Brit Chadasha Foundations-Concepts in Matthew-Chapter 22

Matt 22.1-46 is a continuation of the previous chapter.

v 1…And Yeshua answered (continuing from his previous statements; he was presenting the Kingdom of God to Israel but they were losing the opportunity as the following aggadot will show) and spoke to them again in parables (midrashic aggadot) saying (this chapter is a continuation of his comments in Chapter 21),

v 2…”The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king (the Father), who gave a wedding feast for his son (Yeshua).

v 3…And he sent out his slaves (the talmidim and prophets who preach the Basar) to call those who had been invited (Israel) to the wedding feast (which will be held on earth, after the Messiah comes-Isa 25.6-8; Matt 8.11; Rev 19.9), and they were unwilling to come (this shows that man can’t come on his own and has a natural aversion to it. Outward means alone are sufficient).

v 4…Again he sent out other slaves (other prophets and talmidim) saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready (Yeshua has been slain), come to the wedding feast.”

v 5…But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business,

v 6…and the rest seized his slaves (persecution) and mistreated them and killed them.

v 7… But the king was enraged and sent his armies and destroyed those murderers (of Yeshua and the talmidim), and set their city on fire (this happened in 70 AD).

v 8…Then he said to his slaves (other talmidim and prophets), ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited (Israel and the kingdom offer was being “fumbled”) were not worthy (no righteousness by faith).

v 9…Go therefore to the main highways (the non-Jewish world), and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast (the Basar will be preached to all nations).

v 10…And those slaves went out into the streets, and gathered together all they found, both evil (tares, unbelievers) and good (wheat, believers), and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

v 11… But when the king came in to look over (he knows every “professed” believer-Matt 7.21-23) the dinner guests, he saw there a man not dressed in wedding clothes (Zeph 1.7-8)

v 12… and he said to him, “Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes (no true righteousness; Yehovah never “knew” him)?’ And he was speechless.

v 13…Then the king said to the servants (the angels), ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness (Rev 22.15) in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

v 14… For many are called (“invited” means they hear the Torah preached but few adhere to it by faith. They did not trust the Lord or believe in Yeshua, nor did they conform to the image of God by being hearers and doers of the Torah. They were “lawless” or “torah-less”-Matt 7.13-23), but few are chosen (elected from the foundation of the earth, from eternity by the grace of God-Eph 1.4).”

v 15…Then the Pharisees (from the house of Shammai) went and counseled together how they might trap him in what he said.

 v 16…And they sent their talmidim to him, along with the Herodians (with non-religious ties to the Romans, probably from his family. They did this to have secular witnesses of his answer about loyalty to Caesar), saying, “Teacher, we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God (the Torah) in truth, and defer to no one; for you are not partial to any (they are praising him, but this is a set-up).

v 17…Tell us therefore, what do you think? Is it lawful to give a poll-tax (tribute money) to Caesar or not?”

v 18…But Yeshua perceived their malice (hypocrisy, they were acting like they considered him their teacher-v 16), and said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites (actors)?

v 19…Show me the coin for the poll-tax (it was a Roman coin).” And they brought him a denarius.

v 20…And he said to them, “Whose likeness (image) and inscription is this?”

v 21…And they said to him, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Then render (give) to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s (and man is made in the image of God and he is to be worshipped, honored and obeyed as such).”

v 22…And hearing this, they marveled, and leaving him, they went away.

v 23…On that same day some Sadducees (Hebrew “Tzaddikim” or righteous ones from “sons of Zadok. They believed in the Torah, but not the oral law of the Pharisees), who say there is no resurrection (or an immortal soul or angels, among other things), came to him and questioned him,

v 24… saying, “Teacher, Moses said (in the Torah), ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up an offspring to his brother (they are referring to the Levirate marriage in the Torah which says that a man should marry his brother’s wife if he died to care for her and any children-Deut 25.5-10) .’

v 25… Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother;

v 26…so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh.

v 27…And last of all, the woman died.

v 28…In the resurrection (which they did not believe in) therefore, whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her.”

v 29… But Yeshua answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God (he will now correct two of their errors).

v 30… For in the resurrection (Yeshua now tells them there will be a resurrection) they neither marry, nor are given in marriage (this supports a teaching of the Pharisees in the Talmud, Ma’asrot 4.5-6), but are like angels in heaven (corrects another error in their theology).

v 31… But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying,

v 32… ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (not “used to be”)? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (and in the covenant, God is going to give them and their children the land of Israel, thus proving they will be raised).”

v 33… And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

v 34… But when the Pharisees heard that he had put down the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together.

v 35…And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him.

v 36… “Teacher (rabbi), which is the great commandment in the Law (Torah)?”

v 37…And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind (he quotes the Shema and all these terms are synonymous in Jewish thought and denote the “intellect, character, will, self and senses. In other words, love for God is not based on emotion, but by doing the right thing by following the Torah-Deut 6.1-9. But today, the Torah has been replaced by some emotional concept of “love” and people are warned about this in Matt 7.21 and Micah 6.8. Husbands and wives don’t always feel that “emotional” love all the time, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t love each other. They show it by doing the right thing, in action, even though they may not feel like it. That is why it is not based on emotions).

v 38… This is the great and foremost commandment’.

v 39…And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19.18).’

v 40…On these two commandments depend the whole Law (Torah) and the Prophets (“how” to love God and man is found in the commandments. These two commandments are related because man was made in the image of God and the commandments go toward love with the intellect, the will, the senses, self and character. This statement of Yeshua reflects the teachings of the Pharisees from the school of Hillel and Paul, who was taught in this school-Rom 13.8-10).”

v 41… Now while the Pharisees were gathered together (and certainly would have recognized what Yeshua had just said and agreed with it), Yeshua asked them a question (a pilpul),

(42)… saying, “What do you think about the Messiah, whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David (or an earthly descendant, physical, which wasn’t totally wrong, but he wasn’t a mere man).”

v 43… He said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit (under the purpose and control of) call him ‘Lord,’ (if Messiah is just a man descended from David, how can David, under the control of the Holy Spirit, call him a greater person and superior to himself) saying,

v 44… “The Lord (Yehovah) said to my Lord (adonai), sit at my right hand, until I put thine enemies beneath thy feet (Psa 110.1)?”

v 45… If David then calls him ‘Lord’, how is he his son?”

v 46…And no one was able to answer him a word (they either had to acknowledge that Messiah is God, or confess their ignorance, so they said nothing), nor did anyone dare from that day on ask him another question.

Posted in Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, Tying into the New Testament, Verse-by-Verse Bible Studies

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