Matthew 12:46

ATTEMPT OF THE MOTHER AND BROTHERS OF JESUS TO SEE HIM, Matthew 12:46-50.

46. Mother… brethren Concerning the brothers of our Lord, see on chap. Matthew 13:55, also Matthew 1:25. Stood without This was in Galilee, but in what house is not said. He was doubtless surrounded within doors by a dense congregation, probably in a synagogue. The purpose for which the mother and brothers of Jesus came to obtain an interview with him, is explained in the parallel passage of Mark 3:31. The family are anxious for his safety or his health, and come to induce him to retire from his ministry to their home at Nazareth.

It seems that our Lord’s disciples were within the house on this occasion, and his brothers were without. They could not then have been the same persons. James the Less, therefore, could not have been one of his brothers, for he was one of the apostles. Nor could James’s brother Jude, otherwise called Thaddeus and Lebbeus. Nor could their brother Matthew, if he was a son of the same Alpheus or Cleophas. Hence the James and Judas, or Jude, among the disciples, who were sons of Cleophas, and cousins of Jesus, were not the same as the James and Judas mentioned Matthew 13:55, who were literally brothers of Jesus. Jesus then had half-brothers, the sons of Mary, and the perpetual virginity of Mary is not to be believed.

Our Lord had brothers, (half brothers,) whose names were James, Joses, Simon, and Judas, and also sisters, He had cousins, whose names were James, Joses, Judas, and Matthew. See note on Matthew 13:55.