NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER FIVE

Part V

One esteemed Rabbi was commenting on how using God’s name in a greeting was not violating the commandment to not use God’s name in vain said: because greeting one another was something God wanted His people to do. The Rabbi says to God: “They have made void Your Torah because it is time to do the LORD’S will, that is, to use God’s Name in greeting, even though this may be mistaken for irreverence, still in this case, we have made void Your Torah, since this is the will of God.”¹ And finally, Rabbis say that if a Gentile persuades an Israelite to transgress any of the commandments mentioned in the law, except idolatry, adultery and murder, the Israelite may transgress with impunity, provided it is done privately.² All of this should help any reader see why Jesus had to express Himself the way He did because such diluting and corrupting of the law had become systemic among the Jews, and He refused to permit it among His followers.

In recent years we’ve seen similar cases where words from the Scripture have been interpreted as a valid reason to apply what has become a part of verbal tradition despite what the written Word has to say. For instance: such is the case with those who believe that in water baptism, one must be baptized while the name “Jesus” is being said, in order for it to be genuine. Jesus Himself said it should be done by the authority of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are other doctrines such as “predestination,” “once in grace, always in grace,” and so on. The LORD Himself expressed such frustration through the prophet Malachi: “You priests have stopped following me! You have used My teachings to make people do wrong. You have ruined the agreement I made with Levi.’ This is what the Lord All-Powerful said. ‘You don’t live the way I told you. You have not accepted my teachings. So I will cause people to despise you and consider you as worth nothing.’”³ This was the understanding people had in Jesus day concerning the importance of God’s Word being central to their faith. How much more now that the WORD Himself is central to our faith.

In the same light, Jesus echoed what Samuel told Eli about how his sons had corrupted the Word of God. This is what the prophet told the high priest in those days, “The Lord, the God of Israel, promised that your father’s family would serve Him forever. But now the Lord says, ‘That will never be! I will honor people who honor me, but bad things will happen to those who refuse to respect me.’”⁴ If anyone thinks that God sent His Son to the cross and that His Son was willing to die to pay the penalty for our sins, just to give us some guidelines to follow if we think they are worth our time and effort, they are wrong. It is by God’s Word that we live and move and have our being, and it will be by God’s Word that we are judged in the end. Our Lord did not want His followers to develop the same complacency that He saw among His own people concerning the written Word of God. So He has a challenge for His followers.

Verse 20: “I’m telling you, you must do better than the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. If you are not more pleasing to God than they are, you will never enter God’s kingdom.”

Because of the way so-called righteous things were being done in His day, this prompted Jesus to add a note to His teaching. We see this clearly spelled out in Chapter 23 where Jesus accuses the religious teachers and Pharisees of being dishonest. A real lesson can be learned here by simply observing the life of a Pharisee. They prayed regularly; attended all services and feasts; read the scriptures incessantly; tithed; gave offerings; obeyed the law; proselyted, were the first to correct those who erred when things weren’t done properly, and had great respect for their elders. These things are not an indictment against them, but it was their motivation and attitude that caused Jesus to point them out. Every believer should attempt to be equally as dedicated to God’s will, but they should be motivated by their love for God and not to heap glory upon themselves. For some this is as equally hard to do as the list of things the Pharisees did.

Then our Lord offers a comparison between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. To illustrate: once I bought a new computer monitor, and when I got it home and hooked it up, the display on the screen was two inches short on the edges and at the top and bottom. I tried everything I knew to do, and still it did not expand to the full screen. So I called the store where I bought it and they didn’t know what to tell me. I had purchased a USB cable that I didn’t need, so when I returned it I pointed to the monitor I bought and asked for them to demonstrate how I could get a full screen display. Three to four of the sales staff stood around pushing buttons and following the instructions on the menu, but to no avail. They finally told me to bring it back and they’d give me a new one. After I got home I decided to call the manufacturer of the monitor. They put me in touch with their technical support people, and the first young man I talked to was not surprised by my problem, and with a few quick clicks showed me how to fix it. I wanted to run back to the store and show these sales people what I had learned so they would be able to help others when they came in. How easy it would have been had they known what the instructions said. This same principle is what Jesus is implying here. He wanted His disciples and followers to know what they were talking about when they shared the Good News of God’s plan of salvation, so that when difficulties came they could tell their new converts what steps to take in making the proper adjustment.

Verses 21-22: “You have heard that it was said to our people long ago, ‘You must not murder anyone. Any person who commits murder will be taken to court.’”

When a speaker today begins with “you have heard,” it suggests that the audience is familiar with some saying, slogan or quote from the past. But to the Jewish ear it connotes a different resource. As one Jewish linguistic expert pointed out centuries ago: “For the Jew, ‘hearing’ points to the Scriptures being read to them in schools or synagogues by scribes and rabbis with commentary by the ancient writers.”⁵ Since Matthew wrote this in Hebrew, no doubt he followed the traditional form of expression as found in many Jewish teachings: “They have said…”⁶ or “It is written.”⁷ In this way our Lord is pointing out something that His listeners had been taught. I’m sure most in the crowd nodded their head in agreement when Jesus continued saying that if you murder someone you will be taken to court and judged. Here Jesus refers not only to the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill,” but gives the commentary provided by ancient scholars, “Any person who commits murder will be taken to court.” This echos the advice of Job, who was a contemporary of Abram, in telling the people to remember what was taught in the past.⁸ In doing so our Master recalls the sixth commandment as given by Moses,⁹ and the added punishment.¹⁰

But we know from Near East Documents that this law and its punishment was contained in the code of Hammurabi that was written in Abram’s home country of Chaldea some 300 years before the Ten Commandments were given to Moses. But even before Hammurabi, Noah offered the same demand for justice.¹¹ One Jewish commentator explains that even though Abraham established this prohibition against committing murder, that it still need to be part of the Ten Commandments, otherwise: “…we have a rule that unless a warning not to commit a specific offense is spelled out before the punishment for committing that offense, punishment for such a crime cannot be legally valid”.¹² Since Noah’s son Shem settled in this area of Chaldea, no doubt Hammurabi, and Ur-Nammu and those even before him passed it on. A venerable Jewish writer states emphatically that the person who kills another, “should be executed by the court.”¹³ This of course is taken from Jewish writings where it states that it takes 23 members of the Sanhedrin to carry out capital punishment.¹⁴ And it is also stated that there are four methods of execution which are listed in order of their severity: Stoning, burning, slaying by the sword and strangulation [by hanging].

We know that the judicial system for the people of Israel came into existence through the suggestion of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses¹⁵.¹⁶ And the Rabbis also taught that the origin of capital punishment commenced with the hanging of the chiefs as outlined in this Scripture: “Adonai said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them facing the sun before Adonai, so that the raging fury of Adonai will turn away from Isra’el¹⁷.”¹⁸ In other words, by sentencing those guilty of crimes deserving capital punishment, the Jews were preventing the anger of God from punishing everyone for one person’s crime. Such judicial execution should resemble the taking of life by God: as the body remains externally unchanged when God takes the life, so in judicial executions the body should not be destroyed or mutilated. And during a discussion about how Korah’s sons were devoured by fire because of their profaning of the altar, Rabbi’s say that such death is “the carrying out of God’s command.”¹⁹ One commentary made on this subject reads: “Aaron’s sons and the assembly of Korah were destroyed by God Himself personally.”²⁰ As far as Jesus was concerned, the principle involved when being judged for wrong doing, as in the case of murder, also applied to other wrong doings such as being angry for whatever reason.