I Filling up the Word: the Fulfillment Citations in Matthew's Gospel By

Filling Up the Word: The Fulfillment Citations in Matthew’s Gospel

Zack C. Phillips Graduate Program in Religion Duke University

Date:______Approved:

______Richard B. Hays, Supervisor

______Stephen B. Chapman

______Joel Marcus

______C. Kavin Rowe

______J. Ross Wagner

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University

2017

ABSTRACT

Filling Up the Word: The Fulfillment Citations in Matthew’s Gospel

Zack C. Phillips Graduate Program in Religion Duke University

Date:______Approved:

______Richard B. Hays, Supervisor

______Stephen B. Chapman

______Joel Marcus

______C. Kavin Rowe

______J. Ross Wagner

An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University

2017

ABSTRACT

It is often assumed, occasionally argued, that when Matthew writes, in his ten

“fulfillment citations” (FCs), that Scripture was “fulfilled,” he means that the occurrence of certain events “verify” scriptural “predictions.” This study argues that the FCs have another primary function—namely, to show how Jesus (or, in two cases,

Israel’s leaders) brings the scriptural word to an unsurpassable, “full” limit. The key verb πληροῦν, that is, has a basic meaning of “fill up.”

The starting point is an examination of three rhetorically significant texts in

Matthew’s gospel that are not FCs. In Matt 3:13-17, 5:17-20, and 23:32-36, Matthew consistently uses πληροῦν to mean “fill up” some ethical/ moral quantum. A survey of the way in which “limit-adjectives/ adverbs” (adjectives/ adverbs, that convey a limit being reached, e.g., “all”) cluster around the FCs points in the same direction— towards the hypothesis that πληροῦν means “fill up” in the FCs as well.

A potential linguistic objection is then addressed: is it possible to use πληροῦν in this way in Matthew’s Umwelt? Considering the instances of “πληροῦν + a word” formulations in koinē Greek, the study concludes that such language would have no default idiomatic meaning in the ears of Matthew’s speakers and could be used in the manner proposed.

-iv-

After establishing the methodological principle that Matthew controlled the size of his FCs—and, thus, quoted precisely what he needed—exegesis of the specific

FCs attempts to confirm the study’s central thesis. Consideration of relevant textual features of the narrative context in which the FCs are embedded (e.g., repetition of limit-adverbs/ adjectives, narrative-enacted “fullness”) would show that many, but not all, of the FCs point towards such a meaning for πληροῦν. Those FCs lacking such textual features can and probably should be read within the framework derived from

Matthew’s normal usage of πληροῦν.

Finally, the study considers several hermeneutical implications of this exegesis. Ultimately, it would situate Matthew’s hermeneutic within scholarly discussion of “the Old in the New” and offer a contribution to Matthean christology.

With the FCs, Matthew sets forth a vision of myriad images from Israel’s past

(Emmanuel; Son; nazirite; light; healing Servant; nonviolent king; prophet; meek king) converging on the Jesus who fully embodies them to save Israel from the fullness of her exile.

-v-

For Quincie

-vi-

CONTENTS

Abstract...... iv

List of Tables ...... x

Acknowledgements ...... xi

Introduction ...... 1

The FCs as “a Distinct Category” ...... 1

“An Arbitrary, Frivolous Misuse of the Texts?” ...... 4

Towards “a Better Way to Conceptualise Fulfilment” ...... 6

“The Limits of Narrative Criticism” ...... 23

“Fulfilling by Filling”: A Proposal ...... 25

Chapter 1. Matthean Fulfillment ...... 33

1.1 Three Matthean Fulfillment Passages ...... 33

1.1.1 Matthew 23:29-36...... 35

1.1.2 Matthew 3:13-17 ...... 40

1.1.3 Matthew 5:17-20 ...... 50

1.2 The Limit Adjective/ Adverb in Matthew ...... 63

1.3 Conclusion ...... 75

Chapter 2. The Language of Fulfillment...... 76

2.1 The Flexibility of πληροῦν ...... 79

2.2 “πληροῦν + a Word” Had No Default Idiomatic Meaning ...... 88

2.2.1 “Πληροῦν + a Word” Non-Formulaically ...... 89

-vii-

2.2.2 “Πληροῦν + a Word” Formulaically...... 103

2.3 Analogous Usage: Three Biblical Tests ...... 114

2.3.1 2 Chronicles 36:21 ...... 114

2.3.2 1 Kings 2:27 ...... 126

2.3.3 James 2:23 ...... 130

2.4 Conclusion ...... 144

Chapter 3. The Form of the FCs ...... 146

3.1 Organizing the Discussion ...... 148

3.2 “Surpluses” and “Tensions” ...... 151

3.3 The (Supposed) Un-Matthean Vocabulary ...... 155

3.4 The (Supposed) LXX/ Mixed-Text Dichotomy ...... 157

3.5 An Affirmative Counterargument ...... 159

Chapter 4. The Matthean FCs ...... 160

4.1 The FCs in Chapters 1-2 + 27:9-10 ...... 161

4.1.1 Matthew 1:23 ...... 162

4.1.2 Matthew 2:15 ...... 168

4.1.3 Matthew 2:18 ...... 175

4.1.4 Matthew 27:9-10 ...... 187

4.1.5 Matthew 2:23 ...... 207

4.2 The FCs in Chapters 4-13 ...... 221

4.2.1 Matthew 4:15-16 ...... 223

4.2.2 Matthew 8:17 ...... 234

-viii-

4.2.3 Matthew 12:18-21...... 247

4.2.4 Matthew 13:35 ...... 264

4.3 The Remaining FC ...... 282

4.3.1 Matthew 21:5 ...... 282

4.4 Conclusion ...... 293

Chapter 5. Matthew’s Hermeneutic ...... 295

5.1 The FCs Are Unemphatically Predictive ...... 295

5.2 The FCs Are Neither Apologetic in Function Nor Geographical in Focus ..... 298

5.3 “Conflated Citations” Activate the Broader Context ...... 301

5.4 The Complicated “Context” ...... 306

5.4.1 Distorting at the Word Level ...... 311

5.4.2 Distorting at the Sentence Level ...... 316

5.4.3 Evoking the “Broader” Context ...... 318

5.4.4 Summary of Matthew ...... 328

5.5 Matthean Soteriology? ...... 329

Conclusion ...... 333

Works Cited ...... 342

Biography ...... 358

-ix-

Table 1. Bathsheba’s and Nathan’s Speeches in 1 Kgs 1 ...... 91

Table 2. Isaiah 53:4 in Various Textual Traditions ...... 239

Table 3. Matthew’s FCs at the Word Level ...... 314

-x-

I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Stephen

Chapman, Joel Marcus, Kavin Rowe, and Ross Wagner. Each of these men has provided guidance in important ways. Perhaps more important than their insight, perspectives, and counsel, they each, in different ways, through coursework, preliminary exams, conversations, and my “precepting” for their lecture courses, have taught me to read Scripture much, much more fruitfully than I would have ever read it without them. I hope that this dissertation, whatever its inadequacies, reflects the best of what I have learned from them, combines their influences in an interesting way, and does justice to the beauty and importance of their fruit-bearing teaching in the lives of students like myself.

I owe special thanks to my advisor Richard Hays. He repeatedly read drafts and offered incisive comments and much-needed encouragement; he helped to sharpen both my ideas and my prose; he thoughtfully and charitably engaged my disagreements with his work. He did all of this while he was serving as dean of Duke

Divinity School and battling cancer. His generosity has been inspiring.

More friends than I can name deserve thanks—but I would offer a special thank you to Rich Goodier, Chris Blumhofer, and David Smith as those friends who most helped me, in my studies and in my life, over the course of writing this project.

-xi-

I thank my mother Cindy Phillips—even as I fumble with the fact that, given her sacrifice, a mere “thank you” seems crass. Doctoral work is financially challenging. My mother could not afford to help us financially—and yet she did, consistently and well beyond her means, for years. The only way I know to name such love: “out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Finally, my family: my two sons, Kanai and Masa, have been sources of joy throughout this project. They endured countless “field trips” to the library and, thankfully, never outgrew their fascination with the automated shelves; they never tired of asking when my “book would be finished.” My wife Quincie has had to endure more than we ever imagined that fateful night I decided to quit the law firm, debt be damned, and pursue my passion of studying the Bible. She has been an exemplar of patience, faith, and sacrifice. Even these two sentences—even drawing attention to her at all—is enough to make her squirm; I know that more would be unbearable. So, quite simply: thank you, Quincie. I love you.

-xii-

Matthew’s Gospel uses the Old Testament more extensively than any other

New Testament book. Editorial reflections about scriptural fulfillment, halakhic debates, subtle and allusive typologies, and language and imagery drawn from the Old

Testament feature prominently. Of these uses, the ten so-called “fulfillment citations”

(hereafter, “FCs”) are the most studied.

Probably selected and worded by Matthew, the FCs share two or three characteristics.1 First, a stereotyped formula, created by Matthew and containing minor variations on a pattern, introduces each one: ἵνα/ ὅπως/ τότε + πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν +

[ὑπὸ κυρίου] + διὰ [prophet’s name] + τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος.2 Second, in each case the

1 The following citations seem to be unique to Matthew: Hos 11:1 (= Matt 2:15); Jer 31:15 (= Matt 2:18); Judg 13:5, 7? (= Matt 2:23); Isa 8:23-9:1 (= Matt 4:15-16); Isa 42:1-4 (= Matt 12:18-21); Psa 78:2 (= Matt 13:35); and Zech 11:13 (= Matt 26:15; 27:9-10). The following seem to be at least echoed by other New Testament writers: Isa 7:14 (= Matt 1:23) is probably alluded to in Luke 1:27, 31 (the virgin birth); Mic 5:1 (= Matt 2:6) in John 7:42 (the Messiah being from Bethlehem); and Isa 53:4 (= Matt 8:17) in 1 Pet 2:24 (he bore our sicknesses).

2 “There is a rather large consensus that [the introductory formula] comes from the evangelist.” Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary, ed., Helmut Koester, trans., James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 125. The best case for this conclusion is M. J. J. Menken, “The References to Jeremiah in the Gospel according to Matthew (Matt 2:17, 16:14, 27:9),” ETL 60 (1984): 5-24, 7-9. For a thorough list of those subscribing to this consensus about the introductory formula, cf. ibid., 7 n. 8. The basic reason for this consensus is the clearly Matthean language used in the formula. Cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 125.

narrator comments that Jesus has fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy. For this reason, older German scholarship labelled the FCs Reflexionszitate (in contrast to the

Kontextzitate voiced by characters, usually Jesus); more recently, scholars use the term Erfüllungszitate.3 Third—but this remains debated—the form of the quotations may be a “mixed” text-type closer to the Hebrew than the basically Septuagintal form of the other Old Testament quotations.4 Because of these distinguishing features, scholars have long regarded the FCs as a “distinct category” of material having a “common origin and a common function.”5

Of course, we must define this group of citations. While disagreement persists, broad consensus exists that ten citations should be included: Matt 1:23; 2:15; 2:18;

3 French scholarship refers to them as “citations d’accomplissement,” and English-language scholarship as “formula quotations” or “fulfillment citations.” For discussions of the history of terminology, cf. George Soares Prabhu, The Formula Quotations in the Infancy Narrative of Matthew: An Enquiry into the Tradition History of Mt 1-2, AnBib 63 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1976), 19-21; Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 96-97 n. 1.

4 Cf. e.g., Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 19; Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13, WBC 33A (Dallas: Word, 1993), lvi. Those who do not regard them as a distinct text-type include Robert H. Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel: With Special Reference to the Messianic Hope, NovTSup 18 (Leiden: Brill, 1967) and M. J. J. Menken, Matthew’s Bible: The Old Testament Text of the Evangelist, BETL 173 (Leuven: Leuven University Press; Peeters, 2004).

5 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 21, 23.

2:23; 4:15-16; 8:17; 12:18-21; 13:35; 21:5; and 27:9-10.6 Some would also include 2:6,

26:54, and/ or 26:56 (more rarely, 3:3 and 13:14-15), but each of these lacks one or more of the three identifying features.7 I follow the consensus in regarding these ten, and only these ten, as the relevant group.

Debate continues as to the interrelated questions of form and source (treated in Chapter 3), how to account for variations in the introductory formula, and how to understand their front-loaded distribution in the gospel.8 That four appear in the first

6 “These ten ‘appear on every list and belong unquestionably to the formula quotation group.’” ibid., 25 (listing the positions of various scholars on 24-25). More recently, among the scholars who consider these ten to constitute the group of FCs are W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 3, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 573-74; Luz, Matthew 1-7, 125; Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 107; Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 279. Recent scholars who disagree with this consensus include Hagner, Matthew 1-13, liv-lv (including 13:14-15 and 3:3); Ben Witherington, III, Matthew, SHBC (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2006), 43 (including 2:6 and excluding 2:23); Craig A. Evans, Matthew, NCBC (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 45 (including 2:6).

7 Briefly, Matt 2:6 is not a comment of the narrator and lacks the introductory formula with the verb πληροῦν. Matt 13:14-15, whose authenticity some scholars doubt, uses ἀναπληροῦν instead of πληροῦν and is not the comment of the narrator. Matt 26:54 and 56, the latter of which is derived from Mark 14:49, both use the verb πληροῦν but do not cite to a specific text. The best case for these not being regarded as FCs is Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 27-30. Some late manuscripts also have a fulfillment citation at Matt 27:35 (citing Ps 22:19), but this is universally regarded as an interpolation based on John 19:24. Cf. ibid., 25 n. 160.

8 How one accounts for (1) τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν in 1:22 and 21:4, (2) the (selective) naming of Isaiah and Jeremiah, (3) the use of τότε rather than ἵνα/ ὅπως, (4) and the strange generalizing formula in 2:23 will all be discussed in the exegesis in Chapter 4. The reason that only 1:22 and 2:15 have ὑπὸ κυρίου is probably best explained by Rudolf Pesch. Both of these FCs present Jesus as the “son” of God so that,

two chapters, two in chapters 4-8, two in chapters 12-13, and only two in the final fifteen chapters (and none in the Passion Narrative!) has been explained in various ways.9

While study of the FCs is almost as old as the gospel itself, it is pursued in the modern critical period with urgency.10 Pre-modern readers shared the presuppositions that genuine prophecy-as-prediction is possible and that much of the Old Testament functions in this way. As evidenced in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, their concern

as Davies and Allison summarize Pesch’s point, “Matthew wants ‘son’ to be associated with God.” Rudolf Pesch, “Der Gottessohn im matthäischen Evangelienprolog: Mt 1-2: Beobachtungen zu den Zitationsformeln der Reflexionszitate,” Bib 48 (1967): 395-420; cf. W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 1, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 212. In my view, no one has adequately explained the reason why some formulae use ἵνα, others ὅπως; for a discussion of proposals, cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 51-52.

9 Perhaps while the passion had long been studied in light of the Old Testament, such study was nascent for the infancy narrative (Brown, Birth, 99); perhaps Matthew front-loaded the citations to emphasize the importance of the fulfillment theme for his gospel (Luz, Matthew 1-7, 139-40; Hays, Echoes, 108); perhaps Matthew has created a “récit gnoséologique” in which the narrator instructs the reader how to interpret then disappears so that the reader can undertake that task for herself (Jean Miler, Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu: quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité, AnBib 140 [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1999], 280, 302 n. 60, 306-07).

10 For a summary of the issues discussed by Justin, Origen, and Jerome, cf. Graham Stanton, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), 346-47.

was not whether this hermeneutic is “legitimate”—as Robert Gundry would later discuss the issue—but how best to do it.11

For many exegetes in the modern critical period, the first presupposition

“leaves the… religious consciousness stone cold,” and the second requires unacceptable “atomistic” exegesis that “interprets sentences, clauses, phrases, and even single words, independently of the context or the historical occasion.…”12

Together, these problems make the FCs the product of a “primitive” worldview and thus difficult to understand. Many scholars regard them as an “arbitrary, frivolous misuse of the texts.”13

George Soares Prabhu’s question, then, is the question for modern readers:

“How can these ‘prophetic’ texts, quoted with so little regard for their original

11 Gundry, Use.

12 C. F. D. Moule, “Fulfilment-Words in the New Testament: Use and Abuse,” in Essays in New Testament Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 3-36, 9 (leaving the consciousness cold); George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932), 248 (atomistic exegesis).

13 Hagner, Matthew 1-13, lvi. Hagner himself does not agree with this characterization, but he does set it forth as what is “sometimes claimed.”

meaning, be said to be really ‘fulfilled’ by the Gospel events to which they are referred?”14 With more elaboration, Richard Longenecker asks:

Who would have suspected… that anything of messianic significance could be derived from (1) God’s calling Israel’s children out of Egypt, (2) Jeremiah’s reference to Rachel weeping for her children in Rama, (3) a statement regarding the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, or (4) the payment to Zechariah of thirty pieces of silver and his subsequent action of giving them to the potter?15

Understanding this seemingly “atomizing,” purportedly “arbitrary,” possibly “proof- texting” reading of the Old Testament is the problem that this study will address.

While the first monograph on the FCs appeared in 1885, the modern

14 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 21 n. 133.

15 Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Vancouver: Regent College, 1999), 124.

16 The phrase is from J. R. Daniel Kirk, “Conceptualising Fulfilment in Matthew,” TynBul 59 (2008): 77-98, 78. For an overview of scholarship on the FCs, see Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 18-26; Donald Senior, “The Lure of the Formula Quotations: Re-assessing Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament with the Passion Narrative as a Test Case,” in The Scriptures in the Gospels, ed. Christopher M. Tuckett, BETL 131 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997), 89-115; F. Van Segbroeck, “Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile selon saint Matthieu d’après trois ouvrages récents,” in L’évangile selon Matthieu: rédaction et théologie, ed. M. Didier, BETL 29 (Gembloux: Duculot, 1972), 107-30; and Donald Senior, What are They Saying about Matthew? (New York: Paulist, 1996), 51-61.

conversation begins with Krister Stendahl and those who responded to his work.17

This period (1954–1977) was the heyday of studies of the FCs—at least if judged by the number of monograph-length studies (four: Stendahl, Gundry, Rothfuchs, Soares

Prabhu) and monographs devoting substantial analysis to them (four: Lindars,

Strecker, McConnell, Brown).18 Most of these studies examined the text form of the

FCs, although, in almost every case, the inquiry constituted an argument in a broader project. The hermeneutical question received limited attention, as a means to another end.19

17 To my knowledge, the first critical monograph on the FCs was Eugene Massebieau, Examen des citations de l’ancien testament dans l’évangile selon saint Matthieu (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1885). For a characterization of the study of the FCs in nineteenth century German commentaries, cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 121 and n. 133. Before Stendahl, studies which treated the issue of the text-form of the FCs include J. Rendel Harris, Testimonies, ed., Vacher Burch, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916); Benjamin W. Bacon, Studies in Matthew (New York: Holt, 1930); C. C. Torrey, Documents of the Primitive Church (New York: Harper, 1941); George D. Kilpatrick, The Origins of the Gospel According to St. Matthew (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946); Sherman E. Johnson, “The Biblical Quotations in Matthew,” HTR 36 (1943): 135-153.

18 Krister Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew and its Use of the Old Testament (Ramsey, NJ: Sigler Press, 1991); Gundry, Use; Wilhelm Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate des Matthaüs-Evangeliums: Eine biblisch-theologische Untersuchung, BWANT 88 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969); Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations; Georg Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit: Untersuchung zur Theologie des Matthäus, FRLANT 82 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962); Richard S. McConnell, Law and Prophecy in Matthew’s Gospel: The Authority and Use of the Old Testament in the Gospel of St. Matthew (Basel: Reinhardt, 1969); Brown, Birth.

19 Soares Prabhu is representative. He would discern Matthew’s “redactional modifications” to the “narrative context” of the Infancy Narrative into which the FCs were inserted. Doing so requires that

Interest in the FCs waned during the 1980s and 1990s. Besides several articles, only commentaries analyzed them. Despite the rather limited scope of these analyses, some of them contained new readings of the FCs that paved the way for future studies.20

Between roughly 2000 and today, there has been a resurgence of interest in the

FCs (one dissertation [Miler] and several articles or sections of monographs [Menken,

Kirk, Kennedy, Crowe, Eubank, Hays]).21 Kennedy and Eubank analyzed the FCs as part of projects about Matthean christology; Kirk and Crowe made provocative proposals about an overarching conceptualization of the FCs as a group; Hays read

one “know just what the context is being adapted to,” that one understand “what the quotation is really about.” Thus, his “redactional analysis” begins with “a study of [the] text” of Matthew, a search for the “‘point’ of the quotation.” Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 192. Soares Prabhu thus realized that the form of the FCs and their content are necessarily interrelated. Unfortunately, few scholars before the publication of his work and fewer afterwards, have appreciated this point, and, when they have, have given insufficient attention to either or both. Hence, the need for this methodologically eclectic study (as explained more below).

20 In this regard, the works of Davies and Allison and Luz will both be engaged extensively in this dissertation.

21 Miler, Citations; Menken, Matthew’s Bible; Kirk, “Conceptualising”; Joel Kennedy, The Recapitulation of Israel: Use of Israel’s History in Matthew 1:1-4:11, WUNT 257 (Tubingë n: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); Brandon D. Crowe, “Fulfillment in Matthew as Eschatological Reversal,” WTJ 75 (2013): 111-127; Nathan Eubank, Wages of Cross-Bearing and Debt of Sin: The Economy of Heaven in Matthew’s Gospel, BZMW 196 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013); Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014); Hays, Echoes.

six of the FCs as examples of how Matthew read the Old Testament figurally.22

Because I will engage each of these recent studies extensively, I postpone discussing them for the moment.23

How might we summarize this voluminous scholarship? I offer seven observations about scholarly trends over the past sixty years, areas of seeming consensus, and areas of dispute.

1. “Prediction–verification” is no longer the dominant reading of the FCs.

C. F. D. Moule’s 1967 Presidential Address to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti

Societas aimed to cut through the tangle of “inexact” fulfillment language in the

Bible. He distinguished “three sets of correlatives” to which “promise and fulfillment” refers: (1) mere “prediction”–“verification”; (2) the “termination, completion or achievement” of a “project, undertaking or obligation”; and (3) “covenant” promise– fulfillment (which is “unique and distinctive” in “the faith of the New Testament”).

With the first set, a prophet “predicts” the future, and this prediction is “verified” when it “‘com[es] to pass’ or ‘com[es] true.’” By “carry[ing] through his

22 Hays offers readings of Matt 1:23; 2:15; 2:18; 4:15-16; 12:18-21; and 21:5, brief observations but no sustained readings of 8:17 and 27:9-10, and no readings of 2:23 or 13:35.

23 Menken’s study, a technical and exhaustive analysis reviving the text-form project of Stendahl and Gundry, is the outlier here: it does not use narrative criticism and devotes only limited space to exegesis of the FCs. Its analysis will be very useful in Chapter 3.

predetermined plan,” God commands the worship of those who appreciate that

“things do not happen by chance” but that God “has devised them.” The more

“arbitrary and peripheral” the detail, the better: its fulfillment becomes less

“coincidental,” more “convincing,” of God’s “foreseeing the future.”24

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, “prediction–verification” dominated discussion of Matthew’s FCs. Stendahl’s article “Quis et Unde: An Analysis of Mt 1-2” (1964) read the FCs in Matt 1-2 in this way.25 Morna Hooker’s Jesus and the Servant (1959) concluded that Matthew quoted Isaiah 53 as a “‘proof-text’ from the Old Testament that these things could—and did—happen to the Messiah.”26 Reinhart Hummel articulated Matthew’s Schriftbeweis as “Äußerlichkeiten der ‘Vorhersage’ und

24 Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 3-8.

25 Krister Stendahl, “Quis et Unde: An Analysis of Mt 1-2,” in Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias, ed. Walther Eltester, ZNW 26 (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1964), 94-105.

26 Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament (London: SPCK., 1959), 151-52.

‘Erfüllung. ’”27 Moule himself posited that prediction–verification “is the mentality behind most of the Matthaean ‘formula quotations.’”28

That the FCs exemplify “prediction–verification” was developed at greatest length in the studies of Georg Strecker (1962) and Robert McConnell (1969). For

Strecker, the FCs’ un-Matthean vocabulary, non-LXX character, and, most of all, tension with the surrounding narrative context (eine inhaltliche Spannung) suggest that Matthew derived them from a pre-existing collection of testimonies

(Zitatensammlung). The Gentile (!) Matthew clumsily inserted these testimonies into his gospel—often resulting in the FCs containing a “surplus” (Überschuß) of important statements (wesentliche Aussagen)—simply to prove the “historisch- biographische Faktizität” of events in Jesus’ life.29

Similarly, McConnell posits that “Matthew wants to tell his readers that all this basic information… was announced beforehand in the Old Testament and thus

27 Reinhart Hummel, Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Kirche und Judentum im Matthäusevangelium, BEvT 33 (Munich: Kaiser, 1966), 130 n. 12.

28 Moule never clarifies whether he regards Matthew as one of the “biblical writers” who “bear witness, despite themselves,” “half-consciously,” to the third set of correlatives in “the whole shape of their gospel.” Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 8-9.

29 Strecker, Weg, 83, 85.

conforms to the divinely ordained plan for the Messiah.30 The prediction–verification language here betrays the accent mark of McConnell’s claim that the FCs provide an

“outline of Jesus’ life and ministry.”31 As is typical for the prediction–verification view, McConnell reads the FCs as atomizing: ““[i]n every case [!] of the formula quotations the original meaning of the quotations and its context has been ignored.”32

The pendulum has swung. Since the late 1980s, every treatment of the FCs has read them as making more profound christological claims.

Why was prediction–verification so pervasive? I suggest two reasons. First, scholars assumed that Matthean fulfillment was but another iteration of the belief, common in Judaism, Christianity and the Mediterranean world, that “a divine necessity controls human history.” Pagan oracles and Jewish prophecies; God and

Fate; Lucian, Suetonius, Apuleius, and Josephus, Qumran, the Deuteronomic history: while containing their own distinctives, each could be characterized as examples of

“the” “cultural commonplace” that “history’s course fulfills oracles.”33 Second, these

30 McConnell, Law, 134. McConnell disagrees with Strecker’s claim that Matthew is relying on a collection of testimonia. Cf. e.g., ibid., 107.

31 Ibid., 133-34.

32 Ibid., 137.

33 The language and examples here are all from Charles H. Talbert, “Promise and Fulfillment in Lucan Theology,” in Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar, ed. Charles H.

scholars could discern no literary and/ or theological significance for the FCs other than simple prediction–verification.34

2. Most scholars still regard prediction–verification as a secondary feature of the FCs.

Only rarely do scholars reject prediction–verification entirely. For J. R. Daniel

Kirk, however, the FCs are prima facie not “predictive” because they offer a

“retrospective look” on an event (Matt 2:15 = Hos 11:1) or a “present-tense description” of a situation (Matt 2:18 = Jer 31:15). As a result, Kirk is compelled to

“reconceptualize” Matthean fulfillment: in the FCs, Jesus is not “fulfilling predictive

Talbert (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 91-103, 96-98. Talbert is sketching the backdrop against which to understand Lukan “proof-from-prophecy”—the term, which, since Schubert’s seminal study, has been common currency in Lukan studies. Cf. Paul Schubert, “The Structure and Significance of Luke 24,” in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Walther Eltester, BZNW 21 (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1954), 165-86. The discussion of this “cultural commonplace” is more pronounced in Lukan studies than in Matthean ones. Cf. e.g., David P. Moessner, “The ‘Script’ of the Scriptures in Acts: Suffering as God’s ‘Plan’ (βουλή) for the World for the ‘Release of Sins,” in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts, ed. Ben Witherington, III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 218-50, 221- 22; David Peterson, “The Motif of Fulfillment and the Purpose of Luke-Acts,” in The Book of Acts in its Ancient Literary Setting, vol. 1 of Book of Acts in its First Century Setting, eds. Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 83-104, 84.

34 Cf. e.g., McConnell, Law, 128 (“Matthew [did not] intend… any further theological meaning” with these quotations); Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 577 (“the theology of the formula quotations offers nothing fundamentally new”).

prophecies” but rather “fill[ing] up the scriptures of Israel in a substantially new and unexpected way.”35

Most scholars who have analyzed the FCs recently understand the FCs in terms of both prediction–verification and robust christological claims. Some scholars explicitly adopt a Both–And approach. Thus, Richard Hays explains:

[I]t is inaccurate to characterize Matthew’s method as… fixated on a prediction/ fulfillment model of interpretation. To be sure, Matthew does believe that the words of the prophets have come to fulfillment in and through the life of Jesus… Nonetheless, these instances of prediction and fulfillment are only highlights on a larger map, only fragmentary features of a much larger intertextual reality....36

Hays’ reading of Matt 4:15-16 reveals how a FC both fulfills a prediction and evokes a

“larger intertextual reality.” On one “level,” the FC “simply functions as a prooftext explaining why Jesus took up residence in Capernaum”; on another, it announces

“God’s impending political liberation for the Jewish residents of this area of Galilee”;

35 Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 86-87, 89, 91. Kirk cites 1:22, 2:15, 2:18, 13:35, and 27:9-10 as “not introduc[ing] messianic prophecy” and 26:54, 56, 8:17, and 12:18 as added “[t]o this list of questionable direct fulfillments.” Ibid., 80.

36 Hays, Echoes, 186.

on a third, it melds three Isaianic passages (9:2; 42:7, 9; 60:1) to “prefigure… the extension of the gospel to the Gentiles.”37

Other scholars claim to hold a strict prediction–verification view but in fact also read the FCs in a richer way. Thus W. D. Davies and Dale Allison claim:

Despite Matthew’s contribution to the apologetical task of text proofing, the theology of the formula quotations offers nothing fundamentally new. It was the common conviction of early Christians that Jesus’ ministry was foretold and foreshadowed in the OT….38

Straightfoward prediction–verification: Matthew is doing what “the” other early

Christians are doing—“text proofing” that what was “foretold” has now occurred. At least in part, Davies and Allison explicate some of the FCs in precisely such terms.39

Yet the FCs often do much more work in their exegesis. Thus, for example:

37 Ibid., 176-78. Others who explicitly adopt a Both–And approach include Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 207 and John Riches, Conflicting Mythologies: Identity Formation in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, SNTW (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 232-40.

38 Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 577.

39 Thus, for example, the four FCs in chapter 2 and the one in Matt 4:15-16 establish that “Jesus’ movements were in accordance with messianic prophecy”; the FC in Matt 8:17 serves to highlight that “[t]he Scripture prophesied that Jesus the Servant would heal others”; the FC in Matt 13:35 “grounds… Jesus’ parabolic manner of speaking” “in OT prophecy” as something “foretold in the Scriptures.” Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 379, 374; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 2, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 37, 424.

• Matt 2:15 portrays Jesus as “the personification or embodiment of true, obedient Israel,” “repeating or recapitulating certain experiences of Israel”;

• Matt 2:18 continues this “typological correlation between Israel and the Messiah” as “[t]he departure of the Messiah to Egypt recapitulated the deportation of the people to Babylon”;

• Matt 4:15-16 casts Jesus as the “the son of Isa 9.6-7” who “will bring salvation” to the Gentiles as well;

• Matt 8:17 evokes “the servant motif” to allow readers to understand that Jesus’ healings “are to be understood as a work of his obedience and his humiliation”;

• Matt 21:5 typologically sets forth “Jesus, in his Mosaic meekness.”40

For Davies and Allison, then, Matthew’s hermeneutic in the FCs is not as straightforward as it may appear.41

Finally, other scholars claim to read the FCs as setting forth a rich christological vision but also hint at prediction–verification. For Brown, didactics are primary, apologetics secondary: the FCs “inform” “Christian readers” that, e.g.,

Jesus’ life was “a theological history of Israel in geographical miniature.” By

40 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 263-64, 269, 380; Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 38 (citation omitted); Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 128.

41 Another example of this second variation of the Both–And approach is Michael Knowles, Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: The Rejected Prophet Motif in Matthaean Redaction, JSNTSup 68 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 27.

“reliv[ing]” the “great past moments of divine salvation,” Jesus’ childhood “sums up the history of these prophetically significant places.” At the same time, though, claims like “[the FCs] emphasize that the whole of Jesus’ life, down to the least detail, lay within God’s forordained plan” understand the FCs as also predicting/ verifying.42

3. Corresponding to the decline of the dominance of prediction– verification is a decline in viewing the FCs as “apologetic.”

In 1885, Massebieu could dub all the FCs as “citations apologétiques”; in 1961,

Lindars could assume, rather than argue, that most early Christian interpretation of

Scripture was “apologetic”; in 1967, without much argumentation, Gundry could offer the commonplace claim that “apologetic… dominates Mt 1 and 2.”43 Partly as a result of the debate in the 1990s over whether Matthew’s community was still engaged in meaningful dialogue with the synagogue, one can no longer assume

42 Brown, Birth, 97-99, 217. Also in the Both–And camp but harder to classify is, e.g., Witherington, Matthew, 41, 47.

43 Massebieau, Examen des citations, 93; Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961); Gundry, Use, 195. For a summary of the ubiquity of the apologetics view of the FCs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 16-17.

apologetic use of the Old Testament.44 Usually not explicitly rejected, the term

“apologetic” rarely surfaces in current discussion of the FCs.45

4. Where older scholarship tended to regard the FCs as “atomizing,” recent scholarship argues that they “take into account” or even “evoke” the Old Testament context.

Does a New Testament author “take into account” the underlying Old

Testament “context” of a quotation? The question has long been at the center of conversation about the New Testament’s use of the Old. Answering negatively, older scholarship wrote of the “atomizing” exegesis of early Christianity that

“abstract[ed]… a verse or a sentence from its literary context.”46 But others, notably

C. H. Dodd, disagreed. Many scholars in recent years share Dodd’s broad view that

44 Seminal works include Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community, CSHJ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) and Stanton, A Gospel.

45 Scholars who continue to regard the FCs as apologetic include Jerome H. Neyrey, “The Thematic Use of Isaiah 42:1-4 in Matthew 12,” Bib 63 (1982): 457-473, 460 (for 12:18-21); J. R. C. Cousland, “Matthew’s Earliest Interpreter: Justin Martyr on Matthew’s Fulfilment Quotations,” in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels, ed. Thomas R. Hatina, LNTS 310 (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 45-60, 60; Andrew T. Lincoln, “Contested Paternity and Contested Readings: Jesus’ Conception in Matthew 1.18-25,” JSNT 34 (2012): 211-231 (for 1:23). Scholars who reject an apologetic function for the FCs include Hagner, Matthew 1-13, lvi and Michael Knowles, “Scripture, History, Messiah: Scriptural Fulfillment and the Fullness of Time in Matthew’s Gospel,” in Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 59-82, 80.

46 Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 21-22.

New Testament authors read the Old Testament texts “as wholes” and not as “isolated proof-texts.”47

This trend holds for the Matthean FCs as well. Although it is not logically necessary, a tight link exists between regarding the FCs as “predicting/ verifying” and as “atomistic,” so that proponents of prediction–verification often wrote disparagingly of the “proof-texting” FCs.48 In the past two decades or so, a new consensus has emerged that Matthew would “evoke”—note how this is a more robust conception of intertextuality than merely “take into account”—the broader Old

Testament context.49 The issue of how Matthew interacts with this context will be a particular focus of this study.

47 C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (New York: Scribner, 1953), 126 (emphasis in original). For a brief history of the debate, cf. Lidija Novakovic, “Matthew’s Atomistic Use of Scripture: Messianic Interpretation of Isaiah 53.4 in Matthew 8.17,” in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels: The Gospel of Matthew, ed. Thomas R. Hatina, LNTS (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 147-162 and Francis G. H. Pang, “Matthew’s Atomistic Use of Scripture?: A Methodological Consideration,” Proceedings (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 30 (2010): 47-69.

48 Cf. e.g., Richard T. Mead, “Dissenting Opinion About Respect for Context in Old Testament Quotations,” NTS 10 (1964): 279-289; Johnson, “Quotations.”

49 Cf. e.g., Miler, Citations, 9; Crowe, “Eschatological Reversal,” 113; Eubank, Wages, 111. For those that continue to regard the FCs as atomizing, cf. e.g., Novakovic, “Atomistic,” 149 (at least for 8:17); Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, SP 1 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), 39.

5. To varying degrees and in different ways, recent studies, unlike older studies, understand πληροῦν in the Matthean FCs as “filling.”

Older studies did not make much of the term πληροῦν. Beginning with Soares

Prabhu’s work (1976) and continuing into the 1980s and 90s, scholars tended to note that it has theological significance. They wrote that Matthew uses πληροῦν “in a strongly theological sense” (Soares Prabhu); that πληροῦν is a “theologically loaded word” (Ulrich Luz); that “πληρόω consistently conveys a theologically pregnant sense of messianic fulfillment” (Michael Knowles).50

Attempting greater specificity, more recent works posit that πληροῦν means “to fill.” Yet often the point appears suggestively at the margins of an analysis and, more often, an understanding of how “filling the word” might work for Matthew is un- or under-developed. Where it is developed, the meaning of “filling” is different for different scholars. I will elaborate this point below, as a means of distinguishing my own fulfilling-as-filling proposal from others.51

50 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 59; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20: A Commentary, ed., Helmut Koester, trans., James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 283; Knowles, Jeremiah, 28-29.

51 Examples of this trend of emphasizing filling not discussed below include Riches, Conflicting, 234-35 (the concept without the language); Charles H. Talbert, Matthew, Paideia (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 35.

6. Older studies of the FCs used historical criticism (broadly defined), while more recent studies have relied primarily, if not exclusively, on narrative criticism.

The source-, form-, and redactional-critical approaches of older studies were detailed above. Such approaches have been largely abandoned recently in favor of narrative criticism.

7. Some recent studies use the categories of “narrative” and “recapitulation” as an overarching rubric for (some of) the FCs.

Kirk and Crowe would fit all of the FCs into a single heuristic; Kennedy would do so for those in chapters 1-4. Common to these proposals is the use of “narrative”

(or “story”) and/ or “recapitulation” as the organizing principle. The proposals have different accent marks—Kirk’s on Jesus “filling up” that story by bringing “new substance” to the “role” of Israel; Kennedy’s on Jesus “repe[ating], summing up, represent[ing], and embod[ying]” Israel; Crowe’s on “reversing” the “covenantal disobedience” of that “story”—but all emphasize “narrative” or “story,” and the latter two emphasize “recapitulation.”52 In contrast to these schematizing attempts, others regard the FCs as making overlapping christological claims.53

52 Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 92; Kennedy, Recapitulation, 23; Crowe, “Eschatological Reversal,” 122-23.

53 Cf. e.g., Hays, Echoes, 139 (emphasizing that there is no “single controlling image or motif” in Matthew’s “multilayered portrait of Jesus”); Luz, Matthew 1-7, 130 (highlighting the multiplicity of “images,” “motifs,” “themes,” and “affirmations” in the FCs and Matthean christology more broadly).

The thesis of this study is that Matthew’s FCs portray Jesus “filling up” the Old

Testament word. While this proposal requires further elaboration, I would briefly situate it in this scholarly landscape:

1. I recognize as gains of scholarship the views that the FCs are not simply apologetic (#3), atomizing (#4), predicting–verifying (#1) but are secondarily predictive (#2) and use πληροῦν to mean “fill” (#5). The present study builds a new reading on this foundation. I also attempt additional development of each of these points (especially the notion of πληροῦν-as-filling).

2. I nuance the views that the FCs evoke the underlying Old Testament “context” (#4) and can be explained in terms of an overarching heuristic (#7).

a. I argue that whether an FC “takes into account” or “evokes” this “context” is not a simple binary and that different FCs have different relationships to this “context.”

b. While I regard the FCs as an unsystematic “piling up of appellations,” I do think that they can be explained in terms of a consistent paradigm of (ful)filling, and I will read those in chapters 1-2 as implicating (the-need-for-)salvation-from-exile and those in chapters 4-13 as setting forth concrete iterations of this salvation.54

54 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 219. My reading of the FCs in chapters 1-2, then, comports with the work of Eubank, Wages and Hays, Echoes, my reading of those in chapters 4-13, then, broadly, with Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate.

3. I reject the view that Matthew’s hermeneutic can be described using exclusively narrative criticism (#6)—as the next section will explain.

Amid the flurry of resurgent interest in the FCs, one monograph has addressed the same issue as this dissertation. A doctoral thesis at the Pontificial Biblical

Institute in Rome, Jean Miler’s Les Citations d’Accomplissement dans l’Évangile de

Matthieu (1999), like the present work, would answer the question: “Que fait Matthieu quand il cite l’Écriture?”55 After a very brief introduction, Miler devotes a chapter to each of the FCs (except that the three in chapter 2 are treated together). In a final chapter, he draws together his results to explicate the “cohérence thématique” of the

FCs, and he attempts to explain their strange distribution in the story.56

For my purpose, it is the “cohérence thématique” that is important. While the

FCs “soulignent une diversité de thèmes,” they nonetheless constitute “une lecture unifiée du récit de la vie de Jésus.57 For Miler, the key term is Emmanuel, and the key themes are the inclusion of the Gentiles and Israel’s violent response:

Mt veut faire comprendre aux membres de sa communauté comment Jésus, l’Emmanuel, manifeste la manière dont Dieu se rend présent à son peuple et à

55 Miler, Citations, 8.

56 Ibid., 277.

57 Ibid., 277-78.

toutes les nations. Ce salut que Jésus accomplit est surabondance originaire du don. Cette révélation suscite la violence du peuple d’Israël et le déborde pour atteindre les nations. Mt aide les disciples à passer, encore et toujours, de l’ancien au nouveau. Il leur fait entendre l’appel du Ressuscité qui les envoie, au-delà de leurs frontières, vers les nations.58

Thus, the FCs reveal “comment Jésus… manifeste” God’s presence. I will not detail

Miler’s readings here—many will be engaged in Chapter 4—but simply note that most

(1) emphasize the “analeptic” (a reference to something chronologically prior) and

“proleptic” (foreshadowing) function of an FC; (2) implicate the opening of salvation to the Gentiles; and (3) claim to demonstrate how “l’énoncé cité et son attribution invitent le lecteur à prendre en compte le contexte dont l’énoncé cité est extrait.”59

Miler’s often brilliant readings elucidate the text’s logic as only skilled narrative criticism can. His attempt to explain the distribution of the FCs is ingenious

(if unpersuasive), and his basic conclusion broadly convincing (if framed too generally). Yet there are problems, some of them major. I think that M. J. J. Menken is right, in his review of the book, to derive three from the basic flaw of Miler’s exclusively narrative-critical methodology. Neglecting linguistic considerations, Miler fails to anchor Matthew’s “terminology of fulfillment” in his “Umwelt”; neglecting

58 Ibid., 11.

59 Ibid., 9. For analepsis and prolepsis, cf. pp. 24 n. 43 and 302.

redaction criticism, his proposal for how to explain the strange distribution of FCs does not consider Matthew’s use of his Markan source so that it ultimately seems

“simplistic”; neglecting source criticism, he overstates the significance of supposed

“changes” to the form of an FC. Miler’s study certainly does expose the “limits of narrative criticism.” Menken is right to call for “a combination of synchronic and diachronic approaches to the biblical text.”60

In part, it is Menken’s call that motivates the present study. Methodological eclecticism can help avoid the blind spots of Miler’s study and/ or others that may arise from a one-sided approach. Specifically, my eclecticism will take the following shape for the following reasons.

My approach is primarily that of narrative criticism, which, while not overtly theoretical, is informed by literary theory.61 Although I would explicate the logic of

60 M. J. J. Menken, review of Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu: quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité, by Jean Miler, Bib 81 (2000): 589-593, 592-93. In the same vein is the assessment by Paul Decock that Miler’s study is a “good starting point.” Paul B. Decock, review of Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu: quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité by Jean Miler, Neot 38 (2004): 356-358, 358.

61 Major influences include the sort of narratology employed by Jack D. Kingsbury, Matthew as Story (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) and the theories on intertextuality of Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) and Stefan Alkier, “Intertextuality and the Semiotics of Biblical Texts,” in Reading the Bible Intertextually, eds. Stefan

the text, it is the text as embedded in a particular historical moment, in particular cultural contexts, and as written by a particular author and read by particular readers. For this reason, I will write in terms of the author’s intention, the (implied) reader’s understanding, and the text’s meaning. While this multiplicity of angles is not theoretically tidy, I risk confusion because the hermeneutical task, as I understand it, is irreducibly complex.

This embeddedness requires certain historical-critical analyses.62 So, for example, the “cultural encyclopedia” of Matthew and his readers makes a possible allusion more or less likely to be an actual allusion; the (non)existence of Greek idioms make a proposed translation of πληροῦν + τὸ ῥηθὲν “linguistically (un)usable” in koinē; historical-critical recovery of the symbolism inhering in strewn garments and branches makes Matthew’s imagery intelligible.63 Such moves will be common in my readings of the FCs (Chapter 4).

Alkier, Richard B. Hays and Leroy Andrew Huizenga (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 3- 21.

62 For a defense of the continued use of historical criticism to explicate ancient texts, cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 1-7.

63 For the cultural encyclopedia of an author and readers, cf. Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976) and Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). For the concept of “linguistically unusable,”

To these methods I add source-criticism, redaction-criticism, and reception history. Let me offer a brief explanation of my version of the latter two. Over against more robust forms of redaction-criticism, I maintain that a textual feature is not unimportant because it is appropriated without modification but is almost certainly important when it has been modified.64 Thus, Matthew’s modifications of Mark throw

Matthean emphases into relief.65 My use of reception history is similar: while subsequent readings of Matthew cannot make my reading less plausible, they can make it more plausible.

which will be detailed in Chapter 2, cf. James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 162.

64 Put differently, we cannot derive an evangelist’s theology simply from his unique contribution to the tradition, but that contribution will certainly be an important aspect of his theology. In the same vein is the following statement by C. Kavin Rowe: “Luke did have sources, and to ignore known sources is actually to forfeit insight into Luke’s narrative. One need not think in the manner of ‘old-school’ Redaktionsgeschichte that we can detect Luke’s theology… solely on the basis of his departure from Mark to recognize that Luke’s departure from Mark is of potential interpretive significance.” C. Kavin Rowe, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke, BZNW 139 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 16.

65 I limit my redactional inquiry to a single Markan source for the following two reasons. (1) While I assume Markan priority, I am agnostic as to whether Matthew used Q. (2) I am skeptical of our ability to reconstruct Matthew’s source(s) in, say, the Infancy Narrative. Moreover, I agree with Stendahl that “Whatever the sources, Mt works here with a clarity of purpose, which should allow us to find out what he thinks that he is doing with his material.” Stendahl, “Quis,” 96 (citation omitted).

Besides the need for methodological eclecticism, there is another reason for this study: put simply, my reading of the FCs differs from Miler’s. Again, my thesis is that

Matthew’s FCs portray Jesus “filling up” the Old Testament word. By “fill up,” I mean that Jesus “fills up” each one of the forms/ images/ types in the FCs in the sense of being quantitatively “more than” their previous expression and, indeed, any possible subsequent expression. In other words, a limit has been reached; Jesus’ expression of the word is unsurpassable or superlative.

Some of Miler’s language suggests a similar, if not identical, conception of fulfilling-as-filling. Some FCs (he does not specify which) evoke “la connotation de la plénitude ou celle de la fin,” and set forth “d’une parole réalisée totalement ou pleinement.”66 Like me, Miler would argue for fulfillment “comme surabondance,” at least for “plusieurs des CA” (he does not specify which), by pointing to the meaning of

πληροῦν in 3:15, 5:17, and 23:32 (even if he offers no exegesis of the first two texts to justify the claim).67 Yet this elaboration of Matthean fulfillment as surabondance/ déborder/ plein, and, even more so, his actual exegesis of the FCs, betrays the fact that his use of this language is different from mine. For Miler, Jesus “exceeds” Torah in a

66 Miler, Citations, 63, 290.

67 Ibid., 341, 343.

particular way—namely, transcending its limits by extending its light to Gentiles.68

“Quand la réalité accomplie est la parole de Dieu ou la Loi et les Prophètes en tant qu’ils annoncent,” he writes, “le verbe renvoie à la pleine réalisation de cette parole; celle-ci déborde les limites d’Israël pour atteindre les nations.”69

Moule’s conception of “filling,” different than Miler’s, should also be distinguished from mine. His language often sounds very much like mine: “filling to capacity”; “wholeness or completeness”; “a completeness and finality”; “finality and insurpassability [sic]”; “the perfecting and realization of the entire relationship which is its goal.”70 Yet this last phrase is subtly but significantly different from the first three and represents Moule’s accent mark: Jesus’ fulfillment is fullness because it is holistic (“entire relationship”) and because of the qualitative nature of what he is fulfilling (“entire relationship”).71 In contrast, my claim is about the way in which

Jesus fulfills each “word” cited: each of his actions, viewed independently, is of a

68 Cf. e.g., the discussions on pp. 29, 106-07, 344.

69 Miler, Citations, 344 (emphasis added). Another difference between Miler’s account and my own: Miler often refers to fulfillment in the future that lies beyond the narrative (i.e., the FCs function as an “prolepse externe”). Cf. e.g., p. 290.

70 Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 4, 6, 32.

71 In addition, it should be reiterated that Moule’s claim was about (ful)filling in “the New Testament,” not Matthew specifically and that his proposal had little exegetical development.

superlative nature. Put differently, for Moule, “fullness” arises primarily as an implication of what is being fulfilled (“covenant-promise” which thus requires

“covenant-fulfillment”); for me, “fullness” derives from Matthew’s description of how

(unsurpassably) Jesus fulfills scriptural words.

Kirk’s conception of fulfilling-as-filling may be like mine, but, without more development, it is difficult to be certain. Again, Kirk’s thesis is that Jesus’ life, “like water filling up a sculpted vase,” “fills up” “Israel’s stories.”72 How, exactly, does he do this? Kirk repeatedly uses the term “new” to answer this question. Jesus “fills up” these stories “in a new and unexpected way,” giving them a “new interpretation” or

“new life,” bringing them to a “new conclusion.”73 So, for example, elaborating upon the “fullness” of Jesus’ virginal birth, Kirk writes that “[t]he meanings of both words

[in Isa 7:14] are changed, literalised, Matthew would say fulfilled, as Jesus the substance fills up the scriptures of Israel in a substantially new and unexpected way.”74 How is “new” and “unexpected” correlated with “filling up”? “Jesus fills up the story of Israel,” Kirk writes, “through a supernatural birth, and becoming both

72 Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 97, 91.

73 Ibid., 90-92.

74 Ibid., 91.

the child of promise and God with God’s people.”75 In my view, this does not really answer the question.76 “Newness” may be a way of articulating unsurpassable, superlative, “filling” of specific forms/ images/ types—the terms by which I articulate

“fullness” in the FCs—but Kirk never uses these or comparable terms.77

My case for fulfilling-as-filling will proceed as follows. Chapter 1 will demonstrate that Matthew uses πληροῦν to mean fill up in three theologically pregnant, rhetorically significant passages and that he clusters limit-denoting adjectives and adverbs (“all, every, wholly”) around the FCs—both features that suggest the plausibility, even probability, of my thesis. To address any linguistic objection my thesis may raise, Chapter 2 will attempt to prove that such usage of

πληροῦν is possible in koinē. By means of a limited examination of text-form, Chapter 3 will seek to establish the methodological principle, crucial for my exegesis, that

Matthew “quotes just what he needs.”78 This principle is incorporated into Chapter 4,

75 Ibid.

76 Similarly unilluminating are Kirk’s readings of Matt 2:15, 21:5, and 27:9-10. Ibid., 90, 92-93.

77 Similar hints of my conception appear in the works of Crowe, Eubank, and Hays, but, again, these hints are, to various degrees, un- (or under-) developed.

78 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

my exegesis of the FCs, which will try to confirm that the hypothesis of Chapter 1— that, as in 3:15, 5:17, and 23:32, πληροῦν means to fill up in the FCs—does, indeed, make the most sense of Matthew’s text. Finally, Chapter 5 will reflect on pertinent findings of Chapters 1-4 to offer observations about Matthew’s hermeneutic in the

FCs in light of exegetical practices contemporary to him.79

79 Unless otherwise noted, English translations of the LXX are those of the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), the MT and NT are those of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), and English translations of French- and German-language works are my own.

The beginning point—and centerpiece—of my reading is Matthew’s use of

πληροῦν outside of the FCs. Reading the verb as “filling up” makes the most sense of all three relevant passages (Section 1.1). Buttressing this reading—and suggesting that we extend it to πληροῦν in the FCs—is Matthew’s clustering of what I call “limit- adjectives” or “limit-adverbs” in the immediate context of the FCs. These adjectives and/ or adverbs (usually πᾶς or ὅλος), like the grammatical category of the superlative, convey the idea of unsurpassability, of a limit being reached (Section 1.2). With this clustering, then, form intimates content as Matthew’s overfull language intimates an overfull action or trait of Jesus.

Aside from the ten FCs, the two general references to αἱ γραφαὶ (τῶν προφητῶν) being fulfilled (Matt 26:54, 56), and a reference to a fishing net being filled (Matt

13:48), three verses in Matthew contain the verb πληροῦν.1 Not insignificantly, all three are redactional, appear within rhetorically significant, even programmatic pericopae, and, I will argue, use the verb consistently.2 Fulfillment, then, is a central

1 In addition, two verses contain the cognate adjective πλήρης (Matt 14:20; 15:37) and one verse the cognate noun πλήρωμα (Matt 9:16). None of these words is relevant to our inquiry.

2 For πληροῦν being redactional in 3:15, cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 140 (vv. 14-15 “hardly come from Q” because of the “numerous” “Mattheanisms”); in 5:17, cf. ibid., 211; in 23:32, cf. Ulrich Luz, Matthew

Matthean concern, and the consistent use of πληροῦν invites readers to read these three pericopae together as iterations of this concern—and perhaps as a key to the use of the same verb in the FCs. Surprisingly, no scholar, to my knowledge, has offered such a reading.3

Unfortunately, two of the pericopae are among the most controverted in the gospel (Matt 3:13-17 and 5:17-20); fortunately, it is not necessary to solve their myriad complex theological problems. As my aim is simply to make a case for the specific meaning of πληροῦν in each pericope, it will suffice to address only those problems that bear on such a case. I will analyze Matt 23:29-36 first because it is the easiest for which to establish the meaning of πληροῦν; next I will turn to Matt 3:13-17 because it is integrally related to 23:29-36; finally, I will examine Matt 5:17-20.

21-28: A Commentary, ed., Helmut Koester, trans., James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 131.

3 Some scholars have read one or two of the three together, occasionally as a means of gaining interpretive purchase on the FCs. Cf. Crowe, “Eschatological Reversal,” 122; Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 94-97; Eubank, Wages, 63-67, 121-31. Miler’s efforts are the most similar to mine. Yet while he does include all three of the relevant passages in a “paradigme de l’accomplissement” and, in describing that paradigm, notes that 3:15 “connote la totalité et la perfection,” 5:17 “connote la perfection et la surabondance,” and 23:32 speaks of an action that “n’était réalisé que partiellement ou de manière ‘imparfaite,’” he does not engage in exegesis of these texts. Miler, Citations, 342-43. Rather, taking an approach that is the inverse of mine, he interprets the FCs as a basis for offering these (otherwise unsupported) claims about the non-FC passages. In my view, he fails adequately to establish the “filling” meaning of the verb even for the FCs.

A carefully-crafted series of seven woes, Matt 23:13-36 condemns the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy (the sixfold repetition of ὑποκριταί). The climactic seventh woe (23:29-33), along with the short logion which follows it (23:34-36), frames their murderous action as an instance, perhaps the epitome, of this hypocrisy: that they shed righteous blood exposes the hollowness of their attempt to distance themselves from their prophet-murdering πατέρες (cf. the parallels between their

ἀποκτείνειν and the fathers’ φονεύειν, between their shedding αἷμα and the fathers’ shedding αἷμα). Perhaps the most sardonic statement in the entire discourse is Jesus’ sarcastic command that they “[f]ill up… the measure of [their] ancestors” (v. 32: καὶ

ὑμεῖς πληρώσατε τὸ μέτρον τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν). An “ironic imperative to do wrong” like that found in prophetic texts (e.g., Isa 8:9-10; Jer 7:21; Amos 4:4-5), the statement envisions, as Nathan Eubank aptly describes it, “a preordained amount of evil that will be tolerated,” a “tipping point” at which God “will step in and punish them.”4

The trope is common in the Bible (Gen 15:16; Dan 8:23; Dan 9:24 Aq.), Second-

Temple Judaism (Jub. 14:16; 2 Macc 6:14; LAB 29:13; 4Q389 8 II, 4-6; 11QTemple

4 Eubank, Wages, 64; cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 306 (“ironic imperative”).

59:3-13; 4 Ezra 15:5-6), and early Christianity (1 Thess 2:16; Barn. 5:11; Gos. Pet.

5:17).5

The phrase can have two meanings depending on the perspective of the speaker. From the creditor’s perspective, the measure is full once debts have accumulated to a point that he “steps in and takes decisive action” to punish (e.g.,

Gen 15:16; Dan 8:23); from the debtor’s perspective, the measure is full once his

“payment for the debt of sin” has accumulated to the point of “complet[ing] his obligation” (e.g., Dan 9:24; Lam 4:22).6 The former had been applied, before

Matthew, not only to the nations but also to Israel (e.g., 4Q385-89, fr. 4-6), and it is certainly the perspective here.7

For my purpose, the important point is that, as Gary Anderson observes, the metaphor is an “inherently commercial” one that involves “a set of scales” used in transactions, probably “a bushel basket or sack” used in these “sale[s].”8 Eubank

5 All but the 4 Ezra citation are cited in Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 306.

6 Gary A. Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 85-87.

7 The citation to 4Q385-89 is from Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 306, who use it, along with LAB 29.13 and 11QTemple 59.3-13, to justify their claim that “Jesus and/ or the early Christians were not the first to make Israel responsible for the eschatological fulfilment of sin.”

8 Anderson, Sin, 89 (citation omitted).

points to “demotic and Greek loan contracts from Egypt” in “numerous papyri dating from the third century B.C.E. into the third century C.E.” that confirm that this

“vivid image” of a “measure” is drawn from the idiom of debt transactions.9 In this sphere, that is, “baskets” and “sacks” are units of measurement “filled” literally and quantitatively.10 We will see that Matthew consistently uses the verb metaphorically, as here in 23:32, to denote filling to capacity.

The structure of chapter 23 itself intimates the “fullness” of sin. The story of

Matthew is, in part, a story of conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders, and chapter 23 is arguably the climax of this conflict.11 Not only does Jesus’ polemic reach a new intensity, not only are the Pharisees “reduced… to silence” (Jack Kingsbury), but also the Pharisees are, quite literally ushered from “the stage in disgrace, with judgement looming over their heads” (Davies and Allison).12 After this chapter, they are referred to (briefly) only once (27:62), and Jesus never directly addresses them

9 Eubank, Wages, 65-66 (relying on evidence presented by Bernard Couroyer, “De la mesure dont vous mesurez il vous sera mesuré,” RB 77 [1970]: 366-70).

10 Cf. also Luz, Matthew 21-28, 132.

11 Cf. Kingsbury, Story, 3-9.

12 Ibid., 7; Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 304.

again.13 Thus, the text enacts Jesus’ condemnation of these ὑποκριταί: their sin “full,” they are cast “into the outer darkness” of the narrative (cf. Matt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30).

Matt 23:29-36 is the climax of this climactic discourse (Matt 23:13-36). Seven is a significant number for first-century Judaism that connotes completeness.14 For

Matthew, this is certainly true, as evidenced by the arrangement of the genealogy into three sets of fourteen (1:17), the seven demons in the parable of the unclean spirit

(12:43-45), and the discussion between Peter and Jesus regarding the (non)limits of forgiveness (18:21-22).15 It is probably not insignificant, then, that Jesus condemns his opponents in the seventh woe.16

13 Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 304.

14 Cf. ibid., 285; Edgar Krentz, “Extent of Matthew’s Prologue: Toward the Structure of the First Gospel,” JBL 83 (1964): 409-414, 413. As I argue in the text, I disagree with Davies and Allison that the number seven is “not elsewhere prominent in the First Gospel.”

15 It is widely acknowledged that ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά (“seventy-seven times” or “seventy times seven”) in Matt 18:22 refers to “unlimited” forgiveness “without limit.” Cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 793. That the number seven in Matt 12:43-45 has a similar connotation of completeness is likely if one examines Second-Temple usage of this trope. Thus, for example, T. Reu. 2:1-9 lists the seven spirits “of deceit,” that is, those “established against mankind,” who are the source of “the deeds of youth” (cf. 2:1). In this schema, seven is the whole, complete inventory of such spirits. Or again, in T. Sol. 8:1-4, the seven named spirits clearly represent the whole panoply of evil. The description of “seven ways” in 4 Ezra 7:[75]-[87] may well articulate the same idea. More examples could be offered.

16 Not only is Matt 23:13-33 constructed as a series of seven woes, but also Davies and Allison have noticed that the discourse is structured according to a 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 scheme (a product of Matthean

More subtly, Jesus’ vitriolic question in 23:33 signals the fullness of this moment. In 23:33a, Jesus repeats the Baptist’s address to the Pharisees in Matt 3:7

(“you brood of vipers!”), but he poses a different question.17 Instead of asking “Who warned you to flee (φυγεῖν) from the wrath to come?” (3:7b), Jesus asks them “How can you escape (φύγητε) being sentenced to hell?” (23:33b). This second question extinguishes precisely the hope that the first held open—a hope of fleeing judgment/ hell. These are the first and last words to these opponents in the gospel; the transformation of the question, thrown into relief by the parallelism, signals a judgment that is now full/ final.18

Finally, note the use of the limit-adjective πᾶς. Jesus declares that “upon you may come all (πᾶν) the righteous blood shed on earth” (v. 35) and then that “all this

(ταῦτα πάντα) will come upon this generation” (v. 36). Repeated, in close conjunction with πληροῦν, πᾶς enacts the fullness that πληροῦν signifies, i.e., it becomes almost

redaction)—thereby setting the final, seventh woe apart and making even clearer that it “serves as the climax.” Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 282-83.

17 In the case of Matt 3:7, the addressees are the Pharisees and Sadducees, in 23:33, the Pharisees and scribes.

18 Note that Luke also has John’s vocative “brood of vipers” in the initial pericope (Matt 3:7-10// Luke 3:7-9; cf. Luke 3:7: γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν), but does not have it in the subsequent pericope (Matt 23:29-36// Luke 11:47-51).

synonymous with πλήρης or even πλήρωμα. As we will see, such usage is a recurring feature in this gospel.

Thus, the dark colors that scholars paint are warranted. “There is,” Luz writes, “no bright spot at all” in this “scathing denunciation.” “The judgment that awaits them is final; it is the judgment that leads to hell….”19 My claim is that the

“final[ity],” or fullness, of this judgment corresponds to the fullness of their sin—and, more importantly, to the language that expresses it.

With some minor edits, Matthew 3:13, 16-17 essentially reproduces the terse

Markan account of Jesus’ coming to John, being baptized, seeing the dove, and hearing the divine voice upon emerging from the waters (cf. Mark 1:9-11). Verses 14-

15 are a Matthean addition: John objects to Jesus’ coming for his baptism (3:14) but consents after Jesus cryptically answers “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this

19 Luz, Matthew 21-28, 133.

way to fulfill all righteousness (πληρῶσαι πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην)” (3:15).20 As Luz puts it,

“[i]n dem kurzen Ausspruch… ist jedes Wort strittig.”21

I will make the case that πληρῶσαι πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην should be understood as “to fill up all righteousness.” “To fill up” is not simply to “to do, realize, achieve” but rather to bring righteousness action to a quantum that cannot be exceeded. As Eubank has recently argued, it is an “act of supererogation rather than the completion of a requirement” and should be understood as the “mirror image” of the filling-up-of-sin in Matt 23:32.22

Jacques Dupont has identified the “deux pôles” of the debate: the meaning of

(1) the noun δικαιοσύνη and (2) the verb πληροῦν.23 The former issue is easier to resolve:

δικαιοσύνη must refer to human moral conduct rather than, as often in Paul, God’s justifying act. Δικαιοσύνη is a critical Matthean concept that, in all seven instances (all

20 Scholars widely agree that these verses are Matthean. Cf. e.g., Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, vol. 1, EKK (Zürich: Benzinger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985), 151; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 320.

21 Luz, Matthäus 1, 154.

22 Eubank, Wages, 124, 129. As Eubank acknowledges, Henrik Ljungman made a similar argument. Henrik Ljungman, Das Gesetz erfüllen: Matth. 5, 17 ff. und 3, 15 untersucht, LUÅ 50 (Lund: Gleerup, 1954), 124-25.

23 Jacques Dupont, Les béatitudes, 3 vols., EBib (Bruges: Abbaye de Saint-André, 1958-73), 3:231-32. Dupont’s review of the secondary literature, while dated, is widely regarded as the most thorough.

redactional), has the former meaning.24 Thus, Edward Blair is right that “a presumption is therefore established that the meaning in 3:15 will conform to this general usage, unless there are strong reasons to the contrary.”25

Discovering the meaning of πληροῦν is more difficult. The prevailing view is that it means “to do, realize, achieve” righteousness.26 Yet ποιεῖν or τηρεῖν is used in each of the dozens of phrases Matthew uses for “doing” the Law/ commandments/ righteousness so that “πληροῦν + right conduct” would contravene Matthew’s consistent and frequently-used phraseology.27 An alternative view, espoused by

Davies and Allison, is that πληροῦν in 3:15 refers to the fulfillment of prophecy. In their view, almost all instances of the verb in the gospel have “prophecy or the prophets [as]… the subject” so that a “presumption is in favour of finding” such a

24 Matt 3:15; 5:6, 10, 20; 6:1, 33; 21:32. Eubank, Wages, 122 n. 44 (citing Benno Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought, SNTSMS 41 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980], 78-98). The meaning is clear in all but 5:6 and 6:33; for arguments that the word means the same in these two verses as in the others, cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 195, 344. For all occurrences being redactional, cf. Luz, Matthäus 1, 154.

25 Edward P. Blair, Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (New York: Abingdon, 1960), 120.

26 In 1970, Dupont characterized this as “l’interprétation courante.” Dupont, Béatitudes, 237-38. The same seems to hold true today.

27 Cf. Eubank, Wages, 123 n. 48 for a list of the pertinent texts.

subject here.28 The problem with their argument, however, is that the direct object of

πληροῦν in 3:15 is “righteousness,” not a specific prophecy, prophecy in general, or even “scriptures” or “law and/ or prophets.”29

While their conclusion is unconvincing, their methodological insight is useful:

πληροῦν is a “loaded term” in this gospel, and it may well have a consistent meaning.30

But rather than using the FCs to establish its meaning and then attributing this same meaning to the non-FC texts—a common move that leads to awkward readings of a text like 3:15—the procedure should be inverted.31 Its meaning is easier to establish in

28 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 326. Specifically, of the 16 times πληροῦν appears in Matthew, 13 are “formula quotations or in verses where prophecy or the prophets are the subject,” one is “empty of theological meaning” (Matt 13:48), and one “probably has to do with ironic fulfillment of prophecy” (Matt 23:32).

29 Davies and Allison would explain this feature as follows: “Jesus, knowing the messianic prophecies of the OT, obediently fulfils them and thereby fulfils all righteousness. Because prophecy declares God’s will, to fulfil prophecy is to fulfil righteousness.” Ibid., 327. This solution raises more problems than it solves. What “messianic prophecies” are in view here? How are these related to the act of baptism? What is the evidence for fulfilling prophecy being regarded, by Matthew or other contemporary texts, as fulfilling righteousness?

30 Ibid., 324.

31 Cf. e.g., Kirk’s approach of “beginning with the formula citations and then probing Matt. 5:17.” Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 95 n. 80 (emphasis added, citing Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate, 110-13 and Robert A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding [Waco, TX: Word, 1982], 141- 42 as taking the same approach).

the non-FC texts, and the result—πληροῦν as filling-up—makes better sense of all of the texts, including the FCs.

What evidence, then, exists for πληροῦν as filling-up in 3:15? First, there is its meaning in 23:32 (argued above) and 5:17 (argued below). In both cases, there is a stronger textual case that it means “to fill up”—raising the possibility that it has the same meaning here.32 Indeed, it would seem that Matthew invites readers to read 3:1-

17 and 23:29-36 in light of each other. Eubank sets forth the following parallels:33

Matt 3:13-17 Matt 23:29-36 • John calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a • Jesus calls the scribes a Pharisees “a brood of “brood of vipers” (γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν) (3:7b). vipers” (γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν) (23:33a). • John “asks them rhetorically ‘Who told you to • Jesus asks rhetorically, ‘How will you escape flee (φυγεῖν ἀπὸ) from the coming wrath?’” (φύγητε ἀπὸ) the judgment of Gehenna?’” (3:7b). (23:33b). • John “warns them that they will not escape • Jesus “warns them that their actions show the coming wrath simply by relying on the fact that they are the children (not of Abraham that Abraham is their father” (3:9). but) of those who murdered the prophets” (23:31).

Because of “the connection between these two ‘filling-up’ sayings,” Eubank would read Matt 3:15 as “the exact inverse of the filling up of the scribes and Pharisees; they

32 To varying degrees, both Dupont and Luz argue for a “filling up” valence to 3:15 on the basis of 23:32 and/ or 5:17. Dupont, Béatitudes, 3:242-43; Luz, Matthäus 1, 155.

33 Eubank, Wages, 127.

fill up the measure of sin, but Jesus and John the Baptist fill up the measure of righteousness.”34

At the heart of this proposal is the notion of vicarious action. Broadly,

Eubank’s project would delineate a “grammar” or “logic” of sin-debt/ righteousness- filling at the heart of this gospel’s soteriology: the heavenly wage that Jesus earns by obediently carrying his cross is paid vicariously to rescue his people from their exilic sin/ debt-bondage.35 Matthew 3:15 displays precisely such logic. In baptism, Jesus

“join[s]” his people. This “join[ing]” is part of a “a fecund typological correspondence” between Jesus and Israel in the early chapters of the gospel by which

“the identity and fate of the whole people is embodied in Jesus.”36 Eubank explains:

[T]he baptism, like the flight into Egypt, symbolically enacts the nature of Jesus’ identity and mission; Jesus is the beloved son who by his humble obedience will fill up the righteousness of a people crushed by the debt of sin. He goes beyond that which is required of him… in order to allow his righteousness to overflow to a people in need of ransom… Jesus’ baptism—his first words and deed in the Gospel—indicates that Jesus will save his people

34 Ibid., 128, 124.

35 Cf. e.g., ibid., 129.

36 Ibid., 129-30.

from the debt of sin through the gift of his own superabundant righteousness.37

This reading seems to me exactly right, and the case for it can be bolstered.

Eubank points to vicarious action in passages like “the so-called ‘ransom saying’ in 20:28.” 38 A similar dynamic is operative in Matt 23:29-36. Consider verses

34-35: somehow, despite the Matthean paradigm of one earning one’s “wage” for righteousness or sin, the debt of all (πᾶν) (!) generations accrues to those whose sin activates God’s (eschatological) judgment. Indeed, more than assuming the debt of previous sins, these sinners somehow become the agents of the sins themselves: “whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”

The Matthean Jesus never explains such accounting. It must suffice for us to note that, whatever the logic/ justification, certain ethical actions have rewards or punishments that extend far beyond the individual ethical actors themselves.

Admittedly, the logic in 23:34-35 is not identical to that in 3:15: in the former case, a group (scribes and Pharisees) accrues the debt of a much larger group (all murderers in Israel’s history), while, in the latter case, a group (disciples?) accrues the reward of

37 Ibid., 131.

38 Ibid., 129.

a single individual (Jesus). It appears that Matt 3:13-17 is the “inverse” of Matt

23:29-36 in more ways than one.

The case that 3:15 implies vicarious action can also be bolstered by attending to the importance of God’s proclamation in 3:17: “This is my Son….” This is God’s first direct pronouncement in the Gospel; Matthew has redacted Mark’s “You are my

Son” (Mark 1:11) to make it a public pronouncement; it is framed precisely as a response to Jesus’ action of being baptized and a statement about his identity; in the transfiguration pericope, Matthew has redacted Mark 9:7 (cf. 17:5) to make it identical to this proclamation in 3:15 so that God proclaims Jesus’ sonship twice—the only two instances of God’s direct speech in the entire gospel.

While it is overstatement to claim that “son” is the christological title under which all others in this gospel should be subsumed, the claim may well be true for the first two chapters.39 In the gospel’s opening words, the epexegetical genitives in the phrase Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ (1:1) imply that to be “the Christ” is to be “son of

David” is to be “son of Abraham.” That is, to speak of the Messiah is to make a sonship claim. The numerically-schematized genealogy not only extends this theme of sonship (in its extensive list of sons-of-fathers), but also, with its three sections,

39 As summarized in Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 339.

confirms that Messiahship is sonship in a particular sense. Abraham—David—exile—

Messiah are the nodal points of the history of a people (cf. 1:21: λαός) whose redemption has, by means of this structure, been focused onto a single climactic son

(the Messiah of 1:16).

What is implied by this focusing is made explicit in the next pericope: while sonship signifies one’s place within a people, Sonship signifies One’s redemption of that people. By repeating the words γένεσις and Χριστοῦ in 1:18 (cf. 1:1) and υἱὸς Δαυίδ in 1:20 (cf. 1:1), the narrator signals that the story in 1:18-25 continues his explication of the nature of this sonship that the genealogy began. This “son”—almost a refrain, the word is repeated 4x in the pericope and 7x in chapters 1-2 (the only title used of

Jesus in these chapters)—will “save his people from their sins.” Notably this “son’s” name(s) is interpreted not once but twice, and both times in terms of his people

(“people” in v. 21, the unspecified “us” in v. 23).

Chapters 3 and 4 in Matthew’s gospel further this motif of sonship even as they refine it: Jesus is the messianic son who saves his people by embodying their destiny. In his temptation in the wilderness (4:1-11), “Jesus identifies himself fully with/ as Israel” precisely by obeying God’s word which they had disobeyed and thus

passing the wilderness test that they had failed.40 The following parallels pressure

Matthew’s readers toward this reading:

• Both Israel and Jesus are tested (Exod 15:25; 16:4; 20:20; Deut 4:34; 13:4; Matt 4:1: πειράζειν; cf. Deut 8:2: ἐκπειράζειν) in the wilderness (myriad OT texts; Matt 4:1: εἰς τὴν ἔρημον).

• Jesus’ time in the wilderness lasts forty days and nights (Matt 4:1) as Israel’s lasted forty years (e.g., Deut 8:2).41

• Intense hunger was part of this wilderness testing (Matt 4:1; Deut 8:3).

• All three of the texts Jesus quotes come from Israel’s wilderness wanderings—more specifically, from testing/ (dis)obedience texts (8:2- 3: trust God for food; 6:16: do not test God; 6:13: do not worship idols). In each case, Jesus “speaks the words that Israel was enjoined to learn and to speak.”42

Again, then, the implicit narrative claim is that, as “son,” Jesus represents or embodies Israel (cf., e.g., Ps 2:7).

Of course, the rest of the gospel will give further, specific narrative shape to this saving sonship, and Matt 3:13-17, with its explicit divine proclamation of Jesus

40 The language is from Hays, Echoes, 119.

41 This parallel is often noted. Cf. e.g., Knowles, Jeremiah, 238.

42 Hays, Echoes, 118. The first three points are made by Leroy Andrew Huizenga, “The Incarnation of the Servant: The ‘Suffering Servant’ and Matthean Christology,” HBT 27 (2005): 25-58, 43-44, the last point is mine but inspired by Hays. For a fuller treatment, cf. Hays, Echoes, 117-20.

as “Son” activating precisely this theme, reveals one way in which this saving will take place—namely, the righteousness that Jesus’ obedience “fills up” for his people.

As we will see in Chapter 4, not only the FC in Matt 1:23 but also those in 2:15 (“out of Egypt I have called my son…”) and 21:4-5 (cf. v. 9: “Hosanna to the Son of

David…”) will trade on this idea of Jesus-the-Son embodying/ saving his people.

Much remains opaque. Why baptism? How does the baptism of a greater-(and- possibly-sinless)-one make lesser-(and-sinful)-ones “righteous”? Of what besides baptism is this “all” (πᾶσαν) constituted? Despite these lingering questions, it seems clear that, in some way, John and Jesus are “filling up” righteousness in 3:15—and doing so in a programmatic text. Matt 3:13-17 sets forth both Jesus’ and God’s first words in the gospel and, not coincidentally, contain a cluster of key Matthean terms.43

The myriad exegetical difficulties with these verses are seemingly intractable.

Is the valence of “the law and the prophets” ethical or prophetic? Does πληροῦν have

Jesus’ teaching or obedience in view? Is Jesus terminating the law? Bringing out its latent meaning? Supplementing it? Obviously, the secondary literature is vast.44

43 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 323-24.

44 For a summary of the major interpretative proposals, cf. e.g., Ulrich Luz, “Die Erfüllung des Gesetzes bei Matthaus̈ (Mt 5:17-20),” ZTK 75 (1978): 398-435, 413-14.

In my view, this pericope would make clear that Jesus’ ethic is not antinomian: far from abandoning or even loosening its ethical requirements, Jesus intensifies them to an unsurpassable (“full”) point. Whether this “filling up” should be understood as adding to the law, drawing out its inherent meaning, or bringing it to its telos is difficult, if not impossible, to decide; fortunately, achieving such descriptive precision is not necessary for my purpose. To make the case that πληροῦν means “to fill up” in some sense, I will critique various alternative interpretations and, in the process, set in place the building blocks of my own reading.

1. Jesus is not “fulfilling” prophecy but rather is “fulfilling” Torah.

As with Matt 3:15, some exegetes would understand πληροῦν in light of their understanding the verb in the FCs to mean a coming-to-pass of that-which-was- predicted. Thus, Jesus “fulfills” the “law and prophets” by “bring[ing] to realization that which the Torah… prophesied….”45 Davies and Allison, who offer the strongest case for this reading, point out that: (a) Matthew typically uses πληροῦν to refer to the fulfillment of prophecy; (b) the strange disjunctive ἤ rather than the expected conjunctive καὶ suggests that Matthew added “the prophets” and thus “proves that

45 Cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 487. For a list of “important advocates” of a “salvation- history prophetic interpretation”—basically, the view that Matthew has in mind the “prophetic/ predictive significance of the law” here—cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 214 n. 31.

the evangelist is thinking of prophecy”; (c) Matthew’s redaction of 11:13 reveals that he believed that “Torah prophesies”; and (d) because ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται (5:18)

“probably” “refers to all predicted or prophesied events,” we again see “Matthew’s concern with prophecy.”46

But one countervailing consideration is decisive: the context of both 5:17-20 and 5:17-48 do not allow for this reading. As argued below, that which unifies 5:17-20 is the theme of how much Jesus’ ethic exceeds the letter of Torah, and it is in precisely this light that these verses constitute an introduction to the so-called antitheses in

5:21-48. What Jesus “says to you” (ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν) in each of the six specific examples propounds a more rigorous ethical standard than what his audience “has heard” (Ἠκούσατε ὅτι), so that Moule is right: “we [are] driven by the context to say that

πληρῶσαι here implies something far deeper than mere prediction–verification.”47

Moreover, while Matthew can disaggregate “law and prophets,” 5:17 reveals that he does not always do so. I agree with Luz that, because of the conjunctions, the

46 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 486-87.

47 Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 31 (emphasis added). Curiously, Moule goes on to read the claim in 5:17 as one that not only “brings to… perfect expression” the Law but also “confirms… the predictions of prophecy.” While Moule would have this “confirmation” of prophecy involve something “far deeper than [the] merely predictional,” it is not clear, in this particular context, how he would understand this last claim or why, given his argument about how 5:17-20 serves as an introduction to the antitheses, he feels compelled/ able to make it.

phrase “law and prophets” is repeated more simply as “law” in 5:18 (cf. the γὰρ in

5:18a) and as “commandments” in 5:19 (cf. the οὖν in 5:19a).48 And while it is certainly true that, as Matthew’s redaction of 11:13 reveals, Matthew apparently believed that “Torah prophesies,” it is also true, as 7:12 reveals, that “the prophets” function ethically like Torah.49 Indeed, the phrase “the law and/ or the prophets” in

5:17/7:12 constitutes an inclusio around the heart of the Sermon; as a frame for its teaching, the phrase becomes a shorthand for the ethical action that the Sermon teaches. Finally, a καταλυεῖν–πληροῦν contrast makes little sense if prophecy is in view.50

It should be noted that “law and prophets” in 5:17 is not synonymous with

“law” or even “scripture(s),” but rather refers to what has aptly been described as

“der Ausdruck das Alte Testament als fordernden Gotteswillen” (Luz) or “zur Tat verpflichtender Wille Gottes” (K. Berger).51 Justifying this claim would obviously

48 Luz, “Erfüllung,” 414.

49 Moreover, Luz may be right that where Matthew does mean for “law and prophets” to denote prophecy, he changes the order of the words “law” and “prophets” from the traditional logion (frontloading “prophets) and adds in the verb “prophesied” for emphasis (cf. Matt 11:13). Ibid., 414-15.

50 Cf. ibid., 415.

51 Ibid., 414. The Berger quotation also appears in ibid., 415.

take the present argument far afield; suffice it to note that, for Matthew, “the prophets,” as well as “the Law,” are a source for the norms of the “greater righteousness” (cf., e.g., Matt 9:13; 12:7).52

2. Jesus is not making a claim about his obedience but rather about his teaching, specifically his teaching about the status of Torah.

Other interpreters read πληροῦν as synonymous with ποιεῖν or τηρεῖν: Jesus is making a statement about his own ethical action.53 For Luz, linguistic data is weighty: the combination of πληροῦν + νόμος is “häufig genug” that “der griechischsprachige Leser sie zunächst nur auf die Taten Jesu beziehen konnte.”54 As will be argued at length in the next chapter, this claim is probably wrong. For the moment, I will simply note that, even on Luz’s own terms, the point is of limited argumentative value: noting that “[n]un sind an diesem Ergebnis allerdings einige

Korrekturen anzubringen,” Luz goes on to note that the phrase is “einem im ganzen doch recht unjüdischen Ausdruck” and then, in line with my own reading, suggests

52 Both texts cited by Luz, who, I think, rightly writes that Matthew “das Gesetz von den Propheten her gelesen hat.” Ibid., 414.

53 Cf. e.g., Luz, Matthäus 1, 236.

54 Luz, “Erfüllung,” 415.

that “[i]n πληροῦν τὸν νόμον… liegt das Moment der Ganzheit und Vollständigkeit, das auch in 3, 15 zusätzlich durch das Wort πᾶσα (δικαιοσύνη) enthalten war.”55

Again, the contrast between πληροῦν and καταλυεῖν must affect our reading.

Used by Matthew three times in conjunction with “destroying” the Temple (Matt

24:2; 26:6; 27:40), the verb καταλυεῖν in 5:17 means “to abolish,” “to annul” (cf. Rom

3:31: καταργεῖν the Law; cf. Acts 18:13; 21:28).56 Various Sitze im Leben may underlie

Matthew’s usage: the historical Jesus and/ or a Matthean community may well have been charged with antinomianism; Matthew may have been battling antinomianism within his community (cf., e.g., Matt 7:23; 13:41; 24:12); or there may have been a contemporary concern as to whether the Messiah would end Torah in the new age and/ or establish his own Messianic Torah.57 Whatever the case, καταλυεῖν seems a

55 Ibid., 416. Given these insights, it is curious to me when Luz argues in his commentary on Matthew that, while Jesus’ teaching may be in view as a secondary concern, it is primarily his praxis at stake in 5:17-20. Cf. Luz, Matthäus 1, 236.

56 These verses are cited by Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 484.

57 For Jesus or Matthew’s community being charged with antinomianism, cf. the discussion in ibid., 482; W. D. Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” in Christian Origins and Judaism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 31-66, 36; and Matthew Thiessen, “Abolishers of the Law in Early Judaism and Matthew 5,17- 20,” Bib 93 (2012): 543-556. For Matthew battling antinomianism, cf. Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” 35 and Luz, “Erfüllung,” 411-12. For a discussion of “the ‘doctrine’ of the eternal validity of the Law” and the “speculations as to the role of the Law in the Messianic Age”—a discussion with which Jesus might have been familiar—cf. Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” 36.

strange verb to use for an individual’s antinomian actions, but it makes perfect sense to use for an individual’s teaching as to the status of the Law.

Finally, it should be reiterated—and emphasized—that Matt 5:17-20 constitute an introduction to antitheses. Unless Matthew is an incompetent redactor, inserting a short pericope on Jesus’ obedience, a point he already made in 3:13-17, into a highly- wrought teaching discourse on ethics, then a καταλυεῖν–πληροῦν binary nicely introduces the recurring contrast (“you have heard it said… but I say to you”) that structures the unit 5:21-48. As an introduction to this unit the καταλυεῖν–πληροῦν binary say: “You think I would destroy?!? μὴ γένοιτο! Rather, I would fill up the ethical demands of the Law and prophets. Let me teach you how…”

3. Jesus is not simply “establishing” or “confirming” Torah but rather is “filling up” Torah.

Linguistics has traditionally been the locus of this debate. A previous generation of scholars argued that πληροῦν in 5:17 means “to establish, “to confirm”

קום) because of a purported reconstruction of an Aramaic original of Jesus’ words here

This view, once “almost an axiom,” has now been decisively refuted.58 Yet .(מלא not linguistic debate, now focused on koinē Greek usage, continues. Thus, Luz maintains

58 The quotation is from Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 28. Cf. the discussion in Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” 32-33 n. 1.

that “[s]ie ist auch von der griechischen Wortdeutung von πληρόω her abzuweisen”: had Matthew intended to communicate the idea of establishing/ confirming, he would have used ἵστηναι or βεβαιοῦν (cf. e.g., Rom 3:31: νόμον ἱστάνομεν).59 Luz overstates his case: as we will see in Section 2.2.1, while a very rare usage, πληροῦν can mean “to confirm, establish” (1 Kgs 1:14).

It is not linguistic arguments that render this meaning of πληροῦν unlikely but rather attention to the internal logic of the pericope. That this logic has been widely neglected can be seen in two exegetical phenomena. First is angst over the purported disjunctiveness of the pericope. Whether Matthew has been successful in integrating

“sehr verschiedene Überlieferungen” has led scholars to posit tension, if not outright contradiction, between almost all of the verses in 5:17-20 and between 5:17-20 and

5:21-48.60 Second is the attempt to distinguish between two types of antitheses— those that deepen Torah’s demands and those that abrogate them.61

59 Luz, “Erfüllung,” 413.

60 The quotation is from ibid., 399. Holtzmann posited tension between vv. 17 and 18-19, Luz between vv. 18 and 19 and between (17+)18-19 and 20, Davies between 17-20 and 21-48. Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie (Freiburg: Mohr, 1897) (quoted in Luz, “Erfüllung,” 421); ibid., 402, 409, 421; Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” 31, 34.

61 Davies posits that there are “two kinds of Antitheses”: those that “take the form of a deepening of the demand for the Law as it were to the nth degree” (what Davies also calls “radically deepen[ing]” the Law) and those in which “the pertinent demands of the Old Law” are “contravened” (or “abrogated”). Cf. Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” 34, 39, 44 (citing, in n. 32 on p. 44, Martin Albertz, Die

Both of these problems—and the view that πληροῦν here means “to establish”—reflect a failure to appreciate the quantitative logic that holds the pericope

(and, indeed, all of 5:17-48) together. Each of the “antitheses” radically intensifies the

Law’s ethical demands.62 Thus:

• It is not just murderous violence but, more than this, verbal/ relational violence that makes one “liable to” hell (5:21-26).

• It is not just physical unfaithfulness but, more than this, mental unfaithfulness that leads to hell (5:27-30).

• It is not just procedurally-improper divorce but, more than this, any divorce that is unlawful (5:31-32).

• It is not just false vows, but, more than this, any vows that should be avoided (5:33-37).

• It is not just claims of blood-feud vengeance, but, more than this, legitimate claims for justice that should be renounced (5:38-42).

• It is not just neighbors but, more than this, enemies who should be freely loved (5:43-47).

synoptischen Streitgespräche: Ein Beitrag zur formengeschichte des Urchristentums (Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1921) and Martin Albertz, Die Botschaft des Neuen Testamentes (Zollikon-Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1947)). Luz regards the antitheses in much the same way. Luz, “Erfüllung,” 400.

62 Allison points out that some patristic commentators read the so-called antitheses in this way. Dale C. Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 184, 188 (mentioning Eusebius and Gregory of Nyssa).

Again, it is the recurring quantitative language and logic of 5:17-20 that demand this reading of the “antitheses.” After the titular 5:17, each of the remaining, explanatory statements in 5:18-20 contains such language/ logic:

5:18: “not one letter (ἰῶτα ἓν),” indeed, not even “one stroke of a letter (ἢ μία κεραία)” (cf. NRSV) will pass from the law…

Including both “one letter” and “one stroke of a letter” makes the statement more emphatic, as if Jesus were insisting, “Nothing—and I mean nothing!”—will pass from the Law….” Thus, Davies and Allison are right to posit that, “[t]he exact meaning of the word [κεραία (“stroke”)] in Mt 5.18 has yet to be established beyond doubt, although the general connotation—smallness, insignificance; compare iota, the smallest Greek letter—is palpable.”63

5:19a: “Whoever then relaxes (λύσῃ) one of the least of these commandments (μίαν τῶν ἐντολῶν τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων).…”

Λυεῖν here is typically translated as “breaks” and understood as synonymous with

καταλυεῖν in v. 17.64 While this is certainly possible, translating λυεῖν instead as

63 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 491.

64 Thus, the NRSV and NAB translate it as “breaks” and the NIV as “sets aside,” and Luz, as an exemplar of what seems to be the consensus understanding of the verb here, writes, “Λύω bezieht sich sowohl auf das Außerkraftsetzen als auch auf das übertreten eines Gebotes….” Luz, “Erfüllung,” 419.

“relaxes” (RSV, ESV) may make more sense.65 In this case, the statement would read

“whoever not just breaks—no, more than this, who even relaxes….” As such, it reinforces the statement immediately preceding it (“not even a stroke of a letter!...”) and fits well with the one immediately succeeding it (“not even one of the least of the commandments!...”).

5:19b: “will be called least (ἐλάχιστος) in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great (μέγας) in the kingdom of heaven.”

The repetition of “least,” as a modifier of both commandments and persons in the kingdom of heaven is significant: the use of a syntactical form, the superlative

(ἐλαχίστων/ ἐλάχιστος), that communicates the notion of an absolute limit, reinforces the preceding claims with their implicit overtones of increasing/ decreasing.

5:20: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds (περισσεύσῃ) that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Περισσεύσῃ sums up the thrust of the pericope’s pervasive quantitative language. Jesus demands a “great-er” righteousness of his disciples—and, tellingly, this demand forms an inclusio with the question in 5:47, bracketing the “antitheses”: “And if you greet

65 As the fourth definition of λύω, BDAG offers “to do away with, destroy, bring to an end, abolish. As the first definition, it gives “to undo someth. that is used to tie up or constrain someth., loose, untie.”

only your brothers and sisters, what more (περισσὸν) are you doing than others?” In light of the quantitative language, Luz may be right that, ““Πλεῖον liegt im

Unterschied zu μᾶλλον näher beim Gedanken an Zahl und Maß”; he is certainly right that “Gedanke an einen quantitativen Vergleich zwischen der Gerechtigkeit der

Pharisäer und derjenigen der Jünger liegt auf jeden Fall in unserm Text.”66 Whether framed in terms of νόμος (v. 17-18) or δικαιοσύνη (v. 20) doing more is the point of the pericope.

Thus, the fact that the four sentences are knit together by coordinating conjunctions (γὰρ in 18a, οὖν in 19a, and γὰρ in 20a) is not artificial. While Luz may be right that “the Matthean use of γάρ” can be “loose,” quantitative language and logic functions as the structuring principle that gives the verses their coherence and helps us to paraphrase them as follows:67

Thesis statement: I have not come to abolish the ethical demands of the Law and prophets; quite the contrary, I have come to require you to keep these demands fully (5:17). Let me explain why this is so and, concretely, what this means….

66 Luz, “Erfüllung,” 422 (emphasis added).

67 Luz, Matthew 1-7, 211. We might even explain the long-puzzling disjunctive ἤ in the same way, as if Jesus is saying, in effect, “I haven’t come to abolish the Law—for that matter, I haven’t even come to abolish the ethical-aspects-of-the-prophets….”

The reason for this stringency: (5:18a: γὰρ): Nothing—not even the smallest item—will pass from the law until “everything has taken place.” Given that this is the case…

The inference to be drawn (5:19: οὖν): You will be held to the highest standard of teaching and praxis—that is to say, whoever even relaxes, in teaching or praxis, even the least commandment will be the least in the kingdom of the heavens. Conversely, whoever does/ teaches the commandments will be great. Let me be clear, then, about what this means concretely in terms of the righteousness that you need to attain….

The further inference to be drawn (5:20: γὰρ): Your “righteousness”—a term implicating more than just “the law,” and, indeed, picking up “law and prophets” —must be greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees if you want to enter the kingdom of the heavens. Let me explain, then, exactly what the particular shape of this “greater righteousness” is….

Hays’ characterization of the antitheses, then, is particularly apt: Matthew’s Jesus regards the requirements of Torah as “pointers to a more radical righteousness of the heart, intensifying the demand of God far beyond the letter of the Law.”68

Although many questions about 5:17-20 must remain unanswered, I hope to have established a minimal but crucial point: πληροῦν in 5:17 means “filling up.”

Again, to achieve greater descriptive precision is difficult: does “filling up” the ethical

68 Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 95 (emphasis added).

demands of the Law mean “proffer[ing]… new demands” so as to fill up something not yet full?69 If so, or perhaps if not, was Jesus bringing the Law to its τέλος?70 Or was

Jesus simply clearing away the exegetical rubble of previous exegetes?71 We must remain content with the rather general description that, in some way, Jesus’ teaching

“fills up” the ethics of the Law and prophets.72

Filling up the Law, filling up righteousness, filling up the word: each of these is a claim about Jesus’ unsurpassable action and identity. This subsection will begin to

69 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 486.

70 Cf. Luz, “Erfüllung,” 413 (offering this interpretive possibility).

71 Schoeps’ view, summarized and critiqued in Davies, “Matthew 5:17, 18,” 37; cf. also Blair, Jesus, 114, 117. My own view is that Jesus is teaching something new, not just clearing away exegetical detritus. The parallel between Matt 5:18 (“until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished”) and Matt 24:35 (“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”) seems to set Jesus’ words themselves on par with Scripture, and, confirming this reading, the Sermon on the Mount concludes with the crowds being astounded at Jesus’ teaching because unlike scribes, he had authority (ἐξουσίαν) (7:28-29).

72 Part of the problem with achieving descriptive precision is that it becomes difficult if not impossible to make meaningful distinctions between different formulations. Thus where Luz’s schema would distinguish as different interpretations (1) “(etwas noch nicht Volles) ‘vollmachen’ bzw. (etwas noch nicht Vollkommenes) ‘vollkommen machen,’” (2) “Jesus füllt das Gesetz auf, indem er Fehlendes hinzufügt, das Gesetz also ergänzt,” and (3) “Indem er das Gesetz vollkommen macht, bringt er es zugleich zu seinem Ziel und Ende,” I confess that if there is a meaningful distinction between these conceptions (esp. 1 and 2), I do not know how it would be articulated. Luz, “Erfüllung,” 413.

extend this usage to the FCs by examining the use of the limit-adjective/ adverb in conjunction with them; Chapter 4 will go into greater detail. Again, by “limit- adjective/ adverb,” I mean adjectives/ adverbs that convey a limit being reached, e.g.,

“all” does not allow for even one more instance, “whole” cannot be supplemented, etc.

The following catalogue lists Matthew’s use of the limit adjective/ adverb in conjunction with fulfillment language. What I would highlight is not the mere presence of such adjectives/ adverbs but rather the specific way in which they function. In each case, they are integral to, even constitutive of, the aspect of fulfillment for which the FC is cited. Put differently, they modify the very action or trait that is being filled up.73 In the following list, limit adjective/ adverbs are italicized, and probable Matthean redaction is bolded.74

73 In order not to overreach in terms of potential evidence and thus dilute the point that I am trying to make, I have erred on the side of conservatism. So, for example, I am not including below superlatives like those in Matt 1:22 (“All this [τοῦτο… ὅλον] took place to fulfill…”), 5:18 (“until all is accomplished [ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται]”), Matt 26:56 (“But all this [τοῦτο… ὅλον] has taken place…”).

74 For my claim about Matthean redaction, I am relying on Luz’s source analysis—in my view, the best on offer. Cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 90-91 (1:23); 118 (2:16); 140 (3:15); 211-13 (5:17-20); Luz, Matthew 8-20, 8-9 (8:13); 51 (9:35); 265 (13:34-35); Luz, Matthew 21-28, 125-26 (23:25); 129 (23:27-28); 616-19, especially n. 10 on 616 (28:20). Luz is agnostic as to the extent of Matthean redaction in Matt 4:23-25 and tentative as to 23:27-28; with regard to the former, I think that he is right, in his discussion of 28:20, to observe that πᾶς is Matthean. Ibid., 616 n. 10. He does not seem to think that much of 5:19 is redactional; while this is debatable, I am erring on the side of not overstating my point. For 9:35, he

Matt 1:23:

My exegesis will demonstrate that the programmatic declaration of Jesus’ identity as “God with us” in 1:23 should be read in light of the subsequent claim that Jesus is “with [the disciples] always (πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας), to the end of the age (ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος)” (28:20).

Matt 2:18:

In response to being duped by the magi, a furious Herod kills “all (πάντας) the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under….” (2:16).

Matt 3:15:

John and Jesus are “to fulfill all (πᾶσαν) righteousness” in Jesus’ baptism.

Matt 4:15-16:

The FC in 4:15-16 should be read in light of the subsequent narrative summary in 4:23-25—a summary in which Jesus goes throughout the whole of (ὅλῃ) Galilee… curing every (πᾶσαν) disease and every (πᾶσαν) sickness among the people; as his fame spreads throughout all (ὅλην) Syria, the people bring to him all (πάντας) the sick… (4:23-24).

Matt 5:17:

The quantitative language in Matt 5:17-20 was discussed in Section 1.1.3; much of this language is limit-reaching. Thus, “not (οὐ μὴ) one letter (ἰῶτα ἓν), not one stroke of a letter (μία κεραία), will pass from the law until all is accomplished,” and “whoever breaks one of the least of

simply observes that “the evangelist repeats 4:23,” and he does not offer an opinion with regard to the whole of 13:34.

these (μίαν τῶν ἐντολῶν τούτων) commandments… will be called least (ἐλάχιστος).…” (5:18-19).

Matt 8:17:

This verse should be read in the context of the whole of chapter 8 and, perhaps, much/ most/ all of chapter 9 as well. The limit-reaching concept emerges as a point of emphasis: “Immediately (εὐθέως) his leprosy was cleansed… And the servant was healed in that hour (ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐκείνῃ)… 8:16 and he…cured all (πάντας) who were sick… 9:35 Then Jesus went about all (πάσας) the cities and villages…and curing every (πᾶσαν) disease and every (πᾶσαν) sickness (8:3-16).

Matt 12:18-21:

The second half of the very sentence that the FC interprets states “[Jesus] cured all (πάντας) of them.…” (12:15).75

Matt 13:35:

The sentence immediately preceding the FC recounts how “Jesus told the crowds all these things (ταῦτα πάντα) in parables; without a parable he told them nothing (οὐδὲν)” (13:34).

Matt 23:32:

Some of the textual features that suggest the fullness of the judgment declared in Matt 23:29-36 were detailed in Section 1.1.1 above. Other aspects of fullness, often expressed with the limit-adjective, could have been noted: “…but inside [the scribes and Pharisees] are full of

75 While Luke has “healed all of them (πάντας),” in Luke 6:19b, I agree with scholarly consensus that Matthew is not relying upon Luke as a source.

(γέμουσιν) greed and self-indulgence…76 but inside they are full of (γέμουσιν) the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth…but inside you are full of (μεστοὶ) hypocrisy and lawlessness… so that upon you may come all (πᾶν) the righteous blood shed on earth… Truly I tell you, all this (ταῦτα πάντα) will come upon this generation.

Of the fifteen fulfillment texts (not counting Matt 13:48), then, nine have some use of the limit adjective/ adverb; only Matt 2:15, 2:23, 21:4-5, 26:54, and 26:56a do not.

It will await the detailed reading of these passages in Chapter 4 to unpack the significance of this evidence; for now, I would point out that, given the frequency of the limit-adjective/ adverb in conjunction with fulfillment and, more than this, the percentage of fulfillment passages with a limit-adjective/ adverb, the coordination of the two seems unlikely to be coincidental. A strong Matthean impulse is on display: almost whenever he uses πληροῦν, he reflexively adorns it with the overabundant language that it signifies (“all… the whole… always…,” etc.).

Of the evidence listed, two phenomena are particularly noteworthy. First, heavy-handed clustering: in the case of the FCs in Matt 4:15-16 and 8:17 and the filling-the-measure text in 23:32, the same word (not just idea) is repeated several times (not just two times) in a narrow span of text (not a larger span) so as to create

76 If the Farrar theory is correct, then Matthew may be responsible for the repetition of “full of” in v. 25; if the Two-Source Theory is correct, then such language may derive from Q. It is telling though that only Matthew, not Luke, has the repetition of such language.

unmistakable emphasis, almost a pounding rhythm. Second, two or three of the data represent what I would call “superfluous repetition.” Some may claim that, by its very nature, repetition is always superfluous; whether this is so, I maintain that a subset of repetition is conspicuously, we might say self-consciously, superfluous.

Consider a modern example. Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy

Evening” famously ends with the lines:

And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The repetition is so self-conscious that it demands that one puzzle over precisely that repetition (almost to the exclusion of any other textual considerations). Why, even the casual reader asks, does the poet write the same thing twice? Whether the words are the exact same (as here) or almost the same (as in the examples below), what I am calling

“superfluous repetition” necessarily evokes this question.

Matthew 5:18-19 and 13:34-35 are examples of superfluous repetition. In Matt

5:18-19, “not one letter,” “not one stroke of a letter,” and “the least of these commandments,” constitute a rapid-fire threefold burst of the same idea. Even more conspicuously, Matt 13:34a recounts how Jesus “told the crowd all these things in parables”; 13:34b immediately reiterates that “without a parable he told them

nothing.” Why, even the casual reader asks, does the evangelist write the same thing twice

(three times in the case of Matt 5:18-19)?

Also noteworthy is the fact that much of the evidence listed above constitutes

Matthean redaction. The three narrative summaries in Matt 4:23-25, 8:16, and 9:35 exemplify this redactional tendency. First, in Matt 4:23-25, Matthew deviates from

Markan order for the first time. By moving later in his narrative the twelve teaching/ healing pericopae in Mark 1:21-3:19 and moving forward the summary from Mark 3:7-

10, Matthew converts Mark’s narrative summary into a programmatic frame to the teaching (Matt 4:23a  Matt 5-7) and healing (Matt 4:23b-25  Matt 8-9) that follows.77 Matthew’s additions to this frame (“every disease,” “every sickness,” “all the sick”) casts the whole of Jesus’ subsequent ministry as one of unsurpassable action.

Second, Matthew’s redaction in 8:16 (= Mark 1:32-34//Luke 4:40-41) is subtle but significant. Where Mark has “all” the sick and demon-possessed brought to Jesus but only a subset (“many”) of these healed, Matthew has only some (“many”) brought

77 One could claim that Matthew has not moved these twelve pericopae later so much as inserted the Sermon on the Mount at this point; that is, it is not so much a modification of the Markan order, as I am claiming, but rather simply an insertion of Matthean/ Q material. The problem with this way of characterizing Matthean redaction at this point, however, is that Matt 4:24-25 clearly parallels Mark 3:7-10// Luke 6:17-19 so that Matthew is clearly moving something here.

but “all” healed so that the Matthean Jesus’ healing quantitatively “full.”78 Third, while the relationship between Matt 9:35 and Mark 6:6b// Luke 8:1a does not bespeak a literary relationship as clearly as in the other cases, it is still the case that Matthew, with his threefold addition/ repetition of πᾶς emphasizes Jesus’ unsurpassable action in these contexts.

In biblical and Second-Temple Jewish literature, this sort of description— clustered limit adjective/ adverbs describing an individual ontologically or behaviorally/ ethically—is common and almost always doxological and/ or eschatological.79 Representative of such doxology is 1 En. 9:4-11:

And they said to the Lord of the potentates, “For he is the Lord of lords, and the God of gods, and the Kings of kings, and the seat of his glory (stands) throughout all the generations of the world. Your name is holy, and blessed, and glorious throughout the whole world. You have made everything and with you is the authority for everything. Everything is naked and open before your sight, and you see everything; and there is nothing which can hide itself from you… And you know everything (even) before it came to existence, and you see

78 Cf. the summary-type statement in Matt 14:34-36, where Matthew adds in a twofold πᾶς to Mark’s otherwise generic account in Mark 6:53-56.

79 Cf. the discussion in Marianne Meye Thompson, Colossians and Philemon, Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 147. Of course, there are other, non- doxological and non-eschatological uses (e.g., Gen 7:14-16: enumeration of who/ what Noah takes into the ark).

(this thing) (but) you do not tell us what is proper for us that we may do regarding it.”80

As with the clustering of limit-adjectives/ adverbs in Matthew, the clustering here is integrally related to an action or trait held forth for comment (here, praise). That God makes, sees, and knows πᾶς (i.e., action) and has an ever-lasting glory, all- encompassing authority, and all-penetrating vision (i.e., ontology) generates this doxology.

An exemplar of such an eschatological passage is Sib. Or. 4:171-79:

But if you do not obey me, evil-minded ones, but love impiety, and receive all these things with evil ears, there will be fire throughout the whole (κατὰ… ὅλον) world, and a very great sign with sword and trumpet at the rising of the sun, The whole (ἅπας) world will hear a bellowing noise and mighty sound. He will burn the whole (πᾶσαν) earth, and will destroy the whole (ἅπαν) race of men and all (πάσας) cities and rivers at once, and the sea. He will destroy everything (πάντα) by fire, and it will be smoking dust. But when everything (πάντα) is already dusty ashes,….81

80 Translation from James H. Charlesworth ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 1:17. Dating of this text is difficult due to its upon composite nature, but chapter 9 probably predates the composition of Matthew’s gospel. Even before fragments of chapters 6 and 7 (along with other chapters) were found at Qumran, the scholarly consensus was that chapters 6- 11 should be dated to the late pre-Maccabean period. Cf. Géza Vermès, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin Classics (London: Penguin, 2004), 545-68 and the discussion in E. Isaac’s introduction in Charlesworth, OTP, 1:6-7.

81 Translation from Charlesworth, OTP, 1:388-89. Of course, the composite Sibylline Oracles are notioriously difficult to date and various parts of the corpus have been dated between the mid-second

While πᾶς is used in conjunction with action (God will burn “all” the earth and destroy “all” humans, cities, and things), it also modifies the substance that is destroyed without any mention of agency (“there will be fire “throughout” the

“whole” world…”). Yet the actions and the results of those actions are two sides of the same coin—as are, in many cases, eschatology and the doxological reflection on that eschatology.82

At this point, I address the weightiest objection to the argument of this section: to characterize the limit adjective/ adverb on the one hand and “filling” on the other as aspects of the same gesture is to impose an overdetermined heuristic on the text that the text itself does not suggest. Or, more simply: how can we know that

Matthew conceives of πᾶς as πλήρης? Two answers have already been suggested, and I would reiterate them here before offering a third. First, as my analysis of the metaphor in 23:32 and the quantitative language in 5:17-20 revealed, Matthew does explicate “fullness” in quantitative terms, and “all,” “every,” “the whole” are no less

century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. Cf. J. J. Collins’ introduction in ibid., 1:322. That said, “[a]ll scholars agree that [the final redaction of Book 4] was written shortly after the last datable event mentioned—therefore about A.D. 80.” Cf. ibid., 382.

82 Another example of clustering-of-superlatives in eschatological passages is 1 Cor 15:20-28. A great example of clustered superlatives in a non-doxological, non-eschatological passage which nonetheless reflects on “full” ethical action by means of its superlatives is 1 Cor 13:1-3.

quantitative terms than “greatest” or “least” (c.f., e.g., Matt 13:32; 18:1, 22:36; 2:6;

5:19; 11:11; 25:45). Second, that the limit adjective/ adverb is coordinated with

πληροῦν so consistently and closely itself implies an all-equals-full logic.

Third, though, there is abundant precedent in biblical, Second-Temple Jewish, and New Testament literature for coordinating the the limit adjective/ adverb and

“fullness.” An excellent example is Romans 15:13-14. Concluding his exhortation to the “strong” and “weak” Roman Christians to “welcome one another” (15:7), Paul writes:

May the God of hope fill (πληρώσαι) you with all (πάσης) joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound (εἰς τὸ περισσεύειν ὑμᾶς) in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of (μεστοί) goodness, filled with all (πεπληρωμένοι πάσης) knowledge, and able to instruct one another (15:13-14).

“Filling” and “all” are explicitly coordinated: to be “full of” joy and peace is to have

“all” joy and peace. Notably, here περισσεύειν (“to abound in/ with,” cf. Matt 5:20, 47) alo has the same quantitative/ superlative connotation.

As another example, consider a text that Vermes dubs “Time of

Righteousness” and characterizes as “a work of poetic eschatology”:83

83 Vermès, Dead Sea Scrolls, 410.

...and the stressful constraint and the ordeal of the pit and they shall be refined by them to become the elect of righteousness, (?) their wickedness will be blotted out ([כו]ל) and all because of His loving-kindness. (שלם) For the age of wickedness is complete .injustice has [passed] away (וכול) and all [For] the time of righteousness has come .knowledge and the praise of God (ומלאה) and the earth is full with In the day[s of]... has come the age of peace and the precepts of truth and the testimony of righteousness to make one understand the ways of God and the might of His deeds for ever and ever. Every... shall bless Him .man shall prostrate himself before Him (וכול) and every [And they shall have] one [he]art. For He knows their recompense before they were created and had assigned the service of righteousness as their boundaries... in their generations. For the dominion of righteousness/ of goodness has come and He shall raise up the throne of the [kingdom], and intelligence is greatly exalted; prudence and soundness are tried by [His] h[o]ly desi[gn]... (4Q215a, fr. I ii).84

The end of “the age of wickedness” is described in terms that, because of the

wickedness being blotted ([כו]ל) ”parallelism, should be regarded as synonymous. “All

”injustice passing away, and the age of wickedness being “complete (כול) ”out, “all

knowledge (ומלאה) express the same idea; so too do the earth being “full” with (שלם)

84 Translation from ibid. Hebrew from Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 1:457. Poetic line-breaks are mine.

man prostrating himself before Him. While (כול) ”and the praise of God and “every the language is not Greek, this conceptuality of Jewish near-contemporaries to

Matthew is closely analogous to that set forth in the examples above.85

The argument of this chapter is the most important for this book. As argued in

Section 1.1, Matthew’s consistent use of πληροῦν in rhetorically significant, even programmatic, pericopae provides his readers with a hermeneutical key to understanding how Jesus has “fulfilled” the scriptures. Matthew’s use of the superlative in conjunction with fulfillment passages, as examined Section 1.2, bolsters the case that the Matthean FCs have “filling” in view. Where some FCs are more difficult to interpret than others, it will be critical to remember and use this hermeneutical key in the interpretation of all the FCs.

85 For other Greek-language examples, cf. e.g., Gen 6:11-13 (“all” [πᾶσα] flesh being evil is twice characterized as the earth being “full of” [ἐπλήσθη] wrongdoing); Col 1:15-20 (πᾶς repeated 8x in 6 verses as a means of instantiating Christ’s “fullness” [v. 19: τὸ πλήρωμα] textually).

πληροῦν signifies neither in the N. T. or in classical usage: “to confirm,” but always “to fulfill” (see Cremer); with regard to a saying, the realization of the thought expressed in it by an action following is indicated by πληροῦν, whether that saying be a prediction or not (Johann Eduard Huther, 1887).1

In the way of this stands the common linguistic usage, according to which to “fulfil” (πληρόω) a word does not mean to modify or clarify its contents, but to perform what the word says, bring it to actualisation. Hence the most acceptable way of understanding πληρῶσαι in 5.17 is: “establish” the law and the prophets (Gerhard Barth, 1963).2

The combination of πληρόω with νόμος… is rarer than with καταλύω (to dissolve), but at least frequent enough to permit us to say that the Greek- speaking reader would relate it first to Jesus’ deeds: Jesus fulfills the Law through his activity (Ulrich Luz, 1977).3

This interpretation [of πληρῶσαι in Matt 5:17 as “confirm” or “make valid”] has recourse to a—non-existent—Aramaic original. On the basis of the Greek meaning of the word πληρόω, it is not possible (Ulrich Luz, 1977).4

1 Johann Eduard Huther, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude, trans., D. B. Croom, Paton J. Gloag and C. H. Irwin, Meyer’s Commentary on the New Testament 10 (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1887), 98.

2 Gerhard Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, eds. Günther Bornkamm, Gerhard Barth and Joachim Heinz Held (London: SCM, 1963), 58-164, 69.

3 Ulrich Luz, “The Fulfillment of the Law in Matthew (Matt. 5:17-20),” in Studies in Matthew, trans. Rosemary Selle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 185-218, 201 (citation omitted).

4 Ibid., 198.

As each of these claims would foreclose certain readings of the Matthean texts treated in the previous chapter—and, by implication, certain readings of the FCs—on the basis of linguistic evidence alone, it is clear that any proposal about the FCs must reckon carefully with the koinē usage of πληροῦν. Yet, to my knowledge, no one has exhaustively analyzed such usage—including, it seems, the authors of the quotations above.5 Because space constraints prohibit me from detailing the results of such an exhaustive analysis, this chapter has a limited but important goal—to establish that the proposal made in the previous chapter, that Matthew uses πληροῦν to mean “fill up,” is linguistically possible in Matthew’s Umwelt.6

5 There have been soundings but nothing remotely exhaustive. Moule undertook an analysis not only of πληροῦν but also related τελ- words; it was, by his own admission, a “highly selective survey” that was “very far indeed from… exhaustive.” Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 15. Huther cites Cremer, a major lexicon of his day, whose approach is now discredited. Cf. Barr, Semantics, 238-46. Barth would have the reader simply trust his knowledge of “common linguistic usage.” Luz does offer citations to several texts but these are either inapposite or controverted (the latter thus requiring exegesis, which Luz does not provide). Cf. Luz, Matthäus 1, 235 (citing Hdt. 1.199; 4.117; Sib. Or. 3.246; T. Naph. 8.7; Rom 8:4; 13:8; Gal 5:14; 6:2). Luz himself acknowledges that two Herodotus references have the verb ἐκπληροῦν, not πληροῦν; he does not note that Gal 6:2 has ἀναπληροῦν, not πληροῦν. Of the remaining references, I agree with his assessment of Sib. Or. 3.246 and T. Naph. 8.7 but disagree with regard to Gal 5:14 and probably Rom 8:4 and 13:8 as well. As this chapter will show, each of these four claims is wrong.

6 Let me clarify what I mean by “exhaustive.” I have examined all instances of the word πληροῦν in TLG for texts dated before A.D. 2, including those texts that TLG dates as possibly falling within this range. Of course, this set is not actually exhaustive insofar as TLG does not include, for example, some papyri and all of the variant manuscripts for a given text that appears in its database. (Indeed, the last time I checked [June 18, 2017], TLG’s “Septuaginta” database was derived from Rahlfs, not Ralhfs-

Specifically, I would make this case by demonstrating the following:

1. Πληροῦν can be used to “fill up” something like a word metaphorically (Section 2.1).

It is necessary to be specific about what sort of “filling” is expressed using πληροῦν. If, say, πληροῦν can mean “to fill” but (almost) always literally/ materially (e.g., “to fill” a jar with water), then, my proposal is, to use James Barr’s formulation,

“linguistically unusable.”7

2. The phrase “πληροῦν + a word” (λόγος, ῥῆμα, τὸ ῥηθὲν, etc.; hereafter “πληροῦν + a word”) is used flexibly so that it does not appear to have had a default idiomatic meaning (Section 2.2).8

An idiom has a meaning distinct from the meanings of its constituent terms and does not necessarily carry the connotations of these terms, e.g., “bite the bullet” in

English. In koinē, it does not seem to be the case that “πληροῦν + a word,” like these

English-language examples, had assumed a life of its own, becoming a cliché, a stock phrase of quotidian speech.

Hanhart.) Nonetheless, TLG’s database is the most exhaustive analysis that can reasonably be undertaken.

7 Barr, Semantics, 162.

8 Of course, there is no way to assign a threshold for the number of times that an expression must appear in the literature to be considered an idiomatic expression. Fortunately, as the analysis below reveals, this potential methodological problem is only theoretical, as the expression “πληροῦν + a word,” while it does appear several times, seems to signify different things in almost each of its appearances.

3. There are two biblical texts preceding the composition of Matthew’s gospel and one Christian text roughly contemporaneous with it that arguably use the phrase “πληροῦν + a word” in precisely the way I am suggesting Matthew uses it, i.e., to “fill up a word” (Section 2.3).

If persuasive, this subsection will establish that my proposal for Matthew’s usage is not just possible but likely.9 πληροῦν

The semantic range of the verb πληροῦν can be articulated in terms of three overlapping fields and a fourth category of idiomatic expressions.10

1. (Lit.) To Fill Up; (Fig.) To Fill Up (i.e., To Bring to Completion)

In both classical and koinē, πληροῦν commonly means “to fill up” something.11

9 I would note that my approach to linguistic analysis is heavily influenced by Barr, Semantics. Specifically, (1) studying the meaning of words is about discovering the “social linguistic consciousness” reflected in “normal usage” at particular points in time to determine whether a given proposed meaning is “linguistically unusable” (pp. 112-13, 131, 159, 162, 213); (2) one cannot appeal to the root meaning of the word but instead must reckon with the phenomena of the historical evolution of the word and the fact that different meanings are distinct meanings (what Barr calls “polysemy”) (p. 147); (3) determining the meanings of a word requires exegesis—not only of the “sentence” (which Barr regards as the smallest workable unit) but also of the “larger literary complex,” i.e., the pericope and even the book in which a word appears (p. 263).

10 There are a number of cognates for the verb, compound verbs with πληροῦν as a root, and words that, in at least some of their meanings have an overlapping semantic range with that of πληροῦν, in at least some of its meanings. Because Matthew’s usage is so consistent, these will only be considered as necessary below.

In a few cases, it translates another .מלא In the LXX, πληροῦν almost always translates the Hebrew 11 in תמם ;[in Jer 41:14 LXX [34:14 MT קץ + מן ;[in Ps 15:11 LXX [16:11 MT ׂשבע ;in 2 Chr 24:10 כלה) verb is translated מלא ,Dan 4:34 LXX [4:31 MT]; 8:23 LXX [and 8:23 Theod.]; and 5:26 Theod.). Conversely

Often the “filling” is of one material thing (in the accusative) being filled with another material thing (usually in the genitive, occasionally in the dative), e.g., a net with fish

(Matt 13:48), a lake with blood (2 Macc 12:16); clouds with rain (Eccl 11:3).12

Something material can be filled with something immaterial, e.g., a person with consolation (2 Cor 7:4) or joy (Let. Aris. 178) or wisdom (Philo, Post., 137), a camp with terror (2 Macc 13:16), a city with lawlessness (Josephus, Ant., 20:167).

It is into this first field of meaning that I would place the use of πληροῦν that is relevant for my purpose, i.e., πληροῦν as “filling up” = “perfecting” = “bringing to completion.” There are several New Testament examples of πληροῦν being used in this way (albeit with direct objects other than “a word”):13

in the LXX not only by πληροῦν but also by a host of other words, that, in various contexts in various of their definitions, can be used synonymously with πληροῦν, e.g., πίμπληναι (e.g., Gen 21:19), συντελεῖν (e.g., Gen 29:27), ἀναπληροῦν (e.g., Gen 29:28), ἐμπίμπληναι (e.g., Gen 42:25), etc.

12 In each of its meanings, the verb is usually transitive, with the direct object (i.e., the thing being filled) in the accusative, and the stuff with which that object is filled in the genitive or, more rarely, the dative. Thus, for example, one “fulfills” a desire (ἐπιθυμίαν; cf. Polyb. 4:63:3).

13 Each of these examples is listed under BDAG’s definition #3: “to bring to completion that which was already begun, complete, finish.”

• John 15:11: I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete (ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν πληρωθῇ).14

• Phil 2:2: make my joy complete (πληρώσατέ μου τὴν χαρὰν): be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

• 2 Cor 10:6: We are ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete (ὅταν πληρωθῇ ὑμῶν ἡ ὑπακοή).

• Rev 3:2: Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God (οὐ γὰρ εὕρηκά σου τὰ ἔργα πεπληρωμένα ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ μου).

A few observations. First, English translations render these examples as “make complete,” “make perfect,” or “make full”; the idea in each case is the same, and my proposed translation of πληροῦν in Matthew thus has ample scholarly precedent.15

Second, as these examples are drawn from John, Paul, and the author of the

Apocalypse, this usage of πληροῦν appears to be rather common in Matthew’s Umwelt.

14 BDAG is correct to speak of “Johannine usage” here; cf. John 3:29; 16:24; 17:13; 1 John 1:4; 2 John 12.

15 A comparison of the NRSV, RSV, NAB, ESV, and NIV shows remarkable agreement: • John 3:29: joy made/ is complete (NAB, ESV, NIV), is full (RSV), is fulfilled (NRSV); • John 15:11 and 16:24: joy may be complete (NRSV, NAB, NIV), full (RSV, ESV); • John 17:13: joy made complete (NRSV); joy fulfilled (RSV, ESV); joy shared completely (NAB); have the full measure of joy (NIV); • 1 John 1:4: joy (may be) complete (all); • 2 John 12: joy may be complete (all); • Phil 2:2: (make) complete my joy (all); • 2 Cor 10:6: obedience is complete (all); • Rev 3:2: works perfect (NRSV, RSV); complete (NAB, ESV); (un)finished (NIV).

Third, such usage proliferates during the period of earliest Christianity and may well be distinctively Jewish/ Christian.16 Fourth, beyond these examples, within Judaism and Christianity, πληροῦν is used flexibly and metaphorically and, in some instances, in cryptic, pregnant, theologically robust ways. A few examples will suffice:

• Philo frequently articulates God’s glory in terms of God’s “filling all things” (πληροῦν + [τὰ πάντἀ]) (Conf. 136; Det. 153; Deus 57; Gig. 47; Leg. 1:44; 3:4; Mos. 2:238; Post. 31, 147; Sacr. 67; Somn. 2:221; cf. Jer 23:24; Let. Aris. 132; Eph 4:10).

• The prophetic books characterize God as the One who fills (Zech 9:13: πίμπληναι), who has a “spirit of filling” (Jer 4:12: πνεῦμα πληρώσεως), who “leaves [a human’s] name for fullness” (Isa 65:15: καταλείψετε γὰρ τὸ ὄνομα ὑμῶν εἰς πλησμονὴν; cf. Sib. Or. 8:66, 150: fulfilling a name, using

16 By “Jewish/ Christian” I mean both Jewish and Christian, as opposed to “Jewish-Christian.” Against the myriad clear uses of the verb in this way in Judaism and early Christianity (cf. e.g., Isa 13:3; Jer 44:25 [51:25 LXX]; Jer 29:10 [36:10 LXX]; Dan 5:26 (Theod); LAE 13:7; Sir 39:12; T. Naph. 8:7; Luke 7:1; 9:31; John 3:29; 15:11; 16:24; 17:13; 2 Cor 10:6; Phil 2:2; Col 2:10; 2 Thess 1:11; 1 John 1:4; 2 John 1:12; Rev 3:2; 6:11; Sib. Or. 1:332; 3:25; 8:66; 8:150; 11:134), I have not been able to find a single such usage in non-Jewish sources in either classical or koinē. Moule and Allison arrive at a similar conclusion. Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 21; Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James, ICC (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 490. The major lexicons imply the same. In LSJ, the only potentially relevant definition is III.3 (“make full or complete”), and all non-New Testament examples seem likely to be idiomatic uses (Sophocles, fragments 871.6: full moon; Herodotus, Hist. 6.63; Plato, Leg. 866a; Tim. 29d; POxy. 491.6: full periods of time; Herodotus, Hist. 7.29; Aristotle, Mech. 854b29: complete number); additionally, most are from classical not koinē texts. In BDG, the only potentially relevant definition is #3 (discussed in the text). Delling’s TDNT entry gives no potentially relevant definitions or examples in its “Non-Biblical Usage” section.

πληροῦν), who will ultimately (eschatologically?) enact “consummation” (συντέλεια: Jer 5:18; Nah 1:3; Hab 1:9).

• Conversely, that humans are “full of” wickedness is a recurring biblical trope used to characterize a people’s plight and the reason for impending judgment.17

By offering these examples, I am not suggesting the existence of “a” Jewish/ Christian

“mindset” and thereby neglecting the variety of concepts and traditions these data reflect. Nor am I suggesting that any of these examples directly influenced Matthew.

Nonetheless, they point up a seemingly common phenomenon, in many cases contemporary with Matthew, of authors using the rich ambiguity of the verb πληροῦν

(and its synonyms) to reflect upon the “fullness” of God and/ or ethical action.

2. To Complete, Do, Achieve, Fulfill18

Πληροῦν can mean “to do, achieve, fulfill” some accusative direct object. In both classical and koinē, one “does” (an) action(s) which, by its/ their being done,

“achieves” a promise, obligation, plan, commandment, Law, etc. whose content was that/those action(s). Thus, for example, by taking a certain action, one can “fulfill a

17 Cf. e.g., Gen 6:11-13 (πίμπλημι); Isa 1:4 (πλήρης); Isa 2:6-8 (a threefold repetition of ἐμπίμπλναι); Joel 3:13 (πλήρης).

18 In many cases, the difference between the use of these English verbs is not one of meaning, even of subtle nuancing, but rather simply reflects the phenomenon of idiomatic usage. That is, although, in certain contexts, the English sentences “he did his duty” and “he kept his promise” are substantially similar, if not identical, in meaning, one does not say “he kept his duty” or “he did his promise” simply because certain words are usually, even always, used in certain combinations.

plan” (Ps 19:5 LXX; T. Ab. 9:14 [rec. A]: τὴν βουλήν); “fulfill a request” (T. Ab. 15:31

[rec. A]: τὴν αἴτησιν; Ps 19:6 LXX: τὰ αἰμήματά); “complete a task” (Col 4:17: τὴν

διακονίαν); “keep a promise” (Homil. Clement. 12:18:4: τὴν ὑπόσχεσιν; Josephus, Ant.

14:486; J.W. 1:356: τὰς ὑποσχέσεις); “keep commandments” (T. Naph. 8:7: αἱ ἐντολαὶ τοῦ

νόμου); or “keep/ do the Law” (Sib. Or. 1:332: νόμον).

This usage of πληροῦν can be difficult to distinguish from meaning (1) above and meaning (3) below. So, for example, in 4 Macc 12:14a, does ἐπλήρωσαν τὴν εἰς τὸν

θεὸν εὐσέβειαν mean they “brought to perfection piety to God” (meaning [1]) or simply, as NETS renders it, they “fulfilled (their duty of) piety toward God” (meaning [3])?

Similarly, as the variety of English translations attests, it is difficult to know whether to translate the final phrase of Acts 14:26 (τὸ ἔργον ὃ ἐπλήρωσαν) as “the work which they had finished (meaning [3], possibly the import of the NRSV’s and/ or the NIV’s “had completed”) or “the work which they had accomplished” (meaning [2], NAB).

Is filling/ fullness in view in these cases? In other words, does this usage necessarily connote completely fulfilling a plan in all its particulars or each of a task’s constitutive parts? If so, is this always true or only in some cases? And how strong is this connotation? These questions are difficult, if not impossible, to answer.

I would place Moule’s prediction–verification definition of πληροῦν in this category. Much as the occurrence of certain actions “achieves” the result that a

promise is kept, an obligation completed, a duty fulfilled, so too does the occurrence of certain actions “achieve”—or, in idiomatic English, “fulfill”—an oracle/ prophetic prediction/ word-of-God.

3. To Complete, Finish

Rarely, πληροῦν seems best translated as “to finish.” While “completing” in the sense of “having done fully”—as opposed to just “having done”—may be in view in some sense, it does not seem to be primary, as πληροῦν simply marks the end of one activity ushering in the beginning of the next:

• 1 Macc 4:19: Just as Ioudas was concluding these things (ἔτι πληροῦντος Ιουδου ταῦτα), a certain detachment was seen peering out of the mountain… (NETS).

• Acts 13:25a: And as John was finishing his work (ὡς δὲ ἐπλήρου Ἰωάννης τὸν δρόμον), he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am?...

• Acts 19:21a: Now after these things had been finished (Ὡς δὲ ἐπληρώθη ταῦτα), Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia,... (my translation).

• Luke 7:1: After Jesus had finished all his sayings (Ἐπειδὴ ἐπλήρωσεν πάντα τὰ ῥήματα αὐτοῦ) in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.

• T. Benj. 12:1a: “And when he [i.e., Benjamin] had finished his statements (Καὶ ὡς ἐπλήρωσε τοὺς λόγους αὐτοῦ) he said, ‘I command you, my children, carry my bones up out of Egypt…19

19 Translation from Charlesworth, OTP, 1:828.

In each example, a temporal adverb (ἔτι, ὡς, ἐπειδὴ) signals the temporal/ transitional purpose of the πληροῦν clause. Such a deictic indicator may well be unnecessary, i.e., a koinē speaker could probably have communicated this use of πληροῦν to her auditors in ways that those of us at such far remove from her context cannot appreciate, but, methodologically, their presence in these examples at least provides us with relatively clear cases attesting to this usage.

Idioms

[a] Perhaps the most common idiomatic meaning of πληροῦν—indeed, perhaps the most common of all meanings listed here—is to “man a ship.” Extending diachronically throughout the classical (Hdt., 1:171:8) and koinē periods (Diod. Sic.

12:33:3), this usage may have a direct object (where it does, usually ναῦς [ships] or

τριήρεις [triremes]) and, rarely, can be used for things besides ships (e.g., “to man a parapet” in Aesch., Sept. 32).

[b] Also common, in both Greek and Jewish/ Christian literature and in both classical and koinē, is the idiom “to fill a span of time.” The object can be virtually any unit of time—days (1 Macc 3:49: τὰς ἡμέρας), months (Hdt., 6:63: μῆνας), years (Sir

26:2: τὰ ἔτη), “times” (Plato, Leg., 866a:7: τοὺς χρόνους; Tob 14:5: καιροὶ) ages (T. Ab.

7:29 [rec. B]: αἰῶνες).

[c] In both classical and koinē, πληροῦν commonly means “to satisfy a desire”

(Plato, Ep. 331c:5; Polyb. 4:63:3; Ps 126:5 LXX; T. Jos. 9:1; Josephus, Ant., 5:145:

τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν) or “a need” (Phil 4:19: χρείαν) or, in the passive, “be satiated” (without a direct object, e.g., Arist., [Prob.] 872b:21; Eccl. 6:7).

[d] Perhaps the final commonly-used idiom is πληροῦν as a river swelling, rising, or overflowing (Polyb. 34:9:6; Let. Aris. 116; Strab., 3:5:7). Similarly, but more rarely, the moon “is full” (pass.: Anaximander, Testimonia, fr. 11 l. 14).

[e] In Jewish literature, one can “consecrate a priest” by, literally, filling his hands (Num 7:88; Sir 45:15; Philo, Ebr., 67).

Much more rarely, πληροῦν can be used idiomatically to mean [f] to pay off, or satisfy, a debt (Aesch., Sept. 477); [g] “to impregnate” (Arist., Gen. an. 717b:4); [h]

“to load (a pack animal)” (Josephus, Life, 119; Ant., 6:301); [i] “to obtain an arithmetic sum” (i.e., to fill up a number) (Sib. Or. 11:244; Josephus, Ant., 2:183:

ἀριθμοὺς).

In sum, Greek-speaking authors exploit the metaphorical potential of “filling” even more than English speakers do (e.g., “filling out a form,” a “full moon,” “full of hot air,” “a full house,” etc.). Notably, such usage includes πληροῦν used

metaphorically of “filling” = “perfecting”—joy, obedience, works, and, I would propose, God’s word.20 πληροῦν

Because the phrase “πληροῦν + a word,” like the word πληροῦν by itself, is used flexibly, it does not appear to have been an established koinē idiom. An author like

Matthew, then, was free to invest it with his own meaning by means of the narrative context. To make this point, we consider some of the 44 instances of the phrase in extant Greek literature. Eight–ten of these are non-formulaic (analyzed in Section

2.2.1 below), while 31-33 are formulaic (i.e., “fulfillment citations,” analyzed in

Section 2.2.2 below).

20 Across Old Testament traditions, “words” are described in material terms, as physical objects, the sort of things that may be “full” or “empty.” Thus, words can be “seen” or “shown” to people; they they can be ;(קחו /or “taken with you” (Hos 14:3: λάβετε (קרוב /can be “near you” (Deut 30:14: ἐγγὺς “heavy” (Mal 3:13: βαρύνω) or “sink” (Isa 29:4: δύσονται) or “grow harder” (2 Sam 19:44 [19:43 MT]: Indeed, the phrase “empty words” (κενός + λόγος) appears several times in both koinē .(ויקׁש /ἐσκληρύνθη and classical (e.g., Plato, Lach. 196B:7; Demosthenes, 1 Aphob. 25.). Perhaps not insignificantly, these are concentrated in, but are not exclusive to, biblical texts: Exod 5:9; Deut 32:47; Jer 23:16 (ματαιοῦν, not κενός); Isa 59:4 (seemingly synonymous with “vanities” [ματαίοις] in Isa 59:4); Eph 5:6; T. Naph. 3:1; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2:225. Unfortunately, such data cannot support my reading of πληροῦν in Matthew: just as we have the expression “empty words” in English without having a corresponding expression “full words,” the same may have been true for Greek.

Πληροῦν

Eight relevant phrases predate or are roughly contemporaneous with

Matthew; two are difficult to date.21 Below I group these in terms of the likely meaning of πληροῦν:

1. To Finish (Speaking) a Word (2 Instances)

The meaning of πληροῦν is clear in the similarly-structured Luke 7:1 and T.

Benj. 12:1:

• Luke 7:1: After (ἐπειδὴ) Jesus had finished (ἐπλήρωσεν) all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.

• T. Benj. 12:1: And when (ὡς) [Benjamin] finished (ἐπλήρωσε) his statements he said, “I command you, my children, carry my bones up out of Egypt; bury me in Hebron near my fathers.”22

In each case, a conjunction (ἐπειδὴ/ ὡς) functions as a temporal marker (“after”/

“when”) introducing a transition from narrating a character’s speaking (Jesus in Luke

6:17-49; Benjamin in T. Benj. 1:2-11:5) to narrating another of his actions (Jesus’ coming into Capernaum to heal in Luke 7; Benjamin’s command to be buried at

Hebron in 12:1b). In these examples, πληροῦν clearly means “to finish.”

21 The eight texts that predate or are roughly contemporaneous with Matthew are 1 Kgs 1:14; 8:15, 24; 2 Chr 6:4, 15; 1 Macc 2:55; Col 1:25; Philo, Praem. 84; Polyaenus, Stratagems of War 1:18. The two that are difficult to date are T. Benj. 12:1 and Sib. Or. 3:246.

22 Translation from Charlesworth, OTP, 1:828.

2. To Confirm a Word (1 Instance)

In 1 Kings 1, with David at the end of his life, Adonijah postures to become his successor. The prophet Nathan, excluded from and opposed to/ by Adonijah’s bid

(1:8, 10), approaches Bathsheba with a plot to land her son Solomon on the throne.

She will “remind” David of an (imaginary) promise he had made to name Solomon king. To bolster the chances of this ruse succeeding, Nathan promises to go after her

.(Kgs 1:14 1) (ומלאתי את־דבריך /and “fill out her words” (πληρώσω τοὺς λόγους σου

Clearly, this “filling out” refers to what Nathan does with his subsequent speech to David (cf. 1:14: this “filling out” will occur while Bathsheeda is “still

”with the king”). But do Nathan’s words “fill out [עודך מדברת /speaking [ἔτι λαλούσης

Bathsheba’s by (a) supplementing them, i.e., bringing them to a fuller/ fullest expression or (b) by confirming them, i.e., saying the same thing to make David believe that the promise was made? To help answer this question, the following chart compares Bathsheba’s and Nathan’s messages to David. Words that appear verbatim

(or almost verbatim) in both speeches are crossed-out; concepts that appear in both

speeches are in regular typeface; words that appear in only one of the speeches are italicized; while the Greek text was compared, only the English is displayed:23

Table 1. Bathsheba’s and Nathan’s Speeches in 1 Kgs 1

Bathsheba (1:17-21, LXX/NETS) Nathan (1:24b-27, LXX/NETS) 17 “My lord O king, 24b “My lord O king, you swore did you say, by the Lord your God to your slave, saying: Salomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne.

18 And now, behold, Adonias became king, ‘Adonias shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne’? and you, my lord O king, did not know. 19 25 For today he went down And he offered sacrifices, and offered sacrifices, calves and lambs and sheep in great numbers, calves and lambs and sheep in great numbers, and invited all the sons of the king and invited all the sons of the king and the commanders of the force and Abiathar the priest and Abiathar the priest, and Ioab the commander of the force, but Salomon your slave he did not invite. and behold, they are eating and drinking before him, and they said, ‘Let King Adonias live!’ 26 But me myself your slave and Sadok the priest and Banaias son of Iodae and Salomon your slave he did not invite. 20 And you, my lord O king— 27 If by my lord the king the eyes of all Israel are towards you this thing has been brought about to tell them then you did not let your slave know who shall sit on the throne who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king of my lord the king after him. after him.” 21 And it will come to pass, when my lord the king sleeps

23 I have made one slight change in word order in v. 27. Note that the MT and LXX versions of this pericope are almost identical—including the repetition of verbatim words and phrases between the two speeches—so that my analysis here applies to both.

91 with his fathers, that I myself and my son Salomon will be sinners.”

It is still difficult to decide whether Nathan’s speech supplements or (essentially) repeats Bathsheba’s. While he adds some material, these additions seem minimal, especially compared to the extensive verbatim agreement between the speeches. In my view, the overall impression is of his repeating/ “confirming” her words.

3. To Do, Perform (the Content of) a Word (4-5 Instances)

This meaning of “πληροῦν + a word” is clear in three texts:

• 1 Macc 2:55: Iesous, by fulfilling the command (ἐν τῷ πληρῶσαι λόγον), became a judge in Israel.

• Philo, Praem. 83-84: For who, however spiteful his nature, would not admit that surely that nation alone is wise and full of knowledge whose history has been such that it has not left the divine exhortations voided and forsaken by the actions which are akin to them, but has fulfilled the words (πληρῶσαι τοὺς λόγους) with laudable deeds (ἔργοις ἐπαινετοῖς)?24

• Sib. Or. 3:244-46: Always a prosperous man among the people gives a share of the harvest to those who have nothing, but are poor, fulfilling the word of the great God (πληροῦντες μεγάλοιο θεοῦ φάτιν), the hymn of the law….

24 The translation is that in Philo, “On Rewards and Punishments,” in On the Special Laws, On the Virtues, On Rewards and Punishments, LCL 341, trans. F. H. Colson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), 312-423.

First, 1 Macc 2:55: adjuring his sons to be zealous for the law (2:50), a dying Matthias exhorts them to “[r]emember the works (τὰ ἔργα) of our fathers, which they did

(ἐποίησαν)…” (2:51). He underwrites the exhortation with a series of nine ὑποδείγματα

(2:52-60) that uses synonymns for ποιεῖν + νόμος throughout. The phrase ἐν τῷ πληρῶσαι

λόγον in 2:55 is one of these synonyms. That Joshua “fulfills the word,” that Abraham was found (εὑρέθη) faithful, that Joseph kept (ἐφύλαξεν) the commandment, that

Phineas was zealous (ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαι) with zeal, etc.: all are examples of the ἔργα which these fathers did (ἐποίησαν).25

Second, Philo’s Praem. 83-84: it is tempting to read the empty (κενὰς)–full

(πληρῶσαι) contrast as implying that πληροῦν means “to fill up.” Yet this is probably not its meaning here. The pericope (79-84) is an appeal to keep Torah and an apologetic for the γένος that does so. The language throughout is of ethical action—

”keeping” (φυλάττητε) the “commandments” (ἐντολὰς) (79); “being obedient”

(καταπειθεῖς) to the “ordinances” (προστάγμασι) and “precepts” (τὰ διαγορευόμενα) (79);

(79); etc. Ἔργοις ἐπαινετοῖς is probably an instrumental dative, and our statement is one more iteration of the ethical appeal to do the “words” of Torah.

25 Despite 1 Macc 2:55’s invitation to an intertextual reading, there is no evident intertext in view in the book of Joshua, i.e., one in which he “fulfills” (or, for that matter, any other verb) “a word.” It is unclear, then, exactly what “word” is in view—or how Joshua “fulfills” it.

Finally, Sib. Or. 3:244-46: like Philo, this author extols “good works” of a γένος

(clearly Israel) “of most righteous men;” like Philo, he describes doing these good words with a series of synonymns; like the author of 1 Maccabees, he offers various

ὑποδείγματα.26 Thus the “prosperous man” who gives a share of the harvest to the poor and thereby “fulfills the word of the great God (πληροῦντες μεγάλοιο θεοῦ φάτιν), the hymn of the law” (ἔννομον ὕμνον), is clearly, like the other examples, doing the law.

The meaning of “πληροῦν + a word” is more difficult to determine but probably the same in 1 Kgs 8:15, 24 and the parallel account in 2 Chr 6:4, 15.27 After Solomon finishes work on the LORD’s house and assembles all the people, the priests (1 Kgs)/

Levites (2 Chr) transfer the ark to the holy of holies, the LORD’s glory fills the

Temple, Solomon addresses the people and, finally, addresses the LORD in prayer.28

26 In this passage, however, the ὑποδείγματα are unnamed/ generic: those that do not love money, those that have just measurements, those that do not carry out robberies, drive off herds, move boundaries, those that help widows, etc.

27 I have counted these as 1–2 instances of “πληροῦν + a word.” In favor of two is the fact that the phrase is repeated for rhetorical effect in both texts so that four would be a misleading tally; in favor of one is that the Chronicler is copying the 1 Kgs account at this point.

28 The 1 Kgs text (ch. 8) and 2 Chr text (5:1-7:11) are remarkably similar in both their Hebrew and Greek forms; thus, although all quotations below are from the LXX (NETS trans.) of 2 Chr 6, the following analysis applies to each of these four texts (1 Kgs 8 MT; 1 Kgs 8 LXX; 2 Chr 5:1-7:11 MT; 2 Chr 5:1-7:11 MT) unless otherwise noted.

The relevant expression appears twice (in each of the two parallel accounts). First,

Solomon begins his address to the people as follows:

…Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to Dauid my father (ὃς ἐλάλησεν ἐν στόματι αὐτοῦ πρὸς Δαυιδ τὸν πατέρα μου) and has fulfilled it with his hands (καὶ ἐν χερσὶν αὐτοῦ ἐπλήρωσεν λέγων), saying: “From the day when I brought my people up out of Egypt, I did not choose for a city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house that my name be there, and I did not choose for a man to be leader over my people Israel. And I have chosen for Ierousalem for my name to be there, and I have chosen for Dauid to be over my people Israel” (2 Chr 6:4b-6).29

Second, after concluding his address (1 Kgs 8:21/ 2 Chr 6:11) and standing before the altar, Solomon prays to the Lord:

…Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven or on the earth, who keeps covenant and mercy for your servants who walk before you wholeheartedly. What you kept for your servant Dauid my father, what you spoke to him when making utterance—you both spoke with your mouth and fulfilled it with your hands (ἐν χερσίν σου ἐπλήρωσας)—it is as this very day.

In both cases, Solomon is praising the Lord for accomplishing something that the

Lord had promised. In the first text, it is choosing Jerusalem for the Temple and

29 Paragraph breaks are my own. The only significant differences between the 1 Kgs and 2 Chr accounts are: (1) in 1 Kgs 8:15, the Lord speaks “about” David, while in 2 Chr 6:4, the Lord speaks “to” him; and (2) 2 Chr has the Lord stating that He did not choose only Jerusalem but also a leader over the people. The latter difference suggests that the Chronicler has redacted the 1 Kings account, as it seems to be a change made to effect a tighter parallelism.

David for the leader; in the second text, it is something being accomplished “the very day” that Solomon is praying (presumably, the Temple being finished).

Is Solomon praising the Lord for “accomplishing” these things or for “filling them up,” i.e., fully accomplishing them? In favor of the latter is the fact that this moment in the narrative is one of completion (distinguishable from, but closely related to, unsurpassability). Completion is the note struck in the inclusio to this unit (1 Kgs

8:1-9:1/ 2 Chr 5:1-7:22), as Solomon “finishes” the temple in 1 Kgs 8:1// 2 Chr 5:1 and

1 Kgs 9:1// 2 Chr 7:11 (the verb συντελεῖν each time). Within this structure, “speaking with His mouth… fulfilling with his hands” would be the functional equivalent of the

Lord’s beginning-and-finishing an action (cf. 1 Sam 3:12b: “I will begin, and I will finish [ἄρξομαι καὶ ἐπιτελέσω]).

Yet, it seems more likely that the phrase means simply “accomplishing.” First, in both instances of the phrase, Solomon uses a verb synonymously with πληροῦν that carries no connotation of “fully accomplishing.” (1) In the case of 2 Chr 6:4, Solomon continues his address to the people by recounting the Lord’s promise that David’s son would build the Temple. Concluding the address, Solomon declares, “And the Lord established (ἀνέστησεν) his word (τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ), which he spoke (ὃν ἐλάλησεν),…” that

Solomon had taken David’s place and built the Temple (6:10a). While the specific referent of fulfilled/ established is different (choosing Jerusalem/ David in 6:4 vs.

Solomon’s building the Temple in 6:10) and there is very little verbal repetition (only the word ἐλάλησεν appears in both 6:4 and 6:10), nonetheless the underlying concept is the same: the Lord fulfilled/ established—i.e., brought to pass—that which the Lord spoke.

(2) The case is even clearer for 2 Chr 6:16. Solomon’s very next statement after his declaration that the Lord spoke with His mouth and fulfilled with His hands is,

“…[N]ow, Lord, God of Israel, keep (φύλαξον) for your servant, for my father Dauid, what you said (ἐλάλησας) when you told him, ‘No man sitting on the throne of Israel will fail you from before me,…” (6:16a). The parallelism with the previous statement in 6:15 could not be more deliberate; italicized text displays verbatim agreement in

Greek:

2 Chr 6:15 2 Chr 6:1630 What you kept (ἃ ἐφύλαξας) And now, Lord, God of Israel, keep (φύλαξον) for your servant for your servant, Dauid my father for my father Dauid, what you spoke to him what you said when making utterance— when you told him, you both spoke with your mouth and fulfilled it with your hands— it is as this very day. ‘No man sitting on the throne of Israel will fail you from before me, if only your sons keep their way to walk in my law, as you have walked before me.’

30 The parallelism as set forth here is not quite as exact in the case of 1 Kgs.

Almost liturgically, the sentence following 6:16 continues the same parallelism:

2 Chr 6:16 2 Chr 6:17 And now, “And now, Lord, God of Israel, Lord, God of Israel, keep let your utterance (τὸ ῥῆμά σου) for your servant, indeed be confirmed (πιστωθήτω δὴ), for my father Dauid, which you spoke what you said to your servant when you told him,… Dauid—

Given this parallelism, “fulfilled with his hands” on the one hand and “keeping” or

“confirming” what what spoken on the other must be synonymous.

4. To Do Something-With-Regard-to-“the”-Word Fully (1 Instance)

Following the Christ hymn of Col 1:15-20, Paul implores his readers to continue established in the faith (1:23). Elaborating upon his own role as διάκονος of the church, he writes:

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known (πληρῶσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ),… (Col 1:24-25).

As evidenced by the various translations and variegated commentary, it is unclear what πληρῶσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ in Col 1:25 means.31 As it is too difficult to condense

31 E.g., “to make the word of God fully known” (RSV, NRSV, ESV); “to bring to completion for you the word of God” (NAB); “to present to you the word of God in its fullness” (NIV); “to fulfil the word of God” (KIV); “to fulfil the word of God” (Robert M. Wilson, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Colossians and Philemon, ICC [London: T&T Clark, 2005], 173); “to make a full presentation of God’s

into a succinct statement the far-reaching work that this terse claim does in Paul’s argument, I will unfold my understanding of it through a series of observations.

First, because τὸν λόγον is in the accusative case, “the word” is the object that is filled (or fulfilled). Thus, while I agree with popular English translations that render the phrase as something like “to make the word of God fully known” (e.g., NRSV,

RSV), it is not the case that some area/ sphere is being filled with the word (in which case, it would be τοῦ λόγου, with some other accusative direct object). Rather, we must take a more circuitous route to this translation.

Second, πληρῶσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ is a complementary infinitive phrase completing the thought begun by “I became a servant (διάκονος)” (v. 25a). More specifically, this is the διακονία to “the Church” (cf. 1:24). Whatever it means to

“(ful)fill this word,” then, it is somehow integrally related to Paul’s ministry to the

Church. Notably, the key note of this ministry, at least in the relevant context of Col

1:23-29, is proclamation (v. 23: which has been proclaimed to every creature under

message” (Moffatt, quoted in ibid.); “to complete the word of God” (Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, ed., Helmut Koester, trans., William R. Poehlmann and Robert J. Karris, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971], 68); “to fulfill specifically for you his word” (Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke, Colossians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, trans., Astrid B. Beck, AB 34B [New York: Doubleday, 1994], 251).

heaven”; v. 26: “the mystery… now revealed”; v. 27: “God chose to make known”; v.

28: “It is he whom we proclaim”).

Third, because of the accusative apposition construction, τὸν λόγον in 1:25 must be read as synonymous with τὸ μυστήριον of 1:26. Thus, pace Eduard Lohse, τὸν λόγον here does not refer to “God’s will and command” generally—as if λογός meant here what it means in 1 Macc 2:55—but rather to the specific “mystery” of “Christ-in-us” among the gentiles (as described in vv. 26-27).32 What must be (ful)filled is “the mystery”—a mystery that, again, is described here in terms of revealing/ proclamation and that will again be spoken of as needing to be “declared” in Col 4:3.

Fourth, this “word”/ “mystery” is probably synonymous with “gospel” as well. Whether or not the historical Paul wrote Colossians, Col 1:25 is similar to Rom

15:18-19:

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ (πεπληρωκέναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστου).

32 Lohse, Colossians, 73. For a thorough analysis of mystery in Colossians and early Christianity, cf. T. J. Lang, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness: From Paul to the Second Century, BZNTW 219 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015).

100

Not only is the relevant expression remarkably similar (πληρῶσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ/

πεπληρωκέναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστου), but also Barth and Blanke rightly observe that, in both Col 1:25 and Rom 15:18-19, “the context deals with Paul’s service among the gentiles.”33 Rom 15:18-19 may have filling in view: the expression “from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum” (v. 19: ἀπὸ Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ κύκλῳ μέχρι τοῦ Ἰλλυρικοῦ) invokes a beginning (ἀπὸ) and end (μέχρι) point that implies fully achieving the task.

Again, the evidence points towards πληροῦν signifying fully proclaiming.

Given these observations, I conclude that πληρῶσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ means “to fill up the word” in the sense of fully spreading by means of evangelism. While this

“translation” takes the form of a cumbersome paraphrase, the aforementioned evidence compels such awkwardness. Paul is not simply fulfilling a task, project, endeavor, or even his διακονία (cf. the usage in Col 4:17); rather, by proclaiming it, he is (ful)filling the word-mystery-gospel. Whether or not Paul penned the letter, this phrase exemplifies the sort of cryptically terse style Paul often employs.

5. To Fulfill An Oracle (1 Instance)

In the sole instance of “πληροῦν + a word” that I have located in a non-Jewish

33 In addition, if the historical Paul did write Colossians, then Barth and Blanke’s further observation is also probative: “‘gospel’ and ‘word of God’ are interchangeable concepts for Paul” (citing 1 Cor 14:36 and 2 Cor 2:17). Barth and Blanke, Colossians, 260.

101

source roughly contemporaneous with Matthew, the rhetorician Polyaenus describes the fulfillment of an oracle in a war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians:

There was a war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians. The oracle said (ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε) that the Athenians would win if their king died at the hand of a Peloponnesian man. Codrus was the Athenian king. Informed of the oracle (τὸ λόγιον), the enemy gave public orders to stay away from Codrus in the fighting. Dressing himself as a woodcutter, for it was evening, Codrus advanced beyond the palisade and cut wood. Some Peloponnesian men also happened to arrive to cut wood. Codrus skirmished with them and wounded some of them with his axe. They killed him with their axes and departed, rejoicing in their heroic deed (πεποιηκότες). The Athenians sang the paean—for were they not about to fulfill the prophecy? (τί γὰρ οὐκ ἔμελλον τοῦ λογίου πεπληρωμένου)—and advanced to battle with courage and greater strength, and before the battle they sent a herald to ask for the recovery of the king’s body. The Peloponnesians fled when they realized what had happened (τοῦ γεγονότος), and the victorious Athenians established honors for Codrus as a hero, because he had out-generaled the enemy by his voluntary death (Stratagems of War, 1:18).34

It is difficult to read the “fulfillment” in this short account as anything but straightforward prediction–verification: the language used (πεποιηκότες, τοῦ γεγονότος) and the lack of any textual features pointing in another direction are determinative.

34 Polyaenus, Stratagems of War, trans., Peter Krentz and Everett L. Wheeler, vol. 1, Strategemata (Chicago: Ares, 1994), 37-39.

102

Πληροῦν

There are 18 “fulfillment citations” that predate or are roughly contemporaneous with Matthew and two that are difficult to date. For heuristic purposes, they can be divided into three categories:

1. three in the Old Testament (1 Kgs 2:27; 1 Chr 36:21, 22);

2. outside of Matthew, 15 in the New Testament:

a. eight citing specific texts:

John 12:38; 13:18; 15:25; 18:9; 19:24, 36

Luke 4:21

Jas 2:23

b. seven references to “fulfillment” of scripture generally:

Mark 14:49

John 17:12; 18:32; 24:44

Acts 1:16; 3:18; 13:27

3. two in non-canonical texts that are difficult to date (T. Benj. 3:8; Jub fr. r l. 2).

In this subsection, I will briefly analyze those definitely contemporaneous with

Matthew (i.e., not T. Benj. or Jub.) and those for which we have sufficient textual data to gain interpretive purchase on the phrase’s meaning (i.e., not Mark 14:49).

103

Lukan fulfillment

Luke’s usage of πληροῦν + scripture (generally or a specific verse) can be briefly established: Lukan fulfillment is prediction–verification par excellence. I would draw attention to the following features of Luke and Acts:

1. The Emmaus Road pericope as paradigmatic.

The dialogue between Jesus and two unnamed disciples on the Emmaus Road

(24:13-35), especially read in light of a subsequent pericope with which it is tightly connected (24:44-49), sets forth Luke’s prediction–fulfillment hermeneutic in nuce.35

On the Emmaus Road, Jesus opens their eyes to see that “the things” (v. 26: ταῦτα)

“that have taken place” (v. 18: τὰ γενόμενα) or, synonymously, “the things about

Jesus” (v. 19: τὰ περὶ Ἰησοῦ; cf. v. 27: τὰ περὶ ἑαυτοῦ), were declared by the prophets in

Scripture. “These things” “had to” (v. 26: ἔδει) happen and now have “happened” (v.

21: ταῦτα ἐγένετο).

After Luke underlines that the risen Jesus is, in fact, flesh and blood (24:36-

43), another dialogue, this time between Jesus and “the eleven and their companions,” picks up the conversation begun on the Emmaus Road. The language is the same (v. 44: τὰ γεγραμμένα… περὶ ἐμου; v. 44: δεῖ), as are the specific “things”

35 Luke forges the following linguistic connections between the two pericopae to invite his readers to read them together: Moses and all the prophets; “necessary”; opening the scriptures; the Messiah suffering; the third day.

104

written (Jesus suffered [vv. 26, 46], died [vv. 20, 46], and rose “on the third day” [vv.

21, 46]), except that now Jesus speaks not of these things “happening,” but rather of their being “fulfilled” (πληρωθῆναι). Note that, because of the tight parallelism between the two pericopae, “these things” “happening” and Scripture being “fulfilled” are also set in parallel, i.e., are used synonymously. This usage of the two words (γίνεσθαι,

πληροῦν)/ concepts as synonyms, as well as “proof” language (here, διερμηνεύειν in 24:27, more often διαλέγεσθαι), point to a prediction–verification scheme that will recur throughout Luke’s engagement with scripture in Luke and (especially) Acts.

2. The interchangeability of πληροῦν, τελεῖν, ἐκπληροῦν, and πίμπληναι with γίνεσθαι and ἔρχεσθαι.

Not limited to the pericopae discussed above, Luke’s language repeatedly slips seamlessly between “(ful)filling verbs” (πληροῦν, τελεῖν, ἐκπληροῦν, and πίμπληναι) and

“happening verbs” (γίνεσθαι and ἔρχεσθαι) often with regard to scriptural or narrative predictions. Exemplifying this usage is Luke 1:20. In response to Zechariah’s doubting the promise about his unborn son, Gabriel admonishes him: “But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled (πληρωθήσονται) in their time (εἰς τὸν

καιρὸν αὐτῶν), you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day (ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας) these things occur (γένηται ταῦτα).” The two temporal clauses create parallelism, and

πληροῦν and γίνεσθαι are used synonymously. Such slippage between “(ful)filling verbs”

105

and “happening verbs” also appears in Luke 21:9-28; Acts 13:26-41; Luke 24:44/ Acts

26:22a-23; cf. Luke 1:38-45 [τελείωσις used interchangeably with γίνεσθαι]; Luke 22:15-

18 [πληροῦν used interchangeably with ἔρχεσθαι]).

3. The clustering of prediction- and providence-language with regard to scriptural exposition.

Repetition of “God’s plan” (βουλή), often framed by (προ)ορίζειν and/ or

πρόγνωσις (e.g., Acts 2:23; 4:27-28) and the so-called “divine δεῖ” permeate the speeches in Acts—usually, in speeches that would “prove” Jesus’ messiahship exegetically.36

However one might describe Luke’s purpose in emphasizing the theme, it consistently denotes the scripted, pre-announced nature of recent history. Thus, God is repeatedly portrayed, typically in doxological or apologetic contexts, as the one who “ordains” or

“predestines” ([προ]ὁρίζειν) or “prepares” (ἑτοιμάζειν) events and “fixes” (ἵστηναι) times and, precisely because of this, “knows” and “speaks” about them “in advance.” In two speeches in particular, “prediction” clusters as an emphatic motif (Acts 2:22-36

[esp. vv. 23, 31]; Acts 3:17-26 [esp. vv. 18, 21, 24]; cf. also Acts 1:16; 7:52). Much more

36 For δεῖ used to denote the necessity of moments in the divine plot according to scripture, cf. Luke 4:43; 9:22; 17:25; 21:9; 22:37; 24:7, 26, 44; Acts 1:16, 21; 3:21; 17:3. God’s plan is studied most extensively by John Squires, the divine δεῖ by Charles Cosgrove. John T. Squires, The Plan of God in Luke-Acts, SNTSMS 76 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Charles H. Cosgrove, “The Divine Δεῖ in Luke-Acts: Investigations into the Lukan Understanding of God’s Providence,” NovT 26 (1984): 168-190.

106

could be written, but it should be plain that the keynote of Lukan fulfillment is prediction–verification.37

Johannine fulfillment

John is the only New Testament author besides Matthew who writes extensively of scripture being “fulfilled.”38 Two features of John’s FCs are striking— and puzzling. First, in the first half of the gospel (the so-called “book of signs” comprising roughly 1:19-12:50) all scriptural citations are introduced with a non- fulfillment formula (“it is written [in the prophets]” or something similar), while, in the gospel’s second half (the so-called “book of the passion,” comprising roughly 13:1-

37 Luke 4:21 may be an exception to my characterization here. It is unclear exactly how Jesus’ words in the synagogue (cf. “today” and “in your hearing” in v. 21) would “verify” the healing/ liberating actions “predicted” in Isa 58:6/ 61:1. Moreover, that Luke brackets this pericope with Jesus being “full of” the Spirit (4:1: πλήρης πνεύματος) and, conversely, those in the synagogue being “filled with” (ἐπλήσθησαν) fury may be significant—as is the fact that the pericope itself seems to be a programmatic summary of Jesus’ ministry. However, even if Luke 4:21 constitutes an exceptional use of “fulfillment” language in Luke, the basic prediction-fulfillment paradigm of the vast bulk of this language in Luke and Acts seems to me undeniable.

38 “Fulfillment citations,” all but one of which use πληροῦν, appear in 12:38; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24; 19:28 (τελειοῦν); 19:36.

107

19:42) all citations employ a fulfillment formula.39 Second, John’s FCs—but not the

“non-fulfillment” citations—all refer to Jesus’ suffering and rejection.40

Scholars tend to explain these two interrelated features, this curious pattern, by proposing that John’s FCs have an apologetic function: they defend Jesus’ rejection by “his own” (John 1:11) and death as foreordained by God and revealed in

Scripture.41 “The greatest offense” for Christians in conversations in the synagogue

39 Scholars disagree over exactly where to divide John’s gospel, but the disagreement does not matter for my purposes here. For the “book of signs” and “book of the passion,” cf. the discussion in Hays, Echoes, 425 n. 8. While John 12:39 (εἶπεν Ἠσαΐας) and 19:37 (ἑτέρα γραφὴ λέγει) appear to be exceptions to the characterization in the text, both are “the second of a pair” of “linked citations,” the first of which uses the verb πληροῦν, so that, far from being exceptions, these citations constitute part of “double fulfillment citations.” Ibid., 285. Cf. also Stanley E. Porter, “Can Traditional Exegesis Enlighten Literary Analysis of the Fourth Gospel? An Examination of the Old Testament Fulfilment Motif and the Passover Theme,” in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel, eds. Craig A. Evans and William Richard Stegner, JSNTSup 104 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 396-428, 402.

40 A chart at Hays, Echoes, 286 summarizes these data succinctly.

41 Among the many scholars adopting the apologetic explanation—surely a consensus if not near- unanimous view—are ibid.; Craig A. Evans, Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue, JSNTSup 89 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 176-77; Marianne Meye Thompson, “‘They Bear Witness to Me’: The Psalms in the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of John,” in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays, eds. A. Katherine Grieb, C. Kavin Rowe and J. Ross Wagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 267-83, 267- 68. Some scholars arguing for apologetic also hold forth the FCs as also making important characterizations of Jesus. Cf. e.g., ibid., 269. Rare are “simple source-critical explanation[s]”: Hays rightly points out that, because of the “overall stylistic and theological unity of the Fourth Gospel” and the “prominen[ce] [of] these fulfillment quotations,” such an explanation will not do. Hays, Echoes, 285.

108

would have been the “scandal of the crucifixion of the Messiah,” and an only slightly lesser “offense” would have been Israel’s rejection of this Messiah; these had to be explained and defended.42 Of course, prediction–verification is a species of apologetics, and these scholars’ descriptions of John’s FCs are replete with the language of

“foreshadow,” “foretold,” and “predict.”43

The apologetic explanation may be right. But there were other calumnies to be refuted, and some of these seem to have been quite pressing (e.g., Jesus coming from

Nazareth [1:45-46]; Jesus coming from Galilee [7:41-43, 52]; perhaps Jesus’ activity in

Samaria [8:48]). Why limit apologetic to the Passion? Moreover, if apologetic-for-the-

Passion were indeed the motivation for the “fulfillment” language—and the reservation of this language for this event alone—then 2:17 (“Zeal for your house will consume me”) would probably also require fulfillment language.44 Finally, it remains

42 The language here is that of Martin Hengel, “The Old Testament and the Fourth Gospel,” in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel, eds. Craig A. Evans and William Richard Stegner, JSNTSup 104 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 380-95, 382.

43 Cf. e.g., Thompson, “Psalms,” 269, 273, 275; Hengel, “Old Testament,” 393.

44 Cf. Thompson, “Psalms,” 276 for this psalm referring to “Jesus [being] consumed by forces hostile to him….”

109

unexplained why the language of “fulfillment” functions apologetically but the language of it being “written” does not.45

Let me offer a different explanation. For John, πληροῦν means “to fill up” but in a different way than it does for Matthew. For John “to fill up” “the (scriptural) word” means to complete it, by bringing it to its scripted telos. Put differently, John’s

πληροῦν language should be understood as referring to the climactic moment in his eschatological timetable—Jesus’ rejection and death.

The key text is John 19:28-30:

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished (πάντα τετέλεσται), he said (in order to fulfill the scripture [τελειωθῇ ἡ γραφή]), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished (τετέλεσται).” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

As Martin Hengel points out, bracketing the claim that Jesus’ words “fulfill the scripture” (τελειωθῇ ἡ γραφή) with a repeated claim about “finishing” (τετέλεσται) seems

45 Both Evans and Porter purport to explain this use of language, but I confess that I do not understand the distinction that they are trying to draw. In a passage that Porter cites with approval, Evans writes, “The function of the Old Testament in the Fourth Gospel, as seen in the formal quotations, is not ad hoc but systematic and progressive, showing that Jesus’ public ministry (1.29- 12.36a) conformed to scriptural expectations and requirements, while his Passion (12.36b-19.37) fulfilled scriptural prophecies.” Evans, Word and Glory, 174; Porter, “Traditional,” 403.

110

to be a “conscious” repetition.46 This “finishing” should be understood in light of the recurring temporal schema that John has used to structure his gospel. Because of the refrain “my hour is coming” (2:4; 4:21; 5:25; 7:30; 8:20; 13:1 cf. 7:6-8, 33-34; 16:21,

25), John’s readers have been expectantly awaiting precisely this moment—the moment that must occur, it seems, at precisely the right time in a barely-glimpsed, divinely-ordained, scripturally-foretold sequence, the moment where anticipation yields to actualization, where the telos of Jesus’ entire existence (12:27b: “it is for this reason that I have come to this hour”) plays out apocalyptically (12:31: “now the ruler of this world will be driven out”). This schema is not precise: because some “my hour is coming” statements appear after narrative claims that the “hour” has already come (cf. 16:32-33 in light of 12:23, 31; 13:1, 31; 17:1) and some claim that “the hour is coming and is now here” (5:25; 16:32-33) it seems we have an already/ not-yet dialectic as pervasive and paradoxical as in Paul’s writings. Nonetheless, that a sequence of events leads to a climax that must occur in a particular way at a particular time is a foundational aspect of reading this gospel. Thus, the τελ- language in 19:28-30 makes explicit what is already implicit narratively: this is “the climax of

46 Hengel, “Old Testament,” 393.

111

the entire gospel” (Hengel).47 It is the long-awaited moment, where Jesus “brings to completion” his Father’s “work” (τελειοῦν in 4:34; 5:36; 17:4) and is, paradoxically, glorified in death.

Because of the way in which the “fulfillment” (19:28: τελειωθῇ) of Scripture is linguistically coordinated with this “completion” (19:28: τετέλεσται; 19:30: τετέλεσται) of Jesus’ work, readers are invited to understand this fulfillment, not simply as the coming-to-pass of something-predicted, but rather as, as Hengel writes, “‘ultimate fulfillment’… which reach[es] [its] goal in the death of Jesus.”48 Readers should read

John’s πληροῦν language in the same way. Indeed, John uses not only τελειοῦν but also

πληροῦν—he seems to use the two interchangeably—to express this idea of bringing

Jesus’/ cosmic history to completion, to its fullness. In John 7:8b, Jesus declares, “I am not going to this festival, for my time (ὁ ἐμὸς καιρὸς) has not yet fully come (οὔπω

πεπλήρωται).” As Joel Marcus has argued for the similar phrase in Mark 1:15, “[t]he

Jewish apocalyptic concept of the eschatological measure… is in view; when the

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid., 393 (emphasis added).

112

measure of time allotted to the old age is full, the new age will come.”49 Moreover,

John coordinates fulfillment-of-Scripture with fulfillment-as-completion for πληροῦν as he does for τελειοῦν:

While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled (ἵνα ἡ γραφὴ πληρωθῇ). But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete (πεπληρωμένην) in themselves (John 17:12-13).

Thus, we have two examples of John coordinating a clear example of fulfillment, whether πληροῦν or τελειοῦν, as-bringing-to-completion with fulfillment of scripture.

Certainly, like Luke—and, I would add, Matthew (see Section 5.1)—John does regard Scripture as predictive and, like Luke, he emphasizes this fact more than

Matthew. Moses wrote about Jesus (5:46; cf. 5:39); Abraham (8:56) and Isaiah (12:41) saw Jesus (a stronger claim than the one about Moses [cf. 11:51]); Jesus himself foresees the future (18:4) and foretells it precisely to engender belief (14:29). But, again, prediction–verification and some-more-robust-christological-claim are not mutually exclusive options (even for Matthew). For John, this more robust claim is

49 Joel Marcus, “‘The Time Has Been Fulfilled!’ (Mark 1.15),” in Apocalyptic and the New Testament, eds. Joel Marcus and Marion L. Soards, JSNTSup 24 (England: JSOT Press, 1989), 53 (citation omitted, citing 4 Ezra 4:36-37 as “the classic expression of this concept”).

113

that Jesus brings to ultimate completion, to a climax, the divine script of his life/ history.

It is often claimed that there are no real analogies for Matthew’s FCs.50 If true, this fact would not be an obstacle to my thesis: the burden of the first two sections of this chapter has been to show that, given the wide-ranging usage of πληροῦν, such a sui generis achievement is entirely possible. Yet the likelihood of my thesis would be bolstered if I could point to other authors using “πληροῦν + a word” in a way similar or identical to what I am claiming for Matthew. In my view, there are three. While none are clear cases, 2 Chr 36:21, 1 Kgs 2:27, and Jas 2:23 are arguably best read as setting forth a “filled up” “word.”

2 Chronicles 36 draws to a close the entire history that began in 1 Chronicles

(and 1 Kings), if not 1 Samuel or even Genesis: it brings the reader to the point

50 For representative examples, cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 126 (“[t]here are no direct models in OT and Jewish texts”); R. T. France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1989), 172 (Matthew’s FCs are “distinctive”); McConnell, Law, 140 (“Matthew’s introductory formula to the formula quotations possesses a noteworthy uniqueness”). Often-cited studies of introductory formulae in various corpora are Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Use of Explicit Old Testament Quotations in Qumran Literature and in the New Testament,” NTS 7 (1961): 297-333; Bruce M. Metzger, “The Formulas Introducing Quotations of Scripture in the NT and the Mishnah,” JBL 70 (1951): 297-307.

114

towards which, in its view, the entire history has been moving—namely, God’s judgment in the form of exile.51 The plot for which exile is the tragic denouement is one in which the kings who “do evil before the LORD” and those who “do what was right before the LORD” vie to determine Israel’s fate (chapters 13-35 of the book).

Appearing as early as 2 Chr 12:14, this formula (“do evil/ right before the LORD”) structures the narrative beginning in 21:5-6. Although the history of alternation seems interminable, it is inherently unstable, as both the “right” and the “evil” actions of kings—and the corresponding punishment of the latter—escalate, building towards some definitive outcome. Just as it appears that the actions of the “right” kings will finally be determinative (30:26b; 31:20-21)—the lengthy section describing

Hezekiah’s reign (29:1-32:33) breaking up the staccato rhythm of king-succeeding- king-succeeding-king in 13:1-28:27—Manasseh appears. His sin is extensive and more wide-ranging than his fathers’ (including the novelties in 33:6); his evil is “beyond all the nations” (33:9); he seems intent, even determined, to rebel (33:6b: “in order to provoke the LORD”). Yet even he repents and is restored (33:13).

51 Narratively, this is true regardless of whether, as Edmon Gallagher claims, 2 Chronicles does not necessarily close the canon in ancient manuscripts. Cf. Edmon L. Gallagher, “The Blood from Abel to Zechariah in the History of Interpretation,” NTS 60 (2014): 121-138.

115

However, the reader suspects that the “evil” kings will have the final word.

Indeed, despite the alternation, the reader has suspected throughout the book that

Judah will ultimately be punished in some definitive way. Even the earlier chapters devoted to glorifying Solomon’s reign foreshadow the tragic end: not only does

Solomon’s prayer in 6:24-31 aim to carve out hope if the people should be “shattered before the enemy” so that they need to “return to the land” (6:24-25), but also the

LORD Himself, upon dedication of the Temple (!), warns Solomon that unfaithfulness will result in His removing the people from the land (7:20) and “bringing harm” upon the land and the Temple (7:21-22). These moments, seemingly hypothetical, become forebodingly dark against the bright backdrop of an otherwise idealizing text. Later in the book, the possibility of such definitive punishment that will resolve, albeit tragically, the tension of alternation is hinted at, rather fleetingly, in 21:7, and baldly declared as inescapable in 34:24-25 (cf. 35:19):

Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing harm against this place, all (πάντας) the words that are written in the book that was read before the king of Ioudas, since they have forsaken me and have offered incense to foreign gods so that they have provoked me to anger with all the works of their hands. And my wrath was blazed in this place, and it will not be quenched (NETS, emphasis added).

With this judgment rendered, chapter 36 enacts the punishment. The familiar rhythm of the text beats on—Jehoahaz is succeeded by Eliakim/ Jehoiakim who is

116

succeeded by Jehoiachin who is succeeded by Zedekiah—but, as detailed below, both sin and destruction increase with each successive reign. Collapse finally occurs, and it is articulated in terms of God’s prophetic word being “fulfilled”:

And he deported the remaining people to Babylon, and they were slaves to him and to his sons until the reign of the Medes in order to fulfill the Lord’s by the mouth of Ieremias until (לְמַ לֹּאות דְ בַ ר־יְְהוָ ה /word (τοῦ πληρωθῆναι λόγον κυρίου the land received its sabbaths to sabbatize. All the days of its desolation it of seventy years. In the (לְמַ לֹּאות /sabbatized until the fulfillment (συμπλήρωσιν first year of Cyrus, king of the Persians, after the fulfillment of the Lord’s dictum ,through the mouth of Ieremias (לִכְ לֹות דְ בַ ר־יְהוָ ה /μετὰ τὸ πληρωθῆναι ῥῆμα κυρίου) the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of the Persians, and he announced to proclaim in all his kingdom, in writing, saying,… (2 Chr 36:20-22 NETS).52

For the Babylonian exile of seventy years and restoration, the allusion is probably to

Jer 25:11-12 and/ or Jer 29:10; for the “payment” of Sabbaths, the language is close to

Lev 26:34-35.53 But even the broad strokes of 2 Chronicles 36 that I have just sketched allow, perhaps even invite, one to read πληροῦν in v. 21 as connoting not just,

52 While we might also query the significance of the MT’s using two different (ful)filling words to refer in v. 22) both of which the LXX כָלָ ה in v. 21 and מָ לֵ א) to the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy the LXX translator of Ezra has rendered (כָלָ ה) translator has rendered using πληροῦν and one of which using τελεῖν, it seems to me that such an analysis would be inconclusive. As the major lexicons attest, .as well as πληροῦν and τελεῖν, can connote either filling or simply fulfilling ,כָלָ ה and מָ לֵ א both

53 Most scholars identify Jer 25:11-12; 29:10 as the “prediction” being “fulfilled” in 2 Chr 36:21-22. Cf. Mark Leuchtner, “Rethinking the ‘Jeremiah’ Doublet in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles,” in What Was Authoritative for Chronicles?, ed., Ehud Ben Zvi and Diana Edelman (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 183-200, 185. It is also commonplace to point to the Leviticus intertext here.

117

or even primarily, “verification” of these “predictions” but rather an appreciation that the LORD’s word of judgment has reached a (horrible) “fullness”: chapter 36, especially when viewed as a conclusion to this book, narratively enacts what Matthew would describe as the people filling up the measure of their sins so that, with it now full, they are unable to escape the sentence.

Various textual details pressure the reader towards such a reading—especially when the author’s redaction of his source(s) is considered. Redaction criticism is difficult here because the textual history is complicated: in my view, the author(s) and/ or redactor(s) of 2 Chronicles LXX seems to have used not only (some version of)

2 Chronicles 36 MT but also—and, indeed, primarily—(some version of) the LXX of 4

Kgdms 23:30b–25:30 (and possibly the MT of 2 Kgs 23:30b–25:30). But my reading does not hinge upon such a reconstruction.54 While I will write in terms of such redaction because, if it does underlie this text, it throws into relief the unique achievement of 2 Chr 36 LXX, the reading that I am offering is, regardless of

54 For the consensus that the Chronicler used as a source Samuel-Kings, challenges to this consensus, a rebuttal to those challenges, and a discussion of the relevant issues, cf. Ralph W. Klein, 1 Chronicles: A Commentary, ed., Thomas Krüger, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 26-37 and Ralph W. Klein, 2 Chronicles: A Commentary, ed., Paul D. Hanson, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 1-2, 530 and the sources listed therein. Cf. also the sources listed in Amber Warhurst, “The Chronicler’s Use of the Prophets,” in What Was Authoritative for Chronicles?, ed., Ehud Ben Zvi and Diana Edelman (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 165-81, 165 n. 1.

118

redaction history, a reading of 2 Chr 36 LXX —a text that, whether a direct influence on Matthew or not, witnesses to the possibility of using πληροῦν in the way that I am proposing Matthew used it.

Immediately evident is the way in which the Chronicler has tightened the 2

Kings story. The sprawling account has been stripped of many details—gone are the detailed enumerations, e.g., of the various specific Jewish opponents of

Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kgs 24:12), the various Jerusalemite parties taken captive (2 Kgs

24:14-16), the specific geographical movements of Zedekiah’s retreat (2 Kgs 25:4-5), the inventory of the specific items of the LORD’s house that are taken or destroyed (2

Kgs 25:12-17)—as 1,452 words in Greek (806 in Hebrew) are condensed into 806 in

Greek (and 318 in Hebrew). Significantly, the 2 Kings ending—Gedaliah’s appointment and death, the people fleeing to Egypt, Jehoiakim’s fate in Babylon

(i.e., 2 Kgs 25:22-30)—has been replaced by the twofold notice of how God’s word through Jeremiah has been “fulfilled” (2 Chr 36:21, 22). Tightening the account in this way allows the Chronicler to narrow the reader’s field of vision onto a single, clearly-demarcated trajectory—one that ends, not with Jehoiakim elevated above the other captive kings in Babylon, but with a land lying burned and desolate and a prophetic word of destruction thus “filled up.”

119

The text enacts this trajectory by means of a carefully-constructed, twofold progression within the chapter: increasing sin elicits increasing destruction until both reach their fullness. First, increasing sin: with the exception of Jehoiachin, the third king in the chapter who is only fleetingly mentioned (36:9), the story of kingly succession here is one of escalating sin:

• Rather generically, Jehoahaz “did what was evil before the Lord in all respects as his fathers had done” (36:2).

• More graphically, Eliakim/Jehoiakim “filled (ἔπλησεν) Ierousalem with innocent blood” (36:5b).

• Finally, Zedekiah willfully “hardened his neck and steeled his heart”— note the repetition—“not to return to the Lord” (36:13).

Notably, these details about Zedekiah’s sin are the Chronicler’s additions to the 2 Kgs account (present both in the LXX and MT). So too with the people’s sin; the

Chronicler has added in two series of threefold sin:

• And all those held in honor in Ioudas and the priests and the people of the land multiplied violating with violations of abominations of the nations, and they polluted the Lord’s house in Ierousalem (2 Chr 36:14 LXX).

• but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against his people became so great that there was no remedy (2 Chr 36:16).

Added at precisely the point of Zedekiah’s climactic sin, this repetition further emphasizes that climax.

120

As this progression of sin unfolds, the LORD’s desire for mercy remains constant. In Eliakim/ Jehoiakim’s reign, “the Lord did not want to destroy them utterly” (36:5b LXX, following 2 Kgs LXX/ MT not 2 Chr MT); in Zedekiah’s reign, the LORD “sen[t] his messengers early on, because he was trying to spare his people and his holy precinct” (36:15 LXX, following 2 Chr MT, not 2 Kgs LXX/ MT).55 Yet, by divorcing what the LORD wants from what the LORD will do, the text portrays the LORD Himself as almost helpless to exercise mercy in the face of such sin.

Second, increasing punishment: the Chronicler seems to stage the loss and/ or destruction of the holy Temple vessels as a progression. Three redactional changes are relevant here:

• First, he adds in a note that, during Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon; the (ּומִכְלֵ י /took “part of the vessels” (36:7: μέρος τῶν σκευῶν 2 Kings account lacks this detail.

• Second, where 2 Kings first mentions the vessels, it recounts how Nabouchodonosor carried off “all” (πάντας) the treasures of the LORD’s house and cut up “all” (πάντα) the golden vessels (2 Kgs 24:13). Deleting the limit adjective—or, rather, moving it—the Chronicler simply has “the” (τῶν) prize vessels being removed (36:10) at this point.

• Finally, he adds back in the limit adjective—2 Kgs enumerates the various specific implements (2 Kgs 25:13-17)—for the final mention of

55 The LXX of 2 Chronicles seems to take the first statement from 2 Kgs (LXX/ MT) and the second from 2 Chr MT so that it alone has both such elements.

121

the vessels in the account; only during the reign of Zedekiah are “all the vessels, large and small” (36:18: πάντα τὰ σκεύη οἴκου θεοῦ τὰ μεγάλα καὶ τὰ μικρὰ: note the superfluous repetition) finally taken.56

To appreciate fully the significance of this loss of “all” the holy vessels in v. 18, one must attend to the narrative logic of the book. In 2 Chronicles, these vessels epitomize the glory of Solomon’s kingdom—a kingdom that is itself glorified by the Chronicler.

The installation of the vessels symbolizes Solomon’s successfully building the Temple

(2 Chr 5:1) and their loss symbolizes moral failure and destruction throughout the book, reappearing as a trope at nadirs of Israel political history (2 Chr 25:24). Thus, the loss of “all” the Temple vessels in 2 Chr 36:18 should be read as a metonymy for the loss of Israel’s self-rule.

This carefully plotted escalation of loss/destruction (“some”  “the”  “all”) maps neatly onto the plot of Judah’s escalating sin and reaches its climax, its fullness, at precisely the point where the Lord’s twice-repeated patience finally yields to judgment: “the Lord’s wrath went up against his people until there was no cure” (v.

16). Not coincidentally, this notice of the Lord’s wrath introduces the destruction enumerated in 36:17-20, which is explicitly interpreted by our FC in 36:21 as

56 We might also consider the way in which the Chronicler has everyone deported from Jerusalem (2 Chr 36:17, 20)—and thus “omits from his account the indications providcd in 2 Kgs 25:11 and Jer 52:15 that the poorest of the land were left to be plowmen and vinedressers.” Warhurst, “The Chronicler’s Use,” 178 n. 36 (nonetheless emphasizing the Chronicler’s focus on “renewal”).

122

“fulfillment.” Thus, a framework of increasing sinfulness (1  2  3) and corresponding increasing punishment (a  b  c) constitutes the theological movement of the chapter.57 Specifically, by means of tightening, editorializing/ additions, and modifications/ restructuring, the Chronicler has turned an unschematized history of the final days of pre-exilic Judah (2 Kings) into a carefully- wrought theological reflection on the “fullness” of sin and punishment that those days represent.

But have I glossed over the ending? After all, “after the fulfillment of the

Lord’s dictum through the mouth of Jeremiah” (v. 22), the Lord “stirs up the spirit of

Cyrus” to issue an edict for Israelites to “go up,” their god “with them,” and build the

Temple (v. 23). Based on these verses, Gary Anderson reads the chapter as follows:

It is clear that the Chronicler viewed the exile as a brief hiatus in Israel’s history. It would have no long-term consequences on Israel’s relationship to her land or God. The rebuilding of the temple that took place in the late sixth century at the behest of King Cyrus, and with the support of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, brought the tragedy of the exile to a swift termination. The restoration of the fallen kingdom of Judea was complete.58

57 This is true even if the Chronicler has modeled his narrative in certain ways upon the account of the fall of Jerusalem in the book of Jeremiah. Cf. Warhurst, “The Chronicler’s Use,” 176-77.

58 Anderson, Sin, 79 (citation omitted).

123

For Anderson, then, “II Chronicles 36 was optimistic not only about how quickly the exile would pass but also about how deep the sinfulness of Israel was” and “assumed that the full price had been paid by the dawn of the Persian period.”59

In my view, the Chronicler is not nearly as sanguine as Anderson’s reading suggests. I hope to have demonstrated above that he is certainly not “optimistic”

“about how deep the sinfulness of Israel was.” Read in light of the unmistakable thrust of chapter 36, and, indeed, the whole of the latter chapters of the book, verses

22-23 read not so much as a denouement, a sort of biblical deus ex machina, but rather as a post-script—one which, notably, does not narrate a “brief hiatus” but rather, as an invitation or perhaps even implicit paraenetic exhortation, opens onto a potential future.

Indeed, it is Ezra, not the Chronicler, who narrates the “termination,” albeit not a “swift” one, of the exile and, tellingly, does so by self-consciously picking up precisely where the Chronicler left off:

In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the

59 Ibid., 81, 84. Anderson’s reading seems to be a common one among scholars. Cf. e.g., the similar assessment by Warhurst, “The Chronicler’s Use,” 177; Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 1074-75.

124

spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom, and also in a written edict declared… (Ezra 1:1 MT/ NRSV).

Alternatively, if Ezra were written first, the Chronicler may well have truncated or omitted the restoration narrative.60 What is important—and not debated—is that a literary relationship between the two certainly exists; moreover, whatever that relationship—and this is debated—Ezra-Nehemiah develops what the Chronicler does not. Read together, as the myriad verbal links invite us to, the one becomes an extended account of destruction (with a hint of hope for the future), the other an extended account of restoration (with a faint backwards look to the situation that has called for renewal).61 Significantly, the only material difference between these texts is the use of fulfillment language: whereas for the Chronicler, fulfillment of Jeremiah’s word has already occurred in judgment/ destruction (“after the fulfillment of the

LORD’s word”), for Ezra it will now occur, seemingly, in rebuilding/restoration (“in order that the word of the LORD… might be fulfilled”).62

60 For a summary of the debated relationship between these two texts—an issue that I cannot and need not resolve for my limited purpose here—cf. Leuchtner, “Rethinking,” 183 and the sources cited in nn. 1-4.

61 It is not necessary to enumerate these similarities as even a cursory comparison of the two (in both Greek and Hebrew) reveal that the two texts are almost identically worded.

62 For the Chronicler, then, Jer 25:11 may well be in view. With its prediction of annihilation for the land and enslavement of the people to the nations (LXX)/ Babylon (MT) for a period of seventy years followed by the Lord’s punishing “that nation” (LXX)/ Babylon (MT), the oracle ends without any

125

In conclusion, attention to the narrative logic and redactional nuances of 2

Chronicles 36 (both the LXX and MT, but particularly the LXX) reveals a text whose driving engine is the increasing sin and increasing punishment that, at a breaking point, reaches a prophetically-predicted “fullness”—a fullness that, fittingly, is articulated using the verb πληροῦν. With its references to innocent blood filling Jerusalem (v. 5; cf. Matt 23:35), wanton disregard of repeated prophetic warnings (v. 15-16; cf. Matt 23:30), and, intertextually, to a measure being filled up

(cf. Jer 25:11; cf. Matt 23:32), as well as its use of repeated limit adjectives to convey the fullness of judgment (πᾶς repeated 4x in vv. 17-18), the chapter may well be a source for the language and logic of Matt 23:29-36. Whether this is the case, it certainly constitutes evidence of how Matthew (and/ or other early Christian readers) could have read “πληροῦν + a word” as filling up that word.

1 Kings 2:27, can be read—and may have been read—in much the same way.

In 1 Kings 2, Solomon banishes or executes officials from the prior regime upon beginning his own reign. One of several details in this account is the bald statement hope of redemption. Anderson brilliantly points out the way in which Lev 26:34-35, with its logic of Sabbath observance, is appropriated here as well. Cf. Anderson, Sin, 78-79. For Ezra, it is almost certainly Jer 29:10 (36:10 LXX), with its prediction of restoration to the land after seventy years, that is in view.

126

that “Salomon banished Abiathar from being a priest of the Lord, to fulfill the word

that he spoke regarding the (לְמַ לֵ א אֶת־דְ בַ ר יְהוָ ה /of the Lord (πληρωθῆναι τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου house of Eli in Selom” (1 Kgs 2:27). With the text quickly moving on to the fate of the next opponent (Ioab, in 2:28-34), the only elaboration of the statement is

Solomon’s explanation to Abiathar that he will not be executed because he “carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord before my father” and because he was “afflicted with all the hardships with which my father was afflicted” (2:26). While this explanation hardly implies that “fulfillment” here means anything other than a prediction coming-to-pass, the FC invites an intertextual reading—of the prophecy concerning “Eli’s house in Selom.”

Turning, then, to 1 Sam 1–3—a text whose geographical setting in Selo (1:3,

9)/ Selom (1:21, 24; 2:14) is repeated five times—the reader recalls how Eli’s sons had sinned greviously (2:12-17) and obstinately (2:25), how Eli had known of, but effectively disregarded, their sin (2:22-25a), and how the LORD willed to destroy them (2:22-25). In 2:27, an unnamed “man of God” shares a word of the LORD with

Eli. After reminding him of the LORD’s election of Eli’s house and indicting him for his sin, this word makes a prediction:

Behold, days are coming, and I will destroy your offspring and the offspring of your father’s house, and no elderly of yours will be in my house all the days, and a man I will not destroy for you from my altar so that his eyes may

127

fail and his soul may ebb away, but every one that remains of your house— they will fall by the sword of men. And this is the sign for you that will come upon these two sons of yours, Hophni and Phinees; both shall die on one day. And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do all that is in my heart and that is in my soul, and I will build him a sure house, and he shall go about before my anointed one all the days. And it shall be; he who is left in your house shall come to do obeisance to him for a silver obol, saying, Put me down in one of your priestly places to eat bread (1 Sam 2:31-36 NETS).

While this word of the LORD provides little interpretive purchase on “fulfill” in 1

Kgs 2:27, the prediction is repeated some ten verses later—and the way it is repeated is revealing.

While sleeping in the shrine near the ark, the boy Samuel hears someone calling him three times. Discovering that the voice is not Eli’s but rather the LORD’s,

Samuel informs the LORD that he is listening (1 Sam 3:10) and receives the following

“word of the LORD” (3:11b-14):

…Behold, I carry out my words in Israel (ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ποιῶ τὰ ῥήματά μου ἐν Ισραηλ) so that both ears of everyone that hears will tingle. On that day I will raise up against Eli all that I have spoken (πάντα ὅσα ἐλάλησα) concerning his house; I will begin, and I will finish (ἄρξομαι καὶ ἐπιτελέσω). And I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever (ἕως αἰῶνος), for the iniquities of his sons, because his sons were reviling God, and even so he would not admonish them. I have sworn to the house of Eli, “If the iniquity of Eli’s house shall be expiated by incense or sacrifice forever (ἕως αἰῶνος)...” (NETS).

Note first that this condensed reiteration of the LORD’s word against Eli adds no new details. The text itself seems to draw attention to this fact, as it refers the reader back

128

to the content of the previous word twice without supplementing that initial word in a concrete way (v. 12a: “all that I have spoken”; v. 13a: “I have told him”). Such a seemingly superfluous word is curious in light of the text’s note in 3:1 that “a word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no distinguishing vision.” If “a word of the LORD” is rare, why reveal the same one twice?

The answer is that this is not the same word; this word is not superfluous.

Although it adds neither new predictions nor new details relating to existing predictions, it does make clear—and, indeed, emphasize—the manner in which the

LORD will ultimately “fulfill” (cf. 1 Kgs 2:27) this word. The note struck is one of full/ complete/ superlative/ definitive action. Not only is God’s action (ποιῶ) described in terms of repeated and clustered absolutes (πάντα ὅσα ἐλάλησα, ἕως αἰῶνος, ἕως αἰῶνος), but also the fulfillment of these words (τὰ ῥήματά)—the idea is implicit, even if the

(is not—is framed in terms of limits, i.e., a beginning point (ἄρξομαι מלא / word πληροῦν and an end point (ἐπιτελέσω). Raising the possibility that the word could be only partially fulfilled, i.e., from the beginning point to some unspecified point short of

“the end,” helps the reader appreciate that this fulfillment is not partial. At the least, one can read 1 Kgs 2:27 as consistent with the view of πληροῦν-as-filling in 2 Chr 36:21.

129

James 2:23 is the clearest example of a text in which, as in Matthew, πληροῦν means “to fill up” a scripture (Gen 15:6). The famous argument about faith and works in Jas 2:14-26 unfolds as follows: after offering the negative example of one who speaks well of but does not provide for a hungry-and-naked brother or sister (vv. 15-

17) and observing that even demons “believe” (vv. 18-19), James makes a third argument that “faith without works is dead” (vv. 17, 26; cf. v. 20: faith without works is barren). In vv. 20-23, he offers the positive example of Abraham:

Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion (ἐτελειώθη) by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled (καὶ ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφὴ) that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

While the broad strokes of the argument are easily discerned, the scriptural citation is an enigma. Why does James use “fulfillment” language to connect these two Old

Testament texts (the Akedah of Gen 22 in v. 21 and Gen 15:6 in v. 23)?

So curious are these verses that commentators tend simply to offer hypotheses, rather than arguments, for how to understand what James is doing.63 There are

63 Cf. e.g., James Hardy Ropes, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of St. James, ICC 16 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1948), 221; Ralph P. Martin, James, WBC 48 (Waco, TX: Word, 1988), 93.

130

basically four (each, of course, with permutations). Some propose that (1) the Akedah verifies (πληροῦν) the prediction made in Gen 15:6; others that (2) the Akedah confirms

(πληροῦν) the scripture of Gen 15:6; (3) others that Gen 15:6 confirms (πληροῦν) James’ argument here; others that (4) the Akedah perfects (πληροῦν) the faith expressed in Gen

15:6.64 My own reading is basically option #4: πληροῦν means that Abraham’s act in the Akedah brings to perfection the scriptural word about Abraham’s πίστις.

To make this case, I would offer an outline of the structure and logic of James’ argument in vv. 20-23 before justifying the outline:

Argument #3 that “faith without works is dead/ barren”: An example of faith-needing- works to be alive (Jas 1:20-23)

I. Offers to provide an example of faith-needing-works: “Do you want to be shown…”? (v. 20):

64 My schema here is similar to that in Allison, James, 490. For (1), cf. e.g., Huther, Handbook, 98-100; Ropes, James, 221; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 37A (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 243. For (2), cf. e.g., Allison, James, 492; Richard Bauckham, James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage, New Testament Readings (London: Routledge, 1999), 123. For (3), cf. e.g., Martin, James, 93. For (4), cf. e.g., Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James: An Introduction and Commentary, TNTC (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 113. It should be noted, however, that the “Akedah verifies the Scripture” (#2) and the “Akedah perfects the Scripture” (#4) positions tend to bleed into one another, as evidenced, for example, by Bauckham’s explanation of the text: “The Aqedah was the supreme instance of Abraham’s faith working along with his works and being completed by them (2:22). God had already declared Abraham righteous on account of his faith in Genesis 15:6, but this verdict is confirmed when his faith is tested and proves itself in Genesis 22.” Bauckham, James, 123.

131

The repetition of “faith” (ἡ πίστις) and “works” (τῶν ἔργων) from the previous discussion (cf. 2:14, 17 [argument #1]; 2:18 [argument #2]) serves to:

—self-consciously extend the previous argumentation, and

—remind the “foolish” interlocutor (cf. vv. 16, 18, 20) of the key terms in this example.

II. Sets forth the example of faith-needing-works: Abraham’s action in the Akedah (v. 21):

James makes a key claim in these verses—“Abraham was justified by works”—that:

—uses the terminology of Gen 15:6 (Ἀβραὰμ… ἐδικαιώθη),

—but cites the action from Gen 22 (offering Isaac on the altar),

—and invites assents from his reader.

Formulated with οὐκ, the question (“Was not Abraham…”), expects an affirmative answer from James’ interlocutor/reader(s), i.e., it assumes that they will accept arguendo that Abraham was, in fact, justified “by works,” and, indeed, builds its entire argument on this premise. In other words, if this point is not accepted, the argument in vv. 21-23 is a non-starter. This is a critical point, explained below.

III. Interprets the example in terms of his operative categories (v. 22):

—Faith was “working with” (συνήργει) works

132

καί: and, indeed, being more precise,65

—Faith was “perfected by” (ἐτελειώθη) works

IV. Justifies this interpretation scripturally/exegetically (v. 23):

How do I know that faith was “perfected by works”? What is the basis for this claim—a claim which, after all, is the very reason that this particular example is, in fact, an example of faith-needing- works?

The pertinent scripture about Abraham “being justified” (ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην) (Gen 15:6) uses the term “faith” (ἐπίστευσεν) not “works”…

…but, since you have already granted that Abraham was, in fact, “justified” by his “work” of sacrificial offering…

…it must be the case that, as I just stated, “faith” was “perfected” by the works, that is, Gen 15:6 “was perfected” by the act in Gen 22.

65 This aspect of my reconstruction may seem to require that καὶ to bear too much interpretive weight. Yet context demands it: a merely “coordinating καὶ” (cf. BDF, §442) makes little sense and, indeed, becomes almost a non sequitur. The alternative that seems to make the most sense of the argument— i.e., that best accounts for how the two statements about “faith working-with works” on the one hand and “faith being perfected by works” on the other might fit together meaningfully in James’ argument—is the so-called “epexegetical καὶ” whose function BDF describes as denoting “that is to say…” and which is exemplified, as BDF points, by the phrase καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος in John 1:16b. Cf. BDF, §442(9). Other scholars have reckoned with the function of this καὶ and have come to a similar conclusion. Cf. e.g., Moo, James, 112: “But Abraham’s faith not only did something to, or with, his works; his works also did something to his faith: they completed it” (emphasis in original).

133

My reconstruction derives from the fact that, as noted above, v. 20 must be read as the starting-point of James’ argument. Not only is the claim that Abraham- was-justified-by-works the first claim made, but also, rhetorically, because it is phrased as a question, it invites—indeed, requires—the readers’ assent for the argument to proceed. For v. 20 to be the starting-point of the argument, however, requires that such assent is not only possible but likely. How, though, could a first- century reader agree with this claim given the seeming counter-claim (i.e., Abraham was justified “by faith”) of the often-cited verse Gen 15:6?66

Second-Temple literature suggests that Abraham’s justification because of his

“work” in the Akedah was a widely accepted theological datum.67 Perhaps the best example is Jub 17:15-19:9 (which was written at some point before James, as attested inter alia, by fragments of Jubilees found at Qumran).68 Unlike the biblical account in

Gen 22:1-19, Jubilees gives the Akedah a Jobian frame:

66 As Bauckham notes, “[a]llusions to this verse [i.e., Gen 15:6] are frequent in Second Temple Jewish literature.” Bauckham, James, 122 (citing Neh. 9:8; Jub. 14:6; 1 Macc. 2:52; Philo, Leg. All. 3.228; Quis Her. 90-95; Mig. 43-44; Quod Deus 4; Mut. 177-178, 186; Abr. 273; Virt. 216; cf. LAB 23:5-6).

67 The texts discussed in this paragraph are drawn from ibid., 122-24.

68 For a thorough discussion of the issues surrounding dating of this text, including the relevance of the Qumran finds, see pp. 43-44 of O. S. Wintermute’s introduction in Charlesworth, OTP, 2:35-51.

134

And it came to pass in the seventh week, in its first year, in the first month, in that jubilee, on the twelfth of that month, that words came in heaven concerning Abraham that he was faithful in everything which was told him and he loved the LORD and was faithful in all affliction. And Prince Mastema came and he said before God, “Behold, Abraham loves Isaac, his son. And he is more pleased with him than everything. Tell him to offer him (as) a burnt offering upon the altar. And you will see whether he will do this thing. And you will know whether he is faithful in everything in which you test him.” And the LORD was aware that Abraham was faithful in all of his afflictions because he tested him with his land, and with famine. And he tested him with the wealth of kings. And he tested him again with his wife, when she was taken (from him), and with circumcision. And he tested him with Ishmael and with Hagar, his maidservant, when he sent them away. And in everything in which he tested him, he was found faithful. And his soul was not impatient. And he was not slow to act because he was faithful and a lover of the LORD.

The unmistakable emphasis is on Abraham’s “faithfulness” and the climactic nature of the test. Abraham’s having been “faithful” in “everything”/ “all” is noted 4x by the angelic narrator (2x in v. 15, v. 17, v. 18) and once by Prince Mastema (the “chief of the [evil] spirits” (10:8), the only named angel/ demon in the text), and the very purpose of the test is that it might definitively prove “whether [Abraham] is faithful in everything in which you test him” (v. 16).69 Moreover, it may well be significant, especially in such a numerically schematized text, that this test appears to be the

69 Cf. Wintermute’s introduction in ibid., 2:47.

135

seventh test (cf. v. 17) and that it occurs in the seventh week (v. 15).70 When

Abraham offers Isaac and thus successfully proves his faith, God declares to him, in the presence of the angels, “I have made known to all that you are faithful to me in everything which I say to you” (Jub 18:16b, emphasis added). With the next pericope, that of Sarah’s death (Jub 19:1-9), the Abraham cycle ends with the narrator’s statement that Abraham “was found faithful and he was recorded as a friend of the

LORD in the heavenly tablets” (Jub 19:9b).

Thus, there was literary precedent for James’ claim that it was Abraham’s

“faithful” act in the Akedah that definitively expressed the “faith” that God declares justified (again, cf. Jub 18:16b). (Note how, given the verb πιστεύειν in Gen 15:6, one could exploit the similarity between πίστις and πιστός to generate a robust “faith”/

“faithfulness”-i.e.-works syn-ergy.)71 More than this, that Jas 2:23 picks up Jubilees’

70 Admittedly, it is difficult to count the tests and conclusively identify this one as the seventh. On the one hand, six previous tests are enumerated in v. 17 (land; famine; the wealth of kings; his wife; circumcision; Ishmael and Hagar). On the other, in 19:3b, 8a, Sarah’s death is explicitly framed as another “test,” and the narrator explicitly notes that it was “the tenth trial with which Abraham was tried” (19:8a). The problem, however, is that her death appears to be the only “test” mentioned after the Akedah (which would, of course, make it, contrary to the narrator’s assertion in 19:8a, the eighth and final test).

71 Consider a contrast between Neh 9:7-8 and Heb 11:8-19. In Neh 9:8, Ezra, in his prayer to the Lord, declares, “[Y]ou [i.e., the Lord] found [Abraham’s] heart faithful (πιστὴν) before you, and made with him a covenant to give to his descendants the land… you have fulfilled your promise, for you are righteous.” Most scholars rightly take the claim in v. 8 that Abraham was found “faithful” before God

136

“friend of God” language suggests that James may well have been capitalizing on his readers’ familiarity with this text.72

Yet my argument does not require such specific influence, as the trope of

Akedah-as-definitive-faith(ful)ness was a common one. For example, Hebrews 11:8-19 evinces a schema very similar to Jubilees’. There are not multiple (numerically schematized) tests and no claim that the Akedah is the action that embodies

Abraham’s faithfulness. Nonetheless, the Akedah is the culmination of Abraham’s enumerated actions. After describing Abraham’s obedience in leaving Haran and his hope for God’s promise, the author concludes his catalogue of Abraham’s “faith”

(πίστις in 11:8, 9, 11; cf. πιστός in 11:11):

to be a reference to Gen 15:6 (where, of course, the verb is πιστεύειν). Cf. e.g., Bauckham, James, 122. Instead of πιστός, Heb 11:8-19 four times repeats the refrain “by faith” (πίστει, sg dat of πίστις) to define Abraham’s faithful actions to God (vv. 11:8, 9, 11, 17)—but also, notably, uses πιστός in v. 11 (a verse in which πίστις also appears!).

72 Some might object that the reference to Abraham as “friend of God” may be traditional and need not derive from Jubilees. Possibly—but it is an overstatement to claim, as Ropes does, that the “designation [was] commonly applied to Abraham.” Ropes, James, 222. The only instances of the designation that Ropes cites—and, indeed, that I have found—are from Symmachus’ translation of Isa 41:8 (the phrase appears as ἠγάπησα in the LXX) and Philo, Sobr. 1:56 (a substitute for παιδός in Gen 18:17). The former, of course, postdates James (Symmachus is typically dated to the late second or early third century C.E.) and the latter, while antedating or contemporaneous with James, may well have been dependent upon Jubilees.

137

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac (Πίστει προσενήνοχεν Ἀβραὰμ τὸν Ἰσαὰκ πειραζόμενος). He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back (Heb 11:17-19).

Whether the placement at the end of the catalogue invests the Akedah with additional significance, this text coordinates the same elements—“faith” in passing a “test” (i.e.,

“works”)—that Jubilees did. Notably, Abraham’s faith in the promise of an heir (cf.

Gen 15:4-6) is also incorporated into this “faith(fulness)”–“testing”/ works schema.

Perhaps the most significant text for my purpose is 1 Maccabees 2:52. As the first of nine exemplary “deeds of the ancestors” (1 Macc 2:51) that the dying

Mattathias admonishes his sons to emulate (in 2:51-61), he points to Abraham: “Was not Abraham found faithful in testing (ἐν πειρασμῷ εὑρέθη πιστός), and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?” (1 Macc 2:52, my transation).73 The logic here is that

Abraham’s “faithfulness”-in-“testing,” i.e., works (πιστός not πίστις) was reckoned to him as righteousness. This is precisely James’ point in 2:21. It need not concern us that the Akedah is not mentioned in 1 Macc 2:52. That it was Abraham’s response to testing of some sort, whether the Akedah or not, that led to God’s justifying him suffices to

73 NRSV and NETS both translate πειρασμῷ as “temptation” instead of “testing.” Given the widespread tradition of Abraham being “tested” and found “faithful”—a tradition surveyed in both the quoted texts and citations in the text above—“testing” seems to me to be a better translation.

138

make James’ point in Jas 2:20. And the Akedah is explicitly framed as a test not only in Heb 11:17 (πειράζειν) but also in Josephus, Ant., 233 (δοκιμάζειν).74

If, as I have proposed, verse 21 should be understood as the starting-point of

James’ argument in 2:20-23, then the remainder of the argument falls into place.

With its introductory phrase βλέπεις ὅτι (“You see that…”), v. 22 sets forth how the interlocutor should self-evidently “see”—that is, how he should interpret—the example of the Akedah: Abraham’s faith was “working-with” (συνήργει), that is to say

(καὶ), it was “perfected by” (ἐτελειώθη) his work. Verse 23 justifies this interpretation— or, more precisely, provides the (scriptural) reason why verse 22 should have been self-evident. Everyone knows, because of the well-known verse Gen 15:6, that

Abraham was justified because of his “faith.”75 Given that the interlocutor has already granted that Abraham was justified by his “work” of offering Isaac, it must be the case, exegetically, that Gen 22 and Gen 15:6 are two sides of the same coin—or,

74 BDAG regards “testing” as inherent in the verb δοκιμάζειν: definition #1 is “to make a critical examination of someth. to determine genuineness, put to the test, examine” and definition #2 is “to draw a conclusion worth on the basis of testing, prove, approve.” For other relevant passages not mentioned in the text—either passages linking the Akedah and Gen 15:6 or passages demonstrating the ubiquity of both the Akedah and Gen 15:6 for thinking about Abraham’s achievement—cf. Bauckham, James, 122-24.

75 As Bauckham notes, “[a]llusions to this verse are frequent in Second Temple Jewish literature.” Ibid., 122-23 (providing a list of these frequent allusions).

139

more specifically, that Abraham’s “work” in Gen 22 “perfected” the faith lauded in

Gen 15:6.

Why describe the relationship between “faith” and “works” as the latter

“perfecting” the former? “Perfection”—or, the denuded “maturity” of some English translations—is a central concern, perhaps the central concern, of this wisdom text.76

Not only is an exhortation to perfection sounded programmatically in the introduction by an otherwise superfluous piling-up of synonymns (1:4: “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” [τέλειοι καὶ ὁλόκληροι ἐν μηδενὶ λειπόμενοι]), not only is it explicitly coordinated with “wisdom,” the very genre and project of the text, in 1:4-5

(“mature and complete, lacking [λειπόμενοι] in nothing. If any of you is lacking

[λείπεται] in wisdom, ask God…”), but also “perfection” language echoes as a leitmotif throughout the text (Jas 1:4, 17, 25; 2:8, 22; cf. 3:2; 5:11). Ἐπληρώθη in Jas 2:23 should be read against this backdrop.

One might object that where the just-cited pervasive “perfection” language is otherwise consistently expressed with τελ- language (τέλειος [1:4 (2x), 17, 25; 3:2],

τελεῖν [2:8], τελειοῦν [2:22], perhaps τέλος [5:11]), Jas 2:23 is the only instance of πληρ- language. Why, then, read the latter against the backdrop of the former? Indeed, why

76 NRSV and NIV, for example, render τέλειοι in Jas 1:4 as “mature”; in contrast, RSV, ESV, and NAB rightly, in my view, render it as “perfect.”

140

regard the scriptural citation in 2:23 as justifying the interpretation of 2:22, since a repetition of the τελειοῦν from 2:22 in 2:23 (or of the πληροῦν from 2:23 in 2:22) would have made this logical connection between the verses that much clearer? There are three responses.

First, it is dangerous to argue that the author should have written a certain way, according to modern subjective aesthetic judgments, especially given the other evidence, presented in this Section 2.2, that this is, in fact, how what he did express should be understood.77 Second, James uses two synonymns back-to-back, seemingly for stylistic variation, at other points:

• For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at (κατανοοῦντι) themselves in a mirror; for they look at (κατενόησεν) themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into (παρακύψας) the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing (Jas 1:23-25).

• Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish (πικρόν) water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield

77 New Testament authors seem to use synonymns, thereby foregoing possibly tighter parallelism, fairly often. Thus, for example, in 1 Cor 13:8, Paul writes, “Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end (καταργηθήσονται); as for tongues, they will cease (παύσονται); as for knowledge, it will come to an end (καταργηθήσεται).” Why not a threefold repetition of καταργεῖν? Cf. also Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 29-30 (noting the “well-known tendency of the Fourth Evangelist to use synonyms, apparently simply for the sake of variety”).

141

olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water (ἁλυκὸν) yield fresh (Jas 3:11-12).

Perhaps, as evidenced in the just-quoted NRSV, neither example implicates synonyms strictly speaking: “look at” and “look into” on the one hand (Jas 1:23-25) and “brackish” and “salty” on the other (Jas 3:11-12) express subtly different ideas.

Yet my point holds: in both instances, the different words clearly function rhetorically in parallel so that repetition of the same word, in each case, would have made for a tighter parallel.

Third, James uses both τελεῖν and πληροῦν—as if the two are interchangeable— with regard to scripture in this very chapter. First, in the middle of his warning against favoritism (προσωπολημψία) in 2:1-13, James exhorts his readers: “You do well if you really fulfill (τελεῖτε) the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Jas 2:8). Τελεῖν here might mean simply “to do/ keep” 1ike the

πληρῶσαι λόγον of 1 Macc 2:55 (see the discussion in Section 2.2.1 above). Yet it seems more likely that it denotes keeping fully/ perfectly/ completely. Essential for James’ argument in 2:8-12 is his claim that one should do (2:8, 12: ποιεῖτε) the whole law (2:10:

ὅλον τὸν νόμον), every particular of it (2:10: ἐν ἑνί) so as not to be a transgressor (2:9,

11). If the particulars mentioned—no favoritism (v. 9), no adultery (v. 11), no murder

(v. 11)—are different aspects of the “royal law” of Lev 19:18, James’ basic point is

142

made forcefully: to show favoritism is just as much as a failure to love one’s neighbor as committing adultery or murder.78 Second, of course, James uses πληροῦν with regard to scripture in Jas 2:23, the verse we have been analyzing.

Even if it is conceded, though, that τελεῖν and πληροῦν may be synonymous, does not the logic I have proposed for Jas 2:22-23 make the καὶ in v. 23 do too much work? Although rare, this usage of καὶ to mean “thus, so” does appear in the New

Testament. Citing Heb 3:19, BDF offers it as one of the conjunction’s dozens of attested meanings (cf. BDF §442(2)), and English translators tend to agree here, translating καὶ βλέπομεν ὅτι… in Heb 3:19a as “So we see…”79 While divided, some agree in Jas 2:23a as well; both the NRSV and NAB render καὶ ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφὴ as

“Thus the scripture was fulfilled….”80

In conclusion, James’ logic in Jas 2:20-23 points towards translating καὶ

ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφὴ in v. 23a as “Thus, the scripture was filled up/ perfected….” If this is

78 It is not unlikely that James would have his reader understand the particulars he mentions as aspects of the command in Lev 19:18 to love your neighbor as yourself. After all, in Matt 22:37-40, Jesus declares that “all (ὅλος) the law and the prophets” “hang on” (κρέμαται) this command and the one in Deut 6:5, and, as noted in the text below, the affinities between the Gospel of Matthew and the “letter of James,” as is widely recognized, are myriad.

79 E.g., NRSV, RSV, ESV, NIV.

80 Jas 1:11, where English translations tend to ignore the second καὶ in the sentence, and 3:4 may well be other examples of this usage of καὶ.

143

right, then (1) no prediction is in view, and (2) it was precisely because of an actor’s superlative action (i.e., Abraham in the Akedah) that a scripture about that actor was fully achieved. Or, put differently, in Jas 2:23, we have not just evidence that, for one other New Testament author, filling was the accent mark in his use of πληροῦν, but, more than this, a clear parallel for the sort of Matthean conception of fulfillment that

I am proposing. Not insignificantly, this author’s work is very similar to Matthew’s in many ways.81

I hope that this chapter has answered any concerns, like the four expressed as a superscript to this chapter, that what πληροῦν “cannot,” “must,” or, “by default,

“would have” mean(t) poses any sort of threat to my thesis that it means “to fill up” in Matthew’s FCs. Because the ten non-formulaic instances of “πληροῦν + a word” predating or contemporaneous with Matthew have five different meanings, the phrase does not appear to have been a fixed idiom but rather was used flexibly, in various ways by various authors, to communicate different ideas (Section 2.2.1). The same flexibility appears in the formulaic uses of Luke and John (Section 2.2.2) and is

81 Cf. e.g., the numerous and, in many cases, remarkable parallels between James and the Sermon on the Mount set forth in Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, ABRL (New York; London: Doubleday, 1997), 734-35.

144

unsurprising given the flexible, often metaphorically creative, use of the word more broadly (often, as a means of reflecting on God and/ or ethical activity) (Section 2.1.1).

Even more importantly, 2 Chr 36:21-22, 1 Kgs 2:27 may well provide precedent for, and Jas 2:23 a contemporary analogue for, the Matthean usage of πληροῦν that I am proposing. Since, then, detailed linguistic analysis shows that it is entirely possibly for one to “fill” up “a word,” using the verb πληροῦν, in Matthew’s Umwelt, it is time to offer a reading of Matthew’s FCs (Chapter 4)—but only after briefly establishing a crucial methodological point for doing so (Chapter 3).

145

Everyone agrees that the FCs represent a “mixed text-form”— agreeing sometimes with the LXX, sometimes with the MT, sometimes with neither.1

Explaining this data is extraordinarily complicated; every proposal involves complex first-century textual dynamics of which we have little knowledge—targumizing translations, hypothetical early Christian collections of testimonia, scribal “school” activity, the relationship between Greek recensions, non-extant biblical texts. Yet the analysis cannot be avoided, even—perhaps especially—by those, like myself, interested in the hermeneutical question. Soares Prabhu writes:

The significance we shall attach to the textual peculiarities of the OT passages cited, and to the precise wording of the fulfilment formulas introducing them, will obviously differ according as these are regarded as conscious creations of Matthew, or as forms taken over by him, more or less by chance, from some source he happened to hit upon.2

1 A few representative examples: ἡ παρθένος in Matt 1:23 agrees with the LXX; τὸν υἱόν μου in Matt 2:15, παρακληθῆναι in Matt 2:18, and γῆ... γῆ in Matt 4:15-16 agree with the MT; τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς in Matt 2:18, ὁ καθήμενος and ἀνέτειλεν in Matt 4:15-16, and κεκρυμμένα ἀπὸ καταβολῆς [κόσμου] in Matt 13:35 agree with neither.

2 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 45. As mentioned in the Introduction, Menken takes Miler to task for neglecting precisely this reality. Menken, review of Les Citations d’Accomplissement (by Miler), 592- 93 (offering the example of “an emphasis on the person of the Son-Servant in 12,18-21”).

146

So for my purpose, it will not do to seal off hermetically the source and hermeneutical questions. Fortunately, my thesis does not require a precise answer to the source question. Whatever the exact source of the FCs, I would demonstrate simply that

Matthew did not draw them from a collection of testimonia and, thus, that there is no reason to think that he did not control their size.

Let me explain what I mean by “size” and why such a limited inquiry suffices

(and is important). In claiming that Matthew determined the size of the FCs, I mean that he selected their beginning and end points and excised words from them where it suited his purpose. In other words, as Menken puts it, Matthew “quotes just what he needs”—so that there is neither “superfluous” content nor inadvertent omissions.3 As a result, what he did and did not include is exegetically significant; we should favor readings that account for at least the bulk of what Matthew quotes and/ or that explain how omissions contribute to “the point” of the FC. This methodological principle will be a cornerstone of my exegesis in Chapters 4 and 5—allowing me to refute the claim that the FCs in chapters 1-2 are apologetic and to help illuminate

“the point” of the FCs in Matt 1:23, 4:15-16, 8:17, and 13:35.

3 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

147

Determining whether Matthew himself translated, changed, or added words as a “targumist” or “manipulated” his Vorlage(n) to fashion text(s) whose wording best served his own purposes, i.e., whether he was responsible for the form as well as the size of the FCs, is certainly interesting and relevant to the question of his affinity with

Qumran.4 However, the requisite (complicated) analysis is beyond the scope of this project—particularly since an affirmative answer would further only two of my readings (the FCs in 12:18-21 and 27:9-10). Leaving to one side the question generally, i.e., with regard to the FCs as a whole, I will offer arguments in the case of these two

FCs that Matthew did control their form as well as their size.

For my purpose, proposals for the origin of the FCs can be characterized as follows:

1. Matthew is not responsible for the form of the FCs but rather has derived them from:

a. a collection of early Christian testimonia which is

i. oral (Bacon, Kilpatrick) or5

4 That “Mt was his own targumist” was advanced by Gundry and has been subsequently widely embraced. Gundry, Use, 172.

5 Bacon, Studies, 470-77; Kilpatrick, Origins.

148

ii. written (Harris, Allen, McNeile, Strecker, Grundmann, Harrington, Albl)6 or

b. a continuous text which is

i. an Aramaic translation of the LXX (Böhl) or gospel (Torrey)7 or

ii. a pre-Matthean “revised LXX” (Menken).8

2. Matthew is responsible for (creating) the form of the FCs

a. primarily by drawing upon existing textual traditions (Stendahl)9 or

b. primarily by means of his own “targumizing” translation (Gundry; Rothfuchs; McConnell; R. Brown; Davies and Allison).10

6 Harris, Testimonies; W. C. Allen, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 3rd ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912); A. H. McNeile, The Gospel According to St. Matthew; The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (London: Macmillan, 1915); Strecker, Weg; Walter Grundmann, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, THKNT 1 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 73; Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 39; Martin C. Albl, “And Scripture Cannot Be Broken”: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections, NovTSup 96 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 179-90. These citations are all drawn from Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 6 n. 17.

7 For Böhl and Torrey, cf. the summary in Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 64-65.

8 Menken, Matthew’s Bible.

9 Stendahl, School.

10 Gundry, Use; Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate; McConnell, Law; Brown, Birth; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1. While he allows for the possibility that “[s]ome” of the FCs were “taken by the evangelist

149

It is only a particular version of proposal 1 that concerns me. In each variation of proposal 2—and in some variations of proposal 1—Matthew retains control over the size of his quotations and, to varying degrees, their exact wording. In other words, even if, as proposal 1 would have it, Matthew did draw the FCs from a pre-existing source, that fact does not logically require that he abdicated all control over their size

(and/ or form).11 As is evident in his redaction of Mark, Matthew feels free to abbreviate, add to, and change his sources.

Georg Strecker provides the most extensive (and thoughtful) case for Matthew abdicating control over both size and wording.12 He makes three arguments:

from earlier tradition,” Stanton is another notable proponent of Matthew being “responsible for the choice and adaptation of many of [the FCs].” Stanton, A Gospel, 359, 363 (emphasis added).

11 Cf. e.g., Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 115-16 (given that Zech 9:9 is probably implicit in Mark and is cited, in a greatly abbreviated form in John 12:15, it may well have been drawn from a collection of testimonia but nonetheless the “adaptations of the quotation are due to the editorial work of the evangelist”).

12 Others who advocate the testimonia theory do so without as much development. Allen and Grundmann offer only argument #2 in the text above. Allen, Matthew, lxii; Grundmann, Matthäus, 73. McNeile offers no argument but rather simply states his assumption that Matthew used “a Greek writing, translated from an Aramaic original, containing passages from the Old Testament (testimonia), probably with brief explanations of their fulfilment in Christ’s life, drawn from a Hebrew text not identical with the Masoretic.” McNeile, St. Matthew, xi. Similarly, but more tentatively, Harrington simply suggests that “an anthology (or florilegium) may have been used by Matthew in writing his Gospel.” Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 39.

150

1. That some of the FCs contain a “surplus” (Überschuß) of material in relation to their immediate context (e.g., 12:18-21) or stand in tension to that context (eine inhaltliche Spannung) (e.g., 13:35) betrays their being secondarily inserted—and not entirely assimilated—into Matthew’s gospel.13

2. Because the FCs do not have matthäische Stileigentümlichkeiten, they are probably not Matthean.14

3. Because Matthew’s non-FC quotations are Septuagintal and the FCs “mixed” (often closer to the MT), the former is “Matthew’s Bible” and the latter ein Fremdkörper.15

Derivation from eine alttestamentliche Zitatensammlung has hermeneutical significance: “Wenn feststeht, daß Matthäus einer fixierten Quelle folgt, so ist es nicht mehr möglich, in jedem Fall von den Zitierungen auf den theologischen Standort des

Redaktors zu schließen.”16 I agree and thus must engage Strecker’s case here.

Logically, only Strecker’s first argument requires that Matthew did not control the size of the FCs. If the wording is un-Matthean (argument #2) and/ or Septuagintal

(argument #3), Matthew did not control the wording of the quotations but may have

13 Strecker, Weg, 82-83.

14 Ibid., 50.

15 Ibid., 49-50, 69.

16 Ibid., 84.

151

trimmed—and/ or excised words or phrases from—them. “Surplus” content or unresolved “tensions” suggest that he did not perform even such basic redaction.

Menken succinctly summarizes the argument:

[H]ow far [do] the size of the quotation and its Matthean context suit each other[?] If they do not, either because there are elements in the quotation that are not interpreted in the context, or because the context has been adapted to the quotation with some violence, we have reason to assume that the quotation in its present extent comes from a collection of testimonia, in which the various testimonies had a fixed size, or that in some other way the evangelist received it with an already determined extent. If, however, they suit each other smoothly, we may presume that the evangelist determined the size of the quotation.17

Thus, what Strecker would highlight is a “remainder left uninterpreted in the quotation” or “Matthew twist[ing] his source.”18

Strecker points to a “remainder” for only a single FC. In Matt 12:18-21, with none of the “wesentliche Inhalt des Jesajawortes”—the election of the παῖς θεοῦ, the giving of the Spirit, his mission to the peoples, his mercy, the establishing of the law and hope of the Gentiles—in the Matthean context, the “closest” (am nächsten) connection between FC and context is simply the Schweigegebot. Even here there is

17 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 19-20.

18 Ibid., 22.

152

tension (Spannung): in the FC, the Servant remains silent; in the context, the ones who were healed are to be silent.19

Strecker offers several other examples of “discrepancies” (die Diskrepanzen) or

“tensions” (Spannungen) between the FC and the context:20

• Matt 1:23: The name in the FC (“Emmanuel”) conflicts with the name that the context has already given the child (“Jesus”).21

• Matt 2:15: While 1:18-2:23 recalls Moses and the exodus narrative, 2:6 and 2:15 evoke other typologies—David–Christ in the former, Israel– Christ in the latter.22

• Matt 2:18: Ramah (in the FC) is not Bethlehem (in the context), and Rachel is not tribal mother of the Bethlehemites (but rather of the Ephraimites).23

• Matt 13:35: The FC does not contribute to the Verstockungstheorie that Matthew has appropriated from Mark but instead simply sets forth the “sputtering” (ἐρεύξομαι) of the word “unreflektiert,” i.e., it merely emphasizes the “die Gleichnisrede Jesu.”24

19 Strecker, Weg, 69.

20 Ibid., 59.

21 Ibid., 56 n. 3.

22 Ibid., 58.

23 Ibid., 59.

24 Ibid., 71.

153

My answer to Strecker’s two arguments is simple: there are, in fact, more links in

12:18-21, and there are not, in fact, tensions in the other FCs. However, justifying these responses, which, of course, requires detailed exegesis, will have to wait until the next chapter.

At this point, I would simply admit that Strecker’s arguments are as difficult to answer as they are to corroborate; conflicting “arguments” about the FC in 12:18-

21, for example, exemplify the fact that what is a “link” to one scholar is pure contrivance to another. Where Strecker posits a single link between FC and context,

Jerome Neyrey posits eight (!).25 Unfortunately, the answer to both is unavoidably subjective: Strecker’s bar seems (to me) unreasonably high, Neyrey’s seems (to me) low. Nonetheless, I hope that my readings in Chapter 4—my proposed links, my resolved tensions—satisfy some, and that, where they do not, my cumulative case that generally Matthew does link FC and context tightly, extensively, and coherently,

25 Neyrey’s purported links are: (1) Jesus’ authority as commissioned by God (v. 18a, b/ 12:8, 28, 40; 11:27); (2) “which spirit [Jesus] possesses” (v. 18c/ 12:24, 25-32, 43-45); (3) Gentiles receiving Jesus’ message (v. 18d/ 12:41-42, 46-50); (4) Jesus’ refusal to give forensic validation of his identity with a sign (v. 19a/ 12:38-39); (5) the refusal to “hear” Jesus (v. 19b/ 12:38-42; 11:16-19; 13:13-15); (6) the Servant’s “hearing role” (v. 20a, b/ 12:9-13, 15, 22); (7) “judgment upon unbelievers” (v. 20c/ 12:31-32, 33-37, 41-42); (8) Jesus’ myriad names (v. 21/ 12:8, 23, 31-32, 40). Neyrey, “Thematic,” 471-72.

154

satisfies more—that, on balance, my understanding of Matthew’s “usual ways of handling his fulfilment quotations” seems better than Strecker’s.26

At several points, Strecker observes that an FC’s wording either lacks

Mattthean linguistic particularities (matthäische Stileigentümlichkeiten or matthäischen

Spracheigenheiten) or is un-Matthean. Matthew 2:18, 8:17, 12:18-21, and 13:35 fall into the former category, Matt 1:23 and 2:18 the latter.27 Un-Matthean means different things for Strecker: uncharacteristic word-choice (the Matthean hapax legomena

μεθερμηνευόμενον in 1:23), uncharacteristic syntax (the active, not usual passive, of

καλεῖν in 1:23), or tensions a competent redactor would have avoided if he felt free to redact (παῖδας, rather than τέκνα, in 2:18 would have connected the FC to v. 16).28

26 The phrase “usual ways of handling his fulfilment quotations” is from Menken. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54. In writing of satisfying my readers, I have in mind the seventh and “most important” criterion that Hays offers for discerning an echo of Scripture in the New Testament: does the purported echo “offer… a good account of the experience of a contemporary community of competent readers”— or, more succinctly, is it a “good reading…”? While I am not arguing for the presence of echoes in Chapter 4, I am trying to offer an ultimately “satisfying” account of Matthew’s text. Cf. Hays, Echoes in Paul, 31-32.

27 Strecker, Weg, 59, 66, 69, 71.

28 Ibid., 55, 56 n. 3, 59 and n. 2.

155

Both arguments are superficial. First, “das Fehlen von matthäischen

Spracheigenheiten” may well be evidence of an un-Matthean narrative but not necessarily of un-Matthean quotations of Scripture. Where the former necessarily reflects Matthew’s artistic/ theological choices—after all, he was redacting his sources so as to rewrite them—the latter may not. Matthew may well have handled Scripture differently than his other source(s) for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways, e.g., deferring more to the text’s wording, using scribal techniques (e.g., “analogous passages”) for rendering the text, wording it as a “translator” with an LXX/ liturgical/ scribal linguistic stock rather than as an “author” with his own stock.29 The question must be answered inductively (“how close are Matthew’s ‘translations’ to various Vorlagen?”) rather than deductively (“Matthean translations would necessarily display matthäischen Spracheigenheiten, ergo, these are not Matthean translations”).

Second, Strecker’s claims about un-Matthean language have been refuted by those paying closer attention Matthew’s redactional tendencies.30 Moreover, hapax

29 “Analogous passages” will be discussed in detail in Section 5.3 below.

30 With regard to the supposed hapax in 1:23, Menken points out that while Matthew does indeed twice “change… Mark’s ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον into something else,” Matthew could certainly have used μεθερμηνευόμενον in a single instance, especially given his familiarity with the phrase from his Markan source. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 120 (pointing to the change to ὅ ἐστιν… λεγόμενος in Matt 27:33// Mark 15:22 and τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν in Matt 27:46// Mark 15:34). With regard to τέκνα rather than παῖδας, Davies and

156

arguments, as the now mature discussions of whether Ephesians and/ or Colossians are pseudepigraphal have demonstrated, are inherently weak: hapax legomena are often dictated by context, influenced by form-critical considerations, and reveal little with such small data sets.31 Eschewing the mere presence of hapaxes, a more sophisticated and potentially useful linguistic inquiry considers what word(s) Matthew would have used, based on his characteristic vocabulary, in a Matthean translation.

For Strecker, the non-FC quotations in Matthew’s gospel are Septuaginal, suggesting that the LXX was “Matthew’s Bible” and that non-Septuaginal quotations are therefore not Matthean. The problem with this argument is twofold.

First, Menken’s claim that “[i]t is… dubious whether Matthew himself did much more than retaining LXX elements which he found in his sources” raises a crucial nuance: especially given Matthew’s conservatism in editing his sources, it is those quotations not drawn from Mark and Q and any M source that are most relevant

Allison point out that in 22:24 “τέκνα occurs for bēn against a united LXX testimony” and that in 27:25 (which is redactional), the people also condemn themselves in terms of their τέκνα. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 270. With regard to the fact that supposedly “Matthäus bevorzugt das Passiv,” whether this is true generally, it is still the case that the active of καλεῖν (Matt 1:21, 23, 25; 2:15) appears in chapters 1-2 more often than the passive (Matt 2:23)! Cf. Strecker, Weg, 55.

31 Cf. Markus Barth, Ephesians, AB 34 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 4-5; Barth and Blanke, Colossians, 56-58.

157

for identifying “Matthew’s Bible.”32 It is debatable whether this subset of Matthean quotations is, in fact, Septuaginal; attempting to answer this question is beyond the scope of this project.33

Second, even assuming arguendo that it is Septuaginal, this fact would hardly prove that Matthew did not control the size (or even the wording) of his FCs.

Stendahl’s scribal “school” “milieu” explains a mixed-text-FCs/ Septuaginal-text- non-FCs situation as well as Stecker’s testimonia hypothesis. Regardless of which, if either, is correct, neither—and nothing—suggests that Matthew was not free to select precisely the amount of text he required. Indeed, it would be strange—given the

32 As a result of this observation, Menken concludes that “we cannot say that the LXX was Matthew’s Bible.” Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 37. For those reaching a similar conclusion, he cites Johnson, “Quotations,”; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 77-84; and Graham Stanton, “Matthew,” in It is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF, eds. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 205-19, 210-13. I write “most” because many claim that Matthew has modified the quotations in his sources to bring them into greater conformity to the LXX.

33 Following Menken’s classification of (1) “quotations inserted in Markan contexts” and (2) “quotations inserted in Q contexts,” the relevant subset includes (1) Matt 9:13/ 12:7 (Hos 6:6), Matt 13:14-15 (Isa 6:9-10), Matt 19:19 (Lev 19:18; cf. Matt 5:43; 22:39), and possibly Matt 16:27b (an unmarked quotation of Ps 62:13 [61:13 LXX] and/ or Prov 24:12?) and Matt 27:43 (an unmarked quotation of Ps 22:9 [21:9 LXX]?); and (2) possibly Matt 12:40 (an unmarked quotation from Jon 2:1?). Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 227-38, 253-54. Note, though, that Matt 13:14-15 is often regarded as a “post-Matthean insertion.” Cf. the discussion in ibid., 230-31. In my view, Stanton makes a convincing case that “Matthew’s primary allegiance is to the textual form of the quotations in his sources rather than to the LXX as such.” Stanton, A Gospel, 358.

158

creativity on display, e.g., at Qumran and within the New Testament itself and given the necessarily generative milieu in which reflection upon Scripture occurs in the decades after Jesus’ death—to posit an exegetical tradition so ossified that even excerpting was illegitimate.34

As an affirmative argument against eine alttestamentliche Zitatensammlung as the source of the FCs, I would embrace the often-made argument that for many of the

FCs (e.g., 2:15, 2:18), it is difficult to imagine their usefulness apart from their function in Matthew’s narrative.35 At the risk of offering an argumentum ad populum,

I would point out that, to my knowledge, no one has seriously advocated the testimonia theory since 1962. I believe it is time to recognize as a gain of Matthean scholarship the conclusion that the author of the gospel of Matthew is responsible for at least the extent of these quotations.

34 For the creative exegesis at Qumran, cf., George J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context, JSOTSup 29 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985). For creative exegesis in the New Testament, cf. e.g., S. L. Edgar, “New Testament and Rabbinic Messianic Interpretation,” NTS 5 (1958): 47-54 (especially the examples on p. 50).

35 Cf. e.g., Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 22, 48 (mentioning 2:15, 2:18, and 4:15-16); Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 267 (observing that “any pre-Matthew application” of Jer 31:15 in Matt 2:18 is “difficult to imagine”).

159

Having extracted from Matthew’s consistent use of πληροῦν a framework within which to read the FCs (Chapter 1), having determined that this framework is linguistically viable in Matthew’s Umwelt (Chapter 2), and having established the methodological principle that, because Matthew is responsible for the size of the FCs,

“the evangelist quotes just what he needs” (Chapter 3), this chapter sets forth my exegesis. While I would resist over-schematizing the FCs, nonetheless it seems useful to appreciate their falling into a certain pattern. Three (1:23; 2:15; 2:23) set forth actions done for the infant Jesus in terms of the verb καλεῖν, use political terms, and are embedded in a political framework; two (2:18; 27:9) are not overtly christological but rather interpret an evil action by Israel’s leaders; four (4:15-16; 8:17; 12:18-21;

13:35) are introduced as being spoken by Isaiah and “are appended to summaries describing Jesus’ activities in general terms”; one (21:5) seemingly stands alone and derives from pre-Matthean tradition.1 I would interpret this pattern as follows: while all of the FCs interpret Jesus’ identity and/ or Israel’s exile, (1) those in chapters 1-2, along with 27:9-10, set forth Jesus’ Davidic identity, Israel in exile, and Jesus as the one to save Israel in exile; (2) those in chapters 4-13 explicate the salvific “light” of

1 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 103.

160

Jesus’ ministry in Isaianic terms—his teaching (4:15-16), healing (8:17), kingship

(12:18-21), and prophecy (13:35); (3) that in 21:5 reinterprets a common tradition of

Jesus-as-the-messiah as Jesus-the-meek-messiah. I organize this chapter’s exegesis along these lines.

Politics provides a meaningful heuristic for these five FCs. First, three FCs concern Jesus’ political identity (1:23; 2:15; 2:23): specifically, they use the verb καλεῖν to add layers to Jesus’ vocation vis-à-vis his people.2 Precisely for Israel(-in-exile),

Jesus is Emmanuel/God-with-us (1:23), Son (2:15), and nazirite (2:23). Second,

Matthew draws four FCs from texts about political liberation—from Assyria/Ephraim

(Isa 7:14 in 1:23), from Egypt (Hos 11:1 in 2:15), from Babylon (Jer 31:15 in 2:18), and from the Philistines (Judg 13:5, 7 in 2:23). The exegesis below develops these points.

To frame this exegesis, I would briefly delineate the political shape of the narrative in which the FCs in chapters 1-2 are embedded. Binding together the pericopae in 1:1-17, 1:18-25, and 2:1-12, the repetition of “the Christ” (Χριστός in 1:1;

16; cf. also 1:17, 18; 2:4) and “Jesus” (Ἰησοῦς in 1:1, 18; 2:1; cf. also 1:18, 21) creates a

2 For a good discussion that justifies my claim that Χριστός is necessarily a “political term,” cf. the discussion in Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 10-11.

161

tightly integrated narrative that would unpack the meaning of the gospel’s opening claim that this “Jesus” is the “Christ.” The genealogy, which frames this narrative

(and the gospel), invites the reader to understand Jesus-the-Christ’s identity in terms of Israel’s history (i.e., the genealogy in vv. 1-16), its present situation (of exile: cf. vv.

11, 12, 17), and, seemingly, its future (under the rule of its Messiah: cf. vv. 1, 16, 17).

The first accent mark is on David: Matthew’s genealogy (unlike Luke’s) “follows the ruling Davidic line”; refers to David alone as “king”; perhaps derives its 14-14-14 structure from gematria based on David’s name; and omits Moses to “highlight…

Jesus’ identity as messianic king rather than as lawgiver.”3 The second is on exile: by periodizing Israel’s history as Abraham  David  exile  Christ, Matthew casts

Israel as in exile and needing a messiah to redeem it. It is in this light that subsequent claims about Jesus saving his people from their sins should be understood.

Matthew 1:18-25 narrates how Joseph discovers Mary’s pregnancy, contemplates a quiet divorce, learns of her divine conception, is commanded to marry her and name Jesus, and, as he will four times in chapters 1-2, faithfully executes the command. Yet the pericope is not about Joseph: he would have divorced Mary (1:19)

3 The first quotation and first two observations are from Stendahl, “Quis,” 101; the quotation about Moses is from Hays, Echoes, 111.

162

and might have settled in Judea (2:22), but, in both cases, an angel gently redirects him. In a gospel that often uses circumlocution (“kingdom of the heavens” instead of

“kingdom of God”) and the divine passive (e.g., the introductory formula of the FCs), such redirection is undoubtedly the action of God Himself.4 With Joseph responding to God’s initiative, then, the strict parallelism of 1:20-21/1:24-25—as well as that in

2:13/2:14 and 2:20/2:21—makes clear that events occur exactly as God has scripted them.

But providence is secondary to “the point” of the FC. So too is the virgin birth: “the birth of Jesus,” Stendahl notes, “is not described in Mt” 1:18-25 at all.5

Rather, the “unusual word order” in 1:18a (Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις) draws attention to the key term (Χριστός) mentioned in 1:1, and the repetition of γένεσις in

1:18, reinforcing this connection to 1:1, suggests that the Christ’s “genesis,” already narrated broadly in terms of a Davidic lineage, will now be narrated specifically in terms of a particular “son of David” (Joseph, addressed as “son of David” in v. 20).6

While Stendahl’s often-cited claim that “vv. 18-25 are the enlarged footnote to the crucial point in the genealogy” is an overstatement, its hyperbole underlines how

4 This understanding of these passives is underlined by, e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 211-12 and Knowles, Jeremiah, 31.

5 Stendahl, “Quis,” 102.

6 Cf. ibid., 101; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 198.

163

Matt 1:18-25 will “explain the details of this last point of the genealogy”—how Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit, is, in fact, a son of David.7

The FC is part of this project: not merely verifying a prediction, it also interprets

Jesus as God-with-us precisely because he is the Davidic messiah saving Israel from its sin.8 How do we know? First, by appending τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν (1:22) to the standard introductory formula—a change that appears nowhere else in the gospel—

Matthew makes clear that this “whole” pericope about Joseph “grafting... the virgin’s son onto the stock of David,” not just the virgin birth, fulfills this scripture.9 Second,

Matthew does not cite only Isa 7:14 but rather, as is now widely recognized, fuses it with Isa 8:8, 10:

Matt 1:23: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us” (μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός).10

7 Stendahl, “Quis,” 101. This reading is widely accepted.

8 Francis Watson has vigorously argued that “Matthew uses his citations not to show that Jesus’ life follows a pre-existing divine script, but rather to interpret that life.” Francis Watson, “In Defence of Matthew: A Response to Richard Hays, Reading Backwards” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, San Diego, CA, 24 November, 2014), 4 (emphasis in original).

9 Cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 95-96. For an explanation of the other variation here—its placement in the middle of an episode, before the action that constitutes the actual fulfillment (cf. 21:5)—cf. the widely- embraced proposal in Rudolf Pesch, “Eine alttestamentliche Ausführungsformel im Matthaus- Evangelium: Redaktionsgeschichtliche und exegetische Beobachtungen,” BZ 11 (1967): 79-95.

as παρθένος obviously serves his עַלְמָ ה It is agreed that Matthew follows the LXX whose rendering of 10 purposes. Cf. e.g., Stendahl, School, 99; Gundry, Use, 90. Appreciating this fact, as well as explaining

164

Isa 8:8 NETS/LXX: and he will take away from Judea any man who can lift his head or who is capable to accomplish anything; his camp will be such as to fill the breadth of your country. God is with us (μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός; MT: O .(עִמָ נּו אֵ ל :Immanuel

This last phrase is not necessary to verify the predicted virgin birth. By including it,

Matthew has intimated his primary interest—namely, interpreting Jesus’ identity.

Thus, we encounter a phenomenon that appears repeatedly in the FCs.

Dubbed “lien de surface” (Miler) or the “basis” for “application” (Stendahl),

Matthew’s method often involves latching onto a “catch-word” from an Old

Testament text whose significance for Matthew is secondary to a more primary

“point” he wishes to make.11 In other words, the presence of a word or phrase in a text often allows Matthew legitimately to cite it as hermeneutically relevant, but his fundamental interest lies in other content that the catch-word allows him to import.

Here, this content is a three-chapter vision of a Davidic figure who will bring salvation to (at least a remnant of) Judah.

In Isaiah 7, King Ahaz and Judah face the threat of the Aram-Ephraim coalition outside their walls (7:1-2). Isaiah approaches the king, assures him of God’s

why Matthew has καλέσουσιν instead of καλέσεις, is not germane to my reading. Those who have recognized the link with Isa 8:8, 10 include Dodd, According, 79; Brown, Birth, 153; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 217; Hays, Echoes, 164.

11 Miler, Citations, 96; Stendahl, “Quis,” 103.

165

protection from the threat (7:7)—but only if he stands firm in faith (7:9)—and instructs him to ask for a sign. Refusing to put the Lord to the test (7:12), Ahaz nonetheless receives a sign of a young woman/ virgin and her child Immanuel (7:14).

Tellingly, this sign is promised not to Ahaz individually but rather to Ahaz as “house

,(υἱὸς /בֵ ן :of David” (7:13); in the same vein, this unit ends with this “son” (9:6 bringing “endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom” (9:7). What

Matthew evokes, then, with this text (Isaiah 7-9) is precisely the hope for a Davidic ruler who will save his people from an imperial power.12

It is in light of this hope that Matthew’s readers are to understand the claim that Jesus is “God with us.” Not a vague spiritualizing proposition, “God-with-us” is a specific claim of God’s forthcoming liberation of a particular “us” who is His people.

That is, God-with-us is synonymous with Jesus-saving-his-people-from-their-sin.

Consider the highly wrought parallelism between the angel’s command and the editorializing FC:

12 Pace Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 210 (arguing for the “religious and moral—as opposed to political—character of the messianic deliverance” here). Their claim that “nothing is said about freedom from the oppression of the governing powers (contrast Ps. Sol. 17)” is belied by the genealogy’s emphasis on exile.

166

Angel’s command (1:21) Old Testament citation (1:23) τέξεται δὲ υἱόν ἡ παρθένος… τέξεται υἱόν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν καὶ καλέσουσιν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ γὰρ ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον αὐτὸς… σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός

By means of this parallelism, Matthew intimates that Jesus-saving-his-people-from- their-sins and his being God-with-us are inextricable, perhaps even synonymous.

Finally, while scholars commonly observe that the gospel’s concluding claim

(28:20: “I am with [μεθ’] you always”) forms an inclusio with its first FC (1:23: “God is with [μεθ’] us”) to provide a frame for the narrative, this final clause’s unsurpassability has gone unnoticed.13 “I am with you always (πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας)…”: with its use of πᾶς, the claim is prima facie one of unsurpassability. “…To the end of the age”: this added clause constitutes either superfluous repetition (Section 1.2) or, alternatively, clarifies that “always” does not refer simply to the period during which Jesus’ resurrected body is present with the disciples, but, beyond this, to the consummation of the age.

In either case, the note struck is precisely the “with-you”-without-remainder quantity and quality of Jesus’ presence.

Just as the claim that “God with us” frames the gospel, so too does this FC frame our analysis: we must reject “atomizing” exegesis, appreciate the phenomena of

13 The only scholar whose reading hints at the point about unsurpassability that I am suggesting is Dodd, who writes that with this inclusio “the Lord who is to be with His Church perpetually is ‘Immanuel’ in the full sense.” Dodd, According, 79 (emphasis added).

167

lien de surface and Matthew evoking-the-broader-context, and, perhaps most importantly, realize how Matthew uses the limit-adjective/ adverb and repetition

(among other narrative techniques we will encounter) to communicate how Jesus unsurpassably “fills up” a word. Here, Jesus’ identity as God-with-us “always,” “to the end of the age” is unbreakable and extends throughout time. Yet as the rest of the

(political) narrative in chapter 2 makes clear, the salvation he brings will not be achieved without conflict.

After the story of Gentile Magi, guided by the star, bringing gifts to worship the infant Jewish king and duping the duplicitous “King” Herod who, along with “all of Jerusalem,” is troubled by news of the Messiah’s birth (2:1-12), Matthew narrates a series of angel/God-directed movements of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus—movements which both preserve the child’s life and fulfill Scripture. From Bethlehem to Egypt

(almost) to Judea to Nazareth: the family’s travels do, indeed, as Brown puts it,

“offer a theological history of Israel in geographical miniature.”14 That Jesus thereby

“sums up” (Brown’s term) Israel’s history is perhaps most evident, and most agreed- upon by commentators, in the case of the FC in 2:15: “[t]his was to fulfill what had

14 Brown, Birth, 217.

168

been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”15

Where a previous generation of scholars tended to agree that this FC functioned simply to establish prophetically-foretold geographical facts, the current generation disagrees, tending to regard the FC as functioning typologically to figure corporate

Israel.16 I agree with this current consensus and would offer three arguments.

First, as with the other FCs in these chapters, to read the FC in 2:15 is to read it within the political narrative that Matthew has constructed here—and, thus, to appreciate that it is of a piece with the other FCs. The opening salvo of 2:1-12 (2:1a:

Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος), by its word order, foregrounds “Jesus,” and, by its repetition of “Jesus” and “born/ birth,” links this unit to 1:1-17 (1:1: γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) and

1:18-25 (1:18: Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις). Thus, it signals to the reader that chapter 2 continues the story of chapter 1—Israel-in-exile needing/meeting the Davidic Messiah

15 Ibid. While scholars agree that Matthew is not following the LXX here—which has “out of Egypt I recalled his children” (ἐξ Αἰγύπτου μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ)—they are divided as to whether Matthew has translated the Hebrew himself or has relied on a pre-existing Greek translation of the Hebrew which differs from the LXX. Cf. the summary in Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 135 n. 8 and 136 nn. 9-10. A decision is not necessary for my purpose.

16 The former view is held by, e.g., Stendahl, “Quis,” 97-100; Strecker, Weg, 57-58; McConnell, Law, 111-12. Those who believe that “the FC functions typologically to figure corporate Israel” include Gundry, Use, 209-10; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 216-28; Brown, Birth, 215, 218; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 263-64; Knowles, Jeremiah, 48; Miler, Citations, 47-55; Crowe, “Eschatological Reversal,” 113-14; Huizenga, “Incarnation,” 18; Hays, Echoes, 113-14, 165-66.

169

who will save her from her sins. The Magis’ description of the child as “King (βασιλεὺς) of the Jews” represents the (political) claim that generates the tension animating chapter 2—a tension that begins in the very next verse with the description of Herod as “King” (βασιλεὺς) (cf. 2:9). Who, the reader asks, is the king of Israel?

This is the question that the false king Herod would silence—even as the form of his question in 2:4 (ποῦ ὁ χριστὸς γεννᾶται), albeit in indirect discourse, ironically suggests his own recognition of its answer. On his side is “all Jerusalem” (2:3). That they “are troubled” (ἐταράχθη) along with (μετ᾽) Herod, betrays their allegiance and foreshadows their reaction when the true king enters their midst as king (cf. 21:10:

“all the city” [πᾶσα ἡ πόλις] “was shaken” [ἐσείσθη] at the Triumphal Entry).

Significantly, this latter response is a reaction to precisely the act that elicits the crowds’ acclamation of Jesus as “Son of David.”

On the other side of the conflict are the Gentile Magi. While Matthew’s Jesus does not extend the gospel to Gentiles until 28:16-20, various narrative details foreshadow this extension (cf., e.g., 15:22-28). Already in the genealogy, the inclusion of the four women is one such detail. As women were not normally included in genealogies, their appearance is striking, and probably due, not to their being examples of “unusual or disreputable sexual activity,” but rather because all four

170

“can be regarded as non-Israelites.”17 The Magi would certainly have been read as

Gentiles, so that their bringing gold, frankincense, and myrrh alludes to the nations bringing gold and frankincense (Isa 60:6b) as they come to the light-of-Israel (60:1, 3) to praise the Lord (60:6b).18

One of the two would-be kings at the center of this Herod–Jerusalem/ Magi-

Gentile dichotomy is unmistakably cast as a messianic one. That the predicted

Messiah comes from “Bethlehem of Judea” (2:5) hearkens back to v. 1—and thereby implicitly identifies “Jesus” (2:1) as “the Christ” (2:4). The child’s “star” (ἀστήρ)— note the Magi describing it as “his star” not “a star”—is repeated no less than four times (2:2, 7, 9, 10). Drawing such attention to the star probably invites the readers to consider it to be the messianic star of Num 24:17 (“a star shall come out of Jacob”).

Within this narrative—one in which almost every detail draws upon Old Testament imagery and has political meaning—a “son” being called out of “Egypt” cannot but evoke the foundational story of Israel’s exodus (cf. Exod 4:22-23a: “Israel is my firstborn son… Let my son go…”).

17 Hays, Echoes, 111-12. For how Tamar can be considered a non-Israelite, cf. the discussion in note 32 on p. 394 (citing Richard Bauckham, “Tamar’s Ancestry and Rahab’s Marriage: Two Problems in the Matthean Genealogy,” NovT 37 [1995]: 313-19).

18 Cf. ibid., 176. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 227-28 for a discussion of how the Magi would have been perceived as Gentiles by Matthew’s readers (the view of “[m]ost modern commentators”).

171

The second textual feature pointing towards a Jesus-Israel typology is the significance and precise narrative shape of Jesus’ sonship in these early chapters. As the-one-liberated-from-Egypt, “son” becomes a metonymy for the people Israel.

Matthew 2:15, then, constitutes part of the same motif of son-as-Messiah/ Israel that we discussed in Section 1.1.2.

The third argument that Jesus recapitulates Israel’s exodus here is that

Matthew draws together an array of allusions and echoes to create an exodus matrix within which to read the language of a “Son” being “called out” of “Egypt.” The seemingly ubiquitous impulse to tease out the scriptural strands from which this narrative is woven is understandable. Fraught with messianic allusions, 2:1-12 continues the narrative of salvation-from-exile in 1:1-25; fraught with exodus allusions, 2:13-23 provides the backdrop to understand this exile. Probable allusions include:

• That the family fled “by night” (Matt 2:14: νυκτὸς) evokes Exod 12:29: at midnight”/ μεσούσης τῆς νυκτὸς: “during the middle of the“ :בַחֲ צִ י הַ לַ יְלָ ה night”).19

19 Cf. e.g., Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 222. Some scholars are hesitant to accept this echo. Davies and Allison, for example, surveying possible reasons why this adverb is included, reject the proposal that it evokes the exodus and instead opt to read it as signifying “the danger of things.” Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 261. They reason that if Matthew were to allude to the exodus with this word, he would have had to do so in 2:21 “when the family leaves Egypt, not here, when they enter it.”

172

• Since τελευτή is a New Testament hapax and τελευτᾶν a Matthean one, Matthew’s writing “[he] remained there until the death (τῆς τελευτῆς) of Herod” (2:15a) and “when Herod died (Τελευτήσαντος)…” echoes Exod 4:19a LXX: “Now after those many days the king of Egypt had died (ἐτελεύτησεν)….”20

• Matthew’s use of the plural particle and verb in 2:19 (οἱ ζητοῦντες… τεθνήκασιν),” especially in light of his previous use of the singular in 2:13 (Herod μέλλει… ζητεῖν), creates an allusion to Exod 4:19 LXX (“For all those who were seeking [οἱ ζητοῦντές] your soul are dead [τεθνήκασιν]).”21

• Herod’s order to kill all the infants recalls Pharaoh’s order to kill all the male Israelite children (Exod 1:16, 22) and possibly Moses specifically: Exod 2:15 uses the same verb [ἀναιρεῖν] that Matthew uses in 2:16.

Thus, whether the mere citation of a text like Hos 11:1 would necessarily evoke the exodus, this web of exodus allusions certainly does.

Note the hermeneutical implication: it is the exodus qua exodus—i.e., exodus- as-a-pan-textual-phenomenon or, perhaps better, exodus-as-an-historical-event—not the exodus-as-remembered-in-Hosea-11, that the gospel evokes here. Thus, I am

There are two problems with this argument. First, as Miler observes, the family has left Egypt in 2:15, albeit subtly: the phrase “remained there until the death of Herod” specifies the time of their departure. Second, no matter at what point in the narrative they leave, Matt 2:15 is, on its face, clearly about “coming out of” (ἐξ) Egypt. In favor of an allusion to the exodus here is Miler’s question: “Mais pourquoi insister ici, à la difference de 1,18-25 ou 2,19-21, sur la rapidité de l’accomplissement des instructions de l’ange?” Miler, Citations, 49.

20 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 261.

21 Cf. e.g., Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 213 (an “unmistakable allusion”).

173

inclined to disagree with Hays’ proposal that the citation activates the broader context of Hos 11:1-11.22 With this FC, there is no hermeneutical signal to consider the broader context (e.g., Matt 1:23), no conflated citation, which tends, in Matthew, to function to evoke the broader context (e.g., Matt 13:35), no rich verbal resonances

(e.g., Matt 4:15-16).

It should be noted that while Jesus does recapitulate Israel’s exodus here, this is not Ireneaus’ recapitulation or even Paul’s. Matthew’s FC is suggestive, even impressionistic, not systematic or elaborated. Just as he does not offer second-order reflection on how, exactly, Jesus’ death is a “ransom for many” (20:28) or how, exactly, giving a single cup of water secures a heavenly reward (10:42) when entering the kingdom requires righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20),

Matthew does not explain how recapitulation works.23 As Hays notes, “Matthew is not that sort of systematic thinker.”24

22 Specifically, Hays argues that God “in your midst” (Hos 11:9) “resonates richly” with the “Emmanuel theme” and God “return[ing] them to their homes (11:11) signals “the homecoming of Israel from exile.” Hays, Echoes, 166.

23 For the latter example (of Matt 10:42), I draw inspiration from the discussion in Ulrich Luz, The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew, trans., J. Bradford Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 56.

24 Hays, Echoes, 139.

174

Before turning to the next FC, we should acknowledge the lack of textual features that would highlight Jesus’ sonship being unsurpassable in some way.

Nonetheless, because of Matthew’s consistent use of the verb πληροῦν (see Chapter 1), the fact that the FCs seem to constitute a rather homogenous group in terms of function (see Introduction), and the way in which most of the other FCs (including those in 1:23 and 2:18) do tend towards such a reading, I am hesitant to identify this

FC as an exception to my thesis. Rather, albeit tentatively, I would suggest that the often-proposed characterization of Jesus as the “true” Israel in Matt 1-4 might explain how Jesus is fully “Son” here.25 Jesus’ obedience/ representation/ recapitulation is final, eschatological—and, thus, in a sense not identical to, but perhaps related to, unsurpassable, it is full.

In the middle of “Act 2” of chapter 2 (2:13-23), between Jesus’ exile to and exodus from Egypt (2:15) and his return to Nazareth (2:23), Matt 2:16-18 turns away from the narrative’s protagonist Jesus-Messiah to focus on its antagonist “King”

Herod.26 While the turn may seem strange upon a first reading—a curious cutaway

25 Cf. e.g., Kirk, “Reconceptualising,” 90.

26 Cf. Brown, Birth, 178-79 for the influential schema of dividing chapter 2 into two “acts” (2:1-12 and 2:13-23).

175

from an otherwise singularly focused shot—a second reading reveals that it is not strange at all. Davies and Allison are right: “‘Herod’ marks the unity of chapter 2 almost as much as the geographical place names; see 2.1, 3, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 22.”27

If the story of Matthew 2 is the story of how Israel’s messianic king (Matt 2:4-6) inaugurates eschatological expectation (e.g., Num 24:17; Isa 60:6b) and begins to recapitulate his people’s history (e.g., Hos 11:1) so as to save them (Matt 1:21), it is also a story of how Israel (Matt 2:3: “all” Jerusalem), and especially her leaders (Matt

2:3: Herod, the chief priests, and scribes), violently oppose him. The conflict will surface again, driving the narrative in, e.g., chapters 12 and 23, and, in what amounts to almost of diptych of chapter 2, will elicit yet another FC (27:9-10) and reach a tragic resolution in chapter 27 (27:25).

In Matt 2:16, Herod does the unthinkable: he slaughters “all” the children age two and under in and around Jerusalem. Jeremiah 31:15 interprets the slaughter: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”28 So the horror is not unthinkable after all: it has occurred before literally (when Pharoah slaughtered

27 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 264.

28 Commentators agree that this quotation is closer to the MT than to the LXX, and most agree that Matthew has translated it from the Hebrew. Cf. the summary in Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 145.

176

Israel’s firstborn males) and metaphorically (when Babylon exiled Israel’s children).

It is precisely this history, particularly the latter moment, that the FC in 2:18 would typologically evoke. Herod’s act betrays the sad fact that, in Matthew 2, Israel is still in exile—indeed, at the fullness of her exile.

Put differently, if 1:18-25 is an explanatory footnote to 1:1 (Jesus is the son of

David), then 2:16-18 is a footnote to 1:17 (Israel is in exile up “until” [ἕως] the

Messiah).29 What exactly does “until the Messiah” mean? “Until” his birth?

Apparently not. The Messiah has been born, but Matthew, playing on the ambiguity of the phrase “they are not” (2:18b: ὅτι οὐκ εἰσίν), has figured death-as-exile—or, better, has Israel recapitulating exile, now intensified, as death.30 As Miler justly claims, “une limite est atteinte,” “la mesure est à son comble,” with Herod’s act.31

The note of unsurpassibility in this FC, then, like the one in 27:9-10 and unlike all the others, falls on Israel’s exilic situation.32

29 See note 7 of this chapter.

30 Miler notes that the phrase can be read both as “they” have been deported or “they” have been killed and that the Targum opts for the former. Miler, Citations, 60 (citing Targum-Jonathan Jer. 31:15). Similarly, “[i]n the LXX the children ‘are not’ because they have been exiled from Israel.” Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 270.

31 Miler, Citations, 61, 63.

32 Some major alternatives to the reading I offer here are (1) those who regard this FC as atomizing prediction–verification; e.g., Edgar, “Messianic”; (2) those who view this FC as proleptic of Jesus’

177

The starting point for my reading is a simple but critical observation: this FC cannot be merely prediction–fulfillment but rather must be typology. Unlike each of the other FCs, there is no “identité lexicale,” no “point d’accrochage,” between context and citation.33 The only real “association” between the two is that both contain a locative phrase: “in Bethlehem” (ἐν Βηθλέεμ) (2:16) and “in Ramah” (ἐν Ῥαμὰ). But, stating the obvious, R. T. France writes, “Ramah is not Bethlehem.”34 By

“associat[ing]” (Michael Knowles’ term) what happened in Ramah and in Bethlehem,

Matthew deploys the logic of typology, not of prediction–verification.35

the Vulgate, Aquila and the targum translate ,*א ,Why Ramah? As LXXA rather than transliterate the word (ἐν τῇ ὑψληλῇ = “in the highest”), Matthew’s transliteration suggests that the word was important for him.36 If the reason were geographical, one would expect Ramah in the narrative or Bethlehem in the

suffering; e.g., Miler, Citations, 64-67; (3) those who discern an Israel-going-into-exile and Jesus-going- into-exile typology; e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 268-69; Knowles, Jeremiah, 47; and (4) those who posit a Jesus–Jeremiah typology; e.g., ibid., 49-50.

33 Miler, Citations, 36, 59-60.

34 R. T. France, “Herod and the Children of Bethlehem,” NovT 21 (1979): 98-120, 104.

35 Knowles, Jeremiah, 45-46.

36 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 268-69.

178

quotation.37 The most likely solution is Davies’ and Allison’s: for Matthew, Ramah may well be “a city of sadness par excellence.” Not only was Ramah the gathering point for the exiles’ march to Babylon (Jer 40:1 MT only) but also the three Old

Testament prophecies mentioning the city “associate the place with a disaster of one sort or another” (Isa 10:29; Jer 31:15; Hos 5:8).38

In my view, exile is the note struck here.39 An exilic thrust for this text would display “thematic coherence” (Hays’ term) with one of the major thematic motifs of

Matt 1-2.40 The structured genealogy with its interpreting statement (1:17) has already been mentioned; to this should be added the fact that all of the FCs in

37 It is sometimes proposed that different traditions placed Rachel’s tomb in Ramah and in Bethlehem so that, by conflating these traditions, Matthew can “associate[e]” these two place names. Knowles, Jeremiah, 45-46. For a discussion of these traditions and their basis, Cf. ibid., 45; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 268. But even if this is true, it begs the question of why, exactly, Matthew wanted to “associate” what happened in Ramah with what happened in Bethlehem.

38 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 268-69.

39 It does not really matter whether, in the original Jeremian context, Rachel was weeping for the exile of the Northern or Southern kingdoms or both. For a discussion of this point, cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 46-47.

40 Hays, Echoes in Paul, 30 discusses how “thematic coherence” serves as a criterion for the existence of an echo of scripture. Does the “alleged echo fit into the line of argument that [the author] is developing”? While the issue in this case of a direct citation is not the existence (or not) of an echo, the criterion is nonetheless helpful here because, as Hays points out, it is ultimately about “mov[ing] beyond simple identification of echoes to the problem of how to interpret them.”

179

chapters 1–4, along with the quotation of Isa 40:3 in 3:3, “deal with the coming restoration of the Davidic monarchy or the end of exile.” As Eubank points out, such a “seven-fold coincidence” would be too “remarkable”: exile must be Matthew’s subtext here.41 Moreover, the targum’s “translation” of Jer 31:15 betrays the verse’s exilic potentialities:

Thus says the Lord: “The voice has been heard in the height of the world, the house of Israel who weep and lament after Jeremiah the prophet, when Nebuzaradan, the chief of the killers, sent him from Ramah, with a dirge; and those who weep for the bitterness of Jerusalem, as she weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they have gone into exile (emphasis added).42

As with the targumist, so with Matthew: exile—and salvation from exile—is at the heart of his (scriptural) vision.

41 Eubank, Wages, 111. I do not agree with Eubank that this deliberate use of exilic texts means that Matthew would “evoke, not only the words explicitly cited, but the oracles and narratives of which they are a part.” Rather, I think that a pastiche of exilic texts simply means that Matthew would evoke “exile”—just as a pastiche of exodus texts means that Matthew would evoke “the exodus” (see Section 4.1.2 above).

42 English translation from Robert Hayward, The Targum of Jeremiah: Translated, with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes, trans., Robert Hayward, ArBib 12 (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1987), 131-32. I am not claiming that Matthew relied on the targum but simply that the targum evinces the way in which (some) ancient readers read this text. For a good discussion of the dating of Targum Jeremiah, cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 50 n. 1.

180

Rachel’s name also points toward typology. That she was regarded as the typical mother of Israel can be seen in the above excerpt from the targum: “Rachel” is

“translated” as “the house of Israel.” A similar typology appears in various rabbinic texts (Gen. R. 29.31; 71.2; 82.1; Pes. K. 141b [Simeon b. Yoḥai, c. 150]; cf. 4 Ezra

5.26).43 Her weeping as corporate mother (of Israel) relies on the same logic as Jesus’ exodus (as Israel) from Egypt: the history of this “people” is concentrated into these typically-understood moments (exodus, exile, massacre).

It is in the layering of exodus, exile, and massacre that Matthew’s typological logic is most evident. In a text replete with exodus allusions (see Section 5.1.2 above),

Matthew does not cite, say, Exod 1:16 or Amos 4:10b as being “fulfilled” by the

Massacre of the Infants. Instead, he cites a text about exile—as if Israel’s need for political liberation via exodus and its need for political liberation from exile are but iterations of the same dramatic moment in the script being replayed (and now replayed again). Knowles is right: this layering—what he calls “telescoping”—is “the essence of typology.”44

43 The first text here is cited by Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 270, the rest by Knowles, Jeremiah, 49.

44 Knowles, Jeremiah, 51.

181

Scholars often define “typology” to require that the antitype is “even greater and more complete” than the type.45 Whether such “heightening” is a priori necessary, it is certainly on display here.46 First, quite simply, figuring death using words about exile certainly “heightens” exile. Second, whether Matthew has read

adjectivally (and rendered it with πολύς) or has added the adjective πολύς, he תַמְ רּורִ ים has chosen a version (the MT) or created his own targum that “emphasiz[es] the intensity and duration of the mourning.”47 Third, Matthew repeats the limit-adjective

πᾶς as he does so often with the FCs. Herod “sent and killed all (πάντας) the children in

Bethlehem and in all (πᾶσιν) those regions” (my translation). Commentators recognize that the repetition intensifies Herod’s action; more precisely, it makes it full.48

45 Cf. e.g., Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, trans., Donald H. Madvig (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 18. Goppelt’s definition is self-consciously derived from the consensus among scholars writing on typology before Goppelt, and Goppelt’s own work has been influential.

46 “Heightening” is Goppelt’s language. Ibid.

47 Miler, Citations, 57; Knowles, Jeremiah, 36 (by this form, Matthew has “intensif[ied] Rachel’s cry of sorrow”). Miler has a succinct discussion of the grammatical issue.

48 Cf. e.g., Brown, Birth, 204 (“[t]he double use of ‘all’… gives the impression of large numbers”); Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 265 (“[t]he addition, ‘and in all her regions’, makes Herod’s deed all the worse”). Miler offers a similar conclusion to my own here, albeit without much development. Miler, Citations, 63-64 (with Herod’s action, “la mesure est à son comble”).

182

A potential objection to my reading raises the issue of whether Matthew would have his readers consider the broader context of Jeremiah 31. Some scholars maintain that Matthew would evoke the entire chapter—a chapter “of hope” that, aside from this one verse, paints with “bright colours the joyous day on which the exiles will return to the land of Israel.”49 Readers should thus recall that this “disaster” to which

Matthew draws attention “heralds a joyful future.”50 Combining the work of different scholars, five arguments can be made.

First, Matthew’s citation of the chapter’s one negative verse so egregiously neglects context that he must have meant to evoke that context.51 Second, if Matt

1:23 and/ or 2:15 evoke their broader Old Testament context, Matt 2:18 probably does as well.52 Third, this often-cited chapter was a locus of early Christian reflection on

49 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 267. For a list of scholars offering such a reading, cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 40 n. 1.

50 Gundry, Use, 211.

51 I agree with Knowles that this seems to be the implicit argument of B. F. C. Atkinson. Knowles, Jeremiah, 39-40 (citing B. F. C. Atkinson, The Christian’s Use of the Old Testament [London: Inter- Varsity Fellowship, 1952], 83).

52 Cf. Hays, Echoes, 114.

183

“the Messiah’s advent and the consummation.”53 Fourth, rabbis apparently read the text this way as well (Mek. on Exod 12:1 and Str.-B, pp. 1. 89-90).54 Fifth, several words/ themes link Jeremiah 31 and Matthew 1-2 (and Matthew’s gospel broadly):55

1. Israel is referred to as a “virgin” (v. 4, 21: Matt 1:23 .(παρθένος / בְ תּולַ ת

2. “Those with child” are among those to Matt 2:11, 14, 20, 21 .(הָרָ ה :return from exile (v. 8 MT only

3. God gives the stars for light by night (v. 35: Matt 2:1-12 .(ἀστέρας /וְ כֹוכָבִ ים

4. The LORD “saved” (v. 7 LXX: Ἔσωσεν)/ is Matt 1:22 His (הֹוׁשַ ע :implored to “save” (v. 7 MT .(אֶ ת־עַמְ ָך :people” (v. 7“

53 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 267 (citing Luke 22:20; John 6:45; Rom 11:27; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 8:8- 12; 9:15; 10:16-17 and Dodd, According, 44-46).

54 Cited by Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 269 and Knowles, Jeremiah, 39. Quoting R. T. France, Knowles also points to Gen. R. 70.20 (on Gen 29:4-6), Lam. R. Proem 24 and 1.2.23 (on Lam 1:2) as texts where “Rachel’s protestations have become the cause of the return from exile.” (quoting R. T. France, “The Formula Quotations of Matthew 2 and the Problem of Communication,” NTS 27 [1981]: 233-251, 246 n. 31). More broadly, cf. Knowles’ discussion on this page of the seemingly “positive reading” of this passage “in early Jewish tradition.”

55 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 267. Davies and Allison are not actually arguing that Matthew would evoke the Jeremian context but rather that it seems “Matthew had read [this] chapter with the story of Jesus… in mind,” “a number of statements and expressions… ha[d] caught his attention,” and that he then made the “small step” to associate v. 15 with the massacre of the infants. Ibid., 267-68. It seems to me that the possibility they raise is a less interesting claim than the intertextual one—for which their data seems potentially useful.

184

Matt 2:15; 3:17; 17:5 הֲבֵ ן :Ephraim is God’s “beloved son” (v. 20 .5 υἱὸς ἀγαπητὸς), the “child [he] delights /יַקִ יר .(παιδίον ἐντρυφῶν /יֶלֶ ד ׁשַ עֲׁשֻׁ עִ ים :in” (v. 20

6. Israel’s children shall “come back to their Matt 2:19-23 וְׁשָ בּו בָ נִ ים :own country” (v. 17 MT only .(לִגְ בּולָ ם

Matt 11:25-27 / לְאָ ב :God declares himself a “father” (v. 9 .7 πατέρα) to Israel, to his “firstborn” Ephraim .(πρωτότοκός /בְ כֹּרִ י :v. 9)

8. God will provide for the thirsty (v. 25 LXX Matt 5:6 only: διψῶσαν) and hungry (v. 25 LXX only: πεινῶσαν).

9. God will make a new covenant with Israel Matt 26:28 διαθήκην /בְרִ ית חֲדָׁשָ ה :and Judah (v. 31-33 καινήν).

Rather than refute each argument, I will point up two countervailing considerations. First, the relevant context (Matt 2:13-23, perhaps chapter 2 as a whole) simply does not nudge the reader towards this reading. Parallels in #7-#9 are from the gospel more broadly, and #4 and #6 are very common in prophetic literature. #1-

#3 and #5 are intriguing, but, in my view, not enough to overcome the much clearer note of unsurpassable tragedy.56

Second—and, in my view, decisively—the two variations to the introductory formula signal that this FC is to be read in light of that in 27:9-10. First, using τότε rather than the purposive ἵνα/ ὅπως, Matthew avoids attributing these heinous acts

56 Cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 42-43.

185

directly to God (“l’opinion presque unanime”).57 Second, by including Jeremiah’s name, Matthew probably uses Jeremiah in a “typical” way as a prophet of doom, suffering, and/ or rejection.58 Whatever the precise heuristic—doom, suffering, rejection, and/ or exile—Jeremiah seems to have a negative, even tragic, valence in

Matthew’s gospel.

Besides the fact that both τότε and Ἰερεμίου appear in 2:17 and 27:9 and nowhere else, both 2:18 and 27:9-10 (1) present the leaders’ evil actions, not Jesus’ righteous ones, as fulfilling scripture, and (2) they appear in very similar narrative contexts (the myriad verbal and conceptual links between chapters 2 and 27 are often noted).59 As a result, we must coordinate our readings of Matt 2:18 and 27:9-10. Because, in my view, it is impossible to read 27:9-10 as evoking hope, I reject a hopeful reading of 2:18.

While Matthew would no doubt generally have his readers hope in Jesus’ exile-ending

57 Miler, Citations, 56. Cf. Knowles, Jeremiah, 34 (listing many proponents of this consensus in n. 2). An alternative explanation is that ἵνα is purposive, i.e., God or Jesus performed an action precisely “in order to” fulfill scripture but that, in the two τότε citations, the human actions are not so motivated. Cf. Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate, 36-39.

58 Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate, 43-44; Knowles, Jeremiah, 81; Menken, “References,” 10; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 266-67; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 54. For a list of the proponents of various explanations for why Matthew names Jeremiah, cf. Miler, Citations, 62 n. 107-09. Alone among New Testament authors (and apostolic fathers), Matthew mentions “Jeremiah” by name (Matt 2:17; 16:16; 27:9). Cf. e.g., Menken, “References,” 5; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 266.

59 Cf. e.g., the discussion in Knowles, Jeremiah, 77-81.

186

salvation and would probably even appreciate how Jeremiah 31 could be deployed to underwrite this salvation, this FC does different work for him.

This work is not just gloom, not just registering Israel’s continuing exilic status; with this FC, we again encounter a clear case of fulfilling-as-filling. As in the case of the FC in 1:23, it is the conspicuously repeated limit-adjective (here, πᾶς)— and, additionally, the form of the FC (πολύς) and the heightened figuration (exile-as- death)—that signals that “une limite est atteinte.”60 The FC in 27:9, which, with its shedding of innocent blood, corresponds to this one, is likewise embedded in a web of textual features pointing up fullness—and, thus, will reinforce the point that exile has reached its climax, its fullness, precisely because of the fullness of the leaders’ sin.

While it begins with the first introduction of Judas in 10:4 (“the one who betrayed him”), the story of Judas’ treachery unfolds primarily in Matt 26:14–27:10.

With the Leitwort παραδιδόναι, Matthew’s emphasis could not be clearer: this is a story of betrayal. But it is more than this—and, as becomes clear with the FC in 27:9-10, it is more than a story about Judas. It is also a story about the “chief priests and elders,” the leaders of Israel who “destroy” Jesus (cf. 2:13; 12:14)—or, in a Zecharian

60 Miler, Citations, 61.

187

idiom, the sheep-merchants who sell (out) their people. More precisely, it is a story about the fullness of the chief priests’ and elders’ wickedness.

In Matthew 26:14-16, Judas initiates the betrayal: approaching the chief priests who, along with the elders (and sometimes scribes), have twice been predicted to kill Jesus (16:21; 20:18), he asks for money to “hand him over” (παραδώσω). They give him thirty pieces of silver. So begins what has been called the trail of silver (and the corresponding trail of blood)—and, perhaps even more importantly, what I would call the trail of betrayal (παραδιδόναι in Matt 26:15, 16, 21, 23, 24, 25, 45, 46, 48; 27:2,

3, 4, 18, 26).61

In terms of the narrative, the right moment must wait. Finally, after Passover preparations, the Last Supper, predictions of denial, and Jesus’ prayer in

Gethsemane, Judas arrives with an armed mob (notably, from the chief priests and elders: 26:47) who arrest Jesus. The narrative compresses the action (“many false witnesses” are simply mentioned in 26:60; in 26:59-66, the trial spans a mere eight verses) and shuttles Jesus from Caiaphas (26:57-68) to Pilate (27:1-2, 11-14) but the

61 “Trail of silver” and “trail of blood” are terms used by Charlene McAfee Moss, The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew, BZNW 156 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 175 (appropriating them from Audrey Conrad, “The Fate of Judas: Matthew 27:3-10,” TJT 7 [1991]: 158-68).

188

pace does not quicken: the story’s interest is in dialogue and characterization—of

Jesus, Judas, and, most important for my purpose, the “chief priests and elders.”

A Matthean addition to his Markan source, Matt 27:3-10 interrupts the narrative of Jesus before Pilate (Matt 27:1-2, 11-14// Mark 15:1-5) to offer what seems, upon a first reading, to be a tangential account of Judas’ suicide and an etiology of the “Field of Blood” (v. 8). After Judas has repented (commentators have long divided over his sincerity), returned the thirty pieces, and, rejected by the chief priests and elders, hanged himself, the chief priests and scribes decide, since it is “not lawful” to deposit “blood money” in the treasury, to buy the “potter’s field” in which to bury “foreigners.” The pericope concludes with the last of the FCs:

And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.62

While v. 9 clearly derives from Zech 11:13—but is substantially different from both the MT and LXX—v. 10 is so unrecognizable that scholars debate what verse is even

62 A vexing text-critical issue is whether to read ἔδωκαν (“they gave”) or ἔδωκα (“I gave”) at the beginning of verse 10. The issue is especially difficult to decide because, while the context of the Matthean narrative points towards reading ἔλαβον at the start of the quotation as a 3rd-person plural (“they took”) rather than as a 1st-person singular (“I took”), the phrase καθὰ συνέταξέν μοι κύριος (“as the Lord commanded me”) in the last part of the quotation clearly points to a 1st-person singular. For a detailed discussion and list of scholars holding different views, cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 179-80. In my view, the basic thrust of the FC is clear regardless of which reading is original.

189

being quoted.63 Compounding our difficulties is the introductory formula ascribing the whole to Jeremiah (διὰ Ἰερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου).

The reactions to Matthew’s hermeneutic in this FC are the most starkly divided of the FCs. On the one hand are those scholars for whom this FC is “over- ingenious,” “a hotch-potch of misquotation and irrelevance,” an instance of Matthew

“botch[ing] it badly.”64 On the other hand are those scholars for whom this FC displays rich intertextuality.65

I fall squarely into the latter category. In my view, this FC is the most artful of the group—the one in which Matthew sees the most extensive typological resonances between Old Testament texts and Jesus’ life and communicates those resonances by clear, if subtle, verbal cues. Matt 27:9-10, then, is the clearest example of what Hays calls metalepsis: language from the Old Testament beckons Matthew’s readers to seek the “unstated” “points of resonance” between the texts.66 These resonances are multiple and profound: with this FC and its robust intertextuality,

63 For a brief but useful Forschungsgeschichte about the source of the FC, cf. ibid., 181 n. 7.

64 These quotations are from Torrey, Maccoby, and Beare respectively. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 570 for the quotations and the sources from which they were drawn.

65 Cf. e.g., Miler, Citations, 245-76; Moss, Zechariah, 171-88; Knowles, Jeremiah, 52-81.

66 Hays, Echoes in Paul, 20 (emphasis added). Metalepsis will be discussed further in Section 5.2.

190

Israel’s leaders “fill up” the hypocrisy, bribery, and bloodshed the narrative repeatedly ascribes to them.

The starting point for my reading is the basic point, now widely recognized, that the focus of both Matt 27:3-10 and the FC in 27:9-10 is the sin of the chief priests and elders. Notably, the character of “the chief priests and elders” is carefully developed. They appear on the scene in Chapter 26 (cf. 2:4; 16:21; 21:23, 45) and quickly assume from the Pharisees and scribes the role of Jesus’ primary opponent.

The reason, it seems, is important: they effectively rule Israel in Jerusalem. Precisely in Jerusalem, then, in the heart of Israel—indeed, in a place almost a metonymy for

Israel—and, more precisely, in the Temple, the locus of God’s relationship with His people, these are the ones whose response to Jesus will drive the plot.

As they do, Matthew’s characterization is highly wrought; to appreciate this characterization is, in part, to attend to the precise shape of the “trail of betrayal” that I mentioned above. By introducing Judas in the gospel as ὁ παραδοὺς αὐτόν (10:4), the narrator almost reduces his identity to this description. With this description editorially reiterated in 26:25, 46, 48; 27:3, it almost becomes Judas’ name, and Judas himself reinforces this characterization (26:15: “What will you give me if I betray him to you?”). But in 27:2, 4, 18, Judas relinquishes this “betrayer” role to “the chief

191

priests and elders” (cf. 20:19), and, after 27:3, only they, not he, are agents of this verb.

A conspicuous parallelism casts their “betrayal” of Jesus as equivalent to

Jesus’ mistreatment by Roman soldiers—probably a jab, given the seemingly anti- imperialist features of this gospel:67

• The chief priests “spat (ἐνέπτυσαν) in his face and struck him, and some slapped him, saying, ‘Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who is it that struck you?’” (Matt 26:67-68).68

• The Roman soldiers “put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They spat (ἐμπτύσαντες) on him and took the reed and struck him on the head” (Matt 27:29b-30).

A second parallelism is also damning. When Judas realizes that Jesus’ blood is innocent (27:4: αἷμα ἀθῷον), the “chief priests and elders” tell him “see to it yourself”

(27:5: σὺ ὄψῃ); when Pilate realizes the same thing (27:24: ἀθῷός… αἵματος), he says the same thing to them (27:24: ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε). While they may seem to act like Rome’s leader—just as they act like its soldiers—Pilate says this to avoid assuming

67 For anti-imperialism in Matthew, cf. e.g., Warren Carter, “Evoking Isaiah: Matthean Soteriology and an Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 7-9 and Matthew 1:23 and 4:15-16,” JBL 119 (2000): 503-520.

68 “[T]hey” here (elided in my excerpt) must refer to “the chief priests and the whole council” (26:59), as this is the only possible antecedent in the preceding narrative.

192

responsibility for bloodshed, while they say it for precisely the opposite reason. In other words, with their “see to it,” they refuse to inquire into “innocence”; with their response to Pilate’s “see to it,” they embrace “innocent” bloodshed—and, in so doing, bring down the blood of Jesus on all the people and their children (cf. 27:25). Israel’s leaders are as blind to their messiah’s identity as the Roman soldiers (26:67-

68//27:29b-30), and, worse, more blind than the Roman leader (27:5//27:24).

One must also appreciate that the “chief priests and elders” become the very

“false witnesses” that they could not find. In 26:59 they seek false testimony

(ψευδομαρτυρίαν) against Jesus “so that they might put him to death”; in 27:13, before

Pilate, they themselves give “much” testimony against him (πόσα… καταμαρτυροῦσιν).

So successful is their testimony that whereas in 26:5 a riot (θόρυβος) may break out if

Jesus is arrested during the festival, in 27:24 a riot (θόρυβος) may break out if Jesus is not crucified! Even after Jesus dies, the narrator feels compelled to recount how “the chief priests and the Pharisees” (27:62) implore Pilate to seal the tomb and then do so themselves—a curious detail if the narrative is only about Jesus.

The reason I have detailed Matthew’s characterization of the “chief priests and elders” is twofold. First, a critical and neglected point: the FC is about them—not

Judas. They are the ones who “take” the thirty pieces to “give” for the potter’s field.

Second, we must situate the FC in its narrative context, and this context, like others

193

we have seen, portrays a certain “fullness” narratively. Even more directly than the

“scribes and Pharisees,” these are the leaders who “murder” (23:31), who “kill and crucify” (23:34), who shed “righteous blood” (23:35) and who, by so doing, bring down “all this” on this “generation” (23:36). These leaders, the “chief priests and scribes,” “fill up the measure of [their] ancestors” (23:32), they do so at this

(narrative) moment, and the FC, which evokes precisely those “ancestors,” shows the reader how.69

Zechariah 11, activated by the citation of Zech 11:13, evokes these

“ancestors,” and in my view, Jeremiah 19, not cited but nonetheless invoked, does so as well. I agree with Menken that “[t]here can be no serious doubt that Ἰερεμίου in

Matt 27,9 is original.”70 But why is “Jeremiah” mentioned? Proposals include an error on the part of Matthew or a scribe, an allusion to a Jeremiah apocryphon, a

69 I agree with the insight of Moss who proposes that “the ‘trail of blood’ [traceable in Matt 26-27] has been traced to its source in Jesus’ woe to the scribes and Pharisees.” Moss, Zechariah, 180. Moss convincingly traces echoes of both Zechariah and Jeremiah just below the surface of Matt 23:29-36 and points up links between Matt 23:29-36 and the actions of the “chief priest and scribes” in Matt 26-27, Cf. ibid., 180-81.

70 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 188 n. 26. As Menken points out, “all variant readings are lectiones faciliores.” He refers the reader, as do I, to Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Biblegesellschaft; United Bible Societies, 1994), 55 for the relevant data.

194

“testimony” ascribed to Jeremiah, or a generalizing reference to the prophetic corpus

(with Jeremiah at its head). Each of these is unlikely.71 As argued in Section 4.1.3, I agree with the consensus position that Jeremiah (and Isaiah) are “typical” prophets for Matthew, the latter the prophesying salvation, the former rejection and judgment.

More specifically, because of how closely 2:18 and 27:9-10 are coordinated, Jeremiah prophesies rejection by and destruction because of Israel’s leaders. And because the text-form of the citation is so close to Zech 11:13, Matthew cites “Jeremiah,” rather than “Zechariah,” in order to draw the reader’s attention to intertextual resonances

(described below) that “would otherwise easily escape the reader or listener.”72

What passage(s) from Jeremiah is/ are in view? Some point to Jer 18:1-2, some to Jeremiah chapter 19, some to Jer 32:6-9, and others to some combination of these.73 Rather than refute what are, in my view, the less likely alternatives (Jer 18:1-

2 and 32:6-9), I will attempt to demonstrate how/ why Jeremiah 19 seems to be the

71 Cf. the discussion in Knowles, Jeremiah, 60-67.

72 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 103 (making the point with regard to what he regards as the original citation of “Isaiah” in Matt 13:35).

73 Cf. the summary in Knowles, Jeremiah, 67-68. Jer 18:1-2 contains the key word “potter,” 32:6-9 the key word “field.” Moreover, as Knowles explains, summarizing “[t]he most widely-held view in modern scholarship,” “[t]he coincidence of a potter’s house [in Jer 18:1-2] and a potter’s vessel [in 32:6-9] in the respective passages is thought sufficient to account for their collocation with Zechariah 11 in the mind of the Evangelist.” Ibid., 67-69. The linkages with Jeremiah chapter 19 will be elaborated in the text.

195

intertext for Matthew. First, however, both Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 19 must be summarized. I will focus only on those details that are important for Matthew (but avoid omissions that would lead to a distortion of the basic contours of the text).

Zechariah 11. Zechariah first enumerates perfidy: those in charge of the sheep murder (the buyers), avariciously exploit (the sellers), and neglect (the shepherds) the sheep. A shepherd who is to tend “the sheep of slaughter” then turns to the merchants

,Chananites (οἱ Χαναναῖοι)—seemingly, his employers—asks for his wages /(עֲ נִיֵיְהַ צֹּאן) and receives “thirty pieces of silver” (11:12).74 He obeys the LORD’s commands to throw these “wages” into the “house of the LORD,” into the “smelter” (τὸ

Finally, he—or another, new shepherd?—will 75.(11:13) (הַ יֹוצֵ ר) ”χωνευτήριον)/ “treasury shepherd but in a disastrously neglectful way, as the sheep are to be abandoned, scattered, crushed, maimed, even mutilated by the accursed shepherd himself (11:15-

17).76

74 There is no indication that Matthew has the cryptic vv. 1-3 and even more cryptic vv. 6-11a in view.

75 There is no indication that Matthew has the explanation for throwing the wages (v. 13) or the sign- act (v. 14) in view.

76 The verbs in this sentence are all translations of the LXX; the MT verbs are somewhat different but the basic idea is the same.

196

Jeremiah 19. The LORD speaks throughout.77 With a series of commands to the prophet (go… buy… bring… go out… read/ proclaim), the LORD sets a precise scene: the prop for a sign-act (a potter’s jug [MT only]), the audience (the elders of the people and of the priests), the locale (a burial ground [LXX only]). The prophet declares his message. The kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem are charged with forsaking the LORD; making foreign (LXX only) “this place”; making offerings to foreign (LXX only) gods; filling “this place” with innocent blood; building high places to Baal; and burning their sons.78 As a result, the name of “this place” will be changed from “Fall and Burial Ground of the sons of Hennom” to “Burial Ground of

Slaughter” (LXX only). Enumerated disasters will befall Judah and Jerusalem. After the LORD commands the prophet to break the jug to symbolize His breaking the people, he is to continue his message of doom (19:10-13). The people will bury until there is no more room to do so (MT only); the city will be ruined; the houses of

Jerusalem (where offerings to foreign gods were made) will be defiled.

77 The LORD does not speak in vv. 14-15; instead, a narrator recounts how, after Jeremiah returns from the Fall (LXX)/ “Topheth” (MT) where he was sent to prophesy, he gives an abbreviated version of the judgment message, seemingly to ratify the original message (cf. v. 15) in the court of the LORD’s house. There is no indication that Matthew has these verses in view.

78 In the MT, from “Topheth, or the valley of the sons of Hinnom” to “the valley of Slaughter.”

197

To lay a foundation for my reading of the FC, I will summarize the points of correspondence between (1) Matthew 26-27 and Zechariah 11; (2) Matthew 26-27 and

Jeremiah 19; and (3) Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 19.

Matthew 26-27 and Zechariah 11. There are several correspondences:

1. Valuation at thirty pieces of silver. In both texts, leaders in Israel value a shepherd at thirty pieces of silver (the prophet and Jesus, respectively).79 In Matthew the chief priests “weigh out thirty pieces of silver for him” (26:15b, my translation). A Matthean addition to his Markan source (cf. Mark 14:10-11), the language is “strikingly similar” to Zech 11:12b and “[n]othing else in the MT or LXX comes close to this near-quotation”:80

Matt 26:15b: οἱ δὲ ἔστησαν αὐτῷ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια And they weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver (my translation).

Zech 11:12b LXX: καὶ ἔστησαν τὸν μισθόν μου τριάκοντα ἀργυροῦς And they weighed out my wages as thirty pieces of silver (my translation).

וַיִׁשְקְ לּוְאֶ ת־ׂשְ כָרִ יְׁשְ ֹלׁשִ יםְכָסֶ ף׃ :Zech 11:12b MT So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.

2. (Not) repenting. In Zech 11:5, the buyers were “not repenting” (οὐ of the slaughter; in Matt (וְ לֹּא יֶאְׁשָ מּו :”μετεμέλοντο; MT: “not punished 27:3, Judas “repents” (μεταμεληθεὶς). Used much less frequently than

traffickers in sheep”), presumably leaders“) לכנעניי Those performing the valuation in Zech 11 are the 79 ,(”poor of the flock“) לכן עניי in Israel. For a discussion of this Hebrew vocalization being preferable to cf. Moss, Zechariah, 172 n. 5 and the sources cited therein.

80 Ibid., 172-73.

198

μετανοιεῖν, μεταμέλεσθαι is a rare verb both in the New Testament (6x, 3x in Matthew) and the LXX (13x). That Matthew often adopts the more common μετανοιεῖν from his sources (3:2; 4:17; 11:20, 21; 12:41)—and, perhaps, uses it once redactionally (12:41)—suggests that his using μεταμέλεσθαι here may well be a deliberate evocation of his intertext (or a subconscious recollection of it).81

3. Sheep of slaughter betrayed by their shepherds. In Zechariah, the sheep are specifically designated the “sheep of slaughter” (11:4, 7) who are sold (11:5), neglected (11:5), and killed (11:5), seemingly left to die and even be cannibalized by each other (11:9). Their covenants and family ties broken (11:10, 14), their suffering is renewed, as, neglected yet again (11:17), they are left to die, wander, be crushed, be devoured, and even mutilated (11:16). In Matt 26:31, Jesus quotes Zech 13:7: “for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” The verb for “strike” is διασκορπίζειν—a verb used not in —but in LXX Zech 11:16 (ּותְ פּוצֶ יןְָ LXX Zech 13:7 (ἐκσπάω translates again, suggesting an allusion to precisely this chapter of Zechariah.

4. Return of (“throwing”?) coins. If Judas “throwing” (ῥίψας) the money into the temple is another allusion to Zechariah, it is to the MT 11:13 ,throw”] rather than the LXX’s κάθες [“place”]); otherwise“] הַׁשְ לִ יכֵ הּו) the mere return of coins may be a (weaker) allusion.82

Less certain, but perhaps more tantalizing, are the following possible allusions:

5. Innocent blood? “Innocent” blood is mentioned in Matt 27: 4, 24. While there is no mention of “innocent blood” in Zechariah 11, “sheep of

81 Only Matthew uses μετανοιεῖν in 3:2// Mark 1:4// Luke 3:3, but both Mark and Luke use the noun μετάνοια; only Matthew uses it in 10:20, but both Matthew and Luke use it in the next verse (Matt 10:21//Luke 10:13).

82 Both Aquila and Symmachus use the verb ῥίπτειν in Zech 11:13. Knowles, Jeremiah, 57 n. 1.

199

slaughter…” (vv. 4, 7) and the visceral imagery of death and mutilation (vv. 9, 16) may evoke this bloodshed.

6. Handing over? The heavy emphasis on betrayal/ handing over (παραδίδωναι) in Matt 26-27 was noted above. In Zech 11:6, as part of punishment for sin (of the sheep traffickers?), the Lord declares that He allow to fall”]) “people” into“] מַמְצִ יא = hands over” (παραδίδωμι; MT“ the hands of their neighbors and into the hands of kings.

Matthew 26-27 and Jeremiah 19. These intertextual links are even more palpable:

1. Elders and priests. Jer 19:1 contains one of only two references in the Old Testament to “elders” and “priests of the people” (ἀπὸ τῶν ּומִ זִקְ נֵ יְהָעָ םְּומִ זִקְ נֵ יְ ;πρεσβυτέρων τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων τῶν ἱερέων who, of course, are the consistent opponents of Jesus in Matt—(הַ כֹּהֲ נִ ים 26-27 (“elders of the people” in 21:23; 26:3, 47; 27:1).83

2. Potter. Jer 19:1 contains one of only a handful of references in the MT cf. 19:11; LXX: βῖκον πεπλασμένον ὀστράκινον = “a ;יֹוצֵ ר) ”to “potter fashioned earthenware jug”), the word that Matthew uses for the field’s name in the FC (Matt 27:10).84

3. Burial ground—with a new name. In the LXX, the designated setting for Jeremiah’s prophecy is “the burial ground (τὸ πολυάνδριον) of the

83 Ibid., 71-72. It is even rare for “elders” and “priests” (without the modifier “of the people”) to appear together: Deut 31:9; Josh 9:2; 2 Sam 17:15; 19:11; 1 Esdr. 5:63; Ezra 3:12; 1 Macc 7:33; 11:23; 14:20, 28; 3 Macc 6:1; Jer 29:1; Lam 1:19; Ezek 7:26.

84 2 Sam 17:28; 1 Chr 4:23; Ps 2:9; Isa 29:16; 30:14; 41:25; Jer 18:2, 3, 4, 6; 19:1, 11; Lam 4:2; Zech 11:13. In mss 86, both Aquila and Symmachus have “potter” (κεραμέως) here. Joseph Ziegler ed., Ieremias; Baruch; Threni; Epistula Ieremiae, vol. 15 of Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957), 244.

200

sons of their children” (19:2; cf. 19:6: “of the sons of Hennom”). This geographical location seems important: the LORD/ Jeremiah repeats “in this place” 6x (19:3, 4 [2x], 6, 7, 12), and part of the sentence of judgment is that the name of “this place” will be changed (19:6: καὶ οὐ In the LXX, the new name is “the Fall and Burial .(וְ לֹּא־יִקָרֵ א ;κληθήσεται Ground (πολυάνδριον) of the sons of Hennom.” While the MT does not have this, it does have an extra line, not translated in the LXX, which until there is no more room (יִקְבְ רּו) reads, “In Topheth they shall bury In Matthew, of course, the thirty pieces are .(19:11) ”)לִקְ בֹור( to bury used to purchase the potter’s field “as a burial place (ταφὴν) for foreigners” and, as a result, the field receives a new name (Matt 27:7-8).

4. Shedding innocent blood. Again, “innocent” blood is mentioned twice in Matthew 27 (vv. 4, 24). In Jeremiah, the leaders are also charged with ּומָ לְ אּוְאֶ ת־ :hav[ing] filled this place with innocent blood” (Jer 19:4“ .(ἔπλησαν τὸν τόπον τοῦτον αἱμάτων ἀθῴων ;הַמָ קֹוםְהַ זֶ הְדַ םְנְקִ יִם

5. Passersby will hiss. In Jer 19:8, the LORD will punish them by making so ,(וְלִׁשְרֵקָ ה ;Jerusalem into a horror, something to be hissed at (συριγμόν ᾽ὁ παραπορευόμενος ἐπ ;כֹּל עֹּבֵ ר עָלֶיהְָ) ”that “everyone who passes by it In .(יִשֹּם :αὐτῆς) will look sullen (LXX: σκυθρωπάσει)/ be horrified (MT Matt 27:39, those “passing by” (παραπορεύομαι) Jesus revile him. The verb, which appears only here in Matthew, is a rare one in the New Testament (only 5x).

As with Zechariah 11, I note a pregnant but less certain allusion:

6. Making foreign. In the LXX, the leaders are charged with, inter alia, “making this place foreign” (Jer 19:4; LXX only: ἀπηλλοτρίωσαν τὸν τόπον τοῦτον) and “burn[ing] incense in it to foreign gods” (ἐθυμίασαν ἐν αὐτῷ θεοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις). In Matt 27:7, the chief priests and elders buy the potter’s field as a place to bury “foreigners” (τοῖς ξένοις).

201

Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 19. There are several interesting verbal and thematic links between Jeremiah 19 and Zechariah 11 that could easily have led

Matthew to regard them as “analogous passages.”85 Broadly, both are statements of judgment setting forth an indictment and sentence; specifically:

1. Both are judgments against leaders of the people (Zech 11:5: buyers, sellers, shepherds of the sheep; Jer 19:1: priests and elders),

2. who, at least in part, are judged because of their shedding the people’s (innocent) blood (Zech 11:5: the buyers kill them; 11:7: the flock are slaughtered; Jer 19:4: the blood of the innocent)

3. and who are punished, in part,

in Zech 11:6 and רֵ עֵ הּו /a. by being killed by their neighbors (πλησίον Jer 19:9); and

in Zech 11:9 and אֶ ת־בְׂשַ ר /b. by devouring their own flesh (τὰς σάρκας .(in Zech 11:16 בְׂשַ ר /Jer 19:9; τὰ κρέα

In addition:

4. A sign-act, which involves breaking an object (Zech 11:10, 16; Jer 19:10), accompanies each statement of judgment.

85 “Analogous passages” will be discussed in Section 5.3.

202

אֶ ת־/ Zech 11:4, 7 refer to the “flock of slaughter” (τὰ πρόβατα τῆς σφαγῆς .5 Jer 19:6 is one of the only three other occurrences of ;(צֹּאן הַהֲרֵ גָ ה in the MT (cf. Jer 7:32; 12:3).86 (הֲרֵ גָ ה /slaughter” (τῆς σφαγῆς“

6. The shepherd (Zechariah)/ people (Jeremiah) are punished, in part, by .(in Zech 11:17 and Jer 19:7 חֶרֶ ב /the sword (μάχαιρα

Before drawing together these links into a coherent reading, one other piece of the foundation must be laid: Matthew’s redaction/ creation of the FC’s wording provides clues as to how he would have it read. Of the various unique, seemingly redactional features of this quotation (e.g., “some of the sons”; “field of the potter”), I draw attention to perhaps the most curious—and, in my view, the most revealing.

“As the LORD commanded me” does not appear in Zechariah 11 (or Jeremiah 19).87

Scholars derive it from Zech 11:13a (“Then the LORD said to me”), Jer 32(39):8,

Exod 9:12, or simply a common LXX formula, but they rarely—and never satisfactorily—account for why, exactly, Matthew would have included it.88

86 Moss, Zechariah, 179 n. 32 (citing Raymond F. Person, Jr., Second Zechariah and the Deuteronomic School, JSOTSup 167 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993], 125). Person only points to Jer 7:32 and 19:6 and overlooks Jer 12:3.

87 Perhaps it appears obliquely in Jeremiah: in his indictment of the leaders, the LORD declares that the child sacrifice in which they have engaged (Jer (לֹּא־צִּוִ יתִ י ;He did not “command” (οὐκ ἐνετειλάμην 19:5).

88 Those deriving it from Zech 11:13a and a common LXX idiom include Knowles, Jeremiah, 54 and Douglas J. Moo, “Tradition and Old Testament in Matt 27:3-10,” in Gospel Perspectives: Studies in Midrash and Historiography (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983), 157-175, 160. Lindars proposes that

203

(Remember, “the evangelist quotes just what he needs.”)89 In my view, whatever its source(s), the LORD’s “commanding” (συνέταξεν) recalls with bitter irony the chief priests’ statement in the narrative that “It is not lawful (οὐκ ἔξεστιν) to put them into the treasury, since they are blood money” (27:6). This brings us to my reading.90

The reader (1) who understands the leaders to be the FC’s referent, (2) who, following the hermeneutical clue in Matthew’s introductory formula, searches both resonant intertexts, and (3) who situates the FC within Matthew’s characterization of

Matthew takes the phrase from Exod 9:12 LXX so that he forges a link between the “smelter” of Zech 11:13 LXX and the furnace from which Moses draws ashes to create the plague of boils. Lindars, Apologetic, 121. I agree with Knowles that this proposal is “too ‘ingenious’ to be plausible.” Knowles, Jeremiah, 54.

89 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

90 Is this addition Matthean? I think so. I advert to my discussion of form in both Chapter 3 above and Section 4.2.3 below. As in the latter section, I would note that even Menken, so hesitant to ascribe editorial changes to Matthew, so eager to fit even recalcitrant data into his thesis of a pre-Matthean “continuous text,” allows for Matthean redaction here. While Menken only explicitly ascribes to Matthew (1) ἀργύρια, a word “rare in [Matthew’s] linguistic Umwelt” and possibly/ tentatively, (2) the phrase καθὰ συνέταξέν μοι κύριος (which “may well betray a Matthean interest”), his logic whereby certain changes to the quotation are necessary in order to fit it into Matthew’s narrative context require that Matthew be responsible for these changes; Menken may demur or equivocate, invoking his hypothetical “citator” for some of these changes, but he provides no basis for resisting the implication toward which his own logic leads. These changes include: (3) the translation τὴν τιμὴν τοῦ τετιμημένου ὃν ἐτιμήσαντο from a selectively-read Hebrew text; (4) the importing of ἀγρός (from Jer 32[39]:6-15); (5) the change of verb from “throwing” to “giving”; and, possibly, (6) the addition of ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ (even if drawn from the “analogous passage” of Deut 23:18-19). Cf. ibid., 184-91.

204

the “chief priests and elders” will appreciate the scathing intertextual polemic. These

“priests and elders” (Jer 19:1; Matt 27:3) typologically re-enact the sins of their

“fathers” (cf. 23:32) by shedding innocent blood (Jer 19:4; Matt 27:4, 24) and killing their own sons (Jer 19:5), by insulting God’s shepherd by valuing him at thirty silver pieces (Zech 11:12-13; Matt 27:3), by refusing to “repent” (Zech 11:5; unlike Judas:

Matt 27:3), by failing to shepherd their flock, leading them to slaughter/ ruin (Zech

11:4-5, 7, 16-17; Matt 27:25).91 The result is a typological re-enactment of judgment: in a potter’s field (Jer 19:1; Matt 27:7, 10), whose name is changed (Jer 19:6; Matt 27:8), they are condemned (Jer 19:3, 6-9, 11-12, 15).

Part of this intertextual polemic is an acerbic irony that extends beyond just the irony of the final line (“just as the LORD commanded me,” noted above). While the concern of “the chief priests and elders” is to protect the sacred space of the

Temple from being defiled by “blood money,” it is their shedding “innocent blood”

91 While the thirty pieces are usually regarded as a pittance, an insult (cf. Exod 21:32: the price of a slave), others claim that such a price is not necessarily an insult. This latter claim is based on the fact that “in ancient economies, slaves were not insignificant properties… thirty shekalim is in fact a sizeable amount of money in first century currency.” Knowles, Jeremiah, 56 n. 1 (citing personal correspondence from J. S. Kloppenborg). Even assuming arguendo that this is true, it neglects the fact that valuing the LORD’s shepherd, much less His Messiah, at the price of a slave—no matter how “sizeable” that price—would surely be considered an insult.

205

that causes the Temple’s destruction (27:4; cf. Matt 23:34-36).92 And with their creative legal solution—buying a field not for Jews but for “foreigners” (27:7)—they re-enact another of the sins of their Jeremian forebears (cf. Jer 19:4, 13 LXX:

“making foreign”). (In this light, also ironic is their response to Judas “See to it yourself” [27:4]. This is precisely the response of the “foreigner” Pilate, who can see

“innocent blood,” to their own request (27:24)!) Because they “hand over” Jesus

(Matt 27:2, 18), the LORD will “hand over” them (Zech 11:6).

Like those in 1:23 and 2:18, this FC seems to confirm my thesis about

Matthew’s hermeneutic. While there is not (repetition of) a limit-adjective/ adverb and no πολύς (cf. 2:18), nonetheless the narrative’s characterization of “the chief priests and elders” functions analogously to the heightened figuration we encountered in 2:18. That is, just as a massacre of innocent children surpasses the horror of an exiled people, the leaders’ unrepentant and cruel shedding of innocent blood surpasses even the sinfulness of Judas’ treachery and Pilate’s relunctant hand-washing. Indeed,

92 David Moffitt has made a compelling case that Matthew creates a “framework” in chapters 23 and 27 for understanding the religious leaders’ shedding of Jesus’ innocent blood” as the cause of the Temple’s destruction. In addition, his reading, which repeatedly and rightly casts this framework as portraying “Jesus’ death as the shedding of righteous blood par excellence,” comports with my own reading of the way in which the FC in 27:9-10 sets forth the fullness of this sin which leads to exile. Cf. David M. Moffitt, “Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative, and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext,” JBL 125 (2006): 299-320, 308, 309, 316, 319.

206

theirs is the fullness of sin: the bloodshed emphasized by repetition in chapter 27

(27:4: αἷμα ἀθῷον, 27:6: τιμὴ αἵματός; 27:8: ἀγρὸς αἵματος; 27:24: αἵματος; 27:25: τὸ αἷμα) evokes the bloodshed that chapter 23 identified as the full (23:32: πληρώσατε) measure of sin (23:30: τῷ αἵματι τῶν προφητῶν; 23:35: αἷμα 3x, including πᾶν αἷμα δίκαιον).93

Herod’s death (2:19) allows the holy family to return home, and, with his movements carefully scripted by the angel, the faithful Joseph leads them. The prose is sparse, focusing attention on pinpointing the exact location of the family’s destination: land (γῆν) of Israel  district (τὰ μέρη) of Galilee  town (πόλιν) of

Nazareth. Narratively, the progression seems straightforward: divine providence settles the family, anonymously, safely, and precisely, in a small town away from any threats to the child’s life. Yet the fourth and final FC of the Infancy Narrative makes the final geographical detail strange: Jesus’ living in Nazareth fulfills what “the prophets” spoke: “He will be called a Nazorean” (Ναζωραῖος κληθήσεται) (2:23).

93 Moffitt has drawn attention to numerous others links between chapters 23 and 27, particularly in their usage of Lam 4:13 as an intertext, in a way that buttresses my point here. Cf. Moffitt, “Righteous Bloodshed,” 305-312. Even if his proposal that αἷμα δίκαιον in some manuscripts, rather than the αἷμα ἀθῷον in NA27 (and now NA28), is original is unconvincing, it is possible that the phrase αἷμα δίκαιον in the manuscript tradition reflects the fact that scribes read chapters 23 and 27 together. Cf. ibid., 313-16.

207

The strangeness is threefold. First, the term Ναζωραῖος (“Nazarene” or

“Nazorean”) is difficult to understand.94 Neither this term nor any form of the name

“Nazareth” appears in the LXX or, indeed, in any extant Greek literature before the

New Testament. Does/ can it derive etymologically from one of the attested spellings of “Nazareth”?95 Does it refer to a pre-Christian Jewish sect?96 Second, the “citation” differs so much from any proposed Old Testament (or extra-biblical) text as to be

94 For an argument why “Nazorean” is a preferable English translation, cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 161 n. 1.

.can be transcribed in Greek as ζ—or whether it must be σ צ Much of the discussion turns on whether 95 Cf. the discussion in Brown, Birth, 207-08. Never appearing in any writing before the New Testament, the town appears in the New Testament as Ναζαρά, Ναζαρέθ, and Ναζαρέτ and its inhabitant as Ναζαρηνός and Ναζωραῖος. Mark spells the town Ναζαρέτ in its one occurrence in his gospel (Mark 1:9) and consistently spells the inhabitant Ναζαρηνός (Mark 1:24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6). Matthew spells the town Ναζαρέτ (2:23), Ναζαρά (4:13), or Ναζαρέθ (21:11) when not following Mark or Q and, for the inhabitant uses Ναζωραῖος, both when not following a source (2:23) and when changing Mark’s Ναζαρηνός (26:71; cf. Mark 14:67). Luke always spells the town Ναζαρέθ when not following Mark or Q (Luke 1:26; 2:4; 39, 51; Acts 10:38)—except in Luke 4:16, where he spells it Ναζαρά. Luke tends to spell the inhabitant Ναζωραῖος (Acts 2:22; 3:6; 4:10; 6:14; 22:8; 24:5; 26:9), including one instance in which he changes Mark’s Ναζαρηνός (Luke 18:37// Mark 10:47), but he also spells it Ναζαρηνός (following Mark in Luke 4:34// Mark 1:24 and seemingly on his own in Luke 24:19). Perhaps significantly, Luke spells it Ναζωραῖος when writing of the “sect of the Nazarenes” (τῆς τῶν Ναζωραίων αἱρέσεως) in Acts 24:5. John spells the town Ναζαρέτ (1:45, 46) and the inhabitant Ναζωραῖος (18:5, 7; 19:19). Of course, there are variant spellings in the manuscript tradition for much of this data. For the spelling of the words in post-New Testament Jewish and Christian literature, cf. ibid., 207; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 274.

96 Cf. the thorough discussion in Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 197-201.

208

unrecognizable.97 Positing that Matthew is engaging in word-play on a Hebrew term,

shoot,” “branch”), (2) Judg 13:5, 7 and/ or 16:17“ ,נֵצֶ ר) scholars propose (1) Isa 11:1

”nazirite”), and/ or (3) Isa 4:3 (equating “holy” [ἅγιος] one with “nazirite“ ,נָזִ יר)

in Judg 16:17 LXXB).98 Third, the curious נָזִיר ναζιραῖος] based on the translation of] introductory formula, with its vague generalizing reference to “the prophets” and its lack of λέγοντος, is unique among the FCs.99 Was Matthew citing a lost non-canonical book?100 Indicating that he did not know the source of the quotation?101 Not citing a specific text but rather the Old Testament witness generally (cf. Matt 26:56) or

97 For other “citations” that cannot be identified, cf. Miler, Citations, 68 n. 118; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 275.

98 For summaries of the literature, cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 166-69; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 203-07; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 275-81. Each of these sources also notes and discusses the other, less likely proposals that have been made.

99 While we do find similarly generic references to “the scriptures” (αἱ γραφαὶ) and “the scriptures of the prophets” (αἱ γραφαὶ τῶν προφητῶν) in 26:54 and 26:56 respectively, in neither case does the phrase introduce a specific quotation. For examples of other citations introduced by “une référence générale,” cf. Miler, Citations, 69 n. 119.

100 For those holding this view, cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 274.

101 Cf. e.g., Lindars, Apologetic, 196; Luz, Matthew 1-7, 123.

209

various prophetic texts?102 Replete with speculation, the literature is “a bewildering profusion of proposed solutions,” and the text remains a crux interpretum.103

While I will address the issues requisite for exegesis in the footnotes, I will not rehearse the “dense jungle of argument and counter-argument”; this has already been done exhaustively.104 Neither will I offer a novel reading of how, exactly, Matthew reads this Old Testament “text.” At our far remove from Matthew’s cultural

“encyclopedia”—and faced with strong but inconclusive arguments pointing in different directions—we can only offer (very) tentative readings. However, in my view, even in the face of uncertainty, we can nonetheless stake out minimalist but important claims about Matthew’s hermeneutic.

102 Cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 274. According to Miler, Citations, 70, this is the view of “la plupart des commentateurs.”

103 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 193. A more minor problem: is the ὅτι in 2:23 a ὅτι recidivus (i.e., introducing but not itself part of the quotation) or a causal conjunction (i.e., part of the quotation)? The most thorough discussion of this issue is Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 162-64.

104 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 193. In addition, I would refer to the earlier and still useful discussions in Eugenio Zolli, The Nazarene: Studies in New Testament Exegesis (New Hope, KY: St. Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community, 1999) (originally 1950) and Ernst Zuckschwerdt, “Ναζωραῖος in Matth 2, 23,” TZ 31 (1975): 65-77 (including a nice summary of previous literature in n. 19 on p. 69); Eduard Schweitzer, “Er wird Nazoräer heißen,” in Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias, BZNW 26, ed. Walther Eltester (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1960), 90-93; James A. Sanders, “Ναζωραῖος in Matthew 2.23,” in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel, JSNTSup 104, eds. Craig A. Evans and William Richard Stegner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994).

210

Given the “dense jungle,” it is helpful to begin by registering what are, in my view, genuine gains of scholarship:

1. Matthew is probably not making a generalizing reference to the Old Testament but rather is citing a specific text(s).

Soares Prabhu is right: “The normal hermeneutic of the formula quotations would lead us to expect that here too Mt would intend a definite OT allusion.”105 As we saw with Matt 27:9 and will see with 13:35, Matthew’s “definite OT allusions” are not always straightforward; he can “allude” to entire chapters or, even more elusively, to a refrain, expressed with various formulations, within a large section of text.

Nonetheless, Matthew’s allusions are always, indeed, textual allusions.

2. Whether or not etymologically legitimate, for Matthew, Ναζωραῖος denotes “one from Nazareth.”

Despite the oceans of ink spilled over the problem, the phonological issue is a red herring. Matthean usage, rather than modern philology, must be determinative. As

Brown observes, “biblical… etymologies are rarely accurate by scientific criteria

[but]… are often the product of analogy rather than of phonology.”106 For Matthew,

105 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 205.

106 Brown, Birth, 209; cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 277. It should be noted that various studies, especially one by William F. Albright, are now regularly cited as proving that Ναζωραῖος can derive from the name of the town. William Foxwell Albright, “The Names ‘Nazareth’ and

211

that Jesus is a Ναζωραῖος means that he is “from Nazareth,” i.e., it is synonymous with

ὁ ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲθ in 21:11. Not only is this the meaning in the context of 2:19-23, but also the redactional Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Ναζωραίου in 26:71 is “obviously modelled on the καὶ σὺ ἦσθα

μετὰ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Γαλιλαίου” of Matthew’s “triple tradition source.”107

3. Matthew is engaging in some sort of word-play.

While it is possible that Matthew read a Greek text of Judges (now lost to us) with

Ναζωραῖος, almost all scholars agree that, whatever word the Greek term is derived from, Matthew is engaging in some sort of word-play.108 The basic point—and a

‘Nazoraean’,” JBL 65 (1946): 397-401. The best summary of the phonological issue is Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 194-97.

107 Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 101.

108 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 171; E. Earle Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in the Light of Modern Research, WUNT 54 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 93. Some scholars use the term “paronomasia” to describe this word-play and distinguish it from al-tîqre, a rabbinical technique for emending a text by changing a word. Cf. e.g., Miler, Citations, 72 n. 129. For “paronomasia,” cf. Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs and Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E.–IV Century C.E. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950), 68, 71; David Instone-Brewer, Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE, TSAJ 30 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 20. For al-tîqre, cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 123 n. 47; Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 171; Joseph Bonsirven, Exégèse rabbinique et exégèse Paulinienne (Paris: Beauchesne, 1939), 120-28.

212

critical one—is that whatever the underlying word, “‘Nazorean’ evokes more than the name of a place.”109 This point will be further justified below.

Having registered the gains of scholarship, I will now offer a reading of Matt

2:23. While “nazirite” seems to me a more likely referent for Ναζωραῖος than

“branch”—so that Matthew cites Judg 13:5, 7 (but not 16:17) rather than Isa 11:1— my judgment is a tentative one (as, I think, any such judgment about Matt 2:23 must be). Yet one conclusion we can draw more firmly—and this is my original contribution to the debate—is that Matthew is not citing Isa 4:3. That verse reads:

Isa 4:3 NRSV/MT: Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be ἅγιοι κληθήσονται), everyone who has been recorded for life קָ ;דֹוׁש יֵאָמֶ ר) called holy in Jerusalem…110

as ναζιραῖον in Judg 13:5, 7 and 16:17, LXXB נָזִיר While LXXA transliterates transliterates it as ναζιρ in 13:5 and translates it as ἅγιος in 13:7 and 16:17.111 Because of this latter translation, scholars propose an “involved word play” on Matthew’s part, described by Davies and Allison as follows:

109 Brown, Birth, 218.

110 A very literal translation of this verse, the LXX version is rendered in NETS almost identically to the NRSV translation I have cited so that it is unproblematic to simply include the Greek, along with the Hebrew, in parentheses.

111 For the “variety of forms” in the manuscript tradition of the LXX of Judges, cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 199 and n. 32.

213

“He will be called a Nazarene” depends upon (a) the equation of “Nazarite” and “holy one of God”; (b) the substitution of “Nazarite” for “holy” in Isa 4.3 (cf. the LXX variants in Judges); and (c) the substitution of “Nazarene” for “Nazarite.”112

The appeal of this proposal, which otherwise might seem suspiciously ingenious, is that Isa 4:3 is the only intertext that could contain both words of Matthew’s

“citation,” and, for this reason, the proposal is a popular one.113

It is time, however, to reject this possibility. That one could legitimately

the holy one,” i.e., the nazirite, who is holy in a particular way, with“ ,נְזִיר translate

ἅγιος (in a given narrative context) does not mean that it is legitimate to translate

a holy one,” in a general (or different) way, with ναζιραῖος (in a given narrative“ ,קָ דֹוׁש context). Words can be used synonymously in some of their definitions but not others and in some contexts but not others. To write of the “équivalence” (Miler) or

“interchange” (Davies and Allison) between ναζιραῖος and ἅγιος—as if any instance of

with ἅγιος (!)—is to neglect נְזִיר could be translated ναζιραῖος and any instance of קָ דֹוׁש this critical linguistic point.114

112 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 277.

113 Notable proponents include Brown, Birth, 208 (also Judg 16:17); Miler, Citations, 72-73 (“avec peut- être une allusion secondaire à Jg 13”); and Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 280 (“perhaps also a secondary allusion to Isa 11.1”).

114 Miler, Citations, 72; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 277.

214

Turning to the two other proposals, there are three strong arguments that

shoot,” “branch”)—and, thus, probably Isa 11:1—with“) נֵצֶ ר Matthew would evoke

Ναζωραῖος. First, by citing Isa 7:14 and 8:8, 10 in 1:23 and 8:23–9:1 in 4:15-16,

Matthew seems to read this section of Isaiah (chapters 7–11?) holistically, not atomistically, as setting forth a messianic vision that Jesus “fills up.” Isaiah 11:1, then, has “thematic coherence” with precisely the theme that Matthew emphasizes in his first few chapters—a theme emphasized, in large part, by means of scriptural intertextuality.115 Second, because Isa 11:1 was a locus of messianic reflection for both non-Christian Jews and Christians roughly contemporaneous with Matthew, it is plausible that what appears to us as cryptic two-word shorthand would, in Matthew’s context, be sufficient to activate the reading Matthew desired.116 Third, “branch”

115 Cf. e.g., Brown, Birth, 212; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 277. For “thematic coherence” (Hays’ term), cf. n. 40 of this chapter.

116 For Jewish readings, Davies and Allison cite the Aramaic targums and b. Sanh. 43a, T. Jud. 24.6, and 4QpIsaa 3.15-26. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 278. For Christian readings, Brown cites Rev 22:6, Justin, Dial. 126:1, and Jerome to Pammachius ca. 395 (Letter 57; PL 52:574), and Davies and Allison cite Justin, 1 Apol. 32 and Irenaeus Haer. 3.9.3. Brown, Birth, 211; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 277- within a נֵצֶ ר Another argument offered by both Brown and Davies and Allison is that situating .78 that refers to the Messiah makes it more likely both (צֶמַ ח and ׁשֹּרֶ ׁש) stock of similar plant vocabulary is, in fact, the referent and that such an unelaborated cryptic “citation” would have been heard נֵצֶ ר that and understood. Isa 4:2; Jer 23:5; Isa 53:2a; and 1QH vi 15, viii 5 are cited in Brown, Birth, 212; Isa 4:2; Jer 23:5; 33:15; Zech 3:8; 6.12 are cited in Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 278.

215

seems preferable to “nazirite” because, quite simply, Jesus’ life contradicts the tenets of the nazirite vow set forth in Num 6:1-21 as embodied by Samson, Samuel, and

John the Baptist (the only examples of “nazirites” in the Bible) (cf. especially Matt

11:19). (1) Jesus does not refrain from wine or strong drink (Num 6:3); (2) he touches corpses (Num 6:6); and (3) we have no indication that a razor never touches his head

(Num 6:5). That John the Baptist is characterized in terms clearly alluding to Num

6:3 (Luke 1:15) suggests that this conception of “nazirite” was current in Matthew’s day.117

While formidable, these arguments, in my view, fail to persuade because of one decisive counterargument: Ναζωραῖος is so very close to Ναζιραῖος (Judg 13:5, 7; 16:17

LXXA) that, especially given Matthew’s terse citation and his tendency to explain

Hebrew-language data to his Greek-speaking audience (cf. Matt 1:23; 27:33, 46), it is almost impossible to believe that this audience would have heard anything other than

Ναζωραῖος.118 Menken observes that there is no evidence of anyone transliterating “the

.and their refutation—cf. Brown, Birth, 212—נֵצֶ ר For other arguments against 117

118 The argument that Matthew would not have expected his readers to recognize Hebrew/ Greek word play is very common. Cf. e.g., Miler, Citations, 71; Luz, Matthew 1-7, 123; Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 169. For the best summary of the relevant data, cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 202-03. Davies and Allison would refute this argument by pointing to “Matthew’s procedure elsewhere”: Already in Mt 1 he has apparently used gematria based upon the numerical value of dwd. Likewise, “you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (1.21)

216

but that it was “evidently common among ”,נצר or the verb נצר Hebrew substantive

Greek-speaking Jews before and during Matthew’s time to transliterate on occasion

Citing myriad examples 119”.נזר and also the related substantive נזיר the Hebrew word of this transliteration, Menken convincingly demonstrates “an established tradition” that would have allowed Matthew to “assume that his audience would recognize [the] word” Ναζωραῖος.

Moreover, various links have been pointed out between Jesus’ and Samson’s lives, e.g.:

• A “miraculous birth with an angel as intermediary” (cf. Judg 13:1- 24).120

depends upon a pun apparent only in Hebrew. So Matthew was not above scattering items in his Greek text whose deeper meaning could only be appreciated by those with a knowledge of Hebrew. Indeed, it might even be that Matthew found authorial delight in hiding “bonus points” for those willing and able to look a little beneath the gospel’s surface. (Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 279 [citation omitted]). The problem with this argument is that, while it may be true that appreciating the “deeper meaning” required knowledge of Hebrew, in 2:23, a reader without Hebrew would not be able to appreciate any meaning at all. Put differently, it is one thing for a text to operate on two levels; it is another for it to fail to operate on even a single level. In addition, knowledge about the meaning of the name “Jesus” “was probably widespread in Greek-speaking Jewish and Christian circles.” Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 169.

119 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 169-70 (citing LXXA of Judge 13:5, 7; 16:17, the ναζιρ of LXXB in Judg 13:5, Lam 4:7; 4 Kgdms 11:12 and other such transliterations in the Versions, 1 Macc, and Josephus).

120 Ibid., 172.

217

• Both were endowed with God’s Spirit (cf. Judg 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14).121

• Both were “consecrated to God’s service” (cf. Judg 13:5, 7; 16:17).122 Indeed, the only time that the title “Holy One of God” is used for an individual in the Old Testament is for Samson in Judg 16:17 LXXB.123

• Both were to “save” Israel—and the parallel language here is “especially striking”:124

Judg 13:5 (LXXA): “…he will begin to save (σῶσαι) Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”125

Matt 1:21: for he will save (σώσει) his people from their sins.

Because all of these links derive from the birth-stories of Samson and Jesus, Menken is right to suggest that “we should drop Judg 16,17 as one of the possible main sources of the quotation.”126 Finally, the seemingly generalized “the prophets” of the

121 Ibid.

122 The language is from Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 276, the citations from Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 172.

123 Brown, Birth, 224.

124 Cf. e.g., ibid., 225; Miler, Citations, 72; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 206. “Especially striking” is from Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 172.

125 As translated in Brown, Birth, 225.

126 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 175.

218

introductory formula may refer to books included in what came to be known as the

“former prophets.”127

The word κληθήσεται does not appear in Judg 13:5, 7 nor in Judg 16:17 but it may well derive from Judg 13:24: “And the woman bore a son and called (ἐκάλεσεν in

LXXA and LXXB) his name Sampson.”128 Alternatively, the verb may be Matthew’s

“free” translation that aligns this FC with the other two christological FCs in the

Infancy Narrative (both of which use καλεῖν).129

But how can Jesus be considered a “nazirite”? The most common explanation is that Jesus, like a nazirite, “was consecrated to God’s service from the womb.…”130

In my view, this explanation is unsatisfying.131 Perhaps best is Menken’s solution:

127 Soares Prabhu endorses this suggestion, which he attributes to Schaeder, TWNT IV, 883. Cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 206. For evidence that Josephus and 1QMMTd 14-21 may have referred to the books of “the former prophets” as “the prophets,” cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 176. For two different explanations of the lack of λέγοντος, an issue not germane for my purpose, cf. ibid. and Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 206-07.

128 Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 174.

129 For an ingenious but, in my view, unconvincing proposal that the word is drawn from Isa 7:14, Cf. ibid., 173-74.

130 Cf. e.g., Brown, Birth, 211 (citing Judg 13:3b, 5b and Matt 1:21); Miler, Citations, 72.

131 I agree with Soares Prabhu that viewing Jesus as a nazirite because simply he was “consecrated to God” is a “quite banal sense” of “nazirite” that is “not how early Christians… would have taken it.” Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 200. Samson and Samuel are the only two nazirites in the Old Testament (cf. Judg 13:2-7 for the former and a fragmentary Hebrew manuscript of 1 Sam 1:22 for the

219

“Typology always works with only a selection of traits of an OT figure that is seen as prefiguring Jesus.”132

This last observation would align 2:23 with Matthew’s hermeneutic and the rest of the FCs. Generally, these set forth Jesus (or, in two cases, Israel’s leaders) typologically—evoking a “a selection of traits” of a form/ image/ figure so that Jesus figures forth precisely that type but in a fuller (indeed, fullest) way.133 Unfortunately, with 2:23, the sparse context and cryptic citation leave us guessing as to how, exactly,

Jesus “fills up” the “nazirite” type. We are left to posit, somewhat unsatisfyingly, the sorts of general parallels between Jesus and Samson summarized above.

Despite the tentativeness, uncertainty, and generality of my (or any) reading, we can nonetheless make two important claims about Matthew’s hermeneutic on the

forever”]). Cf. Brown, Birth, 210. Both are portrayed in terms נָזִ יר latter [stating that Samuel will be “a clearly reminiscent of Num 6:1-21 (cf. 1 Sam 1:11). Moreover, the Numbers conception seems to be carried forward into New Testament times: (1) the angel instructs Elizabeth that John the Baptist “must never drink wine or strong drink” (Luke 1:15) and (2) the account of Hegesippus (ca. A.D. 180) (cf. Eusebius Eccl. Hist. 2:23:4-5) portrays James the brother of Jesus as follows: “He was holy from the womb of his mother; he drank no wine or strong drink and ate no animal food; no razor touched his head.” Cf. ibid.

132 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 172.

133 Because this is Matthew’s procedure in the FCs generally, I find it difficult to read this as a singular instance of prediction–verification. Of course, as would be expected, especially for scholars who believe that all the FCs can and should be grouped under precisely this rubric, 2:23 exemplifies prediction– verification. Cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 274; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 207-12.

220

basis of this FC. First, Matt 2:23 “almost certainly has to do with a play on the word….”134 As “nazirite” (one consecrated to God in a particular way) becomes

“Nazorean” (one who lives in Nazareth), such word-play requires, to use scholarly parlance, a truly “atomistic” reading of the Old Testament (what I will call in Section

5.4 atomism at the “word level”).135 Yet, because it seems that Matthew would have his reader use both terms to characterize Jesus—i.e., this is word-play not textual emendation; he is not changing referents but evoking both—his hermeneutic is not quite as atomizing as it might appear. Second, this FC should be read alongside those in 13:35 and 27:9; rather than simply citing a specific verse(s) as he does in the other

FCs, Matthew invites his readers to “search the Scriptures” (John 5:39) and forge what we might call robust intertextuality.

Discussions of the gospel’s structure need not detain us: whether 3:1 begins a new major unit or 3:1–4:16 continues the prologue, whether 3:1 (or 4:17)–16:20 constitutes a major unit (Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom) or this material is better divided into “books” (five in the gospel, mimicking the Pentateuch), it will

134 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 276.

135 Menken is right that it is “clear that such a reading of the clauses from Judges is possible only by isolating them, to a certain extent at least, from their context.” Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 172.

221

suffice, for my purpose, simply to appreciate the “one incontestable fact” about the gospel’s structure. As Davies and Allison point out, the narrative “follow[s] a rough chronological sequence—birth, baptism, ministry in Galilee, journey to Jerusalem, passion, resurrection,” and “large sections of teaching material have regularly been inserted” into this sequence.136 Four FCs have been inserted into the narrative of

Jesus’ kingdom-proclaiming ministry. As Rothfuchs points out, each names “Isaiah” in its introductory formula and attaches to a “summary” of Jesus’ salvific activity.

Because Matthew does not always name “Isaiah” (cf. Matt 1:23), such selective naming must have significance: Matthew seems to use “Isaiah” typically to express

“Jesus’ salvific work for Israel” (Heilsverkündigung des Werkes Jesu an Israel).137 In this section of the gospel, then, after providing the requisite “preunderstanding” of

Jesus the Davidic messiah who will save his people from exile (Section 4.1), Matthew narrates the shape of this salvation, and the Isaianic FCs play a major role.138 Jesus is

136 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 58-59. For a discussion of structural proposals, including the ones mentioned in the text above, cf. ibid., 58-72.

137 Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate, 42-43. Rothfuchs’ point is widely embraced. Knowles is skeptical that each of 4:14, 8:17, 12:17, and 13:35 “themselves provide a ‘summary’ of Jesus’ messianic works.” He does, however, agree with Rothfuchs’ basic insight but, instead of focusing on “summaries,” writes that at least the first three of these four FCs “highlight the messiah’s proclamation of salvation to both Israel and to the Gentiles.” Knowles, Jeremiah, 32.

138 The term “preunderstanding” for the prologue’s work is from Krentz, “Extent,” 410.

222

the unsurpassable light-(to-the-Gentiles) (4:15-16); healer (a component of his messiahship, as explained in Section 4.2.3) (8:17); authorized/ non-violent/ healing king (12:18-21); and prophet (13:35).

After John the Baptist’s dramatic entrance, baptismal activity, and polemic against the Pharisees and Sadducees; after Jesus’ appearance, now as an adult, at the

Jordan where John baptizes him; after Jesus’ victory over the Tempter in the wilderness, Jesus’ ministry begins. Leaving Nazareth in Galilee, he moves to

Capernaum by the sea (4:12-17) to bring to the people the “light” of Isa 8:23-9:1:

Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.139

139 Everyone agrees that this citation is different from both the MT and LXX and has affinities with both, but opinions as to the origin of this text are extremely varied. Cf. the summary in Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 15. For my purpose, as will be argued in the text, what matters is that (1) Matthew controlled the size of the quotation and that (2) the quotation is a “conflated citation” (combining Isa 8:23-9:1, Isa 58:10, and Ps 106:10 LXX). How the syntax of the geographical terms is to be understood is a notorious crux interpretum. Cf. the discussion in Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 90-91. I agree with Soares Prabhu that the geographical discussion is “very conjectural” so that “a satisfactory harmonization of the place-names in Is 8,23b remains a problem,” but that “however we interpret these names, the meaning of the oracle is plain.” Ibid.

223

Jesus then calls two sets of brothers to become “fishers of people” (4:18-22), and by means of a narrative summary that frames the activity in chapters 4-9, teaches, preaches, and heals “all” (4:23: πᾶσαν) who come to him (4:23-25).

The “usual interpretation” reads the FC in 4:15-16 as verifying that the abode and “Mittelpunkt der Wirksamkeit” of Jesus, like his movements in chapter 2, were predicted in Scripture so as to answer Jewish objections (cf. Matt 9:1; 17:24-25; John

1:46; 7:41-42, 52).140 The argument is threefold. First, by means of chiasm, Matthew has linked the FC tightly to the narrative context precisely through geographical place names:141

Jesus [a] Galilee [b] by the sea [c] the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali The OT [c’] the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali [b’] toward the sea [a’] Galilee

140 Miler, Citations, 100 (usual interpretation); Strecker, Weg, 65 (“Mittelpunkt der Wirksamkeit”). For a thorough list of scholars holding this view, cf. Carter, “Evoking,” 515 n. 53.

141 Cf. e.g., Gundry, Use, 105; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 379. Both Davies and Allison and Wilhemus Weren cite the following article as first noticing this chiasm: G. H. P. Thompson, “Called— Proved—Obedient: A Study in the Baptism and Temptation Narratives of Matthew and Luke,” JTS 11 (1960): 1-12. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 379; Wilhelmus Johannes Cornelis Weren, “Quotations from Isaiah and Matthew’s Christology (Mt 1,23 and 4,15-16),” in Studies in the Book of Isaiah: Festschrift for Willem A. M. Beuken, BETL 132, eds. J. Van Ruiten and M. Vervenne (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997), 447-465, 458 n. 21.

224

Second, by eliminating the MT’s temporal distinction—a former time in which the land was brought into contempt, a latter time in which it will be glorified—Matthew has crafted a quotation focusing all attention on the geographical terms.142 Third, not only is this FC, like those in chapter 2, “attached to a geographical place name,” but also the parallel with Matt 2:22-23 is particularly exact:143

Matt 2:22-23 Matt 4:12-16 Ἀκούσας δὲ ὅτι… Ἀκούσας δὲ ὅτι… ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς τὰ μέρη τῆς Γαλιλαίας,… ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν… ἐλθὼν κατῴκησεν εἰς πόλιν λεγομένην Ναζαρέτ· ἐλθὼν κατῴκησεν εἰς Καφαρναοὺμ… ὅπως πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν… ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν…

This last argument is the easiest to answer. If the “point” of Matt 2:23 is geography qua geography, then this parallel may indeed reveal the “point” of Matt

4:15-16; however, as we saw in Section 4.1.5, geography is not the “point” of Matt

2:23. The first and second arguments rightly focus the exegete on the significance of the form of both FC and narrative context but ultimately misunderstand that significance. While erasing the temporal distinction does emphasize geography, the manifestation of the light receives heavier emphasis.144 With his “emphatic word order” that “disagrees with both the MT and the LXX,” Matthew literally and

142 In the LXX, there is no temporal distinction.

143 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 191; Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate, 67 n. 2.

144 Cf. Miler, Citations, 82; Luz, Matthew 1-7, 156-57.

225

metaphorically moves “light” to the forefront. The repeated element in the synthetic parallelism—repeated not just conceptually but verbally (φῶς… φῶς) —“light” is the key term. Recall that “the evangelist quotes just what he needs”; apparently, he

“need[ed]” 4:16b.145 This need is significant: while Matt 4:15-4:16a can be read as

“offer[ing] scriptural warrant for a geographical fact of Jesus’ ministry,” v. 16b contributes nothing to such a “warrant.” Thus, the repetition of light suggests that

Matthew was interested not so much in geography as in the light itself and that the geographical terms are “catch-words” allowing Matthew to access this “light.”146

Reinforcing this argument about the form of the FC is the way in which

“light” resurfaces in the Sermon that appears immediately after 4:12-25—indeed, the

Sermon that 4:23-25 introduces:

You are the light (φῶς) of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light (φῶς) shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Matt 5:14-16).

This logion brings into sharper focus an otherwise variegated image in Second Temple

Judaism. For Matthew, “light” refers to “good works” that have a telos (5:16 “so

145 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

146 For “catch-words,” cf., e.g, Moss, Zechariah, 180.

226

that” [ὅπως]) of drawing others to worship God. Matthew 4:23-25 sets forth precisely the same conception of “light.” Being tightly connected to the FC, these verses give narrative form to the FC’s “light”—and make clear that that “light” is now full. Let me unpack this dense claim.

First, Matt 4:23-25 sets forth precisely the same conception of “light” as 5:14-

16. “Good works” that draw others to worship God is precisely the vision of 4:23-25:

Jesus’ teaching/ preaching/ healing (i.e., his “good works”) causes “his fame [to] spread throughout all Syria” so that “great crowds follow… him.” The Sermon, then, calls the disciples to shine a light that is “derivative” (Francis Watson’s term) of

Jesus’ own light on display a chapter earlier.147

Second, Matthew has forged tight connections between 4:23-25 and the FC.

While scholars often observe links between the FC and the preceding narrative context, links between the FC and the succeeding narrative context are rarely noticed.148 These latter links include:

147 Watson, “In Defence,” 5.

148 To my knowledge, Menken is the only scholar who has noticed the way in which πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου appears after the quotation. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 21. I have not found anyone who notes the way that ὁ λαός appears after the quotation.

227

1. ὁδὸν θαλάσσης in the FC (4:15) appears not only in 4:13 (Jesus dwells in Capernaum “by the sea”) but also in 4:18 (Jesus walks “by the sea” when he sees Simon and Andrew).

2. Γαλιλαία in the FC (4:15) appears not only in 4:12 (Jesus leaves Galilee) but also in 4:18 (Jesus walks by the Sea “of Galilee”), 4:23 (Jesus goes throughout “Galilee”), and 4:25 (great crowds come from, inter alia, “Galilee”).

3. πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου in the FC (4:15) appears nowhere before the FC but does appear after it in 4:25 (great crowds come from, inter alia, “beyond the Jordan” [cf. Mark 3:8]).

4. ὁ λαός in the FC (4:16) appears nowhere before the FC but does appear after it in 4:23 (Jesus’ ministry occurs “among the people”).

Links #2 and #4 are particularly significant. In 4:12, Jesus leaves Galilee, but the FC makes clear that it is precisely in Galilee that the light rises; Jesus’ ministry in Galilee

(4:23) and for Galileans (4:25) then, is a much tighter link between FC and context.

And specifying that this ministry occurs “among the people” (a redactional addition to Mark 1:39; cf. Luke 4:44), evokes that part of the quotation that, as argued above, receives the heaviest accent—the recipients of “the light.”149 Through these links,

Matthew signals that this summary of Jesus’ teaching/ preaching/ healing (4:23-25), which, again, Matthew has moved up from Mark 3:7-10 to create a frame for the teaching and healing of chapters 5-8 (see Section 1.2), is the FC’s rising light.

149 For this phrase being redactional, cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 165.

228

Finally, this light is now full. Repeated five times in four verses, πᾶς or ὅλος modifies every aspect of Jesus’ ministry and its impact:

• the geographical extent of his ministry (4:23a: “throughout all Galilee”);

• the demographic extent of his ministry (4:24a: “all the sick”);

• the effectiveness of his ministry (4:23b: he healed “every disease and every sickness”); and

• the geographical extent of its impact (4:24a: “his fame spread throughout all Syria”).

The thrust of this narrative is the fullness of Jesus’ light-bringing ministry.150

Before turning to the next FC, we should consider one other textual feature that points towards my reading of 4:23-25 as an instantiation of the FC’s “light”— namely, two ways in which deviations of the FC’s form from all known versions

150 The parallel between John the Baptist and Jesus, which throws into relief the superiority of the latter, may also be a narrative device communicating the fullness of Jesus’ activity. Matthews draws attention to the parallel by (1) making the content of John’s and Jesus’ κήρυγμα identical (Matt 3:1b-2/ 4:17b) and by (2) using the same verb for John (4:12: παραδίδωμι) that is used so often in the passion narrative as to constitute a metonymy for Jesus’ fate—and for the leaders’/ Judas’ sin (Matt 26:2, 15, 16, 21, 23, 24, 25, 45, 46, 48; 27:2, 3, 4, 18, 26; cf. 10:4; 17:22; 20:18, 19). He then breaks the parallel— casting Jesus as superior, John as inferior—by (1) John’s explicit statements to this effect (3:11-12, 14) and (2) the fact that, whereas John has people from “Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region around the Jordan” come out to him (3:5), Jesus attracts all of these people plus those from Galilee and the Decapolis (4:25). The logic, then, implicit in this structuring is that Jesus is like John but is so much more of precisely what John was—a bringer of “light” to a people in darkness.

229

probably invite an intertextual reading. First, the first phrase in v. 16 has the people

ὁ πορευόμενος), in darkness; second, the / הַ הֹּלְכִ ים) ”sitting” (ὁ καθήμενος), not “walking“

λάμψει), on / נָגַ ּה) ”final phrase has the light “dawning” (ἀνέτειλεν), not “shining them.151 As the latter seems to be a clearer example of a “conflated citation,” we consider it first.152

In my view, Matthew draws the verb ἀνέτειλεν from Isa 58:10.153 As Luz points

נָגַ ה .out, ἀνέτειλεν “is unusual because this translation is not at all close to Heb

(λάμπειν), nor is there evidence for it anywhere else.”154 Given its messianic connotations (cf. Num 24:17, which most commentators believe the ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ Matt

2:2, 9 evokes), it is unlikely to denote simply “the beginning” of Jesus’ ministry and likely to attract the attention of Matthew’s readers.155 Isaiah 58:10 contains a similar

151 It is widely regarded that LXXA’s ὁ πορευόμενος is an emendation on the basis of the New Testament. Cf. e.g., McConnell, Law, 119 (citing Stendahl, School, 105, 173).

152 “Conflated” citations, which blend two or more Old Testament texts, will be discussed in detail in Section 5.3 below.

153 I am indebted to the proposal of Luz that Matthew has possibly drawn ἀνατελεῖν from Isa 58:10. Cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 156 n. 7.

154 Ibid., 157.

155 Pace McConnell, Law, 119; Lindars, Apologetic, 198. For examples of commentators who believe that Matt 2:2, 9 alludes to Num 24:17, cf. e.g., Stendahl, “Quis,” 99.

230

phrase (ἀνατελεῖ ἐν τῷ σκότει τὸ φῶς σου), and the conceptual resonances of that passage—with both 4:12-25 and Matthew’s gospel more broadly—are striking.156

After vv. 1-5 declare to the people their sin of fasting without mercy, of seeking God but oppressing others, vv. 6-7, part of which the Lukan Jesus quotes in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30; cf. vv. 18-19) and which the Matthean

Jesus echoes in the parable of the sheep and goats (Matt 25:31-46), set forth what a fast pleasing to the Lord entails—doing justice to the oppressed, hungry, poor, and

τότε): “your light (τὸ / אָ ז :naked. Verses 8-14 proclaim the results of such a fast (cf. 58:8

φῶς σου) shall break forth early in the morning (LXX; MT: like the dawn), and your healing (τὰ ἰάματά σου) shall rise (ἀνατελεῖ) (LXX; MT: spring up) quickly” (v. 8). Verse

10 repeats the point: if you help the hungry and afflicted, then “your light shall rise in the darkness (ἀνατελεῖ ἐν τῷ σκότει τὸ φῶς σου), and your darkness (τὸ σκότος σου) (LXX;

MT: gloom) shall be like noonday.” Notice how in the first instance (v. 8), it is the

“healing” that “rises” (ἀνατελεῖ), while in the second instance (v. 10), it is the “light”

(ἀνατελεῖ). In other words, the parallelism here makes precisely the point made in Matt

4:12-25: Jesus’ healing (4:23: θεραπεύων), an act of justice for the oppressed, is the rising “light.”

156 The MT and LXX versions of Isa 58:1-14 are remarkably similar so that the following characterizations, unless otherwise noted, apply to both.

231

In a similar way, Psalm 106:10 LXX may explain the first deviation (the people ὁ καθήμενος in darkness).157 This psalm of praise is structured around two refrains (one repeated four times in vv. 8, 15, 21, and 31, and one repeated two times in vv. 13 and 19; both are included in the quotation below) that betray its singular focus—an invitation to praise God for God’s “salvific” “works.” Verses 8-10 read:

Let them acknowledge the Lord for his mercies and for his wonderful works (τὰ θαυμάσια αὐτοῦ) to the sons of men, because he fed an empty soul and a hungry soul he filled with good things, when they sat in darkness (καθημένους ἐν σκότει) and death’s shadow (σκιᾷ θανάτου), imprisoned in poverty and in iron,158

Verses 13-14 reiterate this:

And they cried to the Lord when they were being afflicted, and from their anguish he saved (ἔσωσεν) them, and he brought them out of darkness (σκότους) and death’s shadow (σκιᾶς θανάτου), and their bonds he broke asunder.

157 Suggested by, e.g., Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate, 70; Luz, Matthew 1-7, 156 n. 7. More often it is claimed that Matthew’s use of this word, because of the word’s appearance in the next clause, increased the parallelism; cf. the list of propents of this view in Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 24 n. 37.

it has “in ,(יֹּׁשְ בֵ י חֹּׁשֶ ְך) ”Poetic line-breaks are my own. While the MT does have “sat in darkness 158 where the LXX has “death’s shadow.” Hence, I am only reading the LXX here; that (וְצַלְמָ וֶ ת) ”gloom said, again, the LXX and MT are remarkably similar.

232

Notice the conceptual resonances with 4:12-25 and Matthew’s gospel more broadly. In weakness (v. 12: ἠσθένησαν), the people “sitting in darkness” require “saving” (vv. 13,

19) and v. 11 attributes this to their sin (“embitter[ing] the sayings of God”). This salvation (or rescue) takes the form, at least in v. 20, of God sending out His word (τὸν

λόγον αὐτοῦ; cf. Matt 8:8, 16) and “healing” (ἰάσατο) them. Note also the conceptual and even linguistic resonances between the psalm and Isa 58: hunger (Isa 58:7, 10: πεινῶντι/

Ps 106:5: πεινῶντες), healings (Isa 58:8: τὰ ἰάματά/ Ps 106:20: ἰάσατο), darkness (Isa

58:10: σκότει/ Ps 106:10, 14: σκότει, σκότους). Isaiah 58 and Ps 106 LXX, then, seem to be what Menken calls “analogous passages,” and, as such, “a part of the one could be used as a substitute for a part of the other, or could be added to it” (see Section 5.3 below).159 With this fusion of three passages (Isa 8:23-9:1; Isa 58; Ps 106 LXX), then,

Matthew creates an intertext that resonates richly with his account of Jesus’

159 M. J. J. Menken, Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form, CBET 15 (Kampen: Kok, 1996), 52. Hays also suggests that this citation is a “conflated” one but proposes different intertexts upon which Matthew has drawn: Isa 42:7 for ὁ καθήμενος and Isa 42:9 and 60:1 for ἀνέτειλεν. Hays, Echoes, 177-78. While this proposal is appealing—Matthew will later cite Isa 42:1-4 in 12:18-21 and may well “subliminally evoke…” Isa 60:1-6 in Matt 2:1-12 (p. 176)—the thematic and linguistic resonances with the intertexts that I have proposed seem stronger to me than those that Hays proposes. Of course, this response reveals the inescapably subjective nature of such determinations—determinations that we must nonetheless attempt to make if we would appreciate the fullness of Matthew’s achievement.

233

unsurpassable healing. Jesus is the fullness of “light” to Jews and, especially, to

Gentiles.

With this first FC outside of the Infancy Narrative, then, we encounter one of the clearest examples of Matthew’s hermeneutic of filling; we will encounter similarly clear cases—using similar narratival techniques—in 8:17 and 13:35. The use (as in

8:17) and repetition (as in 13:35) of the limit-adjective, the links to other gospel texts that illuminate how Matthew understands the FC (here, Matt 5:14-16; with regard to

13:35, Matt 11:25-27), the size and form of the FC (as with both 8:17 and 13:35)—all of these textual features help Matthew underline that Jesus “fills up” an Old

Testament word/ image/ form. He is the superlative light—and, as we will see, the all- powerful healer (8:17) and all-knowing prophet (13:35).

After the third in a series of ten miracle stories in chapters 8-9, Matthew gives one of his narrative summaries, to which he attaches an FC from Isaiah 53:4:

That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Matt 8:16-17).160

160 The introductory formula of the FC here has ὅπως (cf. 2:23; 13:35) instead of the more frequent ἵνα (1:22; 2:15; 4:14; 12:17; 21:4) or the rarer τότε (2:18; 27:9). There is no significance to this difference.

234

In the fourth Servant Song (Isa 52:13–53:12), this “taking” and “bearing” describes the Servant’s vicarious suffering for the people; in its Matthean context, it seemingly refers to Jesus’ simply “removing” the infirmities and diseases.161 Readings of this FC divide between those who believe that Matthew does evoke the Servant’s suffering from the Old Testament context and those who regard the FC as the exemplar of

“atomistic” exegesis (“a text about vicarious suffering has become a text about healing”).162 I will argue that the “point” of the FC is to emphasize the power—an unsurpassable power—that the healings evince and that no suffering is in view.163

161 The four Servant Songs were first identified by Berhard Duhm in 1892. Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968).

162 The quotation is from Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 37 (citation omitted). Davies and Allison themselves “deliver” Matthew “from the charge of eisegesis” (albeit tentatively) by positing that the “Servant motif” is in view. Those who hold to a more-or-less atomizing reading—a group that Miler rightly characterizes as “[l]a très grosse majorité des exégètes”—include Novakovic, “Atomistic”; Luz, Matthew 8-20, 14; Huizenga, “Incarnation.” Those who believe that Matthew does evoke “the Servant” here include Miler, Citations, 103-24; Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Évangile selon saint Matthieu, 8th ed., EBib (Paris: Gabalda, 1948), 168-69.

163 An emphasis on power is not synonymous with an emphasis on healing. Those scholars who emphasize the latter often foreground not the fact of Jesus’ power but rather the fact of his compassion. So, for example, Davies and Allison, because they believe that the “Servant motif” is activated here, think that “[t]he miracles flow from Jesus’ meekness and mercy,” that “Matthew shows us that Jesus’ healings are ‘to be understood as a work of his obedience and his humiliation.’” Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 38 (citation omitted). As will be clear in my exegesis, I think that this accent mark is misplaced, as the emphasis falls squarely, almost exclusively, on Jesus’ power.

235

However, this reading does not require that Matthew reads the Scripture atomistically; this issue will have to wait for discussion in Chapter 5.

While it would be simplistic to reduce chapters 8-9 to the single theme of

Jesus-as-Wundertäter—scholars have rightly drawn attention to various emphases in this unit—the emphasis on Jesus’ power is unmistakable and primary.164 Bracketed by summary statements in 4:23-25 and 9:35-38, the unit 5:1-9:38 “concern τὰ λεχθέντα καὶ

τὰ πραχθέντα by Jesus,” and, within this unit, chapters 8-9 are the second panel of the diptych focusing on Jesus’ τὰ πραχθέντα.165 More specifically, this Matthean “séquence originale” of ten miracles, whether or not determinative of the structure and whether or not having numerical significance, constitutes an intensely concentrated account of the δυνάμεις that Jesus performs.166

Within this structure, Matthew redacts Mark to intensify Jesus’ power. Jesus’ healing the centurion’s servant “in that hour” (8:13: τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐκείνῃ) reiterates the note of immediacy that Matthew drew from Mark for the leper’s healing (8:3: εὐθέως; cf.

Mark 1:42); his exorcising spirits “with a word” (8:16: λόγῳ) reiterates the centurion’s

164 The term Wundertäter is Strecker’s. Strecker, Weg, 67.

165 Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 36.

166 Miler, Citations, 105 (séquence originale).

236

request, an implicit acknowledgement of power, that Jesus only “say the word” to heal his servant (8:8: λόγῳ; cf. Luke 7:7). Such a “word” seems to be a Jewish trope for describing God’s/ a divine man’s sovereign power (Ps 107:20 [106:20 LXX]; Sib. Or.

1:19-20; 3:17-21; 8:267; Ps. Sol. 17:24, 35, 36, 43; 4Q403 fr. 1), and the phenomenon of healing-at-a-distance, on display with the centurion’s servant, may be a similar trope.167 Perhaps most striking is the sevenfold repetition of προσέρχεσθαι. With the leper (8:2), the centurion (8:5), the scribe (8:19), Jesus’ own fearful disciples (8:25),

John’s inquisitive disciples (9:14), the hemorrhaging woman (9:20), and the blind men

(9:28) all “coming to” Jesus, προσέρχεσθαι becomes a thudding rhythm that points up how, as Davies and Allison beautifully put it, “Jesus the mighty healer draws the sick and the suffering like a magnet.”168 Finally, as discussed in Section 1.2, in 8:16

Matthew has redacted Mark 1:32-34 so that only some (“many”) are brought but “all” of these are healed.

These textual features point to the fullness of Jesus’ power. Especially the redaction of 8:16 with its strategic placement of a limit-adjective (he healed πάντας the sick) highlights the limit-reaching quantity of Jesus’ activity; the same note will be

167 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 17 n. 28 for a list of texts.

168 Ibid., 36.

237

struck again, more profoundly, in the summary ending of this two-chapter unit of the gospel (9:35: he went through πάσας the cities and villages, healing πᾶσαν disease and

πᾶσαν sickness). The reader of chapters 8-9 thus has the same response as the disciples in 8:27: “What sort of man is this?” She shares the crowds’ reaction in 9:33: amazed at his δυνάμεις as at his words (cf. 7:28), she declares that “Never (οὐδέποτε) has anything like this been seen in Israel.” Never: again, Jesus’ healings, like his teachings, are unsurpassable.

Yet we must not assume that a key textual dynamic necessarily requires that it is this dynamic that an FC is furthering (a common mistake in exegesis of the

FCs).169 We must specifically and explicitly connect the FC with a given textual dynamic. In this case, the task is easy, as it is precisely these features of the text—its focus on healings, its omnipotent Jesus—that the FC itself assumes and reinforces.

It is significant, even decisive, for our reading of the FC, that Matthew cites the

MT, not the LXX, here.170 A survey of the textual tradition reveals that the LXX’s

169 As explained in Section 4.2.4 below, this is a mistake made by Menken, Matthew’s Bible, with regard to 13:35.

170 Whether Matthew translated the Hebrew himself or relied upon a pre-existing translation of the Hebrew—scholars are divided—does not matter for my purposes.

238

spiritualizing reading (“sins” instead of “diseases”), far from being an aberrant

“translation,” represents the prevailing interpretion:

Table 2. Isaiah 53:4 in Various Textual Traditions

LXX Aquila171 Symmachus172 Targum Jonathan173 בכין οὗτος ὄντως αὐτὸς This one Indeed, he Then he עלְחובנא τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν τὰς νόσους ἡμῶν τὰς νόσους ἡμῶν our sins our diseases our diseases concerning our sins הואְיבעי φέρει ἀνέλαβεν αὐτὸς ἀνέλαβεν bears assumed he himself assumed will beseech ועויתנא καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν καὶ τοὺς πόνους ἡμῶν καὶ τοὺς πόνους ἡμῶν and for us and our distresses and our distresses and our iniquities

בדיליהְישתבקן ὀδυνᾶται ὑπέμεινεν ὑπέμεινεν suffers pain. he endured he endured for his sake will be forgiven…

These translations, which, except for the Targum, all portray the Servant himself suffering sins/ diseases/ pains/ toils, probably capture the meaning of the MT. Despite the seemingly physically-oriented and possibly healing-oriented first part of the verse,

suggests that the Servant (וַאֲ נַחְ נּוְ בְ חֲׁשְַנֻׁ הּוְנָ גּועְְַמֻׁכֵ הְאֱֹלהִ יםְּומְעֻׁ נֶ ה) the latter part of the verse

171 As set forth in both Gundry, Use, 109 and Novakovic, “Atomistic,” 155, except that I have followed Menken in considering πολέμους to be an “evident slip of the pen” for πόνους. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 36. The English translation is mine.

172 As set forth in Gundry, Use, 109. Novakovic and Stendahl give Symmachus’ translation as: ὄντως αὐτὸς τὰς νόσους ἡμῶν ἀνέλαβεν. Novakovic, “Atomistic,” 155; Stendahl, School, 106. The English translation is mine.

173 Translation from Bruce D. Chilton, The Isaiah Targum: Introduction, Translation, Apparatus, and Notes, ArBib 11 (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1987); Aramaic from Stendahl, School, 106.

239

does suffer vicariously. Matthew did not cite this latter (vicarious suffering) half of the verse. Because “the evangelist quotes just what he needs,” this omission is glaring, and, given the sheer brevity of the FC—the third shortest of the FCs (after 2:23 and

2:15)—the quotation feels deliberately truncated.174

But would Matthew secondarily foreshadow Jesus’ suffering with this FC? Is

“the Servant motif,” if not emphasized, at least in view? Perhaps the most vigorous attempt to argue for an affirmative answer is Miler’s—and the weakness of this strongest case is damning. Examining it in detail makes clear that the questions posed above must be answered negatively.

To establish that τὰς ἀσθενείας and τὰς νόσους in the FC are meant figuratively so that the FC prefigures the salvation Jesus will accomplish in his crucifixion, Miler makes several arguments. First, by having Jesus heal “all the types of humanity”

(tout le genre humain) (Jew/ Gentile; young/ old; male/ female) in a place that connotes

“universality” in the gospel (Capernaum; cf. Matt 4:15), Matthew intimates that these healings “ont une signification qui en déborde les limites” of the narrative itself.

Because the narrator, not a character in the story, articulates the FC, Matthew creates an “intentional semantic gap” (un écart sémantique intentionnel) between the

174 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

240

citation and the healing stories of 8:1-17. With the pronoun ἡμῶν, he invites the readers, who, like the crowds, “follow him” (cf. the description in 8:1), to appreciate that this ἡμῶν concerns not just the characters in the immediate narrative context, but also themselves.175 Second, Jesus’ concern that the crowds understand his actions

(cf. 8:4, 10-12) parallels the narrator’s similar concern in 8:17; because of this parallel, we should read the narrator’s interpretation of Jesus’ action as the same as Jesus’ own

(as prefiguring the “welcoming of the Gentiles”).176 Third, health/ disease words are often used metaphorically of spiritual sickness/ sin in Matthew’s gospel.177

For Miler, not only are the healings to be understood both literally (as guérison des maladies) and figuratively (as délivrance des fautes), but also Matthew “met en relation le récit de la vie de Jésus et le quatrième poème du Serviteur.”178 First,

Matthew chose this particular text (Isa 53) instead of a different Old Testament

175 Miler, Citations, 108-11.

176 Ibid., 109.

177 Ibid., 114 (citing Matt 9:12; 12:15; 13:14-15; 15:14; 19:2; 23:16, 17, 19, 24, 26). Miler also argues that Ignatius seems to have read the text metaphorically/ spiritually. Ibid. (citing Ign. Pol. 1:3). Such reception history is certainly probative but only secondarily; in other words, to state the obvious, Matthew may certainly have read the text differently than Ignatius did.

178 Ibid., 115.

241

healing text (e.g., Isa 57:18-19; Jer 33:6; Hos 7:1; 11:3).179 Second, various allusions to the Servant Songs “establish a relationship between the figure of the Servant and the person of Jesus.”180 Third, Isa 53 and Matt 8:1-17 have thematic and structural similarities. Thematically, both concern a “particular group” who recognizes that it was wrong about the Servant/ Jesus, and a Servant whose salvific actions “extend beyond” (déborde) Israel to “the nations.” Structurally, (1) a narrator interprets the event of (2) “the glorification of the main character.”181

We first consider Miler’s case that “infirmities” and “diseases” have an additional, figurative meaning. The purported parallel between Jesus’ and the narrator’s concern that Jesus’ actions be understood (argument #2) seems to me an artificial construct that, in any case, does not logically require the narrator to hit the same note about the Gentiles. That health/ disease words are sometimes used metaphorically by Matthew (argument #3) says little about their use in 8:17— especially since, as Miler’s own data suggest, they more frequently denote physical

179 Ibid., 116.

180 Ibid., 117.

181 Ibid., 122-23.

242

illness.182 Argument #1 falters for three reasons. First, my reading of Matthew striking a note of unsurpassability in Jesus’ healings makes as much, if not more, sense of Jesus healing “tout le genre humain” than Miler’s proposal of an “intentional semantic gap.” Second, aside from the fact that the argument makes a single pronoun bear enormous exegetical weight, this pronoun is from the quotation not from Matthew.

Granted that insofar as he has quoted it, Matthew has made it his own, but it would need further proof to establish that his doing so involved investing it with the robust meaning Miler gives it. Third, and most importantly, at most Miler has proven that

Matthew’s readers would hear their own ἀσθενείας and νόσους, literal and metaphorical in 8:17—a truism that does not speak to either Matthew’s intention or whether “the

Servant” is in view.

Miler’s case that Jesus is portrayed as Suffering Servant can also be answered.

First, that Matthew chose Isaiah 53 instead of another healing text assumes that

Isaiah 53 would necessarily evoke “the Servant”; as explained below, this is not the case. Second, the thematic and structural similarities Miler offers are so general as to

182 Miler’s claim about the metaphorical use health/ diseases words relies primarily on terms that do not appear in 8:17: 9:12 (οἱ ἰσχύοντες and οἱ κακῶς ἔχοντες); blindness passages (15:14; 23:16, 17, 19, 24, 26). He does point out that ἀσθενής, a word “from the same root” as ἀσθένεια in 8:17 refers to “persecution and ill-treatment” in 25:43 and “moral weakness” in 26:41. However, on the other side of the ledger, as Miler himself admits, are: 10:8 (ἀσθενοῦντας as illness); 4:23; 9:35; 10:1 (νόσος, paired with μαλακία, denoting disease). He reads 19:2 as a metaphorical use of θεραπεύειν, but I disagree (cf. 12:15).

243

be applicable to many prophetic texts. Moreover, as is widely recognized, salvation- to-the-Gentiles is but a small subset of the salvation-to-outsiders dynamic at-play in

Matt 8:1-17.183

What about Miler’s claim that allusions to the “Servant” appear throughout

Matthew’s gospel, particularly with regard to Jesus’ suffering? The first problem is that the purported allusions he lists are to Isaiah’s “Servant Songs” (not just the

Fourth Servant Song) in the whole of Matthew’s Gospel (not just 8:1-17, chapter 8, or chapters 8–9). This argument wrongly assumes that the “suffering servant” was “a meaningful category for Matthew” (not a subsequent construct), and it fails to appreciate that, as Hays notes, “[n]othing in Matthew’s narrative at this point corresponds to Isaiah’s depiction of the Servant’s vicarious bearing of afflictions.”184

Second, most of the purported allusions are tenuous at best:

183 Davies and Allison point out that “there is a measure of scholarly agreement [that] the people healed in Mt 8-9 are… either from the margins of Jewish society or… without public status or power.” Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 1.

184 Hays, Echoes, 160 (emphasis added). While Hays holds open the possibility that the FC might nonetheless “foreshadow… Jesus’ role as sufferer,” he admits that “if so, the foreshadowing is very indistinct.” Ibid. While Miler would purportedly point to a few “contacts lexicaux” between Isa 53 and Matt 8:17, he admits that these “contacts” are “minime,” and, no doubt for this reason, relegates them to a footnote. Miler, Citations, 116 n. 38. For a powerful argument that “the Servant” was not a “meaningful category” for Matthew and his contemporaries, cf. Huizenga, “Incarnation.”

244

• Matt 20:28: The link(s) between the so-called “ransom saying” in Matt 20:28 and Isa 53:10-12, which speaks, inter alia, of the Servant’s being a sin offering (v. 10, MT only), bearing “their” iniquities/ sin (v. 11, MT only; v. 12) are only conceptual and very general.

• Matt 26:28: While Jesus’ declaration that the blood of the covenant “is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” is conceptually similar to Isa 53:12 (“…he bore the sins of many, and because of their sins he was given over” [LXX; MT: “and made intercession for the transgressors”]), the only possible verbal links are very general (“many” [πολλῶν] and “sins” [ἁμαρτίας / ἁμαρτιῶν]).

• Matt 27:12-14 and 27:38: In both cases, the supposed links are only conceptual and very general: Jesus is silent before Pilate like the servant who does not open his mouth (Isa 53:7), and Jesus is crucified between two bandits like the servant who is reckoned among the lawless (LXX; MT: numbered with the transgressors) (Isa 53:12).

• Matt 27:57, 60: The most tenuous of Miler’s proposed allusions, Jesus’ “rich” disciple Joseph of Arimathea laying Jesus’ body in “his own new tomb” also certainly does not allude to Isa 53:9a: “And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death…” (MT/ RSV).

Third, those purported allusions that are, in fact, allusions are rarely to Jesus’ suffering. Thus, while each of Matt 3:17/ 17:5, 11:5, and 12:18-21 may well allude to

Isa 42, this “Servant” passage, examined in detail in Section 4.2.3, has glorious

“victory,” not suffering, in view (in both the Isaianic and Matthean contexts).185

185 Those only allusions that I concede are allusions and refer to suffering are Matt 26:67; 27:30 = Isa 50:6.

245

Far from clinching the case that “the Servant motif” is pervasive in Matthew,

Miler undermines it: if these data constitute the whole set of purported allusions to the Servant in Matthew’s gospel, allusion to the Servant is faint indeed.186 What is

“striking” is not myriad allusions to an Isaianic servant but rather “how little

Matthew has done to create… correspondences” between Jesus and the Servant. As

Hays points out, in contrast to the “faint echoes of Isaiah’s Servant,” the way that

Matthew “strengthen[s] the connection of Jesus’ death to the suffering figure of

Psalm 22 and Psalm 69” is much clearer.187

In conclusion, this FC in 8:17, like those in 4:15-16 and 13:35, is one of the clearest examples supporting my thesis. More than the use and repetition of the limit- adverb/ adjective, the text-form of the FC, or narratively-enacted fullness—all of which are, in fact, revealing here—the use of various other textual details in the narrative context pressure the reader to understand πληροῦν as “fill up” (e.g., “in that hour” and “with a word”; the sevenfold repetition of προσέρχεσθαι; the declaration in

9:33 that “never has anything like this been seen in Israel”). Jesus’ healing power was not just predicted; it is unsurpassable.

186 Indeed, in the wake of Hooker’s monograph Jesus and the Servant, most scholars seem to have abandoned the Jesus-as-Servant conception for which Miler argues.

187 Hays, Echoes, 160-61.

246

Why can this man authorize transgression of the Sabbath command (12:1-8)?

Why can he transgress this command himself (12:9-14)? Does he heal as son of David or as agent of Beelzebul (12:22-37)? Can he provide any authenticating sign for his outrageous claims and actions? Who, exactly, is this man who claims to be greater than the Temple, Jonah, and Solomon? The basic drama of chapter 12 is conflict over the identity of a man with grandiose actions and grandiose claims.188 On one side Jesus acts and asserts but does not authenticate; on the other, the Pharisees (12:2, 14, 24; cf.

38: and scribes) question, accuse, and, conspire.189

“Can this be the Son of David?” (12:23). The crowds’ question articulates the nature of the conflict more precisely: in dispute is Jesus’ kingly identity. It is no coincidence that Jesus’ first claim about himself in this chapter, albeit implicit, is to be “at least… equal in authority” to David (12:3-4) and that his last, more explicit, is to be “greater than Solomon” (12:42).190 While we cannot fit all claims into this

188 Although composed of various pericopae and logia, chapter 12—unified geographically and temporally and with the same characters throughout—comprises a single scene.

189 The amazed and questioning “crowds” (12:23), as so often in this gospel, have a nebulous status, the object of compassion but not quite insiders, in danger of becoming “this evil generation” (12:45).

190 France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, 189. I agree with France that “the force of the first argument (12:3-4) depends on the relationship of Jesus to David, as at least his equal in authority.”

247

rubric—as is typical for the unsystematic Matthew who layers his typologies (see

Section 4.1.3), Jesus is also “greater than the temple” (12:6) and than Jonah (12:41)— kingship language dominates the chapter (Δαυὶδ [v. 3], κύριος [v. 8], ὁ υἱὸς Δαυίδ [v. 23],

ἄρχοντι [v. 24], βασιλεία [vv. 25, 26, 28], Σολομῶνος [v. 42]). Given the conflict between

Jesus and his opponents over this issue in the gospel more broadly (e.g., 2:1-12; 21:15-

16, 37-38, 45; 22:1-15; 26:63-65, 68), the dispute over his messianic status surely motivates, at least in part, the Pharisees’ decision to execute him. To claim that the chapter’s primary concern is to dramatize a conflict over Jesus’ kingly identity is not overstatement.

Embedded in the middle of this conflict—significantly, immediately after the

Pharisees have decided to kill Jesus (12:14) and immediately before the crowd questions whether he might be the “Son of David” (12:23)—Matthew narrates how crowds follow Jesus, how he heals “all” (πάντας) of them, how he orders them not to make him known (vv. 15-16), and then inserts the longest FC of his gospel, a full 61 words (in NA28) from Isa 42:1-4:

Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the

248

Gentiles. He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope.

Generally, scholars do not regard the FC as part of the conflict motif. Either it justifies Jesus’ healing (“a bruised reed” and “a smoldering wick” = the crowds) or his withdrawal and/ or Schweigegebot (= “he will not wrangle or cry aloud”) or a combination of these.191 Rejecting the implication that the FC contains a “surplus” of uninterpreted content, others identify points of correspondence between quotation and context for all of the FC’s claims (e.g., servant, Spirit, justice/ judgment to

Gentiles who hope in his name, not wrangling or crying aloud, not breaking a reed or

191 Cf. Neyrey, “Thematic,” 457 and n. 2 and Alicia D. Myers, “Isaiah 42 and the Characterization of Jesus in Matthew 12:17-21,” in “What Does the Scripture Say?”: Studies in the Function of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity, eds. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias, LNTS 469 (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 70-89, 72 n. 7 for proponents of these readings.

249

wick, ultimate victory).192 But even these readings do not connect the FC to the chapter’s conflict theme (or, at least not very tightly).193

While it would be possible for an FC to function independently of a chapter’s major theme, even where it arises from Matthew’s creating a concentrated account focusing on precisely that theme (e.g., miracles in chapter 8, parables in chapter 13), it would be atypical (cf. Matt 13:35). Also atypical would be an FC that is atomistic at the word level (as opposed to the sentence or pericope level; more on this in Section

5.4)—so atomistic that “breaking reeds” and “quenching wicks,” which are prima facie violent and political images, denote instead healing the sick. Not just atypical but unprecedented would be the inclusion of “surplus” content.194 Thus, I will try to read the FC as (1) contributing to the broader conflict motif; (2) having no “surplus”; and (3) using the imagery literally (if figuratively; more below). Ultimately, this

192 Examples of two scholars who find myriad such connections are Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 51-65 and Neyrey, “Thematic.” Cf. also the summary of research in Myers, “Isaiah 42,” 73-74.

193 Richard Beaton is a rare exegete who, like myself, emphasizes both the importance of setting the FC within the context of conflict in chapter 12 and who understands the FC to have basically a political thrust. While I disagree with Beaton about the nature of the conflict in chapter 12—he casts it as fundamentally about “halakhic disputes,” while I understand it as basically about Jesus’ identity— and while I read the imagery of “reed” and “wick” differently than he does (as explained below), many of his findings comport with my own. Cf. Richard Beaton, Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel, SNTMS 123 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), esp. 194.

194 Yet again: “the evangelist quotes just what he needs.” Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

250

approach works well, better than others; my thesis will be that the FC provides exactly the authentication the Pharisees desire in a sign—evidence that Jesus is, in fact, king and, moreover, evidence that, contrary to expectations, this kingship will not be authenticated in traditional military/ political ways.

Interrogating the imagery of the FC itself provides the beginning point and cornerstone of my case (images will be numbered and bolded for convenience). In a provocative recent essay, Alicia Myers observes what has otherwise gone unnoticed: the image of (1) a “reed” (κάλαμον) in 12:20 probably connotes kingship. Matthew himself uses the image in this way when the soldiers mockingly dress Jesus up as king by giving him a crown and a “reed” (κάλαμον) in his right hand (27:29; cf. 27:30).

Moreover, κάλαμον-as-kingship makes more sense than the “traditional consensus” of

κάλαμον-as-those-whom-Jesus-heals: the citation does not say that the servant will heal them but instead that he will not destroy (οὐ κατεάξει) them—and, indeed, the ἕως

(“consistently ignored” by scholars) suggests that he will do so at some point (when he brings justice to victory)!195

Myers overstates her case. It is almost certainly not true that “each” of the five instances of κάλαμος in Matthew “exhibits connections to kingship,” and the

195 Myers, “Isaiah 42,” 82.

251

Targum provides precedent for reading the word in precisely the way that Myers finds implausible.196 But she is, I think, correct about what κάλαμος means here. I would bolster her case by situating this “reed” image within a constellation of other decidedly political/ military images in this FC.

Consider first the three related images in the same verse (12:20):

(2) “will not break” (οὐ κατεάξει). The verb κατάγνυμι denotes “breaking, crushing” a military enemy in each of its six appearances in the LXX (Deut 33:11; 2 Sam 22:35; Jdt 9:8; Hab 3:12; Zech 1:21; Jer 31:25). While it can be used in other, non-military contexts (cf. John 19:31, 32), a military meaning would best fit the overall tenor of Isa 42:1-4.

(3) “smoldering wick” (λίνον τυφόμενον). Of course, especially where it means “linen,” λίνον can be used in non-military contexts (cf. Exod 9:31; Deut 22:11; Prov 31:13; Isa 19:9). However, its usage in the immediate context of Isa 42:1-4 is revealing:

Isa 43:16-17 (NETS/ LXX): Thus says the Lord, who provides a way in the sea, a path in the mighty water, who has brought out chariots and horse and a mighty throng together; they have lain

196 Ibid., 81. She regards the “reed” containing the sponge with sour wine (27:48) to be kingly simply because of the “proximity” of this image to 27:29, 30. Possibly. But her argument, relying on David Garland, that “reed” in 11:7 is an “image… of kingship” is implausible—not only because the supposed “synthetic parallelism” that it assumes is artificial but also because it would make John the Baptist (!) into a king. Cf. ibid. (citing David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel [New York: Crossroad, 1993], 126). The relevant Targum reads: “The poor who are like a bruised reed he will not break, and the needy who are like a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will bring forth judgment for his truth” (Isa 42:3). Translation from Chilton, Isaiah Targum.

252

down and will not rise; they have been quenched like a wick that is quenched (ἐσβέσθησαν ὡς λίνον ἐσβεσμένον).

Significantly, this image of Pharoah’s army, i.e., Israel’s political enemy, uses the same verb used in Isa 42:3// Matt 12:20 (σβέννυμι = to quench). Like a “bruised reed,” then, a “smoldering wick” seems to refer to a king.

(4) “brings justice to victory” (ἐκβάλῃ εἰς νῖκος τὴν κρίσιν).197 Again, non- military usage is possible: νῖκος can refer to “victory,” in, e.g., the Olympic games (Pindar, Isthmian Odes 2.13; cf. LSJ). Yet by far its most common usage, in Greek, Jewish, and biblical literature, is victory in battle. Moreover, its usage in the New Testament, particularly if the related verb νικᾶν is also considered, is widespread and overwhelmingly, perhaps without exception, refers to military victory (usually metaphorically). Finally, its being coordinated with “justice”/ “judgment” removes this language from the sphere of, e.g., games, and situates it firmly in the political/ military one. While the nouns are never used together in extant Greek literature before Matthew, κρίσις and the verb νικᾶν are used together in military contexts (e.g., Josephus, Ant. 15:161; Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus 22:1).198

That this imagery of Matt 12:20 should be understood politically/ militarily fits well with the remaining imagery of the quotation:

(5) “Servant” (12:18: ὁ παῖς μου). Of course, much has been written how Second-Temple Jews and early Christians understood the “Servant” of

197 For a convincing case that κρίσις should be translated “justice,” cf. Beaton, Isaiah’s Christ, 144-45.

198 Based on a TLG search.

253

Deutero-Isaiah, and that literature cannot be canvassed here.199 For my purpose, one point should suffice: whether the image of “the Servant” in Isaiah 42 (not “the Servant” texts generally) was originally meant as a political image and/ or was read in this way by Matthew’s Jewish predecessors and contemporaries, the author of the gospel probably read it this way. The key evidence is his addition of “my beloved” (ὁ ἀγαπητός μου) to the first line of the quotation—a change that even Menken, who regards “editorial changes” in the FCs as “rare,” ascribes to Matthew—to coordinate 12:18 with 3:17 and 17:5:200

3:17b οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα.

17:5b οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα· ἀκούετε αὐτοῦ.

12:18 ἰδοὺ ὁ παῖς μου ὃν ᾑρέτισα, ὁ ἀγαπητός μου εἰς ὃν εὐδόκησεν ἡ ψυχή μου

Matthew exploits an ambiguity in Greek—παῖς meaning both “servant” and “child”—to draw the notion of sonship-as-kingship (cf. 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 88:26; Exod 4:22) into the orbit of Isa 42:1.201 Recall that Matt 3:17 (and, I would add, Matt 17:5) casts Jesus as collective Israel—an important component of the king’s identity in much of the Old Testament—so that to forge this “implied fusion between the anointed

199 Seminal works include Joachim Jeremias, “παῖς θεοῦ,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 654-717 and Hooker, Servant.

200 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 72, 134. This redactional parallel is often noted. Cf. e.g., Neyrey, “Thematic,” 460 and the works cited in n. 8.

201 For the notion that “‘God’s Son’ [is a] designation… for the anointed king of Israel”—and most of these citations—cf. Hays, Echoes, 92, 324, 329.

254

Davidic king of Psalm 2:7 and the servant of Isaiah 42:1” is to invest this servant with a messianic status.202

(6) In the context of Second Isaiah and of the New Testament broadly, “Gentiles” (τοῖς ἔθνεσιν; ἔθνη) “hoping in” his name is a component of eschatological restoration—a political deliverance from the political crisis of exile (e.g., Isa 42:6; 49:6, 8 [LXX only], 22; 51:4 [LXX only]; 55:4 [LXX only], 5; Mark 13:10; Luke 2:32 [alluding to Isa 42:6 and/ or 49:6]; 1 Pet 2:12). Notably, this hope for Gentile inclusion appears not once but twice in Matthew’s FC. Because “the evangelist quotes just what he needs,” this repetition is “needed”: eschatological restoration is central to the FC.203

(7) “He will not wrangle” (12:19: οὐκ ἐρίσει): ἐριζεῖν can mean “to quarrel” (e.g., Esau and his wife quarrel with Isaac and Rebekah in Gen 26:35) or, more strongly, to “contend with, challenge, vie, rebel against” in various contexts. One of these contexts is political, i.e., rival parties vying for power (e.g., Homer, Iliad 2.555; Xenophon, Ages. 1:5; Josephus, J.W. 4:396).204 This latter meaning would make good sense in the context of the other political images.

Of course, Matthew’s reading may be so “atomistic” that he reads these images differently from what they would seem to mean. But (1) (again) such “distorting” atomism (i.e., at the word level) would be unprecedented (as explained below in

Section 5.4); (2) (again) κάλαμος-as-king and Servant-as-king seem to be Matthean

202 Ibid., 48. Hays is describing Markan christology here but the insight applies mutatis mutandis to Matthean christology.

203 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 54.

204 Definitions from LSJ.

255

(27:29, 30 and 3:17; 17:5); and (3) (as explained below) some of these images derive from targumizing “changes” to Isa 42:1-4 (it would seem unnecessary, even bizarre, to atomistically re-interpret words one has deliberately chosen oneself). Thus, I propose that we consider whether the political meanings suggested above make sense in the

Matthean context. Drawing together this political imagery, I read the FC as follows:

The Servant-King will not militarily crush (κατεάξει) political rivals (κάλαμον, λίνον)—at least, not yet—and, indeed, will not contend (ἐρίσει) with them at all; more than this, he will not even raise his voice to assert his claim against them.205 He does not need to: God’s commissioning him as chosen/ beloved Servant suffices, and, apparently, he will achieve eschatological victory (νῖκος)—justice (mentioned twice) for Gentiles (mentioned twice)— without such military activity.

Significantly, the configuration of political images in Matthew’s FC—and, thus, the resultant picture—does not correspond to any extant text.206 Rather it seems to be cobbled together from (1) independently translating (at least certain

205 Menken’s insight about the “clear rhetorical effects” of Matthew’s sentence is helpful. By reordering and introducing ἐρίσει (“more an interpretation than a translation”), Matthew (צָעַ ק and יָׂשָ א) the verbs has changed what appear as three “synonymous” statements in the MT/ LXX (“‘shouting’, ‘raising (his voice),’ and ‘making his voice heard’”) into “a climactic series of three statements”: “The servant will not engage in quarrels, he will not even shout, and still more than that, one will not even hear his voice in the streets.” Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 75-76 (emphasis added).

206 For the most thorough discussion of the text-form of this FC, cf. Beaton, Isaiah’s Christ, 123-41.

256

words) from the Hebrew and/ or (2) selecting different images from different textual traditions (MT, LXX, perhaps the Peshitta and Targum) and, in at least two instances, (3) a “targumizing” translation that does not strictly render the Hebrew but rather paraphrases it and/ or constructs it by importing words from “analogous passages.” In other words, it is, as Stendahl puts it, “an interpretation rather than a translation.”207

Consider the following data (using the same numbering schema used above):

(2) “will not break”: Matthew uses the verb κατεάξει instead of the LXX’s συντρίψει.208 Even Menken concedes that this is an “unusual” translation.209

(4) “brings justice to victory”: Apparently, “two lines from Isaiah [42:3- 4] have been woven together” here. Given that Matthew was the one who omitted Isa 42:4a, he is probably also responsible for this weaving.210

in the (יחיד or ידיד only) בחיר beloved” Servant. Never translating“ (5) LXX, ἀγαπητός is “not an adequate translation.” Even if it is derived from an “analogous passage”—Menken proposes Isa 41:8-9—it seems

207 Stendahl, School, 111. Cf. the discussion on pp. 109-15 for suggestions of “coincidence” with these various textual traditions, including the Targum and Peshitta.

208 Matthew does use συντρίβω as the participle modifying the “reed.”

209 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 77.

210 Ibid., 78-79.

257

to be Matthean redaction (especially, as noted above, considering 3:17 and 17:5).211

(6) “Gentiles” (τοῖς ἔθνεσιν; ἔθνη) “hoping in” his name, receiving “justice.” Matt 12:21 follows the LXX against the MT’s “and for his teaching the coastlands will wait.” As the quotation seems to follow the LXX, the MT, and neither at different points, it seems that Matthew chose this LXX element that suits his purposes.212

(7) “He will not wrangle”: Matthew’s “he will not wrangle” (οὐκ ἐρίσει) qal ( = cry out) is ,צָעַ ק .differs from the MT, LXX, and the Versions qal [ = to lift ,נָׂשָ א never translated with ἐριζεῖν in the LXX—neither are hiph = [to make heard]—and, indeed, “cannot possibly be ,ׁשָמַ ע up] or [its] equivalent.” Even Menken concedes that this is “obviously more an interpretation than a translation.”213

211 Ibid., 73.

נָתַתִ י Agreements with the MT include: (1) Matthew’s θήσω rather than the LXX’s ἔδωκα for the MT’s 212 in the MT, against ἔξω in the LXX; although note בַ חּוץ = in 12:18a; (2) “in the streets” (ἐν ταῖς πλατείαις that the Greek plural is unusual); (3) συντετριμμένον instead of the “normal” τεθλασμένον in 12:20a; (4) τυφόμενον in 12:20b. Influence of the LXX might be seen in (1) παῖς (rather than δοῦλος) in 12:18a; (2) κρίσιν (rather than κρίμα or δικαίωμα); (3) κραυγάσει rather than βοᾶν or a related compound in 12:19a; (4) λίνον instead of στιππύον in 12:20b; (5) ἕως ἂν in 12:20c; (6) all of 12:21 (which is very different in the MT). Features difficult to derive from either the MT or LXX include (1) ᾑρέτισα in 12:18a (but perhaps (of the MT); (2) ἀπαγγελεῖ in 12:18d; (3) ἐρίσει in 12:19a; (4) κατεάξει in 12:20a; (5 בְחִ ירִ י moving up the ἐκβάλῃ in 12:20c; (6) εἰς νῖκος. While I am reliant upon Menken’s discussion, he would not agree with all of the judgments that I have made here. Cf. ibid., 67-88.

are relevant is that Menken may well be right that Matthew ׁשָמַ ע and נָׂשָ א Ibid., 75. The reason that 213 has switched the “sequence of the two verbs” in his translation. Ibid.

258

Are these changes Matthean? In Chapter 3, focusing only on establishing that

Matthew determined the size of his FCs, I bracketed the issue of whether he was responsible for their wording. Whatever the case with the FCs generally, it seems safe to conclude that Matthew was responsible for the form of this FC. First, someone has carefully tailored the quotation to fit a Jesus narrative. (1) Isaiah 42:4a (“He will not grow faint or be crushed” [MT]; “He will blaze up and not be overwhelmed” [LXX]) has been excised probably because it does not fit with Jesus’ being crucified, and (2)

”in Isa 42:1b has been changed to “he will proclaim (יֹוצִ יא ;he will bring forth” (ἐξοίσει“

(ἀπαγγελεῖ) to match Jesus’ particular mode of “bringing forth.”214 Second, beyond these broad changes, which could fit many Jesus narratives, someone has tailored the quotation to this particular Jesus narrative suspiciously closely (as explained in Section

4.2.3.2 below)—a point which brings us to the heart of our task, situating this FC in its Matthean context.

214 Most scholars regard these as redactional changes. Cf. e.g., Neyrey, “Thematic,” 462 and the works cited in n. 13. Pointing to the Targum, Menken dubs this ἀπαγγελεῖ “a natural [translation] and not too in the MT, the similar verb ἀναγγέλλειν יָצָ א far-fetched.” Perhaps: while ἀπαγγέλλεῖν never translates does. Cf. Takamitsu Muraoka, Hebrew/Aramaic Index to the Septuagint: Keyed to the Hatch-Redpath Concordance (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 63. Nonetheless, it is probably revealing that Menken feels compelled to explain it by means of the “analogous passage” Ps 147:19-20 [147:8-9 LXX]. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 74.

259

Rather than organize the discussion in terms of the narrative structure (i.e., the pericopae in chapter 12), I offer three interlocking and increasingly-specific themes. First, by reordering pericopae and modifying wording, Matthew has created, as Neyrey puts it, a “coherent narrative” of “extensive conflict” with Jesus as “the very center of controversy and judgment.”215 While basically following Mark 2:23-

3:35, Matthew has (1) tightened the focus on controversy (the Calling of the Twelve

[Mark 3:13-20] moved to Matt 10:4), (2) added in material to the Beelzebul pericope that condemns the Pharisees (the Pharisees’ sons being their judges; those not for

Jesus being against him; good and bad trees being known by their fruit), and (3) inserted two pericopae that, particularly because of Matthean redaction, cast “this generation” as “evil” and destined for condemnation (the Sign of Jonah in Matt

12:38-42 and the Seven Evil Spirits in Matt 12:43-45). Wording changes likewise intensify the polemic, as Matthew has added barbs that cast Jesus as the judge and the Pharisees as the judged (“brood of vipers” [12:34], “and adulterous” [12:39], “so will it be also with this evil generation” [12:45]).

Second, this conflict is over Jesus’ identity. The three “greater than” statements are striking: Jesus is “greater than” the temple (12:6), Jonah (12:41), and

215 Neyrey, “Thematic,” 470-71 (citation omitted).

260

Solomon (12:42). More implicit—but no less striking—are the claims that Jesus is like

David (12:3-4), the Son of Man (12:8, 32, 40), Lord of the Sabbath (12:8), the chosen and beloved Servant (12:18), and the Son of David (12:23). Most of these claims are on

Jesus’ own lips—so that his assertion, without authenticating signs, mirrors God’s proclamation in the FC.

Third, and most importantly, it is within these first two themes—the

Pharisees’ angry incredulity at the merely asserted but unverified identity of Jesus— that we read the theme of Jesus as Son of David. Most of the various claims that

Jesus is Son of David have already been enumerated; to these, I would add two, discernible perhaps only in light of the FC. Jesus the eschatological Son declares

(implicitly) favorable “judgment” (κρίσις in 12:41, 42) for Gentiles (Ninevites and

Queen of the South) and condemnation for “this generation”—surely a significant link to the FC’s Son-Servant bringing victorious “judgment” (2x) for “Gentiles”

(2x).216

We can connect Jesus’ identity as Son yet more tightly to the FC. The immediate occasion of the FC seems to be Jesus’ healings: “…Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, and he ordered them not to make him known. This was

216 I am indebted to Neyrey for this point. Ibid., 464

261

to fulfill…” (v. 15b-17a). As if to reinforce the link between the FC and healings, the pericope that immediately follows the FC has Jesus exorcising a blind-mute demoniac

(vv. 22-23, a Matthean addition to his Markan source) so that “[t]he citation itself is bracketed by reports of Jesus’ healings...” (cf. also 12:9-13).217

What is crucial to appreciate is that, for Matthew, healings are constitutive of

Davidic messianship. From the two blind men in 9:27-31, to the Canaanite woman with a possessed daughter in 15:22-28, to the two blind men by the roadside in 20:29-

34, to the blind and lame in the temple in 21:14, the title ‘Son of David, is, as Luz points out, “heard time and again in connection with miracles.”218 Indeed, it is precisely as Son of David that these characters appeal to Jesus for healing (“Have mercy on us, Son of David!” in 9:27; 15:22; 20:30-31), and, in the same way, it is precisely his healing that elicits their question in chapter 12: “Can this be the Son of

David?” (12:23).

217 Ibid., 467.

218 Luz, Theology, 71. The references in 9:27 and 20:30-31 are drawn from Mark, while those in 15:22 and 21:15 are redactional.

262

More important for my purpose is recognition that this conception of healing messiah, as Luz points out, “modifies… expectations.”219 Jesus is not a reed-breaking or wick-extinguishing conquerer but rather “the healing Messiah of the little people of that nation.”220 Luz explains:

[Matthew] now tells them a story that does not quite fit their customary images of the Son of David. It is not a story of wars and acts of political liberation, but one of healings and love. Matthew’s Son of David therefore behaves differently from the way Jewish readers expected him to behave… this is a Son of David of a quite particular kind. He is a liberator of simple people, a liberator from disease and material want. It is precisely the scribes and the leaders of the people who do not acknowledge him as the Son of David, and precisely the suffering and the uneducated who do….221

Though a description of Matthew’s gospel generally, Luz’s words aptly summarize the work of our FC within its narrative context. As they do throughout the gospel, Jesus’ opponents object to both his healings and his political identity; as Luz suggests—and as this FC would make clear—the two are not unrelated. The leaders find it impossible to accept what the “little people” do so easily: this Son of David, acclaimed by God,

219 Ibid., 72. While others often note this connection between “Son of David” and healing in Matthew’s gospel, Luz’s articulation, in my view, is the best. Cf. e.g., Neyrey, “Thematic,” 467 and the works cited in n. 26.

220 Luz, Theology, 75.

221 Ibid., 71. Even if different “Jewish readers” had different expectations for a Messiah, Luz’s point about military/ political expectations seems to hold for Jesus’ opponents in Matthew 12.

263

will not wrangle, break, and extinguish rivals but will, precisely through his healings, bring justice to victory.

Like those in 2:15 and 21:5 (and the enigmatic 2:23), this FC does not evince clear textual features pointing toward fullness-as-unsurpassability. Yet, as argued in

Chapter 1, the framework that Matthew’s non-FC uses of πληροῦν provide should probably inform our reading of all the FCs. Perhaps, in this case, fullness is implicit, required by the textual logic we have delineated: it requires one “greater than”

Israel’s “greatest king,” its temple, its “representative prophet” and “wise man”—one who, incidentally, can heal “all” (12:15: πάντας)—to fulfill the nonviolent, victorious, universalistic destiny set for him.222

Breaking the feverish tension of the two previous chapters, with their condemnation and conflict, Matthew 13 provides at least temporary respite—a turn from polemics to didactics, from confrontation with the “brood of vipers” (12:34)

“against” Jesus (12:30) to the veiled unveiling of parables that separate the crowds who, while blind, are not opposed to Jesus (13:2, 10, 13-15) and the disciples who,

222 The language here is taken from France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, 189-90, who, like myself, reads the intersection of these “greater than” statements as evidence of Jesus “transcend[ing]” the past.

264

because they see, are “with” him (12:30). After the Parable of the Sower (13:1-9),

Jesus answers the disciples’ question about why he speaks to the crowds in parables

(13:10-17), explains the Sower (13:18-23), and tells three parables unified in theme

(“spreading or growth”) and imagery (“farming, sowing, and its results”) (13:24-

33).223 Before Jesus explains one of these (the Wheat and Weeds: 13:36-43), tells three more parables also unified in theme (“value or worth and discerning” it) and imagery

(mercantile), and explains one of these (the Net of Fish: 13:50), the narrator divides the chapter, roughly in two, with a narrative summary (13:34) and an FC (13:35). The first part of the FC corresponds perfectly to MT Ps 78:2 and LXX Ps 77:2:224

Matt 13:35a: ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου, Ps 77:2 LXX: ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου אֶפְתְחָ ה בְמָׁשָ ל פִ י :Ps 78:2 MT

The latter part, however, differs markedly from both:

Matt 13:35b: ἐρεύξομαι κεκρυμμένα ἀπὸ καταβολῆς [κόσμου].225

223 As observed by Jonathan T. Pennington, “Matthew 13 and the Function of the Parables in the First Gospel,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 13 (2009): 12-20, 15.

224 Although this first part is in “complete agreement” with the LXX, Matthew may nonetheless be relying upon the Hebrew because all of the Greek words here are “standard renderings of their Hebrew may betray reliance upon the בְמָׁשָ ל equivalents.” However, the plural παραβολαῖς instead of the singular LXX. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 94.

225 For a discussion of the text-critical issue regarding κόσμου—and a case that its omission is original— Cf. ibid., 92-93.

265

Ps 77:2 LXX: φθέγξομαι προβλήματα ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς אַבִ יעָ הְחִ ידֹותְמִ נִ י־קֶדֶ ם׃ :Ps 78:2 MT

Complicating this deviation from all known text-forms is the fact that while all manuscripts attribute the quotation to τοῦ προφήτου, some also add Isaiah’s name (διὰ

Ἠσαΐαο τοῦ προφήτου).226

Although Jesus speaks other parables in this gospel (e.g., 21:33-46; 22:1-14), chapter 13 has an almost singular focus on, and distilled concentration of, parables.

While these parables invite scrutiny from a wide range of perspectives, the FC in Matt

13:35 has received the least attention of the FCs. Some consider it another example of apologetic prediction–verification. Explaining how this quotation could “apologize” for Jesus’ action, a common reading excuses Jesus’ seeming cruelty—punishing the crowds’ ignorance by speaking so as to rob them of what little knowledge they have

(13:12)—with the tepid defense that he simply acts as “predicted.”227 Under this reading, Matt 13:35 contributes to the Verstockungstheorie that Matthew has inherited from his Markan source and redactionally elaborated. Matt 13:34-35 becomes the

226 Those who believe the shorter reading to be original must still explain the attribution to “the prophet.” Some argue that Matthew viewed the psalms as prophetic (cf. Matt 22:43), others that Asaph, whom the Psalm holds forth as its author, was a prophet (cf. 1 Chr 25:2; 2 Chr 29:30). Cf. the summary of these views in ibid., 90.

227 According to Luz, when “readers ask themselves… what evil thing the people have done to deserve this abrupt about-face of Jesus,” the FC answers “nothing.” Luz, Matthew 8-20, 265-66.

266

hinge of a diptych, pivoting the narrative (and Jesus!) away from the hopeless and hardened “them” (the arms’-length third-person for the crowds in 13:3, 10, 13, 14, 15,

24, 31, 33, 34; cf. 13:11) towards the “blessed” (13:16) and “understanding” (13:51)

“you” (the intimate second-person for the disciples in 13:11, 16, 17; cf. 13:51).228 The

FC helps Matthew draw this “sharp contrast” between those for whom parables

“conceal” and those for whom they “reveal.”229

While this reading seems to account for the basic structure, redactional emphases, and characterization of the chapter, it is only deceptively powerful. Upon closer scrutiny, the supposed two-part structure breaks down, the supposedly stark line between “them” and “you” blurs, and the supposedly consistent pessimism towards the crowds dissolves into a rich ambiguity holding forth, albeit only suggestively, hope for their redemption.230 More importantly, even assuming arguendo

228 For Matthew adopting the Verstockungstheorie from Mark, cf. Strecker, Weg, 71. My summary of this reading is a synthesis of its articulation by various scholars. In my view, the most powerful case for it is Menken’s. Not only does Menken rely rather heavily on the supposed two-part structure of the chapter, but also he does a brilliant job of highlighting Matthew’s subtle but repeated redaction of Mark. Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 96-98.

229 Ibid., 97.

230 First, Davies and Allison and Jonathan Pennington offer very similar outlines of the chapter that explain its features much better than the two-part structure that Menken (and many others) propose; this better alternative does justice to Matthew’s fondness for triads, his penchant for highly-wrought structuring, the low likelihood that Matthew would break up a parable and its explanation and,

267

that the chapter does posit “a sharp contrast” between the two groups, it is not at all clear that the FC contributes to this contrast. It is true that verse 34, which summarizes the action of the chapter up to that point as Jesus speaking “to the crowds” in parables, is logically knit together with the FC in verse 35 by means of the ὅπως in the introductory formula (v. 35a).231 But Strecker perceptively observes that, with the

ultimately, the fact that, as Pennington puts it, the chapter is a “well-structured unit.” Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 370; Pennington, “Matthew 13,” 15. Second, the reference to “them” in 13:24, 31, 33 is not a straightforward reference to “the crowds” because the disciples are clearly included within the audience listening to Jesus’ parables. Third, at least two textual features point toward the ambiguity that I am suggesting: (1) while the Markan Jesus tells parables in order that (ἵνα) the crowd may look but not perceive (Mark 4:11-12), the Matthean Jesus does so because (ὅτι) they do so (Matt 13:13)—so that while Matthew’s change does “rachet… up the element of moral condemnation for their lack of understanding,” it nonetheless eliminates the purposiveness of speaking in parable to “conceal secrets.” Hays, Echoes, 129-30. (2) While “I would heal them” in 13:15 might be read as the last in the series of verbs that μήποτε negates, Hays points out that the syntax “virtually requires” that we read it as a statement that “God will bring… healing.” By breaking the series of aorist subjunctive verbs with a future indicative (ἰάσομαι)—and, I would add, by shifting from the third-person plural to the first-person singular—the LXX, which Matthew follows here, turns from (their) No to (God’s) Yes. Ibid., 130-31 (emphasis in original).

231 Both Miler and Davies and Allison regard 13:10-23 and 13:34-43 as parallel such that we should read both 13:14-15 and 13:34-35 as offering (a) reason(s) why Jesus speaks in parables. Miler, Citations, 184; Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 370. Many scholars regard 13:14-15 as an interpolation. cf. e.g., Torrey, Documents; Johnson, “Quotations,” 135-36. Assuming arguendo that it is not, nothing in the immediate context of 13:34-35 points towards such a function for these verses. Indeed, I would invert this argument: it is precisely because of the presence of 13:10-17 in this chapter that we should read 13:34- 35 as about something other than the reason for the crowds’ blindness. Of course, doublets are a well- known feature of Matthew’s gospel. But the sort of doublet that 13:10-17 and 13:34-35 would represent would be, as far as I can tell, unprecedented. Matthew doubles pericopae (14:13-21//15:32-39),

268

verb ἐρεύξομαι (“Hervorsprudeln”) the FC sets forth this speaking unreflektiert; “[d]ie

Verstockungstheorie,” that is, “ist nicht angedeutet.”232 Like the Hebrew verb that it

hiphal), ἐρεύξομαι has “the basic meaning of ‘making gush’”; with a נבע) translates neutral valence, it connotes neither “revealing” nor “veiling” but instead underlines the sheer effusiveness of the speaker.233 In the same way, the citation generally does not have in view any second- or third-person’s response but simply the first-person “I’s” speech (“I will open…. my mouth… I will proclaim…”). Thus, I read this FC as about Jesus—Jesus-the-prophet who alone “has” full access to God’s mysteries.

We begin by establishing that the text portrays Jesus as a prophet—a point as easy to establish as it is overlooked. The logic of the threefold repetition of “prophet” in the chapter (13:17, 35, 57) is more important than the mere fact of repetition (or the fact that this repetition is the product of Matthean redaction).234 Normally, the

characters (8:28//Mark 5:2), and scriptural citations (9:13//12:7); he does not create the sorts of redundancies within a pericope that this “parallel” would represent.

232 Strecker, Weg, 74.

233 Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 94-95 n. 16.

234 While the word “prophet” in 13:57 comes from Mark and the word in 13:17 may be from “a Q logion” (Luz), its appearance in 13:35 is obviously redactional, and Matthew is the one, it seems, who has combined Mark, Q, and his own redaction to create the threefold repetition. Cf. Luz, Matthew 8-20, 238.

269

mention of “the prophet” in the introductory formula to an FC, which simply makes clear the divine origin of the word, does little interpretive work. Here, however, the phrase seems to give this parable-speaking “I” his identity. This “I” is “a prophet,” and, in the Matthean context, is Jesus. In the very next pericope (13:53-58), Jesus will, as the crowds do throughout the gospel (cf. 16:14; 21:11, 46), identify himself as a

“prophet” (13:57). “Prophets,” Jesus informs his disciples, longed to see and hear what they do—that is, the mysteries of which the parables speak (cf. 13:13). The claim seems to be that prophets could “understand” (Matt 13:13, 14, 15, 19, 51) the realities of which they spoke enough to “long” for them.

In chapter 13, “understanding” these mysteries (or “seeing” and “hearing” them) is synonymous with “having” them; the key verses are Matt 13:11-13, particularly verse 12. Responding to the disciples’ question about why he speaks to the crowds in parables, Jesus replies:

…To you it has been given to know (γνῶναι) the secrets (τὰ μυστήρια) of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have (ἔχει), more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have (ἔχει) nothing, even what they have (ἔχει) will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive (βλέποντες οὐ βλέπουσιν), and hearing they do not listen (ἀκούοντες οὐκ ἀκούουσιν), nor do they understand (συνίουσιν).”

270

This quotation, which quotes Isa 6:9-10, could be extended through verse 16—ἀκούειν,

βλέπειν, and συνιέναι are all repeated—but the point is already clear. Whether employing a metaphor, an idiom, or an epistemological conception, Matthew uses the linguistic register of possession (“having,” “being given,” and, as we will see, “being handed”) to denote one’s knowledge of these mysteries (cf. 13:11).

The point becomes significant when considered in light of another set of synonyms. The phrase “these things,” as the following list reveals, clearly refers to

“(understood) parables,” to the “mysteries of the Kingdom” that one does or does not

“have”:

• Matt 13:3a: And he told them many things (πολλά) in parables, saying:…

• Matt 13:34a: Jesus told the crowds all these things (ταῦτα πάντα) in parables;

• Matt 13:51: “Have you understood all this (ταῦτα πάντα)?” They answered, “Yes.”

• Matt 13:56: “And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this (ταῦτα πάντα)?”

Before drawing together these threads—the synonymity of “seeing”/ “hearing”/

“understanding”/ “having” on the one hand and of parables/ mysteries/ “these things”

271

on the other—one additional passage, similar in language and content to chapter 13, should be introduced:

Matt 11:25-27: At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden (ἔκρυψας) these things (ταῦτα) from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed (ἀπεκάλυψας) them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things (Πάντα) have been handed over (παρεδόθη) to me by my Father; and no one knows (ἐπιγινώσκει) the Son except the Father, and no one knows (ἐπιγινώσκει) the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal (ἀποκαλύψαι) him.

Why this seeming detour through Matthean vocabulary? In my reading, careful attention to this language helps further illumine the chapter’s logic of Jesus- as-prophet. As it does for the performance of righteousness (5:20: exceeds) and the ranking of those in the Kingdom (5:19; 11:11; 18:1, 4: least, greater, greatest),

Matthew’s quantitatively-formatted mind describes one’s “having” knowledge (13:12) with comparative and superlative language (nothing, more, all). Using this schema, he twice describes Jesus as “having” (i.e., seeing/ hearing/ understanding) “all these things” (i.e., the parables/ mysteries):

• First, Jesus himself thanks the Father for “all” (Πάντα) the “hidden” (11:27) things that He has “handed over”/ “revealed” that Jesus himself will now “reveal” (11:25-27).

• Second, after Jesus has revealed these “hidden” (13:35, 44) things—in chapter 13’s parables—the astounded people marvel at his possessing

272

“all (πάντα) these things” (13:56) (even as, offended, they do not seem to understand them).

Significantly, this latter reaction represents the culmination of the “parables chapter”—a culmination in which it is precisely as “prophet” that Jesus has “all these things” (13:57).235

Second-Temple sources portray God as the One who “has” “mysteries” and reveals them to various humans (e.g., Dan 2:28, 30; 1 En. 63:3; 2 Bar 81:4; 2 Esd 14:5;

1 QpHab VII.4f; 1 QH IV.27f).236 While such revelation is not limited to prophets, it is certainly the province of prophets to receive and communicate—if not sometimes also to reveal—them. More specifically, Matthew’s contemporaries seem to have understood this as being, at least in part, the province of prophets (cf., e.g., Liv. Pro.

2:10, 19: μυστήριον).

The logic that I have just delineated—in which Jesus “has” all knowledge of

God’s mysteries ([ταῦτα] πάντα in 11:27; 13:56)—already implies that Jesus surpasses previous prophets to reach the full measure of understanding. Three additional textual features buttress this reading. First, as noted in Section 1.2, the narrative

235 Incidentially, the phrase “all these things” knits this last pericope (13:53-58) together with 13:1-52, inviting us to read them together.

236 For these citations and a discussion similar to the one in the text above, cf. Lohse, Colossians, 74.

273

summary in 13:34 repeats the limit-adjective concept as an instance of what I have called “superfluous repetition”:

Matt 13:34: Jesus told the crowds all these things (ταῦτα πάντα) in parables; without a parable he told them nothing (οὐδὲν).

Either of the two sentences would have sufficed to make clear that Jesus’ speaking was limit-reaching; together, they make that aspect of his speaking the very “point” being highlighted. Particularly striking is the fact that only the latter clause

(“without a parable he told them nothing”) derives from Mark 4:34, and Matthew has redactionally added the first clause (“Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables”).

Second, like chapter 8 with its concentration of miracles, this chapter, another of Matthew’s redactional creations, inscribes Jesus’ effusive knowing-speaking in its very (repetitive) structure. Not only does Jesus speak parable after parable after parable (seven in all) so that the chapter has been called a “one stop shop” for Jesus speaking in parables, but also many of the parables have exactly the same content.237 The fact is often overlooked, never explained; this sort of repetition, which may be a species of what I have called “superfluous,” draws attention to a speaker who could, if given the chance, tell ten (?), twenty (?), fifty (?) parables about the growth of the

237 Pennington, “Matthew 13,” 14.

274

Kingdom and the different responses to it. His access to these mysteries is limitless; only pragmatic constraints (the length of a scroll, the need to finish the story, the limits of Matthew’s memory) draw his parables to a close.

My third argument requires that we attend to three interrelated questions:

• First, if most scholars are correct that διὰ Ἠσαΐου is original, why does Matthew attribute the citation to Isaiah?238

• Second, why does the second line of the citation deviate so markedly from Ps 78:2b?

• Third, would Matthew evoke the broader Old Testament context (of some text[s])?

Answering these questions requires that we ask another. Given that “the evangelist quotes just what he needs” and given that the first sentence would have sufficed to justify Jesus’ speaking in parables, what does the second sentence add?

My answer to this last question—and, thus, my answer to the former three— takes the form of the following hypothesis: with this “quotation” from “Isaiah,”

238 I agree with the consensus that “Isaiah” is original. Although “a large majority” of manuscripts do not mention “Isaiah,” several important—and early—witnesses, do, and these comprise “traditions distinctes.” Frans Van Segbroeck, “Le scandale de l’incroyance: la signification de Mt 13:35,” ETL 41 (1965): 344-372, 361. It is clearly the lectio difficilior, and, for other quotations in Matthew, evidence points to copyists correcting perceived misattributions such as this one. Menken points to scribes attempting to correct the attribution to Jeremiah in Matt 27:9 and also to scribes changing the “Isaiah” in Mark 1:2 to ἐν τοῖς προφήταις. Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 91. For these reasons, many scholars hold that the “Isaiah” reading is original. For a list of scholars, Cf. ibid., 92 n. 4.

275

Matthew invokes not a specific verse but rather a refrain from Second Isaiah: the

LORD speaks the things that were from the beginning and foretells the things that will be.

By doing this, Matthew effectively attributes such divine knowledge to Jesus and, thus, further elevates Jesus’ prophetic power; by naming “Isaiah,” Matthew alerts his readers to this “text” that would otherwise likely escape their attention.239

I will quote just three of the myriad relevant texts:240

Isa 40:21: Will you not know? Will you not hear? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not known the foundations of the earth?

Isa 41:26: For who shall declare the things that were from the beginning so that we might know them, and the former things, and we will say that they are true? There is none who foretells nor any who hears your words.

Isa 46:8-11: Remember these things and groan; repent, you who have gone astray; turn in your heart, and remember the former things of old, because I am God, and there is no other besides me, declaring the last things first, before they happen,

239 Several others have suggested that naming Isaiah in 13:35 and/ or Jeremiah in 27:9 functions in this way. Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 103 and those scholars cited in n. 42.

240 Unless otherwise noted, all are from NETS/ LXX and all are essentially the same in NRSV/ MT; versification is that of NETS.

276

and at once they came to pass, and I said, “My whole plan shall stand, and I will do all the things I have planned,” calling a bird from the east and from a far country those concerning whom I have planned. I have spoken and brought it; I have created and made it.

From these and many other texts, a consistent—and, again, recurring—theological conception emerges:

;hiph: 40:21; 41:22-23, 26; 42:9; 43:9 ,נָגַ ד ;God declares (ἀναγγέλλεῖν .1 44:7; 45:21; 46:10; 47:13 [LXX only]; 48:3, 5, 14):241

a. the

or מֵ רֹּאׁש ;i. things from the beginning (τὰ ἐξ/ ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ,or, put differently (43:9 ;42:9 ;41:26 :הָרִ אׁשֹּנֹות

;48:3 ;46:9 ;41:22 :הָרִ אׁשֹּנֹות ;ii. the former things (τὰ πρότερα or, put differently,242 (41:26 :ּומִ לְפָ נִ ים ;or τὰ ἔμπροσθεν

iii. the things of old (πάλαι [LXX only]: 48:5) and/ or

b. the

,in 42:9 (אַׁשְמִ יע ;hiph) is used in Isa 41:26, “make plain” (ἐδηλώθη ,ׁשָמַ ע ;Foretells” (προλεγεῖν“ 241 .in 46:11 דָ בַ ר /ἀπαγγελλεῖν in Isa 44:8, λαλεῖν

242 ἃ συμβήσεται (“things that will happen”) is used in Isa 41:22. “From the foundations of the earth” (τὰ are used in 40:21, not as a (מֵ רֹּאׁש /and “from the beginning” (ἐξ ἀρχῆς (מֹוסְ דֹות הָאָרֶ ץ /θεμέλια τῆς γῆς description of the “things” declared, but rather as a description of the point in time from which “they” .(refers to when God made these things מִקֶדֶ ם ;have understood; cf. 45:21 (ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς

277

or ;41:22 :הַבָ אֹות ;i. things that are coming (τὰ ἐπερχόμενα ,or, put differently (44:7 :וַאֲׁשֶ ר תָ בֹּאנָ ה

or, put (46:10 ;41:22 :אַחֲרִ יתָ ן ;ii. the last things (τὰ ἔσχατα differently,

243,(42:9 :וַחֲדָ ׁשֹות ;iii. the new things (καινὰ

2. usually, in contrast to—and, often, as a challenge to—the gods/ idols who are incapable of such speech (e.g., 41:22-23; 44:7-8; 45:21; 46:8-11; 48:3-7),

3. so that, when these foretold things happen, the interlocutors will hear qal: 41:22, 26) (both ,יָדַ ע hiph or ,בִ ין ;qal)/ know (γινωσκεῖν ,ׁשָמַ ע ;ἀκουεῖν) in 40:21 [LXX only]; 41:26) that God enacts and foretells His predetermined plan.

Notably, as the last quotation above (Isa 46:8-11) makes clear, these things— seemingly, both the former things/ those from the beginning and the things that are coming/ the last things—are part of God’s plan, long-formulated but only recently

(and, from Isaiah’s perspective partially) revealed.244

Before elaborating why/ how Matthew would invoke this Isaianic refrain, I address an obvious objection: Matthew’s quotation does not use Isaiah’s language. I

.is used in 41:23 הָ (אֹּתִ יֹות לְאָ חֹור ;The things that are coming at the end” (τὰ ἐπερχόμενα ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου“ 243

244 It seems that future revelation awaits as events continue to be foretold and occur (e.g., 41:22-23; 42:9; 44:7-8).

278

would answer that the FC reflects a Christian translating, using the conventions of his day, with preferred Matthean/ Christian vocabulary. Let me explain:

• I will proclaim (ἐρεύξομαι). The Versions, like the LXX, render the hiph (10x in the MT) in various ways: φθέγξομαι (LXX: “I will ,נָבַ ע verb utter”); ὀμβρήσω (Aquila: “I will rain down”); ἀναβλύσω (Symmachus: “I will spout out”).245 Matthew’s ἐρεύξομαι, then, represents yet another attempt to render this difficult-to-render verb from the Psalm—a verb that, because of its connoting effusiveness (“making gush”) serves his purpose well.

• what has been hidden (κεκρυμμένα). This participle “translates” Isaiah’s “things that are coming”/ “last things”/ “new things” in a Matthean key. Never taken from his Markan source, κρύπτειν appears three times in Matthew—each time in relevant texts that we have already considered above (Matt 11:25; 13:35, 44). Whether because the word derives from the historical Jesus, was important to his community (liturgically?), or is simply a stylistic preference, “hidden” is how Matthew repeatedly refers to the mysteries of the Kingdom of which Jesus now speaks.

• from the foundation of the world (ἀπὸ καταβολῆς [κόσμου]). Interestingly, the LXX always uses the word θεμέλιος, never καταβολή.246 New Testament authors use both words, but, with one exception (Heb 11:11), καταβολή is always used with κόσμου to refer to the “foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34; Luke 11:50; John 17:24; Eph 1:4; Heb 4:3; 9:26; 1 Pet 1:20; Rev 13:8; 17:8). (θεμέλιος is never used in this way). Thus, καταβολῆς κόσμου seems to be a common Christian idiom, perhaps

245 The LXX uses the following verbs: ἐρεύγεσθαι, ἀποφθέγγεσθαι, φθέγγεσθαι, ἐξερεύγεσθαι, προΐέναι, ἀναγγέλλειν, ἀποκρίνειν, ἀναπηδύειν.

.יָסַ ד and מֹוסָ ד The noun, along with the verb θεμελιοῦν, are usually used to translate 246

279

originating in liturgy, so that it would be an understandable “translation” for the Christian Matthew to render Isaiah’s (and the in a Christian key. In מִ נִ י־קֶדֶ ם or הָרִ אׁשֹּנֹות or מֵ רֹּאׁש /Psalm’s) ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς addition, “foundation of the earth,” used to describe “the beginning,” is in יָסַ ד + אֶרֶ ץ ;in Isa 40:21 מֹוסָדָ ה + אֶרֶ ץ) also a recurring phrase in Isaiah 48:13; 51:13, 16).

Ancient translations, as this one in Matt 13:35 exemplifies, allowed for paraphrasing

(paraphrasis) (cf., e.g., Theon, Prog. 62).247 While the scriptures were authoritative, actualizing their meaning in a new context at times required what appears to moderns as “interpretation” rather than “translation.”

Moreover, as we have seen with Matt 2:23 and will see with Matt 27:9,

Matthew’s citation practice can take a further step away from modern conventions beyond targumizing—toward what we might simply call “intertextuality.” Citing simply “the prophets” (to “quote” an unidentifiable text) and “Jeremiah” (to “quote” basically a text from Zechariah), Matthew’s impressionistic “quotations” can evoke some text(s) broadly—offering his readers an open-ended invitation to forge thematic and linguistic connections (an exercise similar, perhaps, to Matthew-the-scribe himself

“creating” a quotation by connecting “analogous” passages [see Section 5.3]).

Explaining the name “Isaiah” in 13:35, Frans Van Segbroeck articulates the phenomenon I am describing as Matthew indicating “l’arrière-fond de ses pensées,”

247 For a good discussion of paraphrasis, cf. Myers, “Isaiah 42,” 75-78 and the sources cited therein.

280

his “source ‘théologique’” rather than his source “littéraire,” the “esprit” in which “le texte cité doit être lu.”248 Scholars have endorsed the formulation but often with qualification or without enthusiasm.249 The reason, I think, is that he overstates his case by offering a rigid “theological” or “literary” dichotomy—instead of observing, as I do here, that ancient “translation” practice can blur such lines, that Matthew’s source in 13:35 is indeed “literary” but not in a modern sense.

By evoking this “text” from Second Isaiah, Matthew reinforces his portrait of

Jesus as prophet par excellence. Another aspect of Isaiah’s vision, implicit in the very fact of uttering the oracles but also made explicit, is the fact that the prophet himself shares these foretelling/ revealing words with Israel. God puts His very words in the prophet’s mouth (51:16) and confirms them (44:26). Precisely with the parables, as with the Isaianic oracles, Jesus becomes the very mouthpiece of God—as was Isaiah before him. But where Isaiah’s knowledge/ speech is partial, Jesus’ is full. The phrase

“hidden since the foundation of the world” implies a revelation of something that

Isaiah himself, speaking of “former things” and “things that are coming,” never spoke.

248 Van Segbroeck, “Scandale,” 370-71.

249 Cf. e.g., Knowles, Jeremiah, 66.

281

In conclusion, as mentioned above, 13:35, like 4:15-16 and 8:17, constitutes strong evidence in favor of my thesis. Several textual features—the redactional creation of a concentrated account of repetitive parables, the statements about Jesus having “all” “these things” (11:25-27; 13:56) in light of the gospel’s logic about what that means, the superfluous repetition in 13:34, and the evocation of an Isaianic refrain—pressure the reader to read πληροῦν as “fill up” here. It is as the all-knowing prophet that Jesus “fills up” the word about the one who effusively speaks God’s mysteries.

Unlike with most other FCs, Matt 21:5 (= Zech 9:9) does not appear to be

Matthew’s “discovery”: John also cites this text (John 12:15), and Mark may well allude to it (Mark 11:2, 7).250 But Matthew gives the citation his own distinctive interpretation.

The so-called “triumphal entry,” Matthew 21:1-17 narrates how Jesus, celebrated by “the crowds” as “Son of David” but regarded suspiciously by (all!) the

250 Other FCs that may have been shared, to some extent, with other New Testament authors include Isa 7:14 (according to Stendahl, alluded to in Luke 1:31), Isa 42:1-4 (almost certainly alluded to in Mark 1:11) and Isa 53:4 (to the extent that one finds, as I do not, a pervasive “Servant” conception in the New Testament). Cf. Stendahl, “Quis,” 97 n. 6.

282

“city’s” inhabitants, finally enters Jerusalem and the Temple, drives out the buyers, sellers, and moneychangers, heals the blind and lame, receives further acclaim (from the children) and further suspicion (from the leaders), and retreats to Bethany.251

Near the beginning of the pericope, a conflated FC announces fulfillment: “[Isa 62:11

MT/LXX] Tell the daughter of Zion, [Zech 9:9 LXX] Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on [Zech 9:9 MT] a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Fulfilling the prophecy, Jesus then rides both a donkey and colt. A reading of this FC should begin with the obvious question: why does Matthew apparently portray Jesus as “a trick rider balancing himself on two animals at the same time”?252

It is this multiplicity of animals that underwrites a common reading of

Matthew’s hermeneutic. For many scholars, so strange is the image that it can mean only one thing: Matthew is not using Scripture to interpret a story but rather to manufacture one. The “circus spectacle” is a result of the fact that Matthew, with his

251 Obviously, this loaded sentence assumes certain controverted positions on difficult interpretative issues. For 21:1-17, not 21:1-11, being the relevant pericope, cf. the compelling case made in Luz, Matthew 21-28, 4. With regard to the crowds’ reaction being suspicious, the fact that all the city (πᾶσα ἡ πόλις) being “shaken” (ἐσείσθη) in 21:10 parallels all Jerusalem (πᾶσα Ἱεροσόλυμα) being “troubled” (ἐταράχθη) in 2:3 seems a signal to read the former in light of the latter—and, thus, both as having a negative valence.

252 While this quotation is from Gundry, Gundry himself does not believe that this is the right way to understand the image. Cf. Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 410.

283

prediction–verification hermeneutic, would create “an exact correspondence with the actual wording” of Zech 9:9, but, failing to appreciate the Hebrew parallelism, thinks such a correspondence requires two animals.253 Scripture has two animals; Jesus fulfills predictions; ergo, Jesus rode two animals.254

The other pillar of this reading is that, as McConnell puts it, “Matthew [did not] intend… any further theological meaning with this quotation.”255 It is this claim that this section would refute. Whatever explains Matthew’s second animal—I am agnostic on the issue, as I find no explanation satisfying—the FC certainly has, as many scholars now recognize, “further theological meaning.” Specifically, Jesus is the messianic king—but, above all, a king of humility.

253 S. Vernon McCasland, “Matthew Twists the Scriptures,” JBL 80 (1961): 143-148, 144 (“circus spectacle”); Dodd, According, 127 (“exact correspondence”).

254 Note that, on its own terms, the argument that Matthew has prophecy create tradition here only applies to the second animal. That John also quotes (a much abbreviated version of) Zech 9:9 (John 12:15) in conjunction with the same incident and almost certainly independently of Matthew means that, at most, Matthew “invented” the second animal, not the entire incident.For other proposals, cf. the surveys in Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 110 n. 20 and Roman Bartnicki, “Das Zitat von Zach 9:9-10 und die Tiere im Bericht von Matthaus̈ über dem Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem (Mt 21:1-11),” NovT 18 (1976): 161-166 (cited in Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 110 n. 19).

255 McConnell, Law, 128.

284

To begin, like Gerhard Barth, I regard Matthew’s omission of “just and

as “decisive.”256 The omission is (צַדִ יק וְ נֹוׁשָ ע /salvific” from Zech 9:9 (δίκαιος καὶ σῴζων striking because, as Stendahl observes, these words are “the very epitome of

Matthew’s Christology” (cf., e.g., Matt 1,21; 3:15; 7:29; 8:25; 9:8; 11:27; 14:30; 16:27;

19:28; 24:30; 25:31; 26:64; 27:19; 28:18).257 By means of this glaring omission,

Matthew offers his readers a quotation in which “πραΰς stands in the middle point, dominating the quotation.”258

Many commentators who, like myself, highlight this omission also point to the fact that Jesus rides on a donkey (indeed, on the foal of a donkey). Under this view, the donkey/ foal, especially when juxtaposed with a war horse, itself symbolizes meekness.259 In offering a prayer for the “meek,” certain Psalms implicitly contrast them with the mighty/ powerful/ haughty on horses (Ps 76:6, 9 [75:7, 10 LXX] 147:6,

256 Barth, “Understanding,” 130.

257 Stendahl, School, 119. These citations are from Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 109 n. 14. Precisely because of how important these words are for Matthew, it seems to me extremely unlikely that the omission is simply some sort of unconscious change (e.g., an error of memory). For those who hold this view, cf. ibid., 107 n. 4.

258 Barth, “Understanding,” 130.

259 Cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 120; McConnell, Law, 128.

285

10 [146:6, 10 LXX]). More importantly, such a contrast is explicitly embedded in the very next verse following the one that Matthew cites. Zech 9:9-10 reads:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from ἵππον) from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall /וְ סּוס) Ephraim and the war-horse be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth (MT/ NRSV).260

With the implicit contrast between donkey and war-horse, the king’s being humble

.καὶ) riding a donkey seem logically connected /וְְ) ”and“

A third argument that the emphasis of the FC is on the word “meek” has not, to my knowledge, been offered: the subsequent contrast of two groups in the Temple

(21:12-17) reinforces the portrayal of Jesus as meek. On the one hand are the powerful, those opposed to Jesus—the money-changers and sellers whom he drives out (21:12) and the chief priests and scribes who are indignant at the praise he receives (21:15-16). On the other are the “meek,” those who come to him for healing or to offer praise—the blind and lame (21:14) and the children (21:15). That the latter should be regarded as “meek” is clear from their portrayal in Matthew’s gospel [cf.

260 There are minor differences in the MT and LXX here; as both contain the pertinent contrast, none affect my analysis here.

286

esp. Matt 18:4] and the characterization of the “meek” in the Bible [e.g., Ps 24:9

LXX; 33:3 LXX; Job 24:4; Sir 10:14].)

Jesus’ acceptance of, and acceptance by, these “meek” underlines his own

“meekness.”261 Why? In the New Testament, three of the four instances of πραΰς appear in Matthew’s gospel (Matt 5:5; 11:29; 21:5; cf. 1 Pet 3:4; 2 Cor 10:1 has

πραΰτης), and one of these sets forth precisely the contrast I am suggesting is operative in 21:12-17:

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants (νηπίοις; cf. Matt 21:16: νηπίων); yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke (ζυγόν; cf. Matt 21:5: ὑποζυγίου) upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle (πραΰς) and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke (ζυγός; cf. Matt 21:5; ὑποζυγίου) is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:25-29, emphasis added).

261 For 21:1-17 being the relevant pericope, cf. n. 251 above. Even if vv. 12-17 are not part of the same pericope as vv. 1-11, nonetheless they are so integrally linked linguistically and conceptually that they constitute, as Derrett puts it, “a companion piece.” J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Law in the New Testament: The Palm Sunday Colt,” NovT 13 (1971): 241-258, 242.

287

Interestingly, 11:25 and 21:16 are the only occurrences of νηπίοι (“children”) in the gospel.262 (More interesting, but more tenuous, is the potential yoke [ζυγός]/ donkey

[ὑποζυγίου] connection between the passages.) The contrast in 11:25-30 between the wise/ intelligent who do not accept Jesus’ teaching and the infants who do is even more striking when 11:25-30 is situated within 11:16-30—a unit chastising those who do not perceive Jesus’ “wisdom” (11:19) and who do not respond to his “deeds of power” (11:20, 21, 23; cf. Jesus’ healings of the blind and lame in 21:14—to which the children respond in 21:15!). For my purpose, most important to appreciate is the fact that the νηπίοις (11:25), as well as οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι (11:28; cf. τυφλοὶ καὶ χωλοὶ in 21:14?), are drawn to (11:28: Δεῦτε πρός με; 21:14: προσῆλθον) the Jesus who is meek

(11:29: πραΰς). It is he who gives them rest (11:28, 29)/ healing (21:14).

Reception history reveals how readers made precisely this connection between these passages—and, as a result, understood the FC in 21:5 as foregrounding Jesus’ meekness. Sib. Or. 8:324-29 reads:

262 Luz suggests that Matt 21:15-16 is redactional. Cf. Luz, Matthew 21-28, 6 (noting that while vv. 15- 16 “loosely follow… Mark 11:18” and νηπίων comes from a quotation “correspond[ing] exactly to the LXX,” the “vocabulary of both verses is Matthean”). On the other hand, he maintains that 11:25-27 “come[s] from Q = Luke 10:21-22.” Luz, Matthew 8-20, 157. Even if Matthew drew the word νηπίοι in 11:25 from Q and was drawn to it in 21:16 because of his knowledge of the word from his Q source, nonetheless it seems to have been Matthew who made the connection between the two passages by means of this word.

288

Rejoice, holy daughter Sion, who have suffered much. Your king himself comes in, mounted on a foal, appearing gentle (πρᾶος) to all so that (ἵνα) he may lift our yoke (ζυγὸν) of slavery, hard to bear, which lies on our neck and undo the godless ordinances and constraining bonds. Know that he is your God, as he is son (υἱὸν) of God.

With the conjunction ἵνα, the reader forges a logical connection (even if that logic eludes us) between Jesus’ gentle appearance and his lifting the yoke of slavery—or, between precisely the passages I have highlighted above (11:25-29 and 12:1-17). In addition, it is Jesus’ gentle appearance—as well as his sonship—that is important to this reader (i.e., the author of the Sibylline Oracles) about the triumphal entry.

That the unmistakable emphasis of the FC in Matt 27:9-10 is on Jesus’ meekness does not mean that Jesus is not also portrayed as King. Again with Barth, I would argue that Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ kingship even as he emphasizes his lowliness. The “paradox,” then, is that “the βασιλεύς, the king of Israel, comes as

πραΰς.”263 Much of the case that Matthew highlights Jesus’ kingship here requires appreciation of the cultural “encyclopedia” of Matthew’s readers. First, kings requisitioned animals so that Matthew’s readers “would probably have heard in

Jesus’ orders the authority of a king.”264 Second, spreading one’s clothing on the road

263 Barth, “Understanding,” 125, 130 n. 2.

264 Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 117 (relying on Derrett, “Law,”).

289

was “a gesture of homage and respect to a king or someone of rank” (cf. 2 Kgs 9:13).265

While spreading branches is more ambiguous, as some texts use such imagery for a religious celebration (e.g., 1 Macc 13:51; 2 Macc 10:7; Philo, Embassy 297) and others for a royal procession (e.g., 2 Kgs 9:13), the latter better fits the other imagery here.266

Third, that Jesus does not walk into the city, like other pilgrims, but instead rides

“reflects his extraordinary status: the king sits.”267

Textual features of Matt 21 point in the same direction. First, as Hays argues, by having the crowd shout “Hosanna to the son of David!” rather than simply

“Hosanna!,” Matthew has redacted his Markan source so that what was an

“inference” in Mark is now an “affirmation”: Jesus is the Davidic king.268 Second, in terms of narrative construction, Davies and Allison point out that this pericope

“contains two firsts—(i) Jesus’ public claim (albeit indirect, through actions, not

265 Luz, Matthew 21-28, 9. Luz also cites Yal. on Exod 2:15 (homage to Moses as king); Plutarch, Cato Minor 12.1 (the Romans pay homage to the field general Cato); Acts Pilate 1.2 (Jesus before Pilate). Ibid., 9 n. 53. Making the same point, Davies and Allison cite the same texts and also Aeschylus, Ag. 918-57; Josephus, Ant. 9.111; and the targum to Esth 8.15. Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 123.

266 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 122, n. 79; Luz, Matthew 21-28, 9 n. 55; Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 137 n. 99.

267 Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 123 (citations omitted).

268 Hays, Echoes, 151.

290

words) to his own messianic kingship and (ii) recognition by a group (‘the crowds’) of that kingship….”269 Third, Matthew has already described Jerusalem for his readers in terms that render the very act of riding into that city a potentially messianic one: this is “the city of the great King” (Matt 5:35; cf. Ps 48:2).

Finally, we must consider why Matthew “conflates” Zech 9:9 and Isa 62:11.

The consensus view is that Zech 9:9a (“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion”) is inappropriate since (a) Jesus is riding to his death and/ or (b) Jerusalem greets him, not with joy, but with suspicion, if not hostility.270 Possibly. But in every other case of a “conflated” FC, Matthew would evoke the broader context. Thus, Hays is probably right to argue that, in this case, that context (Isa 62) both makes Jesus’ entry “an act of revelation… to the end of the earth” and “draws attention to Jesus’ identity as sōtēr (‘savior’).”271

Is there “fullness” in view with this FC? Perhaps we must ascribe it fullness simply because of its inclusion in the group of FCs. Or perhaps, as with 2:15, the very

269 Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 112.

270 Cf. e.g., Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 54 n. 41; Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 109 and the various scholars cited in n. 11.

271 Hays, Echoes, 152-53.

291

significance of the image being eschatologically re-enacted itself suggests fullness.272

There is another other intriguing possibility. Even if we do not read into this pericope the Gospel’s Moses typology, the crowds’ response to the Jerusalem inhabitants’ “Who is this?” question does suggest that they regard Jesus as the Mosaic prophet of Deut

18:15: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” (Matt 21:11).273 With both their actions (spreading garments and branches) and their words (“Hosanna to the son of David!”), the crowds acclaim Jesus as king; with their striking response, they acclaim him as prophet as well; Moses, of course, was afforded precisely this dual role in Jewish tradition.274 Thus, Davies and Allison may rightly invoke Num 12:3 to interpret this FC: “Now the man Moses was very humble (LXX: πραῢς φόδρα), more so than anyone else (πάντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους) on the face of the earth.”275 If this is right, then unsurpassable humility is intertextually ascribed to Jesus here.

272 For a discussion of the eschatological overtones of the pericope, cf. ibid., 115, 129.

273 For a Moses typology operative in this pericope as in the gospel broadly, cf. ibid., 121.

274 Cf. ibid., 127.

275 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 290. I have quoted the NRSV, which, of course, is based on the MT, but the LXX is substantially the same.

292

How has the hypothesis proposed in Chapter 1—that Matthew uses πληροῦν in his FCs, as in non-FC texts, to mean “fill up” in the sense of unsurpassability—fared exegetically? Some texts lend themselves to such a reading more easily than others.

With their highly-concentrated accounts of miracle-stories and parables, clustering of superfluously repeated limit-adjectives, and revealing text form (the omission of Isa

53:4b and addition of Isaiah’s “hidden things”), the FCs in 8:17 and 13:35 were the clearest cases; with its repetition of “light” and myriad linguistic links to the narrative summary in 4:23-25 (where πᾶς or ὅλος modifies every aspect of Jesus’ ministry), 4:14-15 was another clear case. With superfluous repetition of the limit- adjective/ concept and/ or narratively-enacted fullness, 1:23, 2:18 and 27:9-10, particularly in light of the clearer cases, fit the pattern. Lacking the textual features of the clearer cases, 2:15, 12:18-21, and 21:5 are more ambiguous. While they do not demand to be read as “filling up,” nonetheless, in light of the clearer cases—and in light of the framework derived from Matthew’s consistent usage of πληροῦν in non-FC texts (Chapter 1)—they certainly can be.276 In my view, my hypothesis about

276 I have not included the FC in Matt 2:23 in this list because, as argued in Section 4.1.5, it is too cryptic to gain much purchase on how Jesus might “fill up” being a “Nazorean.”

293

Matthew’s hermeneutic in the FCs not only works but also it explains more of the textual data than alternative readings of the FCs.

294

Drawing together the strands of Chapters 1-4, we can now attempt to answer the question with which we began: “Que fait Matthieu quand il cite l’Écriture?”1 My answer takes the form of five summarizing observations.

While most of the observations draw together and build upon the exegesis of

Chapter 4, the first two do not. Recall the importance of this first issue: as outlined in the Introduction, “prediction–verification,” once the dominant paradigm for understanding Matthew’s FCs, has tenaciously clung to its foothold in the discussion.

Is this right or should we, with Kirk, reject “fulfilling” in favor of “filling”? In my view, Matthew probably does regard the FCs as predictive—even if, especially compared to other biblical authors, this aspect of πληροῦν almost disappears.

We can answer Kirk’s single argument against prediction. For Kirk, the FCs are prima facie not predictive because they are a “retrospective look” on an event or a

“present-tense description” of a situation.2 Yet this claim “ignores the difference between first-century and twentieth-century exegesis” (as Donald Juel writes in

1 Miler, Citations, 8.

2 Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 86-87.

295

another context).3 “[N]ot restricted to [the] plain sense” of the words,” “first-century exegesis” was so “highly artful, even fanciful” that “biblical passages never read as messianic could be ‘adopted’ as messianic by following the logic of midrash”—and, in much the same way, “[i]n the Qumran scrolls, various biblical passages are read as oracles making predictions.”4 This sort of backwards-looking prediction appears frequently in the New Testament itself (e.g., Luke 4:16-30, Rom 15:3, 2 Cor 6:2).

Thus, Dodd’s observation is certainly correct if difficult to comprehend: the early church “felt no difficulty if it had to accept the prophecies as declaring that which had happened, was happening, and would happen, indistinguishably.”5

This understanding of prophecy surfaces in Matt 3:3. While this “voice crying in the wilderness” does, in the original Isaianic context (of both the MT and LXX), predict valley-filling, mountain-levelling, etc. (cf. Isa 40:4), the voice itself is presently—not at some unspecified future time—“crying out” (βοῶντος: a present

/a qal participle). In contrast, then, to, say, his use of Mic 5:1, 3 :קֹורֵ א /active participle

2 Sam 5:2/ 1 Chr 11:2 in Matt 2:5—a prediction qua prediction that envisions a future

3 Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 100. Juel made the comment as a means of refuting Harmut Gese’s proposal for the Christian use of Psalm 22.

4 Ibid., 13, 16, 103.

5 Dodd, According, 74.

296

ruler who “shall come out” (ἐξελεύσεται: future tense) of Bethlehem—Matthew has appropriated as predictive what Kirk calls a “present-tense description” of a situation.6

On the other hand, given the consistent “filling up” thrust of πληροῦν in the gospel, prediction–verification recedes into the background for Matthew. His gospel lacks many of the textual features that point up providence in Luke or Isaiah.7

Emphasizing God’s foreknowledge and providential βουλή for history and the apologetic value of interpreting the signs of the times as “verifying” scriptural predictions are simply not notes that Matthew strikes.8 Matthew’s use of πληροῦν is carefully circumscribed and consistent; neither 2:5 nor 3:3 nor 13:14-15, which I could not read like the FCs (as “filling up” the word), use the verb. While the prophets do, indeed, predict what will happen (γενήσεται, ἐλεύσεται), some subset of these oracles are

6 Kirk, “Conceptualising,” 86-87. It would be wrong to deny, or even minimize, the significance of this text as predictive for Matthew by claiming that he is, as is his wont, merely faithfully following his sources. Not only has Matthew tacitly endorsed this conception of prophecy by adopting it from his Markan source, but also my basic point here is that this notion of a backwards-looking prediction is common to early Christians and Jews.

7 For Luke, cf. Section 2.2.2; for Isaiah, cf. Section 4.2.4.

8 Matthew does have what is called in Lukan studies the “divine δεῖ” (Matt 26:54, 56) (cf. Section 2.2.2) but it receives much less emphasis in Matthew’s gospel.

297

filled up (ἐπληρώθη), and it is this latter verb, never synonymous with the former ones, that conveys Matthew’s primary meaning in the FCs.

Conventional exegesis groups the FCs in chapters 1-2 together as geographic in focus and apologetic in function. Theoretically, a geographical focus and an apologetic function are distinguishable; practically, commentators almost always hold them together. However, they must be considered separately because the arguments for each are different.

The most perspicuous and enduring argument for a geographical focus is

Stendahl’s.9 In a 1964 essay, Stendahl offers fours arguments that “geography,” not

“the event,” is “what is really important” in the FCs in chapter 2.10 First, because

Matthew places the FC of Hos 11:1 (“out of Egypt…”) where Egypt is first mentioned

(vv. 13-15) rather than where Jesus actually leaves Egypt (v. 19), it must be the case that he aimed to “nail down ‘Egypt’ in the itinerary.” Second, that Matthew gives the

,the Vulgate, Aquila ,*אproper name “Ramah” instead of translating it (like LXXA

9 Among those who believe that the FCs in chapter 1-2 have a primarily geographical focus are, e.g., Brown, Birth; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.

10 Stendahl, “Quis,” 99.

298

and the Targum) betrays his interest in geography. Third, even though Num 24:17

“seems to lie just under the surface in the Matthean account,” Matthew does not quote it because it is not geographical. Fourth, “[t]he unique way in which the

Bethlehem-quotation lacks the usual Matthean introductory formula is easier to understand if we see the apologetic tension between ‘Bethlehem as expected’ and

‘Nazareth as revealed’….”11

I hope that my exegesis in Chapter 4 provides a single decisive answer to all these arguments—namely, that there are better explanations for these textual features than the geographical one. Perhaps more importantly, I would argue that in none of these FCs is geography the “point”:

• Matt 2:6: This quotation, which lacks two of the three determinative features of an FC, is not an FC.

• Matt 2:18: “Ramah” in the quotation does not match—and, thus, does not “verify”—“Bethlehem” in the context.

• Matt 2:23: While “Nazareth” denotes a geographical locale in the narrative, the quotation relies on word-play so that the term Ναζωραῖος refers to both “nazirite” and “inhabitant of Nazareth.”

11 Ibid., 99-100.

299

So while Matthew 2 is, indeed, “dominated by geographical names,” such names in the

FCs are secondary to the “point” being made.12

Because an apologetic function is usually assumed, we must cobble together the case from various works.13 Scholars often read Matt 2:6 and 2:23 in light of John

7:41-42, 52 in order to establish that (some?) Jews expected the Messiah to come from

Bethlehem, that Jesus’ Galilean/ Nazorean origins were thus a stumbling block, and that Jews in a similar milieu to Matthew’s community were debating precisely this problem.14 Given this situation, perhaps some cast aspersions upon Jesus’ “irregular” birth so that 1:23 may also be apologetic.15

This case for the FCs’ apologetic function is not as formidable as it appears.

First, to portray all, or even most, of these FCs as apologetic is to paint with too broad a brush. What Jew would have found a sojourn in Egypt (Matt 2:15) or the

12 Ibid., 97. The language of the “point” of an FC in its context is from Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 216.

13 Among those who believe that the FCs in chapters 1-2 are apologetic are Stendahl, “Quis,” 99 and Gundry, Use, 195. Cf. Soares Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 16-17, for a summary of older works holding this view.

14 Cf. e.g., Brown, Birth, 180, 186; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 225.

15 Cf. e.g., McConnell, Law, 107; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 220-21. Craig Evans cites John 8:41 and Mark 6:3 to suggest that perhaps there were “hints of the doubt surrounding Jesus’ conception and birth.” Evans, Matthew, 47-48.

300

massacre of infants (Matt 2:18) to be obstacles to Jesus being the Messiah?16 At most only the FCs in 1:23 and 2:23 are apologetic. (Again, 2:6 is not an FC.) Even Matt 1:23 and 2:23 do not appear, upon closer scrutiny, to function apologetically. As argued in

Section 4.1.1, that Matthew added a phrase from Isa 8:8, 10 LXX reveals that the

“point” of this FC is not to answer calumnies about Jesus’ birth but to make clear that/ how Jesus is God-with-us. Finally, how would the vague/ unidentifiable citation in Matt 2:23 have convinced anyone? If it were meant to function apologetically, would it not be framed more precisely?17

“Conflated citations,” which blend two or more Old Testament texts, figure prominently in the FCs.18 The widely-agreed upon examples are:

16 Even Lindars, so concerned to trace the apologetic function of scriptural quotations in the New Testament, seems to regard these two FCs as non-apologetic (although 2:15 was perhaps apologetic at a pre-Matthean stage). Lindars, Apologetic, 216-18.

17 Another argument against an apologetic function is Luz’s: to argue that the FCs in Matt 1-2 are apologetic is to make an implicit claim that the socio-historical setting of the First Gospel is one in which the “parting of the ways” has not yet occurred; such a claim is, of course, still hotly debated. Cf. Luz, Matthew 1-7, 130-31.

18 Many scholars use the term “conflate” (or “conflated”) “quotation” or “text”; cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 118; Dodd, According, 40, 42, 54; Lindars, Apologetic, 164; Moss, Zechariah, 5. Gundry refers to these as “composite quotations,” and Hays as “interwoven” “quotations.” Gundry, Matthew, 557; Hays, Echoes, 177, 186. Davies and Allison would distinguish between “conflated” and “composite” quotations: the former interweaves partial texts, while the latter “strings together” “more

301

• Matt 21:5 = Isa 62:11 + Zech 9:9; and

• Matt 27:9-10 = Zech 11:13 + Jer 18, 19, and/ or 32.

In addition to these, I have argued that:

• Matt 4:15-16 = Isa 8:23-9:1 + Isa 58:10 + Ps 106:10 LXX is another example;

• Matt 1:23 is a related phenomenon: it does not conflate Isa 7:14 and Isa 8:8, 10 but adds the latter to the former to provide a key for interpreting it;

• Matt 13:35 is another related phenomenon: it conflates Ps 78[77]:2 with a targumizing refrain from Second Isaiah.

Identifying these “conflated citations” (and related phenomena) requires the same necessarily subjective argumentation as identifying “links to context” (see Section

3.2). One person’s “conflated citation” is another person’s “targumizing” quotation, particularly where the author purportedly imports a single word or two into the more recognizable base text.19 And where scholars agree that a given citation is “conflated,”

or less complete…” texts. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 3, 118. Conversely, the recently published volume Composite Citations in Antiquity uses these two terms in basically the opposite way. Sean A. Adams and Seth M. Ehorn, eds., Composite Citations in Antiquity: Jewish, Graeco-Roman, and Early Christian Uses, vol. 1 of Composite Citations in Antiquity, LNTS 525 (London; New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 4.

19 In my view, Menken himself is too keen to discover the phenomenon of “analogous passages” in the FCs: in Matt 12:18-21, for example, he proposes five instances of “conflation,” three of which involve a single word! (He proposes Isa 41:8-9 for ὁ ἀγαπητός μου; Ps 147:19-20 [147:8-9 LXX] for ἀπαγγελεῖ; Hab 1:4 for εἰς νῖκος; Isa 26:8 for ὀνόματι; Isa 11:10 LXX and/ or Isa 51:5 for ἔθνη. Menken, Matthew’s Bible,

302

they often disagree on which texts have been conflated.20 But even if it is impossible to achieve consensus in most individual instances of supposed “conflated citations,” the phenomenon itself is, in my reading of both the primary texts and secondary literature, so widely recognized as to be undeniable.

“Conflated citations” have received little scholarly attention.21 Perhaps the best study, albeit scattered throughout two books, is Menken’s.22 For Menken, ancient

Jewish exegetes combined “analogous passages” (his term). A “common” “exegetical procedure” in “pre-Christian Judaism,” such combination was “very similar” to the

in that an author draws together ”גזרה ׁשוה the later rabbinical hermeneutical rule of“ passages that have “at least one word in common” and “mostly also have a similar

73-75, 79-81). For a discussion of the phenomenon of free quotations/ paraphrasing, cf. Myers, “Isaiah 42,” 76-78.

20 So, for example, Hays proposes that Matt 4:15-16 melds Isa 9:1 with Isa 42:7, 9 and 60:1 and Menken that Matt 13:35 imports Isa 29:14 into Ps 78:2. Hays, Echoes, 177-79; Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 99-101. I argue that the former draws from Isa 58:10 and Ps 106:10 LXX and the latter from a refrain in Second Isaiah generally.

21 Besides Menken’s work (discussed in the text and cited in the notes below), cf. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran; Jean Koenig, L’herméneutique analogique du Judaïsme antique d’après les témoins textuels d’Isaïe, VTSup 33 (Leiden: Brill, 1982); Allison, James, 495 n. 10; Adams and Ehorn, Composite Citations.

22 Menken’s discussion of this phenomenon can be found in Menken, Fourth Gospel, 52-53, 83-84, 88-89, 94-95, 117-18, 131-36, 159-60, 195, 197 and Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 24, 73-75, 79-81, 101, 108, 152-53, 172, 186-87.

303

to explain texts, they combined “analogous גזרה ׁשוה content.” Yet where Jews used passages” to render texts—specifically to “substitute for” or “add to” a part of one text using another “analogous” text.23

Why would a “citator” (Menken’s awkward but descriptive term) resort to an

“analogous passage” to render the text?24 Does the citator have in mind and/ or seek to evoke the broader context of one or more of the passages? Menken never explicitly addresses these questions.25

Richard Hays does. For Hays, “fusing” citations allows Matthew to activate the broader intertextual field of each. As “allusive, hermeneutically constructive compositions,” “conflated citations” “beckon the reader to recall two different

23 The quotations here are from Menken, Fourth Gospel, 52, 83. For his claims about the practice in “pre-Christian Judaism,” Menken relies on Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran, Koenig, L’herméneutique analogique, and, for the single example of Luke 4:18-19 (a conflation of Isa 61:1-2a and 58:6), Bart J. Koet, “‘Today this Scripture Has Been Fulfilled in Your Ears’: Jesus’ Explanation of Scripture in Luke 4:16-30,” Biljdr 47 (1986): 368-394.

24 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 186.

25 At points, Menken’s logic seems to be that greater conceptual overlap between two passages increases their being regarded as “analogous” and thus combined to render a text; if this is right, then this logic implies that the citator would, indeed, take into account and/ or evoke the broader context of both passages. Cf. e.g., ibid., 24. Perhaps it is the reader’s considering the context that Menken has in mind: regarding Matt 13:35, Menken writes that “[b]y ascribing the quotation to Isaiah, Matthew draws attention to that element in it that comes from Isaiah, an element that would otherwise easily escape the reader or listener.” Ibid., 103.

304

scriptural contexts simultaneously and to reflect upon the way in which each one illuminates the other.”26 Thus:

• Splicing ὁ καθήμενος from Isa 42:7—a text in which God commissions the servant to proclaim “light to the nations” (v. 6; cf. v. 1)—into Isa 9:2 (9:1 LXX), Matthew “hints” that the FC in 4:15-16 prefigures salvation to the Gentiles.27

• “Interweaving” ἀνέτειλεν from Isa 60:1—another text about light shining on the nations (cf. Isa 60:1, 3)—into the same FC, Matthew achieves the same prefiguring.28

• “Fus[ing]” the phrase εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών from Isa 62:11 LXX into Zech 9:9 (Matt 21:5), Matthew “draws attention to Jesus’ identity as… savior” (cf. Isa 62:11b: “your savior has come to you”) and “universalizes” Jesus’ salvation (cf. Isa 62:11a: “to the ends of the earth”).29

26 Hays, Echoes, 186.

27 Ibid., 177-78.

28 Hays argues that ἀνέτειλεν probably evokes Isa 42:9 as well as Isa 60:1—a “complex harmonic fusion of three passages” is on display here—so that Jesus’ appearance in Matt 4 is cast as “the new things” springing forth in Isa 42:9. Cf. ibid., 178.

29 Ibid., 152-53. Hays also suggests that Matt 2:6 is a conflation of Mic 5:1-3 and 2 Sam 5:2, Matt 11:29 of Sir 51:27 and Jer 6:16, and Matt 27:39 of Ps 22:7 and Lam 2:15. Cf. ibid., 187.

305

For Hays, then, “conflated citations” allow Matthew to guide his readers’ readings— to provide further pointers towards a reading already suggested by other textual features and to hint allusively at additional layers of meaning.

My understanding of Matthean “conflated citations” comports with Hays’.

While I am not as sanguine about the FCs generally evoking the broader Old

Testament context, all of the FCs that are “conflated citations” (Matt 4:15-16; 13:35;

21:5; 27:9-10) do seem to function in this way—so that the very fact of “conflation” may provide a hermeneutical signal to readers to search the broader Old Testament context of at least the text that has been “spliced in” (if not the base text as well). The result is a rich and heterogeneous intertextuality, a variety of aesthetic effects—from confirming readers’ suspicions (4:15-16: that, yes, Jesus’ healings are the “light” of salvation, that

Jesus is the awaited Isaianic savior), to enriching—or filling out—christological claims (13:35: the fullness of Jesus’ prophetic knowledge), to forging a subtextual irony, for those with hears to ear, condemning Israel’s leaders more devastatingly than overt polemics (27:9-10).

“Conflated citations” also complicate our understanding of the relevant

“context” of Matthew’s citations. On the one hand, the very fact of “conflation” may logically require something like the activation-of-the-broader-context for which Hays

306

vigorously argues. If Menken is right that “analogous passages” had both linguistic and conceptual connections, then one who would discover an “analogy” did so on the basis of more than a single, short phrase. Passages, more than single words or even phrases, convey concepts.

On the other hand, the legitimacy of conflating texts confounds our modern understanding of “context” (which, of course, we retroject onto Matthew). John

Barton’s observation is apropos:

…Isaiah (like the rest of Scripture) was read as if it were a collection of innumerable fragments, a book not unlike Proverbs, in which every pericope, indeed every sentence or even every word, had a meaning independent of its context. The perception of Isaiah as part of “the holy books” inhibited any attempt to find unity within the book itself, since it was not seen as a work with its own internal integrity but as a more or less arbitrary length cut from a longer roll, the seamless fabric of the oracles of God.30

That a constellation of words or themes can legitimate jumping from one text to another and read both as, effectively, a single text implies that, for Matthew, Scripture is, indeed, a “seamless fabric.” This “fabric”—not, say, the book of Isaiah, or even a given chapter or pericope within that book—constitutes the relevant Matthean

“context.”

30 John Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel After the Exile (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1986), 150.

307

Of course, this view of Scripture-as-fabric differs markedly from modern ones, which, in whatever iteration—pearls-on-a-string, a-canon-of-discreet-voices, sedimentary-layers-of-redactional-activity—seek the human author(s)’s intention as expressed through particular culturally-bound historico-grammatical structures in discernible “contexts” (“forms,” “books,” “sources”). Because of this fundamental difference, one might be tempted to critical nihilism, to reject the very attempt to answer whether or not Matthew “takes into account” “the” “context.”31 Matthew’s

“context”—a pan-textual, catch-word and/ or catch-theme synthetic “text”—seems to be something like the Qumran florilegia or testimonia or the “narrative substructure” that Hays posits for Paul.32 So are we limited to making obvious, uninteresting claims—that Matthew does not read his FCs as “their original authors intended them” (Donald Hagner), that they are not “satisfactory to modern, critical canons of context” (Richard Mead)?33

31 Or one might abandon “the Old Testament context” but instead try to reconstruct an extratextual “context” (composed of “bundles of ideas,” of “traditions”) shared by Matthew and his readers. For discussion of this latter effort, cf. the discussion in Carter, “Evoking,” 505-07.

32 Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans; Dearborn, MI: Dove, 2002).

33 Hagner, Matthew 1-13, lv-lvi; Mead, “Dissenting,” 286.

308

While we may never be able to reconstruct Matthew’s “context” precisely, we do have a way, I think, of describing the relationship between the FCs and their Old

Testament context in a meaningful way. I offer a threefold schema:

1. Where does Matthew’s text distort the meaning of his citation at the word level?

2. Where does Matthew’s text distort the meaning of his citation at the sentence level?

3. Where does Matthew’s text evoke the broader context of his citation?

The verbs are carefully chosen. In my view, answers to the first two questions can only be phrased negatively (i.e., “distorting” context rather than, say, “respecting” it), while an answer to the third can only be phrased positively (i.e., “evokes” the context rather than, say, “disregards” it). The reason is that if the Old Testament quotation in its New Testament context must be read as “respecting” its Old Testament context, e.g., because myriad verbal and thematic links between the two “contexts” pressure readers toward an intertextual reading, then we should say, not merely that Matthew

“respects” the Old Testament context, but rather that his text would evoke it for his readers (a more precise claim in such a situation). On the other hand, if the Old

Testament quotation in its New Testament context could be read as “respecting” its

Old Testament context, e.g., Matthew might have had the dour note of Matt 2:18 tempered, even subverted, by the hope of Jer 31 as a whole, we cannot conclude that

309

he did respect the context. Speculations about the mental processes of an author are interesting but remain speculations.34 It is only when the Old Testament quotation in its New Testament context cannot be read as respecting its Old Testament context that we make a meaningful claim about “respecting” that context—namely, that the

FC seemingly “distorts” the text’s meaning.35

I admit that this heuristic is not derived from the ancient sources and is somewhat inelegant. Nonetheless, I believe that it is more useful than the usual simple binary (Matthew’s FCs “are” or “are not” atomizing) for two reasons. First, different FCs have different relationships to their underlying Old Testament context, i.e., they are “atomizing” to different degrees or in different ways. Second, to lump together into a single monolithic category (“atomizing exegesis”) Matthew’s FCs,

Philo’s allegorizing exegeses, Qumran pesher, and Barnabas’ “typology” (to choose

34 For particularly interesting speculations of this sort, cf. e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 262, 267; Brown, Birth, 216-17, 225.

35 “Seemingly” because how Matthew read the relevant OT context is, of course, dictated by his own first-century Jewish exegetical traditions—of which we are only partly aware. Ultimately, while we attempt exegesis-of-Matthew’s-exegesis as Nachdenken, informed, to the extent possible, by explicit evidence of relevant Jewish exegetical “rules” or techniques and/ or intuitions developed as a result of studying such rules and techniques, the attempt is imperfect and, of course, to varying degrees, necessarily involves our filling-in-the-gaps with our own (modern) readings of this OT context (which we reasonably, if potentially anachronistically, ascribe to Matthew).

310

just a few examples) is to describe these readings in such a broad-brushed way as to do them all an injustice.

“Distortion” at the word level is more easily displayed than described.36 For

Philo, “diseases” (Isa 53:4a) refers to “ignorance” (Leg. 3:36); for the author of

Barnabas, “the eagle or the hawk or the kite or the crow” (cf. Lev 11:13-19; Deut

14:12-18) to “people who do not know how to provide food for themselves by labor and sweat” (10:4);37 for Paul, the “rock” in the wilderness (Exod 17:6) to Christ (1 Cor

10:4). Whatever the differences in modes of exegesis, in each example individual words mean something very different from their meaning in their original context.

Unfortunately, with this last claim discussion becomes murky. Doesn’t

Qumran reading “Chaldeans” (Hab 1:6) as “Kittim” (= Romans) (1QpHab) also give a word a very different meaning than its original one? Indeed, doesn’t Matthew’s reading “a son” (Isa 7:14) as “Jesus” instead of some seventh-century B.C. baby

36 We might also posit a level below this one—what Barton calls “sub-semantic exegesis.” He gives the example of using “details of spelling and grammar” to find meaning; to this we might add the phenomenon of gematria. Barton, Oracles, 142. It seems clear that Matthew’s FCs do not engage in this sort of exegesis.

37 Translation of Barnabas from Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 114.

311

(Hezekiah?) also meet the definition for word-level distortion? In other words, isn’t all figural reading distorting at the word level? Answering these questions is surprisingly difficult. Scholars have long tried to distinguish between (legimate) “typology” and

(“artificial”) “allegory.” While these terms are not ones that I am using here (nor is

“word-level” a term used in the typology/ allegory discussion), the underlying issue is much the same. The hermeneutics of Matthew and, say, Philo, differ, among other ways, in the degree to which they distort meaning at the word-level; the latter seems eisegetical in a way that the former does not. But, how, exactly, do we articulate this difference that we intuit?

Proposals are varied. Previous generations of scholars tried to articulate the difference in terms of (1) history (or history-like) versus not-history (or not history- like); (2) events versus spiritual doctrine; (3) facts versus words. (In each example, the first in the pair is legitimate typology, the second illegitimate allegory.)38 However,

38 Cf. the summarizing discussions in Goppelt, Typos, 4-17 and Frances Young, “Typology,” in Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Michael D. Goulder, eds. Stanley E. Porter, Paul Joyce and David E. Orton (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 29-48, 29-34. The history versus not-history proposal associated with Jean Daniélou, G.W.H. Lampe, and K.J. Woollcombe was long “the dominant mode of identifying and assessing typology” (Young’s words). Ibid., 30. Jean Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1960); G. W. H. Lampe, “The Reasonableness of Typology,” in Essays on Typology, SBT 22, eds. G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe (London: SCM, 1957), 9-38; K. J. Woollcombe, “The Biblical Origins

312

most scholars now regard these categories, relics of an era before “the hermeneutical revolution” (basically, the recognition that the relationship between text and history is an extraordinarily complicated one), as of little use.39 Today, other proposals would replace these; “typologies of typologies” and spectrums of allegorical-type readings are posited; or the problem is bracketed (the term “figural” reading replacing

“typology” and “allegory”).40

and Patristic Development of Typology,” in Essays on Typology, SBT 22, eds. G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe (London: SCM, 1957), 39-75.

39 Frances Young, “Allegory and the Ethics of Reading,” in The Open Text: New Directions for Biblical Studies?, ed. Francis Watson [London: SCM, 1993], 103-120, 107.

40 For alternative proposals, cf. Young, “Typology,” 34-39 (typology “as a particular definable form of the broader category ‘allegory’” based on mimetic, representational correspondences) and Tibor Fabiny, The Lion and the Lamb: Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art, and Literature (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992) (summarized in Young, “Typology,” 45-47) (typology involves an intertextual “architext” and “supertext,” while allegory has one text as “pretext” for the other); for a “typology of typologies” (Young’s term) cf. Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 350-79 and Young, “Typology,” 39-45 (embracing but modifying Fishbane’s categories); for “allegory… on a spectrum,” cf. Young, “Allegory,” 111-12. For the use of the language of “figural” reading, which was used by, among others, Erich Auerbach (Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” in Time, History, and Literature: Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach, ed., James I. Porter, trans., Jane O. Newman [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014], 65-120) and Hans Frei (Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974]), cf. e.g., David Dawson, Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

313

While solving this problem is beyond the scope of my project, my attempt to carve out a meaningful “word-level distortion” category does require some justification. Let me offer two suggestions. First, perhaps the best that we can do is to name clear examples and struggle with liminal ones. In this vein, I suggest that clear

“word-level distortion,” whether typological or allegorical, whether legitimate or illegitimate, occurs when an exegete makes a category shift—from, say, a physical condition to a spiritual one (Philo), an animal to a person (Barnabas), a thing to a person (Paul). Second, even if we continue to disagree over criteria, I would suggest that the following chart demonstrates that Matthew’s hermeneutic satisfies all the competing criteria, both older and more recent, for “legitimate” non-distorting

“typology”:

Table 3. Matthew’s FCs at the Word Level

Mt text OT text Meaning in the OT Meaning in Matthew 1:22-23 Isa 7:14 Literal virgin conception (LXX) Literal virgin conception 2:15 Hos 11:1 Literal exodus from Egypt Literal exodus from Egypt 2:18 Jer 31:15 Literal killing of children Literal killing of children 2:23 Judg 13:5, 7 One holy in a particular way One holy in a particular way and one from the region of Nazareth 4:15-16 Isa 8:23-9:1 + Isa Physical location in the lands of Physical location in the lands of 58:10 + Ps Zebulun and Naphtali Zebulun and Naphtali 106:10 LXX 8:17 Isa 53:4 Literal healing of sicknesses Literal healing of sicknesses 12:18-21 Isa 42:1-4 An actual king not engaged in An actual king not engaged in military action military action 13:35 Psa 78:2 + An actual person speaking in An actual person speaking in Second-Isaiah parables parables refrain

314

21:5 Isa 62:11 + Zech A king literally seated on a donkey A king literally seated on a donkey 9:9 and colt and colt 27:9-10 Zech 11:12-13 + A literal thirty pieces of silver as the A literal thirty pieces of silver as the Jer 19 price for a potter’s field price for a potter’s field

As the one italicized entry shows, one of Matthew’s FCs is a liminal case—not clearly word-distorting but, under some set of more-difficult-to-articulate criteria, possibly so. As argued in Section 4.1.5, whereas Ναζωραῖος in Judg 13:5, 7 denotes

“one-devoted-to-God-in-a-particular-way,” in Matt 2:23, it seems to denote both this and “one from the region of Nazareth.” While this FC’s geographical component may run afoul of my criterion for word-level distortion—holiness designation to geographical designation is probably a category shift—its multivalence complicates the analysis.

Matt 4:15-16 may be a second liminal case. As part of his anti-imperialist reading of the FCs in 1:23 and 4:15-16, Warren Carter argues that the phrase “Galilee of the Gentiles” in 4:15 would have been understood by Matthew’s readers as a possessive genitive: Galilee was “ruled or controlled by Gentile imperialists.” With the

FC, then—and because of this phrase in particular—“Jesus’ presence in Galilee promises liberation from Rome’s rule.”41 While Carter’s reading of the FC is unconvincing for various reasons, he may well have uncovered the meaning of the

41 Carter, “Evoking,” 517-18.

315

phrase in its Isaianic context.42 If “Gentiles” is a cipher for imperialist oppression in

Isaiah’s text, then Matthew’s use of “Galilee of the Gentiles” to designate (some of) the objects of salvation, while not a category shift, might be considered distorting at the word (phrase?) level.

One of the FCs distorts meaning at the sentence level. Matthew 8:17 (= Isa

53:4a) does not distort the words; “diseases” are diseases, not, say “ignorance” (cf.

Philo, Leg. 3:36). Yet by excising (part of) the sentence very selectively and inserting it into a new context, Matthew has effected a hermeneutical transformation. In the original context, the Servant “takes” diseases away by vicariously bearing them, while Matthew’s Wundertäter does so by powerfully removing them.

Two other FCs, while probably not sentence-level distortions, should also be mentioned. I would invoke a useful framework set forth by Richard Mead. According to Mead, a New Testament author can “disrespect” a quotation’s Old Testament context either by “detaching” it from that context or by “violating” that context.43

42 While Carter’s anti-imperialistic reading of Matthew 1-4 is broadly convincing, it is difficult to read “Galilee of the Gentiles” in the context of either chapter 4 or (especially) Matthew’s gospel more broadly as having such an unequivocally negative valence. See the arguments in my Sections 4.1.2 and 4.2.1.

43 Mead, “Dissenting,” 280-81.

316

In cases of “detachment,” the quotation “resemble[s] the O.T. situation in one or a few particulars… but then it stops”; in cases of “violation” the New Testament author “thoroughly disregards” “the historical O. T. situation” and/ or “substitutes into the interpretation” “novel subjects or objects.”44 While Mead’s schema seemingly neglects the fact that at some point “detachment” will be so egregious as to constitute

“violation,” fortunately, the two FCs at issue do not reach that point.

First, Matthew 2:18. Primarily because of the introductory formula (τότε + the mention of Jeremiah), this FC, rhetorically an instance of stirring pathos not allusive hope, would elicit the very tears from its readers that it describes from Rachel (see

Section 4.1.3). But in its Old Testament context, Jer 31:15 is “the only gloomy verse” in a chapter that “as a whole conveys joy and hopeful expectation.”45 By evoking the gloom, not the hope, Matthew has certainly “detached” the verse from its context.

Second, Matthew 2:15 is a less clear-cut case of “detachment.” In its Matthean context, God’s calling his “son” Jesus out of Egypt in Matt 2:15 constitutes one in a series of providential protective acts, palpable in their immediacy—with repeated warnings and detailed instructions, the angel of the Lord, constantly hovering over

44 Ibid.

45 Davies and Allison, Matthew 1, 269.

317

the holy family, prevents any misstep or misunderstanding. Yet in its Old Testament context, “out of Egypt I called my son” dramatically opens an indictment in which

God contrasts His graciousness towards Israel—e.g., his delivering them from

Egypt—with their perfidy. Here the exodus functions to underwrite judgment. Yet with the wrenching rhetorical questions in Hos 11:8, “anger” (v. 8) yields to

“compassion” (v. 8).46 Tellingly, in expressing this “warm and tender” “compassion,”

God recalls the exodus yet again—this time as a promise of deliverance: “They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt… I will return them to their homes” (v. 11). So

Matt 2:15 may (if one considers the immediate “context” of vv. 1-7) or may not (if one considers the broader “context” of vv. 1-12) “detach” Hos 11:1 from its Old

Testament “context.”

It should be reiterated that while word-level and sentence-level conclusions are phrased negatively (“distorting”), those concerning the “broader context” are phrased positively (“evoking”): we are seeking those instances in which the text of Matthew’s gospel, by its logic, its intertextual cues, invites, nudges, or even pressures its readers

—(נִכְמְ רּו נִ חּומָ י) While only the MT expressly mentions God’s “warm and tender” “compassion” in v. 8 46 the LXX reads “my sense of regret was disturbed” (συνεταράχθη ἡ μεταμέλειά μου)—it is clear, in context, that the LXX is conveying the same idea.

318

to read two substantial (usually pericope-sized?) contexts, one from the Old

Testament and one from the New Testament, in the light of one another.47 More specifically, I would highlight an intertextuality whose power lies precisely in “the unstated or suppressed… points of resonance between the two texts” so that the reader appreciates the “broad interplay” of the two texts.48 Appropriating a term from poet

John Hollander, Hays calls this “metalepsis”—a helpful term that other biblical scholars have adopted.49 Before summarizing which Matthean FCs function in this way and why, I would consolidate and critique in light of Matthew’s FCs why, exactly, scholars argue for metalepsis generally. In other words, I would demonstrate how

Matthew’s FCs contribute to a larger conversation about New Testament exegesis of the Old

Testament. In my reading of the literature, scholars offer six sorts of arguments:

47 I write that the text, not the author, invites, nudges, and pressures because, with Hays (whose theory is explained in the text), I regard this phenomenon of “evoking context,” of “metalepsis,” to be one focusing on “rhetorical or semantic effects,” not the author’s “psyche.” And, as Hays notes, it also does not focus on the reader (actual or implied): the concern, rather, is to illuminate “the poetic effects produced for those who have ears to hear” Cf. Hays, Echoes in Paul, 19.

48 Ibid., 20 (emphasis added).

49 Cf. e.g., Moss, Zechariah, 8; Diana M. Swancutt, “Hungers Assuaged by the Bread from Heaven: ‘Eating Jesus’ as Isaian Call to Belief: The Confluence of Isaiah 55 and Psalm 78(77) in John 6:22-71,” in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel, eds. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 218-51, 230.

319

1. New Testament intertextuality is necessarily metaleptic because of a(n) (ahistorical) theory of intertextuality.

In an article on the FCs in Matt 1:23 and 4:15-16, Wim Weren writes: “[a] citation sparks off interaction between two texts… since it stems from another text, it continues to refer to its original context.”50 Hinging on the word “since,” the claim is logical not empirical; without qualification and without inquiry into the different modes of exegesis of different reading communities, it is a bald (and bold) claim that

(all) texts simply work this way. Or, perhaps more fairly, it is a claim that this framework is legitimate, that the ethics of interpretation allow or even require such intertextuality—a version of what Stefan Alkier has called an “experimental perspective” on intertextuality. A species of an “unlimited conception of intertextuality,” this “experimental perspective” is not grounded in “whether an ancient… reader had made a connection between… texts” (that is, it is “not limited temporally or culturally”) but simply “inquires about effects of meaning that arise from reading two or more texts together.”51 Whether or not this is what Weren has in

50 Weren, “Quotations,” 450. Weren does not cite any work on intertextuality as a basis for such claims.

51 Alkier, “Semiotics,” 9-10. Using Alkier’s rubric, I am interested in a “production-oriented” perspective on intertextuality, inquiring after the “effects of meaning that result from the processing of identifiable texts within the text to be interpreted.” Ibid.

320

mind, his language implies it.52 For my purpose, I would simply note that this species of intertextuality is inapposite to a project, like mine, that would describe Matthew’s hermeneutic.

2. Old Testament texts for which different verses are used by different New Testament authors independently to make similar points implies a holistic reading of these texts.

Some scholars argue that in Matt 8:17 Matthew must be evoking the suffering described in Isa 53 because this chapter and/ or the other so-called “Servant Songs” are cited so often by Matthew and/ or New Testament authors that early Christians like Matthew appear to be reading this “song” holistically (see Section 4.2.2). The argument has a basic affinity with—and, indeed, may be derived from—C. H. Dodd’s case that New Testament authors generally had “the whole context” of the underlying Old Testament text in view.53 Essentially, Dodd argued that: (1) the vast bulk of Old Testament citations and allusions in the New Testament come from the same fifteen Old Testament texts; (2) while different parts of these texts are cited/ alluded to by different New Testament authors independently, (3) nonetheless these

52 Warren Carter states more clearly that this brand of intertextuality is legitimate; while he does offer several arguments for what Alkier would call “production-oriented intertextuality (cf. n. 51 above), he also writes that, “[a]lternately, or in addition, one could ‘justify’ doing so by invoking the notion of play, ‘what happens if…’” Carter, “Evoking,” 509 n. 30.

53 Dodd, According, 65.

321

texts can be meaningfully grouped into three “plots,” so that, it seems, the authors did not mine testimonia for “single, isolated proof-texts” but rather read “the whole context” of (large) “units of scripture” as “plots.”54

While Dodd may, indeed, have proven that holistic reading was common in the early Church, such logic cannot prove that a given citation is metaleptic.55 Indeed,

Dodd himself noted that some quotations and allusions—including some to a verse in a “text plot” (e.g., Rom 9:27-29; 1 Cor 14:21), some in Matthew (e.g., Matt 9:13; 12:7), and at least one in an FC (Matt 27:9)—do not seem to fit his proposal of holistic reading.56 Since Dodd wrote (in 1953), scholars widely recognize that we cannot assume such uniformity in the exegetical methods of New Testament authors.

Atomistic exegesis does occur in the New Testament, as does metalepsis, and distinguishing the two requires more than locating either in a “text-plot.”

54 Ibid., 59, 61, 65, 72.

55 While Dodd is not arguing for metalepsis per se, I read his work as arguing for something like it.

56 Dodd, According, 77 (Matt 9:13 and 12:7), 83 (Rom 9:27-29), 83 (1 Cor 14:21). Dodd’s remarks about Matt 27:9-10 are especially revealing. He posits that Matthew “was led to” cite Zech 11:13 in Matt 27:9 because Zech 9-14 was “already recognized” as one of the “apocalyptic-eschatological scriptures” in his hypothetical testimonia. Yet he admits that “[t]here is no reason to suppose that [Matthew’s usage of this verse] belongs to the primitive corpus of testimonia….” The unelaborated, implicit claim seems to be that Matthew’s reading—thirty silver pieces referring to “the venal treachery” of Judas—is out-of- step with early Christian exegetes broadly, for whom, as Dodd delineates, Zech 9–14 was a “whole eschatological programme.” Ibid., 64-65.

322

3. Multiple citations to verses from the same Old Testament textual unit and/ or multiple citations to verses from Old Testament texts with a common theme (e.g., exile)—especially if these citations are in close proximity to one another—suggests that the author would evoke the broader Old Testament context.

Nathan Eubank would read the fact of multiple citations to Old Testament texts with the same theme—rather than to a single Old Testament text—as achieving the same effect. That “all the quotations [in Matt 1-2] come from passages that deal with the coming restoration of the Davidic monarchy or the end of exile” is less likely to be “an extraordinarily remarkable seven-fold coincidence” than “a deliberate attempt to evoke, not only the words explicitly cited, but the oracles and narratives of which they are a part.”57 The problem with this argument is that, as argued in

Section 4.1.2, Matthew’s allusions to various exodus texts in chapter 2 suggests that he would evoke, as I put it, exodus-as-a-pan-textual-phenomenon or exodus-as-an- historical-event. It is for this reason, among others, that I have claimed that the underlying “context” for Matt 2:15 (and no doubt other FCs) is a pan-textual, catch- word and/ or catch-theme synthetic “text” instead of the modern text that Eubank’s argument assumes. I am not arguing that Matthew never evokes the underlying pericope in the way that Eubank suggests; indeed, I argue precisely this for Matt

27:9-10 (below). But because the exodus evidence suggests that Matthew does not

57 Eubank, Wages, 111. Without using the term “metalepsis,” he nonetheless argues for it.

323

always read like this, I am rejecting this argument #3 as a method for detecting metalepsis.

4. That one FC is metaleptic makes it more likely that a subsequent—and nearby— FC is as well.

For Hays, metalepsis in Matt 2:15 heightens the reader’s sensitivity to potential metalepsis in Matt 2:18.58 Similarly, Carter argues that because the

“audience has learned from the genealogy (1:1-17) that the Gospel’s hearers are to supply information from the biblical tradition to expand cryptic textual references and to elaborate names,” they are more likely to do so in reading the FC in Matt

1:23.59 While this argument may well be persuasive for some authors, Matthew does not seem to be one of them. The fact that Matthew forges such clear links between the

FCs in 2:18 and 27:9-10 (particularly the identical introductory formulae) means that we have to read these FCs together and, thus, read 2:18, as atomizing at the sentence- level, as conveying gloom. This argument, grounded in particular details of Matthew’s text, seems to me much stronger than the mere suggestion that one instance of metalepsis necessarily activates another in close proximity.

58 Hays, Echoes, 114 (“[a]lerted to this figural dimension of Israel’s story [in Matt 2:15], the reader of Matthew’s Gospel may then also hear other resonances in the next brief unit of the birth narrative…”).

59 Carter, “Evoking,” 509.

324

5. An introductory formula—or lack of one—may serve as a “marker” of metalepsis.

Besides his arguments summarized in #3 and #4 above, Carter also argues that, with regard to Matt 1:23, the fact that “the prophet’s name is absent suggests… an audience very familiar with this part of the common tradition.”60 The implication is that this “absence” would invite this audience to use this tradition—which Carter basically identifies as “the larger context of Isa 7-9”—to fill in the interpretive

“gaps.”61 While I disagree with Carter’s application of this argument—it would require that 2:15, 2:23, and 21:5 be similarly metaleptic, which seems to me implausible—I would embrace the insight that, at least for Matthew, the introductory formula can be a hermeneutical pointer towards metalepsis. As we have seen, the mention of specific prophets speaking a word that they did not actually speak

(“Isaiah” in 13:35 and “Jeremiah” in 27:9) functions to alert readers to seek an intertext. And while Van Segbroeck’s claim that such “citations” signal the “esprit” in which “le texte cité doit être lu” neglects the (inter)textual nature of these signals, it does point up the robust intertextuality that they would seemingly elicit.62

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid., 506-07.

62 Van Segbroeck, “Scandale,” 370-71.

325

6. Thematic and/ or linguistic links between the broader Old Testament context and the broader New Testament context imply metalepsis; the more links, the more likely metalepsis is in play.

Thematic links are another of Eubank’s arguments: not just “the bare details” of the passages cited but, more than this, “their wider contexts” are in view precisely because “[t]hese wider contexts all cohere perfectly with the emphasis on Jesus’

Davidic messiahship and end of exile that was already established in 1:1-17.”63 Even stronger than thematic links are linguistic ones: Hays points out that “explicit repetition of words” is one of the ways in which a text can turn up the “volume” of an intertextual echo.64 In my view, thematic/ linguistic correspondences are the surest certain basis for establishing metalepsis (in Matthew and generally), and they were an important part of my (metaleptic) reading of 27:9-10.

But I would note two caveats. To point to metalepsis, such correspondences need to be (1) in close proximity to the FC itself and (2) articulated in terms of the rhetorical effect that they create. The reason for the first requirement can be appreciated by turning to a list of correspondences between Isaiah 62 (again, the source of the first phrase in Matt 21:5) and Matthew’s gospel:

63 Eubank, Wages, 111.

64 Hays, Echoes in Paul, 30.

326

Isaiah 62 (LXX/NETS) Matthew

• …because of Ierousalem I will not slacken • Each of the interrelated concepts of

until my righteousness (ἡ δικαιοσύνη μου) goes righteousness (cf. e.g., 3:15; 5:6, 10, 20; 6:33;

forth like light (φῶς) and my salvation (τὸ 13:43, 49; 21:32; 25:37, 46), salvation (cf.

σωτήριόν μου) shall burn like a torch (62:1b) e.g., 1:21; 10:22; 16:25; 19:25; 24:13, 22;

• And nations (ἔθνη) shall see your 27:42) and “light” (4:16; 5:14, 16; 6:23; 17:2)

righteousness (τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου)… (62:2a) is a crucial Matthean theme.

• …See, your Savior (ὁ σωτὴρ) comes to you… (62:11b)

• And as a young man lives together in • The language of virgin, son, and “with you”

marriage with a virgin (παρθένῳ), so shall are key terms in Matt 1:18-25.

your sons (οἱ υἱοί σου) dwell with you (μετὰ

σοῦ)… (62:5a)

• …so shall the Lord rejoice over you (62:5b) • The Lord rejoicing over the Son is a recurring theme in programmatic pericope (3:17; 12:18; 17:5).

• Go through my gates, and make a way for • καλεῖν is the christological term used in three

my people (τῷ λαῷ μου),… (62:10) of the first four FCs, and Jesus redeeming/

• …and he shall call (καλέσει) you by your new saving his “people” is a programmatic frame

name (τὸ ὄνομά), which the Lord will name for the gospel (Matt 1:21). (62:2b)

• And he shall call (καλέσει) it a holy people

(λαὸν), redeemed (λελυτρωμένον) by the Lord,… (62:12a)

Would Matthew metaleptically evoke the whole of Isa 62 with his citation of 62:11a in

Matt 21:5a? In my view, given how diffuse the links above are, to answer affirmatively is to stretch the phenomenon of metalepsis to a breaking point. It was

327

for this reason (among others) that I rejected Miler’s argument that Matt 8:17 would evoke “the” “Servant” (Section 4.2.2).

The table above also illustrates my second caveat: what, exactly, would I be claiming if I did offer these correspondences as evidence of metalepsis? I have tried, as some commentators do not, not simply to list correspondences—an intriguing exercise, but often suspiciously akin to “parallelomania”—but instead to delineate the specific rhetorical effect that such correspondences would create (e.g., the irony that

Zechariah/ Jeremiah produce in Matt 27:9-10).

As this section concerns a major aspect of the conversation about the Old-

Testament-in-the-New-Testament, I conclude with a brief summary:

• Matthew’s “context” is probably complicated and impossible to reconstruct precisely. As evidenced by, e.g., “conflated citations” and allusions to various exodus texts to allude to “the” exodus, Matthew’s underlying text is probably a synthetic catch-word/ theme “text.” Nonetheless, he does seem, at times, to evoke what we would consider the underlying text.

• It will not do to characterize Matthew’s FCs as “atomizing” or “not atomizing” for two reasons. First, different FCs have different relationships to the underlying Old Testament context, and, second, “atomistic” readings can be atomizing in different ways (word- or sentence-level, distorting and detaching for the latter). To do justice to

328

Matthew’s achievement, especially vis-à-vis that of his contemporaries, we must attempt to put this fine edge on our description.

• Matthew’s FCs are rarely (but occasionally) “atomizing” (2:23, possibly at the word-level; 8:17, 2:15, and 2:18 at the sentence-level); conversely, they are rarely (but occasionally—and to different extents) metaleptic (1:23; 4:15-16; 13:35; 21:5; 27:9-10). In at least one instance (27:9-10), such metalepsis involves an open-ended, robust, almost playful intertextuality (also 2:23?).

• Matthew provides his readers various hermeneutical signals to indicate metalepsis: thematic/ verbal links (e.g., 27:9-10); “conflated citations” (4:15-16; 21:5; 27:9-10; cf. 1:23; 13:35); and “misattributing” a quotation to grab the reader’s attention (13:35; 27:9-10).

As I observed in the Introduction, scholars divide over whether the FCs should be grouped into a single rubric (e.g., recapitulation) or whether they constitute an amalgamation of images. The issue forces us to consider the FCs’ soteriology—if, in fact, there is one. Noted already, Matthew’s unsystematic tendencies tend to thwart the theologian’s endeavors to describe his thought in traditional doctrinal categories;

Matthew’s “soteriology” is no more consistent than his eschatology, his attitude towards the “crowds” and/ or the Jewish “people,” etc.65

65 Cf. the discussion at the end of Section 4.1.2; cf. also the discussions of Matthew’s unsystematic tendencies in Hays, Reading Backwards, 52; Hays, Moral Vision, 101-04, 107-09; David C. Sim, Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew, SNTSMS 88 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 9.

329

Yet the fact that Matthew seems careful to limit use of the FCs’ “theologically loaded” verb to Jesus and Israel’s leaders—John (3:3) and the people (13:14) require different verbs—may be significant. Only Jesus and the leaders “fill up” the forms of

Israel’s past—the former eliciting praise, the latter condemnation. Even a brief prospectus of the FCs, read through this lens, is certainly suggestive. On the one hand,

Jesus is God-with-us always (Matt 1:23), the true Israel re-enacting the exodus (2:15), the Holy One (2:23), the life-giving “Light” for all (4:15-16), the Healer taking away all weakness and disease (8:17), the Servant acclaimed by God and uniquely able to be his own witness (12:18-21), the all-knowing Prophet (13:35), the humble-above-all-men- on-the-earth Mosaic King (21:5); on the other hand, the leaders impose a death-dealing,

“limit-reaching” exile (2:18) and ironically surpass their fathers’ bloodlust (27:9-10).

Does the one fullness correspond to the other? If so, what is the nature of this correspondence? Does fullness of sin require (23:32) and/ or elicit fullness of righteousness (3:17)? If so, is the logic that such sin requires a perfect sacrifice (e.g.,

Heb 2:10; 5:9; 9:14)? That superabundant righteousness-as-wages, sufficient to pay the debt of sin, ends exile (Eubank’s argument)?

It is difficult to draw even a tentative conclusion. By introducing the gospel with a schematized genealogy that narrates Israel’s history as one of rise (Abraham 

David), fall (David  exile), and, now, redemption (exile  Christ) and by unfolding

330

the entire gospel within the bookends of Jesus/ God-with-us (1:23; 28:20), Matthew

“establishes the structural framework” “that frames and supports everything in between.”66 The entire story, including the FCs, concerns how Jesus saves his people from their sins. But the details, the mechanisms, of this salvation are assumed and/ or inchoate. At our far remove from the text’s original socio-historical position, the hints we receive, while tantalizing, provide little access. Somehow the fullness of Jesus and the fullness of sin/ exile are correlated; somehow, as Hays puts it, “the pattern of exile and return” is at the “center” of “Matthew’s story of Jesus”; somehow, “messianic consummation” entails God “at last being present with his people.”67 But we cannot be more specific.

Part of the problem is that it is unclear how, exactly, Matthew understands

“exile.” In a footnote Eubank asks “what ‘exile’ means in Matthew.” He offers “[a]s a working hypothesis” that “Matthew reads end of exile texts through his apocalyptic eschatology as prophecies of the coming Parousia of the Lord”—that, like the

Targum of Isa 40, he reads it as “the coming moment of God’s decisive intervention in

66 Hays, Echoes, 162. In the same vein is Miler: “Entre ces deux bornes, le récit se déploie.” Miler, Citations, 359.

67 Hays, Echoes, 188.

331

history.”68 This seems to me as good a proposal as any: on the one hand, Matthew was almost certainly aware of the destruction of the Temple and continued Roman dominance; on the other, it seems unlikely to me that “exile” is purely metaphorical for Matthew. Eubank’s proposal allows for a non-metaphorical vision that does not neglect real-world political realities.

68 Eubank, Wages, 110 n. 4.

332

In 1991, Davies and Allison wrote, “[j]ust as the fullness of Jesus cannot be captured by any one pericope, so it cannot be captured by any one christological title.”1 Recent decades have witnessed a number of studies that, despite varying foci and emphases, converge in identifying the FCs, as much as the “titles,” as a locus of this “fullness”—a fullness, as Davies and Allison put it, of “pil[ing] up”

“appellations.”2 Yet this identification is latent (Crowe), without exegetical foundation (Kirk), discernible at the margins of discussion (Miler), articulated vaguely

(Kirk) and/ or with distorting accent marks (Miler; Moule).3 Hence, the burden of this study: to gather together the raw material, to supplement it, to bring it into focus and refine its assembly so as offer a new—but not entirely new—reading of πληροῦν in

Matthew’s FCs as Jesus “filling up” each word by expressing it unsurpassably.

Yet this was not the singular burden of the study. Implicitly, by means of methodological eclecticism, it was a study of the study of the FCs. Linguistics

(Chapter 2), source criticism (Chapter 3), redaction criticism (Chapters 1 and 4),

1 Davies and Allison, Matthew 2, 4.

2 Ibid.

3 Cf. the third section of the Introduction (“Towards ‘a Better Way to Conceptualize Fulfilment’”).

333

narrative criticism (Chapters 1 and 4), reception history (Chapter 4)—neither mere relics of our scholarly predecessors, now discarded in favor of ever-new, ever-better methodologies, nor mere markers of various, ever more specialized sub-sub-disciplines with which one might arbitrarily align oneself, these methods became, as they must, a panoply of tools for robust study of the New Testament.

Yet the very robustness that this methodological eclecticism allows, the multiple angles it creates, necessarily creates lodes of first-century complexities only partially mined for my purposes. Because it is my sincere hope that others will pursue these complexities, I conclude by summarizing my conclusions in terms of their significance and the avenues for future research they raise.

By offering a reading of three passages in which Matthew uses πληροῦν consistently to mean “fill up,” and underlining the clustering of limit-adjectives/ adverbs in conjunction with the FCs, Chapter 1 laid the groundwork for my thesis: the confluence of these textual features suggested we should test the hypothesis that

πληροῦν in the FCs also means “fill up.”

While Chapter 4, using the methodological principle of Chapter 3, did this testing, Chapter 2 first addressed an objection: can the expression “πληροῦν + a word” bear such theological weight? Is “πληροῦν + a word” not simply a common idiom in

334

koinē that denotes the “cultural commonplace,” shared by Greeks, Jews, and barbarians, that history fulfills oracles?4 I answered no: the variety of ideas that this expression expressed implies that it would conjure no default meaning in the minds of koinē speakers but could be shaped to various ends by various authors. Thus, my first suggestion for future research:

1. To what extent can we trace trajectories of fulfillment through—or, perhaps better, map a landscape of—biblical, Second-Temple, and early Christian sources (e.g., Isaianic, Matthean, Lukan, Justinian)?

It is a commonplace of New Testament scholarship that one must write in terms of “Judaisms” rather than “Judaism.”5 The monolith of “early Judaism”—and

“early Christianity”—has been broken up, in the wake of studies like Robinson’s and

Koester’s Trajectories, into a patchwork of overlapping and competing claims analogous to the variety presented by Christian denominations today.6 Yet surprisingly, scholars still tend to write in a totalizing way of “the” New Testament conception of fulfillment.7

4 Cf. Talbert, “Promise and Fulfillment,” 97.

5 Cf. e.g., Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 10.

6 James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester, Trajectories Through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971).

7 For examples, cf. Brown, Birth, 97 (noting Matthew’s “unique” contribution of “standardizing” with his fulfillment formula the “commonplace in early Christianity” that “Jesus is to be related to the

335

I have suggested that Matthew and Luke have different conceptions of fulfillment—as do, I think, Justin Martyr and Isaiah (though these latter two are much closer to Luke). Comparing these conceptions may prove fruitful—as would comparing these to various Greco-Roman conceptions—and doing so should entail the same sort of linguistic analysis I have undertaken for πληροῦν for other relevant

“fulfillment” expressions (e.g., τελεῖν, πιμπλήναι, γίνεσθαι, ἔρχεσθαι, etc.).

“The evangelist quotes just what he needs”: to establish this principle that proves important in interpreting the FCs, Chapter 3 critiqued Strecker’s case that

Matthew felt unable to pare down or increase the “size” of his FCs. My second suggestion for future research:

2. Did Matthew have control over not only the size but also the wording of his FCs?

Engaging Menken’s 2004 study—the most thorough, nuanced, and persuasive to date—must be the starting point for answering this question. If Menken’s view that Matthew followed and rarely changed a pre-Matthean “continuous text” is

Scriptures”); Hagner, Matthew 1-13, lv-lvi (speaking of Matthew’s “emphasis on fulfillment” as “ubiquitous” among early Christians and enumerating how, exactly, these early Christians “saw correspondences” between Scripture/ the past and Jesus/ the present); Menken, “References,” 8 (Matthew “avails himself of a general Christian usage [of πληροῦν] in a pronounced way”); Knowles, Jeremiah, 24-25 (characterizing Qumran exegesis as the “closest analogy” to “early Christian scriptural exegesis” as a whole).

336

wrong—which I think it is—so that instead, with most scholars, we should regard the evangelist as either his “own targumist” (Gundry) and/ or a scribe meticulously exploiting the potentialities in a fluid textual tradition (Stendahl), we might be able to situate Matthew’s exegesis more precisely in first-century “Jewish interpretive tradition.”8 While we would still lack an “analogue” for Matthew’s hermeneutic—a quest, I think, that we must abandon—we could align specific Matthean exegetical practices and assumptions (e.g., “adapting” or “manipulating” the biblical text) with those shared by various species of Jewish exegesis (however we might classify these: pesher, midrash, typology, allegory, etc.)9

8 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 10; Gundry, Use, 172; Stendahl, School. Juel offers a truism of modern New Testament scholarship when he writes that, “we cannot understand the use of Scripture among Jesus’ followers until we know something about Jewish interpretive tradition in the first century of our era.” Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 6-7.

9 I reject the quest for an “analogue” for the following reasons. First, while interpretation of Scripture was certainly intense in the relevant period (say, 63 B.C.–A.D. 70), the vast majority of it was implicit rather than explicit, taking the form of the so-called Rewritten Bible—whether of the targumizing sort (e.g., the Targums) or the narrativizing sort (e.g., Jubilees, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs)—so that there are few explicit citations of Scripture and thus nothing that seems even potentially close enough to be called an “analogue” to Matthew’s FCs in any meaningful sense. Second, and more fundamentally, as the debate over whether or not Qumran pesher is an analogue for Matthew’s FCs reveals, there is simply no calculus that would allow us to conclude confidently that the two hermeneutics are more like or more unlike each other. Third, there is simply no need to seek something as specific as an “analogue.” A symptom of “parallelomania,” the search for analogues promised the clearly demonstrable influence that Religionsgeschichte valued so highly, that would exorcise New Testament scholarship of its naïve, if not supersessionist, claims of sui genesis literary activity. But with many contemporary exegetes, I would reformulate the goal of studying “Jewish interpretive

337

Chapter 4, my exegesis of the FCs, confirmed the hypothesis of Chapter 1.

Various textual features point toward Jesus “filling up” these Old Testament words, enacting or embodying them unsurpassably. Thus, Jesus is fully the present God, obedient Israel, Holy One, light, healer, nonviolent king, prophet, and meek king— even as Israel’s leaders bring exile and bloodshed to their full measure. If these FCs are read together, what emerges is not just the “convergence of an exceptional number of images on the single figure of Jesus,” but, more than this, a note of

“finality and insurpassability [sic]” with regard to each of the images individually and, even more so, to the cumulative identity of the figure who “fully” embodies them to save Israel.10

Broadly, Chapter 5 drew together findings from Chapter 4 to reflect more explicitly upon Matthew’s hermeneutic. While I did offer a few straightforward (if controversial) claims—the FCs are neither geographic in focus nor apologetic in function; “conflated citations” are especially allusive—many of my remarks called

tradition” from delineating influence to understanding a hermeneutic. How, exactly, does the FCs’ (dis)similarity to pesher (or any other exegetical technique) give us interpretive purchase on how to better read them? For the debate about Qumran pesher as an analogue to the Matthean FCs, cf. e.g., Knowles, Jeremiah, 21-24; Fitzmyer, “Use,” 315-18, 324; Bertil Gartner,̈ “Habakkuk Commentary (DSH) And The Gospel Of Matthew,” ST 8 (1954): 1-24; Moss, Zechariah, 5.

10 The language here is from Moule, “Fulfilment-Words,” 4, 6, 11.

338

into question traditional dichotomies: the FCs are predictive but unemphatically so; the pan-textual Matthean “context” is elusive; Matthew’s hermeneutic, rarely but occasionally metaleptic, is not really atomizing but uses only a limited amount of the

Old Testament context; Matthew may imply a soteriological scheme but we can only broadly (and rather speculatively) reconstruct it. Such a tentative and wide-ranging discussion necessitates further discussion; I will offer only two focused questions:

3. How will additional research on “conflated citations” affect my conclusions?

“Conflated citations” demand sustained attention. Matthew’s conflation seems to confirm both Menken’s claim that “analogous passages” shared words and concepts and Hays’ view that these “hermeneutically constructive compositions” are metaleptic. I have suggested that conflation functions as one of several cues that metalepsis is, indeed, expected—but exhaustive analysis of the phenomenon in

Matthew’s milieu may make these proposals more or less plausible.11

11 In the volume Composite Citations, scholars analyze various Greek and early Christian authors’ use of such citations; a volume analyzing such usage by New Testament authors is forthcoming. It should be noted that while some scholars contributing to this first volume would seem to agree with Menken about what legitimized drawing together “analogous passages” (e.g., Norton, 110; Adams and Ehorn, 124; Allen, 151), others would disagree—proposing that either linguistic or thematic connections were sufficient so that both were not necessarily required (e.g., Royse, 83; Stanley, 206).

339

Perhaps the most important suggestion for future research derives not from any specific claim or set of claims but rather from the import of the basic thesis itself:

4. How can my thesis about fulfilling-as-filling be integrated with Old Testament and theological studies?

In my view, von Balthsar’s Herrlichkeit: Eine theologische Ästhetik and von

Rad’s Theologie des Alten Testaments are relevant works to bring into conversation with this study.12 Von Balthasar argues that various Einzelgestalten converge in Christ whose existence gives the whole of Israel’s covenantal history its singular form, von

Rad that, in light of the “ever increasing anticipation” that characterizes the Old

Testament with its provisionally-fulfilled but reiterated promises, those individual

Einzelgestalten are given their “full and final form” in Christ.13 In both accounts, I

12 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Herrlichkeit: Eine theologische Ästhetik (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1961); Gerhard von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Münich: Kaiser, 1960).

13 von Balthasar, Herrlichkeit, 372; von Rad, Theologie, 2:332. Particularly germane is the following claim by Von Balthasar: …Old Testament forms… interpret themselves as opening out into a ‘form’ which is to be understood on the basis of the covenant with God and which absolutely transcends their empirical subjectivity. For example, the ‘form’ of the one who suffers in the Psalms, in Lamentations, in the prophets and in Job, the ‘form’ of the kingship in Solomon, the ‘form’ of vicarious representation in Moses and in the Servant of Yahweh have a character of absoluteness which transcends the person, not only with a view to the literary typology, but also in the direction of something given form in the covenant relationship by the divine partner. They are like the moulds of a commission which is to be given to one who is both God and man (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theology: The Old Covenant, ed., John Riches, trans., Brian

340

hear Matthean christology—and cannot but wonder how attending more closely to

Matthew’s distinctive rendering might inflect this theological vision of the God who works through the particular forms of Israel’s life throughout the saeculum. This study, that is, implicates, and may well contribute to, the age-old question of “the relationship between the testaments”—or, more simply (but synonymously), to the question of “biblical theology.”

McNeil and Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, vol. 6 of The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991], 410).

341

Albertz, Martin. Die Botschaft des Neuen Testamentes. Zollikon-Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1947.

______. Die Synoptischen Streitgespräche: Ein Beitrag zur Formengeschichte des Urchristentums. Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1921.

Albl, Martin C. “And Scripture Cannot Be Broken”: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections. NovtSup 96. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Albright, William Foxwell. “The Names ‘Nazareth’ and ‘Nazoraean.’” JBL 65 (1946): 397-401.

Alkier, Stefan. “Intertextuality and the Semiotics of Biblical Texts.” Pages 3-21 in Reading the Bible Intertextually. Edited by Stefan Alkier, Richard B. Hays, and Leroy Andrew Huizenga. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009.

Allen, W. C. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew. 3rd ed. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912.

Allison, Dale C., Jr. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James. ICC. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.

______. The New Moses: A Matthean Typology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Anderson, Gary A. Sin: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Atkinson, B. F. C. The Christian’s Use of the Old Testament. London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1952.

Auerbach, Erich. “Figura.” Pages 65-120 in Time, History, and Literature: Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach. Edited by James I. Porter. Translated by Jane O. Newman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

Bacon, Benjamin W. Studies in Matthew. New York: Holt, 1930.

Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

342

Barth, Gerhard. “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law.” Pages 58-164 in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew. Edited by Günther Bornkamm, Gerhard Barth, and Joachim Heinz Held. London: SCM, 1963.

Barth, Markus. Ephesians. AB 34. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974.

Barth, Markus and Helmut Blanke. Colossians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Translated by Astrid B. Beck. AB 34B. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Bartnicki, Roman. “Das Zitat von Zach 9:9-10 und die Tiere im Bericht von Matthäus über dem Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem (Mt 21:1-11).” NovT 18 (1976): 161-66.

Barton, John. Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986.

Bauckham, Richard. James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage. New Testament Readings. London: Routledge, 1999.

______. “Tamar’s Ancestry and Rahab’s Marriage: Two Problems in the Matthean Genealogy.” NovT 37 (1995): 313-19.

Beaton, Richard. Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel. SNTMS 123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Blair, Edward P. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. New York: Abingdon, 1960.

Bonsirven, Joseph. Exégèse rabbinique et exégèse Paulinienne. Paris: Beauchesne, 1939.

Brooke, George J. Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context. JSOTSup 29. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985.

Brown, Raymond E. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

______. An Introduction to the New Testament. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1997.

Carter, Warren. “Evoking Isaiah: Matthean Soteriology and an Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 7-9 and Matthew 1:23 and 4:15-16.” JBL 119 (2000): 503-20.

343

Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983.

Chilton, Bruce D. The Isaiah Targum: Introduction, Translation, Apparatus, and Notes. ArBib 11. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1987.

Conrad, Audrey. “The Fate of Judas: Matthew 27:3-10.” TJT 7 (1991): 158-68.

Cosgrove, Charles H. “The Divine Δεῖ in Luke-Acts: Investigations into the Lukan Understanding of God’s Providence.” NovT 26 (1984): 168-90.

Couroyer, Bernard. “De la mesure dont vous mesurez il vous sera mesuré.” RB 77 (1970): 366-70.

Cousland, J. R. C. “Matthew’s Earliest Interpreter: Justin Martyr on Matthew’s Fulfilment Quotations.” Pages 45-60 in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels. Edited by Thomas R. Hatina. LNTS 310. London: T&T Clark, 2006.

Crowe, Brandon D. “Fulfillment in Matthew as Eschatological Reversal.” WTJ 75 (2013): 111-27.

Daniélou, Jean. From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1960.

Davies, W. D. “Matthew 5:17, 18.” Pages 31-66 in Christian Origins and Judaism. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962.

Davies, W. D. and Dale C. Allison. Matthew 1. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

______. Matthew 2. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991.

______. Matthew 3. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997.

Dawson, David. Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Decock, Paul B. Review of Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu: quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité by Jean Miler. Neot 38 (2004): 356-58.

344

Derrett, J. Duncan M. “Law in the New Testament: The Palm Sunday Colt.” NovT 13 (1971): 241-58.

Dodd, C. H. According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology. New York: Scribner, 1953.

Duhm, Bernhard. Das Buch Jesaia. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968.

Dupont, Jacques. Les béatitudes. 3 vols. EBib. Bruges: Abbaye de Saint-André, 1958- 73.

Eco, Umberto. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.

______. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.

Edgar, S. L. “New Testament and Rabbinic Messianic Interpretation.” NTS 5 (1958): 47-54.

Ellis, E. Earle. The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in the Light of Modern Research. WUNT 54. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991.

Eubank, Nathan. Wages of Cross-Bearing and Debt of Sin: The Economy of Heaven in Matthew’s Gospel. BZNW 196. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013.

Evans, Craig A. Matthew. NCBC. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

______. Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue. JSNTSup 89. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993.

Fabiny, Tibor. The Lion and the Lamb: Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art, and Literature. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Fishbane, Michael A. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. “Use of Explicit Old Testament Quotations in Qumran Literature and in the New Testament.” NTS 7 (1961): 297-333.

France, R. T. “The Formula Quotations of Matthew 2 and the Problem of Communication.” NTS 27 (1981): 233-51.

345

______. “Herod and the Children of Bethlehem.” NovT 21 (1979): 98-120.

______. Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher. Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1989.

Frei, Hans W. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.

Gallagher, Edmon L. “The Blood from Abel to Zechariah in the History of Interpretation.” NTS 60 (2014): 121-38.

García Martínez, Florentino and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997.

Garland, David E. Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel. New York: Crossroad, 1993.

Gartner,̈ Bertil. “Habakkuk Commentary (DSH) and the Gospel of Matthew.” ST 8 (1954): 1-24.

Goppelt, Leonhard. Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. Translated by Donald H. Madvig. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Grundmann, Walter. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus. THKNT 1. Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1968.

Guelich, Robert A. The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding. Waco, TX: Word, 1982.

Gundry, Robert H. Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

______. The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel: With Special Reference to the Messianic Hope. NovtSup 18. Leiden: Brill, 1967.

Hagner, Donald A. Matthew 1-13. WBC 33A. Dallas: Word, 1993.

Harrington, Daniel J. The Gospel of Matthew. SP 1. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991.

Harris, J. Rendel. Testimonies. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916.

346

Hays, Richard B. Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016.

______. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

______. The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1- 4:11. 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Dearborn, MI: Dove, 2002.

______. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

______. Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014.

Hayward, Robert. The Targum of Jeremiah: Translated with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes. Translated by Robert Hayward. ArBib 12. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1987.

Hengel, Martin. “The Old Testament and the Fourth Gospel.” Pages 380-95 in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel. Edited by Craig A. Evans and William Richard Stegner. JSNTSup 104. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994.

Holmes, Michael W. The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius. Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Theologie. Freiburg: Mohr, 1897.

Hooker, Morna D. Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament. London: SPCK, 1959.

Huizenga, Leroy Andrew. “The Incarnation of the Servant: The ‘Suffering Servant’ and Matthean Christology.” HBT 27 (2005): 25-58.

Hummel, Reinhart. Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Kirche und Judentum im Matthäusevangelium. BEVT 33. Munich: Kaiser, 1966.

Huther, Johann Eduard. Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. Translated by D. B. Croom, Paton J. Gloag, and

347

C. H. Irwin. Meyer’s Commentary on the New Testament 10. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1887.

Instone-Brewer, David. Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE. TSAJ 30. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992.

Japhet, Sara. I & II Chronicles. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993.

Jeremias, Joachim. “Παῖς Θεοῦ.” Pages 654-717 in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 37A. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

Johnson, Sherman E. “The Biblical Quotations in Matthew.” HTR 36 (1943): 135-53.

Juel, Donald. Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Kennedy, Joel. The Recapitulation of Israel: Use of Israel’s History in Matthew 1:1- 4:11. WUNT 257. Tubingen:̈ Mohr Siebeck, 2008.

Kilpatrick, George D. The Origins of the Gospel According to St. Matthew. Oxford: Clarendon, 1946.

Kingsbury, Jack D. Matthew as Story. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Kirk, J. R. Daniel. “Conceptualising Fulfilment in Matthew.” TynBul 59 (2008): 77- 98.

Klein, Ralph W. 1 Chronicles: A Commentary. Edited by Thomas Krüger. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006.

______. 2 Chronicles: A Commentary. Edited by Paul D. Hanson. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012.

Knowles, Michael. Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: The Rejected Prophet Motif in Matthaean Redaction. JSNTSup 68. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993.

______. “Scripture, History, Messiah: Scriptural Fulfillment and the Fullness of Time in Matthew’s Gospel.” Pages 59-82 in Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

348

Koenig, Jean. L’herméneutique analogique du Judaïsme antique d’après les témoins textuels d’Isaïe. VTSup 33. Leiden: Brill, 1982.

Koet, Bart J. “‘Today This Scripture Has Been Fulfilled in Your Ears’: Jesus’ Explanation of Scripture in Luke 4:16-30.” Biljdr 47 (1986): 368-94.

Krentz, Edgar. “Extent of Matthew’s Prologue: Toward the Structure of the First Gospel.” JBL 83 (1964): 409-14.

Lagrange, Marie-Joseph. Évangile selon saint Matthieu. 8th ed. EBib. Paris: Gabalda, 1948.

Lampe, G. W. H. “The Reasonableness of Typology.” Pages 9-38 in Essays on Typology. Edited by G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe. SBT 22. London: SCM, 1957.

Lang, T. J. Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness: From Paul to the Second Century. BZNTW 219. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015.

Leuchtner, Mark. “Rethinking the ‘Jeremiah’ Doublet in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.” Pages 183-200 in What Was Authoritative for Chronicles? Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi and Diana Edelman. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011.

Lieberman, Saul. Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs and Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E.–IV Century C.E. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950.

Lincoln, Andrew T. “Contested Paternity and Contested Readings: Jesus’ Conception in Matthew 1.18-25.” JSNT 34 (2012): 211-31.

Lindars, Barnabas. New Testament Apologetic. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.

Ljungman, Henrik. Das Gesetz Erfüllen: Matth. 5, 17 ff. und 3, 15 Untersucht. LUA 50. Lund: Gleerup, 1954.

Lohse, Eduard. Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. Translated by William R. Poehlmann and Robert J. Karris. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971.

Longenecker, Richard N. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Vancouver: Regent College, 1999.

349

Luz, Ulrich. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus. 4 vols. EKK. Zürich: Benzinger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985.

______. “Die Erfüllung des Gesetzes bei Matthäus (Mt 5:17-20).” ZTK 75 (1978): 398-435.

______. “The Fulfillment of the Law in Matthew (Matt. 5:17-20).” Pages 185-218 in Studies in Matthew. Translated by Rosemary Selle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

______. Matthew 1-7: A Commentary. Translated by James E. Crouch. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.

______. Matthew 8-20: A Commentary. Translated by James E. Crouch. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001.

______. Matthew 21-28: A Commentary. Translated by James E. Crouch. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005.

______. The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew. Translated by J. Bradford Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Marcus, Joel. “‘The Time Has Been Fulfilled!’ (Mark 1.15).” Pages 49-68 in Apocalyptic and the New Testament. Edited by Joel Marcus and Marion L. Soards. JSNTSup 24. England: JSOT Press, 1989.

Martin, Ralph P. James. WBC 48. Waco, TX: Word, 1988.

Massebieau, Eugene. Examen des citations de l’ancien testament dans l’évangile selon saint Matthieu. Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1885.

McCasland, S. Vernon. “Matthew Twists the Scriptures.” JBL 80 (1961): 143-48.

McConnell, Richard S. Law and Prophecy in Matthew’s Gospel: The Authority and Use of the Old Testament in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Basel: Reinhardt, 1969.

McNeile, A. H. The Gospel According to St. Matthew; the Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices. London: Macmillan, 1915.

Mead, Richard T. “Dissenting Opinion About Respect for Context in Old Testament Quotations.” NTS 10 (1964): 279-89.

350

Menken, M. J. J.Review of Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu: quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité by Jean Miler. Bib 81 (2000): 589-93.

______. Matthew’s Bible: The Old Testament Text of the Evangelist. BETL 173. Leuven: Leuven University Press; Peeters, 2004.

______. Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form. CBET 15. Kampen: Kok, 1996.

______. “The References to Jeremiah in the Gospel According to Matthew (Matt 2:17, 16:14, 27:9).” ETL 60 (1984): 5-24.

Metzger, Bruce M. “The Formulas Introducing Quotations of Scripture in the NT and the Mishnah.” JBL 70 (1951): 297-307.

______. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Biblegesellschaft; United Bible Societies, 1994.

Miler, Jean. Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile de Matthieu: quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité. AnBib 140. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1999.

Moessner, David P. “The ‘Script’ of the Scriptures in Acts: Suffering as God’s ‘Plan’ (Βουλή) for the World for the ‘Release of Sins.” Pages 218-50 in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts. Edited by Ben Witherington, III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Moo, Douglas J. The Letter of James: An Introduction and Commentary. TNTC. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.

______. “Tradition and Old Testament in Matt 27:3-10.” Pages 157-75 in Gospel Perspectives: Studies in Midrash and Historiography. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983.

Moore, George Foot. Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim. 3 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932.

Moss, Charlene McAfee. The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew. BZNW 156. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008.

351

Moule, C. F. D. “Fulfilment-Words in the New Testament: Use and Abuse.” Pages 3- 36 in Essays in New Testament Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Muraoka, Takamitsu. Hebrew/ Aramaic Index to the Septuagint: Keyed to the Hatch- Redpath Concordance. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998.

Myers, Alicia D. “Isaiah 42 and the Characterization of Jesus in Matthew 12:17-21.” Pages 70-89 in ‘What Does the Scripture Say?’: Studies in the Function of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity. Edited by Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias. LNTS 469. London: T&T Clark, 2012.

Neyrey, Jerome H. “The Thematic Use of Isaiah 42:1-4 in Matthew 12.” Bib 63 (1982): 457-73.

Novakovic, Lidija. “Matthew’s Atomistic Use of Scripture: Messianic Interpretation of Isaiah 53.4 in Matthew 8.17.” Pages 147-62 in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels: The Gospel of Matthew. Edited by Thomas R. Hatina. LNTS. London: T&T Clark, 2008.

Pang, Francis G. H. “Matthew’s Atomistic Use of Scripture?: A Methodological Consideration.” Proceedings (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 30 (2010): 47-69.

Pennington, Jonathan T. “Matthew 13 and the Function of the Parables in the First Gospel.” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 13 (2009): 12-20.

Person, Raymond F., Jr. Second Zechariah and the Deuteronomic School. JSOTSup 167. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993.

Pesch, Rudolf. “Der Gottessohn im Matthäischen Evangelienprolog: Mt 1-2: Beobachtungen zu den Zitationsformeln der Reflexionszitate.” Bib 48 (1967): 395-420.

______. “Eine Alttestamentliche Ausführungsformel im Matthaus-Evangelium: Redaktionsgeschichtliche und Exegetische Beobachtungen.” BZ 11 (1967): 79- 95.

Peterson, David. “The Motif of Fulfillment and the Purpose of Luke-Acts.” Pages 83- 104 in The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting. Edited by Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke. Vol. 1 of Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

352

Philo. “On Rewards and Punishments.” Pages 312-423 in On the Special Laws, on the Virtues, on Rewards and Punishments. LCL 341. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939.

Polyaenus. Stratagems of War. Translated by Peter Krentz and Everett L. Wheeler. Vol. 1. Strategemata. Chicago: Ares, 1994.

Porter, Stanley E. “Can Traditional Exegesis Enlighten Literary Analysis of the Fourth Gospel? An Examination of the Old Testament Fulfilment Motif and the Passover Theme.” Pages 396-428 in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel. Edited by Craig A. Evans and William Richard Stegner. JSNTSup 104. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994.

Przybylski, Benno. Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought. SNTSMS 41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Riches, John. Conflicting Mythologies: Identity Formation in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. SNTW. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.

Robinson, James M. and Helmut Koester. Trajectories through Early Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971.

Ropes, James Hardy. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of St. James. ICC 16. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1948.

Rothfuchs, Wilhelm. Die Erfüllungszitate des Matthaüs-Evangeliums: Eine Biblisch- Theologische Untersuchung. BWANT 88. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969.

Rowe, C. Kavin. Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke. BZNW 139. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006.

Saldarini, Anthony J. Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community. CSHL. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Sanders, James A. “Ναζωραῖος in Matthew 2.23” in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel. Edited by Craig A. Evans and William Richard Stegner. JSNTSup 104. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994.

Schubert, Paul. “The Structure and Significance of Luke 24.” Pages 165-86 in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann. Edited by Walther Eltester. BZMW 21. Berlin: Töpelmann, 1954.

353

Schweitzer, Eduard. “Er wird Nazoräer heißen.” Pages 90-93 in Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias. Edited by Walther Eltester. BZMW 26. Berlin: Töpelmann, 1960.

Senior, Donald. “The Lure of the Formula Quotations: Re-Assessing Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament with the Passion Narrative as a Test Case.” Pages 89-115 in The Scriptures in the Gospels. Edited by Christopher M. Tuckett. BETL 131. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997.

______. What Are They Saying About Matthew? New York: Paulist, 1996.

Sim, David C. Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew. SNTMS 88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Soares Prabhu, George. The Formula Quotations in the Infancy Narrative of Matthew: An Enquiry into the Tradition History of Mt 1-2. AnBib 63. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1976.

Squires, John T. The Plan of God in Luke-Acts. SNTSMS 76. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Stanton, Graham. A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992.

______. “Matthew.” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF. Edited by D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Stendahl, Krister. “Quis et Unde: An Analysis of Mt 1-2.” Pages 94-105 in Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift fürJoachim Jeremias. Edited by Walther Eltester. ZNW 26. Berlin: Töpelmann, 1964.

______. The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament. Ramsey, NJ: Sigler Press, 1991.

Strecker, Georg. Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit: Untersuchung zur Theologie des Matthäus. FRLANT 82. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962.

Swancutt, Diana M. “Hungers Assuaged by the Bread from Heaven: ‘Eating Jesus’ as Isaian Call to Belief: The Confluence of Isaiah 55 and Psalm 78(77) in John 6:22-71.” Pages 218-51 in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of

354

Israel. Edited by Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997.

Talbert, Charles H. Matthew. Paideia. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010.

______. “Promise and Fulfillment in Lucan Theology.” Pages 91-103 in Luke- Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar. Edited by Charles H. Talbert. New York: Crossroad, 1984.

Thiessen, Matthew. “Abolishers of the Law in Early Judaism and Matthew 5,17-20.” Bib 93 (2012): 543-56.

Thompson, G. H. P. “Called—Proved—Obedient: A Study in the Baptism and Temptation Narratives of Matthew and Luke.” JTS 11 (1960): 1-12.

Thompson, Marianne Meye. Colossians and Philemon. The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

______. “‘They Bear Witness to Me’: The Psalms in the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of John.” Pages 267-83 in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays. Edited by A. Katherine Grieb, C. Kavin Rowe, and J. Ross Wagner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Torrey, C. C. Documents of the Primitive Church. New York: Harper, 1941.

Van Segbroeck, F. “Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’évangile selon saint Matthieu d’après trois ouvrages récents.” Pages 107-30 in L’évangile selon Matthieu: rédaction et théologie. Edited by M. Didier. BETL 29. Gembloux: Duculot, 1972.

______. “Le scandale de l’incroyance: la signification de Mt 13:35.” ETL 41 (1965): 344-72.

Vermès, Géza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 2004. von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Theology: The Old Covenant. Edited by John Riches. Translated by Brian McNeil and Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis. Vol. 6 of The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991.

355

______. Herrlichkeit: Eine Theologische Ästhetik. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1961. von Rad, Gerhard. Theologie Des Alten Testaments. Münich: Kaiser, 1960.

Warhurst, Amber. “The Chronicler’s Use of the Prophets.” Pages 165-81 in What Was Authoritative for Chronicles? Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi and Diana Edelman. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011.

Watson, Francis. “In Defence of Matthew: A Response to Richard Hays, Reading Backwards.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL. San Diego, CA, 24 November, 2014.

Weren, Wilhelmus Johannes Cornelis. “Quotations from Isaiah and Matthew’s Christology (Mt 1,23 and 4,15-16).” Pages 447-65 in Studies in the Book of Isaiah: Festschrift for Willem A. M. Beuken. Edited by J. Van Ruiten and M. Vervenne. BETL 132. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997.

Wilson, Robert M. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Colossians and Philemon. ICC. London: T&T Clark, 2005.

Witherington, Ben, III. Matthew. SHBC. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2006.

Woollcombe, K. J. “The Biblical Origins and Patristic Development of Typology.” Pages 39-75 in Essays on Typology. Edited by G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe. SBT 22. London: SCM, 1957.

Young, Frances. “Allegory and the Ethics of Reading.” Pages 103-20 in The Open Text: New Directions for Biblical Studies? Edited by Francis Watson. London: SCM, 1993.

______. “Typology.” Pages 29-48 in Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Michael D. Goulder. Edited by Stanley E. Porter, Paul Joyce, and David E. Orton. Leiden: Brill, 1994.

Ziegler, Joseph, ed. Ieremias; Baruch; Threni; Epistula Ieremiae. Vol. 15 of Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957.

356

Zolli, Eugenio. The Nazarene: Studies in New Testament Exegesis. Edited by Cyril O. Vollert. New Hope, KY: St. Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community, 1999.

Zuckschwerdt, Ernst. “Ναζωραῖος in Matth 2, 23.” TZ 31 (1975): 65-77.

357

Zack Phillips was born in Dallas, TX on October 6, 1976. He earned an A. B. in English and American Language and Literature from Harvard College in 1999

(magna cum laude with highest honors), a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2004

(cum laude), and an M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School in 2009 (summa cum laude).

In the Ph.D. program in New Testament in Duke University’s Graduate Program in

Religion, he received the James B. Duke Fellowship and the Duke University

Graduate Fellowship. During his time at Duke, Zack has taught Hellenistic Greek and

Greek Reading as well as New Testament courses in the United Methodist Church’s

Course of Study program.

358