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1 The conversation takes place in Capernaum, where people come, amazed at the mysterious disappearance of Jesus (cf. John 6:22 sl).
2 We are talking about the ritual washing of hands, which was considered obligatory. Instructions on external purity occupied a much larger place in rabbinic legislation than instructions on internal purity, purity of conscience. " Tradition of the Elders" - an oral tradition containing many minor additions to the Law. The rabbis, relying on the authority of the elders, traced it back to Moses.
3-6 The Pharisees argued that a person who has mentally dedicated part of his property to God cannot use it for any other purpose. This decision could remain fictitious, and no obligations would follow from it. Some people used it to get rid of the need to help their parents, thereby violating the commandment of God.
10-20 Food prohibitions ( Lev 11 ) were prescribed to separate the Israelites from the Gentiles. Zealots often attached exaggerated importance to these prohibitions. Christ, by His authority, directly abolishes the division of food into clean and unclean. In NZ distinctive feature The faithful should no longer be observance of these external rules, but love for all people. " Does not defile - we are talking about ritual ablutions" (cf. Matthew 23:25 ).
21 Wanting to hide from the crowd that wanted to crown Him as king, Christ leaves the borders of Israel and retires to Phenicia.
22 “Canaanite woman”: the Canaanites are the descendants of the people who lived in Palestine before the Jews arrived there (see Canaan in the geographical directory).
23 “Let her go” - can be understood in the sense: fulfill her request (cf (Greek) Matthew 18:27 And Matthew 27:15 ).
26 Christ's mission is first to save the Jews, the "sons" of God and the sons of promise, and then to save the Gentiles; Jews usually called pagans "dogs."
1. Evangelist Matthew (which means “gift of God”) belonged to the Twelve Apostles ( Matthew 10:3 ; Mark 3:18 ; Luke 6:15 ; Acts 1:13). OK ( Luke 5:27) calls him Levi, and Mk ( Mark 2:14) — Levi Alfeev, i.e. son of Alphaeus: it is known that some Jews had two names (for example, Joseph Barnabas or Joseph Caiaphas). Matthew was a tax collector (tax collector) at the Capernaum customs house, located near the shore of the Sea of Galilee ( Mark 2:13-14). Apparently, he was in the service not of the Romans, but of the tetrarch (ruler) of Galilee, Herod Antipas. Matthew's profession required him to know Greek. The future evangelist is depicted in Scripture as a sociable person: many friends gathered in his Capernaum house. This exhausts the data of the New Testament about the person whose name appears in the title of the first Gospel. According to legend, after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, he preached the Good News to the Jews in Palestine.
2. Around 120, the disciple of the Apostle John, Papias of Hierapolis, testifies: “Matthew wrote down the sayings of the Lord (Logia Cyriacus) in Hebrew (the Hebrew language here should be understood as the Aramaic dialect), and translated them as best he could” (Eusebius, Church History, III.39). The term Logia (and the corresponding Hebrew dibrei) means not only sayings, but also events. The message Papius repeats ca. 170 St. Irenaeus of Lyons, emphasizing that the evangelist wrote for Jewish Christians (Against heresies. III.1.1.). The historian Eusebius (IV century) writes that “Matthew, having preached first to the Jews, and then, intending to go to others, set forth in the native language the Gospel, now known under his name” (Church History, III.24). According to most modern researchers, this Aramaic Gospel (Logia) appeared between the 40s and 50s. Matthew probably made his first notes while he was accompanying the Lord.
The original Aramaic text of the Gospel of Matthew is lost. We only have Greek. translation, apparently made between the 70s and 80s. Its antiquity is confirmed by the mention in the works of “Apostolic Men” (St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, St. Polycarp). Historians believe that the Greek. Ev. from Matthew arose in Antioch, where, along with Jewish Christians, large groups of pagan Christians first appeared.
3. Text Ev. Matthew indicates that its author was a Palestinian Jew. He is well acquainted with the Old Testament, with the geography, history and customs of his people. His Ev. is closely connected with the tradition of the OT: in particular, it constantly points to the fulfillment of prophecies in the life of the Lord.
Matthew speaks more often than others about the Church. He pays considerable attention to the question of the conversion of the pagans. Of the prophets, Matthew quotes Isaiah the most (21 times). At the center of Matthew's theology is the concept of the Kingdom of God (which he, in accordance with Jewish tradition, usually calls the Kingdom of Heaven). It resides in heaven, and comes to this world in the person of the Messiah. The good news of the Lord is the good news of the mystery of the Kingdom ( Matthew 13:11). It means the reign of God among people. At first the Kingdom is present in the world in an “inconspicuous way,” and only at the end of time will its fullness be revealed. The coming of the Kingdom of God was predicted in the OT and realized in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Therefore, Matthew often calls Him the Son of David (one of the messianic titles).
4. Plan Matthew: 1. Prologue. Birth and childhood of Christ ( Matthew 1-2); 2. Baptism of the Lord and the beginning of the sermon ( Matthew 3-4); 3. Sermon on the Mount ( Matthew 5-7); 4. The ministry of Christ in Galilee. Miracles. Those who accepted and rejected Him ( Matthew 8-18); 5. The path to Jerusalem ( Matthew 19-25); 6. Passion. Resurrection ( Matthew 26-28).
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Holy Scriptures of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the exception of the Gospel of Matthew, which, according to tradition, was written in Hebrew or Aramaic. But since this Hebrew text has not survived, the Greek text is considered the original for the Gospel of Matthew. Thus, only the Greek text of the New Testament is the original, and numerous editions in various modern languages around the world are translations from the Greek original.
The Greek language in which the New Testament was written was no longer the classical ancient Greek language and was not, as previously thought, a special New Testament language. It is a spoken everyday language of the first century A.D., which spread throughout the Greco-Roman world and is known in science as “κοινη”, i.e. "ordinary adverb"; yet both the style, the turns of phrase, and the way of thinking of the sacred writers of the New Testament reveal Hebrew or Aramaic influence.
The original text of the NT has come down to us in a large number of ancient manuscripts, more or less complete, numbering about 5000 (from the 2nd to the 16th centuries). Until recent years, the most ancient of them did not go back further than the 4th century no P.X. But for Lately Many fragments of ancient NT manuscripts on papyrus (3rd and even 2nd century) were discovered. For example, Bodmer's manuscripts: John, Luke, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude - were found and published in the 60s of our century. In addition to Greek manuscripts, we have ancient translations or versions into Latin, Syriac, Coptic and other languages (Vetus Itala, Peshitto, Vulgata, etc.), of which the most ancient existed already from the 2nd century AD.
Finally, numerous quotes from the Church Fathers have been preserved in Greek and other languages in such quantities that if the text of the New Testament were lost and all the ancient manuscripts were destroyed, then experts could restore this text from quotes from the works of the Holy Fathers. All this abundant material makes it possible to check and clarify the text of the NT and classify it various shapes(so-called textual criticism). Compared with any ancient author (Homer, Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Cornelius Nepos, Julius Caesar, Horace, Virgil, etc.), our modern printed Greek text of the NT is in an exceptionally favorable position. And in the number of manuscripts, and in the shortness of time separating the oldest of them from the original, and in the number of translations, and in their antiquity, and in the seriousness and volume of critical work carried out on the text, it surpasses all other texts (for details, see “Hidden Treasures and new life,” archaeological discoveries and the Gospel, Bruges, 1959, pp. 34 ff.). The text of the NT as a whole is recorded completely irrefutably.
The New Testament consists of 27 books. The publishers have divided them into 260 chapters of unequal length to accommodate references and quotations. This division is not present in the original text. The modern division into chapters in the New Testament, as in the whole Bible, has often been attributed to the Dominican Cardinal Hugo (1263), who worked it out in his symphony to the Latin Vulgate, but it is now thought with greater reason that this division goes back to Archbishop Stephen of Canterbury Langton, who died in 1228. As for the division into verses, now accepted in all editions of the New Testament, it goes back to the publisher of the Greek New Testament text, Robert Stephen, and was introduced by him in his edition in 1551.
The sacred books of the New Testament are usually divided into laws (the Four Gospels), historical (the Acts of the Apostles), teaching (seven conciliar epistles and fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul) and prophetic: the Apocalypse or the Revelation of John the Theologian (see Long Catechism of St. Philaret of Moscow).
However, modern experts consider this distribution to be outdated: in fact, all the books of the New Testament are legal, historical and educational, and prophecy is not only in the Apocalypse. New Testament scholarship pays great attention to the precise establishment of the chronology of the Gospel and other New Testament events. Scientific chronology allows the reader to trace with sufficient accuracy through the New Testament the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, the apostles and the primitive Church (see Appendices).
The books of the New Testament can be distributed as follows:
1) Three so-called synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and, separately, the fourth: the Gospel of John. New Testament scholarship devotes much attention to the study of the relationships of the first three Gospels and their relation to the Gospel of John (synoptic problem).
2) The Book of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul (“Corpus Paulinum”), which are usually divided into:
a) Early Epistles: 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
b) Greater Epistles: Galatians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Romans.
c) Messages from bonds, i.e. written from Rome, where ap. Paul was in prison: Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon.
d) Pastoral Epistles: 1st Timothy, Titus, 2nd Timothy.
e) Epistle to the Hebrews.
3) Council Epistles (“Corpus Catholicum”).
4) Revelation of John the Theologian. (Sometimes in the NT they distinguish “Corpus Joannicum”, i.e. everything that St. John wrote for the comparative study of his Gospel in connection with his epistles and the book of Rev.).
FOUR GOSPEL
1. The word “gospel” (ευανγελιον) in Greek means “good news.” This is what our Lord Jesus Christ Himself called His teaching ( Matthew 24:14 ; Matthew 26:13 ; Mark 1:15 ; Mark 13:10 ; Mark 14:9 ; Mark 16:15). Therefore, for us, the “gospel” is inextricably linked with Him: it is the “good news” of the salvation given to the world through the incarnate Son of God.
Christ and His apostles preached the gospel without writing it down. By the mid-1st century, this preaching had been established by the Church in a strong oral tradition. The Eastern custom of memorizing sayings, stories, and even large texts helped Christians of the apostolic era accurately preserve the unrecorded First Gospel. After the 50s, when eyewitnesses earthly service Christ began to pass away one after another, the need arose to write down the gospel ( Luke 1:1). Thus, “gospel” came to mean the narrative recorded by the apostles about the life and teachings of the Savior. It was read at prayer meetings and in preparing people for baptism.
2. The most important Christian centers of the 1st century (Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Ephesus, etc.) had their own Gospels. Of these, only four (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are recognized by the Church as inspired by God, i.e. written under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. They are called “from Matthew”, “from Mark”, etc. (Greek “kata” corresponds to Russian “according to Matthew”, “according to Mark”, etc.), for the life and teachings of Christ are set out in these books by these four sacred writers. Their gospels were not compiled into one book, which made it possible to see the gospel story from different points of view. In the 2nd century St. Irenaeus of Lyons calls the evangelists by name and points to their gospels as the only canonical ones (Against heresies 2, 28, 2). A contemporary of St. Irenaeus, Tatian, made the first attempt to create a single gospel narrative, compiled from various texts of the four gospels, “Diatessaron”, i.e. "gospel of four"
3. The apostles did not set out to create a historical work in the modern sense of the word. They sought to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ, helped people to believe in Him, to correctly understand and fulfill His commandments. The testimonies of the evangelists do not coincide in all details, which proves their independence from each other: the testimonies of eyewitnesses always have an individual coloring. The Holy Spirit does not certify the accuracy of the details of the facts described in the gospel, but spiritual meaning contained in them.
The minor contradictions found in the presentation of the evangelists are explained by the fact that God gave the sacred writers complete freedom in conveying certain specific facts in relation to different categories of listeners, which further emphasizes the unity of meaning and orientation of all four gospels (see also General Introduction, pp. 13 and 14) .
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1 (Mark 7:1 ) This entire chapter coincides in presentation with Mark 7:1-37 ; 8:1-10 . What happened in Gennesaret can be seen from 14:34 , and this is indirectly confirmed by the Evangelist John, who, having outlined the conversation in Capernaum, says that “after this Jesus walked through Galilee” ( John 7:1 ). It is very likely that this was some time after the Passover, close to the events of the feeding of the five thousand. The scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem, as Matthew and Mark unanimously testify. These were people who were more honorable than the provincials, and were distinguished by a stronger hatred of Christ than the latter. These Pharisees and scribes were probably sent by the Jerusalem Sanhedrin.
2 (Mark 7:2-5 ) In the further story, Matthew departs from Mark, who provides detailed information about what exactly the traditions of the Jewish elders were about washing their hands and why the scribes and Pharisees accused the Savior and His disciples. Mark's testimony is very well confirmed by the Talmudic information we have about these Jewish rites. The Pharisees had many washings, and their observance reached the extreme pettiness. There were, for example, different types of water that had different cleansing powers, up to six in number, and it was precisely determined which water was suitable for certain ablutions. The definitions regarding hand washing were especially detailed. Speaking about hand washing, the evangelists, and especially Mark, reveal a very close acquaintance with the then customs of the Jews, set out mainly in the small Talmudic treatise on the washing of hands Yadayim. Hand washing, as Edersheim shows ( The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. II, 9 et seq.), mainly on the basis of this treatise, were not a legal establishment, but a “tradition of the elders.” The Jews observed the ritual of washing their hands so strictly that Rabbi Akiba, being imprisoned and having barely enough water to sustain life, preferred to die of thirst rather than eat with unwashed hands. Failure to observe ablution before dinner, which was considered an institution of Solomon, was punishable by minor excommunication (niddah). The Pharisees and scribes blame the disciples, and not the Savior Himself, just as they did when plucking the ears of grain.
3 (Mark 7:9 ) The Pharisees and scribes accuse the disciples of violating the tradition of the elders, and they themselves are guilty of violating the commandment of God. This latter is violated by “your tradition,” which relates not to ablutions, but to a completely different subject. According to Chrysostom, the Savior proposed this question, “showing that he who sins in great deeds should not notice with such care the unimportant actions in others. “You should be accused,” He says, “but you yourself accuse others.” The Savior reveals the error of the Pharisees in that they paid attention to little things and lost sight of the most important things in human relationships. Washing hands and honoring father and mother are opposite poles in human moral relations. Both Chrysostom and Theophylact and Euthymius Zigabenus say that the Savior here does not justify the disciples in their observance of petty Pharisaic institutions and admits that there was some kind of violation of the human institution on the part of His disciples. But at the same time he asserts that on the part of the scribes and Pharisees there was also a violation in a much higher sense; and, what is of much greater importance, their tradition was to blame for this violation. The Lord here places a clavum clavo retundit [the stake is knocked out with a stake].
4 (Mark 7:10 ) Quotes from Exodus 20:12 ; Deut 5:16 ; Exodus 21:17 ; Lev 20:9 . According to Chrysostom, the Savior " does not immediately turn to the offense committed and does not say that it does not mean anything - otherwise He would increase the insolence of the accusers; but first he defeats their insolence, making it seem like a much more important crime and placing it on their head. He does not say that those who violate the decree do well, so as not to give them an opportunity to accuse Himself; but also does not condemn the actions of the disciples, so as not to confirm the ruling. He also does not accuse the elders as lawbreaking and vicious people; but, leaving all this, he chooses another path and, apparently condemning those who approached Him, meanwhile touches those who made the very decisions».
5-6 (Mark 7:11,12 ) Matthew is almost identical with Mark, but with the omission of the word “corban” and with the replacement of Mark’s words: “you already allow him to do nothing for his father or his mother” with other expressions set out in the first half of verse 6. The construction of the verse in Matthew is less clear than in Mark. The word “corvan” is a literal translation of the much-used Jewish vow formula, which was subject to many abuses!.. The foundations of vow practice were given in the Holy Scriptures Old Testament(cm. Gen 28:20-22 ; Lev 27:2-4,9-12,26-29 ; Numbers 6:2,3,13-15,21 ; 21:2,3 ; 30:2-17 ; Deuteronomy 23:21-23 ; Judgment 11:30-31 ; 1 Samuel 1:11 ). Subsequently, “vows” became the subject of Jewish casuistry. The word "korvan" was changed into "konam" "out of piety." “They began to say not only “this thing is important”, but also “my eyes are important if they sleep”, “my hands are important if they work”, and even simply: “if I don’t sleep”, etc. (see Talmud, trans. Pereferkovich, III, 183). The gift to God in Hebrew was called “corvan” (as in Mark 7:11 ), and is often mentioned in Lev 1-3, where lambs, goats, and calves offered to God as a burnt offering, peace offering, or sin offering are called “corban,” i.e., “sacrifice.” Gasophilakia (treasury) in the temple, where offerings from the people were deposited, is metonymically called “korvan” or “torn” Matthew 27:6 . Vows could and should often be revoked, main reason this was that they were repented of (harata), in which case the lawyers had to abolish them. The custom that the Savior condemns was that the scribes allowed a person with this formula to dedicate his property to the temple and thus evade the obligation to help his parents. The legalistic formula was thus more sacred than the divine commandment set forth in Scripture.
7-9 (Mark 7:6-8 ) In Mark, these words from the prophet were spoken by Christ before the denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees. The meaning of this quotation as applied to the present case is quite clear. By observing the traditions of their elders, the Pharisees and scribes wanted to please God, because all these traditions, like all Jewish legislation in general, were of a religious nature. The scribes and Pharisees thought that by washing their hands before eating food, they were fulfilling religious requirements that were obligatory for everyone, and even more so for such religious teachers as Christ and His disciples. Failure to observe the traditions of the elders could serve both in the eyes of the enemies of Christ and in the eyes of the people as a sign of deviation from true religious teachings. But the enemies of Christ did not notice that, while observing these little things that had nothing to do with religion, they did not pay attention to more important things and violated not the traditions of the elders, but the very commandments of God. From this it was clear that not the religion of Christ, but their own religion was false. They approached God only with their lips and with their tongues they honored Him.
10 (Mark 7:14 ) Having placed His enemies in a hopeless situation with His extraordinary strength and arguments, the Savior leaves them and addresses the whole people with a speech. This is what it points to προσκαλεσάμενος - “calling” or “calling” the people who stood right there, perhaps only making way for their teachers and leaders who were talking with Christ.
11 (Mark 7:15 with a slight difference in expression.) When the Pharisees accused the disciples of eating with unwashed hands, the Savior says that no food defiles a person. But if food does not defile, then much less eating it with unwashed hands. Here a completely new principle was set forth, which, no matter how simple in itself, is still not properly understood by many. It expresses the opposite idea that some food can be the cause of spiritual or religious defilement. Here Jesus Christ is obviously thinking not about legal, but about moral defilement, which has nothing to do with what comes into the mouth (cf. 1 Tim 4:4 ), but to what comes out of the mouth (immoral speech). Judging by the context, the Savior does not speak against the Mosaic institutions, but the application of His speech to them is inevitable, so that as a result the law and its dominion are subject to material abolition. In the appropriate place in Mark they correctly find some ambiguity. Matthew substitutes the explanatory “out of mouth” instead of “out of man.”
12 Verses 12-14 are not found in Mark and the other evangelists. But in Mark 7:17 one can find an explanatory note that is not in Matthew, and on the basis of it one can conclude that the disciples approached the Savior not in front of the people, but when He entered the house with them. However, this can also be guessed from Matthew’s testimony in v. 12, 15 compared to 13:36 , where almost identical expressions are used. “This word” is referred to by many as stated in 3-9. But it's better with Evfimy Zigaben here to understand Art. eleven . Because “this word,” if addressed to the people, could seem especially tempting to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were greatly tempted by these very words of Christ, because they saw in them the destruction and open violation of not only their traditions, but also the entire Mosaic ritual.
13 According to Chrysostom, the Savior says this about the Pharisees themselves and their traditions. The plant here serves as an image of the Pharisees, as a party or sect. The thought expressed here by Christ is similar to the thought of Gamaliel ( Acts 5:38 ).
14 (Luke 6:39 ) According to Chrysostom, if the Savior had said this about the law, he would have called it a blind leader of the blind. Wed. Matthew 23:16,24 . U Luke 6:39 a similar saying is inserted into the Sermon on the Mount.
15 (Mark 7:17 ) The speech coincides in meaning with the second half of the indicated verse in Mark. Difference from Mark 7:17 Meyer calls it "irrelevant." The best reading is simply “the parable,” without adding “this.” If we accept the word “this,” then Peter’s request will, of course, relate to Art. 14. But here the matter is fully explained by Mark, in whom the words of Peter undoubtedly refer to Mark 7:15 , and in Matthew, therefore, to 11. The further speech of the Savior confirms this interpretation.
16 (Mark 7:18 ) The meaning is that even you, - the word on which there is a special emphasis, - have been with Me for so long and studied with Me - do you really not even understand yet?
17 (Mark 7:18,19 ) Mark is much more detailed: are you really that slow-witted? Don't you understand that nothing that enters a person from outside can defile him? Because it does not enter his heart, but into his belly, and comes out. For the place in question there is a parallel in Philo (De Opific. Mundi I, 29), who says: “ Through the mouth, according to Plato, the mortal enters and the immortal comes out. Through the mouth food and drink enter, the perishable sustenance of the perishable body. And words, the immortal laws of the immortal soul, which govern rational life, come out of the mouth».
18 (Mark 7:20 ) What enters a person (food) does not defile him. And what comes out of his heart can defile him. A further and precise explanation is given in the next verse.
20 (Mark 7:23 ) Christ did not abolish the law of Moses and did not say that every kind of food or drink is beneficial to man. He only said that no food and no methods of taking it defile a person.
21 (Mark 7:24 ) In both Matthew and Mark it is completely unclear “from there.” Origen believed that from Gennesaret, through which the Savior traveled ( 14:34 ; Mark 6:53 ); but he withdrew, perhaps due to the fact that the Pharisees who listened to Him were offended by the speech about objects that defile a person. Having departed from Israel, Jesus Christ comes to the borders of Tire and Sidon. Chrysostom, Theophylact and others, when interpreting this passage, have many discussions about why the Savior told the disciples not to follow the path of the pagans when He Himself was coming to them. The answer is given in the sense that the Savior went to the borders of Tire and Sidon not to preach, but to “hide,” although he could not do this.
From these interpretations it is clear that the Savior, contrary to popular opinion, “transgressed the borders of Palestine” and, albeit a little, was in a pagan country. If we agree with this, then further history will seem somewhat clearer to us.
Tire (in Hebrew tsor - rock) was a famous Phoenician trading city. Around the time of the conquest of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser (721 BC), the Assyrians besieged it, but could not take it after a five-year siege and only imposed tribute on it ( Is 23 ). Around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem (588 BC), Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tire and took it, but did not destroy it. In 332 BC, after a seven-month siege, Tire was taken by Alexander the Great, who crucified 2,000 Tyrians for their resistance. Tire is now called Es-Sur. From 126 BC Tire was an independent city with a Hellenistic structure.
Sidon (fishing city, fishing, fishing, the same root as “Bethsaida”) was older than Tire. Sidon is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament. It currently has up to 15,000 inhabitants; but its commercial importance is inferior to Beirut. Sidon is now called Saida.
22 (Mark 7:25 ) The story told in verse 22 and then in Art. 23.24 Matthew, neither Mark nor the other evangelists. Expressions Mark 7:25 completely different from Matthew. Matthew and Mark call this woman different names: Matthew - a Canaanite, Mark - a Greek (ἐλληνίς) and a Syro-Phoenician. The first name - Canaanite - is consistent with the fact that the Phoenicians themselves called themselves Canaanites, and their country Canaan. IN Gen 10:15-18 the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, are listed, among whom Sidon is listed first. From Mark’s testimony that the woman was Greek, we can conclude that she was called that only by the language that, in all likelihood, she spoke. In the Vulgate this word is translated, however, through gentilis - pagan. If this translation is correct, then the word refers to the woman's religious beliefs, not her dialect. As for the name “Syro-Phoenician,” this was the name given to the Phoenicians who lived in the region of Tire and Sidon, or Phoenicia, in contrast to the Phoenicians who lived in Africa (Libya) on its northern shore (Carthage), who were called Λιβυφοίνικες - Carthaginians ( Latin poeni). How this woman learned about Christ and that He is the Son of David is unknown; but it is very likely - according to rumors, because in the Gospel of Matthew there is a direct note that the rumor about Christ spread throughout Syria ( Matthew 4:24 ), formerly near Phenicia. The latter is not mentioned in the Gospels. The woman calls Christ first Lord (κύριε) and then Son of David. The title of Christ as Lord is common in the New Testament. This is what the centurion calls Christ ( Matthew 8:6,8 ; Luke 7:6 ) and Samaritan woman ( John 4:15,19 ). Against the opinion that the woman was a proselyte of the gates, says Art. 26 (Mark 7:21 ). But the expression "Son of David" may indicate her familiarity with Jewish history. In legend, she is known as Justa, and her daughter is Veronica. The woman says: have mercy not on my daughter, but on me. Because the daughter's illness was the mother's illness. She does not say: come and heal, but - have mercy.
23 Comparing the accounts of Matthew and Mark, we must present the matter like this. The Savior arrived in pagan territory together with His disciples and went into the house to “hide” or hide (λαθει̃ν - Mark). The reasons that the Savior “did not want anyone to know” about His stay in Phenicia are unknown to us. But here there was nothing inconsistent or inconsistent with His other actions, for He did the same on other occasions, withdrawing from the crowd to pray ( Matthew 14:23 ; Mark 1:35 ; 7:46 ; Luke 5:16 etc.). It can be assumed that in the present case, the removal of Christ from Israeli society occurred due to great events that required solitude, which are revealed in Matthew 16-17. (Peter's confession and transfiguration). The woman's cry, as it seemed to the disciples, did not correspond to Christ's intention to remain alone, and they asked Him to let her go (cf. Matthew 19:13 ). The word “let go” (ἀπόλυσον - v. 23) does not express that the disciples asked Christ to grant the woman’s request.
According to Mark, a woman entered the house where the Savior was, and there she screamed for help ( Mark 7:25 - εἰσελθου̃σα); according to Matthew, it was when the Savior was on the way. There is no contradiction, because both were possible. Further explanation in the note on the next verse.
24 The key to explaining this whole matter is given by Chrysostom, Theophylact and Euthymius Zigaben, who believe that the purpose of Christ’s refusal was not a test, but a revelation of the faith of this woman. This must be accurately noted in order to understand further. Although Chrysostom says that the woman heard the words of Christ: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” it is more likely that she did not hear, because it is said: “He did not answer her a word.” The answer to the disciples was both practically and theoretically correct, because Christ had to limit and limited His activity only to the house of Israel, and in this individualization of His activity lay its universal character. The Gospel expression cannot be explained in the sense that it refers to spiritual Israel. If Christ had directly released the woman, as His disciples asked, then we would not have had a wonderful example that explains how “the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force.” It is taken despite all the obstacles and even humiliations to which the pagans are or may be subjected.
25 (Mark 7:25,26 ) Mark reports in more detail that the woman fell at the feet of the Savior and asked Him to cast out the demon from her daughter. About προσεκύνει see explanation of 2:2 . The woman now does not call Christ the Son of David, but only Lord and worships Him as God.
26 (Mark 7:27 with the addition: “first let the children be satisfied.”) Literally: you cannot (should not) take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs (in Mark it is “not good”). They think that the Savior speaks here “ex publico judaeorum affectu” (Erasmus), or, what is the same, in the ordinary speech of the Jews, who called the pagans dogs; the Israelites, like the children of Abraham, are “sons of the kingdom” ( 8:12 ), and have the first right to the bread of grace and truth. The Jews called the pagans dogs because of idolatry and unclean living.
29 (Mark 7:31 ) According to Mark, Christ, leaving the borders of Tire (so according to the best readings), again went through Sidon (in Russian no) to the Sea of Galilee, to middle part(ἀνὰ μέσον - cf. 1 Cor 6:5 ; Rev 7:17 ) the limits of the Decapolis (Russian “through the limits of the Decapolis”). By mountain we mean some high area on the shore of a lake, and not any individual mountain. It is not clear from Matthew's account which side of the Lake of Galilee this was on; but Mark says clearly that in the east.
31 (Mark 7:37 ) In Mark - only the first sentence of Matthew's verse, expressed completely differently. Matthew then adds words that are not found in the other gospels. The expressions “glorify, glorify God” appear many times in the New Testament (e.g. Matthew 9:8 ; Mark 2:12 ; Luke 5:25,26 ; 7:16 etc.; 1 Peter 2:12 ; 4:11 ; Rom 15:9 ; 1 Cor 6:20 ; 2 Cor 9:13 etc.). But nowhere is there an increase in “Israelev” as here. On this basis, they think that Christ was now among the pagans who glorified a God alien to them - “the God of Israel” (cf. Mark 8:3 - “some of them came from afar”).
32-33 (Mark 8:1-4 with a significant difference in expression.) If all four evangelists told about the feeding of five thousand people, then the real story belongs only to Matthew and Mark. In general content, it is so similar to the story of the feeding of five thousand with five loaves that many took it as a variant of the same event. If so, then this could, on the one hand, influence the interpretation of the first story, and on the other, it would give reason to consider both stories legendary. But others have different opinions. Even in ancient times, attention was paid to the differences between both stories, and on this basis they argued that they depict two actual events. So, Origen wrote among other things: “ now, after healing the dumb and others, (the Lord) has mercy on the people who had been around Him for three days and had no food. There the disciples ask for five thousand; here He Himself speaks of four thousand. Those in the evening are satisfied, having spent the day with Him; about these it is said that they stayed with Him for three days, and they received loaves so that they would not weaken on the way. There the disciples talk about the five loaves and two fishes that they had, although the Lord did not ask about this; Here they answer the question that they had seven loaves of bread and a few fish. There He commands the people to lie down on the grass, but here He does not command, but announces to the people to lie down... These are fed on the mountain, and those in a deserted place. These three days they remained with Jesus, and those one day, on which they were satisfied in the evening", etc. Hilary and Jerome are also involved in distinguishing between the two saturations. That these were really two events is strongly confirmed by the Savior Himself, who indicates this in 16:9 et seq. The assumption that both events are identical is based on the imaginary difficulty of the disciples’ question: “Where can we get so much bread in the desert,” who so quickly forgot the previous miracle; but similar slowness in faith is found among people in other cases, and examples of it are reported in the scripture itself; Wed Exodus 16:13 With Numbers 11:21,22 ; and see Exodus 17:1-7 (Alford). This whole story apparently has a connection with the previous story about the healing of the Canaanite daughter and the crumbs that fall from the master’s table to the dogs. The miracle took place in the Decapolis, that is, where the population consisted, if not exclusively, then predominantly of pagans. The ratio of the numbers of the first and second saturation is: 5000:4000; 5:7; 2:x; 12:7 (number of people, loaves, fishes and boxes filled with loaves).
34 (Mark 8:5 ) Matthew adds “and some fish.” The word “fish” (ἰχθύδια) is diminutive here, instead of the former “fish” (ἰχθύες) among the weather forecasters and ὀψάρια among John ( John 6:9 ).
35 (Mark 8:6 ) « In everything else he does the same thing as before: he seats the people on the ground and makes sure that the bread in the hands of the disciples does not decrease"(John Chrysostom). In appearance, the event now differs from the previous one only in numbers.
37 (Mark 8:7,8 ) The addition to the story “having blessed, He ordered them to be distributed too” (i.e., the loaves) is found only in Mark. Parallel of verse 37 - Mark 8:8 , with some difference in expressions. Matthew adds (seven baskets) “full,” which Mark does not. Instead of the “boxes” into which the pieces were collected after the feeding of the five thousand, now we speak of “baskets” (σπυρίδας). This word, besides the Gospels, is used only once more in the New Testament, Acts 9:25 , which says that the Apostle Paul was lowered in a basket along the wall in Damascus. On this basis it is assumed that these were large baskets. Where they were taken from is completely unknown. Perhaps they were brought by people who followed Christ and were initially filled with provisions. The number of baskets filled with pieces from the remaining loaves now corresponds to the number of loaves broken and distributed to the people.
38 (Mark 8:9 ) Matthew also adds here “except women and children,” which is not in Mark ( see note by 14:21 ).
39 (Mark 8:9,10 ) Instead of “to the borders (τὰ ὅρια) of Magdalene” (Russian translation) in Mark “to the borders (τὰ μέρη) of Dalmanutha.” Augustine has no doubt that this is the same place, only with a different name. Because in numerous codices and in Mark it is also written “Magedan”. But in this case, why is the same place designated by different names? First of all, let us note that the correct reading in Matthew is not Magdala, but Magadan. So in Sin. B D, ancient Latin, Syro-Sinaitic, Curt. The word Magadan or Magedan is considered identical with Magdala (modern Medjdel). Magdala means "tower". This was the name of a place on the western shore of Lake Galilee, perhaps mentioned in Joshua 19:38 . It was the birthplace of Mary Magdalene. Why it was also called Magadan is unknown. Nothing is known about Magadan itself, if it was not identical with Magdala. Most travelers believed that Magdala was located about five miles north of Tiberias, where the village of Medjdell is now. Currently it is a small village. It contains up to half a dozen houses, without windows, with flat roofs. Laziness and poverty reign here now. Children run through the streets half naked. Dalmanutha, mentioned in Mark, was apparently located somewhere in the vicinity of Magdala. If so, then there is no contradiction in the testimony of the evangelists. One calls the place where Christ arrived with His disciples on a boat Magadan (Magdala), the other points to a place nearby.
Gospel
The word “Gospel” (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον) in classical Greek was used to designate: a) a reward that is given to the messenger of joy (τῷ εὐαγγέλῳ), b) a sacrifice sacrificed on the occasion of receiving some good news or a holiday celebrated on the same occasion and c) this good news itself. In the New Testament this expression means:
a) the good news that Christ reconciled people with God and brought us the greatest benefits - mainly founded the Kingdom of God on earth ( Matt. 4:23 ),
b) the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, preached by Himself and His Apostles about Him as the King of this Kingdom, the Messiah and the Son of God ( 2 Cor. 4:4 ),
c) all New Testament or Christian teaching in general, primarily the narration of the most important events from the life of Christ ( 1 Cor. 15:1-4 ), and then an explanation of the meaning of these events ( Rome. 1:16 ).
e) Finally, the word “Gospel” is sometimes used to designate the very process of preaching Christian teaching ( Rome. 1:1 ).
Sometimes the word “Gospel” is accompanied by a designation and its content. There are, for example, phrases: Gospel of the kingdom ( Matt. 4:23 ), i.e. good news of the kingdom of God, the gospel of peace ( Eph. 6:15 ), i.e. about peace, the gospel of salvation ( Eph. 1:13 ), i.e. about salvation, etc. Sometimes the genitive case following the word "Gospel" means the author or source of the good news ( Rome. 1:1 , 15:16 ; 2 Cor. 11:7 ; 1 Thess. 2:8 ) or the personality of the preacher ( Rome. 2:16 ).
For quite a long time, stories about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ were transmitted only orally. The Lord Himself did not leave any records of His speeches and deeds. In the same way, the 12 apostles were not born writers: they were “unlearned and simple people” ( Acts 4:13 ), although literate. Among the Christians of the apostolic time there were also very few “wise according to the flesh, strong” and “noble” ( 1 Cor. 1:26 ), and for most believers, oral stories about Christ were much more important than written ones. In this way, the apostles and preachers or evangelists “transmitted” (παραδιδόναι) the stories about the deeds and speeches of Christ, and the believers “received” (παραλαμβάνειν) - but, of course, not mechanically, only by memory, as can be said about the students of rabbinical schools, but with all my soul, as if something living and life-giving. But this period of oral tradition was soon to end. On the one hand, Christians should have felt the need for a written presentation of the Gospel in their disputes with the Jews, who, as we know, denied the reality of Christ’s miracles and even argued that Christ did not declare Himself the Messiah. It was necessary to show the Jews that Christians have authentic stories about Christ from those persons who were either among His apostles or who were in close communication with eyewitnesses of the deeds of Christ. On the other hand, the need for a written presentation of the history of Christ began to be felt because the generation of the first disciples was gradually dying out and the ranks of direct witnesses to the miracles of Christ were thinning. Therefore, it was necessary to secure in writing individual sayings of the Lord and His entire speeches, as well as the stories of the apostles about Him. It was then that separate records began to appear here and there of what was reported in the oral tradition about Christ. The words of Christ, which contained the rules of Christian life, were most carefully recorded, and they were much more free to convey various events from the life of Christ, preserving only their general impression. Thus, one thing in these records, due to its originality, was transmitted everywhere in the same way, while the other was modified. These initial recordings did not think about the completeness of the story. Even our Gospels, as can be seen from the conclusion of the Gospel of John ( In. 21:25 ), did not intend to report all the speeches and deeds of Christ. This is evident, by the way, from the fact that they do not contain, for example, the following saying of Christ: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” ( Acts 20:35 ). The Evangelist Luke reports about such records, saying that many before him had already begun to compile narratives about the life of Christ, but that they lacked proper completeness and that therefore they did not provide sufficient “affirmation” in the faith ( OK. 1:1-4 ).
Our canonical Gospels apparently arose from the same motives. The period of their appearance can be determined to be approximately thirty years - from 60 to 90 (the last was the Gospel of John). The first three Gospels are usually called synoptic in biblical scholarship, because they depict the life of Christ in such a way that their three narratives can be viewed in one without much difficulty and combined into one coherent narrative (synoptics - from Greek - looking together). They began to be called Gospels individually, perhaps as early as the end of the 1st century, but from church writing we have information that such a name began to be given to the entire composition of the Gospels only in the second half of the 2nd century. As for the names: “Gospel of Matthew”, “Gospel of Mark”, etc., then more correctly these very ancient names from Greek should be translated as follows: “Gospel according to Matthew”, “Gospel according to Mark” (κατὰ Ματθαῖον, κατὰ Μᾶρκον). By this the Church wanted to say that in all the Gospels there is a single Christian gospel about Christ the Savior, but according to the images of different writers: one image belongs to Matthew, another to Mark, etc.
Four Gospels
Thus, the ancient Church looked upon the portrayal of the life of Christ in our four Gospels, not as different Gospels or narratives, but as one Gospel, one book in four types. That is why in the Church the name Four Gospels was established for our Gospels. Saint Irenaeus called them the “fourfold Gospel” (τετράμορφον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον - see Irenaeus Lugdunensis, Adversus haereses liber 3, ed. A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleaü Irenée Lyon. Contre les héré sies, livre 3, vol. 2. Paris, 1974, 11, 11).
The Fathers of the Church dwell on the question: why exactly did the Church accept not one Gospel, but four? So St. John Chrysostom says: “Couldn’t one evangelist write everything that was needed. Of course, he could, but when four people wrote, they wrote not at the same time, not in the same place, without communicating or conspiring with each other, and for all that they wrote in such a way that everything seemed to be uttered by one mouth, then this is the strongest proof of the truth. You will say: “What happened, however, was the opposite, for the four Gospels are often found to be in disagreement.” This very thing is a sure sign of truth. For if the Gospels had exactly agreed with each other in everything, even regarding the words themselves, then none of the enemies would have believed that the Gospels were not written according to ordinary mutual agreement. Now the slight disagreement between them frees them from all suspicion. For what they say differently regarding time or place does not in the least harm the truth of their narrative. In the main thing, which forms the basis of our life and the essence of preaching, not one of them disagrees with the other in anything or anywhere - that God became a man, worked miracles, was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven.” (“Conversations on the Gospel of Matthew”, 1).
Saint Irenaeus also finds a special symbolic meaning in the fourfold number of our Gospels. “Since there are four countries of the world in which we live, and since the Church is scattered throughout the entire earth and has its confirmation in the Gospel, it was necessary for it to have four pillars, spreading incorruptibility from everywhere and reviving the human race. The All-Ordering Word, seated on the Cherubim, gave us the Gospel in four forms, but permeated with one spirit. For David, praying for His appearance, says: “He who sits on the Cherubim, show Yourself” ( Ps. 79:2 ). But the Cherubim (in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel and the Apocalypse) have four faces, and their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God.” Saint Irenaeus finds it possible to attach the symbol of a lion to the Gospel of John, since this Gospel depicts Christ as the eternal King, and the lion is the king in the animal world; to the Gospel of Luke - the symbol of a calf, since Luke begins his Gospel with the image of the priestly service of Zechariah, who slaughtered the calves; to the Gospel of Matthew - a symbol of a person, since this Gospel mainly depicts the human birth of Christ, and, finally, to the Gospel of Mark - a symbol of an eagle, because Mark begins his Gospel with a mention of the prophets, to whom the Holy Spirit flew, like an eagle on wings "(Irenaeus Lugdunensis, Adversus haereses, liber 3, 11, 11-22). Among the other Fathers of the Church, the symbols of the lion and the calf were moved and the first was given to Mark, and the second to John. Since the 5th century. in this form, the symbols of the evangelists began to be added to the images of the four evangelists in church painting.
Mutual relationship of the Gospels
Each of the four Gospels has its own characteristics, and most of all - the Gospel of John. But the first three, as mentioned above, have extremely much in common with each other, and this similarity involuntarily catches the eye even when reading them briefly. Let us first of all talk about the similarity of the Synoptic Gospels and the reasons for this phenomenon.
Even Eusebius of Caesarea, in his “canons,” divided the Gospel of Matthew into 355 parts and noted that 111 of them were found in all three weather forecasters. In modern times, exegetes have developed an even more precise numerical formula for determining the similarity of the Gospels and calculated that the total number of verses common to all weather forecasters rises to 350. In Matthew, then, 350 verses are unique to him, in Mark there are 68 such verses, in Luke - 541. Similarities are mainly noticed in the rendering of the sayings of Christ, and differences - in the narrative part. When Matthew and Luke literally agree with each other in their Gospels, Mark always agrees with them. The similarity between Luke and Mark is much closer than between Luke and Matthew (Lopukhin - in the Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia. T. V. P. 173). It is also remarkable that some passages in all three evangelists follow the same sequence, for example, the temptation and the speech in Galilee, the calling of Matthew and the conversation about fasting, the plucking of ears of corn and the healing of the withered man, the calming of the storm and the healing of the Gadarene demoniac, etc. The similarity sometimes even extends to the construction of sentences and expressions (for example, in the presentation of a prophecy Small 3:1 ).
As for the differences observed among weather forecasters, there are quite a lot of them. Some things are reported by only two evangelists, others even by one. Thus, only Matthew and Luke cite the conversation on the mount of the Lord Jesus Christ and report the story of the birth and first years of Christ’s life. Luke alone speaks of the birth of John the Baptist. Some things one evangelist conveys in a more abbreviated form than another, or in a different connection than another. The details of the events in each Gospel are different, as are the expressions.
This phenomenon of similarities and differences in the Synoptic Gospels has long attracted the attention of interpreters of Scripture, and various assumptions have long been made to explain this fact. It seems more correct to believe that our three evangelists used a common oral source for their narrative of the life of Christ. At that time, evangelists or preachers about Christ went everywhere preaching and repeated different places in a more or less extensive form, what was considered necessary to offer to those entering the Church. Thus, a well-known specific type was formed oral gospel, and this is the type we have in written form in our Synoptic Gospels. Of course, at the same time, depending on the goal that this or that evangelist had, his Gospel took on some special features, characteristic only of his work. At the same time, we cannot exclude the assumption that an older Gospel could have been known to the evangelist who wrote later. At the same time, the difference between weather forecasters should be explained for various purposes, which each of them had in mind when writing his Gospel.
As we have already said, the Synoptic Gospels differ in very many ways from the Gospel of John the Theologian. So they depict almost exclusively the activity of Christ in Galilee, and the Apostle John depicts mainly the sojourn of Christ in Judea. In terms of content, the Synoptic Gospels also differ significantly from the Gospel of John. They give, so to speak, a more external image of the life, deeds and teachings of Christ and from the speeches of Christ they cite only those that were accessible to the understanding of the entire people. John, on the contrary, omits a lot from the activities of Christ, for example, he cites only six miracles of Christ, but those speeches and miracles that he cites have a special deep meaning and extreme importance about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, while the Synoptics portray Christ primarily as the founder of the Kingdom of God and therefore direct the attention of their readers to the Kingdom founded by Him, John draws our attention to the central point of this Kingdom, from which life flows along the peripheries of the Kingdom, i.e. on the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, whom John portrays as the Only Begotten Son of God and as the Light for all mankind. That is why the ancient interpreters called the Gospel of John primarily spiritual (πνευματικόν), in contrast to the synoptic ones, as depicting primarily the human side in the person of Christ (εὐαγγέλιον σωματικόν), i.e. The gospel is physical.
However, it must be said that the weather forecasters also have passages that indicate that the weather forecasters knew the activity of Christ in Judea ( Matt. 23:37 , 27:57 ; OK. 10:38-42 ), and John also has indications of the continued activity of Christ in Galilee. In the same way, weather forecasters convey such sayings of Christ that testify to His Divine dignity ( Matt. 11:27 ), and John, for his part, also in places depicts Christ as a true man ( In. 2 etc.; John 8 and etc.). Therefore, one cannot speak of any contradiction between the weather forecasters and John in their depiction of the face and work of Christ.
The Reliability of the Gospels
Although criticism has long been expressed against the reliability of the Gospels, and recently these attacks of criticism have especially intensified (the theory of myths, especially the theory of Drews, who does not recognize the existence of Christ at all), however, all the objections of criticism are so insignificant that they are broken at the slightest collision with Christian apologetics . Here, however, we will not cite the objections of negative criticism and analyze these objections: this will be done when interpreting the text of the Gospels itself. We will only talk about the most important general reasons for which we recognize the Gospels as completely reliable documents. This is, firstly, the existence of a tradition of eyewitnesses, many of whom lived to the era when our Gospels appeared. Why on earth would we refuse to trust these sources of our Gospels? Could they have made up everything in our Gospels? No, all the Gospels are purely historical. Secondly, it is not clear why the Christian consciousness would want - as the mythical theory claims - to crown the head of a simple Rabbi Jesus with the crown of the Messiah and Son of God? Why, for example, is it not said about the Baptist that he performed miracles? Obviously because he didn't create them. And from here it follows that if Christ is said to be the Great Wonderworker, then it means that He really was like that. And why could one deny the authenticity of Christ’s miracles, since the highest miracle - His Resurrection - is witnessed like no other event in ancient history (see. 1 Cor. 15 )?
Bibliography of foreign works on the Four Gospels
Bengel - Bengel J. Al. Gnomon Novi Testamentï in quo ex nativa verborum VI simplicitas, profunditas, concinnitas, salubritas sensuum coelestium indicatur. Berolini, 1860.
Blass, Gram. - Blass F. Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch. Gottingen, 1911.
Westcott - The New Testament in Original Greek the text rev. by Brooke Foss Westcott. New York, 1882.
B. Weiss - Weiss B. Die Evangelien des Markus und Lukas. Gottingen, 1901.
Yog. Weiss (1907) - Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, von Otto Baumgarten; Wilhelm Bousset. Hrsg. von Johannes Weis_s, Bd. 1: Die drei älteren Evangelien. Die Apostelgeschichte, Matthaeus Apostolus; Marcus Evangelista; Lucas Evangelista. . 2. Aufl. Gottingen, 1907.
Godet - Godet F. Commentar zu dem Evangelium des Johannes. Hanover, 1903.
De Wette W.M.L. Kurze Erklärung des Evangeliums Matthäi / Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Band 1, Teil 1. Leipzig, 1857.
Keil (1879) - Keil C.F. Commentar über die Evangelien des Markus und Lukas. Leipzig, 1879.
Keil (1881) - Keil C.F. Commentar über das Evangelium des Johannes. Leipzig, 1881.
Klostermann - Klostermann A. Das Markusevangelium nach seinem Quellenwerthe für die evangelische Geschichte. Gottingen, 1867.
Cornelius a Lapide - Cornelius a Lapide. In SS Matthaeum et Marcum / Commentaria in scripturam sacram, t. 15. Parisiis, 1857.
Lagrange - Lagrange M.-J. Etudes bibliques: Evangile selon St. Marc. Paris, 1911.
Lange - Lange J.P. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus. Bielefeld, 1861.
Loisy (1903) - Loisy A.F. Le quatrième èvangile. Paris, 1903.
Loisy (1907-1908) - Loisy A.F. Les èvangiles synoptiques, 1-2. : Ceffonds, près Montier-en-Der, 1907-1908.
Luthardt - Luthardt Ch.E. Das johanneische Evangelium nach seiner Eigenthümlichkeit geschildert und erklärt. Nürnberg, 1876.
Meyer (1864) - Meyer H.A.W. Kritisch exegetisches Commentar über das Neue Testament, Abteilung 1, Hälfte 1: Handbuch über das Evangelium des Matthäus. Gottingen, 1864.
Meyer (1885) - Kritisch-exegetischer Commentar über das Neue Testament hrsg. von Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Abteilung 1, Hälfte 2: Bernhard Weiss B. Kritisch exegetisches Handbuch über die Evangelien des Markus und Lukas. Göttingen, 1885. Meyer (1902) - Meyer H.A.W. Das Johannes-Evangelium 9. Auflage, bearbeitet von B. Weiss. Gottingen, 1902.
Merx (1902) - Merx A. Erläuterung: Matthaeus / Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem ältesten bekannten Texte, Teil 2, Hälfte 1. Berlin, 1902.
Merx (1905) - Merx A. Erläuterung: Markus und Lukas / Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem ältesten bekannten Texte. Teil 2, Hälfte 2. Berlin, 1905.
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Heitmüller - see Yog. Weiss (1907).
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1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah king of Judah, Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, that they went against Jerusalem to conquer it, but they could not conquer it.
2 And it was told to the house of David, saying, The Syrians are settled in the land of Ephraim; and his heart and the heart of his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.
3 And the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out, you and your son Shear-jasub, to meet Ahaz, to the end of the water supply of the upper pond, to the road to the whitewash field,
4 and say to him: watch and be calm; Do not be afraid, and do not let your heart be discouraged by the two ends of these smoking brands, by the inflamed anger of Rezin and the Syrians and the son of Remali.
5 Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah plot evil against you, saying:
6 Let us go against Judah and stir it up, and take possession of it, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.
7 But the Lord God says this: this will not take place and will not come to pass;
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and after sixty-five years Ephraim shall cease to be a nation;
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you don't believe, it's because you're not certified.
10 And the Lord continued speaking to Ahaz, and said:
11 Ask yourself for a sign from the Lord your God: ask either in the depths or on the heights.
12 And Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord.
13 Then he said Isaiah: Hear now, house of David! Is it not enough for you to make trouble for people that you want to make it difficult for my God?
14 So the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will be with child and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel.
15 He will eat milk and honey until he understands to reject the bad and choose the good;
16 For before this child understands to reject evil and choose good, the land that you fear will be abandoned by both its kings.
17 But the Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house days such as have not come since Ephraim fell away from Judah, he will bring upon the king of Assyria.
18 And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will give a sign to the fly that is at the mouth of the river of Egypt, and to the bee that is in the land of Assyria,
19 And they will all fly and perch in the desert valleys, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thorny bushes, and in all the trees.
20 On that day the Lord will shave the head and the hair of the legs with a razor hired by the king of Assyria on the other side of the river, and even take away the beard.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day that whoever maintains a cow and two sheep
22 According to the abundance of milk which they give, they will eat butter; All who remain in this land will eat butter and honey.
23 And it will come to pass in that day that in every place where there grew a thousand vines for a thousand pieces of silver there will be thorns and thorns.
24 They will go there with arrows and bows, for all the land will be thorns and briars.
25 And you will not go to any of the mountains that were cleared by furrowers, for fear of thorns and thorny bushes: oxen will be driven there, and small livestock will trample them.
7:1 - 11,16 Isaiah makes a series of prophecies of judgment and hope relating to Judah's war with Israel and Syria (734-732 BC).
7:1 in the days of Ahaz. The alliance of Syria and Israel against Judea existed in the period 734-732. BC Even during the lifetime of King Jotham, Pekah, the king of Israel, and Rasoi (Rezin), the king of Syria, undertook joint hostile actions against Judah. By 734 BC. the threat from the Syrian-Israeli alliance has become even more urgent.
7:2 To the house of David. Such an appeal to Ahaz serves as a reminder of the covenant that the Lord made with David, promising to give him eternal offspring, a throne and a kingdom (2 Sam. 7:12-16). Attempts to overthrow this family and replace it with another (the family of the “son of Tebeel,” v. 6) cannot succeed, since the promises of the Lord are always true.
shaken... fluctuate. The arrogant King Ahaz proved unable to calm his people. The ruler's reaction caused panic among the entire people (see 22.3 and com.).
7:3 Shearasuv. The name means "the remnant will return" (10:20-22).
7:4 Do not be afraid. The purpose of this encouragement is to turn Ahaz's gaze from a hopeless political situation to God's vision.
from two... smoking brands. Both kingdoms were soon destroyed: Damascus by Tiglath-pileser III (Tiglat-pileser) in 732 BC, and Samaria by Sargon II in 722 BC.
7:7 The Lord God...speaks. Only what the Lord says will come true; the council of the kings of the earth cannot stand before the Lord.
7:8 sixty-five years. This does not mean the destruction of Samaria, which followed 13 years after the utterance of this prophecy (in 722 BC), but the deportation of the remainder of the Israeli people to Assyria and the settlement of the devastated territory of the Kingdom of Israel by settlers from Mesopotamia under the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (see .com to 37.38; 2 Kings 17.24; Ezra 4.2). Thus, the prophecy includes in these 65 years 14 years of the reign of Ahaz, 29 years of the reign of Hezekiah, and 22 years of the reign of Manasseh.
7:9 you do not believe... you are not certified. Lit.: "if you do not believe (Heb.: "taaminu"), then you will not be strengthened (Heb.: "teamenu"). The Prophet uses a play on words (with the same root) to show how faith (through hope) grows into Confidence: The word "amen", which comes from the same root, is both an expression of faith ("I believe") and confidence ("truly so").
7:10-17 These verses contain the sign of the Virgin and Child.
7:11 Ask yourself for a sign. Any tangible confirmation of the truth of the prophecy.
in the depths... at the heights. Nothing is impossible for God's prophets. By the power of God they can bring back the dead from the underworld (“from the depths”) - like Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-24), and make the sun go back (38:7.8).
from the Lord your God. The Lord also calls Himself the God of Ahaz, thereby testifying that the king did not completely fall away from his Lord.
Emmanuel. Translated from Hebrew: “God is with us.” Is not given name Messiah. On the one hand, it points to God’s presence and protection, on the other hand, to the properties of the Baby spoken of in the prophecy.
Even before the birth of Jesus, attempts were made to correlate the prophecy with a specific historical person. Thus, the Jews believed that Isaiah meant by Immanuel the son of Ahaz, Hezekiah. However, by the time the prophecy was pronounced, Hezekiah had already been born (he was at least two years old). Moreover, Ahaz's wife could not be called a virgin. Other exegetes believed that Isaiah had in mind here his own son - Mager-shelal-khash-baza ("the robbery hastens, the spoil hastens"). However, the name of this son of the prophet was given by the Lord Himself (8:1), and this name, in its lexical meaning, fundamentally contradicts the name Emmanuel. Therefore, these names cannot refer to one person. In addition, by the time the prophecy was uttered, the prophet was already married and his wife was called a “prophetess” (8:1), and not a virgin. The third point of view assumes that Immanuel is a collective name and refers to a new generation of the Jewish people that had just yet to be born. But in this case, using the word “virgin” is impossible, especially with the definite article. With this interpretation of the prophecy, the word “virgin” coincides in meaning with the concept of “house of David.” But such an interpretation of the prophecy deprives the very word “sign” of any meaning, since the birth of a new generation cannot serve as a sign from God. The words “The Lord Himself will give you a sign” indicate the uniqueness and special significance of this sign, which was realized in Jesus Christ: God Himself became man for the salvation of man. Thus, Jesus Christ appeared as a sign - a visible image of the invisible God. Perhaps that is why He rejected the demands of the Pharisees to give them a sign to confirm His truth - you cannot confirm the truth of a sign with another sign.
7:15 milk and honey. A figurative expression opposite to the concept of “solid food” (cf. 1 Cor. 3:2).
until he understands. Until he matures. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, having taken upon Himself human nature, led it along the path of ascension to God, along the path of spiritual maturity. That period of His life, about which Luke says: “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men” (2:52), corresponds to the period of “milk and honey” in Isaiah.
reject the bad and choose the good. Highest degree Jesus revealed the election of good and rejection of evil during the temptation in the desert (see Matt. 4:3-11).
16 for before. Before the Messiah is born, many events will occur that are epochal for the history of the Jewish people.
will be abandoned by both kings. See 2 Kings. 15.29.30; 16.9.
18 that day. See com. by 2.11. The fall of Damascus, Samaria and the devastation of Judea will be the beginning of God's judgment.
fly... bee. Egyptians and Assyrians.
He will gain 20. Shaving one's hair was a symbol of mourning (15:2).
razor. Those. by force of arms.
hired Ahaz acquired an ally with his treasures in the person of Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, in other words, he himself hired the Assyrian army to invade these lands (2 Kings 16:8). Ultimately the Lord will exalt Assyria, “the rod of my wrath” (10:5).
21 that day. See com. by 2.11.
22 in abundance. There will be so few people left in the land of Judah that even a small amount of food will seem like an abundance.
1–9. Isaiah's meeting with king of the Jews Ahaz and his prophecy about the fate of the Syrian and Israeli kingdoms. 10–25. The sign given by the prophet to the house of David and the prediction of the disastrous fate of the Jewish state
. During the reign of Ahaz, king of Judah, Jerusalem began to be threatened by the kings of Syria and Israel who had entered into an alliance with each other. In Jerusalem, active preparations began for the upcoming siege, since the attack by the united troops seemed very dangerous to the king and the citizens of Jerusalem. At this time, the prophet Isaiah speaks to the king with a word of encouragement and points out the powerlessness of his accomplices to cause serious harm to Judah and the death that awaits them soon.
. And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, went against Jerusalem to conquer it, but they could not conquer it:
. And it was told to the house of David, and it was said, The Syrians are settled in the land of Ephraim; and his heart and the heart of his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind:
Also in last years Jotham, Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, began joint hostile actions against the kingdom of Judah (). At the beginning of the reign of Ahaz (about 735), the danger to the kingdom of Judah from these kings became even greater, because the Syrians and Israelites were already heading straight for Jerusalem. Their goal, in all likelihood, was to oblige the Jewish king to join the coalition that the small states of Syria, supported by Egypt, formed against the Assyrian king, who at that time was already threatening to subjugate all of Syria. The allies probably wanted to overthrow Ahaz, who did not sympathize with their plans, from the Jewish throne and put some son of Tabeel in his place. The entire house of David was especially frightened when news was received that the Syrians (who had already passed through eastern Palestine and entered into an agreement with the Edomites and other southern nations, and had also taken possession of the Elanite harbor of the Red Sea) had ascended along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the north, into the region of the kingdom of Israel, and They camped here, threatening Jerusalem.
. And the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out, you and your son Shear-jasub, to meet Ahaz, to the end of the water supply of the upper pond, to the road to the whitewash field,
Ahaz, in anticipation of the siege of Jerusalem, inspected the aqueduct that supplied the entire city with water. This water supply began at the upper pond (the Pond of Siloam, which was located in the upper pond), a very large one, from where the water was carried underground through the city and flowed into another pond, later called Hezekiah's Pond.
Isaiah must go to Ahaz with his son, whose name - Shear-Yasub (the remnant will be saved) - is symbolic: it meant the judgment of God awaiting the kingdom of Judah, of which only a small remnant can survive. Meanwhile, the name of Isaiah himself (the Lord will save) indicated the possibility of pardon, and the king was thus given the choice of what he wanted - judgment or mercy from God. The court threatened Ahaz because, contrary to the will of God (), he placed his hope not in the Lord - the true King of Israel, but in the Assyrian ruler Tiglath-Pilezer, to whom he had already sent an embassy asking for help against the kings of Syria and Israel ( ).
. and tell him: watch and be calm; Do not be afraid and do not let your heart be discouraged by the two ends of these smoking brands, by the inflamed wrath of Rezin and the Syrians and the son of Remali.
. Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah plot evil against you, saying:
. Let us go against Judah and stir it up, and take possession of it, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.
Both allied kings appear to the prophet as charred firebrands, which can no longer burn properly, but only smoke and smoke.
“Son of Tabeel” is a disparaging title without a proper name (cf. where Saul, speaking of David, his rival, simply calls him the son of Jesse). In all likelihood, it was some Syrian prince (prince - in Syriac tab - Heb. tob, good).
. But the Lord God says this: this will not take place and will not come true;
. for the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and after sixty-five years Ephraim shall cease to be a nation;
. and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you don't believe, it's because you're not certified.
The Lord declares through the prophet Ahaz that neither the king of Syria nor the king of Israel will take possession of Judah, but will remain - and then not for long - the rulers of their former possessions only. The Kingdom of Israel is in danger of a final fall in 65 years. The last prediction, most likely, does not mean the destruction of Samaria, which followed soon, 13 years after the utterance of this prophecy (723), but the withdrawal of the remnants of the population of the kingdom of Israel to Assyria and the settlement of the devastated territory of the former kingdom of Israel by settlers from Mesopotamia under the Assyrian rule. King Atar-Haddon (etc.). Thus the prophet apparently counts in these 65 years 14 years of the reign of Ahaz † 29 years of the reign of Hezekiah and † 22 years of the reign of Manasseh.
"If you don't believe". The Prophet notices Ahaz's distrust of his words and hints to him about the possibility of obtaining confirmation of the truth of what was just said.
The translation: “if you do not believe, you will not stand,” as proposed here by the new interpreters, is rather unclear.
. Noticing Ahaz's disbelief in the words of Isaiah, God, through the prophet, offers Ahaz, for his conviction, whatever sign he desires. However, Ahaz, having already decided on a well-known course of action, does not want to enter into any obligations towards the Almighty through this and, under a hypocritical pretext, refuses the sign. Then the prophet, irritated by this stubbornness, announces a sign from the Lord that should assure the dynasty of David in safety from the advancing enemies: The virgin will give birth to a Son, who will be named Immanuel, and before this baby Immanuel becomes able to distinguish between good and evil, Judah will be completely free from enemies.
. And the Lord continued to speak to Ahaz, and said:
. ask yourself a sign from the Lord your God: ask either in the depths or on the heights:
“And the Lord continued”. The name Lord - Jehovah is put, probably, instead of the name of the prophet, which originally could have been written in an abbreviated form.
"Ask for a sign", that is, some kind of confirmation that the words of the prophet will certainly be fulfilled.
"The Lord your God". Ahaz was not yet a complete idolater: he, as can be seen from the 12th verse, then outwardly recognized the true religion, although this did not prevent him from introducing the cults of alien gods into the cult of the Jerusalem temple ().
In depth or height, that is, either from the region of the underworld (the appearance of the deceased) or from the heavenly spheres (thunderstorm, hail, etc.).
. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord.
. Then he said Isaiah: Listen, house of David! Is it not enough for you to make trouble for people that you want to make it difficult for my God?
Ahaz, out of fear that the prophet might fulfill his promise regarding the sign, under a plausible pretext, from his point of view, refuses the sign. In fact, the passage from the book of Deuteronomy that the king had in mind () contains a reproach to the Jews for the fact that they themselves often demanded signs or wonders from God. The prophet understands the mood of Ahaz, and also understands that in his stubbornness, with which he refuses the advice of the prophet, he is supported by other members of the family of David, and therefore, as if as a punishment for Ahaz and the entire house of David, he himself utters to them a sign from God. Ahaz and his relatives have already abused the patience of the people, that is, the prophets, removing them from any influence on the course of state affairs; now they dare not accept direct assistance from the Lord himself.
. So the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel.
“So” – in Hebrew. locben actually means: “for this and that.”
1) miracle (; );
2) a symbolic sign or action to certify some truth (; );
3) a natural event, which, however, none of the people could foresee and the fulfillment of which provides a guarantee that the event will also be fulfilled into another event transformed by it (; ) and
4) events that serve as a seal of the truth of events that occurred before them (; ).
In the present place, “ot” has precisely the latter meaning. A future event - the birth of the Messiah (Immanuel) from the royal house of David - should serve as proof, confirmation that this time the house of David will not perish. But since this birth is a matter of the distant future and requires from Ahaz and his household all the strength of faith in the promises given to their forefather, David, the sign announced by the prophet becomes, for all its comforting nature, a difficult test for Ahaz, who was not distinguished firmness in faith. Thus, Ahaz is punished for refusing to fulfill God's command.
"Behold" or here - in Hebrew. hinneh. The prophet, in his contemplation, sees this distant future event already taking place (cf.).
"Virgo" - in Hebrew. haalmah. The prefix before almah shows that the prophet means one, specific Virgin - the only one of her kind. Is it not clear from this that by the Virgin we should mean the Most Holy Virgin Mary? The very meaning of the prophet’s speech and the most ancient translations of the Bible, as well as the interpretations of the fathers and teachers of the Church, confirm us in this understanding.
Actually, the Hebrew word almah in itself does not have a decisive meaning here, since the very origin of this word has not been established: some translate this term with the expression hidden (i.e., a virgin hidden from the eyes of men), deriving it from the verb. alam, which, however, has a real meaning, is not at all suitable here; others see in the word almah the designation of a growing girl, deriving this name from another root - a lam, which means: “to grow up, to become stronger physically,” and in proof of the correctness of their translation they refer to the use of the word almah in other places in the Bible (; ; Ps. 77 and etc.).
Due to the uncertainty of the origin and philological meaning of the word almah, the testimony of the oldest translations of the Bible - LXX and Peshito - acquires special weight. In the first, the word almah is rendered by the expression παρυενος, which in the LXX means a maiden, in the strictest sense of the word. In the second, the same word is used, which always denotes a virgin. Then in the New Testament, the Evangelist Matthew, speaking about the immaculate, virgin conception of the Messiah, says that this happened in fulfillment of the real prophecy of Isaiah (). It is obvious that the evangelist in this case conveys the general opinion of his contemporaries, the Jews, regarding the controversial place. The scholar Badham cites many passages from the rabbinic writings and several allusions from Philo, which indicate that the miraculous birth of the Messiah was expected by the Jews (The Academy, 8 June, 1895, pp. 485-487).
Christian interpreters (even Protestants for a long time) also unanimously recognized that Isaiah here speaks of the Virgin, the Mother of the Messiah. Only in the 18th century did Protestant exegetes begin to forcefully prove that in our place there are no indications of the virgin conception of the Messiah and the ever-virginity of His Mother, but their evidence does not have sufficient justification (see the work of Ev. Nikolsky. The prediction of the prophet Isaiah about the Virgin and Emmanuel - in the readings of the General Spiritual Enlightenment, 1885). The very context of the prophet’s speech indicates that almah must mean an immaculate virgin who retained her virginity even after she conceived a son. The event of the Virgin’s conception of a son could only appear as a particularly miraculous, convincing and comforting sign. Since the king was called by a prophet to ask for any miracle as a sign, then the sign that God Himself gives could only be the greatest miracle. It follows from this that the prophet, speaking about the birth of the Messiah by a Virgin, could only mean a truly virgin conception, exceeding the laws of nature, and point to the virginity and ever-virginity of His Mother.
And the words of the prophet, more precisely from Hebrew, should be conveyed like this: “behold, a virgin is with child.” The Prophet sees in his prophetic contemplation the Virgin as pregnant and yet calls her a virgin!
"Immanuel" In Hebrew, the word Immanuel means “God with us.” This name is not the proper name of the Messiah. Some understand it as indicating the divine help that the Jews will receive in the danger that threatened them from the two allied kings (Jerome, Eusebius, etc.). According to others, this name indicates the properties of the person to whom it is given, and means God incarnate (St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Basil the Great, etc.). It is better to combine both meanings of the word in the interpretation of this name, as St. John Chrysostom does. As for the first meaning of this word, all interpreters agree on the correctness of this meaning. But regarding the second interpretation, which has been accepted by the Christian Church since ancient times, rationalistic exegetes for the most part express their distrust of it. Without going into an analysis of these negative opinions, we will present here considerations by which the messianic meaning of this passage can be confirmed (messianic in the full meaning of this word, when the Messiah is recognized as the incarnate Son of God). These considerations are:
1) In the 8th chapter. 8th Art. The land of Judah is called the land of Immanuel. Isn’t it clear from here that the prophet meant to designate the future Messiah with the word Emmanuel? Moreover, from here we can deduce the idea that this Messiah will have Divine dignity, will be God incarnate. In fact, in many other places, Isaiah calls God Himself the true King and Ruler of the Jewish land. Next, God and Emmanuel are equivalent concepts for Isaiah;
2) In the 9th chapter. (1-7 vv.) having to be born - of course from the house of David - the Baby is already an object that does not raise any doubts and does not call for any special explanation. It follows that the prophet’s listeners knew enough about His dignity, as well as about His birth. But how could they have known this if the prophet had not spoken about Him when he predicted to the house of David about the birth of Immanuel? We can add to this that all the amazing names of this Child mentioned in Chapter 9 are conveniently summed up in one name, Immanuel.
3) the prophet Micah (), prophesying about the birth of the Messiah, means, in all likelihood, the prophecies of Isaiah in and art. , and in him the Messiah is depicted as existing from eternity (1st article) and, therefore, as God incarnate.
4) Evangelist Matthew relates this prophecy about Emmanuel to the conception of Christ from the Immaculate Virgin Mary (). The Evangelist does not apply only the words of Isaiah to this event, does not compare only the prophecy of Isaiah with the story of the birth of the Messiah, but clearly testifies that in the conception of Jesus Christ from the Immaculate Virgin the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled - and that, therefore, Isaiah by Emmanuel meant the true God who was about to appear on earth in human flesh.
But how could this birth of the Messiah-God-Man be a sign for the time of the prophet Isaiah?
Firstly, the prophet, predicting the highest good deed of God - the incarnation of the Son of God for the salvation of people - thereby wanted to say that the Jews and the house of David could all the more hope for a much less good deed - deliverance from two allied kings.
Secondly, the birth of the Messiah from the line of David necessarily implied that the plans of these two kings to overthrow and destroy the dynasty of David would not come true. Patriarch Jacob clearly predicted that before the birth of the Messiah, the scepter from the house of Judah - and, consequently, from the family of David - would not be taken away ().
. He will eat milk and honey until he understands to reject the bad and choose the good;
. for before this Child understands to reject the bad and choose the good, the land that you fear will be abandoned by both of its kings.
Emmanuel will eat milk and honey, of which there was a lot in Palestine. The point is, according to ancient interpreters, that the Son of the Virgin will be a true man, because he will eat ordinary children's food (St. Irenaeus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, etc.). But the thought of human nature, of course, was not the main thought of the prophet when he spoke about Emmanuel as a sign from God. To understand the real meaning of verse 15, we must look at verse 22, which is undoubtedly closely related to verse 15. And in the 22nd Art. eating thick milk and honey is a sign of the devastation of grain fields by enemies, during whose invasion it was impossible to cultivate these fields. Next, and in the 15th Art. the prophet wants to talk about the devastation of the land of Judea, when the Jews will have to eat only milk and honey.
This devastation will continue until the time when the one who is born of the Virgin, but even now as if existing, Emmanuel, like any ordinary baby, begins to demonstrate the ability to distinguish between good and evil, that is, until moral self-awareness begins to manifest in him . The period during which infants do not usually show this self-consciousness lasts from two to three years. Consequently, the devastation of the country of Judea will continue in no case more than three years from the time Isaiah uttered the prophecy about the birth of Immanuel.
In the 16th Art. the time of the liberation of Judea from the invasion of the allied kings was even more precisely determined. The Prophet says that this liberation will take place before the period specified by him in verse 15, that is, before the expiration of 2-3 years.
The land or territory of the kingdoms of Syria and Israel will be abandoned by its kings. This prophecy could be fulfilled in the circumstance described in 4 books. Kings (; ): Tiglath-Pilezer, king of Assyria, in 733–732 killed Rezin, king of Syria, and at the same time took possession of the northern half of the kingdom of Israel.
. After temporary relief for Judea, however, even more difficult times will come. The Lord will send Egyptian and Assyrian troops against the Jews, who will destroy all the fruits of the earth in the region of the Judean state. The land will be overgrown with thistles, and the vast majority of its inhabitants will be taken into captivity.
. But the Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house days such as have not come since Ephraim fell away from Judah, he will bring upon the king of Assyria.
"At you" . Under Ahaz, the Assyrian king had not yet occupied the territory of the Judean state, but Ahaz entered into vassal relations with this king. This circumstance deprived the Kingdom of Judah of its independence and had no less sad consequences than the fall of the 10 tribes of Israel under Rehoboam.
. And it will come to pass on that day that the Lord will give a sign to the fly that is at the mouth of the river of Egypt, and to the bee that is in the land of Assyria,
"Mukhe". The Egyptians are called flies from the river of Egypt because in Egypt, after the floods produced by the Nile, flies multiply enormously. The prophet wanted to point out the large number of Egyptian hordes and the persistence of the Egyptians with which they would strive to take possession of Palestine (proverb: as annoying as a fly).
"Bee". The Assyrians are called bees because there were many bees in their country and because the Assyrians inflicted severe injuries on their enemies, were especially angry and indomitable in anger, like irritated bees.
. and they will all fly and settle in the deserted valleys and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thorny bushes, and in all the trees.
However, for now the prophet only says about flies and bees that they will settle in the land of Judea, that is, they will occupy it, perhaps even in order to protect it from their rivals.
. On that day the Lord will shave the head and the hair of the legs with a razor hired by the king of Assyria on the other side of the river, and even take away the beard.
The prophet points out here that the Assyrians will cause much more harm to Judea than the Egyptians - here the prophet seems to completely forget about the Egyptians. "Hair" is a symbol of strength and courage.
The “beard” was considered by Eastern people to be almost a sacred adornment of every man, and to lose it was shameful.
. And it will come to pass in that day: whoever keeps a cow and two sheep
. according to the abundance of milk which they give, they will eat butter; All who remain in this land will eat butter and honey.
. And it will happen in that day: in every place where there grew a thousand vines for a thousand pieces of silver, there will be thorns and thorns.
. They will go there with arrows and bows, for all the land will be thorns and thorny bushes.
. And you will not go to any of the mountains that were cleared by furrowers, for fear of thorns and thorny bushes: oxen will be driven there, and small livestock will trample them.
This describes the devastation of Judea, which had reached its extreme. Thorn bushes and thorns grow everywhere in it - bushes in which even wild animals live. It is clear that here the prophet foresees the devastation of the Judean side in which it found itself after the Jews were taken into captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, who could be called the king of Assyria, as he owned the former territory of the Assyrian state.
Modern critics believe that there are some parts in chapter 7 that do not belong to the prophet Isaiah. So the inscription of the chapter (v. 1) is almost identical with. Isaiah himself had no need to give the genealogy of Ahaz and remind him of him as the king of the Jews. We can therefore agree, says Condamin, that these words were added to the 7th chapter. publisher of the speeches of Isaiah.
The words of verse 8: 65 more years... most of He also considers the critics to be a later insertion, mainly on the grounds that the consolation contained in them could not have any meaning for Ahaz at the very time when Isaiah was talking to him. But these remarks concern minor passages in the 7th chapter and, moreover, do not contain evidentiary force.
1) Isaiah could hardly have taken 1st Art. from the 4th book. Kingdoms, because this book most likely appeared after his death (it already talks about the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah),
2) nevertheless, even in the distant fall of enemy kingdoms there was something comforting for Ahaz.
The Gospel of Matthew says: “Behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel, which means: God with us.” (Matthew 1:23). It says “Immanuel”, but the child’s name is Jesus. Why?
Matthew 1:23 is a quotation from Isaiah 7:14. This is perhaps one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament. I'll tell you why this is difficult a little later, but for now let's look at the context of this quote from Isaiah. But first, a few words about the prophetic book itself and its structure, since I think this may someday be useful to you.
The Book of Isaiah appears to have been written by a team of authors. The first of them was Isaiah of Jerusalem (or Isaiah the First). He owns chapters 1-39. Isaiah of Jerusalem wrote in the pre-exilic period. The second part of the book includes chapters 40-55. They are attributed to another prophet - Second Isaiah or Isaiah the Second. He wrote during the Babylonian captivity. His part contains especially many messianic prophecies, which is why I often call him the “Old Testament Evangelist.” The last part (chap. 56-66) belongs to Tritoisaya and is intended mainly for immigrants who returned from captivity. Some are still inclined to highlight the so-called. “The Apocalypse of Isaiah” (chap. 24-27), deducing the new author from the premise of the absence of the Jerusalem teaching about resurrection of the dead. There are also doubts about the prophecies about Babylon in chapters 13-14 belonging to Isaiah the First.
Naturally, this division of the book is speculative in nature and is derived mainly from the differences in stylistic features in the book, and is also subject to the desire to interpret the book in a rationalistic spirit (doubt that Isaiah the prophet could have predicted the reign of Cyrus long before his birth, etc. .). Whether to accept this approach or reject it is a personal matter for each researcher. Traditionally, it is believed that the entire book of Isaiah was written by one author - Isaiah the First.
The prophecy that interests us dates back to the reign of Ahaz, king of Judah. The young king had just ascended the throne when clouds gathered over his head - the Northern Kingdom (Israel) entered into an alliance with Syria in order to subjugate the Southern Kingdom, where Ahaz ruled. Weakened Judea could not give a decisive rebuff to the enemy coalition. During these days, the prophet Isaiah appeared to the king, intending to strengthen him and convince him to place his hope in God, who had more than once saved the kingdom, which was perishing in unbelief. The Lord, through the mouth of Isaiah, directly addressed the king of little faith: “Ask yourself a sign from the Lord your God: ask either in the depths or on the heights.” (Is.7:11) But Ahaz was more inclined to hope for the help of Assyria than for the help of the Most High: “And Ahaz said: I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord.” (Is.7:12)
“Then [Isaiah] said: Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to make trouble for people that you want to make it difficult for my God? So the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel. He will eat milk and honey until he understands to reject the bad and choose the good; for before this baby understands to reject the bad and choose the good, the land that you fear will be abandoned by both of its kings.” (Isa.7:13-16)
The sign was as follows. Even before time will pass, necessary for the child to be conceived, born and mature a little (3-4 years), Ahaz’s opponents will be defeated. Judea will triumph, and the king, who has received help from God, will find a calm and serene life in a prosperous country.
Now let's talk about the problems that arise from Matthew's quoting of this prophecy in a messianic context. First, let's identify these problems, and then try to somehow solve them.
First, in its original meaning, this prophecy actually has nothing to do with the coming of Jesus Christ. The time period separating Ahaz and Jesus is too long. Just imagine: “The Lord Himself will give you a sign: in 800 years such and such will happen...”
Secondly, the baby's name is not entirely clear. Apparently, the fulfillment of the prophecy about the baby is already spoken about in the next chapter:
“...and I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me: call his name Mager-shelal-hash-baz, for before the child can say, “My father, my mother,” the riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be brought before the king of Assyria.” (Is.8:3,4) The similarity with the prophecy from the previous chapter is obvious here - even before the child began to think coherently, what the Lord predicted would come true. However, the child is named Mager-shelal-khash-baz, which means “the robbery hastens, the spoil hastens.” Although names in ancient Israel were mostly symbolic, this name is not even similar in meaning to Immanuel, which means “God is with us.” This suggests that Isaiah's prophecy was only partially fulfilled, and its special, global fulfillment must take place in other times.
And the most serious problem: Matthew quotes Isaiah from the Septuagint (Seventy Interpreters Translation, a popular ancient translation of the OT into Greek language, usually designated as LXX - Roman numeral 70), where in place of the word “Virgo” used in the Russian translation is the Greek parqenoV (parthenos) - virgin. In the Hebrew original (Masoretic text and other evidence) there is alma - an unmarried young woman. The Hebrew word for the meaning of a virgin is “betula,” and the Greek word for the same concept is neaniV. As you can see, there is a clear shift in emphasis here. Isaiah did not talk about the birth of a child from a virgin, and did not emphasize it as a miracle. For him, all that is important is the course of events that seem to run parallel to the child’s development. The LXX text seems to reflect popular aspirations about the coming birth of the Messiah, and, perhaps, the influence of the cultural environment. From here, with some skill, a whole series of far-reaching conclusions can be drawn - from assumptions about the fallacy of the dogma of the virgin birth of Christ to the widespread mythologization of the NT.
How to solve this problem? Many are inclined to note that the use of “alma” does not exclude the meaning of a virgin. The most correct meaning of this word is a girl who is ripe for marriage, but has not yet gotten married. A similar passage can be cited here in Genesis 24:43, which speaks of Rebekah using the word "alma", and in Genesis 24:16 - betulah. The morals of those distant times were much stricter than now and, perhaps, these words were barely distinguishable then. It can be assumed that the translators of the LXX were guided precisely by these considerations. However, this explanation does not exhaust the whole problem - after all, the prophecy does not focus specifically on virginity, as Matthew does.
I think this problem should be addressed differently, without limiting ourselves to the narrow spectrum within which critical researchers operate. The fact is that quoting in ancient times was different from modern practice. Often the ancient author did not have the text he was referring to at hand, and had to quote from memory. Much more often allusions were used, when the author simply cites the main idea of a text or passage. A similar situation most likely occurs in Matthew. It can be assumed that Matthew is not simply quoting from Isa. 7:14 as a documentary confirmation of the messianic sign of Jesus - birth from virginity, and concerns a broader topic - the fulfillment in Jesus of all the prophecies of the fragment of the book. Isaiah from chapters 7 to 12, where the name Emmanuel appears. This assumption can also resolve the second problem that I outlined above - the ambiguity with the name. Matthew knew full well that Jesus was called Jesus and not Emmanuel, but in this name he gives an indication of the messianic fragment of Isaiah, fully fulfilled in Jesus.
The first problem - the distance of Jesus from Ahaz - can also be solved. The text of Isaiah says that the prophecy is addressed not only to Ahaz, but also to the house of David.
“Then [Isaiah] said: Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to make trouble for people that you want to make it difficult for my God? So the Lord himself will give you a sign...” (Is. 7:13,14)
As you can see, the prophecy is addressed to the entire messianic race, Isaiah says “The Lord will give YOU...”. Here is the time to recall the popular explanation about the double meaning of some prophecies - those relating to contemporaries and simultaneously relating to the distant future. However, such duality should not be perceived as an integral attribute of prophecy.
No matter how complex this situation may seem, an explanation can still be found. In any case, the simplified atheistic explanation of this situation, which consists in the fact that Matthew simply took a prophecy he liked in order to substantiate the myth with it, does not stand up to criticism. Matthew does not use this prophecy by chance, of his own volition, but quite consciously, aware of the possible difficulties. This is exactly so for two reasons - firstly, Christians in the earliest period perceived the writings of Matthew completely differently from us, who grew up on Protestant dogma. If an error was discovered, it cost them nothing to simply delete this fragment. Second, the gospel writers were very careful in their choice of messianic prophecies. Thus, in none of the evangelists will we find a quotation of the prophecy popular among church historians from Genesis 49:10: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until the Conciliator comes, and to Him the submission of the nations.” Let us remember that Jesus came at a time when Herod the Edomite ruled Judea. To many this seemed very symbolic, but the evangelists apparently understood that emphasizing this would not be entirely correct.
And since Matthew quotes the “distorted” text of the book of Isaiah, then he had good reasons for this. And we need to approach this fragment of the Gospel from the perspective of Matthew, and not from modern criticism. The apparent inconsistency is not an error, but, on the contrary, a valuable indication of the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.
In general, I got the impression that in early church this problem was simply ignored. Here are two typical examples:
Jerome the Blessed mentions it in passing in his treatise “Against Helvidius”, noting in the sense that if in one text on which the dogma of immaculate conception There are some difficulties, then in other gospel texts there are no such difficulties.
“As for the translations themselves, the Italian translation should be preferred to all others; because he is both more precise and clear about them. To correct the shortcomings in the Latin translations, it is necessary to resort to the Greek translations, among which the most important, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, is the translation of seventy interpreters, which, in the opinion of everyone, were so worthy of inspiration from the Holy Spirit that they had, as it were, only lips . If, as many not unworthy people say, during the translation itself they were each imprisoned in a special room, and despite the fact that the translation of each of them was found to agree with the translations of others not only in words, but also in the arrangement of words: then who dares compare with such an important translation, much less prefer any other translation to it? If some, for the sake of creating further agreement in thoughts and for greater unity in the very expressions, have already compared the translation of the Seventy with others; at the very least, it is undignified and indecent for anyone alone, in the hope of their own experience, to attempt to correct anything in this translation, approved by the unanimous consent of such ancient and learned men as seventy interpreters. Yes, if in their translation there was either a disagreement with the Hebrew original; then this, in my opinion, should be attributed to the special intentions of God, accomplished through them, that is, so that the books that the Jews did not want to open to other peoples, either out of respect for their Religion, or out of hatred for these peoples, in advance, through the mediation and authority of King Ptolemy, became known to the pagans who were enlightened by faith in the Lord, it could have happened that seventy interpreters, translating the Scriptures, took into account, in places, the condition of the pagans - by the will of the Holy Spirit, who guided them and gave them a mouth united." (Christian Science. II. 22)
February 15, 2009
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