Matthew Chapter 3 (Part Two)

A brief Detour
Baptize
It is here in which we need to pause and take a brief detour to explain some terms. John is called the Baptist or the Immerser.

For Jews to be immersed (or baptizein in the language of the Greeks) was meant in the same sense as one might dye a piece of cloth. That is, one dips cloth into a vat of colored dye and when removed that cloth has taken on the characteristics (the color) of the dye.

However, for Jews, the dipping and absorbing of characteristics was also meant in a religious context which revolved around ritual purity. Before a Jew could present his offering at the Temple, he first had to be immersed in a mikveh located near the Temple grounds. This immersion was in obedience to several passages in Leviticus which prescribed this immersion and washing to remedy any of a number of causes for the worshiper who had become ritually impure.

As to the actual immersion process, so far as the ancient documents tell us, a Jew was not dubbed by another person. Rather, it was a self-immersion. Even today there often is a supervisor at a mikveh to make sure that a person is 100% unclothed, has no open wound on him and has submerged every last hair. The supervisor also watches for a few other violations. We do read that John is said to have baptized people, and this is usually taken to mean that he physically immersed the worshippers. But in actuality, his role was probably that of a supervisor.

The term baptizein (baptize) means to “immerse”. Hundreds of years ago within the church the practice of sprinkling began. How sprinkling began is not known. However, David Sterns notes that in the 16th and 17th centuries some in the Church revolted against this substitution of sprinkling for immersion. The first groups to break away called themselves “baptists”.

Kingdom of Heaven
The term the kingdom of heaven has essentially the same meaning and is interchangeable with the phrase the kingdom of God. Some Jews prefer the term the kingdom of heaven because they do not want to use the word “God” due to the taboo of saying His name. This began around 300 B.C. Jews who are more strict and who live in the Holy Land tend to avoid using the term “God” in any context.

It is noteworthy that Matthew is the one Gospel writer who almost exclusively uses the term the kingdom of Heaven instead of the kingdom of God. For the other three Gospel writers, it is the reverse. This could be that Matthew was a very religious and pious Holy Land Jew.

Verse 4: Verse four says that John wore a garment of camel’s hard and a leather belt around his waist.
In 2 Kings 1:8, we read this about Elijah the prophet.

“He was a hairy man,” they answered him, “with a leather belt around his waist.” He said, “It was Elijah the Tishbite.” (2 Kings 1:8)

Since Matthew seeks to connect Elijah and John together, with John essentially the new Elijah, it can be no coincidence that John’s appearance was described as hairy and with a leather belt, just as Elijah’s was.

Eating locusts and honey was not the Jews’ regular diet. It was survival food.

Certain kinds of locusts were considered kosher food for Jews (for more details, please see Leviticus 11). It may not sound appetizing to us, but the Hebrews were not and are not the only culture which finds eating certain insects to be an acceptable addition to their diet.

What is the wild honey which John lives off of? It is probably bee honey taken from colonies of bees. Bees often make their hives in trees, hallows of trees, carcasses of dead animals, etc. In other words, John ate honey which was not cultivated by humans.

It was believed that man-made hives and bee husbandry was a relatively late development. However, in the last ten years, an archeological dig in northern Israel uncovered a large cache of man-made beehives. They are dated to around 900 B.C. (just after the time of King Solomon). These are by far the oldest beehives ever discovered anywhere in the world.

John the Baptist lived a life not connected to regular Jewish society. He wore the outfit of an ancient prophet, most likely to identify him with that profession. One thing to ask ourselves is what was the attraction of John the baptist to people from Jerusalem and Judea who wanted to be baptized by him. Their purpose was to confess their sins. This was not symbolic to identify with Jesus (as Jesus had not begun His ministry). He seems likely that many people in Jerusalem and Judea thought that John was indeed the prophesied return of Elijah. He looked like Elijah, dressed like him and acted like him.

It has been long known (and can be gleaned from the New Testament) that common every day Jews in that era felt so oppressed by Rome that they were certain they had to be living in the prophesied End Times. And since the Prophet Malachi said the Elijah would come before the Day of the LORD (meaning that Elijah would re-appear in the End Times), then it makes sense that John would be seen as Elijah, whether he confessed this or not. In fact when directly confronted about it as recorded in John 1:21, John the Baptist said he was not Elijah. This may be a similar response likened on to when Jesus was asked if He was the Messiah, He was elusive. Whatever answer John gave, it did not matter to most people. They were convince he was the second coming of Elijah.

It is difficult to understand exactly why the people came to be immersed if it was not to see Elijah. It does not help much to read the other Gospel accounts on this matter because they each give the meaning for folks wanting John’s baptism as something a little different. One says it was for the forgiveness of sins; another says it was for repenting. Matthew says in one verse it was for confession and in another for repenting. John the Baptist is also quoted as saying it was for avoiding God’s wrath. This is probably why the next verse states the religious authorities from Jerusalem came to investigate. If this was indeed Elijah or just another holy man who wanted to gain a following, they needed to know.

Matthew Chapter 3 (Part One)

 In this chapter, Matthew quickly turns from the birth of Jesus and all circumstances which surrounded it to John the Baptist. Matthew suddenly jumps over almost 30 years. That is, Jesus’ entire childhood is not discussed. The Gospel of Mark does the same. Only in Luke’s Gospel is part of Jesus’ youth discussed. You can read about it in Luke 2:21-52.

Verse 1: Verse one begins “In those days” or “During those days”. This is an indefinite term that simply means some amount of time has passed and new circumstances are about to be discussed. The time which has passed from the end of chapter is three decades plus or minus a few years.

The new circumstance involves a very strange, yet passionate man called John the Baptist. This was not his real name, but is his English-ized name. In Hebrew, his name was Yochanan, which means the LORD shows favor. Matthew also refers to John as “John the Baptist” and not just “John” as the Gospel of Mark tends to do.

Matthew characterizes John as a preacher. The beginning of his preaching is said to be in the wilderness of Judea. The Judean wilderness is not densely forested hills and valleys, but it is a stark, barren desert. The desert of Judea is the southern end of the Jordan River valley and extends all the way past the Dead Sea and down to the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea.

There were several religious communities who lived in that desolate region in the first century. They sought peace and separation from both the Romans and the corrupt Temple authorities. None was larger nor more famous than the sect of the Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls. The discovery of the scrolls in the mid 20th century opened a new understanding and study of the Old Testament and Jewish history. It is almost impossible to imagine John not living among one or more of those communities during his years of preparation in that barren desert.

An interesting feature in this chapter is that just as Matthew jumped completely over Jesus’ youth, he does the same with John the Baptist. It is often stated in Christian commentaries that this omission assumes the John and Jesus were already well known in the Jewish community. So there was no need to mention it. Perhaps this is so. However my view is that in Jewish thought and writing, unless the point of a biblical narrative is about a person’s times as a youth (such as when David as a teenager battled with the giant Goliath), then the Hebrew cultural value system of placing more weight on mature adults than on infants and children was what was at play.

Furthermore, since all the Gospels are about a religious matter, and since in Jewish society a man had to be 30 years old to be considered eligible to be a religious authority, then for Matthew what John the Baptist and Jesus did as youths was not particularly relevant. When we consider that Jesus grew up in the tiny town of Nazareth and John was a man who lived part of his youth in a desolate desert, then whatever encounters the Jewish public may have had with these two as youths, must have been far and few between. So it is difficult to imagine the local Jewish community being familiar with Jesus’ and John’s infancy and childhood.

There are a few Johns in the New Testament. Recognize that John the Baptist is not the Apostle John, an original disciple of Jesus. John the Baptist is a very unique John whose story begins in other Gospels, but not in Matthew’s, when he was still in his mother’s womb.


What does the word “Baptize” mean?
It is significant for us to understand what the term baptize meant to Jews in the first century because whatever we find in the New Testament about baptize and baptism is meant to be taken in that context. Christian tradition has altered the meaning of the word and the means by which to perform it.

John the Baptist brings two critical messages to the Jewish public. They are “repent for your sins” and “the Kingdom of God is near”. They are two different things, and yet, they are intimately related.

When we hear the words, “Repent because the Kingdom of God is at hand”, we mostly conjure up a picture of a guy standing on a makeshift box on a busy street corner, shouting to no one in particular and people avoiding to look at him. However, what John is talking about is completely different.

John does not say to repent; he says to turn from your sins. The Hebrew word used here is “Teshuvah” “Teshuvah” is often translated into the abbreviated English word “repent”. But “Teshuvah” means so much more. It literally means to turn or to return. In its Jewish religious form it means to turn from one’s sins AND to return to God. It does not only mean to quit your bad behavior. It also means to sincerely recommit one’s life to the LORD and His ways.

An atheist can notice his bad behavior and decide to stop them. BUT, that does not mean the person has repented. Reforming one’s relationship with God is the other necessary ingredient. Furthermore, Jews acknowledge that even this act of returning to God is set in motion by God. We can only truly repent by God’s grace. All else is but a short-live emotional response to our conscience.

The second part of John the Baptist’s message is that the Kingdom of God is near. What exactly is the Kingdom of God and what does he mean that it is near? We will explore that topic a little later in the study.

Verse 3: In verse three Matthew once again connect an ancient prophetic oracle with the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Matthew quotes Isaiah 40:3

“A voice cries out: ‘Clear a road through the desert for the LORD! Level a highway in the desert for our God!’” (Isaiah 40:3)

Different Bible versions will quote this passage differently, but they all amount to the same thing: someone coming from the desert of Judea is going to announce the arrival of God or someone God is sending. The differences among Bible versions come mainly from taking Isaiah’s quote directly from the Hebrew Old Testament or from the Greek Septuagint. Although it is agreed upon by Judaism and Christianity that this passage is prophetic of the coming of a Messiah, in the time it was written the context was of the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon.

To get a better understanding of what this verse is saying, it is best if we read the verses around Isaiah 40:3. let’s read Isaiah 39:5-40:11

 5Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of Hosts: 6The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. 7And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, will be taken away to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
8But Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “At least there will be peace and security in my lifetime.”
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
2
“Speak kindly to Jerusalem;
And call out to her, that her warfare has ended,
That her guilt has been removed,
That she has received of the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.”
3
The voice of one calling out,
“Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4
Let every valley be lifted up,
And every mountain and hill be made low;
And let the uneven ground become a plain,
And the rugged terrain a broad valley;
5
Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
And all flesh will see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
6
A voice says, “Call out.”
Then he answered, “What shall I call out?”
All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
7
The grass withers, the flower fades,
When the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
The people are indeed grass!
8
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.
9
Go up on a high mountain,
Zion, messenger of good news,
Raise your voice forcefully,
Jerusalem, messenger of good news;
Raise it up, do not fear.
Say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
10
Behold, the Lord God will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him.
Behold, His compensation is with Him,
And His reward before Him.
11
Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,
In His arm He will gather the lambs
And carry them in the fold of His robe;
He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
(Isaiah 39:5-40:11)

We see this passage in context is related to the Jews’ return from Babylon. Yet, from the way the verses are written, the fullest fulfillment of this prophecy is much wider and more grand than only the Jews coming home from Babylon. A deeper meaning is that the passage speaks of the Messiah. It was also understood among the Jews that the person who is crying out, the one who is preparing the way, is Elijah.

In Matthew 11:14, Matthew speaks this way of John the Baptist:
“If you are willing to accept it, he (John the Baptist) is Elijah, whose coming was predicted.”

Elijah’s return was predicted in Malachi:
“I will send to you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.” (Malachi 4:5)

Matthew Chapter 2 (Part Four)

Verse 16: Herod died in 4 B.C., so we can assume that it was in the year 4 B.C. that the angel returned to Joseph and told him his family could safely return to the Holy Land. They probably were in Egypt for about a year.

Before Herod passed away, he went into a rage when he realized the magi had tricked him. They had gone to Bethlehem as instructed, but then went home without returning back to Herod and giving Herod the information he had wanted. Herod ordered all the children age 2 years old and younger who lived in Bethlehem to be slaughtered.

It seems when the magi visited Herod, they had told him when it was that they first saw the . However, their seeing the star does not necessarily mean that is represented the specific date the child was born. It could have appeared before or after Jesus’ birth. Since the exact date Jesus was born was not known, Herod issued a decree to kill children in a wide range (age 2 and younger).

Verse 17: This verse explains that the mass homicide King Herod perpetuated upon helpless children simple beach any Jewish boy under 2 years of age might have been the new king the magi came to find, was itself a fulfillment of prophecy according to Matthew. He quotes from Jeremiah 31:14.

This is what the LORD says, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and bitter weeping. It is Rachel weeping fro her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no longer alive. (Jeremiah 31:14)

Matthew connects Rachel’s weeping and refusing to be comforted regarding her children with the mass slaughter of the Jewish children by Herod. Just reading Jeremiah 31:14, it might not be clear what Matthew is trying to convey to the audience. We need to read a few additional verses to understand the context.

This is what the LORD says, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and bitter weeping. It is Rachel weeping fro her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no longer alive.” This is what the LORD says, “Stop your weeping, and dry your eyes, for your work will be rewarded,” says the LORD. “They will return from the enemy’s land; so there is hope for your future,” says the LORD. “Your children will return to their own territory. (Jeremiah 31:14-16)

When we add in more context we see that although Rachel is weeping uncontrollably at the moment, God tells her to stop weeping because there is hope. When Jeremiah mentions Rachel, it is using her name as representative of Israel.

On the surface, Jeremiah’s prophecy is not a Messianic prophecy, but rather it is about return from exile for Israel. Jeremiah lived at the time of the Babylonian conquest of Judea. This included the destruction of the temple and the exile of most of Judea’s population. In Genesis 35:19, it explains that Rachel died on the way to Ephrath. Ephrath is an early name for Bethlehem.

Jeremiah’s prophecy is not primarily about the Babylonian exile because Rachel’s children are Jospeh and Benjamin. While in Egypt, Rachel’s son Joseph fathered two sons: Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim and Manasseh together represent the bulk of the ten northern tribes of Israel which were conquered by Assyria around 720 B.C. They were scattered all over the empire.

The territory of Benjamin was like a buffer state between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. There was a mix of loyalties among the people from Benjamin. It seems God is telling Rachel to stop weeping because all the exiles of Israel (both the northern and southern kingdoms) will eventually return to the Holy Land.

There are same shared common elements between Jeremiah and Matthew’s narrative. Both include Egypt, Bethlehem and the murder of Israelite children. In the end, despite the gut wrenching disasters associated with the two exiles and the murder of the innocent, God says there is hope. So, hope is the theme. The underlying connection seems to be that there is hope for Israel’s return from exile and there is also hope that it is the Messiah who will manifest the return. A Jewish reader in the 1st century would probably caught on to this message. But a gentile reader would have found it very difficult to understand.

Verse 19: Starting in verse 19, we are told that once Herod died, an angel came in a  dream to Jospeh. he and his family were still in Egypt. Now, the all-clear was given for him to return home.

However, when Joseph heard that is was Herod’s son Archelaus who replaced his father, Joseph decide to go to the Galilee instead of returning to Judea. Archelaus had taken control over Judea, Samaria and Idumea. Joseph's decision to avoid Judea was a wise one because Archelaus turned out to be at least as brutal as his father. In fact, his cruelty alarmed Rome. They finally stepped in and replaced him with a Roman governor in 6 A.D. From then on, only Roman governors ruled over Judea.

Galilee, where Joseph took his family, was put under the control of another one of Herod’s sons, Antipas. He was a somewhat more reasonable ruler. So the area was generally more peaceful and secure.

Verse 23: The first half of the verse identifies Nazareth as the town where Joseph and his family settled. Like most of Galilee, it was agricultural. It was an insignificant place. Perhaps Joseph chose it to provide protection to Jesus and Mary.

In the second part of verse 23, Matthew claims the fulfillment of another prophecy. He supposedly quotes Scripture from some unnamed prophet in which is states the Messiah would be called a Nazarine. No known Scripture or combination of Scripture states this.

Several possibilities to solve this dilemma have been suggested.

First, it is suggested the intention was to say that Jesus became a Nazarite. Nothing in the New testament or in His action imply that he took the Nazarite vow.

The second suggestion is that the mean of Nazarine is what a resident of Nazareth was called.

And third is that the word comes from the Hebrew word “netzer” which means “branch”. Thus it connects Jesus to Isaiah 11:1

But a branch will emerge from the trunk of Jesse, a shoot will grow from his roots. (Isaiah 11:1)

If we look at John’s Gospel, we are given a little bit of insight into what perception people had of Nazareth:

Philip was from Beth-saida, the town where Andrew and Peter lived. Philip found Nathaniel and told him, “We have found the one that Moses wrote about in the Torah, also the Prophets. It is Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth!” Nathaniel answered him, “Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?” “Come and see,” Philip said to him. (John 1:44-46)

The point is that Nazareth was apparently a town that was often the brunt of jokes. So people who lived there were considered to be living in a worthless place, therefore any resident of Nazareth took on the same worthless character as the town. To be called a Nazarene identified a person who lived in the place as unworthy to mention. To me, this fits well with the characterization of Jesus. He was a humble man from a humble place. The Messiah and king was anything but prominent, aristocratic and charismatic in appearance…all thing which mankind tends to value, but God does not.

Matthew Chapter 2 (Part Three)

Planetary Conjunction
The next most popular theory is that the Star of Bethlehem was a somewhat rare planetary conjunction. What is a planetary conjunction? A conjunction is when any two or more objects in the sky appear to be very close together. A conjunction could be of asteroids, comets, stars of planets.

The reality is that in the first century not a great deal of distinction was made between stars and planets. They were all called “aster”. So for the astrologers of that day, “aster” was a rather all encompassing term applied to many different kings of lights in the sky because they had no means to understand what they were or how they might be different from one another. 

When Matthew reports about the Star of Bethlehem, he in no way describes it as a divine miracle. Rather, what we must find (if possible) is some celestial circumstance that would have conformed to the detailed and powerful beliefs of the astrologers the magi followed, but it would not have been something we would have been tantalized by. If something specular would have happened in the sky, it would have caught the attention of people throughout Jerusalem and the Roman Empire. (Remember, everyone was looking for a king/Messiah to rise up and overpower the Romans.)

The omen of the birth of a king would have had to fit an already well established set of criteria in order for the magi to assign to it that very specific meaning.

Here is one more thing to ponder: what did the magi see which without a doubt would have indicated a new king of the Jews was born in Judea? And yet, the people in Judea did not notice it, nor did any one else in the Roman Empire see it?

Jews may not have practiced astrology, but that does not mean they did not pay attention to the movement of the stars, the sun and the moon. They used them to determine the months, years, seasons and even the beginning and ending of some of the festivals. They certainly would have noticed something spectacular or unusual in the sky. What this implies is that whatever the magi saw in the sky told them that a new king of the Jews had been born, it had to be subtle and not obvious. Or more likely, it would have been something the star gazers noticed, but it would not have been observed any any one else.

Matthew 2:9-10 After the had listened to the king, they went away, and the star which they had seen in the east went in front of them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

A plain reading of these two verses seems to say that this special star the magi saw moved and led them to where the child was. Then it stopped and hovered over the place where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were. This defies any natural explanation. However there is another view which must be considered because Matthew in no way implies that the star was miraculous or supernatural.

Various constellations of the Zodiac were thought by the magi to represent different regions of the known world. The constellation Aries, the Ram, was representative of the reign under Herod who ruled Judea. So Aries is where the astrologers would have looked for signs about Herod’s kingdom

When stars and planets appear within a section of the sky which represents a certain region on earth, it signaled what would happen in that region of the world. Of the many things these ancient Hellenistic astrologers were looking for, it was the sign of a king dying or being born. Kings were very powerful and greatly affected matters of importance.

Around 6 B.C., likely the year Jesus was born, there was a somewhat rare conjunction of planets. Both the moon and the planet Jupiter occurred within the Zodiac sign of Aries. Might this have been what the magi saw which alerted them to the birth of a new king of the Jews?

As we ponder this event, we also need to factor into our thinking that the birth star was not a sign God gave the Jews, but rather, it was a celestial event meant for pagan astrologers. As Luke chapter 2 explains, the sign God provided the Jews was that they were to look for a baby in a feeding trough in the town of Bethlehem.

Matthew 2:11 Upon entering the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they prostrated themselves and worshipped him. Then they opened their bags and presented him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The magi worshipped the child as they would have any king. Remember the magi were not looking for a Savior or a god but rather for a new born king of Judea. Prostrating oneself before a king was usual and customary. Also presenting expensive gifts when visiting a king was usual and customary especially for first-time foreign visitors.

It has become Christian tradition that Mary gave birth to Jesus not in a house or at an inn but rather in something like a barn or cave. Verse 11 says the magi visited Mary and Jesus at a house. The tradition of a cave or barn comes from the mention of the child being laid in an animal feeding trough. But in that era (and still in some parts of the Middle East) animals are brought in at night to a courtyard which is part of the residence. The family will sleep nearby to the animals. The purpose was to protect these valuable animals from predators and from thieves. Naturally, there would have been a feeding trough inside the courtyard. The place where Jesus and his family stayed was lowly, and placing a child in a feeding trough as a bed was probably not customary. But, according to Matthew’s account, the place where Mary and Jesus were staying was a house.

How old was Jesus? The text implies Jesus was an infant, but he could have been a little bit older and been one year old. Wherever the magi came from, the usual pace for travel was 20 miles a day. The magi could have traveled 500 miles in less than a month.

After paying homage, the magi began the long journey back to their homeland. They are warned in a dream not to return to Herod.

In verse 13, the magi exit the story. But the issue of Herod’s murderous intent remains. We are told an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph to warn him to take his family and flee to Egypt.

Verse 14 explains that Joseph obeyed the angel in his dream.

Verse 15: It is quoting Hosea 11:1