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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
When the Pharisees criticize Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before eating, Jesus responds by quoting from Isaiah 29:13: “this people draws near with their words and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” He immediately goes on to teach His disciples that defilement does not come from consuming food but from the words that come through the mouth from the heart: “what proceeds from the mouth, this defiles a man” (Matthew 15:11).
In context, the words that are coming from the mouth are the words of hypocritical worship, the mouth-service and lip-worship that the Pharisees offer. They have everything backwards: They are not defiled by eating food with unwashed hands; they are defiled by the very thing that they think sanctifies them – their worship.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 7:37 am
Like his earlier book on Revelation, Wes Howard-Brook’s “Come Out My People!”: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond
Still, there are some neat things in this book. For instance, he notices the Genesis reference in Matthew 1:1, and links it with 19:28, where Jesus refers to the palingenesis of all things. Howard-Brook nicely glosses this as “The term translated ‘renewal of all things’ means literally ‘genesis again.’” Just so.
He also notes the link between Genesis 1-2 and the story of Jesus’ birth:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 4:10 pm
In a 2009 article in Biblica, Brandon D. Crowe argues that the phrase “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” in Matthew 1 alludes back to Deuteronomy 32:18. In the LXX of the Song of Moses, the verb gennao is used to describe “God’s begetting of Israel, his son.” The Hebrew verb behind the LXX is yalad, used in Isaiah 1:2; 66:9; Psalm 2:7; Proverbs 8:25.
Isaiah 1:2 is certainly part of the background, since there Yahweh also begets Israel. Matthew explicitly quotes Isaiah 7 only a few verse later, so the early chapters of Isaiah seem to be very much in his mind. Psalm 2 is also a possible intertext. But Crowe argues that Deuteronomy 32 is the main source for Matthew’s language.
He finds, for example, that Matthew alludes to various creation motifs in the first chapter, including the very word genesis. Deuteronomy 32 speaks of the Spirit hovering (v. 10), like the Spirit of Genesis 1:2, and in Deuteronomy creation motifs overlap with exodus. Crowe argues that “in Deut 32 Israel’s deliverance is related to Israel’s sonship by means of creational language. The allusion to Deut 32,18 in Matt 1, 20 evokes this creative and redemptive imagery, further connecting the beginning of the gospel with both the Song of Moses and Gen 1.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 6:43 am
Matthew 28
1 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. 3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. 5 But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.” So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. 9 And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”
Let us pray.
Father, on this day after the Sabbath, this first day of the week, we praise You for Your mighty Son Jesus Christ, who rose in glory from the grave and brought life and immortality to light. Grant us that we, being rescued from our enemies, might serve You without fear, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 5:49 am
Matthew 11:25-27 is mainly organized as a chiasm:
A. Father hides and reveals as is well-pleasing, vv 25-26
B. Father gives all to the Son, v 27a
C. No one knows Son, v 27b
D. except the Father, v 27c
D’. No one knows Father, v 27d
C’. except the Son, v 27e
A’. Son reveals as He wills, v 27f
A couple of points follow from this structure.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 7:24 am
Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah 53:4 in 8:17 is not from the LXX. It is either Matthew’s own translation, or a quotation from another Greek translation that is no longer extant.
Matthew’s quotation is closer to the Hebrew than the LXX, but according to Davies and Allison, Matthew has shifted the sense of the Hebrew text: “In Isaiah the servant suffers vicariously, carrying informities in himself; in the Gospel he heals the sick by taking away their diseases. In the OT the distress seems to be mental or spiritual; in Matthew physical illnesses are the subject. So a text about vicarious suffering has become a text about healing, and two different pictures are involved.” They suggest that Matthew sees healing as a “type of Jesus’ redemptive suffering,” or that “the association between sin and the distasteful reality of disease was so intimate . . . that the healing of sickness could be conceived of as a taking away of sins.”
But there doesn’t seem to be any conflict to resolve here. Matthew shows us Jesus healing, often by touching (8:1, 15). At the end of the first triad of healings, Matthew unveils the reality of the healing by quoting from Isaiah. Isaiah tells us that the Servant – whom Matthew has already identified as Jesus (3:17) – takes our weakness and experiences our sicknesses. Matthew says that this is what Jesus is doing. Like his other fulfillment formulae, 8:17 is not simply a straightforward this-is-that equivalence; the quotation from Isaiah is a theologically weighty explanation of what is happening when Jesus heals.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, January 10, 2011 at 10:59 am
In his essay on the hemorrhaging woman (Matthew 10) in The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels
It’s a nice picture of Jesus’ ministry. He helps both women, but the Israelite woman alone qualifies as “daughter.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 10:54 am
Jerome Neyrey (Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew
In response, the Father demonstrates the piety of His Son: He shakes the earth, tears the temple veil, makes rocks break and tombs open, brings the dead up. It doesn’t convince the Jews, but it’s enough to persuade a Roman centurion that Jesus was the Son of God.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Matthew’s account of the cry of dereliction follows a chiastic structure:
A. Jesus cries Psalm 22, 27:46
B. He falls for Elijah, 27:47
C. Sponge soaked in wine, drink; 27:48
B’. See whether Elijah comes, 27:49
A’. Cried again and gave Spirit, 27:50
There are a number of interesting connections here.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 8:14 am
Jesus’ conversation with the disciples at Caesarea Philippi in Matthew 16:13-28 includes eight statements, alternating between Jesus and the disciples:
1. Jesus asks who people think he is
2. Disciples: various answers
3. Jesus: Who do you think I am?
4. Peter’s confession
5. Jesus: build church
6. Peter: God forbid
7. Jesus: Get behind Satan
8. Jesus: life by losing life
This seems to have some connections with the creation week.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 6:00 am
The episode where the disciples fail to bring bread along with them (Matthew 16:5-12) is organized in parallel:
A.Disciples forget bread (“take”)
B. Jesus: warnings of Pharisees and Sadducees
C. Disciples think it’s because they lack bread
A’. Jesus asks them about the two feedings (emphasis on what they “took up”)
B’. Jesus: leaven of Pharisees and Sadducees
C’. Disciples realize that it’s not bread but about teaching
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 5:49 am
The word “evening” (opsios) is used seven times in Matthew’s gospel. Before we look at the details, we suspect that seven evenings prepare for the dawning of a new day, an eighth day that is the beginning of a new week.
What are the seven evenings?
1. At evening, they bring Jesus demon-possessed and sick people to heal (8:16).
2. After Jesus has been teaching all day, evening comes and the people need food so he miraculously provides it (14:15).
3. After feeding the five thousand, Jesus sends the disciples across the sea (Passover-Exodus), while he stays alone to pray on a mountain during the evening (14:23). Later, he walks across the sea to the disciples.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 5:32 am
Matthew records three quakings: First of the sea (8:24), then of the land at Jesus’ death (27:51), and then at His resurrection (28:2).
Each time there’s a quaking, someone comes from a tomb. In chapter 8, after Jesus calms the storm He encounters two demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes, who live in a cemetery. The demoniacs are evidently coming “out from among the tombs,” but the Greek is much more direct – “coming out of the tombs” (exerchomenoi ek ton mnemeion), conjuring a picture of zombies or mummies rising from the grave to confront Jesus. After Jesus dies, the earthquake cracks open the tombs, and saints “come out of the tombs” (exelthontes ek ton mnemeion). When the earthquake occurs on the day after the Sabbath, Jesus rises from His tomb (though the phrase from the first two quakings is not repeated).
According to Matthew, the gospel story is a story about shaking earth, until death gives up her dead. Initially, demoniacs rise from graves; then the saints; finally Jesus.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 4:30 am
Wherever Jesus goes, people flock to Him seeking favors. Some want to be healed; some want a relative healed; some want to have a place on His right or left hand in the kingdom. Everywhere Jesus goes, He distributes favors.
Jesus the Godfather.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 8:33 am
As soon as Jesus has come down from the mountain from which He preached, His new Sinai, a leper “coming-to worshiped Him” (Matthew 8:1). In the LXX, “coming-to” (proserchomai) means a liturgical approach, Aaron’s approach to the altar (Leviticus 9:7) or the unauthorized “coming-to” holy things by an unclean person (Leviticus 22:3). Coming-to a holy thing while suffering from skin disease was enough to get one cut off from before Yahweh (Leviticus 22:4-6).
Yet, here comes a leper to Jesus, coming-to Him and offering worship to the human altar, to the Holy One of Israel. Instead of cutting Him off, Yahweh in flesh touches and cleanses him.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 8:29 am
As soon as the Twelve are called, they begin to follow Jesus (Matthew 4:20, 22, 25), but until Matthew 8 we never actually see them follow Jesus somewhere. Discipleship is a large concern of chapters 8-10; the word “follow” is used 10x, climactically in 10:38, where following jesus means taking up the cross, encountering threats and dangers.
The disciples have already learned that lesson, though. The first time the disciples are said to follow Jesus somewhere is in 8:23. They follow Him into a boat, into a storm, into a sea-quake, and, when they’re out of danger on the sea, Jesus takes them to a country of demoniacs.
This is where Jesus leads.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 7:41 am
There are three “quakes” in Matthew. Twice the earth quakes, at the cross and at the resurrection (27:51; 28:2). The other quake is a quaking of the sea (8:24).
The quake of the sea in chapter 8 foreshadows the resurrection. Jesus is in a boat, on the sea, sleeping; later, he will sleep the sleep of death, having been tossed into the Gentile sea, tried, and executed. Jesus “rises” from sleep (8:25-26), as He will “rise” from the dead (28:6-7). Jesus demonstrates His authority over wind and sea by rebuking it, just as He will proclaim His authority in heaven and on earth after rising from the tomb. When the boat gets to land, they are in Gentile territory, where Jesus casts out a legion of demons from two demoniacs; after Jesus rises from the tomb, He will send the disciples out to make disciples of the demon-infested Gentile nations, the Roman empire with its legions.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 7:29 am
The Sermon on the Mount begins with beatitudes, and the Olivet Discourse begins with Woes. As N. T. Wright and others have shown, the two series are similar in a number of particulars. The connections between the two discourses continue after the beatitudes/woes section, evident in significant verbal repetition. To wit:
“Kill”: Jesus uses the verb in 5:21 After that it comes up only in Matthew in 19:18, until we get to 23, where it describes what scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites do (23:31, 35).
“Hell” (geenna): Used 7x in the book, 3x in ch. 5. It’s found in 10:28; 18:9, and then as the destination of the disciples of the Pharisees and of the Pharisees themselves (23:15, 33).
“Altar”: Found in 5:23-24; 23:18-20, 35.
“Gift”: In 5:23-24, then 3x in ch 23:18-19.
Swearing by God’s throne comes up in both 5:23 and 23:22.
The sermon lays out a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes. In fact, it is a righteousness that in many particulars directly opposes the “righteousness” of the scribes and Pharisees.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 8:48 am
Jesus sits on a mountain and opens His mouth to teach (Matthew 5:2). The phrasing is unusual; I have found only one place in the OT where opening the mouth is linked with teaching – Proverbs 31, 26, where it is the excellent woman who opens her mouth with wisdom and teaches kindness.
Earlier in Proverbs 31, the phrase is used a couple of times, not in connection with teaching but in connection with royal judgment. Kings ought not open their mouths to drink wine and strong drink (v. 4), but they should instead open their mouths to be the mouthpiece for the dumb, to defend the righteous of the afflicted and needy (vv. 8-9).
Which is just what Jesus proceeds to do: As the King on the mountain, He pronounces blessings on the afflicted.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 8:00 am
You are the salt of the earth. You are a light on a lampstand. Where does Jesus get this? From the temple: Salt is added to the animal sacrifices, and in the Holy Place there are lights on lampstands.
Does he ever get into the Most Holy Place? Yes: In Matthew 5:17-20, He speaks of His and the disciples’ relation to the law, to the tablets of the Torah that are in the ark. In a sense, the entire sermon thereafter takes place in the Most Holy Place.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 7:29 am
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