Matthew 22:1-14

Parable(s) of the Messianic Banquet. This section is difficult, Matthew 22:1 has many resemblances to, but is not identical with, Luke 14:16. The two passages should be carefully compared; Lk.'s form, but Mt.'s position, is perhaps the more original. Matthew 22:11 is found in Mt. only, and appears to belong to another parable, the beginning of which has been lost. The marriage feast of the king's son may be ultimately symbolic of the glad union of Christ and the Church (as in Revelation 19:7), though the bride does not here appear. The nation had received intimation of the event and been invited to the festivity by the prophets but had not responded (Matthew 22:4). Now they hear from John the Baptist and Jesus that the day has come (Matthew 22:5; cf. Proverbs 9:1), but they still hold aloof, and even carry their indifference into murderous hostility (Matthew 22:6). We are reminded throughout of the preceding parable of the wicked husbandmen (Matthew 21:33 ff.). The outraged king executes a thorough vengeance; Matthew 22:7 seems to reflect the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The story is improved if we excise Matthew 22:6 f., and there is something to be said for Harnack's suggestion that these verses are fragments of yet another parable, which Lk. (Luke 19:12; Luke 19:14 a, Luke 19:27) seems also to have found and blended with his parable of the pounds. The point of the parable is that unworthy guests (like unworthy tenants, Matthew 21:43) are rejected in favour of others. Both bad and good is perhaps a gloss inserted as a link with Matthew 22:11. The story ends, quite in the manner of Jesus, abruptly; we are left to imagine the rampant joy of the motley, happy crowd in the lighted room with its well-spread tables.

Matthew 22:9. the partings of the highways: lit. the ends of the roads, i.e. where the streets lead out from the city into the country (Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 160).

Matthew 22:11. The Wedding Garment. One reason for separating these verses from Matthew 22:1 is that the hastily collected guests described in Matthew 22:10 could not suitably attire themselves. The lesson of the parable, which only needs an introduction similar to Matthew 22:2 to complete it, is like that of the tares and the net (ch. 13); the day of the Lord reveals the presence of good and bad among the invited (? the Church), and they must be separated. The wedding garment represents that which fits men to share in the joys of the Kingdom (cf. Matthew 5:20), and the man without one stands for all who lack the essential equipment. If we may compare Revelation 19:8, this includes righteous acts, or works, as well as faith. The servants who carry out the sentence remind us of the angels of the two parables just referred to. Wellhausen speaks of binding the feet of a guest expelled from court as an Arab custom. For the outer darkness, etc., cf. Matthew 8:12, Matthew 25:30, p. 659.

Matthew 22:14. called: invited; chosen, or elect. All Israel had been regarded as God's elect, but later Jewish literature tended to confine the term to the pious or righteous in contrast to the rest of the nation. Human responsibility is thus implied as well as Divine selection. So here many Jews had received the call through Jesus, but few had become elect by accepting it. The saying has no clear reference to either of the two parables in Matthew 22:1; it is a word of the Master which Mt. wished to preserve. Perhaps the key to the whole passage is that Mt., starting with the parable of the wedding garment (Matthew 22:2; Matthew 22:11) has blended with it a version of the parable of the feast (Luke 14) wrought up into an allegory.