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 9:1-17, A paralyzed man, Matthew's table and the wedding guests
Jesus forgives and heals a paralyzed man, calls Matthew from the tax booth and eats with tax collectors and sinners, and is asked why his disciples do not fast.
Matthew 9:1-17, in every translation this tool compares.
Jesus tells a paralyzed man his sins are forgiven, and when scribes take it as blasphemy he heals the man to show he has the right to forgive. He calls Matthew away from collecting taxes and shares a meal with tax collectors and other outcasts, pointing objectors to Hosea on mercy over sacrifice. Asked why his followers skip the fasts, he says guests do not mourn at a wedding while the groom is present. Each scene shows him claiming a place and a freedom that unsettled the religious experts.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/blasphemy\/","n":"Blasphemy","s":"Speech that dishonored God, including claiming what belonged to God alone. Under the law the penalty was death.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/tax-collectors\/","n":"Tolls and tax collectors","s":"Local men who collected tolls and taxes for rulers backed by Rome, distrusted as collaborators and cheats.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/fasting\/","n":"Fasting","s":"Going without food, and often washing and oil, as a sign of mourning, penitence and longing. The law required one fast a year; the devout kept many more.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/betrothal-and-weddings\/","n":"Betrothal and the wedding feast","s":"A betrothal was a binding marriage contract made months before the couple lived together. The wedding that completed it was a week-long feast.","r":""}
Priests might declare God's forgiveness after a sacrifice, but there is no sacrifice here (Keener). Matthew was probably a customs agent at Capernaum, on a trade route, with a secure and well-paid job to leave. Go and learn was a teacher's way of sending a pupil to a proof text. Wedding feasts lasted seven days and suspended fasting and mourning, and new wine would burst old skins already stretched by fermenting (Keener). Wilkins places the booth on the Via Maris, collecting tolls or a tax on fish, and notes that tax collectors were also counted ritually unclean through contact with Gentiles.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 9:3, 9:5-7, 9:9, 9:11, 9:13, 9:14, 9:15 and 9:17
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 9:2, 9:9, 9:13, 9:15 and 9:17
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 9:9 and 9:11
