Lord of the Sabbath
TRANSLATION
(1) At that time Jesus passed through grainfields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain to eat. (2) But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” (3) But he said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him, (4) how they entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread which was not lawful for him nor those who were with him to eat, but (was reserved) only for the priests? (5) Or have you not read in the Law how, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath (by their ministry) and remain guiltless? (6) I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. (7) And if you knew what ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’ meant, you would not condemn the guiltless, (8) for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
(9) And he left that place and entered their synagogue. (10) And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. (11) And he said to them, “Who among you who owns a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, would not take hold of it and lift it out? (12) Of how much greater value is a human being than a sheep! Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” (13) Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as healthy as the other. (14) But the Pharisees went out and plotted together how they might kill him.
OBSERVATIONS
At issue in this segment was the Pharisees’ accusation that Jesus and his disciples had broken the fourth commandment by harvesting grain on the Sabbath Day and that the Lord had further violated the law by healing a man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. Repetitions included “grain/grainfields” (both in vs. 1), “Pharisees” (vss. 2 & 14), “Sabbath” (eight times in vss. 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, & 12), “disciples” (vss. 1 & 2), “hungry” (vss. 1 & 3), “ate/eat” (vs. 4), “priests” (vss. 4 & 5), “temple” (vss. 5 & 6) along with the phrase, “the house of God” (vs. 4), “synagogue” (vs. 9), “man” (twice in vss. 10 & 13), “sheep” (vss. 11 & 12), and “stretch out/stretched it out” (vs. 13).
OUTLINE
I. Jesus defended himself and his disciples against the Pharisees’ charge of their violating the Sabbath. (1-8)
II. Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in the synagogue also on the Sabbath. (9-14)
IDEA STATEMENT
Because he is “Lord of the Sabbath,” Jesus by his words and deeds sought to correct the Pharisees’ misunderstandings of how the Sabbath Day should be observed.
APPLICATION
At issue in this segment was Israel’s interpretation and application of the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8). By the time of the New Testament, observant Jews understood Sabbath observance to include all kinds of strictures regarding what constituted work. For Jesus’ disciples to pluck ears of ripened grain and casually eat them on a Sabbath day as they walked through a wheat field was considered unlawful because they had engaged in the work of harvesting. For Jesus to perform a miracle of healing on the Sabbath was also considered a violation of God’s Law because he had done the work of a medical professional.
Jesus dealt with these misinterpretations of God’s intent for the Sabbath in several ways recorded by Matthew in this chapter. First, he cited the narrative describing David’s providing food for his desperately hungry men by taking the bread set aside for the priests from the tabernacle (1 Samuel 21:1-6), in essence declaring that the immediate needs of his soldiers outweighed the requirements for feeding the priests in the tabernacle and did not constitute a violation of the Law. Jesus then recalled that Israel’s priests, in carrying out their daily responsibilities in the temple, regularly “profaned” the Sabbath by doing their necessary work. Finally, he admonished them with “something greater than the temple is here” and “for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
In the second paragraph, Jesus defended his healing the man with the withered hand by reasoning that if a devout Jew is permitted to rescue an animal from danger on the Sabbath Day, the Messiah would surely not be violating the fourth commandment by restoring to health a human being afflicted with disease. In fact, for the Lord of the Sabbath not to heal in such a situation would be to do harm by failing to show mercy.