NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER ONE

Part V

Let’s look at the title “Immanu’el”, which was applied to Yeshua as the Messiah.¹ As Matthew explains, it means “God is with us” — which is how Hebrew “immanu” (is with us) “El” (God) is written in Isaiah.² However, Yeshua was not called Immanu’el by His disciples during his life on earth; rather, this was intended to connect Yeshua with the prophecy made by the prophet Isaiah, as well as His incarnation by describing Him as “God-with-us.”³ In the Jewish Bible, names frequently describe an aspect of the person named. In fact it uses several names to refer to the Messiah, including “Shiloh.”⁴ Later, when the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, the place where they erected the tabernacle was called Shiloh.⁵ It was from here that Joshua sent out men to explore the land before dividing it up among the tribes.⁶ This is where Samuel was dedicated to the Lord by his mother Hannah.⁷ And the Psalmist tells us that because of the people’s wickedness, the Lord forsook His place in the tabernacle at Shiloh.⁸ So it is not surprising that people looked toward Shiloh for the Messiah to appear and reestablish God’s kingdom among them. The listing of this term in the KJV: “until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” raises some questions about translation. The NIV renders it: “until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.” This conforms to two other versions that are important in finding the true meaning: The Septuagint has: “until whenever should come the things reserved to him. And he is the expectation of nations.” The Jewish version reads: “until he comes to whom obedience belongs; and it is he whom the people will obey.”⁹ One answer might be found in the original Hebrew “shiloh,” which means: “tribute to him.” Others say, however, that the term “Shiloh” as a name, not a phrase. For instance, in the one ancient manuscript we read the following commentary on this verse: “Whenever Israel rules, there will not fail to be a descendant of David upon the throne. For the ruler’s staff is the Covenant of kingship, and the clans of Israel are the divisions, until the Messiah of Righteousness comes, the Branch of David. For to him and his seed is granted the Covenant of kingship over his people for everlasting generations which he is to keep … the Law with the men of the Community, for … it is the assembly of the men of …”¹⁰ So it is clear that the understanding of this phrase was deemed to be a reference to the Messiah by the Jewish sect called the Essenes. And if nothing else, the intent of this scripture seems to clearly be focused on a special leader. Then we have, “Branch,”¹¹ “Sprout,”¹² and the longest, “Wonder of a Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.”¹³ All describe the Messiah, yet He was best known by just one name, Yeshua. The same commentator also shares: “There have been more than fifty messianic pretenders in the last two thousand years of Jewish history, starting with Todah (Theudas) and Judah HaG’lili,¹⁴ continuing with Shim’on Bar-Kosiba (died 135 AD), whom Rabbi Akiva recognized as the Messiah by changing his name to “Bar-Kochva” (“son of a star” or “the Morning Star”), and culminating in Shabtai Tzvi (1626– 1676), who became a Muslim, and Jacob Frank (1726– 1791), who became a Roman Catholic. But none of them met the criteria laid down in the Tanakh¹⁵ concerning the identity of the Messiah; whereas Yeshua met all of them that are applicable to his first coming.”¹⁶

Verses 24-25: “When Joseph woke up, he did what the Lord’s angel told him to do. He married Mary. But Joseph did not have intimate relations with her until her son was born. And he named Him Jesus.”

Even though it would be hard to prove and defend, yet Joseph accepted this coming child as his own. No doubt he was depending on the Jewish verbal law of the Rabbis to back him up. After all, this is what the Rabbis taught: “If a person states, “This is my son,” his word is accepted regarding his inheritance and is also accepted with regard to freeing his widow from yibbum – levirate marriage.”¹⁷ The grammatical structure of this verse – did not have…until – most certainly alludes to the subsequent union between Mary and Joseph thereby indicating the possibility of the existence of Jesus’ younger brothers and sisters as the children of Joseph and Mary.¹⁸ But we also see that in Mary’s case, once Joseph died, she was not obligated to marry any brothers he might have in order to bear a son in Joseph’s name to keep his legacy alive. The Jews however, find fault with Matthews reasoning in these verses. In the polemic work mentioned earlier, it reads: “When he was born from his mother’s stomach like other men, her womb opened and she gave birth to a boy, and she called him God.¹⁹ This implies that if Jesus was immaculately conceived, then He should have somehow been immaculately delivered from His mother’s womb. Since He was born like any other child, then He was no different than any other child. So by the writer saying that Mary named Him “Yeshua,” it was simply their effort to divinitize a normal son into the Son of God.”²⁰ Again, this shows a lack of understanding the divine incarnation of the God/Man known as Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. The fact that Mary’s husband Joseph’s father’s name was Jacob, and this dream Joseph had concerning Mary’s unborn son, makes it very reminiscent of Jacob and Joseph of Old Testament days, as well as the dream which Amram, the father of Moses, had concerning his son. So to any Jew reading this text of Matthew, the idea of dreams being portends of a child about to be born having extraordinary characteristics and a special relationship with God, was not new. So why were they not as open to Yeshua the son of Mary, as they were to Moses and Samson? After all, did not Moses get water out of a rock? So why would Jesus getting wine out of a well be less acceptable? Not only that, but when Moses first showed up in Egypt and announce that God had sent him to deliver His people, he was not believed at first. But after a number of signs and wonders, they came to believe his message. Should they not consider believing in Yeshua as well? Look at all the signs and wonders He performed. However, while Moses gave them their first covenant, this Yeshua said He came to bring them a the new covenant. Apparently, that was more than they could take, so they rejected Him and suffered the consequences. So when we preach Jesus as Savior of the world, we should not make Him an option, but the only solution to sin and suffering and the gift of eternal life. To continue from what was said before about the dream of Joseph, Mary’s husband, and Jacob the father of Joseph to whom he gave the coat of many colors, I am including a section for your information and study from a Jewish historian on the dream of Moses’ father about his son for comparison with the story of Jesus:

“There was a man whose name was Amram, one of the nobler of the Hebrews, was fearful for his whole nation, lest it should fail, by the lack of young men to be raised in the future, and was very uneasy about it, since his wife was pregnant, and he knew not what to do. Hereupon he went to God in prayer; and entreated him to have compassion on those men who had never transgressed the laws of His worship, and to afford them deliverance from the miseries they at that time endured, and to render stillborn their enemies’ hopes of the destruction of their nation. Accordingly God had mercy on him, and was moved by his supplication. He stood beside him in his sleep, and exhorted him not to despair of his future. He said further, that He did not forget their righteousness towards Him, and would always reward them for it, as He had formerly granted his favor to their forefathers, and made them increase from a few to so great a multitude. He put him in mind, that when Abraham was come alone out of Mesopotamia into Canaan, he was made happy, because although his wife was barren at the time, afterward she was enabled by God to conceive, and bare him sons. That he left to Isaac the land of Canaan. As for Jacob, he became well-known to strangers also, by the greatness of that prosperity in which he lived, and left to his sons, who came into Egypt with no more than seventy souls. Know therefore that I will provide for you all in common what is for your good, and particularly for yourself what will make you famous; for that child, out of dread of whose nativity the Egyptians have doomed the Israelite children to destruction, will be this child of yours, and will be concealed from those who watch to destroy him: and after he is brought up in an unusual way, he will deliver the Hebrew nation from the distress they are under from the Egyptians. He will be famous as long as the world lasts; and this not only among the Hebrews, but foreigners also: – all which will be the effect of My favor to you, and to your posterity. When the vision had informed him of these things, Amram awoke and told it to Jochebed his wife. And now their fear increased on account of the prediction in Amram’s dream; for they were very concerned, not only for the child, but on account of the great happiness that was to come to him also. However, the mother’s pregnancy was such that while it afforded the confirmation of what was foretold by God; for it was not known to those that watched her, by the easiness of her pains, and because the throes of her delivery did not fall upon her with severity. And now they nourished the child at home privately for three months; but after that time Amram, fearing he might be discovered, and, by falling out of favor with the king, both he and his child might perish, and so he should make the promise of God of none effect, he determined rather to trust the safety and care of the child to God, than to depend on his own concealment of him, which he looked upon as a thing uncertain, and whereby both the child, so privately to be nourished, and himself should be in imminent danger; but he believed that God would certainly procure the safety of the child, in order to secure the fulfillment of his own predictions. After they reached their decision, they made an ark of bulrushes in the form of a cradle, yet big enough for an infant to comfortably to lay in: they then daubed it over with mud, which would naturally keep out the water from entering between the bulrushes, and put the infant into it, and setting it afloat upon the river, they left its preservation to God; so the river received the child, and carried him along. But Miryam, the child’s sister, ran along the bank next to him, as her mother had asked her to do, to see whether the ark would be carried, where God demonstrated that human wisdom was not needed, but that the Supreme Being is able to do whatsoever He pleases: so that those who, in order to keep themselves safe, condemn others to destruction, and work very hard at it, will still fail in their efforts; but that others are in a surprising manner preserved, and obtain a prosperous condition almost in the very midst of their calamities; those, I mean, whose dangers arise by the appointment of God. And, indeed, such a providence was exercised in the case of this child, as showed the power of God.”²¹