CHAPTER 4
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”
‘He will command his angels concerning you’
and ‘with their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”d
‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve.’”f
The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry.*
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.”j
The Call of the First Disciples.*
Ministering to a Great Multitude.*
* [4:1–11] Jesus, proclaimed Son of God at his baptism, is subjected to a triple temptation. Obedience to the Father is a characteristic of true sonship, and Jesus is tempted by the devil to rebel against God, overtly in the third case, more subtly in the first two. Each refusal of Jesus is expressed in language taken from the Book of Deuteronomy (Dt 8:3; 6:13, 16). The testings of Jesus resemble those of Israel during the wandering in the desert and later in Canaan, and the victory of Jesus, the true Israel and the true Son, contrasts with the failure of the ancient and disobedient “son,” the old Israel. In the temptation account Matthew is almost identical with Luke; both seem to have drawn upon the same source.
* [4:2] Forty days and forty nights: the same time as that during which Moses remained on Sinai (Ex 24:18). The time reference, however, seems primarily intended to recall the forty years during which Israel was tempted in the desert (Dt 8:2).
* [4:4] Cf. Dt 8:3. Jesus refuses to use his power for his own benefit and accepts whatever God wills.
* [4:5–7] The devil supports his proposal by an appeal to the scriptures, Ps 91:11a, 12. Unlike Israel (Dt 6:16), Jesus refuses to “test” God by demanding from him an extraordinary show of power.
* [4:9] The worship of Satan to which Jesus is tempted is probably intended to recall Israel’s worship of false gods. His refusal is expressed in the words of Dt 6:13.
* [4:12–17] Isaiah’s prophecy of the light rising upon Zebulun and Naphtali (Is 8:22–9:1) is fulfilled in Jesus’ residence at Capernaum. The territory of these two tribes was the first to be devastated (733–32 B.C.) at the time of the Assyrian invasion. In order to accommodate Jesus’ move to Capernaum to the prophecy, Matthew speaks of that town as being “in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali” (Mt 4:13), whereas it was only in the territory of the latter, and he understands the sea of the prophecy, the Mediterranean, as the sea of Galilee.
* [4:17] At the beginning of his preaching Jesus takes up the words of John the Baptist (Mt 3:2) although with a different meaning; in his ministry the kingdom of heaven has already begun to be present (Mt 12:28).
* [4:18–22] The call of the first disciples promises them a share in Jesus’ work and entails abandonment of family and former way of life. Three of the four, Simon, James, and John, are distinguished among the disciples by a closer relation with Jesus (Mt 17:1; 26:37).
* [4:20] Here and in Mt 4:22, as in Mark (Mk 1:16–20) and unlike the Lucan account (Lk 5:1–11), the disciples’ response is motivated only by Jesus’ invitation, an element that emphasizes his mysterious power.
* [4:23–25] This summary of Jesus’ ministry concludes the narrative part of the first book of Matthew’s gospel (Mt 3–4). The activities of his ministry are teaching, proclaiming the gospel, and healing; cf. Mt 9:35.
* [4:23] Their synagogues: Matthew usually designates the Jewish synagogues as their synagogue(s) (Mt 9:35; 10:17; 12:9; 13:54) or, in address to Jews, your synagogues (Mt 23:34), an indication that he wrote after the break between church and synagogue.
* [4:24] Syria: the Roman province to which Palestine belonged.
* [4:25] The Decapolis: a federation of Greek cities in Palestine, originally ten in number, all but one east of the Jordan.
a. [4:1–11] Mk 1:12–13; Lk 4:1–13.
g. [4:12–13] Mk 1:14–15; Lk 4:14, 31.
i. [4:15–16] Is 8:23 LXX; 9:1.
l. [4:18–22] Mk 1:16–20; Lk 5:1–11.
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