Matthew 16:5-12

2. The Leaven. Matthew 16:5-12

5And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. 6Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees [and S.].2 7And they reasoned among themselves, saying, 8It is because we have taken [we took, ἐλάβομεν] no bread. Which when Jesus perceived,3 he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought [ye took, ἐλάβετε]4 no bread? 9Do ye not yet understand, neither [nor] remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets 10[travelling-baskets]5 ye took up [ἐλάβομεν]? Neither [Nor] the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets [provision-baskets] ye took up? 11How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread [spake not to you of loaves],6 that ye should [but] beware7 of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees 12[and S.]8? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees [and S.].7

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Matthew 16:5. The circumstance that the disciples forgot to take bread with them forcibly illustrates their excitement, and the haste with which they had left the western shore. According to Mark (8:14), they had not more than one loaf in the ship with them. The event here recorded took place during the passage across the lake.

Matthew 16:6. The leaven.—“Ζύμην τὴν διδαχὴν ἐκάλεσεν, ὡς ὀξώδη καὶ σαπράν. Euth. Zigab. On the analogous application of שְׂאֹר by the Rabbins (to every contagious influence of and for evil), see Buxtorf, Lexic. Talm. p. 2303; Lightfoot on the passage. Differently, 13:33.” So Meyer. According to Schneckenburger and de Wette, our Lord here referred to the hypocrisy, not to the teaching of the Pharisees, which the Lord commends, comp. Matthew 13:4 But Meyer rightly insists that the expression refers not to their teaching in general (including their agreement with the law), but only to their sectarian peculiarities.9 The έντάλματα (15:9), however, constitute only one part of the leaven. Applying to the two sects (the Sadducees as well as the Pharisees), the expression must refer to the corruptness of their teaching, arising from their secularism, which, like leaven, had infected and poisoned the whole people, and from which even the disciples were not quite free; more especially Judas, in whose heart this leaven was probably already beginning to operate. On the significance of the leaven, compare our remarks on Matthew 13:33.—With the usual superficiality of rationalism, von Ammon (ii. 285) supposes that domestic requirements or business engagements may have rendered the return to the eastern shore necessary, entirely overlooking the deep import of this event. In point of fact, it was a virtual banishment. As such the disciples also felt it. But a short time before they had traversed the length and breadth of the lake under peculiarly trying circumstances. Now they returned in the opposite direction by the same track. A second time they saw Capernaum at a distance, and they felt as if their home there were already lost. The Master read these feelings, and understood their sorrow. With brave determination, but as yet only partially renouncing the world, they followed Him; but their hearts still clung to the scene of their affections and hopes. Under these circumstances, Jesus addressed to them the solemn warning, “Take heed, and beware,” etc. “When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, they were commanded to put away the leaven, and to leave it behind them (Exodus 12:15-17). At the time, the expression referred to the spirit of Egypt as an infectious principle, most powerful for evil. They were not to take to Canaan any of the infectious corruptions of Egypt (comp. 1 Corinthians 5:0; Stier, 2:158). This journey of the Lord with his disciples resembled the passage of the children of Israel out of Egypt; like them, they now left behind the heathenism of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Saviour felt that the great Paschal feast—not symbolically, but in reality—was at hand. Withal, He was deeply affected by the thought that, unconsciously, His disciples still carried with them some of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Hence the warning (see the author’s Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 878).

And Sadducees.—Mark has instead: καὶ τῆςζύμης ̔Ηρώδον. If the Sadducees had enlisted the sympathies of Herod in demanding a sign from heaven, the situation of matters had become even more critical. But this does not necessarily follow from the text. There was a twofold kind of leaven, which might be designated as hypocritical secularism, and distinguished, as assuming in the one case the garb of exclusiveness, in the other that of liberalism. Here we have for the first time an indication of another offence than that of pharisaical exclusiveness, in the shape of the worldly policy of Herod coquetting with the Roman authorities of the land. We see, as it were, the germ of the later calumny, that Jesus claimed to be a king, and must therefore be an enemy to Cæsar.

How many baskets.—From Acts 9:25, Bengel rightly infers that a σπυρὶς was larger than a κόφινος.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The false exegesis of the disciples on the words of the Saviour may be regarded as the prototype of many a later miserable performance of the same kind. At first they probably tried to understand them literally, and therefore as meaning: Beware of partaking of the bread of the Pharisees and Sadducees, or have no further communion with them. But this would have implied that they would have had to make a separate provision for themselves, as the whole country was divided between the parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and hence any provision which they might have got from without would have been impure.—These thoughts were succeeded by the recollection that they had no bread, and by cares which drew down upon them the rebuke of the Lord about the littleness of their faith.2. Do ye not yet understand? The expressions are the same as before in connection with the washing of the hands. Now that the separation had actually commenced, it was high time that they should have better understanding. The Gospel of Mark gives a fuller outline of this rebuke.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The threefold retirement of the Lord across the lake.—Resemblance between the passage of the Lord across the lake and that of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.—Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees: 1. Its designation: a twofold kind of leaven, and yet in reality only one leaven (exclusive bigotry and lax universalism,—after all only secularity under the guise of piety). 2. The warning: (a) Beware; (b) so that, while avoiding one of these errors, ye fall not into the other.—To cross with Jesus to the other side implies and requires complete renunciation of the world.—It matters little that we outwardly leave Egypt, if we carry its corruption in our hearts.—The feelings of the Master and those of His disciples on leaving the realm of the Pharisees: 1. The foresight of the Master, and the negligence of the disciples; 2. the freedom from care of the Master, and the anxieties of the disciples; 3. the calmness of the Master, and the excitement and distress of the disciples.—Connection between the memory and the heart: 1. Excitement the spring of forgetfulness; 2. calmness and peace the surest means of presence of mind.—The circumstance that the disciples had so frequently misinterpreted the meaning of the Lord, recorded for our warning.—Principal causes of false interpretations of the word of God: 1. Slavish literality; 2. personal interests; 3. fear; 4. arbitrary perversions.—How the Lord had to repeat to His disciples, and to question them on, the history of the twofold feeding of the multitude.—The anxiety of the disciples after the miraculous feeding of the multitude itself a mournful wonder.—Although the Lord ever performs new miracles, yet faith in Him still continues a miracle.—Then understood they ( Matthew 16:12): when error is removed, truth finds an entrance.—The Lord emphatically reiterates: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.—The leaven of Jewish legalism and of heathen secularism in the Church of Christ.

Starke:—Quesnel: We do not lose by following Christ so closely as for a time to forget every earthly consideration, since, after all, we have the best part, Psalms 73:25.—Majus: Let us not mix up different creeds.—Beware of heretics and false teachers.—Cramer: As leaven pervades the whole mass, so will a single error on any fundamental doctrine corrupt all our other views, depriving them of their spiritual value, 2 Timothy 2:17.—Zeisius: Hearers are apt to suppose that certain sermons are aimed against them, while this may be due to the voice of their own conscience, not to the words of the preacher.—Majus: The mistakes of disciples, and their consequences.—Canstein: How often does anxiety for daily bread take the place of anxiety for the soul!—Jesus searching the heart.—Christ bearing with the weakness of our faith, and giving more grace.—Cramer: Frequent meditation on the past gracious and wonderful provisions of our God an approved remedy for unbelief.—How frequently is it thus that they who ought to have been teachers have need to be taught again the first principles of divine truth!

Gerlach:—The words of Jesus may be misinter preted or forgotten simply from weakness of faith.—Accordingly, the Lord rebukes not so much their ignorance, as their weakness of faith and their carnality, which was the source of that ignorance.

Heubner:—Pharisaism: appearance of piety hypocritical ostentation of faith. Sadducism: appearance of a spirit of inquiry, concealment of faith from fear of men.—On Matthew 16:7 : Similarly we might say, Simple-minded Christians do not understand the arts and plans by which unbelief undermines Christianity.

Matthew 16:8-10 : A clear evidence this that the Apostles were neither credulous, nor on the watch for miracles.

Footnotes:

[2] Matthew 16:6.—[Without the article, which is wanting in the Greek before Sadducees.—P. S.]

[3] Matthew 16:8.—[Better: And when Jesus perceived it, he said, or: And Jesus knowing it said to them, γνοὺς δὲδ ̔Ι ηδοῦς εῖπεν αὐτοῖς.—P. S.]

[4] Matthew 16:8.—For ἐλάβετε, B., D., Vulgata, etc., read έ̓χετε, ye have. So Lachmann. Meyer favors it. Tischendorf [and Alford] adhere to the Recepta, which accords best with the connection. [Codex Sinaiticus reads: έ̓χετε, and omits the words οὐ μνημονεύετε in the following verse.—P. S.]

[5] Matthew 16:9.—[ Κοφίνους, as distinct from σπυρίδας in Matthew 16:10. “The κ όφινος was proverbially the Jewish travelling-basket; comp. Juv. Sat. iii. 15: ‘Judæis, quorum cophinus fænumque supellex.’ ” Robinson, Gr. and E. Lex. of the N. T. Σπυρίς (σπεῖρα) is a round plaited basket for storing grain, bread, fish, and other provisions; comp. Matthew 15:37; Mark 8:8; Mark 8:20; Acts 9:25. The Vulgate translates the one cophinos, the other sportas; Ewald uses: Körbe and Handkörbe; Lange, better: Reisekörbe and Speisekörbe (travelling-baskets and provision-baskets); Wiclif: cofyns and lepus; the Rheims Vers.: baskets and moundes; Campbell likewise: baskets and mounds; but all other Engl. Vers. which I compared, use baskets in both cases.—P. S.]

[6] Matthew 16:11.—Tischendorf, following Griesbach and the majority of witnesses, reads the plural ά̓ρτων. [So also Lachmann, and Alford, who regards the lect. rec. ά̓ρτου as an emendation to express the sense better. Codd. Sinaiticus, Vaticanus. and Ephræmi Syri, the three eldest extant, unanimously sustain the plural, but Cod. Alexandrinus (as published by B. H. Cowper) reads the singular, and so the Lat. Vulgate (pane). Lange translates Brode, loaves.—P. S.]

[7] Matthew 16:11.— ΙΙ ροσέχε τεδέ, according to B., C, L, al., Lachmann, Tischendorf. against προσέχειν. Hence a repeated admonition, not simply a narrative. See Meyer against Fritzsche. [Cod. Sinaiticus, and the English critical editors of the Greek Test, Tregelles and Alford, likewise read the imperative προσέχετε δὲ, but beware, instead of the infinitive προσέχειν, to beware, or that ye should beware.—P. S.]

[8] Matthew 16:11-12.—[Omit of the, as in Matthew 16:6; the article not being repeated in the Greek.—P. S.]

[9][The Edinb. translator, who never seems to have referred to Meyer, so often quoted in this Commentary, makes him and Lange say here the exact reverse, viz.: “Meyer insists that the expression applied not merely to their own teaching, but also to those points in which they agreed with the law itself.” In this case Christ would have warned the disciples against the law of God! But Meyer says, p. 316 (note), after opposing Schneckenburger’s and de Wette’s reference of the leaven to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees: “Aus dem Bilde des Sauerteigs erhellt von selbst, dass nicht die Lehre jener Secten überhaupt und im Ganzen (such ihre Uebereinstimmung mit dem Gesetze mit eingeschlossen) gemeint gewesen sei, sondern ihre charakteristische Secten-Lehre, ihre die Moralität verderbendem ἐνταΛματα (15:9), daher Er such die Lenre beider zusammen als ζύμη darstellen konnte, so verchioden auch ihre beider-Mettgen Principien waren.”—P. S.]