Exegesis of Matthew Chapter 5

Introduction

Studying the Matthew 5:43-36 text there are discrepancies among the manuscripts. The differences that occur in v. 44 are between a longer and shorter reading. Examining the different translations, a longer reading comes from the Vulgate, Majority text from which the King James Version of the Bible is translated. The Majority text is a later text compared to the earlier, shorter texts of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus Codices. The longer verse includes the phrase: p??see??es?e ?pe? t?? ep??ea????t?? ?µa? which is also used in the parallel account as recorded in the Gospel of Luke 6:27ff, and may be a reflection of a melding of the two versions. The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts serve as the primary evidence for the best reading. Examining the grammar and vocabulary of the section, Jesus recalls the commandment of loving one's neighbor, and using the imperative, 'command' mood, Jesus commands to love a?apate one's enemy, and commands to pray p??se??es?e for those who persecute.

Exegesis of Matthew Chapter 5

Matthew 5:43-48 contains the teaching of Jesus about what it means to love others as God loves us. Traditional thought supports the idea that the apostle Matthew wrote this book. A problem with this view is that the writer of Matthew relied greatly on the writings of Mark2 According to William Barclay, “scholars agree that the first Gospel was not written by the apostle Matthew.”3 According to the ancient historian Papias, Matthew collected the logia or sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue.4 However, if the author of this Gospel was one of the original apostles, the account would probably not contain about ninety percent of the same subject matter as Mark written in language that is very close to that used in Mark.5 The date and place of the writing of these scriptures is not known with certainty. One view suggests that Matthew was written after the Jewish Christians were expelled from the Synagogue about 85 or 90 C.E. 6 Another view is that the Gospel was written “some years after the first Jewish-Roman War (A.D. 66-70).”7 Because the Gospel contains both Jewish and Gentile aspects, a possible location of the writing may have been Antioch in Syria where there was a mixture of Jewish and Gentile influences.8 Because of the mixing of Jews and Gentiles in Antioch, there would have been abundant questions about the Law and the Gospel teachings.9 According to one source, the intended audience for these writings was the Jewish-Gentile church. Between the years of 70 to 90 C.E., the Christian church was become more Gentile. The message sent by the writer of Matthew to both Jews and Gentiles was that Jesus was the Christ that fulfilled Old Testament prophecy and that true Judaism was fulfilled in Jesus Christ and not in the Law as interpreted by the Pharisees.10 Matthew 5:43-48 is from the New Testament book of Matthew that falls under the broad genre of Gospel. The Gospel is a literary form that tells the story of Jesus' ...