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 9:35-10:15, The Twelve sent with nothing
Seeing the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, Jesus sends twelve apostles to the lost sheep of Israel, with no money, bag or staff, to stay with whoever will have them.
Matthew 9:35-10:15, in every translation this tool compares.
Moved by crowds who are like sheep with no shepherd, Jesus names twelve followers and sends them out to do what he has been doing: announce God's reign and heal. For now they go only to Israel's scattered people, not to Gentile or Samaritan towns. They travel without money or spare gear, live on the hospitality of whoever takes them in, and leave a town that turns them away with a public sign of protest. They go as his agents, carrying his authority.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/shepherd-and-sheep\/","n":"Shepherd and sheep","s":"Scripture pictured Israel without a leader as sheep without a shepherd, and promised that God himself would come to shepherd them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sowing-and-harvest\/","n":"Sowing, harvest and threshing","s":"The farming year every hearer lived by: seed scattered on thin and thorny ground, weeds that look like wheat, the harvest rush, and grain winnowed in the wind while the chaff burned.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-twelve\/","n":"The Twelve","s":"Jesus chose twelve men to be with him and to be sent out. The number matched Israel's twelve tribes.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hospitality\/","n":"Hospitality to travelers","s":"Taking in travelers was one of the great virtues of the ancient Mediterranean, above all among Jews. Messengers could travel light because they expected to be housed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/gentile-lands\/","n":"Gentile territory","s":"Across the lake and to the north lay Greek-run cities with pagan temples and pig herds. Jesus crossed into them more than once.","r":""}
Keener notes that an apostle was a sent agent who carried the authority of the one who sent him, the same idea used for business agents. Peasants, Cynic philosophers and prophets all traveled light, though a Cynic's bag was for begging (Keener). The way of the Gentiles was probably a road into a pagan city. Matthew forbids the staff that Mark allows; the CSB Study Bible offers ways to harmonize them, and Keener's notes say ancient readers expected such variation in retellings. Rabbi Tarfon's saying about the day short, the work great and the laborers idle is a later Jewish harvest parallel (m. Avot 2.15; Wilkins). The Cananaean of 10:4 is probably an Aramaic word for zealot, used before the word named a revolutionary party (the Zondervan Bible Dictionary).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 9:35-36, 10:1-4, 10:5, 10:9-10, 10:11-13 and 10:14-15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 9:36, 9:37-38, 10:2, 10:5, 10:10, 10:11, 10:12-13 and 10:14
- CSB Study Bible, note on Matthew 10:9
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 9:37
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry zealot
