Matthew 22:35

Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. For the exposition, see the notes at Mark 12:13....

34-40 An interpreter of the law asked our Lord a question, to try, not so much his knowledge, as his judgment. The love of God is the first and great commandment, and the sum of all the commands of the first table. Our love of God must be sincere, not in word and tongue only. All our love is too little to bestow upon him, therefore all the powers of the soul must be engaged for him, and carried out toward him. To love our neighbour as ourselves, is the second great commandment. There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the root of the greatest sins, and it must be put off and mortified; but there is a self-love which is the rule of the greatest duty: we must have a due concern for the welfare of our own souls and bodies. And we must love our neighbour as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves; in many cases we must deny ourselves for the good of others. By these two commandments let o...

Verse 35. _A LAWYER_] νομικος, _a teacher of the law_. What is called _lawyer_, in the common translation, conveys a wrong idea to most readers: my old MS. renders the word in the same way I have done. These teachers of the law were the same as the _scribes_, or what Dr. Wotton calls _letter-men_, whom he supposes to be the same as the _Karaites_, a sect of the Jews who rejected all the _traditions of the elders_, and admitted nothing but the written word. See Wotton's Mishna, vol. i. p. 78. These are allowed to have kept more closely to the spiritual meaning of the law and prophets than the Pharisees did; and hence the question proposed by the lawyer, (Mark, Mark 12:28, calls him _one of the scribes_,) or Karaite, was of a more spiritual or refined nature than any of the preceding....

JESUS CONVERSES WITH A PHARISEE RESPECTING THE LAW - See also Mark 12:28. Matthew 22:34 THE PHARISEES ... WERE GATHERED TOGETHER - That is, either to rejoice that their great rivals, the Sadducees, had been so completely silenced, or to lay a new plan for ensnaring him, or perhaps both. They would rejoice that the Sadducees had been confounded, but they would not be the less desirous to involve Jesus in difficulty. They therefore endeavored, probably, to find the most difficult question in dispute among themselves, and proposed it to him to perplex him. Matthew 22:35 A LAWYER - This does no

EXPOSITION MATTHEW 22:1 _Parable of the marriage of the king_'_s son. _(Peculiar to St. Matthew.) MATTHEW 22:1 JESUS ANSWERED AND SPAKE UNTO THEM. After they had heard our Lord's words at the end of the last chapter, the Pharisees, according to St. Mark, "left him, and went their way," so that this parable was spoken in the audience of the disciples and the attendant multitude alone, without the former disturbing element. This fact may account for its exhibiting certain merciful and gracious features, setting forth the privilege rather than the duty of obeying the gospel call. The term "answered" often does not signify a reply given to some distinct question, but is equivalent to "took occas

THEN ONE OF THEM, WHICH WAS A LAWYER,.... Or that was "learned", or "skilful in the law", as the Syriac and Persic versions, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel read. The Ethiopic version calls him, "a Scribe of the city", of the city of Jerusalem; but I do not meet with any such particular officer, or any such office peculiar to a single man any where: mention is made of "the Scribes of the people" in Matthew 2:4 and this man was one of them, one that interpreted the law to the people, either in the schools, or in the synagogues, or both; and Mark expressly calls him a "Scribe": and so the Arabic version renders the word here; and from hence it may be concluded that the lawyers and Scribes were the same sort of persons. This man was by sect a Pharisee, and by his office a Scribe; or interpreter of the law, and suitable to his office and character, asked him a question, tempting him, and

LAWYER (Greek, "nomikos", "of the law"); occurs also (Luke 7:30); (Luke 10:25); (Luke 11:45); (Luke 11:46); (Luke 11:52); (Luke 14:3); (Titus 3:13). Except in the last instance, "lawyer" is another name for "scribe." (_ See Scofield) - (Matthew 2:4). _ In ...

MATTHEW 22:35 @nomiko,j# {C} Despite what seems to be an overwhelming preponderance of evidence supporting the word nomiko,j, its absence from family 1 as well as from widely scattered versional and patristic witnesses takes on additional significance when it is observed that, apart from this passage, Matthew nowhere else uses the word. It is not unlikely, therefore, that copyists have introduced the word here from the parallel passage in Luke 10:25. At the same time, in view of the wide-spread testimony supporting its presence in the text, the Committee was reluctant to omit the word altogether, preferring to retain it enclosed within square brackets....

10. THE PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE FEAST. The King's Answers and His Question. CHAPTER 22 _ 1. The Parable of the Marriage Feast. (Matthew 22:1 .) 2. The Herodians Answered. (Matthew 22:15 .) 3. The Sadducees Answered.(Matthew 22:23 .) 4. The Pharisees Answered.(Matthew 22:34 .) 5. The Unanswered Question.(Matthew 22:41 .)_ A third parable follows immediately. They would have laid their hands upon Him, after that searching second parable had been uttered by the Lord, but His hour was not yet. Once more He f

THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT (Mark 12:28 *, Luke 10:25). Mt. puts the questioner, whom he calls a Pharisee, in much less favourable light than Mk. He tempts Jesus to what is not clear (Lk.'s _ekpeirazô n,_ testing, is better) and he omits the pleasing outcome of Jesus-' answer recorded in Mark 12:32 f. Mt. is leading up to the attack on the Pharisees in ch. 23. The lawyer's question is really, What kind of commandment is great in the law? He is seeking a principle of distinction, and Jesus gives him two by which to test particular precepts. In Matthew 22:37 Mt., like the original precept ...