Matthew 19:16-30

The Great Refusal and the Obstacle of Riches (Mark 10:17 *, Luke 18:18). In Matthew 19:16 f. note the changes made by Mt. to avoid the saying of Jesus, as given by Mk., that only God can be called good. In Matthew 19:18 Mt. makes the inquirer ask which commandments he is to keep, and substitutes in Jesus-' reply Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself for Do not defraud. If this is correct, and the inquirer had observed this injunction with the others, he lacked nothing. Perhaps we should (with Syr. Sin.) omit What lack I yet? It is Mt. who says the inquirer was a young man (Matthew 19:20), Lk. that he was a ruler; Mt. does not care to tell us that Jesus, looking upon him, loved him. The words if thou wouldst be perfect (Mt. only) may contain nothing more than is in Mk., a contrast between Christian perfection and the inadequacy of legal observances (Loisy), or there may be here (as in Matthew 19:12) the theory of a double morality, the higher perfection of the ascetic life (Holtzmann and J. Weiss; see Montefiore, p. 695). The qualification (or the wide saying) of Mark 10:24 is omitted in Mt.; on the other hand, he gives us a new saying in Matthew 19:28 (cf. Luke 22:28 ff.), probably based on Q. There is no good reason for doubting its attribution to Jesus, although He was more prone to check than to en courage the materially Messianic ambitions of His disciples. The regeneration (Moffatt, the new world-') is a term used by Josephus to express the return from Babylon, and by Philo of the earth after the Deluge and after the coming destruction by fire.

Matthew 19:30. Perhaps a continuation of the promise in Matthew 19:29, but more likely a rebuke to Peter. It refers to rank in the Kingdom, and has no bearing on the parable that follows