Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Matthew 11:2-30, John's question, children in the square, an easy yoke
John asks from prison whether Jesus is the one to come. Jesus praises John, compares his generation to sulking children, pronounces woes on the lake towns, and offers rest under his yoke.
Matthew 11:2-30, in every translation this tool compares.
From prison John sends to ask whether Jesus is the one they have been waiting for, and Jesus points to the healings and to good news reaching the poor. He then praises John to the crowd as no wavering, finely dressed courtier but the promised Elijah figure, more than a prophet. His own generation, he says, is like sulky children who reject both John's fasting and his own feasting. After warning the lake towns that saw his miracles and did not change, he invites the worn out to take on his yoke and find rest.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/herod-and-herodians\/","n":"Herod Antipas and the Herodians","s":"Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, ran Galilee for Rome as a tetrarch, not a king. The Herodians were his backers.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/parables\/","n":"Parables and riddles","s":"Short stories that compared one thing to another. Jewish teachers used them to make a point plain, and without the point stated they worked as riddles.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/judeans-and-galileans\/","n":"Galilee and the Galileans","s":"Small farming and fishing villages, ringed by Greek cities, with two new royal towns that the Gospels never say Jesus entered. Most of Jesus' story happens in places of a few hundred to a few thousand people.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/following-a-teacher\/","n":"Following a teacher","s":"A disciple walked behind his teacher, lived with him, learned his ways and carried his reputation. Jesus chose his own, which only radical teachers did.","r":""}
Josephus names Antipas' fortress of Machaerus as John's prison. The reed was the emblem on Antipas' coins and a picture of weakness, and a tetrarch's palaces were the nearest thing to royal splendor Galileans saw (Keener). Children played weddings and funerals in the square, and bystanders were expected to join a procession. Jewish teachers spoke of taking up the yoke of the law and of the kingdom; Keener describes it as "carrying the yoke of God's law and the yoke of his kingdom," Sirach offers wisdom's yoke and rest, and rest for your souls comes from Jeremiah 6:16. Machaerus was built by Alexander Jannaeus, destroyed by the Romans and rebuilt by Herod (Wilkins). Korazin lay about two and a half miles north of Capernaum, and most of its visible ruins are later (Wilkins; the Zondervan archaeology handbook). Bethsaida, which Philip raised to a city and renamed Julias, is placed at the mound of et-Tell or, after recent digging, at el-Araj; the sources differ on whether Julias honored Augustus's wife (the archaeology handbook) or his daughter (the Zondervan Atlas and Bible Dictionary).
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.5.2, trans. William Whiston
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 11:2-3, 11:7, 11:16-17, 11:18-19, 11:20-21 and 11:29-30
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 11:4-5, 11:7, 11:8, 11:16, 11:17, 11:21 and 11:29
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Matthew 11:29
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, sidebars The Fortress Machaerus and Korazin and Bethsaida
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Matthew 11:21 New Testament Chorazin, and John 1:44 The Town of Bethsaida
- Carl G. Rasmussen, Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, The Life of Christ
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Herod
