Matthew 8:22

8:22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” ¹ 

Matthew 28:4

28:4 The ²  guards were shaken and became like dead men because they were so afraid of him.

Matthew 10:8

10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, ³  cleanse lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.

Matthew 22:31

22:31 Now as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, ⁴ 

Matthew 11:5

11:5 The blind see, the ⁵  lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them.

Matthew 22:32

22:32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ⁶  He is not the God of the dead but of the living!” ⁷ 

Matthew 23:27

23:27 “Woe to you, experts in the law ⁸  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. ⁹ 

Matthew 14:2

14:2 and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead! And because of this, miraculous powers are at work in him.”

Matthew 17:9

17:9 As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, ¹⁰  “Do not tell anyone about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

Matthew 27:64

27:64 So give orders to secure the tomb until the third day. Otherwise his disciples may come and steal his body ¹¹  and say to the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”

Matthew 28:7

28:7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead. He ¹²  is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there.’ Listen, I have told you!”

¹ sn There are several options for the meaning of Jesus’ reply Leave the dead to bury their own dead: (1) Recent research suggests that burial customs in the vicinity of Jerusalem from about 20 b.c. to a.d. 70 involved a reinterment of the bones a year after the initial burial, once the flesh had rotted away. At that point the son would have placed his father’s bones in a special box known as an ossuary to be set into the wall of the tomb. Thus Jesus could well be rebuking the man for wanting to wait around for as much as a year before making a commitment to follow him. In 1st century Jewish culture, to have followed Jesus rather than burying one’s father would have seriously dishonored one’s father (cf. Tobit 4:3-4). (2) The remark is an idiom (possibly a proverbial saying) that means, “The matter in question is not the real issue,” in which case Jesus was making a wordplay on the wording of the man’s (literal) request (see L&N 33.137). (3) This remark could be a figurative reference to various kinds of people, meaning, “Let the spiritually dead bury the dead.” (4) It could also be literal and designed to shock the hearer by the surprise of the contrast. Whichever option is preferred, it is clear that the most important priority is to follow Jesus.

² tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

³ tc The majority of Byzantine minuscules, along with a few other witnesses (C³ K L Γ Θ 700* al), lack νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε (nekrou" ejgeirete, “raise the dead”), most likely because of oversight due to a string of similar endings (-ετε in the second person imperatives, occurring five times in v. 8). The longer version of this verse is found in several diverse and ancient witnesses such as א B C* (D) N 0281^vid Ë^1,13 33 565 al lat; P W Δ 348 have a word-order variation, but nevertheless include νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε. Although some Byzantine-text proponents charge the Alexandrian witnesses with theologically-motivated alterations toward heterodoxy, it is interesting to find a variant such as this in which the charge could be reversed (do the Byzantine scribes have something against the miracle of resurrection?). In reality, such charges of wholesale theologically-motivated changes toward heterodoxy are immediately suspect due to lack of evidence of intentional changes (here the change is evidently due to accidental omission).

⁴ tn Grk “spoken to you by God, saying.” The participle λέγοντος (legontos) is redundant here in contemporary English and has not been translated.

⁵ tn Grk “and the,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more. Two other conjunctions are omitted in this series.

⁶ sn A quotation from Exod 3:6.

⁷ sn He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so they must be raised.

⁷ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

⁸ sn This was an idiom for hypocrisy – just as the wall was painted on the outside but something different on the inside, so this person was not what he appeared or pretended to be (for discussion of a similar metaphor, see L&N 88.234; BDAG 1010 s.v. τοῖχος). See Deut 28:22; Ezek 13:10-16; Acts 23:3.

⁸ tn Grk “Jesus commanded them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

⁹ tn Grk “him.”

¹⁰ tn Grk “And behold he.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).