Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament - Part 2As It Is Written in the ProphetsMatthew 5:7-12; Psalms 24:3-4; Proverbs 15:18, 21:21; Amos 7:10-17; 1 Kings 19:1-4, The Beatitudes (09/24/18)Mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking are supported throughout the Old Testament, although nowhere as pithily as in the Beatitudes. Stories of persecution of the prophets, on the other hand, are fewer but much more detailed. Prophets as a whole had ready access to the Jewish rulers; for example, Nathan marched up to David and rebuked him for his affair with Bathsheba, and Elijah met Ahab on the road and called him a "troubler of Israel." Even Amaziah was only willing to tell Amos to go away, and not to make him disappear. Jezebel, on the other hand, was a Baal-worshiping Philistine princess, and when Elijah crossed her, she put a price on his head. Matthew 6:1-13; Amos 4:4-5; 2 Kings 4:8-10, 32-33; Proverbs 30:8-9, 24:29; Ecclesiastes 5:2; Daniel 6:10, On prayer, (09/25/18) I hope that when I go to church, I go there to worship God, and not to be seen worshiping God. Both Jesus and the prophets say that motives are important. Jesus says that if your motive is to be seen, being seen is the only reward you're going to get. Amos is much more sarcastic: he's not actually urging people to sin, to offer impure sacrifices, or to make sure everyone sees them, he's just pointing out that this is what people love to do. Instead, Jesus urges us to pray privately so that only God will know about it. Of course, he follows this with a model for public, corporate prayer as well. Matthew 6:14-21; Proverbs 21:13; Isaiah 58:3-7; Job 22:23-25, On forgiveness, fasting and true treasure, (09/26/18) Jesus was steeped in the scripture, and the preaching of his scripture – which Christians call the Old Testament – is full of parallelisms. One important type of parallelism is contrast: "This, but that." Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount with three teachings presented as contrasting parallels.
Matthew 6:22-34; Job 31:24-28; Psalms 62:10-12, On light, money, and trust in Providence, (09/27/18) I’m not convinced that Jesus talked more about money than any other topic, as has often been said; however, he did talk a fair amount about money. Why? Probably because we are obsessed with money. Jesus, the writer of Job, and David all warn us that to be overly concerned with money is to be false to God. Psalms 145:14-21, 147:7-11; 2 Chronicles 1:7-12; 1 Kings 10:14-25, On money and trust in Providence (09/28/18) Yesterday we read Matthew’s account of an important point that Jesus made about money: Don’t be anxious about money and the things you buy with it, because God provides what you need, just as God provides for the needs of the grass and the birds. We see this theme also in the psalms. Jesus says that the beauty of the flowers exceeds the glory of Solomon, so I figured it was worth taking a look at the glory of Solomon. There’s also plenty of scripture (mostly in Proverbs, but also in a few parables of Jesus) that says we should be prudent with our money. Anxiety is not the same as prudence. Matthew 7:1-14, On effective prayer; the Golden Rule (10/01/18) You may think you’ve heard of the “straight and narrow,” that is, a narrow path that doesn’t wind around. In fact, what you’ve heard of is the “strait and narrow,” that is, a difficult, narrow path. Jesus tells us that the way that leads to life, the path of righteousness, is difficult. Getting into trouble, in contrast, is as simple as following a wide, easy road. Matthew collects several sayings of Jesus that seem to be on a variety of topics: judgment, hypocrisy, prayer, and life. There seems to me to be a common theme in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You don’t want to be judged, do you? Then don’t judge. You don’t want to be criticized by someone worse than you are, so don’t criticize. Give God credit for being a better parent than you are, and ask for what you need! It’s not easy to treat other people the way we want them – or God – to treat us, but this week, let’s try. Deuteronomy 4:29-31; 30:11-20; Proverbs 3:27, 8:17, 11:25; Tobit 4:15; Psalms 1:1-6, On effective prayer; the Golden Rule (10/02/18) “Seek, and you will find,” says Jesus, and Deuteronomy 4:29, Proverbs 8:17, and Jeremiah 29:13 promise that when you seek God, you will find God. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” says Jesus; Proverbs 3:27 and 11:25 and Tobit 4:15 have less positive versions of the same idea. “Enter by the strait and narrow way,” says Jesus; Moses and David seem to have had less realistic ideas about the difficulty of righteousness. Matthew continues to show us that Jesus knew the scriptures and routinely went beyond them. Matthew 7:15-20; Lamentations 2:13-14, On false prophets (10/03/18) In our recent study of prophets, we learned to beware of false prophets. One way to tell that someone is a false prophet is to look at the short-term prophecies. Do they come true? If not, you’re looking at a false prophet. Another, even more immediate way to tell that someone is a false prophet is by looking at what they do. Are the prophet’s actions kind? Do they display the love of God? Do the prophecies expose your sins or tell you that everything is fine? (True prophets hardly ever tell you that everything is fine, because God only sends prophets when things are not fine.) The way to recognize false prophets is by looking at their deeds, just as you recognize a bad tree by its bad fruit. Ezekiel 13:1-16, 22:23, 28-31, On false prophets (10/04/18) Jesus tells us to beware of false prophets, and we saw yesterday that the Old Testament says the same thing. In fact, the Old Testament has a second message: "O ye false prophets, beware!" Have I mentioned lately that you shouldn't take my word for anything? Read the Bible for yourself, and don't let me lead you astray, as the false prophets led God's people astray in the time of Ezekiel. Matthew 7:21-29; Isaiah 29:13-14; Amos 5:21-27; Isaiah 1:14-17; Psalms 6:8, On false followers (10/05/18) Jesus teaches that what you do is more important than what you say, and David, Isaiah, and Amos said exactly the same thing. So this raises a question for me. What exactly were the scribes teaching? If Jesus is teaching the same things that David and the prophets taught, why are the crowds astonished at his words?
Regina's Answer: Aha! I think this is probably another instance of English changing while Hebrew does not. Remember that (before our time) one meaning of "wonderful" was "capable of eliciting wonder, astonishing." That's still in the dictionary, but I'm not sure many modern American speakers, at any rate, would use it that way now. "Do wonderful things" is the ESV's translation of the single Hebrew word "pala," which from Strong's dictionary seems to mean "accomplish hard things; do marvelous* things or miracles." *I.e., things that make you marvel, not good things. Another example of the same trend. So "wonderful" in this verse is more in the nature of "I wonder how he did that???" than "Boy, is that great!" Matthew 8:1-17; Leviticus 14:1-7, Jesus cures various illnesses (10/08/18) You know the idiom, "Just say the word." That means that if you want something done, just say so, and it will be done. When the Roman centurion comes to Jesus to ask that his servant be cured, Jesus offers to go with him and do it. The centurion replies, "You don't have to come. Just say the word." The Greek verb often translated "will" in Matthew 8:2-3 means "will" in the sense of "want to." The leper is confident that Jesus can heal him if he wants to. Once the leper is cured, however, he must go to the priests to be pronounced clean, as we see in Leviticus 14. All four Gospels recount instances of Jesus' ability to heal; in this passage, Matthew tells us about three specific healings and "many" additional cases of cures from disease and exorcisms of demons on the same day. Matthew says this shouldn't be a surprise, because such power was prophesied by Isaiah. Isaiah 53:1-5; 2 Kings 5:1-19a, Jesus cures various illnesses (10/09/18) If you've been reading with us for a while, you remember how often I've said that different translators frequently come up with different English (or whatever) words for the same Greek or Hebrew words. The majority of the quotations of the Old Testament that we read in the New Testament are more or less word for word from the Greek Old Testament translated by rabbis around 300 B.C., called the Septuagint or LXX. In the first century, few Jews spoke or read Hebrew, and the standard biblical text that they read was the Septuagint. Matthew, however, usually does not quote from the LXX. Apparently he did his own translations directly from the Hebrew. Yesterday we read Matthew's version of Isaiah 53:4: "He took our illnesses and bore our diseases." As near as I can tell, a lot of scholars think this is a pretty loose, or possibly figurative, translation, or maybe just an allusion to Isaiah. I looked at the Hebrew, just because I was curious, and I think Matthew is simply doing what translators do. There are various ways to bring the Hebrew words into Greek, and he chose a perfectly good way that happens to vary a little from the equally good way that the LXX translators chose. Matthew used Greek words to go with the possible meanings of the Hebrew that are related to physical illness; the LXX translators used words that emphasize spiritual illness. Neither is wrong. Matthew 8:18-34, Jesus calms the storm (10/10/18) We human beings have had a hard time coming to grips (if we have yet come to grips) with the idea that natural phenomena are not gods. One of the most common gods in the pagan pantheons, and often the most important, is the storm god. Now, you and I and our fellow readers, and probably the vast majority of Christians, Jews, and Muslims worldwide, know that there is no such thing as a storm god. A storm is a created thing, just like the sun, moon, and stars (see Genesis). Probably Jesus' disciples were also clear on this point; however, someone who has power over the storm, even if it's not a god, inspires astonishment and awe. The same goes for demons, but the Gadarenes were astonished and afraid, not awed. Psalms 107:23-31, 65:5-8, Jesus calms the storm (10/11/18) In the Old Testament, the only one who causes or stills the storms is the LORD, the God of our salvation. No wonder the disciples asked about Jesus, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?" Matthew 9:1-13; Hosea 6:1-6, Loving-kindness vs. ritual (10/12/18) Jesus often refuted criticism by citing scriptural support for what he was doing or teaching. He could do this because he had studied the scripture, and what he did and taught was in line with scripture. We should do that! Matthew 9:14-34; Zechariah 8:18-23; Numbers 15:37-41, Fasting and more cures (10/15/18) As we have seen, Matthew often quotes from the Old Testament, and he quotes Jesus quoting from the Old Testament. But sometimes he just graciously assumes that we know the Old Testament as well as he does. Such a case we see today. Matthew (like Mark and Luke) offers no explanation about the "fringe of his garment." The garment in question is the one prescribed for all Jews in the Law of Moses, which Jews today wear in the form of a prayer shawl. The sick woman who comes to Jesus has such great faith that even touching one of the tassels on Jesus' prayer shawl is enough to draw on his power (see Mark 5:30) and make her well. The prayer shawl was so important that the prophet Zechariah says that the Gentiles will hang onto it to gain admission to the kingdom of God. I suspect it is not a coincidence that Matthew puts Jesus' teaching about fasting and feasting right before the healing through the agency of Jesus' prayer shawl. Pay special attention to the reading from Zechariah, where the prophet talks about fasting and feasting immediately before the salvation of the Gentiles through the agency of the Jews' prayer shawls. Matthew 9:35-38; Zechariah 10:1-4; Jeremiah 50:6-7, Sheep without a shepherd (10/16/18) Do you have a pastor? Our word for the ordained leader of a congregation comes from the Latin word pastor, which means herdsman or shepherd. Even today one of the definitions of flock is "a group under the leadership of one person, especially a church congregation." The image of God as the shepherd of his people, and thus the image of us as his sheep, is an ancient one, and from ancient times God has been appointing political and spiritual leaders to serve under him. When Jesus sees the people "like sheep without a shepherd," he is recalling the words of the prophets, spoken when kings and prophets had failed in their duty to God and the people of Israel. Matthew 10:1-15, Jesus sends the Twelve on a mission, but not to Samaria (10/17/18) When Jesus sent his disciples out to practice all the things that they had learned from him about preaching the good news and physical and spiritual healing, he told them not to go to the Samaritans. Why not? This is one of those cases where Matthew (like Jesus) expects you to know what's in the Old Testament without needing to have it explained to you. Tomorrow we'll read about the origins of the enmity between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus also referred to Sodom and Gomorrah, but Jesus, Matthew, and I are all sure that you already know that story. Ezra 4:1-24, Source of enmity between Israel and the Samaritans (10/18/18) In the Exile, the Babylonians deported the Jews from Judah to Babylon. While they were there, the Jews got two things really straight: 1) Don't worship other gods, and 2) Stay separate from peoples that worship other gods. Eventually the Jews were sent back to their own country and started to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Meantime, the Babylonians had deported other subject nations to Palestine, and those transplanted peoples had taken up the worship of God along with the few remaining northern Jews not deported. When the returned Jews started building, they came and said, "Hey! Can we help?" and the Jews replied, "No, and we don't even want to talk to you!" The other people were mainly from the more northern parts of Palestine, which in the time of the kings was known as Samaria. They took offense at the Jews' answer and began a letter-writing campaign that resulted in shutting down the project. Relations between the Jews and Samaritans were permanently strained, and it wasn't until after Jesus' resurrection 600 years later that he was able to send his Jewish followers to be his witnesses "in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." By the way, the Samaritans are still around, although the population is very small, about 800 souls. Their scripture is the first five books of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Matthew 10:16-20; Exodus 4:1-17, What you will say will be given to you (10/19/18) I have really terrible stage fright, although probably the better you know me, the less you believe that. This is because while I'm teaching Bethel or doing this Bible study, my stage fright goes away completely. I don't have to be frightened, because the Lord tells me what to say. Not that I always get it right! Read the Bible for yourself and don't take my word for anything! Anyway, Jesus tells his disciples, just as the LORD told Moses, "Don't worry; God will tell you what to say." Matthew 10:21-42, Enmity within families; kindness rewarded (10/22/18) Anyone who becomes a Christian thinking everything is going to be easy is bound to be disappointed. Be kind and gentle anyway. Micah 7:1-8; Proverbs 11:25, Enmity within families; kindness rewarded (10/23/18) Jesus was quoting from Micah 7:6 when he said, "I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household." Matthew 11:1-6; Isaiah 26:19, 29:18-19, Are you the one who is to come? (10/24/18) Around the first century, quite a number of men claimed to be the Jews' long-expected Messiah. Anybody can say anything about himself, but apparently Jesus subscribed to the axiom that actions speak louder than words. When John sent his disciples to ask whether Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus didn't say yes or no. He said they should tell John what they themselves had seen and heard, which was that the prophecies of Isaiah were being fulfilled in his actions. Isaiah 35:1-6, 61:1-3, Are you the one who is to come? (10/25/18) When Jesus told John's disciples to report back to John what they had seen and heard, he was well aware that John knew the message of the prophet Isaiah. These Messianic passages from Isaiah are part of a theme often referred to as the "restoration of paradise." If Jesus is doing the work of the Messiah, he must be the Messiah. Matthew 11:7-15; Malachi 3:1-3, 4:5-6, Elijah has preceded the one who is to come (10/26/18) Until Jesus appeared on the scene, John the Baptist was the best known and most popular person in Palestine. Huge crowds came to listen to him preach and to be baptized by him. Everybody thought he was a prophet, except the religious authorities, who maintained that the time of prophecy was over. John even dressed like a prophet! Malachi had predicted that the great prophet Elijah would reappear to prepare the way for the Messiah, and during the intertestamental period, other writings had raised expectation to a fever pitch. After dismissing John's disciples with a message to John, Jesus starts asking the crowd what they think. In Matthew 11:7-9, you can almost see the crowd shuffling their feet. They think John is a prophet, but just in case that's not the right answer, they want somebody else to speak up first. Finally, Jesus gets an answer from somebody, and he says, "Right! A prophet! And in fact, the prophet Elijah has come." Matthew 11:16-24, Lament over the lake towns (10/29/18) I recently read a comment on Matthew 11:16-17 that came as a revelation to me. I never understood those verses, because I thought they were about the children who are sitting and calling. John Wesley said that the "generation" is being compared to the children who won't come and play, no matter what the game is. In the same way, this generation doesn't listen to John because he fasts and doesn't listen to Jesus because he eats. They just won't listen, no matter what. This makes Jesus sad and annoyed, and he pronounces a lament over the lake towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Laments over cities have a long history in the Old Testament, as we'll see in the next couple of days. Isaiah 23:1-9, Lament over the lake towns (10/30/18) When Isaiah prophesied about Tyre and Sidon, he combined judgment (e.g., "be ashamed") and a lament (e.g., "wail"). Jesus said that it would be worse for the lake towns of Galilee on the day of judgment than it would be for Tyre and Sidon. If those ancient cities had seen his mighty works, they would have repented, but the lake towns of his own day didn't repent, having seen the works. This is another case where the reference to the Old Testament comes directly from Jesus, not from Matthew. Isaiah 14:3-15; Genesis 19:24-29, Lament over the lake towns (10/31/18) In Jesus' lament over the lake towns of Galilee, he says to Capernaum, "Will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades," which is an allusion to Isaiah 14:14-15, where Isaiah has written a mocking song about the king of Babylon. Jesus also said that the land of Sodom would be better off than Capernaum on the day of judgment. Rejecting the works of God that are clearly set before you is a terrible sin. And by the way, no matter what we might have thought, vs. 12 is about the king of Babylon, not about Satan. It says so right there in vs. 4, and Isaiah ought to know who he's talking about. Matthew 11:25-30; Hosea 10:11; Jeremiah 2:19-20, 5:4-5, 6:16, "My yoke is easy" (11/01/18) There's a really important thing to know about a yoke: the animal wears a yoke in order to do the work and will of the master. Most typically a yoke is shared by two animals, who share the load, and that's important, too, but it's more important that the yoke allows the animal to do the work and will of the master. The prophets Hosea and Jeremiah, unfortunately, give us only images of rebellious people who do not want to wear God's yoke. Jesus says that his yoke is easy, that is, comfortable and non-chafing, but he never implies that we are not to do his work. We find rest for our souls only when we wear the yoke of our master willingly. More of As It Is Written in the Prophets Introduction; Matthew Chs. 1-4 First and Second Discourses, Narratives, Matthew Chs. 1-11 Third and Fourth Discourses, Narratives, Matthew Chs. 12-18 Narrative, Matthew Chs. 19-22 Fifth and Final Discourse, Narrative, Matthew Chs. 23-28 Copyright 2018, 2019 and 2021 by Regina L. Hunter. All rights reserved. This page has been prepared for the web site by RPB. Opinions expressed on this page are solely those of the author, Regina Hunter, and may or may not be shared by the sponsors or the Bible-study participants. Thanks to the Holy Spirit for any useful ideas presented here, and thanks to all the readers for their support and enthusiasm. All errors are, of course, the sole responsibility of the author. Our Sponsors: St. John's United Methodist Church, "Transforming Lives Through Christ." 2626 Arizona NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87110 St. John's Music Ministries now has a YouTube channel, bringing you free concerts and choral music. 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