Finally, Matthew 24–25 then rightly presents the eschatological discourse, describing both the end of the temple period and the end of the world in apocalyptic terms—exile is coming. The discourse begins with Jesus looking at the temple and predicting its destruction (24:1–2). The glory of the Lord is leaving the temple, as Ezekiel prophesied. Ezekiel is brought into the court and told to go and see the vile abominations being committed in the temple. Engraved on the wall are creeping things, loathsome beasts, and idols (8:10). Ezekiel even calls it a great abomination (Ezek. 8:13; Matt. 24:15). Decisively, the glory of the Lord goes out from the threshold of the house and stands over the cherubim. And the cherubim lift up their wings and go out (Ezek. 10:18–19). For Jesus, the glory of the Lord is not only leaving the temple; the temple must also be destroyed.
The apocalyptic language employed in this fifth discourse is eerily similar to Isaiah’s prophetic apocalyptic condemnation of Babylon in Isa. 13. Jerusalem has become Babylon—so the city will be left desolate. Isaiah speaks of a coming battle. People are coming from distant lands. The day of the Lord is near, and “all hands will be feeble” (13:7). The land will become a desolation. “For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light” (13:10). Yahweh will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will shake out of its place. Jesus similarly speaks of coming wars (Matt. 24:6–7); he says that tribulation is coming, and the people should flee (24:16). After the tribulation “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (24:29).
The apocalypse and exile come together when Jesus tells his disciples that when the Son of Man appears, coming with the clouds of heaven, “he will send out his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (24:30–31). Matthew’s addition of the phrase “a great trumpet” alludes to the climactic sentences of Isaiah’s apocalypse in Isa. 24–27.
And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem. (Isa. 27:13, emphasis added)
Though much of Matthew’s discourse is focused on condemnation and the end of the temple period, the allusion also shows that in the midst of destruction there is hope. Matthew’s allusion proves that Jesus prophesies not only the end of an era, but the end of exile and the final regathering of the people of Israel.65
Although Matt. 18–20 mirrors the prophets’ hope that is held out to the people, Matt. 21–25 reflects the prophetic judgment that Jesus, as the true prophet, announces on the nations that will not heed his words. Matthew has therefore moved all the way from Genesis into the prophetic literature and right up to the edge of the exile. The sequence we have seen so far can be summarized with the following chart:66
Matthew Section Title Old Testament Theme
1:1–17 Genealogy Genesis, new creation, Adam
1:18–25 Birth of Jesus Abraham
2:1–23 Travel narrative Israel’s travels
3–4 Beginning of ministry Exodus begins
5–7 Sermon on the Mount Mount Sinai: Exodus–Deuteronomy
8–9 Healings Law enacted: Exodus–Deuteronomy
10 Sending of the Twelve Conquest
11–12 Reactions to the king Monarchy
13 Kingdom parables Wisdom tradition
14–17 Divided reactions to Jesus Divided kingdom: Elijah and Elisha
18–20 Instruction for the church Prophets’ hope: Establishment of a new community
21–25 Clash of the kingdoms Prophetic condemnation: Castigation of current leadership
Exile and Return from Exile in Matthew 26–28
If Matthew is following the history of the OT, the next thing that should happen is the destruction of the temple and the exile. Jesus had already affirmed that his body was the temple and that it would be destroyed but rebuilt in three days (Matt. 26:61). Blood should fill this section as the people of Israel are attacked and destroyed by their enemies. But a twist occurs in the passion. The blood of Israel is spilled, but it is innocent blood.67 Blood turns out to be not only the cue to the exile and destruction of the temple but also the prompt for the rebuilding of the temple and the return from exile. Blood is both the curse and the blessing, and it lies at the center of Israel’s future. Through the dust of the fallen temple, a ray of light will be seen.
Matthew, as the narrator, laces prophetic texts to locate Jesus at the end of Israel’s history. Jesus is Jeremiah, the lamenter, who mourns the sin and exile of the people Israel. But he is also the Jeremiah who declares that a new covenant has come through blood. He is Zechariah, the chastiser of the religious leaders, and he is the one who speaks of the rejected Davidic shepherd. Finally, Jesus is the new Cyrus, who declares that the people shall return from exile, rebuild their kingdom and their temple, and reestablish their family.
Blood and Exile in Lamentations
Blood is everywhere in Matt. 26–28 and ends up being central to both the exile and the return from exile.68 David Moffitt argues that, to portray Jesus’s death as an act of righteous bloodshed, Matthew draws on Lamentations in his account of the events leading to the crucifixion.69 This comes at the hands of the religious authorities and ultimately results in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Matthew draws on Lamentations because laments were key cultural frameworks for the Jewish community during the exile. Lamentations expresses grief at the destruction of the temple and the hope of return from exile. Matthew consistently interweaves Lamentations at the end of his Gospel, thus portraying Jesus as the one who also laments the plight of the people, yet speaks of the hope of a return from exile.
One of the clearest allusions to Lamentations comes at the end of Matt. 23: “So that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar” (23:35, emphasis added). Though we have already looked at this text, and it comes in the preceding section, it sets up how we are to read Matthew’s passion.70 The phrase from this verse “all the righteous blood” echoes Joel 3:19; Jon. 1:14; and also Lam. 4:13, which is specifically dealing with the destruction of Jerusalem and saying that it happened “because” its prophets and unrighteous priests “have shed righteous blood in their land.”
In 27:39 Matthew describes the people who pass by as “wagging their heads” at Jesus, thereby mocking him. Though this is probably an allusion to Ps. 22:7, it also reflects Lam. 2:15: “All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: ‘Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?’” The context of Lam. 2 is the destruction of the temple (see 2:7). Therefore, those who pass by and wag their heads at Jesus’s death fulfill the role of those who shake their heads at the destroyed temple (Jesus’s body). Hays asserts that the text “subliminally suggests that the crucified Jesus paradoxically has become the embodiment of the scorned and destroyed city of Jerusalem.”71 On the cross Jesus is also offered gall, which mirrors the bitterness and wormwood of Lam. 3:19. Matthew therefore interweaves the themes of the exile, the destruction of the temple, mocking, and bloodshed into the final days of Jesus, showing that it is by his blood that return from exile occurs. As Moffit says in his conclusion,
Matthew alludes to Lamentations three times in chs. 23 and 27 of his Gospel (23:35; 27:34; and 27:39). The fact that these allusions come from chs. 2, 3, and 4 of Lamentations, that the allusion to Lamentations 4:13 resonates throughout the scenes that immediately precede the crucifixion (see Matt. 27:19, 24–25), and that the allusion to Lamentations 2:15 is so closely related thematically to the way Matthew uses Lamentations 4:13, all suggest that Matthew has employed Lamentations as a
significant intertext. The allusions to Lamentations function as scriptural warrant for interpreting certain historical events theologically and polemically—namely, for understanding Jesus’ crucifixion as the act of righteous bloodshed par excellence that directly results in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.72
The final chapters of Matthew display that Jesus acts as Israel as he experiences the exile and restoration in his death and resurrection.73 Jesus submits himself to exile in his death and burial, but then at his resurrection he returns from exile. The bones that were once dead are brought again to life (Ezek. 37), and the bones of those in the city also awake for a time to show the power of Christ’s work.
Blood, Zechariah, and the Rejected Shepherd
The story of blood continues from Lamentations to Zechariah (see Matt. 23:35). Four more references to blood appear in Matt. 27. First, in 27:4 Judas claims that he has sinned by betraying “innocent blood” (αἷμα ἀθῷον).74 Second, Pilate’s wife urges him in 27:19 to “have nothing to do with [Jesus,] that righteous man.” Third, Pilate in 27:24 washes his hands and declares himself “innocent of this man’s blood.”75 Fourth, in 27:25 the people call for Jesus’s “blood [to] be on us and upon our children!” These four references point back to 23:35 to show Jesus as following in the tradition of Abel and Zechariah. He will die at the hands of the people, thereby bringing about the destruction of the temple and the exile. In fact, Jewish interpretive traditions link the story of the murder of Zechariah with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem.76
Ham also argues that Matthew has employed Zechariah (the post-exilic prophet) in his portrayal of Jesus and his mission. In particular, Matthew has the dual related themes of Jesus as coming king and rejected shepherd—themes that come right from Zechariah’s predominant messianic image.77 The rejected-shepherd theme comes to the forefront when Judas recants of his betrayal in 27:3–10, and Matthew says that this episode fulfills Jeremiah the prophet. “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me” (27:9). Jeremiah and Zechariah come into unity here.78 Only Matthew among the Gospel writers provides the details of Judas asking the chief priests and elders how much they will give him, followed by their payment to him.
Matthew 26:16 says that they weigh out for Judas thirty silver coins. A similar expression appears in Zech. 11:12, where the people weigh out thirty pieces of silver to the shepherd, who loses his temper and breaks his covenant with them. In its canonical setting, the payment of the silver to Zechariah reflects a negative evaluation of his shepherding by leaders of Israel. In the Matthew scene, when Judas asks for the leaders of Israel to set a price on Jesus’s head, they weigh out the same amount. In both texts, Israel’s leaders reject the shepherd, and in both stories the coins are thrown back into the temple. Both Zechariah and Jesus are the rejected shepherds, whose worth is estimated by their enemies at thirty pieces of silver—the compensation for a slave (Exod. 21:32). Judas and the leaders of Israel thereby devalue and reject Jesus’s shepherding ministry. Innocent blood is betrayed at a truncated price, a price that is later used to buy a field. Matthew therefore links the corrupted leaders of Israel in Zechariah’s scene to the leaders of Israel in Jesus’s day via the low price paid to worthless shepherds.79
Destruction of the Temple and Return from Exile
The temple theme that started in Matt. 21 therefore comes to a climax in the passion of Jesus. Of the twenty references to the temple in Matthew, fourteen of them occur in chapters 21–28. Readers find that at Jesus’s trial the charge centers on the temple; they claim that he said he “is able to destroy the temple . . . and to rebuild it in three days” (26:61). While Jesus hangs on the cross, those who pass by mock him: “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days . . .” (27:40). Then when Jesus dies, the temple curtain is torn in two (27:51), signifying the end of the temple period.80 While chapters 24–25 predict the destruction of the temple, in 26–28 we see the temple era end.
The temple and exile themes are held together by the above conglomeration of references to blood. The messiah undergoes exile himself as he is rejected and cast out of the city by his own nation. He suffers the death of a criminal at the demand of Israel’s leaders. Regularly in the Prophets, the nation is condemned because of a lack of leadership, and the people suffer because of “worthless shepherds” (Ezek. 34; Zech. 11:17). In an intensified way, Jesus suffers at the hands of the worthless shepherds of Israel, who end up giving him over to the judgment of the nations. Ironically, though, the judgment that falls on Jesus becomes both the “end” of Israel and the “salvation” of Israel.
At the tearing of the temple curtain, the new exile begins; at the resurrection, it ends. The temple is destroyed and then rebuilt. In Jewish history, the destruction of the temple signaled the inauguration of exile, but by leaving the temple, Jesus indicates that a new age has come (24:1–2). The time of the temple is over, and the time of Jesus is here. This is confirmed at Jesus’s resurrection, where he bursts forth from the tomb, declaring that the era of darkness is over—the epoch of light has come. Though he suffered exile by submitting himself to the wrath of the religious leaders and becoming the rejected shepherd, death cannot contain him. At the center of each shadow story that Matthew tells stands the cross and the resurrection. To miss the climax is to miss the story itself.
Go! Rebuild and Expand the Temple
Matthew closes his narrative with Jesus’s commission to go and bring people out of exile by spreading his temple presence (28:16–20). Second Chronicles, the last book of the OT according to the Hebrew ordering, also ends with an eschatological note about the restoration project looming in the future—a restoration project that concerns Israel’s kingdom. Cyrus gives a command, a commission, for Israel to go up to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Cyrus, the king of Persia, says, “The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up” (2 Chron. 36:23). Cyrus speaks of his universal authority, the source of his authority, and his commission to “go.” Jesus lists the same three elements. He has all authority in heaven and on earth, given to him by his Father, and in light of that authority he tells his disciples to “go.”
Both Matthew and 2 Chronicles end with a construction project. The new temple will expand, a new home will be provided, a new people will be born.81 The “servant of Yahweh” has commanded the people to “go out,” and he can do so because all authority has been given to him. They are to gather people into this new kingdom because, as the Genesis story has set things up, God is going to rule this earth through his vice-regents. His people are to spread the news of this king—the embodiment of Wisdom—to the whole world. At the center of this story stands Jesus—the new Israel—the teacher of wisdom, who brings blessings to all nations through his life-giving monarchy. Jesus promises his people his presence, he has given his blood, and he has conquered death by his resurrection; he will be with them to the end of the age.
Conclusion
The discipled scribe demonstrates the wisdom he learned from his teacher in a variety of ways. We can follow him down into the valleys and watch how he shifts OT quotations to make a point, or we can track him up to the mountain and watch as he looks out over the life of Jesus as a whole. As we stand at the peak, we can see that Jesus is the new Adam, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Elijah, and Jeremiah, but Matthew also has Jesus recapitulate a broad chronological structure of the history of Israel, and therefore Jesus stands as the new Israel, who leads his people out of exile.
All of these figures are contested in different ways. Adam is challenged by the devil, Moses is resisted by Pharaoh, David has to flee from his own nation, and Elijah must be wary of the Israelite kings above him. In the story of
Israel, the resistance comes not only from the outside but also from the inside. The people of God have corrupt hearts, as the prophets long ago declared. Therefore, Israel needs to be saved not primarily from foreign armies or tyrannical kings but from their own twisted desires. The resistance comes from within, and therefore Jesus must change their hearts. In one sense the future of Israel is grim in Matthew. From the opening pages, the leadership rejects Jesus. Jesus laments their attitude, but he knows that this has been the plan all along. The leaders end up bringing him to his death.
In an ironic twist, the grim hope for Israel leads to a bright future. For Israel to have hope, it must undergo death. Matthew’s sequencing of Israel’s history through his narrative reveals that where Israel has failed, Jesus succeeds. Israel was called to be a light to the nations, but Jesus ends up being the one who calls the centurion and the Canaanite woman to himself. Israel was meant to crown an everlasting king, but Jesus becomes that king as he is enthroned on the cross by gentiles. Israel was supposed to welcome the prophets and listen to them, but Jesus becomes the prophet whom they must now obey. Israel should have welcomed their messiah and paved the way for him, but Jesus must chart his own path.
Through his structure the scribe has Jesus completing the whole history of Israel by sequencing the life of Jesus in the mold of Israel’s history. Matthew traces his story from Genesis to the end of Chronicles (the first and last books in the Jewish canonical order). Though he did not do so in a wooden fashion, there are enough clues in his Gospel to reveal that underneath the narrative there is a frame: an infrastructure pointing readers to Jesus as Israel’s hope. This is the wisdom Matthew absorbed from his teacher of wisdom and wrote down for future generations (Matt. 13:52; 28:18–20) as he was discipled by his rabbi in the secrets of the kingdom of heaven (13:11). From his teacher he learned Jesus himself is the faithful Son, who completes the mission of Israel. Jesus pursues his Father’s will and becomes a sacrifice not only for Israel but also for the nations. He thereby fulfills the mission of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Elijah and many more. He is Israel, but the better Israel.
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