Mat 22:34 But hearing that He had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees were gathered together.
Mat 22:35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked, tempting Him and saying,
Mat 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?
Mat 22:37 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
Mat 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Mat 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Introduction
The disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians came to try to trap Him in His words concerning paying Taxes to Caesar. He answered them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
Then the Sadducees came thinking they could catch him. They questioned Him about Levirite Marriage and the Resurrection. He told that they erred not knowing the Scriptures. Then He said ”Mat 22:30 For in the Resurrection, men neither marry nor are women given in marriage, but they are like angels in Heaven.
Comments
Mat 22:34 But hearing that He had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees were gathered together.
Notes
The Sadducees were like the Liberals and progressives of our day who do not believe the Truths of the Scriptures. They had been influenced by the Philosophies of the Greeks and do not know the Word of God. Even the National Geographic Magazine has a similar willful unbelief.
Now the Pharisees came Tempting Him. i.e. Putting Him on Trial and testing Him.
They gathered together Επι το αυτο - they came together with one accord, or, for the same purpose; i.e. of ensnaring him in his discourse, as the Sadducees had done, Mat_22:23. The Codex Bezae and several of the Itala have επ’ αυτον, against him. Camen togidre into oon. - Old MS. Eng, Bib. A.C.
Mat 22:35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked, tempting Him and saying,
Mat 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?
Notes
The Lawyer or Legal Expert tempted Jesus.
A lawyer - Νομικος, a teacher of the law. What is called lawyer, in the common translation, conveys a wrong idea to most readers: my old MS. renders the word in the same way I have done. These teachers of the law were the same as the scribes, or what Dr. Wotton calls letter-men, whom he supposes to be the same as the Karaites, a sect of the Jews who rejected all the traditions of the elders, and admitted nothing but the written word. See Wotton’s Mishna, vol. i. p. 78. These are allowed to have kept more closely to the spiritual meaning of the law and prophets than the Pharisees did; and hence the question proposed by the lawyer, (Mark, Mar_12:28, calls him one of the scribes), or Karaite, was of a more spiritual or refined nature than any of the preceding.Adam .Clark
Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?
Which is the great commandment? - That is, the “greatest” commandment, or the one most important.
The Jews are said to have divided the law into “greater and smaller” commandments. Which was of the greatest importance they had not determined. Some held that it was the law respecting sacrifice; others, that respecting circumcision; others, that pertaining to washings and purifying, etc.
The law - The word “law” has a great variety of significations; it means, commonly, in the Bible, as it does here, “the law given by Moses,” recorded in the first five books of the Bible.Barnes
Mat 22:37 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
Notes
You shall love the Lord your God
love G25 ἀγαπάω agapaō Thayer Definition: 1) of persons 1a) to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly
2) of things 2a) to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing
Thou shalt love the Lord - This is a subject of the greatest importance, and should be well understood, as our Lord shows that the whole of true religion is comprised in thus loving God and our neighbour.
It may not be unnecessary to inquire into the literal meaning of the word love. Αγαπη, from αγαπαω, I love, is supposed to be compounded either of αγαν and ποιειν, to act vehemently or intensely; or, from αγειν κατα παν, because love is always active, and will act in every possible way; for he who loves is, with all his affection and desire, carried forward to the beloved object, in order to possess and enjoy it.
Some derive it from αγαν and παυεσθαι, to be completely at rest, or, to be intensely satisfied; because he who loves is supremely contented with, and rests completely satisfied in, that which he loves.
Others, from αγαν and παω, because a person eagerly embraces, and vigorously holds fast, that which is the object of his love. Lastly, others suppose it to be compounded of αγαω, I admire, and παυομαι, I rest, because that which a man loves intensely he rests in, with fixed admiration and contemplation. So that genuine love changes not, but always abides steadily attached to that which is loved.
Whatever may be thought of these etymologies, as being either just or probable, one thing will be evident to all those who know what love means, that they throw much light upon the subject, and manifest it in a variety of striking points of view. The ancient author of a MS. Lexicon in the late French king’s library, under the word αγαπη, has the following definition: ΑσπαϚος προθεσις επι τη φιλια του φιλουμενου - Σομψυχια. “A pleasing surrender of friendship to a friend: - an identity or sameness of soul.” A sovereign preference given to one above all others, present or absent: a concentration of all the thoughts and desires in a single object, which a man prefers to all others.A.C
with all your heart, kardia kar-dee'-ah Strong G2588 (Your entire heart)
Prolonged from a primary κάρ kar (Latin cor, “heart”); the heart, that is, (figuratively) the thoughts or feelings (mind); also (by analogy) the middle: - (+ broken-) heart (-ed).
and with all your soul, Your entire soul,
Soul Strong G5590 ψυχή psuchē psoo-khay' From G5594; breath, that is, (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from G4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from G2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew [H5315], [H7307] and [H2416]: - heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you.
and with all your mind. Your entire imagination and thoughts
entire Imagination or Thoughts Strong G1271 διάνοια dee-an'-oy-ah
From G1223 and G3563; deep thought, properly the faculty (mind or its disposition), by implication its exercise: - imagination, mind, understanding.
Apply these definitions to the love which God requires of His creatures, and you will have the most correct view of the subject.
Hence it appears that, by this love, the soul eagerly cleaves to, affectionately admires, and constantly rests in God, supremely pleased and satisfied with him as its portion: that it acts from Him, as its author; for Him, as its master; and to Him, as its end. That, by it, all the powers and faculties of the mind are concentrated in the Lord of the Universe. That, by it, the whole man is willingly surrendered to the Most High: and that, through it, an identity, or sameness of spirit with the Lord is acquired - the man being made a partaker of the Divine nature, having the mind in him which was in Christ, and thus dwelling in God, and God in him. A.C.
Mat 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Notes
This is the first and great commandment - It is so,
- In its antiquity, being as old as the world, and engraven originally on our very nature.
- In dignity; as directly and immediately proceeding front and referring to God.
- In excellence; being the commandment of the new covenant, and the very spirit of the Divine adoption.
- In justice; because it alone renders to God his due, prefers him before all things, and secures to him his proper rank in relation to them.
- In sufficiency; being in itself capable of making men holy in this life, and happy in the other.
- In fruitfulness; because it is the root of all commandments, and the fulfilling of the law.
- In virtue and efficacy; because by this alone God reigns in the heart of man, and man is united to God.
- In extent; leaving nothing to the creature, which it does not refer to the Creator.
- In necessity; being absolutely indispensable.
- In duration; being ever to be continued on earth, and never to be discontinued in heaven.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
Notes: For there is but a second, not a third: this is suggested in opposition to the numerous commandments in the law, according to the opinion of the Jews, who reckon them in all to be "six hundred and thirteen": of which there are "three hundred and sixty five" negative ones, according to the number of the days of the year; and "two hundred and forty eight" affirmative ones, according to the members of a man's body (z). Christ reduces all to two, love to God, and love to the neighbour; and the latter is the second in order of nature, time, dignity, and causality; the object of it being a creature; and the act itself being the effect of the former, J.Gill
You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Agaphao to love with that same self-sacrificing love that Jesus had for us. 1John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love - Whole volumes might be written upon this and the two following verses, without exhausting the extraordinary subject contained in them, viz., the love of God to man. The apostle himself, though evidently filled with God, and walking in the fullness of his light, does not attempt to describe it; he calls on the world and the Church to behold it, to look upon it, to contemplate it, and wonder at it.
What manner of love. - Ποταπην αγαπην· What great love, both as to quantity and quality; for these ideas are included in the original term. The length, the breadth, the depth, the height, he does not attempt to describe.A.C
Mat 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Notes
That is, these comprehend the substance of what Moses in the law and what the prophets have spoken.
What they have said has been to endeavor to win people to love God and to love each other. Love to God and man comprehends the whole of religion, and to produce this has been the design of Moses, the prophets, the Saviour, and the apostles. Barnes
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