the time and circumstantial factors generating the Gospel's production come only from the Gospel itself. No explicit outside information speaks directly to the issue of the social and historical conditions of the Gospel's primary readers. Essentially, scholarly efforts to establish a life-setting for the writing of the Gospel must search the Gospel for possible clues that hint at the time and circumstances of the writing. The fact that, although reading the same evidence, scholarly proposals for the setting of Matthew's Gospel have resulted in reconstructions that are opposed to one another should give one caution about dogmatic claims in such areas.

A. DATE

Efforts to recover the environmental setting that best explains the form and content of Matthew's Gospel have not resulted in a scholarly consensus. Concerning the date of the Gospel's composition scholars are divided into two broad proposals. The majority view is that Matthew was written after Mark sometime between the dates of A.D. 80-100. However, the arguments adduced to establish such a dating scheme are largely based upon prior judgments concerning the order of Gospel composition or hypothetical reconstructions of developments in the first century. Pivotal to the post-70 dating of Matthew is the contention that Matthew knew and used Mark as a major source for the writing of his Gospel. Since the consensus of scholarly judgment dates Mark in the 60s, it is therefore likely that Matthew composed his Gospel sometime after A.D. 70. Of course, if one rejects Marcan priority or the suggested date for Marcan composition, the argument fails to be convincing.

A post-70 date has also been assumed based upon Matthew's explicit language concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and his references to the "church" (16:18; 18:17). Such language is thought to be anachronistic and therefore indicative of a post-70 composition. The reference to a "king" in the parable of the wedding feast who "sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city" (22:7), appears to reflect historical knowledge of Jerusalem's destruction retrojected into Jesus' ministry as prophecy. However, apart from the fact of whether Jesus could predict Jerusalem's fall, the wording of 22:7, as France observes, "is precisely the sort of language one might expect in a genuine prediction of political annihilation in the Jewish context, and does not depend on a specific knowledge of how things in fact turned out in A.D. 70." There also is no need to read a developed ecclesiology into Jesus' references to the "church." The term ejkklhsiva (ekklçsia) in Matthew says nothing about church order, and with the communal imagery attached to the term in Jewish circles (cf. Qumran), it becomes entirely credible that Jesus could speak of his disciples as constituting an ekklçsia.

Perhaps the most heavily relied upon argument for dating Matthew in the last decades of the first century is the decided Jewish polemic that seemingly dominates the first Gospel. It is thought that formative Judaism in the post-70 period provides the most suitable background for Matthew's portrayal of the Jewish leaders and his underlying view of Israel. After the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 it was the Pharisaic movement that emerged as the normative form of Judaism. Pharisaism was particularly suited to bring stability and a renewed sense of Jewish identity after the tragedy of A.D. 70. The Pharisees saw themselves as "the most accurate interpreters of the law" (see Josephus, JW 1.5.1; 2.8.14; Life 38.191), and definers of both the social and cultic boundaries delimiting the covenanted people of God. The community addressed by Matthew's Gospel is thought to be a rival to a post-70 formative Judaism, having endured severe hostility and rejection by official Judaism.

However, the evidence does not warrant the supposition that Matthew's community has severed all contact with the Jewish community. Furthermore, not enough is known about pre-70 Pharisaism to emphatically deny a setting for Matthew's Gospel before Jerusalem's destruction. Indeed, an impressive list of scholars have cogently argued for a pre-70 dating of Matthew. Not only does such a view have solid patristic evidence, some passages in Matthew may be intended to imply that the temple was still standing at the time of the Gospel's writing (cf. Matt 5:23-29; 12:5-7; 17:23; 16:22; 26:60-61). It appears that the evidence is not sufficiently decisive so as to completely discredit all competitive views. Fortunately, understanding Matthew's story of Jesus is not dependent upon reconstructing the historical context from which the Gospel emerged.

B. PLACE OF ORIGIN

Even less important for a competent reading of the first Gospel involves the effort to decide the Gospel's precise place of origin. Because of its large Jewish community and strategic role in the Gentile mission most Matthean scholars have opted for Antioch of Syria as the Gospel's place of origin. Other proposals have included Jerusalem, Alexandria, Caesarea, Phoenicia, and simply "east of the Jordan." While certain evidence may tend to weigh in favor of one provenance over another, in the final analysis we cannot be certain where Matthew's Gospel was composed. Nevertheless, as observed by France, deciding "the geographical location in which the Gospel originated is probably the least significant for a sound understanding of the text." Much more relevant to the interpretation of the gospel is the dimension given the discussion of "setting" by a literary reading of the first Gospel.

C. NARRATIVE WORLD

In literary terms the discussion of "setting" does not involve the delineation of factors generating the text, but rather the descriptive context or background in which the action of the story transpires. Settings, as described by the narrator, are like stage props in a theatrical production. Oftentimes, the narrator's description of the place, time, or social conditions in which action takes place is charged with subtle nuances that may generate a certain atmosphere with important symbolic significance. For example, early in Matthew's story the narrator relates places and events to create a distinct atmosphere from which to evaluate his central character, Jesus. The story opens with a series of events that are calculated to evoke memories of Israel's past, and thereby to highlight the significance of the times inaugurated by Jesus. By means of a genealogy, cosmic signs, dream-revelations, the appearance of the "angel of the Lord," and the repeated reference to prophetic fulfillment, the narrator highlights God's renewed involvement with his people and the climactic nature of the times realized in Jesus. The locations of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Egypt evoke feelings of continuity between Jesus' history and that of Israel's. Other locations such as the "desert" and "mountain" function to create a certain aura around events and characters in the story. Later in the story specific locations such as "synagogue," the "sea," and the "temple" all contribute to a distinct atmosphere from which to evaluate the course of events. While real-life settings of the author and his readers can only be reproduced in terms of probability, the temporal and spatial settings established in the story provide an integral context for interpreting Matthew's story.

THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF MATTHEW

A. LITERARY AND RHETORICAL SKILL

Since Matthew's text would have been handwritten without systematic punctuation or modern techniques for delineating structural features such as bold print, underlining, paragraph indention, or chapter headings, any clues for discerning the structure and nature of the composition is dependent upon "verbal clues" within the narrative itself. Within both Hebrew and classical traditions communication on a literary level assumed a level of competency in conventional communicative techniques. While NT authors may not have been formally trained in rhetoric, an effective exchange of ideas demands some awareness of conventional patterns for communication. A study of Matthew's literary style puts emphasis on the literary devices he employs to lead the reader to experience his story in a certain way.

Reading Matthew's story (whether orally before an audience, or in private), would have demanded that the reader attend to the various structural features which might illumine the meaning and flow of the narrative. Some of these literary strategies function on a broader structural level providing the text with a sense of progression and cohesion (e.g., Matt see the formulaic phrases in 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1; and 4:17; 16:21). However, most structural features primarily contribute to a sense of cohesion within smaller textual units. These features may highlight or bracket unifying themes by opening and closing distinct units with similar words or phrases (see, e.g., 4:23-24 and 9:35); build anticipation by foreshadowing subsequent events (e.g., ch. 2 foreshadows the passion narrative); or stimulate reflection and a sense of development in the story by verbal repetition and episodic similarities (cf. 8:23-27/14:22-33; 9:27-31/20:29-34; 9:32-34/12:22-34; 14:13-21/15:32-38). These elements along with Matthew's fondness for grouping materials according to a thematic or even numerical scheme, are indicative of an environment largely educated through oral proclamation not the written word. Matthew's compositional scheme greatly facilitated learning by providing the listener (or reader) with a coherent and orderly presentation that aided comprehension and memorization.

The meticulous structural concerns, both in the whole and the smaller details of Matthew, have been widely recognized by scholarship. However, as we shall see in the next section, there is great diversity with respect to the overall structural pattern of the first Gospel. The difficulty lies with going from clearly delineated structural features in the smaller units of text, to the use of the same devices to explain the total composition. Often the analysis seems forced and unable to fit the details into a single coherent pattern. It may not always be easy to identify the precise contribution that a particular literary device makes to the overall composition of a literary work, and certainly there always exists the danger of reading too much into a text by artificially imposing symmetrical patterns where none exist. However, these problems are overcome by a greater sensitivity to the nature and function of literary devices, and not by ignoring these features of a text. The question remains concerning what features might provide clues to the overall structure of Matthew's Gospel.

B. STRUCTURAL-PLOT

Consideration of Matthew's skill in the smaller portions of his text has stimulated numerous efforts to locate structural indications that may provide the organizing pattern for the entire Gospel. Structural appraisals of Matthew's Gospel usually begin with the discovery of a literary device or formulaic expression that appears to be unique to the evangelist. However, while scholars may agree on the existence of a literary device or formula, they may diverge widely concerning the function or theological significance of a literary feature. For example, although the expressions kaiÉ ejgevneto o{te ejtevlesen oJ =Ihsou'" (kai egeneto hote etelesen ho Içsous, "and when Jesus had finished;" 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), and ajpoÉ tovte h[rxato oJ =Ihsou'" (apo tote erxato ho Içsous, "from that time Jesus began," 4:17; 16:21) are recognized to be structurally significant, it is difficult to establish that Matthew consciously adopted these expressions as the organizational key to his entire Gospel. As helpful as these phrases are for marking off the major discourses of Jesus or highlighting major new developments in the story, neat structural schemes based upon repeated formulae cannot do justice to the subtle twists and turns of the dramatic flow of Matthew's story.

Several scholars have centered on Matthew's use of Mark to determine the structure of his Gospel. Attention has been called to the peculiar Matthean organization of 4:12-13:58 in contrast to the faithful following of Marcan order in 14:1-28:20. Certainly a source-critical study of Matthew must account for the seemingly independent structural form and sequence in the first half of the Gospel as opposed to the latter half. However, it is doubtful that Matthew intended his readers to compare his Gospel with Mark in order to understand his structural scheme. If Matthew could clearly structure patterns on a smaller scale, independent of Mark, why not on a larger scale? Furthermore, there are too many structural peculiarities even in the second half of the Gospel to assume that Matthew merely succumbed to a slavish reproduction of Mark in the second half of his Gospel.

More recent investigations have delineated the Gospel's structure in terms of how the individual events or episodes connect sequentially to form a discernable plot. It is the organizing principle of plot which determines the incidents selected, their arrangement, and how the sequence of events or episodes are to impact the reader. Given the episodic and thematic flavor of Matthew's narrative, his plot development does not exhibit a linear tightness or the flair for the dramatic found in other narratives (cf. Mark). Nevertheless, Matthew does tell a story, and thus the various episodes are carefully interrelated by causal and thematic developments. There are definite major and minor story lines and character development, with certain episodes marking key turning points in the unfolding drama. An analysis of plot has the advantage of moving the discussion away from isolated literary devices or contrived symmetrical patterns, to a consideration of how the sequence of events and portrayal of characters connect meaningfully to tell a continuous and coherent story.

Matthew's story is organized around several narrative blocks comprised of events that are interconnected according to a particular emphasis or theme. The unifying factor giving coherence to the overall sequence of events is the explicit and implicit presence of the central character Jesus in virtually every episode. Within this story-form events of similar nature are often clustered or repeated for their accumulative impact, as various themes are reinforced and developed. An analysis of the sequence and function of Matthew's major narrative blocks enables the reader to discern an overall progression of events according to a consciously constructed plot. The following seven narrative blocks provide the story with a clear sense of dramatic progression:

1:1-4:16 Establishing the identity and role of Jesus, the protagonist of the story.

4:17-11:1 Jesus embarks upon a ministry of teaching and healing to manifest God's saving presence in Israel.

11:2-16:20 While faulty interpretations of Jesus' ministry lead to misunderstanding and repudiation, the disciples, through divine revelation, are provided special insight into Jesus' person and mission.

16:21-20:34 During Jesus' journey to Jerusalem he engages his disciples in explicit discussion concerning the ultimate values, priorities, and intentions of his messianic mission.

21:1-25:46 Upon entering Jerusalem Jesus' actions and teachings lead to conflict and rejection by the Jewish authorities.

26:1-27:50 While hostility and misunderstanding coalesce in betrayal, desertion, and death, Jesus is resolved to consciously and voluntarily fulfill the divine plan.

27:51-28:20 God ultimately vindicates his Son as evidenced by cosmic signs and by raising him from the dead and giving him authority to commission his disciples to a worldwide mission.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SELECTED COMMENTARIES:

Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. Matthew . AB. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971.

Beare, Francis Wright. The Gospel According to Matthew . San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary 22. Nashville: Broadman, 1992.

Carson, D.A. "Matthew." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 8:3-599. Edited by Frank Gaebelein. 12 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.

Davies, Margaret. Matthew Readings: A New Biblical Commentary . Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT Press/Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.

Davies, W.D. and Dale C. Allison. Introduction and Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew I-VII . Vol. 1 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. International Critical Commentaries. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

. Introduction and Commentary on Matthew VIII-XVIII . Vol. 2 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew . International Critical Commentaries. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991.

France, R.T. Matthew. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.

Gardner, Richard B. Matthew. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991.

Garland, David. Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel . New York: Crossroad, 1993.

Gundry, Robert. Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Hagner, Donald. Matthew 1-13 . Word Biblical Commentary 33A. Dallas: Word, 1993.

. Matthew 14-28. Word Biblical Commentary 33B. Dallas: Word, 1995.

Harrington, D.J. The Gospel of Matthew . Sacra Pagina 1. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991.

Hill, David. The Gospel of Matthew . New Century Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

Keener, Craig S. Matthew . The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Ed. Grant R. Osborne. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

Luz, U. Matthew 1-7 . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels . Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992.

Meier, J.P. The Vision of Matthew . New York: Crossroad, 1979, 1991.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to Matthew . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.

Patte, Daniel. The Gospel According to Matthew: A Structural Commentary on Matthew's Faith . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.

Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Matthew . Translated by David E. Green. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975.

SELECTED STUDIES:

Allison, Dale C. The New Moses: A Matthean Typology . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Bauer, D.R. The Structure of Matthew's Gospel: A Study in Literary Design . JSNTSup 31. Sheffield: Almond, 1988.

Borg, Marcus. Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus . New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984.

France, R.T. Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Hill, David. "Son and Servant: An Essay on Matthean Christology." JSNT 6 (1980) 2-16.

Kingsbury, Jack D. Matthew As Story. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Lohr, C. "Oral Techniques in the Gospel of Matthew." CBQ 23 (1961): 339-352.

Luz, U. The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew . Translated by J. Bradford Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Matera, Frank. "The Plot of Matthew's Gospel." CBQ 49 (1987): 233-253.

. Passion Narratives and Gospel Theologies . New York: Paulist, 1986.

Powell, M.A. God With Us: A Pastoral Theology of Matthew's Gospel . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.

Senior, D. The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew . Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1985.

. What Are They Saying About Matthew? Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Stanton, Graham. A Gospel For a New People: Studies in Matthew . Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992.

. "The Origin and Purpose of Matthew's Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980." In ANRW II.25.3. Edited by W.Haase. Pages 1889-1895. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1985.

Verseput, Donald J. "The Title Son of God in Matthew's Gospel." NTS 33 (1987): 532-556.

Westerholm, Stephen. Jesus and Scribal Authority . ConNT 10. Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1978.

Wilkens, M.J. The Concept of Discipleship in Matthew's Gsopel as Reflected in the Use of the Term Mathçtçs. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988.

Witherup, Ronald D. "The Death of Jesus and the Rising of the Saints: Matthew 27:51-54 in Context." SBLASP. Pages 574-585. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987.

Wright, N.T. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

. The New Testament and the People of God . Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary

AnBib Analecta Biblica

ANTJ Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und zum Judentum

BAGD A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker

BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium

Bib Biblica

BibRev Bible Review

BSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BZNW Beheifte zur ZNW

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

ConBNT Coniectanea biblica, New Testament

ConNT Coniectanea neotestamentica

DJG Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels

ETL Ephemerides theologicai lovanienses

ExpTim The Expository Times

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible

Int Interpretation

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JSNT Journal for the Study of New Testament Theology

LXX Septuagint

NIDNTT New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary

NIV New International Version

NovT Novum Testamentum

NT New Testament

NTM New Testament Message

NTS New Testament Studies

OT Old Testament

RevQ Revue de Qumran

RQ Restoration Quarterly

SBLASP Society of Biblical Literature Abstracts and Seminar Papers

SBLDS SBL Dissertation Series

SBLMS SBL Monograph Series

SJT Scottish Journal of Theology

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

Str-B Kommentar zum Neuen Testament by Strack and Billerbeck

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich

TIM Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew by Bornkamm, Barth, and Held

TrinJ Trinity Journal

TynBul Tyndale Bulletin

UBSGNT United Bible Society Greek New Testament

USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review

WUNT Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Matthew (Outline)

OUTLINE

I. ESTABLISHING THE IDENTITY AND ROLE OF JESUS THE CHRIST - Matt 1:1-4:16

A. Genealogy of Jesus - 1:1-17

B. The Annunciation to Joseph - 1:18-25

C. The Infancy of Jesus - 2:1-23

1. The Gentile Pilgrimage - 2:1-12

2. The Messiah's Exile and Exodus - 2:13-23

D. The Mission and Message of John the Baptist - 3:1-12

E. The Baptism and Commission of Jesus - 3:13-17

F. The Testing of the Son - 4:1-11

G. Introducing the Ministry of Jesus - 4:12-16

II. GOD'S SAVING PRESENCE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE - 4:17-10:42

A. Programmatic Heading: Proclamation of the Kingdom - 4:17

B. Call of the Disciples - 4:18-22

C. Programmatic Summary - 4:23-25

D. Sermon on the Mount: Ministry in Word - 5:1-7:29

1. The Setting - 5:1-2

2. The Beatitudes - 5:3-12

3. Salt and Light - 5:13-16

4. Jesus and the Law - 5:17-20

5. Practicing Greater Righteousness Toward One's Neighbor - 5:21-48

a. Murder - 5:21-26

b. Adultery - 5:27-30

c. Divorce - 5:31-32

d. Oaths - 5:33-37

e. An Eye for an Eye - 5:38-42

f. Love Your Enemies - 5:43-48

6. Practicing Greater Righteousness Before God - 6:1-18

a. Summary - 6:1

b. Giving to the Needy - 6:2-4

c. Prayer - 6:5-15

d. Fasting - 6:16-18

7. The Priorities and Values of the GreaterRighteousness - 6:19-34

a. Treasures in Heaven - 6:19-24

b. Worry - 6:25-34

8. The Conduct of Greater Righteousness - 7:1-12

a. Judging Others - 7:1-5

b. Honor What Is Valuable - 7:6

c. Ask, Seek, Knock - 7:7-11

d. The Golden Rule - 7:12

9. The Call for Decision - 7:13-27

a. The Narrow and Wide Gates - 7:13-14

b. A Tree and Its Fruit - 7:15-23

c. The Wise and Foolish Builders - 7:24-27

10. Conclusion - 7:28-29

E. Ministry in Deed - 8:1-9:34

1. Cleansing of a Leper - 8:1-4

2. Request of a Gentile Centurion - 8:5-13

3. Peter's Mother-in-Law - 8:14-15

4. Summary and Fulfillment Citation - 8:16-17

5. Two Would-Be Followers - 8:18-22

6. Stilling of the Storm - 8:23-27

7. The Gadarene Demoniacs - 8:28-34

8. Healing of the Paralytic - 9:1-8

9. Jesus' Association with Tax Collectors and Sinners - 9:9-13

10. Question on Fasting - 9:14-17

11. Raising the Ruler's Daughter and Cleansing the Unclean Woman - 9:18-26

12. Healing Two Blind Men - 9:27-31

13. Healing of a Deaf Mute - 9:32-34

F. A Call to Mission - 9:35-10:4

G. The Missionary Discourse - 10:5-42

1. Instructions for Mission - 10:5-15

2. Persecution and Response - 10:16-23

3. The Disciples' Relationship to Jesus - 10:24-42

III. ISRAEL'S MISUNDERSTANDING AND REPUDIATION OF JESUS - 11:1-14:12

A. John's Question from Prison - 11:1-6

B. The Person and Mission of John - 11:7-19

1. Identification of John by Jesus - 11:7-15

2. Rejection of John and Jesus - 11:16-19

C. Unrepentant Cities - 11:20-24

D. Jesus' Response and Invitation - 11:25-30

E. Sabbath Controversy: Incident in the Grainfield - 12:1-8

F. Sabbath Controversy: Healing in the Synagogue - 12:9-14

G. The Character and Mission of God's Servant - 12:15-21

H. The Beelzebub Controversy - 12:22-37

I. The Request for a Sign - 12:38-42

J. A Concluding Analogy - 12:43-45

K. Jesus' True Family - 12:46-50

L. The Parables of the Kingdom - 13:1-52

1. The Parable of the Four Soils - 13:1-9

2. The Purpose of the Parables - 13:10-17

3. The Interpretation of the Parable ofthe Soils - 13:18-23

4. Parable of the Weeds - 13:24-30

5. Parable of the Mustard Seed - 13:31-32

6. Parable of the Leaven - 13:33

7. The Purpose of Parables - 13:34-35

8. The Interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds - 13:36-43

9. Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl - 13:44-46

10. Parable of the Dragnet - 13:47-50

11. Trained in the Kingdom - 13:51-52

M. Rejection at Nazareth - 13:53-58

N. The Death of John the Baptist - 14:1-12

IV. EDUCATING THE DISCIPLES: IDENTITY AND MISSION - 14:13-16:20

A. Feeding of the Five Thousand - 14:13-21

B. Walking on the Water - 14:22-33

C. Summary: Healings at Gennesaret - 14:34-36

D. Jesus and the Teachings of the Pharisees - 15:1-20

E. The Canaanite Woman - 15:21-28

F. Feeding of the Four Thousand - 15:29-39

G. Request for a Sign - 16:1-4

H. The Leaven of the Pharisees and Saducees - 16:5-12

I. Confession at Caesarea Philippi - 16:13-20

V. THE WAY OF THE CROSS - 16:21-20:34

A. The Things of God Versus the Things of Men - 16:21-28

B. Transfiguration - 17:1-8

C. The Coming Elijah - 17:9-13

D. The Power of Faith - 17:14-21

E. The Second Passion Prediction - 17:22-23

F. Jesus and the Temple Tax - 17:24-27

G. Fourth Discourse: Life in the Christian Community - 18:1-35

1. Becoming Like a Child - 18:1-5

2. Avoiding Offense - 18:6-9

3. Value of the "Little Ones" - 18:10-14

4. Reconciling an Offending Brother - 18:15-20

5. Importance of Forgiveness - 18:21-35

H. Transition from Galilee to Judea - 19:1-2

I. Marriage and Divorce - 19:3-9

J. The Bewildered Response of the Disciples - 19:10-12

K. The Little Children - 19:13-15

L. The Rich Young Man - 19:16-22

M. Wealth, Reward and Discipleship - 19:23-30

N. The Generous Landowner - 20:1-16

O. Third Passion Prediction - 20:17-19

P. Requests on Behalf of the Sons of Zebedee - 20:20-28

Q. Two Blind Men Receive Sight - 20:29-34

VI. CONFLICT IN JERUSALEM - 21:1-25:46

A. Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem - 21:1-11

B. Demonstration in the Temple - 21:12-17

C. The Fig Tree - 21:18-22

D. The Authority Question - 21:23-27

E. Parable of the Two Sons - 21:28-32

F. Parable of the Tenants - 21:33-46

G. Parable of the Wedding Feast - 22:1-14

H. Confrontations with the Religious Leaders - 22:15-46

1. Paying Taxes to Caesar - 22:15-22

2. Marriage in the Afterlife - 22:23-33

3. The Greatest Commandment - 22:34-40

4. The Son of David - 22:41-46

I. Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees - 23:1-39

1. Do Not Practice What They Preach - 23:1-12

2. Woes against the Teachers of the Law andthe Pharisees - 23:13-36

3. Lament over Jerusalem - 23:37-39

J. Fifth Discourse: Judgment to Come - 24:1-25:46

1. Introduction - 24:1-3

2. Warnings Not to Be Deceived - 24:4-14

3. The Coming Tribulation in Judea - 24:15-28

4. The Climactic Fall of Jerusalem within "This Generation" - 24:29-35

5. The Coming Judgment of the Son ofMan - 24:36-25:46

a. The Coming Son of Man~ - 24:36-51

b. The Ten Virgins - 25:1-13

c. Parable of the Talents - 25:14-30

d. Judgment of the Son of Man - 25:31-46

VII. THE PASSION AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS - 26:1-28:20

A. The Plot to Arrest and Execute Jesus - 26:1-5

B. Anointing in Bethany - 26:6-13

C. Judas' Betrayal - 26:14-16

D. Preparation for Passover - 26:17-19

E. The Last Supper - 26:20-30

F. Jesus Predicts the Disciples' Desertion and Denial - 26:31-35

G. The Gethsemane Prayer - 26:36-46

H. The Arrest of Jesus - 26:47-56

I. The Hearing Before Caiaphas - 26:57-68

J. The Denial of Peter - 26:69-75

K. Transition to the Roman Authorities - 27:1-2

L. The Suicide of Judas - 27:3-10

M. The Trial Before Pilate - 27:11-26

N. Mockery and Abuse of Jesus - 27:27-31

O. The Crucifixion - 27:32-44

P. The Death of Jesus - 27:45-56

Q. The Burial of Jesus - 27:57-61

R. Keeping Jesus in the Tomb - 27:62-66

S. The Empty Tomb - 28:1-7

T. The Appearance of Jesus to the Women - 28:8-10

U. The Bribing of the Guards - 28:11-15

V. The Great Commission - 28:16-20

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: Matthew (Book Introduction)

PREFACE.

——————

IN presenting to the reader the Second Volume [Matt X to XXI] of this Translation of the great work of Cornelius à Lapide, I desire to mention that it has not been within my purpose to give an equivalent for every word of the original. This ought to have been stated at the commencement of the first volume, and I greatly regret the omission.

The stern exigencies of publication have compelled me to compress the translation of the Commentary upon the Gospels within five octavo volumes, when a reproduction of the Latin original, verbatim et literatim , would have probably necessitated seven.

The matter standing thus, I have had to exercise my own judgment as to the character of the necessary omissions and compression. I am perfectly aware that in omitting or compressing anything at all, I expose myself to the full fury of the blasts of unkind, bitter, or unscrupulous criticism; though criticism of this kind has, I am thankful to say, been confined to a single print.

I have no fault whatever to find with the criticism of the R. Catholic Tablet . It was dictated by a thoroughly honest and commendable, but certainly mistaken fear, that I had made omissions for controversial purposes. Of this, I hope I am incapable.

With regard to the other adverse criticism to which I have alluded, I am sorry that I cannot regard it as either just or righteous. One reason is this; the reviewer in question concludes his remarks by saying—"Those who are familiar with Cornelius' work are aware of the terseness and pungency of the author's style. Whether it would be possible to give this in English we cannot say, but the present translators do not appear to have even attempted the task, either in their literal rendering, or in their paraphrased passages, so that much of the sententiousness of the original has evaporated."

It would be almost impossible to single out from the whole range of the history of criticism a more telling example of its frequent utter worthlessness and disregard of a strict adherence to truth. In the first place, with regard to Cornelius himself, those who are best acquainted with him—his greatest lovers and admirers—are aware that if there is one thing more than another which they are disposed to regret, it is his great prolixity, and the inordinate length of his sentences.

Secondly, if the hostile reviewer had examined my translation solely for the purposes of an honest criticism, he could not have helped becoming aware of the fact that there is scarcely a page in which I have not broken up what is a single sentence in the Latin into two, three, and sometimes even more sentences in the English.

Lastly, I need not tell scholars that it would be far more easy and pleasant to myself to translate literally, without any omission whatever, than to have continually to be, as it were, upon the stretch to omit or compress what must be omitted, when very often all seems valuable. I can truly say I have often spent as much time in deliberating what to omit, or how to compress a passage, as would have sufficed to have written a translation of it in full twice over.

About two-thirds of the twenty-first chapter of S. Matthew, the last in this second volume, have been translated without any omission, or compression whatever. A note is appended to the place where this unabridged translation begins. This will enable any one who cares to do so, to compare the abridged portion with the unabridged, and both with the original.

T. W. M.