Coming of the King: Week 25

Matthew 12:1-20: Lord of the Sabbath

• 12:1 This is not stealing, Deuteronomy 23:24-25, and the same principle applies in English common law.
• 12:2 unlawful according to the Mishna. The Sadducees considered the written word the only authoritative rule. The Pharisees considered the oral tradition begun during the exile (and ironically also ultimately written down as the Mishna in 200AD) as equally authoritative. You could compare them to Protestants and Catholics - but note that both camps failed to recognize the Messiah. In the century before Jesus, two camps arose among the Pharisees: Hillel, the liberal, and Shammai, the strict conservative. Jesus at times sides with and at other times condemns all these factions.
• 12:3 The Pharisees justified David for what was arguably unlawful, but condemned the disciples for what was perfectly lawful (Mishna aside).
• 12:6 "One greater than the temple" - not only did Jesus set aside the tradition of the elders, but now He uttered blasphemy!
• 12:8 Jesus called the Father "Lord of Heaven", and Himself "Lord of the Sabbath".
• 12:14 Many of the questions brought to Jesus were hotly debated in the Mishna. E.g. the question of divorce (He affirms Shammai on that issue), or the question of the greatest commandment (He affirms Hillel). By completly throwing out the Sabbath regulations of the Mishna, Jesus becomes a heritic in the eyes of the Pharisees, and hence they seek to kill Him.
• 12:17 Matthew tells us why Jesus so often told those he healed to keep it quiet. Isaiah 42 What does Matthew leave out and why?
• 12:20 Ellicot writes in his commentary: "We cannot help feeling, as we read the words, that the publican-apostle had found their fulfilment in his own personal experience of the profound tenderness of his Master."