Matthew 13:35

Matthew 13:35 dia, {C}

On the one hand, the reading “through Isaiah the prophet” is supported by codex Sinaiticus (first hand), several important minuscule manuscripts, one Ethiopic manuscript, and copies of the Gospel known to Eusebius and Jerome. The latter also states that Porphyry cited it as showing the ignorance of Matthew (tam imperitus fuit). Transcriptional probabilities at once favor this as the more difficult reading, for it is easy to suppose that so obvious an error would have been corrected by copyists (compare Matthew 27:9; Mark 1:2).

On the other hand, if no prophet were originally named, more than one scribe might have been prompted to insert the name of the best known prophet — something which has, in fact, happened elsewhere more than once (see comments on 1.22; 2.5; 21.4; Ac 7.48). It is also possible that some reader, observing the actual source of the quotation ( Psalms 78:2), might have inserted “Asaph,” and subsequently — as Jerome suggests — other readers, not having heard of such a prophet (cf. 2 Chronicles 29:30), changed it to the much more familiar “Isaiah.” No extant document is known to read VAsa,f.

In the face of such conflicting transcriptional probabilities, the Committee preferred to follow the preponderance of external evidence.