Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
| Word | Greek | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Master | διδάσκαλε, didaskale | G1320 | an instructor (genitive case or specially) · noun — vocative singular masculine, a title |
| which | ποία poia | G4169 | individualizing interrogative (of character) what sort… · interrogative pronoun — nominative singular feminine |
| the | ἐντολὴ entolē | G1785 | injunction · noun — nominative singular feminine |
| great | μεγάλη megalē | G3173 | big (literally or figuratively · adjective — nominative singular feminine |
| commandment | ἐντολή entolḗ | G1785 | injunction |
| in | ἐν en | G1722 | "in · preposition |
| law | νόμῳ; nomō | G3551 | law (through the idea of prescriptive usage) · noun — dative singular masculine |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
For many are called, but few are chosen--So Mat 19:30. See on Mat 20:16. Next: Matthew Chapter 23
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? He calls him "master, Rabbi, or doctor", as the Sadducees had in Matthew 22:24 either because he was usually so called by his disciples, and by the generality of the people; or merely in complaisance to engage his attention to him, and his question: and might hereby suggest, that should he return a proper and satisfactory answer to it he should be his master. The question is not which of the laws was the greatest, the oral, or the written law: the Jews give the preference to the law delivered by word of mouth; they prefer the traditions of the elders before the written law of Moses; See Gill on Matthew 15:2; but the question was about the wr…
Read the whole note in the consoleMatthew 22:34-40 Matthew 22:34-40 Mark 12:28-34 Luke 10:25-37 34. But when the Pharisees heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they assembled together. 35. And one of them, a doctor of the law, put a question to him, tempting him, and saying, 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37. Jesus saith to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment. 39. And the second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as much as thyself. 40. On these two commandments the whole law and the prophets depend. 28. And when one of the scribes came, and heard them disputing togethe…
Read the whole note in the consoleSince many strict Jews saw all commandments as equally binding, a careless response to this question could lead to the accusation of undermining the law of God.
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
He who now enquires for the greatest commandment had not observed the least. He only ought to seek for a higher righteousness who has fulfilled the lower.
Or he enquires not for the sake of the commands, but which is the first and great commandment, that seeing all that God commands is great, he may have occasion to cavil whatever the answer be.
He said Master tempting Him, for none but a disciple would thus address Christ. Whoever then does not learn of the Word, nor yields himself wholly up to it, yet calls it Master, he is brother to this Pharisee thus tempting Christ. Perhaps while they read the Law before the Saviour's coming, it was a question among them which was the great commandment in it; nor would the Pharisee have asked this, if it had not been long time enquired among themselves, but never found till Jesus came and declared it.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
