Matthew 9:10

καὶ ἐγένετο, etc. The narrative of this incident in all three Synoptists is condensed, and the situation not clear. What house is meant (ἐν τῇ οἰκ.), and why so many (πολλοὶ)? “There were many,” Mark remarks, emphatically (Matthew 2:15), and the ἰδοὺ here implies that something important took place. Luke infers (for we need not suppose independent information) that it is a feast (δοχὴν), and, doubtless, he is right. But given by whom? Levi, according to Luke. It may have been so, but not necessarily as the prime mover; possibly, nay, probably, as the agent of his new Master. Our thoughts have been too much biassed by the assumption that the call of Matthew in this section is the main thing, and the feast an accompanying incident, a farewell feast of Matthew's in which Jesus passively partook. The truth, probably, is that the call was a preliminary to the feast, the first step in the working out of a plan. Jesus aims at a mission among the reprobated classes, and His first step is the call of Matthew to discipleship, and His second the gathering together, through him, of a large number of these classes to a social entertainment; the place of meeting being, possibly, not a private house, whether Christ's or Matthew's, but a public hall. If Matthew's house or Simon's (in which Jesus probably had His home, vide Mark) was large enough to have a quadrangular court, the gathering might be there, where, according to Faber, Archäologie der Hebräer, p. 408, meetings of various sorts were held. In any case it was a great affair scores, possibly hundreds, present, too large for a room in a house, a conventicle meeting, so to speak; a meeting with such people in the Synagogue not being possible. For further remarks vide on Mark. τελῶναι καὶ ἁμαρτωλοὶ : publicans naturally, if Matthew was the host, but why ἁμαρ.? He was a respectable man; are the ἁμαρ. simply the τελῶναι as viewed from the outside, so named in anticipation of the Pharisaic description of the party? If Jesus was the inviter, they might be a distinct class, and worse, very real sinners, for His aim was a mission among the social Pariahs.