Mattiyahu

Verses 2:13 to 4:22

Overview

Yeshua, as did the ancient Israelites and Moshe, is born in a place different from where God plans him to be fruitful. He journeys out of Egypt, with someone acting as his prophet, and passes through water to symbolize his belonging to God. He spends forty periods of time in the wilderness being led by God into trials and sustained by God despite hunger. The core of his teaching happens atop a mountain.

In each aspect of this comparison Mattiyahu makes two points: Yeshua in a sense stands for Israel, and he is greater than Moshe.

Born in an Unfruitful Place

There are multiple meanings intended by verse 2:23, which is claiming that several prophets have called the Messiah a Nazoraios (or in some texts Nazarenos) even though this is a made-up Greek word.

First, Isaiah 11:1 calls the Messiah a netzer ("branch") of King David's father, Yishai. This is true of Yeshua.

Second, the term Natzrati ("Nazarene") was an insult, somewhat like "country hick" (an example appears in John 1:46). Multiple prophets did predict that the messiah would be despised by many people (examples include Psalm 22, and Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12) and this too will be true of Yeshua.¹⁰

Third, there is a Hebrew word natzir ("separated one"), most well-known for its use in Numbers 6:1-23 to describe a person who has taken a certain vow to increase their holiness. Yeshua did not take this vow, but he was certainly a "separated one", and contact with him could make people more holy (for example, cleansing them of leprosy, deformity, or chronic bleeding) in a similar manner to how the "Nazerite vow" could do so.

Overall, Yeshua is the prophesied netzer, a Natzarti, and a natzir. By inventing a Greek word that sounded similar to all three of these Hebrew words, Mattiyahu is using a wordplay to highlight all three of these meanings.

Out of Egypt

Hosea 1:1 reads,

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

Mattiyahu knows this verse is about the ancient Israelites. But he applies it to Yeshua to purposefully stress how Yeshua is identified in God's eyes with the people of Israel.

Someone is his Prophet

Yochanan the Immerser has a very clear message. First, he picks a single verse from the Tenach (Isaiah 40:3) and declares he is fulfilling it. Second, he uses culturally understood objects and actions to metaphorically explain how he is fulfilling this verse: his camel's hair clothing identifies him with the poor, his leather belt identifies him with both the poor and Elijah (thus bringing Malachi 4:5 to mind), and tevilah (immersion) was a common practice to symbolize a change in identity or a rededication (for example, at that time a betrothed couple would do tevilah before the wedding ceremony). Third, he preaches a simple yet profound request: Do teshuvah (repentance) to be ready for how the Kingdom of God is soon to arrive.

Most English copies of scripture mistranslate Matthew 3:3 and Isaiah 40:3. There is no reason to doubt the grammar shown by the Masoretic text, which places the phrase "in the wilderness" with the proclamation, not the location of the proclaimer.¹¹ In other words, it should read

The voice of one who cries out, "In the wilderness prepare the way of Adonai, make his paths straight."

Thus even the place where Yochanan was preaching was part of his explanation of how he was fulfilling Isaiah 40:3.

Note that Mattiyahu (as well as Yochanan and Yeshua, apparently) assumed either that people would know of what to repent, or that God would reveal to them how to repent if they genuinely attempted to do so.

The phrase "Kingdom of God" refers most obviously in scripture to often-proclaimed eternal rule of Messiah the son of David (First Kings 2:4 and 8:25, Isaiah 9:6-7, Jeremiah 33:17, etc.) and how this is called a kingdom in Daniel 2:44 and Daniel 7:13-14. By the first century, the Jewish people had developed many extra ideas about what the Kingdom of God would be like. The core concept is merely that where the King's authority is accepted the kingdom's laws and power will be present.

Yochanan and Yeshua challenge people by teaching that even "good Jews" (such as the Pharisees, who were regarded by most of their contemporaries as admirably pious) are spiritually like Gentiles (verses 3:6-9), like people who would kill their ancestors who were prophets (verse 3:7, see below), and must come out of the economic world (Matthew 4:22).

What has Yeshua asked us to give up or turn from? How do we need to surrender our lives to be following him?

The phrase "brood of vipers" in verse 3:7 refers to a common belief that baby vipers ate their way out of their mothers.¹² Yeshua will later (verses 23:30-33) use this same image to very explicitly identify the Pharisees with those Jews who once killed the God's prophets.

Passing Through Water

The word baptizien refers to dipping an object into a liquid so that it takes on that liquid's qualities. It was commonly used to refer to dying cloth, and was a natural Greek word to use for the Hebrew word tevilah.

Moshe was once ostracized by the Israelites for killing an Egyptian. When the Israelites agreed to pass through the Red Sea and let it drown the Egyptian army, they were idenitfying with Moshe's earlier stance: sometimes oppressors must be killed. By agreeing with Moshe about an issue in which they had previously opposed him, they were "immersing" (identifying) themselves to his view.

Similarly but more significantly, Yeshua must identify with the faithful and repentant remnant of Israel, beginning an identification that will climax when he dies for their sins and iniquities. He physically proclaims this identification by undergoing the same immersion of Yochanan that they underwent.

So Mattiyahu has just stressed that God identifies Yeshua with the people of Israel, and Yeshua identifies himself with the (repentant) people of Israel. He concludes this narrative section by sharing how the God's spirit also appeared, agreeing that Yeshua is identified with Israel and chosen by God.

If God spoke from Heaven to and about you, what might he say?¹³

Trials in the Wilderness

Yeshua cites Deuteronomy 6:13, 6:16, and 8:3. Since the weekly Parashot were in use in the first century, some scholars hypothesize that Yeshua's temptation happened at the time of year (near Tish B'Av) when Parashot Va'etchanan and Ekev, which include these verse, are read.

In First John 2:16, that apostle writes of three kinds of temptations: desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. In Genesis 3:6 Eve faced all three: the fruit was good for food, pleasant to see, and desirable for wisdom. In Matthew 4:3-11 Yeshua again faces all three: bread to eat, the pleasantness of security, and exaltedness of authority to rule. (Note that in Luke 4 the order is different, since Luke is not in the middle of an elaborate comparison of Yeshua to both Israel and Moshe.)

How do the three kinds of temptations effect us? In our lives, are we personally stronger or weaker regarding one type? Have we experienced unusual divinely-given freedom from temptation (beyond the usual victory over slavery to our evil inclination) of any type?

Yeshua's citing of Deuteronomy 6:16 alludes to Exodus 17:2-7. The point is that wanting more than having your needs met and whining about it may count as putting God to the test.

Sustained by God

So Yeshua provided for the Israelites and Moshe for forty years in the wilderness! Now, after Yeshua's only fast of forty days, he has angels providing for him.

Teaching Atop a Mountain

Moreover, we will see that the Sermon on the Mount clarifies and expands the Sinai covenant.

The early apostles agreed with Mattiyahu that Yeshua was similar to Moshe yet greater. For example, in Acts 3:22-23, Peter paraphrases Deuteronomy 18:15-19 and applies that stern prophecy to Yeshua:

For Moshe indeed said to the fathers, "Adonai your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You are to listen to him in all things whatever he says to you. It shall be that every soul that will not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people."

Unlike Peter, Mattiyahu is initially making the comparison between Yeshua and Moshe without being so blunt about the corresponding importance of following Yeshua's teachings. Mattiyahu makes clear this importance in the next section of the text, in Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount, from Yeshua's own words rather than an editor's perspective.

10Stern, pages 11-14 11Stern, page 17 12Keener, pages 122-123 13Halliday, page 39