t Concerning the interpretation of the phrase ds dv ody Adan Lia réiv evToAay TobTaY Trav tAnxioray, B. Weiss, Meyer-Komm., ti. d. Mattevgm. p. 105, says: ‘The phrase ‘one of the least of these commandments” refers not to the Pharisaic distinction
neither of these statements could have been made by Jesus ; they are diametrically opposed to both His teaching and His practice. The OT Law, as a system and as a code, He distinctly set aside, to supersede it with a Gospel disvensation. It was the spirit, not the letter, of the Law which Jesus approved and continued ; the high conceptions of God and man and the noble principles of moral obligation which are taught in the OT, Jesus reaffirmed as true and perpetuated for ever. Do these verses then contain some inconsistent elements, or can their apparent inconsistencies be explained away? The commentators have commonly been satisfied with thinking that these difficult state- ments in vv.18-19 could in some manner be harmonized with Jesus’ other teaching and His general attitude towards the OT. Some have attempted to show how the Law in every branch and in all its minutie was fulfilled in Christ ;* others have main- tained that Jesus had reference to the Law only on its ethical side and in general, the ceremonial and predictive elements in the Law being passed over ;+ and still others, having regard to Jesus’ frequent use of hyperbolical language, have held that these verses contain hyperbolical statements, the hyperbole being used not to deceive, but to impress the truth he wished to convey.{ But an increasing number of scholars have come
between small and great commands; since Jesus has in v.18 denied that there was any such distinction in fact, the refer- ence can only be to such commands as seem less important to superficial observation. But these also stand in real organic union with the ideal contents of the whole.’ On the contrary, Achelis, Bergpredigt, p. 91: ‘It is Jesus himself who here makes the distinction between great and small commandments, and in so far he recognized the Pharisaic (later rabbinic) distinction which was the object of their ardent efforts in spite of their tendency to regard unessential things as essential.’ The diffi- culty of regarding the words of this verse as coming from Jesus in just their present form is great. He did make a distinction in values and obligations, cf. Mt 2323 ‘Woe unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone’; see also Mt 2237-40,
* See particularly Tholuck, Bergrede5, pp. 142-146 [Eng. tr. pp. 141-144], who holds that ‘more than the moral law is included here, as the expression idra ty 4 pie xtpaie shows; while y.19 indicates that the fulfilment here spoken of extends to all the evroawi. To limit the meaning of the verse to the ethical law is accordingly inadmissible. . . . The Redeemer can have spoken of the necessity of a fulfilment of the ritual law only in its pedagogical and typical symbolical character.’ This fulfilment was accomplished ‘in His own sacrificial death, in which the shadowy outline of the OT sacrifices was filled up, and their idea realized (He 101).’ Similarly, ‘the idea of the theocracy is realized in the Church; of the priesthood, in the Christian people; the passover, in the Lord’s Supper; circumcision, in baptism ; the command to avoid the dead and the ceremonially unclean, in avoiding the morally dead and unclean,’ etc.
t Achelis, Bergpredigt, p. 78f.: ‘The reference here is not to the Law in respect of its typical prophetic element (e.g. the law of sacrifice), nor to the Prophets in respect of their predictions concerning the Messianic future; but to the Law and the Pro- phets in so far as they, corresponding to the new demands and promises of Jesus in the first section of the Sermon, embrace the codified demands and promises current in Israel.’ Ibbeken, Bergpredigt?, pp. 54, 56: ‘That he is thinking here (v.18) especi- ally of the Ten Commandments, which in the Hebrew original had a very much shorter form than in the modern translations, is evident when he says that not a jot or tittle shall pass away ; of these short commands at least, not the smallest part could be taken away. . . . The whole difficulty which is felt in this verse (v.19) arises from taking the expression ‘the law and the prophets” too literally, as though Jesus had intended to say that not the slightest detail of the Mosaic law, including the ritual law, should pass away. If he meant this, then his later life and especially his attitude toward the Sabbath law were entirely inconsistent with his words. But the phrase ‘the law and the prophets” is to be understood here in a much narrower sense, as signifying only the existing legal order of the common moral life, an interpretation which is placed beyond doubt by the re- petition of this phrase in Mt 712. For if he can say, ‘All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the pro- phets,” then it cannot be denied that in 518 he refers only to those commands of the law by means of which the legal order of the common society ofmen is maintained.’ Burtonand Mathews, Constructive Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 101f.: ‘It is evi- dently the moral teachings of both Law and Prophets that Jesus is speaking of, not the predictions. ... Jesus declares hig devotion to the Law, and its permanence in the new Kingdom. This Jesus could do, although he disregarded or disapproved certain statutes of the Law (for example, respecting fasting, Mk 219.20; clean and unclean meats, Mk 717-19; and divorce, Mt 197-9), because he identified the Law with its great principle of love (Mt 712 2237-40), This was to him the Law and the Pro- phets, and individual statutes were of yalue and of permanent authority only in so far as they embodied and expressed this central principle. This was just the opposite position from that which the Pharisees took. They gave all heed to the statutes as authoritative in themselves, and lost sight of the principles, Hence the conflict between them and Jesus.’