Matthew 12:15-21

Jesus retires; prophetic portraiture of His character. Matthew 12:15-16 are abridged from Mark 3:7-12, which contains an account of an extensive healing ministry. The sequel of the Sabbatic encounter is very vague. The one fact outstanding and noteworthy is the withdrawal of Jesus, conscious of having given deep offence, but anxious to avoid tragic consequences for the present. It is to that fact mainly that the evangelist attaches his fair picture of Jesus, in prophetic language. It is happily brought in here, where it gains by the contrast between the real Jesus and Jesus as conceived by the Pharisees, a miscreant deserving to die. It is not necessary to suppose that the historical basis of the picture is to be found exclusively in Matthew 12:15-16, all the more that the statement they contain is but a meagre reproduction of Mark 3:7-12, omitting some valuable material, e.g., the demoniac cry: “Thou art the Son of God”. The historic features answering to the prophetic outline in the evangelist's mind may be taken from the whole story of Christ's public life as hitherto told, from the baptism onwards. Luke gives his picture of Jesus at the beginning (Matthew 4:16-25) as a frontispiece, Matthew places his at the end of a considerable section of the story, at a critical turning point in the history, and he means the reader to look back over the whole for verification. Thus for the evangelist Matthew 12:18 may point back to the baptism (Matthew 3:13-17), when the voice from heaven called Jesus God's beloved Son; Matthew 12:19 to the teaching on the hill (Matthew 12:5-7), when the voice of Jesus was heard not in the street but on the mountain top, remote from the crowd below; Matthew 12:20 to the healing ministry among the sick, physically bruised reeds, poor suffering creatures in whom the flame of life burnt low; Matthew 12:21 to such significant incidents as that of the centurion of Capernaum (Matthew 8:5-13). Broad interpretation here seems best. Some features, e.g., the reference to judgment, Matthew 12:20, second clause, are not to be pressed.

The quotation is a very free reproduction from the Hebrew, with occasional side glances at the Sept [73] It has been suggested that the evangelist drew neither from the Hebrew nor from the Sept [74], but from a Chaldee Targum in use in his time (Lutteroth). It is certainly curious that he should have omitted Isaiah 42:4, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged,” etc., a most important additional feature in the picture = Messiah shall not only not break the bruised reed, but He shall not be Himself a bruised reed, but shall bravely stand for truth and right till they at length triumph. Admirable historic materials to illustrate that prophetic trait are ready to our hand in Christ's encounters with the Pharisees (Matthew 9:1-17; Matthew 12:1-13). Either Matthew has followed a Targum, or been misled by the similarity of Isaiah 42:3-4, or he means Matthew 12:20 to bear a double reference, and read: He shall neither break nor be a bruised reed, nor allow to be quenched either in others or in Himself the feeble flame: a strong, brave, buoyant, ever-victorious hero, helper of the weak, Him self a stranger to weakness. ᾑρέτισα (Matthew 12:18), an Ionic form in use in Hellenistic Greek, here only in N. T., often in Sept [75] = αἱρέομαι. Hesychius under ᾑρετισάμην gives as equivalents ἠγάπησα, ἐπιθύμησα, ἠθέλησα, ἠράσθην. κραυγά. σει (Matthew 12:19), late form for κράζω. Phrynichus, p. 337, condemns, as illiterate, use of κραυγασμός instead of κεκραγμός. On the words οὐδὲ κρ. Pricaeus remarks: “Sentio clamorem intelligi qui nota est animi commoti et effervescentis”. He cites examples from Seneca, Plutarch, Xenophon, etc. ἀκούσει is late for ἀκούσεται. Verbs expressing organic acts or states have middle forms in the future (vide Rutherford, New Phrynichus, pp. 138, 376 412). ἕως, Matthew 12:20, followed by subjunctive, with ἄν, as in classics, in a clause introduced by ἕως referring to a future contingency. τῷ ὀνόματι, Matthew 12:21, dative after ἐλπιοῦσιν; in Sept [76], Isaiah 42:4, with ἐπί. This construction here only in N. T.

[73] Septuagint.

[74] Septuagint.

[75] Septuagint.

[76] Septuagint.