While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
| Word | Greek | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| While | δὲ de | G1161 | but · conjunction |
| Pharisees | Φαρισαίων Pharisaiōn | G5330 | a separatist · noun — genitive plural masculine, a title |
| together | Συνηγμένων Sunēgmenōn | G4863 | to lead together · verb — perfect passive participle, genitive plural masculine |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς Iēsous | G2424 | Jesus (i.e. Jehoshua) · noun — nominative singular masculine, a proper name |
| asked | ἐπηρώτησεν epērōtēsen | G1905 | to ask for · verb — aorist active indicative, 3rd person singular |
| them | αὐτοὺς autous | G846 | the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — accusative plural 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
While the Pharisees were gathered together,.... Or rather, "when" they were gathered together, and while they continued so, before they left him: for this is to be understood not of their gathering together, to consult privately about him; this is expressed before in Matthew 22:34 but of their gathering together about Christ, to hear what answer he would return to the question their learned doctor would put to him: and he having given an answer to that, which the Scribe was obliged to allow was a good one; and he having no more to say, Christ directs his discourse not to him individually, but to all the Pharisees before he parted with them, and puts a question to them, in his turn; and which…
Read the whole note in the consoleMatthew 22:41-46 Matthew 22:41-46 Mark 12:35-37 Luke 20:41-44 41. And when the Pharisees were assembled, Jesus asked them, 42. Saying, What think you of Christ? whose son is he? They say to him, David's. 43. He saith to them, How then doth David by the Spirit call him Lord, saying, 44. The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I have made thy enemies thy footstool? [79] 45. If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son? 46. And no man could make any reply to him; [80] nor did any man from that day venture to put any more questions to him. 35. And Jesus answering said, while he was teaching in the temple, How do the scribes say that Christ is the son of David? 36. For Davi…
Read the whole note in the consoleHaving successfully defended himself against his opponents’ traps (21:23–22:40), Jesus questioned them as to how the Messiah can be called both the son of David and, at the same time, the Lord of David (Ps 110:1).
(verses 41 onwards) But when the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them, saying, 'What do you think about the Christ, whose son is he?' They said to him, 'David.' He said to them, 'How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool?" If David then calls him Lord, how is he his son?' Those who had gathered together to test Jesus and tried to capture the truth through deceitful questioning, gave an opportunity for their own refutation. They are asked (or, it is asked) about Christ whose son he is. The questioning of Jesus benefits us even today against the Jews. And indeed those who confess that Christ is to come assert that he is a simple man and a holy man from the lineage of David. Let us therefore question those who are taught by the Lord: if he is a simple man and only a son of David, how does David call him his Lord? Not by uncertain error or personal will, but in the Holy Spirit (or, but in the Holy Spirit, he is silent). The testimony, however, which he presents, is taken from the one hundred and ninth Psalm. Therefore, David is called Lord, not according to what he was born, but according to what he always was, born from the Father, surpassing his own Father in the flesh. The Jews, in order to evade the truth of the question, invent many idle things, asserting that the native of Abraham, whose son was Damascus Eliezer, and that the psalm was written from that person's perspective, in which the Lord God said to his lord, Abraham, after the slaughter of the five kings: Sit at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool. (Genesis 14). Whom should we ask: How did God say to Abraham these things that follow: With you is the beginning in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints, I have begotten you before Lucifer; and: The Lord has sworn, and will not regret it; you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek? And we should try to answer how Abraham was born before Lucifer and was a priest according to the order of Melchizedek: regarding whom Melchizedek offered bread and wine, and from whom he received tithes of the spoils.
Now when the Pharisees had gathered together, Jesus questioned them, saying: What do you think concerning the Christ? Whose son is he? They say to him: David's. Jesus says to them: How then does David in the spirit call him lord, saying: The Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet? If therefore David calls him lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word. Nor did anyone dare from that hour to ask him anything. These very words are indeed set down in Psalm one hundred and nine [110]: "The Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet". And, as though the Pharisees were confessing that the one who spoke is indeed the Lord God, but that the one to whom he spoke is a second lord, the Christ, the Savior questions them, saying: What do you think concerning the Christ? Whose son is he? And to the answer of those who said: David's, he adds, saying: If David calls him lord, how is he his son? It is therefore a matter worthy that we should see what the Savior intends in setting before the Pharisees the question concerning the Christ, so that they might answer what they thought, and what was the cause that the Pharisees were unable to give an answer. And some simpler person among those who examine these things will say that this was the will of the Savior, namely, to restrain the audacity of the Pharisees, who were setting many propositions before him, and likewise of the Sadducees, who had set before him the matter of the seven brothers and their one wife. Since, therefore, the Pharisees and Sadducees, in setting forth many things, seemed to be saying something, and in doing this were not desiring to learn as disciples but were tempting Christ, and seemed to be teachers of the law when they were not, therefore it was necessary that the Lord too should set a question before them, who professed that they had the knowledge of the law, so that before the people he might convict them, since they gave no answer to the things asked, while he himself answered all things; for he indeed was competent, according to the profession befitting teachers, to make manifest and hand down the divine doctrine, whereas they did not know even the very prophet who was the summit of the prophets. And further, one to whom this exposition is pleasing will add,…
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).
But we say that our Savior and Lord knew himself to have been made indeed "of the seed of David according to the flesh, but predestined Son of God in power", and that he was all those things which he himself, teaching about himself, was saying: "I am the truth and the way and the life", "I am the door", "I am the resurrection", "I am the living bread who came down from heaven", and knowing that he existed even before the birth of Abraham himself (on account of which he also said: "before Abraham was, I am"), and knowing that he was wisdom and the living word (wisdom indeed, which "God created as the beginning of his ways for his works", but the word which "was in the beginning with God, the Word was God"). Knowing all these things about himself and seeing the Pharisees—that they knew from the divine Scriptures that which pertained to the human dispensation and was for the sake of men, so that they might be able to grasp him, namely that he was "of the seed of David according to the flesh", and perhaps also that they altogether supposed him to be the son of David, but seeing that they were far from the understanding of his divinity, according to which he was the beginning of the whole creation, established the son of no one except "of God who is over all things"—wishing to expose their wavering estimation about him and to provoke them by his words, so that they might be willing to ascend by the word and to see according to which he was God the Word, who "was in the beginning with God", in the first place he said: What do you think concerning the Christ? Whose son is he? When they answered thus and said: David's, he again answered them, making manifest the sublimity of his divinity, which was shown in the very beginning of the Psalm, saying: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies as a footstool for your feet, so that, even if at that time they could not answer him, nevertheless they might take occasion from his words, so that, considering the whole Psalm, they might perceive something greater concerning the Christ, who was not only surpassing human nature, but also the other begotten natures, according to what it says: "in the splendors of the saints, from the womb before the morning star I begot you". For it did not designate specifically in the splendors of which saints, but generally concerning all the saints, that is…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
