Matthew 12:8

For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

For the Son of man is Lord [even] of the sabbath day. [The bracketed word "even" - kai (G2532) - should not be in the text, as the overwhelming weight of authority against it shows.] In what sense now is the Son of man Lord of the sabbath day? Not surely to abolish it-that surely were a strange lordship, especially just after saying that it was made or instituted [ egeneto (G1096)] for MAN-but to own it, to interpret it, to preside over it, and to ennoble it, by merging it in "the Lord's Day" (Revelation 1:10), breathing into it an air of liberty and love necessarily unknown before, and thus making it the nearest resemblance to the eternal sabbatism.

Remarks:

(1) How affecting are the glimpses of which this is one, which the Gospel History furnishes of the straitened circumstances into which once and again our Lord found Himself in the discharge of His public work! Doubtless, He whose is every beast of the forest, and the cattle upon a thousand hills, could have easily and simply supplied Him, or sent "twelve legions of angels" to minister to Him. But He did not; partly, that we might know how "poor He who was rich for our sakes became, that we through His poverty might be rich," and partly, no doubt, to give Him an experimental taste of His people's and His servants' straits, and thus assure them of His sympathy with them, and ability to succour them.

(2) How valuable is an intelligent and ready familiarity with Scripture, when beset by the temptations of Satan (see the note at Matthew 4:3, etc.) and the cavils of captious men!

(3) How miserable a thing is a slavish adherence to the letter of Scripture, which usually the closer it is occasions only a wider departure from its spirit!

(4) How can the teaching of this section be made to agree with the theory of the temporary and local character of the sabbath-law, and its abrogation under the Gospel? (See the note at Romans 14:6.)