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In his midrashic/lectionary treatment of Matthew, M. D. Goulder suggests that "The three fourteens are to a Jew who had read Daniel six weeks of generations; and if six, then looking forward to a seventh, to make a week of weeks. . . . This, then, is to be the last week, initiated by the coming of Jesus in humility, to be crowned by his coming in power: but it is not a week that will run its course. It those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved: this will be the half-week foretold by Daniel, a time and times and half a time."
Further, "Each of the three fourteens foreshadows Jesus' mission. The first column is primary because it consists of the heroes of the Torah, together with the names from the Book of Ruth which lead up to David’s birth. Jesus is to be displayed throughout the Gospel as the fulfillment of the Torah, and the fulfillment begins with Abraham. A secondary theme, but a very important one, is the Son-of-David, greater-than-Solomon conception, which is found in many places, and becomes dominant after 12. And a third theme is the fulfilling of the METOIKESIA BABULONOS, which dominates the end of the Gospel. The prophet of the Fall of Jerusalem was Jeremiah, the prophet in Babylon was Daniel, and the prophet of the return was Zechariah. Daniel was already important in Mark, but Matthew doubles the Daniel citations, and introduces freely from the other two. The disaster of 586 BC had been duplicated in AD 70, when God sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned their city; and another Jesus than the son of Jozadak will be crowned as the royal priest of the ultimate Return."
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 at 11:46 AM
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