Matthew 12:1-8 Lord of the Sabbath
Translation & Sermon by
Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 29 Apr 2012
Translation
12:1 During that time on the Sabbaths, Jesus proceeded
through the grainfields.
Now, His disciples were hungry, so they began to pick and eat kernels.
12:2 And upon seeing [this], the Pharisees said to Him,
“Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath!”
12:3 But He said to them, “Did you not read what David did because
He was hungry – he and those with him, 12:4 how he entered into the house of
God and ate the loaves set out, which it was not lawful for him to eat – nor for
those with him, but only for the priests?
12:5 And did y’all not read in the Law that on the Sabbaths
the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath yet continue to be innocent?
12:6 Well, I’m telling you that here is something greater
than the temple!
12:7 And, if y’all had known what it means, ‘It is mercy
that I am wishing for and not sacrifice,’ you would not have ruled against the
innocent.
12:8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
12:9 Then, transitioning from
there, He came into their synagogue.
12:10 And, look, there was a man,
his hand in a withered condition.
And they questioned Him in order
that they might bring charges against Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the
Sabbaths?”
12:11 Then He said to them, “Is
there a man from among y’all who, if he has one sheep, and if that one happens
to fall into a pit on the Sabbaths, is it not so that he will grab hold of it
and lift up?
12:12 Therefore, how much more
value does a man carry than a sheep?
Thus it is lawful on the Sabbaths
to do be doing good.”
12:13 Then He said to the man,
“Start stretching out your hand,”
and He stretched it out, and it was
restored – as healthy as the other!
I. The Case
In the Gospel of John, chapter
5, we see Jesus head South to the higher elevations of Jerusalem for the annual
Passover festival:
After these things there was a
feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by
the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five
porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and
withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down
at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first,
after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever
disease with which he was afflicted.] A man was there who had been ill for
thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had
already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, "Do you wish
to get well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put
me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another
steps down before me." Jesus *said to him, "Get up, pick up your
pallet and walk." Immediately the man became well, and picked up his
pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were
saying to the man who was cured, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not
permissible for you to carry your pallet." But he answered them, "He
who made me well was the one who said to me, 'Pick up your pallet and
walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Pick up
your pallet and walk'?" But the man who was healed did not know who it
was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place.
Afterward Jesus *found him in the temple and said to him, "Behold, you
have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to
you." The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made
him well. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing
these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, "My Father is working until
now, and I Myself am working." For this reason therefore the Jews were
seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath,
but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. (John
5:1-18 NASB)
- John says that the Pharisees “persecuted” or “pursued”
Jesus after that time, so I think that the Pharisees from Jerusalem sent a
delegation to trail Jesus home to Capernaum after the feast in Jerusalem.
This group of Pharisees was there to intimidate Jesus and to gather
evidence that could be used in a church trial against Jesus at some
point in the future. In basketball, this is called a “full-court press.”
Wow, the heat is on!
- So Jesus is walking home for days – maybe even weeks –
from Jerusalem back to Capernaum with His disciples, and they run out of
food. No problem. The law of Moses had a neat provision:
- To the farmers, it said: “When you reap the
harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of
your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them
for the needy and the alien. I am the LORD your God.” (Lev. 23:22, NASB)
- And to the travelers it said: “When you enter your
neighbor's vineyard, then you may eat grapes until you are fully
satisfied, but you shall not put any in your basket. When you enter your
neighbor's standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand,
but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor's standing grain.” (Deut.
23:24-25, NASB)
- The majority of Greek manuscripts of the parallel passage
in Luke 6:1 give us the additional information that this was the deutero-proto
Sabbath, or, as the KJV translates it, “the second Sabbath after the
first.” I think this means that this was the second Saturday after the
first big festival of Passover,
for the Jews were supposed to count off seven Saturdays after Passover and
then come back to Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival. If it was the week
after Passover, Jesus could still naturally be travelling back home, and
it would be late April, and the barley would be ready to harvest at this
point.
- Now, if you’re following along in the KJV, they’re going
to call it “corn” because the KJV is British, and that’s the generic
British word for grain. When the Indians gave maize to the Pilgrims who
landed in America, the pilgrims didn’t know what it was, so they called it
“corn” – some unknown kind of grain.
- So it’s this time of counting off seven Sabbaths to
Pentecost, and Jesus is almost home, but He’s been on the road for a week
and it’s a Saturday, which was the Jewish Sabbath. So they’re going to go
to the synagogue to worship like we do on Sunday morning, and
12:1 During that time on
the Sabbaths2, Jesus proceeded through the grainfields.
Now, His disciples were hungry, so they began to pick and eat kernels.
εν εκεινω τω
καιρω επορευθη
ο ιησους τοις σαββασιν δια των
σποριμων οι δε μαθηται
αυτου
επεινασαν και
ηρξαντο
τιλλειν σταχυας
και εσθιειν
II. The Clash
12:2 And upon seeing
[this], the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not
lawful to do on a Sabbath!”
οι δε
φαρισαιοι
ιδοντες ειπον
αυτω ιδου οι
μαθηται σου
ποιουσιν ο ουκ
εξεστιν ποιειν
εν σαββατω
- According to the legal traditions of the Jews recorded in
the Mishna under the Sabbath heading, the disciples were breaking at least
three laws:
- Gleaning was judged to be a form of reaping a harvest,
and rubbing grain between your fingers to get rid of the chaff so you
could eat just the wheat berry was judged to be a form of threshing, and,
of course reaping and threshing were regular work not allowed on the
Sabbath. “he that reaps (on the sabbath day) ever so little, is guilty
(of stoning)” (Maimon. Hilch. Sabbat, c. 8. sect. 3 & 7. 1)
- Furthermore, even if you could somehow get around the
judgment that this was reaping and threshing, no one was allowed to pluck
and hull more than the weight of a dried fig.
- And no one was allowed to eat more than a lamb’s mouthful
worth of gleaned grain on the Sabbath (Shabbath 7:9).
- I can just see one of these uptight Pharisees with a
dried fig in his pocket as a standard of reference, “I have just been
doing some calculating, and I estimate that one handful of barley is
equal to the weight of one dried fig. Therefore, Andrew is definitely
over the limit – Look at him; he’s getting his third handful. And, oh my,
did you see that? Peter just stuffed a whole bunch of barley into his
mouth – there’s no way that would all fit in a lamb’s mouth. This is
definitely getting out of hand! We’ve got to stop this callous disregard
for the Sabbath right now!”
- The heart of the problem here is that these men are
usurping God’s authority by adding to God’s standards. These men want to
be in control rather than letting God be in control.
- Calvin noted that “hypocrisy makes them scrupulous in
trivialities while… taking license in important matters…. Carnal worship
demands stricter observation of external rites… however the
interpretation of the law is to be sought from the mind of the
Legislator.”
- Matthew Henry elaborates: “The Jewish teachers had
corrupted many of the commandments by interpreting them more loosely
than they were intended; a mistake which Christ discovered and rectified
in His sermon on the Mount, but concerning the fourth commandment, they
had erred in the other extreme and interpreted it too strictly… Those are
no friends to Christ and His disciples who make that to be unlawful which
God has not made to be so.”
- So Jesus engages this challenge to His authority through
teaching in the following verses:
III. The Champion
- Notice first of all that Jesus appeals to the Bible as the
authoritative word, not the words of a famous teacher. He says, “Have you
not read?” (v.3), “Or have you not read” (v.5), and in v.7, “If only you
had known the meaning of this scripture from Hosea.”
- Jesus was probably being sarcastic here. Even though the
average person didn’t have a copy of the Bible, every Pharisee worth his
salt had read these passages and it would be an insult to suggest they
hadn’t.
- But we learn an important principle here. All those Old
Testament stories are not some kind of excess baggage tacked onto God’s
word. They are practical examples of how God’s laws can be applied and
how God has related to different people under different circumstances.
- We need to study those Old Testament stories or else we
will misunderstand other parts of God’s word. We need to interpret
scripture by scripture.
- Now, let’s look at the three case studies Jesus argues
from Scripture:
(1) David ate the showbread:
12:3
But He said to them, “Did you not read what David did because He was hungry –
he and those with him, 4 how he5
entered into the house of God and ate the loaves set out, which it was not
lawful for him to eat – nor for those with him, but only for the priests?
ο δε ειπεν
αυτοις ουκ
ανεγνωτε
τι εποιησεν
δαυιδ οτε
επεινασεν
αυτος και οι
μετ αυτου 4
πως εισηλθεν
εις τον οικον
του θεου και
τους αρτους
της προθεσεως
εφαγεν
ους
ουκ εξον ην
αυτω φαγειν
ουδε τοις μετ
αυτου ει μη τοις
ιερευσιν
μονοις
- Jesus is referring to an incident recorded in 1 Sam. 21, before
David became king of Israel, when David discovered that King Saul wanted
to kill him. David fled for his life out of the country of Israel. On his
way out, he stopped at the place where the tabernacle for worshipping God
had been set up in the little town of Nob.
- Ahimelech the priest was caretaker of the tabernacle, and
he came out to greet David, and David asked him for five loaves of bread
to feed himself and his buddies. David decided not to put the priest in
an ethical bind by mentioning that the king was out to kill him and thus
that helping David would be against the king’s will. Ahimelech just
thought David was in a hurry on an urgent errand and needed food.
- There was no ordinary bread available at the moment, but
there were 12 large loaves of bread made of 3 litres of flour each, which
were baked each day and set on a golden table in the holy place before
God to represent the 12 tribes of Israel offering themselves for God to
use.
- Leviticus 24:5-9 "Then you shall take fine flour
and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each
cake. You shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the pure gold
table before the LORD. You shall put pure frankincense on each row that
it may be a memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to
the LORD. Every sabbath day he shall set it in order before the LORD
continually; it is an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel. It
shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place;
for it is most holy to him from the LORD'S offerings by fire, his
portion forever." (NASB)
- In Greek, this bread was called prosthesews –
literally that which is “set forth” or “presented” – like food on a
table, and translated “showbread” by KJV, “consecrated bread” (that has
been set apart as holy) by NAS & NIV, and “bread of the Presence” by
the RSV/ESV (because it was put in the presence of God).
- Ahimelech the priest decided to give this special bread
to David and his companions because they were hungry and it was an
emergency, even though God had said it was only for Aaron and his sons.
Ahimelech only demanded that it not be shared with any man who was
sexually promiscuous.
- Jesus reasons with the Pharisees that, “If necessity
absolved David from blame, it can absolve others as well.” ~Calvin
(2) Priests do manual labor on the Sabbath
12:5
And did y’all not read in the Law that on the Sabbaths the priests in the
temple desecrate the Sabbath yet continue to be innocentNAS,NIV/blamelessKJV/guiltlessESV?
η ουκ
ανεγνωτε εν τω
νομω οτι [ενC,D,W] τοις
σαββασιν οι
ιερεις εν τω
ιερω το
σαββατον βεβηλουσιν και
αναιτιοι
εισιν
- The law God gave through Moses is pretty clear that
the priests had work to do on the Sabbath day. For instance, Numbers
28:3-10 “This is the offering by fire which you shall offer to the LORD:
two male lambs one year old without defect as a continual burnt offering
every day. You shall offer the one lamb in the morning and the other lamb
you shall offer at twilight; also a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a
grain offering, mixed with a fourth of a hin of beaten oil. It is a
continual burnt offering which was ordained in Mount Sinai as a soothing
aroma, an offering by fire to the LORD. Then the drink offering with it
shall be a fourth of a hin for each lamb, in the holy place you shall
pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the LORD. The other lamb you
shall offer at twilight; as the grain offering of the morning and as its
drink offering, you shall offer it, an offering by fire, a soothing aroma
to the LORD. Then on the sabbath day two male lambs one year old without
defect, and two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil as a
grain offering, and its drink offering: This is the burnt offering of
every sabbath in addition to the continual burnt offering and its drink
offering.” (NASB)
- On the day when everybody else was supposed to rest, the
priests had to be managing crowds of people, leading animals around,
skinning and butchering sheep and oxen, draining blood, hauling heavy carcases
up on the altar, carrying wood and keeping a hot fire going, baking
showbread, and washing pots and pans and clothes. It was not a day of
rest for the priests.
- This sets forth another
principle. Not only were emergencies a special circumstance, but
there were also special people for whom the law was different: Officers
of the law.
- For instance, it’s against the law to speed and run red
lights, right? If a police officer is sitting in his squad car and he
sees a driver run a red light, what’s he going to do? No, not
necessarily. If that other driver is also a police officer chasing a
lawbreaker, the first policeman is not going to charge the other
policeman with a driving violation. (It would be a different story,
however, if the other driver were a policeman who was off duty and not
responding to an emergency. In that case he could be justly charged with
a traffic violation.)
- In this second case presented by Jesus, priests stood in
a different relation to the Sabbath law than the average person, and, as
officers of the Sabbath day, could profaneKJV,ESV, breakNAS,
desecrateNIV the Sabbath – treat the day as not special.
- Jesus reasons that, “if the temple sanctifies the manual
work involved in sacrificing… the holiness of the true and spiritual
temple is more excellent and purges its worshippers from all fault when
they perform the duties of godliness” ~Calvin
- Jesus continues…
12:6
Well, I’m telling you that here is something/someone greater than the temple!
λεγω δε υμιν οτι του ιερου μειζον εστιν ωδε
- “The ordinary rules
for the observance of the Sabbath give way before the requirements of
the temple; but there are rights before which the temple itself must give
way.” ~JFB
- “Christ in a cornfield was
greater than the temple, for in Him dwelt – not the presence of God
symbolically, but – all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Note, if
whatever we do, we do in the name of Christ, and as unto Him, it shall be
graciously accepted of God, however it may be censured and caviled at by
men. Secondly, it is not enough for us to know the scriptures, but we
must labor to know the meaning of them… Ignorance is the cause of
our rash and uncharitable censures of our brethren.” ~M. Henry
(3) Prophecy prioritizes mercy over sacrifice
12:7
And, if y’all had known what it means, ‘It is mercy [compassionNAS]
that I am wishing for and not sacrifice,’ you would not have ruled against the
innocent.
ει δε
εγνωκειτε τι
εστιν ελεον
θελω και ου
θυσιαν ουκ αν
κατεδικασατε τους
αναιτιους
o
This is an exact
quote of the Greek Septuagint translation of Hosea 6:6 “What shall I do unto you,
Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah? whereas your mercy is as a morning
cloud, and as the early dew that goes away. Therefore have I mown down your
prophets; I have slain them with the word of my mouth: and my judgment shall go
forth as the light. For I will have mercy rather than sacrifice, and the
knowledge of God rather than whole-burnt-offerings. But they are as a man
transgressing a covenant:”
o
That is reminiscent of Micah 6:7-8 “Will the
Lord accept thousands of rams, or ten thousands of fat goats? should I give my
first-born for ungodliness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Has it
not been told thee, O man, what is good? or what does the Lord require of thee,
but to do justice, and love mercy, and be ready to walk [humbly] with the Lord
thy God?” (Brenton)
o
The parallel passage in the Gospel of Mark (2:28)
records an additional comment from Jesus, “For the Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath.”
o
“The Sabbath was instituted to be a blessing to man
to keep him healthy, make him happy, and render him holy.” ~Wm. Hendriksen
o
The grammar indicates10 that the
Pharisees did not understand the meaning of Hosea 6:6. If they had
understood its meaning, they would have understood that the Sabbath (as with
all the 10 commandments) was not intended by God to be an occasion of condemning
and controlling fellow men with severe restrictions, but rather was intended by
God to give freedom and blessing.
o
The Sabbath day was particularly to be an occasion
of rest to refresh His people, and a day on which His people could be more free
to do merciful things for others.
o
Parents, are the rules in your house made to free
and bless your children, or are they made to condemn and control?
- “It is the practice of compassion that should distinguish the people
of God rather than the punctilious observance of outward regulations, no
matter how sacred.” ~Leon Morris
- The word “mercy” encompasses all the duties of love, and
the word “sacrifice” stands for all the outward worship ceremonies of the
law.
- And “mercy” is fleshed out here as feeding the hungry
(v.1) and healing the crippled (v.13). So what would it look like for you
to flesh out mercy on Sunday?
- “Outward ceremonies
have no importance nor are they demanded by God, except so far as they are
directed to their proper end. God does not reject them absolutely, but
tells us that He prizes them less in comparison with the words of love…
We are… cautioned lest by attributing too much to ceremonies we let slip
what is far more important to God… remember what is commanded about the
worship of God: first that it is spiritual, and secondly that it should
be measured by the rule Christ lays down here.” ~Calvin
- Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Psalm 37:32-33 “The sinner
watches the righteous, and seeks to slay him. But the Lord will not leave
him in his hands, nor by any means condemn him when he is judged.”
(Brenton) Jesus comes to the rescue of his falsely-accused disciples and
exposes the Pharisee’s misinterpretation of the first table of God’s law
as a neglect of the second table of the law.
Conclusion
12:8 For the Son of Man
is Lord of the Sabbath.”
κυριος γαρ
εστιν [καιTR,Mk.2:28]
του σαββατου ο
υιος του
ανθρωπου
- This is a power struggle to see who has authority to
regulate the 4th commandment about observing a Sabbath day. And
Jesus will not concede that authority to the Pharisees. Instead he claims
to be Lord of the Sabbath.
- What does that mean? “Lord of the Sabbath” Throughout the
O.T., the words “Lord” and “Sabbath” appeared together to indicate that
the Lord God instituted the Sabbath day rest for man and that this rest
was to be directed toward Him: “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days thou shalt labour, and perform all thy work. But on the seventh
day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; on it thou shalt do no work, thou,
nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy servant nor thy maidservant, thine ox
nor thine ass, nor any cattle of thine, nor the stranger that sojourns
with thee. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, and the
sea and all things in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the
Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11 (Brenton)
- Do you catch the import of Jesus’ statement here? He says
that the “Son of Man” is that Lord who instituted the Sabbath. That is
huge. The God who created the world and engraved the 10 commandments in
stone was standing before those Pharisees and disciples as a man named
Jesus.
- Therefore, questioning Jesus’ judgment was like somebody
today questioning a law which had been passed by Congress, affirmed by the
Supreme Court, and was being enforced by the President. There is no appeal
possible.
- It’s time to shut your mouth boys and stop arguing with
Him about who has the correct interpretation of this law. The original
lawgiver Himself is giving the final word on the subject: The disciples
are innocent of breaking the commandment about the Sabbath; it is o.k. for
them as hungry travelers to glean some barley out of a farmer’s field for
breakfast on their way to church. It’s o.k.
- The lawgiver of old (who will also be the final judge on
the last day) has spoken; let no one dare question His authority!
- It is, by the way, also
by the authority of Jesus that the Sabbath remains part of God’s
law (since He is still Lord of it), and it is by the authority of Jesus
that the Sabbath has been moved forward to the first day of the
week (Sunday) instead of the last day of the week (Saturday).
- JFB put it this way, “This indicates the permanent
establishment of the Sabbath… not to abolish it… but to preside over it,
to ennoble it by merging it into the Lord’s Day and breathing into it an
air of liberty and love… making it the nearest resemblance to the eternal
sabbatism [of heaven].”
- It’s easy to take potshots at the Pharisees of Jesus’ day,
but what about you? Are you going to bow in submission to Jesus as your
ultimate authority, or are you going to try to add your rules to condemn
and control people?
- Maybe you are too polite to criticize your fellow
church-goers out loud, but it goes on in your head just as viciously: “I
can’t believe she’s wearing THAT!” “How can they let their child do THAT?”
“Why don’t they go to church events as often as I do?” “They are so formal
they can’t possibly be sincere” “How can they be so loose with their
participation in the Lord’s Supper?” “How dare he or she mention that
movie or book or TV show in conversation?” And on and on our
self-righteous minds can prattle.
- How can we fight the urge to condemn and control people:
- Study the scriptures – even the O.T. stories
- Seek to understand the meaning
- Seek mercy/compassion/love first
- Sometimes it will be appropriate to call a brother or
sister in Christ down for something that Jesus has clearly condemned as
wrong. This is the loving thing to do to protect your brother or sister
from the chastisement that will surely come to them if they continue to
walk contrary to Christ.
- Submit to the Lord Jesus who is the lawgiver and judge