Matthew 3:15

3:15 So Jesus replied ¹  to him, “Let it happen now, ²  for it is right for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John ³  yielded ⁴  to him.

Matthew 18:32

18:32 Then his lord called the first slave ⁵  and said to him, ‘Evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me!

Matthew 19:3

19:3 Then some Pharisees ⁶  came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful ⁷  to divorce a wife for any cause?” ⁸ 

[3:15]  ¹ tn Grk “but Jesus, answering, said.” This construction with passive participle and finite verb is pleonastic (redundant) and has been simplified in the translation to “replied to him.”

[3:15]  ² tn Grk “Permit now.”

[3:15]  ³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (John the Baptist) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:15]  ⁴ tn Or “permitted him.”

[18:32]  ⁵ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the first slave mentioned in v. 24) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:3]  ⁹ tn Grk “And Pharisees.”

[19:3]  ¹⁰ tc ‡ Most mss have either ἀνθρώπῳ (anqrwpw, “for a man” [so א² C D W Θ 087 Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt]) or ἀνδρί (andri, “for a husband” [1424^c pc]) before the infinitive ἀπολῦσαι (apolusai, “to divorce”). The latter reading is an assimilation to the parallel in Mark; the former reading may have been motivated by the clarification needed (especially to give the following αὐτοῦ [autou, “his”] an antecedent). But a few significant mss (א* B L Γ 579 [700] 1424* pc) have neither noun. As the harder reading, it seems to best explain the rise of the others. NA²⁷, however, reads ἀνθρώπῳ here.

[19:3]  ¹¹ sn The question of the Pharisees was anything but sincere; they were asking it to test him. Jesus was now in the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas (i.e., Judea and beyond the Jordan) and it is likely that the Pharisees were hoping he might answer the question of divorce in a way similar to John the Baptist and so suffer the same fate as John, i.e., death at the hands of Herod (cf. 14:1-12). Jesus answered the question not on the basis of rabbinic custom and the debate over Deut 24:1, but rather from the account of creation and God’s original design.