Fri, Mar 8, 2024

Are we there yet?

A pause: Matthew in retrospect

When Jesus had finished all these sayings

Moving into the final section of the gospel of Matthew it’s hard not to take notice of this demarcation. The stage has been set for Jesus to accomplish his mission in Jersualem just as he predicted: his own death and resurrection. The story at this points has all the hallmarks of moving to a culmination but it would be appropriate for us to ask, “the culmination of what?”

The kingdom

What stands out about Matthew? What does he emphasize or come back to time and time again?

I suggest kingdom and fulfillment two important categories for Matthew though not the only ones. I also see these as intricately connected. You must understand how the kingdom is presented to see a Matthew’s use of fulfillment and vice-versa. They are mutually informing truths.

  • OT Kingdom => NT Kingdom
  • authority, law, the king

Again, viewing Matthew as a presentation of the fulfillment of the OT categories of law and kingdom is just one aspect of what Matthew is conveying. But it is the aspect we’ll focus on right now. In particular, we’ll look at it in terms of place. When we talk about kingdoms we are usfually talking about place.

Our place is naturally important to us. It’s a typical question for new acquaintances—“where are you from?”—because it’s doesn’t just convey past it can convey character. There are all sorts of sterotypes related to place. But think about the importance of place in the story of God’s people.

  • The garden of Eden
  • The tower of Babel
  • Egypt
  • The wilderness
  • Mt. Sinai
  • Canaan
  • Israel
  • Babylon
  • Jerusalem

Each of these is evocative and carries with a part of the story of God’s people.

So how do the discourses fit into this?

The Matthean discourses

The discourses are a macrostructure in Matthew. They aren’t the only structure but they provide an indication of what’s important to Matthew.

Each of these end with the phrase “when Jesus had finished all these sayings”. Recall where Jesus delivers each of these and their ending:

  • 5:3-7:27 (107 verses), The Sermon on the Mount ending with 7:28, “And when Jesus finished these sayings…”
  • 10:5-42 (38 verses), ending with 11:1 - “When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples…”
  • 13:3-52 (50 verses), ending at 13:53 - “And when Jesus had finished these parables…”
  • 18:3-35 (33 verses), ending with 19:1 - “Now when Jesus had finished these sayings…”
  • 24:4-25:46 (94 verses), ending at 26:1 - “When Jesus had finished all these sayings…”

There is a kind of movement here too. The first, lngest, and most famous discourse is of course the Sermon on the Mount, delivered unsurprisingly from a mountainside. The final discourse is usually called The Olivet Discourse because it was given from the Mount of Olives which is to say, also from a mountainside.

The central discourse is delivered from a boat on the Sea of Galilee. The other two, each significantly shorter than the rest by the way, don’t receive explicit locations but one is described in conjuction with Jesus’ ministry among the Galilean “towns and villages” and the other is given in the area of Capernaum.

So we end up with a movement of descent and ascent, from the mountain to the villages, to the sea, to the city, to the mountain.

Layered on top of movement we see in Jesus’ ministry broadly. We have two explicity chronological markers that in 4:17 and in 16:21 both with the phrase “From that time Jesus began…”

The first of these markes the beginning of Jesus public ministry. The second marks a midpoint, a turning point, in his Galilean ministry. It’s at 16:21 that Jesus turnt towards Jerusalem and begins telling his disciples of his plan and his future.

Also, remember that in Matthew’s account Jesus visits Jerusalem only onces. This matches with the other Synoptics but differs from John. Interestingly, it’s in the fourth gospel, the one furthest removed in time from Jesus ministry, that we find the most historically believable picture of Jesus ministry. As we would expect from a devout Jew, particularly a rabbi, we see Jesus visit Jerusalem four times each during a Jewish festival day.

What’s the overall effect? Matthew is purposefully omitting, eliding, or redacting the chronology of Jesus ministry specifically in terms of location. Why?

Because of the connection between place and fulfillment in Matthew.

We covered previously the fulfillment quotations, those moments where Matthew pauses for an aside to the reader. These are important moments because they stand out from their context. It is not common in the gospels to have the the narrator speak directly to the reader but we see it 10 (or 11) times in Matthew each introduced with some variation of the forumula:

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet…

In each of these Matthew is taking a pause to point out something important for us and he does it through quotations of the Old Testament. And the idea he’s emphasizing is fulfillment. What was spoken of before to God’s people, what happened before for God’s people, it finds its fulfillment in what is going on right here in the person of Jesus.

There are 10 (11?) of these quotations in Matthew and 6 of them occur in the first 4 chapters with 4 quotations in chapter 2 alone. This is important because in each of the quotations of chapter 2 Matthew is tipping his hond on the importance of place:

  • v. 5, Bethlehem the birthplace of Christ
  • v. 15, Egypt where God’s son is called out
  • v. 18, Ramah, the departure place of the exiles
  • v. 23, Nazareth

So we see the story of Jesus’ infancy played out in terms of fulfillment and in terms of place culminating in the quotation of 2:23.

Verse 23 stands out for a few reasons the most notable of which is the text that it quotes. If your bible has footnotes you may check them for an OT reference at this point and if you do you are likely to be disappointed. There is no clear OT referent for “he shall be called a Nazarene.” Like, none. At all. This comes off as a little strange given the rest of Matthew’s handling of the OT.

Matthew actually gives us clues that he’s doing something different in this fulfillment quotation though one of which is obvious and one of which is not.

What’s obviously different here?

There’s the conspicuous change to the plural “prophets”. Every other fulfillment quotation uses the singular “prophet” sometimes even naming the prophet as in v. 17.

Secondly, there’s a difference that’s invisible in the English. Every other fulfillment quotation includes the word λέγοντος (“saying”) but this word is typically untranslated:

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet saying

Most translations don’t include this saying and rightly so because it’s functioning basically just as an open quotation mark. In verse 23 though we find something different. Here we have ὅτι (“that”):

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet that

The word is functioning almost exactly like λέγοντος and in some cases it is semantically identical but here (and typically) ὅτι carries an implication of indirect speech. This is actually quite similar to English usage. Consider:

When I asked my wife if coffee is delicious she said, “It’s amazing”

When I asked my wife if coffee is delicious she said that it’s amazing.

The only verbal difference in those sentences is the addition of the “that” but we will all default to assuming one is reporting the actual words of my wife and the other is giving a gloss. This is precisely what’s going on in Matthew he’s giving a gloss or a summation of the prophets which is why we cannot find a referent for this in the OT.

I’ll note briefly that there are three possible interpretations for what Matthew is doing here.

  1. Wordplay. This is referencing Isa. 11:1’s “branch” (נֵ֫צֶר, nēṣer) from the root of Jesse
  2. Wordplay. Ναζωραῖος is very similar to ναζιραῖος, and could possibly be referencing Samson(?)
  3. Location. Nazareth is non-existent in the OT

I find the third interpretation most persuasive. Think about what Matthew is saying here, it’s a little wild a first glance. The Messiah will be called a Nazarene, will hail from a place that no one even knows about. This is further emphasized by the divide between Judea and Galilee:

  1. Galilee was more racially mixed than Judea. Conservative small towns like Nazareth very close to larger pagan cities like Tiberius.
  2. Galilee was geographically separated from Judea by Samaria
  3. Politically under different rulers, Judea under the Herodians, Galilee under a Roman prefect
  4. Economically Galilee had more natural agricultural and fishing resources
  5. There was even a linguistic influence with a noticeably different dialect of Aramaic being spoken

So what Matthew is saying is astounding. The kingly, messianic figure is one who will be from nowhere and act like it. We’ve seen already his description in the “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem, “humble and mounted on a donkey.”

So place is serving in Matthew to emphasize who Jesus is and what his purpose is. It starts from the very beginning of Matthew with his infancy narrative and it will go on til the very end. At the end of this gospel we see a surprising return to Galilee:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Even in Jesus Great Commission he’s emphasizing place. This kingdom that Jesus has brought forcefully into the world will be spread to the rest of the world, to “all nations.”